In 1994, the plantation workers support group led by Community Development Centre (CDC) and the Urban Pioneers(JSPB) led by Dr. Nasir dan V.Selvam organized a huge demonstration at Dataran Merdeka on Mei 1st. The police was terrified that after twenty years (1974), there were 3,000 people in Dataran Merdeka….. most of them plantation workers and urban settlers demanding for better living standards and decent homes. A foreign newspaper dubbed the event as, “the Malaysian workers have woken up”. Perhaps this is the start of the PSM. A party built from the awakening of people.
The following year, 1995 was an election year, once again these two communities organized the grassroots and put forward grassroots demand of the poor and the working class and challenged political parties to meet their demands. Because of the disappointment with political parties – both ruling and opposition, some community leaders talked on forming a new political parties for the working class and the poorer segment of the Malaysian society. Once again, the idea to form a political parties was suggested by the grassroots.
In 1996, talks intensified and after many discussions, it was decided that we need a party to address the class issues of Malaysian society, a party to champion the poor and a party which will take on the capitalist and the capitalist state. Such a party must be a socialist party and must be ideologically based. Such a party must be able to give analysis and be the vanguard of the workers movement.
With these ideals, it took yet another 2 painful years to come out with the party constitution. The party must be bottoms up. It must be strong in the base. It cannot be top down with central committee giving directives below. It must be built from below and must be very democratic. Some failures of previous left political parties helped us to have a better perspective. Nevertheless, PSM was initiated after the collapse of the Berlin wall and it was times when things were not good for the left. It was times, when people raced to rename the party’s name. And against the odds, here in Malaysia, we wanted to form a socialist political party to strive for the majority working class and peasants while reviving the glory days of the left political parties such as the Socialist Front.
Then it took another 10 years for the party to fight for its registration. PSM was accused a threat to national security. PSM became the first political party to take on the Home Minister to court on the questions of rights to association. After a ten years battle in the streets, in the courts and in every forum, PSM was finally registered in 2008 and it took another year to get the party’s fist logo registered by the Election Commission who initially said the fist symbol is a symbol of violence.
Our the last decade, PSM has established itself as a disciplined and dedicated political party. The party completely rejects racial politics and takes on issues affecting the 70% of the working class population in Malaysia. Its efforts have made much victory in grassroots areas. The party’s strength lies on its work with the plantation workers, industrial workers and the urban settlers. It is these people who make the backbone of the party. The party is also ideologically based on socialist principles and Marxism. Besides that PSM though a small party but the party leads the movement in Malaysian on many fronts and among them the fight for decent living wage, decent homes, better public hospitals and transportation and many others like free education. Whenever there is attacks on the working class and the poor, PSM will the first party to fight on. Along with this, PSM also leads other political parties in fighting against the GST and the FTAs.
A fortnight ago, PSM undertook another nationwide campaign calling for the people to oust the BN in the coming elections. The campaign was called “Udahlah…bersaralah”.It resulted in not less than 80 PSM comrades being arrested, finally 24 was charged and 6 key leaders of the party has been put under the Emergency ordinance (the new ISA). The attack on PSM came about as the Government was doing a clamp down on BERSIH2 who were planning a mass rally on 9 July 2011. PSM supported this rally and garnered support for this pro electoral reform rally.
But PSM was made the scapegoat. In the same week, PSM was accused of many things among them waging a war with the king, trying to revive the Malayan Communist party, working with foreign elements to destabilize the country and many more. The main stream media especially Utusan Malaysia – the mouth piece of UMNO went on to accuse PSM as anti national, traitors and subversive.
While all this attack was done on PSM, it is merely to create a false atmosphere on national threat to legitimate the use of the ISA which is originally used to curb the left and the Communist in Malaysia. Now again the ISA is no more popular and out of date. So the State came out with a new strategy – to use the Emergency ordinance against the 6 PSM leaders since the EO has the same impact on the detainees as in the ISA.
This is not the first experience in Malaysia where the left has been used as scapegoat or used as pawns. When the 1948 emergency was declared, the State used the murder of some planters by the Communist to do a clampdown on the left nationalist movement led by AMCJA-PUTERA, 90% trade unions were wiped out and all political parties calling for the British to be overthrown were targeted. During the Indonesia Confrontation 1963, once again the Lbour party and Peoples Party was the target of the ISA arrest. Once again the Communist bogey was used. In 1987 Operational Lalang, the Communist Bogey was again used. Therefore it is not surprising that the Communist bogey was once again thrown in at us recently.
But this time there was a difference, when the Communist bogey was thrown in, when PSM leaders and members were attacked, and the PSM office was raided, things were much different. People did not believe. Many people wanted to suddenly join PSM in support as well as in protest. When PSM members had to raise RM 192,000 in half an hour to secure release of 24 members, that amount was managed to be obtained because of the massive support and solidarity people gave the PSM. At one time, we debated if calling ourselves socialist will be a popular choice. Today PSM is a respectable and recognized party. The word socialism is no more taboo and there is lots of respect for the work the party is doing.
The current crisis is one of the most challenging episode in PSM’s young history. But if the State is in the opinion that it will be able to crush PSM and its believes and ideology, then it is going to be disappointed. PSM members who have been arrested have emerged much stronger.
The struggle for PSM is an ideological struggle to change the capitalist system to a socialist one. In order to achieve this, PSM needs to unite the Malaysian people based on class lines rather than ethnic lines. And this is a difficult task and uphill.
PSM has always believed that the capitalist system is a evil as it enriched the few over the many. The capitalist system also bring massive disruption to the earth and our well being of the majority of the people. These are the politics of PSM. And the biggest assert is to unite the people on class lines and to take on the capitalist class and the political parties which backs its interest. In order to achieve this, PSM believes that the people must be empowered and the strength of PSM campaign is its empowerment program to the masses. This is the real fear of any corrupt and dictatorial government.
PSM and socialism will live on as long as inequality exist. A repressive state can imprison PSM leaders or try to deregister a political party, Yet it can never imprison or suppress the ideals PSM is fighting for. Socialism will only ensure that income is well distributed and the resources of the country is in the hands of the people. This is a struggle worth fighting for.
Long live socialism Long live PSM
S.Arutchelvan
Eve of BERSIH 2
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