Bloated by glut of apologies for racist slurs

By Pak Bui

The latest Malaysia Airlines in-flight magazine greets readers with an apology. Going Places has appended an insert, admitting offensive mistakes made in a previous issue. Going Places had stated confidently in February that Kadazans are from Sarawak, and accept dowries for their daughters.

It is ironic that the article appeared in a section entitled “To Know Malaysia”. Azliza Ahmad Tajuddin, CEO of Blu Inc Media, publisher of Going Places, announced she is “truly sorry”, while a senior manager for communications for Malaysia Airlines, Indira Nair, declared just beneath Azliza’s letter that she is “truly, truly sorry”.

A few members of the KadazanMurutDusun ethnic groups still do practise giving and receiving dowries, but the practice has almost disappeared. The errors in the article are so comical that it would hardly be surprising if the writer had done all her research on Wikipedia, and then still managed to confuse Sarawak and Sabah.

Blu Inc Media also publishes Her World, Female, Golf Digest and Seventeen, which provides a clue to its intellectual pedigree. The responsibility for such a shameful error in Going Places, a magazine read by Malaysians and foreign visitors, with a circulation claimed to be 100,000, falls squarely on both Blue Inc and Malaysia Airlines.

As an aside, Azliza is married to Global Upline Managing Director Mohamed Danel Abong. Global Upline has been awarded enormous contracts in both Sabah and Sarawak, including the Kuching and Kota Kinabalu airports: she might be expected to know a little about us, two of the poorest states in Malaysia.

Sabah and Sarawak are already neglected, and treated shabbily by the federal government. National media coverage of issues important to us is condescending and dismal.

Not really sorry

At least the Going Places apology attempted to sound sincere. Noh Omar’s recent apology, for making racist remarks, rings completely hollow.

Noh is deputy Umno chief in Selangor, second in line to the hapless Khir Toyo. He ranks Number Two in the BN state opposition, but has currently overtaken the self-abasing Khir Toyo as the Most Ridiculed Politician in Selangor. Noh is also the federal minister for agriculture and agro-based industries: it appears his talent for spreading manure during public speeches has not gone unrewarded.

On April 7, Noh insinuated that non-Malays must be grateful that Umno had “granted them citizenship”, during a Selangor BN conference. He quoted speeches given in the 1960s by the MCA’s Tan Siew Sin and the MIC’s VT Sambanthan, praising Umno and the Malays for “granting citizenship” to non-Malays.

A handful of MCA Kapar division representatives walked out of the BN conference in disgust at Noh’s racist polemic, but other subsmissive BN component members stayed in place, perhaps enthralled by their master’s voice.

Noh was not only announcing proudly that he is a bigot, he was also trying to mislead Malaysians.

Following Noh’s bovine logic, we ought to believe Umno also “granted” Malaysian citizenship to the non-Malay majority of Sarawakians and Sabahans, in contradiction to the historical fact that all races and states formed Malaysia together in 1963.

Umno has never had any power to grant citizenship to anyone. Malaysian citizenship is a right for Malays, and all other races born in Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak, enshrined in the federal constitution.

This constitutional stipulation for citizenship for all was a condition for independence from the British and the formation of Malaysia in 1963, and applied to all races, including of course the indigenous peoples of Sabah and Sarawak.

Umno did not “grant” citizenship to those who had settled on these shores before the Malays: the Orang Asli, Dayaks, or KadazanDusunMuruts. Neither did Umno bestow citizenship on anyone else, Malay or otherwise. All the races formed and built Malaysia. We Malaysians built up our economy and society together.

Of course, Tan and Sambanthan could not declare this in public, since they were dependent on Umno for their status in the political elite – the MCA and MIC being subservient tools of Umno.

Noh issued his “apology” only to the Chinese press, a cowardly move. Its three paragraphs are reproduced in full below.

“For me, this is an important bit of history to ensure that our country remains peaceful and its multi-ethnic (people) live in harmony, in line with 1Malaysia.

“Moreover, my purpose of quoting those speeches was to strengthen the spirit of co-operation and friendship among members and leaders of BN component parties.

“If these quotations are not suitable for contemporary times and if it hurt the feelings of anyone, I thus apologise.”

Noh’s hilarious claim to have “co-operation and friendship” at heart seems to have backfired spectacularly, when MCA members left the room.

Noh is honouring an Umno tradition of making insincere apologies. Hishammuddin Hussein used the same formula when he “apologised” for brandishing a keris and glorifying ethnic violence during Umno general assemblies “if it had affected the non-Malays”.

These cynical, sneering faux apologies make a mockery of our God-given language, and our human capacity to ask for, and selflessly give, forgiveness for offences.

Repeat offenders

Saying “I’m sorry” entails sorrow, and an honest undertaking to try not to repeat the offending behaviour.  This noble tradition is celebrated in all the major religions. But Umno leaders have spat on this.

Hishammuddin famously refused to give any guarantee he would not wave a keris (or presumably, a bazooka, or some other weapon) in public on some future date.

Noh Omar himself had made inflammatory remarks during the “nude squat” incident in 2005, when a woman, thought at the time to be Chinese, was filmed being forced to endure a strip-search. As deputy home minister at the time, he defended the humiliating procedure.

“If foreigners think that Malaysian police are brutal, please go back to their own countries and not to stay here (sic),” he blathered.

He was forced to apologise, following criticism in China and worldwide, over his stupid remark. He tried, dishonestly, to modify his words. The BBC said a senior party colleague called Noh an “idiot”.

“I openly apologise if the meaning of my comments was received negatively,” he said grudgingly in 2005, again placing the blame squarely on the media and the listener, rather than himself, using the “I’m sorry…if you took exception” formula. He then promised to be more cautious in future. He lied.

Nasir Safar, special officer to PM Najib, used an almost identical “apology” too, after he portrayed Indians as beggars and Chinese women as prostitutes at a “Rapat 1Malaysia” seminar. He even threatened that citizenship might be revoked from “ungrateful” Malaysians – a familiar lie. His vitriole prompted a walkout by the usually docile MCA and MIC in February.

All of these Umno cadres puff themselves up as racist heroes to inflame a Malay audience, and then pretend to apologise later. It is obvious that their remarks have been calculated to brainwash segments of the Malay population who are easily misled. These Umno mouthpieces are fully aware their bigoted remarks will be highlighted by Utusan Malaysia and other party organs.

Sarawak BN and Sabah BN have remained obediently quiet during these repeated insults, cementing their status as Umno’s little vassals.

Some Malaysians are pacified by these quasi-apologies, saying we should forgive the offenders. Kapar MCA’s Song Kee Chai, leader of the walkout at Noh Omar’s Selangor BN meeting on April 7, accepted Noh’s “apology”, saying this was consistent with the “BN spirit”.

Many other Malaysians would not agree.