After Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mah Siew Keong said Putrajaya's unity catchphrase 1Malaysia needed an aphrodisiac boost, DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang has suggested the government stock up on 'tongkat ali'.

This, said Lim, is to make up for Putrajaya's apparent lack of resolve against extremism and religious intolerance at home, in particular, the government's defence of Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali's threat to burn Malay language Bibles.

"Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has made a most laudable and praiseworthy speech in the United Nations General Assembly condemning extremism and religious intolerance as the real threat to global peace and security.

"However, the prime minister has yet to convince Malaysians that the principles of moderation he enunciated in his UN speech apply equally to his Malaysian nation-building policies at home, including having no truck with extremism and religious intolerance displayed by Ibrahim Ali in his threat to burn the Malay-language Bible.

"Or is it necessary to stock Cabinet meetings with ample supplies of 'tongkat ali' every week the Ministers meet?" he said in a statement today.

Yesterday, Mah said the 1Malaysia slogan appeared to have lost steam after the 13th general election, suggesting that it be given 'tongkat ali' (eurycoma longifolia), a root touted as an aphrodisiac.

"The volume, frequency and venom of hate speech on race and religion, promoting extremism and religious intolerance in the country in the past four years had outpaced all such hate speech in the country in the previous four decades.

"One such example is the irresponsible threat by Ibrahim Ali to burn the Malay-language Bible, which has never been uttered before," said Lim.

Collective responsibilty

On Oct 8, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri in a writtem parliamentary reply said Ibrahim would not be prosecuted for his threat as he had meant to "defend Islam".

Nancy, who was heavily criticised for the response, later said she was merely conveying the official reason from the Attorney-General's Chambers which has refused to prosecute Ibrahim.

Lim said Nancy's response reflects poorly on the entire cabinet but the government does not appear to want to rebut Nancy.

"Has the principle of collective ministerial responsibility in Malaysia degenerated in practice to mean 'that no one is responsible'?

"Or, to quote Mah, was the lack of 'tongkat ali' the reason why the cabinet abdicated from its collective responsibility from taking a stand on Nancy’s parliamentary answer on why Ibrahim Ali was not prosecuted?" he said.

Lim said Malaysians appear to be mindful of the deteriorating religious and ethic hatred as 32 percent of Malaysians cited it as the biggest global threat today, the highest among Asian countries.

This is according to the Greatest Dangers in the World Survey by Pew Research Centre which was carried out from March 17 to June 5.

"If it (the survey) was conducted today, the saliency of religious and ethnic hatred as posing the greatest danger to the world would have risen to a higher pitch," he said.