The 43 years it took Kit Siang to wake the Chinese up

The Chinese woke up in 2008, 43 years after DAP was born. However, as much as many may think that this is merely coincidental and due to Mahathir triggering the Chinese Tsunami, it was actually planned 52 years ago when Singapore left Malaysia and DAP was created to become PAP’s proxy in Malaysia. And, 51 years ago, when Singapore sent Kit Siang back to Malaysia to run DAP, it was so that one day the Chinese can attain political power in Malaysia.

DAP: THE INSIDE STORY

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Lim Kit Siang was born in 1941 and at the age of 19 he migrated to Singapore. Six years later, in 1966, Lee Kuan Yew sent Kit Siang back to Malaysia to take over as the Organising Secretary of DAP and that was the beginning of his political career. In 1969, Kit Siang was elected the Member of Parliament for Kota Melaka and took over as DAP’s Secretary General, the person who really runs the party.

Kit Siang has basically been the face of DAP for 51 years — as Kit Siang himself admits when recently he said he has written and spoken at least 10 million words in his 51-year political career and leadership of DAP. In that same 51 years that Kit Siang ‘owned’ DAP, MCA has had nine leaders while Gerakan has had seven. Even Umno has seen six leaders.

The only other family that has held the leadership of the party for so long is the Kim family of North Korea who have been in power for three generations. Even then it was three generations over 69 years while Kit Siang is still in power after 51 years. In that sense the Lim family of Malaysia is ahead of the Kim family of North Korea.

69 years and three generations of the Kim family of North Korea versus 51 years of just Lim Kit Siang

DAP was founded by C. V. Devan Nair, the Third President of Singapore, at the behest of Lee Kuan Yew in October 1965, two months after Singapore left Malaysia. Once Singapore was no longer part of Malaysia, PAP would be banned from operating in Malaysia so DAP was supposed to be PAP’s proxy in Malaysia. A few months later, Kuan Yew, Singapore’s then Prime Minister, told Kit Siang to return to Malaysia and take over as DAP’s Organising Secretary and Editor of the party newspaper, the Rocket.

Basically, Kit Siang and DAP were supposed to continue PAP’s ‘Chinese agenda’ in Malaysia and be PAP’s proxy since PAP by law could no longer do that directly. So, from the very beginning, DAP’s mission was to continue with PAP’s agenda in Malaysia, which was to attain Chinese political power or Chinese political domination.

But that was going to take some time. First Kit Siang and DAP had to teach the Chinese to lust for political power and political domination. And that has to be achieved through a hate campaign — make the Chinese hate the Malays, Islam, Umno, Barisan Nasional and the non-Malay partners in Barisan Nasional. The Chinese will need a lot of provoking and it may take a long time. However, eventually the Chinese can be given a taste of blood and once the Chinese taste blood they will love the taste and will want more. At that moment the Chinese may be politically naive but with proper brainwashing the Chinese can be indoctrinated into lusting for power.

Tunku Abdul Rahman and Lee Kuan Yew clashed resulting in Singapore leaving Malaysia and which saw the birth of DAP

The problem, however, is that the Malaysian Chinese are not really interested in political power or political domination. All they want is a good economy where Chinese can make money — plus the liberty to propagate Chinese schools and Chinese education/language, plus practice Chinese culture and traditions. As long as they had MCA (and after 1969 Gerakan as well) to protect Chinese interests that is all that matters. And they did not really need MCA or Gerakan because the Chinese community was united by their very powerful and influential trade guilds, associations, societies and education movements. So all MCA or Gerakan had to do was to work with or support these guilds, associations, societies and movements, listen to them, and give them what they want.

Kuan Yew and Devan Nair: PAP created DAP as its proxy in Malaysia to serve the Chinese political agenda of attaining political dominance

For example, in 1985, when a large number of Chinese cooperatives (Koperasi Cina) went bankrupt, MCA managed to get Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to bail them out to the tune of RM3 billion (which is worth about RM9 billion today) while Mahathir gave the Malays (under the TPU or Tabung Pemulihan Usahawan) only RM500 million. The Chinese ‘repaid’ Barisan Nasional in the 1986 general election by giving DAP 24 parliament seats against only 17 for MCA and five for Gerakan.

That actually came as a surprise. Many expected DAP to get wiped out like PAS, who won only one Parliament seat in that 1986 general election. Instead, DAP did very well and Kit Siang realised that, finally, Chinese political power is no longer just a dream but a reality. In spite of the huge amount of money the government had been giving the Chinese from 1981 (the time Mahathir took over as Prime Minister) to 1986, DAP could still win 24 seats against just 22 for both MCA and Gerakan combined.

To the Chinese voters it is all about money so DAP needs to teach the Chinese that political domination is even better

So, what happened? What happened was simple. If the economy is good the Chinese will vote government and if the economy is bad the Chinese will vote opposition. So, if the ruling party wants the Chinese votes it had batter make sure that the Chinese are able to make money. The 1985-1987 economic crisis sent the Chinese into the arms of the opposition.

