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The Malaysian Chinese who warns Chinese people about being too Chinese — and called for ‘ultra kiasu’ critics to be detained under ISA
Story by Fernando Fong• 15h
The Malaysian Chinese Who Warns Chinese People About Being Too Chinese — And Called For ‘Ultra Kiasu’ Critics To Be Detained Under ISA
ISA
Mohd Ridhuan Tee Abdullah, a retired academic and Malaysian Chinese Muslim convert who built a career writing about Malay-Muslim identity, spent the two days before Negeri Sembilan’s nomination day posting a series of escalating warnings on Facebook — each one directed at non-Malay Malaysians, and each one drawing tens of thousands of likes.
By the time nomination day arrived on Saturday (18 July), a rebuttal had already gone viral.
Its closing line said what many were thinking: “A man born Chinese, warning Chinese people about being too Chinese, on behalf of the Malays. Is that patriotism? Nah, that’s just self-hate with a songkok on.”
On Thursday (16 July) at 7:03 am, Tee posted his opening shot: if the Perikatan Nasional (PN) cooperation between UMNO and PAS held through future elections, “ada org x tidur mlm, lari mlm, takut masuk dlm” — there are people who won’t sleep at night, will flee in the night, afraid of going inside.
Tee, whose name was Tee Chuan Seng before being converted to Islam, did not specify who; he did not need to.
The post drew 8,100 likes.
A commenter named Azahar Hadzir replied that Tee would make a suitable Minister of Religion — with a laughing emoji.
Then It Became a Threat
By 10:35 pm the same night, the target had a name.
MCA, he wrote, had grown arrogant since winning the Johor state election.
Without Malay votes from UMNO and PAS, he said, “sudah lama kamu ruyup” — you would have collapsed long ago.
He then entirely flattened the distinctions between Malaysia’s Chinese-based parties: DAP, MCA, and Gerakan were, in his words, different names for the same struggle — “ultra kiasu.”
His closing line was a direct electoral threat: if MCA grew closer to the opposition going into the Negeri Sembilan election, “kita ajar dia, pasti ruyup” — we will teach them a lesson, they will certainly be crushed.
That post drew 16,400 likes — his highest of the series.
Your Village Is in the Wrong Country
On Friday (17 July) at 9:40 am, he turned to geography.
Malaysia is multiracial, he acknowledged — but it originated as a Malay nation, named Tanah Melayu, located in the Malay Archipelago, and this must be recognised.
Therefore, he argued, Chinese New Villages should take on a Malay identity.
Full Sinicisation, he wrote, was not appropriate — as if the village belonged somewhere else entirely.
Then He Called for the ISA
His final post, at 8:35 pm on Friday (17 July), was the most direct.
The “ultra kiasu harbi” — his term for non-Malay political opponents — would only behave, he wrote, if the Internal Security Act (ISA) were brought back.
Under the ISA, he claimed, they would not have dared speak loosely about “our religion.”
The ISA, Malaysia’s former detention-without-trial law, was abolished in 2012.
Calling for its return to silence a specific ethnic and religious group is not a policy position; it is a threat.
The top comment, from a user named Jay Jay: “Yes, ISA should be brought back. The first person who should be detained for life is…”
The Rebuttal That Landed
A social media commentator, Mencius Koay, responded and, the following morning, dismantled the posts point by point — with the precision of someone who had read them carefully and the tone of someone who found them more exhausting than alarming.
On the MCA arrogance charge: “They won an election and didn’t immediately apologize for it.”
On the DAP-MCA-Gerakan equivalence: “Why bother analyzing actual party positions when you can just reduce three different organizations to one ethnic stereotype and call it political commentary.”
On the messenger himself: “A man born Chinese, warning Chinese people about being too Chinese, on behalf of the Malays. Is that patriotism? Nah, that’s just self-hate with a songkok on.”
Koay added one parenthetical that cut both ways: “(But he is right about MCA though.)”
