The exclusive screening of the dishonest and unbalanced May 13 film, Tanda Putera, to Felda settlers at the Putra World Trade Centre yesterday after asking journalists to leave is a final admission by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that he is in desperate straits in facing the unavoidable 13th General Elections and the failures of all his efforts so far to win back support from Malaysian voters – including the spectacularly disastrous initiative spending RM3.5 million to invite Korean K-Pop superstar Psy to the Penang Barisan Nasional Chinese New Yew Open House leaving behind the unforgettable “3 Yes for Psy, 3 Noes for BN” episode.
I am shocked that a Prime Minister who has made “1Malaysia” his signature policy has now repudiated his National Transformation Programme and discredited all his preaching of moderation and ethics at national and international forums by giving official blessings to a film which mischievously and maliciously tried to portray me as responsible for the May 13 riots in 1969.
I have not been given an opportunity to see the film but the history of its publicity is on public record.
Since July last year, I had categorically denied the preposterous claim which had appeared on the official Facebook page of the May 13 movie, Tanda Putra, that I had urinated on the flagpole in front of the then Selangor Mentri Besar’s residence provoking the May 13 riots in 1969.
The facebook had carried a photo portraying me being manhandled, with the caption:
“Lim Kit Siang telah kencing di bawah tiang bendera Selangor yang terpacak di rumah menteri besar Selangor ketika itu, Harun Idris, (Lim Kit Siang had urinated at the foot of the flagpole bearing the Selangor flag at the then Selangor MB’s Harun Idris’ house)”
The photo was posted in the album in the Facebook titled ‘Peristiwa-peristiwa yang dimuatkan di dalam filem ini’ (Events depicted in this movie).
Although the photo and caption have since been removed from the movie’s official page, I have a screenshot of the earlier posting.
A fortnight later, Aida Fitra Buyong, the executive producer of the movie, Tanda Putera, added insult to injury when she alleged that I was being “defensive” over the publication of my photograph on the May 13 film’s official Facebook page perpetrating the lie that I had urinated at the flagpole bearing the Selangor flag at the then Selangor Mentri Besar’s residence, provoking May 13, 1969 riots.
I found this bare-faced and irresponsible attitude by the creators of the May 13 film, unrepentant in their defence of lies and falsehoods and utterly contemptuous of the truth, in particular about the total fiction about the urination at the then Selangor Mentri Besar’s residence provoking May 13, 1969 riots when I was never in Kuala Lumpur on May 11, 12 and 13, 1969, doubly scandalous, outrageous and offensive.
It completely debunked the claim by Tanda Putera’s director Datin Paduka Shuhaimi Baba that the May 13 riot scene, which lasts about 10 minutes of the 115-minute film, was historically accurate.
According to yesterday’s Malaysiakini report, ‘PM wants May 13 film shown to Felda settlers’, those who watched the film said there was “No Kit Siang urination” although “the controversial scene of urination on the flag pole bearing the Selangor flag outside the then Mentri Besar Harun Idris’ residence was in the film but it was done by a group of Chinese youths”.
I find this completely unsatisfactory as the 10,000 UMNO/Barisan Nasional cybertroopers had been flooding the social media since last year with downright lies and dangerous falsehoods that I had caused the May 13 riots in 1969 shouting the most racist slogans and urinating on the flagpole outside the Selangor Mentri Besar’s residence although I had said both in and out of Parliament that I was not in Kuala Lumpur on May 11, 12 and 13, 1969.
Furthermore, isn’t the scene of “a group of Chinese youths” allegedly urinating on the flag pole outside the Selangor Mentri Besar’s residence not only fictitious and a total figment of the imagination, but dangerously racist and criminally incendiary and seditious?
How can a Prime Minister who proclaims an inclusive 1Malaysia policy give his blessing to such a falsehood, which is seditious and criminally incendiary and inflammatory to sow racial hatred and distrust at a very sensitive moment in the nation’s history facing the 13GE?
Najib owes the Malaysian nation a full explanation as to why he has given his official blessing to the May 13 film which portrays such downright lies and dangerous falsehoods as the portrayal of a “group of Chinese youths” urinating on the flagpole outside the Selangor Mentri Besar’s residence?