Tuesday, June 8, 2010

We, the Non-Malays



3 May, 2010
By Eunice Ong
Revisiting the topic of Malay rights from one side of the fence but in view of all.

Ketuanan Pin Biru
We (and when I say we, I mean the non-Malays) often complain of the different privileges received by the different races. We condemn frequently organisations such as PERKASA, the “Ketuanan Melayu” mentality, and all the privileges that we see our Malay contemporaries get. We express disgusted disapproval of the inequality.


We whine that Malay is the national language and Islam is the national religion as opposed to our preferred language. Ah! We can also go on about how much sacrifice it is to go to a halal restaurant, because you have a Malay friend with the group.




So, one day say, the Prime Minister tells us that he has the mandate from the Malays and wants to negotiate a compromise. Mr. PM will ask of our dissatisfaction, and we will give him a long list: we want our children to be admitted to all public universities, we want to be given more business licenses, we want to either take away the Bumiputera discount or get the same discount, we want to be given the privilege to buy special shares so as to earn money, and the list goes on.


Mr. PM says, “Fine, we can come to a compromise and I can agree to at least half of your requests, but will you agree to give up vernacular schools and make our education system a one-school system?” Funnily enough, before he can explain how the individual vernacular language will be taught as an elective subject in all schools (private or public) and that it will eventually delete one of the many causes of racial disunity, the strongest protesters of that proposal will be the same persons who claim injustice in the first place.


If change is indeed a goal, there are sacrifices we have to make. We can argue until the cows come home that we are giving up our right to learn our mother tongue and our roots, but we are Malaysians and it is about time we should start acting like Malaysians. Our roots are all here in Malaysia, not in China or India. Do we really expect them to give up what they have been enjoying for more than five decades in the name of change without us making an effort at the same time? If we do, how then can we advocate for fairness?


As many would remember telling me in their wisdom to look at the big picture, and the big picture here is that giving up vernacular schools will mean lesser racial disunity. The usual trend is that the cliques are racial based and that barrier is language. Really, be honest, you would have used the excuse of not being able to have more friends of other races because of language. I have that problem.


The big picture is that if we can accept each other, we can learn from each other and the troubling PERKASA will not exist to protect the rights of the Malays.
The big picture is that there is hope for change.


Source : Loyarburok.com

1 comment:

Reek said...

reek on 21 May, 2010 at 3:44 am
I am non-Muslim bumi – purely and originally from the land of Borneo – you malays have no right at all to speak here – pack your bag and go back to Indonesia where your nenek moyang came from.

Shame on you for calling others immigrant. There is no such thing as “hak bumiputra”! It is just a cover up for “hak migrant melayu”! Bangsa terrorist has no space here in my land.

Only those Semenanjung people who have lived in Sabah or Sarawak know the true meaning of integration and tolerance!

The only reason why there is many so-called pendatang in your malay land is primarily because your malay ancestors were a bunch of village idiots – who’d much rather let the white man take advantage of the nation great resources and run its affairs, while malays sat on their lazy asses collecting food for royalties.

Don’t for a moment think that you and your ilk could have done it all alone in bringing this country to this stage of development, all by yourselves without the blood, sweat and tears of the non-malays.

Malays have not done non-malays any favors. We are all Malaysians, we all built this country and us non-malays………..no, better yet, Malaysians are here to stay!

Allowing the views of the non-malays to be heard in Malaysia. Otherwise, the malays will think that the non-malays are tolerating the nonsense of UMNO.

You are living in the wrong country, in a wrong era. It is you malay who should pack your bag, and head to a desert, to live with your camel humping brethren in Saudi Arabia.

So get off your supremacist horse, because if not for the collective work of all Malaysians, an ignoramus like you would most likely be tilling the paddy fields or plucking the coconuts right now – instead of having the benefit of using a computer to surf the Internet and post rubbish on a board!