More mischief from Utusan's Awang Selamat

More mischief from Utusan's Awang Selamat

Columnists

Written by Helen Ang

Monday, 15 June 2009 17:28

Utusan's Awang Selamat in an op-ed yesterday repeated his earlier leitmotif about the Malays being betrayed, how there are traitors to the country and cautioned that if any Barisan Nasional component party [i.e. MCA] hints at wanting to leave the coalition, it should just go. The Awang Selamat column is the editorial voice of Mingguan Malaysia, the weekend edition of the Utusan newspaper considered to be Umno's mouthpiece. In 'Apa muslihat MCA' (What tricks are MCA up to?), Awang Selamat questioned the motive behind a just concluded online poll in MCA president Ong Tee Keat's website, which had 76% of the respondents voting that his party should leave BN. Awang Selamat conjectured that the survey was a deceptive manoeuvre by MCA to pressure Umno but adding that such a strategy would not bear fruit as the flailing Chinese party is unable to counter the influence of DAP "which is so aggressive". "Even with MCA's presence, there is no assurance that BN can win Chinese hearts (in the next general election)," commented Awang Selamat who also believed that it is of no consequence to Umno if MCA intends to withdraw and nor should the former attempt to prevent its departure – "why give face"? Awang Selamat suggested that Umno might care to review the tried and tested BN methodology because "most importantly, Umno should not be so generous in trying to make a go of the power-sharing when the component parties are always applying pressure." "They [the disgruntled Umno satellites] only want what's advantageous to them and are indeed 'too much'. What need is there for a power-sharing that is more beneficial to others?" 'Malays can't be silent anymore' On the unity government talks, Awang Selamat referenced MCA's concern that an Umno-PAS merger will marginalize the minorities and said that any effort working on Malay unity is met with opposition because the non-Malays mostly want Malays "to continue to be weak and divided". Taking up again the theme 'Melayu dikhianati?' that stirred controversy a fortnight ago, Awang Selamat asked: "Does this [hidden agenda] not carry the message that Malays are willing to let themselves be stabbed in the back ["betrayed"] after making all the sacrifices for the other races?"  He concluded: "There are so many issues currently confronting the Malays that the community cannot remain silent any longer and be content only to moan quietly". Utusan is clearly fanning racial sentiments and deliberately racializing matters like Chin Peng's wish to return home. Its front page editorial cartoon featured a speech bubble with the snide remark, "Just appoint Chin Peng as PKR advisor ...". Putting in his two sen worth, Awang Selamat accused the Pakatan Rakyat supremo of trying to gain "political dividend" and Chinese support through his statement declaring that he [Anwar Ibrahim] did not want to see a situation where it is alright for a Malay communist to return but not for a Chinese communist to do the same. Contrary to Anwar, Awang Selamat opined that any support for Chin Peng is "wicked" and [a threat] just as dangerous, if not more dangerous than the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) itself. The Utusan editorial then alluded to how betrayal can cause the downfall of one's race, and proceeded to ask rhetorically: "Who is the betrayer [of his race] in our era today?" Powerful majority yet petulant An anonymous Malaysian blogger thoughtfully pointed me to a commentary by American Glenn Greenwald, a political author on the New York Times bestseller list, which is similarly an apt reflection on Awang Selamat and his ilk. Greenwald wrote:  "The most predominant mentality in right-wing discourse finds expression in this form: 'I am part of/was born into Group X, and Group X – my group – is better than all others yet treated so very unfairly." This claim persists – indeed, is often intensified – even when Group X is clearly the strongest, most privileged and most favoured group'."   In a previous article titled 'The right's two-pronged religion of rage and self-pity', Greenwald summarized: "Petulance and self-pitying grievance is what fuels them. This endless need to self-victimize would be one thing if the groups to which they belonged were small minorities targeted by a hostile and more powerful majority. But the exact opposite is true. By and large, the groups to which they belong (and therefore see as oppressed and treated with unparalleled unfairness) are the most numerous and the most powerful in the country and always have been."    Awang Selamat's polemics on 'Malay generosity' and his scaremongering that others are hellbent on undermining the Malay race is reminiscent of what Greenwald terms that 'tribalistic self-absorption' which precludes any capacity for empathy. The tribalistic self-absorption of Utusan Malaysia is evident in it incessantly playing up Chin Peng's ethnicity.      When Anwar made his statement on Saturday, he correctly predicted that the paper would put spin on it. The very next day, as anticipated, its article 'Anwar melampau' appeared, where Utusan solicited a reaction from maverick politician Ibrahim Ali, among others. Ibrahim, also Perkasa (an NGO) president, obliged by denouncing Anwar as a man willing to cast aside his own race for the sake of political survival. But as Anwar rightly points out, other former communist leaders such as ex-MCP chairman Musa Ahmad, and prominent guerrillas like Shamsiah Fakeh and Rashid Maidin have been permitted return. So why persist in waving the race card at Chin Peng? Communism is an ideology that transcends skin colour; there are communists in Cuba, in Nepal; West Bengal has the longest serving democratically elected communist state government in the world. Internationally, communist parties are legitimate political players. The response by Ibrahim is a follow-up to his thoughts a week before – 'Perbetulkan perjuangan pribumi' (June 8) which prominently covered three-quarters of the broadsheet's editorial page. Ibrahim penned: "Kalau gagal ditangani, dilema [Melayu] boleh menyebabkan nasi menjadi bubur … Tanah Melayu mungkin menjadi milik orang", and incorporating the formulaic attack on Anwar as someone who is so power hungry that he is seemingly gambling away the Malays' future to non-Malays. Blowing up a non-issue It is unbridled mischief-making to insinuate that the country could somehow cease to belong to the Malays. Ibrahim also premised the alarmist, surely unfounded, scenario that Malay dignity is being challenged, that the fate and future of the Malays is in the doldrums, and parroting the unity mantra, that is, if the Malays are split they will lose. Ibrahim, Utusan and Umno are consumed by the zero sum game and their imaginary enemy whom the Malays purportedly have to unite against. The trifecta of Umno, its Old Media and its New Media-cum-bloggers network have lately been inflaming sensibilities with their Chin Peng sideshow, attempting to create an ethnic schism by drumming up grievances on one side when there is really a corresponding indifference on 'the other side'. The communist insurgency, or Emergency, officially ended in 1960 long before I and the majority of Malaysian Chinese today were born. Many of us would probably mistake Chin Peng's image for Mao Zedong although our community (and even those nowadays in China) are nonetheless blue jeans-wearing capitalists, and hardly a Mao-jacketed proletariat. The communist struggle is remote to us latter-day Malaysians where roughly 73 percent of the population is under the age of 40 … has anyone read any significant Chinese writer here ardently promoting communism? We are far removed in age and understanding from Chin Peng, although a few may harbour some compassion for an 85-year-old in exile. It is counter-productive when Utusan's race-soaked invectives fail to discern Chin Peng's intense longing for 'Tanah Melayu' (so much so that he desires to spend his last days and perhaps to die and be buried on Malay soil) but is instead tied to a race-blinkered argumentative itinerary taking Malaysians backward to the lost jungle.

Source: http://english.cpiasia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1592:more-mischief-from-utusans-awang-selamat&catid=198:helen-ang&Itemid=165