PETALING JAYA: Retired national shuttler Lee Chong Wei today made a heartfelt appeal to all Malaysians to be united and stand together as one.
This came after he read comments of racial hatred flooding social media.
The world number one badminton player for six years said friends and fans are increasingly spewing vulgarities at each other, “all due to some very petty issues”.
“It is not the Malaysia I fought for,” he said in his Facebook posting.
In fact, the triple Olympic silver medallist said he has not been frequenting the social media as often as he used to because of the increasing negative comments.
He related an incident at one of the matches with his arch-nemesis Lin Dan, from China, in the 2006 Malaysian Open final where he thought he was going to lose as he was seven match points behind the Chinese top player.
“I looked up at the crowd. Their vociferous (loyal) support never wavered,” he said.
He saw a little Malay girl around 8 years old with hands together in prayer and her eyes closed. “She was praying for me.”
In the other side of the stadium, he saw an Indian girl, crying. “I don’t know if she was crying for me, but I assumed she was.”
While at the other corner, his Chinese friend’s son, who is about 10 years old, was screaming out his name so much so that the umpire had to caution the boy to lower his voice.
“I knew I couldn’t give up. The whole of Malaysia was praying for me to win.
“A Malaysia consisting of friends. A colourful Malaysia. A Malaysia where I eat roti canai for breakfast, nasi lemak for lunch and char koay teow for dinner,” he wrote.
He added that five years ago, there was a “hilarious” report stating Malaysian Chinese would support Lin Dan if the latter had a match with Lee’s former coach, Misbun Sidek.
“First and foremost, who are you to say this when faith and loyalty shouldn’t be your forte?
“Secondly, as a Malaysian who knows these two players, of course I’ll support Misbun. Misbun is my countryman, Lin Dan is not.
“If Misbun wins, my country is happy, everyone happy, maybe got cuti (holiday).
“If Lin Dan wins, ape gua dapat? (What would I get?),” Lee wrote.
He further appealed to all Malaysians not to allow disunity due to “one random voice”, while touching on the introduction of khat (Jawi writing) in the Bahasa Melayu school syllabus in vernacular schools next year.
He urged Malaysians not to be divided over “petty issues” like Dong Zong or khat.
“Don’t let small groups spread racial hate and beat us,” he said.
“Don’t let the evil people, regardless of whether they are Chinese, Indian or Malay, defeat our country, our people.
“Malaysians are much much bigger than this. Show them that we are stronger than all this nonsense,” he added. - FMT
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