COMMENT | Here we go again! It’s that time of the season when we tell everyone to go back to their own countries.

Orang Cina balik negara China lah! Orang India balik India lah! Orang Melayu balik… eh? Orang Melayu tak ada tempat nak balik ke? Kesian! (The Chinese can go back to China! The Indians can go back to India! The Malays can go back to... eh? Malays have nowhere to go back to? What a pity!)

All this talk started when the Indian-born preacher Zakir Naik asked Malaysians to ask Chinese Malaysians to "go back" before asking him to. He said that the Chinese are "old guests" and that they were all born in China except for the current generation.

He went on to elaborately explain how the Chinese came to Malaya, then the Indians, and later on the British. He considers himself as a guest in Malaysia too, since he has permanent residency status and Malaysians should not be asking him to leave.

Unfortunately for Zakir, he is only a PR here and not a citizen. Not only that, it would seem that his PR status was given due to political connections...