What Gillian Donald can teach us about the KK Mart controversy

 

From Clement Stanley

Perhaps the name Gillian Donald does not ring a bell with most Malaysians.

In January Gillian rushed over to his neighbour’s burning house in Labuan to save Rogy James Pang and his family of six from certain death.

Sadly, he lost his life soon afterwards from smoke inhalation.

In helping to save a Christian family Gillian, who is Muslim, has shown that when the situation calls for it, religion does not come into question.

In contrast, we have Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh. Rather than put out fires, he fans them.

Granted Akmal, who is now being probed for sedition, did not explicitly call for attacks on KK Mart outlets.

However, his incessant calls for a boycott did nothing to ease the tension.

As a politician, he could have helped to put out these fires, even if ultimately it was for his own selfish political ambitions.

But he claims that he is not doing it for political mileage. Rather, the self-styled sole representative of the Malays says he is just defending the faith.

At least that’s the impression given when he said he speaks for all Malays and Muslims.

Does he really?

PAS is a Muslim-based party, with a majority of its members being Malays. Do they not also speak for Malay-Muslims?

If anything, the results of the last general election saw PAS win the lion’s share of Malay votes.

Yet, to everyone’s surprise, PAS said it was not going to hop on the boycott bandwagon.

For all the criticisms levelled at PAS for being an extremist party it has, in this episode, shown more common sense and compassion, the latter being one of the cornerstones of major religions.

PAS’s stance would have likely left Akmal red-faced. An Islamic party telling a man who claims to represent all Malays and Muslims that they were not going to heed his call.

One way for Akmal to prove his claims will be at the polls. If he could get the Malay electorate to vote for Umno and win big, then maybe he can claim the title of being the spokesman for Malays. Only time will tell.

FMT columnist Mariam Mokhtar noted that some of the Malays she spoke to disagreed with Akmal and I dare say there are many more out there who feel the same.

If there are Malays who are against Akmal, can he really claim to speak for the whole community?

Action speaks louder than words. This is why Malaysians must remember Gillian Donald.

He chose the road that Akmal did not take when it really mattered, and this is something that should be allowed to reverberate in a multicultural society. - FMT

Clement Stanley is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.