That old man again...Mahatir. Malaysiakini

RACISM AND 2008 ELECTIONS

Posted by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad at November 17, 2008 9:15 AM |

1. When the Barisan Nasional did badly in the March 2008 General Election, foreign observers and many in this country were jubilant because they claim that it marked the demise of racial politics and racial parties in Malaysia.
2. I did not agree with this simplistic view and I had put my thoughts on this blog. I believed that it was rather protest against the failures of the Abdullah Government that caused many Barisan Nasional members and supporters to vote for the opposition. But many still insist that race based politics is no longer relevant in Malaysia. Is it?
3. If it is because the Malaysian electorate had rejected racial politics, why did they vote for such parties as PAS, a very Malay Muslim party, and DAP, a Chinese dominated party. Even the Keadilan is made up of violently racist Hindraf Indians, Chinese dissatisfied with the MCA's representation of the Chinese in BN and self-serving Malays who could not find a place in the other Malay parties.
4. These three parties did not campaign for human rights or open Governments or even against the Internal Security Act. PAS had made no secret of their Islamic State pretensions. DAP talked of Malaysian Malaysia which was the battle cry of its very Chinese PAP antecedents of Singapore (no non-Chinese PM) and Keadilan talked about reforms etc., but the stress was on Hindu Rights and anti-Malay racism.
5. Their accredtied supporters who may really subscribe to their creeds had never been big enough to make them strong opposition parties in the past. They were never able to deny the BN a 2/3rd majority. It should be remembered that Keadilan won only one seat in the 2004 elections. The other two, DAP and PAS did not do much better either.
6. It was the defection by the BN party members which resulted in the opposition parties, regardless of the quality of their candidate getting the large number of votes to win so many more seats than they or anybody else expected.
7. Apart from the voters supporting the essentially race based opposition parties, the claim that it was the rejection of racial politics which led to the poor results by the BN has also not been borne out by the attitudes and debates by Malaysians post 2008 elections.
8. What we are witnessing today is an explosion of racial politics that is more bitter and blatant than ever before. Even the least observant cannot fail to notice how Malaysian politics now is more about racial inequities than about liberalism, human rights, openness etc.
9. True there has been quite a lot of discussion on the ISA. But most of the angry and bitter discussion is about Malay "privileges", about the Social Contract, about the Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister being Malays, about UMNO bullying, about being or not being immigrants, about Malay dominance. Even the criticisms regarding the way judges are appointed or promoted have elements of race that is hardly disguised.
10. Truly Malaysian politics have not been decoupled from racial sentiments and loyalties. And it is going to remain so for as long as the different races prefer to be separated and divided, prefer to strongly uphold their languages, cultures and their historical origins and links. All that is said about reforms and liberalism is mere lip service.

Pathmanck:

The reason why BN lost it's 2/3 majority is simple because the Indians realise that the BN was merely using and eliminating them. So 90% of the Indians voted against BN. Indians then became the king makers. It all strted with the slogan "Makkal Sakthi" If you spoke about giving importance to social contract and ketuanan melayu in Early 60's. Yes, people would have agreed. But I'm sure not a single soul would have thought that the world would become so globalised. In 50 years things have changed alot. Many things that was decided then it's relevent now. Internet revolutionized the world with Malaysia in it.

I never learned about this social contract or the ketuanan melayu or anything like that in school. To be frank most of the things I studied in History classes in school was misleaded facts. Made up lies to it's highest degree. Which one day, I'm sure the government will ask forgiveness for their mistakes. Real History will teach you this.

To state some facts and truth. If Hindraf is racist. Umno is much more worse. Most of the problem faced in Malaysia now is because of Mahatirism. And to read the comments of other senile people of his blog was much more worse. So much of racism involve from none other than the race that calls others racist. Why is that? The "non-Malays" to say in the Malaysian way. Are not fighting to destroy the Malays but the live with respect and dignity equal to the Malays. We build this country from the scratch. Before the British occupation there weren't much infrastructure in Malaysia. It was all thick jungles, hill and mountains. There weren't high tech machineries back then. Who did the work? Who help plan and build this country and it's financial institutions? We weren't Expatriates like my old friends and lecturers from UK who came to malaysia in the 50's to build our infrastructure. We work to build our country. To make a better place for them and their children to live.

My reply to one particular Chedet blog commenter. The British brought the Indians and Chinese to Malaysia because the Malays didn't want to do the work. So it was only logical for them go thru the rouble to bring them over. When they left, which they thought they wont obviously they couldn't send back all the Indians and Chinese. Surely they had to make some kind of deal with the Chinese and Indians. The Malay leaders then also understood the situation. If it wasn't the British leaving this place in proper manner. Malaysia could have been a war zone something similar to Africa. With Chinese tribe and Indian tribe and Malay tribe fighting for power. During that time Malays were only 40% of the population of Malaysia. The registration of Indian and Chines as citizen started 10 year before Merdeka. So when Malaysia achieved it's Independence from the British, it was meant for all Malaysians. I myself already the 4Th generation, will be starting the 5Th.

We lived in harmony and with respect with the Malays and the other races for many generations. UMNO is the cause of this racial spitting between each other. Because of abuse of power, corruption and miss use of power for this pass 30 years. Example like our EX, Present and Future Prime Minister of Malaysia.