If Najib is really serious…

The prime minister ought to strike the whip at those leaders who are hellbent on derailing his 1Malaysia concept.

COMMENT

Racism and stupidity should be booted out of the Malaysian political scenario besides corruption and cronyism. Post GE13, we have been hearing statements such as ‘If you don’t like it here, you can leave’ and also threats of shutting down a certain Chinese newspaper.

This has gone on for far too long.

Here we have Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak trying to build up the image of Malaysia as a fair, just and moderate nation but his very own ministers are trying to derail his plans.

PM Najib should immediately censure them for issuing statements that jeopardise racial harmony and destroy the very fabric of the nation. Enough is enough. He must act tough with his own people who are working hard to portray the nation as a Third World Nation when we the citizens are trying hard to shed that image.

Although the threat of shutting down a particular Chinese newspaper will not be carried out, this threat coming from a senior minister nonetheless shows the type of mentality that the minister has.

Stereotyping criminals as belonging to a certain race is also a big blunder. How would this minister like it if one were to say, “Such and such a group of people are always the gullible voters?”.

Clearly the time has come for Najib to give a tongue-lashing to those in his cabinet who are hellbent on derailing his 1Malaysia concept. Or is this concept just a ploy to woo the non-Malay voters?

The BN government will definitely not be regarded in high esteem if the BN ministers continue to issue racist statements or harebrained statements that are illogical or factually incorrect or just plain stupid.

These days, citizens are smarter and will certainly evaluate whether the government is talking sense or nonsense instead of simply accepting the government’s words at face-value or as absolute truth.

Take for instance the explanation that some police guns have fallen into the sea. This is rubbish. There is no way such a thing could have happened unless the policemen went swimming in full uniform.

At the end of the day, the government will lose credibility in the eyes of its citizens if blunders like these are part and parcel of the administration.

Reconciliation process

Racist statements, the threat of clamping down on factual reporting, wastage and leakage in administration and management, corruption and cronyism are bad enough but if there is any attempt to sideline the Chinese for voting the opposition during GE13, then this takes the cake as the most terrible mistake in government policy.

Hopefully this will not happen as it is a detrimental move towards the efforts of nation-building.

It must be said that the Chinese Premier, Xi Jinping has high regard for Malaysia and one of the reasons is that the Chinese diaspora here have contributed a lot to Malaysia’s progress.

(The Chinese government have voiced out that they do take a keen interest in the contributions of the Chinese worldwide and they do encourage the Chinese diaspora to be good citizens.)

Therefore it is time for PM Najib to launch or put into effect his National Reconciliation Plan.

Shah Alam’s PAS MP, Khalid Samad pointed out that “statements telling the Chinese to ‘leave’ or ‘get out’ are not only racist in nature but also plain ignorant as the Chinese have as much right to this country as anyone else as this forms part of the basis for the Independence negotiations. Moreover, the Chinese have accepted the Federal Constitution and all within it as a basis for nation-building.”

Thus the ‘balik China’ statements hurled at the Malaysian Chinese are clearly out of line and the same goes for the ‘balik India’ statements hurled at the Malaysian Indians.

We cannot run away from our ethnicity but all attempts to emphasise on one’s ‘Malaysianness’ seems to have failed due to the Chinese and Indians constantly being reminded that we are ‘immigrants’ or ‘pendatang’.

Our seemingly secondary status is also highlighted when we have been stereotyped as this type of criminal or that type of criminal.

In the end, 1Malaysia is nothing but a Utopian concept and like Utopia, it does not exist.

This means that if PM Najib is really serious in wanting to leave behind a legacy of a united Malaysia, he has to start by censuring those in his own camp who derail his 1Malaysia slogan and he must remember to implement policies that are fair, just and inclusive to all.

Selena Tay is a DAP member and a FMT columnist.