Opened new DAP office in Kangar; moving from Perlis all the way to Putrajaya

On Saturday, 9 January 2009, I travelled to Kangar for the official opening of DAP Perlis’ office. This office marks a milestone for DAP. We have already formed six DAP branches in Perlis pending approval by ROS so hope they will speed up our application.

Ribbon cutting with DAP Perlis leaders. The two gentleman wearing kopiah are actually PAS leaders who have come to lend their support to DAP.

Here we are signing the banner to commemorate the event. DAP events are usually simple, straightforward and gimmick-free.

Saudara Lim Kit Siang addressing the crowd. Seated on his left is Wan Abd Rahim bin Wan Abdullah (PAS), the MP for Kota Bharu who actually travelled to from Kota Bharu to Kangar to lend his support.

When Dr Wan spoke, he won a lot of applause from the crowd, especially when he said that if any Malays should dare tell the ethnic Chinese to balik tongsan, you had better tell them that Malays also come from Yunnan, negeri Cina.

In my speech, I praised PAS for having taken a reasonable rational stand on issue of usage of the word Allah by non-Muslims.

And I slammed UMNO leaders for having fanned the flames of racism over the years and with regards to the Allah issue,  leading to the burning of Metro Tabernacle Church that happened the day before. UMNO is responsible because they have instigated irresponsible folks to commit this crime.

I said that I believe that the UMNO leaders who  are actually fraudsters and insincere. On the one hand, they are trying to propagate the 1Malaysia concept as they know they need the support of non-Malay Malaysians to rule. And yet, at the same time they champion Ketuanan Melayu, and incite racial hatred and hit Pakatan government in Selangor by instigating racial unrest over issues like proposed relocation of Hindu temple within Shah Alam and the proposed pig farm in Sepang. There is contradiction and hypocrisy in what UMNO say and do, and we can see it clearly on the current controversy regarding the usage of word Allah.

In my speech, I also said that the burning of churches has hurt Malaysia’s image and this will jeopardise the federal and state government’s efforts to attract tourists and investors. Malaysia will be seen as an unsafe country for investors to park their money. We are going to lose out to our neighbouring countries in South East Asia.