The Lims overdoing their act with PAS

The DAP leaders need to go slower with PAS as Lee Kuan Yew would have done with Umno given a second chance.

COMMENT

DAP elder statesman Lim Kit Siang and his son, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, have been virtually running amok even before the PAS Muktamar passed a motion without debate on withdrawing co-operation with DAP.

Guan Eng still shrieks hysterically at PAS almost on a daily basis. He seems to have difficulty in deciding where party politics ends and good government begins. His old man appears to be suffering from verbal diarrhoea and keeps running to the computer throughout the day to dash off yet another piece against PAS.

The Muktamar motion was patently a tit-for-tat move following DAP’s earlier resolution withdrawing co-operation with PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang. PAS leaders have pointed out, not entirely without basis, that DAP withdrawing co-operation with Hadi was tantamount to withdrawing co-operation with PAS.

PKR meanwhile thinks that “silence is golden” although jailed Opposition Chief Anwar Ibrahim has expressed his concerns on the DAP-PAS feud and dashed off private messages to Kit Siang and Hadi.

If the Lims keep this up against PAS for much longer, Pakatan Rakyat supporters are likely to decide that Lim Senior has not only lost the plot but, even worse, was misleading Junior, who has been throwing tantrums in Penang because his administration still includes PAS members. The state seats don’t belong to any party but the individuals who hold them. That’s the law. Penang doesn’t belong to the Lims for them to carry on with a strong sense of proprietorship.

Even Lee Kuan Yew was not as terrible as the Lims and was extremely careful not to suffer from delusions of grandeur for no rhyme or reason. The Lims prove that there can be such a thing as too much success for one’s own good or letting it all go to the head.

The PAS motion on DAP was patently symbolic especially since it was passed without debate. It’s probably not “binding” at all as the PAS Assembly does not have prerogative and discretionary powers. That’s within PAS President Abdul Hadi’s domain and he doesn’t have to share such powers – read veto – with the Dewan Syura, an advisory body, or the Central Committee, which merely reports to him unless they take a vote.

Both Lims vis-à-vis PAS are a repeat performance of Lee’s relationship with Umno. It was the philosopher George Santayana who wrote that “those who cannot remember their past are condemned to repeat it”. Hence the theory that history always repeats itself.

If the Lims keep this up for much longer and “push their luck too far”, they will have cause to regret as Lee did after Singapore was expelled from Malaysia in 1965. “Looking back, perhaps we should have gone slower, and we will still be in Malaysia,” cried Lee. “They (Kuala Lumpur) were not ready.

“No doubt we would not have progressed as much by remaining in Malaysia but that’s something we can live with. They would not be like what they are today (read backward thinking) if we had stayed because we could have helped make a difference.”

It appears that Lee was too smart for his own good in 1965 and had cause to regret. He acted in haste and repented at leisure for over 50 years.

Singapore’s exit from Malaysia saw Lee adopting another approach: “running scared”, one which Kit Siang has blindly adopted.

Lee explained “running scared” as being afraid all the time, to keep on the safe side, so that Singapore would not falter, become complacent, rest on its laurels and all that.

The running scared approach, which also included the idea of running fast to stand still in the same spot, meant Lee taking a tough line with Malaysia and indulging in scenario-building where the hypothesis was always negative.

So, now we find Kit Siang repeating the fairy tale that PAS plans a Muslim Unity Government (MUG) with Umno. Hadi has described this over-reaction as that of a wife who would not allow her husband to go to the market lest he meets another woman. He sees nothing wrong in talking to Umno – probably to rattle the Lims – since it’s another Malay and Muslim party and there might be matters of common interest that they can discuss and take a common stand on.

Lee’s comrade, the Sri Lanka-born Foreign Minister S. Rajaratnam brought up in Seremban, echoed Lee when he confessed in a moment of candour: “The only way that we can identify our enemies was to pretend to agree with those likely to dissent. Then, when they rebel, we can clobber them because we will have all the inside dope on them to finish them off once and for all.”

The bottom line is that while Indians and Chinese can point out that the Malays are pendatang too like them, the political reality is that they (Malays and Muslims) would not allow Indians and Chinese in the opposition to dictate to them and determine the agenda. The Malays and Muslims must be included as well.

Kit Siang does have a point on the Pakatan Leadership Council (PLC) and the Common Policy Framework (CPF), the two pillars of the informal opposition alliance. Here, Hadi should drop his taqiyya act or else Pakatan would be deader than dead and not just dead as Kit Siang keeps saying in hoping for a self-fulling prophecy. Hadi should not push his luck too.

Hadi, for his part, did not reject the Common Policy Framework but pointed out during the PAS Assembly that the Islamic Party reserves the right to carry on what was not covered by the CPF. Here, he seems to have misread what the PLC’s “agree to disagree” means. Blame that on his English or perhaps it’s his taqiyya side acting up again.

There must be consensus in Pakatan when it comes to decisions and “agree to disagree” simply means don’t do anything where there’s no consensus. There can be no misinterpretation here. Let’s stick to English English.

The Lims need to keep Lee Kuan Yew in mind and go slower with PAS just as he would have done with Umno had Singapore not been kicked out from Malaysia.