Focus on Perak: Neo-feudalism of the cybernetic Malays, Part 1

Sometime ago, in trying to analyze the idea of how the Malays are colonized, I wrote the essay below:


Neo-feudalism of the cybernetic Malays
Azly Rahman
Jun 20, 06 4:16pm

I propose we question the history that glorifies our forefathers. True patriots of any nation are those who dissent and offer better interpretations of their own history. As I have said in a previous article, we have a brand new Malay dilemma

But the problem lies not in the here and now but in the past; one that needs to be de-constructed and reconstructed. It lies in the Malay psyche. It lies in the notion of hegemony as it relates to political-economy of totalitarianism and controlling interests that continue to cement the master- slave narrative/relationship of the ruler and the ruled. That master-slave narrative has become a technology of psycholinguistic control and institutionalised as “culture”.

The Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, and British colonialists succeeded because the fertile ground of the slave mentality is already prepared historical- materialistically. We can see this mentality in the idea that Malay political leader must not be challenged (such as in case of the presidency of the Umno) and this is a manifestation of this neo- feudalism hypermodern inner construct of the Malay in the Age of Cybernetics. Let us further analyse this psychological contradiction, using current perspective of hegemony the Malays must learn to use in order to move beyond this non-issue of Malay politics.

The “Either-Or” illusion/dimension of the Mahathir-Abdullah problematique is not the issue. This is merely a manifestation of the shadow play of the “winners of history”, and in what French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would term as the “habitus” and the ‘disposition’ of the neo-feudal Malay mentality that will require a Lacanian (postmodern psycholinguistics) analysis. The character of the controlling interest in the issue of the Johor half bridge presents us with a holistic picture of the immense success of the collaboration between the ruler and the local political-economic elite in making sure that hegemony is maintained for material gains.

The common Malay does not need emotional outbursts or a Cold-War-ish ‘amuk’ as a tool of analysis, rather they need an excellent view of their own socio-psychological history to establish an even better foundation of a new society. At present, because of the moral bankruptcy of their own leaders, the poor common Malay is unfairly carrying the image of a ‘silently-reproduced’ people who are betrayed by their own ‘nationalists’ – all in the name of Takkan Melayu Hilang di Dunia. (‘The Malay Shall Never Perish from this Earth’): a leitmotif of thought-control that masks the historical-material-political-economic nature of structural violence.

The non-Malays must understand the predicament from an intellectual perspective and must learn to arrive at a common ground to help each other progress to eradicate poverty and restructure society. We might have misunderstood each other based on selective historicising that have been produced as artifacts and historical facts and disseminated to each generation. The only history we know in short is the history of the ruling class.

At every epoch in history it has been such. The winners write history, the losers write poetry or study anthropology. Even the non-Malays have their own master-slave narrative and their own history of ‘mental enslavement’ the they need to reflect upon, revolt against, de-construct, and reconstruct so that only the signs, symbols, significations that are truly ‘humanising’ will be allowed to flourish.