It wasn't overconfidence - it was arrogance

It wasn't overconfidence - it was arrogance
Dr S Kumar | Mar 12, 08 5:24pm

I refer to the Malaysiakini report BN was overconfident: Dr M's ex-aide.

According to Dr Abdul Malek Mohamed Hanafiah, Barisan Nasional’s losses in the general elections can be attributed to "overconfidence." I beg to differ with this interpretation. Quite simply, BN’s losses were a result of its arrogance. In recent years, this arrogance has been vividly put on display at the annual Umno general assembly. But this begs the question: why has this become necessary to do for many well-placed within the Umno hierarchy and regime?

In a significant sense, for years now the Umno leadership has been a ‘one-trick pony’. It has always and consistently relied on the "race card" to ward off any challenge – either from within the ruling coalition or from the Opposition – to its "natural right" to govern. That formula carried Umno through the critical economic growth years for much of Mahathir’s reign. Essentially, Umno has managed to sell the public, over and over again, this same rhetoric regarding it’s ability to steward racial and religious harmony. But of course its "credibility" also required delivering on the bread-and-butter issues for its base.

Post-Mahathir Umno has seen a couple of critical developments that put some new factors into play. First, and perhaps most critically, we saw an Umno without a clear vision and agenda for its base and, more importantly, the country. Hence, we saw a confused leadership grabbing at straws and struggling to define itself and its vision for the country. Having progressively pandered (for reasons I will not go into here) to the religiously conservative wing of the party, it ultimately found itself trying to redefine Malaysia. Hence, we got the following confusion: ‘We are an Islamic state; we are not a secular State; We are not an Islamic state but we are also not a secular state’.

All this, of course, comes in the heels of the annual venom, and rhetoric of hate and intimidation from Umno’s general assemblies directed at its fellow citizens. So much for being the promoter of "national unity" and pursuing "racial harmony." Indeed, Umno’s approach can be formulaically described as destructive "group-think." Abdullah may have lamented such destructive rhetoric that arguably verged on being inciting violence. Ironic that here we saw a vision-less but arrogant Umno come of age.

Which brings me to the second factor: the electorate’s growing frustration with the same old song-and-dance from BN. What BN and Umno failed – and perhaps more critically, refused - to see was a process of progressive political consciousness, maturity, and desire for a more meaningful voice on the part of the electorate. The old ‘one-trick pony’ had gotten old and ineffective.

Malaysians had become more sophisticated in their appreciation of pluralism, but the old guard in BN was too inept to recognise the change underneath their very noses. Arrogance, you know, tends to do that to you. It makes you blind and unresponsive to the voices around you.

So each time Malaysians spoke their mind, we found the arrogant rhetoric in Umno reach new heights.

Rather than welcome thoughtful dialogue – a trait one might say should be very characteristic of us as Malaysians – we instead find hard-core communal sentiments being touted. For its part, the MIC, MCA and other coalition parties merely further distanced themselves from their constituencies, while chiding and belittling their concerns.

In other words, all around us, we saw a BN that had become not just arrogant; it had indeed become too arrogant. Too arrogant to know that it served at the behest of the people and it has no pre-ordained right to govern unchecked – especially when it fails to fulfill its solemn obligation to its masters – we the people - and the constitution.