Time to move on from victim mentality mindset

I refer to the Malaysiakini report Muslim NGO chief: Leave if you don't agree with constitution.

The speeches from the recent 'Konvensyen Kebangkitan Ummah' event organised by the Gerakan Pembela Ummah have proven one thing - that despite more than 60 years of independence, decades of affirmative action and race-preferential policies and generations of people who have benefited, those attending the convention and their supporters remain trapped in a victim mentality mindset and self-pity.

As an NGO, Bebas states that speakers indulging in revisionist history such as Ismail Mina Ahmad, who try to diminish and erase the contributions of ethnic minorities during the Second World War, the struggle for Independence and the Emergency, are desperate.

They appear to be interested in only two things: making you afraid of real and imagined problems and telling you who they think is to blame for them. These people are not interested in actually solving problems. They live in a bubble of conveniently blaming others for their failures.

Elsewhere in the world, people struggle to throw off the yoke of racism. In Malaysia, there are some among us who not only continue to embrace this disease but seek to justify institutional racism to maintain dominance, supremacy and entitlements which benefit only the few.

They expect preferential treatment or seek benefit from their race and religion. As we have seen from this convention, they also have no qualms of wrapping racial bigotry in religious arguments.

How much longer should we be slaves to racism and live in the past? Rather than believing in and emphasising the value of hard work and meritocracy, this group prefers to play the victim.

They blame other ethnicities and even things such as liberalism, K-Pop and hedonism for their inability to compete, to gain respect and to succeed.

Unbelievably, we also heard calls for non-bumiputera students to be deprived of government scholarships and to stop the practice of awarding them based on merit.

These are funded by taxes paid by Malaysians of all ethnicities and religions. Everyone should have equal right and opportunity to compete and earn these scholarships. They are not the exclusive property of one particular ethnicity.

To move forward, Bebas calls on Malaysians to reject the demands of this convention and to focus on working hard towards a future where we do not need to depend on racial discrimination and bigotry to succeed.

We do not need to diminish others in order to become a better people and society.

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The writer is Bebas spokesperson.-Mkini