FAILURE OF UMNO'S INCITEMENT!

In one fell sweep,Syed Hamid Albar, our Home Affairs Minister, now makes sure that the spirit of HINDRAF becomes more generic and more palatable to absorb by a wider audience. Not just throughout the Indian community but across all other races too.

If previously you were stopped at the "gates" of HINDRAF by the faces that you saw representing it, now there are no "gates". Not that there were any before to begin with, as after all they were not an entity.

Human beings generally look towards an entity. Some kind of physical form. And once they see that , they then look for the personages representing it. Even though there was no entity before, there was a perceived entity in HINDRAF as they had "officials" and they certainly appeared to have some kind of organisation.

Now that the government has issued this ban, we are forced to look beyond that "entity". Looking beyond we see the spirit.

In case dumbo Syed Hamid does not understand what it is I am saying, he should look at America. The labels "Civil Rights Movement", Ku Klux Klan, McCarthyism and such resonate. None of these were "entities". They did not need Presidents, Secretary Generals, Organising secretaries or whatever to carry on with their efforts. So really, you could not ban these. But they all represented something. Right or wrong they all represented something people identified with, supported, participated in and even fought for.

But, I guess, Syed Hamid is doing all this not so much for those among us who understand and know these things. He is doing it for the message that he wants transmitted to his audience. The Malays from the Malay heartland. He wants to paint for them a picture of the evils and the hate that is before them. Hamid and his lot want the Malays to see HINDRAF for the threat against their race and Theresa Kok as the Chinese thief in the night who wants to take away from the Malay their birth right.

Well, for everything that he has said and done till now. For every incitement hate filled missive written and published by their mouth piece, Utusan Malaysia, the Malay heartland is not buying. So much incitement has been filled in their rhetorics that at any other time, for much less, blood has been shed throughout the world where emotions can easily be worked upon. I remember the movie Hotel Rwanda. I recall reading the kind of stuff Hitler depended on to get the German people either whole heartedly supporting him or at worst remain silent. What difference is there in what Syed Hamid Albar is doing and allowing Utusan Malaysia to do and what Hitler relied on or the evil that was vent upon the minorities of Rwanda had been nourished on?

To the credit of the ordinary Malay their emancipation is certainly evident and their rejection of the intent of Syed Hamid Albar, Utusan Malaysia and the leaders of UMNO is testified in the increased number from amongst them who voted Anwar Ibrahim back into Parliament at Permatang Pauh.

It is so very clear as to the intent of UMNO in permitting Utusan Malaysia free latitude in attempting to spread their venom. Syed Hamid Albar's attempting to demonise the HINDRAF movement certainly does not go unnoticed amongst the Malays as they welcomed them into their very own heartland at Anwar Ibarhim's Hari Raya open house at Kampung Baru.

Syed Hamid Albar's and UMNO's untruthful indictment on the state of race relations in Malaysia as coming to a dangerous level is certainly not seen on the streets. Their repeated notations and reference to perceived tensions only resonates in their heads as their own partners in BN push their rhetorics for their own audiences. If at all anyone says anything that may seem a challenge has been thrown it is UMNO's partners in Gerakan, MCA, MIC and UPKO in Sabah. But I suppose this they have to do in order to ensure their constituents within their parties see them as heros.

There has been no race based threat issued by anyone in Pakatan Rakyat and HINDRAF for that matter. If I can see that I am confident the ordinary Malay, Indian and Chinese can see that. But this is, as we can all see, not exactly very good for all the BN parties. It must be very uncomfortable for many members of these parties in BN to see the contradiction of what their leaders are telling them and what they can see for themselves. so why on earth do they stay supporting those parties? What do they fear? What do they worry about?