COMMENT | In November 2011, then-Umno information chief Ahmad Maslan made a shocking speech fully laden with racial sentiments and religion-based tirade in the run-up to the Umno general assembly. It was expected – BN had lost Selangor and Penang and its parliamentary majority had been slashed.

“The Malay language will be lost, say goodbye to the Malay sultans, because the opposition DAP does not respect the royal institution. They have never received a royal title despite being offered to them.”

Citing the names of Selangor exco lineup, he accused DAP of being a “Christianisation agent” seeking to replace Islam with Christianity so that a Chinese prime minister could exist. It was pure political rhetoric.

But former BN minister turned Pakatan Harapan stalwart, Chua Jui Meng, gave the perfect riposte to Ahmad’s rantings: “If Ahmad Maslan’s comments are the prelude to the assembly, the non-Malays could be ready for a batting session in the Ku Klux Klan style of Umno delegates this year,” he said.

The Klan adopted white supremacy, or white supremacism, as an ideology based upon the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races.

They held the view that they should be dominant over other races. Like the neo-Nazis, the Klan opposed members of other races, including Jews.

According to Wikipedia, the term “white supremacy” is used in academic studies of racial power to denote a system of structural or societal racism which privileges white people over others, regardless of the presence or the absence of racial hatred. White racial advantages occur at both a collective and an individual level.

Members of the Klan dressed in robes and sheets, intended at preventing identification and supposedly designed to frighten blacks. The Klan burned churches and schools and drove thousands of (black) people out of their homes.

So, why the interest in the Klan, you may ask. Chua’s prophecy, then made for political expediency, is slowly but surely surfacing in...