COW STORY II
Any UMNO politician is fully aware of the risk of being seen to be pandering to the demands of the non-Malay. In short it is a question of an individuals political survival. UMNO is founded on the concept of Ketuanan Melayu, which whether we chose to agree to or not to, still resonates with a section of the Malay electorate.
On August 31,2007, P. Waytha Moorthy, an obscure Indian lawyer from the nation's capital, filed a class action suit against the United Kingdom in the Court of Britain for "withdrawing after granting independence and leaving us (Indians) unprotected and at the mercy of a majority Malay-Muslim government that has violated our rights as minority Indians". The lawsuit is not only claiming £4 trillion as compensation, it is also seeking to strike out Article 153 of the Malaysian Constitution which acknowledges Malay Supremacy and for the court to declare that Malaysia is a secular state and not an Islamic state as declared by former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. 60 days later, on the 30th of October 2007, Waytha Moorthy and prominent members of HINDRAF—M. Manoharan, P. Uthayakumar and V. Ganabatirau were were arrested for taking part in a demonstration against the demolition of a Hindu Shrine in Kuala Lumpur. 26 days after that, on the 25th of November 2007, about 20,000 ethnic Indians took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur to protest against the Government in what is now known as the Hindraf Rally. 190 days after Waytha Moorthy filed his suit, Barisan Nasional lost 5 states to the Opposition in its worst electoral performance in history.
It goes without saying, that almost 80% of ethnic Indian voters who had sided with Barisan Nasional for the better part of half a century, voted against the ruling coalition, which in part contributed to its shambolic performance.
About a year after the 12th General Election, Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak took the oath of Office and became Malaysia's 6th Prime Minister. Seeking to regain the support Barisan Nasional once enjoyed amongst the non-Malays, the Prime Minister launched the 1 Malaysia concept that has been loosely translated as a policy of accommodation to the Non-Malays. Almost 2 years to the day that P. Waytha Moorthy filed his class action suit, Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak became the first Prime Minister in over 30 years to visit a Hindu temple, where he was greeted enthusiastically by the throng of ethnic Indians that had rejected his party only a short while back. 20 days later, a group, claiming to be residents of Section 23, Shah Alam, marched from a nearby mosque to the front gate of the Selangor State Government building; and in the process dragged a severed head of a cow, with blood still dripping from its neck onto the road and stepped on it whilst promising nothing short of a riot if their protests went unheeded. All of this was under the watchful gaze of a squad of riot police officers who had been deployed to the scene.
