“The rules and reasons the political system employs to enforce status relations of any kind, including racial hierarchy, evolve and change as they are challenged.”

- Michelle Alexander, ‘The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness’

I found economist Lim Mah Hui’s reply in the Letters section to the posturing of Chris Lee timely and indicative of the abysmal state of oppositional discourse in this country. I would just like to publically state that I am supportive of Lim and indeed hold him and his colleagues, some who I count as close friends, in the highest regard.

Chris Lee’s “Where are you when the real battles are being fought?” attack on Lim seems to be the only way some opposition folks can retaliate when unable to come up with convincing counter arguments. We know where Lim was and while I was not exactly playing into the hands of BN, I was serving the instruments of political power which I guess to people like Chris and most probably many oppositions supporters, made me a running dog.

Of course, folks like Chris seem to forget that it was the majority of Malaysians who voted in Barisan National and sustained the Umno hegemon for decades and poured scorn on the opposition whose rhetoric was vastly different from the kool aid they are dispensing these days.