To the feudal mind, anyone in favor of decentralized power, equality and social justice must be a Communist!

Somebody left a book in my van a few years ago. I stuck it in the glove compartment and immediately forgot about it... until recently when I spotted it just as I was about to drive to Tanjong Malim and catch a bus to Ipoh.

So I brought the book along to read on the journey. It was an illustrated "People's History of Malaya" titled Where Monsoons Meet - published in 1987 by the Institute of Social Analysis (INSAN). A socialist primer aimed at secondary students, the comic-style book was designed for easy reading and I finished it in less than an hour - but it had significant impact.

Looking at our recent history from a non-elitist perspective reminded me how thoroughly brainwashed my parents' generation was. I recall that my mother and father thought very highly of the Brits. In the early 1950s goods produced in Hong Kong still carried the imprint "Empire Made" even though the sun was swiftly setting on the British Empire. Where Monsoons Meet effectively demolishes all notions of a benign imperialism. The colonizers emerge smelling quite foul.

The "Independence" we were granted in August 1957 was but in name. Before leaving Malaya the Brits had rigged the system so that it would always favor the capitalist elite comprising the Malay aristocracy and a handful of Chinese entrepreneurs.

When the rakyat began to demand better working conditions and more rights, they were brutally suppressed through heavy-handed police action. The Communist bogeyman justified the introduction of a slew of repressive laws. The truth of the matter was: Malaya was a fat milk cow sustaining the Anglo-American economy and they couldn't afford to lose control of the country's rich natural resources.

In short, British rule wasn't quite as halcyon as it may appear to the present generation of middle-class non-Malays. Every dirty trick in the book of governance as practised by Umno was learnt during the ruling class Malays' long apprenticeship with the British Colonial administration.


In the time of the British, indentured laborers imported from India were paid 12 cents a day for their back-breaking work in the rubber estates and on the railway tracks. Even if the local currency in prewar days was worth two hundred times more than it is today, these debt slaves only received the equivalent of RM20 a day. They had to dismount from their bicycles and tabik (salute) whenever a White Tuan crossed their path. The ones who spoke a smattering of English were made mandors and were given the authority to horsewhip insubordinate workers. Rebellion against injustice in the form of trade unionism was roughly and swiftly dealt with. The word "rakyat" was as little tolerated as the word "Communist."

What happened in May 1969 with the coup d'etat masterminded by Abdul Razak Hussein (right), Harun Idris, Syed Jaafar Albar, Mahathir Mohamad, Ghazali Shafie and a few other young Turks in Umno was that a new breed of educated middle-class Malays managed to wrest a measure of power from the traditional aristocracy.

In doing so, they also adopted the self-aggrandizing tendencies of the hereditary elite, hence their fondness for unwieldy honorifics and exclusive "VVIP" treatment.

Forty years down the line, we are poised on the brink of another major coup - this time involving the overthrow of a diseased and dysfunctional feudalistic concept of leadership, in favor of a more decentralized, more democratic, more egalitarian, more accountable, more interactive form of management.

And we intend to accomplish this feat bloodlessly and through entirely legal procedures. However, this is easier said than done - because it has become more than evident that Umno/BN, under the rogue prime ministership of Najib Razak, won't play by the rules.


What is called for at this juncture is optimum clarity of focus and supreme resoluteness. We the people cannot waver for a moment in our desire to shake off the yoke of tyranny and reclaim our civil rights and individual authority as free citizens of a free country. Each of us now has a sacred duty to embody all the qualities we cherish - courage, honesty, compassion, integrity, wisdom, and the ability to love more and more inclusively.

Above all, we must take time out to look inward - realign our inner and outer selves so we can become fully integrated, conscious humans - integers, in effect - as opposed to being merely ciphers; faceless, mindless statistics hypnotized by the BN-controlled media into believing that issues of race, religion, and royalty are real and relevant.

We can endorse and lend our wholehearted support to leaders whose visions coincide with our own - but we must never become dependent on them. Otherwise we will only experience disappointment and disillusionment when these leaders reveal themselves to be just as fallible as anyone else. No use pointing fingers, scapegoating and foisting the blame for failure on others.

