Jamal Md Yunos, Sungai Besar UMNO division chief and spokesperson for yesterday’s red shirt rally in Kuala Lumpur, has called for ethnic Chinese traders in Petaling Street to share their commercial opportunities with the Malay community, to tamp down the perception that KL’s Chinatown is “racist”.
“Ten years ago, I applied for a spot in Petaling Street but it was not granted,” he said at a press conference today, as quoted by Malaysiakini‘s Radzi Razak.
“So it is better for the authorities and City Hall not be racist. This is what we call racist as all the traders are Chinese. What’s wrong with adding a few Malay traders?”
All eyes were on Jamal and the organisers of the Gathering for Malay Dignity following the violent standoff at the entrance to Petaling Street yesterday evening between red shirt protesters and police.
As PDRM officers blocked the entrance, angry Malay protesters attempted to barge into Chinatown anyway, resulting in the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) to deploy water cannons and enforcers in full riot gear to defuse the situation.
Jamal also blamed the violence in Petaling Street on the Otai Reformis group, who he accused of disseminating “provocative” flyers amongst the red-shirted protesters in the area, igniting their anger.
They were incited by the provocations made by Otai Reformis before the rally.
“I hope the authorities will be fair to them by investigating the real cause of the incident even though I do not know who they were and I don’t support what they did because it was a peaceful rally,” he said at the press conference, according to The Malaysian Insider.
The red shirts’ protest in Padang Merbok and several hotspots in KL yesterday was ostensibly a show of force from Malaysia’s Malay-Muslim majority in the face of perceived attacks on its rights as “true masters of the land”, and to show support for Malay leaders, in particular Prime Minister and UMNO president Najib Razak, against what rally organisers called slanderous plots by “DAP Chinese” and electoral reform movement Bersih 2.0 to overthrow the PM through undemocratic means.
