(Penang, Monday): On the National Day Eve this year, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad delivered a most negative and divisive 43rd National Day Message making the unwarranted and outrageous comparison of the Malaysian Chinese Organisations' Election Appeals Committee (Suqiu) to the fanatical Al-Ma’unah movement and to those of the "communists in the past".
It would be doubly unfortunate and tragic if the Prime Minister’s New Year Message to be telecast on Sunday is as negative and divisive as his 43rd National Day Message, as it would be establishing the unhealthy precedent of the Prime Minister’s messages on national festivities and holidays undermining instead of promoting national unity, and secondly, starting the second year of the new millennium on a completely wrong footing by aggravating instead of healing divisions in the country.
I am alarmed that Mahathir’s New Year Message could be as negative and divisive as his 43rd National Day Message from his comments to the press after recording his New Year Message over Radio Television Malaysia at Putrajaya on Saturday, where he warned that "the Government would not hesitate to take severe action under the laws of the country against those who play up religious and racial sentiments to destroy the country’s harmony".
What is worrying about the tone and contents of Mahathir’s statement after recording his New Year Message is his refusal to acknowledge that in the past two weeks, the attempts to escalate ethnic tensions over the Suqiu Appeals were completely and purely from one direction - groups like the Federation of Peninsular Malay Students (GPMS) and Ibrahim Ali’s Barisan Bertindak Melayu - which had disregarded the Suqiu’s public reiteration that it supported Article 153 on Malay special rights.
Today is Christmas Day, the first of four major Malaysian festivities
and holidays within a month, the others being Hari Raya Aidilfitri,
New Year and the Chinese New Year on January 24, 2001. It is
most unfortunate, however, that instead of using the
unique occasion of the celebration of the four Malaysian festivities
and holidays within a month to show that the 43-year Malaysian nation-building
process has reached a new national maturity and resilience, the reverse
seems to be the case.
Malaysians read in the media today of further escalation of ethnic
tensions, with GPMS for instance exacerbating rather defusing the situation,
by trying to create a new front by recklessly accusing Suqiu of showing
contempt for the Malay Rulers in making its election appeals.
If GPMS is right, then the entire Cabinet had also been guilty of showing contempt for the Malay Rulers as it has given its "approval in principle" to the Suqiu Appeals last September before the general elections.
It is for this reason that I call on Mahathir to reconsider and even re-record his 2001 New Year Message to ensure that it is not as negative and divisive as his 43rd National Day Message - exacerbating rather than healing the ethnic tensions deliberately escalated by certain irresponsible elements in the country, especially since the Prime Minister’s statement in Parliament on December 11, 2000.
As a result of Mahathir’s 43rd Merdeka Day message, the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) plunged 28.84 points from 795.84 on National Day Eve to 767 points at the close of trading on September 1, 2000, a hefty tumble close to 4 per cent on a day when other Asian stocks registered a strong rebound.
If Mahathir’s 2001 New Year Message is as negative and divisive as his 43rd Merdeka Day Message, then the Kuala Lumpur stock market is in for another disaster.
On 12th September 2000, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Shafie Mohd Salleh predicted that the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index would rebound to the 1,000-point mark by year-end. On the day of Shafie’s prediction, the KLCI closed at 729.95.
Shafie is not only far off the mark as far as his 1000-point prediction by year-end is concerned, there is real danger that KLCI, which broke the 700-point psychological barrier last Friday, might plunge to a 18-month low primarily because of a politically-engineered artificial ethnic crisis.
In two days’ time, Malaysians would be celebrating the second of the four major national festivities and holidays - Hari Raya Aidilfitri.
Nobody wants the irresponsible escalation of ethnic tensions over
the completely artificial crisis over the Suqiu apeals to continue. The
Barisan Nasional government must show the political will and responsibility
to defuse the whole crisis once and for all before the
start of Hari Raya celebrations on Wednesday.
(25/12/2000)