Guan Eng: 1 Malaysia ‘irrelevant’ if Umno supports Perkasa
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 21— Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng claimed today that the effort made by the Najib Administration to promote its 1 Malaysia slogan would be futile and “irrelevant” as long as Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) continued to support Perkasa. Lim (picture) said that recent statements made by top Umno leaders urging the party to continue co-operating with Perkasa and all Malay NGOs that champion Malay and Bumiputera rights “reinforced Umno’s role of backing Perkasa.”
“The statement by Tan Sri Adam Kadir, the President of the Organisation of Former Umno Elected Representatives (Penawar) urging UMNO to continue its co-operation with Perkasa and all Malay NGOs that champion Malay and Bumiputera rights as enshrined Federal constitution reinforces UMNO’s role of backing the racist Perkasa. 1 Malaysia and BN’s consensus spirit are irrelevant as long as UMNO and BN fully support the racist Perkasa,” said Lim in a statement today.
Yesterday Penawar urged Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor to apologise after the Umno secretary-general criticised Perkasa as racists, and followed Perkasa’s call in urging Umno to sack Tengku Adnan if he refused to apologise.
Today, Lim berated Perkasa for “claiming” to uphold Article 153 of the Federal Constitution as according to him, the Malay rights group only supported racist statements that were never sanctioned under the country’s constitution.
“How can Perkasa claim not to be racist and only fighting to uphold Article 153 of the Federal Constitution when they support racist statements that Chinese should go back to China and their women sell their bodies whereas Indians are beggars and dogs. I have checked and rechecked through Article 153 of the Federal Constitution and there is nothing stated in Article 153 that gives any one special rights to describe Chinese whose women sell their bodies and should go back to China, Indians as beggars or are dogs,” said Lim.
Umno appears to be divided on whether to associate or alienate the party for the controversial Malay rights group.
Several Umno leaders including Pulai MP Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed and Umno Youth Cheif Khairy Jamaluddin have claimed that the party was not bowing to Perkasa’s demands.
But other leaders like Umno deputy permanent chairman Datuk Mohamed Aziz have said that there was no need for Umno to distance itself from Perkasa, and that if there were Umno leaders who felt that way, it was their personal views and did not reflect the party’s stand.
“What is surprising however is that this support and the Perkasa mentality is prevalent even amongst all component parties of BN as explained by Tengku Adnan in The Malaysian Insider on Perkasa: ‘When we had a meeting with BN secretaries-general, we never talked even a little bit that we wanted to distance ourselves from anybody.’
“Clearly all the BN component parties like MCA are just playing a big “sandiwara” opposing Perkasa outside when inside meetings, they keep silent and submissively support UMNO’s pro-Perkasa position. BN component parties should explain why they keep silent inside BN meetings and dare not demand BN oppose Perkasa, yet talk big outside,” added Lim.
Datuk Seri Najib Razak said last Friday that Umno was not in conflict with any non-governmental organisations despite the recent move by party leaders to distance it from Perkasa.
Shortly after that, Tengku Adnan said that he had never asked party members to sever ties with Perkasa, denying an earlier statement where he was reported to have said that the country’s largest Malay party will not back Perkasa in the next general election and that the right-wing group was corroding the party’s non-Malay support.
Lim, who is also DAP secretary-general claimed that the Perkasa mentality in BN was “dangerous” as it had resulted in “public and open denigration of non-Malays”, in reference to the Kulai school principal who was accused of uttering racist remarks to students during a school program.
“Dehumanizing Malaysians with contemptuous language and hate is extremely dangerous. This is what Hitler and Pol Pot has done to pursue their political agenda by dehumanizing the minorities within their population.
“If Perkasa, supported by UMNO and BN, succeeds in dehumanizing Malaysians, it is but a small step from preaching and even justifying mass violence. That is why Malaysians must stand up for peace and respect by uniting against the racism and extremism of hate as embodied not only by Perkasa but also against those that support Perkasa,” added the DAP secretary-general.
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Najib’s failure to stand up and be counted to condemn extremism and extremists especially from his own camp will be the undoing of his 1Malaysia concept
Najib’s attempt to distance or disentangle Umno from Perkasa did not last more than a week from the announcement of the Umno Secretary-General that Perkasa was eroding non-Malay support for Barisan Nasional to Najib’s Malaysia Day message expressing sadness at the rise of extremism in his 18 months as Prime Minister.
Most ironically, Najib chose the Yayasan 1Malaysia seminar themed “Living In a Multi-Ethnic Society” in Kuala Lumpur after the Malaysia Day celebrations in Sabah to perform the flip-flop – refusing to name Perkasa as the worst culprit responsible for the rise of extremism and scaring away foreign investors.
This is now followed by Tengku Adnan’s flip-flop today denying that the Barisan Nasional parties had agreed to keep a distance from Perkasa.
If Barisan Nasional parties had never agreed top keep a distance from Perkasa, are MCA and Gerakan national leaders to “eat their words” for publicly welcoming such a decision?
Just as an example, Bernama had on Sept. 11 quoted Gerakan President and Minister for 1Malaysia, Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon hailing Umno’s move to distance from Perkasa as reflecting “the liberal and moderate stand of Barisan Nasional component parties towards all races”.
What has Tsu Koon got to say with the backtracking by Tengku Adnan and denial that there is going to be any such Umno distancing or disentangling from Perkasa?
Yesterday, Tsu Koon said “all quarters should work together in making the 1 Malaysia concept and the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) a success instead of creating controversial issues which will not do any good to the country’s development”.
Just like the Prime Minister, Tsu Koon as the 1Malaysia Minister dare not take the bull by the horns and draw a line in the sand against the rise of racial bigotry and religious extremism mostly emanating from Umno and allied or outsourced organizations.
Najib, Tsu Koon and all the Barisan Nasional leaders should not be under any illusion and must realize that the failure of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to stand up and be counted to condemn extremism and extremists especially from his UMNO and allied or outsourced organisations will be the undoing of Najib’s 1Malaysia concept.
On September 10, I was in Shanghai for the World Expo together with Perak DAP State Assemblymen Thomas Su (Pasir Pinji) and Wong Kah Woh (Canning) and what was most impressive was the single-mindedness, unity of purpose and dynamism of the Chinese to take the spectacular achievements of the Chinese economy to a new height, surging past the Japanese economy to be the world’s second economic power to overtake that of the United States in the next two to three decades.
What concerned the Chinese was how China could compete internationally in contrast to the obsessive pre-occupation in Malaysia, which is the competition between bumiputras and non-bumiputras, Malays vs non-Malays regardless of how detrimental this is to the larger national and global challenge of Malaysia competing with the rest of the world and becoming an inclusive and sustainable high-income developed nation by 2020.
I met Malaysians who are working in China who are highly skilled, most talented and top professionals. I understand that the Malaysian diaspora in China is in the region of 100,000.
This pool of Malaysian disapora of talent and skills in China is Malaysia’s loss and China’s gain. Most of the Malaysians working in China I met would have Malaysia as their first choice to work but they have to go overseas for their talents, skills and expertise to get proper recognition.
What has Najib done in the past 18 months to bring home the Malaysian diaspora whether from China and elsewhere?
The answer is not only a sad “No” despite all the big talk about 1Malaysia, New Economic Model, Government Transformation Programme and Tenth Malaysia Plan but a further exodus of brain drain because of the failure of the Najib administration to take a stand against extremism and full commitment towards an open, accountable, competitive and just economy.
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