Power

At the recent DAP national convention, it was pleasant to see a surge in membership, as well as seeing and sensing the unity in the air, no doubt a heeding of the national chairman's call for 'warlords' and 'godfathers' to 'close ranks'. Definitely a better 'feel-good' than our national budget.

The young have always been crucial assets of any organisations intending to race the long distance. More young people were given the microphone this year, some still spotting squeaky voices, much to my amusement. Yet some are Yang Berhormats!

Many speeches by younger delegates are usually fiery, impassioned and speak of a brighter future, not necessarily lacking in substance. Listening to them reminded me of the call for indoctrination of the many post-308 members, by veterans in the party. Some of the new members appeared to not know an iota of the party's struggles and ideologies. At least the ruling party is right here, to some extent, that opposition supporters usually let their emotions get the better of them.

To give an example: since the DAP is fundamentally a socialist party, there are certain behaviours which are certainly a no-no, such as smoking pipe and speaking with superiority to one's inferiors. Just saying.

While we're at it, remove your gold chain from your neck.

Back to the young. So there was this delegate a few years my senior who went up and took the microphone. He started his speech well, with controlled vigour. The crowd was responding, I was listening.

Then he said this, more or less. First line was ok, something like 'we do not join PR to become ministers and enrich ourselves.' Followed by the errant second line 'we in the opposition are not interested in power!'

That didn't sound right, to me at least.

I discovered that I was not alone. Few moments later, the Selangor Dewan Undangan Negeri Speaker, YB Teng Chang Khim, in his closing speech, took that line rather seriously and upon taking the stage, stipulated that, 'don't say we are not interested in power, we are. I don't want to be opposition forever.'

Bull's eye.

It seemed to me, as I drove home, that if a member of a political party is capable of such naive statements, the average Malaysian must be pretty ignorant, having little idea what politics is all about, much less the ideologies and struggles of the party. These are the new members I was referring to. They don't understand the party, they don't understand politics, and sometimes they don't understand both. How are we supposed to generate ideas useful for the future of this country with such deficit? In any democracy, ideas are the main weapons and rhetoric the main artillery, following which ignorance is the kiss of death to an aspiring democracy.

Politics is about power. It is about snatching power from the other side and sometimes, your own side. This is no Machiavelli. Either you are the government in power or you are not. Such is the reality of politics in a democracy. At the end of the day, you are either elected or you are not. No two ways about that.

If politics is not about power, 308 wouldn't be much of a political tsunami.

Perhaps it was at the spur of the moment that prompted such politically thick line from that delegate. It would be unfortunate if it wasn't. I watched the big guy walking out of the hall after his speech, missing the useful correction from Mr. Teng.