The Fatal Curse of Tempurungism (reprise)

They say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop and this is especially evident in the case of Malaysian bureaucracy in general and the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli in particular.

I have resided in and around Kampung Pertak since 1992. During this period I have witnessed how the Orang Asli Affairs Department favors diabolical initiatives that strengthen their psychological and political control over the Orang Asli - while creating opportunities for stuffing their own pockets.

Whether it be logging concessions, dam projects, turning ancestral lands into leasehold lots, or tarring roads that lead nowhere (except to environmental degradation), the JHEOA invariably finds a sneaky way to corrupt, oppress, intimidate, exploit and ultimately devour the Orang Asli.

Sagong Tasi of the Temuan tribe wins a landmark lawsuit (courtesy of Suaram)

The JHEOA ought to have been dismantled and abolished 20 years ago, following the surrender of the Malayan Communist Party in 1989. Instead, it became a tool to assimilate the Orang Asli into mainstream Malay culture - by pressuring them to embrace Islam and systematically pillaging their ancestral lands under the guise of kemajuan or “progress.”

Recently there has been talk of the JHEOA being “corporatized” into the Perbadanan Orang Asli (Orang Asli Corporation) using the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) as a model. Blurring the boundary between business and politics facilitates hanky-panky on a massive scale. As we have seen in the case of FELDA, feudal-style top-down management by aristocrat-politicians results in the ignorant peasantry being robbed totally blind without their knowledge. In most cases the public only finds out when it’s already too late because the thefts occur in remote rural areas.

Photo: Colin Nicholas/COAC

This, of course, has been UMNO’s modus operandi since the era of Mahathir and Daim. Leveraging on an atavistic appeal to bangsa and ugama to promote the fascistic notion of Ketuanan Melayu, UMNO warlords have siphoned off a great deal more than 30% of the nation’s wealth since the nefarious NEP was launched in 1970.

The JHEOA – like so many government agencies – has long served the UMNO agenda instead of the Orang Asli’s genuine interests. That’s nothing new. What has become alarmingly obvious is that they no longer bother concealing their narrow self-interests and their deeply ingrained racism.

Photo: Antares

During the Ulu Selangor by-election that ran from April 17-25, 2010, the JHEOA openly stage-managed the Barisan Nasional campaign in Orang Asli communities throughout the region. In one or two villages the Orang Asli batin (headman) called the police to prevent Pakatan Rakyat campaigners from entering their settlements.

In Kg Pertak the JHEOA facilitated the entry and encampment of dozens of UMNO campaign workers recruited from various ethno-fascist groups like Pekida and Perkasa. They were annoyed to find Pakatan Rakyat insignia proudly displayed in a couple of houses. What irked them even more was that a bunch of pro-Rakyat bloggers were comfortably embedded in Kg Pertak’s “diplomatic enclave.”

The JHEOA/UMNO faction reportedly handed RM7,000 in cash to one of the village security officers with instructions to distribute it amongst 70 registered voters as incentives to vote BN. I later heard complaints that the money never left the security officer’s pockets. This is how UMNO corrupts the Orang Asli via the JHEOA – by dragging them into the politics of greed, betrayal, and xenophobia.

Photo: Max Koh

On the eve of the by-election, the UMNO contingent instructed a few young Orang Asli to set up a roadblock at the entrance to the village. Later a skirmish broke out and one of the pro-Rakyat bloggers was assaulted by a Pekida thug. When the police arrived on the scene 30 minutes later, the UMNO thugs were nowhere to be seen. This small outbreak of violence was reported in Malaysiakini the next morning. In terms of negative publicity, JHEOA/UMNO came out with a black eye and began plotting revenge.

Xenophobia can also be called tempurungism – a regressive psychomental condition akin to acute jingoitis that commonly afflicts those who have never left the provincial and parochial confines of a monolingual, monocultural matrix. Those suffering from xenophobia have great difficulty accepting people with different linguistic and cultural imprints as close friends or family. They tend to label others as pendatang (immigrants), orang asing (outsiders), or Mat Salleh (Caucasians).

Working through a couple of Orang Asli agents, the JHEOA reactivated its xenophobic agenda by pressuring Asli families who had rented out their houses to “outsiders” to evict their tenants. The Asli were given to understand that the houses they were living in was government property – when in truth it was the dam developer that built the houses.

