Curing Malaysia’s National Psychosis – Analysis
People are suffering from hallucinations about the Jewish plot, the Christian plot, and the Chinese plot.
Murray Hunter, Eurasia Review
Malaysia has reached a chronic situation where the police are using the court system to suppress alternative points of view by banning closed door meetings of legally registered societies, where members of a governing coalition party are arrested on alleged terrorist links to a defunct organization, and where the prime minister uses inuendo to threaten sectarian retaliation against a community group. A high-ranking Islamic official is arguing Malaysia should be exclusively for the Malays, contrary to the constitution and principles of Islam, and the education system is used as a propaganda tool to spread racism and distorted views of Islam. The rule of law is not the same for all, where designated people are treated differently by police.
The themes and arguments within social discussion and outcomes of governance in Malaysia today set the country apart from the rest of the world community. Malaysia’s failure to sign the United Nation’s International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) put it in the company of Dominica, South Sudan, Myanmar, and North Korea. Institutionalized racism in Malaysia puts the country in the same category of the old South African Apartheid regime, that Malaysia once vigorously opposed. Prime minister Mahathir Mohamed is perhaps the only world leader to be publicly anti-Semitic today.
Today in Malaysia, government policy, decision making, leadership, and institutional development are all influenced by certain ‘sinister’ forces. These subliminal psychological forces are controlling political outcomes that are appearing more irrational and dysfunctional as time goes on. The divisive ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) narratives are now implanted deeply into the assumptions and beliefs of the ruling elite’s psych.
These beliefs are heavily skewing political decision making. This cognitive dissonance has been destructive upon community relations, nation building, national culture, and even the Malaysian concept of nationhood itself.
