Sorry about it, but the call by the MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai to Malaysians “to heed the advice of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak on the issue of moderation and not be influenced by racial and religious extremist ideology disseminated by irresponsible groups” comes to me as a joke.
Similarly with the Prime Minister’s call on Malaysians “to come together in the spirit of harmony, acceptance and respect in celebrating Christmas”.
Liow is reported to have said that “Malaysia can continue to develop and progressonly when we learn to trust and respect each other and live together in peace and harmony”. This is an insult to Malaysians, for Malaysians had long ago accepted the various cultures and religious beliefs found in this land, and had been living in peace and harmony. It is not as if this is something new that they have to learn.
What is new is the extremist, Talibanist ideology that is being forcefully brought to bear upon people who have been living in peace and harmony for ages, with the objective of destroying the goodwill, peace and harmony between the races and religions in the name of defending Islam. This is totally contrary to what the Prophet had taught, which means the bigots, who claim to be defending Islam, don’t even have respect for the Prophet.
So who has to learn what in 2014 or 2015? Isn’t it a joke and an insult to ask the huge majority of Malaysians of various races, cultures and religions who had been living in peace and harmony with each other all these past decades to “learn to trust and respect each other and live together in peace and harmony”?
The few vociferous racist bigots are like big school bullies. So what do you do – advice the rest of the students to keep away from them, or take the bullies by the horns and throw them to the ground so that bullying stops? When the few school bullies are not reigned in, they create more bullies resulting in even the teachers fearing them. Finally the bullies take control of the schools and teachers dare not take any action for fear of retaliation by the bullies. This has happened in real life, in Malaysia.
This is the scenario that the nation is facing with the bigots given freedom to continue their Talibanist activities in the name of freedom of expression, while the government advises the rest of the people to “learn to trust and respect each otherand live together in peace and harmony”.
Could Liow, Joseph Kurp and Abdul Rahman Dahlan, who have made public statements on this pressing issue, please tell us how many times they have raised this issue in the Cabinet meetings. If they have, what is the Cabinet decision? “Sulit”, is it?
So long as the Cabinet as a whole, through the voice of the Prime Minister, does not condemn the extremist ideology being preached by the few bigots, and order that action be taken to stop the “bullying”, the bullying is going to go on because the bullies interpret that “silence is consent”. So the Cabinet’s silence tantamounts to government’s endorsement of bigotry. For what reason, only the Cabinet wouldknow.
Why is the Cabinet abdicating its duty of ensuring that extremism is not allowed to raise its ugly head to destroy “the peace and harmony that have been achieved since the country’s independence”, in the words of the PM?
The Penal Code very clearly limits freedom of expression. It does not extend to making racist statements and carrying out actions that are “likely to cause disharmony, disunity or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will” or “likely to prejudice maintenance of harmony or unity”.
No right-thinking person will dispute that this restriction of expression is not an infringement of the democratic right of freedom of expression. Only those with evil intent will claim that these Penal Code provisions infringe their democratic right of expression.
Racist bigotry and extremism are not going to stop until and unless the Cabinet takes a strong stand to put them down. Why is the Cabinet not doing it?
* Ravinder Singh is a reader of The Malaysian Insider.
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