Political Activist Urges MCA to Use BM in Their Statements After “Crazy Malay” Translation Incident

Recently, MCA Vice President, Tan Teik Cheng, took to his Facebook page to criticise UMNO Youth Chief, Dr Akmal Saleh, after the latter recently threatened to sue a Johor MCA leader.

While condemning the UMNO Youth Chief for apparently making “the same mistakes again and again”, Tan also encouraged him to “reflect on his own behaviour and attitude” on “why non-Malay groups have such a deep negative impression of him”.

However, following this, another person has spoken up. 

Political activist, Liyana Marzuki, took to her X account to call out Tan for writing his Facebook post about Akmal Saleh in Mandarin, adding that the MCA Vice President should address the UMNO Youth Chief in a language that the latter will understand.

She wrote, “This guy is the Vice President of MCA. I still don’t understand why they insist on cursing Malay leaders with writing only in their mother tongue. Here they kept calling the UMNO Youth Chief crazy.”

“You want to fight for Chinese rights, go ahead. Fight with UMNO? We respect that. But, why do it sneakily? Be a man and face him. In front of UMNO leaders and Malay mainstream media, you remain silent. But, in front of the Chinese community, you act like a hero.”

She went on to suggest that MCA leaders also include Bahasa Malaysia (BM) when making their statements, on top of their use of Mandarin.

“We’ve seen tricks like this before. In front of the Chinese, (they’ll say something) different, in front of the Malays, (they’ll say something) different,” she added.

This comes after Johor MCA Deputy Publicity Chief, Law Yiak Kwang, had written a Facebook post in Mandarin where Akmal Saleh was referred to as ‘癫马‘.

While Akmal Saleh shared his belief that ‘癫马‘ is translated as ‘crazy Malay‘, Law clarified in another post that the phrase is meant as “Akmal who always acts irrationally“.

What do you think about this? Do feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

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