"Demonstrasi bukan amalan demokrasi rakyat negara ini?" (7)

Berikut merupakan laporan demonstrasi anti-Federation yang keluar dalam akhbar The Malaya Tribune bertarikh 22 September 1947.

A section of the crowd which yesterday attended the mass meeting at Farrer Park, Singapore, to support the constitutional proposals drafted by the All-Malaya Council of Joint Action and Pusat Tenaga Ra'ayat.

MASS MEETING VOTES AGAINST ELECTIONS
Federation Plan Condemned

A mass meeting in Farrer Park yesterday unanimously supported the People’s Constitutional Proposals drafted by PUTERA and the All-Malaya Council of Joint Action.

The meeting, sponsored by PUTERA and the All-Malaya Council of Joint Action, was largely attended.

A resolution was passed protesting against the holding of the Singapore elections and rejecting the British Government’s latest White Paper on Malaya’s future constitution.

This, and other resolutions passed by the meeting, are to be sent to the Secretary for the Colonies, the Governor-General and the Governors of the Malayan Union and Singapore.

Representatives of nearly 90 unions, associations, and youth and women’s movements attended the meeting. Banners opposed the separation of Singapore from Malaya and condemning the White Paper.

Mr. Tan Cheng Lock, Chairman of the All-Malaya Council of Joint Action, in a speech to the crowd said:

“Broken Promise”

“The Government has broken its promise and acted in defiance of public opinion.

“The Government pledged itself to give the people a constitution based upon the consent of the governed, which would provide a good beginning from which the country might advanced towards self-government.

“Instead it appears to be persisting in imposing upon the country a constitution to which the bulk of the people are definitely and strongly opposed, thus creating a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction, frustration and resentment throughout Malaya.

“We asked for bread and to our great dismay we have been given stone.”

Mr. Tan Cheng Lock added that one of the worst features of the revised constitutional scheme was that it aimed at dividing the Malayan population into antagonistic and irreconcilable groups – thus giving Government ample scope to play one group or community against another.

PUTERA and the All-Malaya Council of Joint Action represented the most progressive public-spirited and dynamic elements of the different communities in the Malayan population and they took their stand on the solid rock of the national cause of Malaya as an united whole, he said.

“New Guise”

Mr. Philip Hoalim, chairman of the Malayan Democratic Union, said that the Constitutional Proposals drafted by PUTERA and the AMCJA directly reflected the will and desires of the most progressive and politically-conscious sections of the people of Malaya.

The proposals constituted the immediate goal of the democratic movement of Malaya.

The revised White Paper represented the views of the ruling class and the small group of privileged persons who sought to prolong their exploitation of the common people under a new guise.

“The White Paper very thoroughly reveals the author’s plan to ‘divide and rule’ the people of Malaya under the pretence of giving special privileges to the Malay community,” said Mr. Hoalim.

He added that the citizenship proposals in the White Paper were particularly revealing in this connection.

A study in faces and races was taken by a Straits Times photographer at the mass meeting at Farrer Park on Sunday, called to protest against the new constitution for the Federation of Malaya excluding Singapore.

Sumber: Akhbar The Straits Times, 22 Sept 1947