ADUN SPEAKS | The MCA, like the other "spineless" component parties of the BN say one thing before cabinet meetings, and another after these meetings.

Before yesterday's cabinet meeting, its president Liow Tiong Lai was very vociferous in his criticism of the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) for rejecting the application for the hosting of the Better Beer Festival in Kuala Lumpur in October 2017.

He had gone on record to say that DBKL should respect the rights of non-Muslims and not to pander to the emotions and concerns of those with political and religious motives. He had remarked that DBKL, which is funded by taxpayers' contributions, should not stop the festival, or else "Kuala Lumpur would be made an international laughingstock."

However, in a 180-degree shift, following yesterday's cabinet meeting, he has changed his tune about the beer festival. He told the press that he was satisfied that the festival was rejected not because of religious or political reasons, but because it posed a major security threat.

To quote Liow: "I am satisfied with the information given during the meeting (cabinet) and as a responsible party and government, the safety of the public as always been given a top priority".

While earlier he had criticised the City Hall, after the cabinet meeting he defended the local authority for taking the right decision, a decision based on “security concerns.”

MCA's harmony bureau chief Ti Lan Ker backed Liow's decision saying that security matters cannot be taken lightly.

Liow also took a dig at the DAP for politicising the matter. He said that unlike the DAP, that would go to any length to make a political capital, the MCA as responsible party must take the security concerns of the public seriously.

Manufactured excuse?

The matter of the beer festival is another issue that has not gone down well with the non-Malays in the country. Many are perturbed that a harmless festival could be cancelled just because some Muslim groups were not happy with the event.

Whether there was a security threat to the event or not seems rather unclear. However, given the manner in which groups opposed to the event politicised the matter lends some credence to the fact that the claim of a "security threat" could have been invented to justify the cancellation of the event.

But unfortunately, political parties like the MCA that is supposed to represent the non-Malays, seems to be hiding under the mask of "security threat" to justify the actions of the City Hall.

If the claim of a security threat could be invoked to reject or cancel public events, then there is a real possibility that future public events could also be cancelled on the grounds of a security threat.

Security threats posed by terrorist organisations cannot be taken lightly. But at the same time, popular public events cannot be just rejected or cancelled by invoking security threats to camouflage the real intentions.

MCA can give all the reasons in the world for the cancellation of the public event, but the Chinese community is not prepared to accept its justification.

P RAMASAMY is Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang and the state assemblyperson for Perai.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.