Haris Ibrahim accuses DAP of playing ‘race card’
I was alerted by Politics 101 that Human rights lawyer and blogger @ People’s Parliament Haris Ibrahim was invited by the Democratic Action Party (DAP) to speak at a forum — ISA arrests of Hindraf 5 – Ops Lalang2 coming? — last Friday.
Today, he blogged:
I was shocked and gravely disappointed to see and hear DAP leaders at the forum play and manipulate the race card by harping on the issue of marginalised Indians simply because the audience in the hall was almost 80% Indians.
I was most disheartened when I heard Kula refer to the Indians in the audience as his ‘countrymen’.
Kula, am I not your countryman?
Were the non-Indians in the audience not your countrymen?
Were we not there to discuss the likelihood of a second Ops Lalang? Or was this staged just to enable DAP to draw an Indian audience?
If UMNO and BN are using the Hindraf rally and the aftermath to stir up Malay sentiment for their own political mileage, DAP demonstrated last Friday that they are not averse to use the same to play the race card, albeit slanted differently.
I have had enough of race-based politics, whether BN or opposition led.
If we are to have a chance to end this raced-based divide and rule, you and I, civil society must take the lead.
And we must take the lead now.
We must take the lead to give direction to the political parties.
BN will not listen.
The opposition parties must now heed our call.
I wasn’t at the forum but I believe the DAP is trying to reach out beyond its hardcore Chinese supporters.
What is playing the race card? Playing the race card is like UMNO. Conjuring up imagined threats and trampling on other communities’ festivals to look like the champion of the Malay race or Islam.
In the case of Hindraf, the grouses are very legitimate. And they come from a Hindu community. We can’t just say, “Oh, it’s a racial issue, so we should ignore it to build the Malaysian identity.”
There is anger within the Indian community. And this must be acknowledged. Sometimes it’s not stirring the anger cos it already exists already.
To contrast the Hindraf reality with “playing the race card” is UMNO suddenly declaring that all turkeys must be halal and Muslims have the exclusive right to use the Arabic word for god, Allah. There is NO REAL issue here. People are not suffering, marginalised, discriminated, exploited. It’s some sandiwara to win Malay and Islamic votes.
Whereas Hindraf is concerned about issues like Indians dying in police lock-ups, the sad state of the Tamil schools which will affect the community’s upward mobility, destruction of temples — all “bread-and-butter” issues. Not some imaginary TURKEY or GOD CRISIS.
To a large extent, there is no running away from R&R rhetoric in Malaysian politics as the needs and issues are sometimes community-centric but they also cut across R&R. Like places of worship, everyone wants to have their fair share. Schools, same thing. It’s the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional government’s RACIST policies that are causing all these problems.
Like me writing about Hindraf and I am a Chinese. Am I playing the race card? NO. It just happens that this group with legitimate grouses are Hindus. And the discrimination of non-bumiputeras are real.
But at all times, we the nons would like to be part of the Malaysian identity. But UMNO says NO. Only BUMIPUTERAS are full citizens. The rest are “kaum pendatang”. UMNO remains the feudal lords in Malaysia.
So NO, DAP was not playing the race card. IT just so happened the people with real “bread-and-butter” issues were Hindu.
Also, guess what? Samy Vellu was boo-ed and jeered on live TV at some public event. Uncle Kit’s take here and Anil Netto’s here.
Hello Jed, you are one prolific blogger
I wasn’t at the forum, so I can’t really comment on what happened there, though I think it was probably - as you said - more a case of the DAP trying to reach out to the Indians than any intended playing of the race card. The DAP knows better than to emulate UMNO-BN’s bigoted formula.
By the way, I know Haris, and he’s a good man.
His comment probably came about because he’s totally committed to the ideal of a colour-blind, religion-blind Bangsa Malaysia, and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of discrimination. And he means it too.
I have tremendous respect for the man. As do I for the DAP.
The trouble is that in Malaysia, decades of UMNO-BN rule have so polarised society along race and religion lines that it is near impossible to avoid some degree of race and religion being mixed up in other issues. But we can start disentangling this unholy mess of race, religion and politics immediately by simply not giving any credence to it, while we work towards the goal of becoming a truly colour-blind society.
Step 1 will be to throw out the bigots and fascists in the UMNO-BN government.
No-lah. Not prolific-lah. Yes, Haris a good man. I agree that getting rid of R&R is important but not when it means ignoring REAL issues. At present, some things may be communal-centric. Agree with Step 1. Cheers!
Imagine this scenario:
We joined a guided tour into Taman Negara with Haris as tour guide and operator and suddenly, while in the midst of it many people start receiving messages about a maneating tiger somehow having escaped into the vicinity. But Haris keeps harping on the plentifulness of mosquitoes because they potentially carry Dengue fever infection . He, of course, has a point too but one that does not tackle the issue of the immediate and greater danger.
Isn’t that a sort of dissonance with regard to the priority and focus of the moment?
Ha ha ha ha. I feel the same. Sometimes these abstract ideas type need to suffer a bit to understand HARDSHIP to get off their “bangsa Malaysia - stop playing race card” high horse. People are dying, and Haris wants to rattle on about the solubility of race? Give me a break.
LKS : Malaysian Indian political awakening - must not fall into trap of being tarred “anti-Malay”
http://tinyurl.com/2xc5rf
Not anti-Malay lah. UMNO does not equal all Malays. Malay does not equal UMNO. I am anti-UMNO.
