Steven Sim

Before I can sigh a relief after the political terrorism done on Perak DAP HQ, I read the news of this despicable act to Karpal Singh on malaysiakini.com this morning: Live bullet sent to Karpal.

What is happening in our country now? Have we been breeding some sort of political gangsters, or worse, political terrorists. This is not only an intimidation to one man’s life, but also a mockery and a threat to our democracy!

The terrorists were supposedly defending the “keistimewaan orang Melayu” and “kuasa raja-raja Melayu”. Precisely because we have been misled all this while by BN’s divide and conquer strategy that we become each others’ threat than each others friends. Precisely because of the kind of communalist politics BN was playing all this while that one race-group becomes suspicious of another. Precisely because we were not allowed to question and discuss issues deemed “sensitive” that some among us who blindly worship such “sacrosanct” ideas have no other ways to express their dissatisfactions but by violent means.

I humbly urge all my fellow Malaysians - Malay Malaysians, Chinese Malaysians, Indian Malaysians, Kadazan Malaysians, Iban Malaysians, and every race-groups in Malaysia - to condemn such political terrorism, firstly because it was an audacious irreverence towards life, secondly it was a threat to our democracy (and in fact to His Majesty because it was His Majesty’s lawmaker who was abused this way) and finally, it was a perverted judgement of racial hegemony over and against our common goals towards national unity and towards an integrated Bangsa Malaysia. I urge our Prime Minister Pak Lah to take the lead to condemn political terrorism and to give assurance of security protection to the Hounorable Member of Parliament of Bukit Gelugor and his family.

Something in my closet for sometime now, I feel its time I share this out. I penned this a while ago and it was adopted as Bangsa Malaysia Penang’s identity and objectives:

Who Are We?
We are the People of Malaysia, Men and Women, from diverse ethnic groups, religious beliefs and political persuasions who aspire to live in a Nation where we will not be judged by the colours of our skin by but our common identity as Malaysians.

Community
We aspire to live in harmony and peace with one another as the People of
Malaysia with our common identity as Malaysians precedes our ethnicity.
Having said that, we greatly appreciate the richness of the different
cultures in Malaysia and support efforts to continue to preserve our etnic
traditions not to divide and isolate ourselves along ethnic lines, but to
enrich our common identity as bangsa Malaysia.

Economics
We aspire to achieve an equitable economy where the distribution of our
Nation’s wealth will be fair, transparent and humane. In regards to a humane
economy, we support affirmative action policies to help marginalized groups,
regardless of ethnicity, so that they too may enjoy the prosperity of our
Nation.

Government
We aspire a Government democratically elected by the People for the People.
We support national policies which promotes equity, harmony, peace and
prosperity of Bangsa Malaysia.

Politics
We aspire to be free from race-based politics and believe that we do not
need a race-based political party to safeguard the rights of any ethnic
group in Malaysia. We are political but non partisan and we believe in
agreeing to disagree amicably with one another in regards to political
idealogies.