Media statement by Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, 20^th April 2011: 

Call for “1Melayu, 1Bumi” by Utusan Malaysia, Umno final confirmation that Najib’s 1Malaysia campaign is not serious nation-building concept but big vote-getting circus involving 1Malaysia T-shirt, 1M Tupperware, 1M mineral water, 1M burgher and 1M email a/c

Utusan Malaysia, Umno’s official organ, today provided the final confirmation that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia campaign is not a serious nation-building concept but a big vote-getting sham and circus involving 1Malaysia T-shirt, 1M Tupperware, 1M mineral water, 1M burger, 1M email a/c and other new-fangled 1M paraphernalia yet to be conjured up by 1M fortune hunters.

Utusan Malaysia’s call today for UMNO to spearhead a 1Melayu, 1Bumi movement involving all Malay parties, based on the lie and canard that the DAP is intent on toppling the country’s Malay leadership, marks the culmination of a two-year anti-1Malaysia campaign by Utusan Malaysia.

This is irresponsible and anti-national politicking at the gutter worst – trying to pit race against race in plural Malaysia based on lies, calumnies and falsehoods.

This is the old politics of race which must give way to the politics of Malaysian multi-racialism which Utusan Malaysia editors and their “real masters” are fighting against and resisting to the last – but are condemned to defeat.

In the early decades of nationhood, such a racist and anti-national call would have immediately created race tensions in the country but Malaysians of all races are now mature and can see through the hypocrisy and chicanery of the Utusan Malaysia’s 1Melayu, 1Bumi call.

Malaysians of all races want change not because they are anti-Malay or anti-Chinese, anti-Indian, anti-Iban or anti-Kadazan but because they do not want a small coterie of Malays, Chinese, Indians, Ibans and Kadazans camouflaging under the guise of race champions merely to feather their own nests.

DAP had never been a political party for the Chinese, but a Malaysian political party for all Malaysians – Malays, Chinese, Indian, Ibans, Kadazans and orang asli. In the 1969 general elections, more Indian MPs were elected on the DAP ticket than the MIC. Malay DAP leaders had also been elected as Member of Parliament as well as State Assemblymen in the history of the party.

DAP was also the first Pan-Malaysian political party, with branches not only in Peninsular states but also in Sarawak and Sabah. In fact, the major DAP breakthroughs in the 416 Sarawak general elections were also the result of 33 years of hard political work – of blood, sweat and tears - of Malaysians and Sarawakians who believe in a just and equal society for all Malaysians and Sarawakians and not just for any one ethnic group.

In making the irresponsible anti-national call today, Utusan Malaysia has in fact put Najib to the test – whether he is prepared to bring Utusan Malaysia into line and discipline those who are blatantly challengning his 1Malaysia policy or whether he is an UMNO President who is not in full charge of Umno, ceding real Umno power to the Umno kingmakers lurking in the shadows.

Utusan Malaysia’s 1Melayu, 1Bumi call has also put all the other Barisan Nasional component parties to the test.

MCA President Datuk Chua Soi Lek had been egging on SUPP to boycott the Sarawak state cabinet on the ground that it had lost the Chinese community’s support in the Sarawak state elections.

When asked why MCA had not been consistent with regard to MCA Ministers and Deputy Ministers in the federal cabinet after the 2008 general elections, Chua said it had nothing to do with him and blamed it on former MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat (although it was Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting who was the MCA President who presided over the MCA losses in the 2008 general elections).

Chua did not explain why after he became MCA President, he did not direct the MCA Ministers and Deputy Ministers to resign from the Cabinet but instead ensured that his son became Deputy Minister and appointed several of his MCA confidantes into government through the Senate “backdoor”.

Now, what is Chua and MCA’s position and response to Utusan Malaysia’s 1Melayu, 1 Bumi call especially as Utusan Malaysia implied that such a 1Melayu, 1Bumi campaign would have MCA blessing under his leadership.

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Ipoh Timor