DAP and a multiracial Malaysia – a response to Lim Teck Ghee

 

From M Ali

I am gratified that in Part 2, Lim Teck Ghee, does acknowledge the presence of the other political parties and leaders in post-Merdeka politics in Peninsular Malaysia such as the late Dr Tan Chee Koon.

The political parties that really believed in a multiracial Malaysia, were parties such as Pekemas. There were also others such as Parti Rakyat Malaysia and the Labour Party that formed the Socialist Front in the 1960s.

In fact, the late V David, who stood for the Labour Party, narrowly lost to CV Devan Nair, the founder of DAP, in Bangsar, by about 500 votes, in the 1964 Malaysian general elections.

David was later to become the DAP MP for Damansara and Puchong.

They were smaller and did not make much headway in the mainstream and DAP, in its own selfish interest, neither assisted these parties nor formed electoral alliances with them for fear of being overshadowed by these parties, at that stage.

Another point that needs to be made is while I acknowledge that there were parties such as PPP, Gerakan, PAS and other parties in Sarawak and Sabah that succumbed to the enticement of power by joining the Barisan Nasional at some stage for a period of time or in some cases, such as Gerakan, more permanently, some political parties such as Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) remained outside the fold like DAP.

DAP alone cannot be credited for standing alone and being able to resist co-option into the political process.

Although PSM did not have MPs or senators, it was active at the grassroots level and was able to mobilise people at a local level. Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj was an effective PSM parliamentarian and effectively put an end to the political career of S Samy Vellu, the MIC leader in Sungai Siput, even when his party was struggling to be registered by the Registrar of Societies, in 2008.

It was not DAP that ended Samy Vellu’s political life, despite all the big talk by the Indian “mandore politicians” in DAP.

Lim Kit Siang cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. He was the same politician who challenged Lee San Choon, the then MCA president, to contest in any of the DAP-held seats, in the Chinese heartland (in Peninsular Malaysia) in the 1982 general elections.

Lee did take up the challenge and defeated Dr Chen Man Hin in the elections, in the parliamentary seat of Seremban. The seat had been held by Chen since 1969.

Kit Siang cannot talk of multiracialism and then seek to challenge the MCA president over who represented the Chinese community – DAP or MCA.

Either he seeks to represent all Malaysians regardless of race or he represents the Chinese. If he attempts to do both, he will fall between two stools and that is what he has done repeatedly.

This stance leaves the non-Chinese DAP members in a conundrum. Are they guests in a Chinese political party or are they mere puppets acting as a facade to show that DAP is a multiracial party?

Or are they any different from becoming mandore politicians like those of MIC? Are they also to be portrayed as compliant MCA MPs (as portrayed in the Rocket, repeatedly, by DAP)?

Teck Ghee falls into the same trap that Kit Siang has made for himself, a pretence of DAP’s multiracialism and then hidden undercurrent of unadulterated Chinese chauvinism. There is no point in making passing references to the late Karpal Singh to show that DAP has non-Chinese credentials.

Karpal needed DAP just as DAP needed Karpal for all the legal battles that they were embroiled in.

There were no Chinese legal firms that were courageous or competent to take the legal briefs from DAP. If they were, I am sure DAP would have turned to them. There was none forthcoming and hence that relationship was a relationship of convenience, between Karpal and (now his family’s legal business) and DAP.

The usual rant about discriminatory NEP and discrimination has outlived its political usefulness as an intellectual narrative. The questions now posed are what did DAP do when it was in power? Not just in Penang or some of the states where it shared power, but at the federal level when it was in power, albeit briefly.

There were many areas where its leaders could have made changes but very little was done. A chance that was squandered and they will live to regret having lost that chance and missed that opportunity. I am glad that Teck Ghee has touched on some of these in his articles.

Teck Ghee’s assessment that DAP does not have to surrender its centre-left credentials or move away from an ideology embracing social democracy, liberalism (which is in many ways opposed to social democracy) and green politics, none of which was expounded at any elections since 1969 by either DAP or Kit Siang, is farcical, if not laughable.

The major thrust of DAP and Kit Siang has always been ethnicity and political corruption, nothing else. The political landscape in Malaysia has for far too long been boxed into this racial paradigm, from which there has been very little movement by the main political players, including DAP.

DAP cannot rant about the authoritarian regime at home and allow authoritarianism in the neighbouring countries that it looks upon as model states.

A neighbouring country that is supposed to be a meritocratic model has partially, if not wholly, educated at least two DAP Chinese MPs, when that state is not able or does not have the political will to educate its own ethnic minorities to the same level as the two Chinese DAP MPs, in Malaysia.

At least one of the two refused to allow the banner of PAS to be displayed in his political ceramahs. This despite a national level understanding among DAP, PKR and PAS on fighting the elections from a single platform in a previous general election. That was the extent of his parochialism and chauvinism.

This is how discrimination and prejudice are normalised. Portraying chauvinists of whatever political persuasion whether in government or the opposition is to continue its course of action.

It is profoundly distressing to read that DAP‘s woes can be overcome by recruiting more Malays to its ranks. The Malay community has to be convinced that the Chinese in DAP believe in some of their own rhetoric. What is it that DAP can offer that the Malay political parties cannot? What is it that DAP can offer the other non-Malay groups, apart from the Chinese?

Why is it that DAP cannot break out of the ethnic mould that it has circumscribed itself into?

Is it Kit Siang’s deep chauvinism that can be easily seen through or is it his Chinese classical belief that the non-Chinese barbarians are incapable of doing anything right? Why was it not able to translate its democratic socialist ideals into practice?

Let’s not forget the environment, green and conservation issues are equally pressing in Malaysia.

DAP has chosen a narrow political path that has not touched on some of these issues except when there is a crisis, as happened with the water supply in the Klang Valley quite recently.

The sad fact is that Malaysians are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past as we have learnt nothing from history. - FMT

M Ali is an FMT reader. 

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.