Lim Kit Siang & Karpal Singh – cakap tak serupa bikin

I find it funny when the opposition leaders and its fanatical supporters condemned the suggestion to commemorate May 13th in a positive way. In other words, we want the people to remember that the harmonious relationship between races here in Malaysia was forged from the fires of a tragic incident. We also need to learn from the mistakes we sometime commit and to look into the future as citizens who are aware of our collective strengths.

There are a lot of lessons that can be learned from the racial riots.

Hence, it is good that people can know what really had happened.

But when National Unity Day was suggested, all fury came in from the opposition.

I would like to point out that back in 2007, when Dr Kua Kia Soong’s book was launched, all sundry were discussing about the May 13 riots.

A brief walk down memory lane will expose the pandemonium caused by the book. You can read it here, here, here and here.

But lately, the longest serving political party ruler in the world, Lim Kit Siang (42 years) and his offspring, Lim Guan Eng seemed determined not to let Malaysians remember the tragedy.

Like it or not, the maniacal discussions over the racial riots among the oppositions were rather subdued since early 2010. Probably because my series of articles in debunking  Kua Kia Soong’s lies were not rebutted by anybody from the opposition’s camp.

I think it is indeed hard to rebut them since I had used the facts from the same point of references which Kua Kia Soong had used and importantly, I used the facts that were deftly left out by him in order to expose his wicked propaganda.

Hence, I find it odd that back in 1969, Lim Kit Siang whom had written a letter to the then Chairman of DAP, Chen Man Hin urging all Malaysians to remember the May 13 tragedy is now lambasting Ibrahim Ali about the suggestion of the May 13 museum.

Back in 1969, he said;

Let May 13 be boldly imprinted in the Malaysian memory and consciousness as a stark warning to Malaysians of the madness and cost of racialism. Otherwise, May 13 will soon be relegated to the footnotes of history, completely overshadowed by even greater racial holocausts which, in comparison, the May 13 events were no more than child’s play.

What is so wrong about a museum? The American Civil War which claimed lives of more than 700,000 people was commemorated with museums and memorial services throughout The United States. They even have re-enactments and movies out of it.

Imagine the bloodiest part of American history was remembered by all its citizens because they will learn from their past mistakes and the sacrifices made by their ancestors in order to gain some sense about their nation’s past.

Yet, we here chose not to commemorate May 13 at all. Worse, some of us dare not delve into the true cause of it. Some of us tried to pin the blame into the ruling government. But now, they just made some feeble misdirection after their bluff was called.

But we all know by now who Lim Kit Siang is. A dictator who still thinks he is relevant in the political platform. His tendencies of not knowing how to look into the mirror when he speaks is his greatest forte.

Take for example his defense for the new NUJ President, Hata Wahari.

Hata Wahari is an employee of Utusan Malaysia whom in recent times, had condemned his employer as practising ‘partisan reporting‘.

He cited example of Utusan Malaysia criticising Nazri Aziz in a series of spat in their editorial column. To digress a bit, Hata seemed to be confused with his own principles when he stated that Utusan must not be a lackey of Umno; meaning, “newspapers had to be independent from the influences of any political party, be it BN or PR”.

Is criticising an Umno/BN minister a sign of overly dependent to BN?

Hata moved on to say that “Utusan in the beginning of its formation before 1961 was a newspaper which played a pivotal role in championing the spirit of nationalism, it was progressive and liberal and free from any political influences. As a reporter, I support the principles set forth by the founders of Utusan which were never politically motivated”.

Utusan is currently seen as the leader of nationalism and also progressive and liberal enough as to know what is good enough for the country. Hence, in their editorial, they had no qualms in criticising just anybody and will support something they see beneficial such as the PPSMI.

And so, what was Hata blabbering about? Should Utusan not criticise and Umno minister anymore?

If the condemnation is unfounded, then surely it is the right of the employer to start a disciplinary action to an employee who is not showing much loyalty to its employer.

Lim Kit Siang should know this. He made a precedent concerning the same situation back in the late 90’s when he sacked YB Wee Choo Keong and a couple of other DAP stalwarts for ‘not showing enough affection’ towards the party leadership.

Surely the charge, ‘not showing enough affection’, however ridiculous it sounds, can also be used by Utusan Malaysia towards any of its employee since the DAP dictator used the same tactic to politically annihilate anybody who did not offer any obeisance towards him.

Can you imagine living under the longest serving political dictator if he becomes the Prime Minister? Any squeak or muffled sounds of disrespect will be silenced.

Therefore, I urge Lim Kit Siang to be cognisant to his own political history. He is fast becoming a body of inconsistencies rather than a serious entity.

Karpal Singh made a lethargic and exasperated attempt to clean himself of an ethical dilemma recently.

It started when a columnist in New Straits Times, Shamsul Akmar, alluded that Karpal Singh had seriously breach some legal ethics and questioned his conduct back in 1997 when the latter had publicly accused Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy and barely a year later, became a defence counsel for the sodomy case.

Karpal responded back by saying that indeed he had accused Anwar in 1997 but he added that Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir (now Tun), had deemed the allegations as baseless and slanderous.

This is Karpal’s only defence against his questionable conduct. But the toothless tiger seemed to lost his his memory when YB Wee Choo Keong and Shamsul Akmar exposed the fact that he made the allegations AFTER the then prime minister had tried to defend Anwar of any accusations.

Not only did Karpal accused Anwar in Parliament back in Octobver 1997, he repeated the allegations in a public place in early 1998 as well. That was a few months after Dr Mahathir made his statement!

And so, Karpal’s has trapped himself in the corner. I would think that a man of his stature would be embarrassed and strong enough to come clean about the whole situation.

As we always say, only the brave tells the truth. The cowards will remain inconsistent.