Newly-minted Yang Berhormat for Permatang Pauh, Anwar Ibrahim, reinvigorated the ‘multi-racialism’ call in his by-election campaign last week. The Umno candidate whom Anwar trounced on Tuesday, Arif Shah Omar Shah, is multi-lingual and speaks Mandarin.

Does Arif drink Chinese tea? Use chopsticks? Observe filial piety, respect his elders and remember his ancestors? If yes, he could technically become a Chinese under the Malaysia Boleh artificial construct of race ... if we inverse (the illogic of) Malaysia’s forced religio-cultural markers where its majority race are locked within an identity fence due to intense politicking on the bumiputera plank.