KUALA LUMPUR, June 1 — Malay youth should heed the lessons of their elders who “so generously accepted other races” living in Malaysia and not be fooled by the alleged tokenism of the DAP, an Utusan Malaysia columnist wrote today.

Pointing to the fielding of Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud for yesterday’s Teluk Intan by-election, columnist Azman Anuar said she was an example of the younger generation of Malays who were willing to be part of DAP’s purported hidden agenda simply to become leaders.

He said the older generation was not so easily taken in by such moves as they were more experienced and wiser in the defence of what they have.

“The older people will not forget the fact that Malays so generously accepted the presence of other races in this lucky country. Older Malays will not forget the accusations of the other races that Malays are unfair while the other communities dominate the economy in peninsular Malaysia.

“Yet they accuse Malays of being racist,” he wrote in the weekend edition of the newspaper today.

Telling Malay youth to accept the views of their elder, Azman warned them that there are some choices from which there is no return, in apparent allusion to the Bumiputera special privileges enjoyed by the community.

Accusing the DAP of enticing Malays in a bid to erase what he called a history of insulting Islam, the columnist then mocked the youth for easily forgetting the alleged slurs aimed by the party’s leaders at their community.

“Is it good that our Malay youth seemingly close their eyes and ears to support and allow other religions to use ‘Allah’? To support the rejection of hudud! To forget the position of Islam as the official religion of the Federation of Malaysia?” he asked.

DAP fielded Dyana Sofya, a 26-year-old Malay woman, in what was seen as a gamble in the Chinese-majority Teluk Intan federal seat.

The move led to attacks against Dyana, who hails from an Umno family, for being a “traitor” to her community and the Malay nationalist party.

DAP’s bid to display its multicultural credentials in the by-election proved unsuccessful, however, when Dyana lost to Barisan Nasional’s Datuk Mah Siew Keong from Gerakan by 238 votes in the by-election yesterday.

Mah’s victory overturned the 7,313 majority that the late DAP MP Seah Leong Peng, whose death triggered the poll, had put over the Gerakan president in Election 2013.