DO WE HAVE A MALAY PROLETARIAT?

Do We Have a Malay Proletariat?\
Tuesday, 25 November 2008 22:15
Most of what I have written so far concerned “other places”. This time, I shall try to present my views of the situation in Malaysia. I do so with unease not only because the subject is bound to be controversial, but because it is actually a very difficult and complex one.
I begin at the time of the 1st elections in Malaya because it has direct and powerful consequences for the present. The country was under an Emergency. UMNO and MCA formed the Alliance and agreed to work together to form the future independent government (MIC joined a bit later). This was an alliance of the town and country. UMNO represented the aristocrat and landlord classes as well as civil servants. It was mainly based on land, status and position, while MCA comprised mainly of the merchant class as well as planters and miners.

As can be expected, things are never static. Although they formed an alliance there was also competition and mutual suspicions between the partners. UMNO which is rural and agriculture based cannot hope to overpower the town based mercantile and moneyed classes (in spite of the small numbers that these classes represent). From the start UMNO suffered insecurity and fear. 51 years of independence have not succeeded in removing this fear. The only way for UMNO to compete was to win the support of the masses of farmers, fishermen and agricultural labourers. This it did with spectacular success and UMNO has remained the dominant partner in government ever since even if it slips up and shows its true class character every now and then through arrogance, corruption and abuse of power.

In the meantime, the communists whose support came mainly from the urban labourers and students, transport, dock and mine workers as well as rural squatters (towns’ people displaced by the Japanese occupation) were being pushed back and isolated. The urban working masses came under an oppressive weight that they could only escape from by getting an education or starting small businesses of their own and as the country progressed and developed, their places were filled by agricultural labourers and displaced small farmers from the rural areas. This I believe is the Malay proletariat. The government succeeded in dispersing a large part of the urban labouring classes which were the main support of the communists, but have created in its place a Malay proletariat.

After 51 years of independence, the experiences and value systems of this working class is no longer strongly connected with rural conservative values. In addition, the education system is churning out thousands of young men and women who cannot find jobs. Most of these people now have some trouble going back to the rural areas and hang about the towns because they no longer fit into the rural areas. Of the few that do go back to their villages, they bring with them new values and experiences – experiences that teach them the brutal fact that they cannot depend on the patronage of feudal ties and that they have to fend for themselves like their working class cousins, who can be thrown onto the streets without jobs and without any back up at any time.

However in spite of their new “awakening”, these people have no organized structure and are subject to influence of the government mass media as well as conservative religious bodies linked to the government. Still, the 12th GE saw a swing of support against the government which I believe to be partly from this group, where we saw a very clear town – rural divide.

In desperation, UMNO is now re-visiting the old concepts of Ketuanan Melayu and NEP to re-capture the support of this group of people in the hope that hope itself and promises can turn the tables. It is also offering goodies such as subsidies and minimum pensions to sweeten the package. Not content with paltry actions, it tries to limit the damage by importing foreign labour in the hope that the size of this group will not grow to unmanageable proportions.

As far as Ketuanan Melayu and NEP are concerned, UMNO is playing with fire. There is a parallel in Cambodia that we could all learn from if we wish to be honest with ourselves. When the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh of its 1 million residents and 1 million refugees and sent them into the countryside to grow food, a phenomenon arose which I think was beyond their control and which they probably never bothered to control. The rest of the population of Cambodia (also about 2 million) who were from old Khmer Rouge bases in the rural areas started to differentiate and discriminate against the newcomers from the towns. They called themselves the “base” people (for people from the Khmer Rouge rural bases) and new arrivals from the towns were the “new” people.

In a situation where the civil war had seen burning of food stocks by the retreating Lon Nol troops as well as general carnage and destruction and where food was already scarce, where 2 million peasants had to feed themselves as well as additional 2 million city dwellers and refugees, where there was discrimination between “base” (rural) people and “new” (town) people, a tragedy of epic proportions was on the cards.