What the JHEOA had done in 2004 was to cheat the Orang Asli of their ancestral hunting grounds by issuing them 99-year leases instead of formally gazetting the whole area as a permanent Orang Asli Reserve (as promised in 1965). The Orang Asli have never seen a land grant in their life – nor have their ancestors. They don’t understand what a 99-year lease means – but they do know they have very little power over their own destinies as long as the JHEOA exists as an extension of UMNO.

[First posted 2 August 2010]

The Great Dictator's Final Speech (reprise)

Uploaded 10 July 2011 ~ Pinkie the Poop pontificates on police professionalism!


Uploaded 14 December 2011 ~ The obnoxious Wan Bari of Brickfields strikes again!


Uploaded 11 September 2011 (excerpt from The Great Dictator, released in October 1940, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin as Adenoid Hynkel)

WHO'S THE INSPIRING LEADER... 
AND WHO'S THE 
FAILED CLOWN?

[First posted 15 December 2011, reposted 4 June 2017]

NATIONAL DICKHEAD DAY (REVISITED)

This is how I look right now, folks, after several weeks' immersion in nothing but dickhead news - all reeking of dead-rat Mamak politics (remember the horrid stench that hung over the nation for 22 years? Well, folks, I can smell it creeping in again, how about that? Guess nobody bothered removing that dead rat from under the floorboards...)

Is it too late? Have we gone past the point of no return? Are you happy now, all you status quoists who kept saying GE12 was really about giving Umno "a wake-up call" - not about removing the vermin completely from power? Well, vermin will be vermin and once they become the govermin, you'll never be completely free of them, since they're pretty good at jumping ship and switching sides.

As long as vile and pernicious politicians continue to promote the absolute nonsense that this land has always been called "Tanah Melayu" (the name "Malaya" actually derives from the Tamil word for mountain, malai; I kid you not, folks, and the Malay Archipelago actually means "archipelago formed from mountains")... as long as those who consider themselves Melayu first - before they consider themselves Manusia (human) - continue to fear dogs, pigs and sultans... we shall remain a failed nation ruled by dickheaded dictators.

BETTER KISS A THOUSAND MANGY DOGS THAN SHAKE NAJIB'S PUDGY HAND!

Are you still hoping to secure that 2-billion-ringgit contract from your political contacts? Well, turn your back on it - if you can! It's blood money and can only bring you and your posterity negative karma. You keep saying you'll stop buying their newspapers. Well, how come I still see The Star and NST on sale in the newsstands?

THE ACCURSED

I've been jotting down the names of The Accursed: all those who self-servingly prop up corrupt regimes for short-term gain. All those half-baked judges hell-bent on serving their own retirement plans rather than justice. All the opportunistic lawyers who do the bidding of their criminal paymasters; the pathologists and hospital directors and heads of medical associations whose public utterances have revealed them as institutional eunuchs. All the tainted police officers with criminal tendencies who lie out of every pore with total impunity... while their men continue to harass, torture and kill without so much as a rebuke. All those who continue to write speeches, design websites, churn out propaganda for the Crude, the Bad and the Ugly in power...

RANDOM SELECTION OF NATIONAL DICKHEADS. THE COMPLETE GALLERY WOULD FILL 1,000 BLOGPOSTS!

While I was wondering what I would do on National Dickhead Day (coming up in only three weeks), a friend forwarded a bunch of photos supposedly from an annual celebration of the phallus in Japan. We ought to take a cue from the Japenis and construct giant effigies of all our national dickheads - what we can do with them I leave to your imagination.


Here's a truly charming video all the way from Israel...

)
THE NATIONAL ERECTION (Tel Aviv, 11 June 2007)

[First posted 11 March 2009. Reposted 12 March 2014]

Huzir Sulaiman tackles the thorny issue of Ketuanan Melayu (repost)

The Malaysian Insider

A middle class Malay perspective
WIDE ANGLE WITH HUZIR SULAIMAN
Sunday Star, December 14, 2008

The children of the Establishment tackle some difficult issues.

IN the strident and unnecessarily unpleasant debate over the concept of ketuanan Melayu and the Malay community’s political future, the quiet voices of urban middle-class Malays have yet to make themselves heard.

As a partial corrective, I spoke to several members of a tribe that, while small in number, is intriguing from a social anthropology perspective.

