In David Lean's movie epic Lawrence of Arabia, after Lawrence had successfully led the Arabs to victory over the Turks and taken Damascus, the film showed Emir Feisal and General Allenby cutting a deal that left out Lawrence with his aspirations for the Arabs.

Emir Feisal was relieved that the British was sending Lawrence back to Britain.

The movie audience would have felt a sense of outrage at Emir Feisal's betrayal of, and ingratitude, to Lawrence, who had fought so earnestly to promote Arab interests. But the pragmatic Emir knew that in the real world he had to do business with the powerful British colonial army.

The great Lawrence of Arabia had served his purpose. He was no longer needed nor wanted.

Such had been the sense of anger felt by some, on the SOS Damasara committee's ingratitude and treachery in switching its allegiance to a Barisan National (BN) politician.

The silence of BN politicians, particularly those from the MCA and Gerakan, had been so deafening during the SOS Damansara struggle - this for fear of jeopardising their own positions by annoying their major political partner.

In contrast, the DAP had been in the vanguard of the SOS Damansara struggle to keep the SRJK(C) Damansara open.

But like Emir Feisal, SOS Damasara felt that the 'Lawrence of Malaysia', Lim Kit Siang, has served his purpose. He has now become a liability for SOS Damansara in its objective to advance beyond the 'struggle' phase.

Lim and his DAP were the sort of support the SOS Damansara had needed in difficult times, but unfortunately, not the desired company to be taken to a cocktail party when all is well (or about to become well).

In the film, Emir Feisal (played by Alec Guinness) remarked dryly to General Allenby that Lawrence of Arabia was like a double-edged sword. And like Lawrence, Lim Kit Siang was perceived as such by SOS Damansara, for he could equally 'slash' the committee's hopes for reopening the school as he had 'slashed' mercilessly at the BN for closing it.

But in the end, like Emir Feisal, SOS Damansara is being pragmatic. Had SOS Damansara remained loyal to Lim and ignored the BN - as justice, loyalty and common decency would have expected - the government would have considered the school's reopening as a victory to the DAP and a defeat for itself.

In switching horses, SOS Damansara has demonstrated that there is no room for such sentiments in its manoeuvring.

Such is the lot of the DAP. It is there to serve a purpose, and having achieved the required impact, it may then be discarded. There have many variations of this treatment for the DAP.

One practiced by voters for years, with an exception of 1999, has been the unspoken but well-known strategy of 'sending' the DAP to federal parliament to raise high-level issues, but voting for the Barisan Nasional at state-level to ensure federal funding for local development.

Lim Kit Siang may also be likened to the kamikaze, the Japanese suicide pilots of World War II. In serving the cause successfully, he and his colleagues would doom themselves.

How many times have Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh been incarcerated for political reasons? Do we still remember a man by the name of Lim Guan Eng , and why and for whom he was imprisoned?

But the DAP must fight on, regardless of how those it had fought for behave towards its members. This is its raison d'etre.

Thus, like the Spartans, it must continue to wage war as it has been born and bred to do so, even for those who would eventually spurn it. Many Malaysians continue to need the DAP, at least for its political combat capability, courage and readiness to jump into the political arena.

Like the Spartans, it would come across its occasional Thermopylae. And knowing such would be its fate, it continues ever willing to defy overwhelming odds for Malaysians.

They say that at Thermopylae, the following sign stands in memory of the 300 Spartans who fought to the last man, holding out against the mightiest army in the word, the gargantuan military might of King Xerxes of Persia.

O xein angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti tede keimetha tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi.

(Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.)

They had fought and perished for a Greece that did not like them. But when needed, they had responded. So has the DAP, and so will it.