Of Supremacists- The Malaysian Insider
13 December, 2010 - Ketuanan Melayu or Ketuanan Rakyat? Purely in terms of electoral numbers, the two phrases try and demarcate the voting population into two roughly equal blocs.
According to the current political thinking, there are a large number of supporters of the status quo, of the way things have always been done and who are increasingly uncomfortable with what they see as attempts to take away their rights, indeed their country.
On the other hand is another large set of people fed on global notions of secularism and democracy where governments administer on the basis of economic needs and merit and are officially blind to the idea of creating or encouraging inequality on any other basis.
So the polemic of ketuanan rakyat tries to set up what seems to be a very direct bipolar choice for the voter. Politically this bipolarity has the potential to become the defining issue of the next general election as it pits two very distinct worldviews against each other in an easy-to-understand way for the electorate.
Interestingly, a lot of other bipolar alternative labels can be neatly subsumed under them — liberal/conservative, democrat/royalist, theocratic/secular, etc.
If both coalitions were happy with this starkness, the voters would have a very clear choice. In life, though, rarely are things ever so simple.
Modern political instinct militates against such sharp black-or-white distinctions because it carries the risk of permanent alienation of a part of the audience. Also, it is hard to be completely sure that the majority of voters truly believe in your position over the other. Therefore, they try and hedge their bets.
So ketuanan Melayu comes with a clarification that championing the rights of one race does not mean ignoring the rights of other races and ketuanan rakyat is at pains to stress that it does not imply challenging Article 153 of the Constitution or rejecting the institution of the Malay Rulers.
Everybody has tinkered with the phrase in question in an attempt to be inclusive but in actual fact the slogans tend to lose all the different nuances being superimposed on them altogether. This is where the problems begin. Once the waters are sufficiently muddied by endless justifications and recriminations, what we are left with are just the two phrases.
Given that this residual memory is all that most of us can retain on any issue given the information overload that we carry today, the choice of words used then becomes extremely important. The phrase runs the risk of becoming shorthand for everything that BN or PKR stands for.
Supremacy is a very unambiguous term. It admits of only one meaning, that of being above everyone else. When linked to Melayu, it retains its unambiguousness and single mindedness. But when linked to rakyat, it becomes very ambiguous.
Many different meanings can be attached to the supremacy of the people. Which people, which race, which gender, etc, are all open to debate. Purely from a politician’s viewpoint, the latter is infinitely preferable as it doesn’t force a particular position on the claimant.
In the West too, political slogans are reflecting this movement away from a definitive stance to motherhood statements. “Yes, we can” and “Change we can believe in” carried much more power than John McCain’s “Reform. Prosperity. Peace.” in the 2008 US presidential campaign.
Of course, the US and Malaysian electorate are concerned over very different issues and the example used is by no means definitive. But over a longer period of time as our society matures, divides on multiple lines and interests and complexity become a part of everyday life, black-or-white slogans are likely to prove to be counterproductive.
This is why political slogans are used today after a lot of thought. Purely from this standpoint, in the long term ketuanan Melayu seems to be a risky road to go down.
1 Malaysia, in contrast, takes the bite out of ketuanan rakyat easily and in fact from a communication viewpoint is by far the best of the three. Of course the problem is that it seems to be in direct opposition to ketuanan Melayu.
At some point a choice will have to be made by the ruling coalition, or the two to be proven not to be antithetical, otherwise all credibility could be lost.
And whatever happened to “People First. Performance Now.”? It seems to be almost an orphan child now.
Personally though, I have to say that I believe that Johnny Bravo reigns supreme.
According to the current political thinking, there are a large number of supporters of the status quo, of the way things have always been done and who are increasingly uncomfortable with what they see as attempts to take away their rights, indeed their country.
On the other hand is another large set of people fed on global notions of secularism and democracy where governments administer on the basis of economic needs and merit and are officially blind to the idea of creating or encouraging inequality on any other basis.
So the polemic of ketuanan rakyat tries to set up what seems to be a very direct bipolar choice for the voter. Politically this bipolarity has the potential to become the defining issue of the next general election as it pits two very distinct worldviews against each other in an easy-to-understand way for the electorate.
Interestingly, a lot of other bipolar alternative labels can be neatly subsumed under them — liberal/conservative, democrat/royalist, theocratic/secular, etc.
If both coalitions were happy with this starkness, the voters would have a very clear choice. In life, though, rarely are things ever so simple.
Modern political instinct militates against such sharp black-or-white distinctions because it carries the risk of permanent alienation of a part of the audience. Also, it is hard to be completely sure that the majority of voters truly believe in your position over the other. Therefore, they try and hedge their bets.
So ketuanan Melayu comes with a clarification that championing the rights of one race does not mean ignoring the rights of other races and ketuanan rakyat is at pains to stress that it does not imply challenging Article 153 of the Constitution or rejecting the institution of the Malay Rulers.
Everybody has tinkered with the phrase in question in an attempt to be inclusive but in actual fact the slogans tend to lose all the different nuances being superimposed on them altogether. This is where the problems begin. Once the waters are sufficiently muddied by endless justifications and recriminations, what we are left with are just the two phrases.
Given that this residual memory is all that most of us can retain on any issue given the information overload that we carry today, the choice of words used then becomes extremely important. The phrase runs the risk of becoming shorthand for everything that BN or PKR stands for.
Supremacy is a very unambiguous term. It admits of only one meaning, that of being above everyone else. When linked to Melayu, it retains its unambiguousness and single mindedness. But when linked to rakyat, it becomes very ambiguous.
Many different meanings can be attached to the supremacy of the people. Which people, which race, which gender, etc, are all open to debate. Purely from a politician’s viewpoint, the latter is infinitely preferable as it doesn’t force a particular position on the claimant.
In the West too, political slogans are reflecting this movement away from a definitive stance to motherhood statements. “Yes, we can” and “Change we can believe in” carried much more power than John McCain’s “Reform. Prosperity. Peace.” in the 2008 US presidential campaign.
Of course, the US and Malaysian electorate are concerned over very different issues and the example used is by no means definitive. But over a longer period of time as our society matures, divides on multiple lines and interests and complexity become a part of everyday life, black-or-white slogans are likely to prove to be counterproductive.
This is why political slogans are used today after a lot of thought. Purely from this standpoint, in the long term ketuanan Melayu seems to be a risky road to go down.
1 Malaysia, in contrast, takes the bite out of ketuanan rakyat easily and in fact from a communication viewpoint is by far the best of the three. Of course the problem is that it seems to be in direct opposition to ketuanan Melayu.
At some point a choice will have to be made by the ruling coalition, or the two to be proven not to be antithetical, otherwise all credibility could be lost.
And whatever happened to “People First. Performance Now.”? It seems to be almost an orphan child now.
Personally though, I have to say that I believe that Johnny Bravo reigns supreme.
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