"I'M BETTER OFF DEAD!" ~ MJ (repost)

[An excellent analysis of the less-than-glamorous circumstances surrounding the King of Pop's untimely death at 50. Found this article at The Malaysian Insider]

By Ian Halperin

LOS ANGELES, June 29 — Whatever the final autopsy results reveal, it was greed that killed Michael Jackson. Had he not been driven — by a cabal of bankers, agents, doctors and advisors — to commit to the gruelling 50 concerts in London’s O2 Arena, I believe he would still be alive today.

During the last weeks and months of his life, Jackson made desperate attempts to prepare for the concert series scheduled for next month — a series that would have earned millions for the singer and his entourage, but which he could never have completed, not mentally, and not physically.

Michael knew it and his advisers knew it. Anyone who caught even a fleeting glimpse of the frail old man hiding beneath the costumes and cosmetics would have understood that the London tour was madness. For Michael Jackson, it was fatal.

I had more than a glimpse of the real Michael; as an award-winning freelance journalist and film-maker, I spent more than five years inside his “camp.”

Many in his entourage spoke frankly to me — and that made it possible for me to write authoritatively last December that Michael had six months to live, a claim that, at the time, his official spokesman, Dr Tohme Tohme, called a “complete fabrication.” The singer, he told the world, was in “fine health.”

Six months and one day later, Jackson was dead.

Some liked to snigger at his public image, and it is true that flamboyant clothes and bizarre make-up made for a comic grotesque; yet without them, his appearance was distressing; with skin blemishes, thinning hair and discoloured fingernails.

I had established beyond doubt, for example, that Jackson relied on an extensive collection of wigs to hide his greying hair. Shorn of their luxuriance, the Peter Pan of Neverland cut a skeletal figure.

It was clear that he was in no condition to do a single concert, let alone 50. He could no longer sing, for a start. On some days he could barely talk. He could no longer dance. Disaster was looming in London and, in the opinion of his closest confidantes, he was feeling suicidal.

To understand why a singer of Jackson’s fragility would even think about travelling to London, we need to go back to June 13, 2005, when my involvement in his story began.

As a breaking news alert flashed on CNN announcing that the jury had reached a verdict in Jackson’s trial for allegedly molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch in California, I knew that history had been made but that Michael Jackson had been broken — irrevocably so, as it proved.



Nor was it the first time that Michael had been accused of impropriety with young boys. Little more than a decade earlier, another 13-year-old, Jordan Chandler, made similar accusations in a case that was eventually settled before trial — but not before the damage had been done to Jackson’s reputation.

Michael had not helped his case. Appearing in a documentary with British broadcaster Martin Bashir, he not only admitted that he liked to share a bed with teenagers, mainly boys, in pyjamas, but showed no sign of understanding why anyone might be legitimately concerned.

I had started my investigation convinced that Jackson was guilty. By the end, I no longer believed that.

I could not find a single shred of evidence suggesting that Jackson had molested a child. But I found significant evidence demonstrating that most, if not all, of his accusers lacked credibility and were motivated primarily by money.

Jackson also deserved much of the blame, of course. Continuing to share a bed with children even after the suspicions surfaced bordered on criminal stupidity.

He was also playing a truly dangerous game. It is clear to me that Michael was homosexual and that his taste was for young men, albeit not as young as Jordan Chandler or Gavin Arvizo.

In the course of my investigations, I spoke to two of his gay lovers, one a Hollywood waiter, the other an aspiring actor. The waiter had remained friends, perhaps more, with the singer until his death last week. He had served Jackson at a restaurant, Jackson made his interest plain and the two slept together the following night. According to the waiter, Jackson fell in love.



The actor, who has been given solid but uninspiring film parts, saw Jackson in the middle of 2007. He told me they had spent nearly every night together during their affair — an easy claim to make, you might think. But this lover produced corroboration in the form of photographs of the two of them together, and a witness.

Other witnesses speak of strings of young men visiting his house at all hours, even in the period of his decline. Some stayed overnight.

When Jackson lived in Las Vegas, one of his closest aides told how he would sneak off to a “grungy, rat-infested” motel — often dressed as a woman to disguise his identity — to meet a male construction worker he had fallen in love with.

Jackson was acquitted in the Arvizo case, dramatically so, but the effect on his mental state was ruinous. Sources close to him suggest he was close to complete nervous breakdown.

The ordeal had left him physically shattered, too. One of my sources suggested that he might already have had a genetic condition I had never previously come across, called Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency — the lack of a protein that can help protect the lungs.

Although up to 100,000 Americans are severely affected by it, it is an under-recognised condition. Michael was receiving regular injections of Alpha-1 antitrypsin derived from human plasma. The treatment is said to be remarkably effective and can enable the sufferer to lead a normal life.

But the disease can cause respiratory problems and, in severe cases, emphysema. Could this be why Jackson had for years been wearing a surgical mask in public, to protect his lungs from the ravages of the disease? Or why, from time to time, he resorted to a wheelchair? When I returned to my source inside the Jackson camp for confirmation, he said: “Yeah, that’s what he’s got. He’s in bad shape. They’re worried that he might need a lung transplant but he may be too weak.

“Some days he can hardly see and he’s having a lot of trouble walking.”

Even Michael Jackson’s legendary wealth was in sharp decline. Just a few days before he announced his 50-concert comeback at the O2 Arena, one of my sources told me Jackson had been offered £1.8 million (RM10.3 million) to perform at a party for a Russian billionaire on the Black Sea.

“Is he up to it?” I had asked.

“He has no choice. He needs the money. His people are pushing him hard,” said the source.

Could he even stand on a stage for an hour concert?

