your say 'Kudos to Hannah Yeoh and M Ramachandran. Hannah is an exemplary politician, and she and her husband are exemplary citizens.'

Lawmaker fails to register child as 'anak Malaysia'

Mangodurian: A lot of people here are realising and learning for the first time the real meaning of multicultural Malaysia, thanks very much to a brave couple.

This is really our history. The dominant groups; ‘MY', ‘CN' and ‘IN' may have their patriarchal conventions, but as this couple has shown: those are just conventions. We also have the matriarchal Minangkabaus from Negri Sembilan and West Sumatra.

There are Ibans, Kadazans, Bidayuhs, Thais, Kristangs who have their own conventions. The Ram couple has shown, you can even create a new 'race' where the tradition is to have a patrilineal name and matrilineal 'race', or how useless it is to have the 'race' classification if not for discrimination purposes.

PKR, if you ever come into power, the least you can do is to add 'Keturunan: Malaysia' as an option in the 'system'.

Anonymous: I like what Hannah Yeoh and her husband did here, What they essentially did is challenging our preconceived notion of race and nationality. Just look at the comments here and you realise how it opens up discussion.

If we can't define our race background accurately then what is the point? Can we go as far as 1/8 Spanish, 1/8 Thai, 1/4 Malay, 1/2 Chinese?

Science already told us that all non-Africans outside of Africa actually descended from a small group of Africans who left Africa 70,000 years ago. Race is important in our private lives but the government could do well to leave race out of their policy-making. It is none of their business.

Joseph Thomas: I faced a similar situation. My name and my wife's name has ‘a/l' (anak lelaki) so the people at the NRD (National Registration Department) told us that our son also has to have the ‘a/l' when issuing the MyKad for him.

We told the woman at the counter that his birth certificate does not carry any ‘a/l' as I put my father's name as the surname. All she said was the system cannot be changed as his name carries ‘a/l' in it.

His name has already 21 alphabets with two spaces. Now with the ‘a/l', plus my name, it is going to be 35 alphabets five spaces and a slash. My God, he cannot fit his name in any form, let alone any examination paper.

We stood our ground stating that if it was possible to have his name in the birth certificate, then there should be no problem with the MyKad. We prevailed. But how many of us would dare stand up for what we believe in.

Chindian2: "In a bid to reject racial politics, a state assemblyperson attempted to register her daughter's race as 'Anak Malaysia' but was told by national registration officers that the current system does not allow this."

As much as I support Pakatan Rakyat, I think there's no need for Yeoh to politicise this issue. The fact is, there is no provision at present to register a child as 'anak Malaysia'. Yeoh can do that if, and when, an Act is passed to the effect.

Also, one should not confuse between race and nationality. Since Yeoh is a Malaysian, and I presume Ramachandran Muniandy is also one, then their daughter is a Malaysian by nationality.

Again, until a law is passed to delete 'Race', there seems to be no choice but to fill in the blank.

Nik V: Kudos to Hannah Yeoh and M Ramachandran. Yeoh is an exemplary politician, and she and her husband are exemplary citizens. Many talk about unity (like BN). But few step up to the plate to walk the talk.

Shame on what BN has created and has chosen to continue for the sake of their political survival and power.

Cinaputra: My maternal great grandfather was originally from Fujian province in China. He married a Chinese Indonesian from Billiton and one of his daughters (my grandmother) married a Burmese trader from Rangoon.

On my father's side, my grandfather was English/Irish and he married a Thai. He died young due to a tropical disease and a few of his offsprings had to be given up for adoption, including my father. He was adopted by a Penang Hokkien and carried his surname Cheah, which I now carry.

Race-wise I am classified a Chinese, which I am obviously not notwithstanding there's Chinese blood coursing through my veins.

When I applied for a MyKad, the NRD clerk who doubted I was 'Chinese' because I did not look like one, asked me to which dialect group I belonged. I said Hokkien and now under race I am classified a Hokkien, which is not a race. I did not care to seek clarification on this anomaly because my MyKad may be stuck forever in the NRD.

So much for our system regarding race. I am Malaysian period.

Henry Hock: I can see another constitutional litigation forthcoming. This make good thesis research for some sociologists and anthropologists. I guess this problem would have not arose if there is no discriminatory special rights for some ethnic groups in the first place.

Funny, there are pure Indians marrying other pure Indians, but just because they are Muslims, they want to register themselves as ‘Malays'. But I guess is not a big ‘sin' categorising groups into races, unless it is used to discriminate one another.

Jiminy Qrikert: Let's all drum this into our heads - there is no such race called 'Indians' or 'Chinese.' 'Indian' is a convenient pigeon-hole term used to refer to all who originated from India.

Likewise, all who originated from China are called Chinese. This is a legacy of our racist bigoted colonial past, which is now still perpetuated by Umno-BN to divide and rule the rakyat.

Outside of Malaysia, we cannot call ourselves Indians or Chinese, because these terms refer to nationalities. Outside of Malaysia, all of us are Malaysians.

The irony of this is, in Malaysia, we refuse to accept we are all Malaysians. Only when we have to leave the country do we quickly, without the slightest hesitation, regard ourselves as Malaysians, nothing else. This is so freaking unbelievable, it is just idiotic.

I once witnessed an encounter between a mainland Chinese man and another 'Chinese' asking if she was Chinese. The lady snapped, 'No, I am not Chinese. I am Taiwanese.'

Obviously in this case, she was very clear about the difference between nationality (Chinese) and race (Han). It seems that MCA is still insisting on confusing Malaysians and to perpetuate the myth of the 'Chinese race'.

Without this lie, they become nothing. And Umno wants this confusion to persist, so when will we all accept we are Malaysians first?

Anonymous: Do you think Najib Razak, the 'father' of 1Malaysia, has the balls to register his children as 'anak Malaysia'?

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