Nazri, please don’t sack Jamal

COMMENT The last thing that I and my fellow Malaysians would want Umno to do is to sack Sungai Besar Umno division leader Jamal Mohd Yunos and Umno Youth exco member Armand Azha Abu Hanifah.

After all, as long as they are Umno this and Umno that, they should be protected at all costs, and remain as party members valued for their contribution to the party’s struggles.

In fact, as suggested by Umno supreme council member Nazri Abdul Aziz, unless it amounts to some serious crimes, Umno should not sack them. Yes, Umno should look at the possibility of even recommending Jamal to be awarded the title of Tun come June next year.

Nazri is blatantly right, if he is saying that Jamal’s threat of bloodshed and “cincang” is not amounting to criminal intimidation, whereas a peace-loving Malaysian woman of great honour like Maria Chin Abdullah is a ‘feared terrorist’ who should be charged under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 and locked away in solitary confinement for 28 days.

This is absolutely crazy to most Malaysians but I am happy that Nazri may see it otherwise from the perspective of an Umno politician. After all, a woman in yellow can inflict more harm to Umno but not a thug-like character in red.

My strong recommendation to Nazri is that Umno should keep these two men of valour, with all their animal instincts so that they can showcase what kind of political party Umno has metamorphosed into today, compared to Umno that we all knew during the times and era of the late Bapa Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman Petra Al-Haj.

We thought that during former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s time, Umno was bad enough; now, even Dr Mahathir’s sins pale by comparison. At least the 91-year-old nonagenarian has braved the weather to go out for a Bersih wash, and to undo all the wrongs that he had done to this nation while he was still in power.

When Dr Mahathir was in power, the Registrar of Societies (ROS) never threatened to deregister Umno Baru despite it continuing to operate as the old Umno after the organisation was declared illegal in 1988; but today, after he is no longer in power, the ROS has threatened to de-register Bersatu just because it is trying to brand itself as Bersatu.

So, for most of us who are watching, as long as you are in Umno, the wrong is right, but the moment you step out of Umno, anything that you do can be wrong. Where is the justice?

The ROS has all the while allowed Umno to continue calling itself as Umno, even though the acronym is in English - and not the national language. What a joke, Nazri! How ridiculous, even at a time when the country was emphasising the learning of Bahasa Malaysia, Umno could not brand itself with a name that truly reflects its political struggle to prop up the national language.

So people who watched Jamal intimidating a Bersih convoy supporter would agree with me and Jamal that indeed the government has been ‘zalim’ in a number of situations. He was merely asking a question, because he wanted to find out some examples.

For most part of its existence since Bersih 2.0, Bersih supporters have been known for giving away flowers to those who wanted to cause trouble. As pointed out by El Sun Oh, Najib Abdul Razak’s former adviser, Bersih supporters are peace-loving Malaysians from all walks of life, race and religion. They consisted of my fellow Malaysians who eat only halal food, and those who have a wider appetite of all things good.

If for any reason the Tourism and Culture Ministry decided to introduce Bersih as another tourist attraction, tourists from all around the world would prefer to join Bersih than the red-shirt party. You figure out why yourself.

Nazri, you are right. There is no more fun when Jamal and his men are sacked from Umno and thrown into prison, because what we need are people like Jamal to further bring the reputation of the party to a new low than what it is today.

Today, Umno has become, in its former deputy president, Muhyiddin Yassin’s own words, a scrap vehicle, only good for the scrapyard. No matter how much Umno tries to rebrand itself, it will be difficult for it to get rid of the stigma from the acts of violence that we have seen by the reds in recent months.

Just talk to any urban Malaysian, Nazri, and you will hear what I am hearing - that Umno has earned the reputation as one of the most allegedly corrupted, sexist and racist political parties in the country.

Talking about Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s corruption case, which is hardly involving bribery, the level of corruption over the five decades involving Umno leaders knows no bounds. Even Dr Mahathir in one of his speeches recently said if in the past, it was just millions, it is now into the billions of ringgit.