COMMENT | Ideological void keeps rearing its head

COMMENT | To those who contend there is an ideological void in Malaysian politics, recent pronouncements by major politicians served up on a silver salver are examples of that void and how it makes them look vacant, if not silly.

Selangor DAP state assemblyperson Ronnie Liu is not a prime player in the national political arena, but he does stand up from time to time to vent the unease of sections of the party's supporters over directions its national leadership is taking.

In recent times, he has shown boldness in voicing the distress felt by DAP supporters against the unseemly quiescence of its national leadership over the gyrations of Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Contortions by the Pakatan Harapan prime ministerial leader, particularly in a torrid spell between June and November 2019, when the khat issue flared amidst inflammatory statements by Zakir Naik; and exacerbated by sectarian rhetoric at the Malay Dignity Congress; topped off by the detention of the LTTE 12, had DAP and, by extension, Harapan supporters wondering what in tarnation was going under the watch of a Harapan government.

And why was the DAP, amid these eruptions, rather quiet?

That's when a politician of Liu's instincts is valuable. He did not keep quiet but sounded off to say that things were not right.

And say it he did when bigger names in the DAP hierarchy were not only reluctant to do so; worse, they said things that appeared to excuse Mahathir's startling departure from the Harapan manifesto for change.

Liu is not a loose cannon; he's more a sniper apt to train his sights on targets his colleagues consider too lofty to be taken down. The best that can be said of him is that his instincts are to keep the party true to its founding egalitarian principles.

Which is why remarks he reportedly made at a book launch ceremony in Klang last weekend were surprising. Lui, obviously preparing the rhetorical ground for the elective DAP convention in June, held that “the DAP is a multi-racial party”.

Fair enough.

But his next sentence was confusing. Lui said, “The party need not dilute its Chineseness because of the criticism of its political enemies.”

A party cannot be multi-racial and ethnocentric at the same time.

The membership of a political party may dominantly be composed of one race, but it still can be multi-racial if its perspectives are not ethnocentric. That this was probably what Lui meant could be inferred when, further in his remarks at the book launch, he commended the “pluralistic” approach of the DAP.

Having it both ways

A pluralistic approach to the political problems of a multi-racial and multi-religious society is wise because it recognises that peaceful co-existence comes by way of a certain humility, a certain hesitancy to judge too quickly, and a generous watchfulness for possible errors in one's own perceptions.

This is probably the basis of DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang's frequent iteration that Malaysia can be a world-class nation from leveraging the pluralism of its cultures to creatively great effect.

For that, one has to be pluralistic in one's approach to issues of national import.

The problem is that all too often, we have politicians who, instead of taking a pluralistic approach, try to simplify things by taking a monistic stance.

An example was Harapan supremo Anwar Ibrahim's attempt when welcoming an infusion of Islamists into his party PKR's ranks.

In remarks made yesterday in Seremban when welcoming ex-PAS members into the PKR fold, Anwar, who incidentally Lui strongly supports as Harapan's GE15 candidate to be prime minister, said the new members ought to be able to guide the party according to Islamic principles.

Anwar held that these principles would bring good and would prompt the rejection of corruption, especially if that rejection stems from stirrings within the human conscience.

All this is very well, except that recently PAS supremo Abdul Hadi Awang was on record as saying that within his conception of the Islamic scheme of things, which is of course dictated by syariah, corruption is not an evil.

In the face of clashing Islamic perspectives on a vital issue like corruption, it is perhaps wise to take the stance that while there ought to be no objection to using one's religion to influence one's perspectives, it is only prudent to take due cognisance of what other traditions also say about the same issues. In sum, opt for pluralism rather than monism.

In fact, the pluralistic approach to the problems of Malaysian politics deserves fleshing out.

The least it would do is help fill the gap in ideology that made Lui sound silly in one instance, and Anwar comes across as vacuous in another.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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