malaysiakini: Najib's gaping void between illusion and reality... by Terence Netto

Najib's gaping void between illusion and reality

Terence Netto
Sep 22, 2011

COMMENT It's odd - this propensity of the Najib Razak administration to shoot itself in the foot just when it is poised to play the winning cards it intimates it has long been harbouring.

In this instance, the timing of the self-inflicted wound - thedecision to charge Mohamad Sabu under the Penal Code with criminal defamation as a result of remarks the PAS No 2 made over the Bukit Kepong incident - is most inopportune.

The case comes to court just after the Attorney-General's Chambers dropped charges against a coterie of Parti Sosialis Malaysia activists who were initially indicted for offences under the hoary Emergency Ordinance and obsolete laws.

Also, the case against Sabu is being pressed when the prime minister's predecessorcautions him over the possibility of internal opposition to his liberalising laws curtailing civil liberties.

It is a measure of the silo-mentality of some Umno leaders that they are more concerned about internal reaction rather than public restlessness with a status quo that the Umno supremo is trying to change.

In other words, how Umno reactionaries feel matters more than what the public wants.

Najib's ballyhooed moves have attracted an array of ayes and nays from sceptics, with contention building over who should take the credit for the intended liberalisation, an exchange that mirrors the ongoing debate over which political forces were more responsible for gaining independence for the country in 1957.

With regard to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's caution about the likelihood of internal dissent, a Najib lieutenant has interjected to say that, perhaps, Abdullah lacked clarity about his own tilt towards liberalism, which was why, claimed Mohd Nazri Aziz, the former PM's attempt at 'perestroika' (restructuring of political discourse in Malaysia through relaxation of repressive laws) did not cut any ice with party reactionaries.

Talk about a lack of clarity about what liberalism ought to look like, what can be more addled than a decision shortly after liberalising measures were announced on prime-time television to prosecute ex-ISA detainee Mat Sabu for reason of his revisionist take on an incident that happened 61 years ago?

Form rather than substance

It has been argued in these columns that Najib knows the forms of liberalism, but not its substance, just as it has been suggested that he knows what 1Malaysia means - credit his 'We must embrace our differences' as having some worth - but does not know how to give effect to it.

The evidence of cognitive dissonance in the Najib administration is now too plentiful to deny.

From day one of his administration the PM appeared to want to smooth along nice and easy, with periodic announcements of changes to sclerotic policies and practices. But all the while his administration has been prey to jerks and twitches that throw it off-stride.

Out of this discontinuity between the reformist image he desperately wants to project and the reality that is considerably less amenable, the PM comes across as wanting the public to trust him.

Opinion surveys now tell him that the 'trust-the-PM' factor is slipping. Every new PM is given a wide berth by a watching public to strut his stuff, but once the people sense his act is tinsel, they can turn on the leader with a vengeance.

Look at predecessor Abdullah's slide from conductor of the 2004 BN landslide to casualty of the 2008 BN debacle, all within the span of a term.

The resounding lesson of that precipitous decline: Don't backslide once you have campaigned on a promise of reform.

Conjuring tricks

The problem reform-seeking Najib faces in his party and the administration is the undertow of stale thinking that hinders ameliorative policies.

In such circumstances, the task of leadership is to transform the public understanding of national issues and on the platform that affords the leader must break through the gauntlet of obstacles made up of reactionary forces, interest-group power, public passivity or cynicism, and conventional wisdom.

Najib is unable to transform his party's and his administration's assumption that democracy must be tutelary and citizens are essentially wards and not free agents.

This is the obsolete thinking he has not been able to change as the clock winds down rapidly to when he must seek his own electoral mandate.

Even if he gets it, it will be a victory without drum rolls, a majority without a meaningful mandate. That is because he has not defined clearly what he wants to do with it.

He is, in the end, more interested in form rather than substance, in management than in leadership, in tone than in content.

He is like the avuncular man who comes to do conjuring tricks at a children's party who is then startled to discover that the kids have grown up and want something more elevating.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.

Wikileaks: Najib's Islamic moderation lip service

Wikileaks: Najib's Islamic moderation lip service

Sep 3, 11 6:05pm

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Prime Minister Najib Razak, while attempting to portray Malaysia as a moderate voice in the Muslim, is doing just the opposite in his attempts to woo Malay support, according to a leaked US embassy cable.

Commenting on Najib's administration's handling of the 'Allah' and other religious issues, the embassy conveyed scepticism as to how far the PM would go to show that Malaysia was indeed tolerant of religious freedom.

“There has long been conflict between the ruling party's commitment in principle to freedom of religion and toleration of diverse views in practice,” read a US embassy cable sent to the US State Department on Jan 12 last year.

“Najib's public relations efforts to downplay differences among the races and religions and promote the concepts of toleration and moderation notwithstanding, he appears to have hardened popular views since the advent of his administration given the steps hardliners in the ruling party have forced on their fellow Umno members.”

Posted on Wikileaks last week, the cable cited the 'Allah' and Kartika issues and the cow's head incident and other issues related to the practice of religious freedom that had cast doubt on the PM's sincerity on the issue.

