The former relies on reason while the latter quickly descends into threats and bluster.
From Terence Netto
Democracy is about the presentation of persuasive reasons, the side offering the more cogent case needing to prevail over the one lagging behind.
For that reason, one has to prefer the verbal fisticuffs between Umno supreme council member Puad Zakarshi and MCA’s Ti Lian Ker on the issue of who is the more rational party, Umno or PAS, over the barbs traded between Umno Youth’s Dr Akmal Saleh and DAP Youth.
One can more quickly sort out who is spouting the more rational line in the Puad-Ti exchange than can be done in the Akmal-DAP crossfire.
Listeners can be glad of the comparative ease with which one can sort the grain from the chaff in the Puad-Ti contretemps, whereas the fusillades between Akmal and DAP Youth stir emotion and generate exasperation.
The latest exchange between Puad and Ti commends itself for the ease with which a monitor can tell who is making more sense.
Clearly wanting MCA to leave Barisan Nasional, Ti, a former vice-president of the party, holds PAS these days to be more rational than Umno.
To which Puad responded by reminding Ti of that infamous pronouncement by PAS supremo Hadi Awang in April 1981 where he branded Umno as kafirs (infidels) because the party consorted with non-Muslims.
No doubt, frustration with Umno’s apparent acquiescence with the Madani government’s keeping out its BN allies, MCA (and MIC) from ministerial roles in the ruling set-up, and with Akmal Saleh’s antics on the national flag issue, Ti is moved to hold PAS as the more rational party.
This is a myopic view, and scants a lot of history.
Hence in the exchanges between Puad and Ti on the supposed superior rationality of PAS, the Umno man has the better grip of the antecedents.
It is understandable that in the prevailing murky situation in national politics where former adversaries have morphed into allies and vice versa, there is the temptation to realign according to what is expedient rather than what is realistic.
No doubt, politics is the art of the possible but in respect of parties driven by religious ideology, there are decided limits on what it is possible to accomplish and what is impermissible.
For MCA, and for that matter MIC, its search for relevance and survival cannot lead to cohabitation with parties that are dyed-in-the-wool ideologues, and religious ones at that, rather than parties that for whom compromise is par for the course.
Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
