By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-general and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, October 24, 1991:
Dare Ling Liong Sik openly declare that the MCA national leaders oppose Islamisation policies and programmes of the Federal Government?
It is now clear that when the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, declared and all-out war against the DAP, he meant that the MCA leaders would be launching an all-out campaign of lies against the DAP.
In this MCA campaign of all-out lies against the DAP, its central plank is to attack the DAP for supporting the Kelantan State Government in carrying out over 60 islamisation policies and programmes in the past one year and the Islamic State objective of PAS.
In this MCA campaign of all-out lies against the DAP, truth is not important. This is why Liong Sik and the MCA leadership dare not accept the three challenges which DAP had issued, for Liong Sik and the MCA leadership to:
Firstly, list out the over 60 Islamisation policies and programmes adversely affecting and undermining non-Muslim rights which the Kelantan State Government had carried out over the past year;
Secondly, produce proof that the DAP supported Islamisation policies and programmes of the kelantan State Government adversely affecting and undermining non-Muslim rights and the Islamic state objective of PAS; and
Thirdly, public debate between DAP and MCA on the issue.
If Ling Liong Sik has evidence that the kelantan State Government has carried out over 60 Islamisation programmes adversely affecting non-Muslim rights which had the full support of the DAP, he would have immediately accepted the DAP challenge to a public debate and it would be the DAP which would not dare to have such a public debate.
But the reverse situation is the case, where the DAP is prepared for such a public debate but Liong Sik is not. Why?
The reason is simple. In such a public debate, the DAP will not only be able to prove that Liong Sik and the other MCA leaders are lying when they claim that the DAP supports the Islamic State concept and Islamisation policies of the Kelantan State Government, but that it is the MCA national leadership which had supported Islamisation policies and programmes at the Federal government level.
The DAP had made its public position on the issue very clear-cut and unequivocal – that we oppose Islamisation policies and programmes adversely affecting non-Muslim rights, whether by the Kelantan State Government or the Federal Government.
Are Liong Sik and the MCA national leadership prepared to openly declare that they oppose Islamisation policies and programmes by the Federal Government, of which they are Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and MPs?
I am prepared to be publicly examined by Liong Sik in a public debate as to whether I had supported the Islamisation policies of the Kelantan State Government. Is Liong Sik prepared to be publicly examined by me in a public debate as to whether he had supported the Islamisation policies of the Barisan Nasional Federal Government?
Is Liong Sik going to protest against the statement by Megat Junid that non-Muslim should not engage Indonesian domestic servants
Yesterday, the Deputy Home Minister, Datuk Megat Junid Megat Ayub, warned non-Muslim Malaysians not to engage Indonesian domestic servants and to engage instead Filipino domestic servants because of religious reasons.
Is Liong Sik and the other three MCA Ministers going to jointly protest in next week’s Cabinet against this as the latest Islamisation programme of the Federal Government – as the MCA leaders would undoubtedly term this as an Islamisation programme if this statement had been made by the Kelantan State Government and not by Megat Junid.
Is Liong Sik going to call up the MCA parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ong Ka Ting, and ask him to resign in protest and to dissociate himself form this latest Islamisation programme of the Federal Government?
The DAP is ever prepared to face the campaign of all-out lies launched by Liong Sik against the DAP for we believe that truth will prevail finally, and that it is political hypocrisy, double-faced politics and political parasitism which will stand exposed in the end.