All Malaysians feel threatened and this is bad, says Kit Siang

 

Lim Kit Siang said all Malaysians need to accept that the nation must not to be identified with any one community. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: Malaysians are trapped in an extraordinary situation where everyone feels threatened, something which needs to be addressed urgently for the nation to move ahead, according to DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang.

“All Malaysians — the Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans and Ibans — feel threatened. For some reason, every community is made to believe that its culture and ethnicity are facing an existential threat.

“But who is creating these threats to all racial groups in the country? Not only do the various races feel threatened, Islam too feels threatened and so are the non-Islamic religions,” he said in his speech at an event in Kuala Kubu Baru last night.

The Iskandar Puteri MP said this ought to be addressed urgently, or it will lead to greater division and disunity, stagnation and failure to leverage on the best values of all the civilisations which should be harnessed to make Malaysia great.

Lim Kit Siang.

Lim said Malaysians need to develop a new “Malaysia Boleh” spirit to exorcise the various contrived or imaginary fears to excel and achieve a golden age for the country.

To achieve this, he said Malaysians of all races and religions need to accept that the nation must not be identified with any one community but with all the different groups who have made this their motherland.

“One must not say that just because a Chinese has acquired Jawi skills, he has betrayed his race. And that a Malay has not betrayed his race and culture because he has mastered the Bharatanatyam repertoire, or an Indian because of his mastery of Chinese calligraphy.”

Lim said there are Chinese who live completely in the “Chinese universe” of their own, without interacting with other races; just as there are Malays and Indians who live completely within their own respective “Malay or Indian universes”.

“This is not the Malaysia that I strive for. I have always advocated integration where we live in a society which lets the different communities live side by side under the same political system.” - FMT