The Malay-Chinese hatred

By MT Webmaster Last updated Oct 27, 2014

We either agree to live with one another as fellow-Malaysians or agree to just coexist. By coexisting this means we do not need to love each other. We can continue to hate each other. We just do not kill each other, at least not at the moment.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

More than 30 years ago, an American who was living about five minutes away from my house in Kuala Terengganu told me that the race problem in Malaysia is worse than even in the Deep South. He meant, of course, the Deep South in the United States.

Now, we all know about the race problem in the Deep South. But not many of us would consider Malaysia to be just as bad, or worse. But this was the observation of my American friend and when you ponder on this he could actually be right.

The last two articles I wrote more or less confirms what this American said. All I said in part one and part two of that article is that Malays are not pendatang. And I quoted various studies done by scholars to support my assumption.

And then the Chinese and Indians went ballistic. They regarded my statement that the Malays are not pendatang as if it was an insult to the Chinese and Indians. I never questioned the status of the Chinese and Indians. I never said the Chinese and Indians are pendatang. I said the Malays are not pendatang.

Of course, if you think this assumption is wrong then you are free to quote studies done by other scholars to rebut this. After all, scholars do not always agree. Different scholars have different views. Even in the study of religions different scholars have different views.

I have read work by scholars who ‘proved’ that the Bible (Old Testament as well as New Testament) plus the Qur’an are not ‘Holy Books’, did not come from God (or inspired by God), and are actually books fabricated by humans. Then there are other scholars who argue that the Holy Books are indisputably from God.

It is up to you which scholar you want to believe. In fact, some scholars even dispute the existence of God and argue that humans were not created by God but evolved from apes. So believe what you want to believe and argue your case or rebut what others say with facts and using a scholar’s approach.

The comments to my article over the last two days, however, were not based on such scholarly standards. Many were personal in nature and whacked me rather than address the subject matter. And, more importantly, the comments demonstrated the deep hatred that Malays and Chinese have for one another, some Indians included.

Earlier to those two articles, I wrote (Malaysia-HK: one country, two systems) that maybe the word ‘pendatang’ and ‘Bumiputera’ should be abolished. In that article I said, “We must resist being called Bumiputera and pendatang. We must insist that we be called Malaysians never mind what ethnicity we may be. But first of all Malays must stop thinking that they own the land and Chinese must stop thinking that they are superior to the Malays.”

This appears to have been overlooked in the personal attacks against me.

Some Chinese said Malays would still be living in trees until today if not for the Chinese, Malaysia would still be a kampung if the Chinese did not come to Malaysia to develop the country, Malaysia would be broke if not for the fact that Chinese pay 90% of the tax, and much more.

One Chinese reader even commented that Chinese schools teach that Malays are pendatang, not like the distorted history and lies taught by government schools. I was surprised by this admission at a time when some in Umno want Chinese schools banned. Is this not just provoking Umno and giving sound argument to Umno as to why Chinese schools should not be allowed?

Some years back I wrote that my family migrated to Malaysia in the 18th Century while Tian Chua of PKR’s family migrated to Malaysia a couple of centuries earlier than that. Hence, I said, that would make Tian Chua more Bumiputera than me. And this, of course, would apply to all Malaysians whose family migrated to Malaysia before Merdeka, in particular Malaysians born in Malaysia.

In my two articles, (The Malays are not pendatang), I said we need to agree to a cut-off date where immigrants are no longer called immigrants. The official immigration policy of the British Colonial Government was 1850. This was when they started ‘officially’ bringing in Chinese from China, Indians from India/Ceylon, and Malays from Java, Sumatra, etc.

Before 1850 there was movement of people into Malaysia from China, India, Indonesia, etc., even from the Middle East. But mass migration did not start until 1850 with the effort of the British to increase the labour force in Malaya.

The British ended this immigration policy in 1920. Then, in 1957, we had Merdeka when immigrants were granted citizenship.

So what date do we want to use to consider immigrants as Malaysians? 1850? 1920? Or 1957? That is not for me to decide. The government has to decide this. And if you are descendants of those who migrated to Malaysia prior to that can you still be regarded as descendants of immigrants? And this would apply to all races, Malays included.

Some argue that Malays originated from China. Others say Malays originated from Africa. Well, that all depends on how far back you want to go. Christians believe that humankind originated from Adam and Eve. So that means we all originated from somewhere in Iraq or the Levant. And that would make every single person in Malaysia a pendatang at one point or another.

So the question that needs to be addressed is: WHICH POINT IN TIME DO WE USE?

Anyway, that is all academic now. What is crucial is that this debate has demonstrated the deep hatred that the Malays and Chinese have for one another. And from the looks of things Malay-Chinese relations is damaged beyond repair. We have gone past the point of no return.

So what do we do now? Do we take to the streets and resolve once and for all which is the dominant race in Malaysia?

I can see that the Malays and Chinese will never compromise. If this is the case we might as well not pretend any longer and just accept the fact that Malays and Chinese hate each other and will never regard each other as fellow Malaysians. Then we try to live our lives by avoiding each other and by trying to not kill each other in a race riot.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK