DAP man submits motion on racist PD teacher

By Syed Jaymal Zahiid
KUALA LUMPUR: A DAP lawmaker submitted a motion today to debate on the alleged racist statement made by yet another teacher from a school in Port Dickson, Negri Sembilan.
The Nov 24 incident was widely reported by the press. A Malay teacher from SMK Port Dickson had purportedly told her Chinese and Indian students to "go back to China and India" when they arrived late for their exams.
Bakri MP Er Teck Hwa in his motion said this incident came amid a yet-to-subside nationwide uproar over various racists statements made by Malay civil servants over the past few months.
"Lately, these racially discriminatory statements have hurt many of us who want peace and harmony so much," Er said in the motion submitted this morning.
In February, a special aide to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak told a closed-door government event that the Chinese are descendents of "prostitutes" and Indians are "beggars".
A few months later, a teacher and two principals were reported to have made similar offensive statements in three separate incidents.
The Najib administration was slow to react. Some hawks in Umno even defended their actions, claiming the media and the opposition had exaggerated the incidents.
Najib's special aide was forced to resign from his post while one principal, who publicly apologised, was punished with a warning and transferred. The two principals too have been transferred out of their schools.
Er said the latest incident signalled a weakness in government methods in addressing racism, which opposition lawmakers say is already "institutionalised" in the public sector.
"Looking at the chain of events, it indicates that the issue is not an isolated event because the statements made by all of them are similar: ask the Chinese and Indians to go back to their countries."
He said drastic and effective measures must be taken to eradicate racism in the predominantly Malay civil service.
"So the Race Relations Act must be tabled and passed in the Dewan Rakyat as soon as possible," he said, urging the Speaker to allow time for debate on the matter.
Motions submitted by opposition lawmakers are often rejected and Er's motion is likely to suffer the same fate.