The Cabinet is meeting on February 11, its sixth meeting in the new year of 2015, after playing truant for three weeks from Dec. 18, 2014 to 6th January 2015 with Ministers going all over the world on holidays in the midst of the worst floods catastrophe in living memory in Malaysia – and even the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who had to cut short his golf holidays in Hawaii, could not recall all his Ministers to return home which was why the Cabinet could not meet on Dec. 31, after missing an earlier Wednesday Cabinet meeting of Dec. 24, 2014.
The February 11 meeting in two days’ time is shaping up to be a very important Cabinet meeting – the last opportunity for the 35-Minister Cabinet to redeem itself and salvage whatever is left of its credibility by righting a terrible wrong it committed at its last Cabinet meeting in sanctioning, condoning and defending the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri’s racist call to Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses.
What is deplorable and unforgivable is for the 35-Minister Cabinet to do something which all religions and all sound education systems in the world would deplore – to claim and demand that a rabid racist call on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses which is clearly wrong and threatening the very fabric of Malaysia’s plural society is not only right, but must be accepted as right by all Malaysians.
It is a stand that no religion or education system can accept.
Ask the five million primary and secondary school pupils, the over a million undergraduates in public and private universities, and the over 100,000 teachers and academic staff in our universities, and I am confident that the overwhelming majority of them will say that what Ismail Sabri said is wrong, dishonest, unethical and immoral, and that the Cabinet in sanctioning, condoning and defending Ismail Sabri’s racist call was also wrong, dishonest, unethical and immoral.
The Ismail Sabri episode, which has escalated into a national and international scandal, is not a complex matter but a very simple issue of Right and Wrong, and in this most basic of tests, Ismail Sabri and the entire Cabinet had failed!
A wrong is a wrong and cannot become right, otherwise what is the use of all the religious and moral values and teachings, whether in schools or at home?
All Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or station, are taught to admit where they have done a wrong and to seek forgiveness for the mistake they have made.
Why should Ismail Sabri be an exception?
If I had committed a mistake like Ismail Sabri, I would have no hesitation to admit my error, apologise and ask for forgiveness. The last thing I would do is to compel others to sanction, condone or defend my mistake, as the Cabinet did last Wednesday.
The question now is which Minister is prepared to bell the cat and move a motion in Cabinet on Wednesday to demand that Ismail Sabri should apologise for his racist call on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses or be sacked from the Cabinet.
Will such a Minister and those Ministers who will support such a motion speak up?