Media Comment by Lim Kit Siang at the Perak DAP National Convention on Sunday, 28^th November 2009: 

Top Umno leaders should stop all double-talk, abandon race politics, be national leaders for all Malaysians or they should scrap and bury Najib’s seven-month-old 1Malaysia slogan and concept

Top Umno leaders should stop all double-talk, abandon race politics, be national leaders for all Malaysians or they should just scrap and bury Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s seven-month-old 1Malaysia slogan and concept.

Malaysians are shocked that the outrageous “defense” of divisive, racist and seditious Biro Tata Negara (BTN) courses by Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, is not the lone voice in Cabinet but represent the consensus of the top Umno leadership.

On my earlier call for the close-down of the TBT, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said it was “just the opposition’s tactics to divert attention from their problems”.

He asked: “The BTN has been there for a long time; why should they raise the issue now? Maybe it’s because they are worried as the BTN has been successful in assisting the nation-building process and in upholding the 1Malaysia concept.”

Alleging that Pakatan Rakyat is using the issue to deflect its weaknesses, Agriculture and Agro-based Indus¬try Minister Datuk Seri Noh Omar made the following charge on my call for the closure of BTN: “Just like a blind man who does not know of what he does not see, how can Kit Siang talk of the BTN course when he has never attended it?”

Women, Family and Commu¬nity Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil claimed that the BTN course instills the patriotic spirit and that those who attended the BTN course love it.

Malaysians want to know whether all the other UMNO Ministers, and equally important, whether the MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the Sabah and Sarawak Barisan Nasional component parties agree with these racist sentiments of these top Umno leaders, and if not, why they allow themselves to be dragged by their noses on an issue with such far-reaching consequences to the future of the nation.

Furthermore, what are the Ministers from MCA, Gerakan, MIC, Sabah and Sarawak BN component parties, as well as moderate Umno Ministers and leaders, if any, doing in Cabinet and outside to speak out against the divisive, racist and seditious BTN courses which promote racial hatred and national disunity in the name of patriotism and nation-building!

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary leader & MP for Ipoh Timor