The implied SM complex of Malaysia: An atypical response to Bilahari Kausikan — Rais Hussin

DECEMBER 11 — Small states must hold their own, Bilahari Kausikan, a former ambassador of Singapore affirmed. No one knows if Kausikan was taking a jab at his own fellow country man, the eminent Kishore Mahbubani, who argued that Singapore must concede that it is small, thus in need of friends, or was Kausikan aiming at my op-ed which did not argue that Singapore was small, but instead admitted that Singapore was a power that outgrew the GDP of Malaysia. Only Kausikan can know if he was attacking Kishore or me. But for the sake of argument, I will accept the folly of his attack.

Since, Kausikan, by some strange twist of logic, averred that my op-ed, which urged Singapore to be calm, is “atypical” of how Malaysia wants to “domesticate” or “menjinakkan” Singapore, as a Malaysian I am obliged to reply. Longish as my full reply may be below, how can an appeal for calmness or de-escalation of tensions between two of the closest neighbours be misunderstood in sado-masochistic (SM)term ?

As a country, Malaysia is asexual. It does not relish to be anything but for the lack of better word, be “promiscuous,” So are big and small powers alike.

All aspire to be such in order to have many allies, friends and supporters as possible. Malaysia, one should recall, is a member of the United Nations (UN), Commonwealth, the Non Aligned Movement (Nam, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and of course Asean and East Asian Summit, and the Asia Europe Summit proposed by Singapore too.

In all these meetings, Malaysia has never attempted to “domestiscate” Singapore. On the contrary, Malaysia saw Singapore grow from strength to strength, be it during the communist or non-communist era. Thus, how can my op-ed which called for cooler heads to prevail — which Ho Ching, the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong happened to concur when she affirmed “Chill, man” in her Facebook — be anything but a quest for civility, reason and prudence?

To be sure, no one knows if Kausikan knows or reads Malay. Or, understand Islamic terminology too. A non-Muslim who becomes a Muslim is considered a “muallaf,” which means one who has been pacified.

In Malay lingo or vernacular, that too would be the equivalent of “menjinakkan.”

Not sure if Kausikan, who believes in Asian values, is aware of the religious and linguistic connotation of “menjinakkan,” but my op-ed did not have any Islamic or Malay over tone. If anything, my article did not speak of the superiority of the Malay or Singapore system of government; though Malaysia appears to have notched ahead on May 9, with the democratic reversal of the kleptocracy of Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

In contrast, it appears that Kausikan carried a huge Malay complex; that Malays or Malaysia will always want to be the master, rendering everyone else as a “servant.” One wonders if Kausikan is aware of the irony that he has grouped himself with the far right in Malaysia while attempting to put forward his argument that Singapore has a superior system of government. Once again only Kausikan can answer that.

Indeed, in accusing Malaysia of trying to make a “subordinate” out of Singapore, Kausikan was alluring to a dynamic which is no different from a master-slave relationship. This is what sado mashochists are like too

But then history showed that Malaysia has never wanted Singapore to be a servile country at all.

Incidentally, isn't this “atypical” — to paraphrase Kausikan — of how Singapore gained its independence in 1965? Without a single case of blood shed or sabotage.

By granting independence to Singapore peacefully, Malaysia upped the ante too. Barely two years later, on August 8, 1967, the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) was therefore formed, thus allowing Malaysia and Singapore to regard each other as equal partner or peer.

There is nothing atypical of how Malaysia reacts then and now. Malaysia always aspire for peace. However, there is something atypical of how Kausikan reacts.

In early 1990s, he defended Asian values back in those days when Foreign Policy was a magazine read only by a few. He was obviously using Foreign Policy as his echo chamber to create an alternative reality that would reverberate in Washington, at a time when Lee Kuan Yew was still his prime minister, who too believed in the concept.

Kausikan, one must note, also contributes his pieces in Nikkei Asian Review and the Japan Times, if not the Straits Times and South China Morning Post too.

While his writings have occasionally used the first person identifier i.e. “I believe” — which makes his views his own rather than that of Singapore's — one can see that sometimes Kausikan himself confuses his own desires to evangelise to all countries big and small, as that of Singapore's own position too.

In this sense, Kausikan writes like the classic realist i.e. the late Hans Morgenthau. But the latter was a Jewish/German emigrant at University of Chicago.

For the record, Morgenthau saw the rise and aggression of Fascism in a Hitlerite Germany. To Morgenthau, all states did indeed seek “power to no (definite) end.”

