Back at March 10, I read this good post by PJ Parliamentarian Tony Pua. The link is here. Do visit his site as he does have a good take on different issues. Anyway, I want to quote him here.
They Just Don’t Get It, by Tony Pua
After a humiliating defeat in the hands of the opposition, particularly by DAP for MCA, the President of MCA, Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting still doesn’t get it.
A page 8 report in the New Straits Times today had the headline “Ong: We’ll continue to work for Chinese”.
At the rate it is going, MCA will become obsolete possibly within the next decade.
What has “RACE” got to do with it? When we are elected by the people, we serve ALL Malaysians, and not just “one” race. The race-based politics of Barisan Nasional component parties will spell their death knell in the years to come and unless they come out of their shell, DAP can certainly look forward to a better performance in the next General elections.
DAP stands strongly for Malaysians First, and not instead, the divide and rule policies of Barisan Nasional component parties.
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He also has a later post regarding Prime Minister Pak Lah talking about race as well. The post is here.
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I personally like his post. It has ideals that I believe in as well, a race-less government, a race-less nation. I would go so far to say that I believe Mr.Tony Pua is honest in his assessment of his conscience and of his political opponents. However, he did say that “DAP stands for Malaysians first, not instead,” which would mean that he’s speaking for his party.
Well, it would appear that DAP has some work to do to fully reflect Tony Pua’s sentiments about taking an interest in Malaysians first. Recently Mr. Sivasubraniam’s flip-flop exercise has already been highlighted as a race based political stunt. Then today, Malaysiakini put up this really ambigious post about the DAP Indians calling for an Indian council to be set up in Penang…
The Penang DAP Indians want the state government to immediately establish a high powered state-level council that would function as a one-stop agency to manage all issues and matters pertaining to Indian affairs in the state…
At present, many DAP Indians in Penang claim that they have been become forgotten lots since the party captured Penang on March 8 polls, with the help of political allies – PKR and PAS.
“Since the DAP came to power, our existence, importance and sacrifices seemed ignored,” summed up a disgruntled Indian member, who has been a party man for over 20 years….
Full Malaysiakini article here
Interesting to note that not a single member of that Indian DAP faction were named. So I’m not sure if it’s the whole gang speaking or just one man. But the point is, racial politics will not just be eliminated through an open tender system, or some magic touch. It’ll take time, and it’ll take a lot of effort.
Well, the way I see it, there are two things happening at the same time. One, because racial divides have been politicized and exploited for so long, it’s very hard to adopt the paradigm shift that is being proposed. It is intensely difficult to stop thinking bout ‘my kind’ first, and to keep fighting for ‘our rights’ because it has always been the case. If this is so, then patience is needed. My lecturer once suggested to me that for a social thing to rewind, it takes the same amount of years that was needed to get to where we are in the first place. So for Malaysia, maybe 50++ years to fully become deracialized? That is if we start now.
Secondly, the DAP politicians (or most politicians) are still intentionally playing the race game because it is very convenient. It can gather coverage and supporters pretty quickly, and it’s the most identifiable aspect of a person’s appearance, other than sex. So yeah. It’s easy to gather an audience.
Either way, Tony Pua is probably speaking of his party’s ideals, not his party’s practices. Not yet anyway. I wish him the best of luck.
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Ok on a more narcissistic front here’s an old film I made. It was screened during last year’s Freedom Film Fest.
superratty
Another nonsence coming from an indian DAP. Isnt it enough we have one in Perak??
Come on. Give them a chance to run the states. Its been only about a month after the election. Dont create problems or we might lose it all in 5 years time.
Common, dont be racist. Lets work together to make our country Malaysia a better place to live and work.
I would prefer it if you guys tone down on this whole racist thing. Here I am blogging about ONE Malaysia, a raceless one, and here you are continuing this quest of some races are better than others.
That’s not progress. It’s just a convenient belief to think that some races are superior to others.
It is true to my suspicion that DAP is a chinese-chauvinist party.
I do support it if we deport Lim Kit Siang and about half DAP members back to mainland China.
Serious.
Chinese were here in malay land 150 years ago because their motherland cannot provide enough food for them.British brought them here to work so the can survive and sent money to their family in China.The British know that the malay are very nice people with very big heart ,can except anyone to cari makan in this properous country.I dont know why commenter
no 2 vesewe hate us so much.Without the chinese we malay still can survive,maybe the development is a bit slow but we well survive even in the jungle . Malaysia is a very rich country with oils discovery,without chinese people we will live like people of Brunei.
I do support if we deport all racists and send them off in a spaceship to Mars.
I really impressed with this article. It is difficult to change Malaysian’s ‘race’ mentality as all the while, we are ‘moulded’ since young by Umno dominance BN.
So, you can see these silly actions by DAP members here. You can also see how terrible the mentality of ’safeguarding Malay’s future’ in Umno leaders.
12th GE was a revolutionary one in a way, all Malaysians, irrespective of race and religion, gave overwhelming supports to Pakatan Rakyat ‘irrespective of race and religion policies’, and yet those in BN, particularly Umno, MCA, MIC still harping on ’safeguarding each other race they claimed to represent’.
Keep it up with your works, ‘PLEASE LAH’.
For once, i dont rate myself as a Chinese, Malay or Indian. I rate myself as a Malaysian.
Malaysia people must start to accept this that we are all the same kind and not different what so ever.
So what if i am a Malay? So what if i am a Chinese or an Indian.
Aren’t we all the same?
So malaysians, let’s all hold hand in hand to a better Malaysia!
