PETALING JAYA, Jan 8 (Sin Chew Daily) — Parti Bumiputera Perkasa Malaysia (PUTRA) vice president Mohd Khairul Azam Abdul Aziz said his party wrote a letter to the principal of SMK Pusat Bandar Puchong 1 after receiving a complaint from a parent requesting the school to take down all Chinese New Year decorations.

He said he was aware that the CNY celebration had nothing to do with religion, but this was a stereotyped impression which he said his party had no obligation to rectify.

He told Sin Chew Daily in a telephone interview that PUTRA was satisfied that the school had instructed its students to take down the CNY decorations. He insisted that the party had no personal agenda in this whole thing.

“You must know that there are two elements: fact and perception.

“I'm not talking about the fact now. The fact is, CNY is not religious celebration which we all know. However, our society tends to associate the celebration with religion.

“How do I know what your religion looks like? This is the stereotyped impression that CNY is a religious festivity, which can be wrong but it doesn't matter.

“You need to accept that everything in this country has been built upon the foundation of 'fact' and 'perception', and very often 'perception' supersedes 'fact'.

“We don't have this obligation to rectify the stereotyped perception. This is our perception. You can't fight it!”

Mohd Khairul said the party's letter gave the school three days to take down all CNY decorations, failing which it would lodge a report to the authorities.

“This is not a threat!

“You need to understand what 'threat' is. 'Threat' is an act that will endanger the safety of an individual. We never said we would burn down the school after three days. We just said we would lodge a report.”