But Morgenthau was referring to the behaviour of great powers or aspiring great powers. Even the likes of Kenneth Waltz, who too was a realist, argued that hitherto all studies of foreign policies are the attempt to understand “the behaviour of great powers,” and “not Malaysia or for that matter Costa Rica.”

Both of them, in other words, established a genre of international scholarship that is rooted in how great powers behave. The world knows it as classical realism or perhaps structural realism.

Malaysia, to the admission of its founding fathers, including Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, the current prime minister, has never aspired to anything other than to make Malaysia a “developed country” by 2020.

And if this is not attainable, then by 2025. This implies a per capita income of US$12,000-US$17,000 (RM49,937-70,745) per Malaysian. Singapore, however, has reached a per capita income of nearly US$40,000. And Malaysia congratulates Singapore for such an exceptional feat.

When Singapore grows, Malaysia does too. Thus, it is bewildering why Kausikan insists that Malaysia wants to "domesticate" Singapore? To set the record straight, it matters not if Singapore is a chihuahua, a Doberman, or a Great Dane. You can grow into any species. Just don't bite and bark at every living thing. We are neighbours. Even your sheer howl can be defeaning; which is why Malaysia is mindful of a budget airline runway in Singapore that can ruin the peace and rest of Johoreans in Malaysia.

In fact, three-way trade between Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, is enough to reach nearly 80 per cent of the 25 per cent intra-regional trade across the whole of South-east Asia. That's how important Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia can be to the whole of the region.

Thus, the last thing anyone must do, is to use a hammer to kill a fly. In other words, over react to everything.

Today, Singapore may lament the 14 incursions of the Malaysian vessels. Tomorrow, Malaysia may go back into the log book of the the Johorean and Pahang air space to find 1,400 aerial incursions into the Malaysian airspace.

Next week, Indonesia may insist it has the right, not only to name its naval vessels to the two Indonesian commandos who were hung by Singapore in the early part of Singapore's independence, but build their monuments right across the Singapore High Commission in Jakarta. Then what?

Will Kausikan, who does not have an official ambssadorial title, proceed to advise his friends or juniors in the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs that this is very “atypical” of what big powers do?

If there is anything atypical of East Asia, it is that almost all regions have fought themselves silly, and to pulp.

However, since 1979, the guns have fallen silent in East Asia. Inter state fatalities have fell by a dramatic 99 per cent as the Scandinavian studies at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies shows.

East Asia, in other words, has chosen peace and economic development over all else. That is atypical. Any other choice of the word atypical to describe Malaysia and Singapore is, sadly, apocryphal, built on sheer hypocrisy and forced prejudice and ignorance.

There is nothing between Malaysia and Singapore that cannot be solved by dialogue or even third party arbitration like the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

To this day, the Sultanate of Johor wants Pulau Batu Putih or what is known as Pedra Branca back. The legal triumph of this atoll by Singapore in the ICJ has been respected by the new government of Pakatan Harapan, though right up to June 2018, Malaysia did consider the possibility of seeking to reappeal against the ICJ verdict based on new found documents.

But Pakatan Harapan, to date, has also explained that a reappeal is not in the offing yet. Thus no matter how the new Malaysia reacts to the 1979 de facto borders where Pulau Batu Putih/Pedra Branca sits, it is doing so on the basis of concrete belief that its (new) documents may have not been completely appreciated by the panel of judges in ICJ.

As the late John Maynard Keynes is known to have said, “When the facts changed, I change my opinion, what do you do, Sir?” This teaser is not posed to Kausikan.

He is not a member of any known political party in Singapore nor an active member of the Singapore diplomatic corp. He is, a has-been only made relevant by his vicious attack of Kishore Mahbubani, which the entire Singapore cabinet seems to concur.

He is also a washout precisely because in his rebuttal of Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, the foreign minister of Malaysia, he doesn't even know all members of the current Malaysian Cabinet do not smoke cigars; unlike the previous ones who did.

Malaysia, to quote, Kausikan himself, is “not daft” (too). On this note, it seems one of the highest grossing movies of Singapore on this genre was exactly that: We are not stupid (Wor mehn bu pehn). So, listen to Ho Ching, “chill, man.” Though no one knows, in the case of Kausikan, if he is capable of being both or jointly given his acerbic comments' sado masochistic shades of grey.

And yes let us not forget the Singapore general elections in 2019. Time for instilling nationalism and patriotism perhaps!

* Rais Hussin is Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia strategist.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.