“Despite its extensive efforts to reassure expatriate and foreign audiences, the Malaysian government has focused only on protection of property and persons, foregoing an opportunity to make a clear statement on the maintenance of freedom of religion in the country,” it said.

According to the cable, it was believed that Najib was primarily interested in gaining the support of the Malay electorate at the expense of creating a true environment of religious freedom.

This, it said, was evident in how the government had used the judiciary to intervene on the 'Allah' issue and how it manipulated public statements including those of the Agong and the Selangor sultan, to send a message that the BN would not back down on the 'Allah' ban.

This contrasts with the PM's statements abroad, such as his lecture at Oxford in May titled 'Coalition of Moderates and Inter- Civilisational Understanding' where he sold the idea of Malaysia as a moderate nation that celebrated its diversity.

“Malaysians accept their diversity. We do not merely tolerate each other but we also embrace and celebrate,” Najib had said during his visit to the United Kingdom, at the invitation of the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies (Oxcis).

Mere 'rhetoric'

The US cable said that the PM has not shown any effort towards achieving moderation aside from “rhetoric”.

“(Najib's) failure thus far to record much in the way of tangible results, beyond more forward-looking and liberal rhetoric, leads to popular suspicion. 

“The conventional wisdom among most non-ruling coalition Chinese and Indians, for example, seems to be that the ruling party has orchestrated the 'Allah' issue so as to increase support among Malay voters by fomenting division between Muslims on one side and Christians or secularists on the other in the opposition coalition,” it said.

It added that Najib's earnest in implementing significant political reform was “debatable” and questions if it is mere “lip service” to win back conservative Malay support after serious setbacks in 2008.

It noted widespread cynicism and “distrust” amongst the non-Muslims at the PM's sincerity on religious tolerance.

“The popular view is widely and deeply held among non-Malay, non-Muslims that the government is antagonistic toward other religions and is engaged in a long-term effort to expand Islam's primacy in Malaysian society,” it said.

Religious controversy continues to blight Malaysian politics as the 13th general election looms, from the 'Christian PM conspiracy' tacked on the DAP to the recent Jais raid on a church in Damansara Utama, Selangor over alleged conversion of Muslims, that has spun off an apostasy sideshow.

Even Penang's Islamic authorities attempts at exercising tolerance recently, through their ban on loudspeakers at dawn, has become fair game for BN politicians.

TMI: An open letter to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI — by Martin Jalleh

An open letter to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI — by Martin Jalleh

July 18, 2011

JULY 18 — Dear Holy Father,

I am a Catholic, writing from my blessed and beloved country, Malaysia, a land of poignant diversity, pitiful contradictions, pathetic leadership and plentiful opportunity. It is a nation which I am proud of, one where anything and everything is possible — from the most virtuous to the most vile and venal.

Very soon our Prime Minister Najib Razak will be paying you an official visit at your summer residence Castel Gandolfo. He will no doubt put on a “grand show” in Ganddolfo, in spite of having suffered from “heat stroke” after a recent summer of discontent in Malaysia.

The Star, an established (i.e., one dictated by the establishment) newspaper has described the scheduled visit as one “making waves among Roman Catholics” in Malaysia. Strangely the only “wave” still etched in the minds of many Catholics is a “political tsunami” that took place in 2008.

The visit that The Star claims is “bound to make an impression especially on Catholics” was not even mentioned at Sunday Mass in Catholic churches. Further many Catholics currently wave off the PM as one who is leading the nation into abysmal political backwaters.

Catholics who are against the visit, fail to understand that as a spiritual leader, your doors are open to any leader — be he honourable or hypocritical, saint or sinner, righteous or rogue and towering statesman or tyrant, though they know for sure which category their PM belongs in!

It seems this “watershed” event will lead to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Malaysia. Still, many Catholics fail to see the difference such diplomatic ties would make on their daily lives. Will closer ties mean better times to exercise their religious rights, or will there be bolder lies?

The Star also sensationally exclaims: “There cannot be a better opportunity, and at a more appropriate juncture, for the Malaysian leader to highlight the country as one that embodies the principles of inter-religious harmony and respectful co-existence.” Ask anyone who does not read the mainstream press and they will tell you, Holy Father, that since Najib became the PM, Malaysia has been slowly but surely imploding as a result of unprecedented racial and religious insensitivities and intolerance brought about by Muslim zealots and bigots.

In the past, Malaysia had so often been touted as a melting pot of all races and religions in Asia. It has now become a boiling pot! We were once a model, a showcase of a multi-racial-religious society. Now the government has to put on a big show though the reality that we are so divided is showing!

The truth be told, inter-religious harmony is a myth in this country. Sincere attempts at inter-religious dialogue with Muslims and earnest intellectual discussions and discourses have often been derailed by a mob adept only at displaying their ignorance and irrational arguments to justify their intimidating behaviour.

Myth and mockery of moderation

The Star also quotes a senior Malaysian diplomatic official involved in the behind-the-scenes work with the Vatican as saying: “The Vatican has also been wanting to engage with Malaysia which it recognises as a moderate Muslim nation made up of various ethnic groups.’’

Joceline Tan, a senior journalist of The Star at her jocular best even “canonises” the PM as such: “There is no doubt the Western world has begun to take note of Najib as a Muslim leader of reason and moderation and the visit will certainly reinforce that.”

