Bagan MCA division chairman Loo Khay Thye made a statement in The Star on 17th October 2008 saying that the division would always support Barisan Nasional Government which had done a great job improving the people's (Chinese community) well being.
Ladies and gentlemen, witness the classic suck up power of politicians. The suction power is that of equivalent to a toilet plunger and after used their mouth stinks the same as well.
Guess being an MCA division chairman without a 'Datukshit' tittle to his name is somewhat degrading and he is working hard at sucking up and kissing UMNO asses to get it.
"MCA is the only party that can help the Chinese community and they should not be hoodwinked by the opposition's propaganda to tarnish theBarisan image." he said.
Firstly, screw the MCA!!! Help the Chinese community indeed. Help what so far?? Oh ya, thanks and heaps of praise as well as gratitude for 51 years of sucking up to the BN and UMNO that even till today although we hold the official Malaysian passport and I.C. we are still branded as 'squatters'.
Help the Chinese?!! What about Teresa Kok when she was detained under the ISA? Why the MCA were so quiet?? Is Teresa Kok not Chinese??? Or you are not considered a Chinese anymore once you join the DAP or any other opposition party???
Secondly, the opposition propaganda need not tarnish the Barisan Nasional image. No effort needed to go to waste here as the weak, lame, corrupt, racist and suck up ass kissing leaders and ministers of the BN are doing a damn good job at making a fool and crapping on themselves.
To all politicians and ministers.....
Showing posts with label MCA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MCA. Show all posts
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Bullshit cock talkers!!!
"The media must help deliver the right message to the people. They should be constructive in their reporting. Destructive criticism could bring about adverse effects to the country." - Loo Khay Thye (Bagan MCA division Chairman)
Loo also urged for close rapport between the party and the media fraternity, and also for the pressmen to be a watchdog to the state government and highlight their shortcomings.'
Hahaha.....what a load of cock and bull crap coming out from the Loo!!!
Another patroniser of the BN. Be constructive indeed. What he means by being constructive is to spin the truth, twist and turn, cut and edit people's negative statement into positive ones to glorify yhe Government or to character assasinate and crucify those who oppose.
As if the press and media people in this country has any freedom to report or publish the truth to the public without interference from PR polishers of the Government and their editors. Even if the truth was daringly published, the pressmen would have to fear the draconian bodyguard of the BN-UMNO Government, the ISA.
Loo also urged for close rapport between the party and the media fraternity, and also for the pressmen to be a watchdog to the state government and highlight their shortcomings.'
Hahaha.....what a load of cock and bull crap coming out from the Loo!!!
Another patroniser of the BN. Be constructive indeed. What he means by being constructive is to spin the truth, twist and turn, cut and edit people's negative statement into positive ones to glorify yhe Government or to character assasinate and crucify those who oppose.
As if the press and media people in this country has any freedom to report or publish the truth to the public without interference from PR polishers of the Government and their editors. Even if the truth was daringly published, the pressmen would have to fear the draconian bodyguard of the BN-UMNO Government, the ISA.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The truth behind the May 13 tragedy!!!
The expected and unavoidable day has dawned. On the 12th September 2008, Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Kamaruddin was arrested under the Internal Security Act or ISA.
Raja Petra's wife Marina Lee Abdullah said her blogger husband was arrested at 1.10pm at their residence in Sungai Buloh by a team of 10 police officers. She informed that Raja Petra and some 17 cds along with a computer was taken away at about 1.50pm but whereabouts of the detention was not known.
RPK was arrested under the ISA Section 73 (1) which deems him as a threat to national security, peace and public order further intensifies the 3 years party membership suspension of racial remarks loose tongue shotgun mouthed Datuk Ahmad Ismail as light weighted and pretty much nothing.
In light of this injustice by the corrupt and racist government of DSAAB, we hope and pray that RPK will be treated well and with dignity while under the ISA detention.
To madam Marina Lee Abdullah and all the family members of RPK, you are in our hearts and prayers. We hope that you will be strong in enduring these trying times.
The Government and UMNO led by DSAAB has become so obsess with the fear of the rapid rise in support for DSAI and the Pakatan Rakyat coalition that they are now resorting to the most dispicable and inhumane tactical move of all, playing the racial card. The recent Datuk Ahmad Ismail racist slur and the irresponsible behaviour of his supporters coupled by the DSAAB and UMNO Supreme Council so said to be 'stern action' against Ahmad further proves that racial politics does exist in the present Government.
