‘Pendatang’ furore proof of Barisan’s failure, says DAP

That Malaysians are still using the “pendatang” (immigrant) slur against one another after 57 years of Merdeka is proof that the millions of ringgit Putrajaya spent on nation-building have been wasted, says DAP.

The party's parliamentary leader, Lim Kit Siang (pic), today said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak should review his 1Malaysia and Umno-Barisan Nasional (BN) nation-building policies.

"Since the 70s, there is a National Unity Department in the Prime Minister's Department, but all the tens and even hundreds millions of ringgit of budget expenditures have been a total waste and loss, when 57 years after Merdeka, extremists are hurling the “pendatang” label at ordinary, loyal and patriotic Malaysians."

He said the majority of Malaysians were local-born and "100% Malaysians", leaving no reason for anyone to describe another as a pendatang.

"This is in fact questioning the citizenship rights of Malaysians, which is entrenched as one of the four ‘sensitive’ rights in the Malaysian Constitution in 1971, whereby it becomes an automatic sedition offence to call for the withdrawal of a Malaysian's citizenship."

Lim said the term was loaded in a very derogatory, pejorative and even abusive sense.

"Calling loyal, patriotic Malaysians, born and bred and who will die in Malaysia as ‘pendatang’ must be condemned as a form of extremism, which Najib denounced in the United Nations and international forums since becoming prime minister."

On Monday, Gerakan delegate Tan Lai Soon was suspended by his party for saying Malays, too, were “pendatang”.

It was not the first time the “pendatang” remark was made. In 2008, Bukit Bendera Umno division chief Datuk Ahmad Ismail made the remark to describe Chinese Malaysians who came to Malaya as immigrants during the British colonial rule.

The remark infuriated the Chinese and caused a serious rift between Umno and Gerakan in Penang. A Sin Chew reporter was detained overnight under the Internal Security Act for reporting what Ahmad said.

Ahmad was suspended from Umno and stripped of his party post for three years. He has since returned to politics as well as to his old position as Bukit Bendera division chief.

Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia president Abdullah Zaik Abdul Rahman also courted controversy when he described the Chinese as intruders brought in by the British. He is facing a sedition trial over the remark. – October 22, 2014.