Curing Malaysia’s national psychosis

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.

When comparing Malaysian governmental decision making with the outcomes of other nations, Malaysia can be seen as being outside the gamut of normality. Other governments across the world try to build community integration, enhance the national culture, and hold nationhood as something sacrosanct, whereas Malaysian leaders are for political ends allowing these things to deteriorate.

Thus, a national psychosis exists. This is the reason why reform is off the national agenda, as reform challenges the ruling elites’ view of the reality of how they see Malaysia. Through transference, political reform is feared as an attack on authority, status, prestige, and the very security of those in power. These fears are currently projected onto the DAP, a member of the ruling coalition, which is now seen by some in power as an ‘evil’ force.

Symptoms of this psychosis are strewn around the national narrative. This narrative has become an instrument of exclusion, where the roles of groups working towards independence have been largely rewritten to serve the perceptions of the leaders of today. The aspirations of Sabahans, Sarawakians, and Orang Asli(the true indigenous people), have been excluded. This was seen in one of the final directives given by the ex-education minister Maszlee Malik before he was sacked in appointing a non-Sarawakian Kamal Mat Salihas chairman of the board of directors of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), which has led to criticism and outrage by some Sarawakians.  

There is no narrative of inclusiveness anymore in Malaysia. Today’s narratives are focused on severing empathetic ties between the various ethnic groups, replacing them with a biased single narrative akin to the film Tanda Putera, which according to critics gave a biased view of Malaysia’s First Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman over the May 13 1969 incident.

With thanks to a mentality within the national education system that frames exam questions claiming Zakir Naik is an Islamic icon teaching ‘true Islam’, more than two generations of Malays now behave according to the beliefs and values incorporated within these narrow vistas of reality. This denies the cascade of alternative perceptions and views that would accompany a true multi-cultural nation. The current national narratives completely fail to encompass any evolving aspirations that promote any semblance of national unity. 

What is completely missing from the current national narratives are any aspirations about the dreams the nation was founded upon. There is just a subliminal sense of loss, something is missing. An alternative sense of identity has crept in – divisiveness, exclusion, and hate. Today’s narratives lack any optimism. They are depressive, holding onto an outdated caste concept. Malaysia is now a prisoner of the paradigm of division, a culture of segregation manifested by an institutionalized psychosis.

Malaysians now live within a psychic prison that is full of illusions about enemies which don’t exist. People are suffering from hallucinations about the Jewish plot, the Christian plot, and the Chinese plot. Threats from communism have long disappeared in history. Paranoia is behind the disappearance of Pastor Koh and Amri Che Mat. Lack of transparency, the failure to introduce Freedom of information (FOI), and ministerial cover ups are based on fear that the people will see the shortcomings of government. The centralization of decision making, often within secretive circumstances indicates the government’s fear of scrutinization. This paranoia is displayed in the way ministers attack those who expose their shortcomings.

The ‘Eros complex’ hypocrisy of the governing elite is projected onto LGBT, Shia and liberal Muslims, who become the enemy of the state.