MCA - a sorrowful inglorious end

How I should title this post, was my problem, and not a dilemma as I had initially wanted to say; but no, it was never a dilemma, perhaps at most a certain sadness for me. I thought of a Chinese poem I read in a book my Uncle gave me years ago:

Mighty is God on high,
Ruler of His people below;

Swift and terrible is God on high,

His mandate has many statutes.

Heaven gives birth to the multitudes of the people,

But its mandate cannot be counted upon.

To begin well is common;

To end well is rare indeed.

 - 1st paragraph, 255th poem in Shih Ching (Book of Songs), circa 600 BCE

The last two lines 'To begin well is common; To end well is rare indeed' applies most poignantly to what I want to blog on in this post.

It's about the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA - 馬來西亞華人公會) or as Penangites call it informally (abbreviated name), Ma Hua.

Ma 馬 is the short form for Ma-Lai-Say-Ah (馬來西亞) or Malaysia, and Hua 華 stands for Chinese, thus Malaysian Chinese Association.

Incidentally, Hua 華 also means glorious, though at this point in time, there is nothing glorious about Ma Hua, no, not with its leadership begging for crumbs - see Malaysiakini's Please don't make us 'eat egg', S'gor MCA tells voters - and worst of all, its party president Chua Soi Lek's lack of gumption as evident in his reluctant resistant reprobate refusal to stand against Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah, ironically a MCA hor siew (tiger's lair or stronghold).

In CSL's refusal to meet Lim Kit Siang in a MCA stronghold as his predecessor Lee San Choon did with Dr Chen Man Hin in Seremban, a DAP stronghold, he demonstrated to the world that Ma Hua is now ingloriously and most definitely not a representative of Chinese Malaysians.

The word Hua, if spoken in a different tone or written in its unique Chinese character, can also stand for flower, and which was why I had written in an earlier post MCA - three strikes and you're out! about hibiscus flowers in a haiku.

Initially for my haiku, I had thought of referring to a flower more identified with Chinese (Oriental) culture like lotus, chrysanthemum or peony etc, but I finally decided on the hibiscus as, apart from being our national floral symbol, it's quintessentially Malaysian in character.

In that post I had enacted a scenario where a courageous CSL, for his personal honour, prepares himself for his final combat with his nemesis Lim Kit Siang, in a showdown to show who Chinese Malaysians support as their representative. I had written:

Visualise a Chua Soi Lek preparing for his final battle in Gelang Patah knowing he will probably lose (I know it’s difficult but let’s try anyway). He drinks three cups of wine as gestures of apology to his god(s), family and especially to the Chinese community for the sins of MCA, and pens his final political poem a la the 5-7-5 syllable haiku:

In our summer of glory

Hibiscus flowers once bloomed for my people

They now wither equally well

I intended the haiku to show that Ma Hua had once done commendable deeds for the Chinese community 'in [its] summer of glory', and let's not dismiss its past merits such as its Malayan citizenship efforts for Chinese, vernacular education including scholarship, welfare program for new villages, etc.

Chinese 'new villages'

In the last line 'They now wither equally well', I attempted to portray a repentant CSL accepting his and his party's pending political demise (its withering) as 'equally well' as basking in the glow of MCA's past merits, and thus done with courage and grace (CSL meeting Lim Kit Siang head on in Gelang Patah) as the samurai would in his seppuku.

I had wanted, perhaps in my unrealistic imagination, CSL and his Ma Hua to go down in courageous glorious flames so as not to shame Chinese Malaysians regardless of their political preference, and who knows, as per the western phoenix, rises again from its ashes in the future as a re-born clean and repentantly-conscious Ma Hua.

But blast, instead CSL cowered behind the UMNO sarung and even shoved UMNO's Abdul Ghani Othman forward to take his place in a supposedly Chinese showdown. Thus CSL effectively Paraquat-ed his hibiscus plant with its glorious blooms by his inglorious action of clinging on to the hem of an Umno man’s sarung.

MCA's candidate in Gelang Patah?

And today, we read in TMI that CSL whimpered: Don’t ask me about MCA seats, [it's] all up to PM.

Now, is that the president of Ma Hua or Ma Chau Kau, where chau kau or in Mandarin zǒu gǒu 走狗 means running dog (lap dog).

