As long as Malays are split, BM will not be upheld, says ex-chief justice

 

Former chief justice Abdul Hamid Mohamad said upholding the Malay language will never happen as long as major Malay parties are unable to unite.

PETALING JAYA: Former chief justice Abdul Hamid Mohamad has warned the prime minister that upholding the Malay language will never happen as long as the major Malay parties are unable to unite.

He said it would be a better use of Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s time to figure out how to strengthen these Malay politics.

“As long as the two biggest Malay political parties – Umno and PAS – are unable to unite and other smaller Malay parties are not dissolved or buried, the Malays will continue to be split.

“Malay political power will continue to be weak and the government will be forced to depend on the non-Malay parties, including those that only have one seat in Parliament,” Sinar Harian quoted him as saying online at the International Symposium on Bahasa Melayu in Kuala Lumpur.

Earlier, at the same symposium, Ismail had said he was hopeful that the scope of cooperation among Asean countries could be planned more carefully so that the Malay language could be made the “lingua franca” again.

He also expressed the need for efforts to be made to expand the teaching and use of the Malay language at higher education institutions in the country.

The prime minister said Malaysia and its citizens should have their own identity and prove that upholding the Malay language had not hampered the country’s progress as many countries had achieved “developed status” by sticking to their national languages. - FMT