The Challenge of the Present

By Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah

I wish to thank the Perak Academy for giving me this privilege to address you at a time when the State of Perak is at its defining moment to claim its right to constitutional democracy.  Malaysians who are committed to making constitutional democracy an indivisible part of our political culture are watching your unfinished journey. 

2. Democracy is not a ready-made formula or a predestined political system which will automatically follow once we have a written Constitution.  That is the forewarning that the Perak constitutional crisis has alerted us to.  The future of democracy in Malaysia is the real challenge we all face. 

3. In the half century of our existence as a constitutional democracy, many of us believed that constitutional democracy has become an indivisible part of our political culture.  The reality is far more complex and we have been sleepwalking through our general economic prosperity to the exclusion of public values and responsibilities.  We exchanged important democratic values and issues of public morality for the temptation and illusion of more and more prosperity, regardless of the erosion of democracy.   

4. Society, public responsibility and values were subsumed by economics of market fundamentalism not dissimilar to the policies known as the Washington Consensus without regard to the realities in Malaysia.  Naturally, these considerations contaminated our political culture and political power.  Connections became a precondition for individual advancement. Our political parties, which were founded on racial lines, found it necessary to politicize ethnicity above national cohesion.  Today, we are reaping some of the seeds sown in the last two or three decades in the decline of institutions and public morality. 

5. Perceived ethnic interest, corruption and money as means of maintaining power is a very dangerous mix.  This combination poses a threat far more dangerous than any other form of subversion to maintain our nation’s cohesion, constitutional democracy and national well-being. 

6. Recent history, from Bosnia to Sri Lanka, are examples of what can happen if we politicize ethnicity above national cohesion.  As each ethnic group tries to maximize benefits for its own, the wider we are separated, the greater is the tension.  The question we all need to seriously ask as we contemplate the future of democracy in our country is whether there can be a future for democracy if we maintain the politicization of ethnicity as we have done in the past. 

7. This is not to say, by the reality of political history and the way our political economy had existed during colonial times and the present, that we do not have serious imbalances in our economy which have caused ethnic tension.  The economic division along ethnic lines, the income gaps, the lack of confidence in entrepreneurship, and an unequal sense of well-being and empowerment, are the consequences of our political and economic history.  These realities, perceived or factual, cannot be solved by using the past policies which ethnicized our political economy.  I believe the causes and consequences of these economic imbalances must be addressed and legislation should be introduced to eliminate unfair trade practices without politicizing ethnicity for the good of all Malaysians.  

8. In 1971, when democracy was restored, there was an earnest search for a new political economy initiated by the then political leadership encapsulated in the 2nd Malaysia Plan:

“National unity is the over-riding objective of the country.  A stage has been reached in the nation’s economic and social development where greater emphasis must be placed on social integration and more equitable distribution of income and opportunities for national unity.” 

      It went on to state:

“The quest for national identity and unity is common to many countries, especially new and developing countries.  This search for national identity and unity involves the whole range of economic, social and political activities, the formulation of educational policies designed to encourage common values and loyalties among all communities and in all regions; the cultivation of a sense of dedication to the nation through services of all kinds, the careful development of a national language and literature, of arts and music, the emergence of truly national symbols and institutions based on culture and tradition of society.”  The basic point is emphasized in the Rukun Negara: ‘… from these diverse elements of our population, we are dedicated to the achievement of a united nation in which loyalty and dedication to the nation shall over-ride all other loyalties.’” 

9. What was inspiring was the conviction that out of our diversity we will have the flowering of the Malaysian genius.   

10. The same political parties but a different leadership was in power then.  Those that succeeded, for multiple of reasons, forget the pledge to the peoples of Malaysia.  I believe one of the main reasons for this fracture was the decline of democracy in the political parties and the nation, and by over-centralisation of power.  Meaningful debate in political parties, Parliament, and the media became almost non-existent. 

11. This atmosphere allowed undemocratic legislations, such as widening the Official Secrets Act and the Printing & Publications Act to be passed by Parliament at the expense of the erosion of democracy and the moral authority of the democratic process.  The public values that underpin the Rule of Law were replaced by the authoritarian rule by law.  Unfortunately, any possibility of challenging these legislations as undemocratic became impossible with the closing of the separation of powers, and freedom of the press as envisaged by Article 10 of the Constitution was made into a monopoly of the mainstream media which is used as a political instrument of influence to justify the unaccountable centralization of power.  Thus, the Party, Parliament, the judiciary, the civil service, the financial institutions and the media became concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister.  One of the main reasons this was possible was because of the increasing undemocratic culture spawned by obsession with the illusion of the importance of ethnicized politics. 

12. If we are honest to ourselves and to our responsibility to the coming generations, we must be worried that a generation after these words have been spoken in Parliament we have not stopped the politicization of ethnicity.  Instead, there are attempts to make it an institutionalized part of our political culture.  The challenge is to change that culture because we cannot achieve the fulfillment of national cohesion and constitutional democracy if we continue as we have in the past.   

13. The growth experience has shown that statistical growth and individual prosperity will only widen the income gap and continue the imbalances in the economy and the insecurity and anxiety of all our people.  The experience of economic growth in the past few decades has also shown serious deficiencies in the way of national well-being.  World economic experts, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stigler, are now designing new methods of understanding economics and progress, and indices of measuring national well-being and prosperity.  We also need to re-examine our economic objectives.  Issues of ownership, distribution of income, and contribution to national well-being are not only the challenges of economic policies but also democracy.  We should not wait for international experts who have no experience of complex societies like ours to tell us the direction we should take.  We should begin the search now. 

14. One of the problems of understanding our economy has its roots in the understanding of economic growth largely based on Western economic experience.  There is a lack of understanding of Malaysia’s own historical reality.  The recent financial and economic crisis has changed many conventional views of growth and national well-being.  We must become part of this search of new understanding. 

15. But whatever the method and whatever the criteria of well-being or prosperity, it can only be achieved by national cohesion and democracy which allows our intellectuals and the leadership to engage in open debates in formulating new national objectives.  We need new thinking about the economic fundamentals, and we must encourage and create policies which will give us economic sustainability. Our society has become too individualistic, with too much rivalry, and not enough common purpose. 

16. We should examine whether we have worshipped money too much as a measure of advancement.  I share the view that we need growth in national happiness and less greed.  I share the view that we must seek new criteria and convince our people that we need a collective political will to find methods and more new real indices of national well-being and design a political economy more suited to the complexities of Malaysia.   

17. In order to be part of this global change in the making of and for Malaysia’s interest, we need a new kind of politics.  We cannot think in new ways if we are hostage to a perceived history ourselves, with separate ethnic, political and economic interests.  No country can survive as a successful state where people live and work in such close proximity and have conflicting political and economic interests. 

18. We need national unity. I do not mean the dominance of one party or subservience to one political party, but a consensus on what our national ethos should be to ensure democracy and national cohesion.  Therefore, the quest is not for any agreement on micro issues but on the larger issues of democracy, separation of powers and the judicial responsibility to be the guardians of constitutional democracy, the neutrality of the civil service, and how political parties who want to be part of the ethos must respect the Rule of Law and democratic elections, nationally and within the Party.  Legislations that are in conflict with the constitutional objective of democratic political life must be changed or struck down by the Courts on constitutional grounds.  I believe, in order to make our democratic life richer and more meaningful, public interest litigation must have place in our constitutional system.  The reason for such a legal right is to give the right check and balance to our citizens to prevent abuse of power. 

19. In solving these difficult problems, there is no way we can avoid the primacy of politics and the inseparable nexus between democracy, progress and national well-being. 

20. We need to have a rebirth of the ideals of the Rukun Negara; of diversity and unity.  We need a movement of peoples, intellectuals and political parties for a national consensus or compact, which should include the following: 

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  1. All political parties are required to include in their constitutional objectives the equality of citizenship as provided for in the Federal Constitution. 

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  2. An economic and political policy that political parties propagate must not discriminate against any citizen. 

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  3. All parties shall include and uphold constitutional democracy and the separation of powers as a fundamental principle. 

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  4. It shall be the duty of all political parties to adhere to the objectives of public service and refrain from involvement in business, and ensure the separation of business from political parties. 

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  5. It shall be the duty of all political parties to ensure and respect the independence of the judiciary and the judicial process. 

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  6. All parties shall ensure that the party election system will adhere to the highest standards of conduct, and also ensure that the elections are free of corrupt practices.  Legislation should be considered to provide funding of political parties. 

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  7. It shall be the duty of all parties to ensure that all political dialogues and statements will not create racial or religious animosity. 

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  8. All parties undertake not to use racial and communal agitation as political policies. 

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  9. To remove and eradicate all barriers that hinder national unity and Malaysian identity. 

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  10. To uphold the Federal and State Constitutions and its democratic intent and spirit, the Rule of Law, the fundamental liberties as enshrined in Part II of the Malaysian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

21. Thank you all for giving me this opportunity

Speaker : Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.