Letters by Jonathan Tan
It has now been 51 years since independence, and although it was predominantly a Malay Archipelago, immigrants who had to work the land during the British colonial era; by default became citizens after Malaya attained independence in 1957.
Much was promised. Equal rights to jobs, educational and business opportunities. But all this came to naught in 1969 when Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’ founding father, was unceremoniously sent into early retirement and hawks like Razak and Harun took over and used Malay special rights as their vehicle to build a corrupted society that saw the division between the have and have nots widen.
The process took a turn for the worse during the Mahathir era when he hand picked cronies to award contracts and kept privatized entities such as the Governments’ GLC’s in the government’s stables, obviating the very reason to privatize these entities.
Till this day, these organizations show neither discernible accountability nor transparency. The country bleeds like a wounded kancil.
The situation has become even more tenuous with the serious deterioration of educational standards, where instead of English, Malay was used as the medium of instruction in a multiracial ex-British colony of 300 years, further condemning the country’s young to an educational exposure far less then the previous generation had received all in the name of Malay nationalism and supremacy.
UMNO and Mahathir labeled Malaysia even Islamic with non-Malays forced to take Islamic studies at Universities. The 1957 dream was dead. For Malaysians were not equal neither in the eyes of the government nor the law. You can be a Muslim but you can never unMuslim yourself, so body snatching becomes a norm at funerals by overzealous religious authorities.
In 1957, the MIC and MCA were the designated community guardians to ensure minority rights were protected. But they did not only not protect their communities; they joined UMNO in pursuit of wealth many times for their own personal being at the expense of the rights of their communities.
As a Chinese or Indian Malaysian, you are now a second class citizen in this country born 51 years ago, left betrayed, unprotected and to fend for themselves on their own. Muslim Indonesians and Filipinos are made to feel welcome. Many get citizenships ostensibly to increase the Muslim majority.
But our guardians, MCA and MIC, still looked on squeezing it’s minorities virtually to leave this country. So that promise of 1957 was made to be broken. Or was it sabotaged along the way with the help of the MCA, MIC and later Gerakan.
Governance of the former Federated states had changed hands from our British colonial masters to UMNO. And no one was going to do anything about it.
Enter the Pakatan Rakyat. An inexperienced alternative composite of disparate parties who have significantly changed the political landscape. In the states of Penang, Perak and Selangor, they are beginning to show that even inexperienced administrators, given time may be able to deliver.
PAS on the hand appears fixated on relatively petty matters such as Islamic law when economy, education and health should be right on top of the agenda. But mathematically it is not possible for PAS to ever pass these laws.
Even, if they tried, the reassuring pronouncements of Karpal Singh has brought immense confidence to people like me , that in the event that PAS trys to pull a fast one, the DAP will pull out of the coalition causing the fragmentation and fall of the Federal government if they happen to form one.
This confidence far outstrips the current and ongoing blatant sell out of their communities by the MIC and MCA to UMNO, not that race based politics matter anymore.
Yes as a Chinese, I will vote in PAS anytime, anywhere in this country, because with the Pakatan Rakyat I can rest assured that the law as spelled out in our constitution will reign supreme, and pretenders like PAS will be stopped right in their tracks by the DAP unlike the shenanigans at the MIC and MCA who have now brought minorities to their knees by deceiving them of their rights by colluding with UMNO.
It was the British spy; Harold Philby who once said that “To betray you must first belong.” By belonging, the MCA, MIC and Gerakan have never hesitated for a minute to make full use of their belonging to betray and condemn their communities to a bleak and uncertain future.