We are the redemption and salvation we have yearned for throughout the ages. Happy Regime Change, folks! It can still happen, and sooner than you think... believe in miracles... which only happen from inside out!

[Originally published  2 January 2009 under the heading "No Turning Back". Reposted 5 June 2012 & 6 January 2016]

NO TURNING BACK! [revisited]

As we ease into 2009 following upon BN's spectacular loss of its two-thirds parliamentary majority in March 2008, many of us are resigned to an uphill stretch ahead - at least where economics and politics are concerned. Looking back over the decades, I realize I have been anticipating this exciting phase in our evolution for nearly forty years. I'm talking about the mass awakening that's occurring across the spectrum on this planet right now (aided by Pluto moving into Capricorn on 26 January 2008).

In two weeks all eyes will be on the Kuala Terengganu by-election. The outcome will provide a fair indication of whether we're moving forwards or backwards. A win for PAS will signal that the rakyat has truly had enough of being bamboozled by Umno/BN and is ready to venture into unknown waters on a new political adventure called "participatory democracy."

On the other hand, a win for Umno will indicate that a large number of Malaysians are still driven by fear and greed... and that the long dark night of Umno-style "guided democracy" will linger on a while more before the New Dawn finally breaks, as it eventually must.


While some are already aligning themselves with the Najib Razak camp on the assumption that he will succeed Badawi as our next PM (shudder), others are praying for a miracle - a spontaneous lifting of the curse of misguided pragmatism passed down through countless generations. What we're looking at isn't just the ill effects of 51 years of BN misrule. The problems go much farther back in time...

Somebody left a book in my van a few months ago. I stuck it in the glove compartment and immediately forgot about it... until last week when I spotted it just as I was about to drive to Tanjong Malim and catch a bus to Ipoh. So I brought the book along to read on the journey. It was an illustrated "People's history of Malaya" titled Where Monsoons Meet - published in 1987 by the Institute of Social Analysis (INSAN). A socialist primer aimed at secondary students, the comic-style book was designed for easy reading and I finished it in less than an hour - but it had significant impact.

Looking at our recent history from a non-elitist perspective reminded me how thoroughly brainwashed my parents' generation was. I recall that my mother and father thought very highly of the Brits. In the early 1950s goods produced in Hong Kong still carried the imprint "Empire Made" even though the sun was swiftly setting on the British Empire. Where Monsoons Meet effectively demolishes all notions of a benign imperialism. The colonizers emerge smelling quite foul.

The "Independence" we were granted in August 1957 was but in name. Before leaving Malaya the Brits had rigged the system so that it would always favor the capitalist elite comprising the Malay aristocracy and a handful of Chinese entrepreneurs. When the rakyat began to demand better working conditions and more rights, they were brutally suppressed through heavy-handed police action. The Communist bogeyman justified the introduction of a slew of repressive laws. The truth of the matter was: Malaya was a fat milk cow sustaining the Anglo-American economy and they couldn't afford to lose control of the country's rich natural resources.

In short, British rule wasn't quite as halcyon as it may appear to the present generation of middle-class non-Malays. Every dirty trick in the book of governance as practised by Umno was learnt during the ruling class Malays' long apprenticeship with the British Colonial administration.


In the time of the British, indentured laborers imported from India were paid 12 cents a day for their back-breaking work in the rubber estates and on the railway tracks. Even if the local currency in prewar days was worth two hundred times more than it is today, these debt slaves only received the equivalent of RM20 a day. They had to dismount from their bicycles and tabik (salute) whenever a White Tuan crossed their path. The ones who spoke a smattering of English were made mandors and were given the authority to horsewhip insubordinate workers. Rebellion against injustice in the form of trade unionism was roughly and swiftly dealt with. The word "rakyat" was as little tolerated as the word "Communist."

