Eerily Familiar

My dad has always been very cautious of his words. To him, the fear of ISA is very great and understandably, the recent events further reinforces his views. He also reads MSM and regular subscriber of the Star. But there is one thing this cautious man always do since he is eligible to vote many decades ago.

Without fail, he will vote for opposition. You know about the pre-1999 election daily ads about unrests and disturbances? He voted for opposition. And Pak-Lah-is-so-nice-and-a-big-change-Mahathir-era 2004 election? He voted for opposition. Whether it is Ops Lallang or 1969 election, he voted for the opposition. In his views, thanks to the way the electoral system is shaped and the election machinery employed by BN (formerly the Alliance), the opposition stands little change of ever capturing the Federal government.

But he did one thing I never expected.

You see, on the Sunday Star frontpage, the headlines read, PM moots idea of direct membership. Basically, Abdullah felt that this can facilitate for people interested to be associated with BN but don't want to join any component parties.

Source: http://www.bizarroartist.org/gallery/bizarro/bogeyman.jpg/view

My dad just remarked that this drive will fail. He said that this drive is akin to the 60s when the Alliance (consist of only 3 parties, namely UMNO, MCA and MIC) started a membership drive to cater for the same thing and importantly, they wanted to arrest the decline in popularity. My dad was apparently "recruited" by his friend to support another person's bid for some chairman position within the Alliance.

We all know what happened in the 1969 election and the fate of the Alliance since then.

So back to 2008, is Abdullah's idea really new? To be fair, there are no details at all about this BN "membership" or "club" drive so we would never know. But knowing how BN works, people like Shabery Cheek and Samy Vellu echo two important views that will ultimately doom this idea.

You see, people like Shabery Cheek don't see the point why the biggest component member with the highest number of MPs in BN should keep surrending what is rightly theirs when the command the biggest number of MPs with the highest membership numbers in a single party. And on top of that the existence of UMNO is to perpetuate the idea of Malay suzerainty over this land eventhough in reality everyone is created equal in the eyes of God. To surrender any powers to a single multiracial party like BN would end up diluting its voice as the big brother in BN.

As for Samy, well, his mindset perpetuate the idea that MIC is the only political voice in BN that can defend the downtrodden Indians. To similarly yield their numbers to BN directly would be no different from being drowned by a sea of voices of which 90% may most probably be non-indians. Nevermind the MIC track record to date is for all to see which also contributed to the rise of HINDRAF.

Yes, it is eerily familiar. BN will fail just as how the Alliance failed, simply because their platform of making one another bogeymen only ended up making them a big coalition of bogeymen. This is why Pakatan Rakyat, despite PAS being painted as an Islamic extremist party, DAP, being a chinese chauvinist party while PKR, an Anwar fanclub, appeals to the rakyat. These 3 at least showed their willingness to hear out from one another despite the differences and exhibits a level of trust working towards the betterment of the needy and downtrodden regardless of colour.

Are they perfect? Absolutely not. But at least there is an option now, a viable one at that. The other is just good at playing sandiwara, to entertain the masses when their audience are bored to death and wanting real change.