The hudud card: MCA's big chill

"...in the hands of politicians, grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery..." - John le Carré (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)

At this late stage in the game you can't blame Donald Lim for distinguishing between serving the people of Selangor if BN wins (the "people" being an afterthought) and continuing to defend the interest of the Chinese (the main priority).

He and his Umno minders realise that the MCA is akin to the wounded soldier whose better off left on the battlefield (for the advancement of higher objectives) but who is being dragged along by his comrades out of charity and perhaps a fair bit of contempt. Honour and brotherhood having fled the war zone a long time ago, if they were ever present.

MCA's hollow pledge to prevent Selangor from being turned into an Islamic paradise is the final card in a losing streak that would no doubt see the DAP reigning supreme as far as the Chinese vote is concerned in the next general election.

Where DAP used to be a counterbalance to MCA with Chinese dealings with Umno, it would seem that the Chinese are making their stand (perhaps the most important one) by abandoning MCA for DAP after decades of playing nice and getting diminishing returns on their racial expectations.

MCA did a piss poor job in its role as a moderating presence in the ruling coalition as far as impeding the creeping process of Islamisation, or more accurately Arabisation, that has afflicted this country.

And as far as the counter balance theory goes, all the DAP managed to achieve is the strengthening of the perception that the non-Malays, specifically the Chinese, were opportunistic ‘pendatangs' who would shift allegiances when it suited them. Racial politics is a bitch.

Playing the hudud card is just sealing its fate when it comes to a sizeable section of the Chinese electorate disgusted at the running dog antics of this corrupt party infested with plutocrats or at least patronised by those who aspire to that class.

If anything, the constant barrage of anti-Chinese sentiment directed by Umno at the DAP has radicalised the Chinese community and the MCA is seen as collaborators working with the enemy to subjugate a community which is only fighting for its rights.

While the MCA constantly harps on the hudud issue, Pakatan Rakyat has been for the most part disciplined in its response to these provocations.

The fact that most Chinese Pakatan supporters are more than willing to put this issue on the backburner while on the march to Putrajaya (much to the delight of the moderates in PAS) and PAS itself with the ascension of the Edrogans, is playing well with others, is an indication that whatever racial or religious compromises coming out of Pakatan (tenuous as it may be) is a workable alternative to the ‘my way or the highway' dogma of BN.

The Islamic peril campaign 

While Umno continues to bait PAS on its Islamic credentials and claiming the real power behind PAS is the DAP mandarins, the MCA continues on its fear mongering Islamic peril campaign.

Don't BN strategists realise the cockamamieness of this attack plan? On the one hand, you have one party in your alliance claiming that their opponent is not religious enough and on the other, you have another party from the same alliance warning that that same opponent is too religious.

I understand they are speaking to two different audiences but doesn't BN realise that these two different audiences are on the same page because they have a common goal?

And doesn't the MCA realise that every time Umno demonises the Chinese community (and Umno propaganda organs generally attack the Chinese community and when they do attack the DAP, they don't have the finesse to make such attacks without tarring the whole Chinese community), it is just further evidence that the MCA can only stand by while the Chinese community and their interests are attacked by Umno even though the real target of all this scapegoating is the DAP.

Of course, historically the Chinese have always been convenient scapegoats for whatever inferiority that decades of Umnoism has wrought and the community itself has played its part in this unfortunate narrative.

Furthermore, haven't the geniuses in MCA caught on to the fact that Umno's continued onslaught on PAS' Islamic credentials works for the political benefit of the DAP?

By continuously claiming that PAS' Islamic preoccupations are lacking and they are being controlled by the ‘Chinese' DAP, this shows that at the very least PAS is not as extreme as Umno and that maybe the DAP is acting as a moderating influence in the alternative alliance.

And what does this mean as far as ‘Chinese' interest and the Islamisation process is concerned? It means that the DAP would do a better job at slowing down the Islamisation process if they ever came into power with the rest of their coalition partners.

When you have BN-friendly politicians like Hasan Ali (left) and Zulkifli Nordin stoking racial and religious embers, not to mention Umno members whose rhetoric does the same and who belong to ultra right-wing groups like Perkasa, it's difficult to make the claim that your is the centrist alliance.

Meanwhile, PAS is dropping candidates like Nasharudin Mat Isa and openly snipping at members who are perceived as pro-Umno and Muslim hardliners, which nurture the perception that it is Umno with its cow-head protestors and their ilk that pose the greater Islamic threat.

PAS is shrewdly playing the game after decades of scrambling around like a bull in a China shop. Just as how Umno demonises the Chinese community in an attempt to appeal to the baser instincts of the Malay electorate, PAS uses the DAP as a safety valve against the more extremist elements in its fold.

What the moderates can't voice out, the DAP does for them - starting a dialogue which always ends with compromises and usually means making Islamic elements palatable to the non-Muslims and vice versa, which is why all this talk about welfare state and the "time is not right for hudud" echoes through Pakatan cyberspace.

Delusion of MCA

Umno knows of course that the reality is that PAS is not solely made up of mullahs' intent on establishing a greater caliphate or whatever in this region.

PAS has always had a plurality of voices, but at this time the moderate tones are leading the charge to Putrajaya while the hardliners have no problem making the appropriate noises on the sidelines and occasionally indulging in the religious excesses they are known for as a reminder they are will always be the religious party du jour.

After all, when it comes to the big religious questions and bigotries, more often than not PAS and Umno are on the same religious page.

The tension which occasionally flares up between the alternate alliance pact members over whatever politically-motivated Umno issue, works to the advantage of the alliance because this as seen as evidence that pact members are each fighting for their communities ‘rights' in an open manner instead of the sub rosa (behind closed doors) method that is perceived as merely Umno's way of hoodwinking or threatening its other members.

As I mentioned in previous pieces one of the main motivations for kicking BN out is hate. The MCA may think appropriating Pakatan catchphrases and spinning it as a weapon against Pakatan (the DAP specifically) is something that would gain them political mileage.

They could not be more wrong. By mocking the Chinese community with "Janji Tidak Ditepati" all they are doing is reminding the community that the only role MCA played all these decades was that of political eunuchs who enriched themselves while the hard work of furthering the communities' interest was done on the backs of diverse economic class which had worked the Umno system and resulted in the toxic private sector rife with racism and classism of its own.

Not to mention that precious ‘right' of vernacular schools and ‘special' positions of the Malays (combined with a whole range of policies) has been anathema to any kind of social cohesion that this country desperately needs, which is why those very same ‘interests' that the MCA is deluded enough to think they are still championing has been usurped by a rival Chinese party riding the multicultural/racial wave that has caught the imagination of a certain section of the Malaysian voting public.

The whole issue of water and electricity which the MCA has painted as a problem which Pakatan and the DAP have been unable to resolve has been turned into a question of the roles of the federal and state government in either encouraging or hampering the will of the rakyat.

The reality is that Umno is viewed as the tyrant impeding populist sentiment and the MCA playing the role of willing enforcer, making threats, threats mostly in these politically turbulent times.

The irony, of course, is that the time will eventually come when non-Malay race-based parties will lose their utilitarian value because of the changing demographic and because there is no common ideological base that Pakatan shares beyond claiming the throne in Putrajaya, any party which inherits the ‘responsibilities' of the MCA is doomed to the same fate. Like I said, racial politics is a bitch and apparently an unforgiving one.

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (rtd) in the Royal Malaysian Navy.