As the ‘red shirt’ rally demonstrators had marched towards Petaling Street, placards read: “Damn the racist DAP,” the very same event where the Chinese were called “babi” and told to “balik Cina (go back to China)”.

Effigies of ethnic Chinese politicians were burnt and YouTube videos with titles such as ‘Waging jihad on infidels’ were uploaded. Worryingly, many of these men and women were from rural outlets of Malaysia, the golden vote-banks of Malaysian politics.

People don’t read pro-Umno websites for leisure very often. Yes, I am referring to MyKMU.net . However, a search would reveal posts such as ‘Seni Menghalalkan Penghinaan Terhadap YDPA Dan Perlembagaan Negara?’ whereby the site blames and links DAP to isolated cases of insults to the royal family.

Another article, ‘Tarik Undi Cina Seperti Cucur Air di Padang Pasir’, claims how the Chinese only supports DAP - despite DAP’s broad base victories and the slow but gradual inclusion of more Malay politicians like Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud and Zairil Khir Johari.

Moreover, you will also find ‘DAP Tidak Akan Berubah, Jangan Harap Mereka Berubah’ whereby the site drives conspiracies about a centralised plan to dominate Malaysia.

Fearmongering has always been a favourite tool of the most incompetent. It’s ironic, as we Malaysians rally behind Muslims in the US who suffer from Islamophobia spewed by fear-mongers like US presidential candidate Donald Trump, yet we’re equally guilty of the same at home.

Although, the Chinese aren’t the only ones who are scapegoated for political ends.

In 2012, the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department (Jawi) sent out an official sermon to be read in all mosques, stating that "Muslims must understand Jews are the main enemy to Muslims, as proven by their egotistical behaviour and murders performed by them."

Scapegoated Jews

Think-tanks across the world have used this instance to identify the scale of state sanctioned anti-Semitism in Malaysia.

In 2003, Umno delegates were given copies of Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic book from the 1920s, ‘The International Jew’ - a favourite of Adolf Hitler - which were translated into Bahasa Malaysia.

It’s perfectly legitimate to speak up against the atrocities committed by the Israeli state. It’s perfectly legitimate to condemn the warmongers in Israel who are led by purported war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu.

However, we have reached a point where attacking the Jews seems to be the go-to action to win votes despite its irrelevance to our national issues. The Jews are now scapegoated to justify one’s failings at home. It’s critical that we de-conflate our legitimate criticisms of the Israeli state with local politics.

We’ve seen and heard tales of how members of the opposition have been linked to the Israeli state despite the lack of evidence proving so.

Ironically, “Israel and the Jews” have now colonised our minds as their names are being used to justify the failings of our leaders through the deflection of accountability and honest criticisms which eventually corrupt our nation.

It’s ironic how we are behaving like those who we despise. According to the 2004 US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government had done "little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens.

A 2009 study from the Hebrew University's School of Education demonstrated that educationally needy Jewish students receive anywhere from 3.8 to 6.9 times as much funding as equally needy Arab students.

Israeli discrimination against native Arabs extend to land ownership, commerce and politics in equally devious measures. While the Arabs are discriminated in Israel, I wonder who we are guilty of discriminating back at home (*wink wink*)?

Sri Gading Umno division chief and deputy transport minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi once said: “If we had lost, DAP would be in power. DAP with its Jewish funding would control this country. Based on that, our Muslim friends in the Middle East could see the Jewish threat through DAP.”

According to this account, the mysterious Arab prince had sent US$700 million to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s bank account for a cause that any average Malaysian might be expected to understand, even sympathise with: to protect Malaysia from the Jews. Notice how the Jews have once more been used to justify a national scandal?

Injustice so patent ought to be wrong by any standards. However, quite by definition, the effects are far-reaching. The first reason that we ought to be wary of such rhetoric, is the fact that it gives rise to racial animosity.

Free ticket out?

People will forever feel they are at the tipping point. Discussion of race devolves into abuse and slander instead of intelligent solutions.

Let’s remember how something as small as the ‘Himpunan Maruah Melayu’ had previously caused a real scare to some Chinese businesses - that they were forced to close their shops for the entire day.

We also forget in our impassionate racism that there are those who share the same ethnicity/religion as us, who also perpetrate the very same heinous acts which we despise. They get a free ticket out from the prison of judgments by deflecting blame towards the minorities.

How are we to improve as a nation when we misdiagnose our national problems? Creating animosity between the majority and ethnic minorities detracts the rakyat from asking real questions.

Questions that will lead to exposition of politicians who were put in power to assist the rakyat, while they continue to fatten their own pockets.

Race-based politics have been the preferred tool for politicians who would rather not answer difficult questions about accountability and failures.

After the Israeli military operation in Gaza, Israeli politicians from the governing Likud Party turned war into a battle among races where hate speech must swiftly be hurled or you will be labelled as a traitor.

Such dichotomous thinking is the worst form of political gamesmanship and it succeeds at burying the truth. Unfortunately, this also takes place at home.

People are not looking for illusions of truth. People demand and deserve nothing less than the entirety of it.

The trend of blaming the minorities is unjust. However, it only compounds in harm as we become apathetic to elaborate hoaxes forwarded to us in digestible racist chunks.

Malaysia 0 - Politics 1. The rakyat certainly can flip the scoreboard... but only if they wake up.

SYED SADDIQ SYED ABDUL RAHMAN is a part-time lecturer at Universiti Islam Antarabangsa (UIA) Malaysia and is Asia’s best debater, winning the United Asia Debate Championship in May 2015.