Speech by DAP Secretary-General and Member of Parliament for Bandar Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, at the re-election of the Serdang Liaison Committee at Sungei Besi Mines on Monday, 10th June 1974 at 8 p.m.
1. DAP Selangor completes re-organisation of Serdang branches and cancels suspension orders on four branches in Serdang
The re-election of the Serdang Liaison Committee tonight marks the completion by the DAP Selangor of the re-organisation of the four branches in Serdang, namely Serdang Bahru branch, Sungei Besi Mines Branch, Puchong Branch and Kuchai Branch, which were suspended six weeks ago. All the suspension orders have now been cancelled.
We welcome back into our fold, and to return to the political struggle to strive for greater justice and equality in Malaysia, members who were misled in April. They seen for themselves the true character and motives of the handful of those who had broken faith with the party, the party’s principles and the people’s trust in them. They now understand why the Party had to expel the State Assemblymen for this area, and four of his accomplices.
The very fact that we have been able to fully re-organise the branches in Serdang, and that a very small handful of members had followed the five who were expelled out of the party, showed that truth must finally prevail, and that no amount of falsehoods masqueraded as truths, and no amount of commercial advertisements can long fool the people.
The DAP heartily welcome back all those who had been misled. Although in many cases, their party membership cards have been fraudulently taken away and retained by irresponsible political operators, the Party will issue them new membership cards and cancel the old ones. We must be careful that in future, we do not allow ourselves to be made use of as tools to further the personal ends of political opportunists.
2. DAP calls for the establishment of a government committee to consider and implement greater and more liberal use of Chinese and Tamil in Malaysia
When Tun Razak returned from his trip to Peking, at both the Subang international airport and at the National Front rally at Selangor Padang, and also later in Penang, there were banners in Chinese, and lion dancers were allowed to be performed. In fact, at both the Selangor and Penang rallies, there were shouts of ‘Wang Sui’ from the platform.
This is something refreshingly new, but we hope that this is not just because of the general elections around the corner, and that after the general elections , lion dances will again be disapproved, and that the use of Chinese and other languages will again be put in the cold storage until the eve of another general elections.
As Malaysia is a multi-racial society, there should be greater and more liberal use of Chinese, Tamil and other languages in the country.
I therefore call for the establishment of a government committee responsible for the greater and more liberal use of Chinese, Tamil and other languages in Malaysia, so that the people of Malaysia comprising different races, can more fully understand and communicate with each other.
There should not be lion dances, Chinese banners, Chinese speeches, only when the general elections is around the corner, but at all times.
Such a committee should also look into the allocation of time for Chinese and Tamil language programmes over Radio and Television Malaysia, which is a source of widespread dissatisfaction and discontent in the country.