“You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

COMMENT | When MCA deputy president Dr Mah Hang Soon said this - "Are you ready, comrades? They want to replace MCA. This shows that in their hearts, they know we are on the right path” - he may have unwittingly defined the dilemma non-Malay political power brokers find themselves wallowing in.

The problem with DAP attaching itself to Malay power brokers is not that there has not been a common policy agenda or initiatives but rather it is that the DAP has allowed itself to be subsumed by the policies of "ketuanism” in the belief that compromising on its supposed egalitarian agenda would either reap political benefits or sustain their positions in Malay power structures.

The hypocrisy of not working with “kleptocrats” is the kind of dissonance that the base accepts but the majority of Malays look upon with derision. It is not that the majority have a problem with working with kleptocrats; it is that the DAP has smugly demonised everyone else for doing the kind of thing they claim is anathema to them.

Beyond that, any Malay power structure working with the DAP will be open to attacks by the Malay uber alles crowd. This should not be the DAP’s problem.

What the DAP should do is to make its stance clear and that even if they...