January 20, 2012
Can Umno Change or Cows Fly?
By Kee Thuan Chye
UMNO is beyond redemption. At its general assembly in December, the message it sent out was suspicion of others and hatred for them, and a desperate desire to win the next general election.
Its President, Najib Razak, once again proved what many of us have long suspected – that he is a dissembler. He exposed the ultimate lie behind his 1Malaysia slogan by saying things that would divide the races rather than bring them together. He set the trend for delegates at the assembly to harp on the threats to UMNO from other races. It was disgraceful coming from the prime minister of the country. It was supremely irresponsible.
Worse, two days after the assembly ended, he appealed to the right-wing NGO Pertubuhan Kebajikan dan Dakwah Islamiah Malaysia (Pekida) for support. This has to be the final nail in the 1Malaysia coffin.
To cap it all, UMNO showed its partiality to cronyism by defending Wanita leader Shahrizat
Abdul Jalil over the scandal surrounding her family’s business, the National Feedlot Corporation. One or two colleagues called for her to step down, but the overwhelming majority stood by her and castigated the Opposition for exposing the scandal.
This begs the question: Can UMNO change? As the major party in the Barisan Nasional (BN) government, can it truly stand up for other races as well, and work for their well-being? Can it stay clear of corrupt practices? Can it stop dishing out favours and projects to party leaders and their cronies? Can it save Malaysia from financial meltdown or will it rather bleed our coffers dry?
The online news website The Malaysian Insider sums it up eloquently: “UMNO looks set to win the polls in the next general election but yet looks woefully ill-equipped to lead a multi-racial country. … One expects delegates to articulate a vision to continue its previous success but that did not happen. Instead, delegates harped on age-old themes of having their culture and faith eroded by political foes taking over the country. That they are the only guarantee of faith and culture. What about the economy? What about the reforms? What about Malaysia? … Everything is centred around UMNO… But they didn’t articulate the vision for continued success. … Instead, everyone is at fault except those in UMNO.”
And yet Najib could tell Pekida: “If we miscalculate and choose the wrong side, our country could very much end up like Greece.” Surely, he must mean that the wrong side would be BN. The way it has been going – awarding projects to cronies who have no track record; continuing to allow overpriced purchases by government departments, despite what the Auditor-General uncovers year after year; giving out money like there’s no tomorrow in order to win votes, such as the substantial pay rise for civil servants – BN is more likely to lead us down that way.
The civil service is bloated, with 1.4 million employees, but Najib criticised Pakatan Rakyat (PR) for suggesting it should be trimmed. According to his top public service official, 1.4 million is “the right size”. How this is so puzzles me. Japan has a population of 127 million and its civil servants number just over a million. We have a population of 28 million and our civil service is as large as Japan’s. It seems to me that trimming down the civil service is more likely to save us from going Greek.
And so I think we should not take any more risks with UMNO. Especially now that we have an alternative. PR has shown itself capable of running the four states under it and earned positive ratings from the Auditor-General and a few others. It’s time to see whether they can bring reform to the country.
Najib of course insists that PR will lead us to our doom, but what are his words worth anyhow?At the UMNO general assembly last December, he presented a grossly untruthful picture of the DAP to strike fear into the hearts of the Malays. He accused the party of being anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-royalty.
But after PAS won Terengganu in the 1999 general election, who stopped the state that is 90 per cent populated by Malays from getting its oil royalties and substituted it with the lesser Wang Ehsan? Was it the DAP?
Who created a constitutional crisis in 1983 and curtailed the powers of the Malay royalty? Was it the DAP? In 2008, who protested against the Terengganu sultan for not accepting Idris Jusoh as the menteri besar, and insulted His Highness with the word “natang” (animal)? Was it the DAP?
Who gave away citizenships overnight to immigrants, legal and illegal, in Sabah to ensure they kept UMNO there in power? Was it the DAP? So where is the truth in Najib’s warning that if BN did not continue to be the government, the Malays would be under threat? Who has proven to be the real threat?
