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| De-Mahathirising Malaysia
Abdullah Badawi�s debt to Reformasi
by Khoo Boo Teik Aliran Monthly 2003:8 Please support our work by buying a copy of our print publication, Aliran Monthly, from your nearest news-stand. Better still take out a subscription now. We also welcome donations.
For the latter, not to act graciously towards their erstwhile leader by offering profuse tributes and making ample gestures of veneration would expose them to charges of base ingratitude. On this score alone, although there are other reasons as well, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his �new team� will lavish Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad�s leave-taking with munificent accolades. Then, in the manner of our local political burlesque, the Barisan Nasional�s ever-ready chorus line will take over. A bevy of �component party heavies� will echo their acclaim (perhaps tearfully to wring maximum voter sympathy in time for the next general election). Is he his own man? Conversely, however, no head of a new administration relishes being regarded as a mere clone or an inferior imitation of �The Old Man� or �The Old Lady�. No, that way invites unfavourable comparisons if not derision. Hence, however volubly the �new� regime professes its debt to the old, or talks about continuity, one shouldn�t be surprised if, after October 2003, Mahathir�s veneration is followed by acts of �de-Mahathirisation�. By de-Mahathirisation, I don�t mean that Abdullah Badawi and his team will glorify Mahathir one day only to vilify him the next. Barefaced hypocrisy of that kind won�t impress a post-Reformasi populace that has learnt from the Anwar Ibrahim affair to treat political sandiwara with contempt. But there is already a polite cipher for de-Mahathirisation. Political gossip and local and foreign media �specials� on Mahathir�s legacy unwittingly invented the cipher when they asked, over and over again, whether, or how, or how successfully Abdullah can show the world that �Pak Lah is his own man�. No more his way Never mind that Abdullah served many years under Mahathir (except when Abdullah was purged from the Cabinet after Team B�s defeat in 1987). One can expect the post-Mahathir leadership to employ suitably timed, carefully calibrated and delicately performed measures to distinguish itself from the old regime. Of course, there are many ways of skinning this �dM� cat. Presently several possibilities suggest themselves. By far the most obvious way is to terminate Anwar Ibrahim�s imprisonment. It shouldn�t matter very much whether the script for Anwar�s freedom follows Mahathir�s resolution of the Harun Idris case over two decades ago. It matters, though, that the �new� UMNO leaders, all complicit in Anwar�s removal, should devise a culturally sensitive and politically safe �win-win� solution that effectively leaves Mahathir solely responsible for that destabilizing disruption of �Malay unity�. (Even if Mahathir loves it not, he will be enough of a realist or cynic to �lump it�.)
Stopping the bashing In policy terms, Vision 2020 and the National Development Policy will remain. But Abdullah is likely to fine-tune, and maybe quietly set aside, certain controversial policies that Mahathir rushed through in the final stages of his premiership. These include policies related to so-called meritocracy in education, expanded use of English, and the withdrawal of government funds from the Sekolah Agama Rakyat. �Malay disunity� having become UMNO�s bane, Abdullah will want to soften, if not abandon, Mahathir�s post-1999 �Malay bashing�. Mahathir�s dire references to a �second Malay dilemma� will have to be muted if not disowned. Given that many different sides have exaggerated the political challenge of Islam, it may be profitable, too, for the new regime to adopt a less antagonistic stance towards non-PAS Islamic dissent. Many of these ways of de-Mahathirising UMNO and Malay politics in general can be carried out under the ambit of the National Social Policy which Abdullah has more or less unveiled (although much of the substance of this policy sounds suspiciously like the concerns of Anwar�s caring civil society). Battered institutions It will be important to Abdullah to comfort the civil service whose status had been downgraded before its loyalty was lost after Anwar�s maltreatment. In the name of �good governance�, corporate and Islamic, which he has taken to stressing lately, Abdullah may choose to reverse the atrophy of many public institutions during Mahathir�s rule. To a few battered institutions of government some semblance of autonomy can be returned. Other neglected departments of state may be encouraged to demonstrate greater professionalism. Despite being