Mehmet Özay 23.06.2018
The May 9 elections in Malaysia deserve to be seen as a movement for holistic change that envisions change in all social spheres that have been dominated by politics in the country so far.
This is apart from the fact that each of the parties that make up the opposition bloc, or each of the voters who supported these parties in the elections, have put forward such a desire with a conscious action. In fact, today's great political transformation, which is explained with the metaphor of a political tsunami, also carries the possibility of paving the way for a moral transformation.
1MDB phenomenon
Symbolic of the possibility of this moral transformation is the proposed prosecution of former Prime Minister Najib bin Rezzak in connection with the 1 Malaysia Development Fund (1MDB) irregularities. The new prime minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, last week ordered the immigration department to ban Najib bin Rezzak and his wife Rosmah Mansur from leaving the country.
The 1MDB issue had gained momentum since 2014 and was brought to the global media by the country and occasionally by some international media organizations. I will not repeat all these processes here, as we have already brought up enough explanations on this issue.
However, what should be noted here is that the 1MDB issue has become one of the most fundamental reasons for the process that could topple the 62-year rule in the country, as revealed on May 9. So much so that the first decision taken by the new Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir, even before announcing the government, was to prevent the former prime minister from leaving the country.
Moral deviation
However, the 1MDB issue is not limited to the former prime minister and his wife, but needs to be seen in the broader context of the prime minister's role as the head of the government body and especially the party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO).
This is because UMNO as an institution, since its establishment, has not been an ordinary political party in the context of the Malaysian social and political structure, but has functioned as a decisive institution in the structuring of everything in the country from top to bottom. This also explains why the same political movement has ruled the country for 62 years.
Immediately after the elections, i.e. these days, a legal process will be initiated in which the irregularities in the use of this fund will be re-examined in the case of the former prime minister. This goes beyond the individual questioning of a politician, who is still a member of parliament, over this development. In fact, 1MDB is symbolic in that it is the most visible form of an institutional deviation that penetrates deep into society, rather than an individual moral deviation.
62 years of determination
May 9 is the name of political transformation in Malaysia, with the displacement of the national alliance structure that had been in power for 62 years, with UMNO at its center. However, in the context of UMNO, this political defeat is not limited to the displacement of a structure that has been in power for more than half a century. This is because UMNO has existed not only as a political entity, but also as an institution that has functioned as a very decisive instrument in the political and social existence and realities of the country.
This very large and significant constructive power of UMNO must be sought in the developments that followed the circumstances of its founding in 1946. In this sense, the existence of this political movement is not limited to its decisive influence on the existence of the Malay Muslim community from which it emerged at various social strata in the aftermath of World War II, or the Pacific War as it was known in the region.
It also has a decisive influence on internal dynamics and mobilizations, such as the expansion and contraction of the boundaries of the social presence of other religious and ethnic minorities in the country. This was determined by UMNO's institutional configuration up to independence in 1957 and its relations with other ethnic minorities and more so with the British colonial administration.
Bumiputra and the problem of social construction
UMNO's political leverage can be explained by the role assigned to it in the pre-independence period and especially in the run-up to independence. The essential elements of this country (bumiputra), that is, Malay Muslims have built their political existence and their presence in the face of British colonialism on this concept.
However, in the process, this situation, namely bumiputra The ability of a UMNO-based political and social structure to become dominant and sustainable has been determined firstly by the relationship with the Malay Muslim community, which constitutes UMNO's constituency, and secondly with the social counterparts of the Chinese and Indian ethnic-based parties allied with UMNO.
UMNO and the question of social morality
It is at this point that UMNO's sanctioning power over the Malay Muslim masses and others has made the emergence of a moral weakness perhaps inevitable over time. The borders drawn prior to independence indicate that the idea of recognizing oneself as the 'essential element of the country' is an aspect that involves establishing political sovereignty in the country in perpetuity.
In this process, apart from other ethnic and religious minorities, the structuring of the Malay Muslim masses under the orbit and direction of UMNO is one of the most significant moral deviations. This political understanding, and the understanding and practice that this structure has spread to the society at large in practice, has revealed that a set of values can be disregarded. In this case, we can also speak of a kind of Maklevelization.
There is no doubt that UMNO has produced its own morality over the past 62 years of its rule. What is worth questioning, however, is the extent to which this ethos is in line with the set of values to which the so-called Malay Muslim community claims to adhere. At this point, what needs to be overcome is how to deal with a moral problem that is not limited to the 1MDB irregularities, but goes far beyond that and is structured and internalized in the political and social mechanism in a top-down hierarchical manner.
English and Indonesian versions translated with DeepL AI
