DAP's problematic Christmas message

"God is silent. Now if only man would shut up." - Woody Allen

It is a simple question really. When DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng chides the BN regime with "if BN was a principled, people-centric coalition, it should not politicise Christianity to gain support of its Malay voting base", the question is:

"Does the people-centric coalition of Pakatan Rakyat think it is hypocritical to chastise Umno for chasing the Malay/Muslim vote when the DAP itself is politicising Christianity to gain support of the Christian community?"

Religious messages by politicians during festive seasons are usually banal and loaded with platitudes that pay homage to whatever brand of superficial values they are pushing at that particular moment in time.

Sometimes, these messages are meant to rile up their bases. When this occurs, it is either subtle or a full on polemic. Lim's Christmas message is the latter. Lim, who I am on record as stating would make a credible potential prime minister, seems to enjoy the taste of his foot in his mouth. This would be of no concern if he did not insist on making it a public spectacle.

At a time when the country is divided along racial and religious lines thanks to the machinations of Umno and our own communal preoccupations, one of the most influential opposition leaders chooses to reopen a still healing wound infected by racial bacteria cooked up in the laboratories of Umno.

Unfortunately, as far as goodwill is concerned, it is a sellers' market here in Malaysia. This close to a contentious general elections, an occasion like this should have been used as a reminder as to why "we are all in this together" and not as an opportunity to massage your Christian voting block with a polemic that agitates the voting block of your coalition partners, not to mention gives ammo to your political adversaries.

Going on about Lynas and Automatic Enforcement System (AES), when there are flood victims in Pahang desperately in need of charity (Christian or otherwise) just seems like partisan posturing of the most self-serving kind.

In addition, it would not hurt to post your message in Tamil (onyour blog) since Tamil-speaking Indians are part of your "people centric" movement too (not to mention make a significant Christian voting block).

Cheap political mileage

Umno corruption will always take centre stage, but Pakatan corruption as exemplified by the Ngeh brothers' fiasco in Perak mired in warlordism, ethical double talk and apparently, apathy from the higher-ups in the Pakatan coalition is a festering wound that most opposition-leaning supporters would prefer to ignore.

This should be of concern to all, right-thinking Malaysians, who do not want to see a more sophisticated BN replace a coarse crude original.

See what I did there? I introduced a bit of divisiveness when I should have been spreading goodwill. I am all for a secular state. I have been upfront in my criticism of Islam and those propagating it at the expense of a secular state. I have also been upfront in my criticisms of the DAP as enablers (as opposed to appeasers) with their coddling of the Islamic agenda of Pakatan coalition partner, PAS.

Let me be very clear since DAP apparatchiks are notorious for erecting straw men in lieu of substantive arguments. This is not an issue about "fighting for religious rights" but rather about the DAP's disregard of tactical acuity in favour of cheap political mileage. It would not have been so bad, if said mileage had an element of inclusiveness in it, as is; it came of sounding like some sort of sermon to a secure voting base.

Furthermore what this points to, is that the DAP by aggressively chasing the Christian or should that be Christian evangelical vote, is setting up two opposing religious perspectives within Pakatan.

In other words, the religious dialectic in Pakatan would be between Islam and Christianity. This should not be encouraged for obvious reasons. What is should be is between those who advocate secularism and those propagating Islam statehood.

You cannot make secular arguments or rather it would be ineffective so long as your rhetoric consists of propagating the idea that the religious perspective you advocate is in perpetual victimhood.

Moreover, since the DAP have been extremely successful in building up a Christian base, the conversation would always be between PAS and the DAP, with PKR playing the part as religious go-between.

This is an unacceptable long-term strategy but adequate for the short term, as long as those representing the religious perspectives in the coalition finds a balance between idealism and pragmatism. So far, PAS has been making the appropriate noises and it has cost them in terms of religious credibility amongst a certain Malay/Muslim section of the voting public.

Meanwhile, the DAP on one hand chooses to solidify its ‘Malay support' through Islamic enabling and in the other, frame their conflict with Umno as a secular one with Christianity as a convenient proxy. No good can come of this.

I have no interest in how Umno-BN handles religious tensions in this country except as an objector to anything they come up with. So far, they have not surprised me or most right-thinking Malaysians.

The realpolitik of religion

My own opinion of the ‘Allah' usage is that it is a question of free speech and not one defined by fidelity to the Abrahamic faiths. The mendacious Umno banning of the word was rightly objected to by the DAP and the vitally important question of the "secularity" of Sabah and Sarawak was rightly defended by the opposition in various ways.

Umno is in no hurry of solving the ‘Allah' usage issue since there seems (unusually) no hurry to fast track the appeal. This no doubt is Umno's way of chasing the Christian vote and PAS has no interest in being in the frontline (again) of this battle.

However, the reality remains that the opposition should not politicise this Christian/Islam tensions because for the first time, the opposition is genuinely made up very real differing religious perspectives. If the aim is a secular state than any religious rhetoric should be confined to appropriate situations and political parties who chase the religious vote should do so but not at the expense of secular ideals.

In addition, let us not forget the realpolitik of religion in Malaysian. We have to choose our battles wisely and pay heed to religious sensitivities of our partners.

I do not mean this in the disingenuous, Umno-BN ‘sensitive issues' threat but rather we should not attempt to chase cheap political/religious mileage simply because we have a religious partner who has demonstrated that it is willingly to make compromises in the name of political solidarity.

This goes beyond a cheap festive message of the DAP but rather to the heart of how Pakatan has been dealing with the whole issue of secularism. It goes to the strategy of enabling Islam and the cheerleading of evangelical Christian groups. The only loser here is secularism.

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