FROM a historical perspective, ‘Ketuanan Melayu’ refers to Malay dominance which made them masters of their destiny in their own land.
They were lords under their respective sultans and raja who were then absolute monarchs before the British colonisation of Tanah Melayu.
With colonisation, the concept of Ketuanan shifted to the British who usurped the powers of the sultans and raja in all matters of administration, including economy, security and education but excepting religious and cultural matters.
By the time of independence, Ketuanan Melayu was further eroded with the British guile of granting citizenship to the immigrant population on the basis of jus soli.
To give a semblance of dominance and the loss of sovereign rights, the British included special rights of the Malays in a system of constitutional monarchy with Malay as the national language and Islam as the official religion.
But when the British engineered the move to include the other races as an integral part of the movement of independence, the fate of the nation was no longer determined only by the Malay imperatives but also the interests of the other races.
The Malays could no longer chart their own destiny, which had become entwined with those of the new citizens.
Now, Ketuanan Melayu has become a misnomer, for the Malays are no longer masters of all they survey. They cannot hold political power on their own without forging a coalition with the other races.
The sultans and raja, too, had lost their absolute powers when the British colonised Tanah Melayu, and they almost gave up whatever trimmings of power they had when they signed in favour of the Malayan Union.
With the intervention of the Malays who opposed the Malayan Union, the sultans and raja managed to salvage some of their powers, and with independence were installed as constitutional monarchs.
The trappings of official ceremonies highlighting Malay culture and heritage gave a false impression of Malay dominance. In fact, the lot of the Malays has deteriorated from one of dominance to one of subservience as their economic power has been whittled down to well below parity in comparison with the other races who not only gained citizenship but also ownership of land.
After losing the 14th General Election after having been in power for 61 years, Umno realised that without political power that enabled it to assume the posture of master of the land and avail itself of the riches of the country, it could no longer resort to the ploy of the sectarian Ketuanan Melayu. That it was the saviour of the Malay race and of its economic interests.
Together with Pas, whose leaders have all along assumed the mantle of Umno’s political shenanigans, the leaders of these two political parties have joined forces to emphasise Malay dominance in the political equation of the country rallying around race, religion and royalty, the three ingredients of the rustic Malay psyche.
Pas accentuates Ketuanan Melayu by assuming the emotions of megalothema as the sole custodian of Islam, while Umno stakes a claim to Ketuanan Melayu by virtue of it having ancestral links to feudalism under the patronage of the monarchy.
Both these parties want to create a state based on ethno-nationalism that would trap its members in emotional dependence on the vestiges of Ketuanan Melayu.
And it has so far worked as they stoke up the fear of losing not only their birthrights (ketuanan) , but also the need to protect Islam from the infidels.
This current drumming up of such fears has further destabilised the Malays by putting them in a constant state of trepidation and uncertainty and suspicious of any inclusive efforts that take into account the reality of the current political and economic situation.
As long as the Malays are duped by unscrupulous politicians to cling to this false sentiment of Ketuanan Melayu, expecting others to respect the spurious assumptions of inalienable rights, the Malays will not progress while other races perpetuate and advance their economic and political interests.
The stumbling block to the Malays are the politicians, who because of greed for power and riches, propagate the emotions of false security of Ketuanan Melayu.
The Malays need to discard this entrapment of feudalistic tendencies to believe in all utterances from their self-serving leaders as the gospel truth.
Ketuanan Melayu shackles the mind and restrains efforts to face challenges, and perpetuates the tendency to expect preferential treatment without expending the required effort to earn it. It erroneously calcifies the feeling of megalothema with the expectation of things to be served on a platter.
The Malays must realise that it is not demographic factors, but economic and intellectual powers and professionalism that give dominance. Heritage and lineage, which previously were the criteria of Ketuanan Melayu, are no longer applicable in the contemporary world.
The dream world of Ketuanan Melayu has long gone and if the Malays persist in existing in this unrealised realm of their psyche, it will turn to a nightmare. Thus they need to wake up to the realities of a plural society in a globalised world that only recognises efforts of ingenuity and creativity rather than past glories and lineage.
The writer is an emeritus professor at the Centre for Policy Research and International Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang