All alone at the top
KUALA LUMPUR: Najib Tun Razak needs help. Najib is all alone. The prime minister cuts a lonely figure at the top as he surveys the dismal scene below: his coalition forces – the Barisan Nasional – are not backing his pet projects and concepts. Neither are the Malays. He is carrying his causes on his shoulder and walking a solitary path while all about him his “soldiers are going in different directions”. They are not following his orders, they are deviating from the targets.
Najib needs support for his ambitious goals but so far, nothing is coming his way. He has pulled many rabbits out of his hat but two are close to his heart: 1Malaysia and the New Economic Model (NEM).
The NEM is a bold plan to “transform the Malaysian economy to become one with high income and quality growth by 2020”. Najib was all fired up with this mission and thought he would receive unqualified support from all, especially the Malays.
But a Malay right-wing NGO led by a firebrand named Ibrahim Ali shot the down the NEM. He simply told Najib to his face that the Malays have rejected the NEM for its perceived threat to their special economic rights. The maverick politician was not a voice in the wilderness. He commands wide support among the Malays who loved his extreme pro-Malay views. Even Umno members have drifted to his camp in droves.
If the Malays did not fall in love with the ugly NEM, they also did not swoon over the 1Malaysia beauty. At first the concept was greeted with a roar of approval, mostly from the non-Malays. But soon its beauty faded as the Malays turned against it, seeing it as an insidious attempt to destroy the the interests of the Malays while championing the causes of the non-Malays.
The other races read nothing sinister in 1Malaysia and were quite enthusiastic about it, even calling for equal opportunities for all. They believe the call to unity also means giving all races access to opportunities in the various fields of endeavour.
Testing the waters
Maybe Najib was testing the waters to see if his beloved 1Malaysia would be embraced wholeheartedly when he introduced it to the public. To his dismay, the response from the Malays was not encouraging. Perkasa especially smelled something fishy about the whole show. It did not like all this talk about unity since this can translate into equality for all to the detriment of the Malay status.
His isolation continues to grow. Even former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had distanced himself from Najib when he questioned the 1Malaysia concept. Matters didn’t help when Najib’s second in command Muhyiddin Yassin himself seems to put his Malayness first and Malaysian identity second.
Najib is caught in a bind: the Malays do not share his message of unity when the underlying theme is equality which they feel will sound the death knell for their special place in the country. By degrees, the Malays are becoming cynical: If 1Malaysia treat all races equally then why the need for vernacular schools since 1Malaysia calls for a united Malaysian race with one language? But then the Chinese and the Indian communities will not give up their vernacular education.