regularly abused, Malaysia Incorporated�s government-business framework is too entrenched to be dismantled. But a meaningful moderation of Mahathir�s adulation of privatisation and the private sector will require Abdullah to penalize some unpopular �cronies�, and induct fresh faces to replace non-performing figures in areas of overlapping government and business interests. Dealing with domination Abdullah�s choices and their outcomes will only partially depend on their expected popularity and efficacy of his measures. Abdullah�s political strength will crucially count in three different ways. First, Abdullah must contend with UMNO�s factionalism once the deputy prime minister is named � which in recent years undermined rather than guaranteed an uncontested succession. Second, he has to overcome the residual influence, if not direct resistance, of Mahathir loyalists in and out of government and the corporate world. And third, burdened by the mystique of Mahathir�s �visionary leadership�, Abdullah must quickly debunk a widely held view that �Mahathir�s is an impossible act to follow�, especially if the follower is as colourless as Abdullah himself! The last is not the least of Abdullah�s problems. No staid �Pak Lah� can hope to emulate Mahathir by offering a grand vision that comprehensively addresses the major social issues and expectations of the time. Yet, in one of those ironic twists of history, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, having profited from Anwar�s fall, may profit once more from the damage Reformasi inflicted upon Mahathir�s reputation. Mahathir's appeal Mahathirism, I�ve suggested, was made up of nationalism, capitalism, Islam, populism and authoritarianism. In each of these there were contradictions. Among them were many tensions. But over the years, the co-existence of these components of Mahathirism gained Mahathir an effective appeal. Naturally Mahathir had his devotees for whom he could do no wrong. For many people, however, it was unnecessary to like everything about Mahathir to back him. It was possible, for example, to disapprove of Mahathir�s nationalism but take comfort in his commitment to capitalism. If his nationalist refrains were at odds with globalization, his dedication to technology was not � it was in fact admirably futurist. Or else, one could frown on Mahathir�s addiction to capitalist developmentalism without dismissing the nationalist impulses behind it. One could hate his politics � meaning Anwar�s persecution � and yet regard Mahathir�s imposition of capital controls as a brave refusal to surrender to neoliberal and market pressures. Perhaps it was regrettable that Mahathir was authoritarian; it was preferable that Mahathir, represented a liberal and moderate counterpoint to obscurantist or less tolerant interpretations of Islam. And if Mahathir�s political instincts were anti-democratic, no other Malaysian leader had tried as hard to engage, influence and change a people by exhortation and example. Personalised Hegemony Mahathir didn�t compartmentalize himself such that people half-disliked him but found enough in him to support. The result of his ability to appear as �all things to all men� was a rather personal form of political domination. The many parts to Mahathir�s ideology formed a medium that, in a process like the reverse of refraction, recombined society�s diverse expectations into a single �vision�. Mahathir personalized hegemony because he remained wondrously �whole� while others fragmented him according to their hopes and fears, and thereby accepted him. For a long time, enhanced by his control of state power and media resources, Mahathir�s domination seemed permanent. Scattered criticisms couldn�t dent his appeal. Only when East Asia �melted� in 1997, Anwar �fell� in 1998, and the Malays �disunited� in 1999, did masses of people reject Mahathir �whole�. No longer would they see him as a sum of distinct pluses and minuses that they could pick and balance. For them Mahathir now personified everything that was wrong about a Mahathir-led UMNO and a BN-dominated government. Mahafiraun! Mahazalim! Undur Mahathir! Improbable as it seemed then, Reformasi hastened Mahathir�s �voluntary� departure. Improbable though it seems now, Abdullah might just extend what Reformasi began: the de-Mahathirisation of this political system. Now e-mail us and tell us what you think. Your comments might be published in the Letters section of our print magazine, Aliran Monthly. Alternatively, post your comments to the message board. | |||||||||||||||
Improbable as it seemed then, Reformasi hastened Mahathir�s �voluntary� departure. Improbable though it seems now, Abdullah might just extend what Reformasi began: the de-Mahathirisation of this political system.
