From Perkasa to Pekasam?

From PERKASA to PEKASAM?

Azly Rahman

I am following with interest the development of the collaboration between non-governmental organizations and political parties. I try to analyze the role of local NGOs and international NGOs viz-a-viz the parties they augment or even sabotage. In a free country such as Malaysia, we will see more of the interplay between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces as they deal with angelic or demonic political groups. It is not easy to read this as we members of the public are always presented with perception in this endless game of invented realities. I wished Malaysian are by now well-equipped with the skills of critical media analysis and political economy to engage in discussions on the current happenings to be able to do an intelligent readings of the politics of the day.

Mediating PERKASA

How would one read the media hype over PERKASA? How might one read Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s patronage of this interesting group? How about the pledge by retired and aged UMNO leader to uphold the struggle on the rights of the Malays? How do these go with the never-ending story of the present regime to hold on to power as the 13^th. general elections greet us?

The image of PERKASA and its members brandishing the keris must have terrified Malaysians again– as if there is no repentance, remorse, and shame in the way the Malays conduct their war on perception. I feel that these constructed set of Malays are merely an embodiment of a crude image of an insignificant and diminutive group disengaged from the larger group of Malays that are now global, cosmopolitan, and multicultural in its outlook.

The image of PERKASA is akin to a propped up image of Hang Tuah made of marshmallow. Inside of PERKASA is a suppleness of what UMNO is about these days. At a time when 1Malaysia seems to be desperately promising the gradual phasing out of all race-based political parties, a return to multicultural Malaysian Malaysia, and a close monitoring of hate-group and fascist-leaning NGOs, PERKASA seems to be an organization which need not have to be born. At a time when the people of Malaysia are more aware of the decades of race-based divisive politics that has made the concept of tolerance and unity daunting, PERKASA might be perceived as a fermentation of the concept of ketuanan Melayu. In other words, it is a pekasam, as the Malays themselves would call it – a ferment that is offensive in smell to those who loves good things in life guaranteed, and a great and addictive delicacy for those who loves fermented food.

Fashioning PERKASA

In an age wherein NGOs are fashionable creations in which whatever that political parties cannot achieve and NGOs can help do with good funding, PERKSASA is a perkasas or an instrument/tool of parties that are pushing the ketuanan Melayu Agenda desperately – to what conclusion we are yet to see.  As many NGOS can be created – 10s. 100s, 1000s, etc. – the more the louder although not necessarily making the argument for racial superiority more intelligent.

In an age wherein Malays are now questioning everything – themselves, truth, religion, government, media, and even their “Malay-ness” --- NGOs like PERKASA is an easy target for the philosophical reflection of Malay-ness. These days Malays are asking: who is PERKASA and will it be an embarrassment to the image of the progressive and thinking Malays? How much does it cost to create a PERKASA? would be another question, Malays in general might ask.

As a keen observer of Malaysian culture, I am interested in seeing the process of fermentation and fragmentation of the Malaysian mind as a consequence of the interplay between technology, culture, and politics.  The level of consciousness of Malaysians in the early 1970s is different than now, 40 years later. It is not easy to incite violence based on truncated race-based arguments on who owns this or that and how many percent of the economic pie should that be.  Today, it is the classes of this or that race that determine the nature and structure of poverty and wealth. It is the mainstream media controlled by the ruling parties that are still primitive in analyzing the causes of the wealth of Malaysians. It is the controlling interests behind the production of perception that are still creating conditions of poor visibility in telling Malaysians what actually is the nature of stratified society they are in. 

“The center cannot hold/things fall apart,”  as the poet William Butler Yeats  once wrote – verses that can aptly describe what is happening in Malaysian politics as we witness the age of uncertainty dawning upon us.  But maybe in the case of PERKSASA, we are seeing it fermenting after all, into a pekasam wherein the image of Hang Tuah the immoral historical-obedient fool in the court of Melaka is slowly becoming uglier as in the portrait of Dorian Gray, slowly melting as in a propped up marshmallowed-mannequin in all its uselessness of the semiotics of ketuanan Melayu – an assertion of idiotic pride and an anti-thesis to UMNO’s own 1Malaysia, a slogan that is desperately in need of blind followers.

May this nation be spared of hate groups.