Appeared in Malaysiakini
Loh Seng Kok (BN-Kelana Jaya) wasn’t really far off in his speech when he complained about ‘imbalanced’ history textbooks, prayer recital guidelines and the difficulty of non-Muslims with regards to places of worship.
My fellow brethren strut around thinking that we shaped this nation. Well, let me tell it to you guys, others have shed blood for this nation, and if it were only possible to put the blood from all the races into barrels, classified by race, I wager that non-Malay blood would probably fill up more barrels. And if you could do it for sweat, the result would be the same.
Without the sacrifices and hard work of all Malaysians, this country would be hmm…maybe like Papua New Guinea. Anyway, without the Chinese and Indians who influenced the culture of this peninsular, we Malays would still be strutting around half-naked. They civilized us, before Islam did.
So my brethren, cut some slack. Recognise and acknowledge the contributions of others who helped give us so much.
(I won’t touch on the issues of prayer guidelines and worship that Loh brought up as well, lest my brothers in Islam label me murtad (apostate) which would be most scary.)
Shufiyan Shukur
Minang is 'Minangkabau', a clan in Sumatra. The clan has a symbiotic relationship with the buffalo, or 'kerbau' in Malay or 'korobau' or 'kobau' in the Minang dialect. 'Minangkabau' is derived from 'menang kerbau' -- win buffalo. The Sumatran clans pitch their buffalos against each other, and the Minangs have the reputation of having the fastest buffalos in Sumatra. This blog isn't much use to anyone else though. There are no revelations and no discussions -- just a Minang's folly.