Let us all remain calm, be rational and keep our emotions and statements in check. A repeat of that fateful bloody day of May 13 is not what we the modern, civilised Rakyat of Malaysia wants.
Let us not let the pea-brained DSAAB and his cronnies out smart us unlike the unfortunate relatives of ours in the past.
They say those who forget history are condemn and doomed to repeat its mistakes. History is something not to be forgotten and buried but should be made a lesson to us all so that we may refrain ourselves from the mistakes made by the ones before us.
In consideration to this, I bring to your attention an article by RPK. Please do read it and read it well. It is the truth of what actually conspired which led to that dark and bloody tragic day in Malaysian history.....13 May 1969;
In 1968, Umno fanned racial sentiments in a bid to 'unite' the Malays under its banner. Umno realised that the Malays were abandoning it in droves and it needed an issue to reunite the Malays. Further to that, the Prime Minister was being blamed for what Umno perceived as a loss of Malay support and the Young Turks in Umno wanted to also use this issue to pressure the Prime Minister into resigning.
Twenty years later, in 1988, Umno again went into turmoil with the emergence of Team A and Team B, which eventually split into Umno Baru and Semangat 46. Again, just like twenty years before that, the Malays had become disillusioned with the Umno leadership and there was a danger that Umno would suffer the same fate it did in 1969 if the general election was called.
The Umno leadership very cleverly got the Umno Youth and MCA Youth leaders to raise racial issues and bring the country to the brink of another ‘May 13’. This was when that infamous gathering at the TPCA padang in Kampong Baru was held and when Najib Tun Razak, the Umno Youth Leader, raised the keris and threatened to bathe it in Chinese blood.
Of course, this second ‘May 13’ never happened. What did happen instead was that Operasi Lalang was launched and more than 100 opposition leaders and activists were detained under the Internal Security Act. Najib and the MCA Youth Leader, Lee Kim Sai, however, were spared detention, although they were the two main players in the whole episode.
The ploy did not quite succeed though. In the 1990 general election, half the Malays swung to the opposition and Umno lost most of the Malay heartland to Semangat 46 and PAS.
Twenty years on and history is, again, being repeated. It appears like every twenty years Umno takes the country to the brink of a race riot in its effort to 'unite' the Malays and to ensure that it does not lose Malay support. And the 8 March 2008 general election, as well as the recent Permatang Pauh by-election, is proof that Umno has lost Malay support.
"The current situation is a repeat of 1969," said Umno in its brainstorming session held at the Umno headquarters to conduct a post-mortem of the election results. "Therefore, a 1969 'solution' will also be required."
This is very dangerous talk indeed. And Umno has been doing nothing but talking dangerously since March 2008, as evident in the recent episode in Penang. Maybe the culprit has since been punished. Yesterday, Umno’s Supreme Council decided to suspend Ahmad Ismail for a period of three years. But the damage has already been done and the suspension can’t turn back the clock. Racial sentiments have already been fanned and Malaysia, again, is being pushed to the brink of a race riot.
Malays, Chinese and Indians need to know how May 13 started. They must be made aware of what May 13 was really all about. They must be made to realise that the current sabre-rattling is nothing but the same ploy that Umno used back in 1968 and 1988 whenever it felt that it was losing Malay support. May 13 was not about race although it is being touted as so. May 13 was about ‘reuniting’ the Malays and about ousting the Prime Minister from office.
To forget history would be to repeat its mistakes. Let us not be taken in by Umno’s shadow-play (wayang kulit). They know they are rapidly losing power and they want to retain power through foul means by raising the spectre of May 13. Malaysians need to be matured and clever enough to reject this ploy. Umno can try, but whether it can succeed will all depend on whether we get suckered into this very dangerous race game.
Let me take you down memory lane and recap what I wrote nine years ago so that we may learn from this dark history and not repeat what went wrong. As follows is what I wrote in Harakah on 24 September 1999.
***********************************************************
A REPORTER’S ACCOUNT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN ON THE 13 MAY INCIDENT
The following statement is a factual account of the above-mentioned event given to me by the late Tunku Abdul Rahman (first Prime Minister of Malaysia) during an interview at his residence in Penang in 1972. I requested to discuss the above incident and was surprised when the appointment was given within three days.
