YOURSAY | 'Mahathir should be prepared to take it, as well as give it.'

Remarks about Jews is free speech, Dr M tells 'double standard' Europeans

Vijay47: Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, I think you have got this free speech thingy backwards. 

Nobody is trying to extinguish your freedom to say what you want, whether directed against the Jews, Chinese, Malays, or whoever.

By the same token, others have the right to disagree with you, or criticise you over anything you say.

When you are chastised, you cannot pull the spoilt boy act and complain that the freedom to speak your mind is being taken from you.

You seem to suggest that yours is the liberty to say anything you wish and the rest of the world should applaud. You should be prepared to take it as well as give it.

Anonymous 1474471500175781: The problem is seeing double standard in others, but not in one’s own self.

Cicak Boy: Can the ‘double standard’ Europeans call all Muslims terrorists because of some suicide bombers?

At times I wish Mahathir would use his brains before making anti-Semitic remarks because when he justifies anti-Semitism, he is inviting criticism of Muslims.

Gerard Lourdesamy: There is a difference between free speech and inciting hatred towards a particular race or ethnic group.

Mahathir may be justified in condemning the actions of the Israeli government towards the Palestinians, but it is totally unjustified to vilify the Jews as a people or nation.

His remarks are not only anti-Semitic, but outright racist. The Jews never called the Malays lazy. The British who colonised Malaya were not Jewish.

Frankly, his comments and remarks overseas are becoming an embarrassment to the country, and increasingly sound despotic and imbecilic.

Imagine if the rest of the world remarked that the Malaysian people are kleptocratic and dishonest by nature for supporting Najib Abdul Razak and Umno-BN all of these years.

Would Mahathir accept such generalisations in the name of free speech?

Abasir: Ever the wily self-serving politician in need of adulation, Mahathir knows which buttons to press to get the local ‘ummah’ on his side.

He gets his minions to organise events in citadels of liberal education like Cambridge where he can play "brave Malay warrior telling off the wicked West for their hypocrisy", while taking a swipe at the Jews for good measure.

And to make sure he gets away with it, he ensures that the audience is largely Malaysian - students on scholarship, High Commission bag-carrying functionaries and the usual entourage of civil service sycophants obligated to laugh and clap on cue.

This has been his modus operandi for years... and it has become predictably boring.

Redmann: I would imagine a leader ought to be above all this unproductive banter based on race and religion.

Anonymous_1399778124: Mahathir, please don't contradict yourself. Free speech doesn't mean unfettered speech.

There must be safeguards to one's speech so as not to create incitement to hatred, etc.

Lagi pun (what's more), free speech as an elder statesman and more importantly, as a representative of Malaysia and as our PM, fikirlah (think) - free speech doesn't mean unthinking speech.

Apa Ini: Indeed, as prime minister, you should be above such racist remarks. The racist in you is the same racist in many of us, but we have less impact than you as PM of Malaysia.

Nagu: I don't care if this foolish stubborn old man ranted as Mahathir Mohamad, but unfortunately, he is having these verbal diarrhoea as the PM of Malaysia representing all Malaysians.

Dizzer: Yes, it is embarrassing for Malaysia. Surely the old man understands the difference between a Jew, an Israeli, and a Zionist. The three are not the same.

When it comes to race-based criticism of the Malays for their cultural limitations, their genetic weaknesses, and their work ethic, he ought to read a book called 'The Malay Dilemma' - it's all set out quite clearly.

Malaysian: Jews are a wonderful people. Zionism (development and expansion of a Jewish nation on Arab land) is the problem.

Mahathir, a racist, cannot see the difference. Many Jews are against Zionism.

Vent: The old man has the right like any of us to call out racists wherever they may dwell or hide but he has no right to run down an entire people.

As a PM who has always tried to cast himself in the mould of a world leader, it is disgraceful, if not stupid, not to be able to draw a distinction between the Zionists and the Jewish people.

For New Malaysia, it is downright embarrassing too just when we were beginning to hold our heads high and valourise him!

To evoke "free speech" in pitiable defence of his own hate speech only demonstrates what many of us already know.

When he can't give it back as good as he gets, he either hits below the belt or offers some garbled explanation in response like the above.

MN: For all the criminal behaviour and murder of Arabs in their midst, Dr M is right to call out the powerful racists in Israel and the US Congress.

There are too many traitor Malaysians, for their Zionist sympathies or whatever, who can't accept an opinion of their own prime minister. Give some space to your own PM.

Ghostwhowalks: But only if he talks sense and not when he is spilling racist remarks. Only fools follow blindly.

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