by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Wednesday, 17th March 1993:
MCA Ministers commended for not following the example of the Gerakan leadership in unilaterally renouncing the entrenched constitutional status of mother-tongue languages and citizenship rights of non-Malays
The MCA Ministers are to be commended for not following the example of the Gerakan leadership in unilaterally renouncing the entrenched status of mother-tongue languages and citizenship rights of the non-Malays in the Malaysian Constitution.
Up to now, the Gerakan leadership has not been able to give a single explanation as to why it has taken the drastic step to unilaterally renounce the entrenched constitutional status of mother-tongue languages in Article 152 and the citizenship rights of the non-Malays in Part III of the Malaysian Constitution.
What is even more inexplicable is that ‘champions of Chinese education’ who pledged to ‘assault into the Barisan to rectify the Barisan’ like the Gerakan Deputy President, Kerk Choo Ting, the Penang Chief Minister, Dr. Koh Tsu Koon and the Penang State Exco Member, Dr. Kang Chin Seng, should all support the Gerakan leadership’s decision to unilaterally renounce the entrenched constitutional status of mother-tongue languages and citizenship rights of non-Malays during the March parliamentary debate on the 1993 Constitution Amend¬ment Bill to remove the Rulers’immunity.
The Gerakan leaders have been going round the country proclaiming that the politics of the 1990s is different from the politics of the 1980s, and they are demonstrating why.
In the 1980s, if anyone should challenge or question the entrenched constitutional status of mother-tongue languages and the citizenship rights of the non-Malays, it would be the extremist poli¬ticians whether in UMNO or UMNO Youth.
However, in the 1990s, it is not these extremist voices who are questioning or challenging the entrenched constitutional status of mother-tongue languages and citizenship rights of non-Malays, but the Gerakan itself which is unilaterally renouncing such entrenched constitutional status by declaring that there are no such entrenched clauses giving special protection and status to mother-tongue languages in Article 152 and citizenship rights of non-Malays in Part III of the Malaysian Constitution.
The Gerakan leadership is playing a very deep game with this radical decision, sacrificing the interests of the nation and the community to advance its own party political ends.
The MCA leadership will be tempted to respond to Gerakan in their competition to be in the good hooks of UMNO Big Brother.
I would urge the MCA Ministers not to succumb to the pressures from Gerakan to follow its footsteps in unilaterally renouncing the entrenched constitutional status of mother-tongue languages and the citizenship rights of non-Malays.
So far, only one MCA MP who is not in the mainstream of MCA politics and who is worried as to whether he would be re-nominated in the next general elections, appears to have been influenced by the Gerakan.
This is why he is following the example of the Gerakan in making wild and baseless allegations against the DAP, as in alleging that the DAP is taking the stand that ‘the Malay Rulers are the last line of defence to provide checks and balance against the abuses of power of the ruling parties and to defend mother-tongue education and citizenship rights of non-Malays’.
The DAP had never taken such a stand, as the DAP had repeatedly showed in the past 26 years that the fight for the fundamen¬tal rights of the people must depend on the people themselves. This is also why in the January special sitting of Parliament, I told the Rulers that the will of the people must finally prevail in a parlia¬mentary democracy.
The question is why Gerakan or MCA should unilaterally renounce the entrenched constitutional status of mother-tongue lan¬guages and the citizenship rights of the non-Malays, as now advocated by the Gerakan leadership and this non-mainstream MCA MP.
I am still waiting for a cogent answer from the Gerakan leadership to justify its decision to unilaterally renounce the entrenched constitutional status of mother-tongue languages and the citizenship rights of non-Malays.