By Syed Jaymal Zahiid - The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak met with officials from the controversial National Civics Bureau (BTN) early this morning and directed them to include more of his 1 Malaysia ideas in their courses to promote racial unity.
Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister Department and BTN chief Datuk Ahmad Maslan disclosed the latest development, adding Najib was also briefed on claims that BTN was promoting racial hatred.
However, Ahmad Maslan refused to divulge the contents of the meeting held in Parliament nor the prime minister’s response to the allegations.
“You don’t expect me to tell you everything from A to Z?” he replied in response to a question on Najib’s stand on the matter during a press conference at the Parliament lobby.
Ahmad also refused to divulge whether or not the meeting acknowledged the accusations made by their political rivals but maintained that BTN is in no way a racist indoctrination agency.
Just like in the past, he refuted the allegations saying that only few from the 500,000 participants had had complained.
Ahmad had said that the allegations were cases of “minor slip ups” by BTN lecturers.
He reiterated his controversial view again today and took a swipe at BTN’s critics.
“Maybe the one that complained are children of DAP or PKR,” he said.
Umno is divided over the BTN fiasco with Ahmad and many other hawks in Umno including Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin are defending BTN but fellow party leaders like Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz has openly blasted the agency’s courses as racist.
It is later learnt that Najib had issued a gag order, instructing all Umno leaders to stop making open statements on the issue.
Najib has been on a vigorous effort to regain Umno-Barsian Nasional’s lost ground through his economic policies and issues like the BTN have been a setback for the prime minister to achieve his goals.
He has approved some 300 programmes proposed in eight labs set up Oct 5 for the six National Key Result Areas (NKRAs), 1 Malaysia and national unity panels to be implemented soon as a means to overcome growing support for the Pakatan Rakyat opposition bloc.
The programmes will be made public on Dec 17 and 18 in Bandar Sunway but critics say the BTN courses are sabotaging his 1 Malaysia ideals.
No comments:
Post a Comment