Why dominant race, and what do we mean by it?
The term may have been used in the past to denote genetic superiority of certain race such as the Aryan race of Hitler Germany during the Second World War or currently the Anglo-Saxon race which won the Second World War, now dominating the world order as represented by Britain and the United States along with their smaller vassals Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
In the above instances these dominant races are not the majority race, but they may be smarter than the others which enable them to be more powerful and more influential in determining world order. In this instance, the Chinese and Indians are therefore less dominant than the Anglo-Saxon, although they form the larger proportion of the world population.
In national context such as the United States and Australia, the dominant race has changed the dynamics of the land they colonised . At one time America was inhabited by the Red Indians and Australia by the Aborigines. But things changed once the Anglo-Saxon set their sights on these land. Being smarter and more powerful, they easily colonised the land, settle there and eventually became majority in those land. They eventually formed independent governments on those land and set the constitutions, policies, laws and regulations of those newly independent countries.
In the context of Malaysia, the Malay race is dominant not for being smarter than the rest, but in the sense that Malays have been able to substantially influence the make up of this country. Constitutional provisions recognise the existence of Malay Sultans and one of them as the King for the whole country. Islam is recognised as the official religion and Malay language as the national language apart from special provisions to safeguard Malay Rights in the country.
Yet, one must realise that the above status was not a foregone conclusion at the time of independence, because being the majority group did not automatically place the Malays as the dominant race in the country. It could have been the Chinese race instead of the Malays. The Chinese formed the backbone of the Malayan Communist Party which fought the Japanese during the Second World War. Later after the defeat of the Japanese, MCP fought against the British with the intent of driving the British out and then form a Communist government in the country. If they succeded, then the Chinese race would have been the dominant race of the country and Malaya would have a totally different constitution, without any regard for special positions of the Malays and Islamic religion.
We should realise that the Malays did not fight for independence like the Indonesians did. The Chinese were united much earlier and fought to seize powers through the Malayan Communist Party. They failed largely because the British hated Communism and not because they disliked the Chinese. The British encouraged and helped to organise Malay political force to counterbalance the spread of communism and leftist politics in Malaya and the Far East.
If not out of hatred for Communism, the British could have adopted a neutral stand in dealing with competition for supremacy of various races in the country. They could have withdrawn altogether and left Malaya to the fate of its own people. If that happened, the Malayan political groups would have fought each other for supremacy. It would be much easier for the Malayan Communist Party to win because they were well armed and better organised than the Malays. Under this scenario, the history of the country could have been different from what we know today.
Having gained what we have now through the moderate political force (UMNO), the younger Malay generation may not know history and take what we have today for granted.
The Malays make up a tolerant race. Probably this is a natural development at this stage of our history, given that Malays in Malaysia consist of many diverse subgroups which even include decendents of Indian and Chinese Muslims and Arabs, having shared common culture and destiny only in recent past, and having some traits and culture of its people still at various formative stages.
Given the above scenario, it is no wonder that many young and educated Malays readily subscribe to Western ideals of democracy only giving little attention on their survival as the dominant race in the country. Just by observing online views of readers, one easily notices that many even supported the ideals of DAP’s Malaysian Malaysia. Many proudly or emotionally took the position of western ideals against nepotism and cronyism to the utmost extreme, and embrace the concept of level playing field without ever realising what it meant and what it would do to unroll whatever Malays have achieved so far. There are even young Malays who do not mind to be ruled by another race or by non Muslims who they believe are better than the present leadership that they deem as corrupt Malays.
Again, as in the pre-independent days under MCP, the Chinese are most united today under DAP. The Malays are again divided into two groups. If before independence the Malays were divided between the leftist led by Persatuan Kemerdekaan Melayu Malaya(PKMM) under Dr. Burhanuddin Hilmy, and UMNO under Tengku Abdul Rahman, today the Malays are again divided under UMNO and PAS plus PKR. The only difference is that the Malays are now left to look after ourselves, without anyones’ help to protect our dominancy in the country.
The Chinese are most united in the General Election of 2013. Never before they are so united and gave 90% of their votes to the opposition. They need not appologise for this since they are free to choose whoever they want in an election. After all we live in a democracy. But, we cannot run away from the fact that when almost all of them choose Pakatan Rakyat dominated by DAP, this is a strong manifestation of a deep racial sentiment. If not, how else to explain it. It can’t be because of anti corruption, anti croynism or whatever western ideas that they subsribe to. Fight for ones race is the only fight that can fully unite a race, especially when the race concerned is an old and strongly glued race.
On the other hand the Malays are never 90% united; even the Indians were, in the 2008 general election when they fought for the rights of their race under HINDRAF.
As for the Malays, racial unity is not quite inherent in it. Malays in Malaysia are Muslim, but Islam may have a different view on unity. Hence, PAS regard fight for ones race as unislamic, but instead they struggle for unity as Muslims. Hence we have two political parties deeply entrenched in the Malay heartland, namely UMNO which fights for Malay race as priority and PAS fighting for Islam. Wth the above background, the Malays will never be united up to 90% level in Malaysia.
At most time since independence, the Malays are adequately united behind UMNO in Semenanjung Malaysia. The worst case was experinced in the 1999 General Election when the Malays were equally divided between the opposition and Barisan Nasional. But this was an unusual time of Malay anger out of huge outpouring of sympathy subsequent to the Anwar Ibrahim saga. At more normal time as in the 2008 General Election, Malay unity was still around 54% for BN and in the recent GE 13, Malay support for BN was more than 60%.
The above figures indicate that while the Malays have a lot of reasons to be dvided, they nevertheless get more united behind UMNO and BN when they sense political threat from the Chinese. Probably the Malays after all know how and when to get united when their dominant role in the country is under threat.
DAP and the Red Beans Army better stop under-rating the Malay intelligence. You better be honest in what you are fighting for and find a win win formula without threat to the Malay political dominance, otherwise the Chinese will always be at the losing end as I have predicted just before the Sarawak State Election and the 13th General Election.
[This is the end of Part 2. This will soon be followed by Part 3, Is PKR the driving force or a stumbling block to a two party system?]
DAH IKHWAN
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