S Thayaparan
“But you can't make people listen. They have to come around in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can't last.”
“But you can't make people listen. They have to come around in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can't last.”
- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
COMMENT | Perikatan Nasional (PN) chairperson Muhyiddin Yassin’s claim that it was something “unusual” for an Umno hack to ask the party faithful to support DAP, is the kind of duplicitous, sanctimonious horse manure that Malay uber alles types engage in with a straight face.
Coming from a former ally who knows first-hand how DAP bent over for former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his minions from Bersatu (the party that Muhyiddin treacherously leads now) is galling, since it comes from a traitor of the brief Pakatan Harapan government, who had offered an olive branch to Harapan (and DAP) when he realised that Umno was planning something most foul against his regime.
Muhyiddin likes to play the honest leader card but the reality is he is a prime minister who declared a faux emergency just to remain in power. Leading up to the “emergency”, the PN government attempted to soothe the frayed nerves of the public by claiming that this was not really an emergency but rather something else that was like an emergency.
Former Malaysiakini columnist Syahredzan Johan, who is now Bangi MP, astutely pointed out in 2020 that even the royal institution was concerned about the possible abuse of political power in the first attempt at an emergency:
“The word membatasi was the only one to be highlighted in red in the statement. The other words were printed in black. This statement is significant as it suggests that the rulers were of the view that there could be elements of abuse of power in an emergency and that the Agong’s role is to ensure that executive powers are not abused.”
The fact that PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, Muhyiddin, and the rest of PN are more than willing to defy the royal institution demonstrates how far they and their base are willing to go to redefine the political, social, and religious landscape of this country.
PN chairperson Muhyiddin Yassin (left) and PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang
You can bet on one thing, though. When these race-based charlatans want to be saved from the treachery of their comrades, they run to DAP. As a political party, DAP has a strong stable base that has always acted as a foundation for these Malay uber alles types to cling on to power.
The worst of the lot is PAS of course. Having been injected into the mainstream of Malaysian politics on the wings of DAP, they now continue racial and religious narratives that they know are a lie but which are perfectly acceptable to the kind of religion they preach.
Bersatu, PAS, and now Umno, are parties that continue to dominate the Malay polity because of gerrymandering and unequal weightage of votes.
The raison d'être of PAS wanting to hook up with Umno in the last general election was to delineate the political landscape through legislation, which would finally destroy DAP as a functional political party.
This was not some sub rosa agenda, Hadi actually said this on the campaign stump. The fact is, the circle is now complete with Umno hooking up with DAP.
Indeed at one time or another, Malay uber alles political operatives have hooked up with DAP. Muhyiddin has sung praises of the DAP. Mahathir has done so too. Even Hadi has made nice with DAP.
So confident that states controlled by the political bloc were free from corruption in 2013, Hadi as reported in the press said Pakatan Rakyat (Harapan’s predecessor) states and political leaders were free from corruption. And he said this during the opening of a Chinese New Year festival in Kedah.
Harapan and Umno believe that it needs a fig leaf of non-Malay participation in government and pays lip service to the idea that Malaysia is a diverse country with equal participation for all.
You can bet on one thing, though. When these race-based charlatans want to be saved from the treachery of their comrades, they run to DAP. As a political party, DAP has a strong stable base that has always acted as a foundation for these Malay uber alles types to cling on to power.
The worst of the lot is PAS of course. Having been injected into the mainstream of Malaysian politics on the wings of DAP, they now continue racial and religious narratives that they know are a lie but which are perfectly acceptable to the kind of religion they preach.
Bersatu, PAS, and now Umno, are parties that continue to dominate the Malay polity because of gerrymandering and unequal weightage of votes.
The raison d'être of PAS wanting to hook up with Umno in the last general election was to delineate the political landscape through legislation, which would finally destroy DAP as a functional political party.
This was not some sub rosa agenda, Hadi actually said this on the campaign stump. The fact is, the circle is now complete with Umno hooking up with DAP.
