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26 November 2007

The Hindraf demos – and my ambivalence

I am very glad that the organisers of the Hindraf massive demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, November 25, managed to get the number of people they wanted in order to put across their grievances to the government rather effectively.

The crowd that they managed to garner, it appeared, was almost as large as that of the Bersih demonstrations on November 10.

The fact that that substantive number of people collected their courage that day to be on the streets in Kuala Lumpur – despite legal hurdles that have been erected against them, despite ridiculous accusations leveled against them by such highly placed leaders as Abdullah Badawi, Najib Razak, and Sammy Vellu, despite threats by the Malaysian Royal Police who had time and again proven their capability and capacity for great brutality – can only mean one thing: that there is still hope that true justice can still be won by the people in future in this country.

The demonstration itself may be regarded illegal and unlawful by the government, but one has to be both totally blind and dumb to reject the existence of the issues that the demonstrators are trying to highlight – the plight and humiliation of the sidelined and downtrodden ethnic Indian community in this country.

Politically, I would throw my support to any one or group that intends to defend the rights of any ethnic group. But I would be very reluctant to participate in any movement that is based on racist and/or religious exclusivist approach – and that would include movements and struggles on behalf of my own religion and ethnic group.

That was basically my problem with the Hindraf movement – and with their “successful” initiative last Sunday. The fact that they still present the plight of their own ethnic group in the form that it was presented in this particular instance had made it very difficult for me to “march with them” – as Nathaniel Tan had declared in his blogsite.

To me the fact that the plight of the Malaysian Indians still needed to be framed in those stark racist and exclusivist terms – which remind me exactly the same way that Khairy Jamaluddin had framed the issue of Malay “neglect” in Pulau Pinang – only points to bigger failures that we still have to live with in this “nation” of ours (which, by the way, is already more than half a century old).

Our failure is indeed a failure of nationhood, of freeing all and every group within it from its own exclusive and insulated existence, of propelling the birth of a common identity, of our ability to perceive sectional issues within it not as sectional issues but as our common concerns.

In a “true” nation, the plight of the ethnic Indians – just as the plight of the Malays of Pulau Pinang – need not be dealt with purely as an ethnic Indian issue but as an issue of injustice and uneven development that all Malaysians (irrespective of race and religion) could together register their protest and disgust.

To my mind, the plight of ethnic Indians that spurred the angry demonstration of November 25 was indeed legitimate issue of contention – but what was wrong about it was its continued expression in its racist and exclusive terms within the framework of the dominant – indeed by now already codified – form of political framework and discourse put in place by the racist Alliance/BN rulers for the past 50 years of our existence as a nation.

What makes it even more sad is the fact that there had been very little, and only feeble, attempts even by political leaders from the Malaysian Indian community itself to recast the issue of the Indian neglect, to rethink the issue of the Indian integration into a non-racist Malaysian nation, and to reformulate the forms of Indian political organisations and movements, and also their participation in the country’s political terrain.

The Indians in this country, just like the rest of us, are simply trapped within the maze of ethnic political culture that we are incapable of escaping from – in fact making its impact on the Indians even more dire because of their position as a minority group within an ethnically based political system.

Lots of dissatisfaction have been expressed before against the representation of the Indian interests as played out by the MIC within the system of bargaining among the races and race-based parties within the Alliance/BN formula.

There have been capable and influential “alternative” Indian leaders, too – leaders such as Pandhitan, Utthayakumar (besides having his own party also a leader of Hindraf), and Nallakaruppan. But, despite their good intentions to work for social justice, their exclusively Indian perspective of the issues and approach in political maneuverings has naturally rendered their struggles ineffective.

During the days leading to the November 25 demonstrations, and even during the height of the demonstrations itself, S. Sammy Vellu and his like-minded colleagues in the MIC have initially accused the Hindraf of being a tool of the opposition and later appealed to the demonstrators themselves that street demonstrations are “not our way”.

In an interview on Al-Jazeera while the demonstrations were still raging, Sammy Vellu reiterated his claims that the racist BN formula of ethnic bargainings does work and that no one but him has done so much for ethnic Indians in this country through his efforts and effective representation of the Indian “interests” in the BN political structure.

