Prime Minister Najib Razak : Time for Pro-Government BN social activists to attack

April 16, 2017

by FMT Reporters@www.freemalaysiatoday.com

Good Luck to these Ampu Social : Fighting a Lost Cause

Prime Minister Najib Razak said it is time for pro-government Barisan Nasional (BN) social media activists to go on the offensive in cyberspace to defend the government and help them retain Putrajaya.

The Prime Minister said he was confident of the role played by pro-BN government activists as they wanted to be seen as nationalists in the new battlefield.

“We have long been in defensive mode. Enough. It is now time to attack!” Najib said in a post on his blog (below) titled “2017 Social Media Activists Assembly”.

Najib said today’s battlefields had changed and were no longer physical or face-to-face but in cyberspace. He gave the example of the previous general election in which the BN government was exposed to attacks without any cyber army to retaliate, but today many activists are loyal cyber commanders ready to fight for BN government policies.

The Prime Minister, however, reminded all social activists to hold on to three basic principles in the battle.Firstly, he said they needed to avoid internal feuds among themselves and to be committed in the struggle to uphold the BN government.

Secondly, to expand the cyber network so that messages were delivered to the people more effectively. The third principle was that they should learn from what happened in the previous general election.

“We must ward off in our responses and not to be trapped as happened on polling day in the 13th general election in which the opposition disseminated false news that we were bringing in voters from Bangladesh to vote and that we created blackouts in certain places to manipulate votes. All these stories were preposterous but many were taken in by such news which did affect voters and the election,” he said.

Najib said he expected the opposition to use the same dirty tactics in the next general election as the opposition believed, “If you cannot convince them (voters), confuse them”.

The dirty tactics of the Opposition, he said clearly showed that if they could not sway voters with their empty or sweet promises, their modus operandi was to confuse the people and create disbelief and anger against the BN government.

The Prime Minister described pro-BN government activists as loyal commanders in cyberspace who would readily defend BN policies and repel all lies played up by the opposition. “Insya-Allah with such a fighting spirit and unity, we can obtain a bigger win in the 14th general election and Putrajaya will remain in the hands of Barisan Nasional,” he said.

Himpunan Aktivis Media Sosial 2017

by Najib Razak@ najibrazak.com

No One can help erase this perception

Malam semalam amat bermakna bagi saya kerana dapat berjumpa, berhimpun dan bergaul bersama aktivis media sosial pro Kerajaan Barisan Nasional.

Mereka ini bukanlah calang-calang orangnya, mereka ini panglima di alam maya yang begitu setia mempertahankan dasar Kerajaan Barisan Nasional, mempertahankan maruah parti dan membidas segala pembohongan yang giat dipermainkan oleh pembangkang sejak sekian lama.

Saya berkeyakinan tinggi para aktivis media sosial kita ini juga, akan terus memainkan peranan mempertahankan Kerajaan dan membantu mengekalkan Barisan Nasional di Putrajaya.

Ini semua kerana mereka, seperti saya dan jutaan rakyat Malaysia lagi, percaya bahawa di bumi Malaysia ini tidak ada pilihan yang lebih baik daripada Barisan Nasional.

Saya mahu para aktivis media sosial kita juga ada kepercayaan diri dan melihat bahawa anda semua bukan sekadar aktivis tetapi adalah pejuang nasionalis.

Medan perang (Battlefield) kita hari ini sudah berubah, tidak lagi dalam bentuk fizikal atau face to face tetapi alam maya atau ruang siber adalah medan perang yang baru. Jika kita imbas kembali apa yang berlaku dalam dua Pilihanraya Umum dahulu, Kerajaan Barisan Nasional terdedah kepada serangan tanpa ada bala tentera yang boleh menangkis serangan tersebut.

Tetapi hari ini, saya lihat bahawa sudah ada penambahbaikan dan kita telah berjaya menghimpunkan ramai aktivis media sosial, panglima-panglima alam maya kita yang setia bersama Barisan Nasional, yang tetap percaya kepada perjuangan dan dasar kita.

Namun, dalam kita berjuang bersama-sama menghala ke medan perang, sudah tentu ada prinsip asas yang perlu kita gariskan dan praktikkan.

Pertama, saya menyeru kepada semua untuk mengelakkan pertelagahan sesama sendiri. Kita mesti komited kepada perjuangan secara bersama, berjuang menegakkan Kerajaan Barisan Nasional.

Kedua, kita mesti memperluaskan lagi rangkaian alam maya kita. Kita perlu tentukan kandungan dan mesej kita kepada rakyat dan berkongsi maklumat sesama kita agar ia dapat disebarkan dengan lebih meluas dan lebih berkesan lagi.

Kita mesti berusaha berkomunikasi dengan influencers dalam pelbagai bidang dan membina rangkaian kita agar mereka juga terlibat bersama dengan kita.

Ketiga dan yang terakhir sekali, amanat saya kepada semua adalah kita perlu belajar daripada apa yang berlaku dalam Pilihanraya Umum dahulu.

Kita mesti tangkas dalam respons kita dan tidak terperangkap, sepertimana yang berlaku pada hari mengundi dalam Pilihanraya Umum Ke-13 di mana pembangkang telah menyebarkan berita palsu mengenai kononnya kita membawa masuk pengundi Bangladesh untuk mengundi, bahawa kononnya kita mewujudkan keadaan blackout di tempat tertentu untuk memanipulasi undi.

Cerita ini semua langsung tidak masuk akal, tetapi ramai terpedaya dengan berita ini yang sedikit sebanyak membawa kesan kepada pengundi dan pilihan raya itu sendiri.

Saya jangkakan bahawa dalam Pilihanraya Umum yang akan datang, pembangkang akan kembali menggunakan taktik kotor serupa, melontarkan sesuatu yang tak terfikir oleh kita nanti untuk membuatkan orang marah dan benci pada kita.

Ingatlah bahawa pembangkang hanya berpegang kepada satu prinsip sahaja iaitu “If you cannot convince them, confuse them”.

Taktik kotor mereka amat jelas, jika mereka tidak dapat meyakinkan pengundi agar mempercayai janji-janji kosong atau kata-kata manis mereka, modus operandi mereka adalah untuk mengelirukan rakyat agar menimbulkan ketidakpercayaan serta kemarahan terhadap Kerajaan Barisan Nasional.

Kita sudah lama berada dalam ‘defensive mode’. Cukuplah. It is now time to attack ! Insya-Allah, dengan semangat juang dan kesepaduan sesama kita, kita mampu peroleh kejayaan besar dalam PRU 14, dan Putrajaya akan kekal milik Barisan Nasional !

 

Numbers and Shifting Assets –Old Game by Sime Darby

April 13, 2017

A QUESTION OF BUSINESS | Numbers and Shifting Assets –Old Game by Sime Darby

by P. Gunasegeram@www.malaysiakini.com

Sime Darby Restructuring benefits Investment Bankers, but not its shareholders. Let the evidence of its past merger and demerger exercises confirm this view.–Din Merican

It will be more accurate to say that plantation-based conglomerate Sime Darby Bhd’s proposed demerger of its businesses will not create value by itself but only if benefits of the intended demerger, coming nine years after its massive merger, is realised by proper execution.

The billion-ringgit question this time around is whether the proposed demerger will create value for the group when it seemed not to have the last time around when it was merged with other major companies.

Recall that this conglomerate, majority owned by Permodalan Nasional Bhd or PNB, the operators of the national unit trust scheme, merged mainly with Guthrie and Golden Hope – both under the PNB stable too – to become the largest plantation operator in the world in 2008.

Initially at that time, the expensive merger, costing some RM500 million in fees alone, was greeted by an enthusiastic market and galloping prices of palm oil which saw Sime Darby become the most valuable company on the local market for a while.

Eight listed entities were involved in the merger, proposed end-November 2006. They were Sime Darby Berhad, Sime Engineering Services Berhad, Sime UEP Properties Berhad, Golden Hope Plantations Berhad, Mentakab Rubber Company (Malaya) Berhad, Kumpulan Guthrie Berhad, Guthrie Ropel Berhad and Highlands & Lowlands Berhad.

The early reception by the market for the merger was enthusiastic. The share price almost doubled to RM13.30 by January 11, 2008 after the completion of the merger, from RM6.75 when the deal was announced end-November 2006.

