Newly-minted Yang Berhormat for Permatang Pauh, Anwar Ibrahim, reinvigorated the ‘multi-racialism’ call in his by-election campaign last week. The Umno candidate whom Anwar trounced on Tuesday, Arif Shah Omar Shah, is multi-lingual and speaks Mandarin.
Does Arif drink Chinese tea? Use chopsticks? Observe filial piety, respect his elders and remember his ancestors? If yes, he could technically become a Chinese under the Malaysia Boleh artificial construct of race ... if we inverse (the illogic of) Malaysia’s forced religio-cultural markers where its majority race are locked within an identity fence due to intense politicking on the bumiputera plank.
Does Arif drink Chinese tea? Use chopsticks? Observe filial piety, respect his elders and remember his ancestors? If yes, he could technically become a Chinese under the Malaysia Boleh artificial construct of race ... if we inverse (the illogic of) Malaysia’s forced religio-cultural markers where its majority race are locked within an identity fence due to intense politicking on the bumiputera plank.