治疗任何创伤的第一步，都是了解创伤如何形成。医生将创伤分为三种类型。急性创伤源自单一且令人难以承受的事件；慢性创伤则来自反复发生的痛苦；复杂性创伤历经多年累积，往往由人们无法逃离的制度所造成。
马来西亚的非马来人及非穆斯林社群，三种创伤都经历过。1969年5月13日的暴力事件，是急性创伤所留下的伤口。反复出现的“这种事情可能再次发生”警告，则使伤口一直无法愈合，演变成慢性创伤。而数十年来，马来人至上主义被制度化地植入政治、公务体系、经济及教育领域，形成了复杂性创伤。这种创伤竟是由原本应该平等保护每一位公民的制度所造成。
治疗方案必须从坦诚交代马来西亚如何陷入这场延续至今的创伤开始。
马来人至上意识形态如何构成
独立后不久，一种具有霸权地位的种族意识形态便开始形成。自1970年代起，这种意识形态的力量不断增强，至今从未消退。巫统和伊党是塑造这种意识形态的主要力量，马华、国大党及其他联盟伙伴则扮演辅助角色。这些政党共同建立了一套以种族为导向的政治体系，使同一个政治联盟得以执政，直至2018年。
长达60年的选区划分操弄，扭曲了选举版图。在最严重的情况下，在以马来选民为主的小型乡区一张选票，其分量竟相当于大型多元族群城市选区的四张甚至更多选票。
巫统创党时所确立的马来民族主义与马来人至上主义原则，从未改变。伊党脱离巫统后，走向的并非温和路线，而是伊斯兰至上主义。今天，不管是巫统、土团党及伊党的党章如何表述，他们都认同某种形式的马来人至上与伊斯兰至上的主张。
这套体系最主要的工具，是一个理应保持中立的公务体系。过去40多年来，公务体系已逐渐成为几乎完全由马来人构成的封闭领域，而被排除在外的非马来人，则转向私人领域寻求出路。
只有一位马来领袖真正抱持多元种族的愿景，那就是东姑阿都拉曼。513事件后，他被更激进的势力排挤出局，这些势力获得其副手敦拉萨，以及日益崛起的马哈迪支持。东姑因反对“极端派”，付出了失去政治地位的代价。他也曾在80岁生日时坚持指出，马来西亚必须维持世俗国家的性质，伊斯兰教则为官方宗教。此后，没有任何一位首相像他那样清楚地表达这项主张。
宪法实际上怎么说
马来人的优惠政策始于英国殖民统治时期，当时已实施土地保留制度，并在政府职位及教育方面给予优先待遇。独立前，里德委员会受委托保障“马来人的特殊地位，以及其他社群的合法利益”。
这项平衡最终体现在宪法第153条。当中有三个要点经常遭到误读：
条文谈的只是“特殊地位”（special position）。“特殊权利”（special rights）与“特权”（special privileges）这两个词，根本没有出现在宪法之中。
条文谨慎列明可以采取补救措施的领域，包括公共服务职位、奖学金、准证及执照，同时明确保障其他社群的合法利益。
委员会建议在15年后重新检讨相关安排，并预期优惠措施将逐步减少，最终停止实施，以确保不同种族之间不再存在歧视。
即使是由东姑领导的联盟，当年也曾向委员会表明，所有公民都应享有平等权利，而且不得基于种族或信仰而受到歧视。
1969年5月13日：从未获得治疗的伤口
官方记录显示，事件造成196人死亡，其中大多数是华裔。非官方的说法则指出，死亡人数远高于此。相关档案至今仍被列为机密，当局也从未展开独立调查。英国档案中的证据显示，巫统内部有部分势力协助煽动这场暴力事件。在这片沉默之中，一套反向论述逐渐形成，将责任归咎于非马来人政党及共产党人。
让伤口持续敞开
暴力事件结束，并不代表创伤也随之终止。马来领袖一再警告，只要马来人的权威受到挑战，5月13日事件就可能重演。他们往往还会补充，当局可能无法制止那些“心怀不满”的群体。
●2010年：原本计划举行一场“马来人崛起”集会，纪念暴乱周年，并邀请马哈迪医生担任主讲嘉宾，活动后来取消。
●2014年：纳吉在巫统代表大会开幕时，展示了暴乱事件的相关画面。慕尤丁警告，如果马来人及穆斯林继续受到“侮辱”，另一场513事件可能重演。
●2019年：即使是主张改革的希望联盟政府，也拒绝解密相关档案，声称翻出陈年旧事毫无用处。
我们不应忘记1969年那些保护受害者的马来邻居、警察、军人、护士及医生。他们所展现的正直与无私，证明了不论种族，奉公守法的马来西亚人始终占大多数。
支撑这套体系的另一个关键因素，是那些透过不同方式在商界、学术界及其他专业领域作出妥协的受益者。部分非马来人从中获益甚钜，成为接受马来人优先地位、甘愿排队等候特权的沉默受益者所能达到的成功范例。
《马来人的困境》与“社会契约”
马哈迪医生在1970年出版的《马来人的困境》一书中主张，马来人的竞争力较弱，因此需要集中权力及以种族为基础的政策。这本书后来成为新经济政策（NEP）及其后续政策的思想与政策基础。这本书造成的伤害中，最少受到讨论的一点，是它强化了马来人能力不足的形象，助长一种受害者心态，而这种心态至今仍然存在。
接著，“社会契约”的说法出现了。尽管这个词如今被奉为神圣不可侵犯的概念，但它直到1986年才由巫统国会议员阿都拉阿末（Abdullah Ahmad）提出，距离马来西亚独立已近30年。里德委员会的研究文件中找不到这个词，开国领袖的言论中也没有这种说法。皇家教授翁姑阿兹（Ungku Aziz）则称之为政客凭空创造的幻想。
新经济政策的产物
实际上，马来人的进步可谓非凡。1970年，土著在注册专业人士中所占比例不到5%；到了2000年，他们已占专业及技术职位的60%以上。仅扶持马来人的玛拉机构（MARA）就培育了超过70万名毕业生。世界各地很少有优惠计划能达到这种规模。然而，这项成就却很少受到宣传。
