“Why go all the trouble to broadcast it in TV that someone has been calling names to him?” – Bra888

In indirectly telling everyone that he read this blog – in accusing YB Kit or readers here in Parliament for calling him names like a “monkey” – in RTM’s telecasting the parliamentary exchange between Kit and him – isn’t our Information Minister unwittingly publicizing in mainstream media this blog to the Malaysian public to access and receive the messages of this blog?

I thought Zam should be thanked for doing the Common Cause here a favour since it has been the complaints of many a posters here that the revelations and opinions do not permeate out to the larger public or least the section of it that accesses the Net by virtue of them not knowing about Kit’s blog.

Take the case of Malaysiakini.

On the sidelines of the Umno general assembly, a Star reporter asked Zam a question. Because of the din around he couldn’t catch it. Malaysiakini’s reporter standing next to the minister tried to help out by repeating the question but was asked to identify himself first. Zam immediately turned on him and angrily said “You are nonsense!….Malaysiakini is nonsense. You people only know how to sensationalise news! You people are low!”

Malaysiakini immediately reported this. The Information minister was afterall helping to sensationalise Malaysiakini. It has been proven that everytime some ministers complain about any blog and about it not being moderated, it is news and the hits increase!

//…Again and again we have seen Malaysian politicians come to power by playing the race – and now increasingly religion – card above all else, pandering to their own communities at the expense of the rest…// – Farish.

But isn’t coming to power the main and consistent objective of politics and most politicians in general of whom Malaysian politicians are no exception? To them, if communitarian issues on race and religion were a sure fire proven way to be popular, garner support and rise up the political hierarchy, why not? They don’t particularly care a damn about nation’s wider interest unless it is symmetrical to the advancement of their own political careers.

Who do you really blame then for the deepening and widening of the racial divide then ? Yes politicians but that does not explain why the majority of people keep repeatedly vote them in – rather than out – when they play the racial and religious card on communitarian posturing and issues, does it?

If the problem of communitarian/racial politics were to be tackled, it should proceed at the ground level of the people (ours is a system of one man one vote with majority prevailing) but try convincing them not to vote on basis of race and religion – will one succeed?

What does our history show?

From day one of independence, we’re heading down this road of communitarian politics – and more communitarian politics. The seeds of politics of race were sown then and for 50 years thereafter it not only germinated but flowered and grown from strength to strength. Our Federal Constitution based on the so called “social contract” institutionalized, constitutuionalised and legalized distinctions based on race and religion; and political parties and ideologies were drawn on communal basis from Day One. Dato’ Onn wanted Malaya to be a “Malaysian Malaya” with equality for all races. Massive UMNO-orchestrated protests opposed it and was one of the points UMNO used to defeat the formation of Malayan Union and forced Dato’ Onn to form the Independence for Malaya Party that never secured broad based support. After independence, Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia by reason of the race factor and LKY’s campaign for “Malaysian Malaysia”. May 13 was used as an excuse and blamed on the Tunku Abdul Rahman who was edged out for being too fair and not doing enough for his disadvantaged community.

Today notwithstanding political talk otherwise, we’re increasingly a “Malay Malaysia”, and an “Islamic State” though other races are supposedly protected as to their rights and constantly reminded of their obligations not to question the “social contract” lest it would disrupt the delicate “sharing of power” and harmony of the country leading to the spectre of another May 13 repeat!

These are the existing realities.
Even the concept of “Bangsa Malaysia” was questioned by the MB hailing from the state that is the bastion of UMNO’s support – Johore.