Juxtaposed, the two events perfectly reflected the existential dilemma of the DAP.
On the one hand, you had its durable adviser officiating a roundtable discussion yesterday on the high incidence of Indian youth in violent crime; on the other, the Orang Asli rights activist Bah Tony, who surprisingly joined the party a little more than a year ago, resigns abruptly from its Perak wing, albeit, without apparent public rancour.
With its right hand, the DAP is trying its considerable best to shift the public perception that it is a Chinese-dominated party; with its left, it continues to lose significant recruits to its ostensibly multiracial platform because of the warlord politics of oligarchic elements in its Perak leadership.
Lim Kit Siang's (right) moderation of a roundtable discussion in Parliament on the high incidence of Indian youth in violent crime which saw 15 Pakatan Rakyat MPs and a host of NGO activists attend wasn't merely an example of the party's programme of outreach to communities other than the Chinese.
To Lim, 71, the chairing of the discussion, in response to fellow DAP MP M Manogaran's (Teluk Intan) initiative at convening the meeting, represented a continuum - not concession - in his lifelong espousal of multiracialism.
But whatever he wins for his party on the straights of multiracialism, it would lose on the roundabouts of warlordism, as evidenced by the departure of Bah Tony, 58, the latest instance of the fallout the party would suffer if incipient warlordism is allowed to go unchallenged.
A coup for DAP...
The Orang Asli activist, a former bank officer who was admitted to the Bar last year, has not revealed the reasons for his departure from the DAP.
In the first place, it was surprise that Bah Tony (left) chose the DAP as the political vehicle for his activism on behalf of his community, the Orang Asli.
Truth to tell, the Orang Asli are wont to look at the DAP with askance, viewing it as the party that is the more likely to attract the support of the very people who encroach on the domains it considers its territory and having to engage in commerce with them that a subsistence mentality on the Orang Asli's part is apt to regard as sharp practice.
In other words, long-time activist Bah Tony's enlisting with the DAP was out of kilter with the vibes of a community that, if at all it decides on political representation, would opt for the vaunted multiracialism of the PKR rather than the ostensible one of the DAP.
In sum, Bah Tony's decision to join the DAP in June 2011 was coup for the DAP, a sign that the multiracial politics of its founders, Dr Chen Man Hin and Lim, were beginning to resonate in unexpected quarters.
One candidate, one seat
But Bah Tony, the odds-on favourite to wrest the Chenderiang state seat from the MCA, did not get the elevation in the Perak wing of the party his status in his community augured for him.
He could not have, given what we know of the warlordism practiced by Perak DAP chief Ngeh Koo Ham (right) because Bah Tony is more comfortable and consorts more easily with the faction of the party that is on the outs with Ngeh and his cousin, Nga Kor Ming, a pair that runs the Perak wing of the DAP as a closed shop, with the merest nods to multiracialism and openness.
Put simply, if Lim is a winner for the DAP, the Foochow cousins are losers.
Enough has occurred the last two years to make the point such that party chairperson Karpal Singh's suggestion that a DAP policy of one candidate-for-one seat in the 13th general election, with an honourable exception for secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, is the expedient way out of its problem of how to thwart incipient warlordism.
Both Ngeh and Nga are incumbent parliamentary and state representatives, so a DAP bar on dual representation, with its advantage of widening opportunities for its members to become elected and even executive legislators, would enjoy the additional merit of being a check on a warlord problem that would be a greater menace to the party's future growth than it is now, when it has already claimed casualties like Bah Tony.
On the one hand, you had its durable adviser officiating a roundtable discussion yesterday on the high incidence of Indian youth in violent crime; on the other, the Orang Asli rights activist Bah Tony, who surprisingly joined the party a little more than a year ago, resigns abruptly from its Perak wing, albeit, without apparent public rancour.
With its right hand, the DAP is trying its considerable best to shift the public perception that it is a Chinese-dominated party; with its left, it continues to lose significant recruits to its ostensibly multiracial platform because of the warlord politics of oligarchic elements in its Perak leadership.Lim Kit Siang's (right) moderation of a roundtable discussion in Parliament on the high incidence of Indian youth in violent crime which saw 15 Pakatan Rakyat MPs and a host of NGO activists attend wasn't merely an example of the party's programme of outreach to communities other than the Chinese.
To Lim, 71, the chairing of the discussion, in response to fellow DAP MP M Manogaran's (Teluk Intan) initiative at convening the meeting, represented a continuum - not concession - in his lifelong espousal of multiracialism.
But whatever he wins for his party on the straights of multiracialism, it would lose on the roundabouts of warlordism, as evidenced by the departure of Bah Tony, 58, the latest instance of the fallout the party would suffer if incipient warlordism is allowed to go unchallenged.
A coup for DAP...
The Orang Asli activist, a former bank officer who was admitted to the Bar last year, has not revealed the reasons for his departure from the DAP.
In the first place, it was surprise that Bah Tony (left) chose the DAP as the political vehicle for his activism on behalf of his community, the Orang Asli.Truth to tell, the Orang Asli are wont to look at the DAP with askance, viewing it as the party that is the more likely to attract the support of the very people who encroach on the domains it considers its territory and having to engage in commerce with them that a subsistence mentality on the Orang Asli's part is apt to regard as sharp practice.
In other words, long-time activist Bah Tony's enlisting with the DAP was out of kilter with the vibes of a community that, if at all it decides on political representation, would opt for the vaunted multiracialism of the PKR rather than the ostensible one of the DAP.
In sum, Bah Tony's decision to join the DAP in June 2011 was coup for the DAP, a sign that the multiracial politics of its founders, Dr Chen Man Hin and Lim, were beginning to resonate in unexpected quarters.
One candidate, one seat
But Bah Tony, the odds-on favourite to wrest the Chenderiang state seat from the MCA, did not get the elevation in the Perak wing of the party his status in his community augured for him.
He could not have, given what we know of the warlordism practiced by Perak DAP chief Ngeh Koo Ham (right) because Bah Tony is more comfortable and consorts more easily with the faction of the party that is on the outs with Ngeh and his cousin, Nga Kor Ming, a pair that runs the Perak wing of the DAP as a closed shop, with the merest nods to multiracialism and openness.Put simply, if Lim is a winner for the DAP, the Foochow cousins are losers.
Enough has occurred the last two years to make the point such that party chairperson Karpal Singh's suggestion that a DAP policy of one candidate-for-one seat in the 13th general election, with an honourable exception for secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, is the expedient way out of its problem of how to thwart incipient warlordism.
Both Ngeh and Nga are incumbent parliamentary and state representatives, so a DAP bar on dual representation, with its advantage of widening opportunities for its members to become elected and even executive legislators, would enjoy the additional merit of being a check on a warlord problem that would be a greater menace to the party's future growth than it is now, when it has already claimed casualties like Bah Tony.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.
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