I am sorry you are stupid #KLChronicle

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I remember back in primary school when I called a classmate stupid and he ran to the teacher to complain. The teacher told me to apologise and I did. “I am sorry you are stupid,” I apologised to my classmate, and we all lived happily ever after.

Jeff Ooi called the Malay civil servants kucing kurap. Malaysiakini and The Malaysian Insider tried to do some damage control by suggesting that kucing kurap means small fish or fish fry.

Malaysiakini and The Malaysian Insider appear to be joining the ranks of Malaysia Chronicle (and all those others) in becoming more like an opposition spinning machine than an independent online portal.

Kucing kurap is akin to a mangy dog. It means an animal that suffers from chronic skin disease, sleeps on the streets and in back alleys, and eats out of drains and dustbins -- basically an animal without a decent home and in bad health.

So kucing kurap does not mean small fish or fish fry. The Malays would call small fish ikan bilis, not kucing kurap. So they should not try to mislead those not well versed in Bahasa Malaysia.

How many times have we read news reports about people complaining that MACC, the anti-corruption agency, only catches the ikan bilis instead of the ikan besar (big fish)? Does this not suggest that ikan bilis means small fish? Since when did kucing kurap mean small fish?

Kucing kurap or mangy cat is an insult worse than calling someone ikan bilis. Ikan bilis merely means someone of low ranking. Kucing kurap means that person is worthless -- someone akin to a leper who has no home and eats filth and rubbish picked up from the drains and dustbins.

Jeff Ooi eventually apologised for calling the Malay civil servants kucing kurap. But he did not say sorry. In fact, he said he would never have apologised if Karpal Singh had not asked him to. And he added that only Karpal Singh can make him apologise.

In other words, if it had been anyone else other than Karpal, then Jeff Ooi would not have apologised. And this means he is not sorry at all for calling the Malay civil servants kucing kurap.

This is probably the worse case of foot-in-mouth disease I have ever seen in my entire life. In the UK, such a thing would have resulted in Jeff Ooi having to resign. In the UK you would have to resign for a crime even lesser than that. Jeff Ooi’s action would have been regarded as an act of racism and he would have been arrested and charged for that.

The Pakatan Rakyat supporters would have jumped on Umno or Perkasa if one of their members had called the Chinese lintah, which means leech (meaning that the Chinese are blood-suckers). That person would have been condemned as a racist. A police report would have been made. And there would have been an outcry and demands that action be taken against this Umno or Perkasa racist.

Just because Umno (or Perkasa) is the government while DAP is the opposition does not make it wrong for Umno (or Perkasa) to be racist while it is okay if someone from the opposition is a racist. Racism is wrong, never mind if you are in the government or the opposition.

This attitude of it is wrong for the government supporters to do something while it is right if the opposition supporters do the same thing is a disease that Pakatan Rakyat supporters suffer from. It is a chronic disease and a disease of the mind.

How many times have we read comments by Pakatan Rakyat supporters, in particular the non-Malays, that the Malays would be more advanced if they did not depend on the NEP or the Malays would not be so backward if they did not allow Islam to stifle their thinking?

What if I were to comment that the Chinese would be more advanced if they did not go to Chinese schools or the Chinese would not be so backward if they did not believe in superstition such as white ang pows for Chinese New Year is bad luck?

If I did that then I would be condemned as a racist. But those who whack the Malays are not racists. They are just stating facts. And, in a democracy, they have every right to state facts about the Malays. I, however, do not have any democratic right to make any comment about the Chinese.

And they have the cheek to tell me that the Malays are backward while the Chinese are advanced? That itself is a racist statement, never mind what is the reason they have come to such a conclusion.