Guest Blogger: DIN MERICAN

A gentleman academic I recently befriended, DIN MERICAN, sent a copy of an interesting Email addressed to a columnist in the NST, and following permission from the writer himself, I welcome a Thinking Malaysian as my esteemed Guest Blogger today. I first interacted with Din at Bakri Musa's weblog, and we in fact bantered quite a bit, even offering views from opposite poles. But the beautiful part of discourse when both sides truly adopt the ethos of democratic exchanges, we found we could be "agreeable in our disagreements". Today's write by Din represents chiefly his own opinions but Desi believes my ER here would appreciate listening to a well-articulated standpoint. I welcome perspectives from north, south, east and west as long as the parties exercise good reasoning. The RATionale, remember? -- even mousey ones like emenating from Desi's orifice sometimes. Or issit most times?


"***Dear Zainah,

I read your article in today's NST with considerable interest and congratulate you on a well written piece.

It is hard hitting one on UMNO and its key agitator-politicians like keris-rattling Hishamuddin, King of the Mat Rempit Khairy Jamaluddin, Ghani Othman of Johore and other "nationalists" who used Malayness, Malay rights, Islam, and other "imagined" issues to signal to their grassroots that the Malays are under seige. Yet the NST is willing to publish it. Why?

I think, the NST wants to protect our "Dear Leader" again. They chose to ignore the fact that as UMNO President, Badawi is ultimately responsible for allowing this to happen. He is no fool in the poltical sense. I think, he did that in order to divert our attention away from his inept administration of our country since he succeeded Tun Dr. Mahathir in November, 2003, ala "wag the dog".

If you read his Amanat Presiden closely, you will realise he had nothing new to say as he had nothing substantive to report to the delegates. Even his Closing Address is uninspiring and empty. At best, it is misleading. For speaking out, loud and frankly, which is allowed in any democracy, Dato Mukhriz Mahathir paid a price. Zainah, you have stepped in to help the NST.

Fancy, Najib informing the delegates that the PM had agreed to provide RM600million over and above the RM200billion allocated in the 9MP for quick small projects (hoping to please the UMNO Division heads). In reality, the PM is not at liberty to allocate funds without approval of Parliament. The Constitution makes it clear that the executive branch cannot give away public funds without going through clearly prescribed processes under GFOs (Government Financial Orders).

For example, supplementary provisions must also be approved by Parliament and the Prime Minister also cannot divert funds from approved projects to finance his pet schemes. So being a former civil servant, our PM must know this. He should also know that public funds do not belong to UMNO. Here is, therefore, another case of bullshit (not speaking the truth). You will never get this kind of stuff from his esteemed predecessor.

With regard to "belligerent speakers", both he, and mainly through Najib promised stern action. So far, Mukkriz has been hauled up (and he is not even belligerent) and made to apologise to UMNO Youth leadership for saying that there was nothing new in the 2006 Amanat Presiden.

Now he must "minta maaf daripada" the Prime Minister himself. Hishamuddin, Ghani Othman, and KJ and others have not been asked to account for their belligerent speeches. Mukhriz made his point which is shared by many in UMNO and outside, and having to apologise now is a small price for him to pay.

Why the double standards? You see, UMNO wants to suck up to their " Dear Leader" who is, in my view (Dr. Bakri Musa and I have said so in our writings), is incompetent and unfit to lead Malaysia. One common sycophantic way is to punish the remaining voices of reason and moderation and to silence voices of dissent in UMNO.

Your silent majority must, therefore, exclude some 3.5 million members of UMNO. On the surface, they seem happy to be led by their noses, and content with the feudalistic status quo. But what truly lies in their hearts?

The other point I wish to make is that we should stop playing politics with our religion, and Islam Hadhari is a form of Political Islam. In that sense, UMNO, you seem to suggest and I agree, is trying to replace PAS. We now have to eat and sleep with this Islam Hadhari thing until the next Prime Minister comes along. Then, there will another reinterpretation, since every UMNO Malay leader wants to leave behind his "unique" legacy in stead of building on past legacies.

So far, Badawi is doing a very bad job since his legacy is nothingness (No Action Talk Only--NATO). The way we are doing things, we cannot progress. We are just destroying our foundations and restarting from scratch.

I wholeheartedly support your "Malaysian First" campaign. But let us agree on what is "Malaysian". Certainly, it is not based on Islamic values, but perhaps "core values" which can promote national unity through integration based on a recognition of our diversity, tolerance, moderation and RukunNegara. It does not make a Chinese a Malaysian because he wears a songkok and uniform to receive his Tan Sriship or Datoship. Should "Malay values" automatically be accepted as Malaysian values? I wonder.

Stay in touch. Din

P.S.

I will not vote for UMNO and BN as long as our "Dear Leader" is the PM. Watch out for low voter turnout in the next elections. I am curious to know what his next election manifesto will be. More of the same--Bullshit?


DESIDERATA:

Please read ***Zainah Anwar's ORIGINAL COLUMN whch I reprised in full from The NST. I welcome my ER to input their views with regard to both Din Merican's and Zainah Anwar's standpoints. Shoot either of them if you need to. Desiderata will reserve his comments till I've hear from you people, so I can't be accused of leading any of my EsteemedReaders up any particular path. To the Abyss, anyone?


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Zainah Anwar on Friday:

Listen to cries of the silent majority
01 Dec 2006

NOW that the silent majority is speaking out in indignation at the racial and religious oratory at the Umno general assembly, political leaders on all sides of the Barisan Nasional are scrambling for damage control.

I am already meeting people who are planning to boycott or spoil their votes at the next general election. They can’t bring themselves to vote for the Opposition, neither can they bring themselves to vote for Barisan Nasional, the party they usually support.

Umno must realise that, for many moderate Malaysians, it has crossed the line. A party that has prided itself as the bedrock of centrist politics, that from its birth held an inherent belief in the politics of accommodation necessary for a divided society to survive, has presented an extremist face to Malaysians.

Many are now saying that what happened was the usual sabre-rattling of any race-based party when the members gather annually. But Umno, as the dominant party in the ruling coalition, must set the tone for moderation and reason, for a sombre analysis of the real challenges besetting the community and the party, especially at a time when nerves are frayed over the religious extremism shown by Islamist groups and their allies within the government. Instead, what the public got was a party display that turned friends into enemies.

The belligerent speakers at the Umno assembly thought they were reflecting "the mood on the ground". They thought they could win support by presenting themselves as protectors of bangsa dan agama under threat. But among whom? For whom? Whose interests were they really protecting?

Instead of inspiring the nation, they have scared us. Non-Muslims are alienated, the moderate Malays are embarrassed and alarmed, and the Islamists that Umno so fears remain planted in the Pas playground — a Pas that is now trying to woo Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, to hold a concert in Kelantan to try to moderate its extremist image.

It is going to take more, much more than the prime minister’s closing speech, and subsequent assurances by others that the supremacist voices in the general assembly do not reflect the thinking of the Umno leadership, to calm the nerves of so many of us who want to live and die in this country.

The Umno politicians who felt they must display their Malay-Muslim machismo must know by now that they have actually misjudged "the mood on the ground". The real mood on the ground remains rooted in the good sense and judgment of those who voted for the Barisan Nasional in the 2004 elections — for all that it promised and stood for with a change of leadership.

Umno must know by now that when it speaks, it does not address just its members. Its audience is the whole country. And foreign journalists, academics, diplomats, foreign governments and international organisations that study Malaysia and look to us as the model Muslim country.

The past one year has been a trying time as Pas and its Islamist allies in civil society and government joined hands to demonise and delegitimise those who stood up for fundamental liberties on issues such as moral policing, freedom of religion and discriminatory Syariah laws.

Instead of defending the Constitution they pledged to uphold, the international conventions their own party-led government signed, and even government commitments to end all forms of discrimination on the basis of gender, many Umno leaders retreated into silence, or bought into the sense of "crisis" and "siege" their political rivals engineered. Some even publicly joined the "race and religion under siege" wagon train over the past year.

When the Mufti of Perak announced that 100,000 Muslims have left Islam and another 250,000 are waiting to leave, the government took time to dispute the figures. Even then with little effect, as the "Islam DiHina" bandwagon had already reached mosques and surau nationwide to spread their inflammatory and provocative propaganda in order to engineer disorder.

When the Penang Global Ethics project aimed at promoting unity in diversity came under attack by the same Islamist supremacist groups, and then again at the Umno general assembly, no one in government had the courage to point out that this international campaign to promote religious understanding and harmony was based on an international declaration endorsed by the government. The original declaration launched at the 1993 meeting of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions was endorsed by two government representatives, the chairman of IKIM, Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji Abdul Hamid and the former director-general, Datuk Ismail Ibrahim. The Penang project was launched by no less than the governor himself, the head of religion in the state, and the chief minister.

And yet, when it was attacked, those who should have defended it vociferously were silent. While those who raved and ranted against the project as yet another attempt to undermine the supremacy of Islam set the agenda.

From the stillborn Interfaith Council to Article 11, liberal Islam, the Shamala, Moorthy and Lina Joy cases and purported thousands of apostates, to even the lowly ice-cream wafer, it was Pas and the Islamists who framed the agenda and defined what is Islamic, what is not, what poses a danger to the faith, what does not.

Where are the voices of reason in government who have the will to stand up against this onslaught? Why are they not on television, radio, in the mosques, to challenge the demonising and twisted propaganda that is undermining the nation’s social fabric? What alternative opinions are the Malays exposed to that could enable them to judge rationally and soberly whether indeed our interests are under threat? Perhaps if reason had spoken up, the mood on the Malay ground would not be so "restless".

Only one side of the story dominated the public space, because those who represented the opposing view in civil society were gagged.

Was it any wonder that these Umno politicians thought the "mood on the ground" had shifted and they must rise to the occasion? Only to find they actually lost the ground.

Thus the current outcries of concern. But I am ever the optimist, believing in the innate good sense and pragmatism of Malaysians who know that we have much to love and to live for in this blessed country, and we have much to lose if it all comes apart.

If the leaders cannot lead, then we, the people, will lead, and the leaders will follow.


The silent majority that speaks once every four or five years at the ballot box are beginning to realise that their silence is at Malaysia’s peril.

In the worst of times, the best of times can emerge. I am hearing many stories of Malaysians thinking and planning all kinds of actions to foster better inter-ethnic and inter-religious understanding, in small and big ways.

The opportunity is now as we enter 2007 to celebrate 50 years of Merdeka. The politicians, in and out of government, and the Islamists can decide whether they want to be with the rakyat in ensuring come Aug 31, 2007 we are in the mood to celebrate, or we are expending our time, energy and resources creating enemies and fighting imaginary threats from the likes of ice-cream wafers.

My friends are planning to start an "I am Malaysian first" campaign to build up to Merdeka Day next year. We want it to be a joyous and proud time where we celebrate the wealth and strength of our diversity, and build inter-ethnic bridges that politicians intent on using race and religion to polarise us cannot rend asunder.

DESI: Please note that the emphasis as highlighted (BOLDED THUS or italicised) are all done by this host. In a way, it intimates to my ER that on those points highlighted, Desi is either in strong assent or dissent. Your guess may be better than mine...


UPDATEd Dec 2, 2006 @10.40AM:


Saturday December 2, 2006


Umno trio ticked off over fiery speeches

KUALA LUMPUR: Three speakers at the recent Umno general assembly whose speeches were deemed to be inflammatory have been given a ticking off by the party's leaders.

Umno president Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the party’s management committee had called Kedah delegate and Umno Youth information chief Azimi Daim, Malacca delegate Hasnoor Sidang Hussein, and Perlis delegate Hashim Suboh on Wednesday to explain their remarks, which had slighted the non-Malays.

Abdullah said they were given pedas dan keras (caustic and strong) advice to be careful with their words.

They were told not to go overboard until they risk running foul of the law, Abdullah told newsmen after chairing the Umno supreme council meeting at Menara Datuk Onn yesterday.

“The trio have vowed to adhere to the management committee’s directive,” he added.

Abdullah, who is Prime Minister, said the matter was brought up at the Umno supreme council meeting yesterday.

DESI: One comment ("Rare" or 'Medium-rare' or "Welldone"?) from your arrogant host for now is "Dear Leader, is that awe? "caustic and strong" advice to the "schoolboys" to "be careful with their words". ? No detention class -- writing 1,000 lines ala "I promise I will behave myself in public speaking next time."

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UPDATEd on DEc 3 @1030AM~~

3 comment(s):

"Off course, we should try our hands at writing poetry, but whether we get pulbish or not is a different matter, but certainly Wendy Cope's simple verses give hope, eh...

Take care...

By dreamer idiot, at 6:54 PM "

"Two great essay string together produces the effect of knowledge and proper understanding of the key elements of governance - that it fails, and fails miserably

By Maverick SM, at 7:13 PM "

"After the sandiwara at recent UMNO GA, i know we've been had...those incendiary speeches which amount, IMHO, to incitement to create chaos and disharmong among the people.
Also, esp that on-the-spot grant of RM600 for each UMNO divison to spend in triply quik time! Ooops, i left out 6 zeroes! So it's RM3million to be spent for Christmas and Nu'e Year -- Pak Lah playing Father Santa using OUR (taxpapyers') money.
The last dime I looked out the window, I did NOT see ringgit growing on my durian trees!
The blardy government has GONE AGAINST the federal Constitution syphoning off the Treasury (Petronas' rising profits, izzit?) for a BN component party's use -- the AG offices, both Attorney-General's and Auditor General's -- must investigate Pronto!

Mave: I agree with you 100% that the government "... fails, and fails miserably..." in the explicit implementation of key elements of governance.

Post this Epic Play on the PWTC Stage, whch has come to a sort of informal closure, I have made a "downgrade"from a "6" to a "4" on Pak Lah's leadership, which I have had extended generous does of cooperation and benefit of the doubt. Not now ...~~~ DEsiderata