My apology to Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity

What is probably the most valuable lesson about this exercise is that the Chinese may be very nasty with their comments but Malays must take this as just the sincerity and honesty of the Chinese about how they feel. If the Malays do the same thing, though, then the Malays must accept that they will be called racists.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

It appears like my article yesterday (Chinese celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law) has upset many Chinese. And some of these Chinese have posted many very nasty comments whacking me for it and some of those comments were downright personal and degrading.

I suppose I should have been more clear in my heading so I apologise if it looked like I was generalising and was painting all Chinese with the same brush. But then in journalism we are taught that a ‘man bites dog’ heading would attract more interest than ‘dog bites man’.

So I chose a ‘man bites dog’ type of heading rather than ‘Some Chinese readers in Malaysiakini celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law’. In short, I was right. The heading ‘Chinese celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law’ attracted more attention and controversy than if I had used ‘Some Chinese readers in Malaysiakini celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law’.

Yes, it was naughty of me, but then that is the only way to make the dog bark — you rattle its chain. And many dogs did indeed bark although some were so awful I was forced to delete their comments lest that triggers another race riot like what happened on 13th May 1969 when some really awful things were said about the Malays (which I personally witnessed in Bangsar where I lived).

This experiment proved something very interesting. First of all, many readers whacked me for highlighting those comments. But they did not whack those who posted the comments, only whacked me for highlighting them.

Secondly, many readers whacked me for the heading and did not get upset about the comments from Malaysiakini. They resented that the heading had the word ‘Chinese’ in it. If it had been ‘Malaysians celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law’, ‘Some Malaysians celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law’, ‘Some Malaysian Chinese celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law’, ‘Malaysiakini readers celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law’, ‘Some Malaysiakini readers celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law’, etc., then that would be okay.

The only issue is that I had included the word ‘Chinese’ in the heading ‘Chinese celebrate the death of DPM’s son-in-law’ and that is the main objection.

Of course, if I were to say that those who vote for Barisan Nasional are stupid, Sarawakians are stupid for voting Barisan Nasional, Malays are stupid for supporting Umno, Umno supporters are racists, etc., that is not considered generalising. Only if you say ‘Chinese’ would you be considered generalising, plus a racist to boot.

Then it was pointed out that these Chinese readers who commented in Malaysiakini were just being sincere and honest in their comments. Hence we cannot whack them for being sincere and honest. They hate Umno and even hate the family members and in-laws of Umno people. So what is wrong if they make their honest and sincere feelings known?

I wonder if we can argue that Perkasa is just being sincere and honest when they say that all those Chinese who oppose the NEP can leave the country and go back to China or if we argue that PAS is just being sincere and honest when they say that all those Chinese who oppose Hudud are enemies of Islam?

I mean, where do we draw the line on sincerity and honesty? Would expressing what we really feel be considered sincere and honest and hence acceptable? So, if we are ‘sincere and honest’ about the fact that we are happy that the DPM’s son-in-law died can that be considered as acceptable?

In that case we are now defining a ‘borderless society’ or a society without boundaries and anything goes just as long as what we say is done with sincerity and honesty. And if certain Malay-rights groups say that we need to teach the Chinese a lesson like we once did in May 1969, that can never be considered sedition or a racist statement since they said it with full sincerity and honesty because they really do feel that way.

Can you see how the knife cuts both ways? To justify what those Chinese readers posted in Malaysiakini opens up a Pandora’s box that allows anyone to say anything he or she wants within the spirit that they are sincere and honest about what they are saying.

Then we have readers who chided me for highlighting what the Chinese readers of Malaysiakini said but not also highlighting what the Malay readers said about Karpal Singh’s death. Okay, I will try to search and publish what the Malays said about Karpal’s death so that the comments I posted about what the Chinese said about the DPM’s son-in-law can be allowed.

If publishing the comments by Malays regarding Karpal’s death can allow me to post comments by Chinese regarding the DPM’s son-in-law’s death then that is what I will do, as some Chinese readers have pointed out.

What is probably the most valuable lesson about this exercise is that the Chinese may be very nasty with their comments but Malays must take this as just the sincerity and honesty of the Chinese about how they feel. If the Malays do the same thing, though, then the Malays must accept that they will be called racists.

And with that I will close by saying that I will take note that we cannot rebut the sincerity and honesty of what the Chinese say with the racism comments of the Malays.

Oh, and my heading today (My apology to Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity) is because some Chinese have pointed out that they are Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity and are not Chinese, who live in China. I suppose that makes my children Malaysians of Malay-Bugis-Orang Asli-Welsh-English-Thai-Chinese ethnicity. Now let’s see who is going to claim to be more Malaysian than that.