Islamophobia is a false accusation. Islam per se is not a problem. Islamic fundamentalism such as the type espoused by PAS is the problem.

DAP should not work with Islamic fundamentalists within a political coalition. They should work with liberal and progressive Muslim leaders in a coalition without Islamic fundamentalists and racists. DAP should have no problem with working under the leadership of a liberal and progressive Muslim leader such as Anwar Ibrahim within a coalition without PAS.

In 2003, Kit Siang posted five questions on ‘the incompatibility of the PAS Islamic State blueprint with democracy, human rights, women rights and pluralism’ at the Perak DAP state Dinner.

At the end of the speech, he concludes that ‘ it is most regrettable that the PAS Islamic State document has confirmed that the Political Islam of PAS is incompatible with democracy, pluralism, human rights, women’s rights, cultural diversity and modernity.’

Such a firm opposition to Islamic State should not be interpreted as Islamophobia. It only reflects Kit Siang’s firm commitment to secular democracy.

The following is an extract from a statement Lim Kit Siang made on 30th June 2001, entitled: “BA at crossroads and no more tenable”:

‘The issue confronting the Barisan Alternative is whether the PAS leaders are prepared to respect the DAP’s opposition to an Islamic State in Malaysia not because of anti-Islam sentiments but because an Islamic State in multi-racial and multi-religious Malaysia is not compatible with parliamentary democracy, power-sharing in a plural society, human rights and individual freedoms, women’s rights and social tolerance.’

This is a good answer to the charge of Islamophobia.

Undergrad2 suggests that if DAP quits PR, the question of DAP’s victory to form the next federal government in coalition with other parties does not arise.

Again, he doesn’t really understand what he writes.
Since I’ve been suggesting that DAP forms a third coalition with parties committed to secular democracy, his comment in response to my suggestion should be interpreted in this light.

If DAP quits PR and from PD, does it mean that DAP and its PD partners will not have any chance to wrest control of the federal government? If the answer is ‘No, it doesn’t’, the question still arises. If the answer is ‘Yes, it does,’ the question still arises.

Perhaps he thinks that DAP and its PD partners will CERTAINLY have no chance to wrest control of the federal government if it quits PR. If he also thinks that a certain question does not arise if a particular answer is guaranteed, then his statement makes sense.

However, there are two serious problems with the suggestion that if DAP quits PR, the question of DAP’s victory to form the next federal government in coalition with other parties does not arise.

The first has to do with the suggestion that a certain question does not arise if a particular answer is guaranteed. The second problem has to do with the particular claim.

1. A true solution to a mathematical puzzle is always guaranteed by logical necessity. But the fact that a particular answer is guaranteed does not mean that the question stated in that puzzle does not arise.

2. There is no reason to think DAP will CERTAINLY fail to wrest control with its PD partners if it quits PR. He may think that DAP will most probably fail, but that’s a different story.

Undergrad2’s shoulder analogy capitalises on a confusion between identity (‘sameness’) and compatibility or between incompatibility and difference (hence the focus on the shoulder with the same colour and shape).

Working with a party that does not clash with our own party’s fundamental ideology does not mean that we can only work with a party that share the same ideology.

A socialist democratic party may have some fundamental ideologies that are different from those of another party led by liberal and progressive Muslims. But as long as these different ideologies are fundamentally compatible, there is no problem in working as coalition partners.

Even on pragmatic considerations, there is no reason to think that parties with fundamentally incompatible ideologies can work effectively in ruling a country as coalition partners.

oops… ‘… a party that SHARES the same…’
sorry

You were to busy labelling my proposal as ideological and have missed my repeated challenge: Are there are good reasons to think that, EVEN ON PRAGMATIC CONSIDERATIONS alone, that parties with fundamentally incompatible ideologies can work together effectively to rule a country?

DAP’s departure from BA in 1999 (if I remember the year correctly) might not be completely motivated by ideology. The pragmatic infeasibility of working with PAS might have played a major role.

Why should DAP pull out from PR? Because the principle of equal partnership adhered to in PR will lead to DAP’s compromise on the issue of PAS’ islamic agenda.

This can be avoided if there is no equal partnership in PR. But I don’t think DAP wants to get into such a situation.

Forming a coalition with parties sharing fundamentally compatible ideologies will ensure equal partnership without compromise on issues of fundamental importance.

I provided a more detailed argument for this point in several previous threads.

Jeffrey talks a lot about an electoral coalition in his last few posts. But what’s crucial is ‘an electoral coalition aiming to be a ruling coalition’.

For ‘an electoral coalition aiming to be a ruling coalition’, having compatible ideologies is not merely an ideological issue. It is also crucially relevant to the pragmatic question of whether that coalition can rule effectively. The very viability of that electoral coalition as a ruling coalition is at stake. IF voters judge that a particular electoral coalition with the explicit aim of becoming a ruling coalition is not viable as a ruling coalition, they won’t support it on pragmatic grounds.

