Why the evil must be opposed — Ali Kadir

MAY 3 — According to the rabidly anti-Malaysian Malay press, evil personified is DAP, supposedly racist and the most horrible collection of politicians in Malaysia.

Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian are anti-Malaysia and have little time or patience for inclusiveness.
They pretend to support 1 Malaysia but only do so out of fear of the Prime Minister. They exist to protect Umno. To hell with everyone else. If these papers had even one sinew of decency or integrity, they would be uncovering corruption and combating the leakages and asking probing questions such as “Why are people in Sabah and Sarawak living from hand to mouth when poverty has been wiped out?”.

They can’t function as proper watchdogs because they owe their allegiance to their political masters, and not to the public. Therefore, the task of finding out who is evil and raping the country is left to you and me, the average Joe. We are armed with our conscience and our sense of right and wrong. To be sure, DAP can sometimes come across as narrow minded and shrill, the result of years of relying on a narrow cadre of supporters and playing to this narrow base.

But it is only the myopic who will accept that Lim Kit Siang and gang are evil. Common on, was the DAP or for that matter, PKR or PAS responsible for:

* duping Malaysians with the mother of scandals, known more
   popularly as PKFZ fiasco?

* chopping off a cow head and parading it on the streets in Shah
   Alam as a show of force against the construction of a Hindu temple?

* setting up a right wing and racist organisation called Perkasa, a
   development which has led to increasingly racist undertones in Malaysia?

* classifying the Malay-language bible as a national security threat and
   making it difficult for non-Muslims to build houses of worship and
   practise their faith?

* promoting crony capitalism in the country. I am not talking of the
   sweet deals during the Mahathir era only but the more recent
   instances of well-connected businessmen winning contracts?

* the numerous deaths of suspects in police custody?

* running Malaysia’s once respected institutions to the ground?

* making corruption so endemic that Malaysians are numb to the
   culture of greasing palms. Even the fact that our ministers live
   beyond their means no longer shocks us.

The point is that you may accuse DAP of incompetence, sometimes even churlish behaviour.
But if you are talking about a party which has promoted, nurtured and encouraged ruinous behaviour, then you have to look elsewhere.