“He can stand. The treatments have been successful. He can even dance once he gets in better shape. He just can’t sing,” said the aide, adding that Jackson would have to lip-synch to get through the performance. “Nobody will care, as long as he shows up and moonwalks.”

He also revealed Jackson had been offered well over £60 million to play Las Vegas for six months. “He said no, but his people are trying to force it on him. He’s that close to losing everything,” said the source.

Indeed, by all accounts Jackson’s finances were in a shambles. The Arvizo trial itself was a relative bargain, costing a little more than £18 million in legal bills. But the damage to his career, already in trouble before the charges, was incalculable. After the Arvizo trial, a Bahraini sheikh allowed Jackson to stay in his palace, underwriting his lavish lifestyle. But a few years later, the prince sued his former guest, demanding repayment for his hospitality. Jackson claimed he thought it had been a gift.

Roger Friedman, a TV journalist, said: “For one year, the prince underwrote Jackson’s life in Bahrain — everything including accommodation, guests, security and transportation. And what did Jackson do? He left for Japan and then Ireland. He took the money and moonwalked right out the door. This is the real Michael Jackson. He has never returned a phone call from the prince since he left Bahrain.”

Although Jackson settled with the sheikh on the eve of the trial that would have aired his financial dirty laundry, the settlement only put him that much deeper into the hole. A hole that kept getting bigger, but that was guaranteed by Jackson”s half ownership of the copyrights to The Beatles catalogue. He owned them in a joint venture with record company Sony, which have kept him from bankruptcy.

“Jackson is in hock to Sony for hundreds of millions,” a source told me a couple of months ago. “No bank will give him any money so Sony have been paying his bills.

“The trouble is that he hasn’t been meeting his obligations. Sony have been in a position for more than a year where it can repossess Michael’s share of the [Beatles] catalogue. That’s always been Sony’s dream scenario, full ownership.

“But they don’t want to do it as they’re afraid of a backlash from his fans. Their nightmare is an organised “boycott Sony” movement worldwide, which could prove hugely costly. It is the only thing standing between Michael and bankruptcy.”

The source said at the time that the scheduled London concerts wouldn’t clear Jackson’s debts — estimated at almost £242 million — but they would allow him to get them under control and get him out of default with Sony.



According to two sources in Jackson’s camp, the singer put in place a contingency plan to ensure his children would be well taken care of in the event of bankruptcy.

“He has as many as 200 unpublished songs that he is planning to leave behind for his children when he dies. They can’t be touched by the creditors, but they could be worth as much as £60 million that will ensure his kids a comfortable existence no matter what happens,” one of his collaborators revealed.

But for the circle of handlers who surrounded Jackson during his final years, their golden goose could not be allowed to run dry. Bankruptcy was not an option.

These, after all, were not the handlers who had seen him through the aftermath of the Arvizo trial and who had been protecting his fragile emotional health to the best of their ability. They were gone, and a new set of advisers was in place.

The clearout had apparently been engineered by his children’s nanny, Grace Rwaramba, who was gaining considerable influence over Jackson and his affairs and has been described as the “queen bee” by those around Jackson.

Rwaramba had ties to the black militant organisation, the Nation of Islam, and its controversial leader, Louis Farrakhan, whom she enlisted for help in running Jackson’s affairs.

Before long, the Nation was supplying Jackson’s security detail and Farrakhan's son-in-law, Leonard Muhammad, was appointed as Jackson’s business manager, though his role has lessened significantly in recent years.

In late 2008, a shadowy figure who called himself Dr Tohme Tohme suddenly emerged as Jackson’s “official spokesman.”

Tohme has been alternately described as a Saudi Arabian billionaire and an orthopaedic surgeon, but he is actually a Lebanese businessman who does not have a medical licence. At one point, Tohme claimed he was an ambassador at large for Senegal, but the Senegalese embassy said they had never heard of him.

Tohme’s own ties to the Nation of Islam came to light in March 2009, when New York auctioneer Darren Julien was conducting an auction of Michael Jackson memorabilia.

Julien filed an affidavit in Los Angeles Superior Court that month in which he described a meeting he had with Tohme’s business partner, James R. Weller. According to Julien’s account, “Weller said if we refused to postpone [the auction], we would be in danger from “Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam; those people are very protective of Michael”.



He told us that Tohme and Michael Jackson wanted to give the message to us that “our lives are at stake and there will be bloodshed”.”

A month after these alleged threats, Tohme accompanied Jackson to a meeting at a Las Vegas hotel with Randy Phillips, chief executive of the AEG Group, to finalise plans for Jackson’s return to the concert stage.

Jackson’s handlers had twice before said no to Phillips. This time, with Tohme acting as his confidant, Jackson left the room agreeing to perform ten concerts at the O2.

Before long, however, ten concerts had turned into 50 and the potential revenues had skyrocketed. “The vultures who were pulling his strings somehow managed to put this concert extravaganza together behind his back, then presented it to him as a fait accompli,” said one aide.

“The money was just unbelievable and all his financial people were telling him he was facing bankruptcy. But Michael still resisted. He didn’t think he could pull it off.”

Eventually, they wore him down, the aide explained, but not with the money argument.

“They told him that this would be the greatest comeback the world had ever known. That’s what convinced him. He thought if he could emerge triumphantly from the success of these concerts, he could be the King again.”

The financial details of the O2 concerts are still murky, though various sources have revealed that Jackson was paid as much as £10 million in advance, most of which went to the middlemen. But Jackson could have received as much as £100 million had the concerts gone ahead.

It is worth noting that the O2 Arena has the most sophisticated lip synching technology in the world — a particular attraction for a singer who can no longer sing. Had, by some miracle, the concerts gone ahead, Jackson’s personal contribution could have been limited to just 13 minutes for each performance. The rest was to have been choreography and lights.

