KUALA LUMPUR: This is a call to all the Malay, Muslim rights groups in Malaysia to please stand up and protect our sacred and honourable integrity. This is Malaysia’s hour of need. It is time for all you heroes to step up to the plate now and make sure that your loud voices are heard.
How can you allow the United States President Barack Obama, that obviously non-Muslim individual from that obviously non-Muslim country, use smatterings of Malay while in our obviously Muslim country with some of our obviously Muslim people?
The first time I heard him utter our sacred language was during the state banquet that our Yang DiPertuan Agong had hosted for him. He proposed a toast that our two countries should work together. How dare he, that obviously non-Muslim person from that obviously non-Muslim country, use the word ‘bekerjasama’?
It happened again the next day when the he visited our National Mosque (gasp!). Tan Sri Datuk Syaikh Ismail, the imam, urged him to use his influence to stop the oppression of Muslims. And that obviously non-Muslim person from that obviously non-Muslim country said ‘insyallah’! (Yeah, it’s an Arab word. But hey! If we act like we own it, we own it, okay!)
It did not stop there. President Obama was in Malaysia for three days, so there were many opportunities for us to feel insulted. He then had a bilateral meeting with our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. In a joint press conference later, Obama uttered the words ‘terima kasih banyak’!
As a Malay and as a Muslim, I am appalled that our Malay, Muslim rights groups that are suppose to be so heroic and brave, have not made any fuss about this obvious insult to Malaysia by such an obviously non-Muslim individual from an obviously non-Muslim country in our homeland Malaysia.
Do our Malay, Muslim rights groups do not care that our Malay language is for the exclusive use of our Malay and Muslim people only? Do they not care that our identity and our faith are now being threatened because someone else knows how to speak our language?
If these Malay, Muslim rights groups do not now come out and make a strong statement condemning the use of the these words by Obama, the obviously non-Muslim person from the obviously non-Muslim country, I am afraid for the future of my young daughter as it will cause her to grow up confuse with her identity and unsure of her religion.
Not only am I afraid for my daughter, I am afraid for the entire nation of Malaysia. Now that they have seen and heard Obama, the obviously non-Muslim person from the obviously non-Muslim country, speak their language, they will obviously lose all sense of their Malaysianness and Muslimness that they will start going to church.
And so, all your Malay, Muslim rights group in Malaysia. Please do not allow this to happen. Stand up for our rights. Do not allow the spread of our sacred language to creep around the world. It is ours and ours alone. In fact, it is so ours that some of our own people in our own country are also not allowed to use it.
And one more thing. Did you know that President Obama’s middle name is ‘Hussein’? Yes! His full name is Barack Hussein Obama! Hussein! How dare such an obviously non-Muslim person from an obviously non-Muslim country have the name ‘Hussein’! This is blasphemy!
And for those who are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with satire, this is my own personal and humourous dig at all the ultra-Malay rights group that I don't agree with. This is, after all, an opinion column.
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Written by: Zan Azlee | Published in Astro Awani on May 01, 2014
