Nazri maintains stand on putting nationality before race

PETALING JAYA: Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz has maintained that he is a Malaysian first and a Malay next.


“Does any bigot have a problem with that?” he said in an open letter to an online news portal to refute a Mingguan Malaysia column written by Awang Selamat titled “Alahai Nazri” on Sunday.

Awang had questioned Nazri’s criticism of Datuk Ibrahim Ali, saying the minister had treated the Perkasa president as though he was an enemy of Umno.

The columnist also accused Nazri of being anti-Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
In response, Nazri said:

“I want Awang to know that I am always sure who my boss is. It’s not (Lim) Kit Siang or (Datuk Seri) Anwar (Ibrahim) because they are not the Prime Minister, the Barisan Nasional chairman or Umno president.”

On Ibrahim, he said Umno had never asked or needed him to help them.

“The association with him will only cause us to lose votes,” he said.

Stressing that he was not “anti-Dr Mahathir”, he said the former prime minister was the one criticising the Government and not the other way round.

“To me, so far he was the best prime minister I have served. However, as an ex-premier, there is much left to be desired.

“Regardless of who criticises the Government, (the critic) will receive relentless attacks in defence of the Government by me just as I did in the past when Dr Mahathir and Tun Abdullah (Ahmad Badawi) were prime ministers,” he added.

Nazri also stressed that he was never afraid to be criticised by the Opposition, adding, however, that being civil to rivals was the right thing to do in a democracy.

“Just like me, they are also elected by the people,” he said in the letter, which he sent from Bucharest, Romania, where he is attending the Malaysian-Romanian Inter-parliamentarian Friendship Group meet from Sept 19 to 23.

DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang, in his blog, congratulated Nazri for being the first in the Cabinet to declare he was Malaysian first and put race second.

Source ~ The Star http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/9/21/nation/7070367&sec=nation