By Leven Woon
Free Malaysia Today
KUALA LUMPUR | Feb 2, 2013
Former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad should have his citizenship probed by the authorities, if he thinks that the granting of citizenship to Chinese and Indian prior to independence was wrong , said a PKR leader.
R Suresh Kumar, the special assistant to Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, said this was because Mahathir was also a half Indian whose ancestors were given citizenship to become Malayan at that time.
“The full name of Mahathir is Mahathir Mohd Iskandar Kutty. The word Kutty suggests that his dad was an Indian Muslim.
“If he is questioning the granting to citizenship to Indians and Chinese before independence, then his ancestors must be investigated too. And also his own citizenship,” he said at a protest rally against Mahathir in Brickfields today.
Last month, the former premier said the granting of citizenship to Sabah immigrants during his tenure could be equated to the same policy by Malaysia’s first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman to Indian and Chinese immigrants prior to Independence.
He claimed that Tunku has awarded citizenship even though it was not provided in the law at that time.
“This situation came about because the Malays are generous and prepared to dilute their power, and this is very different from what happened in Sabah because they had the right to have citizenships,” he added when asked to comment on the criticisms against him regarding the granting of citizenship to immigrants in Sabah.
Various opposition leaders have since condemned Mahathir’s statements and labelled it as inappropriate and misleading, while MCA chief Dr Chua Soi Lek said he was unsure whether Mahathir was saying that in jest or not.
Today, a group of 60 people from various NGO and political parties staged a 30-minute protest at the elephant fountain in Brickfields against Mahathir.
Holding up banners bearing Mahathir’s portraits with the captions “The nation’s traitor”, “The biggest liar”, “the most insulting individual”, they demanded an apology from the former premier within a week.
The group later lodged a police report against the Mahathir for uttering seditious statements.
Tamil Action Force deputy secretary Kannan Ramasamy pointed out that Mahathir’s claims was a non-issue because all British colonies that time had given citizenship to non-natives based on jus soli principle.
Jus soli is a right by which nationality or citizenship can be recognized to any individual born in the territory of the related state.
“A total of 42 commonwealth countries including Sri Lanka and Jamaica have done this,” he said.
Kannan said in contrast, Mahathir’s granting of citizenship to Sabah immigrants was for the latter’s political survival because the then state ruling party, Parti Bersatu Sabah had pulled out from BN on the eve of General Election 1990.
“BN was left in lurch in Sabah because PBS joined (Tengku Razaleigh-led) Semangat 46. (Then Deputy Prime Minister) Ghafar Baba was sent to Sabah to form Umno. But there was only 7.9 percent Malays in Sabah that time. So Mahathir began to give out citizenship to make sure he got enough Umno members.
“Today, Sabah Umno has got the largest membership as compared to other states,” he claimed.
Malaysia Indian Progressive Association’s (MIPAS) AP Raja Retinam questioned the logic to grant citizenship to the Philippines Muslim whom, in contrary to the pre-Independence Indian or Chinese, did not contribute to the country.
“Indians built the first road and railway. Don’t insult us by comparing us with the war refugees and illegal immigrants from Philippines in Sabah,” he said.
He said a huge rally would be held on Feb 23 at 6pm in KL and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall to press Mahathir to retract his statement and apologise.
Meanwhile, MIPAS secretary-general S Barathidasan urged the authorities to revoke Tunship granted to Mahathir, saying that the former strongman was not fit to be a Tun.
As usual this grand son of the pariah from Kerala, the shenanigan Mahathir, has conveniently forgotten that his grand father ran away from Kerala in India to try and get rid of the stigma of a pariah. He then found working as a security guard at the palace of the Kedah of Sultan but unfortunately he could not find an Indian woman to marry because of the stigma of a pariah.
He then found a Malay woman, who did not know that he was a pariah from Kerala, to marry to satisfy his lust. The rest is history, it was nature’s most unfortunate event.
To lesson his guilt, he compares his atrocity to that of the father of Independence who granted the Malaya born non Malays citizenships with the consent and approval of the British who was looking after Malaya then. Unlike the shenanigan who committed the granting of the citizenships to the foreign immigrants in return for those in exchange for their votes. That was the difference, the shenanigan was just also trying to lessen his own guilt in doing so. If he wanted to call for RCI on that, what didn’t he do so during the tenure as the P.M. ? After all he did everything possible to marginalization the pendatangs and what was there to impede him from calling for a RCI on this issue ?
Everyday more and more of how he had managed to remain as P.M. for 22 years, are slowly being revealed.
The world will get to learn more of all the sinister tactics he used to remain in Putrajaya just to enrich himself, his family and his cronies. One thing it wasn’t because he was so popular and good that he was voted on to reamain as the P.M. but all the crooked ways and ideas he was using to stay on as the P.M.. He now is trying to blame the lusty Anwar for his own actions for enforcing his project, the project M. He must thinks all Malaysians are idiots to believe what he has to say, he was during the implementation of project M he was the big boss of Malaysia, he had the final say on everything. Therefore from that one can see what kind of a man he is, blaming the executioner for the death of a murderer instead of himself ! No doubt he will claim credit for the many projects implemented in the country during his time but when it comes to the implementation of project M, the people who were merely carrying out his instructions were to blame. The more you get to know of this man the more the Malays should be ashamed of his claim that he is a Malay !