Malaysia’s Mahathir swipes at Anwar, ‘immigrant’ non-Malay political parties: ‘they are the ones who do not like us’

“Pakatan Harapan is led by a person who tells us that this country does not only belong to the Malays and that it also belongs to others,” Mahathir said.

“He wants to give this country away to outsiders. This I cannot accept as we are the ones who explored and open up the [Malaysian] peninsular.”

The unwillingness of non-Malays to assimilate into Malay culture, including by creating their own political parties, was contributing to racial issues in the country, Mahathir said.

“But in Malaysia, these pendatang live here and receive the citizenship of this country but are still distancing themselves … Even in politics, they are establishing their own parties. This is why there are still racial issues in this country. It is not that we do not like them but they are the ones who do not like us,” he said.

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R. Ramanan, an MP for Sungai Buloh in Selangor and special committee chairman for the National Unity Ministry’s Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit, said that Mahathir, as a veteran politician, should assume the role of bringing Malaysians together instead of creating division.

The two-time prime minister should “stop his continuous inflammatory statements which bring no value to national unity”, said Ramanan, who is also deputy information chief for Anwar’s centrist multiracial People’s Justice Party.

Unlike private schools, vernacular schools funded by the federal government have existed as part of the national school system since Malaysia’s independence, Ramanan said.

“The Chinese primary schools, for example, have over 100,000 Malays, Indians and other bumiputras (sons of the soil), and like Indian primary schools, they play a major role in nation-building,” he said.

“I invite Dr Mahathir to visit these schools for himself and see their contribution to national unity in their programmes and syllabus.”

Such schools have produced top-tier talent and gave Malaysians the opportunity to acquire more linguistic assets by learning Mandarin and Tamil, Ramanan said.

“One reason why Malays and Indians are sending their children to these vernacular schools for six years of primary education is because they want their children to learn Mandarin or Tamil,” he said, adding that while both languages are marketable and sought after, the Malay language is also highly emphasised in these schools.

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“It’s unfortunate that Dr Mahathir has chosen to see everything from a racial angle to ensure that he is in the news,” Ramanan said, while also questioning if Mahathir’s grandchildren attended private or international schools or studied in national schools.

Ramanan said he was initially very hesitant to respond to Mahathir’s remarks about abolishing vernacular schools, but felt that a rebuttal was necessary to put the record straight.

“It is most unfortunate that Dr Mahathir still refers to Malaysians who are not Malays as pendatang as we celebrate the nation’s 66th anniversary,” he said.

“Let me quote American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jnr, who said ‘we [may have] all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now’ … That is the destiny of all Malaysians, regardless of our race and religion.”