By Farish A. Noor

The dangerous thing about sectarian politics is how it becomes normalised so easily and quickly. Taking a leaf from the book of Speer and Goebels, the old Fascist maxim proves itself true time and again: Once the public is made to realise that they are impotent and unable to affect change, the ruling elite can hoist almost anything upon them. One affront leads to another, and the common tactic is to follow-up a public outrage with yet another that is even more outrageous. Hence when politicians issue their sexist slurs and the the media reacts to them, the tactic often favoured by some is to reply with a racist slur even more unpalatable to most right-minded adults.

We have seen this strategy employed so often by now: The rise of the extreme Hindu right in India was a case of leap-frogging from one insulting comment against Muslims, Christians and other minorities to the next. Likewise the shift to the right that is seen in Europe today was occasioned by extreme right-wing politicians vying for media attention and out-doing themselves by playing to the gallery.

Malaysia of course is no exception to the rule and during the last five decades the tone and tenor of Malaysian politics has been set by the standards of racialised communitarian politics that is divisive to the country. Again and again we have seen Malaysian politicians come to power by playing the race – and now increasingly religion – card above all else, pandering to their own communities at the expense of the rest. And over the past three years in particular the country has witnessed the rising of its political temperature thanks to the amateurish pyrotechnics of loud politicians standing on the soapbox to play to the communitarians in their midst. The precedent was set three years ago when the leader of the Youth Wing of the ruling UMNO party – Hishamuddin Hussein – brandished a keris – the traditional Malay dagger – in a symbolic act of defiance that many regarded as frothy bravado and little else. In the context of multi-racial Malaysia where racial sensitivities run deep, such gestures can have the effect of antagonising the non-Malay and non-Muslim communities further and deepening the racial divide that already splits the country in many ways.

At this years General Assembly of the UMNO party the leaders of the UMNO Youth Wing were once again seen playing with their toys in public, claiming that their gesture was intended to symbolise UMNO’s fighting spirit (odd to say the least, considering the UMNO did not engage in armed struggle against the colonial powers of the past but rather opted for a more docile form of negotiation instead) and commitment to the country. Needless to say the expected reaction has ensued, with many members of the non-Malay and non-Muslim communities worried about the growing assertion of Mlalay-Muslim dominance in the country.

Ironically, the spin-doctors of UMNO have been hard at work to justify the symbolic unsheathing of the keris and the hysterical screaming and yelling of slogans that often follows. Cognisant of the fact that the juvenile antics of the party’s leaders are under scrutiny, at this years UMNO assembly the leaders of the party went to great lengths to explain how and why the keris was unsheathed and brandished in public on stage. The UMNO party’s deputy leader Najib Razak went as far as claiming that the waving of the keris should not be interpreted by the non-Malays as a declaration of war, but rather as the party’s defence of the Malay race. Where, pray tell, is the difference?

No matter how hard the spin-doctors of UMNO try to pass off this episode as another harmless escapade in the party’s sorry history, the fact remains that racial and communal tensions are high in the country at the moment. While the ethno-nationalist Malay communitarians of UMNO claim that their party is merely there to defend the Malay race, the fact remains that this defence of ‘Malayness’ is couched in terms of a rhetoric and discourse of Malay supremacy. Furthermore the non-Malays of Malaysia are left with the stark reality that while UMNO caters primarily to Malay demands, dozens of Hindu temples have been demolished all over the country and the non-Muslim NGOs of Malaysia are increasingly vocal in their defence of the rights of non-Muslim citizens.

But UMNO’s hotheads have been caught in a trap of their own making. During a previous assembly the very same leader of UMNO Youth was challenged by an UMNO delegate who asked him : ‘Now that you have unsheathed the keris, when will you use it?’ This is the real context against which such puerile and shameless theatrics are being enacted: of a party that is becoming increasingly insecure, defensive and unsure of its future, edged and goaded by irresponsible politicians who have let the genie of communitarianism out of the bottle and are now unable to put it back in. One is reminded of the likewise violent symbolism of the extreme right wing BJP and RSS in India, whose leaders brandished Indian swords – tulwars and shamsirs – before their supporters and potential voters, and who later claimed that they were not responsible for unleashing the racial and religious terror that swept across states like Gujarat.

Malaysia’s politicians would do better to grow up and behave like matured adults who can deal with real issues such as corruption, abuse of power and the crisis of confidence in the judiciary rather than playing with knives on the stage. The growing income disparity in Malaysia, the low ranking of Malaysia in the press freedom index, the brain drain which is leading to the loss of thousands of intelligent and educated professionals; are all real problems that need real solutions put forward by sincere politicians with real intelligence. Leave the knife in the kitchen, and try to manage the country instead: That would be sage advice to Youth leaders who should have grown up long ago.