Manufacturing Malay unity and the downfall of Pakatan Harapan
Hew Wai Weng, New Mandala
Prior to the dramatic fall of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government in February, anti-PH agents had been taking to social media platforms in Malaysia to popularise perceptions that ‘Islam is under threat’ and ‘Malays are being side-lined’. Fears that such threats are real are being used to justify the establishment of a ‘Malay-led government without DAP’. The Democratic Action Party (DAP) is a Chinese-majority multi-ethnic party that is now the biggest party in the PH coalition.
Groups using social media to mobilise public opinion include political parties, especially the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and some factions in the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (Bersatu, a Malay nationalist party). Also active are Muslim NGOs, pressure groups and preachers.
After PH came into power, some leaders enthusiastically promoted the notion of a more equal and inclusive ‘New Malaysia’. To undermine the making of such a ‘New Malaysia’, anti-PH agents have been manufacturing notions of ‘Malay/Muslim insecurity’. The allegations deployed by these anti-PH politicians and activists are: ‘The Chinese control the economy, now they want to take political power too’, ‘We Muslims are the majority, but we are now being led by minority non-Muslims’ and ‘the Chinese are united under DAP, but Malays are split into many groups’. They have capitalised on issues ranging from recognition of the United Examination Certificate (UEC, a standardised test used by the independent Chinese high school sector in Malaysia) to the ratification of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Calls for ‘Muslim unity’ are prevailing, and go hand on hand with an increase in the politics of othering against certain ethnic, religious and sexual minorities.
I have argued elsewhere that PH’s GE14 electoral success was not due to the total decline of racialised and Islamic politics in Malaysia. Rather, the coalition managed to attract voters from across the political spectrum, including moderate Islamists and Malay nationalists. While most Malay Muslims are neither outright racists nor narrow Islamists, many do desire ‘Malay leadership’ and do not endorse a total separation between religion and politics. Anti-PH agents have been playing up these issues to diminish PH’s Malay support. Together with political infighting, the inability of the PH government to contain these contentious issues partly led to its collapse.
Comparing ‘anti-DAP’ and ‘anti-Ahok’
The ‘anti-DAP’ campaign in Malaysia shares some similarities with the ‘anti-Ahok’ campaign against former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama in Indonesia a few years ago. In both movements, politicians, activists, preachers, buzzers and cybertroopers used social media to manufacture ‘Muslim insecurity’ and to cultivate a ‘siege mentality’ among Muslims that Islam is under the threat (in Malaysia, cybertrooper refers to people paid to disseminate political propaganda on social media platforms; buzzers play a similar role in Indonesia). The manufacturing of such an emergency has justified calls for ‘kesatuan Melayu’ (Malay Unity) and ‘perpaduan ummah’ (Muslim Unity) in order to ‘defend Islam’. Terms such as ‘Malay’, ‘Muslim’ and ‘Bumiputra/ Pribumi’ are used interchangeably, even though they have different connotations.
While DAP and Ahok are their respective rallying points to mobilise crowds, both movements have a broader political agenda. Their ultimate aims are to weaken and, if possible, to take over the PH government and the Jokowi government respectively. They often claim that they are not ‘anti-Chinese’ and only ‘anti-Ahok’ or ‘anti-DAP’. Yet their spreading of ‘hate speech’, whether directly or subtly, has intensified racialised and even racist discourses in both countries.
Both the anti-DAP and anti-Ahok movement have similar modus operandi. Actors in both movements run multiple accounts and fan pages across various social media platforms to influence Muslim public opinion. They are skilled in manipulating facts, shaping discourse and creating a perception that they represent the ‘voices of a majority of Muslims’. The effect in both Malaysia and Indonesia has been to force the PH and Jokowi governments to take relatively conservative stances in order to appease them.
Though both movements use Islamic idioms to mobilise support, not all people behind them share the same Islamic agenda. As such they are less about growing religious extremism or hard-line Islamism than about ‘Muslim majoritarianism’. The fact that Islam is the key rallying theme shows that Islam is playing an increasingly visible and important role in shaping public space and political discourses in both countries. Some participants in the movements are Islamists, some are nationalists. Others are just opportunists. But are all united over the perceived common enemy: Ahok in Indonesia, and the DAP in Malaysia.
There are also socio-economic dimensions to both campaigns, which resulted in ‘Koperasi 212’ (a Muslim cooperative) in Indonesia and a ‘Buy Muslim First’ campaign in Malaysia. Some segments of the Muslim middle-class and business communities believe that they should unite to face competition from their non-Muslim counterparts, while some Muslims from lower-class backgrounds think they are not benefitting from the Jokowi and PH government’s policies.
Manufacturing perceptions, mobilising sentiments
Besides politicians linked to UMNO, PAS and some factions in Bersatu, many activists and preachers have been popularising perceptions of Malay insecurity and Islam being under threat. In fact, most politicians do not directly or openly promote such perceptions themselves, but let activists, preachers and cybertroopers to do the job for them. In my research, I have been observing the role of two groups: first, ISMA (Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia) and second, Perlis Mufti Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin (Dr Maza) and his allies. Both have the potential to sway pious urban middle-class Muslims away from supporting PH. In this article, I pay special attention on the role of ISMA.
ISMA is small right-wing Islamist NGO which has been strategic in using social media to hijack Malay public opinion. It has been a long-term rival of IKRAM (Pertubuhan IKRAM Malaysia, formerly JIM or Jemaah Islam Malaysia) in Islamic politics in Malaysia. Both groups are influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood. Their members are mostly educated, urban Muslim middle class professionals. Yet unlike IKRAM, which positions itself as an inclusive and moderate Islamic movement, ISMA is more Malay-centric and exclusivist.
