'Let them eat dirt'
Dean JohnsPublished: Jul 6, 2011 3:07 AM | Updated: Jul 6, 2011 3:15 AM
That’s clearly Umno/BN’s contemptuous and contemptible response to popular calls for a clean and fair election system. The ruling regime has greeted the prospect of a peaceful public rally by Bersih 2.0 with such an orgy of dirty deeds and putrid lies that they must figure that the majority of Malaysians have a taste for such disgusting stuff.
That’s clearly Umno/BN’s contemptuous and contemptible response to popular calls for a clean and fair election system. The ruling regime has greeted the prospect of a peaceful public rally by Bersih 2.0 with such an orgy of dirty deeds and putrid lies that they must figure that the majority of Malaysians have a taste for such disgusting stuff.
And maybe they’re right. After all, millions have continued to vote for them in decade after decade of dirty elections, and millions more are evidently so content to keep stomaching a steady diet of dirty deals and rotten governance that they can’t even be bothered to register to vote.
So, as fed-up as apparently growing numbers of Malaysians are by being fed such a load of rubbish by the Umno/BN regime, maybe as far as the rest are concerned the Umnoputrids are on the right track.
So quite possibly, instead of endlessly promising to clean-up his own and his henchmen’s acts, the prime minister would be well-advised to drop his hypocritical pretence, and to reveal himself for once and for all in all his crime- or grime-ministerial glory.
That way he’d at least spare the more squeamish among us the pain of being told a pack of such nauseating lies as his recent comments on the Bersih 2.0 rally.
Urging the people “not to destroy what has been built over the years,” and ignoring the fact that Umno/BN has systematically destroyed Malaysia’s civil institutions, he claimed that “the illegal rally,” which of course is illegal only because his regime says so, “is politically motivated to gain power via undemocratic means.”
Having positioned himself as a defender of democracy, despite a superabundance of evidence that the system he heads and shamelessly defends is nothing but a dirtocracy, he then went on to propose that would-be protestors “can show democratic decency by cooperating with authorities.”
In other words, let them eat whatever dirt the powers-that-be decide what’s good for them.
He then went on to claim that the opposition’s winning in five states during the 2008 general election was proof that Malaysia’s election system is free and fair, omitting to mention that since then one of these states, Perak, has been wrested back by Umno/BN by the foulest possible series of dirty tricks.
And, while conceding that biometric methods might be introduced to reduce fraudulent or repeated voting, he completely ignored all the dirtiest aspects of Malaysia’s electoral system, like massive gerrymandering of boundaries, manipulation of postal votes, the government’s flagrant misuse of the media and public funds, and the outright bribery he himself commits.
Blatant pork-barrelling
As most memorably in his “I help you, you help me” performance in the Hulu Selangor buy-election, but most recently just days ago when he promised the people of Kelantan a brand-new stadium if the state forsakes PAS in favour of BN in the coming general election.
“If tonight it is announced that BN has come to power in Kelantan, I will build a beautiful stadium with the latest scoreboard system tomorrow,” he declared. While the crowd in attendance reportedly cheered this blatant piece of pork-barrelling, it only served to remind many of us that stadiums built with dirty BN money by BN crony contractors have a far-from-rewarding way of collapsing.
And so addicted to this filthy, fraudulent system of pillage and plunder is Malaysia’s Umno/BN dirtocracy that it is prepared to go to any lengths to perpetuate its power to skew elections in its favour.
Hence the endless orgy of obscenely unjust sodomy and sex-DVD allegations it indulges in to try and blacken the reputation of its principal bête noire, Anwar Ibrahim, and the barrage of dark deeds and dirty lies it’s been throwing at organisers and supporters of the Bersih 2.0 rally proposed for this Saturday both in Malaysia and around the world.
