YOURSAY ‘For those who seek revenge, as Mahatma Gandhi said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind.'

Chin Peng and a generation of angry people

P Dev Anand Pillai: Dear Aidila Razak, though there may be many young Malaysians around who know next to nuts about Chin Peng, history cannot be changed, it can only be distorted by the victors, as we see in the present ruling regime.

Read about Chin Peng in ‘Alias Chin Peng, My Side of History' by Ian Ward and Norma Miraflor. It's all there.

But unfortunately, we keep hearing the same propaganda from the ruling regime, saying he was a dangerous man.

But so were the Japanese soldiers and the British as well. It is all about him being a communist, it is just a different ideology that Russia once practised and China, Cuba and North Korea still do.

Is his coming into the country in the form of ashes going to resurrect communism among us masses, among the Chinese in particular?

If they could allow Shamsiah Fakeh (now deceased) who was also a Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) stalwart in, why not Chin Peng?

Lexicon: Well written, Aidila Razak. The colonial powers (the British and the Malay and Chinese elites) have tried to refashion history for 65 years.

Part of this distorted history is to keep racial suspicion bubbling along, so that we are too divided to stop our wealth being stolen.

Congratulations Umno, on selling your "new and improved" invented history. "Blind" rage is appropriate: most of the anger comes from ignorance.

For those who seek revenge, as Mahatma Gandhi said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind.

6th Generation Immigrant: Funny though, Aidila, you have just hit the nail on the head. You chose to read and learn more and draw conclusions and expound your intelligent views (though the basis of those books can still be debated for accuracy).

Rightly or wrongly, you have freedom of expressing your opinion intellectually. Is this not what Malaysians are arguing, fighting and supporting routinely?

History must be recorded fairly and correctly without fiction added to spice up the roles of people plotting history to suit them.

All our rural people are regularly hoodwinked into falsehoods because they are controlled, ruled and kept in the dark in order to serve the political masters. They do not think like you.

Baiyuensheng: Aidila, we also have now a generation of angry non-Malays, who are watching as a systematic process perpetuated by the government and the Malay NGOs and Perkasa, and may I even say, the majority of the Malay populace, to down play anything Chinese... That includes the erosion of their culture, presence and language, and denying their significant contributions, etc.

So, yeah, the non-Malays are angry - who likes to be oppressed? Perkasa the other day demanded RM1 trillion. So go figure - you don't need to be a journalist to know the sentiment - but just by being a human being. Chin Peng's contributions look one-sided and the Malays are hell-bent on destroying them.

Happy Malaysian: After World War II, the Jews hunted down all Nazis and not the Germans. Till today they still hunt them. Some forget, but if you ask the Jews who lived during the 40s they will tell you that they will NEVER forgive nor forget.

The same goes for the Japanese. We now see them as friends, but not the war veterans. You are making Chin Peng more relevant than he is. Why? Does it matter? Many more need consideration, not this terrorist.

Ace: All of us don't really know whether the "anger" is really true or contrived anger, played up by the Umno politicians for their personal agendas. Interview 100 men in the streets and we may get a better picture.

Haetch: It is very easy for the BN-Umno government to vilify anyone who will not help them to achieve their final objectives.

Just look at how they "kow-towed" to the Japanese in the 1980s, all because Dr Mahathir Mohamad then wanted Malaysia's economy to grow like Japan's.

What about now? Looks like Najib Abdul Razak and China are now strange bedfellows, all in the name of economic prosperity!

But, a man like Chin Peng only wants to rest in peace in his tanah air. That also is a big problem!

Bye bye: Umno may not have killed like Chin Peng but has destroyed too many, scattered families due to its oppression. Wonder who shall defeat Umno?

Hanyayangbenar: Yeah, it is easy to justify this generation's lack of knowledge about Chin Peng compared with the anger that has been there inside the hearts and minds of family and relatives of fallen policemen and soldiers who fought against his army of brutal and merciless insurgents.

He might once have been a fighter for independence from Japanese and British rule, but the bloodshed and terror of those years are hard to forgive, let alone forget.

Franco: I for one do not know why this government is making a hero of an old man. Somehow we tried to create this kind of publicity by chance.

Just like Salman Rushdie's book a long time ago. Somehow the government's stand does not make sense at all and it is very clearly practising double standards.

Fair Play: Chin Peng fought alongside the British against the Japanese and later against the British before independence was achieved. Isn't that part of the history of the nation?

If Chin Peng was as bad has it is claimed, why didn't the government issue an arrest warrant against him and try him of war crimes? Shouldn't that have been the right course of action?

Well, we all know what took place during the Japanese Occupation, and the subsequent fight for independence and how the left-wing All-Malaya Council of Joint Action (AMCJA) was labelled as communist and all, kan?

AntiRacial: Ms Aidila Razak, you are such an open-minded and intelligent journalist.

Malaysians are getting some true and unbiased news because of journalists like you. That is why you are with Malaysikini and not Utusan Malaysia. Keep up your good work.

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