Does DAP need a friend like Perlis' mufti?

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

― Winston S Churchill

Apparently DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng wants to “engage” with Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin after Asri (who claims there was a misrepresentation) made comments about the DAP in the press.

This is horse manure. The DAP secretary-general is not meeting the Perlis mufti, but rather, the finance minister of Malaysia is meeting with the Perlis mufti. Lim Guan Eng, who prides himself on being a “Malaysian” first (whatever that means), is meeting with a religious operative who has made it clear that someone like Zakir Naik is beneficial to Islam in Malaysia. A religious operative who recently backed a Muslim convert who allegedly disparaged Hinduism. Asri has a beef with the Hindu community, once claiming that no rational Malaysian worships cows.

How can the DAP have friendly ties with Asri? The mufti of Perlis has dismissed the corruption allegations against PAS president Hadi Awang, claiming that Hadi was a modest and pious man. What about all the things DAP has said about PAS president Hadi Awang? Will the DAP concede that it has been wrong about Hadi, and Asri has a legitimate point of view when it comes to Hadi Awang?

Asri said that everyone should be “careful” about making allegations: “We punish what is manifest. God knows all.” In other words, all those DAP political operatives, including the Malay power structures of Harapan that make allegations against Hadi, should be careful, lest they invite divine retribution. How would it look, the DAP demonising the MCA for working with PAS, but having no problem when the mufti of Perlis backs Hadi Awang?

Does anyone really think that Asri is unaware of the things the Harapan regime has done for Muslims in this country? Does anyone think that Asri was unaware of the looting of Islamic funds that was going on when the Najib regime was in power?

Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim Chee Keong (above), whose work is admirable when it comes to a whole range of issues, is operating under a delusion in his rambling on about how the DAP needs to engage with the Perlis mufti.

This has always been the problem with the DAP. In their quest to court the Malay/Muslim vote, they have mucked about in scared provinces, instead of commanding the secular higher ground.

Forget what Asri said about the DAP and think about what he said about Muslims being bullied and under threat from the Harapan regime.

The Harapan regime has backtracked on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd). They have backtracked on the Rome Statute. They have given asylum to Zakir Naik. They have cleaned up Tabung Haji and are attempting to carry out reforms on Felda. They have charged politicians and bureaucrats with stealing from public funds, and kept the quota systems which favour the Malay majority.

They have a religious czar who has proposed policies like a syariah-compliant dress code for the private sector, among other pro-Islamic initiatives. They have increased funding of the Islamic bureaucracy. The DAP has funded Muslim entitlement programmes and gone out of its way not to spook the Malays to the chagrin of some of its base.

Now we could argue this is a “good” thing, but there is no rational argument that could be made in support of the narrative that Muslims are bullied or under threat under the Harapan regime. Why is Asri carrying on with this narrative?

Because Asri’s narrative is not based on any objective assessment of Harapan’s polices, only on the emotional strategies of his religious supremacy. Asri feels Muslims are under threat or being bullied because he feels under threat and bullied. His Islamic narrative, which is overtly bigoted and misogynistic, has been supplanted by the subtle machinations of the Harapan state. This, at times, involves sanctioning the Islamic far-right, much to the annoyance of the Islamists who prefer to operate without any sanction from a supposedly Islamic state.

The finance minister is meeting with a religious leader who, when he was chiding the DAP for not making its stand clear on P Ramasamy (above, right) who was accused of being a supporter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), said: “I could also see this hate and anti-Islam (sentiment) on Ramasamy, which is a trait of LTTE.”

A religious operative who, in a recent interview, claimed that he had the backing of 70 percent of Muslims when it comes to his fracas with the prime minster, who claimed he was “deaf” to what the Harapan regime had done for Muslims in this country .

I have no idea why Lim Guan Eng would want to engage with the mufti of Perlis. This perhaps is just another way for the DAP to attempt to placate the far right forces, which seems to be the only way the DAP knows how to operate.

The DAP has a history of propping up so-called “moderate” Muslim personalities, only to have those same personalities come back and bite their behinds. Asri claimed that he was misrepresented. If this were the case, why not make a statement clarifying his position? Why does it take a meeting, initiated by the DAP, for him to make his stand clear?

What someone like Asri needs is legitimacy. What he needs is his so-called 70 percent support from the Muslim community to see that he has enough clout for the Chinese finance minister to kowtow to his narrative. And this is exactly what the DAP is doing.

The people who buy into the narrative that Malay/Muslims are under attack will not believe anything that comes out of the DAP. There is nothing the DAP could do to appease or please these people. The more the DAP gives legitimacy to these types of people, the more “moderate” Muslims will feel that it is pointless speaking out because the establishment would always enable the kinds of narratives that are detrimental to them, more importantly, Malaysia.

What the Harapan regime should be doing is flooding the state-owned media with all the "good" they have been doing for the Muslim community. What they should be doing is naming and shaming the personalities and businesses that have been looting Muslim funds. What they should be doing is defending the DAP in state-owned media against the attacks of the far right. Instead, the DAP, like a dog with its tail between its legs, conjures up a meeting with a mufti who insists his narratives are the only legitimate Islamic narratives in this country.

There is nothing non-Muslims can do to appease the Islamists in this country except to capitulate to their every demand. Why do think this narrative of Muslims being bullied under a Harapan regime is pushed into the mainstream? The reason is simple. When hints of progressiveness are detected, the Islamists and the far right react to protect their turf.

If the DAP continues giving legitimacy to extreme forces, it is going to do more damage to this country in the long run. The next religious provocation will then crop up and the DAP will pussyfoot around the issue because, to do otherwise, would be to offend people like the mufti of Perlis.

I was going to write that with friends like Asri, who needs enemies? But the reality is that with friends like Lim Guan Eng, who needs enemies?

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. A retired barrister-at-law, he is one of the founding members of the National Patriots Association. - Mkini