What reverberations .....

I laughed when I read about Lim Kit Siang warning the PM of Malaysia to set free the Indian demonstrators for fear of contagion effect from what had happened in Tunisia and Egypt and what is now happening in Libya. For all the years that he has lived in this country, Lim Kit Siang still does not understand the Malay mentality. He is very much mistaken in thinking that the Malays, being Muslims, are just like the Arabs in Tunisia or Libya or Egypt.

The truth is the Malays would not demonstrate as aggressively on economic issues as the Arabs are doing now. By nature, the Malays are not an aggressive people except when they run amok. And there are no issues current that would trigger the Malays into going against the government by way of protesting in the streets. The only time when the Malays showed a bit of aggression was during the Anwar Ibrahim days in 1998 when the Malay population was divided into a pro- and an anti- Mahathir factions. Even then, the street protests petered out after a few days.

If Lim Kit Siang thinks that a lot of noisy Indians coming out to protest in support of the Hindraf Indians, will influence Malaysians into a "revolution' of sort, then he's mistaken. No Malays or Chinese would come out to support demonstration by unruly Indians. Even if by any stretch of the imagination, all the Indians in Malaysia take to the streets like the Tunisians and the Egyptians did, or what the Libyans and the Yemenis are doing right now, no Malays or Chinese would come out to support the protest. More likely, they will come out in arms against the protesters. Only perhaps Lim Kit Siang and a few others would gingerly come in a show of token support.

The truth is, in this country, no one minority nationality can commandeer Malaysians to protest against the government right now. Most probably, in a hundred years time, there is a possibility that what happens in the Middle East can happen here. But a hundred years is a long time.

If the Chinese protest, no Malays would support them because the issues that the Chinese would raise are, as usual, the articles in the constitution, Malay position, the rights of the Rulers, Malay language, and so on that they have been harping on for years and have unwittingly been irritating the Malays. Even if the Indians and the Chinese band together to protest, they would still harp on the same old issues. The Malays would never show support and would even go against the protests. The Chinese would not dare demonstrate on economic issues such as the wealth of Malaysians, prices of goods, cost of materials, for they are the ones at the better end of the stick and are in fact benefiting from such things which are part of their business. So, it is highly unlikely that what is happening now in the Middle East, will "reverberate" in Malaysia, as what Lim Kit Siang thinks.

It is only when the Malays protest on issues such as high cost of living, poverty, inflation, religion and so on would then the government take notice. Ethnic distribution plays a big role in how a country is affected politically. Demographically, any country in the Middle East now are mostly people of Arabic descent. Though there are Christians there, they are nevertheless, Arabs. Even in countries like Turkey and Iran, the demography is that more than 90% of the population are Turks and Iranians respectively. Minorities don't matter much. Only in such countries can the population be vulnerable to contagion from Libya and such.

As I aforesay, Lim Kit Siang, is still unable to feel the pulse of the Malaysians. If he thinks he can scare Najib to be soft on illegal demonstrators of a banned political party else in the next election, Malaysians will protest against him and the government, then Lim Kit Siang ought to know that Malaysians are not naive. Lim Kit Siang does not seem to be aware that in the last election, many voters voted against the BN government not voting for those in the opposition. If there had been donkeys and monkeys as candidates, the voters would have voted them into power.