Malaysia’s festivities and national holidays should share the common objective to promote justice, freedom, democracy, good governance and national unity

Hari Raya Aidilfitri Message
by Lim Kit Siang 

(Penang, Tuesday):  Two days after celebrating Christmas, Malaysians will join Malaysian Muslims on Wednesday, 27th December 2000 to celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri - in an unique start to the new millennium where four major Malaysian festivities and holidays would be held within a month, to be followed by New Year and Chinese New Year on January 24, 2001.

With four major Malaysian festivities and national holidays being held within one month on the first year of the new millennium and one-third way into the 30-year Vision 2020, this unique and great month should have been used by the  government, and in particular the Ministry of National Unity and Social Development, to organise a "Bangsa Malaysia Month" throughout the country to celebrate the wealth, diversity and most important of all, the unity and solidarity, of Malaysia’s multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural heritage and even turn it into a money-spinner  for the country as a great tourist event to attract foreign visitors from all over the world during this auspicious month.

It is most unfortunate that this opportunity has been missed. It is even more unfortunate that calls for the defusion of ethnic tensions, arising from the campaign of certain quarters to escalate ethnic tensions in the past fortnight, have not been heeded.

As a result, two of the four major Malaysian festivities and national holidays are being celebrated under a cloud of national concern as to whether the country is on the threshhold of a new crisis of national identity caused by the deliberate and politically-motivated escalation of ethnic tensions reminiscent of the 1987 Operation Lalang.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s New Year Message will be broadcast on Sunday. Would the Prime Minister’s  2001 New Year Message be as divisive and negative as his 43rd National Day Message on August 30, 2000, which made the unwarranted and outrageous comparison of the Malaysian Chinese Organisations' Election Appeals Committee (Suqiu) to the fanatical Al-Ma’unah movement  and to those of the "communists in the past"?

Malaysians have reasons to be concerned on this ground as after recording his New Year Message over Radio Television Malaysia at Putrajaya on Saturday, he told the press that

What is worrying about the tone and contents of Mahathir’s statement after recording his New Year Message is his refusal to acknowledge that in the past two weeks, the attempts to escalate ethnic tensions over the Suqiu Appeals were completely and purely from one direction - groups like the Federation of Peninsular Malay Students (GPMS) and Ibrahim Ali’s Barisan Bertindak Melayu as well as certain Bahasa Malaysia  media - which had disregarded the Suqiu’s public reiteration that it supported Article 153 on Malay special rights.

Mahathir should seriously reconsider and even re-record his 2001 New Year Message to ensure that it is not as negative and divisive as his 43rd National Day Message - exacerbating rather than healing the ethnic tensions deliberately escalated by certain irresponsible elements in the country in the past fortnight.

Let Malaysia’s festivities and national holidays share the common objective to promote justice, freedom, democracy, good governance and national unity among the diverse peoples in the country and let every such festivity and national holiday mark a greater maturity and progress in the Bangsa Malaysia nation-building process.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all Muslims in Malaysia.

 
(26/12/2000)

*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman