Abdullah said BTN as an institution was never racist. — File pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 11 — Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi today defended his old nemesis Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and proclaimed that the controversial National Civics Bureau (BTN) “is certainly not racist”.
Dr Mahathir has been attacked by Minister in the Prime Minister Department’s Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz for defending the civics programme.
The continued row has led to Nazri calling Dr Mahathir the “father of all racism” when the former party president told Nazri to resign from Umno because if he were against racism, he should not be in a racist party.
Abdullah refused to be dragged into Nazri’s spat with Dr Mahathir but stressed that BTN as an institution was never racist.
“I am not going to get into that. I want to talk about BTN and to the extent that when I was involved the programme was not racist.
“As far as I know, the history of BTN from then till now was not meant to provide modules which were racist. I was involved in BTN during Tun Razak’s premiership and there was no form of racism in the programme. If any individuals were racist then I do not know but the programmes were not racist.
“During Tun Razak’s era, many programmes were focused on the New Economic Policy and role of students. During Tun Mahathir’s time, many of the programmes were related to Wawasan 2020, so to say that the programmes are racist then it is not true at all. If there are individuals that were racist, then it’s a different matter. As an institution, then it is not racist,” he told reporters at the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (IKIM) here.
Abdullah said the BTN is still relevant because it helps to promote and teaches the concept of 1 Malaysia to the public.
Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders have accused the ruling Barisan Nasional federal government of using BTN to brainwash civil servants and tertiary students to hate the opposition and asked why BTN is not open to public and conducted in secrecy.
Former BTN participants have also revealed that they were not allowed to bring in their mobile phones and other electronic media gadgets while course notes were not allowed to be taken out of the lecture hall.
However, Abdullah claimed that BTN was never held in secrecy.
“It has never been secret. What is so secret about it? I am not aware of documents not being allowed to be taken outside of the lectures.
“When I was involved I know that it was not racist. I also had very specific instructions on what to do on organising courses with booklets, and the list of all lecturers from institutions of higher education to provide lectures,” he said.
He stressed that the issue has been politicised and many of the allegations against the civics programme were mere fabrications and pointed out that opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was also involved in the programme.
“I think there are a lot of stories which are not true here but I must qualify that I was not the only to handle the BTN during that time, there were others also. At one period Datuk Seri Anwar also was looking into BTN.
“I think it is no use for us to debate on this matter because what is important that we want this institution to be continued with the good intention of create awareness of the programmes that the government has brought forward.
“I also heard that there have been proposals for a new curriculum but it only means that new curriculum is inline with 1 Malaysia. Back then it was Wawasan 2020, before that it was the New Economic Policy and I was involved back then,” he explained.
BTN came under public scrutiny recently after Pakatan Rakyat-ruled Selangor prohibited state civil servants and students in state-owned institutions of higher education from attending its courses, claiming that they were an indoctrination process by the Barisan Nasional government and aimed at brainwashing Malaysians to hate opposition parties.
PR leaders and former participants have also claimed that the courses were racist and emphasised the idea of Malay superiority.
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