If Najib were indeed “moderate” we would not have had to contend with controversial race and religious issues, which are too many to list down here. Najib’s heavy-handed response to the recently held Walk for Democracy (to institutionalise clean and fair elections) made Malaysia look like a moderate Police State!

Such is the “moderation” of Najib that Christians to date cannot use the word “Allah” though a High Court in 2009 had affirmed it as a constitutional right. Surely the shocked and speechless Preacher to the Papal Household, Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, who visited East Malaysia in 2010 can fill you in on the details!

The PM’s political party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) has been politicising religion for its survival by creating unfounded fears and insecurities, sowing seeds of suspicion (and definitely not of “reason”) amongst Muslims, and deepening their distrust for the adherents of other religions.

Malays/Muslims are made to feel that they are always under siege and non-Muslims are their enemies! Yet, as the Muslims are constantly reminded, Malay/Muslim rights have been carved into and guaranteed clearly by the Federal Constitution. The only party that they have to fear most is the Umno elite and warlords!

Imaginary threats and bogeymen have been created by Umno and its cohorts, such as the Christians being hell-bent on confusing and converting every Muslim and the latest being an unsubstantiated allegation of a Christian conspiracy to replace Islam as the official religion, and to pave the way for a Christian PM!

At times the paranoia created has reached such a ridiculous level that the enlightened Muslim community have expressed their embarrassment and even disgust. Marina Mahathir, a truly moderate Muslim lady once highlighted the existence of a group of defenders of the Islamic faith whom she called the SS (the shallow and superficial).

 They are people “who have nothing better to do with their lives than look for monsters under their beds, enemies in their blankets or crosses in their buns (and) ice-cream biscuits”. She also wrote about “the Simple-Minded and Stupid (SMS)… who believe every little message that comes into their hot little phones, no matter how unlikely”.

There are also the “Korrupt Kombative Knuckleheads (KKK) who “will do things like throw firecrackers into churchyards, destroy temples and raid married people’s bedrooms”. She pointed at “the supreme irony of trumpeting our religious superiority while at the same time claiming that it only takes biscuits to destroy us”.

Meanwhile Najib’s government, through its religious departments and the Home Ministry in particular, dominates, dictates, decides, determines and even defines what non-Muslims can and cannot discuss, deliberate on, display in print, and do. Talk about moderation!

In 2008, the then home minister, when issuing a show-cause letter and several warning letters to The Herald (the Catholic newspaper in Peninsula Malaysia) made it his implicit prerogative and position to preach to and pontificate on what Catholics should and should not believe in!

Umno-owned papers, especially the Utusan Malaysia, are allowed to go on a spree of spinning falsehood, spouting lies, spewing seditious articles and spreading what the minister in the PM’s Department called “outdated racist propaganda” with impunity and immunity provided by the home minister.

In June this year, the Utusan Malaysia claimed that millions of ringgit were being funnelled from some 11 foreign Christian organisations to fund the Walk for Democracy. The organisers denied any links to Christian funding, saying instead that funds for the march came from local sources.

Bishop Paul Tan of the Malacca-Johor diocese who is concurrently president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Malaysia, said the Malay daily “appears to have a licence to publish unsubstantiated and wild allegations aimed at fomenting discord between Christians and Muslims in Malaysia.”

“It appears the authorities are more interested in checking and monitoring people engaged in legitimate expression of their rights than in stopping people who spread all sorts of calumnies against individuals and groups in this country,” he added.

Honour or hypocrisy?

The religious freedom of Christians and other faiths tragically rests on the PM’s political expediency and circumstantial goodwill conveyed during crisis moments in cordial, congenial and courteous close-door meetings together with a chosen few — and not on the constitutional guarantees of religious freedom!

Muslim extremists or fanatics who have been found guilty of sedition, criminal intimidation and sacrilegious acts either go scot-free or are given light and ludicrous court sentences which make the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the judiciary and the government laughable, and reduce Najib’s “moderate” resolve to check extremism to mere lip service.

Fanatics, extremists, or what the minister in the PM’s Department calls “clowns” are given a free hand in taunting and threatening Christians and other faiths with a bloodbath and a holy war (jihad) whilst the landscape is littered with an increasing number of “Little Mullah Napoleons” running riot with their own brand of religion.

What gives extremist Malay/Muslim groups the audacity to display their insolence with impunity? The moderate PM is their inspiration! During the 61st Umno Annual General Assembly, Najib moderately vowed to defend Umno’s five-decade stranglehold on the federal government at all cost.

 After being PM for almost three years, Najib has failed to fight the fires of racial and religious fanaticism, aggressively fanned by his own party. He takes flight and hides behind his 1 Malaysia slogan — a faltering façade, farce and flop which makes him look so utterly foolish! Now we have another slogan — “moderation”!

According to Najib’s Umno, the Malay/Muslim majority in this country must stamp their superiority over the rest, made all the more easier by Executive Supremacy! Yet this very party that harps on supremacy (be it race or religion), claims that Muslims here can be very easily confused, convinced, controlled and converted!

