Running dog running scared - Malaysia Today

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Running dog running scared




Saturday, 12 April 2008

.THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Barisan Nasional has finally recovered from the shock of the 8 March 2008 general election. Okay, it took one month, but at least they finally recovered, whatever it may be.As soon as the full results of the general election came in, I remarked that the earthquake has hit Malaysia (some call it a Tsunami but it was actually more than that). My wife, wise as she always is, commented that the earthquake is not what brings the building down. The aftershocks will. So wait for the aftershocks, said my wife.The last few days, we have been seeing the aftershocks and I told my wife that she was right. Now we are seeing the real damage of 8 March 2008. Again, in her wisdom, my wife remarked that we are yet to see the full blast of the aftershocks. This is only the quivering. The crash is yet to come. Wait for it, she said, Aiyah, susahlah married to such a smart wife.Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has been making his rounds to meet Umno and Barisan Nasional leaders on the ground. Two days ago he was in Penang and Kedah. Before that he went to Sarawak and Sabah. Yesterday he was in Johor. And currently, even as you read this, he is in Selangor. And the message he received from the ground is all the same. He has to personally take responsibility for the general election debacle and must resign his post.The people up north told Abdullah in no uncertain terms that he must go and the government has to be handed over to his Deputy, Najib Tun Razak, with Muhyiddin Yassin as the new Deputy. Heavens! In that case I would rather have Khairy Jamaluddin as Prime Minister. At least he is young, brilliant, and has a vision for this country. I mean, if it is going to be just replacing one Umno slimeball for another, then it might as well be an Umno slimeball who has brains (unless we can kick out Umno altogether and put the lovely Dr Wan Azizah as the new Prime Minister).Mahathir once remarked that his richest Minister is Muhyiddin, who was then the Menteri Besar of Johor. Muhyiddin? I thought the richest Minister would be the then Minister of Finance, Daim Zainuddin. Apparently, Mahathir did not think so. One Umno leader then quipped that Daim may have a lot of money, but all that money belongs to Umno. Daim is just Umno’s trustee. So that would make Muhyiddin richer than Daim.Anyway, that has now changed. Through a sleight of hand, Umno’s RM42 billion became Daim’s personal wealth when he quietly transferred all the money overseas during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Daim ended up owning ten banks or so in Africa and Eastern Europe and Umno ended up broke. That made Mahathir mad as hell and this was the main reason for the fallout between Mahathir and Daim.Aiyah, whose fault is it all? What do you expect when you ask the fox to guard the henhouse? For sure the fox will whack all the chickens. And then, when the chickens are all gone, you get angry. But is this not the job of the fox, to eat the chickens?Enough digressing. Let us get back to the story of Abdullah’s roadshow. Umno Johor told Abdullah that he has to go. There are no two ways about it. Again, my wise wife said the night before that that Johor will be the real test for Abdullah. Johor is Umno’s kubu (fortress). If Umno Johor stands behind Abdullah, then he has a good chance of fighting his detractors. But if Umno Johor too turns on Abdullah, then he is finished.And yesterday Umno Johor told Abdullah that they want him to officially announce his resignation. They left it to him when he will do that. They gave him an ultimatum but did not insist on a timeline. However, it should not be too long into the future. That’s it. Umno Johor has abandoned Abdullah. And, without Johor, Abdullah is dead meat. There is no way he can continue clinging onto power. Umno Johor wants him to openly declare his exit plan with a succession plan attached.In the meantime, Umno and MCA have embarked on a psy-war campaign. Gerakan and MIC are running around like headless chickens and have yet to decide what to do. There is a good chance Gerakan, together with a couple more Barisan Nasional component members, might consider leaving the ruling coalition and join Pakatan Rakyat. But talk is still ongoing and no decision has been made yet. Gerakan, just like PPP and MIC, were practically demolished in the recent general election so they really have nothing to offer the opposition. At least MCA has 15 Parliament seats -- and that is half the 30 that Pakatan Rakyat needs to form the new federal government.Okay, back to Umno’s and MCA’s psy-war campaign. Umno is going around telling the Malays that ‘Malay states have fallen to Chinese governments’. This is meant to play on the sentiments and raise the anger of the Malays. Umno even went so far as to say that the March 2008 general election is a repeat of the May 1969 general election -- so maybe a similar aftermath of the May 1969 is required this time around as well.Aiyah, why is Umno talking about May 1969 being the same as March 2008 and that the same aftermath is needed. Okay, this statement may be veiled or disguised. But is it not dangerous to put ideas like ‘same as May 1969’, ‘same aftermath required’, and so on, into the heads of the Malays? Is all this ‘same as May 1969’ talk aimed at provoking the Malays to rise or is it meant to put fear into the hearts of the Chinese?At first I thought this was merely meant to get the Malays to rise up in anger. But then the Malays of today are not even close to the Malays of the 1960s. So I did not think the instigation would work. Then it came to me. All this loose talk is not targeted at just the Malays. It is aimed at the Chinese as well. And this convinced me even more when MCA started talking about Islam.Whatever Umno says will no longer work. They can talk about May 1969 and whatnot. But as long as it is the Malays who are doing the talking, Malays tak peduli and will remain calm. But if it is the Chinese who whack the Malays, in particular whack Islam, then that is another thing altogether. That can make the Malays angry.Barisan Nasional realises that Umno can keep talking but the Malays will just turn a deaf ear. So now they are getting MCA to do the talking. And