So that is how to win Chinese support. Sabotage the economy and make sure that the Chinese cannot make money and the government will fall into the arms of the opposition. The 1986 general election was a lesson for both Barisan National and the opposition. At the end of the day, to the Chinese, it is all about money.

But there was something still missing in that formula. And that missing ingredient was the Malay voters. It is not enough that DAP just work on the Chinese votes. They need to work on the Malay votes as well. And unless DAP can also win the hearts and minds of the Malays, federal power would be an unattainable target. DAP has to find out how to win over the Malays as the next step forward. At the same time DAP must teach the Chinese to hate Umno and their partners in Barisan Nasional — plus make the Chinese realise that political power or political domination for the Chinese is possible after all.

2008 was a Chinese Tsunami but the way forward has to be with a Malay Tsunami as well

An experiment was tried in the following general election in 1990 when DAP entered into a pact with the Umno breakaway party, Semangat 46. The experiment failed when DAP lost four seats. So that type of electoral pact will not work. It has to be better than that. The same thing happened in the following general election in 1995 when DAP did even worse and ended up with only nine seats. It looked like the Chinese did not really care much for DAP and if this trend continued DAP was going to be buried in the next general election around 2000 or so.

Then something happened three years later. Umno went into crisis when Anwar Ibrahim’s coup failed and Mahathir finished him off. Mahathir was forced to call for an early general election in 1999 or else he would no longer be in power if he waited until 2000. And that was when Kit Siang saw the opportunity to change the rules of the game.

Kit Siang and Karpal were punished by the Chinese in 1999 for going to bed with PAS

For the first time in Malaysian history a formal opposition was formed, Barisan Alternatif (BA), comprising of four opposition parties — DAP, PKR, PAS and PRM. BA succeeded in winning 42 seats and 40% of the votes, a most impressive performance indeed. But Kit Siang and Karpal Singh ended up losing their seats while MCA won 29 seats against DAP’s only ten. That came as a shock to Kit Siang and DAP.

Basically the Chinese did not accept PAS and they made this known by punishing not only DAP but Kit Siang and Karpal as well. For the opposition coalition to work, DAP has to find a way to make the Chinese accept PAS. But first DAP needs to take a step back and re-plan their entire strategy. So, in 2001, DAP left BA and in the 2004 general election went solo.

The next opportunity presented itself in 2006 when Mahathir launched his campaign to oust Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. This was the third time after 1990 and 1999 when Umno was badly split and if DAP did not take advantage of this split the third time around there is not going to be another or fourth opportunity in future.

But first they needed to solve the PAS and Hudud issue.

In 2008 DAP told the Chinese to love and trust PAS and now DAP is telling the Chinese that PAS is an enemy of democracy and civil liberties

DAP told the Chinese that the new coalition to be formed to face the 2008 general election will be on the basis of consensus and PAS will not pursue its Islamic agenda without the agreement of the other partners in the coalition. DAP got Anwar Ibrahim and the rest of the PKR leaders to repeat this mantra and many PAS leaders (who have now all left the party and have joined PAN a.k.a. Amanah) kept saying the same thing.

In short, while PAS is dangerous because of their Islamic agenda, as long as PAS is a member of an opposition coalition it will set aside its Islamic agenda and will do what the coalition wants it to do. So it is okay for PAS to have an Islamic agenda as long as it never pursues this agenda and does only what DAP and PKR wants it to do.

The other advantage is that Mahathir wants, in his own words, the Chinese to punish Umno and Barisan Nasional by voting for the opposition. Through Matthias Chang, Mahathir was talking to the Chinese guilds, trade associations, societies and education movements to ask them to vote opposition. The Chinese Tsunami is about to happen and Mahathir is making sure it will happen. So DAP had better jump onto the bandwagon, which they did. And, true enough, the west coast states that were predominantly Chinese fell into the hands of the opposition.

Mahathir triggered the 2008 Chinese Tsunami by asking the Chinese to punish Umno and Barisan Nasional by voting opposition, hence launching the move for DAP to attain political power or political domination in Malaysia

Finally Kit Siang’s and DAP’s dream of Chinese political power, that started 52 years ago in 1965, became a reality. Chinese no longer need to beg Umno, MCA and Gerakan for charity. The Chinese guilds, trade associations, societies and education movements no longer need to kowtow to Umno, MCA and Gerakan for favours. The Chinese now have their own political power and this political power is called DAP.

But this is only stage one, to rally the Chinese behind DAP. Even if 100% of the Chinese voters vote opposition that is still not going to allow DAP federal power. They also need the Malay voters and votes from East Malaysia. Only then can the opposition win 125 seats in Parliament with DAP owning 55 of those 125 seats, which technically makes DAP the largest party in the opposition coalition and hence the boss. And this is what we shall talk about in the next episode, how Kit Siang is going to make the Malays vote for Pakatan Harapan so that DAP can end up running the country.