COMMENT BY YB PROF DR P.RAMASAMY, DEPUTY CHIEF MINISTER II, PENANG
The infamous “instant noodles” PAS president, Abdul Awang might be hauled by the police as result of a number of police reports lodged the last few days. These reports were response to the remark made by Hadi that the root cause of corruption in the country are the non-Malays and not the Malays.
The non-Malays by taking an overt interest in politics have come to situation where the control the economy. Corruption is the mechanism used by the non-Malays to gain control over the Malays.
Malays might be the recipients of corrupt money, but they are not certainly the cause. Whichever way Hadi wants to turn and twist, the remark was certainly a racist and extremist one.
While the police might investigate, I doubt they will ever charge him for his blatant racist and insensitive remark against the non-Malays.
There is a unhealthy trend in this country: racist and religious attacks against non-Malays do not get the same level of consideration as attacks against the Malays, their ethnicity or religion.
Given this, I doubt anything will come out of the police reports against Hadi or the police investigation.
I hope that I will be proved wrong.
The police investigation might be just a public relations exercise to show that they are investigating merely to cool down the ethnic temperature.
The remark that the non-Malays are the corrupted ones and not the Malays has come from the mouth of sitting member of parliament and a party leader.
If Hadi can get away with this racist remark, then it will merely embolden others to engage in extreme forms of ethnic and religious aspersions.
Calling the non-Malays as the source of corruption goes beyond any decent political discourse that is permissible in a civilised society.
As it is, there enough racial and religious problem that defies solution. The country certainly does not self-serving politicians like Hadi to complicate matters.
The extremist remark against the non-Malays as corrupt was not the first instance of Hadi’s extreme and insensitive remarks against the non-Malays.
Nobody is the above the law.