Mahathir sudah bersekongkol dengan DAP selama kira-kira empat tahun. (Sorry, there are no equivalent English words I can think of that quite convey the meanings of ‘hasad dengki’ and ‘bersekongkol’.)
Today Mahathir is singing praises of Lim Guan Eng and defending DAP.
Back in 2016, he had to convince his own skeptical Pribumi people on the wisdom of hooking up with the evangelical party. Astro Awani covered his press conference where Mahathir tossed to the room at large a rhetorical question, “Is DAP really evil?”
My answer: YES!
Usual suspect NGOs smearing M’sian govt
The 95 year old has been keeping unorthodox company in recent years — hanging out with DAP, Bersih protestors, the Purple Rally, Cambridge Union, etc. Latest he is on the same page as anti-government NGOs he used to kutuk.
Two days ago, some scores of “NGOs” – several of them dubious, such as the ‘Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia’ shadowy group and others which the pre-2016 Mahathir would not have approved of (LGBT groupings like Seksualiti Merdeka, Queer Lapis and Pelangi Campaign) – condemned the Malaysian Home Minister in a very long open letter.
Note: Any society or organization that claims to represent the Rohingya here in Malaysia is illegal under the Registrar of Societies Act as none have been registered with ROS under the name ‘Rohingya’.
MAP: The port city of Chittagong is located in Bengal, Bangladesh; the port town of Sittwe is the capital of Rakhine, Myanmar — there is a land frontier between both locations
(The old name for Sittwe is Akyab, the old name for Rakhine is Arakan; Naypyidaw officially replaced Yangon as the capital of Myanmar in 2005.)
The NGO letter writers are demanding for Malaysia to absorb the boatloads of Rohingya ferried here in April by human traffickers.
The letter, addressed to Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, moreover claimed that “statements by Malaysian officials, including the Minister of Home Affairs, could heighten tensions and incite violence and discrimination against the Rohingya”.
They even alleged the action by our government “to repel boats containing Rohingya refugees attempting to land in Malaysia […] violated the principle of non-refoulement under international human rights law”.
Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin has already stated that we are not party to the Refugee Convention 1951 or its 1967 Protocol. Hence the demands articulated by these champions of the people smugglers (who transport Rohingya for a cutthroat boat fare) are not binding on Malaysia.
The open letter pressure groups furthermore want our government to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Hullo … Malaysia does not want to sign your liberal globalism stuff. Go away, you busybodies.
Mahathir siding with his mamak clan
A fortnight ago, Mahathir acknowledged he was aware why Malays presently dislike Rohingya so intensely. Yet at the same time, he condemned the government action to turn away the Rohingya boats as “inhumane”.
In this he is opposed to Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin – a cabinet member from his own Pribumi party!
Like another Pribumi leader Rais Yatim who recently said when the Rohingya numbers swell to hundreds of thousands, they will gobble us up, Mahathir himself conceded “apabila jumlah [Rohingya] menjadi begitu ramai”, maka simpati [orang Melayu] bertukar jadi benci”.
There are more than one hundred and fifty thousand documented Rohingya in Malaysia but the real number is bigger. Our country is host to an estimated two million PATI of various nationalities.
Well knowing the wariness of the Malays, Mahathir still prefers to side with the mamaks from Chittagong.
BELOW: A British census of Burma’s population in 1921 showed that the majority of its Indian immigrants originated from Chittagong; British colonial records did not recognize the Rohingya as a distinct ethnic
Just yesterday Mahathir had again reiterated that the Malays have many weaknesses. Since it is he who insists that Malays are “weak” on many fronts, going to the extent of proclaiming “orang Melayu boleh hancur”, why does he want to open the floodgates for these Chittagong Bengali Muslims to enter?
After all, Malays are “lazy” in Mahathir’s eyes. The Rohingya, on the other hand, are more hardworking. The British colonial officers were full of praise for the industrious immigrant Rohingya compared to the laidback Buddhist natives of Arakan, Burma.
The young men in the Rohingya “refugee” boats evidently saw migration as their route to a better future. They want jobs but their being here will take away employment from locals — the very Malays Pribumi is supposed to defend.
In the short term, bringing in unvetted Rohingya will expose Malay frontliners (in our navy, police, immigration, health and enforcement services) to a risk of infection should the boat people chance to have the coronavirus. It is not xenophobic to fear that men coming from the overcrowded Cox’s Bazar camps are vulnerable to Covid-19 or suffer underlying respiratory diseases.
Overcrowded Singapore has 24,671 cases of Covid-19 compared to Malaysia at 6,779 cases. Of Singapore’s 884 new cases yesterday, the majority (877) were linked to foreign workers residing in dormitories.
Why put the health of Malaysian personnel on the line when allowing Rohingya to come in means a mandatory quarantine that will have to be facilitated by our government officers?
In the longer term, Rohingya economic migrants will cause the Malay B40 bottom quintiles to have to compete for resources with these mamak kinsfolk of Mahathir. Aside from leeching on Malay small business opportunities, Mahathir’s Rohingya clan might also deprive Malays of bumiputera benefits.
It looks like Mahathir’s parting gift for the Malay community is imported salt to rub into the sakit hati wound.
Helen Ang 
