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Introduction
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2. Objectives
We are aware that in the pursuit of our aims, we shall meet with serious
resistance, not only from the Alliance Party and Government, but also
from political forces hostile to the Malaysian nation and inspired by
foreign powers and ideologies.
In order to achieve our primary objective, the most vital condition must
be success in the process of nation-building in a multi-racial society. But
it is precisely in the vital process of nation-building that the Alliance
Government has guilty of a gross and shameful betrayal of national
trust.
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3. The Correct Principles of Nation-Building in a Multi-
Racial Society
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For example, one of the major reasons for the failure of the armed
insurrection initiated by the Malayan Communist Party in 1948 was the
fact that the communists committed the great mistake of thinking that
success was possible on the basis of appealing to the susceptibilities of
only one section of the one community – the Chinese, while ignoring the
susceptibilities or the aspirations of the other communities.
We see the Alliance Government also failing, eventually, for the same
reason – that they show a readiness to pander to the racialist gallery of
a particular community, while ignoring, if not actively offending against,
the rights, susceptibilities and aspirations of other communities.
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4. On Language, Education and Culture
5
We re-affirm our contention that the Alliance Government’s education
policy has the effect of rendering null and void the constitutional
guarantee with regard to the free use of the other languages in the
country, and we shall deem it as one of our objectives to secure a
correspondence between education policy and constitutional guarantee.
We also reiterate our belief that while the national language should, by
virtue of its status, become ultimately the chief language of
administration in the country, this should not preclude the use for
necessary official purposes, of the Chinese and Tamil languages, in
addition to the English language. This would contribute to the fitness of
things, as well as to the purposes of rational and intelligent
administration.
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These are phenomena which are not peculiar to Malaysia among the
developing countries. Similar social, economic and cultural disparities
as between rural and urban areas also confront other developing
countries.
What renders the problem more acute and dangerous for Malaysia,
however, is the fact that class divisions in our country appear very often
to coincide with communal divisions.
The rural peasantry are largely Malays while the bourgeoisie in the
towns and the professional classes are largely non-Malays. This fact
has been effectively exploited in the past, and continues to be so
exploited, by communal-minded politicians who play on Malay
sentiments of insecurity and backwardness in order to justify the political
dominance which they exercise in the name of Malays, but which in fact
they really exercise for the minority social class which they represent –
that sordid, selfish and curious amalgam of a social class, for whom the
best description so far coined is – the “feudal-compradore” class and
their hangers-on, which constitute the Alliance leadership.
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politicians deliberately ignore, for it upsets the neat and plausible
theories which they habitually hawk as their stock-in-trade in order to
justify themselves to their followers. But it is a truth which national-
minded democratic socialists must incessantly drive home, in order to
help expedite the process of national integration on the basis of the
common economic interests of the have-nots of all races.
The DAP charges the Alliance Government with not doing anything
significant towards this end. Indeed, one of the most striking
commentaries on Alliance failure in this respect is the fact that the great
majority of Malay students in our university do Malay language and
religious studies, whereas the crying need is surely for more and more
Malays to become qualified in the modern disciplines of science,
medicine, technology, economics, etc., so that Malays may be able to
compete on equal terms with their fellow-Malaysians of Chinese or
Indian origin, who are not in the habit of sending their offspring to
centres of higher learning in order to become experts in Buddhism or
the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita.
But apart from occasional lip-service, the Alliance leadership has been
gravely delinquent in regard to the positive encouragement of Malay
students to qualify themselves in the more productive and sophisticated
disciplines of modern knowledge.
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Again, with regard to the improvement of the rural economy, one would
have thought that the primary end in view would be the raising of the per
capita income of the Malay peasantry, while the means employed would
have been radical land-reform measures to eradicate crude exploitation
of the peasantry by landowners and middlemen, and the introduction of
modern techniques of agricultural production.
The crucial criticism, however, is that it is impossible to see how the per
capita income and the standards of life of the Malay peasantry can be
significantly raised by the creation of an elite group of Malay capitalists,
who operate in conjunction with an elite group of Chinese compradores
and tycoons.
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Our contention is simply that no major onslaught can be made against
peasant poverty in the rural areas by creating a few rich Malays, any
more than the social and economic problems of the Chinese and Indian
workers in the urban areas can be solved by enrolling a few more
members in the “Compradores Club”, or the even more restricted club of
the big business tycoons, both presided over by the M.C.A.
Indeed, the only nation smaller than us in this part of the world is
Singapore. For the rest, we are surrounded by larger countries with far
bigger populations and resources.
A second stark and naked fact that we have to face is that this British
defence umbrella, which we have taken all along for granted, and
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behind which we had confidently sheltered, is now in the process of
rapid contraction, leading to eventual total withdrawal. The grim fact is
hat by the mid-seventies, present British plans envisage the complete
withdrawal of the British military presence in Malaysia and Singapore.
The fact that both Malaysia and Singapore are relatively better off
economically than any other country in Asia (apart from Japan), and
provide a better living for their people, does not make our problems of
survival as small, but separate and distinct political entities in the years
ahead, any easier.
There was no appreciation over the last decade that the process of
decolonisation of Asia and Africa had finally and irrevocably deprived
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Britain of her status and role as a world power, and left her as yet
another small European nation, far more interested in her survival in
Europe as a member of an European economic fraternity, than in any
kind of presence in distant South East Asia.
In spite of this, British public opinion might have been persuaded into
continuing British defence commitments in this part of the world over a
longer period, at least until such time as Malaysia could have safely
secured alternative defence arrangements, if the Alliance government
had not gone about trying to twist the tail of the aged British lion in a fit
of juvenile heroics.
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Since we are neither a super-power nor even a medium-sized one, it is
clear that we are too small to defend ourselves, and that we must seek
alternative defence arrangements for ourselves in conjunction with
friendly powers, and look for whatever international guarantees and co-
operation we can obtain to safeguard our national sovereignty and
territorial integrity.
It is in this new context that the DAP hopes that the governments of
Singapore and Malaysia will finally see it as the better part of wisdom to
cease their perpetual feuds and interminable squabbles, and to
establish new relations of trust, confidence and co-operation to ensure
their common economic democratic development and prosperity,
defence and survival.
It is not always true that small nations cannot hold their own, either
militarily or politically, in the international power game. Several small
nations have distinguished themselves in history by showing a capacity
for national survival and progress out of all proportion to their
geographical size or to the size of their population.
They have done so, invariably, because they enjoyed three vital
prerequisites of survival: One a firm sense of national unity, identity and
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solidarity; two: a highly skilled and dedicated population; and three:
social and economic discipline.
We do not see any reason why given the right political leadership,
Malaysia cannot acquire all these attributes so clearly necessary to
ensure our contention that the present policies of the Alliance
government are gravely inimical to the national attainment of the vital
attributes.
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8. On the Use and Abuse of the Internal Security Act
One of the unpleasant facts of life that we have to live with is that the
general situation in South East Asia being what it is, Malaysia will
continue to face grave threats to her security from the activities of the
agents and instruments of foreign powers, hostile to our national
existence.
We cannot afford to be blind to the fact that it is not beyond the capacity
of the Alliance Government to abuse the provisions of the Internal
Security Act for partisan and other purposes, which have nothing to do
with the legitimate concern for the maintenance of internal security.
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Some examples which come to mind are, 1. the retention by the
government of emergency labour laws promulgated in the name of
meeting the danger of Indonesian confrontation, long after that
confrontation had ended, and 2. the continuance of the requirement for
suitability certificates for admission to higher centres of learning, despite
the fact that experience has shown that no real security need exists for
such a requirement.
The DAP therefore calls for the abolition of the requirement for suitability
certificates as being both unnecessary and humiliating, and for the
prevention of other abuses committed in the name of the maintenance
of internal security.
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the alternative road leading to eventual national decay and
disintegration.
All that the Alliance leaders have contributed in this direction so far have
been an fungus of outdated and reactionary political, social and
economic nostrums and notions, a medley of communal and
contradictory slogans and panaceas.
Those who are communalists in mind and spirit can never hope
contribute to the nation-building process. Only those Malaysians can
take up this process, who have effected the integral transformation in
their own minds and spirits, and who therefore possess a creative and
harmonising spirit of national construction. Otherwise, everything must
welter in a general confusion and discord out of which it will be
impossible to build a greater harmonic life of the nation.
17
Re-typed into current format by Sdr. Steven Sim ( scheekeong [at] gmail [dot] com ) of DAP Jalan Tembikai
on 18 June 2009. Source: The Rocket, Vol. 2 No. 8 (August 1967): p.6, 7 & 12
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