PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang today warned the other races to stop calling “marginalised” Malays racist for demanding what was rightfully theirs.  

Hadi said there was a limit to the patience of the Malays.

Even Islam teaches that patience has a limit, he said in a statement

He said only Malays who were stupid, spiritually weak and couldn’t care less about the plight of their own race would tolerate such accusations.

Hadi said these were the Malays who were willing to lose their own identity in their own country.

The Malays, he said, were being challenged on their own turf and the other races have acted as though the Malays had no rights in their homeland.

Hadi said the concept of “racist” and “racism” that were freely bandied about had a different meaning in Malay.

“The words ‘racist’ or ‘racism ‘in English is a kind of belief, attitude and practice that (means to) discriminate a group of people because of their race.

“In the Malay language, the concept of racism is very much linked to race and the spirit of ‘assabiyah’ according to Islamic terms.”

Hadi said the Malays were demanding what was theirs as they have lagged behind other communities as a result of colonial policies designed to confine them to the rural areas.

He said the colonial rulers had purposely placed the Malays in remote, rural areas, which had caused the community to become marginalised.

He said that was why the Malays had refused to co-operate with the British colonialists unlike the other races who were brought here and were prepared to be their slaves, be it officers or coolies.

Hadi said if the Malays were racist, they would not have agreed to give the “migrant races” citizenship and to accord them political, religious and educational rights.

Constitutional provisions that guaranteed Malay rights were not enough to help the race catch up with others.

The big problem, he said, was not that Malays were racist, but that they have been marginalised in their own country. – October 25, 2019.