[Kemenangan Ling tidak membawa apa-apa makna kerana MCA sudah semakin tercedera dan Nanyang pula sudah tiada permata di dalamnya. Malah pemuda MCA itu jugalah antara pelanggan Nanyang dulunya. Ling tidak menghormati demokrasi kerana melangkah dulu baru bertanya. Malah dia menyekat surat Lim Ah Lek dari sampai kepada ahli-ahli semua.

Sepatutnya Nanyang membuat satu pungutan suara (poll) pembaca kerana mereka itulah sebenarnya raja dan kunci hidup mati akhbar. Tanpa mereka Nanyang akan gulung tikar.

Ling mungkin boleh berseronok sekarang - tetapi tunggu dulu. Jika Nanyang rugi dan lingkup, Ling juga yang akan terpelangkup..... - Editor]

MCA Waves A Headless Goat

by Harun Rashid

Jul 6, 2001

On the steppes of central Asia the sons of fierce mongol warriors hone their ancient skills in the game of buskashi, in which horsemen in a golden horde compete to snatch a headless goat from the ground and defend it while circling distant goal posts five times.

The game lasts several days, the outcome shifting often before the climax. The winner happily displays his prize, waving the bedraggled carcass before the referees and spectators. The losers congratulate the winner in good sportsmanship, vowing to win next time, then retreat to tend their fires.

The tsunami, or tidal wave, begins with an earthquake, invisible beneath the open ocean. Initially only a small wave betrays events to come. As the wave approaches the continental shelf the shallower water propels the wave to ominous proportions. The decreasing depth depth onto the beach soon presents a wall of water that carries all before it for many meters inland. It is tragic, but it is also cleansing.

Even as Ling smiled in triumph, waving the sale and purchase papers of the beheaded Nanyang before the cameras, the MCA youth announced its opposition. It is a notice of things to come. The old guard, full of wiles, can command the carcass, but the youth control the fires of the future.

Ling calls for reconciliation and good sportsmanship. None expect him to forgive and forget. This matters naught for the longer run, as the dissident faction is not only right, they are the majority. Hardly visible now, in a short time the situation will reveal itself as the tidal wave of the future. The MCA youth voted overwhelmingly against the purchase, and the Chinese business community is resolved that they will observe the boycott by withdrawing advertising.

The two Nanayang papers have been beheaded with removal of the editors, and the life blood was drained away with the departing writers, who are principled people. The carcass is left for Ling to wave, and claim his win, but the Chinese community, supported by the youth of Malaysia, have withdrawn in an outward show of good sportsmanship. But they have not forgotten, and they may be seen here and there, tending their fires.

On the horizon one sees the approaching tsunami, denied by the oldsters defending their gains, afraid the waters of the coming waves will wash away their sand castles and pompus parades protected by platoons of poltroons in police paraphernalia. Let those who take comfort in the latest squeaky survival of the prime minister regale in the repression of the reformists and the torture of the ISA police prisoners.

Let the worshippers of public placidity pay the price of human rights; let them fall prey to the manipulation of the market shares. Let them espouse the false security of authoritarian stability. Let them find at their leisure that right is might. Let them suffer the horrible emptiness which comes with self-knowledge and belated admission that all the cruelty, insensitivity and craven corruption was made possible by their own unwillingness to take an active part in current events.