Break the wheel of race politics

Corrupting power: The evolution of Daenerys in Game of Thrones from the oppressed to the oppressor angered many fans, but it is a classic story in literature, and unfortunately very close to real life in politics. - HBO via AP

Daenerys: “Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell - they’re all just spokes on a wheel. This one’s on top, then that one’s on top, and on and on it spins, crushing those on the ground.”

Tyrion: “It’s a beautiful dream, stopping the wheel. You’re not the first person who’s ever dreamt it.”

Daenerys: “I’m not going to stop the wheel, I’m going to break the wheel.” – Season 5, Game of Thrones

FAST forward to Season 8 (spoiler alert), Daenerys eventually becomes the wheel, crushing millions on the ground with fire from the sky.

This theme is familiar to any student of politics.

George Orwell’s Napoleon in Animal Farm is the classic story of the oppressed becoming the oppressor.

Donald Trump ran a campaign on “draining the swamp” in Washington of the elite, only to fill nearly every post in his cabinet with people famed for protecting the elite at the expense of everyone else.

The campaign promise is always change; the elected reality seems to often eventually be “more of the same”.

Thinking that politicians are all the same right from the start, however, may be a cynical oversimplification.

The interpretation I prefer is that unless we make a very conscious, genuine effort to replace the old with the new, the old persists. Without principles and fortitude, we have a situation where old roles define timid politicians, rather than having courageous politicians define roles.

When we say GE 14 was a defining moment for Malaysia, we sometimes forget the particular importance and relevance of the word “defining”.

Redefining Malaysia after GE 14 was not just an opportunity - it was a necessity.

Everyone knew this was a New Malaysia, but without the right narrative from the top, no one really knew what this New Malaysia really was. This was terra nova - new and unfamiliar ground.

The failure of our new leaders to recognise the importance of properly defining and shaping the concept of “New Malaysia” was not only tragic; it also created a vacuum.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and after an uncomfortable, anxiety-ridden year of waiting for New Malaysia to be defined, Old Malaysia has started to (re)define it for us.

In psychology, there is a concept known as “repetition compulsion” (Sigmund Freud). Building on the work of Freud, psychoanalyst Otto Fenichel wrote in 1946: “One chooses his or her most familiar experiences consistently as a means to deal with problems of the past, believing that new experiences will be more painful than their present situation or too new and untested to imagine.”

Another psychoanalyst, Professor Erik Erikson wrote in 1973 about how “the individual unconsciously arranges for variations of an original theme which he has not learned either to overcome or to live with.”

Without strong leadership, the Old Malaysia within us is channeling our anxiety into the forms of conflict that are most familiar to them - instigating racial and religious conflict, distrust, and fearmongering.

If we take an objective look at issues like khat and Zakir Naik, these are issues that are more emotional than they are substantive.

Neither issue will threaten our livelihood, or are likely to have an affect on the day to day lives of ordinary Malaysians.

Yet, they have gripped the imagination of Malaysians and touched off a firestorm of controversy. Tensions are flaring to levels that may well be the highest since GE 14, or even well before.

This is because these issues speak to what contemporary scholar Francis Fukuyama calls “thymos” - a sense of identity and self worth.

Some non-Malays look at khat and Zakir Naik as an effort by Malays to suppress and deny their cultural identity and dignity. The irony of course is that some Malays see the non-Malay responses to these issues as an effort by non-Malays to do the exact same thing.

This cycle of distrust is familiar to any Malaysian, because we have lived with it for decades. Indeed, our entire political system is built on this distrust. This is why at the very beginning of our journey as a nation, we felt we needed at least one political party for each ethnic group.

Once that system became enshrined, it marked the beginning of an era - not one of politicised race, but one of racialised politics. The question is: Did GE 14 mark an end to this era or not?

For most of the years in which Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was first Prime Minister, Barisan Nasional was so dominant that the primary political conflict was not between the ruling coalition and the opposition, but within the race based parties within the ruling coalition (a situation we seem closer to recreating every day).

As a result, almost all social and political issues began to be seen through racial lenses.

Having this racist system in place for decades has poisoned Malaysia’s sociopolitical fabric; perhaps more importantly, it has become Malaysia’s ‘normal’ – the very thing we repeat compulsively.

We are coming to see that it is not ‘being DAP’ that defines DAP, or ‘being MCA’ that defines MCA. What defines them is whether they are in the government or the opposition.

Once they swapped positions after GE 14, we can slowly see signs of DAP acting and talking like MCA used to, while MCA is beginning to act and talk like DAP used to. The actors have swapped roles, but the script is tragically the same.

Dr Mahathir meanwhile seems to be displaying classic repetition compulsion. When it came time to choose whether Bersatu would be monoethnic or multiethnic, they chose monoethnic – just like Umno.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Dr Mahathir was encouraging P Waythamoorthy’s efforts to set up an Pakatan Harapan friendly Indian party to complete the Animal Farm ending to our story, where the new coalition looks exactly like the old one.

At this point, we really have to ask: is Dr Mahathir’s actual end goal to recreate the old system he is so very familiar with?

It seems that GE 14 is showing us that having the removal of one coalition, party, or person as the primary shared goal may be enough to win you an election - but it isn’t enough to reform a nation.

It turns out, having no genuine plan or vision (or secretly having conflicting ones) is a recipe for disaster - or at the very least, for landing us right back where we started.

Errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum – To err is human, to persist in error is of the devil.

While we may not have reached the point of no return for Harapan, that point may be fast approaching.

For the rest of us, one way or another, hopefully we will internalise the lesson that the difficult work of building a truly better Malaysia must begin with a proper vision that understands both what was wrong with the old Malaysia, and what exactly we want the new Malaysia to look like. Ambiguity and indecision will bring us nowhere.

Getting rid of race-based parties and a race-obsessed mentality would be an excellent start. Perhaps we should worry less about the fears of the electorate or those who would prey on those fears, and focus more on boldly leading the electorate to a better future for all.

NATHANIEL TAN is a consultant specialising in impactful communication and navigating public perception. He wishes Team Mineski all the best in TI9!

The views expressed here are his own.