The welfare of the people shall be the supreme law.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman
There is something deeply disturbing about the direction political campaigning in Malaya appears to be taking. Elections are supposed to be contests of ideas, policies and leadership, yet race and religion continue to be dragged onto the political battlefield whenever somebody calculates that fear, suspicion or resentment can deliver a few extra votes.
The recent state elections in Johor and Negeri Sembilan should make us think seriously about where this politics is heading. Johor was fought amid disagreements over ethnic and religious policies, while the aftermath of the Negeri Sembilan contest has again produced debate about identity politics and racial rhetoric rather than simply bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary citizens.
This is the oldest political shortcut in the Malaysian or rather Malayan playbook: when explaining economic policy becomes difficult, talk about race; when defending performance becomes uncomfortable, invoke religion; when there is nothing inspiring to offer voters, find somebody for them to fear. Why bother explaining jobs, wages, housing, healthcare or education when a provocative sentence can travel across TikTok before the ceramah crowd has even gone home?
Social media has made the problem infinitely more dangerous because the political firebrand no longer needs a stage and 5,000 people to cause trouble. One inflammatory clip, stripped of context and packaged with an angry caption, can reach hundreds of thousands through Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp and other platforms before anybody establishes whether what was said is true.
And anger, unfortunately, sells better than moderation. The politician saying, “Let us sit down and find a sensible solution,” will struggle against the fellow screaming that your race, religion or way of life is supposedly under threat, because outrage produces clicks, shares, comments and eventually political currency.
But there is a price for harvesting votes this way, and we cannot afford to discover it after something terrible happens. Racial and religious rhetoric creates emotional wounds that do not magically disappear when ballot boxes are stored away and election posters are removed; politicians may shake hands after polling day, but ordinary citizens are left to live together.
That is why enforcement cannot be hesitant, selective or appear dependent upon who made the offending statement. If something is sufficiently serious to warrant investigation when it comes from a podcaster, journalist, activist or ordinary citizen, the public is entitled to expect the same urgency when comparable allegations concern somebody with political influence.
Recent cases inevitably raise that question. Authorities have demonstrated that they can move swiftly in cases involving allegedly inflammatory expression: earlier this year a journalist was arrested and investigated under the Sedition Act and Penal Code over remarks at a public lecture, while police have also arrested individuals over demonstrations and statements involving sensitive religious matters.
The issue therefore is not whether the authorities possess powers to act; clearly they do. The question we will ask is whether those powers are applied consistently, regardless of political affiliation, ethnicity, religion, status or popularity.
Perception matters enormously in law enforcement because justice must not merely exist in statutes; citizens must believe that the same law protects and restrains everyone. Once people become convinced that one person gets the handcuffs while another gets a shrug for comparable conduct, confidence in institutions begins to erode.
I am not suggesting everybody who says something offensive should immediately be arrested, because democratic societies must tolerate disagreement, criticism and even speech we dislike. But there is an obvious distinction between robust political argument and deliberately inflaming racial or religious hostility and when that boundary is crossed, enforcement must be impartial.
Dayak, Malay, Chinese, Indian, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or anybody else; it should make absolutely no difference. Political heavyweight or unknown keyboard warrior, government supporter or opposition firebrand, the principle must remain beautifully simple: the law cannot have favourite children.
Otherwise, what message are we sending? That racial and religious provocation is unacceptable only when uttered by certain mouths, but somehow becomes political rhetoric when delivered by somebody sufficiently powerful?
That perception is poison. Worse, failure to intervene consistently risks emboldening provocateurs to push the boundary further because political operators quickly learn what they can get away with.
We, Malayans in particular, should never underestimate where sustained communal provocation can lead. Nobody should irresponsibly predict riots, but neither should authorities behave as though social peace is indestructible; history across the world demonstrates that once communities are repeatedly taught to distrust one another, a relatively small incident can become the spark nobody expected.
If tensions ever spill into violence after repeated warnings and reports have been ignored, people will understandably ask why preventive action was not taken earlier. Law enforcement exists not merely to arrive after chairs are flying and shop windows are broken, but also to prevent criminal incitement from creating conditions in which public order becomes endangered.
Meanwhile, the real problems facing Malayans wait patiently in the corner while politicians quarrel about identity. Families worry about the cost of living, young people wonder whether they can afford homes, businesses struggle with costs, graduates seek decent jobs and communities want functioning infrastructure, healthcare and education.
Those should be election issues. Tell voters how you will increase incomes, attract investment, improve educational opportunities, fix public transport, strengthen hospitals and create opportunities; if your best argument for holding office is making the rakyat suspicious of the rakyat, perhaps the problem is not the other community but the quality of your politics.
Perhaps our friends across the South China Sea should occasionally look towards Sarawak too. We certainly have disagreements here, but our political leadership has consistently emphasised moderation, mutual respect and coexistence, while Sarawak’s multi-racial and multi-religious harmony continues to be publicly described as one of the state’s greatest strengths.
That harmony did not fall from the sky. Sarawak leaders have repeatedly stressed that it was built through generations of mutual respect, while institutions such as the Unit for Other Religions (Unifor) recognise that maintaining religious understanding requires deliberate government effort rather than empty slogans once a year.
There is a lesson here for Malayan politics. You do not strengthen one community by teaching it to fear another, and you do not defend religion by converting faith into electoral ammunition; a nation becomes stronger when citizens feel secure enough in their own identities to respect somebody else’s.
Politicians who exploit racial and religious anxieties may win an election today, but the country could spend years repairing what they damaged during three weeks of campaigning. A constituency victory is a very small prize if the cost is a nation whose people increasingly look at one another through lenses of suspicion.
The police, prosecutors, regulators and every relevant authority therefore carry an enormous responsibility as we move towards our next major electoral battles. Act where the law requires action, investigate credible complaints professionally and apply exactly the same standards whether the person complained against wears a party shirt, clerical robe, business suit or T-shirt.
No one should be above the law, but equally nobody should feel that the law comes down harder because he belongs to the wrong group or criticises the wrong person. Consistency is not merely an administrative virtue in cases involving race and religion; it is part of the firewall protecting this country from communal distrust.
We have spent decades building a country in which different communities work, study, trade, celebrate and raise families alongside one another. It would be an unforgivable act of POLITICAL VANDALISM to weaken that achievement merely because somebody discovered that racial anger makes an effective campaign slogan.
By all means fight elections as fiercely as you like, attack policies, expose failures, challenge leaders and demolish bad arguments. But leave racial hatred and religious hostility outside the ballot box, because there are some fires no politician should light simply to illuminate his path to power.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at rajlira@gmail.com