这一切为国家团结带来了什么？像土著权威组织（Perkasa）及马来西亚伊斯兰学生协会（ISMA）等极端马来团体的领袖，几乎全都是新经济政策的受益者。他们当中许多人曾使用纳税人的钱到海外受教育，如今却把自己的国民同胞称为“擅闯者”。达祖丁教授（Tajuddin Rasdi）曾撰文指出，他所认识的许多受教育程度最高的马来人，对华人抱持鄙夷的看法。在一个以种族为基础的国家体制助长下，种族主义已在各个族群之间蔓延。
马来人的愤怒使巫统政权在2018年倒台，但这股怒火针对的是贪腐，而非马来人的优先地位。大多数马来精英仍将这种优先地位视为与生俱来的权利。
第15届大选之后
2022年的大选使伊党成为国会最大政党。安华如今与巫统共同执政，而巫统正是建立这套以种族为基础的国家体制的政党。非马来人不应期待任何政府会心甘情愿地拆除这套制度。
走向复苏之路
要从创伤中复原，就必须承认真相、停止伤害，并重新掌握自身的主动权。这意味著：
●将马来人至上主义及其宗教对应形式——伊斯兰至上主义——置于公共辩论的核心，不让任何领域成为禁区。
●解密513事件的档案，并成立真相与和解委员会。
●公开挑战种族主义，从我们自己的社群开始。
●动员宗教团体、学者、媒体、智库及公民社会。
●要求每个政党在第16届全国大选前表明立场，并提出具体方案，说明如何拆除制度性种族歧视。
希望的迹象
我国年轻人正如世界其他一些地方的年轻人一样，展现了前进的方向。2022年，超过83万3000名大马人签署请愿书，支持8少年骑士被撞死案的被告沈可婷，其中许多人是年轻的马来人。沈可婷的定罪后来被三名马来裔上诉庭法官推翻。今年的国庆日，我国女足14岁小将林侑在对阵沙地的比赛中攻入7球，相关消息迅速跨越种族界线，在网络上广泛传播。一名华裔、讲华语的少女，在社交媒体上获得以马来人为主的群体拥戴，被视为国家英雄。
无路如何，单凭这些时刻，并不足以终结制度性种族主义。但它们证明，马来西亚人依然能够团结一致。如何将这种团结转化为持久的改变，正是我们接下来必须努力的方向，也是克服这场创伤的关键。
林德宜《马来人至上主义：大马长年不愈的创伤》原文：Ketuanan Melayu: Malaysia's Long-Running Trauma
The first step in treating any trauma is understanding how it came about. Doctors describe three kinds. Acute trauma comes from a single overwhelming event. Chronic trauma comes from distress that keeps repeating. Complex trauma builds up over years, often inflicted by institutions people cannot escape.
Malaysia's non-Malay and non-Muslim communities have lived through all three. The violence of 13 May 1969 was the acute wound. Repeated warnings that "it could happen again" have kept it open as a chronic one. And the decades-long institutionalisation of ketuanan Melayu, or Malay supremacy, in politics, the civil service, the economy and education has produced a complex trauma inflicted by the very institutions meant to protect every citizen equally.
Treatment starts with an honest account of how Malaysia got to its long running trauma..
How the ideology took hold
Soon after independence, a hegemonic racial ideology emerged. It gathered force from the 1970s and has never let up. UMNO and PAS shaped it most, with the MCA, MIC and other coalition partners playing supporting roles. Together they built a race-driven politics that kept one coalition in power until 2018.
Six decades of gerrymandering skewed the map. In the worst cases, one vote in a small, mostly Malay rural seat carried the weight of four or more in a large, mixed urban one.
