The Inevitable Demise of Ketuanan Melayu

Sigh...times must be tough for all these Ketuanan Melayu UMNO (KeMaNo) types lately. What with the Indonesians openly rejecting and ridiculing Malaysia for stealing their batik la, folk songs la, dances la, etc.

This could be the final nail in the Ketuanan Melayu doctrine's coffin. I mean, how can they continue all this talk about the supremacy of the Malay race across the Nusantara (as defined by these KeMaNo-types) when the Nusantara taiko thinks you're a childish idiot and refuses to play with you?

I mean, just look at some of the articles being published in the Jakarta Post – one of Indonesia's most respected papers. It's really putting the UMNO regime and Malaysia in a terrible light among the international community!

Nothing seems to be going right for these KeMaNo types and their lackeys these days. I can't help but wonder whether all that is happening in the country is a Divine message to UMNO/BN. Something like the 10 plagues God sent to Pharaoh to teach him a lesson and compel him to free His people from captivity.

I mean, NINE bye-elections in 1.5 years since GE12? That's definitely a record in any country! And SIX of them because of death? Whoa...! Like I wrote in HartalMSM, 2 events coinciding is unusual, 3 events is freaky. Now this is SIX death events – it looks a lot less like coincidence and a lot more like coordination, don't it? Divine coordination, that is!

Anyway, back to the Ketuanan Melayu UMNO proponents.

Their fantasy had always been that the Nusantara was the seat of Malay hegemony until it was unceremoniously conquered by the Western forces, who then polluted the pure Malay racial demographic with immigrants from China and India. The sore point for such Ketuanan Melayu UMNO proponents like KijangMas and Jebat Must Die is that these immigrants are still maintaining some semblance of their racial identity in Malaysia – which is anathema to their idea of political hegemony via complete racial dominance.

As KijangMas of the wildly popular DemiNegara blog puts it:

Fundamentally, a member of the Bangsa Malaysia should speak the national language of the Federation, Bahasa Malaysia, fluently and as a primary language; be fully versed with adat-adat and tatasusila orang Melayu and other Bumiputras of the Federation; demonstrates respect and deference to Islam as the official religion of the Federation and exhibit traits and mannerisms acceptable to the Malays and other Bumiputras. Non-Malay members of this Bangsa Malaysia may speak in their own dialects in private and may practise their own cultures and religions in the private confines of their community. Also, Budaya Malaysia is based on the budaya of the Malays and other Bumiputras of the Federation – in their various representations.

That is, to be worthy to live in the Nusantara area (specifically Malaysia), you need to be either a pure Malay or a pseudo-Malay. No other option is “acceptable”. According to the wisdom of KijangMas, this can be achieved by forced assimilation programmes, ala Indonesia and Thailand:

“Thailand is case in point. In the 1930s, ethnic-Chinese make up over 30% of then-Siam’s population. They were vigorously assimilated under Field Marshal Phibun Songkhram’s Thai Ratthaniyom (Thai Customs) Decree of 1938, where their ethnicity was abolished; anyone speaking Chinese in public would be smacked by a 10-ft bamboo stick by the Thai Culture Police; Chinese schools and newspapers were closed; chopsticks were banned; and the Chinese were compelled to adopt Thai names. Within one generation, the Chinese of Thailand was totally assimilated into Thai society”

This piece of “wisdom” so praised by the KeMaNo types is nothing but pure drivel! And sheer hypocrisy. Because in the same article where KijangMas praises Thailand's forced assimilation programme, he writes:

“...the old Malay kingdom of Patani, was overrun and annexed in 1902, and today three million Malays there simmer under Thai occupation. Kelantan extricated itself in the nick of time in 1909. Otherwise, KijangMas would be posting as ศรกนกกระจง from กรุงเทพมหานคร.”

Oi! If KijangMas wants to praise the forced assimilation of minorities, at least be be consistent about it la. He should be also praising the forced assimilation of the Malay minority into Thailand and not be “simmering” about them being under Thai occupation!

KijangMas – what a bloody hypocrite!

But, I'm digressing even further. I don't want to write about the drivel emanating from the “eminent” KeMaNo blogs like DemiNegara and Jebat Must Die. This article is actually to highlight the imminent demise of the Ketuanan Melayu UMNO doctrine – and about time too!

Like I said – the Ketuanan Melayu UMNO concept is based on the fantasy of complete Malay hegemony in the Nusantara region. Their proponents strongly point to Thailand as the model (surprising, since Thailand is a country where Malays are a small minority.) These fellas also speak in awe of the INDONESIAN model where the Chinese are forced to assimilate into the local culture, forbidden to practise their culture, speak their language or even have Chinese names. And these Ketuanan Melayu types are yelping for the same to be done here in Malaysia.

