Political Crisis in Malaysia
by Michael Backman
8 October 2008
Delmonico’s, near Wall Street, is a bit like The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in Douglas Adam’s book of the same name. Get a window seat there right now and almost quite literally you will be able to watch the universe end while you await your steak. But if you fancy tamer fare then try a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. Get a window seat there now and you will be entertained by the end of the Malaysian Government.
The death throes of prime minister Abdullah Badawi’s government are fascinating. Like someone who cannot swim but who has just been thrown overboard, Abdullah is grabbing at anything to try to save himself. So far he’s gone for that third world tool of choice: you jail dissenters, which is a pity because these days Malaysians are more sophisticated than that.
In the last few weeks, an opposition politician has been arrested under Malaysia’s outdated Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows for detention without trial, legal counsel, the right to defend oneself in court, or the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
The politician, who is ethnically Chinese, was detained for inciting religious and racial tension. Apparently she complained about excessive noise emanating from a mosque in her constituency. That is not a race or a religious issue. It is a planning issue – the sort of thing that MPs are supposed to bring up.
Similarly, a journalist was arrested under the ISA for accurately reporting the racist remarks of a member of the ruling party. Essentially, she was arrested for being a good journalist, something in short supply in Malaysia. The party official was not arrested, although he was suspended.
A blogger was arrested for apparently exhibiting the Malaysian flag on his website upside down. I kid you not. It’s hard to imagine a modern government anywhere being that petty particularly in a world in which serious problems are not in short supply. And if there’s one thing that doesn’t matter, it’s flags. Trample on them, burn them – the world would be a better place without them.
But perhaps Abdullah’s saddest mis-step has been the arrest of Raja Petra Kamarudin, who runs the hugely popular Malaysia Today website which routinely exposes wrongdoers in public life and provided a forum for robust political debate otherwise denied to Malaysians.
On September 23, Syed Hamid Albar, the Home Affairs Minister signed the order for Raja Petra’s detention without trial for two years. The order can be renewed indefinitely. Ostensibly, Raja Petra, a Muslim, was arrested for posting blogs that belittled Islam. The reality of course is that Raja Petra had belittled the government. No longer can he post blogs that challenge the government and blow the whistle on corruption and other wrong doings on the part of government officials.
Raja Petra appeared in court on Monday on a separate sedition charge. He was handcuffed which is apt: you can’t write if you’re handcuffed.
Raja Petra knew that he could well be arrested and yet he continued. This sort of selflessness is all too rare in Malaysia. In years to come, streets will be named after him and postage stamps bearing his image will be issued. No-one will remember Syed Hamid Albar, other than those he has jailed.
Even Mahathir Mohamed, Malaysia’s previous prime minister, who incidentally will be speaking at a seminar at Melbourne University this coming Saturday, has criticised the recent ISA arrests as unnecessary and excessive.
Perhaps such arrests are warranted in a country dangerously on the edge of racial and religious meltdown. But Malaysia is not. Malaysians are peace-loving and very, very tolerant. They have proven this time and again. When other countries have blown up into rioting and communal tension, modern Malaysia has not. The most obvious example was during the 1996-97 economic crisis when all the region’s economies verged on collapse. Indonesia erupted with ethnic killing, looting and rape, largely directed against that country’s small but wealthy ethnic Chinese community. Malaysians on the other hand pulled together. There was no finger pointing at least not along race lines. Malaysia did not even go close to communal unrest.
The truth is that the Malaysian government is the biggest source of ethnic and religious tension in Malaysia. It has an interest in constantly harping on about race, using imagined communal tensions as an excuse for its use of the ISA, to control the media and above all, to head off threats to its own power. The race issue is manipulated not to protect Malaysians from each other but to protect the government from opposition.
But the cracks are showing. Malaysia has never had a government this unpopular. Abdullah has said that he will leave office early but he refuses to resign. Najib Tun Razak, his deputy, is congenial enough but he is no leader. And then there’s Anwar Ibrahim.
Anwar is offering himself up as head of an alternative government but he has shown himself to be appallingly politically incompetent. He announced that the government would fall on September 16 because by then he would have the support of enough government MPs who he said were prepared to leave the government and join the opposition. When that day came, nothing happened. The golden rule of politics is that you don’t telegraph your punches; you simply punch. Anwar has a lot of baggage too, and so at a time when Malaysia needs clever leadership more than ever, the sad choice for Malaysians is between who stinks less.
