I refer to the Malaysiakini article Why Malaysia is not like South Africa and the letter Immorality of de facto apartheid must go.
Umno operates like the Afrikaner Broederbond Nationalist Party in that it seeks to ensure racial dominance via racial quotas in Malaysia. Every prime minister in South Africa until Nelson Mandela was a member of the Broederbond.
Umno knows exactly what will motivate Malays and Muslims to vote Umno. The Malay-Muslim community in Malaysia is forever being told by Umno they cannot compete with the Chinese or Indians so as to enlarge feelings of Malay ethnic inferiority.
The Malay-Muslims in Malaysia are forever being told by Umno that the non-Malay non-Muslim communities succeed at their expense to enlarge feelings of grievance and victim-hood.
The seriousness with which the coveted title of ‘Jaguh Ethnic Victim’ is contested in Malaysia is revealed in the ways in which Umno can stage gatherings anywhere they like to bully frail elderly non-Malay non-Muslim men in wheelchairs, but Hindraf supporters (not even Hindraf members) get water-cannoned, baton-charged, and chucked in jail without trial under the ISA for gathering in a public space or even get arrested by police simply for wearing Hindraf tee-shirts.
The intense reactions from Umno's Polis Di Raja Malaysia can only be expected keeping in view the Hindraf Indians really look like genuine victims whereas big cars, yachts and palaces in Klang make Umno members look like Broederbond plantation slave owners or simply the biggest hypocrites in the world.
I can only conclude that challenging for victimhood status and keeping more-aggrieved-than-thou appearances in Malaysia is a serious rice bowl vote-winning issue for Umno.
The fact is that political support existed for the Broederbond's National Party and apartheid policies in South Africa amongst Afrikaner-Boers in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons that political support for Umno's NEP-Ketuanan-Melayu-bumiputeraism-apartheid policies in Malaysia exists amongst Malay-Muslims.
The Malay-Muslim community is always told by Umno it is perfectly justifiable to treat others according to the color of their skin. In Malaysia, the thick forest of racial quotas do everything that apartheid did for the Boer-Afrikaner community.
On a brighter note, there were many Whites in South Africa who saw apartheid for what it was just as there are many Malay-Muslims in PAS and PKR who see Umno's racial quotas for the immoral self-serving vote-winning racist demeaning soul-destroying apartheid that it is.
The future of Malaysia is a question for the Malays about whether they will still want the Malaysian apartheid system of comprehensive racial quotas to dominate Malaysian life.
Can ordinary Malays fight 50 years of ethnic insecurity, ethnic grievance, ethnic victim-hood and ethnic inferiority that Umno has nurtured in the collective psyche? Till today, Umno is betting that most Malay-Muslims will be unable to cut the umbilical cord.
It is Umno and Broederbond feelings of ethnic inferiority, ethnic grievance, ethnic victimhood, and ethnic insecurity that will motivate even masses of decent people - South African Boers and Malaysian Malay Muslims - to vote for apartheid, racism, prejudice, bigotry, injustice, and apartheid - to do what is clearly wrong.
As a non-Malay non-Muslim, I should have no say in all this because in Umno's worldview, I should just accept whatever role in the Malay Muslim psyche that Umno has prepared for me and limit my comments to just my own little cultural ghetto lest Umno-Broederbond feelings might be hurt by my seeming lack of gratitude.
I do think, however, that if Malaysia's Malay-Muslim community - if the vast majority of them - fails to overcome their own ethnic fears, fails to rise to the challenge, fails to honor the dignity of all Malaysians - fails to insist on equal rights, open competition, meritocracy, and banish ethnic prejudice and racism from our system of governance, then we are all - Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Ibans, lain-lain - doomed anyway.
