The bogeyman isn’t our enemy

Malaysians should be wary of those who use divisive tactics to grab power at the expense of unity and harmony.

CAN you feel the heat?

I do. The religious and racial tension in our country has gone up a notch or two the last one week.

Last Saturday, I had an inkling that this would happen when I watched on Facebook Live an Umno and PAS gathering in Pasir Salak, Perak. The two frenemies gathered to oppose any move by Malaysia to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).

The rhetoric at the gathering included words and phrases such as “amok”, “J.W.W. Birch” and “May 13”.

(Birch was a British resident of Perak who was speared to death by followers of Dato Maharajalela while bathing in Pasir Salak on Nov 2, 1875.)

As if the religious and racial tension in Malaysia was not heated enough, a video clip of a shopper berating a beer promoter surfaced on Monday.

I cringed when I saw that it involved a Chinese and a Malay.

When there is an incident involving people of different races, it can turn racial and potentially divide Malaysians.

Mohamad Edi Mohamad Riyars, known as Edi Rejang, scolded a Chinese woman who was offering beer samples to shoppers in the non-halal section of a supermarket in Kuala Lumpur. He used the words Bumi Melayu, Boleh cakap Melayu? (Can you speak Malay?) and “F*** You” and showed his middle finger to her.

Many Malaysians, regardless of race and religion, condemned the man’s actions. But there were those who defended it.

Edi Rejang has apologised for his actions, saying that he was not racist as he sent his child to a Chinese school and he had friends who were Chinese.

End of story. And Malaysians can move on?

Probably not. As there are Malay rights groups that want to turn Edi Rejang into their poster boy.

Edi Rejang’s “momentary” lapse of judgment is an example of the ugly Malaysian.

But it gives a skewed picture of Malaysia. It is not the Malaysia I know.

The Malaysia I know is where Malaysians celebrate their diversity. It is a country where we don’t allow our race or religion to divide us. Here’s my Malaysia as I live it. On the day Umno and PAS were gathering to oppose ICERD, I was organising a four-hour lunch playdate for my 10-year-old daughter, a Catholic Kadazandusun, and her BFF (best friend forever), who is coincidentally a Malay.

They study at the same school in Subang Jaya, Selangor. They are BFFs probably because both have empathy and they love the same YouTube channels.

For lunch, I made sure I ordered McDonald’s as it is certified halal.

This is very different when I was growing up in Kota Kinabalu in the 1970s and 1980s, when Malaysians were not too concerned about halal and non-halal food or space.

When I sent my daughter’s BFF home, her dad thanked me for hosting his kid. He also said kind words to me as he knew I was returning to Sabah because someone in my family was critically ill.

There were no “halal” or “ICERD” issues dividing us. What we most probably wanted was for our kids to live harmoniously in a bumi Malaysia that did not differentiate whether you are Kadazandusun, Iban, Bajau, Melanau, Indian, Chinese or Malay.

That evening, I left bumi Melayu

– to use Edi Rejang’s words – and was back in my home state, which some say together with Sarawak is the real Bumi Malaysia as we are muhibbah.

(Translated to English, muhibbah

means willing and sincere acceptance of others, of genuine respect for others, of the fellowship of citizens and the kinship of humanity.)

In Kota Kinabalu, my wife and I had breakfast with her BFF, who is coincidentally a Bajau Muslim.

When you have someone critically ill in your family, you need all the help you can get. And my wife’s BFF was there to help orang susah (people in difficulty).

There was no ICERD to divide us. Especially in Sabah (and Sarawak), where most people want the ICERD ratified.

We were talking politics and I brought up the ICERD issue.

“Itu KL punya pasal. Kita di sini mana peduli (That is a KL issue. We, in Sabah, do not care),” she said.

But judging from the postings in my Sabah WhatsApp groups, Sabahans are concerned about what is happening in Peninsular Malaysia with regard to ICERD. Video of ICERD protests and fake photographs of protesters armed with knives are shared.

They are worried that the ICERD issue might turn bloody.

I did not want to write about Edi Rejang and ICERD as I thought the situation was getting to be too racist. I wanted to write about how a death could not be foretold.

But I couldn’t avoid the noise. There are forces out there who are playing the racial card. They want to use it to gain power at all cost.

What is worrying is how they will ratchet up the religious and racial tension. Will they use the old trick like throwing a pig head in a mosque or cow head in a temple?

But it seems such tricks do not work anymore. They don’t stir racial or religious tension as Malaysians have wised up.

Let’s hope the latest bogeyman – ICERD – will not have this effect either.