KUALA LUMPUR: If the rights of various ethnic groups guaranteed under the Federal constitution are allowed to be challenged and then abolished, it may intensify racial discord and plunge the country into chaos.
Issuing the terse warming was Tan Sri TC Goh, president of The Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) while commenting on the lawsuit by Gabungan Pelajar Melayu Semenanjung (GPMS) and the Islam Education Development Council (Mappim), with the two “pro-Opposition” groups looking to have vernacular schools declared illegal for allegedly violating the Federal Constitution.
He described the action of challenging the position of vernacular schools by exploiting some ‘grey areas’ in the Federal constitution as sheer arrogance and a gross disregard of the fundamental rights (vernacular education included) of the country’s second and third largest ethnic groups.
Noting that Chinese educationist groups Dong Jiao Zong had in last month appointed a team of lawyers to study the lawsuit, when it was first filed in the Federal Court, Goh opined that the time has come for the legal team to apply to the court to intervene. Both Jiao Zong (United Chinese School Teachers’ Association) and Dong Zong (United Chinese School Committees’ Association) are collectively known as Dong Jiao Zong.
He also called on both Chinese and Indian communities to form an alliance and to seek for the consensus and support of the majority moderate-and-rational-thinking Malay community, to jointly put this issue to rest.
He said, Dong Jiao Zong and the like-minded Indian community and moderate Malays should pool in resources to tackle the issue through legal means. This is so as to avoid overlapping actions, wastage of resources and conflicting views and strategies in dealing with the lawsuit that poses huge threat to the long-established vernacular education system in the country.
He reiterated that both the Chinese and the Indian communities should avoid handling this issue separately, instead to work together as a ‘united force’, just like how they dealt with the proposed teaching of khat in the vernacular schools.
Assuring that Huazong would give its full support to the counter measure, Goh hoped that all quarters involved could quickly reach a consensus to deal with the lawsuit in unison.
He added that the Chinese and Indian communities should also reach out to the other communities who are in favour of and in support of the existing vernacular education system in the country, to jointly defend the rights of the vernacular schools to continue to exist in this country.
He reiterated that the vernacular schools, which include the Chinese and Tamil primary schools, had existed even before independence, and like the other mother tongue educations, they too are protected under the Federal Constitution.
“Since formation of the Federation, the government through the Education Ministry has been giving annual allocations to the Chinese primary schools in aid of their development. This is undeniably a resounding testimony of the government’s recognition of the legitimacy of vernacular schools in the country,” he concluded.-pr/BNN
