03/12: MARAH: Malay Rights Action Hoard

Dear Raja Petra,

The Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) was reported in the media as having filed a class-action suit in London against the British government for bringing in Indians to Malaysia as indentured labourers and exploiting them for 150 years, and failing to protect their rights under the Federal Constitution. It is seeking sterling pound 4 trillion (RM27.2 trillion), or RM1 million per Indian in Malaysia, less legal costs.

Wow! RM1 million per person! The MIC President was even quoted as saying he himself was tempted to join in the rally on Sunday, 25 November 2007, which police has deemed an illegal gathering.

Since the Chinese always look for an opportunity in a crisis (the character has the two-fold meaning), why don’t the Malays now form a Malay Rights Action Hoard (MARAH) and file a class action suit against the British government for, inter alia:

1. Forcing their Raja-raja Melayu to listen to the advice of the British residents.

2. Flooding the country with immigrant labour without asking for the royal’s consent.

3. Not giving a chance for the Malays then to develop mercantile skills (monopolized by the Chinese immigrants; this is the seed of our never-ending debate on whether to continue the NEP or not) or work hard and develop strong labour practices (monopolised by the Indian immigrants) thus keeping them idle watching the immigrants work while they lepak in the istana and padi fields, hence creating and perpetuating the myth of the lazy natives (read the late Prof Syed Hussein al Attas eponymous treatise debunking this myth).

4. Taking away their getah and selling them back at inflated value-added prices with English-sounding names like Dunlop (but our maruah was saved by the historic dawn raid on Guthrie when Londoners were caught with their pants down by smart Melayu like Tun Ismail Md Ali and a certain ex-CEO of PNB/Guthrie who is still in the news many decades on, yellow-robed this time).

5. Taking away their timah and selling them back at inflated value-added prices as containers with English-sounding names like:

Milo (pronounced mai low) and Ovaltine (pronounced O valtin: omit the ‘e’). The song/film Tipah Tertipu should be re titled Timah Tertipu.

6. Taking away their mother tongue and replacing it with a strange language that does not make sense to the logical Malay mind; such words as ‘buffet’ (bufey, not buffet), ‘chalet’(cheley, not chalet), ‘vogue’ (vog, not vogiu), ‘ferro roche’ (fero roshey, not leceh), ‘quay’ (pronounced key, not kueh), ‘hors de ouvre’ (ordev, not horse di uver), ‘malaise’(malay, not malais, which is derogative-sounding ), ‘UMNO’ (arm no, not umno). Many Malays still suffer from this colonial infection in their mind when they think in English despite being very Melayu.

7. And causing a 21st century quarrel between erstwhile peaceful neighbours when owing to a difference in semantics, Singapore claims Pedra Branca and Malaysia claims Pulau Batu Putih, a rocky outcrop not big enough to build a squash court for Nicol David: all because the British then did not properly record their agreement to just operate a lighthouse in 1851, leaving it all to the poor Temenggong who could not find his ayam piru to pluck the feather and make a pen to write the agreement with (Singapore argues that PBP was ‘terra nullius’ or no man’s land at the time the British built the lighthouse, conveniently ignoring the Johor-Riau empire a few kilometers away and adopting the same argument used once by conquistadores Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru when they ignored the Inca and Maya civilizations then in their quest for gold).

It is because of the British too, not Malaysians, that we are now stuck with the dilemma of using English for teaching Maths and Science, and are still quarrelling about it 50 years after Independence when other countries like India have mastered their colonial master’s language so well that even American kids are learning tuition online from English-speaking Indians, as noted by T. Friedman in his excellent book on the benefits of globalisation, ‘The Lexus and the Olive Tree’.

Sterling pound 40 trillion would do justice as it would enable every Malay to stop working, keep their money in Tabung Haji, even stop politicking (no need to make money this way anymore) and go for haji every year (even consider polygamous unions, if they like).

Oh yes, to add another prayer to the statement of claim:

* For setting up that little Etonish institution in the State of Perak that turned once-humble budak kampong into pouting, bragging, swaggering brown sahibs who look condescendingly at their less-endowed counterparts across the street, in Ipoh, and in other hostels across the land..... (they are still pouting, bragging, swaggering and looking condescendingly, whether in the government or opposition, way past their biological prime, but still very much in charge of the affairs of the land left behind by their colonial masters, exuding manliness in the wisdom that they preach to all and sunder).

Yours truly,

Budak Kolet