Sanusi’s racial speech puts Hamzah in a tough spot

From Terence NettoParti Wawasan Negara's founding president Hamzah Zainudin and secretary-general Saifuddin Abdullah have been at pains to indicate that Wawasan will hew to the middle octaves in Malaysian politics.Both politicians have spoken at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore in the past year to espouse their message that the middle of the road is the way to go in forging a united Malaysian nation from its multiracial and multi-religious parts.Both have positioned their newly formed party within the PAS-led Perikatan Nasional fold, believing that the centre in Malaysian politics is where sanity and viability lie.Sceptics feel they are being naïve if they assume that the Islamic fundamentalism of PAS will sit easily with the positions and policies regarded as reflecting a sane centre in Malaysian politics.Last Friday, PN election director and Kedah menteri besar Sanusi Nor, while stumping for votes in Jempol in the Negeri Sembilan state election, said things that may suggest that sceptics were right to have misgivings about PAS.Essentially, Sanusi said the Chinese and Indians in Malaysia exist on Malay sufferance. Further, he asserted the Malay economic position was slumping and that if the decline continued, the Malays would wind up in a parlous state.This is the argument of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the centurion who periodically rouses himself from his age-enfeebled condition to warn of Malay marginalisation in the politics and economy of the country.The alarmist rhetoric, peddled by Mahathir and now Sanusi, puts them at odds with the middle-of-the-road opinions that distinguish the Malaysian centre.Broadly, this centre sees poverty among the Malaysian people as an affliction that must be addressed without the distorting lens of race and religion so that a united nation can be forged.Centrists feel that undue emphasis on race and religion will only hamper efforts to combat poverty and prevent the forging of national unity. They view politicians like Mahathir and Sanusi as leaders driven to foment division to advance their sinister designs.They look at politicians like Hamzah and Saifuddin, with their centrist leanings, as people who should be encouraged even if this leads them into alliances prompted more by expediency than principle.But they must know when to dismount once they can no longer kid themselves that they are rid…