COMMENT | DAP may not want Ronnie Liu, but it needs him

"Ronnie Liu is the Chinese chauvinist that DAP does not need."

– Tony Pua

COMMENT | In calling DAP central committee member Ronnie Liu "a Chinese chauvinist", Damansara MP Tony Pua is using the same term used by DAP's political enemies that the always pugnacious Liu was talking about.

I have no idea what Liu means by "Chineseness", which is fine because I have no idea what Pua and friends mean by "Bangsa Malaysia" or even "multiracial". I do know that neither is mutually exclusive when it comes to Malaysia.

I do not see the contradiction in Liu statements as reported in the press of the DAP sticking to its "Chineseness" while sticking to its multiracial political stance.

Otherwise, I would have to see the contradiction in DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng issuing his statement to the Tun Razak Exchange in Malay, English and Chinese. Then doubling down with a Chinese-only statement defending his original tri-lingual statement, as reported in the press saying: "Lim had defended issuing a trilingual statement, stressing the country's multilingualism."

If Lim famously said he is not Chinese but Malaysian, then why concern himself with issuing statements in anything other than the national language? Well, because maybe being "Malaysian" means embracing our diverse languages and keeping the rakyat informed by any means necessary.

Of course, it also means defending the diversity of our languages and culture from encroaching totalitarian and hegemonic power structures, which is what the state always attempts to do, claiming it is the will of the majority.

A couple of years back, I wrote of a Chinese student and her email that urged me to write about...