Pigs: "Stop misusuing us for your sinister religious agenda!"

Chloe Ting wrote a letter to malaysiakini about our favourite topic ‘Pigs’, urging that we have sympathies for local residents.

I just love the name ‘Chloe’ – hmmm, so nice.

Anyway, Chloe berated DAP’s Ronnie Liu for being hypercritical of the MCA but without offering any practical solutions to the tricky problem at hand.

Welcome to the world of politics, my dear Chloe, the oppsoition’s job is to hammer the BN, though I admit at times it grates on my nerve too when the opposition just plays ‘silly bugger’.

Chloe accused Ronnie Liu of stirring up Chinese emotions but ignoring the concerns of the residents.

She challenged Liu: “How would you like to sleep with an open pig farm next to your house, and listen to cries of pigs being slaughtered and the ‘aroma’ of the subsequent effluents emanating into your air space and wastes from the swine flowing down into your drain and then clogging it up?”

“I am quite certain Liu would object owing to environmental and health issues.”
Yes, Chloe, kaytee has been with you all the while – have a look at my previous piggy posts. The situation in Malacca is no longer about who is right or who is wrong – it’s about resolving an offensively smelly issue. The only thing I want to see is an equitable outcome for the unfortunate farmers, who shouldn’t be subjected to the stressful threat of their oink-ing assets being targeting for genocide.

However, on the other side of the fence, I have observed a very disturbing trend among some Muslim bloggers, where they have been playing a sinister game far worse than being ‘silly buggers’.

There is the constant harping about “piggies being far more fortunate than some Malay squatters” or “the police rather shoot a Malay or Muslim than a pig”.

One disgruntled former UMNO bloke started that, and hey presto, the religio-racist insinuations or accusations have become vogue, with many Muslim-Malay bloggers (I note one from PAS) jumping on that theme of sarcastic sinister seditious contrast and comparison.

From Malay squatters to Malay blokes being shot by the police, the reference to the 'luckier' pigs have become those bloggers' religio-racist leitmotiv.

Those bloggers have been unscrupulously stirring up such sensitivities – their posts have been meant to be provocative, instigating and agitating, all of course directed against the UMNO government, but indirectly channeling angry emotions against the Chinese as well.

There is no mention of legitimate occupancy versus non-legitimacy in the case of the pig farmers versus squatters. Yes, there were accusations of illegal pig farms but where’s the proof, and then even if there were some, those were in the minority, with the majority of pig farms being legitimate establishments.

On pigs versus blokes being shot by police, did the pigs surround the police and threaten those blokes in blue?

While I have advocated moving the pig farms away as the best outcome for all, provided compensation would be allocated for dislocating the farmers, the use of religio-racist themes is to be frown upon.

Kindly cease and desist, or you aren’t any better than the UMNO government that you condemn.