Malaysia's race based politics

It doesn't change one bit. No matter what the opposition parties like to shout about, they are all just as bad as BN when it comes to playing the race card in politics.

Anwar was just quoted in BusinessWeek yesterday, as suggesting that race based policies in Malaysia may not be the most appropriate as it has been severely abused. He was not against affirmative action but he suggested changing things so that it was more balanced. Essentially, he suggested that race should not be the only deciding factor. Good for him.

I saw a video of Lim Kit Siang [thank you YouTube] in Machap during the recent bye-election campaigning. He went around shouting that "MaHua mai Hua" (MCA sells off the Chinese race). Furthermore, he often makes a lot of noise in parliament on the same issue, telling the MCA to break off from BN instead of selling off their own race. Good for him too.

Then, we had HRH Raja Nazrin, the crown prince of Perak, coming out to vocally condemn the governments racial policies, saying that they had gone too far. He claims that every Malaysian should be made to feel that they belong and not be treated as though they are 'immigrants'. Excellent one!

However, after all of that, we're still playing race based politics in Malaysia. The opposition is just as culpable when it comes to this sin as the ruling party. In the Machap bye-election, it was MCA vs DAP with two Chinese candidates running against each other. Now, for Ijok, PKR and DAP are clamouring to field an Indian candidate against one from MIC.

As long as the opposition plays the game set by the ruling party, they will *NEVER* win. Since they have nothing to lose, they should try to change the rules of the game. They can shake up the the next GE by fielding non race based candidates. However, I doubt that they would do that as they are just as sinful as the ruling party when it comes to perpetuating this evil.