KUCHING: Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing has slammed Dayak National Congress (DNC) president Paul Raja for the latter’s comments which the former labelled as “dirty-minded” and smacked of self-righteousness.
Tiong was among the guests at a recent Gawai Dayak dinner held in Sibu, and he denied claims of nudity among the performers during a cowboy (country-western) dance.
“Gawai Dayak is widely celebrated to honour the multicultural and harmonious coexistence of all races.
“Unfortunately, it has been turned into a racial issue by those with evil and obscene thoughts. Screenshots of performers at a recent dinner were shared online and this had disrupted the daily lives of those involved with the event.
“Even the simple art of dance has been demonised. This development is very disturbing because all forms of dance should be treated with equal respect.
“It is DNC president Paul Raja who should be the one apologising to the performers and the public for taking the performance out of context, belittling the cultural and artistic performances, and creating unnecessary turmoil!” Tiong fired back on social media yesterday.
“A person with bad intentions will not be able to avert his eyes even if the performers were fully clothed.
“Perhaps he cannot resist the lure of creating gossip and insists on turning an innocent performance into something obscene in his head.
“Because of people like Raja, they have turned the dance performance into a political issue, making people wonder if other races must apologise for their own cultural costumes that are too small.”
Based on Raja’s argument, he cited examples of performers in Hawaii and questioned whether these people should apologise as well.
“It is really surprising how people like Raja have such skills for making an issue out of nothing. But in this case it is worse because his words have threatened the harmonious social fabric of Sarawak.
“His actions should not be tolerated nor allowed to sprout in East Malaysia. Moreover, if he wants others to respect him, he clearly needs to learn to respect others. Not to mention, he must apologise for his dirty-minded attitude against arts and culture,” Tiong emphasised.
He reminded Raja and Tedung — a social media account deemed as a fake account — to stop using race as their political betting chips.
“You should be ashamed of your words and actions, and should apologise to those dancers.
“Our country has always sought to seek common ground and strength in our diversity while accommodating each other’s cultural differences.
“Only in doing so can we maintain peace, unity and harmony among all our people,” Tiong stressed.
