Thursday, August 10, 2006

Pressure on Ethnic Relationship Talks

" Greetings of solidarity and peace from Y4C!
This afternoon, we received a call from the Masjid management. He told me that they received the pressures from the authority for not rent the hall to our Alternative Course on Ethnic Relationship. We are very disappointed with such unnecessary and high handed ways to stop the civil society to conduct a rationale, mature and important discussion on the ethnic relationship. The government should encourage more open dialogue and discussion on the ethnic relationship. Instead of compulsory the course in the university, the government should allow Y4C to hold the activity in the hall. Although Y4C faced these difficulties, we will continue our program as usual. We are going to move to Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall.
"

I had received the email from my friend regarding the ethnic relationship talks which I posted last week. Alright, it mentioned that “pressures coming from the authority”. Who pressure the Masjid management? This is indeed a big question mark. I have attended the talk for less than 20 minutes last week. A huge crowd had turned up for the event. One SB just sat beside me and kept busy writing his notes. I won’t blame him since he was carrying out his normal duty. “Was it because of his report”, question mark again. Overall, I don’t think that the contents of the talk pose any threats to current authority. At the same time, it was organized in a peaceful manner with majority of Malay and Chinese participants. Our nation will celebrate its 49 birthday at the end of this month and to discuss those ethnic issues openly and academically under the roof of the university is banned. I probably believe that we are going nowhere!

2 comments:

The Soothsayer said...

We are getting nowhere. I wonder if that's the government's plan all along.

CYYeoh said...

Nothing change even under Pak Lah leadership!