Blatant claim of “Chinese, Indians hate Malays” sparks heated exchanges; MCMC report lodged

 

HATE speech is defined as any form of communication- speech, writing or behaviour that attacks, threatens, insults or degrades a group or individual based on attributes like race, religion, sexual orientation, gender or nationality.

It aims to incite violence, discrimination or intense hostility, thus threatening social cohesion and human rights.

As such, a post on Facebook Threads by an unapologetic and unashamed bigot going by the name of raihannzakariahh certainly falls squarely within that definition.

In it, he lambasted majority of the Chinese and Indian demographic in Malaysia for being “hateful towards the Malays”.

It was also contended that the younger generation of Chinese and Indians may not have racist attitudes but they do not represent the majority of this population segment.

It is the middle-aged members who are dominant and they are, according to this enraged poster, simply prejudiced towards the Malays.

This outburst was shared on the Malaysia Education Info (And Homeschooling Too) Facebook forum by one of its moderators who noted that while not everyone thinks like the racist poster, many others unfortunately subscribe to his sweeping generalisations.

It was declared with no small amount of vitriol that “same (*expletive*) are the one who together made this nation progress to be among the top in ASEAN.

After all, most of Malaysia’s progress to-date has been due to its multi-cultural society, “if not how did the country progress further than many of the so-called homogenous monolithic nations in the region – if not to leverage our positives rather than drag each other down”

First and foremost, this tirade managed to upset more than a few citizens, hence it was not surprising that a report has been lodged with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for inflammatory remarks.

The concerned citizen who lodged the report urged others to do the same to ensure such controversial 3R (race, royalty and religion) rhetoric could be curbed.

It was a timely reminder that such views and opinions would only benefit outside forces hellbent on destabilising the country. This commenter also emphasised Islam’s message of peace to denote that this poster’s diatribe went against the Prophet’s teachings.

One commenter was of the opinion that non-Malays should know their place as this “discrimination” was pre-agreed by their ancestors when Malaya was founded.

This notion was given short shrift by a few other commenters who disagreed by pointing out that such policies were never meant to be in perpetuity.

Quite a few observers were of the opinion that the angry young man who spewed the original racist tirade probably had a limited social circle.

What this post has highlighted are the deep schisms that have appeared in Malaysian society and are widening by the day with each angry accusation and counter-accusation.

If Malaysia holds any pretensions of progress and being a first world nation, the country’s hodge-podge population and multi-cultural make-up needs to be recognised as a strength. As this proud citizen emphasised – viva le difference! 

 

 - Focus Malaysia