It is disaster for the National Front if it cannot retain the middle class

[MGG] It is disaster for the National Front if it cannot retain the middle class

THE MIDDLE CLASS IS society's, to use a hackneyed phrase, engine of
growth. Annoy it, and it is difficult to contain them. In India, the
middle class provides the leadership of the masses, and keeps the
government, and foreign investors, in check. The people do not like
their rights or living taken but keep quiet because they do not have
middle class leaders. In countries like Malaysia and Singapore, the
government brings it into its fold by giving it wealth and privilege
with promises that other would in time. This kept them politics, anti-
government oppposition, leading the masses. The few who led
opposition parties were allowed, to show the government is fair, but
the leaders were harassed so that others would not follow their lead.
The governments are careful not to make them angry. The middle class,
when given a choice between wealth without work and leading the
masses would, invariable, close the former.

A few middle class men and women cannot make the change, but they can
bring others in. Mr J.B. Jeyaratnam, a lawyer and former district
judge, had that role in Singapore for 40 years, and in his seventies
is honest to his belief. His refusal to kow tow to the People Action
Party government in the republic, taking official harassment and
bankruptcy in his stride, has led others to join him the years that
followed. What is remarkable that he is Indian in a Chinese society.
Chee Soon Juan, a former university lecturer, is the modern and
Chinese version of Jeyaratnam. He is in the political dog house for
his pains. The task is made easier over the years because the
government makes policies often without thinking that upset the
middle class, and many among it takes that as an affront. This has
happened in Thailand, France, Italy, Nepal, countries in Latin
America. Cuba would not be what it is if it had not been led by the
middle class in its struggle with the United States.

Globalisation will make that easier. In India, it cannot move as it
likes because the middle class organised the masses in the early
years of the last centry. India won independence because the people,
energised by Gandhi and other leaders, wanted it. The government in
power, whether British or Indian, took this into consideration when
governing the country. This middle class leadership caused
difficulties to Coca Cola in Kerala, where the state government had
given it a licence but the village panchayat in Pachymada, where the
plant was to be sited. objected. Globalisation is supported by
governments but ignored by the middle class. In Africa, the middle
class is with the government and which do not, in most countries,
lead the masses. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe remains in power
even if the West would him to leave because he is backed by a
significant middle class, besides the power to harass and ill treat.

In Thailand, the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was stopped in
his tracks months after his return to power. The middle class,
especially in Bangkok, went against him, and he went. The king played
a conciliatory role, who decided in the end Thaksin should go. So it
was in Italy, where the former prime minister Berlusconi, to remain
in power, altered the rules so that the middle class who went
overseas could vote, but who in the end turned him out. This has
split Italy down the middle, but it showed the power of the middle
class more than anything else. In the United States, President Bush
is in trouble because the middle class in up in arms over government
policies, of which Iraq though the most important is one of many. He
faces difficulty in Iraq because the Iraqi middle class, bar those
who joined the Americans for personal gain and power, are against the
American occupation. Washington has finally realised that Iraq
cannot be won, and amenable to bringing in others with more clout in
the Middle East for talks on the future of the country.

In Malaysia, it was a middle class man who united the people against
the government. But the sacked deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri
Anwar Ibrahim, could not do it alone. The government, then led by Tun
Mahathir Mohamed, could not contain the demonstrations, used force to
break them up. But the middle class leaders went back when Tun
Mahathir resigned. Nothing had changed because UMNO under Pak Lah,
who took over, got the biggest majority ever in the general elections
of 2004. Datuk Seri Anwar and his men now is not so sure he will get
the support of those days. But Pak Lah will make sure it does not.
His government withdrew the 30 sen petrol subsidy, and has announced
plans to withdraw other subsidies as well in the coming years. The
middle class is angry, and more move against the government,
including members of UMNO and the National Front.

Some of this middle class has provided the leadership for the man-in-
the-street to protest. And more would in the time to come. A
minister's aide threatened a reporter with detention without trial if
she persisted in asking the minister about his mistress and their
love house in a housing estate. Pak Lah's relative, who has acquired
great wealth illegally by being who he is, now demands he should not
be questioned. Any who does is threatened with defamation or other
legal actions. It is a signal that criticisms by the middle class is
hurting. Unlike in the past, the people clap their hands at this
discomfiture. What happened in Parliament this week is symbolic: what
a minister wears is more important than the Ninth Malaysia Plan. The
government could have escaped this had its leaders kept in their mind
the importance of the middle class for their survival.

But opposition parties in Malaysia will not get a fillip unless the
middle class men and women not only support them but sends its
leaders to organise the masses for them. This already happens. Many
have joined the opposition PAS. That UMNO has had to reorient its
policies to neutralise PAS and adopt policies which it hopes will
detract people from voting it is a sign of the changes the middle
class has fostered. PAS is led today by middle class intellectuals,
is more vibrant, has forced the religious wing becoming less
powerful. UMNO now changes its policies to meet PAS on its beliefs, a
long and hard fight which will depend largely on UMNO being able to
do so. That will not come for another ten years at least, if at all.

What frightens the National Front and its component parties,
including UMNO, is that the races in this country are being organised
by the middle class away from the National Front. There is already
talk of the National Front parties moving away from UMNO should it
lead a losing coalition. I am now able to talk with members of the
government party whether they would be in it should it lose the next
elections. In the past, I would have been shown the door. A
revolution is taking place in Malaysia, but it is not violent or
public. The middle class, up to now the first beneficiaries of the
government's largesse, is now not sure it is to their benefit if it
supported the government. On that will depend the future of the
National Front, and politics in this country.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com