His Secretary, a Chinese gentleman, allotted me one hour and advised me not to go into too much detail as this would tire the Tunku unnecessarily. In fact, the interview lasted three and a half hours. Because of the very surprising details provided to me, I think it would be best to report in a first-hand manner based on my notes written immediately after the interview.
"It was clear to me as well as the police that in the highly charged political atmosphere after the police were forced to kill a Chinese political party worker on May 4th, 1969, something was bound to happen to threaten law and order because of the resentment towards the Government by the KL Chinese on the eve of the general election. This was confirmed at this man’s funeral on the 9th May when the government faced the most hostile crowd it had ever seen.
Therefore, when the opposition parties applied for a police permit for a procession to celebrate their success in the results of the general election, I was adamant against it because the police were convinced that this would lead to trouble. I informed Tun Razak about this and he seemed to agree.
Now, without my knowledge and actually “behind my back”, there were certain political leaders in high positions who were working to force me to step down as a PM. I don’t want to go into details but if they had come to me and said so I would gladly have retired gracefully.
Unfortunately, they were apparently scheming and trying to decide on the best way to force me to resign. The occasion came when the question of the police permit was to be approved.
Tun Razak and Harun Idris, the MB of the state of Selangor, now felt that permission should be given, knowing fully well that there was a likelihood of trouble. I suppose they felt that when this happened they could then demand my resignation.
To this day I find it very hard to believe that Razak, whom I had known for so many years, would agree to work against me in this way. Actually he was in my house, as I was preparing to return to Kedah, and I overhead him speaking to Harun over the phone saying that he would be willing to approve the permit when I left. I really could not believe what I was hearing and preferred to think it was about some other permit. In any case, as the Deputy Prime Minister, in my absence from KL, he would be the Acting PM and would override my objection.
Accordingly, when I was in my home in Kedah, I heard over the radio that the permit had been approved.
It seems as though the expected trouble was anticipated and planned for by Harun and his UMNO Youth. After the humiliating insults hurled by the non-Malays, especially the Chinese, and after the seeming loss of Malay political power to them, they were clearly ready for some retaliatory action.
After meeting in large numbers at Harun’s official residence in Jalan Raja Muda near Kampong Bahru, and hearing inflammatory speeches by Harun and other leaders, they prepared themselves by tying ribbon strips on their foreheads and set out to kill Chinese. The first hapless victims were two of them in a van opposite Harun’s house who were innocently watching the large gathering. Little did they know that they would be killed on the spot.
The rest is history. I am sorry but I must end this discussion now because it really pains me as the Father of Merdeka to have to relive those terrible moments. I have often wondered why God made me live long enough to have witnessed my beloved Malays and Chinese citizens killing each other."
This was a conspiracy at the highest level and nothing short of a power struggle, with the 'Young Turks' then forming the pressure group. To achieve their ends, they very cleverly used race to make the Malays rise and push the Tengku aside.
Today, they are doing it again. This is dangerous politics. It may backfire and, instead, it may make the Malays rise against the non-Malays, like what happened in 1969 -- a fire raging out of control with no fire extinguisher in sight.
We must never allow our country to be turned into a racial battlefield again. Let politics be issues concerning policies, civil rights, good governance and justice. Let us not allow anyone to bring race and religion into our politics lest we suffer the fate of many countries around us where mass murders of entire families are made in the name of ‘bangsa’ and ‘agama’.
Raja Petra's wife Marina Lee Abdullah said her blogger husband was arrested at 1.10pm at their residence in Sungai Buloh by a team of 10 police officers. She informed that Raja Petra and some 17 cds along with a computer was taken away at about 1.50pm but whereabouts of the detention was not known.
RPK was arrested under the ISA Section 73 (1) which deems him as a threat to national security, peace and public order further intensifies the 3 years party membership suspension of racial remarks loose tongue shotgun mouthed Datuk Ahmad Ismail as light weighted and pretty much nothing.
In light of this injustice by the corrupt and racist government of DSAAB, we hope and pray that RPK will be treated well and with dignity while under the ISA detention.
To madam Marina Lee Abdullah and all the family members of RPK, you are in our hearts and prayers. We hope that you will be strong in enduring these trying times.
