MILF-PRON Special Report for 2011: Malays under threat — Part 2
| Yusseri is an engineer by training, a consultant by accident and a company man by necessity. He wishes that people would stop calling him to sell life insurance. It's death insurance he's looking for. He writes rubbish at http://www.mentera.org/ and pretends to be an intellectual at http://www.othermalaysia.org/ |
JAN 6 — In Part 1 of our Special Report, we detailed the threats that threaten the Malays such that they were constantly feeling threatened from January to June 2011. Here in the second and final part (thankfully), we look at the rest of 2011 and the threats contained within.
The month of July began with the Malays in a state of high alert. The illegal Bersih putsch was about to be held and movements among its main instigators were ratcheting up, which as mixed metaphors go made a curious kind of sense. The government had already made a few pre-emptive arrests, most notably six members of Parti Sosialis Malaysia under the Emergency Ordinance (1969) for carrying T-shirts emblazoned with glow-in-the-dark pictures of Che Guevara, Leonid Khrushchev, Chairman Mao and Shamsiah Fakeh.
Roads leading into and out of Kuala Lumpur were experiencing gridlock daily, as the police held roadblocks at all the main arteries, in order to remind the people that a rally was definitely going to be held. On the eve of the rally itself, khatibs in mosques throughout the nation warned the Friday faithful against attending the Bersih rampage, to avoid being manipulated by the commie-Christian plotters headed by a non-Muslim into selling out their own (that is, the Malays) land.
As the day of the planned disturbance approached, a flurry of negotiations happened between the illegal protesters and the government, with the hope that the rally could be called off, or at the very least held in a football stadium, preferably in Ulu Ceruk Kodiang or somewhere similar.
Unsurprisingly, the organisers of the protest refused all efforts by the government to make them behave and proceeded to announce that they will be marching towards Stadium Merdeka from all points within the city.
Now, not much more can be said of what happened during that day that hasn't already been said. But we shall try anyway.
There were counter-measures carried out by a few staunch defenders of the Malays: A half-dozen or so Perkasa members carried out a peaceful walkabout around Taman Titiwangsa to show their intense disgust at the marchers, the silat exponents displayed a hitherto unknown ninja-like skill of being completely invisible, and Umno Youth members — wearing red T-shirts to counter the communist Bersih's yellow — convened at the KFC near Sungei Wang Plaza where their leader Khairy Jamaluddin was promptly arrested by policemen emerging out from the nearby Dunkin' Donuts.
However, in the ensuing confusion, no one was able to determine whether that particular KFC restaurant was still owned by the Malays.
In any event, the efficient policing and monitoring by the police, army and silat-ninja forces had ensured that the Bersih riots on the day were well-contained. There were no major incidents except for when the rioters broke into the Tung Shin Hospital compound, endangering the lives of the patients and medical personnel within it. However, quick reaction by the police — by sparingly sprinkling water over the looters — ensured that no material damage or injuries occurred to the police personnel working at dispersing the illegal troublemakers.
And so it was that the dangerous threat to Malay sovereignty threatened by the traitorous republicans of Bersih was temporarily smashed and quashed by prompt action of the authorities.
However, it should be noted here that the concert by Ramli Sarip and The Blues Gang that was scheduled to be held in Stadium Merdeka on that night had to be cancelled, due to worries that police personnel may not be available for crowd management during the concert since they were all busy outside the stadium trying to stop the protesters from going in earlier in the day.
For the rest of the month, no other new threats were uncovered, as the Malays prepared for a time of peace, piety, introspection and faith ...
August heralded the arrival of Ramadan on the very first day, and the nation as a whole looked forward to a period of joy and serenity, interspersed with gluttony and greed as millions of Malaysians — Malays or otherwise — kept their stomachs empty during the day so that they could pay more than RM100 a person to gorge themselves in crowded hotel restaurants when the sun goes down.
However, before the gluttony could fully get in gear, the sanctity of the month was rocked by the discovery that a church in Petaling Jaya was attempting to convert needy Muslims at a dinner by providing them aid such as food, shelter and cold hard cash. This new development of the Christianisation plot was uncovered by state religious officers when they carried out an “inspection” of the church premises while the dinner was being held by an NGO calling itself Harapan Komuniti.
Apparently, this NGO and others of its ilk purport to provide aid and support to single mothers, abandoned children, HIV/AIDS sufferers and victims of natural disasters. However, according to a couple of Malay daily newspapers, their main intention is to convert Muslims (and possibly those of other religions too) to Christianity by being kind and helpful.
Given this nefarious plot by the Christians, there were calls within some quarters that the Muslim NGOs should also be applying the same strategy too, and while that makes some kind of sense, clearly the threat of these Christian NGOs needed to be neutralised using the full force of the law.
And so it was that the Selangor state government ordered a gag order on the incident, as well as a full-report from the religious department officers that carried out the inspection.
Given that the gag order has never been lifted and the report has yet to see the light of day, we can only surmise that the “Christianisation by being nice” plot was and remains a threat so large that no one in authority can speak about it. At all.
The month drew to a close with the Malays preparing to celebrate Aidil Fitri in an atmosphere of trepidation and anxiety as their faith and unity face increasingly threatening threats.
Going into September, the main Malay-based political parties, Umno and PAS, continue to snipe at each other as they have been throughout the year thus far. This was in spite of the advice given by the mufti of Perak late in the month before to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, exhorting the PM to unite the Malays, though not necessarily by avoiding the poco-poco.
However, the disunity of the Malays was to be the overwhelming threat to the Malays in the month of open houses and giving money in green-coloured pouches to children in a manner that is not in any way similar to the Chinese tradition of giving out ang pows during Chinese New Year.
