DAP veep says Mat Sabu wrong on Tunku
A second DAP heavyweight has launched a broadside at PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu, over his remarks on the nation's history of independence.
A second DAP heavyweight has launched a broadside at PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu, over his remarks on the nation's history of independence.
In a letter
published by the
New Straits Times (NST)
today, DAP vice-chairperson Tunku Abdul Aziz said Mohamad Sabu, more popularly known as Mat Sabu, does not fully comprehend the Westminster system.
"The referendum Mat Sabu has fished out of his imaginings is a red herring. What this has done is to expose his lack of understanding of the Westminster convention or protocol regarding the appointment of a prime minister."
He was referring to Mat Sabu’s statement that, had a referendum been held, Tunku Abdul Rahman would not have become the first prime minister.
"I was 23 years old at that time and I can say that the Tunku was at the peak of his popularity and was supported and loved by all races."
Mat Sabu had made the controversial remark during a public forum last week, claiming that the independence movement spearheaded by leftist groups - then banned and oppressed by the British - had enjoyed higher support among the people.
However, Abdul Aziz rebutted that it is just an assumption raised by Mat Sabu in failing to argue with facts.
"Thus, when faced with a wall of solid historical evidence, the ever resourceful Mat Sabu has come up with a gem of a statement which relies heavily on the ifs of history. History is about what happened and why, and to rely on ifs is to merely speculate," he said in the letter.
Abdul Aziz also challenged Mat Sabu's view that only those who had resorted to violence are fit to be considered independence fighters.
He cited the example of Umno founder Onn Jaafar who united the Malays and orchestrated effective opposition against Malayan Union.
"Onn achieved this without resorting to violence, such as urging the Malays to attack British garrisons in Kluang and Seremban.
"Was he, therefore, any less of a nationalist because he used his considerable intellect to negotiate with the 'enemy' instead of killing and burning defenceless wives and children of British servicemen?"
‘Just a political jester’
This was Abdul Aziz's second letter Mat Sabu.
In the first letter headlined ‘Bukit Kepong: Insensitive remarks’ published by the NST last Wednesday, the senator said Mat Sabu "has succeeded in further reducing himself to a sad figure of fun and ridicule".
"He is, to the discerning, no more that a political jester, one of the many that the system has thrown up in all of our political parties. I say this more in sorrow than anger."
He urged Mat Sabu
(right)
to reconsider his assessment of events in a "more honest, principled and responsible way".
Abdul Aziz, who comes from a family comprising police personnel, commented that the communists "owed no loyalty except to China".
"They fought the British with the sole purpose of turning Malaya into a Chinese communist state, a satellite of the Communist Party of China."
The Malays, he added, volunteered their service not to protect British interests in Malaya, but cooperated with the colonial powers to defend the country and their religion against a godless alien ideology.
Karpal, the DAP chairperson and Bukit Gelugor MP, had earlier called on Mat Sabu to retract his remarks on the Bukit Kepong incident of Feb 23, 1950.
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