I do not dispute the claim that there is a distinction between an electoral coalition and a ruling coalition.

My point is simply that this distinction is not really relevant to the rebuttal of OTK’s suggestion.

Jeffrey says:
‘OTK’s point that DAP’s support of PAS candidate in KT is equivalent to support of Hudud/Islamic State is strictly non sequitur ie an inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises, the premises being the fundamental prerequisite for formation/sustenance of an electoral coalition, and not ideological compatibility of its component parties, which is not prerequsite…..’

OTK or his supporters may say this to Jeffrey, ‘Well, you’re of course right that an electoral coalition that merely aims to win more seats does not require ideological compatibility of its component parties. And you’re of course right that we should not require that DAP must have ideologies compatible with those of PAS ON THE GROUNDS that PR is a ruling coalition, for PR is clearly not the ruling coalition. But that PR is not a ruling coalition and that voters should therefore not expect DAP and PAS to have compatible ideologies ON THESE IRREVELANT GROUNDS (irrelevant because PR is not a ruling coalition) does not mean that voters should not expect them to have compatible ideologies ON OTHER RELEVANT GROUNDS. The grounds that are clearly relevant to PR are these: An electoral coalition aiming to become the ruling coalition has to show the electorate that they are ready to govern, and to do this the coalition must at least have compatible ideologies among its component parties. Given that PR expressly aims to become a ruling coalition by taking over the federal government, and given that PR is already a ruling coalition in several state governments, voters are well justified to expect its component parties to share compatible ideologies.’

The above argument is phrased in terms of Jeffrey’s original formulation. However, I don’t think that DAP’s co-operation with a party that has ideologies that are fundamentally incompatible with those of DAP indicates its endorsement and adoption of those ideologies (e.g. PAS’ Islamic State). If OTK suggests this in his challenge, then this suggestion is clearly unreasonable. The most he can accuse DAP of is being unprincipled and in being an unwitting catalyst in the promotion of PAS’s agenda, not that DAP endorses PAS’s agenda.

Jeffrey says:
‘…indeed they are likelier exacerbated in victory when sharing power (the ultimate objective) becomes imminent or realised. This is especially so when the parties to PR coalition are only 3, arguably of equal power and voters pull. They may squabble and fall apart.

But one may ask (also on pragmatic grounds) will above scenario definitely happen?’

I don’t think we should ask whether it will definitely happen. Asking whether it is likely to happen should suffice. In non-mathematical contexts, we rarely need definite certainty. However, it seems that the more appropriate question to ask is the following (if we are assessing the relative merits of staying on in PR and forming PD): Is it more likely for DAP to achieve its purpose of co-ruling the country without compromising its fundamental ideologies if it stays on in PR in its current form than if it gets into a coalition with parties that share fundamentally compatible ideologies?

Both options have rather low probabilities. And I don’t think I’m well placed to judge whether one is more likely than the other. However, the consideration of the risk of being an unwitting catalyst to PAS Islamic agenda incurred in the former has led to my preference for the latter. Of course, this is based on the assessment that PAS fundamentalist Islamic agenda are very dangerous, much worse than UMNO’s corruption and racism.

Onlooker Politics says:

‘If Dr. Lee has already make an assumption that “there will be equal chance of winning for both PR with DAP as equal partner and PD without PKR and PAS” without taking into the consideration of the above political realities, then the assumption thus made would be faulty. If the assumption was faulty, then noone would be able to claim that his argument would be valid.

Noone could have drawn a true/correct conclusion from an invalid argument based on a faulty assumption.’

This statement is highly problematic. The following are the problems:
1. An argument with faulty/false premises can be deductively valid. Deductive validity depends on the argument form, not on the truth of its premises. A valid argument with faulty assumption is an unsound argument. So, if you just want to say that my argument has a faulty assumption, just say that my argument is unsound. If you want to claim that my argument is both invalid and unsound, you must first make sure that I’m giving a deductive argument (since all inductive arguments are deductively invalid), and then show that that deductive argument is invalid, and then show that at least one of the assumptions is false. Since you’ve only been trying to argue that my argument is unsound in the sense of relying on a false assumption, you should just stick with that claim.
2. I say ‘you’ve only been TRYING to argue that my argument is unsound’, because I’m not really sure what you want to claim. Do you really want to claim that I have made a faulty assumption that “there will be equal chance of winning for both PR with DAP as equal partner and PD without PKR and PAS”? I’m not sure. Your use of the word ‘if’ in your claim that ‘If Dr. Lee has already made the assumption…’ seems to show that you’re not sure if I really make that assumption. But if you’re not sure whether I’m guilty of making that faulty assumption, why is there a need for you to preach about the importance of not having faulty assumptions in one’s argument? Unless you think that I’m really guilty of making that assumption, that preaching is totally irrelevant.
3. Now, do I make that so-called faulty assumption that “there will be equal chance of winning for both PR with DAP as equal partner and PD without PKR and PAS”? There’s actually no need for you to guess, and thus no need for you to use the word ‘if’, since the answer to this question should be obvious if you really read my post carefully (if at all) before commenting. I say in a post at 09.16.06 that:

‘Both options have rather low probabilities. And I don’t think I’m well placed to judge whether one is more likely than the other.’