The claims, of course, begged the obvious question: If the existing system and Sammy Vellu/MIC’s role within it had been so effective, why was there so much bottled-up dissatisfaction and indignation during last Sunday’s demonstration that people were willing to risk their personal safety and face the infamous Malaysian police capability for brutality?

Now that the demonstrations are over, it is perhaps time to invite again our Malaysian Indian friends – as we would our other (non-Indian) compatriots – to rethink the bogus racist “social contract” perspective that we have been duped with for the last 50 years history of our “nation” – and to start to rethink anew our national problems in terms of a more acceptable concept of national unity and social justice.

Malaysian leaders of Indian ethnic origin have indeed played important roles in past efforts to establish an alternative political and social system for our nation – whether it was the 1940’s PUTERA-AMCJA ‘People’s Constitution’ or the 1960’s Socialist Front coalition.

It was indeed heartening to note that during the run-up to the Hindraf demonstration there were Malaysian political leaders of Indian ethnic origin – such as Sivarasa Rasiah (Vice President PKR) and S Arutchelvam (Secretary General PSM) – who offered different perspective and suggested different solutions to the issue of the Indian problem from the ones offered by Hindraf itself.

On watching images of last Sunday’s massive demonstration on international television news bulletins I cannot but wistfully thought about what a historic day it could have been had the energy, resolve and imagination of the people involved in both the Bersih and Hindraf rallies be united to oppose social injustice in this country.

As soon as the debris caused by the police chemical-laced water jets settled down on the streets in central Kuala Lumpur, I was glad to read a very analytical and thoughtful statement by my friend Arutchelvam (PSM) on the demonstrations. The statement is reproduced below in its entirety:

A Day to Reflect: Racism and 50 Years of Merdeka


S.Arutchelvan

Setiausaha Agung
Parti Sosialis Malaysia

25 November 2007 will be seen as a day when thousands of Malaysian Indians defied police orders and other high handed intimidation to express their anger and frustration against the ruling party and poured into the streets of Kuala Lumpur.

The crowd of mostly agitated Indian youths put up a fight against the heavy machinery and arsenal of the police force. The result was bloody with hundreds of people arrested, brutalized and injured.

The police went on all the way, with all they had to suppress the people whose intentions were merely to hand a memorandum to the British Embassy. If the State had used its wisdom, it could have evaded this confrontation by simply allowing the assembled to proceed. The scene became unruly as always, not because of the assembled but because of the police action against a very determined, highly charged and frustrated community. A community who has been deprived by the divide and rule politics of Malaysia and economic policies which are designed to make race politics dominant.

When thousands of people take to the street, definitely something is wrong. The controlled media is trying to paint a picture that the people were misled but once again one cannot deny that the show of force by the people are real indication that something is really wrong.

How do we march from here after the aftermath of what happened today? Is this nation going to recognise the problem of racism and unite the people or would it create further divisions to split the already fragile and false unity, which has dominated our lives in the last 50 years?

The answers to resolve this problem of racism and ethnicity can only be resolved when Ethnic based structures are destroyed and this task cannot be carried by any ethnic based or religious based movements. The working class and the common people of Malaysia from all walks of life have to unite and built a multi-racial movement to fight racism and bring back the spirit of 1947 to build a class based people’s movement.

Only a class based movement not based on ethnicity and religion can truly built a nation without discrimination, race based corruption and race based politics. The ruling party would be able to rule and would continue to rule as long as the people are divided. The ruling party is not going to build a united Malaysian Nation, as it is not going to work to its advantage. The Opposition too have at many occasions being sucked into the same mode to win support of the people.

The future of Malaysia can go two ways – Race and Religious Politics which is the rule of the day versus Class based politics – cutting across race and religion lines. It is a serious question as race and religious politics with its history and conditioning remain the most effective way to mobilise the racially divided people. It is a question every person has to ask and ponder. It is a question which is going to continue to haunt us.

Today the capitalist controlled UMNO and its coalition partners, using race and religion have won every election but failed to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor.

Income disparity between the rich and poor has widens and among the highest in Asia and the rich of all races continue to prosper while the poor of all races continue to suffer.

The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) is determined to continue to mobilise the masses using class politics and find the unity among the people especially the working masses to bring benefit for the majority of the working class irrespective of race and religion because we believe ultimately- wealth has to be shared based on justice and equality.

Posted by Rustam A. Sani at 1:22 PM