Race Relations Act a la UK a sick Umno joke

Umno is now promising us all that it will double padlock the "National Safe", for want of a better term, so that no one can break into it and rifle the contents or muck around with it in any manner.

Malaysia may not need a Race Relations Act a la the United Kingdom because there's no basis for comparison between the model country for the proposed Act, or any other western democracy for that matter. Indeed, no Asian country would even consider having such a disgraceful law on the books.

UK system is not racist but the people are

Malaysia and the United Kingdom are poles apart on the delicate question of race relations.

The fundamental difference is this: in the United Kingdom, the system is not racist.

However the people are and as a result, immigrants from the Third World often end up at the receiving end at the hands of the locals in more ways than one.

Whites in the UK wouldn't hesitate in the least to openly and publicly call non-whites any number of names, often very derogatory, just to let off some steam. It must be remembered that society, by and large in the western world, are not the thinking, educated kind. They earn a living most of the time by standing somewhere the whole day and pushing some buttons on a machine.

Malaysian system is racist but the people are not

In Malaysia the system is racist, the people are not. This is why we can practise the Open House culture during the various festive celebrations without living in fear or indulging in hypocrisy and humbuggery. "Muhibbah" -- goodwill -- is the operative word here.

Such things as the Open House practice wouldn't happen in the UK, or Australia for that matter, where the whites can't stand to even see the sight of any Black i.e. the operative word "Black" meaning anyone who is not white/Caucasoid, and "Black" being defined as anyone with even a drop of Black blood.

So, a person can look as white as snow, according to Whitey, but still be considered "Black" because of a proverbial drop of Black blood. In the white political/racist dictionary, there are only two races in this world i.e. white and Black, there being no yellows, reds, browns or duskies.

Whitey can look as Black as charcoal after lying in the sun the whole day or because he comes from a part of the world where Caucasoids including archaic whites have a more than a little permanent colour in their complexion but he would still be Whitey, according to the politician and racist in Whitey.

However, no matter how racist Whitey is, he does not allow for a system that's racist in his country and neither will he allow a system which is not based on merit. The Brightest and Best, Whitey will grant you any day, must lead the way for all. Hence, we have the rise of Barrack Hussein Obama in the United States as president of that great country. Afro-Americans like Obama form only ten per cent of the population in that country where whites make up 60 per cent.

So, when we talk about colour in Malaysia, it’s actually a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Deliberate distortion of history

In Malaysia, our problem is not the lack of a Race Relations Act but a distorted take on our history.

It allows politicians to run amok to the point of forever bringing the country to yet another May 13. That's the fateful day in history, 1969, when specially-trained commandos disguised as civilians hacked innocent Chinese to death and precipitated a week-long Sino-Malay bloodbath. They were acting on the orders of the then higher-ups in Umno which three days earlier had done very badly in national elections as a result, among others, of kicking out the largely-Chinese Singapore from the Federation four years earlier.

If we are to ever get a system in this country where institutionalised racism doesn't prevail we need to get our history and our Federal Constitution right. In that case, we wouldn't need a Race Relations Act because unlike in the western democracies, our people are by nature not racist.

The institutionalised racism in Malaysia stems, among others, from distortions and deviations in the implementation of Article 153 of the Federal Constitution and the New Economic Policy (NEP) which is an extrapolation of the 4th Special Position accorded to the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak and the Orang Asli and Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia.

Who are the natives

For starters, we need to take note that the Federal Constitution does not recognise the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia as Natives of the Land. The definition of Malay in the Federal Constitution, more a noting of Malay nationalism at best, does not amount to bestowing Native status on Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia.

This is rightly so since the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia come from various other language groups from the islands of southeast Asia, the Indian sub-continent and Arab states, all these peoples being bound by a common faith i.e. Islam. Professor William Roff wrote in his “Origins of Malay Nationalism” that as late as 1885, 85 per cent of the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia were either immigrants or the descendants of recent immigrants.

