Gerakan and MCA’s silence on UMNO’s rejection of Bangsa Malaysia as part of national policy proves their lack of political principles is as large as their self-interest to retain power at the expense of the people

Speech during the Penang DAP State Annual Convention

by Lim Guan Eng

(Penang, Sunday): Gerakan and MCA’s silence on UMNO’s rejection of Bangsa Malaysia as part of national policy proves their lack of political principles is as large as their self-interest to retain power at the expense of the people. What happened to Gerakan’s Anak Malaysia and MCA’s Rakyat Malaysia?

Penang Chief Minister Dr Koh Tsu Koon has kept silent whilst MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting has responded by asking the Chinese community to unite under MCA as the response to the declining Chinese population. Should Malaysians continue to support Koh who Ong who do not mind being powerless as long as they can cling on to their positions?

Their ineffectiveness can be seen when Koh as Penang Chief Minister and Ong as Minister for Housing and Local Government can not stop abuses of power by local government. Why did Koh not sack Majlis Perbandaran Seberang Perai(MPSP) Chair Mohd Aris Ariffin for wrongly acting to demolish the Tou Boo Keong Temple or act to demolish the UMNO Tanjung Division Headquarters built without building permits and approvals. Koh’s position without power may not allow him to scold and admonish Penang Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Rashid Abdullah for writing to MPSP to demolish the Tou Boo Keong temple but what kind of Chief Minister is he when he dares not even scold Mohd Aris.

As for Ong, he did not even try to ensure that appointed local councilors fulfill minimal standards of integrity and accountability by barring those who flouted municipal by-laws. The appointment of 8 Majlis Perbandaran Klang municipal councilor who had violated laws they were supposed to uphold by not submitting building plans, including MCA councilor Datuk Song Kee Chai, shows that Ong is not sincere in wanting honest and clean officials. Ong even talks about controlling Ah Longs through his Moneylenders Act (Amendment) 2003 effective 1 November 2003 but how effective that is can be seen by the newspaper headlines today.

The time has come for the people, especially those in Penang, to change from their practice of solidly supporting BN, MCA and Gerakan. Supporting BN means more abuses, corruption, inequality, injustices and national disunity. The first step is to restore Bangsa Malaysia as part of national policy towards creating a national Malaysian race that can over-ride race and religion to help achieve developed nation status.

Celebrating 50 years of Merdeka by going back 60 years?

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad defined it succinctly in an Asiaweek’s 6/10/1995 issue as "people being able to identify themselves with the country, speak Bahasa Malaysia and accept the Constitution”. This definition of Bangsa Malaysia similar to DAP’s Malaysian Malaysia, with no race as the pivotal race over other races have been accepted by most Malaysians.

Deputy UMNO President Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on 17 November 2006 overturned what was national policy for over 10 years when he said that “Bangsa Malaysia” was not part of national policy but only a general concept. Today Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman repeated the rejection of Bangsa Malaysia, reaching back 60 years to 1946 to stress the essence of nationhood or idea kenegaraan that emphasized the dominance of Malays as the pivotal race.

Ghani said a Bangsa Malayan was rejected “It is about everything being equal and this does not capture the hearts of Malaysians.” Clearly UMNO rejects political equality for all Malaysians. It is sad that when Malaysia is celebrating 50 years of nationhood, our BN leaders are still reaching back to outdated and discredited racial concepts 60 years ago that strives to divide rather than unite Malaysians. We should be moving forward not going backwards.

Struggle for the soul of Malaysia as a racist nation or a multi-racial nation

The struggle for the soul of Malaysia has begun, whether we see our country as a multi-racial nation for all or a racist nation bracketed into first and second-class citizens with the Malays as the pivotal race. By abandoning Bangsa Malaysia as part of national policy in preference for Malay dominance, Malaysia is going backwards towards Hitler’s racial supremacy and regressing towards South African’s apartheid policies of racial dominance.

Rejecting Bangsa Malaysia is only the first step towards homogeneity with a common race, religion, language and culture as well as uniformity of the necessary laws to achieve these goals. The ugly manifestation of such discriminatory policies can be seen when non-Malays who have lived here for centuries are somehow inferior to Malays who have only been granted citizenship. For instance, Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Mohd Khir Toyo’s father was an Indonesian from Jawa whilst his mother a Malaysian citizen. However Mohd Khir is now a bumiputera superior to all Malays whose grandparents were born in Malaysia. Is this fair and just?

