Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has claimed that he does not understand what ‘1Malaysia’ stands for and suggested his ‘Malaysia Boleh’ is a better slogan.
I can’t help but agree with him that ‘Malaysia Boleh’ perhaps better describes some of the grotesque idiosyncrasies of Malaysian life, at least over the following two scenarios which were spectacularly contradictory to each other:
Scenario 1: Prime Minister Najib Razak’s wife Rosmah Mansor put up a stellar performance in a charity dinner that helped to raise RM 2.3 million for a Chinese primary school in Segambut, Kuala Lumpur on Aug 6.
Rosmah not only serenaded the audience with a popular Mandarin song (which alone netted RM 200,000), her group of ministers’ wives gave rendition to four songs each in a different language – Mandarin, English, Malay and Tamil – to give full expressions to her husband’s ‘lMalaysia’ motto. She heaped praise on the Chinese community for their unfailing generosity to support Chinese education and urged other communities to follow suit in the spirit of ‘1Malaysia’.
Scenario 2: Almost at the same, mass circulated Malay paper Utusan Malaysia, which is UMNO’s mouthpiece, spat racial fire through an incendiary article. Writing under the title ‘Melayu jangan jadi bacul’ (Malays, don’t be cowards) on Aug 4, journalist Noor Azam accused the Chinese and Indians of wanting to “destroy Malay political power held by UMNO since independence” with the help of Anwar Ibrahim and PAS.
This supposed power grab was pursued with Chinese-dominated DAP manipulating the Malay leaders in Pakatan Rakyat. The writer further claimed that “The attacks and the hatred shown by the opposition and Chinese and Indian political activists towards the Malays have worsened”. To goad the Malays into action, he even went to the extent of calling them ‘cowards’, saying “The Malay race has become stupid cowards, and people who are cowards will die before even their deaths.”
Such bare-faced incitement of racial hatred and racial clash should have landed the writer in lock-up and the newspaper’s licence revoked under Malaysia’s repressive laws, particularly if they are on the other side of the political divide, but Noor Azam and Utusan Malaysia not only escaped untouched, but had the honour of being defended by none other than the UMNO’s Deputy President and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin who ridiculously and inexplicably blamed the opposition for causing such heightening of racial temperature. That Noor’s racist blast bears the stamp of UMNO’s policy is unmistakable.
DOUBLE-FACED POLITICS
Observers of political development following Najib’s ascension to power could not fail to recognize that these two conflicting scenarios are by no means isolated. In fact they are each a clog in a continuous chain of events moving in diagonally opposite directions.
While the top husband and wife team are merrily singing their idyllic songs of racial harmony and dishing out goodies day in and day out, their party’s propaganda machines are regularly spewing racist poison to rile up the majority race against the minorities.
UMNO has partially got away with this double-faced game, because it has complete control over the local media (other than the Internet), and the two conflicting tunes are played separately to two different audiences in their respective media, with each largely oblivious of what the other has learned.
For example, news in the nature of Scenario 1 is never carried in the Malay press so that UMNO can throw some bait to Chinese voters without risking the displeasure of Malays, while it incites Malay sentiments against other races only through the Malay press which is not commonly read by the Chinese.
The objectives of this two-pronged strategy are obvious. Strategy 1 (Scenario 1) is meant to coax the return of Chinese and Indian votes which had exited the BN pen in a mass exodus in the 8 Mar 08 elections. And Strategy 2 (Scenario 2) is geared towards splitting the opposition and re-uniting the Malay electorate under the UMNO canopy by appealing to the primordial instincts of race and religion through pressing the panic buttons of lies and deceit, of which the nonsense of Scenario 2 is typical.
The over-arching aim is of course an electoral victory in the next elections – at all costs including inflaming racial and religious clashes.
This explains why Najib’s new measures are mostly ad hoc, piecemeal, populist and election-centred – every move calculated for electoral gains.
There is a conspicuous absence of serious policy initiatives to regain national cohesiveness from the present chaotic political and racial fragmentations through legislative and institutional reforms to restore full justice and equality to all citizens regardless of race, religion and political affiliation as guaranteed under the Constitution.
