The uses of a combatant like Puad Zarkashi

 

(Utusan pic)

From Terence Netto

If the presentation of persuasive arguments is a vital ingredient of democracy, as Aristotle held it was, having someone like Puad Zarkashi in your corner is a plus point.

The Umno Supreme Council member has in recent years become the party’s chief striker, one prepared to charge the political arena with robust arguments in defence of its positions and lacerating denunciations in repelling adversaries.

Agree or disagree with him, you cannot ignore Puad’s postings on Facebook, his preferred arena of attack.

There he grasps his targets by the lapels and gives them a roughing-up.

Flayed by Puad, Umno’s critics – not just external but also intraparty detractors – know they are in a fight when they get the Puad treatment.

The targeted may respond with counter thrusts but mostly tend to slink away as if they were not in the line of fire in the first place.

Perhaps the attacked prefer not to invite more fusillades from Umno’s chief gunner.

In recent times there has not been an Umno verbal striker as prolific or as bruising as Puad.

The last one with a comparable instinct to go for the enemy’s jugular was the late Sanusi Junid.

However, the former Kedah menteri besar was mainly disposed to take verbal arms up against those who were wont to assail his patron Dr Mahathir Mohamad, not so much the party.

On occasion Sanusi’s ripostes, laced with sarcasm, were a reminder that parliamentary raillery is preferable to windbaggery.

Puad, unlike Sanusi, shows no inclination to assail his targets with the subtler weapons of irony and derision.

Instead, he employs the rhetorical equivalent of soccer’s scything tackle, sliding in from the blind side, upending the target and sending it sprawling.

The tactic foments the illusion the critic has been dealt an upbraiding to keep him quiet for some time, allowing Puad’s party and patrons the space that should leave them feeling reprieved, if only for some time.

After all, that is the whole point of the worth of a political striker, to keep adversaries at bay by telling them their very desire to snipe exposes their flanks to counter fire that can be lacerating.

Expect no charity when you come within Puad’s gunsights.

He has told DAP’s Lim Kit Siang that having retired from the political arena in March last year, he ought to muzzle himself to allow the younger set in his party to take the initiative.

Of course, Lim had only retired from electoral contestation, not political discourse.

In the cut and thrust of democratic debate within the corridors of the 15th Parliament, a certain imprecision is allowed a striker wanting to advance the line of his attack.

Puad is a skilful exploiter of this permissible imprecision.

The way to take the wind out of the sails of a striker like Puad is to expose the speciousness of his main argument which is not easy.

So long as that is so, Puad will continue to be a verbal striker of considerable value to his deployers. - FMT

Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.

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