Malaysians must not allow UMNO to continue to divide us but must stand up together to loudly and clearly oppose the language of racial division hatred and violence in the UMNO General Assembly. That Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi did not even reprimand UMNO delegates for threatening to kill and burn non-Muslims and their homes shows that he is not the Prime Minister of all Malaysians. Using majority power to rule by fiat and divine rule makes a mockery of democracy which ensures basic inalienable rights of political equality and socio-economic justice to minorities.

Wealth creation and distribution, abuses of power by local government, rising crime, lack of equal opportunities in education and employment as well as rampant corruption are 5 principal daily concerns of ordinary Malaysians

Wealth creation and distribution, abuses of power by local government, rising crime, lack of equal opportunities in education and employment as well as rampant corruption are 5 principal daily concerns of ordinary Malaysians. Many Malaysians are frustrated that the government tries to distract the nation with inflammatory religious and racial issues when full attention should be focused on resolving these core areas to improve our standard of living and make our streets safe for our families to live, work and study.

The failure of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s anti-corruption campaign as shown by Malaysia slipping to No. 44 in the Transparency International 2006 Corruption Perception Index compared to last year’s no. 39, the failure to establish the IPCMC to check abuses of power by police and increase police efficiency as well as the lack of equal opportunities in education and employment for our children are primary concerns.

Police abuses have reached critical levels where even elite police in the Unit Tindakan Khas(UTK) that is supposed to be our front-line against crime, break the laws they are supposed to uphold. How can the public have confidence in a police force where its present members murder and use explosives to destroy the body and former police personnel commit robberies? Only the IPCMC can save the police and stop rising crime.

Why is the government not helping Malaysians hurt by rising prices from electricity, fuel, water, assessment, quit rent and toll? Everything has risen except salaries. The government’s refusal to reduce petrol prices even though the international price of oil has gone down by as much as 25% recently illustrates how uncaring and unjust the government is to the lower income groups.

The government tries to claim economic success in the rise of Bursa Malaysia Composite Index reaching nearly 1,100 points. But has this benefited ordinary Malaysians by improving their standard of living apart from the privileged few who can live off from their substantial shareholdings in the stock market?

NEP marginalises poor Malays and other poor Malaysians

The New Economic Policy(NEP) systematically marginalizes poor Malays and other poor Malaysians. Despite its successes in reducing poverty levels, Malaysians suffer the worst income inequality in South-East Asia. The share of income of the bottom 40% of the population declined from 14.5% in 1990 to 13.5% in 2004 whilst the share of the top 20% of the population increased from 50% in 1990 to 51.2% in 2004. The income inequality between rich and poor bumis are the worst compared to other ethnic groups. That is why many poor Malays and non-Malays neither own shares nor APs..

Not every Malaysian is well-off like UMNO Youth Deputy President Khairy Jamaluddin who can borrow RM 9.2 million for his shareholdings or MCA Youth Deputy President Ling Hee Leong who can borrow RM 1.2 billion to purchase 3 listed companies or UMNO ADUN Datuk Zakaria who can build a RM 6 million “palace” without approval plans or as wealthy as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Effendi Norwawi who can transfer RM 50 million worth of assets in a divorce settlement.

There is neither logic nor reason in talking about Malays being marginalized in Penang when Penang has the lowest poverty rate in the country at 0.3%. What about poorer Malays living in the poorest states with the highest poverty rate of Sabah(23%), Kelantan (10.6%), Terengganu(15.4%), Kedah (7%) and Perlis (6.3%)?

And what of other non-Malays who are poor? Not every Chinese, Indian, Orang asli, Kadazan or Iban is a millionaire like Khairy or Hee Leong or Effendi. At the same time, the NEP’s reliance on quotas, preferential treatment, mediocrity, crony capitalism negates its ability to create wealth. The NEP is a failed policy that has failed to create wealth and distribute wealth equitably. We need a Malaysian First Economic Policy based on needs, merit and equal opportunity for all.

Malaysia is already left behind by China and India. But do we not know we are also slowly losing out to our so-called poorer neighbours such as Indonesia and Thailand? For the first time in history, Indonesia’s FDI of US$5.26 billion exceeded Malaysia’s US$3.97 billion in 2005. Or to Thailand, whose airport is so many times more busier than ours. BN’s policies reaching back 60 years to 1946 will only leave Malaysia behind.

BN has failed to offer new solutions for the future challenges facing our nation. BN’s old methods of divide and rule relying on race and religion can not adequately face the challenges posed by globalization that has abandoned race and religion for equal opportunity, merit, ability and competitiveness.

Let us reach out to the future and join the global community. DAP urges the people of Penang to take the lead in boldly changing its choice of blindly supporting BN’s divisive policies for DAP’s vision of uniting Malaysians based on democracy, freedom, justice, integrity and human dignity to create and share wealth together as our common destiny.