I think Malaysia needs Jokowi. When I write so, I do not mean Malaysia needs Joko Widodo the man per se as our prime minister. Instead, I am thinking about the idea of him the outsider. It is about having a Malaysian prime minister who comes from outside of the feudal circle.
Most of our national leaders over the years have come from mostly the same pool of elites with close ties to the old Malay feudal structure. Malaysia’s first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman was a prince from Kedah. His successor Tun Razak came from a noble Pahang family. The third prime minister, Tun Hussein Onn, came from a family of Mentri Besars from Johore at the time when democracy was unheard of in matters of state administration.
Mahathir Mohamad and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi are the only prime ministers that we have had who come from more modest backgrounds. But with Abdullah’s grandfather formerly the state mufti for Penang and with the father being a prominent ulama himself, I would think it is arguable that the fifth prime minister belongs to the same feudalist system.
Penang does not have a sultan but religion and the Malay monarchy are so intertwined: both play a large role in creating the old Malay feudal society and sustaining its vestiges in this modern Malaysia. Today, while the Malays of Malacca and Penang as well as those in the Federal Territories and Borneo have no sultan, they have their Agong, who incidentally is the head of Islam for the whole of Malaysia. So, it is hard to think the mufti office as separate and independent from the feudalist circle. It is part of it.
As for the current prime minister Najib Razak, he is son of the second prime minister and he inherits his father’s nobility.
To strengthen the idea that our prime ministers have come mostly from the feudalist pool, one of the next prime ministerial candidates is the current office bearer’s cousin, Hishammuddin Hussein, who is also the son of the third PM. So not only does our leadership mostly come from the same feudalist pool, we risk turning a democratically-elected office ”• the highest in the land no less ”• effectively into a dynasty.
As far as I can remember and I am happy to be corrected, only Mahathir has the courage to challenge the past by confronting the men at the top of the feudalist pyramid. In 1993, his government removed legal immunity formerly granted to all of the royal Malay houses. The move eroded the feudalist power in our society and more importantly, it set the tone that the monarchy needed to change. It set the way for a more equal society. Mahathir of course damaged other Malaysian institutions like the judiciary and the press while trying to preserve his power. I am under no illusion that he is an angel but as far as bringing modernity to Malaysia by beating feudalism into the background, he deserves credit.
The rest of the office bearers did little to keep the old feudalists in check. I think that was so because they were and are part of the old feudalist elites. They have little interest to fight it because they benefit from it. After all, notwithstanding the Mahathir era, Umno itself clings to a feudalist heritage to give the grand old party its purpose: Malays must have their sultan (and his religion) and without it, it would be the end of the Malays, or so they argue. Already in the current political climate, any criticism against the sultan is taken as seditious by the state and that sets the stage for the further rise of feudalist forces. Whatever progress Mahathir made, I feel it is being undone.
I fear that if we continue to have the same pool of elites running our country, our democracy would be weakened ”• and it is already imperfect ”• to enhance the feudalist aspect of our society.
My ideal Malaysia is one where we strive towards equality for all. The feudalist structure does exactly the opposite by elevating certain groups.
Jokowi, to me, represents a break from Indonesia’s past. The break is not as clean as it should be with former President Megawati Sukarnoputri standing behind the curtains ”• I am sure other vestiges of the old regime would challenge him soon enough ”• but Indonesia has made significant progress in the last 10-15 years, rising up from a dictatorship to becoming a beacon of democracy in the region. Each step Indonesia takes is yet another break from the chain of history, leaving it freer to move ahead without too much baggage.
I am envious of Indonesia because of that.
It is in that sense that I think Malaysia needs a Jokowi. The Indonesian Jokowi breaks our southern neighbor from its ugly military past. We need a Malaysian Jokowi to break our excessive link to our feudal past.