In May 1969 the coup d'etat masterminded by Abdul Razak Hussein (right), Harun Idris, Syed Jaafar Albar, Mahathir Mohamad, Ghazali Shafie and a few other young Turks in Umno resulted in a new breed of educated middle-class Malays wresting a measure of power from the traditional aristocracy. In doing so, they also adopted the self-aggrandizing tendencies of the hereditary elite, hence their fondness for unwieldy honorifics and exclusive "VVIP" treatment.

Forty years down the line (in 2009), we are poised on the brink of another major coup - this time involving the overthrow of a diseased and dysfunctional feudalistic concept of leadership, in favor of a more decentralized, more democratic, more egalitarian, more accountable, more interactive form of management. And we intend to accomplish this feat bloodlessly and through entirely legal procedures.


What is called for at this juncture is optimum clarity of focus and supreme resoluteness. We the people cannot waver for a moment in our desire to shake off the yoke of tyranny and reclaim our civil rights and individual authority as free citizens of a free country. Each of us now has a sacred duty to embody all the qualities we cherish - courage, honesty, compassion, integrity, wisdom, and the ability to love more and more inclusively.


We can endorse and lend our wholehearted support to leaders whose visions align with our own - but we must never become entirely dependent on them. Otherwise we will only experience disappointment and disillusionment when these leaders reveal themselves to be just as fallible as anyone else. No use pointing fingers, scapegoating and foisting the blame for failure on others.

We are the redemption and salvation we have yearned for throughout the ages.

Happy Regime Change, folks! It can still happen, and sooner than you think... believe in miracles!

[Originally posted 2 January 2009, reposted 25 September 2009]

Basiran Nasional? ... Embarisan Nazional? ... Barbarisan Nastianal? ... Borosan Nasikangkang?

Once again, with apologies to Malaysiakini, I just have to repost this classic from the indefatigable Dean Johns...

What BN really stands for
Dean Johns
14 March 2012 / Malaysiakini

On the face of it this is painfully obvious, at least to most Malaysians. BN stands for Barisan Nasional, the coalition that has ruled them increasingly crookedly and incompetently for the past half-century.

But as ‘Barisan Nasional’ means ‘National Front’, the question remains what and who BN is a front for, and how much longer it can get away with all the ugly realities it strives to hide behind its carefully-crafted facade.

How much longer, for example, can some apparently sentient Malaysians keep taking it seriously as ‘Barisan Nasional’, when, as I pointed-out in a column some months ago, BN is so evidently a front for what could justly be called ‘Basiran Nasional’?

I recall that at the time several readers complained of my calling BN ‘basi’, which I had discovered in my trusty pocket Malay-English dictionary to mean “stale, rotten, out-of-date”, on the grounds that it was abusive.

An accusation to which my response was and remains that, after 54 dreary years in power, BN has come to stand for so much that is basi, not to mention buruk and busuk, that it’s ridiculous.

And if this plainly evident fact strikes anyone as abusive, or even ABUsive, I’m delighted. BN has subjected Malaysia and Malaysians to such an intolerable burden of abuse, of everything from public funds to human rights and civil liberties that no amount of verbal abuse by me or anyone else can come close to restoring the balance.

Especially in view of the fact that the rot goes on unabated, so that Barisan/Basiran seems to be not just a false front or throwback to the dim, dark ages, but a veritable Barahsan Nasional.

Cancer mutated into conspiracy

A cancer that has grown from barely-detectable beginnings in a formerly apparently benign political coalition, and mutated and metastasised into a malignant criminal conspiracy that threatens the livelihoods and even the lives of Malaysian citizens.

If you think I’m exaggerating in the life-and-death department, take a look at the what BN expects Malaysians to Barinsanely stand for at the hands of their Nasional law-enforcement agencies.

Not only the unexplained, uninvestigated and of course unpunished homicide of ‘suspects’ in staged ‘shoot-outs’ and in custody, and charges and counter-charges between senior police and law officers allegedly in league with organised crime, but such dereliction of ordinary, everyday duties that communities have to pay private security organisations to ensure their own and their families’ safety, and the fatality rates on Malaysia’s pathetically-policed roads are 10 times of those in countries like the UK and Australia.

