The Malaysian Insider

FEB 10 – Let’s be grateful to Khairy Jamaluddin. No doubt that what he uttered at a rally in Ipoh in support of the constitutional monarch yesterday was provocative, unhelpful and unproductive – a rant by an Umno politician with one eye on party elections next month and another eye on reminding his storm troopers that, despite his Oxford education, he has what it takes to lead them in the trenches.

But it was also a timely reminder to Malaysians that when Umno/Barisan Nasional has the upper hand, they tend to trade in humility, grace and wisdom for arrogance.

The most important takeaway from Khairy’s performance was this: despite public pronouncements and best intentions, change and reform does not come easy, if at all, for Umno politicians. They eventually get sucked back into playing the role expected of them by their party; they eventually have to adopt the shrill tone and tenor expected of them by the party; they eventually have to play ball if they want to climb up the political ladder.

Take the case of Khairy. He emerged from Election 2008 bruised and battered. Yes, he was a winner in Rembau but he also found himself saddled with much of the blame for Barisan Nasional’s poor performance.

His stark rhetoric coupled with his defence of the practice of raising the keris at the Umno general assembly marked him out among Chinese and Indians as a Malay chauvinist.

After some soul-searching, Khairy embarked on a makeover; he wanted to embrace the principles of inclusiveness. He wanted to sound and behave like a Malaysian politician, not an Umno politician, someone who put national interests above narrow communal posturing. He wanted to bring about the politics of empathy; to try to see things not as they are according to you, but as they are according to others.

“Politics of empathy simply means that when I talk to the Malay community in my constituency, I say to them, ‘Look, how would you feel if a mosque was demolished three days before Hari Raya, just as a temple was demolished three days before Deepavali? Don’t you think you’d be up in arms? Don’t you think you’ll set up, you know, some NGO which will march down the capital, tens and hundreds and thousands of people demanding some changes?’”

“Politics of empathy means that the non-Malays have to look at the Malay community and understand that when Malay rights, the Malay rulers, this ephemeral thing called Ketuanan Melayu, are touched on, they feel angry and hurt. You may think that, ‘Oh, it’s an overreaction by Umno people,’ but it’s a serious feeling of disappointment among the Malay community,” he told Off the Edge in a recent interview.

If he could win the Umno Youth chief’s post using the platform of inclusiveness, he said, there was hope for Umno to connect with the rest of Malaysia.

Nice thought but, yesterday, realpolitik triumphed over the politics of empathy. With the Umno elections slightly over a month away, he had to show his readiness to lead the charge against the Pakatan Rakyat.

The rabble-rousing speech he delivered yesterday has traction with the rank and file in the party, and would have bolstered his credentials among the party faithful.

They would have loved it when he asked for Datuk Nizar Jamaluddin to be banished from the state for defying a directive from Sultan Azlan Shah to stand down as Mentri Besar.

Yes, if there is one message from Khairy’s performance yesterday, it is that when push comes to shove, the party comes before ideals. Nothing personal, you understand, it’s just the way it is.

Nothing said at the rally yesterday would have helped broker a resolution of the political crisis. It was a show of power and language which was:

• Provocative: Since when did Umno/Barisan Nasional politicians decide who should be banished from a state? Who gave Umno Youth politicians auxiliary police powers to provide a ring of security around the state government’s building?

• Unhelpful:  The Sultan of Perak is caught right smack in the eye of the storm. Some people feel that he should have acted with more wisdom while others believe he should have allowed the state assembly to decide if the Pakatan Rakyat government had the confidence of the majority of the House.

The last thing the royal household needs is public and raucous endorsement from the “winners’’. This is akin to a plaintiff standing on the pedestal and singing the praises of a judge after a controversial verdict.

• Unproductive:  Even the most myopic Barisan Nasional supporter would have to agree that the ruling coalition’s manner of taking control of Perak has not gone down well with many Perakians.

But instead of showing humility and some circumspection at having come to power through the defection of three Pakatan Rakyat lawmakers, Umno/BN politicians seem content to strut around the state, tossing threats and thumping chests.

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