November 27, 2009 by admin
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Written by Our Correspondent
Malaysia’s controversial national education programme conducted
by its National Civics Bureau – the Biro Tata Negara or BTN has
come under fire again for its racist agenda to promulgate the
concept of “Ketuanan Melayu” or Malay superiority.
The programme is intended to instill nationalistic values and
patriotism in university students on public scholarships and civil
servants. The BTN is under the charge of the Prime Minister’s
Department.
The Selangor state government controlled by the opposition
Pakatan Rakyat coalition has banned its civil servants, employees
of state subsidiaries and students at state-owned education
institutions from attending any BTN courses.
Selangor state executive council member Dr Halimah Ali said
described BTN programmes as “indoctrination by the Barisan Nasional
(BN) government”.
“The courses promote racism and my own children who have
attended BTN have been given booklets that encourage hate towards
the opposition. The programmes are not positive to young minds, and
are a waste of money which could have used to foster real
unity,” she said.
The camp would usually take place during the weekends. Students
would have to register early in the morning and the programme would
last the whole day.
Malaysian Insider journalist Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani wrote that
he has learn the “meaning of hate” from the BTN course during which
a speaker said that the Chinese community were “the Jews of Asia”
and were just itching to take over when Malays were disunited and
broken.
According to Asrul, the speaker also revealed a greater Chinese
conspiracy where the Chinese Malaysians were working together with
Singapore to topple the Malay government.
“Do you want to become like the Malays in Singapore?”
he asked.
About 15 per cent of Singapore’s population are Malays.
Singapore was once part of the Malaysian Federation between the
years 1963 to 1965.
After Singapore separated from Malaysia in August 1965, the
Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman offered Malays in
Singapore land in Johor should they want to relocate there. Few
took up the offer.
Over the years, Malaysian leaders such as Tun Dr Mahathir had
consistently harped on the “plight” of the ethnic Malays in
Chinese-dominated Singapore.
Surprisingly, though Malays in Malaysia are given special
privileges under the government’s affirmative action plan – the New
Economic Policy (NEP), few Malays in Singapore have migrated to
Malaysia.
On the contrary, countless of Malaysian Chinese flocked to find
work in Singapore with many of them becoming Singapore citizens,
leading to a brain drain for Malaysia.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Datuk Najib Razak noted that half the
number of medical specialists at Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth
Hospital are Malaysians during his recent visit to attend the APEC
Summit.
Malaysia’s Chinese now constitutes only 25 per cent of the
population, down from 40 per cent in the 1960s.
Many of Singapore’s first-generation leaders are born in
Malaysia such as its former deputy Prime Minister Dr Toh Chin Chye
(Taiping, Perak), Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee (Malacca) and Home
Affairs Minister Ong Pang Boon (Kuala Lumpur).
Singapore’s present health minister Mr Khaw Boon Wan was born in
Penang. The CEO of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek
Holdings and the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong hails from
Kuala Lumpur.