I Smell a Rat

ARCHIVES 2009

By admin-s On Jun 9, 2009

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m rather naïve when it comes to politics. Further, I’m such a simpleton that I’m helpless about ‘reading between the lines.’ Yet, even I can smell a rat in all this love that seems to be flowing back and forth between some in the Umno Youth and others in PAS who seem to have become so fond of each other.

By G. Krishnan (Imagine…)

Oh well, alright, maybe not quite fond of each other, but still they seem so eager about cooperating in the interest of so-called ‘national unity.’

It almost brings tears to my eyes seeing how much Khairy and others in Umno on the one hand, and Hadi Awang and his collaborators on the other, seem so willing to ‘kiss and make-up’ politically for the sake of this ‘national unity’ thing. Of course being as naïve as I am, I’m not sure exactly what they mean by ‘national unity.’ Are we disunited as a nation? Does having different political persuasions and parties robustly competing with each other mean that the nation is disunited? Are we less unified because we have more competition and political balance today than perhaps ever in our history? Hmm…. Puzzling, isn’t it? Why do we exactly need to have Umno-PAS unity?

I want to believe that the Umno Youth cabal really does – first and foremost – care about ‘national unity’ and not just raw power. Oh, how much I’d like to believe so. But I can’t help having this strange feeling about this concern of theirs with ‘national unity.’ You see, as I thought about it, I realized that there are just too many reasons why I’m having a hard time with this ‘national unity’ rhetoric (propaganda?) as their main motivation.

I’m forced to wonder, where was their concern with building national unity with those in PAS when Umno was ruling the roost without a credible challenger in sight. You know, I had a strange thought that perhaps a big part of this concern for ‘national unity’ now may be especially motivated by designs to further isolate Anwar and force a wedge in the multi-ethnic opposition coalition. Think about it as an insurance policy, which is a common political strategy known as triangulation; a scheme even a nincompoop like me can see right through.