The Great Ronnie Liu

COMMENT | In calling DAP central committee member Ronnie Liu "a Chinese chauvinist", Damansara MP Tony Pua is using the same term used by DAP's political enemies that the always pugnacious Liu was talking about.

I have no idea what Liu means by "Chineseness", which is fine because I have no idea what Pua and friends mean by "Bangsa Malaysia" or even "multiracial". I do know that neither is mutually exclusive when it comes to Malaysia.

I do not see the contradiction in Liu statements as reported in the press of the DAP sticking to its "Chineseness" while sticking to its multiracial political stance.

Otherwise, I would have to see the contradiction in DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng issuing his statement to the Tun Razak Exchange in Malay, English and Chinese. Then doubling down with a Chinese-only statement defending his original tri-lingual statement, as reported in the press saying: "Lim had defended issuing a trilingual statement, stressing the country's multilingualism."

If Lim famously said he is not Chinese but Malaysian, then why concern himself with issuing statements in anything other than the national language? Well, because maybe being "Malaysian" means embracing our diverse languages and keeping the rakyat informed by any means necessary.

Of course, it also means defending the diversity of our languages and culture from encroaching totalitarian and hegemonic power structures, which is what the state always attempts to do, claiming it is the will of the majority.

A couple of years back, I wrote of a Chinese student and her email that urged me to write about the suspension of the Chinese Language Society by University Malaya.

Here's a snippet from that piece:

"The young student wrote eloquently about what the society meant to her. While she did not elaborate on what dialect she was referring to when she wrote about the society, what she did make clear was how much she learnt about her culture and community and how it enriched her life. She was adamant that the society did not intentionally skirt whatever regulations they were in breach of, and she was extremely upset that the society was suspended."

Now is this young woman being "chauvinistic" in her outlook? Or is that term reserved for non-Malay political operatives who cause trouble to the Bangsa Malaysia group think, which states that non-Malay political operatives cannot talk about race unless it is the "Bangsa Malaysia" bunkum? Or is it only to be used by far-right hacks who demonise the DAP?

'Culture of the party'

The problem with the "multiracial" or "multicultural" narrative as espoused by the DAP is the negation of race and the hypocrisy of action(s) that precede it. It is always better to acknowledge your ethnicity and the reality of racial and religious politics in this country rather than put forward a hypocritical narrative that the non-Malays have to subscribe to in order to share power with the majority Malay community.

If what is reported in the press is accurate, the important takeaway from Liu's tirade is this: "We have to safeguard the culture of the party, as well as the party's constitutional spirit, pluralistic and democratic political struggle."

Again, I have no idea what Liu means by "culture of the party". Maybe he means it in the same way the now leader of the opposition and PKR president Anwar Ibrahim said during his numerous times of attempting to get the "numbers" to counter coup the current prime minister and babbled on about a "Malay core".

Since I do not notice any Pakatan Harapan, and especially DAP, big shots calling Anwar a Malay chauvinist, it is hypocritical to level the charge against Liu, while at the same time condoning the rhetoric and policies which 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 racialists and sometimes downright racists policies and rhetoric of its partner but has to police its own and ensure party apparatchiks conform to the multiracial/multicultural horse manure, which it does not have to defend.

Where did that get the DAP? It got them to a place where Dr Mahathir Mohamad publicly castrated former finance minister Lim Guan Eng and spilt the beans of giving more to the Malay community at the expense of the Chinese community, but nobody could say anything because the Chinese community - the DAP base - would get upset. It is all a matter of public record.

Then the former prime minister accuses the DAP and MCA of being extremist, and political operatives have to go and "explain" to him why this is not the case. Never mind that his son, Muhkriz, had publicly admitted that when he was in Umno and whenever there were issues they could not handle, the establishment demonised the DAP as "Chinese chauvinists".

Never mind that in the recent audio-gate fiasco, Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi says his "no DAP" spiel was purely tactical, and Anwar, the leader of the multiracial opposition, seemed fine with this. Now is Liu really regressive when he talks about race and is he the person who is damaging the DAP brand or is there something more at play?

Worst kind of spin

Pua claims that the chauvinistic label was applied to the DAP because for years it fought for the rights of the minority under the "brute majority" of BN rule and "the minority, in this case, was made up overwhelmingly of the Chinese, while the Indians made the bulk of the balance".

This is the worst kind of spin. Why?

Firstly, we know that the DAP was demonised as a political tactic by the Malay establishment. Secondly, it assumed that the rights of the minority are no longer in jeopardy; hence there is no need to fight for it or that the DAP needs to fight for it.

This, of course, is not true. If anything, the "rights" of the minority are always under strain even when Harapan was in power. As a member of Harapan, the fact is that the DAP was complicit in whatever policies that eroded those rights make it worse.

Of the young Malay leaders who have joined the party, Pua says: "Most importantly, they have found the new generation of top DAP leaders sensitive and cognisant of the fears, apprehensions and insecurities of the Malay community."

Really? 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 entitlements programmes disproportionately favour them. These are the so-called Malay rights that everyone keeps babbling on about.

What the non-Malays fear is very real. The encroachment into our public and private spaces. The way how 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 list goes on, Pua. These are fears, apprehensions and insecurities grounded in reality.

Running dogs

So Pua says that "MCA had 'Chineseness' themselves into oblivion today. They are completely at the mercy of the whims and fancies of the big-brothers, Umno, Bersatu and PAS who provide MCA with political life-support". 

This is exactly what the DAP did when they were kowtowing to everything the old maverick wanted, but did not have to rely on Malay partners for the Chinese vote. So the question then becomes is "Chineseness" the issue, or was MCA losing support because they were bending over for their Malay political partners?

This is why when DAP organising secretary Anthony Loke says that there are moves to dislodge "multiracial" leaning political operatives from the DAP, is the multiculturalism narrative the issue? Or is it that those who espoused such ideas did not stick to DAP's egalitarian, pluralistic ideas or live up to its constitution when dealing with the party's Malay partners?

The non-Malay political narrative post-May 9 has been one of backpedalling, reversals, sycophancy and Orwellian doublespeak because the weight of expectation collided with the realpolitik of Malay rule.

This is why the DAP's attack on MCA for supposedly organising a Jawi protest does more harm to DAP than MCA because when DAP had the power, they chose to do exactly what they claim MCA did all those years ago, which made them "running dogs".