Is Zaid Ibrahim the DAP vehicle for promoting liberal Islam?
Tanjak
Zaid Ibrahim, who has just parachuted into the DAP, sees his new role as one of tackling Chinese racism in the party.
He desires to moderate the problem of extremism within both the Chinese and Malay communities.
“I would like to be the voice that tells them extreme position is not useful at all… so extreme positions, whether it is the Chinese or the Malays, must be checked,” Zaid was yesterday quoted as saying in an interview with the Malay Mail Online.
The name ‘Zaid’ is synonymous with a Malay liberal. The tagline of Kita – the party he founded – is, after all, “Moderate-Democratic-Liberal”.
#Top_Stories: Zaid wants to tackle alleged Chinese racism in DAP – Malay Mail Online https://t.co/BWsZbEWXcL
— Malaysian Daily News (@malaysiandaily) February 10, 2017
Can liberal Zaid succeed where conservative PAS failed?
Is it possible for the DAP’s race superiority, and now the party’s evolved evangelical superiority complex be tempered?
Do recall that more than two decades ago, there was the DAP flirtation with PAS under the eyes of their chaperone Semangat 46. The DAP-PAS nexus through Gagasan Rakyat, however, soon collapsed and the two parties went their separate ways in January 1995.
Then some five years thereafter, DAP dated PAS in earnest with Keadilan playing the matchmaker. Under the rubric of Barisan Alternatif, DAP and PAS cooperated for the 1999 general election. The ill-matched couple inevitably broke up in September 2001.
Hoping for third time lucky, DAP and PAS again came together in the noughties (year 2000s). Prodded by the adroit diplomacy of Anwar Ibrahim, DAP and PAS went so far as to get engaged. Nonetheless Pakatan Rakyat too was dissolved in June 2015.
DAP and PAS are now in the situation of talak tiga. No sign of possible rapprochement is on the horizon.
Along comes Zaid – ex-Umno, ex-PKR, ex-Kita, ex-Kota Bharu MP of PAS-ruled state Kelantan – ambitiously trying to be a mediator between DAP evangelical chauvinists and Malay Islamists at large.
Well good luck to him since DAP has time and again proven itself unable to sustain a lasting and meaningful relationship with the Malays and Muslims.