Then there’s BN’s legendary standing as Borosan Nasional, extravagantly spending and squandering so much public money on its members and their relatives and cronies as to threaten to reduce the rakyat to ruin.

The prime minister and his shopaholic consort spend fortunes jet-setting around the world and throwing glitzy parties using either public funds or mysteriously-amassed millions of their own. Billions disappear in ‘commissions’ on submarines, armoured personnel carriers and other ‘defence’ deals, and countless more billions go missing in ‘soft loans’, ‘bail-outs’ and ‘development’ schemes and scams.

And in case the poor suckers who pay for all this get wise to how wantonly they’re being cheated, short-changed, ripped-off, and thus take to complaining or - horror of horrors - avenging themselves at the ballot-box, there’s the ultimate expression of what BN stands for, Barisandiwara Nasional.

What a show of shows this is. What a dazzling display of deception, trickery, illusionism and sleight-of-hand. Roll up, roll up and see BN’s ‘world’s best democracy’, never mind BN’s world-class anti-democratic laws, phoney BN ‘reforms’, rigged BN electoral system and BN ‘transformations’ that turn out to be just more of the same old BN transfornications.

Tune-in to the BN show-trials of opposition leaders, and selected scapegoats in BN scandals where ‘justice’ has to be seen to be done by a hand-picked BN judiciary.

Sit through years of fraudulent BN ‘inquests’ and ‘royal commissions’ that eventually end but never come to any actual, actionable conclusions.

See, hear and read all the exciting, sordid details of BN allegations against its critics and opponents, and thrill to the thunderous silence about BN crimes and misdeeds in the BN-biased ‘news’ media.

Chorus of sectarian discord

Feel the peace, love and harmony of a BN-united 1Malaysia, and never mind the dreadful din of the BN-conducted chorus of racial and sectarian discord.

Barisan Nasional is no doubt a front for many more evils than those I’ve identified among those that BN stands for.

But I’m right on deadline for this column, so I haven’t much time to come up with any others. In any case, despite my ownership of the dictionary I mentioned up front, I’ve pretty well exhausted my store of BN-appropriate Malay words.

Or to put this another way, I’m monolingual or what I guess you could call homotextual in English, unlike many of you readers in Malaysia who, ‘homo’ being a no-no, are pretty well all heterolingual or even heteroliterate and thus far better-equipped to come up with some more ideas.

But whatever language we all manage to communicate in, I’m sure that the vast majority of us are on the same page when it comes to BN.

Only a 1Malaysiac, 1Malaysiaccomplice or 1Malaysiaccessory would stand for another minute of Barisan, Basiran, Barahsan, Barinsane, Borosan, Barisandiwara or any other kind of Nasional anyone can think of that BN stands for.

With the notable exception, of course, of the words that those of us who can’t stand BN for another minute would love to see come true: Burysan Nasional.

-------

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include Mad about Malaysia, Even Madder about Malaysia, Missing Malaysia and 1Malaysia.con.

[First posted 15 March 2012, reposted 3 December 2013]

I'M READY TO WHACK SOMEBODY (updated)

It's only been hours since three Malaysian Appeals Court judges - Balia Yusof Wahi, Aziah Ali and Mohd Zawawi Mohd Salleh - overturned Anwar Ibrahim's 9 January 2012 acquittal and sentenced the Opposition Leader to five years' imprisonment on a 2008 charge of sodomy.

Everybody who's been observing the political soap opera unfold knows Anwar Ibrahim is our best hope for non-violent regime change. That's why he has been singled out for the dubious honor of being the only public figure ever to have been publicly accused of sodomy - not once, but twice since his unceremonious sacking in September 1998.

As finance minister and deputy prime minister under Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar came within an inch of succeeding the long-reigning despot as Umno president (and therefore the fifth prime minister). But in the end he was forced to openly rebel with his battle cry of "Reformasi!" which brought out close to 80,000 street protesters demanding Dr M's resignation, in the turbulent days before Anwar was arrested in his own house on the evening of 20 September 1998 by a balaclava-clad police commando team.

