It’s politics that causes disunity, says CPI chief

(FMT) – Centre for Policy Initiatives chief executive Lim Teck Ghee has rejected the theory that disunity among Malaysia’s races is caused by segregation through the education system.

Instead, he attributes the problem to the political use of race and religion.

“If Umno and PAS give up on the ideology of Ketuanan Melayu and Islam, there would be greater unity among races,” he told FMT.

Lim gave his comment as a reaction to remarks made recently by Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

Khairy, speaking at a TN50x dialogue session, said disunity was caused by the separation of schools into national schools, Chinese schools, Tamil schools, tahfiz schools and private and international schools.

Lim said he agreed that it was not desirable for Malaysian students to be separated by the school system.

“But the main separation or segregation is not found in Chinese schools, which have a comparatively large non-Chinese enrolment,” he said. “It is found instead in Malay religious schools and Mara schools and colleges.”

He remarked that Khairy must be well aware of the situation in government-run Mara colleges and the public universities where, he alleged, Umno’s policy of keeping them a Malay domain prevailed.

“It must be remembered that these institutions draw entirely on public funds to support them,” he added.

As for private schools, he said they were clearly open to all communities, including foreigners.