I said the old devils are at it again,

Who knows what they’ll do,

And it’s right now like it was back then,

The old devils are at it again.

– William Elliot Whitmore, ‘Old Devils’

COMMENT | In an interview, DAP’s Lim Guan Eng was reported to have said “the situation needed to be pacified, it should not stop people from continuing to express their views on Icerd (International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination).”

Really? So, let me get this straight.

DAP, which has not given its official stand on the ratification of Icerd, wants people to express their views on this issue?

DAP, who routinely mocks MCA for being subservient to Umno, wants people to express their views even though it has not declared its own position on the issue after the cabinet decided (by consensus) not to ratify Icerd?

DAP, the purveyors of the Bangsa Malaysia Kool-Aid, wants people to express their views, even though it has warned the Chinese community (and others) to be wary until after the Dec 8 anti-Icerd celebration?

So, the finance minister of this country, who has made these tirades about speaking the 'truth' even though it is economically or politically disadvantageous to do so, suddenly seems to have lost his ability to speak when it comes to the issue of Icerd.

But don’t worry folks, I am sure you will speak up on this issue, even when Lim, if asked to comment, will just deflect, leaving you holding the bag.

Another DAP leader, Liew Chin Tong, says this country needs a vision which highlights the virtue of the middle ground.

When politicians babble on about the middle ground, what they forget to tell you is that it is contextual. Here in this country, when I talk to people about what they think the middle ground is, they speak of middle Malaysia with two definitions.

The first is the social contract. It is not a real document but rather it is an unspoken understanding. The middle ground is that there are policies and ideologies in place that benefit the majority, and as long as minorities can exist comfortably, albeit with limited freedoms, they must not question the inequalities of the system, even if that system which claims to “uplift” the majority is in reality detrimental to the community...