A second tragedy occurred about 3 years later, the events being shrouded in mystery and may have involved international intrigues. What is well known however is that there was a power struggle and Khmer Rouge bases in the east were suspected of siding with the Vietnamese. The population was shipped en masse from the conflict zone to other Khmer Rouge bases in the west. This time, however, the tragedy took on really sinister proportions. The people from the east as well as the west were both from Khmer Rouge bases, so they could no longer discriminate on the basis of “base” people and “new” people. What happened was the discrimination now centered on “loyalists” and “traitors”. This time round, the discrimination took on murderous overtones.

For us in Malaysia, the differentiation between “bumiputras” and “immigrants” as well as loyal Malaysians and Malaysians of questionable loyalty and where UMNO continues to be seized by insecurity and fear, fill me with utter dread. Granted, the situation is not as serious as in Cambodia, but no good comes out of a divided population based on race discrimination. I hope that the new Malay proletariat will find its feet and bring us out of a dangerous rut by doing away with absolute power and bringing about a balance of power. Such a proletariat will have big reservations about the merchant and moneyed classes but at the same time also strongly opposed to bureaucratic corruption and abuse of power. I think we have the beginnings of a Malay proletariat. Do we now have a Malaysian proletariat? After all if the moneyed classes cannot unite due to competition for property and status, the lower classes have a chance to unite based on common struggle against the excesses of the rich and powerful.

By batsman


Comments (5)
...written by Motherchell, November 25, 2008 22:43:07
Oh yes they do! --- what ever the Brits burnt and threw away they picked it up for future enclosed dominion. They had their trumps. They knew slavery of the sorts we find in Patail, and Musa --reinforced their believe with strength amalgamated from the Petronas wells ! or we would be like what we find in Congo or Burkina Faso urbanely .Though after 50 years we are so similar ! http://sjsandteam.wordpress.com
...written by Just Gan, November 25, 2008 23:08:16
'In an article in Utusan Malaysia on 20 Nov, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad called on the Malays to adopt a more proactive attitude in defending their rights. "Nowadays we only see the Malays defending instead of attacking," he said. "We need to defend our position, and like the English saying that the best defence is a good offence, we need to be on the offensive to defend ourselves," he said at a Perdana Leadership Foundation talk. Mahathir said instead of just defending their rights under the social contract, the Malays should start talking about the benefits enjoyed by the other races because of the social contract. Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra gave out one million citizenships to non-Malays without any question, he said. "If they want to revoke Malay rights, we too want to revoke the rights given to them," he said.' - extract from another article on MT. With his kind of lunacy being propagated by a despicable low down specimen calling itself a human being, all for the sake of ensuring a win for its imbecile offspring in the forthcoming UMNO election and ensuring the continuance of its tyranical legacy through that imbecile, what more can the Malays, in particular, and Malaysians, in general, be subjected to to quickly descend into calamity and disaster. There is no limit to what this thing will resort to fulfil its greed, selfishness and egotistical self-centered cowardly low-down behaviour. If only someone could shut this thing's orifice from spewing such venom .....
...written by Spear Bing, November 25, 2008 23:18:52
It's the UMNO proletariat who is suffering from siege mentality as a result of its perverted belief in the permanancy of UMNO's 51 year rule of the nation. But natural law dictates the rule of impermanence in this universe, of transient existence. There will be revolution as a concomitant consequence, but more significantly the forces of evolution will take their rightful place in bringing about transformative change in the political landscape of the nation. UMNO of UMNO this too shall come to pass.
...written by Spear Bing, November 25, 2008 23:36:24
Dear Just Gan, With 10 million hits registered so far on his cedet blogsite, TDM has issued his own injunction that he has earned the respect of the rakyat, and as such he has earned the right to lash out his verbal vitriol as he deems fit. Such is the enigma of a person who identifies himself with an egoic mindset, hallucinated by his conviction that the world or rather UMNO owes him a living. No amount of criticism will shun him from saying his piece and the one and only incident that will make cease his verbal diarrhea is when he forgets to breathe......... period. Salam.
...written by temenggong, November 26, 2008 00:22:29
This is a good and interesting comparative study, worthy of serious consideration. I would think that Hindraf, or rather the Indians are the new proletariat. There is some malay proletariat but it would be outside of urban Malaysia. Chinese and the urban malays are the bourgeoisie.