by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Monday, July 1,1991:
Is there a Home Ministry Committee studying the dropping of racial tag in government documents and forms or is there not?
Two days ago, the Deputy National Unity and Social Development Minister, Datuk Alex Lee, said that the Home Ministry had set up a committee to study the thousands of official forms and documents to identify which one could drop the classification of Malaysians by race.
Alex Lee suggested that the passport could be the first document to drop the racial tag..
However, the Deputy Home Ministry, Datuk Megat Junid Megat Ayob, told Bernama yesterday that he was not aware of such a committee in his Ministry to study what official documents and forums should drop the identification of race.
Malaysians are entitled to know whether the Home Ministry has set up a Committee to study the dropping of the racial tag on government documents and forms or there is simply so such Committee.
The DAP had been calling, inside and outside Parliament, for the dropping of the racial identification of Malaysians in government documents and forms so as to promote genuine national unity, beginning with the new format for the identify card which should not have a column for a citizen’s race.
The DAP would be the first to welcome moves by the Government to drop such racial tag in official documents and forms.
However, we do not want ‘hot air’ and ‘grand-sounding announcements and statements’ by Ministers and Deputy Ministers which catch newspaper headlines and great publicity, but which means absolutely nothing, because they are baseless as the government had not changed its attitude at all.
Alex Lee owes it to the Malaysian public to give an explanation what is this Home Ministry Committee he is talking about when the Deputy Home Minister, Datuk Megat Junid, publicly says he knows nothing about it.