Mr. 'Chinese are Squatters'

Update 6/9/2008
Today's The Star reported that a defiant Datuk Ahmd refuses to apologise and is instead demanding that Tan Sri Koh Su Koon apologises. I think it's time everyone drops this cos it's surely not worth pursuing. This is akin to kids fighting/arguing...with both not wanting to give in ........neither side wanting to budge, one adamantly sticking to his views, another insisting that a wrong has been committed but finally at the end, and it not going to head anywhere. Let the ballot box speak....at least we still have that

Update 5/9/2008
From mStar. Datuk Ahmad Ismail says he has done nothing wrong. So, he does not want to apologise... If you go by part of the statement, the Chinese are definitely pendatang, so are all the other races. History talks about the two waves of migration - the Proto and Deutro Malays. The Proto Malays are made up of the indigenous (read that as orang asli) people. The present Malays are believed to have come in during the second wave. So all of us memang are pendatang.... he's not exactly wrong... 8)

Posted on 03/09/2008
Bukit Bendera UMNO chief, Datuk Ahmad Ismail at one of the Permatang Pauh by-election ceramah:

From The Star, Aug 30th, 2008. Ahmad had allegedly called the Chinese "squatters" and said that "as the Chinese were only immigrants it was impossible to achieve equal rights amongst races" during a ceramah in Permatang Pauh on Aug 25.

And PM Abdullah Badawi's response." I will tell him not to do it again. You know in a campaign all sorts of things can come up. I don't think he meant it. I'll make sure to tell him not to use it again."

Okay, I get it... we can make special allowances. You can make seditious, silly, irresponsible remarks as you please. So, why are all those Hindraf people still under detention? Can also say the same thing... you know, people do all kinds of acts when they are desperately poor.... I don't get the double standards here.

Face it, after so many decades....and with people moving in and out of a country like never before, we are still stuck in that 'ketuanan' mentality. During the British days, the locals who worked for them would call them Tuan.... reflective of a servant-master relationship. Like it or not, feudalism is very much alive! 8(

As in America before the Civil War...'Yes Master, Yes Ma'am' thingy... well, at least the Americans have their Abe Lincoln's - 'a government of the people, by the people, for the people' dream. Though they sometimes fell short, it's a real thing, not just a figment of our imagination...Collin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and now Obama are proofs of that. We used to have Tun Tan Siew Sin as Finance Minister (in 1959)....but now it's unlikely that such an important portfolio will be given to those not from UMNO. Within the Malays themselves, there is also this hierachy of the tuan and orang bawah.... Our DPM did say that if the people don't appreciate the petrol subsidy then they'll take it away. As though they own the oil.....

Anyway, finally after all the 'bising-bising' they issued an apology ...

We should have our own Gettysburg Address.... or someone like Abe. I used to be inspired by such people, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, especially so because I had this really good friend from my school days who was always memorising all kinds of speeches and poems. How not to get inspired! Good friends begets good stuff out of us.... but that's another rambling for another post. Thanks old friend...