The Government and UMNO led by DSAAB has become so obsess with the fear of the rapid rise in support for DSAI and the Pakatan Rakyat coalition that they are now resorting to the most dispicable and inhumane tactical move of all, playing the racial card. The recent Datuk Ahmad Ismail racist slur and the irresponsible behaviour of his supporters coupled by the DSAAB and UMNO Supreme Council so said to be 'stern action' against Ahmad further proves that racial politics does exist in the present Government.
Let us all remain calm, be rational and keep our emotions and statements in check. A repeat of that fateful bloody day of May 13 is not what we the modern, civilised Rakyat of Malaysia wants.
Let us not let the pea-brained DSAAB and his cronnies out smart us unlike the unfortunate relatives of ours in the past.
They say those who forget history are condemn and doomed to repeat its mistakes. History is something not to be forgotten and buried but should be made a lesson to us all so that we may refrain ourselves from the mistakes made by the ones before us.
In consideration to this, I bring to your attention an article by RPK. Please do read it and read it well. It is the truth of what actually conspired which led to that dark and bloody tragic day in Malaysian history.....13 May 1969;
In 1968, Umno fanned racial sentiments in a bid to 'unite' the Malays under its banner. Umno realised that the Malays were abandoning it in droves and it needed an issue to reunite the Malays. Further to that, the Prime Minister was being blamed for what Umno perceived as a loss of Malay support and the Young Turks in Umno wanted to also use this issue to pressure the Prime Minister into resigning.
Twenty years later, in 1988, Umno again went into turmoil with the emergence of Team A and Team B, which eventually split into Umno Baru and Semangat 46. Again, just like twenty years before that, the Malays had become disillusioned with the Umno leadership and there was a danger that Umno would suffer the same fate it did in 1969 if the general election was called.
The Umno leadership very cleverly got the Umno Youth and MCA Youth leaders to raise racial issues and bring the country to the brink of another ‘May 13’. This was when that infamous gathering at the TPCA padang in Kampong Baru was held and when Najib Tun Razak, the Umno Youth Leader, raised the keris and threatened to bathe it in Chinese blood.
Of course, this second ‘May 13’ never happened. What did happen instead was that Operasi Lalang was launched and more than 100 opposition leaders and activists were detained under the Internal Security Act. Najib and the MCA Youth Leader, Lee Kim Sai, however, were spared detention, although they were the two main players in the whole episode.
The ploy did not quite succeed though. In the 1990 general election, half the Malays swung to the opposition and Umno lost most of the Malay heartland to Semangat 46 and PAS.
Twenty years on and history is, again, being repeated. It appears like every twenty years Umno takes the country to the brink of a race riot in its effort to 'unite' the Malays and to ensure that it does not lose Malay support. And the 8 March 2008 general election, as well as the recent Permatang Pauh by-election, is proof that Umno has lost Malay support.
"The current situation is a repeat of 1969," said Umno in its brainstorming session held at the Umno headquarters to conduct a post-mortem of the election results. "Therefore, a 1969 'solution' will also be required."
This is very dangerous talk indeed. And Umno has been doing nothing but talking dangerously since March 2008, as evident in the recent episode in Penang. Maybe the culprit has since been punished. Yesterday, Umno’s Supreme Council decided to suspend Ahmad Ismail for a period of three years. But the damage has already been done and the suspension can’t turn back the clock. Racial sentiments have already been fanned and Malaysia, again, is being pushed to the brink of a race riot.
Malays, Chinese and Indians need to know how May 13 started. They must be made aware of what May 13 was really all about. They must be made to realise that the current sabre-rattling is nothing but the same ploy that Umno used back in 1968 and 1988 whenever it felt that it was losing Malay support. May 13 was not about race although it is being touted as so. May 13 was about ‘reuniting’ the Malays and about ousting the Prime Minister from office.
To forget history would be to repeat its mistakes. Let us not be taken in by Umno’s shadow-play (wayang kulit). They know they are rapidly losing power and they want to retain power through foul means by raising the spectre of May 13. Malaysians need to be matured and clever enough to reject this ploy. Umno can try, but whether it can succeed will all depend on whether we get suckered into this very dangerous race game.
