THE fears and anxieties that fed the anti-ICERD rally on Saturday are real, admitted Pakatan Harapan lawmakers, who urged the government not to dismiss the protest as a political stunt.

PH leaders want the government to pay special attention to the welfare and economic concerns of rural and working-class Malaysians so that their anxieties are not exploited by racists and their political allies.

While saying that it was also a triumph of the seven-month government’s commitment to democracy, the rally was also a reminder that it should tread carefully when it comes to policies deemed sensitive to different communities and faiths.

“It’s yet another reminder to the ministers, you’re no longer in the opposition,” Setiawangsa MP Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad told The Malaysian Insight. 

“So you can’t come out with different narratives on one policy. And you can no longer go off and do your own thing,” he said.

Nik Nazmi was referring to how the government had bungled the signing of the ICERD or International Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).

Critics point to the government’s failure to explain the decision to sign ICERD as trigger for Saturday’s rally by Malay rights groups.

PH senator Yusmadi Yusoff said the rally should be a stock check for every PH leader, member and activist who has preached justice, equality and human rights.

This since much of the rally’s rhetoric appeared opposed to these ideas, which are, in fact, the pillars of PH’s ideology and of the reformasi movement, Yusmadi said.  

“It’s as if we have failed to convince people to accept and understand these ideas despite how we talked and promoted them for decades. So we need to review how effective our approach has been.”   

Economic worries

Organisers of the rally said it was to oppose the government’s plan to sign ICERD.

The rally went on despite the government shelving its plan, leading observers to conclude that the gathering was aimed at building a mass movement to challenge PH at the next elections. 

Many of the speeches played up imagined threats that Malay-Muslims would lose their special privileges. But within that narrative were also fears, expressed by rally goers, that the government was ignoring the welfare of low-income, rural Malays.

They spoke of how they were angry with the government’s move to slash subsidies for farmers, fishermen and rubber tappers.

Many also pointed to the government’s broken promise of not collecting repayments for the PTPTN higher education loans from borrowers earning under RM4,000 a month.

“Whenever there are economic problems, that’s when things can be racialised,” said Nik Nazmi, who is a supreme council member of PKR, one of four parties in the PH alliance.

Yusmadi, who grew up in rural Balik Pulau, said the economic worries of Malay-Muslims kampung folk can easily be played up and turned into racial issues.

“For example, villagers see poor people’s houses being torn down to make way for high-rise apartments,” said Yusmadi, and these new properties end up in the hands of rich people of another ethnic group.

“What happens is not racial in nature, it’s just development, but it can be turned into a racial issue.” 

The fear of being marginalised, especially in one’s own country was harped on again and again by the rally organisers.

Dr Muhammad Faiz Na’Anam of Bersatu, another PH component party, said the government has to do a better job of explaining policies that can be controversial, especially those touching on race and religion.

There has to better mechanisms of consulting stakeholders behind closed doors first before such policies are announced, said Faiz, a Bersatu supreme council member.

Triumph of democracy

But all the PH leaders interviewed said the fact that the rally could itself be held was proof that the government was sticking to its promise to uphold freedom of assembly and expression.

Compared with the previous Barisan Nasional administration, the government allowed a rally that was meant to oppose PH, said Faiz.

Petaling Jaya Selatan MP Maria Chin Abdullah said the government showed that it was open and inclusive to competing ideas and views.

“In the end, people will have to choose between these competing ideas and they will have to choose the truth,” said Maria, who was persecuted by the BN administration for organising the Bersih rallies.  

“We cannot for instance, say we campaign for Palestinians and Rohingya yet we are also for racial discrimination. That we are all out against discrimination at the world stage but practise it at home.” – December 10, 2018.