MCA on right

In his twice-abdication of his Ma Hua presidential responsibility, first, by shoving the Gelang Patah standoff with DAP into Abdul Ghani Othman's hands and then, by handing over his oversight of MCA candidates' placing in GE-13 completely into Najib's hands, CSL is undoubtedly the worst party president ever in the MCA's glorious as well as inglorious history.

Yesterday, TMI in its editorial Is there still a point to MCA’s existence? stated:

Even its closest ally, Umno, has little confidence in the party that was formed in 1949, to champion the interests of the Chinese as we head towards Election 2013.

Umno plans on fielding its candidates either in all of the DAP seats or most of them in Johor as the Malay vote is more dependable than Chinese support, according to its strategists.

That is sound political strategy.

In fact, Umno leaders have a better chance of scoring more Chinese votes than MCA.

Isn't the last sentence above the most tragic indictment of how far Ma Hua has fallen? It has the same degree of shame for Chinese Malaysians as when Gaffar Baba became the President of MCA in 1985.

Once MCA President

TMI then piled on the sneer with:

This is because the MCA is viewed as a party with little power and influence, and its leaders seen as sycophants lacking the gumption to speak out on anything except to attack its rival the DAP. [...]

Privately, Umno leaders are concerned that MCA leaders cannot even muster enough support to make a difference in Johor, a bastion for Barisan Nasional (BN).

Never mind the Chinese vote; Umno is concerned that even the Malays will not back BN if a MCA candidate is put up.

So, if a party that says it represents the Chinese in Malaysia but cannot be counted to win the Chinese vote, what is its value?

And as for MCA's at-times questionable role as a conduit for Chinese business to the UMNO-led government, TMI hammered the final nail into MCA's coffin with:

Chinese business interests used to go to MCA leaders as a bridge to better ties with Umno and other senior government leaders.

That has not been the case for years.

Chinese businessmen have been working directly with Umno interests for years without any need for MCA.

Stanley Koh, a former head of MCA research unit in FMT's Should we pity MCA? in reference to Donald Lim's begging the Chinese for votes and Ong Ka Chuan's 2008 similar shameless appeal, wrote:

Donald Lim: 'Please don't let MCA eat egg'

According to English theologian Frederick William Robertson (1816-1853), there are three things that deserve no mercy: hypocrisy, fraud and tyranny.

Many of MCA’s detractors would say that the party has been guilty of all three sins.

In 1986, the party’s think-tank pointed out the need for electoral reforms, arguing that Barisan Nasional’s gerrymandering of electoral constituencies made a mockery of the one-man-one-vote principle.

What has MCA, as Umno’s oldest partner in BN, done to press for reform from this unjust system? Nothing.

The party’s leaders have not lifted a finger in defence of democratic values, but have certainly been raising their hands in support of constitutional amendments to legalise and perpetuate this injustice. They did this in 1973 and again in 1994.

Current party president Dr Chua Soi Lek has even openly rejected accusations that the electoral system was unfair and accused Pakatan Rakyat and polls watchdog Bersih of lying about irregularities in the voter rolls.

According to Stanley, MCA has more than just a passive role, when he informed us:

Yet Chua, who has sat in many MCA steering committees over the years, is fully aware that the party leadership has been working in cahoots with Umno, which has a special relationship with the Election Commission.

The minutes of MCA meetings on the delineating of constituencies over the years would give ample proof that the party’s state leaders have been working hand in glove with the various chief ministers and menteris besar to preserve BN’s strategic election interests.

Instead of answering the public’s call for fairness and a just electoral system, the MCA has been ditching democratic principles and values for its own interests.

Stanley Koh has been completely spot on that Ma Hua, no longer its once glorious self, deserves no pity.

There have been some allegations that DAP move into Johor has been more than just winning seats, and about deliberately killing off MCA. While that is debatable, there isn't any need for such alleged DAP action.

Hmmm, which one is the MCA candidate?

What has become cheerlessly crystal clear in the last couple of weeks is that MCA has killed itself, thanks to the actions or non-actions of its party president Chua Soi Lek.

Let me end with another sad haiku for MCA:

The mountain had awaited you
But you choose instead a miry swamp
Alas, no lotus are you