To keep Najib Abdul Razak’s (left) hands looking as clean as possible in light of his dirty record, his cousin and current minister for dirty tricks, Hishammuddin Hussein, has led the charge, demonising Bersih as an illegal organisation and using his dirty police force to arrest dozens of ‘suspects’ ranging from elected opposition politicians to ordinary citizens wearing, selling or even possessing yellow T-shirts evocative of Bersih, even those without the logo.
And all the usual Umno/BN mud-slingers have been out there doing their squalid best to heap dirt on the very idea of Bersih. The most vile case of such calumny to my mind was Najib’s claim in a recent speech to a crowd in Pasir Puteh, Kelantan, that chief Bersih 2.0 organiser, Ambiga Sreenevasan, is “anti-Islam.”
This is yet another instance of the fact that the Umno/BN dirtocracy defiles everything it touches, even something as precious to many Malaysians as their Muslim religion.
It is an absolute insult to Islam, or indeed to any other religion, to use and abuse it for dirty political purposes.
‘Scholars should enlighten their flocks’
Yet a group of Islamic scholars had the effrontery to follow Najib’s sordid “anti-Islam” slander of Ambiga with the advice to Muslims who intend to participate in the July 9 “illegal rallies” to repent, “because such rallies are prohibited in Islam as they bring more harm than good.”
Fadlan Mohd Osman, a lecturer in the Department of Quran and Sunnah Studies at UKM, reportedly stated that “there was no proof or argument bases on the verses of the Quran which allowed such a rally”.
Ahmad Fauzan Yahaya, head of the Islamic Studies Department at the International Islamic College, claimed that he “could not understand why the organisers of one of the rallies accused the Election Commission of not being transparent”.
And the chairman of The National Fatwa Council’s committee on Islamic Affairs said that “Malaysia had a strong economy and if there was anything that could jeopardise its growth or damage the country, like the rallies, then they had to be stopped”.
As an unbeliever in Islam or any other religion, all I have to say to say to such ‘scholars’ is that their purpose should be to enlighten their flocks, not fool them into believing that they have to submit to and suffer evil.
Like the incessant crimes of the Umno/BN regime against its citizens, and the criminal complicity of the police, the judiciary, the Electoral Commission and the lying mainstream media.
In short, religious scholars of every persuasion would do themselves and their creeds far more credit if they spoke out against the dirt that is done and fed to good Muslims and other Malaysians by their God-forsaken government, instead of trying to convince them to either like it or lump it.
DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Already published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini, following earlier collections ‘Mad about Malaysia’ and ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’.
And maybe they’re right. After all, millions have continued to vote for them in decade after decade of dirty elections, and millions more are evidently so content to keep stomaching a steady diet of dirty deals and rotten governance that they can’t even be bothered to register to vote.
So, as fed-up as apparently growing numbers of Malaysians are by being fed such a load of rubbish by the Umno/BN regime, maybe as far as the rest are concerned the Umnoputrids are on the right track.
So quite possibly, instead of endlessly promising to clean-up his own and his henchmen’s acts, the prime minister would be well-advised to drop his hypocritical pretence, and to reveal himself for once and for all in all his crime- or grime-ministerial glory.
That way he’d at least spare the more squeamish among us the pain of being told a pack of such nauseating lies as his recent comments on the Bersih 2.0 rally.
Urging the people “not to destroy what has been built over the years,” and ignoring the fact that Umno/BN has systematically destroyed Malaysia’s civil institutions, he claimed that “the illegal rally,” which of course is illegal only because his regime says so, “is politically motivated to gain power via undemocratic means.”
Having positioned himself as a defender of democracy, despite a superabundance of evidence that the system he heads and shamelessly defends is nothing but a dirtocracy, he then went on to propose that would-be protestors “can show democratic decency by cooperating with authorities.”
In other words, let them eat whatever dirt the powers-that-be decide what’s good for them.He then went on to claim that the opposition’s winning in five states during the 2008 general election was proof that Malaysia’s election system is free and fair, omitting to mention that since then one of these states, Perak, has been wrested back by Umno/BN by the foulest possible series of dirty tricks.
