Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is a predictable person and whenever he gives a speech, he never fails to open up old wounds and divide the people of Malaysia.
This time he tells us that Malaysia belongs to the Malays and that the others must accept the culture and language of the dominant community.
At a talk on the “Malay race and the future” at the Tun Hussein Onn Memorial, he said, “This country belongs to the Malay race. Peninsular Malaysia was known as Tanah Melayu…We must be sincere and accept that the country is Tanah Melayu.”
So where does that leave the East Malaysians?
More importantly, he has forgotten the true original settlers of the land – the Orang Asli.
As always, he and others in the Malaysian Cabinet only use the wretched Orang Asli when it serves their purpose – like just before a general election.
The usual ploy will be for BN to say that they have given scholarships to perhaps five Orang Asli children and have mended one or two bridges in their community. That is BN’s feel-good factor for the Orang Asli.
Dr Mahathir stressed that non-Malays had to accept the concept of “Bangsa Malaysia” (Malaysian nation) to help strengthen national unity and that they had to place country before race and identify themselves as Malaysians.
According to him, communities which continued to identify themselves according to the country of origin can rightly be identified as immigrants.
How can Malaysians help it if all government application forms make us tick the box with which we must indicate our “race”? This identifies the applicants who are entitled to certain privileges.
Race-based parties
No one is under the illusion that Mahathir, or the succeeding governments, would have voluntarily eliminated that box which identifies one’s race.
If they had, Malaysia would not be embroiled in the massive racial and religious problems of today.
If Mahathir was sincere about the “Bangsa Malaysia” concept, another name for “1Malaysia”, then in his time, he would have disbanded all race-based political parties and championed Malaysian causes. As it is, each political party looks after the interests of its own particular race.
Mahathir warned the Malay community that they would risk losing the country without the affirmative action policies and said that programmes such as the New Economic Policy (NEP) were still important because Malays were still economically weak.
He said, “We must not reject every government effort to help us. We must push away the crutches and realise that we are still limping. Which is better? To be dependent on policies which will save us or depend on others hoping that they will save us? Sooner or later, we will be under their rule.”
The brief insight into Mahathir’s childhood, described in Barry Wain’s book, shows a boy who overcame all the discriminations his family faced, by working hard to get what he wanted.
His Malay mother was remotely connected to the Kedah royal family, but he was still considered a commoner and all this shaped his unconscious mind about social hierarchy. The family’s Indian origins, from his paternal side, were not publicly declared.
Immigrant communities
The family lived alongside other immigrant communities – the Javanese, Sumatrans, Indian Muslims and Chinese. Just like any immigrant community the world over, these people are consumed with a desire to blend in and succeed. All this also fuelled Mahathir’s desire to do better; to become “someone”.
The hardship he saw on a daily basis and the polarisation faced by those in his community, combined with the qualities he inherited from his father, made him more disciplined, highly motivated, a voracious reader who was eager to learn and someone who wanted to improve his life.
What a shame then that Mahathir, who is of Indian descent, will not use it as an example to show that Malaysia is also for the non-Malay Malaysians, and not just for the Malays only.
It is also unfortunate that Mahathir will not allow others to benefit from the fruits of his success.
Mahathir pushed himself academically to become a better person so that he could improve the standard and quality of life for his family. He and his successors are now denying the same motivation, sense of achievement and pride that comes from hard work and independence, to the Malays.
Mariam Mokhtar is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist. - FMT
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