TALK is cheap. 
    
And talk is especially cheap during election season. Take what MCA president Liow Tiong Lai said yesterday. He said his party officials had always spoken up against corruption and power abuse.

The operative words are “spoken up”. Messrs Liow and other leaders of Barisan Nasional component parties have always offered us words, and little else.

Can Liow offer us any evidence that he chastised Najib Razak or Umno leaders for the 1MDB debacle? Does he accept the view of Umno leaders that the US Department of Justice are on a fool’s errand by investigating the billions siphoned from 1MDB?

Can he or Gerakan’s Mah Siew keong show us examples of their party officials doing more than just flap their tongues when they discovered corruption or abuse of power? Let’s be honest, Malaysia has been one conveyor belt of scandals, inflated contracts, thievery and shenanigans in the past three decades.

And all this while, politicians from BN component parties have been willing participants in all the wrongdoings. We say willing participants because when all you do is talk and do nothing else, you are in effect giving the criminal or offender a free pass. 

At times, the component parties have been more than merely bystanders. Remember the deposit-taking scandal. Remember the Pan-EL scandal. Remember the Port Klang Free Trade Zone scandal.

If Malaysia is on the cusp of turning into a theocracy or even just a country where racial and religious polarisation is dangerously high, how much blame should be laid at the feet of MCA and the rest of the BN component parties?

After all, don’t they always tell non-Malays/non-Muslims that they represented their interests in the Umno-led government?

Liow and Mah have embarked on a roadshow to showcase their newly-discovered unity and to supposedly educate the Malaysian public on the principles that underpin BN.

Here’s the thing: Malaysians don’t need to be schooled on how the Umno-led BN operates. 

We understand the political landscape very well. Umno dominates and the rest just talk. 

Talk is really cheap.

The day that politicians from MCA, Gerakan and other BN component parties agree to fall on the sword or resign in protest against wrongdoing in the country, that is the day we will start listening to what they have to say.

Otherwise, it’s just noise. – January 7, 2018.