COMMENT Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was for some strange reason distracted by Pakatan Rakyat at a rare Barisan Nasional Convention on Sunday. He was particularly distracted by de facto PKR chief Anwar Ibrahim. It seemed for one moment that the tables had been turned and Najib was rehearsing his future role as Opposition Leader.
If anyone expected anything substantial from BN and Najib, they would have been terribly disappointed. The convention virtually degenerated into name-calling and derogatory remarks, punctuated by nervous laughter, directed against the opposition.
The thrust of the Najib attack against the opposition was that it was made up of traitors who were evil, despicable, certaintly anti-national, and would do anything to gain power.
Besides, the opposition apparently did not practise what it preached and openly indulged in nepotism, according to Najib, the son of a former prime minister and nephew of his father’s successor, and who has appointed a first cousin as a senior Cabinet minister and a brother as the head of the biggest banking group in the country.
Evil was the most loaded word hurled at the opposition by the ruling coalition which has been in power since independence in 1957 in Peninsular Malaysia and shows no signs of willingly allowing for a peaceful transition of power.
Evil can best be defined as a lack of empathy (feeling) for others. This is a characteristic of sub-humans whose nine centres of intelligence in the brain were less developed and in particular that part dealing with feelings, emotions, sympathy, love, charity, mercy, forgiveness and so many other noble attributes that separate man from the beast.
In that sense, it cannot be said that Umno has not indulged in beastly behaviour for the better part of the last half century and more in power.
Key Umno leaders, it is widely believed, were involved in fomenting the searing Sino-Malay race riots of May 13, 1969 after the opposition made unexpected gains at the general election three days earlier on May 10. Najib’s father, Abdul Razak Hussein, was the prime beneficiary when he became prime minister after what was nothing less than a coup d’ etat against then prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman. This was the unkindest cut of all.
Crying out for justice
Those involved in the May 13 riots are yet to be brought to justice and some of them are allegedly still walking around free as birds. They have blood on their hands and if they had even the slightest tinge of conscience they would confess before they meet their Maker. The souls of the deceased are crying out from limbo for justice and final closure.
Umno was willing to do anything in 1969, including perpetrating evil deeds, to remain in power. Umno’s willingness to do anything to remain in power extended across the South China Sea to Sabah where the party has been instrumental in placing illegal immigrants on the electoral rolls with MyKads issued without the consent and approval of the state government and via the backdoor. The issue has been well-documented in the 1999 Likas election case, Internal Security Act (ISA) arrests, and PhD studies, among others.
The non-Muslim native majority in Sabah and Sarawak have also been systematically suppressed, oppressed and disenfranchised since 1963 by proxies of the ruling elite. Leaders like Stephen Kalong Ningkan, Donald Stephens and Joseph Pairin Kitingan were hounded out of existence by Umno.
When Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) crushed the ruling Berjaya Party in 1985, Sabah witnessed one week of rioting by illegal immigrants hired by the sore losers. Kuala Lumpur looked the other way and only caved in when it looked like that those behind the riots were not going to intimidate PBS into submission.
The year 1994 in Sabah was almost a repeat of 1985. One month later after it won an unprecedented fourth term in office, the PBS state government was toppled by Umno-linked moneybags from Sarawak and Labuan. Talk about being willing to do anything to be in power!
Then, there’s the shameful episode in Perak where the Pakatan state government was hijacked by Umno. The State Legislative Assembly Speaker was even wrestled to the ground by hired thugs from the police force in plain clothes, dragged out and locked up in a store room while an imposter took his place.
Elsewhere, we are still haunted by the C4 killing of the Mongolian model Altantuya. We are no wiser today as to why the Mongolian woman was killed in such a cruel manner. This is the very personification of evil. The Altantuya killing, it must be stressed, hangs like the Sword of Damocles over Najib’s head.
It is written that “he that is without sin... let him first cast a stone...” Yet we have the spectacle of Najib casting stones at the opposition when no one is sure that he is not without sin. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others. In Malay, it can be said: “Jangan meludah ke langit.” (Don’t spit skywards.)
The list of evil deeds perpetrated by Umno can circle the globe many times and still not be complete.
Guise of development
Barry Wain’s “The Malaysian Maverick” documents how Umno has been systematically plundering the public treasury under the guise of development and driving the nation further and further into public debt.
Umno has distorted and deviated from the unwritten social contract, the Federal Constitution (the only social contract) and distorted and deviated in the implementation of the New Economic Policy (1970-1990).
Money aside, deaths in police custody continue amidst rampant acts of police brutality and shootings, temple demolitions, vernacular and mission schools neglected by the authorities until they leak buckets, the right to study one’s own language denied, the Syariah Court let loose on non-Muslims, and the right to build non-Muslim places of worship and statues denied.
In Shah Alam, it was many decades before an Umno state government under the son of a Javanese immigrant relented on the way to court and allowed the construction of a Catholic Church, the one and only in the Selangor state capital. Even then, the church had to be sited in an industrial estate. Furthermore, it was not allowed to look like a Church from the outside, in fact it had to end up looking like the factories in the area, and was not allowed to display a cross outside. All this can only be the work of sick and evil men possessed by any number of demons.
Najib and BN can only continue to be in a state of denial at their peril. In the event that the opposition alliance seizes the reins of power in Putrajaya, many Umno and BN leaders will be counting the bars sooner rather than later.
It’s best for the ruling coalition to focus on what they can do to redeem themselves in the eyes of the people. They should not waste their breath and mountains of froth and foam on the opposition who are here to stay because that’s what the people want.
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