"Either Umno and the police are covering up an impending terror attack, or MCA is making things up to scare non-Muslims into submission."
- Howard Lee (2017) at the height of the 'Better Beer Ban' fiasco
Ti Lian Ker's piece about the DAP stirring up "Chinese" sentiment, now that they are back in the opposition, got the predictable responses such pieces by the MCA generates. It would be a mistake to dismiss Ti's rhetoric because it points to underlying problems faced by the DAP during their brief stay in Putrajaya.
It also makes the point that non-Malay power structures easily fit into their roles of cannibalising each other for the political benefit of Malay power structures.
Didn't MCA do the same thing during the long Umno watch? Yes and no. Yes, they were furthering the bumiputera agenda of whichever Malay potentate was in power, but no, they were not raising the toxicity level in the political landscape.
They never attempted to promote any agenda like the "Bangsa Malaysia" Kool-Aid, nor did they attempt to redefine Islam as a "moderate" religion with the aid of Islamic political and religious operatives who would later abandon a moderate Islamic narrative when in power. They relied on Umno to do that, which was self-defeating, but if we are talking realpolitik, then it was the only option they had, and for a time they had the support of the majority in the Chinese community.
MCA's history of nation-building, the kind which involved managing expectations, compromise and yes, complicity, was a big juicy target for a mob fueled by ahistorical polemics and non-Malay (specifically the DAP) politicians who promised that the non-Malay communities would not have to beg for scraps of the table before Harapan assumed federal power.
If the only criticism you can come up with to Ti's piece is playing the MCA "running dog" card, then the opposition is in trouble. To understand how badly DAP was under the thrall of the "mesra Melayu" Kool-Aid, we have to go back to the words of the old maverick when he was publicly castrating DAP leader Lim Guan Eng because he wanted to demonstrate to the Malay base that they had nothing to fear from the "Chinese" DAP.
"We still have to give them, but what we gave to them was very small (compared to what the Malays got). But we could not say it then because then the Chinese would be angry," said then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
"That's why we didn't talk about that. But now we have to because I have to explain this thing."
In other words, the "Chinese" community was getting scraps from the table, and everyone knew it, but nobody could talk about it. Non-Malay power structures have to cannibalise each other like how the DAP demonstrated in the TARC-UC fiasco.
Lim arrogantly told MCA that its time was up, totally oblivious to the reality that his government was funding Malay-only institutions, the religious bureaucracy and Malay-only outreach programmes. And he, as the finance minister - a castrated finance minister - was feuding about giving spare change (compared to what was given to assuage Malay grievances) to a Chinese educational institution.
The non-Malay political narrative post-May 9, 2019, has been one of backpedalling, reversals, sycophancy and Orwellian doublespeak because the weight of expectations collided with the realpolitik of Malay rule. It was something MCA had learned over the decades, and which was something that DAP managed to navigate in state politics extremely well all the while demonising the MCA.
But ultimately, the lure of federal power meant that whatever "good" intentions the coalition had withered away in the face of the old maverick's 'take no prisoners', 'make no apologies' strongman political skullduggery.
This kind of political perfidy got so bad that at the height of the khat controversy, Lim accused Sin Chew Daily of stirring up fear in the non-Malay communities.
"On my return home after four days overseas, I was faced with the unhappiness of the non-Malay community following Sin Chew Daily's report that the Standard 4 Bahasa Malaysia textbook in Chinese and Tamil schools would include seni khat," he had reportedly said.
So does everyone see a pattern here? When any non-Malay power structure is part of the government, they will bend the knee to Malay power structures and depending on the narratives they create either before they gained power either lower expectations or raise them to insurmountable heights.
Remember when DAP strategist Liew Chin Tong concluded that those who wanted the DAP to concentrate on its Chinese base were half-witted?
"I told our members that whenever a newspaper column or anyone, inside or outside the party, tells us that DAP should just take care of its so-called 'Chinese base', these people are either half-witted or they have a malignant intention," he said.
Since we have a Malay uber alles government, a frenemy like the old maverick whose birthday pronouncement included the desire to continue playing the Chinese/Malay economic canard, Pakatan Harapan leader Anwar Ibrahim who says "don't spook the Malays", and a brief period of Harapan rule, where the DAP bent over backwards not to rile up the majority, am I half-witted or have malignant intentions when I say that, in this environment, DAP should be concerned about looking after the interests of its Chinese base?
The problem has always been that the DAP has never been able to live up to its multiracial ethos. The party relied on a cadre of partisans and political operatives who have always been able to dominate the discourse with such intangible terms like "pragmatism" and compromise, all the while vilifying those who wanted DAP to be this country's engine of change.
S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. A retired barrister-at-law, he hopes young people will assume the mantle of leadership – if there is to be any hope for this country. - Mkini
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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