Speech by DAP Serdang State by-election candidate, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, and DAP Organising Secretary, at a DAP Serdang by-election rally at Kuchai 6m.s. on Monday, December 23, 1968 at 8 p.m.
On 8th December, at a public rally at Sungei Way, I asked the Alliance candidate Mr. Thuan Phaik Fook, ten questions on language, education and culture.
It is already more than two weeks, but Mr. Thuan has not replied to my ten questions. We know the reason why. It is for the following reasons:
1. Mr. Thuan and the MCA oppose Chinese, Tamil and English as official languages, freely usable in the Parliament, State Assemblies, government correspondence and public notices.
2. They reject the DAP argument that Chinese is a Malaysian language, by virtue of the fact that it is used by large number of Malaysians, and must be promoted and allowed free development.
3. They accept the UMNO and Gerakan concept that only Malay language is the Malaysian language, and the UMNO and Gerakan policy of ‘one nation, one language.’
4. They fully support the Abdul Rahman Talib Education Report which aims to close down all Chinese primary schools after the general elections next year, and convert them into Malay-media primary schools.
5. They reject the DAP’s multi-lingual integrated education policy.
6. They oppose the Merdeka University, and are working actively to destroy the project.
7. They fully support the UMNO in opposing recognition of Nanyang and Formosan University degrees and qualifications.
8. They fully support the UMNO and Gerakan stand that Malaysian literature can only be written in the Malay language, and that Malaysian culture must be based on Malay.
The MCA accused the DAP of playing with racial fire in the Serdang by-election. it is the MCA and the UMNO which are guilty of racial arson since Merdeka in 1957.
They denied racial equality, and divided Malaysians into ‘bumiputras’ and ‘non-bumiputras’, not on the basis of citizenship and birthplace, but solely on the basis of race.
Seremban-born Dr. Chen Man Hin and Ipoh-born D.R.Seenivasagam are ‘non-bumiputras’, but Celebes-born Syed Jaffar Albar and Bogor-born Syed Hussein Alatas are ‘bumiputras.’
It is not playing with racial fire?
The Alliance policy of treating non-Malays as second-class citizens, and of denying the non-Malay languages and cultures an equal place in the country have created widespread disaffection and discontent among the non-Malays. This is one of the deep-seated causes of the Penang and North Malayan racial riots last year.
It was the Alliance which sparked off the racial fire in Penang.
I urge the few responsible and thinking members in the MCA and Alliance to repudiate the racialist policies of the Alliance, and boldly work for a Malaysian Malaysia, where there is no first-class or second-class citizen, master race, master language or master culture.