Pakatan condemns racist Utusan article, calls it seditious
Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders scoffed at an opinion piece published in Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia today accusing the multi-racial three-party opposition bloc of deliberately working to undermine the special rights and privileges of the Malays.
“I think it's an article which shows the severe desperation of Umno apologists,” PAS central committee member Dr Hatta Ramli told The Malaysian Insider in an immediate reaction to the scare-mongering piece written by Noor Azam.
“I don't think Malays will be influenced by such racist articles which are intended to split the unity of the Malaysian people,” he added.
The Kuala Krai MP noted that the public was well-aware of the duplicity of the Barisan Nasional (BN) leadership which had failed to create unity among the different ethnic and religious groups.
“The three main parties in BN are trying to create opportunities for their own leadership, not create a prosperous Malaysia for all Malaysians. That's why the people are angry at them,” he said.
He sighed when asked to comment on Noor Azam's declaration turning public institutions such as the courts, the police and the military into Malay institutions.
It seemed a familiar and frequently-asked question he had faced before.
“That's the whole problem. It's as if they are all Malay racial institutions when they are actually Malaysian institutions upheld by everyone,” Dr Hatta said.
He added that even if the institutions were presently staffed more by the Malays than Chinese or Indian, it is “all preferential; these people want to be there.”
“It is unwise and it is dangerous to classify the institutions as Malay. Any criticism to these institutions will then be taken as a challenge to the Malay position, which is a lop-sided view and may have been the wrong strategy used in the past to get bigger support,” he said.
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