The Malaysian Insight

PUTRAJAYA should set up a bi-partisan parliamentary committee to handle race relations, which are at an all-time low, Umno Youth deputy chief Shahril Hamdan said at a law conference today.

“I absolutely agree with the suggestion that there needs to be a bi-partisan committee to handle race relations,” he said today during a panel discussion at the LawAsia Constitutional and Rule of Law Conference 2019 in Petaling Jaya.

Prominent lawyer and former Bersih 2.0 chairman Ambiga Sreenevasan proposed such a committee, saying that since “Umno is part of the problem (it) should look into race relations”.

“It’s political (racial politics) but it’s stupid. No one wins if there’s racial rhetoric.

“My question is, would you push your party to participate in a bi-partisan committee to address race relations? This means the party would be subject to scrutiny,” Ambiga had said.

Shahril replied saying he agreed with having such a committee but added that the blame for racial politics should be borne by both sides of the political divide.

“Both sides bear the responsibility; both sides need a solution,” he said in response.

“Race relations are at their worst, at least in my lifetime. I don’t know whether it was worse in the ‘60s, I wasn’t around for that, but it’s definitely the worse since I’ve become involved in politics.”

Shahril said Umno should not use the race card to secure short-term political gains, but he added the Pakatan Harapan government was also to blame as their politicians had “made themselves easy targets”.

“Government also needs to step up. They should not allow for racial politics to exist. The government have had serious missteps and become easy targets.”

One example he cited was Putrajaya’s reduction of assistance and subsidies without adequate explanations to the people, which had angered them.

“The view of Malay crowd is that you have taken away assistance and subsidies and you didn’t explain it.

“Then you fight to support of ICERD and the Rome Statute, when Malay sentiments were clearly against them,” Shahril said, referring to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the statue that governs the International Criminal Court.

Both these UN conventions were seen by some Malay pressure groups as eroding the rights and special position of Malays and the Malay rulers, causing the PH government to backtrack on attempts to accede to these treaties.

“The government brushed it off, and said Umno and PAS were the ones creating something that didn’t exist.”

Shahril said as a result, the Malay community became even more annoyed.

“That’s how it’s viewed (by the Malays) and the communication was rubbish. It annoys people even more.” – October 5, 2019.