UMNO’s Challenge and Response

Challenge and response in UMNO.

Now that PM Najib has come back from a much earned holiday, he must seriously ponder the question about the future of UMNO. He has started dismantling some of the institutions from old school UMNO. We have seen how he has started liberalising some aspects of the economy, break up the mandatory 30% rule on equity ownership, dismantle the FICC, and indicate that he wants to carry out changes regarding the iniquitous GLCs and more. Along those lines he must be supported even if it upsets the man who ruled Malaysia for 22 years.

Who is going to break UMNO's cake of custom? PM Najib cannot do it alone. He must have a crack team that's willing to go the distance. Unfortunately if the choice of the Permatang Pasir candidate is any indication, as regards leadership, UMNO is indeed scraping the bottom of the barrel. You come up with hardened sludge.

Unless, enlightened leadership in UMNO is willing to undo the various archaic traditions and customs, UMNO is going down. Not until UMNO members cut through the duplicitous exploitation of things dear to Malays, can UMNO reinvent itself. Unless members realise that those same interests which are hawkishly thrown about, are in fact achievable by other rational methods, UMNO will never change.

For example:

1. Why should we accept that Malay economic salvation and parity can only be achieved by the 30% formula? Why can't it be achieved by direct economic empowerment of the Malays?
   
2. Why must Malay economic advancement be made to depend on government intervention through such means as creating unit trusts, GLCs and other means of intervention into the market economy?
   
3. Why must Malay political dominance be made to spend on not changing UMNO leadership? Why indeed after agreeing that UMNO leadership be directly chosen by over 60,000 members, we still qualify eligibility to fight for the top posts with certain conditions? That forces us to accept that whoever are the incumbents have the monopoly over answers how best to serve Malays. Surely that is patently wrong as no one leader in UMNO has monopoly over answers to advance the Malays.
   

The fact is, Malays are not angry with what UMNO stands for. They are incensed with the old school leadership and any present leadership that stands in the way of needed changes. Unfortunately, the number of progressive and bold leadership is dwindling. The only UMNO personality that could be a rallying point is very much undeservingly sidelined. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah is treated like a decrepit Quran- you can't throw it away and yet you refuse to use.

UMNO is ruled by entrenched interest whose only mission is to retain power at all costs. Those who subscribed to UMNO's old age customs are inducted into the group and are quickly anointed as standard bearers of the UMNO philosophy. The real interests are always couched in concepts that resonate well with the psychological needs of Malays- security of their interests- religion, political dominance, language, culture etc. By doing that, you have deliberately made UMNO's future as one that is dependent on your ability to stoke the fires of fear and insecurities.

Portraying themselves as uncompromising custodians to what are dear to all Malays, they succeeded in turning UMNO into an organisation that simply refuses to change. I mean, which right thinking Malay would reject and disown their claims on the security of the interests mentioned above? Yet, it is the exploitation of these concepts which has induced resistance to change.

Without a doubt UMNO has been ruled by its template of political customs. Like a society, UMNO is governed by its customs and like a society that is ruled by customs, it remains politically primitive.

Some explanations are in order here. The term 'cake of custom' was coined by the English writer/essayist and intellectual, Walter Bagehot. (Pronounced bad-jit). Those who like to read The Economist magazine will come across this name. Margaret Thatcher is a fan of his writings. The term refers to the paralysing effect of customs, institutions and habits on progress and change. The other notable figure who uses this term is Arnold Toynbee, the great historian. Indeed it is from his A Study of History especially on the topic of challenge and response that I drew inspiration for this short essay.

So we come back to the question as to how can PM Najib break UMNO's cake of custom? He has said, that the age of the government knows best is over. He must now apply the same thinking on the age where UMNO knows best for Malays is also over.

In breaking up the 'cake of custom', PM Najib can no longer rely on the two often cited factors that have been erroneously used to explain progress. They are:-

1. Race
   
2. Environment.
   

Just as we can no longer defend the thinking that great civilisations depended on the superiority of race as argued by Toynbee, so too at our level, we can no longer expect UMNO to progress by being dependent on this concept of racial dominance and supremacy. Without elaborating further, that can only mean, those fighting for UMNO's progress as being dependent of Malay supremacy cannot be agents of the changes UMNO need. So PM Najib must disown these elements from UMNO.

Second, the view that certain environments, providing easy and comfortable conditions of life must be made available in order to advance is also debunked by Toynbee. Similarly, the view that UMNO through the medium of state apparatuses it controls must paternalistically provide for a comforting environment for Malays to progress must also be treated with much circumspect.

Instead, PM Najib must pose the question of UMNO and Malay progress in terms of challenge and response. He must find out the challenge to UMNO and craft out the appropriate response.

I am afraid, the views on that have to the subject of Part 2.