Malaysia 101: Happy Independence Celebrations & State of Our Beloved Country

The country had just celebrated its 65th year of independence and despite we had just made history by sending an ex-Prime Minister to prison and we have many other court cases ongoing, the question is have we as a nation become a model nation as our founding fathers had dreamed back in 1957 when we got our independence from the British? Image source: Wikipedia

Read these first:-

• Malaysia 101: Disgraced Ex-Prime Minister, Najib Razak Sent To Prison
• Malaysia 101: Historic Merdeka 53 Years Ago & Embrace New Change
• Malaysia 101: Does It Still Matter To Celebrate Merdeka?
• Malaysia 101: Misfired Racial Policy Will Badly Screws The Nation
• Malaysia 101: The Chopstick Diplomacy, Look For Better Ways To Assimilate Malaysians

Marina Mokhtar’s Opening the Malay Mind

Mariam Mokhtar is a well-known social activist, socio-political writer and a regular columnist at Malaysiakini. She recently posted an excellent video on Youtube which questions the degree of independence of the people and in particular the majority race, the Malays to think and question the wrongdoings that happen in the country.

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The transcript of the video is summarised as follows:-

• Meaningful independence will occur when the minds of many Malays are released from their mental cages (which were implanted by Umno-Baru and PAS).
• Six decades of UMNO and PAS leaders have helped to weaken the Malay mind.
• Malays even fear photos of pigs and if they see dogs, they want to kill the animal. They are also afraid of the cross.
• The Malays frequent the fleshpots & massage parlours of Thai border towns, but when it comes to makan time, they must eat only halal food. They call the halal makan a religious requirement; you and I may term it hypocrisy.
• The warped Ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) policies trick them into believing that they can do what they like. But they are also warned not to criticize their relatives and leaders, especially those who do wrong or evil deeds.
• If their family members do something wrong, many Malays are reluctant to report them because they do not want their family to be embarrassed and become social outcasts.
• As a result of this, the crime within the family (and political party) continues.
• In the past, I said that the Malays had ears, but many of them do not hear. They have eyes to look at their surrounding, but many of them cannot see.
• If their minds are not closed, they may be able to observe with their eyes, and can also listen carefully.
• They have mouths to speak, but when politicians give a racist speech or threaten the country’s harmony. The Malays are fall quiet and refuse to demand explanations from their politicians.
• Malays did not ask these politicians, to protect the Malays from who, and to defend Islam from what?
• Many Malays are too lazy to think deeply.
• When politicians steal the rakyat”s money, the Malays fail to comprehend that corrupt politicians have stolen the futures of our children & our youth.
• In 2019, Noh Omar, an Umno-Baru politician, said “Stealing is not wrong, but it is only wrong when you are arrested.” Why didn’t the Malays demand an apology and a retraction of his remark. He should have been forced to resign. He is an irresponsible person as his remark encouraged Malays to commit crime.
• Politicians like the convicted felon Najib and Noh Omar have destroyed the Malays.
• Some Malays are very confident and trusting of the Indian fugitive Zakir Naik, who speaks English and tells them that a corrupt Muslim leader is better than an honest non-Muslim. (tonggang terbalik logik si Zakir!). People like Zakir should be deported, but our leaders are weak and appear to seem favour Indian fugitives like Zakir.
• Najib has performed 3 or 4 sumpah laknats (curse-swears) in the mosque to ‘prove his innocence’. Every time he, Kakros and his peers in Umno-Baru do something wrong, they all run away to Mecca (the metaphorical confessional box) and pretend to the rakyat that they are pious and holy.
• Strangely enough, why was Najib not criticized by the mufti and the sultans (as guardians of Islam in the state), because he abused religion (with his stupid sumpah laknat drama/theatrics/pretend).
• When he was first convcted by the High Court, in 2019, why were his Datuk-ships from the various states not revoked? What were the palaces’ reason(s) for holding back from revoking his datuk-ship?
• Najib’s daughter, Nooryana Najwa claimed that her father had been jailed on the basis of “rumours”. Did she not read the news and see the evidence and testimonies of her father’s trial? Najib’s children went to university overseas.
• Later he said that an Arab king had donated him some money. More importantly, the story kept on changing. He is not a sincere person.
• Did he repent for his sins? Did he ask for forgiveness from the rakyat? No! He is an arrogant and narcissistic common thief. A total of 9 judges found Najib guilty. One from the High Court, 3 from the Court of Appeal and 5 from the Federal Court
• Zahid did this because he is aware that after Najib, he is next to be jailed. Zahid wanted to save himself. Now Zahid imitates Najib’s tactics to confuse the public.
• If we want to achieve our third independence, we must encourage reading in the Malays, so that they can understand what has been discussed and make their own conclusions.
• Malaysia’s third “real” independence will only occur when the minds of the Malays are open.

Martin Jalleh’s Merdeka Tweet

Personally, we seriously need to ask if we are in the right mind celebrating independence. Are we truly free? Is there any meaning in celebrating our independence?

