“What I said about the attorney-general (is) I am stating facts on the ground - that (there is) fear (among) the Malays that probably, if the AG is not a bumi or Malay, then there is a fear of bias. And this happened. The case of Adib is a fact.”

- Former BN secretary-general Nazri Abdul Aziz

COMMENT | The quote by Nazri, which opens this piece, is neither controversial nor inaccurate because this system is predicated on prioritising the needs of a single community over the whole of Malaysian society, or at least this is what mainstream political operatives tell us.

Nearly a decade ago, the then attorney-general (AG) Abdul Gani Patail demonstrated how a guardian of public interest behaves when it came to two reporters who spat out holy communion wafers taken from a Catholic church:

“The actions of the two reporters may have hurt the feelings of the people, but I was satisfied that they did not intend to offend anyone. It was an act of sheer ignorance.

“Therefore, in view of the circumstances at that particular time and in the interest of justice, peace, and harmony, I decided not to press any charges against them.”

Remember when the top cop in Terengganu said this: “In Terengganu, 97 percent of the population are Malays, and they still respect older people in their villages. They respect the village chief, imam and bilal. Such a way of life is an advantage that can prevent gangsterism-related crimes."

Or the narratives spun around the 2018 death of firefighter...