Firebrand Malay rights and Islamist talking head Ridhuan Tee Abdullah has gone on an angry rant in his latest column for Sinar Harian, in which he bemoans the “passive” nature of Malaysia’s Malay community in the face of their rights being taken away from them, and urges Malysians who see nothing but causes for complaint in the country and the way it’s run to migrate to greener pastures.
Ridhuan, who is ironically not Malay himself, but is an ethnic Chinese who converted to Islam, berates the Malays for apparently tripping over themselves apologizing to non-Malays for slights he did not think they committed. Radical non-Malays and non-Muslims in the country, whom Ridhuan termed “ultra kiasus”, have browbeaten the country’s ethnic and religious majority into feeling guilty of their special Bumiputera status and privileges, and would like nothing more than to strip Malaysia of all of its Malay identity.
He further contends that the Chinese education system in Malaysia surpasses that of even China itself, and that Bahasa Malaysia has been sidelined in favour of English and Chinese dialects, especially in comerce and private institutions of higher learning.
Compounding Muslim interests with Malay ones, Ridhuan also questions why non-Muslims in Malaysia are so insistent on using the word “Allah”, and defends the act of asking non-Muslim MARA student scholarship candidates questions about Islam. He also laments the loss of economic opportunities and dominance by the Malays in Malaysia to their non-Malay and non-Muslim countrymen.
He compares the situation for non-Malays and non-Muslims in Malaysia to the Fijians in Fiji – a country he asserts is governed by an ethnic Indian minority – and the plight of the minority Malay community in Singapore.
The main crux of his column is this: if non-Malay and non-Muslim Malaysians aren’t happy with what he terms is the Malaysian way of life, they should migrate to another country where their aspirations can be met – a statement that has been made by increasing numbers of pundits in recent years.
