'BTN courses about facts'

While the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) or National Civics Bureau has been accused of spreading racism, its programme head Ahmad Maslan said it only talks about facts.

"If we say that two-thirds of the population consist of bumiputeras and one-third non-bumiputeras, is that considered racist?

"If we say 66 percent is bumiputera and 24 percent consists other races, is that racist? That is just stating the facts," added the deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department.

Ahmad, who is also Umno information chief, denied that BTN promotes racism as alleged by the opposition.

"We have thousands of ceramah (talks) and maybe one minute of the ceramah, the speaker makes some kind of mistake. But we cannot conclude that all (BTN) courses promote racism because of this.

"But it's also up to the people to interpret if our social contract, history and Rukun Negara have racial undertones. I don't know...that's up to them," he told a press conference in the Parliament lobby.

'In line with 1Malaysia'

Ahmad said the courses are being conducted in line with the 1Malaysia concept since Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak assumed office in April.

"Najib instructed me to upgrade the BTN module beginning last April, where we added in the 1Malaysia elements in it," he said.

Yesterday, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz said the BTN courses needed to be ‘revamped’, but Ahmad said he must have meant ‘upgraded’.

"... I think what he (Nazri) meant to say was to upgrade the module and we have been doing that for a long time. Besides, I have not received instruction (to revamp the courses),” he added.

Ahmad explained that the module is upgraded in line with whichever prime minister sits in office.

"When (Dr) Mahathir (Mohamad) was PM, the module consisted of Vision 2020, when Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was PM, the module consisted of human capital.

"So when Najib took over, we put the 1Malaysia module in the courses," he said.

Nazri: Upgrade or revamp, there will be changes

Meanwhile, Nazri, when approached at the Parliament lobby, asserted that whether it was an upgrade or a revamp, the module must be in tandem with concept of 1Malaysia.

"This decision was made a few weeks ago before the issue raised by Selangor. Whatever word you use... upgrade or revamp, I mean to me it is a change of module. Ahmad is a member of the cabinet he can't dispute my statement.

He also admitted that the programme was used to instil confidence in the Malay community so that they had nothing to feel inferior about.

"Sometimes it was used to support certain individual to probably become leader of the party... that was done before," he said.

"What I am trying to say is that the module before was to instil confidence in the Malays and now it is to instil the module of 1Malaysia... How can you have 1Malaysia when the course is for Malays and you don't have courses for other communities, so it is against 1Malaysia," he added.

[Additional reporting by S Pathmawathy]