The Malays of the anak Datuk class – the children of senior civil servants and technocrats whose parents’ careers in public service predated the Mahathir era – are interesting in that their values and ideas about Malaysia must have been formed at least in part by their families’ experiences of nation building.

As their parents made the country, it stands to reason that they would have a considerable emotional stake in how it develops in the future.

Even within this rarefied sub-caste of children of the Establishment who are not themselves involved in politics, however, their feelings about ketuanan Melayu show a marked diversity.

Fahmi Fadzil (The Nut Graph)

Fahmi Fadzil, 27, is a writer and performer. He is the son of Datuk Fadzil Yunus, the former director-general – and later general manager – of the Felda group of companies, and Datin Fauziah Ramly, a senior civil servant who was most recently a Commissioner with the Public Service Commission.

I asked him what he makes of the concept of ketuanan Melayu.

“I never grew up thinking about it very much. My parents never spoke to me about it. Even when I was in college the whole matter was never really present in how I saw things.

“I think because I live in KL – and especially because my parents came from that group of earlier middle class Malay civil servants – I don’t think I would subscribe to ideas of ketuanan Melayu.”

But does he subscribe in any way to the idea that the Malays are the natural leaders – or in some way the owners – of Malaysia?

“No. On my father’s side I’m the fourth generation born on this peninsula, on my mother’s side just the third generation, so I see myself as a pendatang too. I don’t subscribe to the idea of a natural leadership role for the Malays.

“More than that, as a Muslim, I don’t see the need for this. There is no such thing as one group being ethnically superior to another.

“The thing I remember most from school, from kelas agama, (is that) from the early days of Islam there was a clear message that you were all the same. Whether you were Arabs or not, you are all the same now.

“We should be talking about values and principles held by people rather than subscribing to simplistic ideas of certain ethnicities being the owners of the land. I don’t subscribe to that, and even if I did, I think the rightful owners would be the Orang Asal.”

Zahim Albakri (The Nut Graph)

Datuk Zahim Albakri, 45, the director and actor, is the son of Datuk Ikmal Hisham Albakri, the first Malay architect and the first President of Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia, who designed the National Library, Putra World Trade Centre, and the Bank Bumiputera headquarters in KL.

Zahim’s grandfather, Datuk Seri Mustafa Albakri, of the Malayan Civil Service, was the first Commissioner of the Election Commission and the first Keeper of the Ruler’s Seal.

For Zahim, coming to grips with the concept of ketuanan Melayu means dispelling ambiguity: “There seems to be a confusion between the bumiputera policy (the New Economic Policy) and the idea of ketuanan Melayu. The bumiputera policy was a reaction to the riots of 1969, whereas ketuanan Melayu, in the Constitution, I don’t think is particularly giving special privileges or rights to the Malays, it’s to ensure that the Malay Rulers have a certain place, to ensure that those institutions continue.

“I grew up in a family where we were brought up with the understanding that the Malay rulers are there, and this is our history, our culture.

“I grew up with my granddad being proudly Malay, and proudly Orang Perak. There was this sense of being proud of our culture. But never were we made to think that being Malay gave us a right to something beyond.

“I was brought up (to believe) that every citizen in Malaysia was equal. I was never brought up believing that Malays should have more than everyone else.”

How would he feel about a non-Malay Prime Minister?

“I have no problem with a non-Malay PM. It should be about their competence. It should be the best person for the job.”

Saidah Rastam

The composer Datin Saidah Rastam comes from a family steeped in public life. Her maternal grandfather was Perak’s 14th Datuk Panglima Kinta, who held 56 public service posts at the time of his death. Her father is Datuk Rastam Hadi, the former managing director of Petronas and former deputy governor of Bank Negara. Her husband is the urbane lawyer-turned-banker Datuk Charon Mokhzani (who, with exquisite politeness, declined to be interviewed for this article).

Says Saidah, “I think the races should be treated equally and the biggest thing that makes me uneasy about the concept of ketuanan Melayu is that it’s increasingly being used in fascist ways.”

She believes that the NEP “was a necessary thing at the time, given the racial tensions, but that’s different from the concept of Malay supremacy”.

She points to the historical record: “Tun Razak said that that was only for that time, and this NEP thing would end at some point, so that’s different from the notion that there’s an inherent Malay supremacy that can’t be questioned, which I’m very uneasy with.

“I’m somebody who benefited from the policies which favoured Malays – at the outset I’m happy to admit that. But looking at things today, my personal view is that we should give everybody equal opportunities because the policies favouring Malays haven’t been used properly.