Neither is there any long term planning to re-invigorate the economy through fundamental policy changes in economy, education and public service. But how could UMNO achieve any of these when it refuses to give up racism, corruption and elitism as mainstay of UMNO’s political sustenance?
REVIVAL OF REPRESSION
In fact, Najib’s pursuit of this Jekyll and Hyde political game under the charade of his ‘1Malaysia’ slogan is a clear signal that UMNO has given up its earlier token attempt under former premier Abdullah Badawi to institute reforms in the aftermath of its punishing set back in the 8 Mar 08 elections.
In its place are tokenism and public relation exercises and image-polishing to spruce up the façade of reforms and harmony, for which the government would spare no costs.
Whereas in substance, the Najib leadership has chosen the opposite course of renewed repression ala the Mahathir era.
This has been amply illustrated in the series of lawless atrocities against its political opponents beginning from the infamous power grab in Perak, right through the death of Teoh Beng Hock under custody of Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the brutal and reckless crackdown of the anti-ISA mass rally by the police on Aug 1.
Under these circumstances, the road ahead for Pakatan Rakyat to realize its dreams of reforms is tortuous and challenging indeed. Apart from having to constantly fend off politically motivated harassment from various law enforcement agencies which are invariably UMNO manipulated, it has to fight the awesome battle of winning the hearts and minds of the masses in the uneven battlefield where all mass media (safe the Internet) are deployed as instruments of propaganda for UMNO.
For this reason, Pakatan Rakyat cannot have the luxury of unrestrained freedom to engage in intra-party and inter-party dissensions through the public media without dooming its chances of unseating the incumbent power. All parochial party interests or personal ego must be subsumed to the coalition’s over-arching objective which is to bring genuine reforms to salvage the country from its present unrelenting decline.
As for the public at large, just as every citizen has his inalienable rights to life and liberty and equality under the Constitution, there is also the corollary obligation to each and every one to stand up and defend those rights.
It is in this respect that those who are enlightened of the truth must do his part to disseminate that truth so that justice and truth will eventually prevail in this country.
SK
10/08/09
I can’t help but agree with him that ‘Malaysia Boleh’ perhaps better describes some of the grotesque idiosyncrasies of Malaysian life, at least over the following two scenarios which were spectacularly contradictory to each other:
Scenario 1: Prime Minister Najib Razak’s wife Rosmah Mansor put up a stellar performance in a charity dinner that helped to raise RM 2.3 million for a Chinese primary school in Segambut, Kuala Lumpur on Aug 6.
Rosmah not only serenaded the audience with a popular Mandarin song (which alone netted RM 200,000), her group of ministers’ wives gave rendition to four songs each in a different language – Mandarin, English, Malay and Tamil – to give full expressions to her husband’s ‘lMalaysia’ motto. She heaped praise on the Chinese community for their unfailing generosity to support Chinese education and urged other communities to follow suit in the spirit of ‘1Malaysia’.
Scenario 2: Almost at the same, mass circulated Malay paper Utusan Malaysia, which is UMNO’s mouthpiece, spat racial fire through an incendiary article. Writing under the title ‘Melayu jangan jadi bacul’ (Malays, don’t be cowards) on Aug 4, journalist Noor Azam accused the Chinese and Indians of wanting to “destroy Malay political power held by UMNO since independence” with the help of Anwar Ibrahim and PAS.
This supposed power grab was pursued with Chinese-dominated DAP manipulating the Malay leaders in Pakatan Rakyat. The writer further claimed that “The attacks and the hatred shown by the opposition and Chinese and Indian political activists towards the Malays have worsened”. To goad the Malays into action, he even went to the extent of calling them ‘cowards’, saying “The Malay race has become stupid cowards, and people who are cowards will die before even their deaths.”
Such bare-faced incitement of racial hatred and racial clash should have landed the writer in lock-up and the newspaper’s licence revoked under Malaysia’s repressive laws, particularly if they are on the other side of the political divide, but Noor Azam and Utusan Malaysia not only escaped untouched, but had the honour of being defended by none other than the UMNO’s Deputy President and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin who ridiculously and inexplicably blamed the opposition for causing such heightening of racial temperature. That Noor’s racist blast bears the stamp of UMNO’s policy is unmistakable.
