I may be the most demonized person in Malaysian history, but it will not deter me from performing my duty and loyalty to make Malaysia rise up again to become a great world-class nation.
As I learnt in Cheng Siu Chinese primary school in the forties, the Song general Yue Fei’s (岳飛) mother tattooed on his back the four words, jìn zhōng bào guó 盡忠報國 (‘serve the country with the utmost loyalty’), but the country for everyone here is Malaysia and not China.
I said in my first speech in Parliament 52 years ago on 23rd February 1971 that Malaysia had two great tasks:
(1) To restore national unity and arrest the racial polarisation in this country by assuring all Malaysians, regardless of their race, that they will have an equal deal in Malaysia, by the removal of all the imbalances in the different fields of Malaysian life which cause alienation and antagonism among the races;
(2) Restore the people’s confidence in the Parliamentary democratic process by genuinely operating a meaningful Parliamentary democracy, for without such a process there cannot be a genuine multi-racial Malaysian nation where all will have an equal place under the Malaysian sun.
These two tasks remain Malaysia’s greatest challenges after half a century of nation-building and they must be the criteria by which to judge the Anwar unity government in the 16th General Election in 2027 – whether it has been able to make use of the political stability of the next four years to ensure greater nation unity in plural Malaysia not only to become model of democracy but a successful, progressive and prosperous nation in the world.
I visited the National Art Gallery yesterday for its digital exhibition, Atma Kirana, expressing the beautiful “soul” of Rukun Negara.
ATMA KIRANA is an installation that uses 100 reused LED panels to display five unique flower motifs based on the five principles of Rukun Negara.
They are Faith (Percaya), Loyalty (Setia), Good Governance (Luhur), Rules of Law (Adil) and Kindness (Baik).
The 100 LED panels, purposely suspended in mid-air, showcase a blend of colours and light that will highlight the diversity of Malaysia.
The constant thought in the my mind during the visit is that the person who had been Primer Minister twice for as long as 24 years should visit the digital exhibition on Rukun Negara, and he will not say nonsense that promoting a multi-racial Malaysia runs afoul of the Malaysian Constitution.
Lim Kit Siang