“And given that the people who are supposed to safeguard the correct implementation of the policies are the same ones who benefit from them, I’m not optimistic that those policies will be correctly implemented.”

Dain Said

Dain-Iskandar Said is a writer and film director. His father was Datuk Mohamed Said Zain, a diplomat and intelligence officer.

He sees the concept of ketuanan Melayu as “outmoded, out of step with the times we live in, when the world is becoming more and more global. The world over, people are bringing down barriers of race, yet we are trying to instill and install those outmoded values.”

In his eyes, there are many aspects to the problem. “First, what is a Malay? Most Malays I know are some kind of mix, so who defines being Malay? Who are the guardians of the definition?

“The definition of ketuanan Melayu seems to be Umno; it always seems to lead back to Umno’s agenda.

“I’m not saying that outside of it it’s not valid; it may be valid to a lot of people. I can understand that. The main problem is the way it’s implemented. The tone of it is fascistic.”

Mahathir Mohamad: the ultimate Melayu?

For him, the promotion of the tenets of ketuanan Melayu “exposes deep insecurity, because if you really believe you are leading this country, what are you so scared of? I don’t think any of the other races want to take that away from you. They can’t, because in the Constitution are enshrined certain precepts.”

Dain argues that our debate is impoverished. “While many of us middle class Malays can be liberal and open, there’s never been any kind of infrastructure that supports ideas or traditions of openness.

“So on the one hand you have people who are willing to be open and liberal, but on the other hand it is so easy to destroy it, because there is no critical, intellectual or educational infrastructure to support those ideas.

“When you attack something that has no support, it is so easy to play to the rural Malay masses, to instill that kind of fear, and make people feel extremely powerless.

“There’s no tradition of talking critically about race and identity politics. You’re almost suspended in a vacuum.”

This is a vacuum that we need to fill with the plurality and diversity of our opinions. It has always been the position of Wide Angle that Malaysia’s many problems and tensions should not be ignored; they need to be addressed by continued, forthright yet respectful debate by citizens, and the issue of ketuanan Melayu is no exception.

-----
Huzir Sulaiman writes for theatre, film, television, and newspapers. 

[First posted 18 May 2012, reposted 11 July 2014]

These Gestapo Tactics By The New UMNO Triumvirate Only Spell Guilt

New Troika plus the unofficial boss (in green)

Sarawak Report | 2 August 2015

If the new UMNO leadership had nothing to hide would they be lashing out in the Gestapo fashion, witnessed by astonished Malaysians over the past few days?

And if the documents published by Sarawak Report were false or ‘doctored’, why have these desperadoes been ordering the ransacking of public offices and the arrest and interrogation of all the public investigators who have been looking into 1MDB on the grounds of “criminal leakages”?

How the headlines look these days in Malaysia

To the contrary, were Najib secure in the knowledge of his own innocence he and his remaining henchmen would be relaxed and aloof.

They would take a superior position, while of course issuing a vicious libel action through their lawyers to destroy and ruin the writer of Sarawak Report.

They have not.

Far from it, they are instead acting like desperate men determined to hide, bully and crush the truth by instilling fear of aggressive action against anyone who so much as mentions the issue that is exposing them so dangerously.

Don’t mention 1MDB!

Look how the Triumvirate have come out gnashing their teeth and brandishing their fists over the past few hours.

Familiar salute? Zahid boasts he is a "Muslim fundamentalist'

Zahid Hamidi, the new key linchpin in the Najib regime, as Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister rolled into one, has plunged into the role of bully boy and human rights abuser like a mad barking dog, ordering arrests and destroying in an instant the expensively crafted PR image of Najib in the West.

Calling himself an “Islamic fundamentalist” Zahid yesterday threatened the media that they should “expect no warning” of him “taking action” if he found them “spinning”.

By this Malaysia was left in no doubt that he was warning the press to halt any mention of the scandal surrounding 1MDB, which has embroiled his boss.

The world now realises that there is no real freedom of the press in Malaysia or genuine rule of law.

And while the world is looking on (slack jawed) perhaps we should recall some other recent revealing remarks by this bunch?

For example when Najib Razak rallied his party faithful earlier this year by telling them they should “act more like ISIL fighters” and be solidly obedient to him.

