THE SINS OF YOUR FATHER ARE YOUR SINS

I can’t understand why Marina must pay for the sins and crimes of her father while you do not need to also pay for the sins and crimes of your parents. What double standards are these you are applying?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

It has been an amusing week for me. I have been busy disapproving comments by readers who viciously attacked Marina Mahathir regarding her suggestion that the Cabinet members be made to suffer a 5% cut in salary to share the pain of the rakyat.

Actually, none of these people said that they thought the idea is a bad idea. In fact, none of the comments even touched on Marina’s suggestion. All the comments were about Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Hence I really do not know whether all these readers thought that the idea was good or bad because none of them said so. But what I do know is that they have this deep hatred for Dr Mahathir, which they are taking out on his daughter.

The other group that these readers whacked was the Indian Muslims a.k.a. Mamaks. Today, because of the nasty things they are saying about the Mamaks, ‘Mamak’ has become a bad word just like ‘Pariah’ (or just like ‘Paki’ in the UK and ‘Nigger’ in the US).

Now get a load of this! All these people attacking Marina are Chinese, if their Facebook profile is true.

Never mind whether what Marina says is brilliant or true. She is Dr Mahathir’s daughter. So whack her good and proper.

Marina has no right to say anything. She is Dr Mahathir’s daughter. So she has lost her right to talk.

Why does Marina not go and preach to her father? Why preach to us? We refuse to hear what she has to say since she is Dr Mahathir’s daughter.

And the arguments go on and on as to why Marina should not be allowed to talk and why if she does talk we have to viciously attack her with foul language and racial slurs regarding her Indian Muslim or Mamak bloodline, the Pariahs of Muslim society whom if you meet together with a snake you kill them first before you kill the snake.

In the first place why do you even need to kill a snake if the snake does not threaten you or cause you harm? Do snakes not also have the right to live? And if you clear the jungle to build your homes are you not infringing the territory belonging to the wildlife?

Wildlife all over the world is facing extinction because of us humans. And then we kill them when they accidentally stray into our homes, which are built on their land in the first place.

What kind of people are we? And then we kill tigers and all sorts of other animals, and they are getting extinct very fast, because we believe that these animals can be made into medicine that improves our sex life even though there is no scientific evidence to prove this.

So, please, do not kill Mamaks before you kill snakes. The snakes do you no harm. And killing Mamaks will result in you ending up in jail on a charge of murder.

Anyway, even if Dr Mahathir did all those foul and evil things you say he did when he was Malaysia’s Prime Minister for 22 years, how did he manage that? Did he launch a military coup and take power in an undemocratic manner? Or did he get into power through the general election and won by a very large majority on top of that?

In short, did Dr Mahathir put himself into power or did the voters put him into power? And who were these people who put him into power? Was it Dr Mahathir’s family members like Marina or was it you? One vote from Marina cannot put Dr Mahathir into power unless millions of other people also voted for him.

Okay. I know what you are now going to say. It was not we who voted for Dr Mahathir. We were too young to vote at that time. In fact, some of us were not even born yet then. It was our parents and grandparents who voted for Dr Mahathir and put him into power.

Ah, so the sin of giving power to Dr Mahathir rest on the shoulders of your parents and grandparents then. So the fault lies with your parents and grandparents.

Alright, let me try to understand this, since one loses one’s right to speak because of the sins of one’s parents (the standards you apply to Marina) do you have the right to speak since your parents committed the sin of putting Dr Mahathir into power?

Remember that Marina has lost her right to speak and if she does speak we must attack her because she is Dr Mahathir’s daughter. Do you, therefore, also have the right to speak based on this same yardstick?

If Marina must shut the fuck up because of what her father did then you, too, should shut the fuck up because of what your father and mother did. You may say that Dr Mahathir messed up the country. But your parents also messed up the country by voting for the man who messed up the country and for allowing him 22 years of power in spite of the country being messed up.

I can’t understand why Marina must pay for the sins and crimes of her father while you do not need to also pay for the sins and crimes of your parents. What double standards are these you are applying?

Okay, I know what you are now going to say. Our parents were tricked into voting for Barisan Nasional. Our parents obtained news from only the mainstream media so they did not know any better. There was no alternative media or Internet at that time so our parents did not have the other side of the story. Our parents were ignorant.

Okay, okay, okay…I have heard all those excuses before. But what I can’t understand is how come this is only a Chinese and Indian problem? How come since Merdeka the Malays did not suffer this same predicament? The Malays were already voting opposition since 1957.

You mean to say that the Malays are smarter than the Chinese and Indians? You mean to say the Malays are not ignorant and easily tricked by the mainstream media propaganda like the Chinese and Indians? You mean to say the Malays do not need the Internet to know better and if there were no Internet until today the Chinese and Indians would still be ignorant?

I would say this is a most interesting phenomenon, which anthropologists and sociologists should study in depth.