Pakatan wants Utusan punished for 1Melayu, 1Bumi campaign

KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers have demanded that Datuk Seri Najib Razak take action against Utusan Malaysia for stoking racial tension and “blatantly” challenging his 1 Malaysia policy of inclusiveness.

Utusan called on its owners Umno today to spearhead a 1Melayu, 1Bumi movement involving all Malay parties — claiming DAP was intent on toppling the country’s Malay leadership.

“What Umno needs to do now, in this pressing time, is to launch a wave of racial unity — 1Melayu, 1Bumi. Launch 1Melayu, 1Bumi immediately with other Malay parties,” assistant chief editor Datuk Zaini Hassan wrote in the Malay daily earlier today.

DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang said today that Utusan’s latest “anti-national” call proved that Najib’s 1 Malaysia concept was not a serious nation-building campaign but a big vote-getting sham 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.’

“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 challenging his 1 Malaysia 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,” said Lim in a statement today.

In his Cuit column, Zaini said that DAP slogans in the recently concluded Sarawak state election called for Chinese voters to change the Malay-led government, adding that they already controlled everything and were now aiming for political power.

In his column, he said that the Chinese community was a united force whose “brotherhood” was unmatched by any other race in the country.

He said that despite their different political stances, Chinese voters would unite when the time came to decide the fate of their community.

Zaini also said that the Chinese community helped each other economically and stood together unwaveringly to protect their culture, language and vernacular education.

However, he provided no facts to substantiate the claim that the Chinese community was such a united force.

Zaini said that while DAP has united the Chinese politically, Malays have so far done nothing in response.

“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-1 Malaysia 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,” added Lim.

He said that the DAP had never been a political party for the Chinese but a party for all Malaysians, and that it was the first Pan-Malaysian political party with branches not only in Peninsula states but also in Sarawak and Sabah.

According to Lim, DAP’s success in the recent Sarawak state elections was the result of 33 years of hard political work by Malaysians and Sarawakians who believe in a just and equal society for all, and not just for any one ethnic group.

He also challenged Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties to state their views on the matter.

PAS MP Khalid Samad echoed Lim’s views and said that Utusan editors should be charged for sedition.

“They should be charged for saying seditious matters, inciting racial tension.

“What they are saying is factually wrong ... DAP’s struggles are not for just the Chinese, they are fighting for a just and transparent government,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

The Shah Alam MP charged that it was Umno who were “obsessed” with “race-based issues” and that fears of the Chinese overthrowing a Malay-dominated government were part-and-parcel of Umno’s “propaganda” to stay in power.

PKR vice-president Chua Tian Chang said that Utusan’s editorial content showed Umno’s inability to adapt in a “multiracial” society.

“That is how they want to visualise everything ... everything is a big conspiracy against Umno.

“This is just a façade to stay in power,” Chua told The Malaysian Insider.