Cakap cakap...rural Malays.

This last three weeks I have been getting a good number of comments from you all – who I will call my friends. For most of these comments I can only use these words to describe what they say ““MAKKAL SAKTI” – no other words can be used because since those two words came into our consciousness the enthusiasm that it conveys is infectious. We must thank our Indian brothers for allowing us free license to use those words.

There have been comments critical of what I write. Critical but constructive. Those comments I welcome as they allow me to let my mind go to where your thoughts are – and then we argue and maybe we agree to disagree – but that is part and parcel of blogging.

All comments made are not ‘administered ‘ by me before they are published – they go straight to print, as I do not see the need to do so. To date there has only been one comment that I have deleted AFTER it has been published for a few days – and that too not because of what is said but the way it was said –too many expletives.

But there have been a few comments on a matter that I feel I need to respond in more detail. This has got to do with the Malays who are in the rural areas. Some of you are concerned that what we write  - about the excesses of UMNO, PKFZ, MACC, Teoh Beng Hock, Kugan, the cow-head demonstration in Section 23, Khir Toyo’s Istana…that all these are not reaching the rural Malays. I beg to differ.

Thirty years ago when I was in Lower Six at Sultan Abu Bakar School in Kuantan –  we old boys fondly prefer to refer to it as SABS – I shared a hostel with sons of fishermen, rubber tappers and kampong dwellers. My classmates and schoolmates came from the surrounding rural areas and some from as far as Beserah (a fishing village). My parents were in Kuala Lipis. So I can say with authority that I was surrounded by Malays whose parents were from the Kampongs and   still living in the kampongs.

Fast forward to today. Three of my hostel mates are Dato’ – not the business or political kind – but for services rendered to our Nation. One was the son of a Rubber Tapper, another a Fisherman and yet another the son of a Sergeant. They now live in Kuala Lumpur away from their rural beginnings but none have cut themselves of from that rural start. They still go back to their kampongs, still talk to the people that they grew up with and I am sure put in their two cents worth to these rural people about the goings on in Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere across the country.

I believe that many others in the same situation are doing this. These Malays when they go back to their kampongs are much respected and their words are listened to by many and discussed and debated on at length by those in these Kampong long after they have gone back to Kuala Lumpur or which ever urban area that they have now decided to settle in.  

Yes we need to counter the machinery that UMNO uses to bring the rural people to their way of thinking. Yes UMNO have a strong presence in the rural area that they can use to their advantage but I think the tide is turning. And I would be the first to agree that the rural votes will be important to Pakatan Rakyat  if it is to win the next general election. I believe that Anwar, Kit Siang, Karpal and Tok Guru are very aware of the realities. I think the Malays in Pakatan Rakyat are also aware of this need and are doing what they can to talk to the rural population and get our message across to them.

But it would not serve us well if we are to think of the Malays in the rural area as being ‘them’ twice removed from ‘us’ in the urban area. There are also Chinese and Indians in the rural areas. So let us continue to be concern about our brothers and sisters in the rural area for the right reasons. We are concern because we are one  - their problem is our problem, their struggle with life our struggle.

Enough said about that. I want to go have my breakfast now. Berasmati rice with Fish head curry that I made myself! Sure best one!