As a Christian supporter of DAP as well as BA, I am sad to see that the opposition parties are unnecessarily split into two groups when the people need a united, multi-ethnic and multireligious front to check and balance the increasingly arrogant Barisan Nasional, and struggle with (not for) the weak, the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden.

We should perhaps not blame DAP too much because it is under the tremendous pressure from the propaganda of the Barisan Nasional. Some, although not all, leaders of DAP like Lim Kit Siang has been doing a great job in raising and exposing issues that would otherwise be hidden.

I think even PAS supporters respect and admire Kit Siang's ability and dedication to democracy and human rights throughout 30 years of his involvement in politics.

However, there is room for improvement for DAP leaders, members and supporters. They must understand that the oppressed and marginalised Muslims need the psychological support of religion to withstand persecution and oppression.

They have no wealth, machinery, power or other resources to protect themselves against the oppressive Umno in the rural areas. This is the most important thing DAP supporters who live in the wealthier parts of the country and stations of life must understand and empathise.

If we help people in need today, people will help you in return one day. This is a simple truth that does not need mathematical deduction and induction, or political science to prove or demonstrate.

PAS supporters and their children, like us urbanites, also want progress and advancement. However, for so many years, they have been marginalised and exploited by Umno and its cronies in a pagar makan padi (untrustworthy) manner.

A Chinese proverb goes, "I help everybody, everybody helps me." DAP must not be influenced or manipulated by the elitist attitude of some (not all) cosmopolitan Umno petit bourgeoisie who think they are the smartest people on earth and who look down on their own fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters in the kampung who cannot speak English, or who do not dress like Michael Jackson or Madonna, or do not know how to enjoy ancient Greek classics and Plato, Aristotle or Thucydides.

As a social democratic party, DAP must always make it its paramount principle to empathise with the weak, oppressed and downtrodden, irrespective of race and religion. It should always guard against intellectual vanity and political temptation.

DAP must realise that the rich, powerful and privileged elite, and their urban and cosmopolitan think-tanks only need an opposition party as expandable or disposable instrument for their agenda.

Siding and solidarising with the poor and oppressed is not only secularly honourable and divinely commendable, it is also the great and proud tradition of social democracy and democratic socialism for the past 200 years. The oppressed and downtrodden may be poor but they are less perfidious.

It is time for DAP to return to its true ideological root: social democracy. It is time DAP and social democrats of all races to return home for a great family reunion. Let bygones be bygones.