Merdeka spirit?

Every merdeka day, we hear lectures about national unity. Every single year we are told that it is important. One really funny thing that I noticed is that a lot of Malaysian political parties are formed to protect the rights of their own people. So if every politician spews racial propaganda for political leverage, how are we going to ever achieve unity?

It might seem like I have a problem with UMNO with the number of posts I have aimed squarely at them. Maybe I do. And this post is no different. When Mr. Khairy accused the non-bumis of taking advantage of the Malays when they are weak, he got a very strong response from MCA. Strangely enough, he also got a lot of support from within UMNO. A lot of people were telling him not to apologise. Being an ultra malay is fine. Uh... right.

Sure, you can say that the comment were for Malay ears only and not directed at the non-bumis, but really, I don't think such a thing has a place at all in anyone's political agenda. Its bad enough that we have the older generation instilling racial paranoia in the young by teaching and then reinforcing racial streotypes. Having the political leaders do the same is only going to make things worse.

The chinese can never do such a thing. Can you imagine a MCA leader accusing the Malays of being fatasses who leech off chinese wealth? It will be suicide. But thats besides the point. I can speak from a chinese perspective because I am chinese. I've heard chinese use terms like 'malai chu' or malay pig all the time. I've been called a pig by malays too. And infidel. That one is a favourite.

Name calling and accusation hurts. It causes resentment and builds upon the negative feelings that the stereotypes already cause. So I really can't help but to feel that all the talk about racial unity really is just talk. Nothing more. If they don't practice what they preach, they can't really expect anything to change now can they?