Author: Hafiz Noor Shams

For more about me, please read this.

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Books & printed materials Conflict & disaster Politics & government

[3002] Reading George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia or… “Nak PN ke?”

I suppose if we are intent on finding similarities between two events however different they are, we would find it one way or another. Some of us are wired to find patterns or connections, even where none exists. A cat in the clouds that sort of things. Apophenia.

I kept telling myself that while reading George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia recently. However I tried adjusting down my pattern-finding bias, my mind kept on returning to contemporary Malaysian politics each time Orwell describes the republican politics of the late 1930s Spanish Civil War. As I opened Wikipedia to understand the war through a wider lens, I thought, indeed, there was a lesson, or two, from Spain for Malaysia.By Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved.

The differences between the 1920s/1930s Spain and the 2010/2020s Malaysia are aplenty. Spain experienced multiple military coups during those decades that makes Thailand a more appropriate comparison instead of Malaysia. And the Spanish conflict was bloodier than what Malaysia underwent in the 2010s and 2020s: our currently political conflicts are more boring when compared to the Spanish passion of the interwar period.

But if the Spanish Civil war was to be stripped of its details and the conflict made general, there are parallels to the today’s Malaysian reality. And the parallel is this: by the 1920s, support for the traditional powers—that is the monarchy along with the religious Christian class—was in rapid decline (within Malaysian context, throughout the 2000s and the 2010s, traditional power holders in the form of Umno suffered sustained severe erosion of support). So much so that by 1931, the king fled country over rising republican influence. Soon, the Second Spanish Republic was established (again here within Malaysian context, that runs parallel to the election of Pakatan Harapan as the federal government in 2018).

The Republic went through some difficulties right from the beginning. The traditionalists were feeling the heat of radical reforms. Land redistribution and restrictions imposed on the Church from owning properties were proceeding rapidly and pushing the traditionalists out of power further. Meanwhile, weak official responses to certain events that favored the traditionalists left republican supporters thinking the government was betraying them. All this took place with the Great Depression happening in the background. Times were just tough for almost everybody. This feels all too familiar for the 2020 Malaysia.

For the 1930s Spain, the political tensions eventually boxed everybody into an armed conflict. One on side was the republican government supported by the communists, the anarchists and the liberals, who are largely urban dwellers supported by the Soviet Union and Mexico. On the other side were the nationalist rebels comprising the monarchists, Christian conservatives and a group of fascists. By and large, the nationalists were rural folks backed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Of interest is here the divisions within the republican ranks, which is one of two main subjects of Homage to Catalonia (the other being war conditions experienced by Orwell). By 1937, a year after the civil war officially began, republican politics was becoming immensely complex but it could be generalized as a competition between the anarchists and the communists. While there was a republican government at the national level, various institutions and cities were controlled by different factions of the republican supporters, with the anarchists and the communists being the more influential factions.

The anarchists wanted a revolution in the sense that workers would control the means of production. The communists wanted those means controlled by the state. The rivalry created a civil war within a civil war, which the communists won and purged the anarchists from government (while I am in no way stating that Rafizi Ramli is an anarchist, the leading-PH party PKR did push Rafizi aside). That communist victory was irrelevant however. So weak was the government from infighting that they eventually succumbed to the fascist rebellion led by Francisco Franco, who would hold on to power for the next 40 years.

Orwell, who was fighting for the Spanish republic with the anarchists, saw the purging as a betrayal, which is perhaps the same feeling many Pakatan Harapan supporters currently feel of the current government. In fact, Orwell writes several pages about being disillusioned, which again, a feeling that appears to be widespread about Pakatan Harapan supporters.

Yes, he felt betrayed but the realist him wrote something for the disillusioned:

As for the newspaper talk about this being a ‘war for democracy’, it was plain eyewash. No one in his senses supposed that there was any hope for democracy, even as we understand it in England or France, in a country so divided and exhausted as Spain would be when the war was over. It would have to be a dictatorship, and it was clear that the chance of a working-class dictatorship had passed. That meant that the general movement would be in the direction of some kind of Fascism. Fascism called, no doubt, by some politer name, and—because this was Spain—more human and less efficient than the German or Italian varieties. The only alternatives were an infinitely worse dictatorship by Franco…

Whichever way you took it it was a depressing outlook. But it did not follow that the Government was not worth fighting for as against the more naked and developed Fascism of Franco and Hitler. Whatever faults the post-war Government might have, Franco’s regime would certainly be worse. [George Orwell. Homage to Catalonia. 1938]

In other words, “Nak PN ke?”

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Politics & government

[3001] The tension between popularity and values in political parties

The recently concluded PKR party elections and its ongoing repercussions have attracted a lot of criticisms.

One thread of such criticisms that I find interesting is the allegation that newer party cohorts are not guided by the original ideals of the party, which I would think was progressive politics (or at least center of left in the traditional sense before the Overton window was blown and opened wide). With PKR’s rhetoric now appearing to sway to the right, I feel the criticism has some truth in it.