Beaten black-and-blue in police custody by none other than the then Inspector-General of Police, Rahim Noor, Anwar was paraded before a kangaroo court presided over by the late unlamented Augustine Paul, before being sentenced to 15 years in jail on trumped-up charges of sodomy (and abuse of power, just to add salt to gross injury).

Upon his April 2004 release after 6 years languishing in Sungai Buloh prison (and nearly succumbing to arsenic poisoning), Anwar swiftly resurrected his political career by weaving together a formidable opposition coalition comprising his own Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), and the Democratic Action Party (DAP) which rode a political tsunami of discontent on 8 March 2008 to deprive the (mis)ruling coalition Barisan Nasional of its uninterrupted two-thirds parliamentary majority. Anwar then crowned that achievement by declaring that the newly resurgent opposition coalition (now known as Pakatan Rakyat or the People's Alliance) would dismantle Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Supremacy) and replace it with Ketuanan Rakyat (Supremacy of the People) if voted into power.

For the vast majority of decent, law-abiding Malaysians, Anwar Ibrahim's idealistic vision of Ketuanan Rakyat was the promise of a political golden age. But for those who had, during Dr M's overlong tenure, fattened themselves off the riches of the land (at the expense of the uninformed masses), the notion of social equality, justice and greater participatory democracy sounded like their own death knell.

Get Anwar, Part Two

Behind the scenes a pernicious plot had been hastily hatched. Even before the fateful election of 8 March 2008, a secret weapon had been planted within Anwar's inner circle in the person of a winsome young man named Saiful Bukhari Azlan who volunteered his help at PKR headquarters in the hectic period leading up to the election. Saiful insinuated his way into Anwar's confidence by serving as his "coffee boy" and personal aide.

It was later revealed (by Malaysia Today) that Saiful Bukhari Azlan was, in fact, godson to Mumtaz Jaafar - former Malaysian athlete and a close associate of Rosmah Mansor. Saiful's estranged father, Azlan Mohd Lazim (Malaysia Today reported) was a long-time Umno go-between with a wide network of political connections. Indeed, Azlan Mohd Lazim was allegedly part of a high-powered Umno mission dispatched immediately after the March 2008 election to woo ambitious members of PAS into teaming up with Umno against PKR and DAP. This devious scheme had the financial backing of the Umnoputra elite - Malay entrepreneurs who had made billions with a little bit of help from Dr M and his finance minister Daim Zainuddin.

Even more shocking, the controversial blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin asserted (again in Malaysia Today, in an article titled "The Real Dalang Behind The Anwar Sodomy Allegation") that it was Shafee Abdullah who masterminded the slimy and sordid 2008 sequel to Anwar's 1999 sodomy trial. 

If that turns out to be true, then Shafee Abdullah gets the award for Greatest Slimeball Of All Time. Imagine the ruthless cunning it takes to set up Anwar even before the March 2008 election - and then six years down the line to get himself appointed freelance prosecutor by nefarious arrangement with another contender for the same award, Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail - the chief prosecutor who sent Anwar to jail in 1999.

With all the dramatic shifts happening around the world since 2008 when Pluto entered Capricorn - financial meltdowns and devastating hurricanes and regime change occurring wherever you look - the indefatigably evil Attorney-General Gani Patail persists in pursuing the non-issue of whether Saiful Bukhari Azlan had his anus enlarged by Malaysia's popular PM elect. If only he had shown the same zeal in bringing to justice the cold-blooded killers of "that Mongolian woman" Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Well, I'm telling you, Mr Pink Lips: it's no use keeping up pretenses. You just don't cut it - not even as a crime minister - you are totally uninspiring and are saddled with way too much karmic baggage (especially in the grotesque shape of your obnoxious, witchy wife). And as for Dr Mahathir's Umno Baru... it has already transformed itself into Umno Basi (stale) and/or Umno Busuk (stinky).

