Fists tremble. Daggers are brandished. Party delegates thunder, "Long live the Malays." The very predictability of the chest-thumping is what UMNO members use to rationalize it: "Although some sides were a bit extreme, fhen comes along the week-long United Malays National Organization (UMNO), at which Muslim Malay party leaders warn the country's minority Chinese and Indians that questioning the special status of Islam and Malays in society will be met with violent doom.
The Islamic and racist zeal was unmistakably more incessant and explicit. Remarks by Hasnoor Hussein, an UMNO delegate from Malacca in 2006, were typical: "UMNO is willing to risk lives and bathe in blood to defend the race and religion. Don't play with fire. If the [other races] mess with our rights, we will mess with theirs."
What troubles many Malaysians about UMNO's lack of restraint is that it comes at a time when the country appears more racially polarized than it's been in decades. Malaysia's mix of ethnic Malays, Indians and Chinese has long been resentful of each other and willfully segregate themselves. Those resentments exploded into full-blown race riots in 1969, when ethnic Malays attacked and killed scores of ethnic Chinese.
These days, some 90% of Chinese students attend private Mandarin-language schools. Meanwhile, most Malays attend public schools and most Indians Tamil-language institutions of learning. The government initiated a public service program to improve race relations by choosing 18-year-olds to participate in a military style camp. That scheme has been dogged by reports of race-related infighting, however.
In the face of a creeping Islamization, non-Malays and social activists have recently pressured Malaysia's UMNO leadership to grant equal rights to all of the country's citizens regardless of race or religion - as is guaranteed under the federal constitution.
Started in 1971, the so-called New Economic Policy (NEP) was originally intended to last 20 years but has since been extended indefinitely. That's because, according to the government, its target of 30% Malay ownership of the country's total corporate equity still has not been achieved. According to official statistics, that percentage now hovers around 18%. Yet a study conducted by an independent academic last month contested that figure by claiming that ethnic Malay total equity ownership could already be as high as 45%.
The push for more democracy in authoritarian Malaysia leaves its ethnic Chinese and Indian minority groups particularly vulnerable - a fact reflected in the racial bashing during UMNO's assembly. At the same time, UMNO's preoccupation with racial politics raises growing doubts about its ability to lead the country forward faced with the challenge of China's economic emergence. The party leadership has openly acknowledged the need for Malaysia to change course if it is to remain competitive with its fast-rising neighbors.
The country's leadership must take much of the blame. UMNO has clung to old solutions, such as the NEP, to fix new problems. Put another way, UMNO, which has ruled Malaysia for fifty-plus decades through a coalition of other race-based parties, has become bitter, cynical and defensive - a party that is emphasizing preservation at the expense of progress.
Even younger UMNO members, once portrayed as idealistic, urbane and liberal, have quickly come to resemble the party's conservative old guard. And now they often represent the front edge of the party's increasing racist angst. For instance, Abdullah's Oxford-educated son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, who is coincidentally the deputy chief of UMNO's youth wing, warned that Chinese political groups would try to take advantage of any split inside UMNO.
When pressured to apologize, according to media reports, the 31-year-old said, "What is there to apologize for? ... I am only defending my race." At the annual assembly, meanwhile, UMNO youth chief Hishammudin Hussein urged the government to reject proposals for an inter-faith commission intended to foster better understanding among Malaysia's various religious groups.
He brandished a Malay dagger, known locally as a keris, when speaking. Some delegates, it seemed, urged him to go further. "Datuk Hisham has unsheathed his keris, waved his keris, kissed his keris. We want to ask Datuk Hisham, when is he going to use it?" said UMNO Perlis delegate Hashim Suboh but soon after the defeat in the General Election, and one of the main cause is brandishing the keris, he appologised.
This year's assembly could mark a dangerous turning point for a country that not long ago was often applauded internationally as a model moderate Islamic nation for its seeming religious tolerance and clear economic achievements. Nowadays, it's altogether unclear if a racially charged UMNO can even manage to maintain short-term social and political stability.
PEOPLE'S POWER
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