Monday, July 23, 2007

Cornered MCA bares its fangs at UMNO

Sheeesh, I made a spelling error in my title and no one picked it up - c'mon guys, you're slipping ;-) should be 'bares' and not 'bears' fangs - hehehe, no wonder MCA doesn't have much of a bite - my bad

My blogging compatriot, Dr Darren Hsu posted an excellent analysis of what would be likely to occur when Education Minister Hishamuddin Hussein ‘warned’ the MCA for questioning DPM Najib’s statement that Malaysia has always been an Islamic state.

Darren wrote:

UMNO youth gave a warning to MCA to shut up, according to Malaysiakini.

I am even more confused. Isn’t MCA part of BN? If so, why not let them have a chance to speak up and at least win some votes back from their community? Aren’t MCA seats part of BN seats?


Issuing a warning to a fellow BN component party is not a wise move. If they keep quiet, it would appear to the Rakyat that they are weak and just followers of UMNO and that would cost them lots of votes and some seats. If they don’t keep quiet, what would happen? A public quarrelling between 2 BN parties?

I am confused that why can’t they just discuss all these in private, through the so-called proper channels, like they always insisted?

[…]

But when a warning is issued to MCA to shut up, it has actually pushed MCA to a corner without any more space to maneuvre. This will not auger well to MCA and by extension, would not auger well to the whole BN.


'Warn'? 'Shutup'? What terrible words to direct at a political ally. Hishamuddin must be badly brought up to be so totally insensitive and rude.

Indeed, as I commented in Darren’s blog: Even a cornered rat will fight back, and finally a cornered MCA has found its long missing backbone to say: ‘Nuff is ’nuff.

I came across a refreshing new back-stiffened MCA in a
malaysiakini article titled ‘MCA not anyone's 'slave', says Youth chief’

It won’t do the BN much good when its two major component parties are squabbling in public. Nor will it be reassuring to the general public when the likely sequel to this acrimonious war of words will see Hishamuddin or one of those ambitious UMNO Youth hotheads drawing the keris with a threat to bathe it in MCA blood.

But I tell you what – it will do wonders for our economy in terms of tourism and foreign investments – if these fangs bearing contest continues, the wonder would be how far our national earnings would plummet.

With Hishamuddin’s outrageous and insensitive talk-down to the MCA, as if the MCA was a peon in colonial times to be told by Tuan to shut up, a normally compliant MCA had to do or die just like a cornered rat. And a cornered rat bites ferociously.

Wasn’t it Sun Tze, the ancient Chinese military strategist, who warned against cornering the enemy. I believe he wrote:
"To a surrounded enemy you must leave a way of escape."

The strategist was advising that a cornered enemy would fight with all his passion and inflict consequential serious damage that would not be worth the reward of eliminating him.

Sure as hell Hishamuddin didn’t leave any escape path for the MCA.

UMNO has always felt it alone is the BN, and the other component parties are mere add-on’s. No doubt it is what people would term as the BN's primus inter pares or ‘first among equals’. But UMNO has over-focused on the ‘first’ and forgot completely about the ‘equals’.

The MCA has for years endured humiliation by a sometimes insensitive UMNO. I have often blogged that the MCA’s worst enemy is not the DAP but UMNO.


With each humiliation, the MCA sees its support base slowly slipping away, and small wonder when disgusted and shamed Chinese Malaysians cringed at the passivity of a compliant MCA. It was only in recent years that it had gradually clawed its way back.

While I am somewhat delighted to see the MCA regaining a bit of the backbone it lost years ago, I am not sure where we will be going with such serious acrimonious exchanges between the two major parties of the BN, with only 39 days to go to our nation’s 50th anniversary.

8 comments:

  1. "With each humiliation, the MCA sees its support base slowly slipping away"

    Well you're wrong there. The more MCA is humiliated, the more mixed seats the MCA will win by relying on non-Chinese BN supporters. Just see the ethnic distribution of the seats won by MCA leaders.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OOuch!! Don't jump to conclusion. How could Hishammuddin be so insensitive? No, he will deny in public that he had ever issued that crude words, "shut up". He is the education minister, remember, so he is the excellent role model. No, he didn't do it...read in the news tomorrow...if I guess correct. It's UMNO's culture. To deny and eveything will be peaceful. The quarrel will cease, all hugging and embracing. BN is a family, remember.....ooouch!!!!

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  3. What backbone of MCA.

    MCA leaders and the MCA Youth are ball-less.

    Their response to UMNO YOuth is disgraceful, to say the least.

    The issue for Chinese in the coming election is not UMNO or UMNO YOuth.

    It is whether the Chinese should give the vote to MCA if MCA is still part of Barisan.

    As one blogger said, a vote for MCA is a vote for UMNO to continue to bully the chinese, to extend the NEP nd to deny taxpayers' money for scholarships, building schools for non Bumiputras and for UMNO Youth to be kurang ajar.

    Read this piece by malaysia unplug
    http://malaysianunplug.blogspot.com/2007/07/umno-youth-threatens-mca-leadership.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. If you dont like to be connered then stop doing it that to your enemy. MCA or any non muslim should shut up. If you dont like to be here in Malaysia, then go and leave. No one will stop any of you from leaving.

    What Sun Tze??? this is malaysia now and not ancient chinese state. That strategy may not work in this decade!!

    Dont conner the malays and muslim in this country... Hishamudin is doing good to all malaysian by asking MCA or the overzealous MCA youth to shut up.

    Make no mistake.. it is a warning as not to creat racial or religious tension in this country. Free speech has its limit!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. MCA Bangsar Open Letter to UMNO Youth

    http://sagaladoola.blogspot.com/2007/07/mca-bangsar-open-letter-to-umno-youth.html

    Read what MCA Bangsar sent to me...

    P.S. I am not pro-MCA or any opposition FYI.

    Regards...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wrote this a few days back..

    Hisham, Ultraman and Scared Kitty
    http://sagaladoola.blogspot.com/2007/07/hisham-ultraman-and-scared-kitty.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. To the anonymous who said If you dont like to be here in Malaysia, then go and leave. No one will stop any of you from leaving. Dont conner the malays and muslim in this country... Hishamudin is doing good to all malaysian by asking MCA or the overzealous MCA youth to shut up.


    No, nobody is going to leave Malaysia. We all are going to stay back, give all the shit to all of you and the Hishamuddins of this world till the day we die.

    What are YOU going to do if we don't leave? There is NOTHING you can do except to tolerate. So, you can stop all the nonsense asking nonMalays to leave. Nobody is going to leave.. because there is more giving back the bullshit to you and your type.

    Tell, me what are YOU going to do if WE don't leave? Open your keris? This is not 1969.

    ReplyDelete
  8. MCA bares its fangs ? More like baring its toothless gums. The "Islamic State" statement by Najib makes very little electoral impact on MCA as most of them are not in Chinese majority seats.

    I expect Badawi will next ask everyone to shut up - then MCA will have to keep quiet.

    But too bad he can't shut up the bloggers, short of throwing the ISA or Sedition Act at them.
    RPK could be the next target.

    ReplyDelete