All of us are not evolved from local apes
Lim Mun Fah, Sin Chew Daily
I don’t know whether Ikatan Muslim in Malaysia (Isma) president Abdullah Zaik Abdullah Rahman, who became widely known recently for calling non-Muslims in Malaysia as “trespassers”, is ignorant about his own race and family history, or just deliberately lied.
The foundation of Malaya was started in 1957, while the establishment of Malaysia was in 1963. The country is composed of Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Ibans and many other races. Due to various factors, history has bounded us and made us live together on this piece of land. Despite with great differences and contradictions, we have no choice but to learn mutual tolerance and respect, so that we can live together harmoniously.
Human history has always been an ongoing immigration history. Sometimes, it happens voluntarily and some time, it is not. Therefore, if Abdullah Zaik is willing to trace it with us, he will definitely find that the difference between the race that he belongs to and his family, as well as other races and other people’s families is only something called sequence of setting foot on this land, but not something called owner of the land and trespassers.
If we believe in evolution suggesting that humans evolved from apes, we can even make a conclusions that Malays, Chinese and Indians on this land are all not evolved from local apes.
Since we are all immigrants, we will find that the difference between our families and other families are, some of them came earlier, while some came later. Meanwhile, the common ground among us is, our ancestors, some of them are still alive, had struggled, fought and established the independent Malaya before forming Malaysia.
In fact, even if he refuses to trace it, he should know that many of us, including our former prime ministers and sitting prime minister, have actually inherited blood from “immigrants”, including Tunku Abdul Rahman who had blood from Siamese and Mongolians, Tun Abdul Razak and Datuk Seri Najib from Indonesian Bugis, Tun Hussein Onn from Turkey, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad from Indian and Tun Abdullah Badawi from Chinese Hainanese.
I have no intention to provoke any sensitive racial and ancestry issues but cited the above examples to stress that regardless of your ancestry, race an religion, what is important and cannot be changed is, we are all Malaysians.
In fact, regardless of our racial background, our citizenship have been written in the constitution. The fact should not be questioned by Abdullah Zaik and used to stir up controversy, incite emotions, create racial discrimination, antagonism and hatred. It will not be changed by his nonsense either.
