A Burning Question

Alright, I guess I didn't think myself through before deciding to start this blog. 2 topics and I'm already running out of things to talk and give my opinion about. So I guess I'll have to ask a question this time.

Before I start, I would like to say that I think every decision made and/or action taken is for a reason. Nobody does something just because 'they want to' or 'they can'. I think there is a motive behind everything. Even the shooting sprees we read about in the West (and sometimes East) happen to be for a reason, i.e. grudge, depression, death wish. Even people with some form of insanity do things due to a sort of delusion that they have, i.e. schizophrenics. Given this property of the human mind, it is always possible to theorize why someone does something, regardless of what it is.

So let's begin. My question is: What is the goal of hosting the "Pertanding Catur Melayu Sahaja"? Alright, I'm pretty sure I'm not very accurate and it's called something else but I don't want to beat around the bush; a 4-word title, describing exactly what it is: A chess tournament in which only Malays are allowed to participate, initially hosted officially by PCMM, the Malays-only chess association, and now to be hosted by the so-called Jaffolea chess club under the sponsorship of Yahaya Ahmad if I'm not mistaken. I realize that there is exactly nothing wrong with this tournament legally, except for the small incidence that it goes against the spirit of racial unity in Malaysia, and it has this little part of it that makes it look like it's going against a minor concept known as 1Malaysia.

It's perfectly fine to host this tournament, no legal repercussions unless it can be somehow associated with attempting to disturb the inter-racial harmony in Malaysia (but it can't right? There's no way someone would host a tournament like this with an irrational reason like, a dislike toward the other races or to preserve/strive for Malay supremacy in Malaysian chess). But anyway, this question has been burning in me ever since this tournament was started, i.e. PCMM. And up to this day, the question has still been bugging me, so it's time I ask for the help of others to answer:

Why?

Among the reasons I was thinking of was, hm, maybe it's being held just like how similar tournaments in other sports are hosted, i.e. basketball/table tennis competitions for the non-Chinese or football tournaments for the non-Malays, which was also pointed out by Gilocatur. Question answered, I thought. But then I didn't stop there. I asked myself "why?" again (After all, it doesn't make sense to just 'follow a trend' which isn't even that popular). I got the answer: To encourage participants from other races to involve themselves in the said sport, which happens to be dominated by the barred race. Then I realized, there's an inconsistency! Basketball and table tennis were dominated by the Chinese and football by the Malays, and there was a very different turnout of the participants. Whereas, there is very little difference between the participants in the PCMM tournaments and the participants in say, the CAS allegros. I see the same faces, and almost the same number of participants except without the few Chinese, Indians and certain other races that would usually take part in normal tournaments. So I concluded: There has to be another reason for this!

And that's when the problem started for me. I couldn't figure it out! I could not think of a logical reason for this tournament to be held, and I've been having a chronic headache every time I see or think about this event.

And then came the saving grace. Gilocatur posted a poll regarding the event. Granted, it is not an accurate one because anyone could vote more than once if they wanted to, and not every chess player in Malaysia took the poll. But anyway, I noticed that the majority was against the event. But then, a third of the voters, 44 votes to be exact, though not necessarily different people, were in support of the event! At last, a gateway to the relief of my curiosity!

So now again, I ask the question to the organizer of this event, or those 44 voters, or those who are like these 44 but didn't vote:

Why host a chess tournament for Malays only?

I'd acknowledge that this question does not need to be answered if nobody wants to, but roughly 66% of Malaysian chess players are probably eager to get a response. So yeah.

(This is probably the most sarcastic blog post I have made and will ever make.)