NOVEMBER 28 — I have always been thinking why the nerve of the Chinese community becomes taut whenever the Umno general assembly is held annually. They seem to be worried about this and that, the emergence of extremist remarks and the passing of some resolutions unfavourable to the community.

Why is it that the general assembly of a political party which has dominated the country’s political scene for over half a century does not bring hope and expectations for Malaysians but fear and concerns? And that this thing has happened year after year.

I have no idea why the central delegates of Umno have failed to see the concerns and worries of Chinese Malaysians. That said, the top two party leaders, president Najib Tun Razak and deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin, seem to have felt our concerns. Something substantial they have done is to offer more solid assurances of the constitutional status of Chinese and Tamil primary schools in the country on the eve of the Umno general assembly.

Muhyiddin has described Chinese and Tamil primary schools as legacies of this country and that their status has been clearly inscribed in the Malaysian Education Blueprint and as such no one should heed the calls for shutting down vernacular schools.

Najib, meanwhile, reiterated that Chinese and Tamil primary schools had already been included in the country’s law, policy, Barisan Nasional manifesto and the Malaysian Education Blueprint up to 2025, and that the government would honour its pledge to safeguard their status.

As if that is not enough, Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail has also issued a statement that the “status of Chinese schools are protected by the country’s Constitution”.

These leaders’ remarks could be interpreted from two different perspectives.

On a positive note, the statements by PM, DPM and AG have shown that the constitutional status of Chinese and Tamil primary schools is protected in this country, and this is a fact that cannot be altered. Now that the government has accepted this fact, Umno must also accept it. And this fact must never be changed because of the extremist remarks of certain irresponsible Umno delegates.

On a negative note, the PM and DPM have come up with such statements because they could foresee that irresponsible remarks calling for the closure of Chinese primary schools could pop up during the upcoming general assembly.

We need to understand that if such things are proposed in the assembly, aggressive reactions would be triggered from the Chinese and Indian communities in this country. As a consequence, they had no choice but to stand up and clarify things beforehand in a bid to minimise the possible impact. Umno will need to earn more support from the Chinese and Indian communities in order to consolidate BN’s grip on the federal administration come the next general elections, which is another reality that Umno has to come to terms with.

There have been calls to close down Chinese and Tamil primary schools after the GE13, and now with the status of vernacular education accepted by the Resolutions Committee, the Chinese community naturally becomes highly concerned about this year’s Umno general assembly. Former prime minister Tun Mahathir also issued some controversial remarks before the general assembly that the acceptance of multilingual education stream by the Cabinet back in those years was purely a “political decision” as there was no provision on multilingual education stream in the Federal Constitution.

Although leaders like vice president Hishammuddin Tun Hussein, Youth chairman Khairy Jamaluddin and former prime minister Abdullah Badawi have called for self-discipline and moderation, I wonder whether the hawkish within Umno would ever buy into such well-intentioned talk.

This week’s Umno general assembly should offer some hints to the party’s direction over the next couple of years. — Sin Chew

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.