Malaysia’s institutionalised and government-sponsored racism
The Jewish issue needs to be revisited and history needs to correct the lie that Hitler and the Nazis alone are to blame. The whole of Europe, Churchill and the British government included, must share the blame. And the issue of discrimination and racism in Malaysia needs to be put into its proper perspective as well. Stop whacking Dr Mahathir and Umno alone. Instead, look in the mirror.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Mariam Mokhtar (MM) responded to Marina Mahathir (MM) in her article ‘Did Malaysians deserve Dr M’s tyranny?’ — which I renamed ‘Melayu mudah lupa’ (READ HERE).
Both MMs appear to miss the big picture about what happened to Malaysia over the last 100 years since 1920. That is the problem with Malaysians who shun history and think that learning about what happened in the past in a waste of time and that only the future matters.
Before that, let me digress a bit and talk about another misunderstood matter — the Jewish issue and the holocaust. This will have a bearing on the subject we shall be discussing later — the state Malaysia is in today and how Dr Mahathir and/or Umno destroyed the country plus sacrificed three or four generations of Malaysians.
It is convenient to blame one man and one party for the sins of an entire community
History tells us that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis killed six million Jews. And the blame is placed entirely on Hitler, the Nazis and the Germans.
That is not 100% correct. Many people other than just Hitler, the Nazis and the Germans are also to blame.
To start off, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and the British government refused to allow the Jews from Europe to migrate to Palestine. This is because they did not want to upset the Arabs, who the British needed for their oil supply. Hence the British sacrificed the Jews in exchange for oil.
Next, the local population (mainly non-Jewish friends and neighbours of the Jews) became informers and reported the Jews in exchange for financial benefits. So the non-Jewish citizens of Germany, Poland, France, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, etc., sold out the Jews for money.
Then, many of the Jews were arrested not by the German army or by the Nazis, but by the local police force of Poland, France, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, etc. In other words, Poles, French, Romanians, Hungarians, Czechs, Austrians, Italians, and so on, arrested the Jews and handed them over to the Nazis.
But history does not talk about this. They only talk about Hitler, the Nazis and the Germans, whereas it was a collective crime of ALL Europeans, the Pope and the Vatican included.
Churchill sacrificed the Jews so as to not upset the Arabs
“Now, how does all this relate to what happened in Malaysia?” you may ask.
Well, that is what I am going to come to.
Malaysians talk about racial discrimination, institutionalised discrimination, state-sponsored racism, or ‘apartheid’ (as DAP and the Chinese would say) and would blame Dr Mahathir and Umno for this. Umno is evil, Umno is a racist party, say the critics.
No, just like Hitler and the Nazis did not single-handedly kill six million Jews, Mahathir and Umno are not alone in the racial polarisation in Malaysia. All Malays, or most Malays, are at fault. But it is easy to blame just Mahathir and Umno as if the rest of us are innocent — just like in the Jewish issue.
There is something I have never spoken about until today (and today is the first time I am going to talk about it). I learned what it meant to marry not only a non-raja wife but a non-Malay as well (in this case a Siamese of Chinese ethnicity). It was like I let the family down and I was made to feel the family displeasure. One aunty even asked why I did not marry a Malay.
When my wife wanted to buy ASN shares, they first wanted to interview her. They wanted to see whether she is Malay enough to be allowed to buy ASN. The Malay officer who interviewed her was surprised she is more Malay than many Malays and spoke better Malay than some Malays.
Invariably she was allowed to buy ASN shares because she proved she could pass off as a Malay with flying colours.
Not Dr Mahathir and Umno alone are guilty of perpetuating institutionalised and government-sponsored racism
I once owned a travel agency in Bangsar, and quite a bit of my business came from friends in government. One day a government officer ‘raided’ my travel agency and found that my manager was a Chinese lady. The officer went to my licence hanging on the wall and confiscated it and my company was blacklisted. Eventually I closed down the company and lost quite a bit of money (it is not cheap to operate in Bangsar).
This was not done by Dr Mahathir or Umno. It was done by ‘normal’ God-fearing, mosque-going Malay government officers who felt that non-Malays are second-class citizens and must be treated so.
How many times have Malaysians gone to the police station to report a traffic accident, and the first question the desk officer asks is, “Melayu ke Cina?” Does it matter? Is the life of a ‘bukan Melayu’ less valuable?
So what Mariam Mokhtar wrote in her article is quite true. But this should not be just about Dr Mahathir and Umno. Malays in general share the blame. We have been indoctrinated since young that non-Malays are guests in Malaysia, even if they born in Malaysia and have been here for 500 years.
The Jewish issue needs to be revisited and history needs to correct the lie that Hitler and the Nazis alone are to blame. The whole of Europe, Churchill and the British government included, must share the blame. And the issue of discrimination and racism in Malaysia needs to be put into its proper perspective as well. Stop whacking Dr Mahathir and Umno alone. Instead, look in the mirror.
