Race Based Politics - A Vile Malaysian Characteristic

Well, here we go again. The Johor Menteri Besar (Chief Minister) saying we cannot have a Malaysian race without Malays at the forefront. To quote the racist son of a bitch, "Even if the term Bangsa Malaysia is to be used, it must only be applied in the context of all the peoples of Malaysia with the Malays as the pivotal race."

When people ask me why I left, I often point to racists like these who are in powerful positions. They perpetuate race to maintain their power by dividing the people. This man is not a nobody; he is the leader of the most powerful UMNO state in Malaysia.

To be fair, whenever the government has (half-heartedly) tried to integrate, it has come up with opposition from all races. The plan to build National, Tamil and Chinese type schools in unified campuses met with huge opposition from Chinese groups hell-bent on conspiracist theories, crazy enough to make Agent Mulder blush.

The British plan to create the Union of Malaya in 1946 fell to pieces because they planned to give everyone equal rights; this was partly to deflect Chinese support away from Chin Peng China inspired Communism, but it only created Malay nationalism, and rightly so. They would have been eaten up alive economically and marginalised, probably forever, especially at a time when the Chinese and Indian people looked at their mother countries, and not Malaya as their 'real home.' By 1957 (Malayan independence) a racist consensus was unfortunately reached by race leaders at the expense of long term national unity. It was a short-term effort to achieve independence, and by the late 1960s race was again a big issue in Malaysia. Onn Jaafar's brave effort to open up UMNO to everyone was defeated by the much respected Tunku Abdul Rahman (who is quite the Machiavellian himself, but history in Malaysia is not free, is it now?). If only he succeeded, Malaysia might well truly be a beacon for all countries, rather than just Fiji and their indigenous political parties plans to marginalise their sizeable Indian minorities like Malaysia did their sizeable Chinese minority.

All the talk of a Malaysian race by the govt makes me laugh, when the largest component parties are race based (UMNO, MCA, and the Sarawakian parties). only Gerakan and PBS of the lot are sizeable non-race BN parties and even they are viewed as Chinese and Kadazan-Dusun parties. Interestingly Gerakan are the ones that have started to show some degree of independence; indeed, it was to them that Abdul Ghani was responding too. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Keadilan (open to everyone but viewed as Malay), DAP and Gerakan got together and put up a united front. After all May 13 1969 saw Gerakan on the other side of the political fence; perhaps it could occur again. In 1990(?) Semangat 46, DAP, and PBS plus other opposition parties stood united and won half the national vote but BN still got a two-thirds majority (something wrong with the allocation of electoral boundaries...?)

Careful this poisonous bile. The constant statements that meritocracy will kill the poor rural Malay is just that. 35 years of affirmative action and they are still marginalised because the rich Malays continue to prosper at their expense; and then use them as an excuse to justify continuing their unislamic rent-seeking behaviour of race based economic preferencing (go on, ask PAS if they agree favouring one race over another is Islamic).

Sometimes I just hate Malaysia. What a racist nation it can be.