COMMENT Are we truly prepared for five more years under Umno? Should DAP and PKR be thrown out together with PAS?

In the aftermath of the US elections, I came across one article by Kurt Eichenwald that I can probably best describe as... memorable?

It opens as such:

“On Friday, I almost assaulted a fan of my work. I was in the Philadelphia International Airport, and a man who recognised me from one of my appearances on a television news show approached. He thanked me for the investigative reporting I had done about Donald Trump before the election, expressed his outrage that the Republican nominee had won and then told me quite gruffly, “Get back to work.” Something about his arrogance struck me, so I asked, “Who did you vote for?”

He replied, “Well, Stein, but - ” I interrupted him and said, “You’re lucky it’s illegal for me to punch you in the face.” Then, after telling him to have sex with himself - but with a much cruder term - I turned and walked away.

A certain kind of liberal makes me sick. These people traffic in false equivalencies, always pretending that both nominees are the same, justifying their apathy and not voting or preening about their narcissistic purity as they cast their ballot for a person they know cannot win.

I have no problem with anyone who voted for Trump, because they wanted a Trump presidency. I have an enormous problem with anyone who voted for Trump or Stein or Johnson - or who didn’t vote at all - and who now expresses horror about the outcome of this election. If you don’t like the consequences of your own actions, shut the hell up.”

Drinking poison to quench thirst?

Let me insist at the outset that I do not quite share Eichenwald’s self-righteous anger, nor would I generally condone employing the approach he did (then again though, I’m not the one who just got Donald Trump as his president. Poor guy.).

The points he raises though, certainly bear some reflecting on.

I was reminded of this article when I read one of the comments about PAS in Malaysiakini’s Yoursay, which suggested that allying with PAS was akin to drinking poison to quench one’s thirst. My compliments on a vivid and highly effective metaphor.

I truly do respect all political opinions. I daresay the commentator, one self-styled ‘Existential Turd’, could even be correct for all we know. Perhaps allying with PAS will indeed only solve short term problems while creating bigger long term ones.

I think that if we are objective about all available evidence, we must certainly concede that possibility.

In the same breath, and judging from the same pool of evidence, I do also believe however that we must also concede the possibility that the opposite is true - perhaps rejecting PAS is what will solve short-term problems, while creating long term ones. It’s not necessarily easy as yet to say for sure which is which.

The problem with not voting Clinton

Eichenwald spends the rest of his article ranting about liberals who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton because she did not live up to their high ‘standards’.

What he simply couldn’t stand was people complaining that Trump won, despite having themselves failed to vote for the one candidate who had a chance of beating him.

I’m not here to add to his rant; and given all the misleading information that was in the media in the lead-up to the election, perhaps some Americans can be forgiven for thinking that they did not need to vote for Clinton in order to prevent a Trump presidency.

I do concur somewhat though, with Eichenwald’s sentiment that those who did not vote for Clinton are perhaps not the best qualified to be expressing outrage regarding Trump’s victory. I think it’s fair to expect such people to instead take some responsibility themselves for the outcome, rather than rage at others.

Battles vs the war

The obvious parallel here is that those who eschew any sort of cooperation with PAS should be prepared to face the consequences of another Barisan Nasional victory in the next general elections.

Of course, there are some who insist that the opposition can win the next general elections despite three corner fights with PAS. I don’t think I’m exaggerating excessively though when I express my doubt that any serious, objective political analyst sees that as a likely scenario.

Let me preface the following by stating my beliefs strongly: I think it is a perfectly valid and defensible position to believe that it is worth sacrificing battles in order to win a war, however many general elections down the road of the distant future.

If PAS truly is as bad and hopeless as some people think, then yes, it could make sense to three corner everything, lose the next general elections and hope for better sometime in the years or decades to come.

I’m not saying that this is what I believe, but I am saying it is in theory a defensible position.

Taking responsibility for more Najib, more Umno, more BN

What I am also saying is that if this is your belief and the road that you choose, then you must be prepared to accept the consequences of continuing to live at least another five or so more years under Najib Abdul Razak, Umno and BN.

This means, that you will bear some responsibility for the continued alleged rape and pillage of our country’s resources, continuing human rights abuses, the lack of judicial reform, ongoing repression of the media, the ongoing sale of our country to China, and so on.

If you believe it is all worth it, you are a hundred percent within your God-given rights to your belief; but the responsibility still applies, and no one will know whether it was all justified until some distant day in the future.

Again, despite all the implications one might read into these arguments, I believe there is simply not enough clear evidence (to an outsider like me at least) to provide a simple answer to the question as to whether PAS should be given a meaningful role in the opposition (it is perhaps worth noting that the ‘meaningful role’ PAS has declared it’s looking for amounts to a maximum of 70 out of 222 seats in Parliament).

I do feel however, that for most of the people vocally opposing any more association with PAS whatsoever, there is perhaps an iota of bias - something of a dislike, perhaps, of the ‘type’ of people in PAS, and the ‘type’ of people that they represent (almost exclusively for now, given the evident nascency of Amanah and Bersatu).

Those ‘type’ of people however, are much larger and politically significant than most of us urbanites care to understand; and they are 100 percent as much Malaysian as the rest of us.

If PAS should be abandoned, so should PKR and DAP

Many commentators brought up the issue of trust, and how PAS essentially deserves none of it. I suppose that is one of many interpretations, and about as fair as any of the others.

My own interpretation however, is that if PAS deserves distrust, then so does any existing opposition party.

I could be wrong of course, but my reading is that PAS has not betrayed its advertised principles any more than PKR or DAP has. I’m sure that will be a controversial statement, and maybe saying so makes me sound like exactly the type of liberal that Eichenwald was ranting against.

I’m also quite confident that a sizeable number of the usual suspects will rage at such an equivalency; the arguments of those who defend DAP or PKR (or PAS) no matter what however, will probably be taken rather less seriously. In any case, debating this claim at length would require the space of one or more additional articles.

For the scope of this article: again, there is much merit in the argument that instead of sacrificing principles to win the next battle, we should be looking ahead to winning the long-term war.

My argument though, is that if this is the line you truly believe in, then look to start completely afresh.

If you want to stick with DAP and PKR, then stick to PAS, too.

If you want to abandon one of the former Pakatan Rakyat parties on principle, abandon them all. Abandon all of the old generation. Build something new, something untainted, something truly grounded in real values. I guarantee you there are enough principled, compassionate and able Malaysians to make it happen.

NATHANIEL TAN’s thoughts are with Yaacob Nasran and his family. May we all find his courage to defend what is right.