Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, at the DAP Bukit Mertajam Chinese New Year reception at Bukit Mertajam on Sunday, 9th February 1992 at 10 a.m.
MCA’s ‘all-out war’ against the DAP has turned into a ‘all-out rout’ because Liong Sik ignored Sun Tze’s injunction of ‘Know Thy Enemy and Know Thyself’
In October, the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, declared an ‘all-out war’ against the DAP. Today, four months later, this MCA ‘all-out war’ against the DDAP has turned into a MCA ‘all-out rout’, with all the MCA Ministers and Deputy Ministers running for cover as they are unable to answer the numerous questions posed to them by DAP leaders.
We can recall the ferocity of the MCA attacks on the DAP in the initial days and weeks of Liong Sik’s declaration of ‘all-out war’ against the DAP. The MCA Hqrs set up a war operations centre which was working overtime to churn out a daily barrage of press statements attacking the DAP, which were issued in the name of MCA national, state and branch leaders. At one time, the Chinese press were virtually dominated by the MCA attacks on the DAP by headless and nameless MCA ‘cultural assassins’ but using the names of MCA national and state leaders.
However, all this MCA propaganda blitz failed for three reasons:
Firstly, it was most tedious and unoriginal, for these attacks were mere repetition of the same abuses, half-truths and falsehoods against the DAP, which could not stand up to reason and examination;
Secondly, the counter-attack launched by the DAP headed by the DAP Publicity Committee, which exposed the MCA’s ‘all-out war’ as an empty and hollow one;
Thirdly, Liong Sik did not study and need Sun Tze’s The Art of War and his injunction: ‘Know thy enemy and know thyself; in a hundred battles, will never be in peril.’
In fact, Liong Sik would not have declared any ‘all-out war’ against the DAP if he had studied Sun Tze’s injunction of ‘Know thy enemy and know thyself’.
The two greatest blunders committed by Liong Sik was that he not only did not ‘Know thy enemy’, he also did not ‘know thyself’. If Liong Sik had heeded Sun Tze and ‘Know Thyself’, he would have realised that the MCA’s ‘all-out war’ against the DAP is destined to end in an ‘all-out rout’ because:
MCA leadership’s indefensible record of the past 42 years
Firstly, MCA did not have the conditions to conduct an ‘all-out war’ against the DAP because the MCA President himself was not prepared to lead the MCA into battle, as in having a public debate with the DAP;
Up to now, no MCA Minister or leader had been able to prove the DAP delegation wrong.
7. It has now been established that MCA leaders have no principles, and do not really oppose an Islamic State concept, as they support all Islamisation measures by UMNO but oppose all measures by PAS, even those which do not infringe non-Muslim rights and interests.
8. MCA rejection of the DAP proposal for the signing of a Three-Lim ‘Year of the Monkey’ Declaration to oppose Islamic State and all Islamisation measures, whether by UMNO or PAS, which infringe non-Muslim rights and interests.
The result of the MCA’s ‘all-out war’ has resulted in the MCA exposing even more of its unprincipled, opportunistic and parasitic character. This is the result of not paying heed to Sun Tze’s injunction of ‘Know Thy Enemy and Know Thyself’!