So where do you get the idea that there is a possibility that I’ve been making the assumption that “there will be equal chance of winning for both PR with DAP as equal partner and PD without PKR and PAS”? Please note also that my ‘options’ are not exactly the same as the options mentioned in the so-called faulty assumption you say I have have a possibility of making.

Below are my responses to Jeffrey’s specific considerations:

JF: (a) likely dilution of PAS’s influence when PR turns from electoral coalition to ruling coalition with other parties not ideologically opposed to DAP or similarly ideologically opposed to PAS then joining the victorious PR coalition;’

WY: PAS may block this dilution by contending that Malay Muslims should dominate PR. There have been news about the negotiation between Anwar and PAS leaders on the issue of the number of Malay Muslims in the list of potential BN defectors.

(b) other factors like our constitution being presently not in line with PAS’s ideology, the likelier position of NGOs, Civil Society, PKR & DAP, other parties then joining PR in victory as well as whatever left of BN in the opposition then opposing PAS’s atempts to establish the Islamic state in a PR’ victory – and also demographic realities of the country with 40-45% non muslims not to mention many moderate muslims against it. The question to be asked is also whether PAS can force this issue even if it were the more dominant in the PR ruling coalition because if PKR/DAP or others defect/leave, the ruling coalition will also fall,

WY: I agree with you on this count

JF: (c) if DAP leaves now, the whole enterprise of forming an alternative govt in replacement of the existing will collapse, and all gains on 8th March 08 would be reversed;

WY: the gains on 8th March will be reversed if PR cannot function effectively in its five states and as a federal opposition due to bickerings on fundamentally incompatible ideologies. Besides, PD might reduce the number of BN MPs if MPs from MCA, MIC, SUPP, SAPP, GERAKAN, etc. join PD.

JF: (d) even if PR is not victorious in next GE, in its present form it poses an imminent threat to BN, keeps it on its toes and exert pressure for it to re-invent, whether or not one views that were possible;

WY: but why can’t PD pose a threat to BN? Furthermore, this assumes that PR in its current form can rule effectively in its five states and thus presents itself as a strong opposition threatening to unseat BN. But the fundamentally incompatible ideologies among PR members may impede this. We are already seeing this.

JF: (e) though it is ideal for parties within coalition to be compatible or ast least not that incompatible as PAS/DAP alliance, and that it is entirely valid to surmise that their ideological asymmetry is likely to impede forming smoothly a federal government, the fact, if you look around, most political coalitions on opposition side are likely not that ideologically aligned/ symmetrical: they come togther because on their own they could not realise the objective of winning and sharing power, and for the sake of that end of winning and sharing power they have to compromise when they reach that point, the extent of compromise depending a myriad of circumstances and relative bargaining positions then.
WY: Yes, we should compromise. But members in a coalition aspring to govern a country should not be so ideologically incompatible that it requires its members to compromise some fundamental ideologies. Since PAS’s political Islam is deemed as incompatible with democracy, women rights, cultural diversity, human rights, being PAS’s equal partner would entail making at least some compromises on these things.

For those who are interested in the pragmatic considerations of whether to stay on in PR or to form PD, they should consider the process of evaluating expected values outlined above.

If the probabilities of A and B do not differ much (though both are low), then the crucial considerations will be the gains/benefits and losses/risks of the action of staying on in PR and those of the action of forming PD.

I’ve a vague impression that this consideration favours forming PD. However, I must admit that I have not considered the detailed arguments. Given that I’ve already spent far too much time here, I leave the development of the detailed arguments to others.

Thanks, Jeffrey! You’re a great thinker and discussant.

To Onlooker Politics,
There are different terms for ‘utility values’. Some statistics textbooks refer to it as ‘values’. Philosophical literature usually uses the term ‘utility’. Thus, I have chosen the term ‘utility values’. I haven’t seen ‘estimated utility’ or ‘estimated values’ or ‘estimated utility values’ in mathematical and philosophical literature. But some books may use these terms. Given the variety of terms used in mathematical and philosphical literature, it doesn’t really matter which term we choose to use, so long as it is one of these widely used terms.