The criticism goes further that by stating that most of the newer members are attracted to the party because of power (and the potential wealth it brings) more than anything else, leaving reformasi as an empty slogan.

There is some empirics to back that sentiment. Since 2018 when the party first tasted federal power, its membership has grown by approximately 44% to 1.2 million people (as of March 2025). That growth has turned PKR into the second largest party in Malaysia by the total membership in a very short time. And the sequence of events seems to fit nicely into the criticism: power came first and then a surge of membership followed.

Trivia: DAP, the party with the most seats in the Dewan Rakyat, has about 0.2 million members only. Meanwhile, Umno is the largest party with about 3 million members by far (although arguably, the figure should be lower given various defections in recent years; for instance, Bersatu in 2023 claimed to have 0.7 million members and it is reasonable to suspect a large portion of that number were former Umno members). Just behind PKR is Pas with approximately 1 million members.

With a surge in membership in such as short time that PKR experienced, it is inevitable the original value would get diluted. Even a perfect cadre system would struggle to process that kind of surge.

Yet, that criticism is only one part of a whole equation. There is a greater tension at play here due to the nature of democracy.

In a democratic framework, any political party with aspiration for power must enjoy popular support. That almost always translates into more membership and this is true for either power-membership or membership-power causality. And political party should want new members either way.

In the case of PKR, if the criticism is on target, then it suggests that the party’s the application vetting process along with its imperfect cadre system, might be at fault. But there is also a dilemma here: how tight does one need the process to be?

Too tight and one might suffer what Umno suffered back in the 2000s where complaints were often made that joining required support from the existing local leadership that was hard to get (because nobody on the inside wanted to share the gravy). Too loose, then one could argue PKR is a case in point where the party’s values get diluted.

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Economics History & heritage Society

[3000] When history is blurry: reading Patricia Crone’s Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam

Mecca has a long history. It is so long parts of its history is blurry and backed by uncertain sources. Pre-Islamic sources at best give imprecise descriptions of the city, if the city described is indeed Mecca. Meanwhile, traditional understanding of Mecca’s history before and during the coming of Islam was only developed much, much later.

The orthodox understanding takes the city as an important commercial and religious center prior to the coming of Islam. This much at least has been impressed upon the minds of many who grew up as a Muslim. The seige of Mecca during the Year 570 (the Year of the Elephant), the presence of the Kaaba and Qurasyhi caravaneers are proofs of Meccan commercial and religious prestige during pre-Islamic period.

In the 1987 book Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Patricia Crone challenges the mainstream history of the city by juxtaposing non-Muslim sources with traditional Islamic ones.

The first half of the book goes with great length inspecting trade pattern of various goods that concerned Byzantium, Egypt and Syria in the north, Persia and India (including the Malay Archipelago) to the east, and Yemen and Ethiopia to the south. These chapters are really encyclopaedic entries more than anything else and reading them is a little more exciting than reading a high-level mathematical textbook.

But the conclusion is phenomenal in that all the major trade routes between these locations involving major commodities did not go through Mecca. For most goods by 400s and 500s, sea routes were preferred. The advent of sea trading meant Byzantium could now circumvent the Arabs. In limited cases where land travels were necessary, Mecca was miles off known routes. Meccan trade existed only in the sense that the city folks needed provisions and not in a way of an entrepôt or an emporium. Add to the fact that Mecca was too dry to support a large population with no special commodity of its own that others lacked, it is hard to reject Crone’s idea that Mecca was not a major trading center in pre-Islamic Arabia.

The second part of the book, I feel, stands on shakier grounds. Here, Crone argues Mecca was also not a major religious center. She states that there were three other pilgrimage locations nearby that were bigger than Mecca. This is an echo of her more controversial thesis written in a 1977 book, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. But how does that negate the idea of Mecca as a major pre-Islamic religious center is something that I struggle to process and ultimately unconvinced. This is where other readings will come in handy.

The final part of the book explains two bigger themes that worked in the background: first it is about the state of Meccan (and the wider Arabian) society in the 500s and second, about the unreliability of sources of pre-Islamic Mecca history.

On the first subject, Crone understands Muhammad and Islam as a materialist instead of an idealist phenomenon. That is, the prophet and the religion were primarily a pan-Arabian proto-nationalist movement rising up against Byzantium and Persian influence (instead of the rise of a religion fighting the immorality and decadence of the Jahiliyah period).

On the second subject, these traditional Islamic sources were written long after the rise of Islam—the primary example being Ibn Ishaq—should be considered as an act of storytelling instead of history-writing. Crone argues many of these sources provide contradictory details of the same events. Crone goes on to claim that these Islamic sources place the need to tell ‘the moral of the story’ above the need to record history accurately. That is to say, outside proofs must be considered when (re)constructing the history of Islam.

