Living in a windowless house

Soon after new Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak coined the One Malaysia slogan, the mainstream media were saturated with comments and letters about this seemingly very attractive concept. You could say that most received the idea with “positive optimism”.

That is characteristic of many Malaysians. They tend to interpret history and their destiny in terms of personalities, instead of the historical forces at work over and above these individuals. They also tend to be mesmerised by authoritative figures. When a new PM arrives and makes the right noises, hope burns eternal in their hearts that this new man will bring good tidings.

They have been so downtrodden under the old regime that anybody new in the country’s top job will rekindle their hope. This false hope has been used to keep BN in power time and again.

Tunku Abdul Aziz ( right ), one of the prime movers in establishing Transparency International Malaysia, admitted that he was fooled by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi when he first took power as PM, and charmed the nation with his clarion call to rid Malaysia of corruption and his catch phrase “Work with me, and not for me.”

This time around, Tunku Aziz is wiser.

In his latest article in Malaysia Insider entitled ‘1 Malaysia, a cruel joke?’ , he wrote: “It never ceases to amaze me how simple and trusting we Malaysians are.

“We have heard all these promises before. Pak Lah, the Mr Clean and Mr Nice Guy of Malaysian politics, proclaimed his great mission of fighting corruption after 22 years of unprincipled and largely unaccountable governance under Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

“We lapped it all up, initially at any rate, and believed every word the spin doctors spewed out about Abdullah Badawi.”

My ‘baptism of reality’

My own ‘baptism of reality’ was in 1982, when the new 2 M administration (Mahathir and Musa Hitam) came up with this catchy slogan of “efficient, clean, and trustworthy” government. Coming from a fresh regime, the slogan was swallowed by the whole nation - hook, line, and sinker.

Soon after that, Musa, the moderate Umno man left, and the Mahathir administration was anything but that depicted in the slogan.

Tunku Aziz, in his article, talked about the contradiction in the 1 Malaysia concept.

I too see many real contradictions in this concept. For one thing, how can the race-based parties within the BN implement a 1 Malaysian project?

The country will forever be divided along racial and religious lines with each race-based party fighting for their communal and personal interests. A Malaysia under BN rule will forever remain as a Malay Malaysia, a Chinese Malaysia, an Indian Malaysia, and ‘others” Malaysia.

Then there are the contradictions within Umno. Crony capitalism within Umno with stories of overnight rag-to-riches would be possible only if Malaysians are divided along racial and religious lines.

In the context of Malaysian realpolitik, personal and vested interest will always take precedence over the interest of the race and the nation. So far, we have not heard any great public support for the new PM’s call for this nefarious protean idea of One Malaysia. That is ominous for Najib.

How about the freeing of 27 sectors in the service industry from the requirement of 30 percent equity bumiputera shares under the NEP?

I am no economy expert or a business-minded person, so I do not know the implications of such a ruling. Even so, some commentators have speculated that this lifting of the hated NEP rules can only benefit foreign investors.

Najib offers a dog hole

For those who may see this latest ruling on equity ownership as the dawn of a new age, I have a different take on the matter. I learned this from a young age from reading the great Chinese writer, Lu Xin.

He observed that the Chinese people – and the whole human race in fact – loved to compromise. In both, the philosophical systems of Confucius and Aristotle, the virtue of the Middle Way is extolled. So Lu Xin told this parable of the window.

“Imagine a group of people living in a stifling, windowless house. A person stands up and says, ‘Let’s make a window”. There will inevitably others who argue why such a window is impossible or undesirable. Finally, a compromise is reached and the Middle Way is found. They agree to open a hole over the floor, fit for a dog to enter and exit the house.”

“Therefore, if all you want is a window, you must shout, ‘Let us tear down the roof!’ Others will then voice out why it is neither possible nor desirable to tear down the roof. They suggest opening a dog hole instead. A compromise must be reached, and the Middle Way prevails in the end. They all agree to open up a window in the wall.”

The lifting of the bumiputera equity requirement is the dog hole offered by the PM. We must demand that the roof be torn down by asking for the entire NEP to be scrapped. Then, we sit back to see what kind of Middle Way will emerge. People might brand us as extremist, but that is just a word. We must know how the game is played.

Najib is an old player of an old team playing an old game. To expect him to change the rules of his old game is to delude ourselves with false hopes. What we should demand is to tear down the roof of the old BN superstructure of political power, and start a new game.

This time, we will also demand that the citizens, their civil society and the new community of Internet news portals and bloggers, will have a say in how the rules to the new games are drafted, to make sure that all citizens can play the game.

Real meaningful change will come to Malaysia only when our institutions and our laws are reformed that will deliver justice to all Malaysians.

First, we must have an alternative government at the federal level and in as many states as possible. With the arrival of a true two-coalition system of parliamentary democracy, we then have a window of opportunity for the people to be the real king of the country.

So I reiterate: “Tear down the roof!”

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SIM KWANG YANG was MP for Bandar Kuching in Sarawak from 1982 to 1995. He can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.