“When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.”

― Yevgeny Yevtushenko

COMMENT | So, today is this big pow-wow amongst the Malay elite for a new bumiputera agenda, which would chart the course of the majority of this country. As Council of Eminent Persons chief Daim Zainuddin said, maybe this time they will get it right. Who is “they”? Well, “they” are the Malay power brokers of the new Malaysia, of course.

Leading up to this event, MCA and DAP got into a bit of a row about who was not spooking the Malays more. First of all, I have no idea what DAP’s Muhammad Shakir Ameer means when he says MCA is fighting fire with fire which would burn everyone, but I do believe that DAP is muddled when it comes to this issue.

Three important points need to be made:

The first is that DAP has no grounds whatsoever to claim that Chinese Malaysians voted against the racial politics of Umno-BN because the Pakatan Harapan regime, with its linchpin Bersatu, is led by the old guard of Umno, which is a race-based party. This, of course, is strange because Bersatu, unlike PKR and DAP, which are “multiracial”, has the lowest number of seats but yet by virtue of “not spooking the Malays” has the most say in government.

Second, to claim that MCA does not understand the economic reality that necessitates measures by “the Harapan government would have to take would seem ‘painful’ but necessary for the benefit of many” is ridiculous considering the fact that the raison d'être of MCA was balancing the economic, social and political aspirations of the Chinese community and you guessed it – "not spooking the Malays" – which is exactly the role played by DAP now.

Third, the idea that MCA wants to continue racial politics after 61 years of independence when DAP has to defend a bumiputera congress while the Malay political elite of PKR and Bersatu chart the course for the majority community, is laughable.

I was never one who bought into the whole “apartheid” horse manure propagated by some in the then opposition. If I did, it would make me look really stupid because of the compromises the non-Malay component of Harapan has had to make when dealing with Malay power structures. Much like the mendacity of Muhammad Shakir claiming that MCA does not understand the “economic reality” that makes non-Malay political structures subservient to the dogma of mainstream Malay politics.

Meanwhile, Umno is still suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress of losing power to Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Umno information chief Shamsul Anuar Nasarah claims that DAP is now a “pak turut”. No doubt, that raises the heckles of many but what he is saying is exactly what PKR president-elect Anwar Ibrahim and the rest of the Malay political elite realise - that non-Malays were never the threat to Malay hegemony but rather a disparate Malay polity was a threat to Umno hegemony...