DAP’s stand on khat reflects view of people — Chong

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KUCHING: DAP maintains its stand that khat or Jawi calligraphy be made optional to students instead of making it a compulsory subject.

DAP Sarawak chairman Chong Chieng Jen said in a statement yesterday that is also the view of the majority of people in Sarawak, in response to Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) president Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing’s criticism against DAP over the issue.

Chong said it was the Barisan Nasional (BN) government which has created all this mess when the BN government made the policy decision to introduce Jawi script calligraphy in SJKC and SJKT Bahasa Melayu syllabus in 2014 with the view of implementing it in Year 4 in 2020.

“Had there been no change of government in 2018, the new syllabus would definitely be implemented and all objections would be met with extremist racist acts of Umno and Umno youths, to be followed by official suppression and even police interrogations and/or arrests,” said Chong who is also Stampin MP and Kota Sentosa assemblyman.

In the past, when such sensitive issues were voiced out by the Chinese community or educationists, there would be demonstrations and some intimidating violent acts by the Umno youths in attempt to silence such dissenting voices, he said.

Chong added when BN was in power, MCA, Gerakan and SUPP talked big in the press but dared not raise their voice in the cabinet.

“In the case of DAP and the new Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, we don’t talk big in the press but argue hard in the cabinet.

“It is fortunate that we had a change of government. Under the new PH government, there is no suppression of dissident voices and no Umno-type of racist demonstrations and acts to counter the objections.

“Under the new PH government, we accept strong and open objections and criticisms, and we argue amongst ourselves in a civilised manner without any such hooligan acts of the past Umno youth by our PH partners.”