KUALA LUMPUR: The nation should look beyond race and all citizens should be allowed to feel that they are legitimate Malaysians, respected, and not having their positions questioned, opposition leaders said yesterday.

PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said Malaysia might be the only nation that is still obsessed with its history and how its multiracial fabric came to be.

He said other free and democratic countries have accepted all that as reality.

“[For instance, in Malaysia’s case] how Bahasa Melayu was picked as the official language of the federation is accepted by the people. But we cannot question people’s background.

“In countries like the United Kingdom and the United States, I know of a congressman who had to resign for calling African-Americans Negro and questioning their position and history,” he said at Penang deputy chief minister II Dr P Ramasamy’s Deepavali open house in Batu Kawan.

Anwar was commenting on a recent remark by a Johor Gerakan delegate that Malays were also “pendatang” (immigrants) who came to Malaysia from Indonesia.

“Let us not talk in a way that offends others. Why must we talk about ‘pendatang’? What’s the issue here?”

Anwar urged Putrajaya to be firm on this matter and not just speak about being multiracial, multi-religious and rejecting extremism.

“This is because those who support extremism are those who support the present [federal] government ... Umno and what they outsource to NGOs (non-governmental organisations).”

DAP secretary-general and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said no one should bring up the label “pendatang”. He said it was Pakatan Rakyat’s and the Penang government’s stand that “we are all Malaysians, regardless of race”. “Don’t anyone talk about ‘pendatang’ ... we have never spoken of such a thing. It is our diversity that makes Malaysia unique.”

Guan Eng said if action was to be taken against those who used the term, everyone who had made such remarks should also face the consequences.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 23, 2014.