Curing Malaysia’s national psychosis

The only hope for a cure is for intellectuals, activists, writers, lawyers and other professional people, members of Royal families, along with ordinary citizens, led by those who once experienced a Malaysian Malaysia to come together to initiate change. This doesn’t have to immediately become a political movement, but a diversity of social and cultural organizations that refocus the narratives back to the old Nusantaravalues, society once cherished. This movement could advocate de-Arabizing the Malay language, and returning to Islam Hadhari (today) with its wider universal values. Kampongs need revitalization, where mosques become centres of vocational and community education. Cottage industry can be revitalised to develop local sustainable economies. This would also mean dissolving state economic development corporations and their subsidiary companies that are full of corruption and taking market-space away from local entrepreneurs.

The states need their sovereignty back. Political centralization must be reversed. They need to campaign for local government and Citizen Development Committees (LPPKN) elections, so that as many people as possible can participate in some level of governance.

The movement would be as much spiritual as it would be political focusing on the similarities rather than the differences between religions. Finally, history needs to be taught as it really was. A country without a deep sense of history is a country without a soul.

If such a movement could ever gain momentum, some of the old political partisans from the PKR, DAP, and political forces in Sabah would come onboard. This is not an impossibility. Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit’s Future Forward Party made a successful debut in Thailand’s general election last year, and is very quickly becoming a mass social movement aimed at changing Thailand’s current political paradigm.

Curing Malaysia’s National Psychosis

Murray Hunter

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.