Books versus crooks

Talk about a losing proposition. As elated as I am at the appearance this week of my fourth book of Malaysiakini columns, and as grateful as I am to SIRD/Gerakbudaya for publishing it and its prequels, I can’t help also feeling somewhat futile.

Because, let’s face it, nothing that I or anyone else writes appears to have the slightest improving effect on Malaysia’s Umno/BN regime. In fact, in its 54 years of domination over the nation, it has steadily devolved from a respectable and principled political coalition into nothing but a criminal conspiracy against the people.

And even more depressing is the fact that over three million apparently adult Malaysians are still too blissfully ignorant of the depth of criminality their government has sunk to, or else too apathetic or just plain pathetic, to bother registering to vote.

Or perhaps they’re just so infantilised by the Umno/BN media, or so afflicted by the Stockholm syndrome, the tendency for victims to assuage their terrors by identifying with their tormentors, that they’re happy to pretend all is well as long as they’re free to eat, sleep and shop.

So I often find myself wondering why the hell I keep wasting my time engaging in the war of words against Umno/BN. They’re not my own government, after all, and besides, as I once wrote in a column entitled ‘The BNality of evil’, they’re every bit as boring as they’re bad.

But thank goodness, every time I’m tempted to call it quits, a ray of hope arrives to keep me going.

My greatest encouragement over the past few months, of course, has been the people-power movement in North Africa and the Middle East. The collapse of corrupt and repressive regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, and the threatened destruction of more of their kind in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, has frightened the living daylights out of Umno/BN.

As also, I’m sure, have other recent victories against the forces of evil, like the removal of Gbagbo from the Ivory Coast, the secession of South Sudan from the murderous Muslim regime in the North, and the arrest and trial of Ratko Mladic.


Bad guys on a losing streak

In short, it’s clear that the bad guys are on a losing streak, and thus those still in power in China, Russia, North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe and elsewhere, including, of course, Malaysia, are feeling increasingly insecure.

So it’s a great time to be lending a hand in support of popular freedom, if only with the pen rather than the sword, or the keyboard instead of the keris.

A further incentive to my critical efforts right now is my outrage at the refugee-swapping deal that the current government of Australia has done with the Umno/BN regime in Malaysia.

This unholy alliance between Canberra and Putrajaya, or, to better convey the sleaziness of this agreement, Conberra and Putridjaya, is preposterous enough to keep me writing til the cows come home.

But my ultimate inspiration for writing-on regardless of all my frustration and apparent failure is the indomitable spirit of my colleagues and comrades-in-arms in the conflict against Umno/BN criminality.

Fighters of the good fight ranging from ‘A’ for Antares to ‘Z’ for Zorro and thousands if not millions in between, writing, blogging, tweeting and SMSing the truth in the face of Umno/BN’s barrages of lies, deceptions and frauds, in the process facing far more danger than I ever will.

And one of the most prominent members of this talented, tenacious and courageous company, Malaysia’s internationally-awarded political cartoonist Zunar, has honoured me by penning a foreword to my new book-length collection of columns.

I can only hope that his inclusion in the volume, and a cover-flash with his signature in Bersih yellow, will help get this latest book of mine banned by Umno/BN like so many of his have been, and thus greatly boost sales for my publisher.

But if Zunar’s involvement doesn’t do the trick, perhaps the powers-that-be will baulk at the title, ‘1Malaysia.con’, which derives from a diatribe I wrote a few months ago on Najib Razak’s proposed 1Malaysia Email Project.

As I commented back then, this scam is both a symptom and a symbol of the rotten Umno/BN regime; as blatant a con as everything this god-forsaken government says and does, and clearly corrupt into the bargain.

And just 1More forlorn and foredoomed attempt by Najib to convince himself that 1Mendacious slogan like “1Malaysia” will eventually rescue him and his regime from the curse of the murder of the 1Mongolian.

Catalogue of corruption

Not to mention the catalogue of corruption and other crimes that Umno/BN and their cronies have committed, and continue to commit, in their monstrous misrule of Malaysia.

From the highly suspicious deaths of Ananthan Kugan, Teoh Beng Hock, Ahmad Sarbani Mohamad and hundreds of others in police and MACC custody, to the skimming and stealing of untold billions of ringgit from public funds, the list of this rotten regime’s atrocities is almost endless.

As you will see in far more detail if you read ‘1Malaysia.con’. But even if you don’t, and you’re as sick of reading my scribblings about Umno/BN as I sometimes am of writing them, I hope you’ll pick-up a copy for a family member, friend or colleague.

1Malaysian you happen to know who, for one reason or another, hasn’t yet got the message that this regime has to go.

To be replaced by a party or coalition that truly believes in government of the people, by the people, for the people, and is prepared to throw the proverbial book at all the crooks that have been running and ruining the country for as long as most of us can recall.

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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’ and ‘1Malaysia.con’.