Who are you preaching to, Soi Lek?
'Why has MCA been sleeping with the enemy for 53 years and you now feel that Umno is pushing the Islamic agenda?'
Political Islam: MCA chief raps Umno, PAS
Ksn: Between the Umno Muslims and their approach and the PAS Muslims and their approach, the better choice is PAS for their consistency and because it is not racial.
I believe that is what Chua Soi lek meant to say but for lack of backbone typical of MCA, he had to bring in PAS. PAS is not racial but Umno exploits it to the maximum. That is where the danger is - race and religion mixed and exploited.
Abil: Chua, it is Umno that is changing its colour to become more Islamic outwardly so as to gain political milage after the March 8 debacle. PAS has always been the same except that it has become more inclusive in its approach towards non-Muslim Malaysians after being part of Pakatan.
Why has MCA been sleeping with the enemy for 53 years and you now feel that Umno is pushing the Islamic agenda?
Joe: If Chua wants to give a lecture on the experience of Islamic regimes, don't just read one book. He points to other countries. I point him to Kelantan and ask him to compare the experience of the PAS administration in Kelantan with the BN-Umno regime and share his findings with us.
Is there any hint of abuse of power, corruption or discrimination of minority communities in Kelantan? Has MCA done any study on this? The corruption, bullying and blatant racial discrimination, repression of civil society by the goons in blue, the dissipation and excesses of the BN-Umno regime are happening everywhere.
Even as Chua speaks, MCA is embroiled in its own PKFZ scandal and the party is desperately trying to hush it up with the removal of Ong Tee Keat.
Chua Soi Lek, please do your homework first and work through your own convictions before you take a stand and speak for MCA, lest MCA be compelled to eat its own words again.
P Dev Anand Pillai: Why hasn't the MCA president addressed the issue of conversion of minors by the authorities or by a lone spouse when the marriage is on the rocks and the Islamisation of our universities? Weren't all this done by the Umno-BN led government?
How much better is the Umno-BN government when it comes to political Islam? Perhaps the MCA leader needs to set a good example before he can chide PAS or Umno on political Islam.
Cascara:
Chua has finally got a brainwave but his conclusions are wrong. He should lead his party out of BN. He probably won't but other MCA members can, of course, think for themselves.BN does not want ‘pendatang’; it just wants your vote and that ought to be clear to anyone by now. PAS, surprisingly, is more tolerant of other religions. Just talk to your friends in Kedah and they will enlighten you.
Pakatan does not thrive on religious and racial bigotry and will be a better channel towards a ‘1Malaysia’. So Pakatan is the way to go and BN is the way to doom.
Thomas Foo: Who are you preaching to, MCA? The Chinese community? They divorced you on March 8, 2008. Unfortunately, there won't be any reconciliation as the wound is too deep (by still being obedient to Umno).
MCA once asked (in the 80s under Tan Koon Swan) for the wholehearted support from the Chinese community for the strength to bargain/negotiate with the powers-that-be. You failed and sold out the community.
Proarte: The problem with the practice of Islam in Malaysia is Malays are not allowed freedom of worship. Islam is a convenient tool by corrupt oligarchies to stifle dissent, to sow division between the races and to intimidate Malays into submission, all done in the name of Islam or to ostensibly safeguard the 'kesucian' of Islam.
The sick joke is the so-called 'defenders' of Islam are corrupt, evil and manipulative. Their sole modus operandi is to preserve their illegal power and ill-gotten wealth.
Singa Pura Pura: CSL (Chua Soi Lek) could well be sincere. Or it could be the grandest scheme yet by Umno and MCA to regain some Chinese seats. Ultimately, we just cannot take the risk and give CSL/MCA the benefit of the doubt. As long as a vote for the MCA equates to a vote for Umno.
Too much wrong has been done. And MCA’s track record for half a century weighs too heavily against it. In the final analysis, if we go with the MCA just this once, and BN gets its two-thirds majority and redelineates the constituencies, our struggle will be lost forever.
FL Tan: Kudos to the MCA president for this intellectual discourse. There is a dire need for the coalition partners in BN to speak out and not live with heads deeply buried in the sand, The BN government, especially Umno, has good reasons to be anxious about the sizeable protest vote in the 2008 GE. There is an unprecedented threat to their political legacy from the middle-class, whatever their origins.
Reduced opportunities, aborted expectations and actual downward social mobility have resulted in this re-shaping of the voting pattern .The rakyat has become restless. They long for upward mobility, at least for the promise of future upward mobility. Over time the majority has to accept and recognise this levelling and stabilising force as a norm in our political development.
The time has come for lesser emphasis on race and religion. PM Najib Razak recognises this growing class solidarity in his 1Malaysia concept. Let's not allow detractors of Najib in the leadership ranks of Umno to distract our PM.
Tkc: I agree with Chua on the religion part but I disagree on why our country cannot be free from corruption if PAS were to rule the government. So far, the blatantly ‘in-your-face’ corrupted parties are MCA and Umno.
The fact that PAS politicians are fairly poor shows that their religious belief discourages them from being corrupt. I would take my chance with PAS because they have minimal experience with corruption vis-à-vis MCA/Umno. Good try, Chua but you can't fool anybody.
Nik V: Dear Mr Caught-with-your-pants-down-Chinese-party-man. You're in a racial party telling a religious party and racial party not to use religion to be racial? Boy, that really takes the cake. You talk about progressive and yet you are stuck in a race based party from a bygone period! You sound like a promiscuous Ku-Klux-Klan leader telling somebody not to use religion to influence people. No credibility and worst, a racial HYPOCRITE!
Anonymous: The Islam propagated by PAS is fair to all races. Even people from other faiths accept it. See the situation in Kelantan where PAS has been the ruling government for a long time.
However, the Islam propagated by Umno is totally different - body-snatchers, ban on other religions from using the ‘Allah’ term, religious societies being banned in schools, minors being forcibly converted, the list goes on.
Are these the moderate and pragmatic policies implemented by the BN government that Chua claims? It looks like the work of the Umno goons, not Islam. This is what the layman (Muslim and non-Muslim) on the street sees.
Wira: The president of MCA is painting a hypothetical situation that because many Muslims states are corrupt, so must PAS be when they form the government. Thus far, we like what we see in Kelantan, Kedah and, for a short while, Perak. PAS is a lot cleaner than Umno and MCA, singular or combined.
Onemalaysian: Hello MCA president, you do not have the moral values to speak about others. You are just shooting out wildly to gain the support of the Chinese community. You can forget that dream as the Chinese community in Kelantan is very happy with PAS rule.
Get your facts right before you blabber. The Chinese are happy with Pakatan rule and your BN goons can’t accept this reality. BN/Umno rogues are going around trying to destabilise the Pakatan governments.
So don’t use this religion jargon to put fear into the non-Muslims. That old dirty trick will not work anymore in Malaysia. Come 13th general elections, BN will have to say goodbye to Putrajaya. We, the rakyat, will then take you all to task. Watch it!
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