Tuesday, May 14, 2013

release the hounds

And so it has begun, the backlash against voters who voted for the opposition. The government has received a bloody nose from GE 13 and is sore about it. We are now witnessing a rising crescendo of verbal attacks against non-Malays from establishment figures such as a certain ex-Court of Appeal Judge, a Perak Mufti, an assortment of second-rate Malay NGOs and who-else-have-you-wannabe-race champions whose utterings range from the inane to the slightly insane. I predicted that there would be calls to abolish the vernacular schools for non-Malays and that has happened, notwithstanding what happened to the late MP Mark Koding in 1978 who lost his Parliamentary seat for sedition when he suggested the same thing but then again, that was under the saintly Tun Hussein Onn's administration, wasn't it? (Mark Koding subsequently rose to become the Sabah Deputy Chief Minister after PBS defeated Party Berjaya in the 1985 state elections). All of these calls would ordinarily have been deemed seditious if not downright incitement to violence against minorities but as it is now open season on the non-Malays and najib needs to appease the hawks in his party, expect that no one will be prosecuted. After all, it's not seditious if it's not against the government, right? Apparently now it's the non-Malays that are "bigots" and "racist" whereas a "Malay" (and that definition of who is a "Malay" is broadly understood in its widest possible sense) is free to voice his/her opinions on matters of race and religion without being tarred with the same brush. How lovely indeed. So apparently, in Malaysia if one votes against the government, that would be tantamount to usurpation of the political power of the "Malays" and treason. My question then is, why vote? I doubt very much that najib is intent on raising a race riot, but what we are now witnessing is a natural progression of what najib is all about all along. a race-baiter. no soul, no content, no substance, nothing more than a race-baiter. Not even a demagogue because najib is incapable of demagoguery which requires mass appeal. Just a common race-baiter. Which in Malaysian politics, is quite perfectly acceptable. Or is it now?   

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