Zan Azlee
The Malaysian Insider
Apr 12, 2013

APRIL 12 ― I turn to my right, and I see two Malaysians. Their names are Cherish Leow and Cynthia Ng. I look further down to the left; I see another Malaysian. His name is Thinesh Kumar. This is my workplace.

I look to my left, I see four Malaysians. They are the Lau family. I look further ahead and I see another Malaysian. His name is Steven Tan. This is my residential area.

I look to my right, I see a Malaysian. Her name is Ang Swee Poh. I look further down to the right, I see another Malaysian. His name is Ganesh Selvacumarasamy. This is my family.

I look to my left, I see a Malaysian. Her name is Jasmine Abu Bakar. I look in my arms, I see a Malaysian. Her name is Athena Azlee. These are my wife and daughter.

Then I read in the news and see prominent Malaysians endorse and encourage racial politics, in particular, one former Inspector-General of Police.

He says that racial politics is relevant to our society because the different races need to be able to share power so as to have a stable and peaceful country.

Bullshit! I say it’s just a divide-and-conquer strategy to ensure certain people get the power. What do you think? Could my humble opinion actually be right?

Today, I walked through my constituency just to see for myself the goings-on of the political machinery this general election season and to get a feel of the voters’ sentiments.

At a small warong, an Umno member called me over for a chat after he saw me conversing with the warong’s owner about the candidates that will most likely be fielded in the area.

He decided to give me a ceramah, most probably thinking that he could influence me to vote a certain way. As for which way, I’m not particularly sure.

At one point in the conversation (or ceramah), this Umno member said to me:

“We dare not say to the Chinese, ‘Keep quiet or go back to China!’. We dare not say to the Indians, ‘Keep quiet or go back to India!’ We dare not say this because as Malays, we are not united enough to have the strength to do so. And that is exactly what we need to build.”

Then the warong owner, whom only then I find out happens to be an Umno member as well, interjected:

“The youth these days never experienced the racial tension that we experienced. For example, what happened during May 13, 1969. So that’s why they don’t see the importance of being united as a race!”

You know what? It’s true youths like myself (yes, I consider myself young!) did not experience the kind of racial tension the older generation did. We are the post May 13, 1969 generation.

We are a generation that wants to experience our own experiences instead of what you did. We are the generation that sees and recognises each other as equal fellow Malaysians.

So, please, do not come to us and preach about the relevance of racial politics. And, definitely, please do not come and tell us to be scared of history instead of learning from it.

So, at the end of the day, that particular Umno member did, in fact, manage to influence me to vote a certain way.