Dr M still relevant after all.

Not only is a certain retired Malaysian politician’s opinion still relevant, says a blogger, but that politician’s words ring as true now as they did when he was active in politics. 

In a 7 June post in her blog Reboot Your Thinking, Helen Ang wondered why many Opposition supporters label former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as ‘old and irrelevant’ when he is apparently relevant enough to make headlines even in alternative media. 

“It was not Utusan that gave prominence to Dr M’s thoughts on the DAP-driven 505 rallies. It was Malaysiakini,” she said. 

“If Dr M was so irrelevant…then why give him airplay? It is only a newsmaker who commands so many column inches,” she said, adding that if he were truly irrelevant, Opposition supporters would not spend so much time and energy attacking both his views and his blog. 

Referring to Dr Mahathir’s most recent blog post, specifically his statement that the quality of candidates matters less to voters than the candidates’ race – which attracted hundreds of comments from Malaysiakini readers – Ang said: 

“In the context of GE13, Dr M’s assertion could be fine-tuned to say that the Dapster will vote ABU. Anything but Umno translates into a vote for any opposition candidate, as long as he does not belong to BN. 

“In the context of the Chinese tsunami, the Dapster will vote anyone who is aligned to DAP, which for the moment means any Pakatan person regardless of his race and religion. But there is no pull factor here, i.e. the candidate’s merit. The lack thereof is also immaterial. 

“There is only the push factor — Mesti tolak BN (Must reject BN).” 

On Dr Mahathir’s assertion that the DAP turned Chinese voters off BN by portraying the MCA as Umno lackeys, Ang said she felt MCA politicians were “more competent than the DAP carpetbaggers”. 

Regarding the former Prime Minister’s accusation that the DAP is not as multiracial as it claims to be, Ang wrote “Why don’t DAP prove him wrong by releasing their membership roll? The multi-racial Gerakan is willing to admit that 80 percent of its members are Chinese.” 

Ang also expressed some agreement with Dr Mahathir’s claim that the races in this country are further apart now because of the DAP’s rejection of “Malay/Chinese/Indian kongsi” and that the problem will only get worse with time. 

She referred to a speech Dr Mahathir made about Singapore’s PAP in 1965 and drew parallels with the current scenario. 

“Looking at how GE13 panned out, it might just have crossed the Tun’s mind that he ought to clamber up to his attic and look for that magic crystal ball he used in 1965,” she said, adding: 

“Every day the Dapsters are working so hard to confirm Dr Mahathir’s 50-year-old opinion. And boy, are they succeeding beyond even his expectations.” 

For context, here is the full text of Dr Mahathir’s 6 June post, entitled ‘Racial Polarization’: 

After Parliament was dissolved on the 13th April 2013, I was interviewed by a BBC journalist. He appeared quite convinced that race-based parties such as those in the National Front would be rejected by a more liberal electorate which believes in democracy, freedom and non-racial politics. Also the idealistic young would reject the BN. 

I had to disagree with him as I believed that racial polarization in Malaysia had become more pronounced now than ever before. I may not always be right but after 60 years involvement in Malaysian politics I felt strongly that the race factor will continue to dominate the politics of the country.  The quality of the candidates or parties, the ideologies and the desire for change will always be secondary to race. 

The election results showed that I was right. The DAP playing on racial sentiments drew the Chinese away from BN by depicting the MCA as lackeys of UMNO. The DAP won 38 seats, reducing the MCA’s seats from 15 to 7. The Gerakan won one seat out of two. All the DAP Chinese contested in Chinese majority constituencies.  A few of the MCA, Gerakan and MIC candidates contested in Malay majority constituencies. 

Although the DAP claims to be multiracial, it is in fact a Chinese party with mainly Chinese members and leadership. When it held elections to its Central Committee recently other than Karpal Singh all the members elected were Chinese. 

Hatred of the Malays was whipped up through the slogan “Malaysian Malaysia”, implying that Malaysia is for the Malays only while other races were discriminated against and alleged to be second class citizens.  Advocating meritocracy, the extremists Chinese in the DAP charged the BN Government  of discriminating in favour of the Malays even though they were inferior and less qualified for places in the universities, awards of scholarships, contracts, licences and positions in the Government.  The Malay leaders were not as able as the non-Malay leaders who possess greater merit. 

Whenever Government policies such as the NEP were defended, the defenders whether in the Government or NGO’s are labelled racist.  The Malay parties in the election pact in Pakatan were tolerated because they were useful for election purposes. 

If more proof is needed of the role of Chinese racism in the 13th GE, the demonstrations accusing the BN of fraud and cheating in the elections, despite being organised by Anwar and the PKR, are largely attended by Chinese, especially the young. Within the Country and abroad, Chinese youths wearing black shirts and masks made up most of the demonstrators. Usually Malays make up the majority of the demonstrators.  The lack of respect for the national flag was shown by Chinese young people in Taiwan holding it upside down. Although DAP and PKR participated in these demos, PAS members were noticeably absent. In fact PAS leaders dissociated themselves from the agitation to overthrow the Government through street demos ala Arab Spring. The protests seem to be mainly a Chinese affair. 

The indisputable fact is that the DAP has succeeded in destroying the collaboration or sharing between the different races as exemplified by the BN coalition. The Pakatan is not a true coalition. It is simply an election pact between the parties opposed to the BN. This pact clearly benefited the chauvinist Chinese in DAP most, while PAS the most Malay of the Pakatan parties benefited the least, winning only 21 seats against DAP’s 38 and PKR’s 30.  Actually although PAS contested in more constituencies than DAP, it lost two seats more than in 2008. 

If today the schism between the races is deeper it is because the DAP reject the Malay/Chinese/Indian “kongsi”. The DAP wants the Chinese who already dominate the economy, to dominate Malaysia’s politics as well. It is clearly racist and reject inter-racial sharing of power and wealth as advocated by the BN. Racial polarization has become more pronounced as a result.  It will become more so in the future.