The tinder to the Malay disunity fire was sparked by the PAS deputy president Mat Sabu when he claimed that the communists who attacked the Bukit Kepong police station during the pre-independence insurgency were heroes, in direct opposition to the accepted wisdom that the police working under the English colonial powers were the true heroes for fighting against the communists.
This then led to calls for a review on the struggle for independence, with PAS claiming that Umno was not the only party to defend the Malays against colonial aggression, and Umno retorting that PAS shouldn't be complaining too much since PAS itself was just technically an offshoot of Umno.
The argument then took a turn for the absurd when a historian from the Majlis Profesor Nasional made the announcement that Tanah Melayu was never colonised by the British, but was in fact merely under the advice and protection of Her Majesty's officers. This then sparked the debate on what Tunku Abdul Rahman really meant when he proclaimed “Merdeka!” seven times on August 31, 1957 at a place called Stadium Merdeka.
The favourite explanation was that the Tunku was just immensely happy at passing the Bar exams after seven attempts.
In the midst of all this, on the eve of Malaysia Day, the prime minister made a speech that was broadcast on national television where he announced, among other things, the repeal of the Internal Security Act and the lifting of three Emergency declarations.
Unsurprisingly, this announcement was quickly denounced by several Malay groups as a threat to Malay sovereignty since the ability to detain any non-Malay indefinitely without trial, nor rhyme or reason, was (as explained by Datuk Ibrahim Ali of Perkasa) part of the special rights of the Malays as embedded in the Constitution under Article … well, does it matter which article number, really?
However, the PM then clarified a few days later that while the ISA will be repealed, a new set of laws will be made that would allow for the detention without trial of anyone who insults, challenges or rubs the Malays the wrong way. Just like the ISA, in other words, but with a different, more 21st-century feel to it.
In October, in response to the growing Christianisation of Malays threat, a group of Malay NGOs announced that they will be organising a gathering called “Himpunan Sejuta Umat: Selamatkan Akidah”, shortened to just Himpun (as opposed to HiSUSA, or HiSeUmSeAk say) where the organisers expected to gather one million Malays for an afternoon of prayer, sermons, poetry recitations and nasyid sing-a-longs to counter the growing menace of apostasy, allegedly largely due to the proselytisation of Malays by Christians.
Details of the gathering were broadcast far and wide — on Himpun's own website, Facebook and blogs (including where MILF-PRON sourced it, which was a post by “Gadis Lonely?” under the categories “Al-kisah, Gambar, Gosip, Selebriti, Tempatan, Umum” on the blog “Oh! Artis”).
This was to ensure that at least one million, if not more, of the faithful will turn up at Stadium Shah Alam (capacity: 45,000) on the day itself.
This gathering was an important one, since it represented the biggest fight-back by the threatened Malays against one of the threats which threaten them such that they were constantly feeling threatened. It was therefore no surprise that the “1 million ummah” Himpun rally was a roaring success when between 5,000 and possibly 10,000 Malays attended the event, where a jolly good time was had all round.
It was fresh from this success of standing up to the threats that the Malays headed into November with a feeling of optimism and a spring in their steps. However, this optimism was to be short-lived as the Malays found themselves dealing with a double threat: the Christianisation of the Malays using solar-powered speaking bibles and the leader of Bersih once again trying to enslave the Malays, this time using a homosexual carnival.
On the Christianisation front, according to Datuk Hasan Ali, the Selangor religious authorities had uncovered a plot by Christian missionaries to convert Malays by state-of-the-art technologies likes the aforementioned solar-powered speaking bibles in addition to having welfare-based NGOs providing aid to single mothers and the destitute as well as carrying out free tuition and counselling sessions. In short, it was “Christianisation by being nice and technologically savvy.”
At the same time, it emerged that the Bersih leader, Datuk S. Ambiga, was launching a two-week-long festival called Seksualiti Merdeka. This festival claimed to be an annual event held since 2008 with the support of various NGOs, including Amnesty International and the United Nations. And while it purported to defend the rights of all Malaysians to “be free from discrimination, harassment and violence for their sexual orientations and their gender identities”, it was claimed in a leading Malay daily that the real purpose of the festival was to drive Muslims into apostasy by way of free homosexual sex and behaving fabulously.
So it was that a month after Himpun organised the biggest gathering of Malays ever seen since the rock groups Search and Wings had their ”Double Trouble” reunion concert, the Malays found themselves still under terrible threats — by Christians, communists, fair election propagandists and fabulously dressed transgender non-conformists.
Such were the diverse threats faced by the Malays that the final month of 2011 was greeted with almost sheer exhaustion as, in spite of all efforts, the Malays still felt that they were threatened by threats such that they were constantly feeling threatened.
However, in what could possibly be a sign that even those who are allegedly threatening the Malays were themselves tired of (being accused of) threatening the Malays, December turned into a fairly quiet month.
The only major threat occurred right at the end of the year when the breadmakers of Gardenia were accused (by possibly Chinese elements) of practising favouritism when it was discovered that Gardenia did not buy their flour from a Chinese-owned flour mill.
While it was a threat against the Malays from being able to eat bread “so good you could eat it on its own”, as threats go no one really cared anymore.
We now look forward to 2012 as the year where the Malays will no longer feel that they are constantly under threat, hopefully by just growing up and ignoring the noise.
On a final note, we feel that there is a need to mention that based on the latest census data available for 2010, the Malays now add up to 50.1 per cent of the population of Malaysia (rounded up to one decimal point), making the Malays just 0.2 per cent away from being the single largest minority in the country, leaving no single race to be the majority.
And with that, the researchers of the Malaysian Institute of Learning Foundation for Political Research on Nationalism (MILF-PRON) conclude this Special Report for 2011: Malays under threat.
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.
