Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad criticised Islamist group Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) for trying to instigate racial tensions by claiming that the Chinese are intruders in the Malay homeland. — Picture by Saw Siow Feng

KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad told Malaysians to accept the fact that the Chinese community is part of the country’s makeup, instead of trying to instigate racial tensions.

The former prime minister pointed his criticism at Islamist group Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) which this week claimed that the Chinese are intruders in the Malay homeland.

“This does not help keep the peace, no need to say those things. It’s not contributing to any good in this country,” Dr Mahathir told reporters today after a book launch at the Ministry of Defence.

“The fact is the Chinese are here, they’re Malaysian citizens, they have all their rights and we don’t want people to instigate racial riots and things like that.”

He also said those who instigate racial and religious tensions have failed to learn from history.

“There is no benefit in having confrontation, having tension, instability et cetera. What’s the good of fighting? You kill each other in the end,” said the nation’s longest-serving prime minister.

Isma maintained today that the country’s non-Muslim citizens, whom its president has unapologetically labelled “immigrants”, cannot object to Malaysia as an Islamic country or question position of the mainly Malay, Bumiputera majority.

Isma president Abdullah Zaik Abd Rahman had said on Wednesday the Chinese were considered intruders into Malay land, and had been brought by British colonialists to oppress Malays.

The hard-core Islamist group has been raising its public profile over the past one year with its provocative remarks against Malaysia’s racial and religious minorities.

Malays and Bumiputeras make up over two-thirds of Malaysia’s population followed by the Chinese at 24.6 per cent, according to the most recent census at 2010.

The Chinese in Malaysia were mostly brought into Malaya from southern China, such as from the Fujian and Guangdong provinces, by British colonists during 19th and 20th centuries to work in tin mines and rubber plantations.

Chinese settlers have been recorded as early as the 15th century during the heyday of the Malacca Sultanate.