But Sime Darby would never hit that level again. Barely two years later, its energy and utilities division chalked up heavy losses of over RM2 billion, entering into areas it had no knowledge off. Its then-CEO faced charges in court but was subsequently cleared.

Paradoxically, the energy and utilities division was a minnow but was able to get contracts because of Sime Darby’s size – it turns out that size in this case was not used to get viable contracts but enter into risky ones.

Despite a new CEO, Mohd Bakke Salleh, who sold the errant division in 2011, Sime Darby’s share price has been lacklustre and languished at around the RM7-8 level until excitement over the demerger emerged last November. The share trades around RM9.30 now.

Still Sime Darby is big, representing PNB’s largest investment in the stock market after Malayan Banking and is regularly among the top five most valuable companies listed on the Kuala Lumpur stock market, with a value of over RM60 billion. And it’s the only conglomerate in the top 10.

However, although known as a conglomerate, it continues to be heavily plantation based with over half of profit coming from that sector. Its fortunes are therefore intimately tied with the price of palm oil, its main plantation produce.

Bakke said at a press conference end-November last year that the plantations unit may be demerged and listed separately next year, followed by its property division. That had sparked some interest in Sime Darby shares again.

In January, Bakke confirmed in a statement that Sime Darby will create “pure play” listed entities for its plantation and property divisions. Others, including its BMW distributorship, port operations and trading, will remain under the existing listed entity.

Meantime, PNB group chairperson, former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Wahid Omar, said last month that excitement over the restructuring of Sime Darby amongst others have led to a RM20 billion increase in the value of PNB’s six main listed entities.

True value creation

However, such an increase in market value arising from perception can be very short-lived as illustrated in the previous share price movements of Sime Darby. Short-term market sentiment should never be mistaken for true value creation which is creating value in the production process by improving productivity.

At the end of the day, that is the only way to create value – by improving productivity. Is a merger or demerger going to create value by itself? No, never.

It can if a merger results in economies of scale or where there are overlapping functions in which case staff can be laid off. That effectively means less people doing more work – an increase in productivity. But even so, the truly enlightened company will think of redeploying staff into other areas instead of laying off, although that’s the quickest way.

But most mergers destroy value – studies at the time of Sime Darby’s merger in 2008 showed that 85 percent destroyed value. It’s not hard to see why – sometimes mergers take years before their values can be realised and valuable time is wasted. Meantime, productivity suffers.

In a demerger, it is possible that the increased focus and concentration on the core business can result in higher productivity but there has to be a focus on that by competent management.

On balance, demergers may have better chances of creating value than mergers but the most important factor is who is managing the change. If the same people are doing the same things in the same old, expect neither mergers nor demergers to create value.

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P GUNASEGARAM says value cannot be created by simply rearranging the same assets differently – someone has to work the assets more efficiently. E-mail: t.p.guna@gmail.com.

Kampong Chhnang Province

Kampong Chhnang is one of the central provinces of Cambodia. Neighboring provinces are Kampong Thom, Kampong Cham, Kandal, Kampong Speu and Pursat. The capital city of Kampong Chhnang Province is Kampong Chhnang. Wikipedia

Area: 5,521 km²

Population: 472,616 (2011)

Provincial status: 1907

Area rank: Ranked 14th

ISO 3166 code: KH-4

NOTE: I am on an assignment to Kompong Chhnang from April 13-15 and will not be blogging during this period. I will also not be on Facebook either. Take care.–Din Merican

Listen to Dr.Farish Noor–Public Intellectual and Academic @The Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

April 12, 2017

http://www.malaysiakini.com

Malaysia: Ceremonial Titles for Sale to Status Conscious Desperadoes

April 11, 2017

Malaysia:  Ceremonial Titles for Sale

by Dr.M. Bakri Musa, Morgan-Hill, California

http://www.bakrimusa.com

A prominent businessman who had hosted more than one Agong (King of Malaysia) as well as many Sultans was hauled away in his orange lock-up attire, desperate to hide his face, on charges of trying to bribe the Sultan of Johor over recommendations for a federal royal honorific title.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) has yet to release the suspect’s identity, or the charges. The social and mainstream media have already condemned him, Malaysia’s corruption personified. It is rare for the two often very contrasting views to coincide.

Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of the complementary if not necessary role of the other half of the equation, recipients of his alleged bribes. If we were to focus on that instead, it would expose this corrosive and despicable aspect of Malaysian society. The man, as well as MACC Chief, the Sultan of Johor, and a few others would then emerge as heroes, and Malaysia the better for it. As for who the true villains were, we would have to wait.

The suspect was also alleged to have “brokered” on behalf of aspiring Malay knight wannabes among rich non-Malays, those willing to fork out huge sums for the privilege of donning the white songkok and the accompanying monkey suit during official functions.

The irony does not escape me. Non-Malays, the Chinese in particular, may be resentful if not disdainful of Malay community and culture, the consequence of being excluded from the New Economic Policy. Their elite however, are not at all bashful in pursuing feudal Malay titles. That reflects more the financial, social and other clouts such titles confer in contemporary Malaysia, less the honorees’ respect for Malay values.

UMNO’s Hulubalangs (Warriors)

Hulubalang- in-Chief: UMNO’s Najib Razak

Cases of Malaysian royal titles being bought, or allegations thereof, are not news. They are also far from being mere allegations. There is a portrait, viral in the social media, of a mongoloid-looking character barely out of his teens, all prim and proper in his official pose as a Malay hulubalang (warrior). I wonder what great service this prodigy had rendered.

I was once at a social function in America hosted by one of Malaysia’s many Sultans here on a private visit. I found myself in a quiet corner with some of the guests. The conversation drifted on the many titled ones in the crowd, and of royal awards generally. To clarify and confirm what I thought I was hearing, I inquired as to the prevailing price of such titles, specifically with this Sultan, known for his exuberant generosity in dispensing such honors. When told, I replied with nonchalant casualness that it was well within my affordability range. With the other sultans, the rates could be doubled, I was told.

Imagine my surprise when a few weeks later I received a phone call from Malaysia. The caller identified himself as a “Raja” and “well connected to the palace.” He wanted to pursue “the topic we had discussed!”

I burst out laughing and assured him that I had only been joking. He kept pressing me, unconvinced by my reply. He was so persistent that I had to hang up on him. I did not know whether he was genuine or a con artist trying to rip me off. I was not interested to find out.

Thus, when the Sultan of Johor exposed that bribery attempt, it elicited a yawn in me. What was new? There was indeed something new, or at least unusual. First, the manner of his revealing it – on his social media. My inquisitiveness then took over. Why him, and of much greater significance, why now and the manner?

When I was a surgeon in General Hospital Johor Bharu in 1977, a colleague was banished out of state within 24 hours for allegedly being rude to a sultan. No trial, no due process. Imagine trying to bribe one! I expected the royal keris to have been sharpened, as in days of yore, not a posting in social media. Not many would dare even consider bribing a sultan, except perhaps the Sultan of Sulu. That would not be a bribe as he has no official function or power, and thus no favors to bestow.

It is safe to conclude that the Johor Sultan was not the suspect’s first or only attempted bribee. It is also safe to conclude that he must have some familiarity with sultans generally and that of Johor specifically.

In Malay culture, peasants bringing tributes to their Sultans is the norm, much like Hindus their deities. That businessman could be trying to be a humble and loyal rakyat.

If MACC were to focus only on the briber, then this case would be no different from the many others. The same dynamics, comparable greed, and similar motives; only the personalities differ, and of course the size, nature, and purpose of the loot.

Circumstances create heroes. This is the rare and unique opportunity for the MACC chief to prove his mettle, to be a true, honest, and devoted public servant, as he without end claims to be. “Flip” this alleged briber; make him a prosecution witness instead of the defendant. Offer him immunity and a deal he could not refuse in return for the “goods” he would deliver.

It would not be an easy choice for the suspect. Coming from a culture that bred the feared Triads, not dissimilar from the Mafia, with its code of silence enforced with unimaginable brutality, being truthful would not come naturally, not to mention could be very dangerous. On the other hand, the prospect of a long jail sentence, and leaving behind your foreign wife and young children, is not palatable either.

Then consider the potential rewards, of being hailed a hero for exposing the seedy aspect of the royalty class, by Malays and non-Malays alike. He would then be truly deserving of his Tan Sri title.

