your say‘Trying to raise the May 13 bogeyman is nothing more than flogging a dead horse. Socio-economic conditions have changed so much, yet some people's minds are so fossilised.’



Soi Lek to DPM: Move with the times, drop May 13 talk

Ghkok: MCA president Chua Soi Lek is saying exactly the same thing that the opposition has been saying, except that he is at least five years too late. It's as if he copied the whole thing from PKR's ‘Agenda for Malaysia’. I think the people of Malaysia would prefer the ‘real thing’. Pakatan Rakyat is miles ahead in thinking.

Geronimo: Chua Soi Lek, cut out the nonsense. Are you in or are you out? Just state your stand. You can't have your cake and eat it too. I don't know whether you are naive. The more you talk of fairness and justice, the higher the mercury will rise in the Umno's camp because these people simply refuse to understand these two words.

More MCA-bashing will follow, followed by further decline in support for the BN and MCA. By the time the 13th general elections come around, MCA will totally cease to exist because unwittingly, Umno would have ‘killed’ you and MCA off. If you ‘check out’ of BN now, at least you will still manage to salvage whatever pride is left in your party.

Stop saying ‘MCA's loyalty should not be questioned...blah, blah blah’. It just makes everyone want to throw up. As far as Umno is concerned, ‘loyalty’ is another word they don't understand.

Kgen: Trying to raise the May 13 bogeyman is nothing more than flogging a dead horse. Socio-economic conditions have changed so much that the May 13 racial strife will never happen again. There is now a large Malay middle class which did not exist in 1969.

Also, Malays are now found on both sides of the political divide, unlike 1969 when Malays were in the government and non-Malays were in the opposition. Some people's minds are so fossilised that they never change.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Gertak are other examples who think that the Chinese can still be frightened by May 13.

Yours: Chua is the first president of the MCA ever to stand up daringly to Umno's nonsense. I hope he will keep it up until they yield to common sense. Too many ex-presidents of both MIC and MCA have allowed themselves to be cowed by Umno, which treats them as subservient partners.

Anonymous: This is great. Too bad Umno will not change as it has already ‘outsourced’ its racism to Perkasa. The only way forward for MCA is to leave BN. If Gerakan’s got the guts, it would do the same.

The legitimacy for Umno to rule is gone. Now it tells everyone they are multi-racial because of the running dogs in MIC, Gerkan and MIC. East Malaysian parties will ‘lompat’ too when the time comes..

Au Fait: Well said, Chua. Now you need to demonstrate to your BN partners that there is no zero-sum game in an expanding cake. Maybe they fail to see this. They thought that only one race can win in this game and I agree that this is an outdated thinking.

You have pointed to some very serious issues towards the achievability of the desire of Malaysians develop into a high-income economy by 2020. Anyway, these issues must be tackled in a matured way so as to ensure harmony and that sentiments are set aside. Take the lead, Chua.

Siapa Raja: I agree 100 percent with Chua - that there is no need at all to beat the drums of war and keep reminding people about the black May 13 incident and time and again threaten and put fear among the Malaysians be they Malay, Chinese, Indian or any other ethnic group in the country.

Why has the deputy prime minister or the home minister got to be defensive over the Chinese Economic Congress and their 13 resolutions when, in the larger context, they never touched on any of the bumiputera special rights or their privileges?

In fact, the DPM and his comrades should take it positively. In general, the politicians should stop fanning racial issues and look forward to a more positive economic wellbeing for the future of all Malaysians.

Cala: Let us call a spade a spade. Malaysia is where it is and is economically fast approaching that of a failed state largely due to poor economic management hobbled by the Umno-led coalition regime whose hallmark has always been one of ‘rabid corruption’ similar in many ways to that of Nigeria (Kalarickal, 2009, p. 27, unpublished Ph. D thesis at the University of Syracuse).

Growing Old Lonely: It is highly unlikely that MCA has suddenly become so vocal fighting for the Chinese when they have been an obedient lap dog to ‘tai ko’ Umno for so long. The only possible reason for this sudden show of defiance should be a prelude to another Operasi Lalang.

Note the similarity with the 1987 situation - Lee Kim Sai vs Umno Youth in 1987 with today’s Chua vs Perkasa.

Having failed to do so after March 8, 2008, when Pakatan did not have any mass victory procession to give BN any excuse to take ISA action against the Pakatan leaders, BN has to engineer a situation of tense racial conflict to prevent Pakatan from taking over Putrajaya. Pakatan, better watch your step.

 


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