03-09-2024, 10:43 AM
THERE’S a Malay idiom bagai ketam mengajar anaknya berjalan lurus. Loosely translated, it means “like a crab teaching its offspring to walk straight”.
Those familiar with the crustacean know that the species could hardly move in a straight line. The idiom refers to someone who preaches one thing and does the opposite, just as a crab “teaching” its offspring to move in a straight line but could not do so itself.No individuals embody this idiom more than university lecturers Prof Mohd Ridhuan Tee Abdullah and Prof Datuk Teo Kok Seong who are in the news of late but all for the undesirable reasons.
Ridhuan, a Chinese Muslim convert preacher, recently waded into the bak kut teh controversy when he claimed that the dish – by having been accorded the national heritage food status – could instill Chinese supremacy.
The dish, usually comprising pork cooked in herbal broth, is popular among the Chinese but its new-found status caused uneasiness among Muslims, especially UMNO and PAS leaders.
Born Tee Chuan Seng, the 58-year-old political science lecturer in Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin in Terengganu is adamant that the bak kut teh polemics would only cause further division in the country.
- More -