RAWANG, Oct 4 — Barisan Nasional (BN) must take the initiative to correct the perception that Malays are anti-Chinese by meeting non-Malays personally and clarifying matters, Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali said today.
He said based on his own experience of being wrongly labelled as anti-Christian, BN component parties Umno, MCA and Gerakan must repair the country’s fraying racial ties which were affected by the “red shirts” and Bersih demonstrations.
“If they leave information to be disseminated through the media, I believe there will be a lot of continued misunderstanding,” he said after officiating the Selayang Perkasa annual general meeting here today.
“They must meet with the Chinese community, because I believe much of the information have been misconstrued through the media.”
He said the continued strains on inter-component party relationship will reduce voter confidence and would only harm the ruling coalition in the end.
Ibrahim said that it has to be stressed that a call for Malays to unite was not the same as making a call to challenge non-Malays adding that even non-Malays stand to lose if the Malay community were divided.
“It is important for the Malays to be united because they are the majority. If the Malays are united, then they [the Chinese] are safe because most of the consumers are Malay,” he said.
“My advice is that they should stop attacking people in the media, because in the end Umno will be the ones who stand to lose.”
Race relations in the country were recently strained following a Malay rights demonstration on September 16 that was held in response to the Bersih 4 rally in August, which the former’s organisers claimed to be a Chinese event challenging the position of Malays.
Following which, the race-based component parties within the ruling BN coalition have been at odds with each other, most recently witnessing the Pasir Gudang MCA youth wing briefly cutting ties with coalition chairman and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
