By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Wednesday, November 20, 1991:
The silence of Liong Sik on the MCA’s greatest concession in its 42-year party history after the MCA Presidential Council meeting yesterday is ‘deafening’ and ‘thunderous’.
The silence of the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, on the MCA’s greatest concession in its 42-year party history after the MCA Presidential Council meeting yesterday is ‘deafening’ and ‘thunderous’.
Despite my public call on Monday that the MCA Presidential Council should withdraw the MCA’s greatest concession in its 42-year party history in declaring that there is no constitutional right, basis and guarantee for the existence of Chinese primary schools, the MCA Presidential Council had failed to do so, and Liong Sik did not in any way dissociate himself from the New MCA policy announced by the MCA Deputy President, Datuk Lee Kim Sai, and Liong Sik’s ‘lieutenants’ like Dr. Fong Chan Onn, Wong See Wah and Ong Ka Ting.
It is not that the MCA Presidential Council did not meet yesterday or that Liong Sik did not meet the press after the meeting. The MCA Presidential Council met and Liong Sik spoke to the press about plans to raise funds for the Tunku Abdul Rahman College.
But on the most important question of all – the greatest concession by the MCA leadership in its party history on the constitutional right, basis and guarantee of Chinese education – Liong Sik’s deliberate silence speaks volumes!
This has made my meeting with the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, next Tuesday at the MCA Headquarters even more important for four reasons:
Firstly, there is no justification whatsoever for the present MCA leadership to make the greatest concession in the 42-year party history in declaring that the existence of Chinese primary schools has no constitutional right, basis and guarantee when previous MCA leaderships under Tun Tan Siew Sin, Lee San Choon, Neo Yee Pan and even Tan Koon Swan did not make such a concession;
Secondly, the MCA leadership will be doing the greatest disservice to the cause of mother-tongue education in making such an unprecedented concession renouncing that the existence of Chinese primary schools has no constitutional right, basis and guarantee;
Thirdly, the greatest concession by the MCA leadership in the 42-year party history will gave the way for extremist and chauvinist UMNO leaders to openly question and challenge the existence of Chinese primary schools. This will be a repeat of the MCA’s scandalous stand on the Merdaka University issue in 1977. Once the MCA leadership openly declared their opposition to the proposed Merdeka University proposal, how can UMNO leaders be blamed for opposing it as well?
Fourthly, is the MCA’s concession that the Chinese primary schools has no constitutional right, basis and guarantee the first step towards Vision 2020, and if so, what are the other concessions that the MCA leadership are expected to make in the political, economic, educational, cultural, social and religious fields?
Yesterday, I faxed my letter to the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, proposing to meet him at the MCA Headquarters next Tuesday, November 26, 1991 at 11 a.m. over the MCA’s greatest concession in its 42-year party history in declaring that there is no constitutional right, basis and guarantee for the existence of Chinese primary schools. I stressed that the issue concerned the constitutional right, basis and guarantee and future of mother-tongue education which should transcend party interests, whether MCA or DAP. In my letter to Liong Sik, I said I am open to any counter-proposal of another mutually convenient date.