Malay Unity?

Recently, many quarters are calling for Malay unity among the largest race in Malaysia, citing failure to do so might lead to the Malays being weak and vulnerable, thus allowing ''others" to take advantage of them. This siege mentality, from my point of view, is the very reason why the Malays are left in the current state that they are suffering from. It is this mentality of the Malays, that they are under siege, that they justify the act of their''protector" despite it being unjust or unlawful.

First of all, for the sake of discussion, for Malay unity to come to fruition, they must be an underlying value(s) that unites and binds all of us, this value(s) must be able to precede other values including political ideologies and so on. With no doubt is better if it is a positive value rather than a negative one. Now in our present state, the Malays lack this much needed value. Assuming that PAS and UMNO unites and creates another entity, without values, the combined entity is useless as history had shown in the 70s when the two joined hands under the BN. It was a failure.

The secular nationalist and the Islamist values that UMNO and PAS holds respectively pitted one against another and that coupled with distrust and so on lead to the break up. Furthermore, their core voters consist of the same group, the Malays, thus fueling further competition.

A second assumption I would like to make is that if the two party joined hands again, it will create a political context in which the largely Malays( UMNO and PAS), VS the largely Non-Malays( PKR and DAP), this will only lead to a hegemony in our political space and extremist in both group will prosper which is not good for Malaysians in the long run. Malay supremacy can be pushed to an extent where is damaging for the country race relations as there is no way MCA or MIC can stand up to UMNO and PAS no matter how strong they are.

A hegemony political space will lead to the creation of a hegemony government that will implement policies that are hegemony in nature. Plural Malaysia will not prosper if a hegemony Malaysia emerges, rather the effect is rather destructive than a constructive if one is to use the Malaysia's point of view than a Malay one.

Furthermore, in an event that this new combination is not performing in the interest of the Malays as the propagators of Malay unity hope it would, they will no check and balance from the microscopic context of Malay politics. The Malays will be trapped and be forced to support this new entity irrespective of whether they are performing or not( look at the state of reliance of the Malays to UMNO now, the reliance will be bigger if the party will merge or join hands with PAS) with no alternative for the Malays.

To me it is not upliftement of the Malays if UMNO merges with PAS, rather it is the opposite. I would prefer the Malays unite not under a combination of political parties, rather unite under common values and principles irrespective of political inclination( like in the west how they unite in upholding principles of freedom, human rights and democracy).

The Malays will be better of that way as politicians can't misuse Malay unity for the sake of personal or political gain not to mention it will lead to a well served Malays as politicians from both side of the divide will compete to serve the Malays for votes thus leading to a better served Malays.

In conclusion, I would encourage for the Malays to dissemble the siege mentality and think progressively about this PAS-UMNO merger of sort as it will not really help the Malays, rather it will only make the problem worse. In my opinion, for the Malays to be uplifted, the Malays themselves must take action that uplift themselves, than the politicians will must likely follow suit.

As reminded many times here, real change happens from the bottom-up and not the other way around thus for the Malays to be better of, we must look at ourselves and make improvements on us rather than rely solely on the politicians who most of them have their own political agendas to fulfill.

Remember what history had taught us before, when the Malays rely solely on the the Sultans or other leaders, we end up losing more than we gain( many states in Malaysia were lost this way, just look at Perak) but when we as a people unite, even the mighty British concurred with us( the rejection of Malayan Union), please remember that when considering UMNO-PAS unity and Malay unity.