Ong Kian Ming and the enabling of 'ketuanism'

 

“The only politician ever to have entered Parliament with honourable intentions, was Guy Fawkes.”

- Terry Deary

In a rather inane interview with former Umno leaders Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Hamdan, Ong Kian Ming, who DAP supporters at one time held up as the best and brightest the party had to offer, said that KJ and Shahril should join the DAP because the DAP needed prime minister candidates.

Now of course all this is the fun and games of Malaysian politics. We have these political operatives who publicly were mortal enemies playing nice post-retirement and peddling whatever feelgood, do not disrupt the status quo narrative that mainstream Malaysian politics has to offer.

I have no idea even as a joke, why Ong (above) would suggest that Khairy and Shahril join the DAP but honestly seeing how the DAP is operating, it would not surprise me that some people would actually think that this is a good idea.

Mind you, I actually advocated for KJ in the last election. However, there is an ocean of difference between advocating for him as an Umno candidate with a modicum of functionality and advocating that he joins the DAP because you think he and his cohort would be suitable prime minister candidates for the DAP.

Non-Malay political operatives in the DAP would never say that they have the legal and moral right to claim the top job in this country. So, what they do is attempt to hook up with Malay power structures to have some say in the governance of this country.

The DAP has always scrambled for prominent Malay personalities to appeal to the Malay polity but eventually those relationships sour.

The Malay DAP operatives meanwhile have proven ineffectual in forming their own spheres of influence within the DAP and everything seems to revolve around old war horses and their progeny.

Now it just goes to show you what Ong really thinks of the Malay political operatives in the DAP. All those profiles in the press about how these Malay political operatives believe in multiculturalism and secularism actually mean very little to the DAP or maybe just the DAP’s intelligentsia.

Former Umno leaders Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Hamdan

So sorry folks, when the chips are down, thinking men like Ong believe that you are not good enough for the top job in the country but rather these two ketuanan types would fit perfectly with the ethos of the DAP and would make credible candidates for the multi-racial and supposedly secular DAP for the top job of this country.

All that prostrating Malay DAP operatives did in the media for whatever "noble" reasons they joined the DAP and the belief in a new race-blind Malaysia means bupkis when it comes to claiming federal power.

And yeah, Ong’s ramblings would be spun as personal opinion or some such baloney but the perception, and everyone knows this, is that more often than not Malay political operatives in the DAP are window dressing. Ong just buttressed this perception.

All part of the game

It gets worse. Ong thinks that Khairy who supports race-based policies and in his long career has made racially charged statements against the Chinese community claiming the Malay community was under siege, would do wonderfully in international agencies like the UN and international think tanks, just like those other great Malaysian leaders, like Muhyiddin Yassin, Dr Mahathir Mohamad and, of course, Anwar Ibrahim.

If this doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about international agencies and think tanks, well you are just not paying attention.

I have no idea what kind of experience and stature Ong is talking about, but what he just did was demonstrate why these agencies never seem to accomplish anything much, because they are staffed and led, by people who in their political careers have demonstrated that what they stand for is exactly the opposite of what these agencies claim to stand for. This is all part of the game in mainstream politics I suppose.

And Shahril taking up positions in corporate landscapes. Well yes, Ong, get Shahril to get even closer to the privileged political plutocrats class and this would make him a better leader for the disenfranchised Malay majority who are already finding succour in the arms of religious and racial extremists.

Great idea. It is any wonder why there is a disconnect between the DAP and the majority polity.

Furthermore, it is never a good political move to draw red lines. Claiming that if Najib Abdul Razak walks, the base would baulk, is problematic. The base has already given up so much.

They have allowed the DAP to make so many compromises that Najib walking free could and would be finessed by the mandarins of the DAP because, didn’t you know, everyone is afraid of the green wave.

Who would the non-Malays vote for? Would they just throw their hands up and be engulfed by the green wave? People talk boldly when they anonymously post comments on the internet but it is a whole different ball game when they have to vote.

Notice how the DAP has been extremely silent when it comes to the Najib pardon. Understandable of course. They are already doing everything to play nice with Umno and prop up Anwar and wading into this mess is just dumb politics.

Just wait and see if Najib gets his pardon and deal with it then. That is a good strategy, by the way. Drawing red lines is not.

Of course, it would be easy to dismiss what Ong said. After all, this is all about the superficiality of Malaysian politics.

However, beneath it all, are the perverse games that political operatives play in this rigged system and then throw red meat at the base while demonising each other.

This is why nothing changes. Mainstream Malaysian politics (like everywhere else, I suppose) is a manure hole. But the problem here is that our democratic guardrails are falling apart and our best and brightest just want to play the same games.

It would be interesting to see the response from the DAP. How would they handle an opinion like Ong’s?

What I really want to see are the Malay political operatives of the DAP responding to Ong’s comments.

Malay political operatives from the DAP, tell us how you really feel. - Mkini

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.