HOW can PKR win the Malay vote – said to be a key weakness of ours – especially with the Undi18 reforms kicking in? First, we must understand where the community is at this moment politically.
Today, most Malays realise the flaws and failures of the Ketuanan Melayu and Negara Islam ideologies championed by Umno (as well as Bersatu) and PAS respectively.
They realise that these parties do not pursue radically different policies when in power, as opposed to their rhetoric in opposition.
Today Umno and PAS become mute on issues like the death of Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim or the Buy Muslim First campaign that raged during the Pakatan Harapan (PH) era. There has been no closure to the Adib case.
The economic problems of the Muslims and Bumiputera remain the same.
The only difference is that where Umno and PAS leaders used to be in opposition, today they are ministers or directors of government-linked companies (GLCs).
The Ketuanan Melayu ideology still operates on the assumption that the Malay people are a poor, rural community.
However, the fact is that today, most Malays live in urban areas. Indeed, Malaysia’s urban population is now majority Bumiputera. The New Economic Policy (NEP) has created a Malay middle-class, although most of the B40s are still Malay and Bumiputera.
It is inexplicable therefore that some groups who call themselves “liberal” seem to always paint all Malays with the same brush.
Some even argue condescendingly that the Malays deserve to be left behind because they support parties like Umno, PAS and Bersatu. Is it any wonder why some Malays are put off by “progressive” politics?
More strangely still, these so-called “liberal” groups often repeat the arguments of Umno leaders from the “Mental Revolution” and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s The Malay Dilemma which claims that the Malays are naturally lazy!
This worldview has also been repeated by wealthy bosses as an excuse why Malaysia needs to keep bringing in lowly paid foreign labourers.
The Malay elite, who don’t really need their special privileges, repeat these canards to get monopolised opportunities from the government when in fact such aid should be reserved for the poor.
There are, of course, Malays who use the privileges granted to them to build genuine businesses which can compete, but they usually get sidelined by political cronies who engage in Ali Baba-type businesses.
Syed Hussein Alatas convincingly rebutted many negative stereotypes of the Malays via his seminal work, the Myth of the Lazy Native. He showed that the myths were from the colonial powers as an excuse to brutally occupy and exploit indigenous peoples.
The fact is that Malay voters are not monolithic.
In GE14, the vote was arguably split along geographic lines. In Kelantan and Terengganu, the anger against Umno was expressed via support for PAS. On the peninsula’s west coast, from Selangor to Johor, many Malays voted for PH.
The same was true for Sabah. The Muslim Bumiputeras in the state’s west coast voted differently from those on the east.
Why did this happen? One would argue that the Malays who voted for PH did so because they were already used to its component parties, especially in the states it governed.
Other factors included the ratio of urban and rural populations as well as the individual political scenarios of each state.
Moving forward, economic questions are likely to be more important than racial issues, what more after the Covid-19 pandemic. Some parties will try to cater to these anxieties by stirring up racial and religious sentiments.
Certainly though, the concerns of each voter will be different. A 40-year-old Malay civil servant will have very different priorities compared to a friend of his or hers whose salary has been cut during the pandemic and is concerned about their EPF savings.
Also, the issues of concern for a young Malay university graduate forced to work as a food delivery driver while paying off his or her PTPTN debt will differ from that of a Malay in the country who has had to work since leaving school.
The same can be said for Malays who have gone to work in Singapore, Australia and Korea, whether legally or illegally, in the so-called 3D – dangerous, dirty and difficult – jobs. Incidentally, this also proves that it’s false to say that Malays or Malaysians in general won’t do 3D jobs – it’s just that they won’t do it in their own country if the pay is too low.
We must not dismiss the concerns of the young. SPM and university graduates in the Covid-19 era can no longer have the same kinds of dreams that their older siblings had because the education and employment scene has changed utterly.
Still, they have now been given the vote in a time of great pessimism and uncertainty.
PKR must have answers to the problems of these voters and the country.
The fact that we are a multiracial party shouldn’t be a barrier to us seeking to address economic issues like the above.
What we need is an approach which sees “Malay problems” not as a question of whether they are lazy or weak, but rather victims of an exploitative capitalist framework that is obsolete.
This idea has already been accepted by many Malays today. We cannot hope to persuade Malays and Bumiputera to accept us if we look down on them. Leadership and credibility start with respect and trust.
We need to get out of our comfort zones and engage voters in the towns and villages of the east coast, in Felda settlements and the Muslim Bumiputera regions of Sabah and Sarawak.
We must realise that Malaysia cannot change if its majority community – the Malays – don’t change. It’s pointless to keep criticising why the Malays adopt the political stances they do or agonise over why Ketuanan Melayu and Negara Islam are still supported, if all Malaysia’s progressives can do is make self-indulgent social media posts in English!
We must win the hearts and minds of the Malays. We need to lead and educate, not pander or denigrate. – The Vibes, January 26, 2022
Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad is Setiawangsa MP and chief organising secretary for PKR
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