Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the Malays will not remain quiet and will rise to defend the dignity of the race when challenged.
“I don’t want to use this occasion to recognise them (Himpunan Maruah Melayu). Do we keep quiet when our dignity is challenged and when we are pushed against the wall?
“Don’t expect this to happen, we will rise to defend our dignity,” he said when opening a Border Security and Management seminar organised by Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) yesterday.
Also present were UUM vice-chancellor, Prof Mohamed Mustafa Ishak and deputy inspector-general of police Noor Rashid Ibrahim.
Ahmad Zahid, who is also Home Minister, said although the police estimated only 35,000 people attended the rally yesterday, those present put the figure at some 150,000.
What responsible leader resorts to such blatant communalism and racism?
Is it Zahid’s only answer to genuine concerns about corruption, which in fact, all evidence suggests involves a cross racial clique of individuals?
Mr Zahid brings no evidence to suggest that Malays have been ‘humiliated’ or by whom. He is just encouraging them to hit out at non-Malays in blind ‘retaliation’.
All in a cynical attempt to divert attention from crimes too close to home!
It is a gross exploitation that rivals the worst of Hitler’s propaganda and could provoke the same effects within a peaceful and largely amiable society of mixed peoples.
The Malay UMNO party has been in sole charge of the country since independence, so if Zahid thinks that Malay people have been ‘humiliated’, side-lined or short-changed then they know where to look – squarely at him and his bunch of multi-racial cronies, who increasingly represent only their own interests.