Perhaps the saddest outcome of today’s “moderate Malaysia” is that we have accepted the distinction between “Muslim and non-Muslim dominated areas”. Yet, there was a time when the citizens of diverse races and religions so successfully lived together side by side in mutual respect and admiration!

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, a veteran in Umno, once with dead honesty declared that ours is a “sham democracy… one which existed only in name but grievously compromised in substance, reality and fact”! According to the politician and prince, Malaysia has “a domineering style of leadership with the cult of the great leader”. How can there be moderation?

I hope that you will remind our PM of your wise warning in 2009 when speaking at the King Hussein bin Talal mosque in Amman, that the “manipulation of religion sometimes for political ends… is the real catalyst for tension and division and at times even violence in society…”

I pray, Holy Father, that you will not allow our prime minister to politicize the papacy and use the visit as a political ploy and a public relations exercise with his predictable “moderate” proclamations, pious pronouncements and pretentious promises.

In spite of the depressing scenario that I have so described, we are not discouraged nor do we despair. You had once declared that “interreligious and intercultural dialogue between Christians and Muslims … is a vital necessity, on which in large measure our future depends”.

It is this path and one towards a “more authentic mutual understanding” with our Muslim friends that many Catholics in Malaysia continue to strive towards. The divine always triumphs over evil human designs.

 May the heavens intervene when His Holiness meets His Hollowness! May hype give way to true hope! May honour prevail over hypocrisy! May humility be the spirit that will grace the hallowed halls of Gandolfo!

* This is the personal opinion of the writers. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.

malaysiakini: Public integrity is dead... by Josh Hong

Public integrity is dead

Josh Hong
malaysiakini, Jan 7, 2011, 1:48pm

In 1993, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago became embroiled in allegations of sexual abuse. To defend his Catholic faith and clear his name, he instructed the church to set up an investigation panel. He also refrained from making negative comments on the case and asked his lawyer not to apply any form of pressure on the claimed victim.

As it turned out, the claimed victim admitted he had identified the wrong person due to loss of memory. There was also lack of circumstantial evidence. He withdrew the case and apologised to Bernardin.

Later, the cardinal spoke about the humiliation and pains that he had suffered in the wake of the false accusation, stating that he had chosen to remain silent because he did not want to undermine the accuser's integrity as a person.

He also hoped that by doing so, he would create an environment that would be safe and assuring enough for more victims to come forward so that the church could deal with its own sin and reconcile with those who had been wronged. In the end, not only was he vindicated, he also proved his living faith in God.

While the moral leadership that the Bernardin case demonstrates may not be fully applicable to a secular context, it indicates certain leadership qualities nonetheless. First, a political leader must be consistent, humble, honest, self-disciplined and possess some positive values; second, a political leader must be duty-bound to safeguard and improve social justice, and show fairness to him/herself, colleagues, rivals and the masses.

Do we have a leader like this in Malaysia?

After Coroner Azmil Muntapha Abas delivered an open verdict on the cause of Teoh Beng Hock death the day before, a Malaysian Insider article reported Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak as among the winners.

What winners did the journalist talk about unless those who only did so at the expense of justice, not to mention the pains and sorrows on the part of Teoh's bereaved family - especially his wife with a posthumous son?

It is clear that the finding has been a cunning one: It exonerates (for now) the MACC from the accusation of having caused Teoh to die young, while ruling out suicide. Perhaps one should now blame Teoh for having chosen to work as a political aide in the first place?

More time to deflect uproar

Make no mistake - this ambivalent verdict is politically-driven, reflecting precisely the wishy-washy character of the man in charge of Putrajaya. It gives the man more time to deflect the potential uproar from the masses should the truth be found, and to engineer a way out of the morass not only for himself but for his political colleagues also.

With the next general election just around the corner, the man cannot allow controversial issues to jeopardise his chances of reclaiming the two-third majority in Parliament that his ruling coalition has been so shamelessly and avariciously coveting.

The man is, of course, Najib the 'winner'. Justice is denied but victory is in sight. How convenient.

It has been almost two years since Najib took over the leadership from Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Still, there has not been a semblance of substantive reform by the government; neither do we see in the 1Malaysia prime minister any valuable ideals or moral directions. All that we witness is the continued erosion of social, political and judicial integrity.

Najib is the slickest prime minister that this country has ever produced, utterly bereft of core values at the same time. He is not hesitant to resort to openly endorsing the culture of bribery (remember you help me, I help you), and has no qualms boasting publicly how he has survived in the treacherous political terrain within Umno by choosing the right side.

Be guileful and prosper

In other words, the secrets of Najib's successful ascension to the highest political office are not a set of values or a certain political ideology, but fence-sitting, double-dealing and duplicity. He is practically telling our future generations: Be guileful, so that thou may prosper!

As deputy prime minister, Najib once came under enormous pressure over the shocking murder of Altantuya. Despite the SMS exchanges between him and the accused Abdul Razak Baginda - his then close associate - which implied political intervention in the judicial process, he escaped the witness box unscathed.

When private investigator P Balasubramanian went public with Najib's association with the Mongolian victim by way of a statutory declaration, all that Najib did was swear his innocence in a mosque. Most ominously, Balasubramanian has since vanished from Malaysia.

