THAT ‘CHINESE’ FLER IN THE INTERLOK REVIEW PANEL

Assoc Prof Lim Swee Tin (pix) of UPM is the only Chinese in the 8-memberInterlok review panel.

MIC president G Palanivel was quoted as revealing that out of the 100-plus ‘errors’ in the novel, 85 concerned the chapter on Maniam.

The Indian story comes in Part 3 of the book; Part 1 is about the Malay protagonist, Pt 2 (Chinese) and Pt 4 (their lives intersect).

So the panel apparently found a total of some 100 elements that are objectionable about the writing.

Doing a little simple math (100-85=15), the remaining 15 sensitive descriptions would have covered together Parts 1,2, and 4.

Take away some of the errors complained about by the four Malay panellists, and you have leftover the number of erroneous regarding the Chinese (Cing Huat’s story) narrative.

Considering the Indian panellists found 85 things to be all wrong when author Abdullah Hussain talks about Indians, it’s shocking that Lim Swee Tin finds so little (two? four? or six?) that is offensive about how the Chinese are depicted in Interlok.

On the other hand, we at Hartal MSM found a whole lot that is offensive in how Abdullah portrayed the Chinese community.

FMT yesterday reported that “the trio [three Indian panellists] were allegedly pressured by other panelists Lim Swee Tin and Termuzi Abdul Aziz into succumbing to the DPM’s [Muhyiddin Yassin] advice, at which point the three decided to stage a walkout.”

We find it mighty amazing that Lim Swee Tin can identify so few flaws inInterlok. We urge that he should make his findings public.

- Hartal MSM