Categories
Economics History & heritage Politics & government

[2999] The three shadows of the 2000s and an eulogy for Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

Malaysia has not had many Prime Ministers, despite what it may have felt like during the merry-go-round contest that took place from 2020 until 2022. In this age where the idea of modern state is taken for granted, it is easy to forget that the modern country is young.

Even with a short modern history—modern meaning post-colonial—it is easy to claim that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is one of those Prime Ministers who history are looking back kindly. Kindly, because when he passed away earlier this week, most have only kind words for him. Some wept. Kindly, because of the subsequent Prime Ministers who had far worse controversies and were utterly divisive.

The contemporary kindness appears incongruent to the intense emotions and harsh condemnations many felt and said no more than twenty years ago. Living through Malaysia of the 2000s, it is difficult to ignore the dramatic loss of popular support his administration underwent. I suspect there is a recency bias at work here for a majority of people. We forget.

Or maybe we forgive and forget because Abdullah was a kind man, and people generally return kindness with kindness.

I further suspect that we forgive because we now understand that many of the things that happened in the 2000s making life difficult for Malaysians was beyond his control. Living in the shadows of the 1990s was not easy for many. And living in the shadows of Mahathir Mohamad was difficult for Abdullah. But I think most importantly, we were all living in the shadow of a rising China, which could only be understood by looking back from the future, which is today.

The rise of China was a competition Malaysia struggled to address back then. The result is obvious. In the 1990s, Malaysia had a far higher per capita GDP relative to China’s. Now, it is about the same with China slightly ahead.

The rapid industrialization of China caused some Malaysian deindustrialization in the 2000s. As a result, Malaysia’s income growth of the 2000s was slower than it was in the 1990s. Already used to rapid growth, the 2000s growth slowdown (as I wrote in The End of the Nineteen-Nineties) felt like an era of unmet expectations. The Abdullah government fell victim to that. The unmet expectations fueled various dissatisfaction that were amplified by a newly popular and evolving technology that was the internet. Everything else—including the strong rise of energy prices that eventually led to the massive subsidy liberalization shock—was a second-order effect caused by China’s rise.

Abdullah cannot be blamed for China’s success. The story of China was a long-coming world-history in the making. He tried his best but the fact is, it was a tough condition for Malaysia that many would-be leaders would struggle to address. That condition was only reversed by the quantitative easing of the late-2000s/early 2010s, yet again beyond Malaysia’s control, however Najib would later like to claim.

We understand this—explicitly by those who keep a close tab on the global economy, and implicit by those who do not—and thus we forgive.

And from what we know, he had forgiven us too. Such was a gentleman.

Categories
Books & printed materials

[2998] Reading Dina Zaman’s Malayland

When communal conflicts hit the Malaysian headlines like how it did during the recent temple controversy near downtown Kuala Lumpur, identities would experience a kind of centripetal force. In this case, the Malay identity gets solidify in the popular imagination as hardliners—politicians and ordinary people alike—rally up the crowd to join in the fight. This is true with the other communities too. When egging for a fight, it is easier to rally up a generalized identity: Malays versus Indians or Muslims versus Hindus. To appeal to emotions, simplify. The controversy has been dialed down, but the ill-feeling still lingers.

How do we fight off that centripetal pull all with the hope of undoing all those riled up emotions?

Within that context, one is tempted to take the idea of centripetal forces on identities and invert it. Instead of generalizing, maybe it is useful to de-generalize and make identity a complicated idea, which it is.

If that is so, then reading of Dina Zaman’s Malayland will prove useful. In it, the author lays out the various Malaynesses that exist in contemporary Malaysia and briefly show interest of these subgroups is not always aligned and in fact almost always diverges. The Malays are not a monolithic community, a fact that is sometimes easy to forget.

The book is not an encyclopedia of Malay subgroups and the author explores what she seems to consider the most influential ones only. She provides actual individuals behind the labels. In that way, the book feels less theoretical and more real.

One criticism that keeps popping at the back of my mind while reading Malayland is its length. There are multiple instances where the author approaches the interesting (such as events that shaped the subgroups) but almost every time that happens, the elaboration does not happen. The path ends abruptly. It is a tease and the readers are left to their own devices to satisfy their curiosity.

But there are different ways to read. Different books require different approach. To approach one in a way it is not meant to be read will left any reader dissatisfied. I think here is where the foreword by Tunku Zain Al-‘Abidin Tuanku Muhkriz is useful in framing the right approach:

The subjects in Malayland show case an even broader set of identities than its predecessor of seventeen years before—Dina’s 2007 book I am Muslim. [Page IX. Malayland. Dina Zaman.]

The purpose of Malayland, if I as a reader could be so daring, is to show the existing diversity within the Malay community. It is neither an encyclopedia nor an academic work, which several critics of Malayland, I feel, implicitly rest their (and mine too) criticism upon. The book is window for those who do not already know of identity diversity and there are many who still do not know while living in a cocoon where their outside world is a caricature of prejudice. For them, Malayland is a hook to change a worldview.