Made-In-Malaysia Racism

From the Letters To The Editor section in today's The Star with the title
Let’s shut out the racial instigators

"While we gasp in horror when we hear others talking bad about our race, some of us, particularly among family and friends, do practise racism without us realising it!

It is just like gossip – we pretend that it isn’t nice to gossip but we do try to eavesdrop or korek-korek when we hear people gossiping.

The Malays fear that the Malay culture will be diluted or, worse, be wiped out when one talks about Bangsa Malaysia while the Chinese fear that the Malays will impose their ketuanan on them, and the Indians and other minorities are staring at being left out of the development of the country.

And it doesn’t help at all when a politician utters racial slurs that another politician from a so-called multi-racial party from the same front or the opposition decides to hammer away instead of doing what our forefathers did, which was discussing the issue privately.

Each and every politician quickly pours fuel into the fire that in turn creates a pattern of both fear, anger and revenge.

And worst still, we now have bloggers writing articles that are deemed seditious by the government. Time and time again, reminders and warnings have been given, yet these bloggers are not only disregarding court summonses but are also openly instigating the public to turn against the establishment.

If they can ignore the law, perhaps so can we, the respectful public.

In my opinion, discussing behind closed doors whenever we have problems is the best solution and this will also shut out the kaki panas kepala-kepala as well as instigators.

Whether we like it or not, we are here to stay permanently and before we try to tell others how to clean their house, we must first clean our own house.

Diversity colours Malaysia and thank God we are indeed different. But instead of using diversity to bridge the difference, we are using differences to widen the bridge of diversity.

As far as people like me, the non-decision makers, are concerned we don’t have issue with other races at all.

Politicians and bloggers can come and see us any time but to do that, they have to leave their phalanx of politician buddies and their computers and feel the ground that is holding us all. That ground is called Malaysia and it is OUR home."

A COMMON MAN,

Kuala Lumpur.

***** 'Common Man' has a point when he says that some issues, especially the 'sensitive' ones, are better discussed in private. I can understand his concern that matters may get out of hand if 'too much' is debated publicly.

However one must hasten to add that this is the strategy which has been employed over the past few decades with no apparent improvement. Even a zillion years of negotiating privately will not yield results if the status quo is maintained and where an openly racist scum like the Bukit Bendera Umno division chief Ahmad Ismail is allowed to continue spitting his venom with impunity.

Just imagine if the roles had been reversed and a chinaman had been brave (and foolish) enough to speak in such tones about the Malays. Umno would have gone to town with that statement and demanded the full force of the ISA be brought to bear on him. And you know what? Pak Lah would have gladly obliged and may have even gone further and revoked the courageous and foolhardy sod's citizenship.

This is the racial politics which Umno has been playing all these years. It would not be surprising if the majority of Umno members share the views of the Bukit Bendera bastard. For that matter don't even be surprised if a large number of Malays generally agree with the racist diatribe of the bugger. By cunningly taking advantage of the fears and prejudices of the Malays, Umno has over the past few decades been continously feeding 'communal poison' to them and in a Pavlovian way, reshaping their psyche.

So successful has Umno's devious scheme been that attempts to even slightly alter Malay perception will prove refractory. Therefore would sending the Bukit Bendera bum to Kamunting really solve the issue? Is there any viable solution to our national disunity problem? I really don't know. Many have placed their hopes on Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. For the sake of all Malaysians, DSAI will have to work hard and strive to achieve meaningful muhibbah which at least partly existed fifty years ago and which Umno totally destroyed in the intervening decades.