This’s what DAP members want

Give the DAP members credit for insisting that they stay what they have been, will be and shall always be – a Chinese political party comfortable in its own skin.

COMMENT

If what happened in the recently-concluded DAP election is projected onto the national stage, the Malays are gone!

Malays who are appointed to the central executive committee (CEC) will be lame duck members – they will be Malays who will forever be dependent on others for their position in DAP.

There really is not much to tell about the DAP election, is there? Factionalism, nepotism and race. Race, nepotism and factionalism. Is there anything new in Malaysian politics? Even Umno can beg to differ on a few matters that it has been accused of.

In nepotism, DAP has no equal.

But surely there cannot be anything new, not until we the people change ourselves. Change our perceptions of what politics should be, change our mindset and change the very DNA that resides in the inner-most sanctum of our being.

That’s the DNA that tells us what to think, what to do and how to react when we think that we are being threatened and when we fear that our very being is in danger of extinction.

And it is not only the Malays that have this DNA. All of you out there have it, too. That is why those in DAP voted the way they did.

No need for excuses, no need for explanations, no need for name-calling and recriminations. We all know we would do the same in similar circumstances.

When will change happen? Education helps. A concerted effort by all of us to consciously better ourselves helps. Our ability to empathise with those who are different from us helps.

Speaking for myself, what education I have had and having lived among people who try to do the right thing in celebrating diversity helps me to tolerate and at times even appreciate people who are different from me.

But Malaysia is doubly cursed. As if it is not enough that we are burdened with having to understand each other’s weaknesses and strengths, we are cursed with having a parochial government concerned only with its political survival.

Our concern should be what political advantage (what other advantage is there?) this Umno-led parochial Barisan Nasional government will make of this weekend DAP party election results?

Already BN cyber troopers have been working through the night, through the weekend, through much pain and sufferings (softened by dollops of cash!) in preparation for their vitriolic attack against DAP and Pakatan Rakyat when opportunism presents itself.

Why not seize it? And what opportunism this DAP party election has presented to them! They are going to town on this, not any old town, but to KL itself.

Race politics is alive

What I write here is merely a reflection of the goings-on around me. I read what others write, hear what others say and seek out what others think.

I put it down on paper and you read and let it permeate into the inner recesses of your mind, then spit out what you yourself deduce from all these inputs around you. And I kid you not, we will all come to the same conclusion.

Race politics is alive and well in DAP as it is alive anywhere else in any political entity in Malaysia. What differentiates one from the other is just a matter of degree, not substance.

Even Khir Johari’s son, who is a Chinese who is Malay but is really a Chinese who wants to be Malay – confused? You may be confused but the members in DAP were not.

They see a Chinese masquerading as a Malay and they did not give him their votes. Give the DAP members credit for insisting that they stay what they have been, will be and shall always be – dulu, kini dan selama lamanya – a Chinese political party comfortable in its own skin.

It is only their leaders who saw the need to make DAP a Malaysian entity. They were confused. Now all is well.

Sobering, is it not? The realisation that the change we have been aspiring to will most probably not happen. That we are doomed to go round and round the revolving door with politicians who are cast in the same mould as each other. They know they are mirrors of themselves. It is only we, the people, who are foolishly expecting things to be different.

DAP did not change. As its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said: “From the internal aspect, it is the duty of DAP members in a democratic process to choose their leaders.”

If that democratic process favours nepotism and racial considerations, so be it. DAP members have spoken! Now perhaps their leaders will live with that reality.

If you detect a sense of hopelessness in my writing today, yes there is a sense of defeat. A sense of peering into the darkness without any hope of seeing light. So what is to come?

CT Ali is a reformist who believes in Pakatan Rakyat’s ideologies. He is a FMT columnist.