THE ILLUSION OF RECONCILIATION – Part II. Some Folks you just can’t reach.

 

This is the curse of tolerating for more than 50 years. Tolerance does not require any degree of sincerity. You just put up with it even if you hate it. If you convey your disgust then you are not peace loving and are confrontational.

Michael Zechariah 

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. I don’t like it any more than you men”.

Some folks are just natural born racists and clan chauvinists. They will just die that way. Period. This racist breed is everywhere. They are in our schools, in the famous eatery in our housing area, in the playground, in places of worship, in the hospitals, in the neighborhood, in the parliament, in BN, in DAP, in PKR, in PAS even sometimes under your own roof. There are racist and clan chauvinist among every race in the world. We become hypocrite and ‘munafiks’ in highest order if we just whack the ketuanan Melayu folks time and time again that they are racists but on the other hand do nothing when DAP, PKR, PAS and their supporters are being equally racist.

A new sick culture which is gaining acceptance today in a segment of Malaysian society is that Pakatan political parties and their supporters are infallible and they can do no wrong. Even if it is wrong just close one eye because Pakatan must win and therefore should not magnify bad publicity.  

It is a given that corruption is bad, abuse of power is bad, racism is bad, gerrymandering is despicable in today’s world. Just because Pakatan champions clean government does that mean that it can do no wrong? What are the measures that Pakatan is taking to educate their supporters, well wishers or sympathizers to respect others? 

The cult following of DAP will be the cancer that is going to eat up its own flesh. Some Chinese folks are overly intoxicated with DAP’s achievement in the GE-13, that their ‘Dutch courage’ can be seen in their actions and statements they make. DAP should thank them as ‘Tanda Putra’ the movie is going to be a success and many of our Malay friends will concur with the director of the film although you may call it distorted facts and far from truth. These are the same Chinese folks who address everybody else as ‘KUI’. You name it. ‘INTHU KUI’, ‘MALAI KUI’.    

Moment of truth; if the people can tell BN to piss off, what makes you to think that the people should not tell Pakatan Rakyat to piss off too? Hello? Pakatan Rakyat or not you are not above the law. If you are charged in court for breaking the law, don’t look stupid by crying foul. Your argument of ‘you did not charge the other guy but you charge me’ will not hold water. Some of you are lawyers, so don’t play stupid. Have some respect for your law degrees.

We not only have some Chinese folks telling Melayu bodoh can’t even spell a word properly, they go further to insult their King. Let us get over it. The Yang Dipertuan Agung and the Sultans are Raja-Raja Melayu. Not Raja Cina or Raja India. That is why their names are not ‘Kang King Kung’ or ‘Raja Gopal’. As people, the Malays take pride in their Raja.

Now that we have enough law makers from the opposition in the parliament are you going to propose the Race Relations Act? How about the MPs from the ruling coalition?

Are you all going to come together to put your brains to work to materialize the Race Relations Act which is long overdue? Any MP who thinks that the Race Relations Act is not needed, difficult to come up with one or won’t even try is a disgrace to all thinking Malaysians. It is people like you who help to breed the hooligans we have in Malaysian society today who excel in racial slurs. Try to answer these questions for a start:

1. If you are a Malay MP, how do you like it when you are called Melayu bodoh, otak lembu?

2. If you are a Chinese MP, how do you like it if you are called Cina babi?   

3. If you an Indian MP, how do you like it if you are called Keling pariah?  

4. If you are a non-Malay MP, how do you like it if you are called anjing pendatang yang tak tahu berterima kasih, tak tahu diam, nak mintak apa lagi? Tak suka keluar dari Malaysialah.

We have had idiots in our Parliament in the past who utter the word keling and went on further to explain why it is ok.

If you MPs claim that you represent your race, how dare you let the people of your race face the 4 vulgarities in the questions above in their daily lives? If you close one eye to these, are you not a liar and a hypocrite? Are you not a ‘munafik’?

PM Najib is talking about reconciliation. Anwar is talking about lawan, tetap lawan! And we have racism on an impressive level. If we want to reconcile, we must be intentional about it. We must have the ‘niat’ to reconcile. If there is no ‘niat’ the rest of the effort is as good as useless. The opposition too must have the ‘niat’ to reconcile. Anwar may not reconcile with Najib. We are not talking about them. We are talking about us, the people of Malaysia. Political parties and politicians are always going to have their bickering. That is what they do as politicians from different parties. But this is not about them to begin with. It was never about them. It is about us, the people who elected these folks into parliament.

This is the curse of tolerating for more than 50 years. Tolerance does not require any degree of sincerity. You just put up with it even if you hate it. If you convey your disgust then you are not peace loving and are confrontational. The Malaysian people were forced to tolerate all the emotional abuse in the 4 questions above for more than half a century.

It takes the fear of God and some maturity to accept that ‘if it hurts my fellow human being, I am not going to do it’. This is when the intention or the ‘niat’ comes in. The fear of God will compel sincerity both in the public and in the private domain. We will respect other races in our dinner table talk and also in public discourse.     

So, it is our hope that our elected MPs fear God and have the ‘niat’ for reconciliation. Having said that, some men you just can’t reach. They will die being racist only to find out that their maker is not the same race as they are.

The introduction quote; Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke 1967

Michael Zechariah is a former law lecturer and a corporate professional who currently runs a training firm which specializes in helping governments to transform their agencies to be more effective to deliver policies that are aimed at nation building.