Time to Treat National Narcissism in Malaysia and the Region

By Ooi Kee Beng, “Picking on the Present” column in The Edge Malaysia, 22-29 June 2024.

IT HAS CONSTANTLY been said of Malaysia that it is “at a crossroads”. That is more a glib statement about the contingent nature of the country and the compromised nature of its politics than it is an insight about some specific condition in its history.

Indeed, any period since the 1950s can be classed a “crossroads moment” for the country. All the prime ministers had their solutions to seek out of their moments of crisis. Likewise, Anwar Ibrahim and his “unity government” today.

Perhaps if we take the contingent and compromised socio-political conditions that have been plaguing the country as a given, we may be able to say something more cogent concerning its immediate future, and perceive its place in time and space in a more dynamic way.

But how do we best manage that?

The Geopolitical Big Game

Let me suggest that Malaysia, like all new nations, suffers from national narcissism. This simply means that Malaysians and those who study it are unable to look away from the mirror. They call themselves nationalists and patriots however conflicted their colours and views may be. But unlike Narcissus, they have not only fallen in love with their own beauty; they are infatuated with their own ugliness as well. Actually, the latter more than the former. We love our conflicts; we love our pimples, our blackheads and our wrinkles.

But how did this come about, how did we get trapped in this cul-de-sac?

As a life-long scholar of global politics, I suggest that this was because Malaysians were made to think—or at least made the mistake of thinking—that their battles were their own, local and insulated from the world, and not skirmishes taking place within an extended war affecting the whole world. Blind to the bigger picture and oblivious of the longue durée, we became petty, short-sighted and parochial. After all, being a new country, we have all been amateurs, as leaders and followers, as rulers and as citizens—naïvely limited in our knowledge of world affairs and world history.

My diagnosis is an epistemological one, not merely a psychological one.

Unlike countries such as China, Korea or Japan, Malaysia was born within the cocoon of anti-communist discourses, and its consciousness as a thriving colony before the Japanese occupation in 1942 was necessarily parochial. Our enemies were (and are) mainly other Malaysians, and our sense of global 20^th century history was patchy at best.

Let us at this point in time—at this present crossroads—raise our eyes to recognise that colonialism and anti-colonialism—including Merdeka itself and the existence of the United Nations Organisation which guarantees our national status—occurred within geopolitical and geo-economic dynamics of which we were but a minor player; we were and have been pawns, in fact.

We were born under irrepressible geopolitical pressure during the Cold War, and that reality, with the coming of a multipolar world today, is undeniable again. This is a blessing in that Malaysia now has a chance to drop its narcissistic fixations and instead adopt a globally more relevant and contributory role in geopolitics.

ASEAN is of illustrative interest in this context. Given what I discussed above, ASEAN may be considered an organisation made up mostly of fragile nations run by parochial leaders. While that may clarify ASEAN’s organisational weakness, it also exposes and represents the deep desire in national narcissism to break free of its chains. ASEAN is the expression of the geopolitical consciousness—however limited that may be—of most of its member states.

For the reform movement that Anwar Ibrahim ignited in 1998, if not for the “crossroads” government that he leads in 2024, the fact that Malaysia is to chair ASEAN in 2025 offers opportunities to locate the country and the region more dynamically and manage recent geopolitical tensions for the good of the ASEAN region.

Motherhood statements about regionalism, as often promoted whenever Malaysia has been ASEAN chair, will not suffice this time around. More is expected, and more is needed. For Anwar Ibrahim, exhibiting prowess in global statesmanship will bring him the respect and legitimacy he needs to be reconsidered a reformist leader with high ambitions. For Malaysia, taking the lead on the global stage may force it to look away from the mirror to study and embrace the geopolitical dynamics of the day.

For ASEAN, initiatives to accelerate geo-economic integration will bring not only financial winnings but also security benefits for the region as a whole.

As things now look, the pieces are almost in place. Anwar Ibrahim is finally prime minister, so the ball is in his court; Malaysia’s centralist system of government is greatly weakened to give space to subnational forces to help build the country; and ASEAN’s web of multilateral agreements for economic integration and security enhancement are almost all nailed into place.

Malaysia and Southeast Asia are at a crossroads. And that is not said glibly.

Dato’ Dr Ooi Kee Beng is the Executive Director of Penang Institute, and Senior Visiting Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. His recent books include The Eurasian Core and its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing 2016). Homepage: wikibeng.com.