Every week that I write one of these columns, I find myself wishing that, for my own entertainment if not the edification of those few readers not yet repelled by my repetitiveness, I could think of something new to say about Malaysian politics.

But sadly, despite Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s many highly-publicised attempts to con us all that he intends to “transform” the ever-ruling BN regime and thus improve the nation for the sake of its long-suffering citizens, nothing evidently ever changes except perhaps for the worse.

Thus ‘1malaysia.con’, the title of both one of my Malaysiakini columns from back in 2011 and a subsequent book of collected columns, is sadly as appropriate today as it was way back then.

Because as I sit typing this on Friday Oct 10, 2014, Najib is on the brink of presenting his annual federal budget.

In fact this criminal conspiracy posing as a political coalition contrives so concertedly to con Malaysians and the rest of the world that, however hard and repeatedly I try, I never feel I express sufficient contempt for it.

Or, for that matter, for those millions of comprehensively-conned Malaysians so lacking in conscience, self-respect or concern for themselves, their families and fellow citizens as to continue supporting or at least tolerating them.

A thought that brings us back to the crooked budget that Najib will have presented to a grateful nation by the time you come to read this.

A budget that will inevitably highlight the ‘con’ in the BN regime’s concept of the ‘economy’, as it will as ever make no mention of the fortunes in public funds ‘lost’ through massive corruptions, tax evasions, illicit capital outflows and ‘confidential’ off-budget ‘loans’, plus, of course all the customary ‘leakages’, embezzlements and outright thefts.

The Goods and Services Tax, no doubt, will be presented as a legitimate goods and services tax and thus a fair and fiscally prudent source of sorely-needed extra revenue, and not as the con many of us believe it to be, a graft and stealing tax designed to replace regime-plundered public funds.

‘Necessary economies’

Similarly, the gradual withdrawal of subsidies on fuel and other commodities will be presented as necessary economies on the part of the people, and not as what they actually are, new attempts to subsidise BN members and monopolist cronies at public expense.

But as costly as it is, and as topical at budget time, the con in the economy is the least of Malaysians’ worries compared with all the con-jobs the BN regime has done on the constitution.

By means of almost countless constitutional amendments during the decades in which it enjoyed the requisite two-thirds parliamentary majority, BN has conned Malaysians out of such priceless rights and protections as a fair and independent judiciary, free and fearless news media, a clean and fair electoral system, and freedom of religion.

Simultaneously, and by other means, the regime has also managed to con Malaysians out of formerly efficient civil services, a once-excellent educational system and an honest, law-abiding police force.

At the same time it has been at pains to con enough people of all races and religions that hate organisations officially sponsored with public money, like Perkasa, Isma and ‘newspapers’ like Utusan Malaysia, are guardians of Islam and protectors of public peace and harmony.

And thus critics of the regime are deemed guilty of sedition, while BN goons and stooges who urge the burning of Christian bibles that breach Islam’s alleged copyright on the word ‘Allah’ can be given free rein.

As Perkasa’s Ibrahim Ali most recently was, with Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri (left) outrageously announcing in a written reply to parliament that the attorney-general recommended “no further action” against Ibrahim “based on the spirit of Article 11(4) of the federal constitution,” and adding that “a threat to burn the Bible is not a crime as it was in defence of Islam.”

Never mind that many commentators noted that this was yet another BN attempt to con Malaysians by misconstrual of the constitution. And never mind that the regime that is so hell-bent on posing as the defender of Islam is itself so lawless and outright evil that it would be a disgrace to any faith, or to the very concept of god.

A concept that I personally consider a con in itself, wholeheartedly agreeing as I do with Baron D’Holbach (1723-89) in his famous declaration that “if we go back to the beginning, we find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm or deceit adorned or disfigured them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them; and that custom respects and tyranny supports them in order to make the blindness of men serve its own interests.”

Whether one happens to be a sceptic like D’Holbach, or a dedicated believer in one or more deities, it seems to me well-nigh impossible to disagree with the claim that the BN regime is a tyranny that pretends to support religion, or at least a specific brand of religion, the Sunni version of Islam, to serve its own interests.

Just as it so falsely pretends to support democracy, justice, fair play or indeed anything else that would help convince Malaysians in particular and the world in general that it is anything but a bunch of lying, incompetent con-artists, and hopefully convicts-to-be.


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’.