Out of the Ahmad Ismail episode, Malaysians must learn how not to cause a relatively unimportant and local distraction to become fertile fishing waters for extreme elements of Umno to promote fear and uncertainty for their own political ends.

Most Malaysians can see the situation for what it is. What has been a little surprising is the vehemence that the likes of Tan Lian Hoe (Gerakan Wanita chief) and Liow Tiong Lai (Penang MCA chief ) and Koh Tsu Koon himself, in asserting themselves as the people’s champions against the might of Umno.

We have to give credit where credit is due. We understand after the trashing that they got from the people on March 8, these non-Umno BN politicians have a real need to be seen as brave and courageous, lest whatever rump of support that they can still muster vanishes overnight.

But these people must also know that by loudly voicing their demands in the way that they did, they were helping directly the dark forces lurking among their Umno big brothers. And the big question is, if they knew, why did they do so, and in a way that was almost guaranteed to provide an opportunity for some in Umno to try create a ‘May 13’ situation?

MCA and Gerakan politicians were for decades the epitome of the gutless public figure. They ate, metaphorically and financially, out of the hands of their Umno masters. The previous Gerakan boss, Lim Keng Yaik, attested to their 'beggar politics’ when it came to asking for scraps from Umno. Ling Liong Sik, the former MCA boss, was once quoted as telling his own fellow non-Malay citizens that they had to “know their place” in Malaysia.

Both Tan Lian Hoe and Liow Tiong Lai are in the BN government, and Koh Tsu Koon being BN chairman of Penang would have no trouble communicating directly to the relevant Umno ministers to resolve the impasse with Ahmad Ismail.

Many Malaysians might wonder whether in fact they actually were in communication with Umno, and were given the green light to play up the issue in the way that they did. One would not have thought that they had the gumption to spew forth their indignant declarations against an Umno personality.

And who can blame Malaysians for suspecting that these same spineless politicians were in cahoots with Umno politicians who wanted a particular political situation to develop? Both sides have the right motivation - Gerakan and MCA need to make themselves relevant post March 8, and extreme elements of Umno need to stage a political coup.

This scenario may not be that far fetched if we remember that in the 1987 Operation Lallang, the main protagonists (Najib and Lee Kim Sai of the MCA) got off scot-free. The ultimate victims were opposition politicians and activists, and of course the long-term good race relations of the country.

It takes two hands to clap. It has been the MCA and Gerakan who have provided the other hand to Umno’s to clap to the racist songs of the last 50 years.

It is entirely feasible to consign MCA and Gerakan to the dustbin of history, so that it will not have the opportunity to play racial politics, to be the ‘good cop’ to Umno’s ‘bad cop’. Civil society and Malaysians in general, and Pakatan Rakyat must tell the MCA and Gerakan to stop their racial posturings immediately because Malaysians do not anymore want to hear the racial nonsense from them which help no one but the extremist elements of Umno.