“Bigotry against any group should be disqualifying for high office.”

- Alan Dershowitz

COMMENT | DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang does not want to be prime minster. Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng does not want to be prime minster, and since I know politicians like PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang mean the Chinese when they go on about non-Malays, nobody in the greater Chinese community wants to be prime minster.

Some would argue that this is a problem – hold on a minute, I did make that argument, right here, when Lim Guan Eng said that non-Malays would never want to be prime minister:

“But if you accept this premise, then you have to accept the premise that non-Malays will never truly be citizens in this country. You have to accept that what we will have are non-Malay powerbrokers working with Malay potentates having some control of the direction of this country, but this will always be a weapon that will be used against non-Malays when the hegemonic interests of Malay power structures are under threat. This applies to not only BN but also Pakatan Harapan, or whatever it is called.”

Hadi also claimed that Islam is fair to all. But religion cannot be fair to all when, as Hadi has said numerous times, the non-Malays have to be “pak turut.”

Ask the people who have have been surreptitiously converted to Islam here in Malaysia. Ask the parents whose children have been separated from them because of religion in this country. Ask the people who, by virtue of their religion, cannot use certain words.

Ask the people who have looked on helplessly when the state security apparatus claims that there is conflict between religious law and civil law. Ask the people who have had their public and private spaces invaded.

These people will tell you that there is no such fairness as Hadi claims. This is why people leave this country. People do not leave this country because of corruption, they leave this country because they know as non-Malays, they will not be treated fairly. They will be told by politicians like Hadi that they are “not clean” and “non-believers”.

Just can't win

But that is not all. Even Muslims are allegedly leaving this country. They apparently leave this country because they do not belong to the privileged ruling class who are not harassed for their beliefs. They do not have the money or power to shield them.

It is why someone like former law minister Zaid Ibrahim - isn’t he in enough trouble already? - says, “So I urge young Malays to plan their lives properly. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Malaysia is a sick Muslim country that teaches you the wrong things - and people all over the internet either cheer or babble on about staying and fighting."

But the reality is that there is no winning with bigots, especially when they are amidst the majority...