“We knew it was a disaster waiting to happen,” said one aide. “I don’t think anybody predicted it would actually kill him but nobody believed he would end up performing.”

Their doubts were underscored when Jackson collapsed during only his second rehearsal.

“Collapse might be overstating it,” said the aide. “He needed medical attention and couldn’t go on. I’m not sure what caused it.”

Meanwhile, everybody around him noticed that Jackson had lost an astonishing amount of weight in recent months. His medical team even believed he was anorexic.

“He goes days at a time hardly eating a thing and at one point his doctor was asking people if he had been throwing up after meals,” one staff member told me in May.

“He suspected bulimia but when we said he hardly eats any meals, the doc thought it was probably anorexia. He seemed alarmed and at one point said, “People die from that all the time. You’ve got to get him to eat.”

Indeed, one known consequence of anorexia is cardiac arrest.

After spotting him leave one rehearsal, Fox News reported that “Michael Jackson’s skeletal physique is so bad that he might not be able to moonwalk any more.”

On May 20 this year, AEG suddenly announced that the first London shows had been delayed for five days while the remainder had been pushed back until March 2010. At the time, they denied that the postponements were health-related, explaining that they needed more time to mount the technically complex production, though scepticism immediately erupted. It was well placed.

Behind the scenes, Jackson was in rapid decline. According to a member of his staff, he was “terrified” at the prospect of the London concerts.

“He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping and, when he did sleep, he had nightmares that he was going to be murdered. He was deeply worried that he was going to disappoint his fans. He even said something that made me briefly think he was suicidal. He said he thought he’d die before doing the London concerts.

“He said he was worried that he was going to end up like Elvis. He was always comparing himself to Elvis, but there was something in his tone that made me think that he wanted to die, he was tired of life. He gave up. His voice and dance moves weren’t there anymore. I think maybe he wanted to die rather than embarrass himself on stage.”

The most obvious comparison between the King of Pop and the King of Rock'n'Roll was their prescription drug habits, which in Jackson’s case had significantly intensified in his final months.

“He is surrounded by enablers,” said one aide. “We should be stopping him before he kills himself, but we just sit by and watch him medicate himself into oblivion.”

Jackson could count on an array of doctors to write him prescriptions without asking too many questions if he complained of “pain”. He was particularly fond of OxyContin, nicknamed “Hillbilly heroin,” which gave an instant high, although he did not take it on a daily basis.

According to the aide, painkillers are not the only drugs Jackson took.

“He pops Demerol and morphine, sure, apparently going back to the time in 1984 when he burned himself during the Pepsi commercial, but there’s also some kind of psychiatric medication. One of his brothers once told me he was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger, so it may be to treat that.”

His aides weren’t the only ones who recognised that a 50-concert run was foolhardy. In May, Jackson himself reportedly addressed fans as he left his Burbank rehearsal studio.



“Thank you for your love and support,” he told them. “I want you guys to know I love you very much.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do 50 shows. I’m not a big eater. I need to put some weight on. I’m really angry with them booking me up to do 50 shows. I only wanted to do ten.”

One of his former employees was particularly struck by Jackson's wording that day. “The way he was talking, it’s like he’s not in control over his own life anymore,” she told me earlier this month. “It sounds like somebody else is pulling his strings and telling him what to do. Someone wants him dead.

“They keep feeding him pills like candy. They are trying to push him over the edge. He needs serious help. The people around him will kill him.”

As the London concerts approached, something was clearly wrong. Jackson had vowed to travel to England at least eight weeks before his first shows, but he kept putting it off.

“To be honest, I never thought Michael would set foot on a concert stage ever again,” said one aide, choking back tears on the evening of his death.

“This was not only predictable, this was inevitable.”

On June 21, Jackson told my contact that he wanted to die. He said that he didn’t have what it would take to perform any more because he had lost his voice and dance moves.

“It’s not working out,” Jackson said. “I’m better off dead. I don”t have anywhere left to turn. I’m done.”



Michael’s closest confidante told me just two hours after he died that “Michael was tired of living. He was a complete wreck for years and now he can finally be in a better place. People around him fed him drugs to keep him on their side. They should be held accountable.”

Michael Jackson was undoubtedly a deeply troubled and lonely man. Throughout my investigation, I was torn between compassion and anger, sorrow and empathy.


Even his legacy is problematic. As I have already revealed, he has bequeathed up to 200 original songs to his three children, Prince Michael, aged 12, Paris Katherine, 11, and Prince Michael II (also known as Blanket), seven. It is a wonderful gift.

Yet I can reveal that his will, not as yet made public, demands that the three of them remain with Jackson’s 79-year-old mother Katherine in California. It promises an ugly row.

Ex-wife Deborah Rowe, the mother of the eldest two, has already made it clear to her legal team that she wants her children in her custody, immediately.

The mother of the third child has never been identified. I fully expect that it will emerge that the children had a “test tube” conception, a claim already made by Deborah Rowe.

Michael Jackson may very well have been the most talented performer of his generation, but for 15 years that fact has been lost to a generation who may remember him only as a grotesque caricature who liked to share his bed with little boys. Now that he’s gone, maybe it’s time to shelve the suspicions and appreciate the music. — The Daily Mail

Ian Halperin is an investigative journalist who is the author or coauthor of nine books, including Celine Dion: Behind the Fairytale, Fire and Rain: The James Taylor Story and Hollywood Undercover. He coauthored Who Killed Kurt Cobain? and Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain with Max Wallace. Ian has contributed to 60 Minutes II and is a regular correspondent for Court TV.

