MCA: The Perils of Inheritance

It is interesting to observe some of the MCA's members and leaders uttering reminders about the moribund situation that the MCA has found itself in since 2008.

My surmise is that these utterances will fall on the deaf ears of the next crop of leaders. They are cut from the same cloth as their immediate predecessors.

This is the dilemma of wealthy families.

It is the dilemma of rich countries. Recall the saga of the tiny, formerly phosphate-rich island nation of Nauru.

This is the same dilemma for successful political parties who have parlayed their popularity and power into acquiring wealth for the political party (and, sometimes, for themselves).

A person who inherits something does not need all the traits and characteristics that defined the predecessors and formed the basis of the earlier success.

Often, the beneficiary forgets what it took for the predecessors to achieve the early success. 

Beneficiaries who inherit have a different challenge from the pioneers. It is a challenge of whether to imbibe and embrace the goal, the drive, the vim, vigour and ambition of the predecessors. It all sounds tiresome does it not?

And, so, mediocrity will set in. Industriousness, inventiveness, innovation and sheer desperation is replaced by apathy, narcissism and a basic desire to just eat the fruits and, not tend to the plants and trees from which the fruits were borne.

This is the MCA of today; wealthy beyond Croesus; as unimaginative as a blinkered horse. 

There is no sense of urgency about the impending political irrelevance and death of the political party in future General Elections.

You reap what you sow. If you demand excessive obedience you get sycophants. If you punish out-of-box thinking you get indolence.

From where the rest of us stand, any contest for MCA leadership is perceived to be no different from a shareholder proxy fight to determine who will get to manage the several billion Ringgit worth of Huaren Holdings assets. 

It is a sad inference that the political ideals and goals that got the MCA involved in the formation of Malaya and Malaysia died some time ago. Time of death...unknown.