Yesterday Najib repeated that sentiment, whilst also condemning what he called interference by “white foreigners” (meaning journalists). Najib proceeded to then openly announce to his fellow Malaysians that he values loyalty to him over ability in those he appoints to government office.

Najib’s problem is exposure

All this is as revealing as it is brutal and vile.

Why has the man who has so long attempted to act the suave modern reformer suddenly started lashing out like a thug?

Yesterday, amidst all his tub thumping and foreigner bashing he told us in his own words exactly why. According to reports on one of his stirring speeches he complained:

“During Mahathir’s 22 years there were problems too but not like now. Everything is being exposed in the Sarawak Report as if foreigners are deciding how we should run the country.”

“What’s their right? Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot allow this to continue. I cannot allow the white people to determine our future.”[Free Malaysia Today]

Mr Najib Razak, it is our human right to report and you have just publicly acknowledged that you have been “exposed.” By those “problems” you mean plainly mean corruption.

The only way is down?

So what is the rest of the world to think and what are Malaysians to do with such an embarrassment for a leader?

Of course, the third member of the new ruling Triumvirate (the rest of the cabinet have been deafeningly silent the past few days) is the army minister, Najib’s cousin Hishamuddin Hussein.

Hate against the West the way forward for Malaysia?

This puts every lever of raw power in the hands of Najib, his deputy and his own cousin (overlooked by the unofficial “Big Boss”, Rosmah Mansor) for as long as he retains his UMNO party base.

UMNO has long adopted the same strategies as the old Soviet communist party and similar dictatorships, by assuming almost totalitarian control of Malaysia and its civil institutions – as everyone well knows.

But, is this latest brutal clamp down on all critics of the country’s now crippling corruption issues what UMNO and Malaysia really want?

With an already plummeting economy, not least because the cracks and BN’s false figures are now becoming ever more apparent to outsiders, Malaysia faces a very grim prospect if this Najib coup d’etat succeeds in bringing the country under his total, foreigner-hating dictatorship.

Malaysia, which was until so recently regarded as a possible ‘Asian Tiger’, rising into the category of leading, modern open economies like South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Singapore, will surely descend into the category of an ‘Asian basket-case’ – along with Burma, Vietnam and Cambodia.

It is those former South East Asian dictatorships, which have subsequently found their liberty, that are now being talked up by the world economists, including Indonesia and the Philippines, who were once thought of as servants by Malaysians.

Down but still not out (Malaysiakini)

If the Rosmah/Najib dictatorship slips now into full throttle – a corrupted establishment with a muzzled media and obedient civil service and judiciary – might Malaysians become the ones forced to send their daughters to earn money in better off countries, while the rest of the world ceases business with such a set up?

What a shame for Malaysia if such were to come to pass, but it appears to be the price that Najib is willing to exact, so that he can continue in power and remain protected from the consequences of his actions at 1MDB.

It is not at all in the capacity of Sarawak Report, a mere blog, to determine such events, as Najib is ridiculously attempting to bluff his audiences.

But, it is certainly our right and capacity to report on them.

[Reproduced from Sarawak Report as a public service to Malaysians unable to access the site, which has been "blocked."] 

Is this how you plan to rule the country, Mr Najib? (yet another reprise)

[Reposting for the fifth time. That Pink-Lipped Poltroon and his Witch-Queen with the Toxic Hairdo are rather dense, it appears, as are all their pompous, parasitic ilk...]

AT GUNPOINT.....?

How long before your hand gets tired?

You won't get any sleep at night...

You'll be much too stressed to service your voracious wife.

She'll soon be sending for some toy boys...

Isn't this a much nicer and healthier option? You have enough cash stashed away to live in the lap of luxury the rest of your lives... far, far from your political foes in Malaysia!

Is this how you plan to rule the country, Mr Najib? (once more with feeling)

[Reposting for the fourth time. That Pink-Lipped Poltroon, his Obscene Spouse, and his Muscle-Brained Contaminated Cabal are rather dense, it appears... and their criminal misconduct is apparently endorsed by many well-heeled but hypocritical Malaysians.]

AT GUNPOINT.....?

How long before your hand gets tired?

You won't get any sleep at night...

You'll be much too stressed to service your voracious wife.

She'll soon be sending for some toy boys...

Isn't this a much nicer and healthier option? You have enough cash stashed away to live in the lap of luxury the rest of your lives... far, far from your political foes in Malaysia!

[First posted 30 June 2011]