It would be easy to write off the 25 former leading Malay civil servants who signed their names to an open letter calling for moderate, rational and informed debate on the role of Islam in Malaysia, as nothing but of a handful of has-beens.

 

In fact, this obvious ploy has already been attempted by chief targets of this intelligent and incisive letter, regime-sponsored racist pressure groups Perkasa and Isma.

 

According to The Malay Mail Online , as quoted by Malaysiakini , Perkasa secretary-general Syed Hassan Ali scornfully queried what these 25 former civil servants had done for Malaysia in the course of their careers, and Isma president Abdullah Zaik Abdul Rahman called them an “expired bunch”.

 

Though how any bunch could be as “expired” as former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his countless similarly superannuated and disgraced Umno supporters the likes of Perkasa and Isma, Abdullah Zaik didn’t and of course couldn’t say.

 

And in any case, one of the signatories to the letter in question, former Malaysian ambassador to the Netherlands Noor Farida Ariffin ( left ), quickly demonstrated that she was far from an expired or spent force.

 

Expressing “concern” at claims by Perkasa and Isma that they might truly represent majority Malay opinion, she reportedly told Sin Chew Daily that the two groups “clearly have low standards, are poorly educated, intellectually challenged, incapable of seeing their own racism, intolerant, blindly obedient, and are destroying the fabric of our country’s society.”

 

Sentiments so apt and true that all I can add to them is the call for more, more!

 

More similarly ferocious criticism of the BN regime, on a lot more fronts, and above all, from a great many more eminent Malays and Malaysians of all other races.

 

Echoing the voice of the 25

 

For far too long, courageous individuals and small groups have been crying in the wilderness against Malaysia’s criminal ruling regime while the so-called 'silent majority' has taken refuge in anonymous apathy.

 

So for once, let’s hope that the 25 eminent Malays who have courageously signed the open letter are soon joined and vociferously supported by 250, 2,500, or even 2,500,000 more like-minded current and former colleagues.

 

Given the regime’s long and ugly record of clinging to power through gerrymandering, roll-stacking, postal-vote rigging and bribery, as flagrantly illustrated in the 13th general election, coming out to vote against it every five years just isn’t enough to get shot of this gang of crooks.

 

And after the humiliating loss of the popular vote last time around, you can bet that the current re-delineation exercise is a typical con designed to save their skins again next time.

 

So the time to strike, as the 25 eminent Malays have clearly realised, is now. While Umno is threatened as seldom before in its history with the Mahathir and anti-Mahathir factions fighting over the spoils.

 

And while the spoils themselves are shrinking as fast as the world oil price keeps sinking, the 1Malaysia Development Fund (1MDB) debt bomb keeps ticking, and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak keeps spending as though there’s no tomorrow.

 

Which there isn’t, apparently, for most of the staff of BTV, the television channel allegedly majority-owned by a 'private' entity called Bernama TV Synergy Sdn Bhd, but actually run by minority shareholder, the BN-regime 'news' agency Bernama .

 

Some BTV staff are reportedly taking leave in protest at repeatedly late payments of their salaries. And many of the rest of us fondly hope that regime funds are running short to pay a great many others in its lying, spinning 'mainstream' media and its bloated civil services in general.

 

Follow the lead and protest

 

If this is the case, there will never be a better time for moderate Malays and indeed all Malaysians to follow the lead of the Eminent 25 letter-signers in loudly and proudly protesting against the racism and religionism that this rapacious regime employs to try and conceal its criminality.

 

And in any event, one of the 25, Ahmad Kamil Jaafar, former career diplomat, secretary-general of the Foreign Affairs Ministry and former special envoy to the prime minister, says that he and the group will continue to speak up.

 

While granting that most younger Malaysians may not know him or his fellow signatories to the recent open letter, Ahmad Kamil ( right ) said that they had taken action for the benefit of their grandchildren.

 

“I do not want my grandchildren to live in a Talibanised country,” Malaysiakini quoted him as saying.

“I come from a background of people of different races and we (back then) never questioned who you are,” he continued, adding that “today there are so many discordant and divisive issues.”

 

So many discordant, divisive and outright disgusting issues, in fact, that it is impossible to list more than a small sample of them here.

 

Suffice to instance such massive plunders of public money as in the still–festering RM12 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ), the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), 1Malaysia Development Fund (1MDB) and countless other financial scandals; and the still-unsolved murders of Altantuya Shaariibuu, Teoh Beng Hock, and dozens of others by members of BN’s forces of so-called 'law and order'.

 

Then, of course, there are such matters as the rape and pillage of the forests of Sarawak by the former chief minister and now governor of the state and his family, the scandalous wholesale selling of citizenships to foreigners in Sabah, the systematic exploitation and extortion of workers both legal and illegal by the police and immigration officials, and the constant daylight robbery of funds from every department of government as revealed annually by the auditor-general. 

 

In summary, there is no shortage of compelling reasons for criticising, attacking, protesting, striking, or even just signing letters against the crooked and racist BN regime.

 

And in the words of one of the 25 eminent Malays, Ahmad Kamil Jaafar, “it’s time all of us got up from sitting on our backsides.”

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.