Oiling disunity?

Oiling disunity?
11 June, 2008

Even before the rise in oil prices life was pretty tough for me and my family. My salary now is only RM1,200 a month. Out of that I pay RM500 for the rent and another RM300 for my Proton Wira payments.

By KARIM RASLAN, THE STAR

LAST week’s surprise announcement of the oil price rise forced Malaysians of all classes to confront the stark realities of global economics – spiralling fuel food costs, the plummeting US dollar and supply constraints.

While Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi has to be commended for the gutsy and principled move – we cannot sustain subsidies indefinitely – the pain on the ground is very real.

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s populist proposal to reduce oil prices immediately flies in the face of conventional economic thinking.

Does he know something governments across the world – including the Indian and Indonesian – don’t?

Still, the initiative also comes at an inopportune time for the Barisan Nasional. With its inadequate communication skills and battered credibility (the Barisan was dubbed ‘Barang Naik’ by the opposition during the campaigning for the March 8 election) it will be difficult for them to explain the increases.

Mahmud (not his real name) is a typical working class Malay family man – the kind of guy who’s going to be very badly affected by the price increase.

He lives in a rented, single-storey terrace house in the Klang suburb of Teluk Pulai. It’s a quiet neighbourhood with a primary school nearby and a row of commonplace shops at the end of the road.

With few savings and house prices in the area topping RM150,000 he knows he’ll be living in rented accommodation for many years.

Nearly 40 and married with two young girls, Mahmud has been working as a dye-setter in one of Klang’s many factories for over a decade. Why?

“I’m not ambitious. I did get a job offer from National Panasonic years back, but my employers persuaded me to stay. Maybe I lost out?”

He isn’t an articulate man. He mumbles and shrugs his shoulders a lot. There are times when I’m probably prompting his responses too much. Still, most of his answers are monosyllabic; but when we talk about the price increases and corruption, he becomes voluble and forthright.

As if to justify his lack of drive he tells me about the sole member of his 11-strong family with a degree, a younger brother: “He has a government job in Putrajaya, and tells me stories about how the politicians behave – their arrogance and rudeness: it’s terrible.

And his scepticism extends to those now occupying Shah Alam: “I’ll give them two years to deliver but I wouldn’t be surprised if they turn out the same as the last bunch!”

Describing his humble beginnings, he said: “My parents were coconut palm farmers. I stopped schooling after SPM and then did odd jobs in the kampung for two years. In the end I moved here, getting a job as a machine operator.

“Although my pay then was RM550 per month it wasn’t too difficult as I was a bachelor living with a relative to whom I paid a token amount.

I even managed to save RM300 cash to buy a second-hand Suzuki motorbike, albeit an ancient model.

“Even before the rise in oil prices life was pretty tough for me and my family. My salary now is only RM1,200 a month. Out of that I pay RM500 for the rent and another RM300 for my Proton Wira payments.

“Thankfully, I’ll have settled all the TV instalments by the end of the year. Usually, RM300 is enough for everything else – food, cigarettes and the occasional meal at the stalls.

“With the price increases, we’re really going to be under pressure. Everything is going up, not just oil. I’m going to have to do a lot more overtime. I’m used to hard work – that’s not a problem.

“But I worry about getting ill or if something were to happen to my children. We aren’t government servants and don’t get all those special allowances or subsidised healthcare.

“The price increases aren’t fair. Yes, it’s happening across the world, but our leaders must look after us first.

“We’re an oil-exporting nation, so why can’t we use our own? We have Petronas after all! The Government should be doing more to look after the poor – people like me and my wife.”

Mahmud and countless others like him have lost confidence in the Government.

A few years ago they might have believed what they were told in the mainstream media. Now, they want persuasive answers.

He wants to know that his leaders are suffering alongside him – to know what it’s like to agonise over the household budget, counting out the expenses cent by cent.

So he feels more comfortable with men like PAS spiritual adviser and Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Aziz Nik Mat – men who have remained true to themselves and their constituents, refusing to allow their positions to change the simplicity of their lifestyles.

Yet – to my surprise – I found Mahmud to be troubled by what he perceived to be the failure of the Malays to unite around one party and one strong leader.

For him, Malay unity still mattered – he was not, as middle class urbanites now chant, “beyond” race.

He feared being sidelined and forgotten. By the time I left his house, I understood and even sympathised with much of what he’d told me, even if somewhere along the way we were on opposing sides of the debate.

While I relished the differences within the Malay community, he found the alternative voices dissonant and jarring, especially now with the economy in tatters.

As he looked back on Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s leadership wistfully (despite acknowledging corruption complaints), I realised that what I saw as democracy at work, he saw as incipient chaos.