With the dust yet to settle over the racist remarks made by an Umno leader, DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang exposes another disturbing incident.

This time around the protagonist is the National Civic Bureau or BTN, which has been accused of conducting indoctrination programmes peppered with racism.

najib tun razak 040808 Describing the incident as another blow to nation building, Lim asked if Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak would apologise for this as well.

On Tuesday, Najib publicly apologised for the racist remarks made by Bukit Bendera Umno division chief Ahmad Ismail.

"Is Najib next to apologise for the rank racism of BTN in purveying similar communal poison in its indoctrination courses?" asked Lim in a posting on his blog.

The issue was highlighted in a letter to Lim by an outraged parent, which read:

I would like to bring to the attention of Najib the pain endured by the young non-Malay JPA (public service department) scholars who are required to go through a five-day BTN programme at certain camps in the country. To be fair, many moderate Malay students too cried and were hurt by some racist comments made by the instructors.

As part of the course, which is mandatory before they are sent overseas, all non-Malays are segregated and given lectures on the history of the country and how the immigration of the Chinese and Indians had taken place. And finally how the Chinese and Indians were given citizenship. The Malays too had their own similar sessions.

The instructors blatantly told them that they should not question the rights and privileges of the Malays as the non-Malays should be thankful that they were given citizenship status and a place to stay on their soil. My daughter together with the other non-Malay students was shocked and went back to their dormitories depressed. And to the Malay students, the instructors told them to be aware of this fact and not to mix too freely with the non-Malays.

A Malay friend of my daughter came back crying to the dormitory saying that she could not take the racist position taken by the government authority. My daughter then began questioning the bumiputra policy and was disgusted with such blatant indoctrination. This incident has also made the students harbour anger and resentment. Their fear for the authorities and losing their scholarships made them keep their cool. I am not exaggerating here - ask all the JPA students to write in anonymously and you will know the truth.

These are young minds being polluted with racism. Tens of thousands of students have gone through this programme and more will be attending it in the future. So can you blame them when they exhibit their racist tendencies when in authority? How could the JPA allow such a syllabus for the cream of the nation, who will one day be entrusted to implement government policies fairly?

So, will Najib take responsibility for the racist syllabus and subsequently the racist remarks and apologise to the tens of thousands of students and parents who were hurt by such hurtful remarks? Of course knowing the BN government, it will deny this. Believe me, this is the absolute truth.

My call to Najib is to immediately probe into this claim with the help of a multi-racial team of officers from Suhakam but please maintain the anonymity of the young children who have everything to lose.

lim kit siang 02 Meanwhile, Lim said BTN's 'racist' indoctrination course is a great disservice to both Malay and non-Malay JPA scholars as well as to Malaysian nation-building, the Merdeka social contract, the Malaysia Agreement, Rukunegara, Vision 2020 and Bangsa Malaysia.

"It is time that BTN's racist indoctrination courses be exposed and all true Malaysians, both Malays and non-Malays, are invited to expose such extremist excesses and communal poison in BTN indoctrination courses as a prelude for its total revamp if not abolition," he added.