And, while conceding that biometric methods might be introduced to reduce fraudulent or repeated voting, he completely ignored all the dirtiest aspects of Malaysia’s electoral system, like massive gerrymandering of boundaries, manipulation of postal votes, the government’s flagrant misuse of the media and public funds, and the outright bribery he himself commits.
Blatant pork-barrelling
As most memorably in his “I help you, you help me” performance in the Hulu Selangor buy-election, but most recently just days ago when he promised the people of Kelantan a brand-new stadium if the state forsakes PAS in favour of BN in the coming general election.
“If tonight it is announced that BN has come to power in Kelantan, I will build a beautiful stadium with the latest scoreboard system tomorrow,” he declared. While the crowd in attendance reportedly cheered this blatant piece of pork-barrelling, it only served to remind many of us that stadiums built with dirty BN money by BN crony contractors have a far-from-rewarding way of collapsing.
And so addicted to this filthy, fraudulent system of pillage and plunder is Malaysia’s Umno/BN dirtocracy that it is prepared to go to any lengths to perpetuate its power to skew elections in its favour.
Hence the endless orgy of obscenely unjust sodomy and sex-DVD allegations it indulges in to try and blacken the reputation of its principal bête noire, Anwar Ibrahim, and the barrage of dark deeds and dirty lies it’s been throwing at organisers and supporters of the Bersih 2.0 rally proposed for this Saturday both in Malaysia and around the world.
To keep Najib Abdul Razak’s (left) hands looking as clean as possible in light of his dirty record, his cousin and current minister for dirty tricks, Hishammuddin Hussein, has led the charge, demonising Bersih as an illegal organisation and using his dirty police force to arrest dozens of ‘suspects’ ranging from elected opposition politicians to ordinary citizens wearing, selling or even possessing yellow T-shirts evocative of Bersih, even those without the logo.And all the usual Umno/BN mud-slingers have been out there doing their squalid best to heap dirt on the very idea of Bersih. The most vile case of such calumny to my mind was Najib’s claim in a recent speech to a crowd in Pasir Puteh, Kelantan, that chief Bersih 2.0 organiser, Ambiga Sreenevasan, is “anti-Islam.”
This is yet another instance of the fact that the Umno/BN dirtocracy defiles everything it touches, even something as precious to many Malaysians as their Muslim religion.
It is an absolute insult to Islam, or indeed to any other religion, to use and abuse it for dirty political purposes.
‘Scholars should enlighten their flocks’
Yet a group of Islamic scholars had the effrontery to follow Najib’s sordid “anti-Islam” slander of Ambiga with the advice to Muslims who intend to participate in the July 9 “illegal rallies” to repent, “because such rallies are prohibited in Islam as they bring more harm than good.”
Fadlan Mohd Osman, a lecturer in the Department of Quran and Sunnah Studies at UKM, reportedly stated that “there was no proof or argument bases on the verses of the Quran which allowed such a rally”.
Ahmad Fauzan Yahaya, head of the Islamic Studies Department at the International Islamic College, claimed that he “could not understand why the organisers of one of the rallies accused the Election Commission of not being transparent”.
And the chairman of The National Fatwa Council’s committee on Islamic Affairs said that “Malaysia had a strong economy and if there was anything that could jeopardise its growth or damage the country, like the rallies, then they had to be stopped”.
As an unbeliever in Islam or any other religion, all I have to say to say to such ‘scholars’ is that their purpose should be to enlighten their flocks, not fool them into believing that they have to submit to and suffer evil.
Like the incessant crimes of the Umno/BN regime against its citizens, and the criminal complicity of the police, the judiciary, the Electoral Commission and the lying mainstream media.
In short, religious scholars of every persuasion would do themselves and their creeds far more credit if they spoke out against the dirt that is done and fed to good Muslims and other Malaysians by their God-forsaken government, instead of trying to convince them to either like it or lump it.
DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Already published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini, following earlier collections ‘Mad about Malaysia’ and ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’.
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