SEPTEMBER 2 ― You had to be there. Whether it was Woodstock, Martin Luther King’s March on Washington or Bersih 4, the difference between those commenting and those who actually showed up was the unexplainable feeling of being part of a larger whole that all those who participated reported.

In a sense, the rational reasons for being there before the event and the rationalisations for its success or failure after, became much smaller than the experience of the event itself.

What became memorable was witnessing the idea that there are other people, large numbers of other people who share your views and their being there together with you somehow made not only the cause more real, but also brought home in a sudden joy of realisation what being part of a community really means.

That is not to say that Bersih 4 will not be remembered for its rational objectives of creating awareness and pressure for cleaner elections, government and democracy. It’s just that larger forces than the rational are unleashed when ordinary people step out of their comfort zones and personal biases and see new things and form new perspectives.

That is also not to say that the idea of community is dead in Malaysia. After all the strongest community affiliations are those of race and religion, both of which are on the ascendant in Malaysia.

Now that Ismail Sabri’s dream of a Malay Low Yat 2 mall populated only by “honest” Malay traders is set to become a reality in a couple of months’ time, no one can say that that the Malay community lacks champions.

In actual fact, the irony of naming a Malay mall Low Yat 2 has met with surprising howls of protest from activists, columnists, opposition leaders and more recently, MCA members. Equally, observations on the purported lack of support for Bersih 4 by the Malays have also been lambasted by the same set of commentators as being wrong, irrelevant or plain racist.

Why are people bothered by the absence of Malays in Bersih 4 or a mall exclusively for Malay traders? Why is race still the dominant lens in Malaysia with which to make sense of the world?

In actual fact what is surprising is that there is not more racism in Malaysia. When the longest enduring as well as the newest political parties are race based, where education is politically racialised, where official and unofficial racism plays an important role in the provision of employment opportunities and contracts in both the private and public sector and where even the media is identifiable by race and religion, it is actually surprising when Malaysian civil society claims to be surprised by the racism of officialdom.

If an Umno leader does not champion the Malay race and Islam or an MCA leader does not stand up for the right of Chinese vernacular education, now that would be surprising. The problem lies not with the fact that racism is entrenched in Malaysian culture, it’s that its opponents are no better.

Institutionalised racism for 60 odd years will not vanish overnight. Official indoctrination to foster mistrust between the major races cannot be wiped away so easily. To the point that corruption and cheating become lesser evils than rule of the “other.” Even if he is a thief, he is my thief. To counter this narrative, the alternative must showcase its post racial vision of a Malaysian Malaysia in a way that energises, not offends.

Bersih 4 was just such an opportunity. Hundreds of thousands of educated, urban and generally politically apathetic Malaysians coming together to protest in the face of official warnings, threats, heat, rain and discomfort is a barometer of rising popular disaffection and anger. Of course, the mere presence of Dr M is an encouraging sign that in this instance, the cause trumps political affiliation, race and religion.

But only in Malaysia can a potentially game changing popular movement get trivialised by questions of race, which is why the denial of the absence of the Malay presence in Bersih 4 or the unquestioning acceptance of GHB is so pernicious to the cause of the opposition. It cannot just hope to come to power on the back of the inadequacies of those in government without demonstrating movement towards an alternative vision of success in its actions and in its governance of the states it rules.

The experience of being at Bersih and the conversations it will spawn could lead the way to a different, more progressive future where being Malaysian becomes more relevant than being Chinese or Malay or Indian, where fighting for a better future become an inclusive cause rather than narrowly exclusive. Equally it could be a blip in the much more entrenched official view of races being bastardised if the other comes into power and building racial commercial ghettoes like Low Yat 2.

The real test of a maturing democracy is whether the important “us versus them” questions are about being Malay vs Indian or Christian vs Muslim; or those about needs vs race or honesty vs kleptocracy, shamelessness vs brazenness.

Today those who are in power are because the former narrative is dominant, but change is coming. The question is whether it will be the mere change of a leader within race based BN or a move away from the whole politics of apartheid that has so shackled the economic, social and emotional development of this country.

Whether a leader espousing this vision appears in BN, PR or a third force and is embraced will decide whether in the years to come the nation will celebrate Low Yat 2 or Bersih 4.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.