On May 7th post GE-13, Utusan Malaysia journalist, Zulkiflee Abu Bakar wrote a piece in response to the May 6th silent walk. The direct but simple and innocent question he posed was "Apa lagi Cina mahu?" [read it here].
DAP won 38 seats out of the 51 seats contested in Parliament. PKR and PAS managed to salvage some seat out of some split in the Malay votes, particularly from the urban and youth voters (save for Kelantan), and courtesy of Chinese votes.
It is the best performance by DAP and Chinese voters basically gave political dominance to DAP in Pakatan Rakyat.
Zulkiflee felt the Chinese want more power. Despite the concession given by Dato Najib, which is brewing a backlash from Malay educationist, economic practitioners, and community at large, Chinese refused to give BN even the minimal of votes. His view may have it's own merit.
Some bloggers felt the Chinese had betrayed by being deceptive during campaign. They are retaliating with a call to Buy Chinese Last campaign. Those aware of the reverse discrimination on the common Malays employee and businesses maybe taken to act in such adversarial manner.
Definitely, this not the way to build a nation. But, is this what the Chinese want and willing to risk?
Taste of power
Helen Ang had written few postings to conform it's existence. [Read here.]
Many, including our circle of Chinese friends, believed certain quarter in the Chinese community tasted the "blood of power" in Pulau Pinang, Perak before the crossover, and previous DAP-dominated Selangor, thus now they want more.
There is even a saying that while DAP has been pretending to be modest about power to admit Malay as majority and impractical for Chinese to lead, their plans is not so. They have been wanting for a local election for years to dominate the towns, cities and urban centres.
One late former Semangat 46 activist told us that Lim Guan Eng shared his modest request to see constituency borders done in accordance to number of voters and not consider the area size. Wouldn't that bring about power shift to the urban and particularly Chinese voters?
Modest ke tu?
No, Tan Sri Rafidah.
It is not a personal view, when he had his red cap on his bald head to openly threaten that Air Asia X will not advertise with Utusan.
Coincidently, several incidents of technical trouble, and arrogance in Vietnam and Mekah occurred but CEO Aireen Omar's lied in her response to the Vietnam incident. Now there is a viral campaign to boycott Air Asia.
We are only too happy to lend a hand.
Demands or Deception?
If nothing can appease them because they want power, say so.
That way Dato Najib do not have to try too hard to appease them and only do the needful. It is politically more rewarding to give extra attention to hardcore supporters who will deliver the votes. No risk of political backlash to face.
One view here by a corporate man claimed the Chinese lost faith or trust with the country’s broken socio-economic system but his solution is only economics - "fair and open competition with due regard given to need and merit irrespective of race."
Can there be fair and open competition with presence of economic dominance?
Melaka-based blogger, Jiwa Paradox posted about a letter claimed to have been sent to the Prime Minister listing 13 demands, in which it generally asked the government to leave them alone and allow for laisse fairre economic, political and administrative system i.e. no system.
Since the language and manner the letter is written is too casual and not thought through, it creates doubt on the authenticity of the letter. However, the letter has gone viral on Facebook. [Read it here].
If power is not what they want, are those demands the essence of what the Chinese wanted and punished MCA and Gerakan brutally for?
In the last general election, many campaigners felt something strange to the over-receptive Chinese to their visits and campaigns. It turns out to be a deception and a covert campaign ala CPM. By the way, that remark came from an ex-DAP leader.
Generally, the Malays (to qualify, majority Malay BN voters) felt cheated and see it as a dishonest act. They see it as a betrayal when even MCA and Gerakan members did not vote for BN candidates. The government bent backward to meet their demands and yet they made a covert consensus to reject.
Why demand in the first place?
Boycott
Since Malay consumers will not be able to distinguish between DAP and MCA supporters and simplistic generalisation will lead to assume all Chinese are DAP supporters, the campaign will mean a boycott of Chinese retailers.
It is not the rational things to do but a boycott of Chinese retailers in favour of Malay, Muslim, Indian and Pribumi retailers may have it's appeal.
It can be expressed and justified as self help.
Several corporate leaders have expressed concern. Most vocal is the Yeah Kim Leng of the Malay and Chinese Chambers of Commerce representatives. Tan Sri Zeti, ex MIER Anwarista Prof Arif, and few others also expressed their concern.
Like what Rafidah responded in defense of Azran, Dato Hasan Malek the new Minister for Domestic Trade said he can't stop an NGO, which is Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia (PPIM), from taking such stand.
Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin unveiled the motive behind Yeah's response here but the reply by another Melaka based blogger, Azeeza Abdullah here is more provocative:
... Yeah urges Putrajaya to intervene in order to stop the boycott.
I am sure that Yeah is well aware that the Malays have been putting up with the racist game played by Chinese newspapers and the ‘over-reacting’ of the Chinese on racial issues for so long, hoping that the Chinese would one day appreciate their tolerance.
However, the Chinese took the tolerance as an ego-booster. The arrogance that the Chinese once displayed during the 13th May tragedy was again displayed throughout the GE-13 campaigns.
