27 August 2010 – NST
KUALA LUMPUR: A special fund will be set up to dispense grants to youth organisations wanting to carry out 1Malaysia-related activities, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said yesterday. The prime minister said he would put a mechanism in place soon to dispense funds to those looking to implement such programmes.
"One of the proposals by the Barisan Nasional Youth Lab which attracted my attention is the call to set up such a fund to support 1Malaysia programmes to be carried out by youths," he said while fielding questions during a BN Youth Lab report town hall session here.
He was confident that the majority of the lab's findings would be implemented. Najib, who is also finance minister, said he would try to incorporate and implement some of the lab's findings in the forthcoming budget.
On racism, Najib said the government would not tolerate it from anyone. "Our stand is not to tolerate any racist remarks by anyone."We must adopt a zero-tolerance policy and not play up racial issues," he said.
Najib, however, said the authorities had to check the facts before acting as the claims of racism could have been blown out of proportion. On direct membership in the BN, Najib said: "We are still thinking of this idea.
"We'll have a BN convention at the end of the year and we will decide then on the idea of direct membership."So don't join any political parties until then," he quipped.
Earlier, while addressing 400 BN youth leaders and lab participants, Najib said the era of fist-waving and slogan-shouting was over. He said the use of force to display might was no longer possible to get the public to listen to the government's line of reasoning on any issue.
"The 21st century is about the contest of ideas. It is about using your intellect. It is not about the use of power in an arbitrary manner. "It simply means we (the BN) have to use our intellect to convince the public. To show the public that our ideas are better than the opposition's."
BN Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin earlier presented the lab's findings on social and economic issues. The sample for the survey by the lab consisted of 7,500 youths who were apolitical and could provide honest feedback.The findings were made over a period of time through focus groups or social networking tools like Facebook or Twitter.
Khairy said one of the findings of the lab on integration and fostering better racial ties in the spirit of 1Malaysia was to set up a fund to help youths run 1Malaysia-related programmes.He said the fund could dispense about RM5,000 to youth organisations to carry out activities.
Khairy added that the lab also proposed several steps which could help with integration, including providing tax breaks for companies with a multi-racial work force, tax breaks for companies with multi-racial partnerships and restaurants and eateries which were halal-certified or took into consideration religious sensitivities of Hindus and Buddhists by not serving beef or providing vegetarian fare.
The lab also called on the government to ensure that Mandarin and Tamil were taught in national schools to make them attractive to non-Malay pupils.During the lively hour-long dialogue, participants raised questions on how the government hoped to implement the lab's findings and how it planned to deal with racist civil servants.
Some wondered if the BN would adopt direct membership into its ranks rather than the current arrangement where one had to be a member of a component party to be in the coalition. Several undergraduates wanted to know if the government would allow local undergraduates to take part in politics.
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