UMNO's founding principles of Malay nationalism and supremacy have never changed. PAS broke away not toward moderation but toward Islamic supremecy. Today UMNO, Bersatu and PAS all subscribe to some form of ketuanan Melayu and ketuanan Islam whatever their constitutions say.
Their main instrument has been a civil service that is supposed to be neutral. Over four decades it has become an almost exclusively Malay enclave, while non-Malays shut out of it have sought refuge in the private sector.
Only one Malay leader held a genuinely multiracial vision: Tunku Abdul Rahman. After May 13 he was pushed aside by more extreme forces, backed by his deputy Tun Abdul Razak and a rising Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The Tunku paid for his opposition to the "ultras" with his position. He also insisted, on his eightieth birthday, that Malaysia must remain a secular state with Islam as the official religion. No prime minister since has said so just as plainly.
What the Constitution actually says
Preferential policy for Malays began under British rule, with land reservations and preference in government jobs and education. At independence, the Reid Commission was asked to safeguard "the special position of the Malays and the legitimate interests of other Communities".
That balance became Article 153. Three points are routinely misread:
It speaks only of a "special position". The words "special rights" and "special privileges" appear nowhere in the Constitution.
It carefully lists the areas of redress (public service jobs, scholarships, permits and licences) and explicitly protects the legitimate interests of other communities.
The Commission recommended a review after 15 years, and expected preferences to be reduced and eventually to cease so that there would be no discrimination between races.
Even the Alliance, led by the Tunku, told the Commission that all nationals should have equal rights and that there must be no discrimination on grounds of race or creed.
13 May 1969: the wound that was never treated
Officially, 196 people died, mostly Chinese Malaysians. Unofficial accounts put the toll far higher. The records remain classified and there has never been an independent inquiry. Evidence from British archives have pointed that elements within UMNO helped instigate the violence. Into that silence has crept a counter-narrative blaming non-Malay parties and communists.
