Malaysian Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association acting president NK Tong last year said this proposed law would only hurt the market.

“In principle, we strongly oppose the government’s intervention in what should have been a private agreement between two parties. However, there may be situations where the tenant is at a disadvantage compared to the landlord, thus requiring a higher level of protection. 

“For instance, if the tenant is from the B40 group, the landlord and the tenant are not on equal footing,” he was quoted as saying by NST.

You really cannot dismiss the arguments from the detractors of this proposed legislation because government intervention in this country is not done in a transparent manner and there is a history of dysfunction and overreach when it comes to legislation and enforcement.

Mind you racial discrimination is one of the issues this legislation aims to address, and while detractors may not be able to make coherent arguments on this point, there are many other issues where they do make relevant, data-driven points.

The idea that you can be in favour of something like the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd) for instance and still believe that individuals are perfectly within their rights to discriminate based on race or religion is exactly the kind of horse manure that infects this country and which helps the political class maintain power.

Morally bankrupt idea

An “award-winning” journalist when interviewed on a radio station actually said while racism is a problem, she did not believe the state had the right to legislate when it comes to personal property.

She made the distinction between the “discrimination” of (and by) the state and babbled on about how education would slowly ameliorate individual racism.

Really? The state is always legislating when it comes to individual property. The state is always legislating when it comes to how we conduct business.

This idea that anti-discrimination laws when it comes to tenancy agreements (for instance) is something the state should not get involved in, is a morally bankrupt idea especially when proponents argue for inclusivity in other aspects of social, political, and economic life.

“Preference” is such a quaint term. It’s like saying some of my best friends are people in my non-preferred category but I just do not want to rent out to them.

Landlords having specific criteria that anyone could theoretically fulfil is not racism. It becomes racism when the criterion is race, or bigotry when it comes to religion. Of course, people are blind to some things in this country or worse, do not really care.

Continued discrimination

This idea that the state was racist, which created a separate space for the non-Malays to compete, live, and die in, has resulted in a discourse that not only alienates people but also encourages a siege mentality in the non-Malay community.

Some Malaysians scream that there is no discrimination in the private sector and that the only discrimination that exists is the kind carried out by the state. Or they claim there is discrimination in the private sector but it is more important for the state to handle the discrimination it perpetuates.

Having said that, we need to be extremely sceptical of any legislation that comes out of a state whose foundational ideas are based on ethnocentric imperatives that favour the majority.

We have to be sceptical of non-Malay power brokers who are subservient and held hostage to the threat of even greater racial and religious supremacy and who are part of crafting legislation that protects the economic and racial interests of an already discriminated against minority.

They say the first step in solving a problem is recognising there is a problem. When it comes to this kind of discrimination, unfortunately, the rakyat do not think there is a problem or even if they did, they do not think it’s worth resolving.