PM Must Prove He Wil Stop Racism

Instead of a “national reconciliation” pronounced by the Prime Minister on the night of election, what we are witnessing today is the “national aggravation” of race-relations by all UMNO and BN-related machinery, particularly the Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia and Umno’s team of bloggers and cyber-troopers.

The situation, with absolutely no restraint from UMNO President, Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself, is spiralling out of control, worsening race-relations to its lowest ebb in recent decades.

Utusan Malaysia takes a completely racist position when defending UMNO over BN’s worst ever electoral performance in history, placing the blame squarely and entirely on the Chinese community.  The newspaper kicked off its tirade with the inflammatory headline “Apa lagi Cina mau?”.  It has since on a daily basis, inundated its readers with racist quotes from UMNO and NGO leaders chiding the Chinese for being ingrates such as the quote from Dr Mahathir who claimed that “the Chinese has rejected the Malays’ hand of friendship”.

Utusan Malaysia has gone one to attack the CEO of AirAsiaX, Azran Othman who had gone on record to say “I am Malaysian. I am anti-racism. I am disgusted by Utusan’s editorial stance.”  Utusan Malaysia now accuses Azran of being “anti-Malay”, “having forgotten his roots” and an ingrate towards presumably Umno and Utusan, for contributing for his achievements today.  It has become shocking how those who stand against racism are being vilified in the mainstream media owned by Umno and Barisan Nasional.

Now the Umno-owned media are playing up the call to boycott “Chinese-owned” goods and services by Umno bloggers, cyber-troopers and Umno-linked NGOs.  Muslim Consumers Association Malaysia (PPIM) for example, had recently called for consumers to boycott or at the very least buy goods sold by Chinese companies last.

While the new Domestic Trade, Consumerism and Cooperatives Minister, Datuk Hasan Malek has stated that the Government will not endorse such a call, he has at the same time said that it is these organisations’ right to make the boycott call as it is a free country.  Such a lame response to a racist attempt to divide the nation certainly leaves much to be desired.  It is certainly true that people can choose to be racist, but it is the moral duty of the Government to demonstrate leadership by discouraging and rebuking such racist actions and causes.

Pakatan Rakyat call upon all Malaysians to not only frown upon racist calls – whether to boycott “Chinese” goods, or to discriminate against “Malay” companies – but to stand up against racism because regardless of whether the goods were produced by Chinese or Malays or Indians, we are all Malaysians.

Unlike the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak who likes to keep his “elegant silence”, Pakatan Rakyat leaders will not hesitate to condemn attempts to divide the country through racism or religious bigotry.  We have proven that in the recently concluded General Election, Malaysians of all races have increased their support for Pakatan Rakyat, and not only the Chinese and we have called for the results not to be racialised.

Hence we call upon the Prime Minister to demonstrate his sincerity in “1Malaysia” by breaking his silence and condemn the racist developments in the country before his reign becomes recorded in history as the one which caused Malaysians to be the most racially divided.