Senior lawyer and constitutional expert Tommy Thomas has criticised Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi for saying that non-Malays have no place in what the minister calls the “national social contract”.
Thomas described what the Umno vice-president had said as “a distortion” of what the Federal Constitution and the social contract are all about from the historical perspective.
He underlined four thrusts on what Zahid termed as the “national social contract”, as those were the words the home minister used.
These four thrusts are Islam as the official religion, Malay rulers, Malay rights and Malay language as the national language.
“His narration says non-Malays have no place in the national social contract. This is a complete distortion”.….Zahid: “Don’t try to disturb these four key thrusts because we, Umno, and the government, will ensure that the most stern legal action will be taken against those who dare to do so. I would like to stress here that there will be no compromise in this matter and to whom it may concern, don’t try to challenge the Federal Constitution,”
Stupid or malign or maybe both?
The latest outburst by Home Minister Zahid obliges Malaysans to give the question careful thought. In making the statements that he did about Malays and “non-Malays” was he acting out of stupidity and loose thinking or does he really believe, and is ready to give the green light to an outburst of communalism, unprecedented since the events of ’69?
Minority rights apart, what place does he give the majority of indigenous people of East Malaysia, who joined as equal partners in this constitution, since they are not Malay or Muslim either?
If Zahid made his remarks without clearing them in advance with his boss Najib Razak then the latter ought sack him forthwith and thus answer our questions. If that does not happen we have to assume that what was said is now BN policy. Zahid is, after all, Home Minister.
So, has BN, at least the Malay part of it, gone mad? Does it really want to promote communal disharmony? And if so why? To create a situation in which armed force can be used to suppress all and any opposition to BN? Zahid’s reference to “using” the Sedition Act might be seen as supporting such a view.
No one knows better than the BN leadership that it lost the 2013 GE, despite its fiddling of the result. No one knows better than BN that it will lose the next election too, so clearly their thinking is that the only way out is to ensure that ALL Malay voters vote BN next time.
Hence Zahid’s remarks. Hence the PMs public utterances recently. Communalism of the rawest and nastiest kind is the only way BN can see their way to stay in power, so it seems they plan take that road.