Even babies are not spared: MCA pokes racial fire for Hannah and hubby

As political rival MCA does its best to stir up racist-tinted trouble for Hannah Yeoh, the first-term Subang Jaya assemblywoman and new mother has slammed back.

"My family and friends are boycotting The Star for this kind of news," Hannah said on her Twitter.

"This entire episode about MCA/MIC/('NGOs') wanting to decide on my child's race has just strengthened my resolve to fight racism even more!"

The Star is the MCA-owned newspaper. It had reported that scores of Indians from various non-governmental organisations in Petaling Jaya had handed over a memorandum to Selangor MCA to protest a decision by Hannah and her husband to register her new-born child as 'Chinese'.

Sour grapes

Hannah is married to M Ramanchandran and their child is of mixed parentage. The couple had tried to register their daughter Shay Adora as "anak Malaysia" but their application was turned by the National Registration Department.

Hannah and Ramachandran then decided to register Shay as 'Chinese' pending an appeal to the NRD.

“Her husband is an Indian and it is customary to name the child's ethnicity as Indian,” said C.K. Lim, adviser to the Selangor MCA public complaints bureau.

Lim accused Hannah and her husband of playing politics by trying to register the child as anak Malaysia.

But who is really playing politics and stirring racial trouble is questionable. Pundits accused the MCA of being sour grapes.

They defended Hannah and husband for trying to begin a movement, calling for an end to categorizing citizens based on ethnicity, as Malaysian society moved towards a banga Malaysia or a Malaysian race. They also accused the MCA for instigating MIC-led groups to complain.

This Malaysian Malaysia concept is actually also a part of former premier Mahathir Mohamad's Vision 2020, but he abandoned it as his power weakened and began resorting to racial polemics to cling on.

Cancel Shay's birth cert

Meanwhile, according to MCA's Lim, the spokesman for the Indian NGOs P. Balakrishnan had said Yeoh's husband demeaned the Indians by not standing up for his right to decide the race of his child.

Balakrishnan also urged the NRD to cancel the baby's birth certificate and issue a fresh one identifying her race as “Indian”.

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has said the registration of anak Malaysia as a child's ethnicity or race would involve changes to the country's laws and amendments to the Federal Constitution.

“Whatever changes involving this matter will need amendments to the law and considerations on the constitution,” he had said.

- Malaysia Chronicle