Speech by DAP Secretary-General and Member of Parliament for Bandar Melaka, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, when officiating at the opening of the Bukit Gambir DAP Branch at Bukit Gambir, Muar, District, on Tuesday, 16th March 1972 at 5 p.m.
DAP calls for X-films to be banned
When X-films were legalized, government spokesmen explained that this move was to attract tourists to come to Malaysia.
Since then, X-films have been and are being screened in the big and small towns in the country. It is clear that the people who flock to these films are not tourists but local people.
We can see now, throughout the country, huge film billings and hoardings advertising these X-films which must shock any religious or decent-minded person.
It is all the more shocking when one remembers that in Malaysia, Islam is the official religion. One must ask whether Islam permits such public immoral exhibition, openly encouraged by the Government.
The people have been told that the present government has a new economic policy, a new education policy, a new social policy. Is the legalization of X-films part of the present government’s new cultural policy, as a result of new blood in UMNO and new blood in MCA like Messrs. Lew Sip Hon, Alex Lee and Dr. Lim Keng Yaik?
The DAP deplores and condemns the legalization of the so-called adult films, for by popularizing X-films, and disseminating X-film values and attitudes among the people, it will do positive harm to the morals and the moral values of the young generation of Malaysians.
The legalization of X-films panders to the lowest and most base instincts and passions of man, when the responsibility of any responsible government should be to appeal to the noblest feelings and instincts in man, to dedicate oneself in the service of society and country.
This is where the Alliance government and all the young new blood in the MCA have got their priorities of nation-building all wrong.
The DAP calls for an immediate ban on all X-films, firstly, for we should never sacrifice national interest for a few tourist dollars, and secondly, because we should protect the morals of the young generation of Malaysians; and thirdly, the country should channelise the energies of Malaysians to more constructive avenues and for ore purposive endeavours to benefit the nation, and not to encourage the people to dissipate their energies and interest in yellow-culture pursuits. We should encourage and promote among Malaysians a works ethics, emphasis on work and toil and sacrifice for national reconstruction, and not an obsession with sensuality and decadent way of life.