Response to Malay Mail article calling CPI ‘communist’
Written by Dr. Lim Teck Ghee, Director CPI
It is not our practice to reply to criticism — or praise — on the articles and commentaries we carry in the CPI website. However the accusations by Malay Mail columnist Rusdi Mustapha warrant a rebuttal.
His Monday column ‘Seri Menanti: Daulat Tuanku! What it means’ appearing in the tabloid on Oct 12, 2009, makes a number of unfounded allegations, the most scurrilous of which are:
1. “CPI [is] creating discord among the three major races in the country via its postings.”
2. “CPI should be investigated for inciting racial hatred and for being anti-monarchy in its content.”
3. “CPI is also questioning the special rights of the Malays under the Constitution.”
4. “CPI [is a] Communist Party Initiative operating under the guise of being a legitimate outfit.”
There is not a single shred of evidence provided by Encik Rusdi to support any of these charges.
A dissection of Rusdi’s article reveals that his call for CPI to be investigated, presumably by the police, appears to be based on two of our translations — we can only assume this since he does not identify which of our content specifically incurred his wrath.
Two articles reproduced in CPI
The background to these two postings is as follows:
The first is an English translation of an article ‘Menyoal seruan 'Daulat Tuanku’ that we published on Oct 5, 2009. This article was originally a Sept 18 posting written in Malay and carried in a blog ‘Suara Keramat Pak Sako’.
The author — who uses the pseudonym ‘Pak Sako’ — wrote that the cry 'Daulat Tuanku' is often heard amongst those who support Barisan Nasional when they defend the actions of the Perak Sultan …”
According to Pak Sako, “The reasons for His Highness’ action were not divulged to the public even though it was a sensitive episode involving the democratic rights of the people. Pak Sako essentially questioned, “Is the public not entitled to know the rationale behind his royal command?”
It is difficult to fathom how Rusdi can make the quantum leap from Pak Sako’s statement that human beings should use their capacity to think and to question, “even if the subject under scrutiny is felt to be thorny” to then jump to a wholly unfounded conclusion that CPI supports the abolishment of the monarchy and encourages people to kill our rulers.
[Rusdi had written quite preposterously: “You see, there is no difference in tactics between the MPAJA (communist guerrillas during the Emergency) and the CPI: they both want the royalty to be abolished, the MPAJA wanted to kill them and the CPI is also inciting that.”]
The second scurrilous allegation contained in the Malay Mail article concerns our publication of writings by Dr Boo Cheng Hau, Opposition leader in the Johor state assembly.
Rusdi wrote that “CPI in its website also draws Malaysia as practising apartheid, which we know is not true, because almost half of the country’s good prime land and properties are owned by the Chinese.”