Meanwhile, vile and pernicious maneuvers by ultrarightwing Umno-sponsored NGOs and religious goon squads like Jakim have issued oppressive decrees in the name of Allah, about the name of Allah.

Ultra-jingoist Utusan Malaysia goes unchecked, unreprimanded, and unpunished when it willfully goes on an orchestrated rampage in an attempt to reactivate dormant racial and religious tensions.

And provincial Umno loudmouths like Nazri Aziz, Abdul Rahman Dahlan, and Khairy Jamaluddin continue to swagger around in their own swiftly evaporating mudholes, making laughing-stocks of themselves and accelerating the inevitable extinction of race-based political parties.

Add to the mix the ritual slaughter of chickens in public places, the smearing of sacrificial blood on a poster of Chinese opposition leaders; the hurling of pork into mosque compounds; threatening critics with tiresome displays of wagging buttocks. Outsourcing the dirty work to rabid abnomalies like Ibrahim Ali and Ridhuan Tee, Umno regresses into the abysmal depths of depravity, falling back on feudal arrogance, anachronistic tyranny, and violent territoriality. .

More than five years ago Anwar handed the Anti-Corruption Commission documentary evidence that former IGP Musa Hassan and AG Gani Patail were involved in falsifying evidence to convict him of sodomy in 1998. So what has become of the investigation? We don't hear a thing. Nobody has been sacked and both have disappeared into their wormholes.

How about private investigator Balasubramaniam Perumal and his family? How convenient that Bala died of a heart attack just as he was ready to embark on a road show to tell his version of the macabre Altantuya saga. Are Bala's widow and their children still living in constant fear of secret police harassment? Who paid for their upkeep in Chennai? - and what did it take to silence Deepak Jaikishan, Rosmah's erstwhile "fixer"? Anyone remember Lingamgate? I certainly do... but I don't see anything being done about the terrible shape the judiciary is in, after Mahathir turned it into a weapon against his political opponents.


I'm not the only one who would love to throw a whole bunch of banana peels in front of Zahid Hamidi, archnemesis of Ultraman. And I'm sure I could raise a posse to capture Taib Mahmud and tar and feather him. I'd like to see Najib Razak led away in handcuffs for being such a terrible liar and hypocrite.

As for all those Status Quoists who still insist Umno/BN was "given a mandate" to rule for another four years - and who think Anwar should concentrate on strengthening the Opposition Coalition from behind bars - nothing short of the Japanese bamboo torture will suffice.

[First posted 29 September 2008; updated 8 March 2014]

THE INEVITABLE DISSOLUTION OF A CORRUPT AND EVIL REGIME... (REPRISE)

Mother Earth is rapidly ascending to a subtler level of atomic frequency and will NOT support any lifeform that is not in its full integrity.

Najib Razak and his Umno/BN regime are obviously NOT in their full integrity. Their malignant scheme to parasite off honest, decent citizens is DOOMED TO UTTER FAILURE.

PEOPLE OF MALAYSIA, YOU ARE THE CHANGE YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR! BLESS YOU ALL AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW CHILDREN WHO WILL BUILD A GLORIOUS NEW MALAYSIA IN FREEDOM, JUSTICE AND TRUTH.

[First published 1 August 2009. Street action pics courtesy of Malaysiakini]

THE INEVITABLE DISSOLUTION OF A CORRUPT AND EVIL REGIME...

Mother Earth is rapidly ascending to a subtler level of atomic frequency and will NOT support any lifeform that is not in its full integrity.

Najib Razak and his Umno/BN regime are obviously NOT in their full integrity. Their malignant scheme to parasite off honest, decent citizens is DOOMED TO UTTER FAILURE.

PEOPLE OF MALAYSIA, YOU ARE THE CHANGE YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR! BLESS YOU ALL AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW CHILDREN WHO WILL BUILD A GLORIOUS NEW MALAYSIA IN FREEDOM, JUSTICE AND TRUTH.

[Street action pics courtesy of Malaysiakini]