YOURSAY | Race-based politics may be around for a long time

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PETALING JAYA: Non-Malays have nothing to fear if they are governed by a Malay party like Pejuang because history has shown the community prospered under such rule, according to Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

The former prime minister said Malay governments had always been friendly towards the Chinese migrants, while their businesses flourished in Malay-dominated administrations as their economic policies “were far more friendly and open than the British”.

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Non-Malays don’t trust Mahathir

From P Ramasamy

It is not that non-Malays fear Malay parties. They are, however, concerned about Malay parties led by leaders like former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Why should non-Malays in general and the Chinese in particular fear Malay parties like the virtually non-existent Pejuang?

Having lost election deposits of almost all its candidates in the recent Johor state elections, Mahathir-led Pejuang is in total disarray and cannot be counted upon by non-Malays.

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Enough of pessimists like Ramasamy who run down Dr M

From Rafique Rashid Ali

Every month or so, almost like clockwork, P Ramasamy the Penang deputy chief minister, will continue his attack against Dr Mahathir Mohamad. It is an obsession which he can’t seem to overcome.

In his latest piece “Non-Malays don’t trust Mahathir” (FMT March 27), Ramasamy not only targets the former prime minister but has also trained his guns on the Mahathir-led Pejuang. In essence he is stating that Pejuang is a “mosquito party” that “is fading into oblivion”.

Ramasamy and many of his ilk will pick on Mahathir’s narrative that the Malays have been fair to the non-Malays in the past, and concessions were granted to the Chinese by the Malays post-Merdeka which the Chinese could not get from the former colonial British masters.

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Why PH must exorcise ‘ghost’ of Mahathir

From P Ramasamy

It is understandable why Rafique Rashid Ali, Pejuang’s federal territory deputy division leader, sprang to the defence of Pejuang’s leader and twice former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Rafique took umbrage to the fact that I was a perennial pessimist when it came to Mahathir and that I should not have called Pejuang a mosquito party.

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Stand by for more machinations of Mahathir Mohamad

From Terence Netto

The assertion by Dr Mahathir Mohamad that non-Malays have nothing to fear from Malay political parties like Pejuang, and the critique by P Ramasamy of DAP leaves an essential point insufficiently stated.

This point is that the rights of Malaysians derive from the federal constitution and no citizen likes to feel he exists on the benevolence or sufferance of whoever it is that happens to rule.

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Dr M is caught in a racial time warp

I was enjoying my evening snack of “ubi kayu” when a notification of a new article popped-up on my iPad: “Nothing to fear being governed by Malay parties, says Dr M” (FMT March 26).

There is a direct link between my dish of tapioca (or singkong) and Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who became prime minister in July 1981.

In his first few years, he closed several companies owned by government agencies. One of those that suffered his wrath was an “ubi kayu” processing factory called Ubiyu, outside Kuantan, Pahang.

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Fred Flint Stone: This is a great article by academician Rosli Khan on race-based politics.

As for former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, how come the Malays continually voted and believed in his racist policies and corrupt intentions for so long?

I feel nothing can straighten Malaysia’s corrupt and vindictive succession of political leaders. They are all tarred with the same brush of corrupt underhanded dealings when it comes to monies and contracts, which should benefit the country and the people, but instead, the only people who benefit are the corrupt political parties and their leaders.

Malaysia is not a poor country by any means, but its wealth is only shared by a select few with little disregard for the population. This is absolutely true when you see the inner sprawls of badly maintained buildings and habitats that the remainder of the populous live in, with spiralling unemployment rate and the high cost of living.

It truly would take an exceptional leader to take and move Malaysia forward, but the people first need to rid themselves of our existing corrupt leaders.

Justice: For some politicians, especially those without or just unable to develop or compete politically on good policy matters for all Malaysians in the country, they, especially PAS, Umno, Bersatu and Pejuang, can only survive or thrive on the politics of race or religion.

For most in these parties, it’s deliberate. Without playing on race and religion, they just cannot succeed to divide Malaysians and manipulate or hoodwink their fellow Malay-Muslims and maintain their political control or power.

So, politics of race and religion in Malaysia will be around for a long time to come. Those Malay-Muslims who think, accept and are open to multiracialism had been and will be ostracised, vilified and demonised as traitors of their race and religion by those politicians who thrive on race and religion.

The non-Malays can only dream and at the most talk of multiracialism. But they will find it extremely difficult (though not impossible) to lead the fight against race and religious politics here in Malaysia. It is and must be the Malay-Muslim majority who must rise, lead the fight and defeat racial and religious politics.

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