DOUBLE-FACED POLITICS
Observers of political development following Najib’s ascension to power could not fail to recognize that these two conflicting scenarios are by no means isolated. In fact they are each a clog in a continuous chain of events moving in diagonally opposite directions.
While the top husband and wife team are merrily singing their idyllic songs of racial harmony and dishing out goodies day in and day out, their party’s propaganda machines are regularly spewing racist poison to rile up the majority race against the minorities.
UMNO has partially got away with this double-faced game, because it has complete control over the local media (other than the Internet), and the two conflicting tunes are played separately to two different audiences in their respective media, with each largely oblivious of what the other has learned.
For example, news in the nature of Scenario 1 is never carried in the Malay press so that UMNO can throw some bait to Chinese voters without risking the displeasure of Malays, while it incites Malay sentiments against other races only through the Malay press which is not commonly read by the Chinese.
The objectives of this two-pronged strategy are obvious. Strategy 1 (Scenario 1) is meant to coax the return of Chinese and Indian votes which had exited the BN pen in a mass exodus in the 8 Mar 08 elections. And Strategy 2 (Scenario 2) is geared towards splitting the opposition and re-uniting the Malay electorate under the UMNO canopy by appealing to the primordial instincts of race and religion through pressing the panic buttons of lies and deceit, of which the nonsense of Scenario 2 is typical.
The over-arching aim is of course an electoral victory in the next elections – at all costs including inflaming racial and religious clashes.
This explains why Najib’s new measures are mostly ad hoc, piecemeal, populist and election-centred – every move calculated for electoral gains.
There is a conspicuous absence of serious policy initiatives to regain national cohesiveness from the present chaotic political and racial fragmentations through legislative and institutional reforms to restore full justice and equality to all citizens regardless of race, religion and political affiliation as guaranteed under the Constitution.
Neither is there any long term planning to re-invigorate the economy through fundamental policy changes in economy, education and public service. But how could UMNO achieve any of these when it refuses to give up racism, corruption and elitism as mainstay of UMNO’s political sustenance?
REVIVAL OF REPRESSION
In fact, Najib’s pursuit of this Jekyll and Hyde political game under the charade of his ‘1Malaysia’ slogan is a clear signal that UMNO has given up its earlier token attempt under former premier Abdullah Badawi to institute reforms in the aftermath of its punishing set back in the 8 Mar 08 elections.
In its place are tokenism and public relation exercises and image-polishing to spruce up the façade of reforms and harmony, for which the government would spare no costs.
Whereas in substance, the Najib leadership has chosen the opposite course of renewed repression ala the Mahathir era.
This has been amply illustrated in the series of lawless atrocities against its political opponents beginning from the infamous power grab in Perak, right through the death of Teoh Beng Hock under custody of Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the brutal and reckless crackdown of the anti-ISA mass rally by the police on Aug 1.
Under these circumstances, the road ahead for Pakatan Rakyat to realize its dreams of reforms is tortuous and challenging indeed. Apart from having to constantly fend off politically motivated harassment from various law enforcement agencies which are invariably UMNO manipulated, it has to fight the awesome battle of winning the hearts and minds of the masses in the uneven battlefield where all mass media (safe the Internet) are deployed as instruments of propaganda for UMNO.
For this reason, Pakatan Rakyat cannot have the luxury of unrestrained freedom to engage in intra-party and inter-party dissensions through the public media without dooming its chances of unseating the incumbent power. All parochial party interests or personal ego must be subsumed to the coalition’s over-arching objective which is to bring genuine reforms to salvage the country from its present unrelenting decline.
As for the public at large, just as every citizen has his inalienable rights to life and liberty and equality under the Constitution, there is also the corollary obligation to each and every one to stand up and defend those rights.
It is in this respect that those who are enlightened of the truth must do his part to disseminate that truth so that justice and truth will eventually prevail in this country.
SK
10/08/09
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