In a move that is bound to be cheered by many Malaysians, the Kelantan palace has revoked the datukship title granted to Pasir Mas MP Ibrahim Ali, who is also president of ultra-Malay rights group Perkasa.Pundits now expect Ibrahim to kick up a ruckus through Perkasa and claim that he has been victimized because of his love for the Malay race, although the Kelantan Palace is likely to have punished him for trying to poke fire in a still-simmering royal family feud.
"Not only his datuk-ship should have been stripped away long ago, he should have been locked up under the Sedition Act as well. This is the price he will have to pay for his ardent racist, Malay supremacy stand that does not benefit any Malay but only himself and select Umno leaders," PAS central committee member Nizar Jamaluddin told Malaysia Chronicle.
"Serves him right also for trying to be the batu-api in the Kelantan Palace affairs when his motives are not due to love for the state or the Sultan."
Apart from Ibrahim, the Palace also revoked the datuk-ship title awarded to former state secretary Wan Hashim Wan Daud.
Ibrahim Ali had visited the former Sultan of Kelantan Tuanku Ismail Petra last week. After that meeting, Ibrahim was quoted by the media as saying that the former Sultan was very happy to see him and that he remembered about their shared experiences in years gone by.
Suddenly today, my award was retracted
“If I don’t have a datukship, it’s OK, I prefer to be called Saudara Ibrahim Ali. You don’t call me datuk, it’s OK. It is a small matter to me,” Malaysian Insider reported him as saying.
“There were other states too (apart from Selangor and Malacca) I could have received my datukship award from, only I never filled up the form. To me, it is not a big deal. Nowadays, even those who are not datuks, we still call them datuk.”
Despite the brave words, it is clear the latest decision is an enormous blow and embarrassment to Ibrahim as Kelantan is his home state. Not only has he been stripped of his title, he has also been severely and publicly warned off by his own Sultan.
According to Ibrahim, he is “not surprised” and admitted that the punishment could have been due to the feuding amongst royal family members.
“I do not know the reason, it was not explained to me but I think it could be because of the present situation in Kelantan,” he said.
“I visited the previous Sultan as a friend because he is sick and since his return from Singapore, for almost one year, this was the first time I visited him. And he is too close to me as a personal friend so that is why I visited him. He was asking for me. We conversed like normal and then suddenly today, my award was retracted."
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