Upholding independence

WHEN a high official of a political party makes a public statement, one would not be wrong in assuming that he speaks for his organisation.

Therefore, Mohamad Sabu should be held accountable for his words and Pas be made to explain the stance he apparently took in re-interpreting the historical record of the Bukit Kepong incident.

Although Mohamad has denied using the term “communist” in his ceramah, how can an Islamist party be in any doubt over which side to take: the atheistic political ideology or the policemen who gave their lives defending against it? If there is any truth to the allegations, how can a party claiming to champion religion condone a massacre of fellow Muslims by godless terrorists? Pas, as a responsible component of Malaysia’s democracy, should not allow such revisionism for political purposes in support of its pursuit of power.

Mohamad is also accused of disparaging our fathers of independence. As a political leader, it is not becoming of him to undermine the country’s independence struggle and to promise to re-paint the picture in hues other than what is received.

Why deny the legitimacy of a person’s nationalistic contribution because he was employed by the then government? Malaya was a British colony and many of our fathers and grandfathers were employed by the imperial authority. Many of these men, like their compatriots in other parts of the British empire, were deeply ambivalent about colonial service and passionately fomented a movement to eject it. The British spurred this on when they experimented with the Malayan Union, and so was born the party – Umno – that would take first the Malay Peninsula and then advance North Borneo, Singapore and Sarawak to freedom and self-government.

Our independence is not to be toyed with under any circumstances, especially not when neo-colonialism, religious and political, is rearing its ugly head. As a people we were uniquely blessed with a peaceful push for liberation. Imagine if it had been otherwise and the communists had won. Malaya would not have been emancipated. By remaining a colony under different hands, the ills of old would afflict us and there would be no multiethnic coalitions of equal citizens vying to govern today under much economic prosperity and with an impatience to escape the middle income trap.

This country would be poor and unstable because we would not have been able to make our own fortune and determine our own future. Diversity is only just becoming fashionable on the global scene, but Malaysians have long been reaping its harvest, thanks to our founding fathers.

- NST