(Speech on the 2015 Budget debate in Parliament on Monday, Oct. 27, 2014)

First, I want to commend Malaysia for being elected for the third time and with the highest-ever 187 votes to be a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Regrettably however, Malaysia is not living up to the high international standards of moderation which Najib has set for the world despite the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s repeated statement that Malaysia’s election into the UNSC for the third time with such high votes was testimony of world recognition of Malaysia as a role model for other countries in the practice of moderation.

Have we taken the world for a ride and secured such high votes to be elected UNSC non-permanent member under false pretences that Malaysia is the very model of moderation against extremism, when in actual fact, Malaysia as a model of a peaceful, stable and harmonious multi-racial and multi-religious nation has never come under more intense unprecedented attack in the nation’s 57-year history resulting in moderation in retreat?

The volume, frequency and venom of hate speech on race and religion, promoting extremism and religious intolerance in the country in the past four years had outpaced all such hate speech in the country in the previous four decades.

The evidence of such immoderation and the rise of hate speech, extremism and intolerance posing unprecedented threat to moderation have been piling up relentlessly – in fact, in the ten days since Malaysia’s election as UNSC non-permanent member, there have been over a dozen examples of moderation under threat and attack by hate speech, extremism and intolerance. Read the rest of this entry »