Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Malaysian Chinese are not Concerned with the Race of the Prime Minister

The misplaced tirade against the Chinese in Malaysia, whether intentional or otherwise, continues with the new Minister in Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim latest salvo published in Sinchew Daily yesterday.

He said that if the Chinese Malaysians who have been indoctrinated with “extreme racism” by the DAP can ditch their “racist mindset”, he “believes that Malaysia would one day have a prime minister of Chinese ethnicity”.

He was quoted to say “(You) cannot lead the people if (you) believe too much in racial power. If one day the Chinese could get rid of this mindset, Malaysia could also have a Chinese as prime minister”.

This statement is not only an uncalled for attempt to insult Malaysian Chinese as racists, it is a clear cut attempt to insinuate that Malaysian Chinese are a power-crazy and greedy community whose ultimate goal is to take over the Prime Ministership of this country.  It is part of UMNO’s continued attempt to divide the nation by having the Malay community remain completely frightful of the fairy-tale eventuality of losing political power.

Taking leaf from the former Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, Datuk Seri Shahidan even accused the Chinese of not participating “in activities organised by the government, but chose to be involved in the illegal street rallies held by the opposition”.

It clearly shows that to these UMNO leaders, any support given Pakatan Rakyat as an alternative to Barisan Nasional will be deemed “racist” in nature, even if the support is given to fight the blatant racism of parties like UMNO.

When Malays vote overwhelmingly for UMNO in the past, it is never “racism”. When Chinese voted for MCA in the past, that can’t be racism.  However, when Malays increased their support for Pakatan Rakyat candidates in the same election, Dr Mahathir accused DAP of spreading “propaganda” that influenced educated Malays.  And when the Chinese voted strongly for Pakatan Rakyat, that according to UMNO, is proof of Chinese “racism”. That is complete and utter gibberish coming from UMNO leaders.

UMNO leaders like Tun Dr Mahathir and Datuk Seri Shahidan perpetuate the above lies because they believe that the only way to maintain UMNO’s control of in the country and to share the wealth of the nation only with the politically connected elite, is by demonising the non-Malay community with artificial claims of “racism”, even if the claims are themselves racist.

UMNO leaders fear a Malaysia where Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Dayaks and other minority communities become united to fight cronyism and corruption among the ruling BN elite. Hence the desperate need to use all racist means keep Malaysia divided by race and religion.

The DAP never campaigned on a “Chinese” political power platform.  We never campaigned against Malay political interests.  If we did, Malaysians can be assured that such campaign speeches will be televised and condemned widely in all broadcast and print media as “proof” of DAP racism.  Instead, throughout our election campaigns, our leaders harped only on the singular point of creating a country that is free from corruption and cronyism, where the nation’s wealth can be shared among all Malaysians, and not just those who are politically connected.

For the Chinese community, they have no interest whatsoever in seeing a Chinese installed as a Prime Minister of Malaysia.  They don’t care if the Prime Minister of the country is a Malay, Indian, Kadazan or Iban, as long as he is a Prime Minister for all Malaysians and not just for a select group of cronies or race.

The Chinese community did not give their votes to PAS because PAS is a Chinese party.  They certainly did not pick Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as their preferred choice of Prime Minister because he is a Chinese.  They picked him because they see him as Malaysian first, who will fight abuse of power and prioritise the interest of the poor and disadvantaged, regardless of race, religion or creed.

UMNO Ministers and leaders will need to learn that the only way to stop the inevitability of losing their grip on power in Malaysia is to adopt the “Malaysian first” principle as espoused in their own “1Malaysia” slogan.  Their continued racist bent of their political platform will end all hopes of BN ever recovering from their election losses in 2008 and 2013.


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Correction YB - the chinese are NOT interested in becoming PM !Period.So those warlords should STOP this hypocrite hypothesis and stop wasting the nation's time.

kampong lad said...

what's diff between m'sian chinese and chinese m'sian? in us of a, are there any american chinese?

Ian Liew said...

It is not a "misplaced" tirade, YB. His target is not the Chinese, it's the DAP. BN leaders will keep throwing the "racist" tag at the DAP until it sticks. It's a word the meaning of they have actually no clue (or else they'd be ashamed to use it), but which they know means "something really really bad", and so they will continue to repeat and repeat that the Opposition are racist until some people believe it. It's no longer an election-time gutter politics - they have seen that PR is a genuine and serious threat to their rice-bowl, and this will continue until such time they are either ousted, or PR is broken under the pressure.

Don't give up. We're counting on you!

Anonymous said...

This is nothing new.
Syaitan Kassim came back from near death to be back in politics and he is trying to get the most attention to be somebody in Dumno by picking on the race issue.
As for the Darth Vedar Mamak Keling he has done nothing "wrong" during his tenure of over 30yrs in power(we all know who was the most powerful politician during Razak & Hussein Onn's time).
Mamak blamed all wrong on everybody esp the opposition politicians except himself for the damages he has done to this nation.
His skewed wealth usurpation was unsurpassed in the country's history and can only be compared to villain heads like Suharto & Marcos.
But to date he could never had the balls to debate with Soros,Kit Siang or Anwar.
Mamak is nothing but a kampung hero
good at instilling hatred,fear,racism and bigotry against the other races behind closed doors during DUMNO assemblies.
Such a cheap skate politicians is what these guys are.
We will see the day when we will have the most able,intelligent and caring PM of immaterial race leading this beloved nation of ours in the near future.

Anonymous said...

there need to be political re-education on a massive scale if pakatan wants to win GE14.

start by education a big number of the hardcore supporters that uses really bad words such as 'Melayu babi' in mandarin or 'Bodoh Babi' or any racial words in mandarin, which can be seen in many hardcore DAP supporters fb page.

Come GE14, if DAP fails to reeducate the chinese blind supporters, i believe a number of voters will switch from DAP to BN.

stop the name calling and racist slur in mandarin.

Anonymous said...

^ Can't agree more!