In late 2008 The Sun and In Touch Weekly cited Halperin as the source in articles stating that Michael Jackson had serious health issues. Halperin had predicted that he would die within six months; Jackson died on June 25, 2009. The BBC reported that Halperin will release an unauthorized biography on the pop star. Halperin's statements were denied by a Jackson representative, who said in a December 2008 statement, "The writer's wild allegations concerning Mr. Jackson's health are a total fabrication... Mr. Jackson is in fine health, and finalizing negotiations with a major entertainment company & television network for both a world tour and a series of specials and appearances." Shortly afterward, Jackson announced a 50 date residency at The O2 arena, holding a public press conference before hundreds of the world's media. Halperin plans to release his biography on Jackson, titled Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson, in July 2009. Halperin commented on the timing of the book: "I timed it because I knew around this time he was a candidate to die. I'm being totally up-front about that."

Last photos of MJ taken during rehearsals two days before he collapsed
(Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)

THIS IS IT!

[First posted 29 June 2009, reposted 20 February 2016]

OH NO... HASAN "AYATOLLAH" ALI IS AT IT AGAIN!!!

Source: Malaysiakini

Source: The Malaysian Insider

[This was originally posted exactly two years ago, but Hasan Ali's latest obnoxious ayatollah act compels me to dust it off and repost...]

The Rabid Face of a Fucking Inquisitor

Hasan Ali, Selangor PAS Commissioner

SELANGOR PAS: BAN ALCOHOL IN MUSLIM AREAS 

Malaysiakini | August 4, 2009 | 1:57pm 

Selangor PAS wants the Pakatan Rakyat state government to implement a blanket ban on the sale of alcohol in all Muslim-majority areas.

Speaking at a press conference in Shah Alam, Selangor PAS commissioner Hasan Ali said the proposed ban will only concern Muslims and not impinge on the right of non-Muslims to consume alcohol.

Asked if the move would be unfair to non-Muslims living in Muslim-majority areas, the PAS leader said they would just have to travel further to get the beverages.

Hasan also called on the state government to switch the portfolio of DAP exco member Ronnie Liu, who has "meddled in Islamic affairs."

He said Liu, who oversees local councils, had misunderstood the ban and therefore overstepped his jurisdiction.

"We are disappointed when certain quarters intervene in our initiatives to control the sale of alcohol among Muslims," he added. 

[Source: Malaysiakini]

HASAN ALI could be Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian... any religion at all, makes no difference whatsoever. He would still be a Goddam Red-Faced Control Freak, hellbent on minding other people's business. Because that's how he gets his rocks off - exercising power over others.

People like Hasan Ali have long been a scourge on human freedom and joy. To call them Wet Blankets or Spoilsports is too lame. Anal Retentives comes a bit closer. People like Hasan Ali are busting full of shit because their anuses are waaaaay too tight for anything to pass through except noxious gases.

Selangor Religious Police

I don't drink (well, very rarely anyway). If alcohol were to vanish off the face of the earth, I wouldn't notice. So this rant has nothing to do with defending the rights of those who enjoy a beer or two - or even a whole bottle of whisky. I'm just cheesed off that idiots like Hasan Ali are allowed to bring everybody down with their toxic hypocritical crap. It's evolutionary retards like him who sit in judgment of unmarried mothers and young lovers caught in the bushes by the fiendish religious police (what an absolute contradiction of terms!)

Hoy, Hasan Ali! Go ahead and believe whatever you like... but please keep your repugnant beliefs to yourself, instead of trying to ram them down everybody else's throats like some asinine Ayatollah.

Why don't you return to Umno and team up with your mentor, the jerk with two Muhammads in his name? You'd be doing us all a big favor, especially PAS.

I strongly suspect you're an Umno undercover agent and saboteur. The Pakatan Rakyat state government is busy fighting off scurrilous attacks led by Najib and Khir. You couldn't have picked a worse moment to spread more anxiety and suspicion amongst the non-Malay voters that PAS, just like Umno, is incapable of change. With "friends" like you and Ibrahim Ali and that silly Zul Noordin, who needs political enemies?

Folks like you will NEVER - I repeat, NEVER - make it through the frequency gates of paradise. Because the only talent you possess is to create a living hell on earth.

With apologies to the late Frank Zappa: "Heya, Hasan! Stick a finger up your ass and sniff it for Harry Belafonte!"

John Lee on NAJIBONOMICS

Extracted from an essay, The Future of Najibonomics, by John Lee; posted at The Malaysian Insider on 1 March 2010...

The Barisan Nasional government is simply a ship of fools, content to lead us to disaster. They have no vision for the country, no idea of the massive challenges we face or any intention to face such challenges to begin with.

In terms of capital, it is no secret that net investments in Malaysia are dropping off a cliff. Until about halfway through the Abdullah Badawi administration, net investment on an annual basis was hovering somewhere near zero—that is to say, foreign investments coming in roughly equaled Malaysian investments going out.

To put this in more concrete terms, what this means is that foreigners are refusing to invest in Malaysia, and Malaysians insist on investing their money overseas.

A back of the envelope calculation suggests that last year, Malaysians invested almost as much money in the entire Australian property market alone as foreigners invested in the whole of Malaysia.

Investors, both Malaysian and foreign, have completely lost confidence in our country — nobody wants to put money in Malaysia, and so our savings are flowing out of the country, instead of being invested in local enterprise.

It’s no wonder people are losing faith in Malaysia. We have no plan to fix our fundamentals. Our school system discourages innovation in favour of accepting orders from above; our economic system stifles entrepreneurship in favour of corrupt rent-seeking.

Our prosperity is pump-primed by petroleum and forestry — when we run out of these resources, without any human capital or meaningful industrial enterprises, our economy will collapse.

