While the tweet above is a little over the top, the Malaysian Prime Minister certainly missed the mark in terms of political correctness by the use of the word ‘keling’ in the course of his address at the Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI). Anwar quickly aplogized to the Tamils of the nations whose offence is understandable, given that they have been assailed, in recent years, by the use of this term as a racist slur. In mitigation, however, he claimed that the sense in which he used the word is correct in the context of his literary reference. I for one, understand his assumption of intellectual privilege, his belief that he was rising above the slur to the respectful connotations evidenced by the etymology of the term. There is however no doubt that the Malay language displays both benign and derisory senses of the term and it is very revealing of the status of Indians in our nation, that our Malay Prime Ministers seem consistantly unable to keep this terminology out of their public utterances.
See: A Keling Lexicon A – J
See Also: Pantun Keling Kedah!
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