YESTERDAY’S six-state elections confirmed what we have suspected and feared all along, that Malays are now deeply and dangerously polarised. This was gleaned earlier from reviewing the general election last November. While the just-completed elections did not result in the change any of the state governments, with last November’s election Pakatan Harapan’s victory in May 2018 was repeated. However, that was prematurely aborted by the conniving Dr Mahathir Mohamad. 

The young, inexperienced Pakatan Harapan (PH) leaders at the time had a misplaced and unwarranted trust in the old man. They naively believed his claim that he was instrumental in toppling Najib Razak. They forgot that it was Dr Mahathir himself who was responsible for Najib’s fast rise in politics in the first place. As could be anticipated, the ever-scheming nonagenarian, together with his backdoor accomplices Muhyiddin Yassin and Azmin Ali, ended PH’s short-lived government. The pair is rightly cursed as pengkhianat negara (national traitors). I would add that description to Dr Mahathir.

The state polls also revealed a hitherto ignored but disturbing development – the rise of the Islamists and Malay supremacists. If Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, a leader with unchallenged Islamic and nationalist credentials, could not make any inroads against them despite his recent vigorous and tireless campaigning, then no one could.

As such it is time for him and others who share his vision of a peaceful, prosperous and inclusive Malaysia to change tack, and do so dramatically, radically and in no uncertain terms. The threat posed by these Islamists and nationalists is more ominous than that by the communists after the war.

In my book “Towards A Competitive Malaysia” (2007), I wrote that Malaysia remained unique for having defeated the communists, more so as she did it without any foreign military aid. Meanwhile in nearby South Vietnam, the Americans with their greatest economy, mightiest military and their “best and brightest”, could not prevail against the pyjamas-clad Viet Cong.

While then US secretary of defence Robert McNamara was consumed with his infamous “body counts”, the Malaysian effort, led by the brilliant strategist Major General Mahmud Sulaiman, opted for the very opposite tactic. He gave these communist guerillas every chance to surrender and escape from being killed. He saw immense propaganda value in having them alive, repentant and leading productive lives. He analogised the war against the terrorists to exterminating rats. Killing and poisoning them would not work as those rodents could multiply faster. Besides, those poisons could backfire on the innocent. Instead, Mahmud addressed the root causes of communism – by eliminating poverty, providing better education and most of all, assuring and promising them a peaceful productive life out of the fetid Malaysian jungle.

Anwar must adopt a similar counterintuitive strategy. Strip these disruptive and destructive Islamists and nationalists of the self-styled characterisations as defenders of Islam and pejuang bangsa (champions of the race). Expose their vacuity and lack of constructive ideas. Islam needs no defending, least of all from these scoundrels.

Anwar had correctly begun by arresting corrupt leaders. He should go further and much more aggressively. Recruit accomplished foreign prosecutors and investigators. Then, and most of all, address the grouses of these latter-day pejuang bangsa dan agama, in particular their plaintive cry on their current pathetic state that mocks their claim of Malaysia being “Tanah Airku”. I agree with their lament but alas disagree profoundly as to the needed remedies.

With the Islamists, Anwar should distance himself from the likes of the Indonesian Abdul Somad Batubara as well as the less virulent but no less destructive local variants found at such places as the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (Istac) and local public campuses. Instead, invite the likes of the Harvard-trained Ulil Abdulla and the New York-based Syamsul Ali. Singapore wisely banned this Somad charlatan from entering the republic. Likewise with those Malay intellectuals in Majlis Profesor Negara; instead invite successful Malay entrepreneurs, professionals and scientists to Sri Perdana. That would at least inspire the young. My late father had an apt expression on our current practice of honouring the corrupt and the losers: membajakan lalang (fertilising weeds).

The greatest contributor to the lack of Malay competitiveness and thus our current blighted condition is, apart from corruption, the education system. Revamp the national curriculum to make all Malaysians fluently bilingual (Malay and English), literate in the sciences and competent in mathematics. Get rid of Jakim and other religious bodies. Use the funds saved to build libraries and laboratories in national schools and recruit well-trained teachers. Stop sending our students to mediocre foreign universities.

Anwar does not need to be reminded that in the 1986 national election, a few years after he joined Umno, PAS won only one out of the 177 parliamentary seats. To beat the Islamists and Malay nationalists, Anwar’s top priority must be to make Malays competitive so we could be respected in Tanah Airku, and to be worthy of Hang Tuah’s immortal exhortation: Takkan Melayu hilang di dunia! (We will never be lost in this world!) – August 13, 2023.

* M. Bakri Musa reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.