The Malay backlash to the Chinese campaign

By MT Webmaster Last updated Jan 6, 2016

That is the long and short of it all so live with and stop grumbling like what Ariff is doing. As they say, you have made your bed so now go and lie in it. Election 2018 is going to be a Malay-versus-Chinese affair. Very sad that it has been reduced to this but then the truth always hurts, does it not?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

‘The UMNO Rednecks and their Cohorts’ wrote DAP leader Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz in his Blog, Sakmongkol AK47, today (READ HERE).

There are some truths in what Ariff wrote but his analysis of events is a bit off the mark in some places. This is probably because Ariff is looking at things from the lenses of a DAP and opposition man. Hence we can expect some biasness in his views.

Ariff said, “But here is a moot point. If present day UMNO is the receptacle of all that is rotten, why should we vote in BN?” This shows he agrees that Umno is Barisan Nasional and Barisan Nasional is Umno. Therefore if we want to kick out Barisan Nasional we must kill Umno.

This makes sense because out of 133 parliament seats that Barisan Nasional holds, Umno controls 88. That means the dozen or so other parties only hold 45 seats combined, the majority from Sabah and Sarawak.

Ariff laments about the attacks on DAP and how everything in Malaysia has been reduced to Malays versus Chinese. This, of course, is quite true. What is not true is that this is a recent development and created because Umno is trying to hold on to power.

The Malay-Chinese divide has always been there. The fact that we have had a number of race riots (not just May 13) since long before Merdeka in 1957 is proof of this. Malays and Chinese have always coexisted and tolerated one another. But coexisting and tolerating does not mean the Malays and Chinese love one another. Those two words are actually negative words.

Why is May 13 always mentioned and not the other race riots that were equally bloody? Well, first of all May 13 was probably the biggest of the many race riots — and it was the result of a general election when Umno and the Alliance Party got a beating. So May 13 stands out above the other race riots.

Secondly, the politicians keep talking about May 13 and only about May 13. They do not talk about the other race riots — so it is not a topic for discussion. Furthermore, most Malaysians are only aware of May 13 and are not aware that more than one race riot happened in Malaysia.

It only appears like racism has become worse nowadays compared to in the past. That is not true. It is just that it is more discussed nowadays compared to in the past because today we have the Internet and the social media. Hence we did not have the ‘proper’ platform to talk about it in the past like we do now.

So the perception is, today, racism has become worse, whereas it is still the same but only that we talk about it more now than we used to in the past. But that does not mean in the past the Malay-Chinese divide was not there. It was. We just did not talk about it and discuss it so openly like we do now (because we did not have the Internet and the social media then).

Ariff also complains that the Malay-Chinese divide has been reduced to an Umno-DAP divide. This is also quite true but then DAP is equally to blame for this. Umno may also be guilty but then Umno is just responding to DAP. It is a natural human defence mechanism. When attacked you counter-attack. It is something even animals do by instinct.

For example, DAP propagates ABU (anything but Umno). The target is to bring down Umno. And when you bring down Umno, Barisan Nasional will fall. And when Barisan Nasional falls then a DAP-led opposition government can take over.

So what do you want Umno to do: roll over and play dead? This is a matter of survival. When you attack then the person that you attack counter-attacks. It is an instinct that we all possess. And can you blame Umno for doing what is a natural instinct?

Furthermore, Umno is synonymous with Malay political power. So when you try to demolish Malay political power it becomes a Malay-Chinese issue, especially when DAP is seen as Chinese. It is no longer about DAP versus Umno. It becomes Chinese versus Malays.

And that was why I opposed the ABU campaign, which made Haris Ibrahim a.k.a. Sam very angry with me (and he still is). I argued that an ABU campaign will be turned into a Chinese versus Malays issue and now Ariff is lamenting about exactly what I said would happen.

DAP also boasts that the DAP-led opposition has 95% Chinese support. Of course the Chinese also voted for PAS and PKR. However, DAP also says that the only reason the Chinese voted for PAS and PKR was because of DAP and without DAP the Chinese would not vote for PAS and PKR.

In other words, the Chinese did not vote for Pakatan Rakyat. The Chinese voted for DAP. And the Chinese voted for PAS and PKR because they were in Pakatan Rakyat. If not then PAS and PKR would not get the Chinese vote.

This is what DAP boasts. And this may even be true. But due to this boast the impression being given is that DAP controls the Chinese vote and whether PAS and PKR get any Chinese votes depends on DAP.

What message are you sending to Malaysians? The message is Barisan Nasional is Umno while Pakatan Rakyat is DAP. So it is not about Barisan Nasional versus Pakatan Rakyat. It is about Umno versus DAP. And since Umno is Malay and DAP is Chinese then it becomes Malays versus Chinese.

And that is why I say the Chinese are novices in politics. They do not understand how their own strategy and words can hurt them. They boast and this boast is now hurting them. Unwittingly they have turned politics into a Malay-versus-Chinese affair. And they blame Umno for this.

Then DAP makes a move on PAS and the result is PAS is split into two. So we now have the Malays split into four — Umno, PAS, PKR and PAN — while the Chinese are united under one party, DAP.

DAP says that MCA and Gerakan, the other two Chinese parties, are dead. There remains only one Chinese party — DAP. So you cannot say that the Chinese are split into three and the Malays into four. The Malays are split into four while the Chinese are united under one party.

That is the Chinese boast. And that boast has come back to haunt DAP with a vengeance. The Malays now see that they have become politically weak and may soon lose their political dominance. This is not what Umno says. This is what the Chinese and DAP say.

In fact, if you consider the internal problems within Umno, the internal problems within PKR, and the internal problems within PAS (that seems to be ongoing even after the creation of the PAS breakaway party, PAN), the worse is not yet over. In the end we might even see the Malays split into six or seven with the Chinese all united under DAP.

So stop boasting about how the Chinese are all united under DAP and that 95% of the Chinese support the opposition. Stop celebrating the fact that the Malays are split into four parties. Stop applauding the ongoing internal conflicts in Umno, PAS and PKR.

By doing that you only give the impression that the Malays are in danger of losing political power to the Chinese. And however you may want to spin it and argue that Pakatan Harapan is multi-racial and is not Chinese, the Malays still see Pakatan as a DAP-led coalition just like Barisan is an Umno-led coalition.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK