Internationally, it's game over for Najib ~ by John Mallot

COMMENT Ever since he became prime minister in 2009, Najib Razak cut a very impressive swath overseas.

Armed with his impeccable English, a product of his British education, and dressed immaculately in his elegant bespoke British suits, Najib talked a good game. He traveled the world and spoke of how he wanted to reform Malaysia's political and economic systems and transform his nation into a model for the world.

He spoke at the United Nations time and again of a Global Movement of Moderates, of which Malaysia would be the leader. He spoke of Malaysia as a tolerant nation that respected all religions and races.

In contrast to former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad, whose trips were primarily to Third World nations, Najib actively courted the United States and European nations - the lands of Mahathir's dreaded "orang putih."

Backing all of Najib's efforts was a multi-million dollar international PR operation, paid for by the taxpayers. It was aimed at swaying international opinion. It spent untold millions on PR firms Apco and FBC Media. Their job was to puff up Najib and tear down the political opposition, along with anyone who dared to tell the truth about what was really going on in Malaysia.

And most of the outside world believed what Najib and his PR machine had to say.

But for the past few years, there were a number of people outside Malaysia, myself included, who tried to tell the world what the truth was - what really was going on in Malaysia. That Malaysia was no longer the country they thought it was, and that they should not believe Najib's paid propaganda agents.

We wanted people to know that there were two Najibs. There was the fake Najib, the international Najib, the Najib who talked a good game overseas. That Najib was backed up by millions of dollars in PR fees. That man even fooled the President of the United States into a game of golf just last Christmas.

The real Najib

And then there is the other Najib, the real Najib.

He is the "domestic" Najib, the man who stifles freedom. The man whose police force tear-gassed people in the streets for demanding free and fair elections. The man who has arrested scores of opposition politicians and dissidents under the Sedition Act.

He is the corrupt Najib, the man who arranged the over-priced purchase of non-functioning Scorpene submarines, and most recently, the man behind 1MDB and its missing billions.

He is the Najib who received US$700 million into his personal bank account.

He is the Najib whose wife's many Birkin bags and multi-million dollar emerald necklaces were the subject of a three-page expose in The New York Times.

Today, thanks to the most prestigious newspapers and magazines in the world, the whole world knows who the real Najib is. Now the world understands that there is only one Najib.

And it is not the dapper, suave, reformist Najib that they believed in.

So, it is game over for Najib Razak internationally.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of Malaysians will march in Bersih 4 to protest Najib's authoritarian rule.

It is certain that Najib, the man who brazenly stood before international fora and proclaimed himself to be a reformer and a liberal, will send his police force in to break up the rally.

Najib will deploy tear gas, chemical-laced water, and police batons to ensure his rule.

The whole world will be watching - and finally will realise what kind of man he is.

It truly will be game over for Najib.

---

JOHN R MALOTT is former United States ambassador to Malaysia. Reproduced from Malaysiakini as a public service.

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT... OR TEN (repost)

One of the wonderful features of blogs and online news portals is that they offer a measure of interactivity. Readers are encouraged to put in their two bits worth by leaving comments. Some find it quite hard to resist while others simply can't make themselves do it - either because they're paranoid about leaving any traces in cyberspace by which the Special Branch or Interpol can track them down; or because they're the sort who have trouble pissing in a public urinal if there's a stranger standing right next to them.
Over the past three years I must have left a trail of comments in cyberspace even Mr Magoo can follow. I can pee just about anywhere, possibly even on stage with a spotlight shining on my willy. One of my unique talents, I guess. Anyway, I've collected several longish comments I've left in various places like a trail of dog piss - some fairly recent, some more than a year old - and I figure it would be fun to turn them into a blogpost, so here goes...

"1Malaysia is about fostering unity amongst Malaysians. What measures can be taken to foster greater unity?"
When the government is TOO BIG and the people are too small, you get a Humpty Dumpty situation - exactly like we do now. Why is the government TOO BIG? Simple. The people who form the government were mostly born into the ruling elite and groomed to take over the reins of power. Their ingrained attitudes, lifestyles, thought processes and behavioral patterns ARE the problem - nothing else! If they had the wisdom to step down from power and let others take over, there may be a ray of hope. But I doubt that anyone already rich and powerful would ever look in the mirror and admit: "Ah, I see... the problem is ME!"

Here's a small bit of wisdom I shall leave you with: TRUE COMMUNICATION IS ONLY EVER POSSIBLE AMONGST EQUALS. What does this mean? Where a feudal hierarchy continues to exist, those on the lower rungs of the power structure will never express their true feelings for fear of losing their jobs or even their heads. They will, instead, resort to subtle sabotage and apathetic performance, slowly but surely wearing down the machinery of governance until nothing works anymore.

ISLAMIC VALUES

If only espousing Islamic values would make us kinder, more honest, more compassionate, and a great deal wiser... but in Malaysia these so-called Islamic values appear to be totally degraded, warmed over dregs of the ugliest species of cruelty and tyranny inspired by the erotophobic and wrathful Old Testament God of Abraham. That might explain why our law enforcement agencies in particular seem to have become repositories of sadism, perversity and absolute inhumanity - earning the country a vile reputation for being an active participant in human trafficking and for being tragically benighted when it comes to treating refugees, cultural deviants and political dissidents with the love and respect due all living beings. As defenders and upholders of Islam, the monarchs must be held fully responsible for the grotesque distortions and hypocrisies surrounding their exploitative, feudalistic, self-serving and unenlightened interpretation of Islam.

ON THE INCURABLE DR MAHATHIR

There's a name for this narcissistic old man's problems. I think it's called hoof-in-mouth disease. But somehow the press insist on quoting him just to add more mental pollution to an already murky political atmosphere.

Can someone please embalm him immediately?

MORAL POLICE

Hard to believe, in the final phase of our journey through linear time, with a massive paradigm shift and mind-boggling quantum jump directly ahead of us... there are religiocentric humans of the Enlilite/Yahwehist lineage still obstinately pursuing their self-destructive, self-limiting goal of damming up all the ways vital energy (chi or prana) flows in the universe by subjecting every individual incarnate soul to all sorts of idiotic legislation. And they have the audacity to do so in the name of "stability" when what best serves us is DYNAMISM!

So much for this suffocating plastic bag called "society." I opt for true community, spontaneously born of natural communion between souls.

ANWAR vs NAJIB

Don't fall for the MSM spin that simplifies everything to a boxing match between two heavyweights. Lean back and see the big picture. Learn from the cogent metaphors mythology offers. Have you read Tolkien or seen Lord of the Rings? The all-pervasive psychic poison of Sauron, the corruption and zombification of the Nine Kings who turn into the Nine Ringwraiths (Nazgul), the fall of Saruman... all these characters live amongst us - and within us - even if they wear sarongs and songkoks or custom-tailored suits and Italian shoes.

How do we define EVIL? That which thwarts your soul evolution and harvests your energy to serve ignoble and demeaning purposes. Use this yardstick and you will never again be misled by professional misleaders spouting platitudes and lying from every orifice. Stand firm for freedom, justice and spontaneous joy!

HARAPAN BARU

So long as BN continues to hold the national pursestrings and control the machinery of federal government, participatory democracy will remain a pipe dream. Whenever the BN regime cites "national security reasons" what they mean is "Barisan Nasional security." They cannot to afford to lose their stranglehold on the mass media, the judiciary and the police. Without these powerful tools of oppression, the majority of BN leaders will be hawking unsold indelible ink at the pasar malam.

I want Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Rakyat to take over as soon as humanly possible. Anwar and most of the new leaders in Pakatan Rakyat have been on the receiving end of injustice, abuse of the law, and negative media coverage by the BN-controlled channels. The first thing they must attend to - even more important than reducing fuel and food prices - is the abolition of all the archaic, authoritarian laws (ISA, OSA, PPPA, UUCA, and so on) that have effectively suppressed the voices of honest critics and created a climate of fear.

We do not want our children to grow up as zombies, interested in nothing but brainless consumption of disposable diversions. We don't want them to fear the public servants whose salaries we pay and whose ill-gotten gains have been acquired at our expense. We the people must solemnly vow to embody the ideals we wish to see in the words, deeds, and thoughts of our elected leaders. We must become the positive change we long to see!

WHY ANWAR IBRAHIM PROVOKES IRRATIONAL HATRED

Strange how some people - even well-educated and apparently intelligent ones, and I’m sad to say I have several close friends who fall in this category - have an irrational hatred for Anwar Ibrahim.

Some are secular, westernized Malays who would rather deal with the greedy, corrupt liars and hypocrites who populate the BN than with a leader who is actually clean-living and left-leaning. Others insist Anwar is a closet racist and opportunist who will woo anybody to get where he wants. Now that’s patently unfair a criticism; one might as well condemn all living things for their hardwired survival instincts. After all, every one of us can be accused of exactly the same ability to manipulate and mold reality so that it serves and supports us. It's how we do it - whether by inspiring love or instilling fear - that makes all the difference.

What I strongly believe is that most of these Anwar-haters are people who were once idealists, but became pragmatists in their adulthood. They conformed to the Status Quo and reaped personal benefits (contracts, positions, titles) by toeing the Umno/BN line. So when they see Anwar at 61 still holding on to the principles of his crusading youth, still gung-ho about REFORM, it makes them uncomfortable about their own Faustian pact with the powers-that-be.

They have what used to be a typically Australian complex: if a local boy returns to his hometown after accomplishing great deeds abroad, the yokels shun him as being “too big for his boots.” These people live such humdrum, mediocre lives - with so many compromises - they simply can’t bear to see a REAL HERO get his just desserts. Like what happened to Jesus 2,000 years ago, they will attempt to arrest and crucify the bugger… and, maybe 300 years later, proclaim him a saint or a god when he’s long gone and no further threat to their vested interests.

BADAWI'S ABYSMAL FAILURE

How banal and dreary to read about Badawi "lashing out" at the new DAP government during his visit to Penang. No manners, no code of ethics, no fresh ideas. Just recycling the same old robotic hogwash, the same old braindead Umno rhetoric. Still wagging finger and tongue at phantoms in his own cobwebby mind. Would he were capable of showing signs of intelligence and responsiveness to rapidly changing circumstances by saying something simple and sincere like: "Let's move on from the elections and forge new levels of Federal-State cooperation to the benefit of the whole country. In the end, no matter what our political leanings and perceived differences, let us never forget we are first and foremost Malaysians."

With each new twist in the post-electoral plot, with each inane and all-too-predictable utterance, Badawi is sending out an unmistakeable signal that his political worldview is dead and done for, beyond hope of redemption or resurrection.

Nevertheless, I thank Badawi for having played his role in the drama. For all his grandiloquent mediocrity, he at least created a little more space for dissent. He allowed Anwar Ibrahim his freedom and was generally so unintimidating (unlike his predecessor) that during the four years of his first term as PM, we saw more and more Malaysians emboldened and empowered.

ON MEDIA OBJECTIVITY

“Objectivity” doesn’t really exist except as an excuse for not accepting full responsibility for one’s perceptions, opinions, and beliefs. For too many generations we have been left-brained biased - exalting rational thought above irrational feelings. But in nature, what we call ”irrational feelings” are actually our instincts, our gut responses that operate from cellular wisdom. A society trapped in its mind and disconnected from its heart (where instincts are experienced as emotions) is already on its way to becoming mechanical and robotic. This may suit the control freak and wannabe dictator within us - but it’s deleterious to our psycho-spiritual well-being. Being desensitized to our instinctual responses is akin to filtering out 99% of sensory and extra sensory data and making “logical” decisions based on only 1%.

This explains how so many can be tricked into believing in and voting for a clone like George W. Bush, for example, who emanates almost zero empathy and is, therefore, only fractionally human. It’s alarming when people are no longer able to detect energy fields - or have been trained to distrust extrasensory insights picked up by intuition. Otherwise they would automatically recoil from repugnant political entities spouting lifeless cliches and lying through every orifice. They never would have been fooled by the puppet show and 99% of the politicians currently in power would be selling insurance or involved in MLM schemes.

SAIFUL & SODOMY II

Study Saiful Bukhari's face. There's something there that reminds me of Khairy Jamaluddin. Shrinks today will label it "bi-polar disorder." In the good old days it was known as "schizophrenia." That's right, it's the proverbial Jekyll-Hyde complex - or Smeagol-Gollum syndrome if you prefer your metaphors up-to-date. What I see looking at Saiful's face is a kid who hasn't made up his mind whether to be "good" or "bad." There's a certain boyish charm and innocence there, a useful survival skill, and he seems very keen on being accepted and loved by his peers (read Saiful's blog comments on Riwayat Hayat in response to suggestions that he's a "musang berbulu ayam").

He volunteers his services to the PKR campaign. However, he also likes being photographed with Umno bigwigs and by now everybody has seen Saiful posing beside Najib's special agent Khairil Anas Jusoh (himself rumored to be gay) at the DPM's office. So if that resignation email is from Saiful (and I don't see who else might have written it for him, though he may have been instructed to tender his resignation before incriminating Anwar), it reveals a young man torn between loyalties and, ultimately, feeling himself unworthy to continue serving as Anwar's special assistant (perhaps because he found himself actually liking and admiring his boss), he does an amok on himself, going for the notoriety he knows will be his lot (in the same way a weak character like Mark David Chapman would choose to assassinate John Lennon, the man he admires, since he can never aspire to match his hero's accomplishments).

And what about KJ? When I met him back in 1999 he was working at NTV7 as a talkshow host and news producer. He was bright and smug and actually very polite but I could sense the young man's burning desire to make his mark, to really make it big. I think we did exchange a few pleasantries before we parted and my parting words to the young KJ may have been: "You have a lot going for you, but keep a tight rein on that ego!" He was certainly nothing like the KJ I saw on Malaysiakini.tv rabble-rousing for Umno at the Ijok by-election. Humans are not one-dimensional and to expect them to be is to dehumanize them. Life, like politics, is rarely a black-and-white affair. Even Lady Macbeth has a story to tell and, although one is wise to avoid marrying anyone like her, one ought to grant her her humanity - on condition she doesn’t ascend to the throne, of course!

A REGIME GONE MAD

Some long-dead Greek pederast once said: "Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." Ever since the macabre tale of a murdered Mongolian woman being blown to bits with C4 exploded in the international media, every move those BN/Umno sleazebags have made has been counterproductive and countersurvival. The gods are merciful in that they first drive insane those marked for doom. So be not surprised at the erratic behavior of the BN/Umno goondus - they are non compos mentis! You have to be a fucking lunatic to believe you can get away with stealing so much of the Rakyat's wealth over so many decades and that the Rakyat will never awaken from their zombie trance or break the evil pukau* wrought by the MSM!

____

*pukau - primitive but powerful Indonesian magic that puts you in a state of deep sleep or paralysis while your house is being burgled.

[First posted 27 November 2009]

YOU BECOME WHAT YOU HATE!

The behavioral similarities between Israel under the Likudniks and Malaysia under the Umnoputras are more than startling. In both cases, the problem seems to lie with an entrenched attitude of arrogance, conceit and compulsive denial concealing a pathological insecurity and deeply ingrained sense of victimhood. Here's what Swiss-born psychologist and philosopher Carlo Strenger has to say about the current Israeli government...

"Israel will have to decide: it cannot rebrand itself as a liberal, creative and progressive country without being one. Our business sector, our artists and academics are mostly progressive, liberal and creative. But their impact on how Israel is perceived will remain negligible as long as Israel’s politicians and emissaries keep harping on victimhood and survival and as long as its policies are repressive." ~ Carlo Strenger (Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University)

The most important positive result of the ‘Branding Israel’ project has been that during the last decades, a powerful new sub-brand of Israel has evolved: it is called Tel Aviv, it is associated with Israel’s culture, technology and joie de vivre: it is perceived as liberal in outlook, full of vitality, creativity and oriented toward the future. Hence, the study concludes, Israel must rebrand itself as creative, vital and progressive; an image that has positive resonance with the young global elites.

However, there is one major obstacle in the path to rebranding Israel. Our politicians don't seem to understand how the mechanism of rebranding works. They confuse the old concept of ‘hasbara’, which literally means ‘explanation’ with branding. Explaining and arguing has no impact whatsoever on how people experience a person or a brand. Our relationship to brands is like our relationship to human beings: it is primarily emotional.

If somebody explains to you that she is a nice person, but does so sternly and harshly, it is the tone of voice rather than the content of the message that determines the listener's emotional reaction. Moreover: if you explain that you are nice, and are then seen behaving violently, it is the behavior rather than the words that will determine the emotional reaction. We all know this: if an airline explains to you that it is friendly, but you are treated dismally by its employees, you will tell your friends that the airline is horrible, not that it is friendly. Ultimately perception of a brand hinges on actual behavior and organizational culture, not propaganda.

[Source: Haaretz.com; kindly brought to my notice by Walter Smith]

Ehud Barak's "OneIsrael" is undoubtedly the big brother of Najib Razak's "1Malaysia"!

Also worth reading: Activists on the Ship 'Rachel Corrie' Challenge Israel's Unjust Gaza Blockade and Zionist Myths by Ira Chernus

This Week's Recommended Reading

It's been a beautiful, mellow, sunny weekend full of delightful visitors and music - interspersed with a bit of political excitement when Anwar Ibrahim came to Kuala Kubu Bharu with a large contingent of Pakatan Rakyat leaders to kick off the Save Malaysia campaign on 26 March - and drew a fantastic turnout (estimated at 5,000 by Malaysiakini but local opinion has it there were nearly 10,000).

I haven't spent much time at the computer except to keep tabs on current goings-on. There were four items that caught my attention and which I would like to alert you to by way of recommended reading...

THE PERKASA DISTRACTION

The politics of exclusion is making a return, pushing back against the rising tide of inclusiveness that has spread to both sides of politics.

Later this week, a politician who famously earned himself notoriety by being labelled The Frog for his willingness to switch sides will position himself in the cat-bird seat, as the spearhead of a resurgent Malay rights movement.

There is little doubt that Ibrahim Ali and his newly-formed and speedily-registered Perkasa, with Dr Mahathir Mohamad lending his imprimateur, and the Mahathirian old guard in the likes of Aziz Shamsuddin, Sanusi Junid and others gathering around it, will have some apparent clout and the ability to dominate headlines.

But at what price to national cohesiveness?

[Read the rest here.]

MALAYSIA MUST END ABUSE OF MIGRANT WORKERS

Drawn by promises of jobs in Malaysia, thousands of men and women from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal and elsewhere in the region pay substantial sums to recruitment agents. Once they arrive, they find that much of what their agents told them about their new jobs is untrue. Malaysia’s economy depends on the labor of migrant workers yet the government effectively criminalizes them.

[Read the rest here.]

APCO & NAJIB: Beneath the veil of public relations

By Tian Chua

Next Tuesday, March 30, Barisan Nasional parliamentarians will be gearing up to crucify Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim for his comments on Apco. The MPs might think that they are doing the BN government a favour by defending Najib and his high-flying consultancy company.

In the minds of most BN lawmakers, defending the government is equivalent of defending the country. By the same logic, people who criticize the government are simply traitors to Malaysia.

I would like to invite my friends from the other side to think harder, and look harder. In fact, it does not require a lot of effort to find out the connection between Apco and Israel.

[Read the rest here.]

REDEFINING MORALITY

By Raja Petra Kamarudin

"I really don’t care what your ethnic background is. I feel that whatever race we field in this coming by-election is not important. What is important is that it should be a female candidate. Yes, a woman, and not because I love women even though it is true I do. It is because women and not Indians are the neglected lot (and certainly not Malays as PERKASA alleges)."

[Read the rest here.]

Martin Jalleh on Jibby's US Media Circus

Malaysian Circus goes to Washington
by Martin Jalleh

For a little more than a month in 2010 Umno has gone full steam with its scare tactics, saber-rattling tricks, silly threats and sinister theatrics. Now it is all set to take the Malaysian (political) circus to the US and to show Uncle Sam a far “superior” sample of democracy and governance.

The trip is by courtesy of Apco Worldwide, a global PR firm, employed by the government to resuscitate, redeem, and re-engineer the PM’s flagging image at about RM20 million. The firm has allegedly offered similar services to dictators and corrupt leaders worldwide. They must feel very at home here in dealing with the “most corrupt institution in the country.”

But why is Umno off to the US with its best circus clowns to impress the US when they just told those lowdown politicians Down Under that to Umno it is a no-no to interfere in the affairs of Bolehland? Why waste the people’s money and be bothered about what the US thinks of us? Alas, the answer to such a mystery belongs only to those who can go the lowest.

The circus will be hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The man behind it is Ernie Bower (left) in partnership with a (Karen) Brooks. Both have boasted about their close bond with ASEAN leaders. However they insist they are not beholden to Southeast Asian governments nor would they act as a lobby group or agents for them in Washington.

Surely Bower and Brooks can come up with better bull than this. Why would they want to bargain their reputation away by sharing the stage with political buffoons and bozos sent to an image-boosting circus? But the circus must go on. Apco must make the Najib administration look appetizing enough for the whole audience to want to swallow up what they throw at them!


The event will be held on 24th February 2010 and it will be at K Street in Washington DC. This is where the big lobbying firms have their headquarters and is sometimes referred to as the “fourth branch of government.” But of course what is important to Umno is the fact that K Street is also called “The Road to Riches.” Now you get the drift?

The three top officials to speak at the seminar entitled “Governance and Rule of Law in Malaysia and Malaysian Legislative Initiatives” i.e., how the circus is run in Bolehland, are Minister in the PM's Department Nazri Abdul Aziz, former chief justice Abdul Hamid Mohamad and Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail - a powerful and perfect NAG (Nazri, Abdul Hamid & Gani) team!

They will of course have the privilege and honour of being accompanied and introduced by special envoy, senior diplomat, seasoned politician and Malaysia’s ambassador to the United States, Jamaludin Jarjis (left), a man who has soared to such high office as a result of his wide reputation of being very adept at grappling, groping and getting to the bottom of things.

Nazri’s Nonsense

Nazri, the Minister in the PM’s Department, overseer of parliamentary affairs and de facto Law Minister will surely serve up a sterling performance. He has successfully and quite singlehandedly reduced Parliament, the country's supreme law-making institution, to an annual circus, a rubber stamp and a stage for the spineless, silly, sexist and not-so-stable.

Nazri should tell the Americans how free he is to go berserk when his brains short-circuit in parliament, like when he: shouted “racist/bloody racist” at MP Kula Segaran 41 times in a space of five to 10 minutes; snapped at a wheelchair-bound Karpal Singh: “You are just jealous because I am standing!”; and screamed at Lim Kit Siang “Stupid, stupid, stupid…!” until the press gave up counting.

Perhaps Nazri could use the above as veritable examples of how supposedly vibrant and vigorous parliamentary democracy is in Bolehland. He could of course throw in the example of a wheelchair-bound Karpal Singh being surrounded by a hostile group of Umno Youth thugs (as the police and security personnel stood idly by) at the Parliament lobby!

The US has much to learn from a loudmouth and loose cannon like Nazri. He has taken Bolehland to greater heights in hype, hypocrisy, half-truths, hysterics and histrionics in Parliament in spite of the declaration of the current Speaker that “Parliament is no longer like a first-world Parliament anymore”.

Good boy, Gani

As Attorney General (AG) Gani Patail will have to paint a glossy picture of how Bolehland is guided and governed by the rule of law though almost everyone knows that it is the AG who is guided by those who rule, to decide how, when, what and which part of the law is upheld! Gani will be too shy to say, it is actually “Rule by law” and at times its more of the mob which rules!

