I see that Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has been quoted by Berita Harian as declaring in an interview that Umno is not as dirty as portrayed by social media netizens or online journalists.

“Umno is not as dirty as how these unethical journalists, who worked (sic) outside the (framework of) conventional media, have made it out to be, just like those (messages spread) in Facebook, WhatApps, YouTube and Telegram,” he reportedly said.

“These writers have no basis to make (these) claims,” he went on, adding that “eighty-seven percent of the information collected by these online writers or anti-establishment group (sic) was meant to influence the mindset of the community and create perceptions.”

As presumably one of the unethicals Zahid was referring to here, my gut reaction was to write a response using every disgusting word I could think of about both him and Umno.

But on second thoughts I realised there were two problems with this. One, that my Malaysiakini editors would very properly refuse to publish such offensive language, and two, none of the obscenities I know are objectionable enough to sufficiently express the true extremity of my execration for Umno.

In fact, far from being “not as dirty” as Zahid complains, we online writers and others portray it, Umno is dirty beyond description.

Dirty, indeed, beyond imagination, because for every one of this grubby organisation’s dirty deals, dirty elections, dirty contracts, dirty purchases, dirty trials, dirty ‘investigations’, dirty killings and sundry other dirty deeds that we become aware of, there are surely dozens of others hidden from view by its dirty Official Secrets Act and the mainstream media it employs to propagate its dirty deceptions.

Deceptions so filthy that they are not just incredible but insulting to anybody with so much as a shred of intelligence. Witness Zahid’s citing of entities he ludicrously identifies as ‘WhatApps’ and ‘Telegram’ in his ‘Umno not as dirty’ statement, and his invention of some imaginary figure of ‘eighty-seven percent’ in an attempt to try and achieve some credibility.

In short, as I’ve been writing for almost the past 10 years now, and many others have for much longer, for decades Umno has been doing nothing but the dirty on Malaysia and Malaysians for sole purpose of making its members and cronies filthy rich.

So why, I have to ask myself, do so many Malaysians keep supporting these scum, as in the recent Sarawak state elections?

Are these Umno supporters such hard-core masochists as to get a thrill, sexual or otherwise, from being systematically robbed, deprived and otherwise subjected to dirty treatment?

Seemingly a good deal?

Or have they been kept so economically, educationally and ethically dirt-poor for so long that selling their votes for R50 - or even RM30, after the middlemen have taken their cut, as recently in Sarawak - seems like a good deal?

Or, as many of us suspect, as I see from many reader comments on Malaysiakini, is it that so many people have been blinded by the dirt that Umno has thrown in their faces that they can’t see that corruption, crime and lying are haram?

Certainly the so-called ‘religious’ authorities are unable to achieve this perception, as they are apparently happy to support the rule of the dirty regime and encourage their flocks of the faithful to do likewise.

Thank goodness, then, that there are so many of the faithful of all religions, and even as in my case of no religion, in Malaysia and around the world, still dedicated to cleaning-up the Umno mess.

People like Hishamuddin Rais and Haris Ibrahim, to name just the two latest victims of Umno’s dirty Sedition Act, and countless other Malaysian activists, bloggers and opposition politicians who devote their talents and courage to the cause of honesty, truth and justice.

And speaking of justice, let’s hope that the forces of law and order in even one of the many jurisdictions in which the 1MDB scandal is currently being investigated will eventually freeze or seize at least some of the proceeds of this crime, and issue arrest warrants for some dirty Umno dignitaries.

Meanwhile, let us redouble our efforts to remind ourselves that, far from not being as dirty as it is perceived and portrayed, Umno is unimaginably filthy.

And thus, even as we speak, its members and cronies are busy committing countless other crimes besides the currently-visible multi-billion 1MDB fraud and the RM100-million Youth and Sports Ministry embezzlement.

Plus, of course, still failing as dismally as ever to properly investigate lots of old dirty deeds including several high-profile alleged political murders and countless alleged suspicious killings by the police.

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’.