DAP veteran, Lim Kit Siang said he had no intention of provoking anyone when he said the Federal Constitution provides that a non-Malay can be the Prime Minister.
“I will meet police in the next few days over my remarks to Malaysian students in Manchester at the end of last month,” the former parliamentary opposition leader and ex-DAP chairman said.
“I was accused of making provocative remarks when I said the Malaysian constitution provides that a non-Malay can be a prime minister.
“There was no such intention. The Malaysian constitution is a non-provocative document on which Malaysian unity must be founded.”
Lim said Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Abduk Razak and Tun Hussein Onn were not being provocative when they supported and provided in the constitution that a non-Malay could be prime minister.
“I agree with commentators that at present, the statement that a non-Malay could be a prime minister of Malaysia is a ‘statement of fact’ but not a ‘statement of reality’,” he said on his blog today.
“If in the 1860s, Americans were asked whether a black American could become the president of the United States, the answer would be a universal ‘no’.
“But some 150 years later, a black American, Barack Obama, became the 44th president of the United States in 2009,” he said.
No race or religion faces the threat of extinction
Lim raised the poser over why it was possible to provide in 1957 in the Malayan Constitution, and later in 1963 in the Malaysian Constitution, that a non-Malay could become prime minister and have it not be regarded as “provocative”.
He asked why explaining this same thing six decades later, in terms of what is in the constitution, becomes “provocative”.
“As the Selangor sultan said in a recent interview, Malaysia is a melting pot of various cultures that have been preserved since independence, and the country must continue to defend its multicultural values and background, which remains one of the strengths that unite the country.
“The Selangor sultan said there are no ‘pendatang’ in Malaysia as the Malay rulers have accepted all, including non-Malays, as citizens,” Lim said.
Lim said Malaysia has the qualifications to be a role model to the world in inter-ethnic, inter-religious, intercultural and intercivilisational dialogue, and in understanding, tolerance, and harmony.
“Let us all work for Malaysia to rise again as a world-class nation and to be ‘Instant Asia’,” he said.
For the last five years, Malaysians have allowed themselves to be bamboozled into being obsessed with “2R” questions of race and religion, believing that any single race or a religion was facing existential extinction.
No race or religion in Malaysia is facing an existential threat or extinction, Lim said. – The Vibes, December 11, 2023.
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