But still, he called on Pekida “to defend the current government” – to guarantee the special
position of the Malays, the dignity of Islam, the preservation of the Malay royalty. He thumped his chest and yelled, “We are warriors!” and “We will not surrender even an inch!” He led the crowd in cries of “Hidup Melayu!”
Someone was moved to comment on Facebook, “Listening to what Najib said, it feels like we’re at war.” A knowing friend warns me: “Do you know what Pekida is about? They are like gangsters. They have secret codes, like particular handshakes or the way they hold their cigarettes. They have 2 million members. These are the people we should worry about.”
Indeed, when the film KL Gangster came out last year [2011], Pekida objected to its portrayal of secret codes and use of words like “abang long” and “ayahanda” that apparently cut too close to reality.
This prompted blogger Ibnu Hasyim to ask, “Apakah benar kononnya filem itu membuka ‘kod rahsia pertubuhan’ Pekida? … Terkejut kita, apakah pertubuhan dakwah itu pun mempunyai ciri-ciri pertubuhan bawah tanah atau gangster? Pekida adalah Gangster Melayu? Perlukah pertubuhan itu disiasat polis? Mana ada dakwah dan kebajikan pakai ‘kod rahsia’ pertubuhan?” (Is it true that the film apparently exposed ‘secret organisational codes’ of Pekida? … We are shocked, does this missionary organisation have the characteristics of an underworld or gangster organisation? Pekida are Malay Gangsters? Should the police investigate this organisation? Why would missionary and welfare organisations use ‘secret codes’?)
Najib’s appeal to Pekida and his words at the UMNO General Assembly spell desperation. That’s clear to see because UMNO has no case left to make for its continued rule. News of its corruption is bursting out. Soon after the general assembly ended, the Singapore Straits Times reported that ex-menteri besar Abdul Hamid Pawanteh was involved in the Alstom bribery case. He has, however, denied it.
Earlier, questions had been raised about Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi allegedly flying to Saudi Arabia for his haj in a private jet, and about “ridiculously overpriced” rural development projects in Sabah allegedly linked to senior BN politicians. The worms are crawling out of the can.
UMNO cannot defend itself. So it lashes out at enemies. It fabricates untruths about its enemies. Sadly – and sickeningly – UMNO resorts to rousing tribal emotions and harping on the issues of race and religion. After 54 years in power, it still plays those explosive cards.
As the blogger Sakmongkol AK47 puts it: “UMNO gets on by making Malays believe that they are being besieged, attacked, assaulted and victimised. That’s how UMNO can survive. How does it do that? By fabricating lies and manufacturing stories. The Chinese are going to eat you up. The Chinese are going to Christianise you. They are going to wipe out the Sultans, ban the use of Bahasa Malaysia, and abolish Jawi and so forth. You feed on people’s irrational fear. You want to maintain stupid and mute people. Can you sustain whole people like that, turning people into xenophobes? I say this is a recipe for destroying Malays, not cultivating them to become self-confident people.”
UMNO has been doing that for decades. It has not evolved. So how can it change? How can such a party still be allowed to rule multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-culturalMalaysia? If we continue to vote for UMNO (and Barisan Nasional) it at the next general election, what would that make us? Dumb and dumber?
Din Merican: the Malaysian DJ Blogger 
The current crop of UMNO leaders are beyond redemption, not UMNO as a political party; if there is a change of leadership in UMNO led, for example, by Ku Li, you can see it as a different political force for the good of Malaysia. A cultural transformation is what is required. But that is not likely to happen because of entrenched interests, or warlordism. –Din Merican
Yes, UMNO can and is changing …. in an increasingly fascistic direction
Pity UMNO… more pity to the old shaking man from Semporna being dragged to the podium to accept the MOCK RM500 cheque from DPM.
The gift is SINCERE, that’s what they claimed, just answer the frustration of more than 7K that failed to get the money on that day and the SINCERE talk by DPM about this MONEY during the ceremony.