The truth is, the majority is sick over the ‘hypocritical-sensitivity’ of the Chinese. Every time they are reminded of the social contract, they would retaliate by shouting ‘racist’!
Every time they are questioned of their nationalism and patriotism, they would bark ‘racist’!
And when Utusan Malaysia asked them about what more do they want, which is an innocent, direct, simple question, the paper is condemned as ‘ultra-racist’!
On the other hand, the Chinese newspapers and politicians keep playing the racist card real hard that it comes to the point where the Chinese community failed to differentiate between ‘hate Malays and hate Malaysia’.
And today we see their kids took pictures holding the Malaysia flag upside down - and proud of it.
After the GE-13, these racist Chinese extremists finally meet their par. Many Malay teachers and students in Chinese schools started speaking out of their experience in encountering racism in their schools.
And many more started to question the role the Chinese newspapers have been playing all along in inciting prejudice, doubts and hatred towards the Malay-led government. ...Tic for Tac
Azzeza felt Malays have issues to react to that betrayal.
Pakatan have anticipated the reaction and taken the opportunity to claim the high moral ground on racism. As though it is all Malays or UMNO ...
.... The Malay politicians too, are fed-up the Chinese hypocrisy.
It’s now time to lay the racist card for everybody to see. As I have always said to my friends, when you deal with a racist, you have no choice but to be a racist or you will be oppressed. And the Chinese has always been wanting to do that to others – ‘oppress’.
The Malays have had enough of the Chinese chauvinism and arrogance, and so they say: “If you want to play racism, let’s play it”.
One might think that this is how the ‘racial boycott’ started.
In actual fact, it has started long ago when the Chinese slyly attacked and sabotaged all bumi products.
One example, when a Malay tycoon bought over Gardenia Bakeries (KL) Sdn Bhd a few years ago over the worries of ‘halal’ status of the flour supply which has all the while being a Chinese tycoon monopoly, the Chinese community waited no time to launch a boycott over all Gardenia products.
Their excuse? It’s an UMNO-crony’s company.
This is a typical racist way of thinking; that it is okay for the Chinese to practice monopoly but it is never okay for a Malay to break the monopoly and provide a healthy competition because that would be cronysm.
Unless, the competitor is a Chinese too, then it should be okay.
As Yeah put it, it’s ‘unhealthy, childish and racist’ for the Malay to boycott Chinese products but it is ‘consumers’ rights’ for the Chinese to boycott Malay products.
It is also a well-known secret of how the Chinese play their racist cards in hiring people in the private sectors, that is by stating ‘mandarin’ as a requirement in the job advertisements.
Up north, the racist card is often played out in the open where Chinese-owned organizations would not give an equal chance for the Malays to ‘grow’ in the company.
Some even blatantly impose a double-standard salary scheme for different races under an ‘unwritten company procedure’ - of course.
Market Control
Malays control the market since the Malay is the majority of the population, have consumerist tendency and with them lies the retail buying power.
If the Malays, Muslims, Indian and Pribumi, irrespective of political tendency, have tasted such reverse discrimination and monopolistic racism, they could silently support it.
And all the while, the Chinese is as arrogant as ever, telling the others that there is nothing they can do as the Chinese controls the economy.
May be it’s true that there is nothing others can do and that this boycott Chinese products will not get the Malays anywhere.
And so, if it’s true, we believe that there is no need for Yeah Kim Leng to be worried. Never mind the country’s economy, as the Chinese will not be affected. After all, it’s the Chinese that he is so concerned about, isn’t he?
The Chinese has stated that they don’t need others, so others have to ‘learn’ to live without the Chinese. And the learning starts now, through ‘boycott Chinese products’.
Please remember too - The Malays are the buying power and you ask for it, Chinese!
If this kind of tic for tac action and reaction continues, everyone will lose.
Careful when you deceive someone, Newton's third physical law on motion could apply to human:
Every action will have an equal and opposite reaction.
Surely this is no way for both parties to behave in building a nation.
Leadership needed
Don't ask us cause we are just a "budak blogger".
We are not a YB, we are not a Menteri and last of all, we are not a PM. Just belting out over some simpletons who believe only YBs, Menteris, and PMs can think and talk out loud. For us the common folks, just be absolutely loyal and bestow our the trust to them.
More over, the pervading UMNO culture impose on the ground and the ground expects on others is such that:
We can't give critical question, we can't think ahead, we can't suggest anything, we can't express reservation, we can't question appointment (even the bad ones), and we must always remain trustful.Any little voice of concern or demand for drastic action will be deemed as a voice of decent and subtle manouvre to bring down Najib. Some myopic will even suspect a harmless get-to-gather over tea as a conspiracy.
Subtle suppression will not change the fact that a leader must gain the trust of his or her subject. When there is a lost of trust, they must gentlemenly withdraw. A great leader will withdraw when they know they cannot handle problems and there are others more capable.
Currently, we cannot afford a power struggle. It is disruptive on many aspect of life and our future well being. So everyone must be honest to themselves and other to get their priorities right.
Our hope is that our leaders are enlightened and guided by Allah to do the right thing. Hopefully they are honest, sincere and listen well because many problems now require drastic actions and not mere lip service, sloganeering and opportunisism.