50 - The Resurgence Of Social Activism In Malaysia

Summary

Introduction

Malaysia's Parliament has to be dissolved by the end of April 2013, following which Malaysians must go to the polls within 60 days. Nothing significant about that, except that this 13^th general election is a critical one which will decide how the country's politics will develop in the coming decade.

A two-party system is now in place, thanks to the spectacular results of the 12th general election five years ago which brought opposition parties to power at the state-level. Of the many reasons ventured for this shift, the one that cannot be ignored is the impressive rise in social activism. A strong sense of empowerment has come to the fore, which the ruling coalition continues to have a difficult time managing.

The consolidation of oppositional forces in general, not only party-based ones, has been extraordinary. This makes the status quo untenable; something that the government of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak realizes but is unable to accept wholeheartedly.

This is partly because the social activism of the 21st century is very differently configured, compared to earlier decades.

Unity Despite Diversity

Resistance to the central power in Malaysia has more often than not, happened along racial and religious lines. This is not strange, given the extreme multicultural nature of its population as well as the nature of the conservative compromise between the retreating British colonialists and the elite ostensibly representing the various ethnic groups.

The major security concerns that surrounded the birth of the country as the Federation of Malaya in 1957 were communism and communalism; as well as external threats posed especially by Indonesia. By 1965, what emerged after the dust settled following the change in government in Indonesia, and the departure of Singapore, was a parliamentary democracy that was also a nominal 13-state federation where nine states were headed ceremonially by royal houses. Geographically, the country is now divided into two parts by the southern end of the South China Sea. In simple terms, all the parts of archipelagic Southeast Asia that the British had controlled, excepting Brunei, which chose to stay out, and Singapore, whose inclusion in 1963- 65 proved untenable, came together to form one complex country.