DAP today said MCA is “history” now that it has failed to even ensure the contributions of its founding leaders make the history books in schools.
Its parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang said even the likes of Tun Tan Siew Sin, the third MCA president, first Commerce and Industry Minister and then Finance Minister; and Penang’s first chief minister Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee were not being accorded proper respect and recognition.
He said this was startling, referring to the report “Penang’s first CM will not be in history books” in The Star.
“Mahdzir’s explanation is neither satisfactory nor acceptable,” Lim said, arguing that it the state’s name could be corrected, the omission of Wong’s role in the formation of Malaysia and as a member of the Cobbold Commission, which recommended positively on the establishment of Malaysia in 1964, also could be rectified,” he said in a statement last night.
Lim said pages 10 and 11 in the textbooks mentioned Malaysian leaders like Umno’s Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, Sabah leaders Tun Fuad Stephens and Tun Mustapha Datu Harun, Sarawak leaders Stephen Kalong Ningkan, Temenggong Jugah and Ong Kee Hui, and even Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, as “founders” of Malaysia.
There were no mention of any MCA leader like Wong and Tan.
Lim acknowledged that MCA ministers and leaders had been protesting that their founding leaders had been sidelined in the history books for the last three weeks.
He cited a Facebook posting by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong, who was formerly deputy education minister from 2008 to 2013, saying that he and current party president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai had managed to persuade the Education Minister to feature Wong more prominently in the history textbooks and to rectify the sidelining of MCA’s contributions to the nation.
Wee had said that MCA wanted history textbooks to truly reflect the history of Malaysia and to remind future generations that Wong was a member of the Cobbold Commission, the first chief minister of Penang and the man who proclaimed Independence at the Esplanade in George Town on Merdeka Day.
However, Lim questioned what use was there to have seven MCA leaders in the Cabinet today when they could not get Wong recognised in the history textbook.
“What is the use of having three ministers and four deputy ministers, including one in the Education Ministry, when MCA cannot even protect the name, dignity and national services and contribution of their founding leaders like Tan and Wong in the history textbooks?” – December 23, 2015.
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