When this happened 35 years ago

Nevertheless, being less than a decade after ‘May 13’, the report about a Chinese youth stabbing a Malay youth to death made people very nervous. They rushed out to buy rice to stock up on the possibility that there was going to be a curfew following race riots. Some went to Singapore for an ‘early’ holiday. Many stayed in-doors, in case. Chinese did not stray into ‘Malay areas’ and Malays stayed out of ‘Chinese areas’. And so on.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Perkasa defends headmaster, demands action

Malay right-wing non-governmental organisation, Perkasa wants the authorities to act against individuals who politicised the recent issue over pupils eating recess meals at a changing room of a school in Sungai Buloh.

Its vice-president Zulkifli Noordin said certain quarters had taken advantage of the situation to slander the headmaster of Sekolah Kebangsaan Seri Pristana, Mohamad Nasir Mohd Nor, by branding him as a “racist” who forced non-Malay pupils to eat in the toilet.

“Clearly, the matter has been distorted and coated with lies when the truth is that the school has a small canteen that can only accommodate 600 pupils.

“The decision (to use the changing room) was made following a discussion between the teachers and the parent-teacher association, and the headmaster was only implementing the decision,” he said at a news conference to announce the formation of the Malaysian Inter-Racial NGO Council (Mirac), here.

Zulkifli expressed Perkasa’s support to defend Mohamad Nasir.

Meanwhile, chairman of the MIC Youth Education Bureau, P. Punithan, in a statement, urged all quarters not to turn the matter into a racial issue, saying it could undermine the existing racial unity.

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I remember about 35 years ago when one newspaper reported the story of a Chinese youth stabbing a Malay youth to death. Some of us were outraged -- not regarding the incident but regarding the way the incident was reported.

It was actually a gang clash. There were many gang clashes in Kuala Lumpur at that time. Sometimes Chinese kill Chinese. Sometimes Malays kill Malays. Sometimes Indians kill Indians. And sometimes the one killed is someone from the other race.

In this case it happened to be a Chinese youth that killed a Malay youth. But the Chinese killed the Malay not because he was Malay but because he was a member of a rival gang. In fact, it was not even a Malay rival gang, as there were Chinese as well as Malays in that particular gang. It just happened to be that it was a Malay youth and not a Chinese youth from that gang who was killed.

Nevertheless, being less than a decade after ‘May 13’, the report about a Chinese youth stabbing a Malay youth to death made people very nervous. They rushed out to buy rice to stock up on the possibility that there was going to be a curfew following race riots. Some went to Singapore for an ‘early’ holiday. Many stayed in-doors, in case. Chinese did not stray into ‘Malay areas’ and Malays stayed out of ‘Chinese areas’. And so on.

This was all because the newspaper reported that a Chinese youth stabbed a Malay youth to death instead of just reporting that one person died in a gang clash involving a few people.

They were gang members. And it was a gang clash. And one gang member killed another. Does it matter what race they were when race was not the motivation for the killing?

In fact, Chinese gang members (say from Pudu) also stab or ‘chop’ rival Chinese gang members (say from Petaling Street) and vice versa. But the newspapers just report the gang clash. They do not say ‘Chinese youth stabs to death another Chinese youth’. So why the need to report that a Chinese youth has killed a Malay youth?

The same goes for the ‘canteen-in-the-toilet’ episode. If it had been, say, a Malay school and the Malay headmaster had asked the Malay students to eat in the changing room, it would not have been reported as a Muslim (or Malay) headmaster asking the Muslim (or Malay) students to eat in the changing room. It would have just been reported as the headmaster asking the students to eat in the changing room.

But in this case it has been reported as the Muslim (or Malay) headmaster asking the Hindu (or Indian) students to eat in the changing room. Hence it is no longer about the silly or inconsiderate act of the headmaster. It is now a racial and religious issue.

The headmaster may have done something silly and should be punished for this silly act. But we have done even worse than what the headmaster did. We have turned this into a racial and religious issue. Hence our crime is worse than the headmaster’s by far.

And now we have been forced to take sides. This is no longer about whether what the headmaster did is wrong. It is about will all the Malays-Muslims please stand on the right and all the non-Malays-non-Muslims stand on the left. Yet one more thing has divided Malaysians, as if we are not already divided enough.