Read the article here and you can see just how these KeMaNo types are dead set on heading back to the Dark Ages of race relations, hankering for Suharto-style suppression to be implemented in Malaysia.

But what they have NOT pointed out is that Indonesia had been reforming race relations since Abdurrahman Wahid was elected president in 1999. These reforms culminated in the enactment of Citizenship Law 12 of 2006 which abolished the distinction between pribumi (or bumiputra in Malaysia's context) and non-pribumis, only recognising citizens and non-citizens. This signalled the liberation of the Indonesian Chinese from Suharto's race-based political hegemony.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono went even further when he attended the ‘United National Indonesian Imlek (Chinese New Year)' celebrations at the Jakarta Fairground in 2007, thus officially recognising the rights of Indonesian Chinese's freedom to celebrate their own culture. The rest of the world looked on in pride and appreciation of Indonesia's step forward after a decade of sometimes deadly political/racial strife.

But apparently not these KeMaNo types. Because EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE MALAYSIAN MSM ignored these giant strides in race relations being made in Indonesia. Such news was hardly featured in our local press – if at all.

Why?

Because our KeMaNo types here are still hankering for Suharto-style absolute political hegemony defined by race/religion! What do you think all these cow-head protests and other such chest-thumping antics are about?

But with Indonesia's incessant attacks on Malaysia lately, all these fantasies by the KeMaNo types are slowly but surely being flushed down the drain, whether they like to believe it or not.

How to justify Ketuanan Melayu modeled after Indonesia, when Indonesia is condemning Malaysia as backward and immature and uncultured? How to justify Ketuanan Melayu as a birthright of the Nusantara pribumi when the Nusantara taiko refuses to play ball with Malaysia? How to sell the idea of Ketuanan Melayu when the original Melayu homeland is liberalising itself for the better?

But the writing on the wall, which was so clear for the world to see, has finally filtered through the thick skulls of these KeMaNo types. They are slowly awakening to the fact that the Ketuanan Melayu doctrine is popular to no one but themselves – there is NO fabled Nusantara-wide support. The KeMaNo types are alone in their fantasyland.

But yet, they still refuse to let it go as we can see from the MSM's (belated) response to the massive Indonesian government, media and online onslaught on Malaysia. But the defensive response so far is a case of too little, too late.

Utusan tried some lame spin to counter the damage and salvage some face. But the rest of the mainstream media are surprisingly quiet amidst the international campaigning against Malaysia. But of course la. Ketuanan Melayu is the clarion call of Utusan. The readership of the other papers are a bit too sane for this kinds of thing.

And just who is Utusan trying to convince with these 2 articles? Local Malays? That is so typical of the big-talking, small-minded, juara kampong mentality of these KeMaNo types. They just can't see beyond the walls of their tiny little tempurung, can they?!

Hello! The damage to Malaysia is being inflicted on the world stage la! The whole world is reading Indonesia's media spins and laughing at Malaysia. And all these KeMaNo types can think of is a couple of lame articles in Utusan for our own local consumption trying to spin that this is “perbuatan segelintir puak ekstrem”?

Ehh...brudder, that line ah, is so overused that even in Malaysia also cannot pakai already la. It may be good enough to fool the limited mental faculties of the KeMaNo types, but this is the world stage we're talking about. You're gonna have to do much better than THAT!

OK la, say these Utusan articles are lucky enough to be picked up by the world media. Is the world community going to believe the lame bleatings of a paper that publishes chest-thumping articles that so blatantly attempts to divide the races in the country? A paper owned by the party that pushes the Ketuanan Melayu doctrine to justify absolute political hegemony?

UMNO's credibility is already irreparably damaged both locally and internationally for its corruption and dangerous political shenanigans. Who's going to believe anything coming out of their spin factories?

That's a double whammy, isn't it?

And what of Malaysia being disowned by the enlightened Nusantara Malay motherland herself?

Those KeMaNo types who are still desperately trying to hang on to the doctrine of Ketuanan Melayu had better come out from under their tempurungs and learn to understand that it is a big, big world out there beyond the comfortable, gold-plated Ketuanan Melayu gates of UMNO. And they had better learn how to deal with it and thrive in it, or else.

Otherwise UMNO will be just another have-been footnote in history.

But while UMNO may yet survive if it manages to reform itself, one thing for sure is that the whole concept of Ketuanan Melayu UMNO is thankfully on the demise.

Because the bratty little boy with the big voice is now all alone in the field because the rest of the children don't want to have anything to do with him.