Indeed at one time or another, Malay uber alles political operatives have hooked up with DAP. Muhyiddin has sung praises of the DAP. Mahathir has done so too. Even Hadi has made nice with DAP.
So confident that states controlled by the political bloc were free from corruption in 2013, Hadi as reported in the press said Pakatan Rakyat (Harapan’s predecessor) states and political leaders were free from corruption. And he said this during the opening of a Chinese New Year festival in Kedah.
Harapan and Umno believe that it needs a fig leaf of non-Malay participation in government and pays lip service to the idea that Malaysia is a diverse country with equal participation for all.
Now, I get that some people may be upset when they read this but as long as the political paradigm is what it is, this will always be the role of non-Malays in the government.
PN, on the other hand, with a virulent PAS in play, is the apex of the ketuanan (supremacy) ideology, bankrupt of ideas, disguising its entitlement programmes as populist moves for “the people”, which really means for the Malays.
DAP’s Faustian bargain
Johor DAP chief Liew Chin Tong has publicly admitted that Harapan did everything Muhyiddin, who is now a sworn enemy, wanted or needed when he was part of Harapan.
DAP played by the rules – unfair though it may have been – and let down its base when it came to various hot-button issues, and yet this was not enough for the gang from Sheraton and even Malay power structures in Harapan.
And now, Lim Guan Eng is calling out Muhyiddin in the Jill Ireland case saying - “I challenge him to name the person. If he fails to mention who the minister is, he is a liar and a coward.”
DAP, by making its Faustian bargain and working with Bersatu, demonstrated that working with morally suspect and corruption-tainted politicians was not an impediment to “saving Malaysia”.
Faustian is the only way to describe such power-sharing arrangements but it is the only cursed deal the non-Malay power brokers can make.
And when you work with these types of people, what can you expect? Mind you, in the political game, all this is fair game. Political operatives in many functional democracies switch sides all the time and attack their former comrades. But this is not a functional democracy.
This is an ethnocracy where all these proud defenders of bangsa (race) and agama (religion) run to DAP and the non-Malays when they need our help and then take a dump on us when they feel confident enough that they have suckered their community into voting for them again.
Now, of course, we have all this talk from all sides if partisans would vote for the enemy. Can they vote for the former enemy? Will they vote for a party that for decades they demonised?
Honestly, I do not see this as much of a hurdle because as far as partisans are concerned, Harapan and Umno, it is much as how Orwell defined doublethink - “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
All you need to know is this. When these Malay uber alles types are fearful for their political survival, they will run to DAP. Whether this is a good or bad thing, that is for you to decide.
S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
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kt comments:
Allow me to make a subtle correction to the Commander's conclusion in his article above, that "When these Malay uber alles types are fearful for their political survival, they will run to DAP".
Mind, the commander has not been incorrectly entirely but I just would like to go deeper into the truth, namely, that it's the non-Malays (rather than the DAP) whom those "Malay uber alles" will run to when they are fearful for their own political survival, much as they (the so-named "Malay uber alles") would be prepared to swear "kerbau" until their ketuanan face turn
One "evidence" (if one can classify it as such) for my argument has been the common knowledge that one former PM (wakakaka) preferred federal constituencies to be gerrymandered to a desired 60:40 to 70:30 ratio (that was 60%Malays:40%non-Malay to 70:30), which coupled with campaign 'scare-mongering' of a horrendous green wave, would drive the apprehensive Chinese & Indians into the arms of the ketuanan but less Islamic saviour.
This 'formula' was based on the assumption that even if PAS secured even slightly more than half of the Muslim votes, that PM's party would still get the majority with help from the almost 100% of the 'frightened' Chinese+Indian votes in those constituencies.
Thus DAP today, with its much-touted 90% Chinese vote base, represents a solid bastion to cling to in hard times (for the ketuanan types).
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