I met a bank officer few days back and ask him why he look very tired. He responded that now he has to handle extra burden to bring cash for the RM500 case. That day alone he had to handle few hundreds ringgit. The process, he said will continue until March. He worries about security even there are policemen and RELA men (extra cost)
Those people who get the notification to receive the RM500 aid, had to skip job or take leave. Those who earn daily income sure to miss one day salary.. Why cant just transfer to their accounts, the bank officer grumble, this will save the officers time (the money was given by politicians and the ceremony have to be attended by officers who handle the distribution. He even pointed out that there are cases where people not in good term with PENGHULU will miss the early bird status to get the money as the notification letters being kept by the PEGHULU.
Actually this is the only way BN can pull a large crowd,
Do we see some similarities with the “Kodak Moment”. The company that was synonymous with photography had to finally file for bankruptcy because they did not adjust to the digital age. If you do not change to meet the demands of the voters you do so at your own peril. I hope that those who are waiting in the wings to occupy Putrajaya are taking notes with the view to make the necessary changes if they do have the chance.
whats left of umno is its sentimental value , redemption from within without can only occur if its founder Onn Jaafar is resurrected from the grave. And that too depends on the remote possibilty that he be able to keep Mamak Madir under lock & keys. Face it after Lucifer had taken the reigns of kuasa how would anyone have expected his disciples to fair. Under lucifers spell , even holyman badawi let greed get the better of him.
Change?
I sometimes wonder if a particular race is good (or bad) at something, whether this will be encoded into their genes thus making it genetic and therefore passed on to their offsprings and that partuicular trait will surface again and again.
Allow me to explain, Italian footballers are very very good at defence. it is a well known fact they good defenders. So an italian man marries and has a son who naturally plays soccer. The son is observed to be a natural at defence ( and his coach recognises this trait) at football, I am guessing that young boy has now the natural ability to defend ( it has become encoded into his genes?).
You may wonder where I am heading with this? Well some of you may guess by now
Since Umno members all “think” the same way and truly believes what Umno spews over a long long while , do you think possibly that this particular trait is encoded in their genes and the future generations of Umno supporters may possibly carry this genes . Eeeekk God forbid , but there you have it. Change? Beyond redemption for afew generations to come because the intention coupled with the actus reus is far too damaging and have dmaged alot fo people and possibly may now be genetically encoded in to their offsprings.
Hm… Kathy talks of football.
Maybe the same species as Makchik….with both gender!
Change! You sure aaargh…..This election would see one ultimate winner. It would be landslide. Either BN or PR.
Kathy,
I think what you see in the example of Italians in football is what one would call a virtuous, reinforcing spiral (upwards). Italians are good at defense, the coaches, the players focus on this. The viewing public talks about this. Youngsters dream of being good at this.
On the other hand, for Umno we can call it a viscious, reinforcing spiral (downwards).
Both will come to an end at some point when the game changes, or new players come on stage with different skills.
Thankfully mother nature is more glacial in modifying genes, otherwise the world would certainly be a strange, unruly place.
timor hasnt read a thing I worte , its called selective reading and coming to your wrong conclusion (thats your right anyway to read or not andmake your own conclusion) but
yellowman you have understood exactly what I said and I agree completely!
Just something to ponder. Now it’s proven that the Malays are indeed a superior race. In fact, human race began with the malays.
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/study-claims-human-race-came-from-proto-malays/
Choose a different analogy, kathy. Too difficult to understand. Plus the Italians love to play negative football.
didi, put simply . I ask if a habit or behaviour( good or bad) that a person does over and over and over again can become genetically encoded over time and passed on to the offspring .
Example:
So can Umno’s bad habits and behaviour & their beliefs be genetically encoded and then passed on to their children and grand children.
So the next question then is. If it can be genetically encoded , how on earth are they ever going to change.
btw ,I dont agree that italians play negative football . They are very strong in their defence. So perhaps it can get quite boring but not negative. they are using their strength and thats in defending.
Well now the malays can be traced 60,000 years ago. Ok. well done malays. you are not a new and young group of people.
So my question is , why have you gone SO wrong esp Umno?
Didnt any wisdom develop along the way? One would’ve thought it would be possible to develop some wisdom since they have been roaming this earth for a long time .Apparantely not in Umno’s case..
freeyellowman, you know the example i gave you of the young boy (italian) playing soccer. I have seen him. He has never seen Italy play in his life. He played soccer because dad likes it (of course!). The boy was bad last year but this year he has suddenly shown his ability to defend quite naturally to everyone’s amazement.
