COMMENT | Ousted former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak is trying desperately to save his skin in the shadow of his impending trial over allegations of massive corruption by espousing the myth of Malay supremacy.

Therein lies the challenge to the fourth estate: to check the return of such extremism in the public square.

Such blatant use of the race and religion card is not new to Umno; it was the bedrock of the finally defeated BN coalition. But it was in the decade of Najib’s regime that this fascist tendency of suppressing his critics and opposition by any means, and the use of the Malay supremacy ruse, became an art form for political survival.

At one time, Najib seemed invincible and unstoppable. Indeed, he had become a god of his own making, until the rakyat overwhelmingly removed the altar from under him in the May 9 general election. Even Umno members deserted him en masse, leading to the party’s unprecedented defeat.

Malays, by and large, do not fall for Najib’s racist supremacy bait. Otherwise, how do we account for Umno’s massive loss of Malay votes? The doctrine of supremacy is both a fallacy and a myth.

Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor have nowhere to run to, now that they are prohibited from leaving the country. Like a drowning man would clutch to a straw, he now tries to incite the paranoid Malay elements to rally around him by telling them they have become “terbangsat” (bastardised) on their own turf, now that Umno has lost power.

And he takes pride in his misplaced prophesy, by saying in words to the effect of “I told you so three years ago”...