EVERY couple of months, an ugly Malaysian will go viral on social media for something he or she said or did. This would usually involve some element of explicit or implied racism, or will somehow be made to appear to be about race, even though that likely had little or nothing to do with it, because everything in Malaysia today needs to be linked to race or religion.

Within a day, angry and resourceful Malaysians will dig out every parking ticket this person ever had, information about their place of employment, their love life, their kids and even a phone number.

They will chastise, berate and “educate” this person and bury them under nasty comments about everything they did, how the look, and sometimes, drag that person’s entire clan in, too.

This ugly Malaysian will usually quite quickly delete or hide their online presence in lieu of thousands of hate comments, and sometimes squeak an apology from the relative safety of a mainstream paper or publication, and offer some “proof” of why they really are not such bad people, like a picture of them feeding an orphan or something similar.

This is usually met with further ridicule, but eventually the tide of public anger dissipates, and all is well with the world again, at least until the next Malaysian idiot appears.

The thing is, there will always be the next idiot. And for every one idiot that is exposed, there are hundreds more who get away, and thousands who agree with that person.

The real success would be to get to the bottom of their problem and winning them over.

Not all cases of idiocy can be solved, but those that are a result of indoctrination, unfair policies and biased perception, should be. Misinformation can be corrected, and mistrust, replaced with better relations with other races.

It will not be easy. The new government hopes to undo many of the media restrictions that allowed for one-way flow of information that allowed such indoctrination to flourish in the first place. Such restrictions discouraged healthy dialogue and academic discussions on real racial problems that have been allowed to fester.

To make matters worse, it hopes to do away with oppressive laws that stem freedom of expression, including bigoted ones.

But the government is hardly powerless to do anything about it. It has, at its disposal, considerable resources that can be used to foster better race relations via campaigns, bringing back dialogue and goodwill among the races. It could correct bad policies and put little Napoleans in their place.

Most importantly, it can prove their critics wrong.

A major part of BN’s election campaign prior to the election has been one of planting fear into the Malay-Muslims that their grip on the country will be undone once Pakatan came into power – they would lose jobs, their sultans, their customs and their religion.

Since they lost the general elections, they have only been stepping up their campaign, alongside PAS. BN and PAS have good reason to fear.

Pakatan now commands the stage, and the front row audience are Malay-Muslims. DAP, via its ministries, has direct access to the predominantly Malay civil service and majority-Malay GLCs. This is their golden opportunity to prove they aren’t the bigoted racists they were made out to be, and win over an influential voter bloc for good.

Likewise, the people too, can help improve such perceptions that allow bigotry to thrive – the false idea that Islam is under threat, that non-Malay Muslims want to dominate the country, and that they are a threat to their way of life.

What the non-Malay Muslims want is simply to be allowed to be. And only they can help their Malay-Muslim friends see that. – November 21, 2018.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.