Don pushes racial line in 1 Malaysia
(The Malaysian Insider) – Mingguan Malaysia columnist Dr Mohd Ridhuan Tee Abdullah today pushed the powder-keg issues of race and religion further, by arguing that the Malay-Muslim’s majority meant they had more rights and accused the other races of putting their interests above national needs.
Without mentioning the DAP by name but calling it an “ultra-kiasu party”, the National Defence University senior lecturer accused it of working with what he called racist parties within the Barisan Nasional (BN) for their own benefit and political mileage by supporting the 1 Malaysia concept espoused by prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Kiasu is a Hokkien word that literally means “fear of losing”.
Tee also put forward a formula based on the racial and religious breakdown of the country’s 27 million population, to apportion the share of what is due to each community in terms of rights, festivities and celebrations, adding no one should question the “social contract” from the founding of the nation 52 years ago.
“Remember, Islam is the religion of the majority community of this country. Islam has a very special position in the constitution. If there is any ‘advantage’ in Islam, it is not discrimination because as the majority Malay-Muslims, they have the rights, let alone it had been agreed upon through the social contract,” he wrote in his column carried by the Mingguan Malaysia today.
The column — “Beza antara penjahat dan jahat” — was also posted on his personal weblogs at ridhuantee.blogspot.com for Bahasa Malaysia and ertee.blogspot.com for the English translation.
Tee also noted there should no further question of unfairness, including the use government funds to expand Islam although the matter was never formulated by law as “each race or party interpreted according to their interests respectively, basing on the racial and religious background”.
He introduced his formula, based on the statistical breakdown of races and religions in the Year 2000 census, where the percentages of Malaysians by religions were “60 per cent Islam, 40 per cent non-Malay (22 per cent Buddhist-Taoism-Confucius, nine per cent Christian, six per cent Hindu, three per cent others).
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