TWO incidents just weeks before Merdeka Day symbolise the legacy of Malaysia’s political model: having different cups for non-Muslim pupils and dangling the Bumiputera status before the Indian Muslim community.

This is where 60 years of Barisan Nasional’s politics have brought us.

For all the relative peace and harmony of the past six decades, Malaysians remain trapped in silos of race and religion, each suspicious and competing with each other for privileges.

But, BN’s model of consociation politics is not unique, academics say. The model, which is at the heart of the BN structure, has also been practised in other post-colonial countries that have deeply divided ethnic communities.

What is special about Malaysia is that the model has lasted this long.

Political scientist Dr Meredith L. Weiss wrote in 2013 that the model had been useful for Southeast Asian nations, including Malaysia, to manage the complex demands of their multiethnic societies.

But, the model should be taken as a “starting point” instead of a “destination”, said Weiss in her paper, titled The Consociational Model in Southeast Asia, is it (Still) Relevant?

Sharing power

Simply put, consociation is a model on sharing power in a country deeply divided along racial, religious or linguistic lines, that they have their own political parties, media and interest groups.

According to Arend Lijphart, the political scientist who coined the term, such a system produces a “government by elite cartel designed to turn a democracy with a fragmented political culture into a stable democracy”.

In Malaya, the Alliance comprising Umno, MCA and MIC exemplified this model – each ethnic group had one party that negotiated on behalf of the community it represented with the other parties.

In 1974, BN replaced the Alliance and included parties representing Sarawak and Sabah’s diverse communities.

Inter-ethnic relations expert Professor Mansor Mohd Nor said the consociation model was easily adopted in Malaysia due to the country’s history.

He said Malay-Muslim rulers since the pre-colonial Malacca Sultanate had practised a policy of integration when it came to other communities.

This is different from a policy of assimilation, where non-native communities would give up their cultural or ethnic identities in exchange for a common national identity and citizenship.

The Constitution, said Mansor, was based on integration.

“Islam is the religion of the federation, but other faiths can still be practised. Malays, and Sabah and Sarawak natives have a special position, but the rights of other communities are also protected by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong.

“In consociation politics, there is negotiation or mediation to reach a consensus on every issue… so as to build social unity among different ethnic groups, making the country peaceful, harmonious and stable,” said Mansor, from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Inter-ethnic Studies Institute.

He argues that even if opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan were to take over the government, it would still need to practise a form of consociation.

Deepening divisions

The offset is that while it promotes acceptance among divergent communities, consociationalism tends to enhance those divisions instead of getting rid of them.

By structuring governance around social divisions, it may evade or undercut efforts to diminish those divisions, wrote Weiss.

A Hulu Langat school having different drinking cups for Muslim and non-Muslim pupils is an example of that, although to BN’s credit, its ministers ordered the policy to be abolished.

In its Malaysian Racial Discrimination Report 2016, civil society group Pusat Komas said incidences of discrimination continued to be high last year.

“The government seemed to have reneged on several of its substantive promises to promote national unity and social cohesion in the country,” the report said.

For instance, it said, the 1Malaysia concept and formation of the National Unity Consultative Council introduced by Prime Minister Najib Razak to promote national unity had ceased to exist.

The Bumiputera-status-for-Indian-Muslims issue also shows how social divisions that come with privileges can often be used as political tools.

“It is deplorable that even after 60 years of independence and 54 years since the formation of Malaysia, the term ‘Bumiputera’ continues to be applied only to Malaysians from specific races,” said Pusat Komas in a separate statement on the matter.

“Malaysians from different races are deprived of the same privileges even though they were born and have spent their entire lives in Malaysia since independence.”

An alternative

Instead of continuing consociationalism, former BN deputy minister Saifuddin Abdullah suggests that Malaysians try a political system based on “centripetalism”.

A brainchild of political theorists Donald Horowtiz and Benjamin Reilly, centripetalism encourages politicians to look for support outside their communities rather than concentrating only on the interests of their own groups.

“While consociationalism tends to reproduces ethnic division at all levels in a society, the centripetal approach aims to encourage moderation on ethnic issues,” wrote Laurent de Briey in Centripetalism in Consociational Democracy: the Multiple Proportional Vote.

The main issue was whether it was better to have communal representatives, or politicians representing the whole nation, de Briey wrote.

In the Malaysian context, it is a choice between continuing to have leaders who look out only for Malays, Chinese, Indians, Sabahans and Sarawakians, or those who look out for all Malaysians.

BN, through its Transformasi Nasional 2050 initiative, says it is working towards a system of leaders who look out for all Malaysians, or in other words, a Bangsa Malaysia model, by 2050.

But as PKR Youth chief Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad quipped: “Why wait till 2050 to have Bangsa Malaysia? You can vote for PH next year and get Bangsa Malaysia next year.” – September 3, 2017.