Political Parties Told To Do Away With Communal Slant

August 13, 2005 14:58 PM
Political Parties Told To Do Away With Communal Slant


KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 13 (Bernama) -- Political parties must stop from
using racial intrepretation of the country's struggle for independence
and the formulation of the social contract between the races, Gerakan
President Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik said.

He said: "We still put race and religion first, and society and nation
second. Thus far, our national unity efforts are polemical,
ritualistic and artificial at best."

The "repeated reminders to the Chinese and Indian community in this
country that the government did them a great favour by granting them
citizenship to stay in this country" should also stop, he said at the
opening of a day "Anak Malaysia Convention" organised by Gerakan Youth
here today.

He said: "The making of statehood cannot be based on basic
interpretation of history.

"How can we ask these communities to sacrifice and devote their
energy, resources and time to help in nation-building if they are
often demoralised by such statement?"

Dr Lim said the future narration of the country's history should
reflect on the joint struggles and collaborations between all the
races.

There also should be more Malaysian centric policy debates, social
discussions or societal dialogues in order to bring more sense of
nationhood among the citizens, he said.

" Currently, the sense of ethnicity or religiousity is stronger than
the sense of nationhood and citizenship.

" Therefore, a political paradigm shift is needed as the current model
of power sharing is not premised on a zero-sum game," he said.

Dr Lim urged all the politicians to be externally focused and forward
looking and added that there was a need "to re-examine the relevance
and impact of populist race-centric political approach.

-- BERNAMA
.