MCA is touching on an issue worse than race. They are talking about Islam. Religion is worse than race. Religion can even make people of the same race kill each other like in India, the UK, etc. So it would be more effective to whack Islam than to raise the issue of race. And if it is non-Muslims who whack Islam, then be ready for blood on the streets.MCA is the true running dog of Umno. Sabah and Sarawak won 54 Parliament seats but they were offered only seven Cabinet posts, five mere Deputy Ministers on top of that. MCA, however, won only 15 Parliament seats but they were given 13 Cabinet positions. Another two and all the MCA Parliamentarians would be in the government. So MCA has almost as much to lose as Umno and they would be very prepared to assist Umno in this race-religious divide game just to protect their positions in the government and to remain the deputy taiko of Barisan Nasional.Yes, we can see Umno’s sins. We can see how Umno plays the race card. We can see how Umno plays the dangerous game of racial politics. But what we don’t see is MCA also playing the more dangerous game of Islam whacking.If there is one thing Muslims will not tolerate is insults to their religion. All you need to do is draw some cartoons of the Prophet and millions of Muslims all over the world will kill and burn. Hundreds of lives will be lost and hundreds of millions worth of property destroyed. Religion is certainly more volatile than race.MCA had better get a grip on things. If Umno wants to talk about March 2008 being the same as May 1969, let them. Even if they want to suggest that the same ‘remedies’ as May 1969 are needed for March 2008, also let them. Malays can handle this. Malays can remain calm. Malays will not bite the bait. But stay off Islam. Whacking Islam is utmost dangerous. The Malays are capable of losing their minds and will go berserk, as Muslims all over the world have proven whenever their religion is challenged.Okay, call the Malays irrational. Label Muslims as unreasonable. Never mind. I will agree with all that and will not dispute or rebut it. However, if you know all that, then why jolok sarang tembuan? There is no reason to whack Islam. PAS has already dropped the Islamic State issue. They have declared it is no longer on the agenda. They have stopped talking about it for four years now since the fiasco of the 2004 general election. PAS needs to keep talking about Islam to their own supporters to rebut what Umno is saying about them: that PAS has ‘betrayed’ Islam. So let them talk to their own supporters or else Umno will be ‘proven’ right and PAS’ relevance will be questioned. But MCA should not raise this as if an Islamic State equates to a Pariah State, which they very well know will rub the Malays the wrong way.The Chinese should speak up. The Chinese should tell MCA to shut the fuck up. The Chinese should tell MCA that they trust PAS and are confident that PAS will not betray this trust. The Chinese should scream at MCA and tell that party that fights for Chinese rights that with a mere 23 seats in Parliament there is no way PAS can turn this country into an Islamic State when even Umno can’t with almost 80 seats.Yes, Umno can’t get the Malays onto the streets. Umno can’t trigger a May 1969 ‘solution’ to the March 2008 election. So now MCA is trying to do that. Let us pray that these MCA agent provocateurs rot in hell for seven generations. And if anything adverse does happen, let us hang the MCA people from the highest tree and leave their bodies to rot in the sun.I, for one, do not want a May 1969 ‘solution’. Most Malays, if not all, don’t as well. And we Malays curse those MCA Chinese who are prepared to see this country burn and lives sacrificed just so that they can win back ground they lost on 8 March 2008.FOOTNOTEBy the way, today’s article is not as long as my normal pieces, which would run into five-seven pages. Many readers posted complaints in the blogs saying that my pieces are too long and touch on too many issues at the same time; so they find it very hard to comprehend what my message is.Many blame the writer, meaning me, for not being able to transmit the ‘right’ message, although I would rather blame the Malaysian education system -- because we had to write pages upon pages of comprehension pieces when we were in lower secondary school. The English teacher would give us one incomplete sentence of one line and we would have to complete that sentence with 1,800 words. So I suppose, since the age of 13, we had been ‘trained’ to take just one word or one sentence and make a thesis out of it.Anyway, for the sake of those who are not able to juggle many issues in their head at the same time, dissect all the many issues, deliberate the pros and cons of each issue, and then come their own conclusions based on the arguments presented, maybe they should stick to reading this column, THE CORRIDORS OF POWER. Those who enjoy being provoked, love playing the Devil’s Advocate, and get a turn on with debating (I don’t mean insult, scold, rant or rave), then they can continue reading NO HOLDS BARRED, which will tear into issues, rip your brains apart, and result in you pulling your hair out.I understand that there are many types of Malaysians and that MALAYSIA TODAY must cater to all levels of the population. We have the preset minds -- people who have already formed an opinion even before they start reading anything. Then there are the open minds -- people who are prepared to listen to all sides of the argument. We also have the ‘fence-sitters’ -- people who would rather wait-and-see and make a decision based on who can offer the best argument. Then we have the setuju group -- people who will agree to everything that a writer says even if the writer says one thing one day and the opposite another day (which I sometimes deviously do) because they do not have a mind of their own. We also have the tak setuju group -- people who will disagree with everything the writer says because they just love disagreeing or because they don’t like the writer so they will simply disagree regardless whether the writer is right or wrong. I suppose this should be taken as positive and therefore a reflection that MALAYSIA TODAY has a very wide and diverse readership. But it can of course also be very difficult when preparing a ‘single item menu’ as some love certain things while others may not.Anyway, debate on readers.