Call on all Malaysians to check extremism by returning to the middle road of nation-building to  defend and uphold the 1957 Merdeka Constitution, the “social contract” and the 1963 Malaysia Agreement that Malaysia is a democratic, secular and multi-religious nation with Islam as the official religion but not an Islamic State

(Seremban, Sunday): At  the MCA General Assembly yesterday, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said race-based extremism is getting worse among the younger generation in the country and that in  politics too, extremist parties were also seen to be gaining ground among the Malays.  

He said race-based extremism in the country was getting more and more serious compared to previously where people of different background could mix with each other.

If what Mahathir said is true, then this is an astounding admission of his biggest failure in 21 years as Prime Minister – nation-building and promotion of national unity, which must be the biggest challenge of any Prime Minister  in plural Malaysia.  

If the country is to check worsening race-based extremism, then it is imperative that Malaysians move away from the extremes and  return to the middle road of nation-building to defend and uphold the 1957 Merdeka Constitution, the “social contract” and the 1963 Malaysia Agreement that Malaysia is a democratic, secular and multi-religious nation with Islam as the official religion but not an Islamic State.  

It is only by returning to such a middle road of nation-building that the polarization of race and religion could be checked. 

The  DAP’s "No to 911, No to 929, Yes to 1957"  campaign is an attempt to return Malaysia to the middle road of nation-building to check racial and religious polarization.  

The "No to 929" campaign is not seditious or  the 1957 Merdeka Constitution and the 1963 Malaysia Agreement are seditious documents. Furthermore, the first three Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein Onn would have committed sedition offences as well as they had at one time or another proclaimed that Malaysia is a secular nation with Islam as the official religion but not an Islamic state.  

On  8^th February 1983, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, Tunku issued the clear public message that plural Malaysia should not be turned into an Islamic State.  

Four days later, on 12^th February 1983,  on the occasion of his 61^st birthday, the third Prime Minister, Tun Hussein Onn publicly supported Tunku’s call. I have the two-decade old  news cutting from The Star  dated 13^th February 1983, with the headline “Hussein Says No to Islamic State Too”, which read:  

“Kuala Lumpur, Sat – Former Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn has supported Tunku Abdul Rahman’s view that Malaysia should not be turned into an Islamic State. 

“Tun Hussein said today that any move of this kind was neither wise nor practical.  

“’The nation can still be functional as a secular State with Islam as the official religion,’ he said.  

“The Tunku had said on Tuesday, when he celebrated his 80^th birthday, that Malaysia should not be turned into an Islamic State because the country had a multi-racial population with various beliefs. 

“He had said that the nation was set up as a secular state with Islam as the official religion and that this was enshrined in the Constitution. 

“’The Government has shown that it can serve Islamic purposes well without it being an Islamic State,’ said Tun Hussein.  

“’The setting up of the proposed Islamic Bank is one such example,’ he told reporters after receiving an MCA delegation, led by its president Datuk Lee San Choon, who called on him to wish him a happy 61^st birthday.”  

Malaysians should return to the middle road of nation-building as represented by the public pronouncements of Tunku and Tun Hussein Onn on Islam as the official religion but Malaysia is not an  Islamic state, and for a start, Mahathir should retract his “929 Declaration” that Malaysia is an Islamic State as it runs counter to the 44-year fundamental constitutional principle and nation-building cornerstone enunciated by Tunku and Tun Hussein in the two examples I have cited.

(28/7/2002)