November 4, 2013
Prime Minister Najib Razak meets Christiane Amanpour
Watch this video and tell me what you think. I believe he did better than his predecessor, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. But that does not say much, does it? –Din Merican
Tony Pua says to Najib stop embarrassing Malaysia
by Alyaa Azhar@http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was hypocritical when answering questions during the CNN interview hosted by Christiane Amanpour, says DAP’s Tony Pua.
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has been urged to “stop embarrassing
Malaysians” with the global moderate statesman facade as his actions are to the contrary.
Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua was commenting on Najib’s 12-minute interview with Christiane Amanpour on CNN last week.
“At the interview, the Prime Minister’s facial expression tells the world how uncomfortable he was in answering the questions thrown at him which exposes the facade of a global moderate statesman,” said Pua.
The DAP national publicity secretary also pointed out how the Prime Minister sang a different tune when Amanpour directed the spotlight to Malaysia’s increasing religious conservatism and extremism.
Najib had said that his priority was to ensure peace and harmony in Malaysia.
“What the Prime Minister is telling the world is that while it is hunky-dory to make the glamorous pitch for moderation at international platforms, moderation takes a back seat to peace and harmony domestically,” Pua said.
Pua elaborated that the peace and harmony mentioned by Najib was merely euphemism for pandering to the religious far-right and restricting the rights of the minority.
“As an example, the Prime Minister told Reuters that the curb against Catholic weekly, The Herald, from using the word Allah was necessary to protect public security and national harmony, going as far as to describe The Herald as a publication with wide circulation,” he said.
However, Pua stressed that the wide circulation was a distribution of only 14,000 issues in churches in a country of 30 million people.
“Instead of justifying his peace and harmony priority, his defense only proved the persecution of minorities in Malaysia,” added Pua.
He then opined that Najib does not have any right to be a statesman for moderation at international forums if he cannot practise what he preaches.
“His pretentious call for the Global Movement of Moderates only leads to being easily exposed as a hypocrite at the global arena and become an embarrassment to the country,” Pua stressed.
Din Merican: the Malaysian DJ Blogger 
Please Dato, compare him to someone better and respectable.
Not Abdullah Bodowi, for goodness sake.
___________
You didn’t get my message.Why not compare him to Awang Malayholo? That makes him look and sound much better.–Din Merican
i watched the video earlier. I felt that it is nice to have a leader who could understand questions and answer them in understandable English. other than that his message was hollow or to quote Sheichspeare ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of pun and signifying nothing’!
Ms Amanpour’s looks as if she expected these evasive answers or its possible that they went through the questions beforehand.
Just look at his body language, his voice and we all know this guy was lying through his teeth… how can we respect someone who just wants to hold on to power even if he has to sell his soul to the devil. I thought having Abdullah Badawi was God’s punishment of Malaysia…. didn’t realize God does his work mysteriously…. and here we have a court jester in expensive suits and shoes…. OMG what can we do to rid of him? He has a budget of RM20 billion for his PMO office alone… RM7 billion of which was highlighted by opposition MP YB Ong Kian Ming as “mysterious slush fund”…. how to topple a man with RM20 billion to fight you back?
I had brother-in-law. To the relatives on the outside he was the best husband my sister could have. But at home he was not even half the man he potrayed himself to the outside. That is how life is all the time. You do not know where the shoe bites until you wear it.
Its a version of “Slick Willy”. Its obvious he was prepared. Some of the answers were obviously pre-canned. Questioned on moderation, he went into Shia – Sunni conflict which is not the entire question. Questioned on caving to right-wingers demand, he meandered a from long term vision to not being racist. Shifting and sliming all the way without nothing really concrete. Clearly what he was going for was to come out of the interview not being a disaster and he did succeed.
But what really betrayed his performance was the simple lie on the issue of Kalimah Allah when he said he had to respect the court decision when all the courts did was affirmed the govt, namely him, right to ban the word. He is no Bill Clinton but then again he is also part George Bush Jr for the mediocrity..
What to expect from a guy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has never experienced hardship like others do. But like all Umnoputras he is good at playing wayang kulit and he did just that on CNN.
Waffle, waffle, waffle was all he did throughout the interview. What a waffler!
That interview was staged and orchestrated.
Amanpour has no reason to embarass Najib with any hard-hitting questions. Why would she want to piss off the PM of a country that she may not even pin the world map too.
Her questions and his answers would have been scripted and rehearsed.
Only big question is whether does Malaysia have to pay anything directly or indirectly to put Najib in front of the CNN, just like what happened in a previous occasion?
You mean you guys followed the interview?
Talk about being suckers for punishment.
Both, Ama and Jib, are flawed creatures, for opposite reasons.
You should see her, body and words, when interviewing Muslims, even the moderates. Her mind is made up before the event. And for Jib, well he portrays himself as the defender of the faith at home but a ultra-moderate elsewhere.
So never the twain shall meet. Both busy dancing around the issues, hoping to sound serious in their chosen vocations.
Muthu,
What do you expect? You expect Amanpour to act like Robin Day or Bob Mckenzie hah. Plus you expect Najib to act like Jim Callaghan. Jim didn’t get his degree but he got more brain than Najib
PS C. Amanpour and GPS Fareed Zakariah are two people I never missed to watch on CNN. From the day of the interview I turn my TV to another programme when they come on.
Yes, Amanpour is one of the reasons I no longer watch CNN.
I am not from Robin Day’s era but then I prefer Robin Day to Christiane
Hard hitting question. Of course, if only Jim Hacker can be PM Malaysia
On the other hand, it’s well worth it even if I have to pay $100 just to watch Najib having a session with Oksana Boyko of RTTV or even Steven of BBC