PUTRAJAYA should focus more on nation building and stop anyone, including politicians, inciting racial disharmony, said political cartoonist Zunar.
He said certain groups and political parties are using racism for political survival.
“Members of certain political parties will keep doing it. It doesn’t matter whether they are from Pakatan Harapan or the opposition,” the cartoonist, whose real name is Zulkiflee S.M. Anwarul Haque, said at the launch of his latest book, Cartoons Against Racism, in Bangsar today.
“People need to make a stand (against racism). If we don’t do anything, it will get worse.”
The book contains 48 illustrations that can be used as an educational tool for recognising and fighting racism, Zunar added.
“In one of my cartoons, I illustrated that if we still continue with racism, we can’t progress as a nation.
“The government needs to come out with a system that is fair for all.”
He urged Putrajaya not to govern the country by focusing on any particular race, but to be inclusive.
Zunar added that he felt racism in Malaysia now was worse than a few years ago.
“Even small issues are being turned into racial slants. What is the government’s stand on racism?
“It seems that the survival of politics now relies on racism.”
In May this year, Zunar released his biography, Fight Through Cartoons.
Under the previous Barisan Nasional government, 11 of his publications were banned for breaching the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.
Among his most popular works are those that took jabs at former prime minister Najib Razak for his involvement in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal, and Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, over her lavish lifestyle.
This led to his book, Sapuman: Man of Steal, to be banned.
The PH government lifted the ban on this book in August last year.
In 2016, Zunar received the Cartooning for Peace Award. He accepted the prize from the late Kofi Annan, who was former United Nations secretary-general and honorary president of the Cartooning for Peace Foundation in Geneva. – November 10, 2019.
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