Joceline Tan's Insights Never Fail To Amuse Me

Star newspaper columnist Joceline Tan's Insight columns never fail to amuse me. The latest is "Will the pendulum swing back?" (Star 24/April/2011).



The Column

She asked the rhetorical question as to whether the Sarawak Chinese voters would return to Barisan National following their almost total abandonment of the ruling coalition in the recent Sarawak state election in favour of DAP, a partner of the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat.

I won't go into her column in detail. Readers can read the entire article for themselves. I just want to refer to some comments she made.


Referring to Prime Minister Najib campaignig for Barisan, she wrote and I quote " Everyone could see how sincere and earnest Najib was on the campaign trail. He really wanted the Chinese to come onboard with him. They could relate to what he was saying, they knew what he had been trying to do since taking over..." (italics mine)

My dear Joceline, if the Sarawak Chinese could relate to what Najib was saying and knew what he was trying to do, they  would have had continued to vote for Barisan and trusted Najib to set things right.

No, the Chinese in Sarawak could not relate to Najib and did not trust him. That was why they abandoned Barisan in droves. And it was not only because they did not like Taib Mahmud who has been king of Sarawak for 30 so years Taib Is King

As for the comment and I quote " The right wing Malays already see DAP as chauvinist party that is concerned only about Chinese rights and issues...". Hello, who are " the right wing Malays " you are referring to?

You must be referring to Umno Malays, especially the Umnoputras, because the Malays in Parti Keadilan and PAS don't see DAP as a Chinese chauvinist party. And what about Umno itself? Is it not a Malay chauvinist party concerned only about Malay rights and issues? If not, what are MCA ( Malaysian Chinese Party ) and MIC ( Malaysian Indian Congress ) doing in Barisan, pray tell?