Malaysians know what is happening, unlike you Jamaluddin

If it is true that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has banned former US Ambassador John Malott for highlighting the worsening racism in Malaysia, then what the Singaporeans said about our incompetent politicians is true.

In the Wikileaks revelations late last year, Singapore officials had reportedly said “Malaysia’s decline” was fuelled by incompetent politicians. These officials were also less than complimentary about Malaysia’s prime ministers, past and present, with one of them calling Najib “an opportunist”.

As Malott said earlier, Malaysia risks an international embarrassment if it were to ban him from entering the country.

A ban on a highly respected individual as Malott would be enough to highlight all those issues that Najib, Minister in the Prime minister’s department, Nazri Aziz and Jamaluddin Jarjis, the Malaysian Ambassador to the USA, sought to play down.

As Malott rightly said, the foreign press rarely reports on Malaysian developments.

For instance, the UK papers gave column inches to scandalous or unusual reportings such as the runaway bride Manoharan, the UK woman who with her Malaysian husband cultivated drugs in their Terengganu home and the macaque monkeys which ran off with a week old baby in Melaka.

What Malaysians consider serious issues such as rising racism and religious intolerance, the corruption and the bribes from the shoddy defence purchases are hardly, if ever, mentioned.

The reasons are obvious. Just as the USA supported the previous Egyptian regime with a defence budget which was worth billions, our former colonial masters, the British are only interested in appeasing the Najib administration because of current and future defence purchases which will benefit Britain.

Hence, those stories which we consider critical might warrant a few lines, if at all, in the UK papers.

Jamaluddin was wrong to accuse Malott was of being “out of touch with the realities of present-day Malaysia”.

As a Malay Malaysian who would benefit most from the affirmative action policies, I should, by right, have no reason to complain.

But I am guided by my conscience, moral conviction and by the enlightenment that education has given me and helped broaden my outlook in life. I can confirm that race relations have deteriorated since 1969.

My Malay peers can also attest to this. They have also seen racism and religious intolerance, of the Malay/Muslims against the non-Malays, in their children’s school. They are silent because they are not as outspoken.

There is no “OneMalaysia” but there is an Umno which would like to pretend there is a united Malaysia.

When Najib gave his maiden speech at the 65th United Nations General Assembly last September, he said it was “time for moderates to reclaim the agenda for peace and pragmatism”. But this was just a show for the UN.

Najib was trying to appeal to the international community because when he returned home, he refused to punish those extremist politicians, religious leaders and individuals in a responsible position, who revelled in stoking racial and religious disharmony.

Jamaluddin claimed we now have “greater freedom of expression and discourse”. He is wrong.

What Jamaluddin omitted to inform the WSJ was that the government is about to retaliate and silence its critics with more censorship, even in cyber-space. This is in addition to the sedition laws and the ISA.

Jamaluddin may defend Najib’s ‘1Malaysia’ concept, but he cannot excuse the terrible religious intolerance of the holier-than-thou Muslims who have no qualms about disrespecting people of other faiths.

Part of the problem is that members of Najib’s cabinet have their own, conflicting views of “1Malaysia”.

Another part of the problem is how the former Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad is egging on the Malay extremists.

In all of these cases, Najib appears unwilling to condemn their inflammatory views.

Nazri, who is purported to be Najib’s mouth-piece, has asked for a ban on Malott.

To be fair to Jamaluddin, it is his job as Malaysia’ representative in the USA, to protest about Malott’s article and defend the Malaysian government.

Obviously, neither Nazri nor Jamaluddin are cut out for diplomacy.

What they should have done was to roll out the red carpet for Malott and give him a guided tour of Malaysia to show him how and where he might have been misguided or misinformed, or that in the intervening years since he was Ambassador, things had changed.

That should have been the way but instead, they went on the defensive and put several peoples’ backs up. They may now find the foreign press descending on them, wanting to know why Malaysia banned a former diplomat to the country.

Trust Nazri to put his foot in it again! But worldwide publicity is what we need and we welcome it. - Malaysia Chronicle