Harapan's gathering storm

“The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has— from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.”

― Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

COMMENT | Ronnie Liu’s piece about the raging storm dividing Pakatan Harapan partisans is interesting, but not in the way people think. When Liu (above) writes that Harapan supporters are divided on the Chinese schools' issue with regard to comments made by Education Minister Maszlee Malik, and then goes on about how the education minister should be a minister of education for “all” Malaysians, he is missing a very important point.

When support is divided, there are generally two broad sides. In this issue, for instance, there are Harapan supporters who value issues regarding Chinese schools and who are offended by the education minister’s remarks, and there are Harapan supporters who support the education minister and have their issue with vernacular schools or place such issues lower down on the scale of priorities.

Liu’s call to the prime minister that Malaysia needs an education minister for “all Malaysians” is the kind of inept politics that he is accusing Maszlee of. How does an education minister for all Malaysians differ from what Maszlee has been doing? Beyond his public gaffes, what is Maslee not doing in terms of policy that reflects a new Malaysia policy shift? Liu does not tell us...