Let me take you down memory lane and recap what I wrote nine years ago so that we may learn from this dark history and not repeat what went wrong. As follows is what I wrote in Harakah on 24 September 1999.
***********************************************************
A REPORTER’S ACCOUNT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN ON THE 13 MAY INCIDENT
The following statement is a factual account of the above-mentioned event given to me by the late Tunku Abdul Rahman (first Prime Minister of Malaysia) during an interview at his residence in Penang in 1972. I requested to discuss the above incident and was surprised when the appointment was given within three days.
His Secretary, a Chinese gentleman, allotted me one hour and advised me not to go into too much detail as this would tire the Tunku unnecessarily. In fact, the interview lasted three and a half hours. Because of the very surprising details provided to me, I think it would be best to report in a first-hand manner based on my notes written immediately after the interview.
"It was clear to me as well as the police that in the highly charged political atmosphere after the police were forced to kill a Chinese political party worker on May 4th, 1969, something was bound to happen to threaten law and order because of the resentment towards the Government by the KL Chinese on the eve of the general election. This was confirmed at this man’s funeral on the 9th May when the government faced the most hostile crowd it had ever seen.
Therefore, when the opposition parties applied for a police permit for a procession to celebrate their success in the results of the general election, I was adamant against it because the police were convinced that this would lead to trouble. I informed Tun Razak about this and he seemed to agree.
Now, without my knowledge and actually “behind my back”, there were certain political leaders in high positions who were working to force me to step down as a PM. I don’t want to go into details but if they had come to me and said so I would gladly have retired gracefully.
Unfortunately, they were apparently scheming and trying to decide on the best way to force me to resign. The occasion came when the question of the police permit was to be approved.
Tun Razak and Harun Idris, the MB of the state of Selangor, now felt that permission should be given, knowing fully well that there was a likelihood of trouble. I suppose they felt that when this happened they could then demand my resignation.
To this day I find it very hard to believe that Razak, whom I had known for so many years, would agree to work against me in this way. Actually he was in my house, as I was preparing to return to Kedah, and I overhead him speaking to Harun over the phone saying that he would be willing to approve the permit when I left. I really could not believe what I was hearing and preferred to think it was about some other permit. In any case, as the Deputy Prime Minister, in my absence from KL, he would be the Acting PM and would override my objection.
Accordingly, when I was in my home in Kedah, I heard over the radio that the permit had been approved.
It seems as though the expected trouble was anticipated and planned for by Harun and his UMNO Youth. After the humiliating insults hurled by the non-Malays, especially the Chinese, and after the seeming loss of Malay political power to them, they were clearly ready for some retaliatory action.
After meeting in large numbers at Harun’s official residence in Jalan Raja Muda near Kampong Bahru, and hearing inflammatory speeches by Harun and other leaders, they prepared themselves by tying ribbon strips on their foreheads and set out to kill Chinese. The first hapless victims were two of them in a van opposite Harun’s house who were innocently watching the large gathering. Little did they know that they would be killed on the spot.
The rest is history. I am sorry but I must end this discussion now because it really pains me as the Father of Merdeka to have to relive those terrible moments. I have often wondered why God made me live long enough to have witnessed my beloved Malays and Chinese citizens killing each other."
This was a conspiracy at the highest level and nothing short of a power struggle, with the 'Young Turks' then forming the pressure group. To achieve their ends, they very cleverly used race to make the Malays rise and push the Tengku aside.
Today, they are doing it again. This is dangerous politics. It may backfire and, instead, it may make the Malays rise against the non-Malays, like what happened in 1969 -- a fire raging out of control with no fire extinguisher in sight.
We must never allow our country to be turned into a racial battlefield again. Let politics be issues concerning policies, civil rights, good governance and justice. Let us not allow anyone to bring race and religion into our politics lest we suffer the fate of many countries around us where mass murders of entire families are made in the name of ‘bangsa’ and ‘agama’.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Abdullah and Anwar — flip sides with the same thinking
The Bukit Bendera Umno division chief reminded Malaysian Chinese that they are immigrants and assigned them second-class status. He has not apologised for his comments which have upset the MCA and Gerakan, many of whom want him to be suspended or hung out to dry by Abdullah and the Umno leadership.
