“An ethnic minority can live in peace with an ethnic majority as long as the majority does not use its preponderance to turn the institutions of the state into an instrument of ethnic favouritism or ethnic justice.”
- Michael Ignatieff, “The Warrior's Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience”
The latest spat between the MCA and DAP is instructive to the average non-Malay rakyat in so far as it demonstrates the “Big Con” of non-Malay power-sharing perpetuated by non-Malay power brokers in this country.
If you take stock of such things as winning or losing, the fact remains that the DAP and MCA both make valid points in that the MCA has lost its way and that the DAP is the Achilles heel of this unity government. But this is not the important point.
What is important for the non-Malay polity to understand, is that the MCA’s power-sharing model was a big failure in terms of acting as a moderating force for politics in this country and that DAP’s Malaysian Malaysia is a con game that the party continues to narcotise the base with.
This last bit is made worse by the reality that the DAP is currently attempting to emulate the BN-era power-sharing model, which a significant percentage of the Malay voting public has chosen to reject.
DAP International Affairs deputy secretary Kasthuri Patto’s contention that the party continues its Malaysian Malaysia agenda is complete horse manure because neither she nor the DAP can point to policy decisions or policy agendas that support this idea.
Nobody in this unity government supports the ideas of Malaysian Malaysia and, as such, any use of it is merely for propagandistic purposes.
Bangsa Malaysia or Malaysian Malaysia is the lie non-Malays and progressive Malays tell each other in the face of the systemic dysfunction of the country and the extremist forces that threaten any form of moderation that non-Malay participation in government has always hoped to achieve.
Mere political theatre
What really destroyed the MCA was not the propaganda of the DAP but the acceptance by a large voting demographic of the Chinese community that no representation in the government is better than MCA representation.
We have to understand the political theatre that fights like these between non-Malay power brokers is a distraction for the non-Malay base because what it covers up is that non-Malay participation in the fields of economic, educational, and social spaces is always under threat from the ketuanan system.
I’ll give you a very good example. Remember that spat between Lim Guan Eng and the MCA about funding for Tunku Abdul Rahman University College in 2019? Instead of building on the success of non-Malay participation even though it was started by the MCA, what the DAP did was attempt to use the university as a pawn in the one-upmanship political game.
What people forget is that the extreme forces in this country have always held mala fide intentions to any non-Malay enterprise that would make it easier for the non-Malays to participate in this country.
Remember what the old maverick said in 2012 when then-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak decreed that the government would recognise certificates from TARUC?
“If last time we could only get a government job by having a diploma from public universities, now we have to accept a diploma (certificate) from TARUC.
“This is all because of votes. All these have occurred because of the stupidity of the Malays.”
That’s it, isn’t it? Political racial theatre keeps us entertained while real policies that the progressives claim to want to disappear beneath a cloud of smoke of the spectacle of Chinese leadership slugging it out.
Going for each others’ throats
MCA knows what it is and this does not mean running dogs for the establishment (it’s more complicated than that), while DAP is the only party which represents, or says it does, the progressive agenda for this country.
This idea that minorities have to tear each other apart in service of the Malay power structures is what keeps people distracted.
If the fight between MCA and DAP was solely based on policy or whatever corruption scandal du jour, it would not be a bad thing. Competition in the marketplace of ideas and propaganda is a good thing.
However, both always bring it back to whose voice is more important because they have the vote of the Chinese community although some effort is made to hide this under the multicultural banner.
When it comes to racial politics, minorities squabbling for the political interests of majoritarian stakeholders is painful to watch.
Malays from either side of the political divide at least sometimes can meet halfway on those politically-designed issues of race and religion. Throw in culture and you have Malay power structures at war, but not tearing each other’s eyes out like how the non-Malay component parties do in the service of gaining political power for their Malay overlords.
Non-Malay power brokers are in a losing game when it comes to any kind of egalitarian reform. Remember in 2009 when Najib came into power, he did it with a reformist agenda, but then it went by the wayside.
After he took the country's top job in 2009, Najib cast himself as a moderniser who would roll back the privileges that have deterred investment and alienated minority Chinese and ethnic Indians. He has also pledged to base government assistance more strongly on needs than on race.
Earlier, I said what destroyed the MCA was the fact that a large section of the Chinese community would rather have no participation than MCA participation in the government.
It is only a matter of time before a segment of the non-Malay polity believes that it is better to have no representation in government because of what these two parties are offering.
The political terrain is only going to get hotter for non-Malay political operatives. - Mkini
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.
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