THE MERDEKA DILEMMA

I am surprise to find out that the Malaysian Malays are retaliating by emailing the 'Speech delivered by Tun V.T. Sambanthan in the Dewan Rakyat (Parliament) on 1st June 1965', which reads as follows::

"Now, in 1955 we won the elections with a great majority. Then we obtained freedom in two years time. During this period, we had to discuss citizenship and various other things. Now, what did the Malays do – since we are speaking on racial lines – what did the Malay leadership do? They had 88 percent of the electorate still with them. What did they do with citizenship? If we look around in Asia and in East Asia, particularly, you will find that my race the Indian race, is not welcomed in Ceylon, is not welcomed in Burma. Look at my brother Chinese race, it is not welcomed in Thailand, in Vietnam, in Cambodia, in all the other areas. What help do they get for citizenship in all these territories? In Burma, as we know, Indians have been send packing, in Ceylon they refused them citizenship and in Burma it is likewise. I know it, you know it. And yet in Malaya what happened? Here, we found that the Malay leadership said, "We shall take them unto ourselves as brothers, we shall give them full opportunity to live in this country, we shall give them every opportunity to become citizens". And so, in 1957, for the whole year, we waived language qualifications, and tens of thousands of Indians, Chinese, Ceylonese and others became citizens."

This speech is history and lets leave it as it is. Its not going to benefit anyone, since many changes has happened subsequent to this incident.

Its been half a century now since Independence and its time for every citizen to be treated equally and fairly. There should be no disparity between the communities except for the natives or Orang Asli, since they are still backward.

Every community has struggle to secure the Independence of this nation and it may be time that they treat everyone as brothers and sisters. Then, this sort of incidence will never occur.

Let's face reality.