No racism among soldiers, says army vet

'They do everything together and this makes it easy for them to see one another as brothers.'

PETALING JAYA: Retired brigadier-general Mohd Arshad Raji has advised Malaysians to take a cue from soldiers in learning how to live with one another without seeing differences in their racial backgrounds.

“No matter what race you are, whether you’re Chinese, Indian, Malay or whatever, we are all brothers in the army. We are all Malaysians,” he told FMT.

Arshad, who served the army for 32 years, said soldiers did everything together and this made it easy for them to see one another as members of one big family.

“You eat together, you sleep together, you go for operations together. You’re always together. So you don’t think about the other person’s race. There’s no time for that.”

Soldiers were therefore much different from politicians, he added.

“The race card is a politician’s game. We soldiers prefer poker,” he quipped, quickly adding that he strictly forbade his subordinates from any form of gambling.

He referred to a recent case in which Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi called into question former prime minister Mahathir Mohammad’s lineage.

“What was the point in that? I know Zahid, he is a friend of mine. So I’m very sure he knows that we are all either second or third generation Malaysians. None of us is 100% Malay.”

Retired air force sergeant A Gondasamy agreed, saying he never came across a racist soldier in all his 35 years of service.

“The racial make-up when I was in the air force was 45% Malays and 55% non-Malays; so it was a pretty mixed crowd,” Gondasamy told FMT.

He said this was the case in all branches of the air force, including engineering, air traffic control and logistics.

“When we gathered, all races would always be present. We were never segregated.”

However, he said it was easier for Malays to move up in rank due to the quota system. -FMT