Don’t start racial fires in the name of fireman Adib
Tajuddin Rasdi
-December 22, 2018 11:30 AM
A few nights ago I heard a piece of news that I had dreaded hearing. I had been monitoring fireman Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim’s condition, even though I neither knew him nor his family, and I feared the worse when the doctors reported his deteriorating condition.
Adib’s death should be seen by all as that involving an innocent man who was doing his duty but who was caught in a situation where managements and authorities had failed to resolve amicably and professionally the Seafield Sri Maha Mariamman Temple issue.
In this article, I would like to take issue with some Malay groups that are calling for the blood of P Waytha Moorthy and V Ganabatirau on the claim that these two were the cause of Adib’s death. What these Malay groups are doing is engaging in a vigilante media war to spark racial unrest.
The question is, under the surface, was the Seafiled temple incident a deep-rooted racial conflict?
My answer is that it was NOT a racial conflict.
It was due to the failure of the state government, the One City developer and the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple committee to find a resolution that was peaceful and acceptable. The police had recorded clearly that about 50 Malay thugs had been hired by a few personalities related to One City. It is possible the developer had not agreed to this method of “persuading” the temple devotees to move; but it is up to the police and the courts to decide.
Another question is how well or “unwell” the state government handled this dispute? We Malaysians are well aware of local authorities forgetting that they actually work for the people, and that is why they are called “kakitangan awam” or public servants.
The third point to consider is the internal dispute within the temple committee. Why were there two factions which disagreed on the settlement? Was there a clash of egos involved or were vested interests behind the temple’s problems?
Now, if we were to press the rewind button before Adib was assaulted and died, what would we find? A clear path of professional and personal failure at dispute resolution.
Now, after knowing this, let us ask a deep-rooted question: Is Adib’s death a racial issue? As I said, the Seafield temple violence was NOT a racial issue. But now, the temple issue has turned into an issue over Adib’s death, and I am afraid it has become a racial issue!
Why do I say that from the non-racial temple issue it has now turned ugly into a clearly racial issue following Adib’s death? The senders of half-truths, untruths and hate messages are of one race and the targets are two Hindu personalities.
I have been monitoring the racial conflicts in this country for many years and have been wondering for more than a decade when the first “death” would occur. There were many incidents and issues such as the bible-burning issue, the laundry issue, the halal-haram school children issue, the cow head incident, and the dead calf incident, and we came close to seeing bodily injuries in the Low Yat incident and the mosque honking incident. But no death.
We also came close with the antics of the Umno division leader Jamal Yunos, but still no death. Then the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination or ICERD rally came. Very polite and subdued. No death.
Now I come to the underlying crux of the problem with Adib’s death. Adib’s death was in the line of duty in a mismanaged “religious-economic” dispute.
More than 100 people have been detained by police and we’ll have to wait for the investigations to be completed to know who the culprits are.
How far the blame-line leads to the state authorities or the developer concerned or the temple committee, we will have to be patient and trust the investigation. It is there that the real culprit or culprits lie. It is the men who assaulted Adib that must be charged, and those who gave them an incentive or instigated them must also take the blame. Whether the incentive was money or a sense of loyalty to religion, the blame still lies there.
A group claiming to have more than 300 organisations under its wing handed over a memorandum to Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Dec 21, urging him to sack Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department P Waytha Moorthy, Human Resources Minister M Kulasegaran and Selangor state executive councilor V Ganabatirau over Adib’s death.
For the 300 Malay groups to turn Adib’s death into a racial conflict and bay for the blood of three personalities is a grave injustice to the “syahid” of fireman Adib.
Adib’s war was to fight fire, to save lives and to help the helpless. Adib’s battle was never about racial or religious issues.
The fires of the Seafield temple have long been doused by Adib’s fellow fireman warriors, but, now, the fires of racial conflict once again threaten national peace with the old embers of traditional political expediency and the irresponsible behaviour of some who are working up a peace-loving race which is unaware of its ignorance on some issues.
All peace loving Malaysians in mosques, Hindu temples, Chinese temples, Gurdwaras and churches across the nation must band together to put out this fire of racial hatred by honouring the death of Adib and praying for the soul of a selfless man who gave his life to defend a place of religious worship that was not his own but within a larger spirit of Godliness.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
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