SOME Malaysians — expecting the coming 14th general election (GE14) to be a close-fought battle — seem to be harking back to a bygone era during Singapore’s short-lived stay within the Malaysian federation.
Then, the battle lines seemed to be in most sharp relief: the ideal of non-communal politics versus that enunciated by then Alliance, the precursor to today’s Barisan Nasional.
The contrast to contemporary politics cannot be sharper, but then, the idealism dies hard, no matter that it has regularly been repudiated in successive Malaysian polls and that opinion around it seems to be evolving in, of all places, Singapore itself.
The delicious irony is of course largely lost on many of today’s idealists holding tenaciously to the idea of non-communalism. In rooting for the opposition, they are in fact endorsing as leader the very man, who, unabashedly and vigorously inspired, promoted and advanced communal politics through his authorship of the tome The Malay Dilemma; and subsequent 22 years as prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
It is telling, but, unsurprising that the new party Dr Mahathir leads is as communal as they come, down to its very name, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia. Which is not to suggest that many (particularly among the party’s younger generation) are short on idealism. But, they all seemed to have learned well from the electoral misfortune that befell the non-communal Independence of Malaya Party that Umno founder Datuk Onn Jaafar established in 1951. Political idealism may not be dead today but realism triumphs each and every time.
The new thinking away from political orthodoxy in Singapore is, if anything, perhaps even more startling. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had to jump through hoops around a half-century of political consensus on communalism-free meritocracy in order that he could again ensure a Malay sitting as Singapore’s president. Is that not at least a loosening of the very underpinnings of non-communalism that Lee Kuan Yew fought so strenuously for and was, in fact, willing even to countenance life outside Malaysia rather than sacrifice this most cherished of his ideals?
Singapore’s latter-day conversion from idealism to hard-nosed pragmatism is such that today, the chances are better than ever that the average Singaporean would be more comfortable with Malaysia’s political status quo than to countenance a throwback to recent history with an opposition under Dr Mahathir.
Why so? Largely, because Malaysia held fast to its own political pragmatism against blandishments by all purveyors of idealist political theories. In other words, political thinking outside Malaysia — not just in neighbouring Singapore, but even in the advanced democracies of the West— has evolved to such an extent that instead of being the odd outlier, we now have become perhaps the new mainstream!
Secure perhaps in the knowledge that ours is now very much part of the global political mainstream, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had not felt any need, unlike Dr Mahathir, to be abrasive or prickly in the conduct of our relations with Singapore and much of the rest of the world, principally the West.
The West today seems to be tearing its hair out in some despair that what it used to admonish the rest of us against (the supposed encouragement of so-called identity politics) is now spreading like wild-fire within its own borders.
We used to be at the receiving end of Western criticism for “autocratic” or “authoritarian” leadership and propagating “illiberal democracy”. When such a brand of politics begins to take some serious root in the West, we can almost be certain that that will be the time when we become “rehabilitated” in their eyes.
As Malaysia’s and Singapore’s respective world-views unexpectedly converge today, even more of what used to be regarded as settled political orthodoxy, may end up being turned on its head.
The West, given its own history, is perhaps rightly worried that “illiberal democracy” rearing its head anew within its borders is only a short, sharp step to ugly fascism. But, largely pragmatic Asians have few such worries.
Six decades of our own brand of democracy have brought us to the cusp of high-income, developed-economy status, not an ugly descent into mindless, even violent, extremist politics.
Singapore, meanwhile, leads in showing that uninterrupted and near-absolute political power does not lead to absolute corruption, as liberal democratic theory holds.
The upcoming Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail line will be the showpiece of what is possible as the two countries converge ever more closely.
The writer views developments in the nation, the region and the wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak.