“This year, Hindus will make a great sacrifice … Everything happens for a reason.”
- PAS Supporters Wing (DHPP) information chief Balachandran Gopal Krishnan
I received a long email from a political operative of the Malay uber alles variety decrying the actions of the Kedah menteri besar for cancelling Thaipusam.
Well, first off, nobody can cancel Thaipusam and what this menteri besar has done is merely reinforce the cultural underpinnings of Hindus in Kedah.
As I have argued many times before, actions such as these are meant to isolate the Malay community even more.
Hindus in this situation may be the target, but the real victim is the Malay community, which has to choose to take a side in the cultural war that the Malay establishment has propagated for decades.
The idea here is to antagonise the non-Malays while reinforcing the idea that the Malay community and leadership is under siege.
Except now, the political terrain has changed. The Malay establishment is fighting with itself and numerous court jesters, unsuitable for politics and managing expectations, have been thrust into positions of power.
With PAS the perpetual handmaiden to other more influential power brokers, the need to be relevant has become even stronger. The need for relevancy, imperative.
The menteri besar for whatever reasons assumes that his “attack” against Thaipusam is a win in this culture war but the reality is that all it is doing is damaging the already weak, PN brand.
Not only that, I would argue that Thaipusam has received a boost of some kind in terms of visibility and the majority community are being inundated with photos and writings by other Malays of how this festival is important to Hindus in Malaysia.
It's free multicultural publicity coming from diverse sources all, against the actions of this MB.
Normally, Thaipusam goes about in a fairly sedate manner but this year thanks to PAS we have mainstream reportage on the relevancy of this festival to Hindus.
Indians from across the political spectrum agreeing with each other, but more importantly establishment political operatives of various race and political affiliations in agreement that this is an issue of religious insensitivity by the Kedah MB, which also means that this is a case of PAS being insensitive to the religious rights of non-Muslims.
Indeed members of PN who are trying to shed their uber alles image are openly contradicting the wacky menteri besar of Kedah and you just know that Muhkriz Mahathir would not have pulled such a stunt, and that makes his removal even more damaging for the PN government.
PAS unsuitable PAS for power
With the federal government giving the okay for an SOP compliant Batu Caves chariot procession, this makes the MB’s diktat even more petty and malicious.
The reason why they probably gave the okay was because they wanted to mitigate the damage done by the Kedah menteri besar. Hence even in mitigation, the MB has exposed the incompetence of his coalition.
The fact that the cherubic menteri besar seems to be adept of sticking his foot in his mouth every time he holds a press conference, makes PN look even more incompetent, which is not helpful when the federal government is desperately attempting to convince the rakyat that they have everything under control.
When you have Malay political operatives who traditionally have been banging on the race and religion drum, standing up for the festival, PAS should realise that this does not make them look like defenders of race and religion, but rather incompetent hacks who could not even run a state without drawing the coalition into a religious quagmire.
If that is not enough, various PAS operatives have been banging the anti-LGBTQ drum. The fact that this is even an issue when a raging pandemic is destabilising the health infrastructure in this country despite what the "experts" say, is indicative of how unsuitable PAS is for power.
Honestly, the LGBTQ issue is so overplayed. I get that the strategy is to force everyone to join the culture war.
PAS wants to make it seem that if non-Muslims do not support their bigoted agenda, this means that non-Muslim faiths “condone” homosexuality.
Then, of course, they want to force Malay political operatives to either support this action – which would be damaging for their non-Malay base – or oppose it and then be labelled as being deviants to Islam. That is the game plan.
What PAS wants to do is become the religious backbone of any Malay power structure it attaches itself to. Using religion not as a basis for sound governance but as a weapon to instil fear in the majority and minority polities.
It would surprise nobody that PAS probably knows that they do not run states well. They know they are unsuitable for power. Look at the states they run or have influence over.
Beating the religious drum is the only card they have to play and this is why PAS is desperately attempting to distract us from their failings. More importantly, they are attempting to remain relevant in a regime, whose ground is slowly shifting beneath their feet.
Honestly what has PAS contributed to PN that has any value, strategic or otherwise for the coalition?
They are really there to make up the numbers and all this will change in the next general election when there will be open warfare between the various factions of Umno, Bersatu and PAS and whoever else PN manages to draw into their manure show.
PAS' desperate attempts at relevancy is more damaging for PN than it is to the opposition. The party has always made it clear they want a union so they can rule over the non-Muslims.
Speaking at a ceramah after a prayer event in Terengganu in 2019, the PAS president said Muslims must unite so that they could rule over the non-Muslims.
And look, PAS and Umno even had a "wedding ceremony".
The good news for Harapan is, the longer insecure PAS continues its bleatings for relevancy, the more damage it does to PN.
The problem with this is that religious extremism is harder to recover from than a kleptocracy.
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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