Repay Malay sacrifice by using BM, urges ex-judge
Former Appeals Court Judge Mohd Noor Abdullah has urged non-Malays to repay the past “sacrifice” made by the Malays in allowing Bahasa Melayu (BM) to be written in the Roman script for the sake of national unity.
Former Appeals Court Judge Mohd Noor Abdullah has urged non-Malays to repay the past “sacrifice” made by the Malays in allowing Bahasa Melayu (BM) to be written in the Roman script for the sake of national unity.
According to him, BM was originally written in Jawi but the Malays allowed the Romanised version be used to make it easier for the other races to learn it as the national language.
“The non-Malays must repay this sacrifice by learning BM, and using BM every day,” Mohd Noor (
centre in photo
) said during a lecture in Kuala Lumpur today.
Mohd Noor, who courted controversy last month when he warned the Chinese community of a backlash from the Malays for their "betrayal" in the 13th general election, today claimed the Malays allowed use of the Roman script at the cost of distancing themselves from the Quran and Hadith.
“If BM is written (in) Jawi, how will the Chinese (and) Indians learn the national language in Jawi? Because of that, BM used the Roman script, or writing.
“This is a sacrifice for the Malay people because by allowing the national language to use Roman (script), the Malays will be far from Jawi writings, Quran and Hadith, that all uses Jawi.
“For the sake of unity, the Malays were willing to change to Romanised BM.”
'Convert vernacular schools to national schools'
He also reiterated his stand that the existence of Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools is inconsistent with the federal constitution.
According to the former judge, such schools should be converted to national schools.
The move, he said, would ensure that the use of BM develops well in official affairs and does not compete with the two other languages, which will also be used as mediums in schools.
He said this during a lecture on ‘the position of vernacular schools from the perspective of Article 152 of the federal constitution’ organised by the Young Journalists Club of Malaysia.
In the ensuing press conference, Mohd Noor declined to comment on his previous statement concerning Chinese “betrayal”.
‘Let it be, don't assail me to make people brand me as unfit to be a judge (before this),” he said.
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