I refer to the letters Uthaya treated worse than terrorist and Uthaya risks heart attack: family.
As much as I sympathise with the position in which P Uthayakumar and his family find themselves in, it has to be said that all this is happening just because Umno needs for this to happen.
Umno has always needed a bogeyman - be it Singapore, the Chinese, a threat to the NEP or the threat of May 13. In their reckoning, these threats have kept the Malay folks united in their support for Umno.
In recent years, the excesses of both Umno’s Khairy Jamaluddin and Hishamuddin Hussein Onn in raising their keris and talking about bathing the streets with the blood of their ‘enemies’ have raised the ire of the Chinese. They know they have overextended themselves in threatening the Chinese.
I suppose Singapore has had enough of being a convenient bogeyman for Umno warlords seeking cheap publicity. This leaves the Indians except that up until Hindraf came along, the Indians - as led by S Samy Vellu - were too docile and submissive to even be seen as challenging Umno Youth's keris.
Hindraf certainly raised a storm on Nov 25. However, although their discontent was directed toward the Umno-led government and leadership, Umno made it look like as though Hindraf was being racist and targeting the Malays.
Somehow, in Umno’s twisted mind, any protest or demonstration against the Umno-led government or its leaders has to be a protest, demonstration and challenge to the entire Malay race.
This is, of course, not the case. Sure, Hindraf did a very good job of shaming the Malaysian government worldwide and embarrassing the prime minister while he was attending a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
That the Malays see the Hindraf protest for what it is surely must be unsettling for the government, as was the Nov 10 Bersih rally, when all races came together to press for clean and transparent elections.
Somehow, the May 13, 1969 bogey that has served Umno and BN well and won elections for them, especially in 1999, has been made impotent. Surely ordinary Malays did not see the Hindraf rally as a threat to them or their families. Only Umno would want to see it that way and promote that notion. Indeed, they tried. But it just failed to stick.
It took more than a week before the five Hindraf leaders were pulled in and sent to Kamunting. Why? During this time, all kinds of statements were made demonising Hindraf and its leaders.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi finally responded when he chose, most conveniently, just one statement of the many that were made by the Hindraf leaders in one of their letters to the British prime minister.
He highlighted their allegation of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and contrasted it with what happened in Rwanda, Bosnia and Germany, this in order to rouse sufficient public anger against Hindraf.
Unfortunately, other than Umno members and their leaders, no one else talked about it because all one needs to do is walk into any government office to see how ‘ethnically cleansed’ it is here today
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