Malaysian voters must prove to the world that they are not drowned in the tsunami of lies, falsehood, fake news, and hate speech in the era of social media in the six state polls on August 12 and that they can differentiate the true from the false, what is right from what is wrong.

Already I am accused of causing the May 13, 1969 racial riots in Kuala Lumpur. This is an outrageous lie and I have instituted legal action against such defamation.

If I was the cause of the May 13, 1969 riots in Kuala Lumpur, the police and the Special Branch would have taken action against me long ago.

I am reminded of the film Tanda Putera in 2013 and the attempt to insinuate that I had urinated at the flagpole in the residence of Selangor Menteri Besar causing May 13 riots.

The former Perak Chief Police Officer Yuen Yuet Leng said at the time that the “urination” incident at the flagpole in the Selangor Menteri Besar’s residence was totally fictional and remarked rightly that if there was any such a person who committed such an outrageous act, he would not have left the Selangor Menteri Besar’s residence alive!

I was never in Kuala Lumpur during the May 13, 1969 period as I was in Malacca on May 12 and Kota Kinabalu on May 13, 1969. Furthermore, there was no incidents in Bandar Melaka.

I was accused of being a communist, although the communists wanted me to lose in the parliamentary constituency of Bandar Melaka as they have launched a boycott campaign of the 1969 general election to show the irrelevance of the parliamentary struggle.

I am accused of being anti-Malay and anti-Islam, and even promoting Islamophobia, although in my 58 years of political work where I have written and spoken millions of words, I have not said or written a single word which is anti-Malay or anti-Islam.

Even my contesting in Gelang Patah in 2013 was turned into a racist issue with allegations that I was contesting in Gelang Patah because I wanted:

• the Chinese in Gelang Patah and Johor to “reject working together and sharing with the Malays”;
• the Chinese in Johor “to dislike and hate the Malays” to create “conflict and antagonism between the races”;
• create “an unhealthy racial confrontation” between the Malays and Chinese in Johor, which will be “disruptive and will not be conducive to the development of Malaysia”.

In actual fact, I contested in Gelang Patah in 2013 to show that Malaysians, regardless of race and religion, were increasingly supportive of the DAP’s objective to create an united, just, democratic, competitive, progressive, and prosperous Malaysia, whether in Malacca, Selangor, Penang, Perak or even Johore!

I am happy that the Johore State Assembly representative in Skudai, which is in Islandar Puteri (formerly Gelang Patah) parliamentary seat, is Marina Ibrahim.

Apart from missing one parliamentary term from 1999–2004, I had been Member of Parliament in Malaysia for eleven terms from 1969 to 2022 i.e. for a period of 48 years.

I challenge anyone to quote a single speech that I had made in Parliament in the past five decades which was anti-Malay or anti-Islam or promoted Islamophobia.

In fact, I welcome an independent commission of inquiry to identify those responsible for all the incendiary, inflammatory, seditious, and racist speeches, statements, and articles before, during and after the six state polls resulting in serious racial polarisation in the country.

Recently, I came across a poem which I wrote 66 years ago for my class magazine in Batu Pahat High School in 1957 when I was 16 in Form III, viz:

One for all and all for one
We care not what colour, creed or religion you belong
For aren’t each of us Malaya’s son
Then why let silly racial quarrels prolong?

This has always been my watchword throughout my public life, and I find it utterly abhorrent for anyone who are prepared to resort to such falsehoods as accuse me of being anti-Malay, anti-Islam, and promoting Islamophobia.

Anyone in Malaysia who hate Malays, or for that matter, any racial or religious group in the country, whether Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Dayaks cannot be true and patriotic Malaysians.

In my 58 years in politics, I have always regarded myself as a Malaysian first and last. I have never regarded myself purely as a Chinese, but as a Malaysian of Chinese ethnic descent whose loyalty is unswervingly to the Malaysian nation, having common cause with all Malaysians regardless of race, religion or region to build a better Malaysia for all Malaysians.

(Media Statement by DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang in Petaling Jaya on Tuesday, 11th July 2023)