Keeping the wound open
The trauma did not end when the violence did. Malay leaders have repeatedly warned that May 13 could recur whenever Malay authority is challenged, often adding that the authorities might be unable to restrain "aggrieved" groups.
●2010: a "Melayu Bangkit" rally to mark the riots' anniversary was planned with Dr Mahathir as keynote speaker, before being cancelled.
●2014: Najib Razak opened the UMNO assembly with images of the riots. Muhyiddin Yassin warned of another May 13 if Malays and Muslims kept being "insulted".
●2019: even the reformist Pakatan government refused to declassify the records, saying there was no use digging up old stories.
Let us not forget the Malay neighbours, police, soldiers, nurses and doctors who protected victims in 1969. Their decency and altruism shows that law-abiding Malaysians of every race remain the majority.
Another key factor underpinning this equation are the beneficiaries who have compromised in different ways in business, academia and other professions. Some non-Malays have benefited enormously to stand out as examples of what may be possible for those accepting Malay primacy and willing to join the queue of privileged silent beneficiaries.
The Malay Dilemma and the "social contract"
Dr Mahathir's The Malay Dilemma (1970) argued that Malays were less competitive and needed concentrated power and race-based policies. It became the intellectual and policy basis for the NEP and its successors. Its least discussed harm is that it reinforced a picture of Malays as weak, feeding a culture of victimhood that persists today.
Then came the "social contract". Despite being treated as sacred, the term was coined only in 1986, nearly 30 years after Merdeka, by UMNO MP Abdullah Ahmad. It appears nowhere in the Reid Commission's work or in the words of the founding leaders. Royal Professor Ungku Aziz called it a fantasy created by politicians.
Children of the NEP
Malay progress has been extraordinary. Bumiputera made up under 5% of registered professionals in 1970. By 2000 they held over 60% of professional and technical jobs. MARA alone has produced more than 700,000 graduates. Few preference programmes anywhere in the world match this scale. Yet this success is rarely publicised.
What did it buy in national unity? The leaders of extremist Malay groups like Perkasa and ISMA are almost all NEP beneficiaries, many educated abroad at taxpayers' expense, who now call fellow citizens "trespassers". Professor Tajuddin Rasdi has written that many of the most educated Malays he knows hold contemptuous views of the Chinese. Racism has spread on all sides, encouraged by an ethnocratic state.
Malay anger helped topple UMNO in 2018, but it was aimed at corruption, not at Malay primacy, which most of the Malay elite see as a birthright.
After GE15
The 2022 election made PAS the largest party in Parliament. Anwar Ibrahim now governs with UMNO, the party that built the ethnocratic state. Non-Malays should not expect any government to dismantle the system willingly.
The road to recovery
Recovery needs the truth acknowledged, the harm stopped, and agency regained. That means:
●Putting ketuanan Melayu and its religious counterpart, ketuanan Islam, at the centre of public debate, with no sector off limits.
●Declassifying the May 13 records and establishing a truth and reconciliation commission.
●Challenging racism openly, starting in our own communities.
●Mobilising religious bodies, academics, the media, think-tanks and civil society.
●Pressing every party to declare its stand before GE16 and set out how it will dismantle institutional racism.
Signs of hope
The young, as in some other parts of the world, are showing the way. In 2022, over 833,000 Malaysians, many of them young Malays, signed petitions supporting Sam Ke Ting, whose conviction was later overturned by three Malay appeal judges. And this Merdeka, 14-year-old Lim You's seven goals against Saudi Arabia went viral across racial lines. A Mandarin-speaking teenager of Chinese descent was embraced as a national hero by a largely Malay audience over social media.
Moments like these will not end systemic racism alone. But they prove Malaysians can still unite. Turning that into lasting change is the work ahead in overcoming our trauma.
本文观点，不代表《东方日报》立场。
公共政策分析学者
