Who are you with? The Oppressor or the Oppressed?

Tunku Aziz’s crusade against PR in particular the DAP has received wide publicity in the mainstream media. He is docking at every jetty available even ones that are hastily constructed. Most of them in fact are- constructed by UMNO and its sycophantic and servile press. Tunku Aziz is only useful as long as he continues to pour invectives against DAP and PR. Minus all that- he will not even be considered to become an UMNO member at cawangan level. Moreover and more importantly, Tunku Aziz, true to his nature, will consider an offer to become a ketua cawangan, an insult to a man of his stature.

And that was the reason actually that started Tunku Aziz on his current crusade. The man with an inflated sense of importance felt insulted that a 29 year old person conveyed instructions from the party secretary general.

What are we to do with Tunku Aziz’s tantrums? We must not take Tunku Aziz seriously over his crusade to demonize Pakatan Rakyat.  It stems from his injured sense of overrated self-importance. Here is a representative of the old world feudal order trying his best to recapture the master-servant social setting. The feudal lord from a world already lost, demands respect where respect must be earned and gets offended when a 29 year old simply did as he was instructed in a matter-of-factly manner.

He can’t survive in a political setting that eschews status-linked inference of leadership simply because; the modern progressive world does not recognize such inference. In a progressive society which Tunku Aziz and the lords of UMNO do not understand, people are evaluated in terms of what they can do rather than in terms of who they are.

This is what UMNO and Tunku Aziz are not capable of understanding. The world does not revolve around UMNO or around people like Tunku Aziz. DAP does not in relation to him. He failed to adapt to the culture in DAP which is essentially egalitarian. Tunku Aziz would have been more at home, is a caste-system like setting like UMNO.

In such a world( ie a world disliked by UMNO and Tunku Aziz), any person or group is capable and able to compete for any role. Hence DAP, PAS and PKR in unity can compete to offer better rule to the people. Any person can compete and offer himself to become the elected PM of Malaysia. The reality is, if Najib can become PM, anyone can too.

The world that Tunku Aziz wills and demands is a world where only people with particular surnames and specific groups such as UMNO are fit to rule and govern.

That world is replaced by a newer world that accepts the principle which sociologists refer to as universalism. It an ideal worth supporting that says that anyone ought to be able to compete for any job instead of being restricted to do a specific job as in a caste system. Which is what UMNO wants to instill. UMNO and people like Tunku Aziz have a monopoly over the job of ruling this country. Others are only capable of being minions and servants to Tunku Aziz and UMNO.  And to preserve that monopoly, UMNO is willing to say that God is an UMNO member!

People who oppose a system that pre-arranges our roles in society therefore oppose UMNO and people like Tunku Aziz. Democratic peoples are for a world that holds the universal truth that it’s not a Tunku, or people with specific family names- the bin Mahathirs, bin Razaks, bin Onns, bin Najibs who are the only people who can govern and rule the country. Anyone can. Any party other than UMNO can.  

Haji Hadi, Anwar Ibrahim, Mat Sabu or even a Karpal Singh. The fact that some of these names are treated with vehement objections does not remove the idea that anyone else other than the persons endorsed by Tunku Aziz or UMNO is all capable of governing Malaysia.

It follows then, the exit of people liked by Tunku Aziz from the seat of government, or the ejection of UMNO from Putrajaya, do not end our world. It ends only the world that Tunku Aziz and UMNO people know of.

Good leadership does not spring from inherited status.