The enemy of the Malays

• By Mariam Mokhtar

In the latest entry in his blog, former prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that he was ashamed that many Malays believe that the DAP, and its secretary-general, Lim Guan Eng, would destroy the Malays, if they were part of the Federal 

He said, “I admit that the Malays have several weaknesses amongst which was their lack of success in business and economic activity. Many poor Malays are involved in drugs, in certain crimes and corruption. Our prisons are full of Malays.”

Then he asked, “…but is it true that the Malays are so weak that a political party could destroy them?”

So, are the Chinese strong, or the Malays weak?

My experience

I went to a mission school and do not recall any animosity between the Chinese and the Malays, at least amongst my school friends. We studied together, ate from one another’s tupperware during break, spent weekends in one another’s houses and socialised.

There was intense competition in various subjects, and that cannot be bad, because it made us work harder, to try and outdo one another.

So, where and how, did the vicious enmity begin? Who started it and why? I think we know that Umno started it, and successive prime ministers did nothing to help integrate the races, but exacerbated the division.

My father’s photos, from his student days, in England, show that he was surrounded by fellow Malayans – Malays, Indian and Chinese, I do not believe that his youth was tainted by the inter-racial hatred which is prevalent today.

An older friend, a non-Malay lawyer in his sixties, whom I shall call David, related a similar experience from his youth. He enjoyed the friendship of the Malays in much the same way as I did, with the non-Malays.

Every Christmas, one of David’s friends, would visit him but recently the teenage children of his Malay friend refuse to shake hands with David, wish him “Happy Christmas” or even drink from his glasses, even if coke was poured from a bottle. They would just sit in the car whilst their father reminisced about old times.

David was visibly hurt, but his friend said, “You mustn’t mind them because they go to a Mara school.”

The father’s justification for his children’s racism is wrong, and he should have done more to correct his children’s manners and attitude.

A classmate, who enrolled her children in a national school said that when her children shared their food with their non-Malay friends at break, their teacher admonished them, and warned them not to mix with non-Malays and non-Muslims. When my friend complained to the headmistress about a racist teacher, her children were bullied.

So, is racism part of the school curriculum?

I know two families – one Malay, the other Chinese. Their children were not academic so when they finished Form Three, the Chinese boy, was sent by his father to a garage to learn how to be a mechanic. Today, he runs a successful car repair and imported car parts business. The Malay parents did not offer their son any direction and today, he is a drug addict and unemployed.

I recently met a Malay woman who owns and manages a successful restaurant in London, and she said, “The people who are betraying the Malays, are the Malays themselves.” She rattled off the names of the Malays who had cheated and stolen from Felda, Tabung Haji and other Malay institutions.

On the other hand, in the previous month, three successful, professional Malays, living in Malaysia, told me that the non-Malays should not demand too much, if they wanted to live in Malaysia.

They each said that the Chinese were a threat to them, but when I asked how the Chinese posed a threat, they could only repeat the political propaganda, which we hear so often, “The DAP have a pact with Singapore to make it a Chinese dominated country and the Malays will surely lose their rights. The Chinese will get rid of Islam and install Christianity as the state religion. They will also get rid of the Sultans.”

Are the Malays very insecure, extremely gullible, or both?

They have been brainwashed into thinking that the Chinese is the enemy, and they fail to criticise the Malay leaders involved in large scale corruption. They also fail to censure the Malays who contribute to the high consumption of internet porn, on the east coast, the drug taking, incest and the high percentage of the Malay community infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS.

There are large numbers of Malay divorces and a high proportion of single mothers compared to the other races.

The Malay  social fabric is at risk of disentangling. Religion has not managed to reduce the drug taking, incestuous relationships, teenage pregnancies or large-scale corruption and theft of public money. The majority of Malay women are afraid to speak out against child marriages or polygamy.

To make things worse, the NEP has only made elite Malays richer and ignored the needs of the poorer Malays.

So, tell me, are the DAP, the Chinese or the communists, the real enemy of the Malay?

- rebuilding malaysia