Pakatan Harapan’s tired and outdated rhetoric

In essence, that message above sums up the DAP-led Pakatan Harapan’s political strategy. Allege that the Perikatan Nasional government is a racist Malay government and that Malaysia practices “institutionalised racism”. That will make the non-Malays hate the Malays and 97% of the non-Malays will vote for Pakatan Harapan.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Many who used to be hardcore and diehard Pakatan Harapan supporters since way back in the 1980s (even before the opposition coalition was called Pakatan Harapan) are very tired of their outdated and empty rhetoric and broken promises. It is very apparent that Pakatan Harapan is nothing but hot air.

For more than 30 years the opposition has been hammering away at the government using a single strategy: allegations and accusations. Rasuah, salah guna kuasa, institutionalised racism, no democracy, no civil liberties, etc. This was and still is the mantra of the opposition.

Since the time of Tun Razak Hussein, Malaysians have been hearing about how bad the Umno-led Barisan Nasional government is. But Malaysia continued to progress and prosper and most people were more concerned about their livelihoods than about “western values” that meant very little to the man/woman in the kampung.

No doubt, urbanites (who did not need to worry about putting food on the table) could afford the luxury of good governance, human rights and civil liberties. However, to many Malaysians who are only concerned with bread and butter issues, this upper-middle class might as well have been discussing the impact of the Renaissance on art and culture in Europe.

At the end of the day, especially against the backdrop of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, it has to be “back to basics”. And this is what the Perikatan Nasional government and Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin are focusing on. We shall never see Malaysia return to normalcy. And we do not even know what “new normal” is really going to look like.

Pakatan Harapan wants to stir Malaysians to rise up and revolt à la the Arab Spring (actually, this is Anwar Ibrahim’s dream). That is wishful thinking, of course. All the revolutions in history were stirred not by rhetoric and empty election promises but by hungry stomachs. The day the people begin to starve will be the day the government is ousted. And that is the reality of how things work in this world.

What Pakatan Harapan appears to have forgotten is that lives and livelihoods matter. What’s the use of so-called “western values” like in the US or UK where 50 million people are unemployed, millions are homeless and sleeping on the streets (and die from cold), and 180,000 have died from Covid-19 (US-UK combined) and the figures are still rising?

Someone sent me this message:

In the past week or so, few people have either posted on or messaged me on LinkedIn about Malaysia’s “institutionalised racism”.

And I keep telling them. Yes. It’s about race. But it isn’t about the government. It’s all Malaysians. People parade around as if it’s the Malays who are at fault. I said look at Chinese. They pretty much segregate themselves into their own “superior” education system and hire Mandarin speakers only. Indians insist on their own education and still practice caste-based identification. An Indian guy cannot rent a place because many races won’t rent to Indians. Some won’t rent to Malays. Others won’t rent to Chinese.

So you see why bother blaming the “Malay” government when in everyday life people are inherently racist? I remember when I first moved back to KL five years ago, I had to pretend I was an expat and show my white wife so I can rent a property in KL.

When I bring these things up these same people who claim institutional racism keep quiet or walk away. When I ask about what racism they are talking about – they keep repeating the 10% Bumi discount.

So are you telling me that as soon as that discount is available for everyone, you will bloody shut up? How can you equate a white cop pushing his knee on a black man’s neck until he cannot breathe and dies with 10% bumi discount? But, yes, apparently Malaysia practices apartheid.

Hello mangkuk! Even our gangsters are so kind as to separate themselves into Malay, Chinese and Indian gangs with their own locations OK! If that is not racist I don’t know what is.

If tomorrow the government decides to shut down all the racially polarised schools and communities most of you will shit blood and demand back those segregated systems! You know you would! Don’t lie!

So, don’t come fooking telling me that Malaysia has institutionalised racism. Tell the truth.  What you really mean is you don’t like a Malay government. You don’t like Malay kings. You don’t like Malay language. If Victoria was the Queen of Malaysia, you will all love it so much and still struggle to speak English properly, you lazy little fooks.

We all know that unlike other countries like Australia where the “orang asal” have all but been decimated by white people, Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world where they are still the majority. And we don’t even demand you all speak one language like Indonesia where even the Chinese only speak Bahasa.

Here you can speak fifty different lingos and we still embrace it because you won’t find another country that is willing to put up with your shit (by shit, I mean Melayu, Cina and India excrement) like Malaysia.

OK la, some of us are pendatang. Embrace it la. You want to sit in an education system coming from another country but then shit your pants when called pendatang. But then you migrate to Australia and are proud to be called migrant (pendatang).

So, yes, Malaysia is a racist country. We have racist practices because all you fooking turnips are bloody racist. And that’s why you have a racist government that divides everything by race.

In essence, that message above sums up the DAP-led Pakatan Harapan’s political strategy. Allege that the Perikatan Nasional government is a racist Malay government and that Malaysia practices “institutionalised racism”. That will make the non-Malays hate the Malays and 97% of the non-Malays will vote for Pakatan Harapan.