PAS Youth: Abolish race-based parties, not vernacular schools

 PAS Youth today questioned the calls by certain quarters to do away with vernacular Chinese and Tamil schools in order to achieve racial harmony, saying racial tensions were the work of politicians and not the educational institutions.

"Racial problems in this country have repeatedly surfaced due to the existence of race-based political parties such as UMNO, MCA and MIC.

"These are the parties which the ROS [Registrar of Societies] should ban," said PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan.

He said unlike political parties which shun certain communities, the vernacular schools including privately-funded Islamic schools were open to all races.

"Such is not the case with the membership rule in UMNO, MCA and MIC, which limits to certain communities. Every year in their general assemblies, these parties would raise demands specific to their respective ethnic group and (in the process) hurt sensitivities of others," added Nasrudin, who is also member of parliament for Temerloh.

(Harakah Daily)