I was perplexed by a group of Malay NGOs wanting to question the citizenship of some 1.75 million Malaysian citizens because they didn’t take an oath of loyalty to the country. So much so, that I needed a while to process just what they were saying. And I’m now rather keen on pointing out some flaws.

The first flaw I can think of is that this move is figuratively punishing the son for the sins of the father – not really a sin, to be frank. The move is actually to disqualify the citizenship of the coming generations, thus the 1.75 million would be only a small number of those affected.

But more so, it is self-evidently racist because they are not even considering deporting those of Indonesian Malaysian heritage who also did not take such an oath.

Thus, one has to ask – does being Malay Muslim in Malaysia with a heritage originating from Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and even Turkey, straightaway make one loyal to Malaysia? Because that seems rather biased, to be honest.

If we were to raise the same question for all these Malay Muslims, myself included, we would probably be disqualifying two-thirds of our citizenry from citizenship.

This idea is actually one that tries to divide the people even more into the concept of apartheid by race, heritage and religion. It is so far gone from the current global view of politics that it is on an equal level as Donald Trump supporters wanting a white America with no mix.

Plus, all these matters have been settled and done for by our founding fathers, and should no longer be an issue, especially now with a minister saying the youth prefer to have one nation united under the concept of “Bangsa Malaysia” – a Malaysian race.

For some reason, these racial extremists have somehow confounded the definition of “Malaysian” to only being of the Malay Muslim race.

More to the point, and let us be totally frank – the Malay race is now made up of those with non-Malay heritage. You can look anywhere and you’ll find that the current Malay generation is made up of generations of mixed marriages. Even our prime minister promotes himself as a Bugis warrior.

So I ask this apartheid promoting group: Did the prime minister’s Bugis – which is Indonesian in part – ancestor take this vow of loyalty way back when, to the country? Is there documented proof?

I’d honestly ask the same for my Chinese, Indian and Indonesian ancestors as well. Heck, if we were to include racial heritage for deportation, I’d wager perhaps more than a third of this country would have to be told to pack up and go, much like how Idi Amin Dada deported all Indians when he took power.

However, I’d like to point out a simple fact here – this group is wrong when they say that 1.75 million Malaysians did not take an oath of loyalty. I would think that they did. And the generations up to now.

Every single Malaysian – be it ethnic Chinese, ethnic Indian, or even of mixed heritage – have all sworn an oath of loyalty to king, country, constitution, law and God, even if not in such an order.

It’s called the Rukunegara, sworn to by every Malaysian citizen who has ever attended a school, a university or even a Merdeka Day parade, or has ever read the back cover of one of their school’s brown exercise books.

Hopefully, it is still sworn to this day during morning assemblies by national schools, vernacular schools, and perhaps even those maahad tahfiz schools which received a whopping RM80 million in federal funding recently.

Thus, I see a simple solution to undo this racist, apartheid movement: by gathering this so-called 1.75 million Malaysians in front of a commissioner for oaths to recite the oath published on the back of such an exercise book, and make this movement come undone.

If these racists say or question the integrity of such an oath, then they should by all means be asked to prove it, one by one, individual by individual. But I’m sure our courts would have better cases to settle.

Quite honestly though, I would like to point out that this dumb and racist sideshow should never have seen the light of day, since it should’ve been strangled at its birth or aborted during conception. It is a threat to national unity which I personally find dangerous. It should have been classified as a crime.

But I leave it to someone else to gather people en masse and file a police report to pursue such a case to compel a police investigation. And maybe right there is the problem with all of us who are against this group’s idea.

We are still looking for that “someone else”, rather than looking in the mirror and saying we should do it ourselves.

Hafidz Baharom is an FMT reader.

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