One of the organisers of yesterday’s Red Shirt rally, and an UMNO leader and former federal minister, has admitted that the Gathering for Malay Dignity was racist in nature, but that such racism was in line with what he believes Islam teaches its adherents.
Annuar Musa, former Rural Development Minister and still a veteran UMNO leader, defended the racial nature of yesterday’s mass gathering of red shirt protesters in Padang Merbok and across Kuala Lumpur, saying that acting in defence of ethnic honour – in this case, of the Muslim-Malay majority – was permitted in Islam, as long as no other races were oppressed in the process.
“Being racial is endorsed in Islam as long as you are not cruel towards other people. This rally if you say is racist, yes. What are you scared of? Islam has put in place guidelines, what is not allowed is racism that is cruel towards other races,” he said yesterday, as quoted by The Malay Mail Online‘s Mayuri Mei Lin.
“In Indonesia, you cannot have a Chinese name but in Malaysia you can. If that is considered racial, then yes, I am racial. But my being racial is guided by religion. I am racist, Islamically.”
He also said that Malaysian Malays had been kind to the other races by bing willing to share the country and its resources with them.
“And when has the Malays even behaved cruelly towards other races? We share this country, we shared citizenship. We share all our rights. Who was the one who made thus county open to other races? It was the Malays.”
The Red Shirt rally was held in “defence” of Malay honour, particularly the position of Malay leader and Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose reputation and good name rally organisers claim had been tarnished by “DAP Chinese” smears in an effort to throw him out of office.
The rally was also ostensibly a response to the recent #BERSIH4 rally on August 29 and 30, which called for electoral reforms, a more transparent government, and the resignation of Najib following his alleged links to the ongoing 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal and the mysterious ransfer of RM2.6 billion into his personal accounts in 2013.
Thousands of protesters were bussed into the capital from rural areas to take part in the rally, which saw several instances of unrest and violence break out, particularly in Bukit Bintang, where protesters rammed through police barricades, and Petaling Street, where Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) personnel deployed water cannons to stop unruly protesters from attempting to enter the predominantly Chinese commercial and tourist location.
Although some of the rally’s organisers are members of ruling Malay party UMNO, and several high-ranking UMNO leaders attended the gathering, UMNO insists that it did not endorse the rally, while at the same time allowing its members to attend.