The Malaysian Insider Commentary
Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim share several similarities. They both call Penang home. They both have managed to get on the wrong side of their former mentor, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
And it seems they both will go the extra mile to protect their own political comrades, sometimes even sacrificing their principles and convictions about Malaysia, and tenets of the Federal Constitution.
No?
Let’s consider the facts. When Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s Zulkifli Nordin led the mob against the Bar Council for organising a forum on conversion to Islam, he was slammed by many from his own party for his thuggish behaviour. Except Anwar.
The Bandar Baru Kulim MP went into hiding after the incident and emerged more than a week later, defiant and unrepentant. He said that he had explained his actions at the forum to Anwar and had been cleared. He then lashed out enemies of Islam and said that he would reprise his role in breaking up the forum if necessary.
The silence from Anwar was deafening. Incidentally, no action has been taken against Zulkifli, despite threatening noises from Dr Syed Husin Ali, Sivarasa Rasiah and Tian Chua who were upset at the force and language used by protestors to disrupt the forum. Among other things, the demonstrators told the Chinese in not so polite terms to return to the land of their ancestors.
On hindsight, it is easy to understand why Anwar did not come out strong against Zukilfi.
He knew that though the MP’s actions were slammed by the chattering class and non-Muslims, they were hugely popular with Muslims who felt that Zulkifli and the protestors were standing up for Islam and its special position in Malaysia. He also had his eye on the Permatang Pauh by-election where ground reports suggested that he had the full backing of Chinese and Indian voters but had yet to win over a significant portion of the Malay vote.
So the best solution: stay clear of the Zulkifli controversy and hope that the controversy goes away.
Political consideration was also pretty much on Abdullah’s mind when he responded meekly to the controversy surrounding Datuk Ahmad Ismail’s comments about the Chinese at a political rally on the eve of the by-election.
The Bukit Bendera Umno division chief reminded Malaysian Chinese that they are immigrants and assigned them second-class status. He has not apologised for his comments which have upset the MCA and Gerakan, many of whom want him to be suspended or hung out to dry by Abdullah and the Umno leadership.
Abdullah has attempted to diffuse the situation by saying that Ahmad did not mean to offend anyone, adding that the he would tell the division chief not to repeat those words. This assurance is akin to applying. minyak angin on an open sore — it just worsened the situation.
On the face of it, it is difficult to understand why Abdullah is going out on a limb for Ahmad. Ahmad was a staunch Anwar soldier in the old days and enjoyed rubbishing the prime minister when he was not elected as one of Umno’s vice-presidents in 1993.
Abdullah’s loyalists still remember Ahmad’s choice words against Abdullah when the PM was a political nobody.
So why is Abdullah not prepared to chastise this man whose arrogant comments only serve to entrench the antipathy that non-Malays feel towards Umno and the Barisan Nasional?
Put it another way. Why is Abdullah prepared to stand by and watch the stature of the MCA and Gerakan sink further among Chinese? Every time an Umno leader makes a stinging comment about non-Malays or their religious practices and it goes unpunished, stronger is the view among Chinese and Indians that the MCA, Gerakan and MIC are political weaklings, and not worth supporting.
Abdullah knows this very well. But the fact is between now and December only one thing matters to him — obtaining the bulk of nominations from 191 Umno divisions and being re-elected as the party president.
Everything else is a distant second. And that includes pushing through legislation for a Judicial Appointment Commission (which incidentally is also unpopular with the Umno crowd). Or disciplining a party warlord, who comments about the status of Chinese just happens to be the majority view in the ruling party.
It is an open secret that many Umno politicians feel “betrayed’’ byChinese and Indian voters and want to punish them for supporting Pakatan Rakyat in Election 2008. They also believe that the non-Malays have become too vocal since March 8 and need to be put in their place.
So Ahmad Ismail’s comments are not isolated thinking. It is the majority view in a party that will not accept that non-Malays also have an ownership stake in the country.
Abdullah is not prepared to challenge this view and risk upsetting the support of party warlords like Ahmad Ismail. His survival comes before anything else. Between now and December, political consideration trumps everything else.
So maybe Abdullah and Anwar have got more in common than they wish to acknowledge. They both are prepared to leave their ideals of a Malaysia for all by the wayside if it means keeping the support of their home constituency.
