KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 — Controversial columnist Ridhuan Tee Abdullah told ethnic Chinese party MCA today to thank the Malays for their high tolerance towards minorities, instead of challenging their status in the Federal Constitution.
In his weekly column at Malay daily Sinar Harian, Tee noted that the Constitution does not prevent the ethnic Chinese here from operating vernacular schools, in addition to practising their own culture and languages.
“Is the Federal Constitution so bad that there is no freedom of religion, education, language and others?
“What more freedom does MCA want? The recent court decisions have hurt many Muslims and Malays, yet we are silent,” Tee said without specifying which court decision.
Tee is an ethnic Chinese who has embraced Islam. In his column today, he dubbed the Barisan Nasional coalition’s Chinese component “ultra kiasu”, a derogatory term he usually reserves for the DAP.
“Wake up MCA in Cabinet, you become senator [sic] and rich due to courtesy votes from the Malays.
“Thank the Malays. Otherwise, berputih mata. This kind of tolerance is rarely shown in the world,” he added, using the Malay idiom for shame or frustration over failure to achieve something.
He claimed that the Malays have also given up some seats for the non-Malays to satisfy and fill up the ethnic quotas, saying that even the Siamese minority gets a senator as a representative.
The Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin lecturer also said that Malaysia is not the only country protecting its majority, citing Thailand and UK for doing the same thing in their countries for the Buddhists and the Christians.
Tee’s column came after MCA’s Ti Lian Ker’s remark last month in Free Malaysia Today, where he said that racism in the country was made worse by the Federal Constitution which was “coloured” by racial and religious provisions.
The Bumiputera and Malays make up 67.4 per cent of Malaysia’s over 28 million population as of the 2010 National Census, and the ethnic Chinese a mere 26.4 per cent.