John Lee is a third-year student of economics at Dartmouth College in the United States. He has been thinking aloud since 2005 at infernalramblings.com. Read the entire essay here.

Mongolia unimpressed by Najib's "1Malaysia"

Living in the shadow of Najib’s 1 Malaysia

Tunku Aziz | Malaysian Insider | 26 Sept 2009

SEPT 26 — I was in Seoul last Monday to participate in the World Forum for Democratisation in Asia (Third Biennial Conference) on “Sustaining Democratisation in Asia: Challenges of Economic and Social Justice” with some 200 delegates from Asia and the United States.

The conference brought together people from diverse backgrounds and of all ages, to seek ways of strengthening, and arresting the rapidly declining state of democracy in their countries. These men and women, all with impeccable credentials as human rights advocates, shared many of the same democratic values that have inspired human beings through the ages, all over the world, to make great personal sacrifices against humanly impossible odds in the name of justice and freedom from the tyranny of state-sanctioned human rights abuses, such as we are subjected to in Malaysia regularly.

I spoke on the panel on “Citizen Participation and Political Accountability.” In the audience were participants from Indonesia, the US, India, Cambodia, Nepal, Singapore, Malaysia and Mongolia, among others.


I thought I was doing well, having made some rather important points on the need for citizens to take charge of their own destiny as freedom was far too important to be left to the tender mercies of politicians, many of whom were charlatans at best and untrustworthy to boot. I mentioned as an example how citizens’ active participation in the March 2008 general election in my country had succeeded in changing, albeit ever so slightly, the 50-year corrupt political landscape, a feat that was nothing short of miraculous given the corrupt and repressive environment against which they were fighting to change.

I must confess that I was somewhat surprised that interest in Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s “baggage” had extended beyond the shores of Malaysia. Blame the borderless cyber technology for this unwelcome attention. Before I could finish my final remark, I was stopped dead in my tracks by the personable Yale- and Princeton-educated Ms. Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, advisor to the President of Mongolia. She wanted to know, in the nicest possible way, why Malaysian citizens had voted for a person of Najib’s known reputation to assume the highest political office, and, she continued, was it true that in the Altantuya Shaariibuu trial, the Malaysian judiciary was acting improperly to protect Najib?

We do not, of course, have direct prime ministerial elections in Malaysia. I explained that the prime minister was elected by his party; Umno. It says more about the integrity of the party than perhaps the person it elected to high office. Now, I am not unused to being asked all kinds of questions in my years of public speaking, both at home and abroad, but this, about the murder trial of Altantuya threw me off balance.

Ms Tsedevdamba was putting the proverbial cat among the pigeons. It caused a real flutter in my dovecot, no pun intended. My character and integrity would be put under close scrutiny, effectively on trial, and as in any trial, telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth would, I thought, be the best policy.

I am fiercely patriotic, proud of our many achievements in a number of important areas, but like many of you I often hang my head in utter shame and humiliation when I see the cynical manipulation of democratic principles by a government that seems to have lost its moral capital by developing an unethical and immoral political behaviour into a fine art form. To them who govern this country, the end would seem to justify the means.


In this respect, it is useful to remind ourselves what Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, when he was Prime Minister, used to proclaim, without a tinge of embarrassment, that we were a democracy because we held regular elections. It was not important to the emasculator (or perhaps constrictor is a more appropriate word in his case) of human rights that they might not always have been free and fair. What Dr Mahathir and his Umno friends have never appreciated, or deliberately failed to acknowledge, is the fact that democracy is not just about elections. It is what happens between elections that really is the point at issue...

[Read the full story here.]

Tunku Aziz, one of the prime movers in setting up Transparency International Malaysia, in happier times was regarded by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi as "one man (who) was able to harness his personal passion and deep commitment to the values of ethics and integrity, give it a larger purpose and meaning, and turn it into a force to transform society for the better." Why then was he left out of the MACC Advisory Group? He is regarded as being too outspoken for comfort and, therefore, difficult to handle.

A HIDEOUS EVIL PREYS UPON THIS LAND...

Teoh Beng Hock, 30, political secretary of DAP state assemblyman Ean Yong, was to be married today. However, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission hauled him in for interrogation Wednesday evening... and on Thursday afternoon he was found dead outside their Shah Alam office. (Pic courtesy of The Malaysian Insider)

THIS IS RPK'S TAKE ON THE WHOLE GRIM AND GROTESQUE AFFAIR...

The MACC has been a tool of those who walk in the corridors of power for a long, long time. Officially, Barisan Nasional has 14 component members with Umno as the lead partner. Unofficially, Barisan Nasional has seventeen component members. The Election Commission is the fifteenth component member of Barisan Nasional, the Malaysian police the sixteenth, and the MACC the seventeenth. They all serve the interests of Umno and the Prime Minister.

The writing was already on the wall very much earlier. Alarm bells were wailing like banshees. But this was largely ignored. It was ignored because it was Malaysia Today that had triggered the alarm bells. Malaysia Today is not the most reliable source. It does not offer the best of information. What Malaysia Today dabbles in are rumours and innuendoes.

“Where is the smoking gun?” they ask. “Show me the body!” they demand. No gun, no body, then no crime has been committed.

Teoh's body was found around 1:30PM, 16 July, on the 5th floor roof of Plaza Masalam. MACC is located on the 14th floor. (Photo from Malaysiakini)

Well, today, there is a body. It is the body of a most unfortunate Chinese opposition member who was arrested and tortured by the MACC officers. Yes, he was tortured. And he was tortured because the MACC wanted him to talk.