With this hair-raising episode in mind, can we now blame the Indonesian maid who claims to have been raped by a Malaysian minister for not being willing to come forward with more evidence and witnesses?

Rais Yatim is rumoured to be the perpetrator. In June 2007, he was nominated for the Commonwealth secretary-general's post. There was much publicity and promotion for his candidacy then, but it was withdrawn all at a sudden one month later. The whole turnaround was shrouded in secrecy.

Rais, too, is a political chameleon. He left Umno in 1988 and joined the now-defunct Semangat 46, rising to the No 2 position and even writing a PhD thesis that argued against the notorious Internal Security Act. Having rejoined Umno in 1996, his political career again took off. In 2000, he overturned the conclusion in his thesis by saying that it was purely an cademic exercise.

But Najib retains a character such as this in his cabinet because they share the same values. If Rais is adamant about his innocence, he should invite the Indonesian national to Malaysia to help in investigations so that he can clear his name, instead of issuing veiled threats against those who comment on the issue. (Yes, I am mindful of Rocky's dubious past and hidden agenda, but let's save it for another article.)

No doubt, Najib does fight back from time to time, but his tactics are far less than gentlemanly, especially when the speaker of the Dewan Rakyat comes in handy. The banning of Anwar Ibrahim and other opposition lawmakers is a flagrant violation of democratic principles, and more so when Najib himself has consistently refused to be cross-examined over all the allegations involving him. Sheer cowardice and humbuggery, to say the least.

With a prime minister like this, should we then be crying foul over the open verdict on Teoh death? This ambiguous result in fact best reflects the ore values of the most powerful man in the country. Seen in this light, we should cease all expectations in regard to other victims of institutional violence: Kugan Ananthan, Aminulrasyid Amzah, and countless others.

Even so, Najib will be fervently supported and cherished by his coalition partners. After all, this is a country where justice has lost its meaning while public integrity has departed.

JOSH HONG studied politics at London Metropolitan University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. A keen watcher of domestic and international politics, he longs for a day when Malaysians will learn and master the art of self-mockery, and enjoy life to the full in spite of politicians.

malaysiakini: Najib’s suicidal slogan... by Dean Johns

Najib’s suicidal slogan

by Dean Johns
Malaysiakini, Dec 29, 10

It seems to me that the more persistently Najib Abdul Razak propounds his “1Malaysia. People first. Performance now” slogan, and the more desperately he defends it, the more damage he does to himself and Barisan Nasional. So naturally I’m 1 big supporter of the thing.

For a start, the “1Malaysia” part of it is so blatantly false that all it does is remind the hearer or reader of BN’s long-term strategy of dividing the nation’s races and religions, the better to try and ensure its eternal rule.

And this is not just an allegation, but an absolute fact. As evidenced by the BN government’s stacking of the civil services with employees of one particular race, through the wildly unequal allocation of government scholarships and contracts, to its supporting the concept of ketuanan Melayu through official economic policies, racist pressure-groups like Perkasa and publications like Utusan Malaysia.

Thus the “1Malaysia” phrase itself is such an outright and obvious lie that the long-running controversy over its originality appears virtually irrelevant. Yet Najib persists in claiming authorship as though his political survival depended on it. Which I fondly hope it does, given that the version of the concept with which I’m most familiar, “One Nation”, was the name of the notorious Pauline Hanson’s Australian political party, which long ago self-destructed.

Similarly, as far as I’m aware, other previous 1/One/Satu-style names and slogans proven by no means notably successful in Singapore, Indonesia or anywhere else they’ve been created. And as for “One Israel”, who knows whether it was dreamed-up by Najib’s friends at Apco Worldwide, as Anwar Ibrahim alleges and Apco deny, and who the hell cares?

Staking his credibility
Besides Najib, of course, who appears to be staking his non-existent credibility on the claim that he originated the thing. Recently, declaring that he felt “slighted” by the “big lie” that the “1Malaysia” concept had been plagiarised from another country, he claimed that “It is my own creation. Other countries may have a one this and a one that but nowhere in this world is there a 1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now.”

As many commentators on this statement have remarked, it would have been very odd indeed if any another country had thought to call itself “1Malaysia”, as Malaysia wouldn’t have been its name, and thus the expression would have been even more false than Najib’s version of it is.

Having read over the previous paragraph several times, I’m not entirely sure it makes sense. But never mind. Nothing about Najib’s slogan makes sense, including his recent remark in its defence to the effect that his government moves forward “on the basis of reality and not any dream”.

“A responsible government needs responsible policies,” he reportedly added, “not promises that are not founded on reality.”

Unfortunately for the case he was attempting to make, “not founded on reality” applies not only, as we’ve seen, to the “1Malaysia” section of his slogan, but even more so, if possible, to its “People First. Performance now.” segments.

Far from convincing anyone that Najib himself or the BN government has the slightest intention of performing on behalf of the people, now or ever, it raises countless challenging questions.

Like what has Najib or BN done, lately or ever, to protect the people of Malaysia from the appalling road toll or the police inaction and corruption that enable vehicular slaughter on such a scale? What have Najib or his government done to stem the slaughter of ‘suspects’ by this same police force? Or to stem the tide of cronyism and corruption that costs the people billions a year in lost and stolen revenue?

What have Najib and his government done, or what do they intend to do to restore the peoples’ rights to transparency, truth and justice that have been so comprehensively eroded over decades of rule by the BN regime?

Absolutely nothing. So that, with the single, solitary exception of the word “Malaysia”, which is undeniably the name of the country, every single additional element of Najib’s slogan is utterly and obviously false.

However, such glaringly obvious falsehood doesn’t prevent BN’s indefatigably sycophantic ‘news’ agency, Bernama and the rest of the so-called ‘mainstream’ media from reporting it as if it was gospel truth.

Illustration of ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’
Just the other day, for example, Bernama quoted Information, Communication and Culture Minister Rais Yatim as claiming that the 1Malaysia concept “is regarded as good” by 84 percent of respondents to a recent survey.

And in an equally impressive illustration of the well-known expression “lies, damn lies and statistics”, the BN-complicit media recently reported that the ridiculous slogan’s self-procaimed author himself enjoys 69 percent support.

Citing a clearly highly dubious phone poll by the Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research, Star announced that “broken down into ethnic groups, the survey found 74 percent of Malays, 54 percent of Chinese and 85 percent of Indian respondents were satisfied with the prime minister’s performance, seen as a major boost for Najib as he mulls an early general election next year.”

The fact that these findings were “broken down into ethnic groups” seems to me further give the lie to the fake unity-promoting purpose of “1Malaysia”. But even more significant is the core message these fanciful findings are intended to convey, which is that well over half of the Malaysian people of all races are such idiots as to imagine that Najib’s performance as prime minister is satisfactory.

When in fact, as every Malaysian with even half a brain knows, his only achievement in almost two years as premier is the creation of the world’s most cynical, self-destructive slogan.

A slogan whose obvious falsehood appears to be working so powerfully in his disfavour that, along with memories of the still unsolved murder of 1Mongolian, it could well prove political suicide for Najib personally, and a fitting epitaph for 50+ years of the BN regime.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Already published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini, following earlier collections ‘Mad about Malaysia’ and ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’.

The Age, Austalia: Malaysia stumbling,,, by Eric Ellis

Malaysia stumbling

Eric Ellis
TheAge
Australia September 23, 2010

ONE of Australia’s key partners in Asia is struggling. Given the way its leaders have taunted Australia over the years, schadenfreude at its plight would be understandable. But this should be resisted, for if Malaysia stumbles, the effects may ripple across the region.

Erstwhile sponsor of the Carlton Football Club, a cash cow for the Australian education sector, Australia’s 10th largest trading partner and a champion of ”Asian values” – whatever they are – Malaysia seems to be brimming with sky-is-falling Chicken Littles. And their analyses are alarmist; ”failed state”, ”deep pit”, ”national decay”, ”ocean-going corruption”, ”useless mega-projects”.

While some of these could be used to describe the Delhi Commonwealth Games – a massive undertaking Malaysia successfully pulled off 12 years ago by the way – it is about a country oft-regarded as an Asian success, whose rampant economy inspired a cockiness among its leaders to take racially tinged potshots at the ”decadent and immoral” West, and at Australia in particular.

And then there was the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to demonise, indeed anyone its mercurial then prime minister Mahathir Mohamad didn’t like on any given day. And there was 23 years of it, the Mahathir monopoly on Malaysian power.

So what’s prompted such painful hand-wringing from a tigerish economy that likes to boast how it ditched traditional models to virtually promise endless riches? The answer is some of the nastiest foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics an Asian economy has served up in a generation.

FDI into Malaysia slumped dramatically last year, falling a whopping 81 per cent. In 2009, Malaysia took in just $1.38 billion of new investment, barely enough to build a half-decent bridge in a land where pork-barrelling infrastructure projects are de rigueur. By contrast, India averaged almost double that in any given month. Malaysia’s FDI take was even less than that lured by the Philippines, long the region’s economic basket case.

This worries Malaysians greatly. For all of Mahathir’s bluster, he was careful to suck up to big business, and his less-poisonous successors since 2003 have done much the same. Foreign investment underpinned the Malaysian ”miracle”, transforming sleepy Penang into an Asian Silicon Valley and industrialising the Klang Valley that surrounds Kuala Lumpur to OECD levels, with $40,000 a year average incomes to match.

So has the sky fallen in? Some of the fall can be explained by the 2008 ”trans-Atlantic financial crisis”, as many like to call it in Asia. Malaysia’s reliance on foreign investment made it one of Asia’s most globally connected countries. So when Europe and North America tightened their belts after the subprime meltdown, Malaysia naturally was jolted. But the same external dramas affected just as connected Thailand – which endured a crippling political crisis to boot – and more so globalised Singapore, and both far outperformed Malaysia in ongoing FDI, as did Indonesia.

Malaysian fingers point at Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his on-again, off-again will to reform a lop-sided economy Mahathir tilted to favour his bumiputra franchise, the ethnic Malays who comprise about half Malaysia’s 28 million people.

Mahathir advantaged Malays with an aggressive ”new economic policy (NEP)”. Mahathir’s thinking went that Malays were less commercially inclined than their compatriot Chinese and Indian Malaysians and thus needed the state’s help. The NEP’s affirmative action aimed to lift Malays out of poverty, but many analysts have likened it to economic apartheid, a meal ticket that many Malays have got too used to.

The NEP anchored Mahathirism and helped keep him in power for two decades. Malays were lifted but NEP side effects are many and cancerous; corruption, cronyism and an oversized sense of entitlement. Much of Malaysia’s economy is controlled by ethnic Chinese, who pragmatically chummed up to Mahathir. To some, the NEP meant simply installing well-paid and influential Malay placemen on boards to fulfil quotas.

Anti-NEP rancour has been building for years and in 2008, five years after Mahathir retired, voters registered disgust by handing his Malay-centric United Malay National Organisation-led coalition its worst result in history, losing its two-thirds parliamentary majority in a gerrymandered assembly. The UMNO faithful toppled Mahathir’s successor, Abdullah Badawi, and now, as support wavers, his successor, Najib, says he wants to replace the NEP with a ”new economic model”, which he pledges to ”execute or be executed”.

There’s a rising fin de regime tint about the UMNO empire, which has never been out of office and has absorbed Malaysia’s critical facilities of state; the civil service, military, media and the education system. Abolishing the NEP is a particular cross for the aristocratic Najib to bear; it was conceived in the early 1970s by his then prime minister father Tun Abdul Razak.

Najib has a big problem, and it is not just the allegations of corruption and even murder that swirl around his circle. Like Julia Gillard, Najib doesn’t have a popular mandate to govern. Also like Gillard, he got handed office when his party’s faceless men knifed an elected PM, Badawi, in office. Malaysians expect Najib to go to the polls soon to get that mandate, but he doesn’t seem sure it’s a good idea, as a confident opposition calls him to account.

In shades of Gillard’s Labor still, party hardliners are in revolt. While most moderate Malays accept the NEP needs tweaking, if only to keep UMNO breathing and in power, a virulent core of party heavies has organised under the banner of a movement called Perkasa, which means ”mighty” in Malay.

Perkasa claims to be defending the Malaysian constitution, which guarantees Malay ethnic primacy. It says it is fighting for Malay rights against the rising challenge of minorities. But Perkasa feels like a supremacist movement, something a Pauline Hanson might recognise. A former US ambassador to Kuala Lumpur has described Perkasa as ”militant”, while non-Malays condemn it for racial divisiveness. That’s emotive language in a country where people still define themselves by ethnicity over nationality and where the deadly race riots of the 1960s are never far away in thinking and policy – not just in Malaysia but among neighbours alert to ethnic tension.

As he dithers over rolling back the NEP and over an election timetable, Najib seems to think he can spend his way to popularity. Last week, he outlined a Mahathir-esque $500 billion investment plan to transform the economy with mega-projects. He appealed to foreign investors to help. But as China, India and Indonesia boom, they will need convincing it is money well spent.

malaysiakini: The Great Malaysian Heist

The Great Malaysian Heist

Manjit Bhatia
malaysiakini, Jun 9, 2010
11:14am

 
COMMENT And so you have it. Najib Abdul Razak, for all his bluster, for all his attempts to be seen to be all things to all Malaysians, has again shown his true stripes.

He's hardly a chameleon. He's poltergeist. He manifests himself when the political winds suit him and his party Umno and its coalition partners in the BN, with the regularity of bumptious idiocy.

It's not a far cry from any previous regime in Malaysia. If you look closely at the country's political history since 1957, it's the same old thing.

So it's barely surprising that a week ago Najib avowed his undying support - no, protection - of the New Economic Policy that his father Abdul Razak Hussein had pronounced in the immediate aftermath of the murderous May 13, 1969 racial violence.

It must have been a rousing speech, since it was given before the Bumiputera Economic Congress - the very group, more like a lobby group, whose existence depends on the political and economic largesse of the Umno regime.

Recall the mid-1960s: the ultra right wing of Umno had given similar speeches of Malay-ness and Malay special rights to Malay economic association in a care-mongering campaign of the rampage of Chinese business interests throughout the country - saying that the yellow horde menace had to be stopped. The idea was that the Chinese were robbing the Malays blind.

And what did Abdul Razak do? He introduced laws to entrench those already in the constitution. These laws would allow Malays in general, and Malay business in particular, to use crutches from which they would benefit in economic terms from Malaysia's embryonic industrialisation.

This industrialisation was half constructed on a resources export economy and half on import-substitution (viz the protection of nascent Malaysian companies producing for the domestic economy).

Truth is, it also protected Chinese business interests because a whole lot of so-called Malay entrepreneurs used policy loopholes to practice Ali Baba-ism. Like dills, they sold their business interests to Chinese entrepreneurs for a song.

When Dr Mahathir Mohamad came to power in 1981, he changed some laws and added others, but the end result was always the same - more crutches for Malays. But this time he introduced the specter of rentier capitalism by taking it to new heights. Corruption existed, but Mahathir expanded it, nurtured it,and made it an art form.

But this time a new configuration of rentier capitalists emerged from the crevices of Malaysian political economy: more and more bumiputera, Chinese and even some Indian so-called entrepreneurs relied on Mahathir's hell-bent policy of privatisation.

The Malays were generally to be well looked after under the guise of the New Economic Policy (NEP), but Malay entrepreneurs would be given financially lucrative state contracts, much of which would be shared amongst the Chinese and Indian towkay class as long as they provided political and financial succor to the Mahathir regime in return for his business patronage.

NEM a ruse

Fast forward to 2010. What has changed in the political economy? Nothing. Zilch. Read Barry Wain's book, 'Malaysian Maverick', amongst others over the course of two decades.

But what Wain has done is what people like Jomo KS and Terence Gomez have been doing for more than 10 years: that is to say, without saying too loudly, that every Umno-BN regime since 1969 has created the vestibule of a corruption-riddled kleptomanic state, run by kleptomanic so-called leaders - from Abdul Razak to Hussein Onn, Mahathir, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and now Najib.

And Malaysia's kleptomanic state is no better or worse than the ones found elsewhere, primarily South Africa under Thabo Mbeki and now Jacob Zuma, and Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. In fact the southern African states have tried to 'model' theirs on Malaysia.

Will these African states also usurp Najib's New Economic Model (NEM)? No. Why? Because the NEM won't get off the ground. Not in a million years. It's stillborn. Dead and gone. Snafued.

The NEM is no more a model than Vision 2020 was or, for that matter, the NEP. And if the NEP has run its course, replaced by New Development Policy, what is Najib doing repeating his steadfast support for the NEP?

The NEM is a ruse. In its present caricature, it barely has any credibility among the most serious economists and analysts in Malaysia and outside it. Najib may well say that people should wait for the second installment of the NEM. Why bother if the first installment is nothing short of a joke.

There is no intent. At least nothing that is genuine or believable because this is not a regime that can be believed, any more than anybody sane mind in Malaysia believes or is prepared to believe Najib.

There are reasons for this, one of which is that Najib cannot and will not give up Malay political supremacy when he knows full well that the ultra right wing nutters in Umno Youth led by Khairy Jamaluddin will only surrender the NEP over their dead bodies.

Now you have another main player: Malay Consultative Council chairperson and Pasir Mas MP Ibrahim Ali, whose hardcore racist streak equals only to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. He has told Najib in unequivocal terms that the NEM is dead in the water and nothing, but nothing, will replace ever replace the NEP.

Adding clout to Ibarhim's demands is the Malaysian Association of Malay Automobile Importers which has been deriding Najib over the regime's decision to kill off Approved Permits by 2015.

Poor Rafidah Aziz would be beside herself with political and economic diarrhoea now that her family's vast fortune could be robbed by the state, after the state had been playing Robin Hood since 1970. Most powerful Malay interests, especially economic ones, have labelled the NEM as anti-Malay. And the more Ibrahim goes on his racist attacks against non-Malay Malaysians, the more Najib will backpedal.

Show us the model

Najib is a gutless worm. That has been clear for all to see for a long time now. But what is even clearer is that he has already begun to rollback and, I'll wager, shelf forever, the NEM. He'll come up with the line that the global economic situation does not make it viable.

He does not subscribe to sensible economic advice when offered. Nor to the Chinese idiom, Weiji (opportunity in crisis). This is precisely the time to reform the economy - fundamentally. The problem is that to do so would require associative but equally fundamental political reforms. But to do so, Najib and Umno fear Malay supremacy will be seriously undermined if not eroded.

Which is where, and why, Ibrahim steps in. He's the front man of Malay business interests and stand-in headkicker for Umno Youth and factions of the party's supreme council. All have a lot to lose from the NEM.

The real fear is that the NEM will open up economic competition within the domestic economy to such an extent that it may just show up the incompetence of most Malay businesses that thus far have survived on the kleptomanic Malay state's patronage and protection.

Even if the NEP premise is used - that an expanding economy means a greater share for all races in the political economy - you don't really find that predicated in the NEM. Because there are no guarantees that greater economic competition from within Malaysia and abroad will necessarily produce greater good for the greater majority. Look at Europe as a case in point.

Internationalising competition within Malaysia means invoking the possibility of Machiavellian possibilities or probabilities. And this is not a regime that is remotely intelligent, let alone clever, to deal with this kind of likelihood.

If you're looking for a Malaysian example, go back to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s when Mahathir ordered the 'consolidation' of Malaysian banks and finance and insurance companies.

And the announcement that the Malaysian economy grew by 10.1 percent in the first quarter was another bold and stupid lie, a furphy (tall story) based on statistical manipulation to produce a grand illusion.

We're dealing within a deluded bunch of dimwits in Putrajaya. But let Bank Negara, the Statistics Department and the Economic Planning Unit show us the modelling used to come up with the figure. I'll poke a million holes in all the assumptions used in its modeling.

Bottom line: Najib is already laying the groundwork for withdrawing the NEM and hanging on to the NEP. And if you think about it, which government, if it were seriously competent, intelligent and genuinely truthful, would release Part 1 of the NEM while still writing up Part 2?
It just does not make any sense. Then again, when has any Malaysian government since 1957, and certainly since 1969, ever made any sense at all?

MANJIT BHATIA, an academician and writer, is also research director of AsiaRisk, a political, economic and risk analysis consultancy in Australia. He specialises in international economics and politics, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific.