Waytha: London Mayor Sadiq Khan spells hope for M’sia

KUALA LUMPUR: It’s refreshing and hopeful for a multicultural community like Malaysia when Sadiq Khan, the first generation son of a Pakistani bus driver, became the first Muslim Mayor of a major city in the European Union (EU) and the world, said Hindraf Makkal Sakthi in a statement. “Khan has been able to attract over 57 per cent of the votes in London.”

“The Muslim community was in fact the minority in London with only about 9 per cent of the 8.5 million population in the city.”

In his acceptance speech, noted Hindraf Chief P. Waythamoorthy, Khan said that London has chosen “hope over fear and unity over division”.

This statement should resonate in the political direction of Malaysia as well, added Waytha who studied law in London and was granted political asylum years later in the British capital. “The aspiration of the communities in a multicultural society should not be in the direction of any ‘us’ and ‘them’.”

Instead, he continued, a multicultural society was also a place for human beings with equal and just rights as citizens of the nation.

Hindraf was congratulating the UK Labour Party’s Khan who was democratically elected as the new Mayor of London despite being from a minority community background from Pakistan. “Malaysia needs to learn from this and shed its mentality of divisiveness and indoctrination of the people,” urged Waytha. “It should not cause fear and insecurity for political gains.”

Malaysia was very akin to the Britain of today in its formation but present political leaders in the former had found it convenient to abandon the vision outlined by the founding fathers, lamented Waytha. “They chose a narrow minded path without the ability to digest the separation of religion from state.”

“Secularism was paramount to ensure that administration and governance was dictated by reason, logic and co-existence in integrating the country and its society as one.”

He charged that there has been drumming up of religious superiority in Malaysia through the bureaucracy and the judiciary system. “There’s selective prosecution without regards to common sense and logic.”

“It has only promoted polarization in the nation from what it was in the past.

In fact, he recalled, although in practice a secular society, the UK was constitutionally a protestant monarchy, where the monarch of the realm was also the head of the Anglican Church, and under the Act of Settlement, has to be Protestant Christian.

Yet through evolution starting with the age of reason, humanity and maturity, the Protestant nature of the UK has become redundant for all practical purposes, pointed out the Hindraf Chief. “Politicians in the UK, a state with a national religion, have adopted secularism as their creed.”

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