The Chinese politics of revenge
The 2018 phenomena will never happen again. Never again will we see a Malay-Chinese joint-effort in a general election. It will return to the days of Malays on one side and Chinese on the opposite side. The Chinese slew the goose that laid the golden egg. And now politics is a race-based game again.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Malaysians wasted 20 years of their life from 1998, when the reform movement first started, until 2018, when finally the ‘invincible’ Umno-Barisan Nasional was toppled.
It took 28 years to bring down the Berlin Wall. It took 45 years to topple Barisan Nasional, or 63 years if you include the days when it used to be called the Alliance Party.
That was when Malaysia was supposed to enter a new era, politik baru or new politics, Malaysia baru or a new Malaysia, led my Melayu baru or the new Malays.
Less than two years later, the euphoria of the new era, new Malaysia, new politics, and new Malays ended, and the government collapsed.
It was almost like the Berlin Wall being re-erected and Germany being again divided into East and West after just two years.
The launching of the 1998 reform movement resulted in the landmark 1999 general election. The launching of the 2007 Bersih movement resulted in the landmark 2008 general election. (Both times that also resulted in my detention under the Internal Security Act).
(NOTE: the 2011 Bersih 2.0 movement has nothing to do with the 2007 Bersih movement. Bersih 2.0 is a copycat movement launched by Anwar Ibrahim, who was not involved in the 2007 Bersih movement and, in fact, boycotted it).
The landmark 14th general election or GE14 of 2018 was supposed to be the crossroads for Malaysia. The first landmark of the 1999 GE was a Malay affair. The second landmark of the 2008 GE was a Chinese affair. The third and final landmark of the 2018 GE was a united Malay-Chinese affair.
Finally politics was no more just a Malay, or just a Chinese, game. In 2018, it became a multi-racial game. What many Malaysians, especially those of Chinese and Indian ethnicity, had been dreaming of for more than 60 years had happened.
What is important is not that after 45 years, or 63 years, the Umno-Alliance Party-Barisan Nasional political hegemony had ended. What is important is that it had been demolished not by the Malays, or by the Chinese, but by a united multiracial movement of many races.
And then the Chinese screwed up. Instead of showing appreciation and gratitude, they demonstrated revenge against the Malays for the 200 years they had to live under Malay domination since they first came here in the mid-1800s.
Malays call this lepas geram. The Chinese had been harbouring hatred against the Malays for being called pendatang (immigrants) even though their grandfather had been born in Malaysia. They hated the New Economic Policy (NEP). They were angry about what they considered apartheid, racism, discrimination, and being treated as second-class citizens. It was now pay-back time.
Instead of doing what Nelson Mandela did after the white government was toppled — which was to give the whites peace of mind and demonstrate that there will be no revenge against them — DAP and the Chinese did the opposite.
You may say this was just the perception and there were no real acts of revenge. But then politics is about perception. It does not have to be true. It only needs to be seen as true.
To start off with, Malays were always wary of Chinese political power. When the Communists came to power in China, they went on a revenge spree. When the Japanese surrendered after the Nagasaki atom bomb was dropped, the Chinese launched a revenge spree in Malaysia and many Malays were murdered (my relative included).
So it is not difficult to make the Malays believe that everything the Pakatan Harapan government was doing were acts of revenge targeted at them. And now Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, plus many from Parti Pribumi Bersatu, have confirmed that DAP and the Chinese were actually acting in revenge and were punishing the Malays.
The 2018 phenomena will never happen again. Never again will we see a Malay-Chinese joint-effort in a general election. It will return to the days of Malays on one side and Chinese on the opposite side. The Chinese slew the goose that laid the golden egg. And now politics is a race-based game again.
