When standing up to bigotry becomes a racist act
“By linking something to race or religion, politicians distract Malaysians from the core issue while also garnering support from those whose identities depend heavily on their racial or religious identities - meaning most Malaysians.”
â Brian Yap, ‘New Malaysian Essays 1’
Contrary to what constitutional law expert Abdul Aziz Bari claims , “those provisions” in the constitution relating to race and religion are neither “fair” nor “legitimate”. Indeed, any provision that seeks to protect the political interests of any race is by definition anathema to any kind of national solidarity and “racist” in nature.
There is no moral or legitimate argument to be made, that the codification of special interests of a majoritarian race-based polity is somehow fair and that “unfairness” is merely a question of application.
Furthermore, contrary to what MCA’s Ti Lian Ker claims , the federal constitution is not “accentuating the inherent racism in Malaysia due to its provisions for race and religion” but rather “those” provisions are enabling the inherent racism of a political party determined to maintain political hegemony.
This is not to say that “racism” is not inherent in the non-Malay polity but rather in the political sphere it manifests in different ways. In addition, do not get me started on oppositional discourse. Behind the running dog invectives thrown the MCA’s way is a deep-rooted sense of racial betrayal, which manifest in the public debates between former MCA strongman Chua Soi Lek and the DAP’s Lim Guan Eng about how Chinese Malaysians are at a cross roads (sic).
However, the MCA political operative did show some cojones when he said “we can consider amending or ratifying our constitution to free ourselves of racism” but of course qualified this by the most overused, disingenuous, servile and obnoxious Malaysian excuse of “come a day when we are there - a matured and democratic nation”...
