Umno Cheras warlord detonates sticky bomb, Chinese go ballistic
Umno Cheras division chief Syed Ali Alhabshee’s reputation precedes him. He is one colourful character known for being an outspoken maverick.
Yesterday he hit the Malaysiakini headlines – see below- where the portal’s news report has thus far elicited 163 reader comments (as at time of writing).
Chinese in identity, in culture, in language, in education stream but Hannah Banana in religion
Syed Ali had lauded Najib Razak’s reminder to the Chinese community that the Umno leadership of the Merdeka era had allowed for the retention of the minority Chinese identity, culture, language, school and religion.
In return for the concessions, the Umno president told delegates at the LDP congress in Kota Kinabalu on Sunday (Nov 16), his party only asked the Chinese for their loyalty to the government.
The Malay Mail quoted BN chairman Najib as advising that Malays and Chinese “must be sensitive to each other. That is the essence of mutual respect. Once we have that, there will be peace and harmony”.
In his Umno bahagian Cheras blog, Syed Ali yesterday wrote: “Sokong ingatan Najib kepada kaum Cina; orang Melayu pegang semangat setiakawan”.
Syed Ali’s blog posting, picked up by Malaysiakini, quite typically prompted the portal paying subscribers to go berserk on him.
Chinese commenters went ape shit
Syed Ali had been appointed a senator previously. It is practically impossible for an Umno division chief in Cheras to get elected to his Parliamentary area.
Cheras is a traditional DAP stronghold with 81.8 percent Chinese voters. Acting DAP national chairman Tan Kok Wai (pix below) has been Cheras MP for five consecutive terms – winning in the 2013, 2008, 2004, 1999 and 1995 general elections.
In GE13, DAP won Cheras with a 37,409-vote majority. An Umno Cheras MP is just not going to happen and it’s for this reason that I suspect Syed Ali is really more interested in debating ideas than in scoring political points (well, because he can’t ever win the Cina pekat Cheras seat, can he?).
Syed Ali had expressed his opinion in support of Najib that the Chinese, or at least a higher percentage of the Chinese electorate, should side with the government.
What he said is worth discussing in greater depth but unfortunately – biasalah tu – the Chinese reacted with a torrent of online abuse and insults against him.
Syed Ali is furthermore accused by Malaysiakini readers of being (either) a “half Arab” or “mamak” who is trying to be more Malay than the “true” Malays.
Someone who in my view is a true Malaysian First would be Dr Chandra Muzaffar. Yet the perpetually belligerent Chinese are always saying nasty things about him. He is called a mamak by them too.
Delusional Firsters like to put words in other people’s mouth, such as their picking on Muhyiddin Yassin as a “Malay First”
Syed Ali labelled “racist” etc, etc by the Dapsters
During the period that P. Waytha Moorthy was a senator attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, Syed Ali had once extended an olive branch to the Hindraf leader by inviting Waytha to his Hari Raya open house.
Waytha (pix below) was otherwise rather cold-shouldered by the entrenched establishment of Putrajaya during his brief tenure as deputy minister.
The friendly gesture by Syed Ali, I’d think, doesn’t indicate someone who is inherently hostile to the other races.
Do the Chinese want Articles 3, 152 and 153 of the Federal Constitution diluted?
In contrast to the Malaysiakini readership, I keep an open mind on what Syed Ali has to say.
According my reading, the thorny topics brought up by Syed Ali were those aspects – passages reproduced below – which likely rubbed the Chinese the wrong way and caused them to be so angry at him.
Syed Ali said:
- “Bukan Melayu harus menerima realiti bahawa ketuanan Melayu dan bahasa kebangsaan tidak boleh persoalkan, Islam sebagai agama rasmi tidak boleh diganggu-gugat, dicela serta diperlekehkan.”
. - “Bukan Melayu tidak sepatutnya bersikap terlalu prejudis dan iri hati terhadap orang Melayu dan umat Islam di negara ini.”
. - “Kaum Cina kadangkala sengaja membesarkan isu-isu berkaitan dengan kepentingan dan kedudukan orang Melayu termasuk dalam isu agama.”
. - “Mereka (orang Cina) kena faham bahawa Melayu adalah tuan di negara ini, mereka juga kena faham kerana sikap bertolak ansur orang Melayu maka mereka boleh menjalankan pelbagai kegiatan terutama dalam sektor perniagaan.”
You can access the reader responses to Syed Ali at ‘Chinese can do business cause “tuan” tolerant‘ (Malaysiakini, 17 Nov 2014).
Englishmen and their excellent command of BM
Say if an orang putih marries a Malay woman, he will usually come to embrace Malay culture at least to some extent.
It is also usual for people who have lived or who served in Malaya/Malaysia to steep themselves in Malay culture.
British colonial administrator R. O. Winstedt, for example, mastered the Malay language so thoroughly that he is remembered for publishing an English-Malay dictionary in three volumes.
His fellow British colonial administrator R.J. Wilkinson was the officer who proposed the establishment of the Malay College in Kuala Kangsar (MCKK). Wilkinson wrote about Malay customs, beliefs, language (grammar) and literature and even published his collection of pantun-pantun Melayu.
Why are Chinese the odd one out?
The justices who drafted our Merdeka constitution were Lord William Reid, Sir Ivor Jennings (UK), Sir William McKell (Australia), B. Malik (India) and Halim Abdul Hamid (Pakistan).
Norwegian Tan Sri Just Faaland was the economic adviser to Tun Abdul Razak. It was Faaland who devised the NEP. Another chief architect of the NEP was Jack Parkinson.
Samuel Huntington (cartoon below) of the Clash of Civilizations fame had co-produced a confidential report to government of Malaysia in 1970 on our race relations post-May 13.
People of various ethnicities have throughout our history woven themselves into the fabric of our nation. They are able to connect with the Malay majority.
Malaysian Chinese (who are fellow citizens of the Malays) preach love-love-love and claim they want nothing better than national unity/reconciliation. But they can’t stop calling Malays “racists”, “extremists”, “religious bigots” and “haters”.
Everyone can integrate … except the Chinese
Expats and foreign workers – be they Korean, German, Bangladeshi or Burmese – would be soon able to speak our national language commendably after residing here a mere few months. But not our Firster citizens though whose families have lived in Malaysia for several generations.
It seems that almost any ethnicity can blend into our local landscape. More importantly, they don’t diss Malaysia like the way Malaysians of Chinese descent are so fond of doing.
Yet these very same DAP Chinese thump their chest loudest as Malaysian Firsters. And they perpetually go all ballistic against anyone who integrates with the majority population, such as Alifah Ting Abdullah and Dr Chandra Muzaffar.
The Firsters are currently spewing a lot of vitriol at Syed Ali Alhabshee for being identified as a Malay.
They hate mamaks whom they accuse of trying to be more Malay than Malay. They hate mualaf Cina whom they accuse of trying to be more Malay than Malay. They hate the Syed and the Sharifahs whom they accuse of trying to be more Malay than Malay.
They love Marina Mahathir who doesn’t write in Bahasa Melayu.
At the same time, they set themselves as the Bangsa Malaysia ideal that everyone else must follow.
Given this astounding anomaly, I’m curious to know what is Syed Ali Alhabshee’s magical plan to miraculously make the Chinese pro-gomen.
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