Sad but true. -RPK (author of Malaysia Today blog)
The Malaysian Insider Commentary
Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim share several similarities. They both call Penang home. They both have managed to get on the wrong side of their former mentor, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
And it seems they both will go the extra mile to protect their own political comrades, sometimes even sacrificing their principles and convictions about Malaysia, and tenets of the Federal Constitution.
No?
Let’s consider the facts. When Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s Zulkifli Nordin led the mob against the Bar Council for organising a forum on conversion to Islam, he was slammed by many from his own party for his thuggish behaviour. Except Anwar.
The Bandar Baru Kulim MP went into hiding after the incident and emerged more than a week later, defiant and unrepentant. He said that he had explained his actions at the forum to Anwar and had been cleared. He then lashed out enemies of Islam and said that he would reprise his role in breaking up the forum if necessary.
The silence from Anwar was deafening. Incidentally, no action has been taken against Zulkifli, despite threatening noises from Dr Syed Husin Ali, Sivarasa Rasiah and Tian Chua who were upset at the force and language used by protestors to disrupt the forum. Among other things, the demonstrators told the Chinese in not so polite terms to return to the land of their ancestors.
On hindsight, it is easy to understand why Anwar did not come out strong against Zukilfi.
He knew that though the MP’s actions were slammed by the chattering class and non-Muslims, they were hugely popular with Muslims who felt that Zulkifli and the protestors were standing up for Islam and its special position in Malaysia. He also had his eye on the Permatang Pauh by-election where ground reports suggested that he had the full backing of Chinese and Indian voters but had yet to win over a significant portion of the Malay vote.
So the best solution: stay clear of the Zulkifli controversy and hope that the controversy goes away.
Political consideration was also pretty much on Abdullah’s mind when he responded meekly to the controversy surrounding Datuk Ahmad Ismail’s comments about the Chinese at a political rally on the eve of the by-election.
The Bukit Bendera Umno division chief reminded Malaysian Chinese that they are immigrants and assigned them second-class status. He has not apologised for his comments which have upset the MCA and Gerakan, many of whom want him to be suspended or hung out to dry by Abdullah and the Umno leadership.
Abdullah has attempted to diffuse the situation by saying that Ahmad did not mean to offend anyone, adding that the he would tell the division chief not to repeat those words. This assurance is akin to applying. minyak angin on an open sore — it just worsened the situation.
On the face of it, it is difficult to understand why Abdullah is going out on a limb for Ahmad. Ahmad was a staunch Anwar soldier in the old days and enjoyed rubbishing the prime minister when he was not elected as one of Umno’s vice-presidents in 1993.
Abdullah’s loyalists still remember Ahmad’s choice words against Abdullah when the PM was a political nobody.
So why is Abdullah not prepared to chastise this man whose arrogant comments only serve to entrench the antipathy that non-Malays feel towards Umno and the Barisan Nasional?
Put it another way. Why is Abdullah prepared to stand by and watch the stature of the MCA and Gerakan sink further among Chinese? Every time an Umno leader makes a stinging comment about non-Malays or their religious practices and it goes unpunished, stronger is the view among Chinese and Indians that the MCA, Gerakan and MIC are political weaklings, and not worth supporting.
Abdullah knows this very well. But the fact is between now and December only one thing matters to him — obtaining the bulk of nominations from 191 Umno divisions and being re-elected as the party president.
Everything else is a distant second. And that includes pushing through legislation for a Judicial Appointment Commission (which incidentally is also unpopular with the Umno crowd). Or disciplining a party warlord, who comments about the status of Chinese just happens to be the majority view in the ruling party.
It is an open secret that many Umno politicians feel “betrayed’’ byChinese and Indian voters and want to punish them for supporting Pakatan Rakyat in Election 2008. They also believe that the non-Malays have become too vocal since March 8 and need to be put in their place.
So Ahmad Ismail’s comments are not isolated thinking. It is the majority view in a party that will not accept that non-Malays also have an ownership stake in the country.
Abdullah is not prepared to challenge this view and risk upsetting the support of party warlords like Ahmad Ismail. His survival comes before anything else. Between now and December, political consideration trumps everything else.
So maybe Abdullah and Anwar have got more in common than they wish to acknowledge. They both are prepared to leave their ideals of a Malaysia for all by the wayside if it means keeping the support of their home constituency.
Sad but true. -RPK (author of Malaysia Today blog)
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