What Umno and Najib must really worry about

By MT Webmaster Last updated Nov 13, 2015

Poverty triggers dissent and wealth triggers peace. More than 200 years of history has proven this. As they say, money talks, bullshit walks. So, Umno had better ‘talk’ and not ‘bullshit’ because you cannot bullshit that we are rich when the pocket is empty. And the Malays and natives of Sabah and Sarawak will either vote government or vote opposition based on one thing — money.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Scott Ng’s article in Free Malaysia Today (What the Opposition must really worry about) is quite interesting and really hits the nail on the head, particularly regarding Penang. Penang has always had a ‘Chinese’ government since the beginning (meaning since Merdeka).

At first it was an Alliance Party government with MCA basically running Penang. Then for a short while it was an opposition Gerakan government until Barisan Nasional was formed and Gerakan joined the ruling coalition. And now it is an opposition DAP government.

So, since 1957, Penang has changed hands from MCA (a member of the multi-racial Alliance Party) to Gerakan (a multi-racial party) to DAP (yet another multi-racial party). However, as Scott said, the Malays in Penang never considered the MCA-run or Gerakan-run Penang as a Chinese government. But they do consider the DAP-run Penang as a Chinese government.

No doubt this is only how the Malays ‘feel’, as Scott said. And feelings are based on perception. And as I have said many times before, politics is about perception. So there is no running away from the feeling that perceptions create.

One thing that everyone from both sides of the political divide would mutually agree on is that Umno’s future depends on the Malays and the natives of Sabah and Sarawak. Umno needs BOTH those groups to vote for the party to be able to retain power. Even a novice political observer can agree to that.

The opposition is hoping that the 1MBD and RM2.6 billion issues are enough to bring down Umno and Barisan Nasional. If issues like that can do the trick then Umno and the Alliance Party would have collapsed a long time ago, long before the most ‘historic’ 1969 general election.

No doubt, back in those days (pre-1969), things were a lot different. There was no Internet, Blogs and smart phones so people were not so well informed. Today, you can obtain information in real-time, as it happens. And because of this ‘information revolution’ people are not only better informed but are able to think as well.

And that was why the government could get away with a lot more than what they can get away with today, you may argue. Today, you can no longer get away with what you could get away with in the past and this is what is going to cause the collapse of Umno and Barisan Nasional, say the pundits.

I would say yes and no. Whether Umno and Barisan Nasional stay in power or whether Pakatan Harapan is going to take over in 2018 depends on many factors. And it is not the 1MBD and RM2.6 billion issues, or those two issues alone, which are going to determine the outcome of the election, although it may have some bearing on the results.

If you are a student of revolutions, you will know that no two revolutions are the same. Different revolutions happened for different reasons and not every revolution was planned. Some were actually spontaneous and started as a small mutiny and then escalated into a full-scale revolt, mainly because the powers-that-be did not know how to manage that mutiny and actually added fuel to that small fire to make it a raging fire.

Of course, when we talk about revolutions, the few that come to mind are the French, Russian and Iranian Revolutions — because they are closer to our time since they happened only over the last 200 years or so. Of course, there are many more that go back 2,000 years but let us confine this discussion to those three ‘famous’ ones.

The Iranian Revolution is ‘unique’ in that it happened during a period when even people like Anwar Ibrahim would call a period of ‘Islamic Revival’. Basically religion drove that Revolution — just like it drove the English Civil War of the 1600s and the 30 Years War in Europe, also in the 1600s.

It took the Napoleonic War of the 1800s, about 200 years later, to end these religious wars when Napoleon separated the church from the state and took away the powers of education from the church and introduced public schools for all, girls included (and education was no longer exclusive only for the sons of the elite).

And because of this the people changed. They began to have new ideas. They became more nationalistic. And the imperialistic Empires broke up and smaller Republics were created based on language, ethnicity and cultures. So, in short, language, ethnicity and cultures both united the people and divided them at the same time. It is like fire that keeps you alive in winter but can also kill you if it burns your house down.

The French Revolution that happened just before all these changes took place was poverty-driven. People were hungry while the elite lived a life of opulence. So the poor became jealous of the rich and that was when trouble broke out, but just in Paris at first.

But this revolution was leaderless and lacked direction. Then some clever politicians hijacked the revolution and took power. But the result was they fought amongst themselves and more people were killed during the Reign of Terror than during the time of the monarchy.

It was not until 60 years later during the Second French Revolution of the mid-1800s (when all of Europe was facing revolutions) did stability return to France. By then millions had died and the people just wanted peace because they were tired of 60 years of death and destruction.

So the empires broke up and republics were created because the people were tired of dying in wars and conflicts. Simultaneously, behind the scenes, the Industrial Revolution was going on all over Europe (plus the colonisation and plunder of third world countries), so people were beginning to get rich.

Hence, in short, it was poverty that triggered chaos and it was wealth that ended this chaos. That means people will revolt and fight when they are poor and they keep the peace when they have money.

The Russian Revolution is another case in point. The common perception is that people like Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and many more, planned the Russian Revolution. Actually that is not true. Those three plus many more of the so-called ‘revolutionary leaders’ were actually living in Europe in exile. They were not even in Russia.

They were also badly divided between the Social Democrats, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and were constantly quarrelling and bickering. In fact, many of the ‘revolutionary leaders’ also in ‘exile’ in Europe were members of the Tzar’s secret police who had infiltrated the movement.

For example, Lenin had only 20 hardcore supporters and was not really a mass-movement leader as we are led to believe. And Stalin really did not play much of a role in the early days of the movement. But then Lenin wrote the books on the ‘official history’ of the revolution (that was all he did, write) while Stalin ‘corrected’ these history books when he came to power later. Hence what we read is like reading Chin Peng’s book versus Lee Kuan Yew’s book, which gives two different versions of ‘history’.

Then, one day in 1905, while Lenin and the rest were enjoying a rest in Europe, a regiment of the Tsar’s army that had not been paid their salaries for the last six months mutinied (because they did not receive their salary and were hungry). This mutiny was badly handled and instead of quickly paying their long overdue salaries, the Tsar’s military decided to shoot them dead.

And that triggered unrest. Instead of giving them lead bullets they should have given them silver coins. That would have made the soldiers happy. And now the mutiny got out of hand and became a full-scale revolt.

Lenin and the rest, who heard about this incident a few days later, quickly went home to Russia to hijack the revolution that was actually quite leaderless and directionless.

So they did not start the revolution. Hunger did. These so-called leaders of the revolution were just the hijackers of that revolution. The so-called revolutionary movement was actually quite dead by then and was just waiting to be buried. But the revolution quite unexpectedly fell into their lap and they grabbed it and claimed ownership over it.

Now, what has all this got to do with Malaysia and the next general election in 2018? Well, the 1MBD and RM2.6 billion issues are not really a great factor that will determine the outcome of the coming general election. If Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak can resolve these two issues then the matter ends there. So let us see how these matters get resolved next month in December before the Umno general assembly.

What WILL determine the outcome of the next general election, though, will be money. If people find it hard to make ends meet they will vote for change. But if people feel that their needs are being taken care of they will keep the present government.

So, as they say in America, show me the money! Najib has to make sure that the people are not suffering. Call it vote buying or whatever you wish to call it but that is basically what it all boils down to. If there is no money in the pocket then the people will be anti-government.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK