S Thayaparan
“The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
COMMENT | DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang’s revisionist history of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd) debacle and his “relief” that the current Suhakam chairperson, Rahmat Mohamad, is not an opponent of the convention is the reason why the Bangsa Malaysia Kool-Aid is perhaps the biggest con the opposition has ever come up with.
I get that Kit Siang has to defend the rather hypocritical stand of the DAP but does anyone really buy into this nonsense?
Take this gem for instance – “All throughout the Icerd fiasco at the end of 2018, the DAP was completely in the dark as the party’s ministers and leaders knew nothing about the issue.”
Really?
Come on, then finance minister Lim Guan Eng in November 2018 in a 90-minute call with the editors of Chinese dailies warned that certain parties were playing up the issue.
From the reportage – “According to Guan Eng, the decision not to ratify Icerd was made in consensus after ministers offered their views during today’s cabinet meeting.”
Do we really believe that the DAP was completely in the dark about the issue? It seems to me that the DAP was doing everything in its power not to get entangled in it.
“The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
- Garry Kasparov
COMMENT | DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang’s revisionist history of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd) debacle and his “relief” that the current Suhakam chairperson, Rahmat Mohamad, is not an opponent of the convention is the reason why the Bangsa Malaysia Kool-Aid is perhaps the biggest con the opposition has ever come up with.
I get that Kit Siang has to defend the rather hypocritical stand of the DAP but does anyone really buy into this nonsense?
Take this gem for instance – “All throughout the Icerd fiasco at the end of 2018, the DAP was completely in the dark as the party’s ministers and leaders knew nothing about the issue.”
Really?
Come on, then finance minister Lim Guan Eng in November 2018 in a 90-minute call with the editors of Chinese dailies warned that certain parties were playing up the issue.
From the reportage – “According to Guan Eng, the decision not to ratify Icerd was made in consensus after ministers offered their views during today’s cabinet meeting.”
Do we really believe that the DAP was completely in the dark about the issue? It seems to me that the DAP was doing everything in its power not to get entangled in it.
What does this say about how informed the DAP is, about the governance of this country if they were truly in the dark?
Guan Eng also said although the situation needed to be “pacified”, people should not be stopped from expressing their views on Icerd.
This, of course, did not apply to then minister in the Prime Minister’s Department P Waytha Moorthy, who brought up the issue of Icerd but which Guan Eng disavowed, claiming that the DAP did not raise the issue and he wanted to concentrate on the economy.
This is funny, of course, because even if we take Guan Eng’s deflection at face value, discriminatory policies do affect the economy.
Discriminatory policies affect the economic viability of not only the non-Malay community but more importantly, the majority-Malay community in this country.
Discriminatory policies affect employment opportunities, education opportunities, and the very ecosystem which sustains a vibrant economy able to withstand the vagaries of turbulent world markets.
Hypocritical and mendacious
But do not let this little detail get in the way of not acknowledging, much less defending, a policy that could actually save Malaysia. And never mind that Waytha was a part of the Harapan administration.
Of course, Azalina Othman Said wanted Waytha to apologise to “Malaysians” because – “As a minister in charge of unity, he should be sensitive. A personal opinion should not be used for national issues. Malaysians are not at ease over the issue… moreover, the recent viral video clip in which he (allegedly) touched on sensitive racial issues.”
Kit Siang also takes great pride in saying that he kept challenging Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah to explain the origins of Icerd and that the DAP had nothing to do with it.
See, this is the problem right here. The DAP wanting nothing to do with anti-discrimination policies? Is this really what the DAP wants the base to believe?
The central theme of Icerd is eliminating all forms of racism and discrimination and while the legalese of this convention is contextualised in support of certain race-based agendas. At the heart of it, what its proponents hoped Icerd would do is put us on the road towards reforming a system which is mired in the kind of racism and bigotry detrimental to social and economic cohesion.
What Icerd does is remind people that we are equal. At the very least, special provisions could be attempted for marginalised communities to make them equal. You may disagree with affirmative action programmes for the minority, but you have to be invested in the system to believe that, by virtue of race, you have certain privileges.
The political class is hypocritical and mendacious when they want to tackle racism in the property market (for instance), but ignore the racism in the government. However, the rakyat is hypocritical when they justify certain forms of racism, but demand that the government confront the racism in the government.
This is how Icerd could have changed the racial narrative in this country because it encourages unpleasant conversations about race which goes beyond the policies of the state.
Ad inifinitum
All this goes back to the Bangsa Malaysia Kool-Aid. That stupid idea that seeks to eliminate race from the discourse under certain - political expedient - conditions.
This has made an honest conversation about race impossible. If people were seriously interested in reform, they would support something like Icerd and condemn the racism that is perpetrated through government policy as well as condemn racism carried out in the private sector.
What is more important is that a certain segment of the political class should support this idea instead of making the idea seem unsuitable for this country at the present moment.
What Icerd does is remind people that we are equal. At the very least, special provisions could be attempted for marginalised communities to make them equal. You may disagree with affirmative action programmes for the minority, but you have to be invested in the system to believe that, by virtue of race, you have certain privileges.
The political class is hypocritical and mendacious when they want to tackle racism in the property market (for instance), but ignore the racism in the government. However, the rakyat is hypocritical when they justify certain forms of racism, but demand that the government confront the racism in the government.
This is how Icerd could have changed the racial narrative in this country because it encourages unpleasant conversations about race which goes beyond the policies of the state.
Ad inifinitum
All this goes back to the Bangsa Malaysia Kool-Aid. That stupid idea that seeks to eliminate race from the discourse under certain - political expedient - conditions.
This has made an honest conversation about race impossible. If people were seriously interested in reform, they would support something like Icerd and condemn the racism that is perpetrated through government policy as well as condemn racism carried out in the private sector.
What is more important is that a certain segment of the political class should support this idea instead of making the idea seem unsuitable for this country at the present moment.
Why, because for the political class, the “present moment” is an indefinite period of time because it is easier to win power in the status quo instead of running on ideas of change.
What we are dealing with here when it comes to anti-discrimination policies is the reality that the political class has no interest in tackling this issue for various reasons.
The Malay political class want to keep the gravy train running on time and the non-Malay political class wants to benefit from the political power of the Malay establishment.
So what do we get? We get the base riled up about issues like the jailing of former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and salivating at the possible jailing of other Malay uber alles leaders.
Meanwhile, the system endures and the racist and bigoted policies will continue to define the political terrain in Malaysia until the non-Malay vote becomes irrelevant. This remains the state of play.
Read more: The Icerd outrage
S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
ICERD was torpedoed by the Malay Race Supremacist establishment, which unfortunately included people within the Harapan Government , abated by other Malay politicians who were afraid to be tarred as "liberal".
ReplyDeleteWhy blame DAP ?