LETTER Perkasa has done it again. This self-proclaimed Malay rights group is often slammed as being racist thugs from the lunatic fringe. Now, Malaysian Christians must be asking themselves what sort of illiterates or semi-literates form its membership.
Obviously, its founder president Ibrahim Ali must have an extreme aversion to thinking, logic, rational discourse or conceding when others have been proven right. He and other Perkasa leaders are addicted to lies and speaking from the rear, to put it politely.
This is the 21st Century! The age of the information-rich Global Village ushered in by the Internet through globalization and the digital economy.
As often as Ibrahim Ali and his goons routinely distort our history, it’s important that good men and women speak out just as often against these evil-doers in our country.
This man has absolutely no respect for anyone as evident from his willingness to publicly pick a fight with the Christians during their festive cheer.
Good must triumph over Evil
God is watching over us all. It’s incumbent upon Christians to fight the good fight and vanquish satanic forces as exemplified by Ibrahim Ali and the like possessed by the demons.
To further bolster the Christian cause, the majority of the land area of Malaysia – Sabah and Sarawak – is Christian. This is why the 1963 Malaysia Agreement does not provide for an official religion in the two Malaysian Borneo states.
Members of the Christian faith are also an important segment of society in Peninsular Malaysia.
Rev Eu Hong Seng did not question Article 153. What he queried was why it was not being applied equally to the non-Malay communities, including Christians and the like, whose legitimate aspirations are guaranteed under the said Article in the Federal Constitution.
We may also add that Article 153, introduced with a 15 year shelf life, is not a 'sapu bersih' (swipe clean) clause.
Instead, it seeks to confine itself, by providing for the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak and the Orang Asli and Malays of Peninsular Malaysia, a reasonable proportion of the opportunities in only four specific areas. These areas are intake into the civil service; intake into institutions of higher learning and training privileges; government scholarships and opportunities from the government to do business.
This is the so-called special position of the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak and the Orang Asli and Malays in Peninsular Malaysia.
Greedy Umno distorted and abused Article 153
Umno has instead distorted the special position into special privileges by extending the confines of Article 153 beyond the four specific areas to cover every facet of life in Malaysia.
Hopefully, the proposed Race Relations Act will address this observation of Article 153 more often than not in the breach through deviations and distortions.
Note that nowhere in the Federal Constitution are the Malays of Peninsular Malaysia referred to as Natives. The Supreme Law of the Land merely refers to the Malays as Muslims in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore who habitually speak Malay – no specifics given here – and practice Malay culture, customs and traditions. Again, there are no specifics in the Federal Constitution.
Malay supremacy? Check the origin of the Malay race first!
To digress a little, Malay began as a dialect in Cambodia and was developed by the early Hindu, and later Buddhist missionaries, into the lingua franca of the islands of southeast Asia. Hence, the term Malay Archipelago came into widespread usage i.e. an archipelago where Malay was widely used. Malay emerged as the language of religion, trade, education and administration with the infusion of Sanskrit and Pali – a Sanskrit dialect used by Buddhists – words.
In short, there’s no such thing as a Malay race. DNA studies conducted by the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and the on-going one by the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UITM) have borne this out.
What’s referred to as the Malay Peninsula is actually the southern half of the Kra Peninsula where Malay was widely used.
The so-called Malay Peninsula is also not the homeland of a so-called Malay race. Malay in the Malay Peninsular was a term last used by the colonial British to cover various ethnic groups from the nearby islands. They were merely echoing what the earlier Hindu and Buddhist missionaries did.
It was the British colonialists who fought two wars with Bangkok to carve out the Malay Peninsula from the Thai kingdom to plant rubber and mine tin.
It was also the British colonialists who transformed the various Kerajaan sungei – riverine kingdoms reduced to collecting toll along the waterways – of Malay sultans into territorial rule. They also began the Conference of Malay Rulers.
Those who call themselves Malay in Peninsular Malaysia owe a lot, a debt of gratitude, to British colonial rule.
New Economic Policy
It allowed various ethnic groups from the nearby islands to foster the idea of Malay nationalism – i.e. an uprising against Chinese economic dominance – to wrest greater economic and political concessions from the non-Malay communities. The result was Article 153, among others, in the Federal Constitution.
Another result was the New Economic Policy (NEP) as a spin-off from the 4th Special Position in Article 153 of the Federal Constitution.
Like Article 153, the NEP is not a sapu bersih clause.
Under one clause, the NEP seeks to ensure that 30 per cent of the corporate wealth – that publicly-listed – is owned, controlled and managed by the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak, and the Orang Asli and Malays of Peninsular Malaysia within a twenty-year (1970-1990) time-frame. Like Article 153, the NEP is well past its shelf life.
Another clause in the NEP pledges to eradicate poverty irrespective of race and religion.
The 3rd and final clause in the NEP pledges to eliminate the identification of race with economic function and place of residence.
In reality, and as one example, what we have today is a civil service where 90 per cent of the force comes from one community.
Likewise, and as another example, 90 per cent of those who stay in Putrajaya – the Federal Administrative Centre – comprise members of just one community.
The same community also makes up 90 per cent of the Judiciary, the teaching service, the diplomatic service, the police, armed forces and the GLCs.
Wither 1Malaysia as espoused by Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak and Umno!
We need more people like Rev Eu Hong Seng to speak up against all forms of injustice in the country.
- John Kashuerin reads Malaysia Chronicle
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