Bridge from Earth to the PAS' Moon

From Mount Meru to the Moon – awesome!

… though that’s not how Gobalakrishnan, the head of the newly formed PAS Indian supporters club, said. Don’t blame him as he’s not as classically poetic as (blush blush) yours truly.

All Gobalakrishnan said was a more mundane “Tonight, we build a bridge that stretches from earth to the moon!”

But according to malaysiakini, he thundered when he made that declaration at PAS headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. Wow!

Oh, by the way, apart from being the head of the newly formed PAS Indian supporters club, Gobalakrishnan is also the head of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) national integration bureau.

… which may a reason why the DAP has been wary of PKR (except for the sole person of Anwar Ibrahim).

Gobalakrishnan reckoned that with Indian support, the days when PAS faces obstacles in winning the support of non-Muslims may well be over.

I suppose he has sort of got carried way by the ‘bridging’ issue, forgetting we Malaysians have had terrible experiences with bridges, whether those bridges concern one supposedly magnificent specimen that somehow got nowhere but cost taxpayers more than RM1 billion, or the smaller decrepit versions that lie in appallingly broken state across irrigation canals and rivers in rural Kelantan, posing dangers to the unfortunate kampong users.

Around 50 Indian Malaysians from Selangor, Perak and Kelantan were among the 600 people who packed the hall. Not to be outdone, the Chinese Malaysians were there as well.

The non-Muslim Chinese had come to join as members of the PAS Chinese supporters club which was set up last year. And among those Chinese was one bloke who has had some election experience – he’s none other than Ng Chee Pang, the 22-year-old independent candidate who contested in the recent Batu Talam by-election in Pahang.

I wonder whether PAS 'consulted' Ng on his campaign strategy, which we gather was to do nothing and hope for the other candidate to withdraw or get disqualified. Maybe PAS might have even offered to help ameliorate his loss of deposit in the Batu Talam by-election?

Since Gobalakrishnan stole the thunder with his bridge to th moon, Ng decided to deal with more earthly matters by his praising PAS. He said: “PAS steady ... PAS party baik (good).”

Wow, I haven't heard the flattering term 'steady' for quite a while. I am glad Ng has introduced a fresh breath of air into local politics.

PAS national solidarity bureau chief Mujahid Yusof Rawa made a speech confirming that multi-racialism was enshrined in the party’s constitution. PAS intends to foster racial unity in the country.

He said the success of the Chinese supporters’ club in improving awareness about PAS among the community was reflected in the club’s need to increase its Chinese-language monthly bulletin from 5,000 to 50,000 copies.

And that’s not all - PAS will also publish a Tamil-language monthly bulletin to inform the Indian community about the party and its struggles. This time it was Mujahid who got carried away, as he is already planning to set-up similar clubs for the Kadazans and Ibans in East Malaysia.

And the icing on top of the kueh badak berendam was an assurance by PAS vice-president Mohammad Sabu that there would be no forced circumcision for non-Muslim members.

He joked: “What are they afraid of? Hu (head of the Chinese supporters club) is here to testify that his condition still remains in the original state.”

But on a more serious note, to sum up the frustration of the Indian community with Humpty Dumpty and the Barisan Nasional (BN), businessman Rajandran Batumalai from Batu Caves, Selangor, said he and his friends heard from Indians in Kelantan about PAS’ equalitarian policies and treatment of non-Muslims.

Rajandran, who incidentally was a former MIC member, said many Indian youths in BN-ruled states were deprived of advancing socially and economically because of racial discrimination.