But he could not talk. He could not talk because there was nothing to talk about. The MACC wanted him to finger his comrades in the opposition. They wanted him to implicate his friends in the opposition for various crimes that the MACC alleges had been committed by those in the opposition.

[Shukri Abdull, MACC director of investigations, pictured at left (Malaysiakini)]

He tried to explain that he is not being stubborn. He tried to explain that no crime had been committed. He tried to explain that he could not possibly implicate his comrades in the opposition for various crimes if these crimes are merely a figment of the MACC’s imagination.

So they continued to torture him. And he could no longer stand the torture. After all, he is not the macho type of man. He is but a gentle man who only wanted to get married this weekend. That was all that he wanted.

They threatened to kill him if he refuses to talk. With tears running down his cheeks he begged for mercy and pleaded with them not to harm him. They threatened to throw him off the top floor if he refuses to talk. Sobbing like a baby he went down on his knees and begged for his life.

They dragged him across the room and opened the window. Then something went terribly wrong. It was supposed to be just a threat. They just wanted to put fear in him. They did not really want to throw him off the top floor. They just wanted him to see what the ground floor looks like from the top floor.

The unfortunate young man panicked. He went ballistic when he saw the distance he would have to travel before hitting the ground floor. He struggled. They could not hold onto him. Gravity took over and the life of this young man was prematurely snuffed out.

The MACC then announced that they had released him the night before. They failed to announce that they had not released him from custody but released him from this world. Then they suddenly found his body the day after. He jumped. He committed suicide. He took his own life. He was never tortured. He was not dragged to the window with the threat that they would teach him how to fly.

This has been going on for far too long. The MACC acts like God. They kidnap families and torture those they arrest. They threaten those they interrogate with death if they refuse to talk.

Candlelight vigil for Teoh Beng Hock outside the MACC office in Shah Alam attended by hundreds. (Pic courtesy of The Malaysian Insider)

And now one young man has really died. But no one will be punished. No one will be punished because they will say the young man took his own life. Why he took his own life no one knows. He was never tortured. He was never threatened with death. He was not made to look how far down the ground floor is. He was not accidentally dropped when he panicked and struggled and they could not get a good grip on him.

That is what they will be telling you and me later today.

[Read the entire post here...]

WHAT IS THIS GUY DOING IN UMNO?

He actually talks sense!

It’s not about 100 days, it’s about the generations to come – Tengku Razaleigh

JULY 10 – You have asked me to talk about Najib’s First 100 Days, and this lecture is in a series called Straight Talk. I shall indeed speak plainly and directly.

Let me begin by disappointing you. I am not going to talk about Najib’s First 100 Days because it makes little sense to do so. Our governments are brought to power for five-year terms through general elections.

The present government was constituted after March 8, 2008 and Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s tenure as Prime Minister resulted from a so-called “smooth transfer of power” between the previous Prime Minister and himself that took a somewhat unsmooth twelve months to carry out.

During those months, Najib took on the de facto leadership role domestically while Abdullah warmed our international ties. The first 100 days of this government went by unremarked sometime in June last year.

Not only is it somewhat meaningless to talk about Najib’s First 100 days, such talk buys into a kind of political silliness that we are already too prone to. It has us imagine that the present government started work on April 2 and forget that it commenced work on March 8 last year and must be accountable for all that has been done or not done since then.

It would have us forget that in our system of parliamentary, constitutional democracy, governments are brought to power at general elections and must be held accountable for promises made at these elections.

It leads us to forget that these promises, set out in election manifestos, are undertaken by political parties, not individuals, and are not trifles to be forgotten when there is a change of individual.

It is important that we remember these things, cultivate a more critical recollection of them, and learn to hold our leaders accountable to them, so that we are not perpetually chasing the slogan of the day, whether this be Vision 2020, Islam Hadhari or 1 Malaysia.

Slogans without substance undermine trust. That substance is made up of policies that have been thought through and are followed through. That substance is concrete and provided by results we can measure.

Whether or not some of our leaders are ready for it, we are maturing as a democracy. We are beginning to evaluate our governments more by the results they deliver over time than by their rhetoric.

As our increasingly well-educated and well-travelled citizens apply this standard, they force our politicians to think before they speak, and deliver before they speak again.

As thinking Malaysians we should look for the policies, if any, behind the slogans. What policies are still in place and which have we abandoned? What counts as policy and who is consulted when it is made? How is a proposal formulated and specified and approved before it becomes policy, and by whom? What are the roles of party, cabinet, King and Parliament in this process?

Must we know what it means before it is instituted or do we have to piece it together with guesswork? Do we even have a policy process?

The mandate Najib has taken up is the one given to Barisan Nasional under Abdullah Badawi’s leadership.

BN was returned to power in the 12th General Elections on a manifesto promising Security, Peace and Prosperity. It is this manifesto against which the present administration undertook to be judged.

The present government inherits projects and policies such as Islam Hadhari and Vision 2020. If these are still in place, how do they relate to each other and to 1 Malaysia? How do we evaluate the latest slogan against the fact of constitutional failure in Perak, the stench of corruption in the PKFZ project and reports of declining media freedom?

What do we make of cynical political plays on racial unity against assurances that national unity is the priority?

It is not amiss to ask about continuity. We were told that the reason why we had to have a yearlong “transfer of power” to replace the previous Prime Minster was so that we could have such policy continuity.

The issues before the present BN government are not transformed overnight with a change of the man at the top.

Let me touch on one issue every Malaysian is concerned with: security. The present government made the right move in supporting the establishment of the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operations and Management of the Police in 2004. Responding to the recommendations of the Royal Commission, the government allocated the PDRM RM8 billion to upgrade itself under the 9th Malaysia Plan, a tripling of their allocation under the 8th Malaysia Plan.