Gani is a product of “good governance”. He has been a good boy of those who govern. They take good care of him in spite of allegations against him such as “blackmailing and extortion of the highest culpability” in Sodomy I, interference of justice in not prosecuting then Minister for International Trade and Industry Rafidah Aziz for corruption, and tampering with evidence and interfering with the investigations on the savage assault on Anwar Ibrahim.

If and when the audience grills Gani on Sodomy II will he give them a go-around? Or will he parrot the government’s pathetic reply to the international community that sodomy is an offence here? It is very offensive indeed to people’s intelligence when you speak of sodomy (under the penal code) without any penile penetration(verified by doctors)! Will Gani be providing a more penetrating view there?

Surely K Street would love to see the kangaroo courts which have become an increasingly special feature of the Malaysian judicial circus. Nazri and Gani should show how the judiciary, the very portal of justice, continues to be reduced to a convenient playground for the ruling elite to legitimize their power grab, persecute their opponents and promote their political agenda, through the perversion of the rule of law by certain court jesters.

Nazri and Gani should speak proudly on the cattle-trading culture (politically brokered judicial appointments) in the judiciary which still lingers on after both of them decided to treat the findings of the Royal Commission on the V.K. Lingam video clip case very lightly. Nazri made a laughing stock of himself as he lectured Parliament on “What may be morally wrong could be legally or politically ‘correct, correct, correct’”.

The Americans must know that ‘good governance’ reigns in our good country. A good number of politicians especially the Umnoputras have made good money in good time in doing what is "good for the people". In their good fortune they built for themselves palatial mansions, own a fleet of posh cars and huge properties abroad, and take their families on pleasure and all-paid-for holidays and place their children in premier schools overseas.

Abdul Hamid’s Acrobatics

Poor Abdul Hamid, who was well-respected though he was an accidental Chief Justice, may have to do a few head-stands and somersaults to convince the audience that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) which he chairs is doing a good job of curbing corruption and playing a crucial role in good governance. Since its formation, corruption worsened drastically!

Only two per cent of the respondents in a Star online live chat rated the MACC’s performance in fighting corruption as “good”. The rest frowned upon the MACC as a “monumental failure” and a farce in its task of tackling corruption. It has become a favourite tool of the Umno government to repress the opposition and its fatal flaw is that it is not politically neutral.

Since its much hyped up launch on 1 Jan. 2009 the then MACC’s chief commissioner (CC), Ahmad Said Hamdan, “has managed to put his mouth into overdrive while shifting his brains into reverse” (Tunku Aziz). He chose to retire early and will remain haunted by how he had handled the “small case” of the death of Teoh Beng Hock. As for the new CC of the MACC? Well, the public prefers to wait and see.

The Malaysian Circus in K street must of course end with a few key words on how the PM’s slogan of 1Malaysia is a resounding success, for never before has the Government, Parliament, Judiciary and institutions like the Police, Election Commission, and civil service been made to “bond” and “blend” together as One in order to bury the Opposition for good! How’s that for good governance!

Surely Nazri will proudly tell the Americans that he was right on when he declared a few years ago: “…the concept of separation of powers between the legislative, judiciary and executive is ‘too idealistic’ to be implemented in the country.’’

The nagging question still remains as to why should the NAG team waste the taxpayers money and go all the way to put up a circus when the Americans (who created Avatar, remember?) can easily make out the difference between image, illusion and reality?

Courtesy of Reuters

Further their audience would have probably read the report by Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) which warned that Malaysia was “veering towards instability.” Then there are also the annual human rights reports on Third World countries by US-based NGOs and the US Government itself!

Alas, the threesome should have stayed back, saved the rakyat’s money and do something more fruitful or even spiritual, like join in the Prophet Muhammad’s Birthday procession organized by the Penang State Government?

Martin Jalleh
23 February 2010

NEWSFLASH!

Najib's Three Stooges in Washington fuck up big time. 

Read this hilarious Instant Review by RPK :-)