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By Mihar Dias (C) Copyright December 2022
A Bogeyman is "an imaginary evil spirit or being, used to frighten children."
More often than not a Bogeyman is a type of "mythic creature used by adults to frighten children into good behavior."
Sometimes it refers to "a person or thing that is widely regarded as an object of fear."
In other words "a bogeyman is someone whose ideas or actions are disapproved of by some people, and who is described by them as evil or unpleasant in order to make other people afraid."
It is within the scope of the above definition where ideas or actions disapproved by a rival party, rather than what is found in children's literature that DAP has been used by Malay politicians to frighten or alienate the party from voters.
For all Malay based parties, DAP is the Bogeyman illustrated with stories that may be real or imagined that took place in 1960s or earlier.
If nuclear power is the Bogeyman for environmentalists, then DAP is the same for Malay political parties that all of them seems to hate and love at the same time but at at different periods in the history of this country.
This sounds so contradictory but then again Malay politics is full of contradictions that tend to make this country a real comedy of errors if not just a plain joke.
One Malay politicians who claims to have seen it all is Mahfuz Omar who wrote that when Anwar was sacked from UMNO and he was successful at uniting the opposition.
As a result, PAS became friends with DAP. UMNO then alleged that PAS is being used by DAP as "kuda tunggangan".
Later, when Muhyiddin was sacked from UMNO then he formed BERSATU, joined PH and became friendly towards DAP. UMNO then accused BERSATU of becoming a slave (khadam) of DAP.
In 2022, BN suffers massive losses in GE15 and become part of the ruling party with PH.
PAS and BERSATU labelled UMNO a puppet of DAP. So we have come to a full circle says Mahfuz where PAS, UMNO or BERSATU has been used by DAP, their favorite Bogeyman either as slaves or puppets.
The Bogeyman is not at all what it seems to be then. At some points in our brief political history we have seen Hadi hugging DAP leaders.
If you were to Google you'll probably find other Malay leaders hugging Kit Siang or his son, too; the two big Bogeyman of DAP. They are not that scary to Hadi or Muhyiddin or even Zahid. Are they?
Mahfuz says that's part of Malay political rhetoric: to gain Malay support you have to accuse your opponent of being friendly with DAP with various allegations.
While in fact there's "no substance" at all to call DAP a Bogeyman, says Mahfuz. "It's just wayang" a drama!
A Bogeyman you know full well is just folklore to scare children.
DAP is real, Ustaz Hadi himself has hugged them! He wouldn't lie would he?
There's no bogeyman, it's just Malay politicians trying to scare their supporters, like adults often do to frighten children. In the case of adults it's meant to keep DAP away from them just to win votes.
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