The Prime Minister has repeatedly reminded that he is a Prime Minister of and for all Malaysians.
FMT
KUALA LUMPUR: The token RM 50 million allocation in Budget 2015 for Tamil and Chinese schools is a punitive measure designed to drive home the point that there’s a price to be paid for voting opposition, if not for pushing vernacular education over national schools.
“The budget reveals the racial bias of Barisan Nasional (BN) and the state system which it controls, as well as revealing of the racist character of the country’s major stake players,” said Lim Teck Ghee, Director of the Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI), a think tank.
The public can be forgiven, thinks Lim, for linking the budgetary allocations to the speech delivered by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak at the annual general assembly of the MCA.
In the Prime Minister’s speech he made two important points, he noted.
One was that Putrajaya could do more for the Chinese community, he stressed, and the other point was that this was linked to them supporting the BN.
“You have to do your part. You cannot demand and support DAP, you cannot demand and support PR… you demand and support BN, and we will be fair to the Chinese community,” said Najib, recalled Lim.
The only logical inference we can take away from this statement is that the budget has been used to punish the Chinese, believes Lim, for not throwing their support behind the MCA and BN during the last elections.
Put bluntly, the message is “You vote the opposition and we will punish you wherever and whenever we can”.
“We may not be able to do it in the budgetary allocation for health or transport or other sectors where the allocations are more race neutral. But in sectors where we can draw the line on the basis of race, we will do it,” is what BN is saying, according to Lim.
Najib, at the same time, was a bundle of contradictions in his speech.
Najib, in the same speech, also reassured the Chinese community of its right to mother tongue education, reiterating that the right is enshrined in the Federal Constitution and in the laws of the land, besides being included in the National Education Blueprint, said Lim.
What takes the cake, continued Lim, was that “the Prime Minister has repeatedly reminded us that he is a Prime Minister of and for all Malaysians”.
KUALA LUMPUR: The token RM 50 million allocation in Budget 2015 for Tamil and Chinese schools is a punitive measure designed to drive home the point that there’s a price to be paid for voting opposition, if not for pushing vernacular education over national schools.
“The budget reveals the racial bias of Barisan Nasional (BN) and the state system which it controls, as well as revealing of the racist character of the country’s major stake players,” said Lim Teck Ghee, Director of the Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI), a think tank.
The public can be forgiven, thinks Lim, for linking the budgetary allocations to the speech delivered by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak at the annual general assembly of the MCA.
In the Prime Minister’s speech he made two important points, he noted.
One was that Putrajaya could do more for the Chinese community, he stressed, and the other point was that this was linked to them supporting the BN.
“You have to do your part. You cannot demand and support DAP, you cannot demand and support PR… you demand and support BN, and we will be fair to the Chinese community,” said Najib, recalled Lim.
The only logical inference we can take away from this statement is that the budget has been used to punish the Chinese, believes Lim, for not throwing their support behind the MCA and BN during the last elections.
Put bluntly, the message is “You vote the opposition and we will punish you wherever and whenever we can”.
“We may not be able to do it in the budgetary allocation for health or transport or other sectors where the allocations are more race neutral. But in sectors where we can draw the line on the basis of race, we will do it,” is what BN is saying, according to Lim.
Najib, at the same time, was a bundle of contradictions in his speech.
Najib, in the same speech, also reassured the Chinese community of its right to mother tongue education, reiterating that the right is enshrined in the Federal Constitution and in the laws of the land, besides being included in the National Education Blueprint, said Lim.
What takes the cake, continued Lim, was that “the Prime Minister has repeatedly reminded us that he is a Prime Minister of and for all Malaysians”.
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