Waiting for Hari Raya Rakyat

Every day since the designated date of 16 Sept, I’ve been hoping against hope that Anwar Ibrahim’s long-promised Pakatan Rakyat power-play would finally happen in time for Hari Raya.

But apparently everything’s still on hold.

So, while sincerely wishing my Malaysian family, friends and all true Muslims everywhere a heartfelt Selamat Hari Raya Adilfitri, I have to confess that I’m feeling less festive than I’d been looking forward to.

I’m a long way from the festivities, too, way down here in Sydney instead of balik kampung at my parents-in-laws’ house in Ipoh.

But even if I could get there I figure I’d hardly feel free to celebrate, what with Raja Petra Kamarudin, the Hindraf Five and about 60 other “suspects” incarcerated under the ISA just a few kilometres up the highway.

The thought of these people caged in Kamunting like animals, denied due legal process and, as MP Teresa Kok famously put it following her own detention, being fed “dog food” would surely have caused my festive makan to stick in my throat.

And the very sight of salted telur might have made me sick to my stomach at the memory of Umno Youth’s making a police report against Ms Kok for not only casting aspersions on prison catering but also allegedly insulting eggs.

At first I thought the Umno juniors were only yolking, if in somewhat bad taste, but of course they were totally serious, squawking like panic-stricken chickens in frantic support of the increasingly lame-duck Barisan Nasional regime.

Which brings me to the thought that, instead of laughing them to scorn or criticising them for their antics, maybe we should incite them to even more ridiculous extremes.

The more they egg the police on to persecute and punish the opposition, and the more openly they display their bigotry, thuggery, and intellectual beggary, the sooner and harder the government is likely to fall.

Parachutes soon

Or, as Anwar keeps assuring us, enough Barisan Nasional MPs will choose to jump. They’re certainly well prepared to make the leap. As I noticed on a blogsite recently, when you turn the BN logo upside-down, the scales that supposedly symbolise equality and justice conveniently convert to parachutes.

And baling-out could be the only chance of survival if Malaysia’s economy comes a cropper as a result of the crash of the biggest, lamest duck of all in the world right now, the George W Bush administration. To mix metaphors as madly as he and his neo-con hawks have mismanaged the US in the past eight years, he’s let the bulls, bears and buzzards run so wild on Wall Street that they’ve started looking like a bunch of turkeys.

Thousands of Americans have already lost their homes, and the FBI has swung into action against predatory mortgage peddlers and junk-debt wheeler-dealers whose criminal greed has triggered the crisis.

The one happy outcome that I can foresee from this fiasco could be the defeat of Bush’s fellow Republican, John McCain, and his repellant running mate, the self-styled 'pit bull with lipstick', Sarah Palin, in the forthcoming presidential election.

But meanwhile, American taxpayers are being asked to shell-out US$700 billion (700,000,000,000!) to try and prevent their banking system from turning turtle and going belly-up. The toxic tide of red ink has already swamped some banks in the UK and Europe, and
it’s already started making waves in Asia.

Eggconomy

Barisan Nasional’s sole response thus far to this threat to the Malaysian economy – or, at the risk of running foul of Umno Youth, eggconomy – has been to pass the finance portfolio to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

Abdullah Badawi billed this move as preparation for Najib to eventually succeed him as PM, but many observers saw it as the well-known ‘poison apple’ ploy of handing a pesky opponent a certain-death assignment.

Badawi may be underestimating his would-be successor’s capabilities, however, as Najib has certainly shown his mettle in his previous portfolio of defence.

Najib has also – so far - dodged allegations of kickbacks on French submarines, Sukhoi fighters and national service uniforms and supplies, and fought-off concerted attacks by Raja Petra Kamarudin and other militant bloggers.

So, if you discount the miserable campaign he mounted against Anwar in the Permatang Puah by-election, and his mediocre rating in the polls, he could be just the man for the top job.

During Hari Raya, no doubt, he and other Umno leading lights will be holding open house, presumably at public expense, for their annual demonstration that the ummah will always be assured of crumbs from the BN banquet.

Prevailing circumstances

I’ve never attended one of these gala gatherings, so I have no idea whether it’s customary for the throng of cronies, rent-seekers and freeloaders to ask their hosts’ forgiveness for their sins of the previous year, or vice versa.

Forgiveness or otherwise, they seem determined to resist the slightest reform of their institutional corruption and laws designed to suppress truth, justice and dissent.

Here’s hoping that we’ll soon see the last hurrah for the rotten, tottering BN regime, along with its accursed Internal Security Act, Official Secrets Act, Emergency Order and Printing, Presses and Publications Act.

Meanwhile, here’s to as happy a Hari Raya Adilfitri as possible under the prevailing circumstances, and optimistic anticipation of another celebration we’re all impatiently awaiting, Hari Raya Rakyat.