The Federal Constitution has rightly recognised only the Orang Asli and the Natives in Sabah and Sarawak as Native to Malaysia and this is reflected, in the case of Sabah and Sarawak, in the Adat which includes Native Customary Rights (NCR) over land.

To reiterate, Malay nationalism in Peninsular Malaysia does not amount to being bestowed Native status, either directly or indirectly, by the Federal Constitution. All nationalism are defined by what they oppose.

Malay nationalism

Malay nationalism was a response, and distinctly garbed in Islam, to the economic backwardness of the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore vis-a-vis the Chinese -- the politically "troublesome" south Chinese -- who were encouraged by the Chinese Emperor to migrate to southeast Asia and focus only on business and nothing elsewhere. So powerful was the Edict of the Chinese Emperor in Beijing to the people in south China that its effects can be seen and felt all over southeast Asia today.

All responses to economic and social issues throughout the history of man have taken religious form in order to move the masses and Malay nationalism was no exception. Again, Malay nationalism does not equate or accord with being a Native of Peninsular Malaysia. This fact, among others, must be recognised and accepted, in order to dismantle the system of institutionalised racism in Malaysia.

It's also our history that the British colonialists fought two wars with Bangkok to carve out Peninsular Malaysia from the Thai kingdom to plant rubber and tin.

The British did not fight these two wars so that the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia could subsequently go on to invent the fairy tale that they are Natives of the land.

If not for the British, there would be no Malaysia and we in Peninsular Malaysia would be speaking Thai and calling ourselves Abjit Rama Rama and the like to be recognised as citizens of his Majesty the King in Bangkok.

Malay Rulers

The Conference of Malay Rulers was yet another creation of the British colonialists.

The British could not understand the concept of a ruler, a Sultan, who did not have territory to lord over and control. Muslim sultanates on the islands of southeast Asia were Kerajaan Sungei -- riverine kingdoms -- reduced to collecting tolls along the waterways in order to govern the spiritual affairs of the local ummah (faithful). A Sultan, was like a mini Pope, charged with being the spiritual head of the local ummah and nothing more.

The British left the institution of sultanships alone except for forbidding them to henceforth send the bunga mas -- taxes collected by the Sultans from the Muslim squatters on Thai territory -- to Bangkok.

The British also defined the territorial borders for the various Sultans in Peninsular Malaysia. The states were now regular little kingdoms and no longer confined to Sungei Perak, Sungei Pahang, Sungei Johore and the like. The Bugis and other-origin Sultans also received regular pensions from the British colonial administration in order to govern the spiritual affairs of the local Ummah.

The system in Malaysia must also free itself of institutionalised racism by either recognising and implementing the 1963 Malaysia Agreement or allow Sabah and Sarawak to free itself of the Federation and forge their own destiny in the world.

At present, the Federal Government has a master-slave relationship with the two Malaysian Borneo states through local proxies, stooges and traitors.

It's no secret that the Dayaks in Sarawak and the Dusuns -- including the Kadazans or urban Dusuns and the Muruts -- in Sabah live in fear of the ruling elite in Putrajaya stealing their countries and handing them over to the impoverished Muslim hordes from the nearby Philippines and Indonesia.

It must also be recognised that much of the racism in the politics of this country stems from Umno twisting and turning every issue into a racial issue. This is being deliberately done under the politics of distraction and disruption in order to pit the Malays and non-Malays against each other and scare the former into circling the wagons and gather under one political platform – read Umno – so that a handful of leaders can live it by like latter-day sheikhs “as if there’s no tomorrow”.

The politics of distraction and disruption camouflages the thievery that goes on at the Public Treasury as government projects ultimately cost the tax-payer anything up to ten times what it should actually cost. The difference is being pocketed by the politicians under various guises: Bumiputeraism, NEP, Malaysia Boleh and the like.

Malaysia Chronicle