Malaysians have recently been bombarded with political mudslinging from both sides of the aisle. The relentless exchange of political bombs not only failed to abate during the fasting month– when tempers are usually kept in check– but instead, intensified. Scandal after scandal dominated both mainstream and alternative media, setting tongues wagging and social media on fire.
Then, as if on cue, all that politicization boiled over into an incident at Low Yat. What started as a petty theft quickly escalated into a racially charged street brawl. The truth? Irrelevant. What mattered was pent-up resentment– real or perceived– that turned harmless mamak stall grumblings into actual brawling on the streets.
This disturbing turn of events stems from the slow but steady racialization of Malaysian politics– as if it wasn’t already racialized enough. Politics, at its best, is the art of persuasion, of uniting people behind ideas that benefit everyone. Great politicians can do this with vision and leadership. Lazy politicians, however, take the shortcut: digging up dirt, playing the blame game and pitting one community against another.
And unfortunately, Malaysia has too many lazy politicians. Race-baiting is their go-to strategy. Their arguments follow the same predictable script:
“The reason this happened is because [insert least favorite race here] is [insert favorite stereotype here].”
This is, of course, intellectually dishonest. In the era of analytics and big data, race is increasingly a non-significant variable in explaining why people behave the way they do. It’s all about perspective.
For example, if we lazily cut economic data along racial lines, we’ll see some groups over-indexing in certain areas. This is correlation– not causation. The same way your lucky red underwear didn’t actually make Liverpool win their last match, a racial statistic doesn’t automatically explain why a certain group succeeds or struggles.
A good data scientist would dig deeper– considering education levels, socio-economic background and parental influence– to paint a more accurate picture. Likewise, Liverpool’s win had more to do with their lineup and home advantage than your choice of underwear.
In Malaysia, most issues boil down to economic opportunities– or the lack thereof. And guess what? This isn’t unique to us. The Nazis rose to power by blaming economic inequality on the Jews, turning resentment into property seizures, internment camps and eventually genocide. The last time a nation followed that path, the world plunged into a war that killed 60 million people.
Being a Malaysian politician isn’t easy. We have a diverse, complex society– and finding common ground is hard. But it’s not impossible. What we need are leaders of real caliber, politicians who can unite, inspire and capture the imagination of all Malaysians.
Because the longer we kick this can down the road, the harder it will be to stop when the next spark ignites a far bigger fire– over something far more trivial than a stolen phone.