I don’t think so, DAP is a race Chinese based party. Perak EXCO appointment is a cut and clear picture , where the DAP has shown it’s true color,there were two Member of Parliment in Perak also State Excutive Councilors and they too was appointed as ECXO in Perak. Three post for one person.
This is what DAP.Come on practice what what DAP preach.
DAP is very dirty then the Barisan Nasional. DAP is a double headed snake. I started to hate DAP for what its has done to the Indians.
Dear Blog Owner,
You have officially been attacked by BN cyber troopers. To sabotage your blog, they will come in numbers (or sometimes the same guy using several nicknames). One guy will play a *Chinese* racist insulting Malays (like cooloc), sometimes insulting Islam (like reek), then he will be “replied to” by a *Malay* racist, insulting the Chinese, Indians, Christianity, or whatever. They will take turn sabotaging your blog (as I said, sometimes it is just one cyber trooper) so that any newcomer will be completely turned off by blogs in general and decide that all bloggers are evil. Worse, they may truly feel insulted and join in the “debates”. Even worse, Malays who come to your blog will get the idea that “Oh… Now I see why UMNO says the Chinese always want to *halau* us from our own motherland” and the Chinese will think “The Malays really hate the Chinese - must vote for MCA since MCA really knows how to deal with UMNO”, etc etc…
I suggest you add some login obligation for commentors.
For goodness sake, those parties who make so much noises, may have memory lapses. How soon Pakatan Rakyat won electionand establish a new govt???????? Plssss be reasonable!! Less than a month!!!, How you expect miracle and magic to happen to see Indian became millionaire, chinese become millionaire and Malay become millionaire in less than a month? X#@# very eager to say out loud four letter words to those insane peoples out there!!
Pls be fair, the new govt have to start everything afresh, with no proper documents in their office when they report to work, and attacked by all cylinders and false accusaton by the BN-controlled newspaper, various fraud cases surfaces, those things alone, needs time to resolve and response. Not to mention suspend of various fundings from the Federal govt.
X$#@$
i think vain harper is right. come on, please lah vet incoming replies before they appear on your blog!
james low.
noted. My bad. Thanks.
Ahh your Tax dollars in action, thanks to Azalina-Lesbian’s Cyber-Rempits dedication in wasting oxygen. Barisan masih tak belajar lagi, it seems.
Manickam,
What exactly has DAP (or any other Pakatan Rakyat party) done to the Indian community? Has anybody been evicted from their homes? Has anyone’s place of worship been demolished? Has access to scholarships or places in schools and institutions been denied by virtue of one’s ethnic origin? Has any racist statements against the Indian community (or any community for that matter) been made?
What I have seen so far (and this is less than a month after the General Elections) is that a policy of open tenders have been initiated, audits being done, land titles being granted, and a few more other affirmative policies that generally seem to benefit a large majority of the people.
So, pray tell .. what evil has been done?
There’s a difference between being “racial” and “racist”. BN is a “racial” based party, not “racist”. What’s wrong in being racial? We all belong to one race or another (some more than one in the case of mix marriages). In BN, every major race is this country is being recognized (via its main components, UMNO, MCA and MIC) - with a compromised formula for these various races to live together.
DAP, on the other hand, who claimed to be “non-racial” are actually “racist”. Their non-acknowledgement of “racial” issues will result in them being insensitive, and sometimes even offensive, to particular race(s).
We have to recognize and respect that different races have different beliefs, culture, needs, way of thinking, history, etc…etc.
Americans, Europeans have been trying to remove the barriers between races hundreds of years before us, still differenciate the blacks from the whites…
No doubt about that, Vain Harper. Cybertroopers at works!! Not only in this blog, but many others!
Malaysianlover,
When BN started pushing policies that discriminated against other people by virtue of their race, they crossed the line from being racial to being racist.
DAP’s weakness seem to be the inability or unwillingness of some leaders to move beyond certain categories and frameworks. As a result, difficulties in perception result when the mention of words like “Islamic values” or “indigenous rights” are used. DAP isn’t unique in this aspect. We do need to mainstream a new rhetoric and construct. It won’t be easy nor would it be immediate but we’ve to be wlling to start, at least.
right now..after the election i hope all malaysian from the both party will focus on how to increase the economy….just do the job…just working, don’t talk about politic any more… i feel so boring when we are play…play politic all the time… i’m a small investor BSKL… this talk..talk much more and huru hara about politic can disturb the indexs at BSKL la…. to the BSKL fan please visit me at jualkandang.wordpress.com
I believe that DAP is a party that can and will evolve with he times albeit sometimes the journey there takes some time.
just take for example their recruitment drive to reinvigorate the party with professionals and young blood in order to stay relevant in the political landscape of Malaysia today. Then their embracing of new media was the next logical and praiseworthy step as they manage to get their message out to the previously unaware Malaysians.
So now their next step is to truly become a party that reflects their call of Malaysian First. Already they are stepping up the recruitment drive for 100,000 new members - irrespective of race.
So before those naysayers start to publish all their negative and sometimes hate comments - please look at BN and it’s racial and at times racist makeup before trying to label DAP as such. At least DAP is trying to reflect their call for a Malaysian political party thats not demarcated via racial lines.
Also to those who start claiming race based incentive or harping on racial issues, please move out of your decades old mindset that was probably programmed into you by BN’s propaganda and get a reality check.
Today a growing majority Malaysians don’t want to just care along racial lines. Crime doesn’t happen by racial lines. Poverty recognises no racial lines. Then why are there still close minded people out there that still care of race based politics?
2013 - the end of BN is near …. mark my word!
thanks for pointing it out, Vain harper!