Formal Complaint to PM over Jamaludin's Racist Remarks

Sheena Moorthy
3400 Poly Vista,
PO.BOX#1087,
CALPOLY, Pomona,
91768, CA
U.S.A

2nd May 2007

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Prime Minister Of Malaysia
Prime Minister Department,
Malaysia

Ref.: Racial Insult - Formal Complaint

Datuk Sri,

I, Sheena Moorthy, a 3rd year Biotech Malaysian student in CALPOLY would like to submit a formal complaint against our Minister of Science & Technology, YAB Jamaluddin Narjis. I would like to bring to your attention the following incident which was totally uncalled for from the minister.

Date: 30th April 2007
Time: 6.30pm
Venue: Belacan Grill Malaysian Restaurant, Redondo Beach, Ca

Minister of Science, Dato Jamaluddin Jarjis was here on an official visit. He wanted to meet some of the Malaysian students studying in California especially the ones from TPM Academy twinning programme. During the 3 ½ hour session, he passed a few racial remarks on me, being one of the two Indians present there.

Incident 1 - Each student had to briefly introduce themselves. When it came to my turn, while speaking he interrupted me and asked if I knew Samy Velu, because he knows him. I don’t see any relevance in that and he mentioned it a few times for no apparent reason.

Incident 2 – He gave a speech regarding how agriculture started in Malaysia. He mentioned how the British invested in Malaysia and made farmers work. Due to the lack of work force, “buruh India” was brought in. While mentioning this, he looked at me saying that’s how we get Indians in Malaysia.

Incident 3 – After saying he is going to get MARA to help the Bumiputra students, he looked at me and asked “How many Indians are here?, I don’t have and don’t keep track of number of Indian students here so I mentioned that “In this room, there are two (pointing to my another Malaysian Indian friend, who is fair skinned) and J.Jarjis looked at him and asked “Oh. You are an Indian”, which means you are an upper class Indian and she is the lower class one (pointing at me). He went on to say that, “Oh, I am not going to help upper class Indians, I only help to lower class ones. They are the ones that need it’. I left the room feeling very insulted.

Basically he judged me based on my skin color.

Being a Minister and respectable figure, these statements that he mentioned was unethical and biased. This happened in front of a crowd about 100 people. Being a true Malaysian at heart, and being taught not to discriminate among races especially in Malaysia, I feel humiliated as well as insulted by these racial remarks.

I demand a public apology from him because he does not have a right to judge me nor pass any remarks to me.

Also, I would greatly appreciate if you could kindly review his performance and take appropriate action to mitigate another unwanted racial remark, insults and shame to our country from this minister.

Thanking you in advance.

Sincerely,


Sheena Moorthy