Selamat menyambut Hari Kemerdekaan 2022 yang ke-65! Are we truly "free"? May God bless and save our beloved country! -mj pic.twitter.com/dqTP9sqHEG

— Martin Jalleh (@martinjalleh) August 30, 2022

The worst kind of independence rally that I have seen from the corrupt politicians in the country almost every year is forced patriotism. Think about it for a moment – they will do all kinds of nonsense that not only damage the good relationship among the people of Malaysia but also acts of treason and crime and then on independence day, they will act as if they have done so much for the country and its people.

Independence means we are free from the corrupt and the criminals. Najib should NOT be pardoned by the King – the original target for this petition was only 30,000 and it has soon reached 120,000 signatures. Another petition to get Najib pardoned by the King only achieved 10,000 signatures. This shows that people want the King to do the right things. Source: Change.org

King’s Merdeka Speech

Every year on holidays and special events such as independence day, we have these great speeches on how ideal we should live our lives from our politicians and royalties but the question is how much of these ideals are followed through by the politicians.

For example, YDPA’s speech for the 65th Independence Day:-

Social solidarity, national integration and racial unity are keys to national harmony, prosperity and wellbeing, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah said today.

In fact, the King said they were also the keys to gaining strength to face any challenges ahead, in accordance with this year’s National Day theme of “Keluarga Malaysia Teguh Bersama” (Keluarga Malaysia Standing Strong Together).

“In that regard, His Majesty said it is a shared responsibility of all to not only preserve and protect national harmony that we have enjoyed so far but also to nurture it among ourselves as a Malaysian Family.

“His Majesty is of the view that if the people stay united, play their roles and hold fast to the keys, then we will be able to curb those groups or extremists who sow seeds of divisiveness and fan the flames of racism to cause disharmony in the country for personal gain,” Comptroller of the Royal Household of Istana Negara Datuk Seri Ahmad Fadil Shamsuddin said in a statement today.

Ahmad Fadil said Al-Sultan Abdullah also reminded the people to beware of the wolves in sheep’s clothing who were also capable of causing disunity among the people and shaking the country’s stability through their lies and seditious remarks statements which contravened the principles of Rukun Negara, the ultimate key to racial harmony and unity.

(Source: Malay Mail)

“Social solidarity, national integration and racial unity” in conjunction with the independence day?

Has this ever been an issue with ordinary citizens? But then who often comes up with racial and religious segregation and institutionalised racial policies? Who manipulates sensitive issues of race, religion and royalty for self-interest and hidden agendas?

On February 2022, Pusat KOMAS, an NGO that advocates equality and highlights incidents of racism and racial discrimination published its findings in a report titled “Malaysia Racial Discrimination Report 2021” and some of the salient points of the report are as follows:-

In 2021, there has been an increase of incidents of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia in Malaysia. Based on the exploratory observation of incidents of racism and racial discrimination reported in the media, a total of 53 incidents of racism and/or racial discrimination were documented.

A total of 53 incidents were identified as either racism, racial discrimination or xenophobia (refer to Graph 1).

The largest percentage of incidents identified were Racial and religious politics (28%), while the second largest percentage were Racial and religious provocation (23%), followed by Xenophobia (13%), Racial discrimination in the education sector (11%), Racism in other sectors (11%), Racism in the media and Internet (8%), and Racial discrimination in the business sector (6%).

In fact, Racial politics has ranked highest among all other trends over a five-year period (2017 to 2021) when Malaysia’s government experienced numerous changes in rapid succession: from Barisan Nasional (BN) to Pakatan Harapan (PH), then to Perikatan Nasional (PN), and now to a ‘Keluarga Malaysia’ government.

This pattern of trends indicates that the problem of racial politics is not only deep-rooted in Malaysia, but also that its severity is not determined by which government is in power.

For decades, race and religion have been an effective tool used by politicians and political parties in Malaysia to advance their political agenda. Race and religion were used to gain political mileage and to ensure control over constituencies and voters.

Politicians and political parties want to be known and regarded as the champions of their racial, ethnic and religious group. In this section, incidents where a race, ethnic and/or religious group is used by politicians and/or political parties to express a position of power and/or superiority over the others on the basis of physical and cultural attributes, as well as economic wealth were included.

(Source: KOMAS)

Please read the report in detail as KOMAS have done a good job listing all the racial politics in various sectors and level of society that has taken place in the country. The more famous ones would be the enforcement of 51% shares in non-Bumi freight forwarders companies which is blatant open racism and unfair business practice.

It is no surprise that racial and religious attacks increased after 2018 i.e. after Pakatan Harapan have taken over the reign of the Government and started major reforms and prosecutions against those who have robbed the country. Image source: KOMAS

Final Say

We have always celebrated our independence with full colours, happiness and enthusiasm for the past 65 years but what does it mean to be really independent?

• What is the significance of our celebrations of independence if a majority of the people are still trapped and oppressed by politics of race, religion and royalty?
• What is the significance of our celebrations of independence if Malaysians are continued to be alienated and segregated by different classes?
• What is the significance of our celebrations of independence if Malaysians are not allowed to question and criticize the actions of the politicians and public servants who clearly have faulted and broken the laws?
• What is the significance of our celebrations of independence if rules of law are not enforced and are enforced selectively?

We may have come a long way since pre-independence days and despite our advancements in business, technology and human resources, we need to certainly work on our independence when it comes to critical thinking, enforcement of the law to the dot and equality among all Malaysians on daily basis.