by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Monday, 16th April 1990:
Lee Kim Sai is competing with Ling Liong Sik as to who is better actor of the farcical Chinese opera role of the woodbeater who shouts the three-word refrain: “Ai-ya-ya. DAP. Islamic State.”
MCA Deputy President, Datuk Lee Kim Sai, is now competing with the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, to play the farcical Chinese opera role of the “woodbeater” who repeats the three-word refrain: “Ai-ya-ya. DAP. Islamic State”.
I do not know whether this is because the MCA Presidential Council feels that Liong Sik is not doing a good job in playing the “woodbeater” role and that Kim Sai can be a better “woodbeater”, or that the MCA needs two “woodbeaters”!
Be that as it may, Kim Sai has started to play this “woodbeater” role repeating the three-word refrain of “Ai-ya-ya. DAP. Islamic State”. Kim Sai started to play the “Woodbeater” role at the MCA Ipoh dinner on Saturday night and this was repeated by him at the Selangor MCA seminar in Shah Alam yesterday.
In playing the “woodbeater” role, there is no need for any sound argument or even any reasoning, for all that is required is unthinking and blind repetition of the same few words.
It is very sad that on the 41st MCA anniversary, the MCA President and MCA Deputy President have been reduced to the role of the “woodbeater”. This is the end result of the marginal politics of the MCA. No wonder, all that the MCA leadership could think of when they celebrated the 41st MCA Anniversary was the future of a “boat people”!
As the DAP has ‘adopted’ both the ca President and MCA Deputy President, it is our duty to tell Liong Sik and Kim Sai that they are becoming a great disappointment, not to the Chinese community who have long given hope in them, but to the general MCA membership.
Liong Sik;s speech at the MCA Ipoh dinner on Saturday is the worst made by any MCA President in the 41-year history of MCA. Only one MCA newspaper published the full speech yesterday. If that speech was made by a ninth-level MCA functionary, it would still have been regarded as to low-class. But now, the President of the MCA has stopped so low as to make such a speech.
I would advice Liong Sik to sack his Political Secretary for making him deliver such an atrocious speech!
MCA Ministers should set the example by boycotting all TV3 coverage of their news
Recently, the MCA Youth leader, Datuk Yap Pian Hon, is trying to force an issue on the Mandarin telecast over TV 3.
TV 3 must be condemned for its contempt and disregard for the sensitivities of the different racial and linguistic groups in the country by refusing to telecast Mandarin and Tamil news.
All the excuses that have been given so far by TV 3 as why it could not telecast Mandarin news are unacceptable. Its latest excuse that it is short of hands is the most ridiculous of all, for with the great profits TV 3 is making, if it is prepared to allocate a just and fair sum for Mandarin and Tamil news telecast, there would be “enough hands” to produce both Mandarin and Tamil news telecasts daily.
There is no doubt that the demand that TV 3 should telecast mandarin and Tamil news daily is a legitimate, reasonable most justifiable one for a plural society like Malaysia. The suggestion that one way out of the problem is for TV 3 to relay RTM Mandarin news at 7p.m. is completely most ridiculous.
What is unfortunate however is that the issue is being used by the MCA Youth Leader, Datuk Yap Pian Hon, to “borrow the corpse to return the spirit” to have another political lease of life.
Yap Pian Hon is not really concerned about Mandarin news over TV 3. Otherwise, he would force an showdown long ago. It is only recently than he suddenly woken up to unresolved issue of the TV 3 Mandarin news, because he needs an issue to propel him to re-election as MCA Youth leader.
Pian Hon knows that he faces an uphill battle to get re-elected as MCA Youth leader, because of his active role in getting the Selangor Islamic Law Administration Enactment passed into law in the Selangor Assembly on July 19.
The Selangor Government has made it very clear that it would not amend the Selangor Islamic Law Administration Enactment when the Selangor Assembly meets today. Last December, the eight MCA Selangor Assemblymen, led by Yap Pian Hon, sent in their letters of resignation because there were no amendments to the Enactment. But today, these very eight want to remain in the Selangor State Government although there are still no amendments to the Enactment!
I want to advice the MCA national leadership that if it wants to be sincere on the TV 3 issue, all the MCA Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretary should declare that they boycott TV 3 coverage of their functions until YV 3 telecast Mandarin news.