Is Zaid Ibrahim sabotaging his new party from within?
(TANJAK) – DAP leader Zaid Ibrahim’s speech in Johor Bahru a few days ago was like a loose cannonball rolling on the deck of the floundering Pakatan ship in choppy sea.
It was also a misfire that ricocheted against his own party.
Firstly, Zaid in his speech accused prime minister Najib Razak of introducing “Taliban-style Islamic law” in cahoots with PAS president Hadi Awang.
Zaid then fired shots across the bow at the MCA, MIC and Gerakan “hangers on” for supposedly failing to halt Umno’s advancement of political Islam.
But what about the DAP’s position and propaganda on Islamic issues? Has Zaid delved into this? Is he sure that his party leadership is really opposed to political Islam?
Surely Zaid would or should be aware how the DAP has loudly proclaimed that it is indeed most Islam-friendly.
In fact, the party’s Islam-friendliness can be said to be ‘extreme’ (i.e. DAP is extremely pro Islam – if you can believe Guan Eng’s fervent protestations), what with its constant boasts of Penang’s ostensible strong support for Islamic institutions.
DAP-led Penang doing the same things
Zaid claimed that with political Islam under Najib’s rule, Malaysia “will never be moderate and peaceful”.
“It will be a complete change from democracy that we once knew,” he added.
In the news today is a report that Najib handed over an allocation of RM80 million to sekolah pondok, Sekolah Menengah Agama Rakyat and tahfiz institutions.
The Prime Minister’s Department (JPM) has a big budget of close to RM16 billion. The Department of Islamic Development Malaysia or Jakim is parked under JPM and the RM80m expenditure above disbursed by Najib will have been drawn from JPM.
On the part of Penang state, in 2017 the DAP-led administration earmarked RM1.75 million aid to Sekolah Agama Rakyat apart from another RM2.15 million granted to build new SARs and upgrade existing ones.
This year too, Guan Eng’s administration gave RM2.14 million to 1,550 Kelas Al-Quran dan Fardhu Ain (Kafa) teachers and other beneficiaries. Overall, the Penang state budgeted RM49.4 million this year for Islamic development, including payments to mosque officials and huffaz.
Penang is spending the aforementioned amounts on Islam from its smaller (compared to JPM) state budget of RM1.45 billion.
If Zaid will whip out his calculator and crunch the numbers, he will find that his party that is ruling Penang is extremely determined to outbid Najib in the funding of Islam-related institutions and activities.
Yet here is Zaid accusing Najib of Talibanizing the country. If Najib is guilty of the ‘Taliban’ charge leveled by Zaid against him, then so too is Guan Eng aka the pretend Caliph Omar ‘Lim’ Abdul Aziz.
An old political polemic used to be that Umno and PAS were always trying to out-Islamize each other. The new polemic presently is that the ultrakiasu DAP is trying very hard to out-Islamize Umno – certainly in form, if not quite in substance.
And it must be stressed that DAP is both ultra and kiasu. Thus, in its actions – including this faux ‘Islamization’ race – DAP is being true-to-form ultra and dreadfully kiasu too.