Haris Ibrahim is bumiputra so he can afforf to talk. I rather read RPK:
In another estate area with almost 600 Indian flood victims, the UMNO ‘volunteers’ delivered just one sack of rice to be shared by 600 Indian estate workers and their children. Many of the Indian estate women became hysterical and screamed how 600 people were going to share one bag of rice.
http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=272&Itemid=36
So what is this Haris doing about this besides playing his violin during `ethnic cleansing` - after all he claims to be a human rights lawyer:
NGOs have also stopped cooperating with the UMNO run Bilik Gerakan after a very sad and disgusting incident. Staffers from different NGOs had accompanied some of the food and other flood aid from the Bilik Gerakan to some villages. At one particular badly hit area, people of all races, i.e. Chinese, Indians and Malays, lined up to get the food. However, the UMNO ‘volunteers’ informed the people very crudely that the food and other flood aid was only for the Malays. The Indians and Chinese did not get any. The staffers from the NGOs which included Indians, Chinese and Malays were shocked and left in disgust.
[...] clipped from jedyoong.wordpress.com [...]
Continue with Racial Issues and Malaysia is slowly but surely marching towards doomsday!
When M`sia got Independence, the emergency was on. The civilian employees of the British Army (collectively known as the WDCSA-War Department Civilian Staff Asscn.) held rallies and demos to safeguard their rights minus police permits.
Tunku Abdul Rahman, then the PM, supported them while Lee Kuan Yew opposed till Tunku told him `Why are you concerned. They are protesting to the British`.
A similar thing happened when Malaysia was formed.
Was Kula speaking in Tamil Or Malay Or English. Haris Ibrahim has been constantly opposed to hindraf with no real understanding of what it is all about. He keeps pontificating about civil society.
If Kula was speaking in English or Malay, then Haris would have been the remaining 20% who are also Kula`s countrymen. If Kula spoke in Tamil (which Haris seems to understand) then he still understood Kula.
So what is Haris`s beef?
At Malaysiakini:
PKR’s de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, on a seven-stop barnstorming swing through Penang on Saturday, drew crowds from a couple of hundred to a few thousand as he denounced the government over its policies and practices and called on the people to take charge of their destiny.
The PKR leader, on whistle-stops at seven locations in the frontline state, revealed a whispering campaign against him by Umno that he had ‘turned Hindu’ because of his support for Hindraf.
Muslim religious teachers in Malaysia today still preach the Islamic concept of heaven in a terminology which is neither Malay nor Arabic, but Hindu. The sanskrit word “Syurga” is always used in connection with the Islamic concept of paradise. The proper Arabic word for this is actually “Al-Jannah”. In the same way, the Hindu religious term “neraka” or hell is used by Muslim Malays to explain the Islamic concept of hell. The Arabic word for hell is “Al-Nar” or the place of fire. Then the Muslim fast, the annual religious abstention from food and drink, is known by the Sanskrit term “puasa”. A Muslim religious teacher is often called “guru”, another Hindu religious term, in fact the name of a Hindu deity, Betara Guru. The Muslim prayer is among the Malays, called “sembahyang”. “Sembah” in Sanskrit means to pray, and “yang” is a Sanskrit term meaning divinity or conjuring respect, as in “Sang Yang Tunggal”, the most divine one, and “Yang Dipertuan”.
http://www.geocities.com/aizaris/suvarnabhumi.html
Hahahhahahahahhhahahahaahhahahahahahaha.
Haris misses the big picture for reason best known to himself. AI is more focussed. Remain blur and losses credibility. T’s as simple as that.
Ha ha ha. Haris, I dunno lah.
Ha ha ha ha.
Kesava is very correct in Comment 5, Haris needs to focus attention on this allegation :
UMNO Pahang in large-scale stealing of flood relief aid
http://tinyurl.com/2a47×6
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Last year it was the scandal of rescuers demanding payments and at different rates.
It is good if Harris will remember that while pointing one finger at others, the other three are pointing homeward.
Politicians have to play politics and make use of what is available and current. They just have to be given some leeward in their attempts to win over the fencesitters.
We may not exactly like their tactics all the time. That is why many remain non-politicians and continue to be activists and ngo’s, not wanting to play dirty. Realpolitik is never 100% clean.
Yes, yes, yes. May I be reminded of that too. Sigh. Politics is such a vindictive arena. I think I will move to the Alps and marry a ski instructor. Screw all this when I can have some good screws instead.
JY
Is Haris is sounding supercilious? He feels shocked and excluded? He feels DAP is playing the race card? Or rather, is he not over reacting?
Note:
In Julius Caesar
Act 3, Scene 2,
The “Friends Romans Countrymen” speech is a great example of a good speech.
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What does Haris think about this Umno line of “bangsa, agama dan negara”? Isn’t this, by far, more divisive and plainly exclusive? He really should attack that too, if so.
Most politicians have a talent for theatre. Haris appears to be heading the right way. BTW, is he Tamil Muslim? I hear he is bumiputera. I dunno, I believe being a multi-cultural leader includes listening to each community’s real issues and resolving them. I dunno, maybe cos he is bumiputera, he felt out of place at a gathering of nons. Why isn’t he in UMNO? It is rumoured that he wants to stand as an independent candidate in the coming GE. Who knows? Blessed Christmas. JY
I’m really concerned that people abused Samy Velu at PISA. Man, that is anti-Indian behaviour. Samy is Indian. In fact he is the head honcho of the MIC (sometimes called the MALAYSIAN IDIOT CONGRESS). Really, these Indians are getting uppity, jeering at poor Samy who has done so much for himself.