By reneging on the pledge to repeal the Sedition Act, Umno and its leaders have shown that they do not trust the people to think for themselves, says PKR Youth. Its chief, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, said the move to retain and fortify the controversial legislation also showed that the era of government-knows-best was still alive in Malaysia, with the often trumpeted promises of reform and transformation – all nothing but a cruel joke. The job of leaders is to lead. Leading, in turn, means moving your people forward. It means educating and elevating them, rather than pandering to their imaginary fears and resentment. Umno, judging by the recent statements and actions of their leaders like Najib Razak and Khairy, prefers do to the latter, he said in reference to the ruling Malay-party president Datuk Seri Najib Razak and youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin regarding their statements at the Umno general assembly last week. Najib, who is also the prime minister, announced the colonial-era law would be retained with additional provisions that would make it a crime to insult Islam and other faiths, as well as prohibiting talks on Sabah and Sarawak leaving Malaysia. Khairy, meanwhile, said Malaysia would be in ruins if Putrajaya failed to have laws that punish people for making seditious statements. In training his guns at his youth counterpart, Nik Nazmi said Khairy dropped all pretence of being a moderate or liberal and showed the world that he was not immune to the arrogance and racism that plagued his party. In a statement, Nik Nazmi said it seemed that Umno leaders wanted to see Malaysians, especially the Malays, afraid rather than confident and outward-looking. He also accused them of wanting divisions between the various races rather than unity and cohesiveness. There is nothing, as many Umno leaders have said, wrong with talking about the Malay community’s problems and needs. But it is also wrong to frame these issues in terms of us v them. It is dangerous and downright irresponsible, as many Umno leaders have also done, to depict the many ills, whether political socio-economic or religious, affecting the Malays today are the fault of other communities. At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own destinies. He said it was wrong to believe that the Malays could only move forward through intimidation or by relegating other Malaysians as second-class citizens. That such thinking was outdated and did not bring them credit. He presented the Malays with two choices: to retreat further from other Malaysians and global trends, or embrace reality that the country and the world were changing and that change was the only way forward. I believe the first approach will lead us to stagnation and decline. The other, though hard, will guarantee our future. He said the country and its people need leadership in making such choices; but unfortunately it appeared that Umno preferred to divide Malaysians. They seem more interested in putting their own political fortunes first over that of the interests of the community and the country. Malaysians certainly deserve better than this.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 03:21:33 +0000
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