So how does one explain that? Nop external conditioning. Just dad being italian and football is like breathing to them.
Excuse me? The proto-Malays are ancestors of the whole human race?
Absolute rubbish. The genetic markers are for primitive Sundanese called the Semang, and other Asian races with the Sinodont characteristics, including the Koreans and the Ainu of Japan. Haplotype D. So we may say that the Ainu are kissing cousins of the Semang.
Not those whom we call ‘Malay’, whose genetic past was in what is now south China and across the Straits of Formosa in Taiwan. The Genetic, Linguistic and Cultural roots are what we now call Austronesian. The Maori, Hawaiian and Tahitian share similar roots and they are Polynesian.
It’s been conjectured that there was a genetic bottleneck at the time of the Lake Toba super-volcano explosion 74,000 BCE. The proto-Malay are defined in the same breath as the Australian Aborigine and the Nicobar aboriginals.
I don’t think i want to expand on this except that you guys ought to read up on Spencer Wells and Stephen Oppenheimer, and other research which expended millions of dollars not a paltry RM1.4 million to plagiarize and then some. Either this type of research is repeating what is already known (therefore copycat) or the press didn’t know their basic genetics.
Kathy you are defending the indefensible. But yes, Madness (Psychosis, in general) requires both genetic cues and environmental ‘stressors’.
The fact that you are removed from the toxic environment, speaks volumes of remedial environmental factors.
UMNO is not just an environment, it’s the state “Be-ing”. Is that redeemable? Not in my lifetime.
My personal unqualified assumption will be that due to geographical consideration, it makes more sense to surmise that the human transmigration circa 74k BCE, reached and spread across the Malay archipelago . However, due to external influences and invasions from with out, they were pushed inward where they still remain today, caught in a time warp, as the Orang Aslis in Malaysia.
The so called “original” Malays of Malaya are all pendatangs like everyone else.
They all have foreign lineage in their genes; Thai in the north, Arab and Indian in the North-west, Indian in the South-west and Chinese in the East.
I think I just saved some big spender RM 1.4 million. 🙂
Btw, CXFC to CLF and all who celebrate the festive occasion. Have a safe balik kampung.
timor
A-G , You are willing hear Saiful’s asshole’s plea. The family of Teoh Beng Hock have been pleading for justice to get the MACC culprits indicted but that you did not hear. What kind of justice do we have?
Thanks ocho. Same to you, as that has no cultural overtones, buddy. CXFC, is really weird this year. ‘Doldrums’ by most flurs, i’ve been talking to. It’s not just the ang-pows, but the uneasy feeling of impending doom..
So stop hiding and beatin’ about the bushes. We need some Irish Whiskey here and now!
UMNO like MCA and MIC are whorehouses, engineered as vehicles to steal public money. You cannot make saints out of those in these organizations. The basis for their existence is to allow pilferage of public funds, and the public protects these whores because they are so engrossed with their need to protect their race and religion. Malaysians are simply reaping the fruits of the seeds they have sowed. Until that day ethnicity and bumiputras are forbidden words, Malaysia will continue to reap these rotten fruits. It is time we blame the Malays for having the need to be bumiputras when you truly dont deserve that right – the true bumiputras are our orang asli who are downtrodden in the name of islam.
HI CLF, not trying to defend the indefensible at all, just a query.
CLF,
I am not partial to “uisce beatha” although I understand the Irish monks of the Middle Ages perfected the art of distilling aquae vitae, the precursor of Irish whiskey, arguably the best whiskey in the world.
I am more of a vodka drinker myself and Sláinte/Gan Bei/Cheers to you!
Talking of doldrum, I would be wary of the calm before the storm . Something is definitely brewing out yonder .
It seems that the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians may have to oblige Uncle Sam and his Yiddish sidekick’s invitation to their extravagant tea party.
When that happens, if the shite hits the fan, neither hiding or beating around the bush will be of any good to us here, my friend. I am seriously thinking of paying my brother a long overdue visit far away in Kiwi land.