Malay Unity achieved?

‘Ketuanan Melayu’ or ‘Malay supremacy’ is a cherished policy in some bigoted quarters in Malaysia. In reality those supremacist bigots are pretend-bigots only; they only promote ‘ketuanan Melayu’ to ensure their personal lion’s share of the Malaysian cake, particularly government contracts, etc. It’s their 1st class ticket to the the wonderful gravy train.

When the continuation of a ‘ketuanan Melayu’ policy was perceived to be somewhat jeopardised in the last election, the solution towards ameliorating the undesired change was the call for ‘Malay unity’.

UMNO decided to play sexy footsies with PAS, on the quiet of course without even informing, let alone consulting, its non-Malay BN partners. The Hadi Awang faction of PAS was (maybe still is) keen and receptive, and likewise, treated its Pakatan allies like mushrooms - you know, keep them in the dark and feed them bullsh*t.

For a wee recollection, please see Malaysiakini news article Saari: Some PAS leaders keen on pact with Umno, where Saari gave Malaysiakini the low down on how keen both PAS deputy president Nasaruddin Mat Isa and the party’s commissioner for Terengganu Mustapha Ali were to gabung with UMNO because they wanted PAS to hold some key ministerial posts in the UMNO-led federal government.

Fortunately for Pakatan, PAS’ spiritual leader Pak Haji Nik Aziz, torpedoed the covert ‘Malay unity’ talks for a Pan-Malay alliance to seize Perak and Selangor from Pakatan. Pak Haji gave UMNO the good olde two fingers flick.

But PKR’s Mohamad Fairus Khairudin, who’s the deputy CM of Penang, on the other hand indicated in a Star Online article titled Open dialogue with all Malay groups, Umno urged, that he wanted PKR included in UMNO’s ‘Malay unity’ muzakarah (discussions). In fact he pointedly said that UMNO should invite PKR's Malay leaders, besides those from PAS.

Note his 'PKR's Malay leaders' as opposed to 'PKR leaders'

Well, I have wonderful news for the ‘ketuanan Melayu’ and ‘Malay unity’ camps.

After a couple of nights of viewing the Olympics Games on TV (spotted a good looking sweetie among the Honkies), I have just read Malaysiakini news article Rival groups unified in protest, where UMNO, PKR and PAS were united in opposing the Bar Council’s forum on ‘Conversion to Islam’.

There was a mob mood with shouts of, unsurprisingly, “Hancur Bar Council” (Crush Bar Council), “Hidup Islam” (Long Live Islam) and “Batal forum” (Cancel the forum).

OK, those sort of calls were to be expected in protests against a forum that Muslims might have (incorrectly or otherwise) perceived as anti-Islam.

From my reading of Malaysiakini news articles including Protesters stop Bar's 'conversion' forum and Moments of chaos during forum, it would appear the most virulent of the protest leaders had been … surprise surprise (or should it be?) … PKR’s Kulim Bandar Baharu MP Zulkifli Noordin, who, according to Malaysiakini, were among those entering the auditorium to disrupt the forum.

The acorn sure as hell doesn’t fall far from the oak tree!

His PKR colleague, firebrand cleric Dr Badrul Amin Baharom, had tried valiantly to keep the crowd under control by setting a more relaxed tone for the demonstration, but according to Malaysiakini, the Kulim wonder, Zulkifli Noordin, broke ranks with his opposition colleagues and called on the already infuriated crowd to storm the building should the forum continue - shades of Apcet II, and for more read this.

Mind you, Zulkifli informed Malaysiakini that he was representing Lawyers in Defence of Islam (Pembela) and not his party PKR. But really, should such a person, who wanted to 'rempuh' (charge) a forum be an MP of a democracy? Mind you, that (rempuh) was done before to an international forum, Apcet II, so what's a mere local forum consisting of Malaysians considered to be against Islam!

I suppose that was inevitable when his de facto leader had recently claimed to be a liberal yet in the very same breath distanced himself from the Bar Council forum.

While I can understand the protestors carrying placards like 'Jangan cabar Islam' (Don’t challenge Islam) and 'Bar Council, Don’t play with fire', I deplore their abusing of several forum participants with profanities when the latter came out of the Bar Council building.

Malaysiakini told us that there were shouts of 'pengkhianat', 'babi' and 'balik China', as forum participants leave the venue. Similar vile bigoted calls were heard inside the forum building as well, which led renowned International Islamic University law lecturer Dr Mehrun Siraj to reprimand those who made the racist remarks, stating "Open discussion is the way to discuss the issues between Muslims and non-Muslims. Don’t insult Islam."

Leaving 'pengkhianat' aside, the disgraceful shouts of 'babi' and 'balik China', as Dr Mehrun Siraj succinctly pointed out, were in fact insulting to Islam. No Freudian slip, they were expressions of plain racism, apart from the bigots’ poor knowledge of geography.

And even if we allow for geographical error, there are five times more Muslims in China than in Malaysia, people whose ancestors embraced Islam some eight hundred years before Sri Vijaya's Parameswara became Sultan Iskandar Shah.

Anyway ...

... keutuhan, keunggulan & keuntungan kem ‘ketuanan Melayu’ terkukuh.