Recently, MCA’s Religious Harmony Bureau secretary, Chris Daniel Wong, made a comment implying that the taxes paid by MCA members are used to build the nation and mosques. Apparently religious harmony was not in his mind when he made that comment.

The past few weeks have been rather vocal for MCA, a party claiming to have 1.07 million members. The irony is 1.07 million members are hellbent on attacking a Muslim, Prof Dr Ridhuan Tee. So much time and effort put into demonising one single person that they lead people away from contemplating about MCA’s failure as a political party.
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One has to ask, did the 1.07 million members even vote for MCA in the last general election? Since they have only seven seats in comparison to DAP’s 37, did MCA campaign for DAP in the GE? Or did MCA’s members start losing hope in their party and started voting for DAP?

That said, it is easy for MCA to make baseless comments. However the person defending these claims has to come up with facts. Following the footsteps of DAP in going anti-Malay and anti-Islam, MCA does not have much to show for their poor performance in local politics other than lip service.

Many have threatened to resign, and one made a U-turn after a so-called ‘resignation’, so far they have not been able to stand up to their ‘threats’. The severity of their suggestion to resign is minuscule in reality. It does not bear any consequence except for the absence of MCA in the cabinet.

That said, Wong probably forgot that his ancestor in MCA, namely Tan Siew Sin, made an agreement to honour the Malays. The tax is indeed paid by all, but as mentioned in the constitution, Article 3(1), Islam is the religion of the federation, hence the expenditure coming from taxes is not unconstitutional at all.

If that were true, however we can see MCA’s failure in the Parliament as a result of their alleged lack of initiative in doing their homework before coming up with comments or ideas. As mentioned by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Jamil Khir Baharom, building of mosques is paid from the zakat.

And zakat is collected from Muslims and mounts to a few billion every year. And zakat collections are from Muslims and unlike taxes that are collected from every citizen in one way or another.

It would be best for MCA to be factual when commenting or responding, otherwise they can always keep quiet as there are not many that want to hear from them, especially their own members.

REHAN AHMAD JAMALUDDIN AHMAD is president, Intellectual Wisdom Society.