Dap S Tail Wagging Conundrum

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“So that, directly or indirectly, led to Bersatu leaving the Pakatan Harapan coalition that led to the government falling apart,” – Ong Kian Ming
At this point in time, it really does not matter if the DAP becomes MCA 2.0 because the religious far right is in ascension and the country’s trajectory is more or less settled. The DAP’s role is to ensure the opposite but all indications are that the party is not up to the challenge.
Former Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming, in a recent interview, made many conflicting statements which demonstrated how the sole non-Malay power structure in this country ultimately can never work productively with the mainstream Malay political establishment.
It is extremely arrogant for Ong to claim that what separates the DAP from the MCA is that “…leaders in DAP are still people who really want to serve the nation”.
Not only is this statement ahistorical but it also gaslights supporters into thinking that serving the nation is devoid of politics, which is blatantly untrue when it comes to the DAP and how it has handled its relationship with Malay power brokers.
Honestly, when DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke said this - “Anyone in DAP who cannot keep their mouth shut on this matter is not welcome at all to speak on the DAP stage,” in response to former Damansara MP Tony Pua’s contention in a fundraiser that BN was a corrupt coalition, you can’t make the claim that leaders in the DAP are altruistic and leaders in the MCA are not when it comes to not only corruption but enabling kleptocratic power structures.
It also makes every other party seem like a bunch of self-serving power-hungry crackpots and the DAP is the only party who have leaders who want to serve the nation but are willing to work with these self-serving power-hungry crackpots.
Former Bangi MP Ong Kian MingOk, forget about the rest of the parties but if you think that the MCA did not have leaders who wanted to serve the nation but were constrained by the power-sharing nonsense that the DAP now finds itself grappling with and did nothing for the country, then you are truly drunk on the kool-aid.
As former DAP whipping boy and someone Pua called a Chinese chauvinist, Ronnie Liu, said - “The ones (who have) tasted power, position and perks have lost sight of (their) values and virtues and why they’re in politics… This is not the way to go.”
DAP is already MCA 2.0
Since I have not noticed any Pakatan Harapan - especially DAP - big shots calling Anwar a Malay chauvinist, it is hypocritical to level the charge against anyone speaking up for their community while at the same time condoning the rhetoric and policies that favour one community over the other in the name of political compromise, while claiming we are all “Malaysians”.
And this has always been the problem with the DAP. It has to ignore the racialist and sometimes downright racist policies and rhetoric of its partner but has to police its own and ensure that the party apparatchiks conform to the multiracial/multicultural horse manure, which it does not have to defend.
I’ll leave the really nonsensical statement that the DAP “has not become part of the Chinese business and corporate landscape” alone because I assume that these types of statements would only be believed by the most naïve of the DAP base.
Ong’s claims that what people really mean when they ask if the DAP is turning into MCA 2.0 is if the DAP remains vocal on issues they raised before they got into power. By this definition, the DAP has already turned into MCA 2.0 because, of course, they have been silent on issues they were vocal about before they attained power.
From issues such as systemic reform, to M Indira Gandhi and Teoh Beng Hock, to Lynas, to Chinese education - you name it and the DAP has been quiet as church mice.
Once, DAP chairperson Lim Guan Eng, when debating with former MCA president and former health minister Chua Soi Lek, admonished the latter that the Chinese should not beg for scraps.
However,, when Lim became finance minister, we now know that the non-Malay community was given far less than the Malay community, but nobody in the DAP said anything because it would spook the Malays and anger the Chinese community.
DAP chairperson Lim Guan EngFurthermore, when Ong argues that the DAP did not manage its relationship with Bersatu, especially when it came to 3R issues, it points to how non-Malay power structures have to deal with lesser (in terms of vote share) Malay power structures to retain any kind of power and have to kowtow to Malay power brokers even though “betrayal” is all they get, which is then used by propagandists to firm up support for the DAP and which only advances racialists narratives.
Ong thinks that the DAP could have managed the relationship better, however, for party strategist Liew Chin Tong, DAP was a great friend to Muhyiddin Yassin and yet he betrayed the DAP.
As Liew wrote in the strange case of Muhyddin Yassin - “In four years between 2016 and 2020, each time you asked DAP for help, we never failed you, we did everything possible to assist you. Playing the anti-DAP card to justify the existence of the Perikatan Nasional coalition would only make you seem hypocritical.”
Real and imagined fear
What we are dealing with here is a new political terrain where there are no truly progressive political parties in the mainstream establishment.
Yes, we could hope for independent candidates and outlier coalitions but people are too afraid to take any kind of chances, which is what these legacy parties are banking on. This is about fear.
The Malays feel that they are under siege, which is total bunkum because the political establishment does everything in their power to ensure that they are not spooked and that entitlement programmes disproportionately favour them. These are the so-called Malay rights that everyone keeps babbling about.
However, what the non-Malays fear is very real. The encroachment into our public and economic spaces. The way the religion of the state sometimes means children are kidnapped because of unilateral conversions. The way the state controls the words we can and cannot use. The way the state disenfranchises non-Malays from public education.
The tragedy is that while the DAP has electoral power for a myriad of reasons, this does not translate to political power. The same could have been said about the MCA. When it comes to non-Malay power structures, the tail does truly wag the dog. - Mkini
S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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