He had it easy thus far, out on only RM200K bail. Peanuts to someone like him and in these days of the depreciated ringgit. From another aspect, the price of one Datukship from a cheap Sultan.

Imagine if he were to reveal all. A special tribunal, as provided for in the constitution (thanks to Mahathir), would have to be empaneled to prosecute those alleged corrupt Sultans. Imagine the electricity once the charges were proffered. Najib would sigh a huge relief as it would wipe off the festering 1MDB scandal from the front pages. His ardent defender, aka Attorney-General Apandi Ali, would also emerge as a hero among honest Malaysians, instead of as now, a renegade and protector of the corrupt.

On the political front, in one fell swoop Najib would outstrip Mahathir in striking fear and terror among the sultans. They are still chafing at their collective treatment by Mahathir in the 1980s and 90s when he stripped them of their personal immunity as well as their veto powers over legislations. The sultans have been asserting themselves lately, in tandem with Najib’s increasing vulnerability. Their not assenting to the National Security Act of 2016 was a non-too-subtle manifestation of this new assertiveness. The so-called First Lady of Malaysia outflanking the Queen and the various Sultanahs in the gaudy ostentatious arenas also did not sit well with the royals.

Expect UMNO newsletters Utusan, Berita Harian and The New Straits Times reprising the 1980s, filling their pages with lurid titillating details of royal peccadilloes.

Forest City Project in Johor

What prompted Sultan Ibrahim, the son of the only sultan ever convicted of murder, to expose this alleged bribery? The Johore Royal Household is the wealthiest not just in Malaysia and not just among Sultans. Its involvement in the massive Forest City Project would ensure its wealth would remain undiminished for generations no matter how profligate their princes and princesses. Perhaps the amount of the alleged bribe was insulting.

Forest City is drawing much negative reaction, in part because of the mega sums, massive Mainland Chinese involvement, and unknown environmental consequences. To many Malays this development rekindles painful humiliating memories of what his great grandfather did to that little island across Selat Tebrau.

Then there was the sultan declining to offer himself for election by his brother rulers to be Deputy King a few months ago. As all kids know, the difference between not wanting versus not being given can be hard to discern. There is not much fraternal love lost between him and his brother rulers. This exposé could be payback time.

This high-profile case will not end up in the usual NFA (No Further Action) file. The only question is whether the suspect, together with MACC chief, AG Apandi Ali, and the Sultan emerge as heroes or renegades?

Malaysia: Racist Roots of UMNO-sponsored Redshirt Movement

April 11, 2017

By: Paul Millar

http://sea-globe.com/malaysia-redshirt-movement/

With an election looming and the 1MDB scandal still hanging over Najib Razak’s head, the Redshirt movement has proved a useful pawn in silencing dissent.

Prime Minister Najib Razak-sponsored Racist Group led by Ikan Bakar Jamal Yunos was created to drive a wedge between Malaysian voters along racial lines

On November 19 (2016), before they were scoured from the streets of Kuala Lumpur by water cannons wielded by armoured riot police, a mob of red-draped men charged toward the capital’s Chinatown. Ostensibly organised as a pro-government response to Bersih 5, the latest anti-corruption demonstration led by the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih), the counter-protest quickly descended into a nationalist rally, with slurs chanted against Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese minority.

Led by United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) division chief Jamal Yunos, the so-called Redshirt movement describes itself as a defender of “Malay dignity” in the face of what it claims are largely Chinese-driven protests to overthrow a democratically elected government. Dominated by the nativist UMNO party, Malaysia’s ruling Barisan Nasional coalition government has been wracked by accusations of corruption, incompetence and increasingly totalitarian crackdowns on their critics, as movements such as Bersih struggle for even the most meagre electoral reforms. Promising to meet protest with protest, the Redshirts’ response to the November Bersih 5 demonstrations was punctuated by pledges of violent reprisal against those marching on the wrong side of the police barrier. And it is in this threat, experts say, that the guiding hand behind the Redshirt resurgence, after a year of relative quiet, is laid bare.

Ross Tapsell, a lecturer and researcher at Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific, said the Redshirt movement had been cynically created to drive a wedge between Malaysian voters.

“The Redshirts and their backers are trying to polarise Malaysian politics further, mostly on ethnic and religious grounds, by claiming the Bersih supporters, or ‘Yellowshirts’, are predominantly opposition voters of Chinese heritage, and the Redshirts are the ‘pro-Malay’ group,” he said.

Najib Razak is Commander-in-Chief of a Group of Malay Chimpanzees

Rather than allow Bersih’s demands for clean elections to resonate with the public, Tapsell said, the Redshirt movement had redrawn the battle lines into something more closely resembling a tribal brawl – with predictable consequences. “Bersih’s goals and the ethnic background of their supporters are much more diverse than the Redshirts give them credit for, but the effect has been to make these protests [about] free and fair elections to be more of a street ‘battle’ between coloured shirts of political parties – think Thailand,” he said.

According to Gerhard Hoffstaedter, a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Queensland and the author of Modern Muslim Identities: Negotiating Religion and Ethnicity in Malaysia, it is a tactic that has been used to stifle real reform for more than half a century.

“By collapsing important human rights issues and the demand for free elections into the racial politics that have dominated Malaysian politics since independence, the Redshirts aim to discredit universal claims to freedoms and mire their demand in a zero-sum game,” he said. “That game rests on pitting ethnic groups against each other and has proven a potent electoral tool.”

Despite making up almost one third of Malaysia’s population, the nation’s ethnic Chinese community has increasingly been cast as outsiders in the Muslim Malay-dominated country. Accused of forming a cabal controlling the Malaysian economy, the community has been the target of rising resentment from elements of a majority desperate for a scapegoat. In July 2015, the resentment exploded into fully fledged violence as a mob of 200 Malays set upon a handful of ethnic Chinese after rumours spread that a Chinese trader had sold a young Malay man a counterfeit phone. In reality, the Malay man had stolen it.  

For some, the discrimination has become more than they can bear. In 2015 alone the number of Malaysians seeking protection visas in Australia rose to more than 2,000 – more than double the amount of the previous year. An annual report by Australia’s Migration Review Tribunal citing testimony from the applicants revealed a litany of persecution faced by Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese community who, like all non-Malay citizens, have been denied the same opportunities as their neighbours by a constitution that explicitly grants greater rights and freedoms to those with Malay heritage.

China’s Ambassador Dr Huang Huikang, his wife and a few Chinese embassy officials visited Petaling Street and warned those who used violence to disrupt public order in the country. He said the Chinese government was opposed to terrorism, extremism and any forms of discrimination based on race.

An ethnic Chinese-Malaysian woman whose family business was allegedly closed down after repeated threats and blackmail attempts from the local Malay-dominated government, described how her family had been reduced to second-class citizens in their own country.   

“We are living like a dog,” she told the tribunal. “In the past, the Malaysian government kept watch on all the Chinese; if the Chinese children want to enter public school, it would be a very difficult thing, almost impossible… the government does not care about us.”

By painting the protesters as little more than scheming Chinese dissidents backed by foreign powers, the Redshirts have tapped into a sense of widespread insecurity that has echoes of the fear and uncertainty that drove Britain from the EU and propelled US President-elect Donald Trump into the White House. According to Hoffstaedter, by positioning Malaysia’s vast Muslim majority as somehow under threat, the Redshirts – and the ruling coalition – could then paint themselves not as bigots defending the status quo but fierce defenders of the nation’s heritage and institutions.

“The rhetoric they engage in involves portraying Malays and Muslims to be losing out or not winning any longer, and… the continued dominance of Malayness/Islam can only be enshrined and protected by UMNO,” he said.

Khoo Ying Hooi, a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Malaya, said that racial prejudice had often been used to shut down dissent.

“Whenever we have a political crisis, the issue [of race] is very often politicised,” she said.By playing to the public’s darkest prejudices, Khoo added, the Redshirts sent a clear threat to those who would risk the fury of the mob to win reforms.

“Religion is a sensitive issue in Malaysia,” she said. “Whatever is being played out along that line, it also sends a little warning to the opposition political parties or the civil society movement in general, because nobody wants to create a platform for any kind of controversies that surround racial issues or anything to do with religion.”

Despite public denouncements by high-ranking UMNO cabinet ministers, the presence of several UMNO youth officials within the ranks of the Redshirts and, more damningly, Jamal Yunos’ own admission that many of the movement’s followers come from within the political party have raised questions as to just how spontaneous the allegedly grassroots response to Bersih has been.

Helen Ting Mu Hung, a senior fellow at the National University of Malaysia’s Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, described the Redshirts as little more than a cluster of UMNO members rallying around Yunos to hamper Bersih ground support.

“It was a political manoeuvre implicitly endorsed by UMNO top leadership, despite their public dissociation from it, as could be seen in the warm welcome received by Jamal at the recently concluded UMNO General Assembly,” she said. “This does not mean, however, that all UMNO leaders in the party are supportive of the Redshirt movement’s tactics.”

Ting cited an allegation that an earlier counter-demonstration in 2015 had been bolstered by some 10,000 Federal Land Development Authority-sponsored settlers – drawn overwhelmingly from the rural poor – who had been bussed in to boost the ranks of the protesters, despite being entirely ignorant of the rally’s intent. She added that there had been several media reports following the demonstrations revealing the lengths UMNO had gone to to mobilise the ostensibly spontaneous movement.

Ting argued that the Redshirts’ threats to riot served more as a smokescreen to shift attention away from Prime Minister Najib Razak’s involvement in the ongoing 1MDB scandal – where he stands accused of siphoning more than $1 billion from the state development fund for his own political use – than as proof of any real groundswell of support.

“The fundamental objective of this movement is clearly to whip up popular support for the Prime Minister in view of the 1MDB scandal and to counter the popular pressure against him as indicated by the huge turnout during the Bersih demonstrations,” she said. “In order to mobilise support, it has blatantly used very racist rhetoric – especially during the demonstration [in 2015].”

As similar movements driven by nativist thugs in the West have shown, it is a dangerous game. “This ties into global populist politics in the way leaders proclaim, agitate and appease the most right-wing political ideas,” Hoffstaedter said. “The fringe of Islamist and Malay nationalist ideology has been absorbed by the government to further their own credentials and support among their own ‘silent majority’.”

The game of pandering to Malay nationalist fears has deep roots in Malaysia, with past governments passing sweeping affirmative action legislation explicitly placing the needs of the Bumiputera – literally “sons of the soil”, referring to members of the Malay race – over those from different backgrounds. According to Hoffstaedter, the ensuing segregation has done little to create a harmonious society.

“The cost has been immense, and the main beneficiaries continue to be the elite,” he said. “The education system has bifurcated [split], and many Malays and non-Malays grow up in ethnic and religious silos, which is detrimental for social cohesion. The government has put its weight behind the exclusionary politics of Malay superiority over their national alliance.”

Don’t be afraid of UMNO–Stand Up Against Racism and Religious Bigots. They have ruined the Malay spirit by corrupting the minds of young Malays .Instead of using the occasion to speak to an anxious nation worried about its future or demonstrate that it has the will and the capacity to rise to greatness again, UMNO took the low road to bigotry and parochialism.–Din Merican

Since the 2016 November rallies, there has been little evidence in the media of the Redshirts’ much-vaunted counter-revolution, with both sides licking their wounds until the next march. Khoo suggested that the drop-off in activity revealed the hollow reality of the movement.

“That actually strengthens the idea that the whole counter-movement is created just to rebut whatever Bersih 5 demands, and also to create fear on the day… I don’t think there’s an issue of sustainability – they might come up again when there’s another [round] of pro-democracy protests. I don’t think they are an organised movement that are actually into sustaining themselves.”

 

Book Review: The Dictator’s Dilemma

April 10, 2017

The Chinese Communist Party’s Strategy for Survival. By Bruce J. Dickson. Oxford University Press, hardback, 352pp

BOOK REVIEWby John Berthelsen @www.asiasentinel,com

In 1993, there were about 8,700 “mass group incidents” in China over a wide variety of grievances ranging from corruption to forced evictions to human rights abuses to ethnic protests to environmental disaster to unpaid wages as well as nationalist protests against foreign countries engineered by the government. In 2015, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, that number had grown to somewhere over 200,000, although nobody knows for sure, a source of deep discomfort to the government.

So why hasn’t China collapsed? Since the crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989, the government has been characterized as riddled with corruption and run by officials who have spirited as much as US$1 trillion to U$3 trillion out of the country in illegal capital flight over the past decade – including relatives of at least five current or former Politburo members who have incorporated Caribbean companies. Nearly 22,000 offshore clients were found in 2014 to have addresses on the mainland or Hong Kong.

But the country hasn’t collapsed and won’t according to an intriguing new book, “The Dictator’s Dilemma,” published earlier this year by Oxford University Press, by Bruce J. Dickson, Chairman of the Political Science Department and Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University.

Dickson designed and implemented two nationwide public opinion surveys in urban China, one in 2010 and the other in 2014.  As he points out, they were done two years before and two years after the change in leadership that brought Xi Jinping to power and they serve as what he calls “before and after” snapshots of the way the public views the leadership’s performance.

The public, he writes, is fully aware of the repressive, corrupt and dysfunctional aspects of the regime, at the same time tying themselves nonetheless to the administration. They take to Weibo and other social media in the millions to complain about daily frustrations with the government.  As the statistics show from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the public is also willing to take to the streets by the thousands to protest.

But the Communist Party, Dickson writes, is able to play a cumbersome game that seeks to balance its priorities – witness Xi’s reform campaign, which so far has put as many as 100,000 officials in the dock on corruption charges, including more than 120 high-ranking officials and five national leaders – although as Financial Times correspondent Jamal Anderlini pointed out in January, bribery still ranks as a standard method of doing business in China and if anything the price has begun to rise again, Xi or no Xi.

Xi’s parallel campaign has put lawyers, social workers, labor activists and environmentalists in jail as well, in what Anderlini points out is a reversion to authoritarianism and a reversal of decades of slow progress towards liberalization.

Nonetheless, the regime, Dickson says, “consults with a wide range of specialists, stakeholders and the general public in a selective but yet extensive manner,” tolerating and even encouraging a growing civil society even as it restricts interests that seek to liberalize.

As a result, while China’s population may prefer change and opening up, they prefer change within the existing system.  Even while it is restrictive, it is regarded as increasingly democratic by the majority of its people even though it isn’t accountable to an electorate.  Confucianism plays a major role in “revolutionary” society, just as it has for hundreds of generations.

The party, he writes, generates popular support by creating a sense of patriotic pride for the country’s growing economic and other accomplishments.  Even within the system, change is palpable. That is clear to anyone who has been to China over the past several decades. Go to Beijing or Shanghai and you will see cities that are as modern as any in the world, transport systems that are stunning.

The classic dilemma for countries like China is whether rising educational standards, growing incomes, a wealth of material goods that the Communist Party uses to build public support eventually will generate a desire for multiparty democracy.

Unfortunately the answer appears to be no, and it appears to be no in other countries as well. Singapore is now the richest society in Asia, for instances, and few more authoritarian places exist anywhere. Nonetheless, the 2015 election gave the ruling People’s Action Party 83 of the possible 89 seats. Despite its outward trappings of Westminster parliamentarianism. Singapore is hardly any more democratic than China is.

Dickson has written a rather disheartening book, but one that looks at all the drawbacks to the system and ultimately concludes that the Communist Party isn’t going any place soon, and it isn’t just because of the relentless risen gross domestic product that has resulted in moving the biggest number by far of people out of poverty in history.  Despite the harsh methods that keep the party in power, it has managed to sustain a nationalist narrative that China, even in the era of Xi and the harsh governing methods he uses to keep his people in power, is the country of the future without pluralist democracy.

“The challenges to forecasting China’s future are the countervailing trends of development and decay, adaptability and atrophy, reform and regression,” Dickson concludes. “As observers, we need to be able to keep more than one idea in our heads at the same time, especially when those ideas are contradictory rather than complementary.”

The annual National People’s Conference (2017)concluded a 12-day session mainly to pat itself on the back, whatever shortcomings there are in the country and there are plenty. Its economy may be starting to flag, total debt is 17 percent of gross national product, it faces insurrection in Xinjiang and plenty of people have been jail for reasons that wouldn’t be countenanced in more liberal countries.

But in a series of lightning votes, 98 percent of the delegates rubber-stamped Premier Li Keqiang’s annual state of the nation report. A vast majority of the country’s 1.35 billion people would probably agree. Dickson, in this thoughtful book, seems to have caught the zeitgeist about right. It is a book that belongs on any China scholar’s shelf.