Despite the huge extra amounts we are spending on policing, there has been no dent on our crime problem, especially in the Johor Baru area, where it continues to make a mockery of our attempts to develop Iskandar as a destination for talent and investment.

Despite spending all this money, we have just been identified as a major destination for human trafficking by the US State Department’s 2008 Human Rights Watch. We are now in the peer group of Sudan, Saudi Arabia and North Korea for human trafficking.

All over the world, the organized cross-border activity of human trafficking feeds on the collusion of crime syndicates and corrupt law enforcement and border security officials.

Security is about more than just catching the criminals out there. It is also about the integrity of our own people and processes. It is above all about uprooting corruption and malpractice in government agencies, especially in law enforcement agencies.

I wish the government were as eager to face the painful challenge of reform as to spend money.

The key recommendation of the Royal Commission was the formation of an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission. That has been shelved.

Royal Commissions and their findings are not to be trifled with and applied selectively. Their findings and recommendations are conveyed in a report submitted to the King, who then transmits them to the Government.

Their recommendations have the status of instructions from the King. The recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Police have not been properly implemented.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Video clip might as well not have been conducted, because its findings have been completely ignored.

Both Commissions investigated matters fundamental to law and order in this country: the capability and integrity of the police and of the judiciary.

No amount of money thrown at the PDRM or on installing CCTVs can make up for what happens to our security when our law enforcers and our judges are compromised.

Two Royal Commissions undertaken under the present government unearthed deep issues in the police and the judiciary and made recommendations with the King’s authority behind them, and they have been ignored.

The public may wonder if the government is committed to peace and security if it cannot or will not address institutional rot in law enforcement and the rule of law.


The reform of the police and the judiciary has been on the present government’s To Do list for more than five years.

I want to reflect now upon where we stand today and how we might move forward. We are truly at a turning point in our history. Our political landscape is marked with unprecedented uncertainty. Nobody knows what the immediate future holds for us politically.

This is something very new for Malaysians. The inevitability of a strong BN government figured into all political and economic calculations and provided a kind of stability to our expectations.

Now that this is gone, and perhaps gone for good, we need a new basis for long-term confidence.

No matter who wins the next General Election, it is likely to be with a slim majority. Whatever uncertainty we now face is likely to persist unless some sort of tiebreaker is found which gathers the overwhelming support of the people.

We need to trust less in personalities and more in policies, look less to politics and more to principle, less to rhetoric and more to tangible outcomes, less to the government of the day and more to enduring institutions, first among which must be the Federal Constitution.

We need an unprecedented degree of openness and honesty about what our issues are and what can be done; about who we are, and where we want to go. We need straight talk rather than slogans. We need to be looking the long horizon rather than occupying ourselves with media-generated milestones.

Those of us who think about the future of Malaysia have never been so restless. The mould of our past is broken, and there is no putting it back together again, but a new mould into which to pour our efforts is not yet cast. This is a time to think new thoughts, and to be courageous in articulating them.

Such is the case not just in politics but also in how the government manages the economy.

In a previous speech, I argued that for our economy to escape the “middle income trap” we need to make a developmental leap involving transformative improvements in governance and a successful reform of our political system.

I said the world recession is a critical opportunity for us to re-gear and re-tool the Malaysian economy because it is a challenge to take bold, imaginative measures.

We must make that leap or remain stuck as low achievers who were once promising.

We are in a foundational crisis both of our politics and of our economy. In both dimensions, the set plays of the past have taken us as far as they can, and can take us no further. Politically and economically, we have arrived at the end of the road for an old way of managing things. The next step facing us is not a step but a leap, not an addition to what we have but a shift that changes the very ground we play on.

This is not the first time in our brief history as an independent nation that we have found ourselves at an impasse and come up with a ground-setting policy, a new framework, a leap into the future. The race riots of 1969 ended the political accommodation and style of the first era of our independence. Parliament was suspended and a National Operations Council put in place under the leadership of the late Tun Razak. He formed a National Consultative Council to study what needed to be done. The NCC was a non-partisan body which included everyone. It was the NCC that drafted and recommended the New Economic Policy. This was approved and implemented by the Government.

The NEP was a 20-year programme. It had a national, and not a racial agenda to eradicate poverty and address structural inequality in the form of the identification of race with occupation. It aimed to remove a colonial era distribution of economic roles in our economy. Nowhere in its terms is any race specified, nor does it privilege one race over another. Its aim was unity.

The NEP’s redistributive measures drew on principles of social justice, not claims of racial privilege. This is an important point. The NEP was acceptable to all Malaysians because its justification was universal rather than sectarian, ethical rather than opportunistic. It appealed to Malaysians’ sense of social justice and not to any notion of racial privilege.

We were devising a time-limited policy for the day, in pursuit of a set of measurable outcomes. We were not devising a doctrine for an eternal socio-economic arrangement. Like all policies, it was formulated to solve a finite set of problems, but through an enduring concern with principles such as equity and justice. I happen to think it was the right thing for the time, and it worked in large measure.

Curiously, although the policy was formulated within the broad consensus of the NCC for a finite period, in our political consciousness it has grown into an all-encompassing and permanent framework that defines who we are.

We continue to act and talk as if it is still in place. The NEP ended in 1991 when it was terminated and replaced by the New Development Policy, but 18 years on, we are still in its hangover and speak confusingly about liberalising it.

The NEP was necessary and even visionary in 1971, but it is a crushing indictment of our lack of imagination, of the mediocrity of our leadership, that two decades after its expiry, we talk as if it is the sacrosanct centre of our socio-political arrangement, and that departures from it are big strides.

The NEP is over, and we have not had the courage to tell people this. The real issue is not whether the NEP is to be continued or not, but whether we have the imagination to come up with something which better serves our values and objectives, for our own time.

Policies are limited mechanisms for solving problems. They become vehicles for abuse when they stay on past their useful life. Like political or corporate leaders who have stayed too long, policies that overrun their scope or time become entrenched in abuse, and confuse the means that they are with the ends that they were meant to serve.

The NEP was formulated to serve the objective of unity. That objective is enduring, but its instrument can come up for renewal or replacement. Any organisation, let alone a country, that fails to renew a key policy over 40 years in a fast-moving world is out of touch and in trouble.

There is a broad consensus in our society that while the NEP has had important successes, it has now degenerated into a vehicle for abuse and inefficiency.

Neither the Malays nor the non-Malays approve of the way it now works, although there would be multiracial support for the objectives of the NEP, as originally understood.

The enthusiasm with which recent reforms have been greeted in the business and international communities suggests that the NEP is viewed as an obstacle to growth. This was not what it was meant to be.

It was designed to promote a more equitable and therefore a more harmonious society. Far from obstructing growth, the stability and harmony envisaged by the NEP would were to be the basis for long term prosperity.

Over the years, however, and alongside its successes, the NEP has been systematically appropriated by a small political and business class to enrich itself and perpetuate its power. This process has corrupted our society and our politics. It has corrupted our political parties. Rent-seeking practices have choked the NEP’s original intention of seeking a more just and equitable society, and have discredited the broad nation-building enterprise which this policy was meant to serve.

Thus, while the NEP itself has expired, we live under the hangover of a policy which has been skewed from its intent. Instead of coming up with better policy tools in pursuit of the aims behind the NEP, a set of vested interests rallies to defend the mere form of the NEP and to extend its bureaucratic sway through a huge apparatus of commissions, agencies, licenses and permits while its spirit has been evacuated.

In doing so they have clouded the noble aims of the NEP and racialised its originally national and universal concerns.

We must break the stranglehold of communal politics and racial policy if we want to be a place where an economy driven by ideas and skills can flourish. This is where our daunting economic and political challenges can be addressed in one stroke.

We can do much better than cling to the bright ideas of 40 years ago as if they were dogma, and forget our duty to come up with the bright ideas for our own time.

The NEP, together with the Barisan coalition, was a workable solution for Malaysia 40 years ago. But 40 years ago, our population was about a third of what it is today, our economy was a fraction the size and complexity that it is now, and structured around the export of tin and rubber rather than around manufacturing, services and oil and gas.

Forty years ago we were in the midst of the Cold War, and the Vietnam War raged to the north.

Need I say we live in a very different world today? We need to talk to the facebook generation of young Malaysians connected to global styles and currents of thought. We face global epidemics, economic downturns and planetary climate change.

We can do much better than to cling to the outer form of an old policy. Thinking in these terms only gives us the negative policy lever of “relaxing” certain rules, when what we need is a new policy framework, with 21st century policy instruments.

We have relaxed some quotas. We have left Approved Permits and our taxi licensing system intact. We have left the apparatus of the NEP, and a divisive mindset that has grown up around it, in place.

Wary of well-intentioned statements with no follow-through, the business community has greeted these reforms cautiously, noting that a mountain of other reforms are needed.

One banker was quoted in a recent news article as saying: “All the reforms need to go hand in hand. Why is there an exodus of talent and wealth? It is because people do not feel confident with the investment climate, security conditions and the government in Malaysia. Right now, many have lost faith in the system.”

The issues are intertwined. Our problems are systemic and rooted in the capability of the government to deliver, and the integrity of our institutions.

It is clear that piecemeal “liberalisation” and measure-by-measure reform on a politicised timetable is not going to do the job.

What we need is a whole new policy framework, based on a comprehensive vision that addresses root problems in security, institutional integrity, education and government capability.

What we need to do is address our crisis with the bold statecraft from which the NEP itself originated, not cling to a problematic framework that does little justice to our high aspirations.

The challenge of leadership is to tell the truth about our situation, no matter how unpalatable, to bring people together around that solution, and to move them to act together on that solution.

If the problem is really that we face a foundational crisis, then it is not liberalisation of the NEP, or even liberalisation per se that we need.

From the depths of the global economic slowdown it is abundantly clear that the autonomous free market is neither equitable nor even sustainable.

There is no substitute for putting our heads together and coming up with wise policy. We need a Malaysian New Deal based on the same universal concerns on which the NEP was originally formulated but designed for a new era: we must continue to eradicate poverty without regard for race or religion, and ensure that markets serve the people rather than the other way around.

Building on the desire for unity based social justice that motivated the NEP in 1971, let us assist 100 per cent of Malaysians who need help in improving their livelihoods and educating their children.

We want the full participation of all stakeholders in our economy. A fair and equitable political and economic order, founded on equal citizenship as guaranteed in our Constitution, is the only possible basis for a united Malaysia and a prerequisite of the competitive, talent-driven economy we must create if we are to make our economic leap.

If we could do this, we would restore national confidence, we would bring Malaysians together in common cause to build a country that all feel a deep sense of belonging to. We would unleash the kind of investment we need, not just of foreign capital but of the loyalty, effort and commitment of all Malaysians.

I don’t know about you. I am embarrassed that after 50 years of independence, we are still talking about bringing Malaysians together. I would have wished that by now, and here tonight, we could be talking about how we can conquer new challenges together.

Tengku Razaleigh shared his views with Public Relations Consultants Malaysia at “StraightTalk” on July 10, 2009, at HELP University College, Damansara, Kuala Lumpur

[Source: The Malaysian Insider]