Saturday, May 12, 2012

Poised for a BIG FALL: A letter of thanks to 'Humpty Dumpty' Najib Razak

Poised for a BIG FALL: A letter of thanks to 'Humpty Dumpty' Najib Razak

Written by  Shenaaz Khan

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

I do not wish to interrupt your present massive grave digging exercise, but I feel compelled to extol my gratitude upon your mighty moustached-ness. My self-respect demands it! But instead of prattling on aimlessly, I shall endeavour to catalogue your heaping handfuls of judiciousness.

1. Thank you for your fairness

Time and again, you make certain all Malaysians, young and old, men and women, ill and well, get an equal taste of the sweet savour of tear gas. The intoxicating blend of bronchial obstruction and optical inflammation should by no means be a luxury solely relished by the weak of heart and the blind of eye!

And you made sure of that several sunny Saturdays ago, while Malaysians were merry-making in yellowy yarns under the scorching heat. Fearful of them availing themselves to melanoma, you commanded your constabulary to orchestrate orgies of obliteration with showers of asphyxiating fluid. After all, Malaysians must be made to forcibly understand the merits of chemical carnage for jaundiced jaunts. Nothing like a Power Shower to help open up ones pores.

2. Thank you for the entertainment

I am certain the only reason you fill your cabinet with a platoon of feebleminded dumb dumbs is for sheer entertainment value. It was especially kind of you to employ your cousin, that Beacon of Buffoonery, who appears to have honed the fine art of shooting himself in the foot while said foot has taken up permanent residency in his vacuous mouth! He has, for all intents and purposes, the intellectual capacity of a stapler and should only be allowed to oversee flower arrangements.

Your other parliamentary Pinocchios’, ministry minions and government gnomes are also a hoot and a half. Those worthy of special mention are the blockhead of Kota Belud, the hand smooching half-wit of Hulu Selangor and of course the chief chimp buccaneer of UMNO Youth. That these regular Charlie Chaplins’ are allowed to roam at large in a civilised country is simply hilarious!

Another one of your despotic disciples with dazzling comic timing is of course the Fatwa Council. Amidst their hourly ablutions, the funny Fatwa folk doth protest too much, on protests. Understandably though, for the Holy Writ has cautioned that assembled mobs may break into meditative mayhem and God forbid, some frenzied form of protestutional yoga might ensue. And as we all know, behind every Yoga pose, is THE LGBT!!

Equally farcical are your component parties which remain very much like a left foot in an automatic car -useless and without function. But they’re always worth a laugh!

3. Thank you for hating “The Opposition”!

It is this revulsion that drives you to foil “The Oppositions” ominous aims of democratising and freeing this former British crown colony with their sinister socialism. To have to repeatedly heave yourself out of bed and dip into your pot of plots to uncrown these freedom fiends must be mentally menacing but I do see its merits. I have to say your latest scheme is simply scholarly. To accuse “The Opposition” of orchestrating a coup d’etat is too de brilliant! One might argue that a coup is typically done by the military and the military is known to be firmly jammed under your fascist feet, right next to the Federal Constitution and press freedom. But those democratic donkeys from “The Opposition” are notorious for overthrowing governments using dragons, unicorns and very ripe turnips, so watchful one must be of their impending treachery! Also, beware of a gnat with a lavender wand.

Another Grand villain you ought to be wary of is this newfangled invention called “The Internet”. “The Internet” appears to be in cahoots with “The Opposition” and has made several notable attempts at disrupting and disputing your league of lying louts. “The Opposition” have even deigned to call you Hitler! But in doing so, they have displayed a depressing level of stupidity by overlooking one glaring difference- your name begins with an “N”, not an “H”. HAH! Those perfidious knaves! They must be banished!!

4. Thank you for curing insomnia

Your dull and dreary speeches, laced with the cursory hog-calling chant of 1 Malaysia, with an expression much like an ape with a stomach ache, are sedatively divine! You have the caustic wit and physical presence of Louis the 16th and on occasion, Eeyore! Of late, it does seem like your advisors (i.e. carers of your moustache) have recommended you pump your all too powerful fists in the air, exercise your foul facial muscles and make audible hollering sounds, using various words from the Indian sub-continent. I would advise you to stop doing that. It unsettles my solar plexus and disturbs my otherwise sound sleep.

5. Thank you for your generosity

Your “pay-the-poor-pittance” BR1M movement was an incalculable act brimming with generous bravado. It was touching to see the jingo patriots genuflect their government gargoyles of greatness, while the elderly were made to stand in queuing herds, begging for money from the very bandits who routinely stole it from them. Like a true Champion of Chumps, you used the people’s piggy bank to piggyback the people whose pursers you previously pillaged!

I suppose it is this fine sense of commerce that has permitted you to broker a windfall from watercraft ventures. While others may deride you with derogatory adjectives for the purchase of mechanical mermaids, I see its usefulness in helping you submerge yourself further in the cesspool of corruption you currently marinate in! Your mastery at making many monies through aquatic acquisitions has inspired parallel deeds by your fellow party pirates. Why, it clearly stirred the Husbandry Husband of an erstwhile Madam Minister to take borrowed funds to buy buildings for bovines. This seems completely apt in this bullish economy.

6. Thank you for helping Malaysians lose weight

I, much like many Malaysians, can’t seem to view you without experiencing revolting nausea. Your jolly jingle, “Nation on my mind, people in my heart”, induces vomit in my throat! And visions of your fair lady comforting the whimpering poor with her bejewelled arms are always a bulimic bonus. Her heavily doctored presence alone heals hunger and leaves me enlightened with a heavy head of weightlessness. Her clunky adornments also help repel taste.

I could go on but I am suddenly overcome with utter laziness. So Thank you MR. Prime Minister! Thank you so very much! The perils of being a premier louse are endless but you remain true to yourself. That of a man whose vision is veiled by vile vengeance.

A man who idly shakes his cloven hooves while his grandchildren’s grandmother greedily gobbles gallons of gold. A man, who amidst a womary of deceptive delusions, claims to speak the truth.

But I dreadfully fear no one is spellbound by your spiel and you’re in a Humpty Dumpty dump! Hence all that is left to do is present you a botanical offering with a card that reads “Your lease is up BN. Prepare to vacate the premises”! And let the embalming begin!

From : Malaysia Chronicle

Sunday, May 6, 2012

The world now knows about Najib's 'baggage' thanks to NST's 'cheap' reporting trick

The world now knows about Najib's 'baggage' thanks to NST's 'cheap' reporting trickIt's an encounter that has gone into the folklore of our diplomatic service.

An Australian envoy meeting a senior Malaysian official heard a familiar complaint about critical coverage of his country's politics in the Australian media.

He snapped back: ''The media in Australia are not owned or controlled by the government,'' the envoy said. ''Here they all are, and throughout my time here, I've never seen a favourable report about Australia.''

Umno sent NST to 'work on' Xenophon

Senator Nick Xenophon, who went up last month to join an international team looking at Malaysia's electoral system, has just had a personal lesson in just how slanted and hostile its media can be. After the team published a highly critical report, the New Straits Times newspaper, owned ultimately by the ruling United Malays National Organisation or UMNO, went to work on him.

It took a passage from one of his old parliamentary speeches on a favourite topic - ''Scientology is not a religious organisation. It is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs'' - and substituted the world ''Islam'' for ''Scientology'' throughout. It's hard to think of a cheaper reporting trick in a strongly Muslim country.

Malaysia no longer what it seems

Australians often trip rather too naively into Malaysia's murky political world. Succumbing to the happy multicultural story of ''Malaysia - truly Asia'' a lot of us don't see the deep racial fears and antipathies swirling in the country's history and heating its politics even today.

Malaysia is a country of great wealth and many competencies, but despite decades of high growth still falls behind its potential because it hasn't yet shaken itself free of its poisonous beginnings. Riven by massive fraud, waste and economic distortion, it is a country of religious zeal, yet as noted by Bridget Welsh, a political scientist at the Singapore Management University, its political life is dirty.

''Murder, sodomy, secret trysts, sex videos and conspiracy are all commonplace, and corruption scandals occur regularly,'' she wrote on the East Asia Forum website recently. ''Both sides wallow in this political gutter, each trying to darken the reputation of the other, and not fully appreciating how much the system as a whole has been damaged.''

Najib came with a lot of baggage

Australia and Australians have often been a convenient diversion from this domestic mudslinging, with sniping reaching low points in the 22 years of Mahathir Mohamad's prime ministership.

It's getting testy again as Malaysia's current Prime Minister, Najib Razak, heads towards a critical national election trying on one hand to preserve the ethnic dominance endowed in UMNO and on the other to reform the discredited underpinnings of that power.

Najib took the prime ministership after the UMNO-led ruling coalition suffered a big setback in the last elections, in March 2009, losing the two-thirds majority in Parliament that allowed it to make constitutional amendments and control five of the 13 states to a three-party opposition alliance put together by UMNO's alienated former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Najib came with a lot of baggage - notably a kickback scandal on French submarines purchased while he was defence minister, about which two examining magistrates in Paris would like to interview him - but he's tried to wield a new broom.

Reforms that don't work

A new economic policy is aimed at watering down preferences for ethnic Malays. Stakes have been sold off in bloated public sector enterprises to try to make them more efficient. Last month, the government repealed the colonial-era Internal Security Act, which allowed indefinite detention without trial, and it changed the public assembly law.

But the reforms haven't resulted in much perceptible change. The UMNO membership is resisting a loss of Malay perks, entrenched cultures remain in public enterprises like the national airline, and a replacement security law has been widely condemned by local and international human rights groups as wide open to similar abuse as the old one.

One result has been that Najib's personal approval has been running at a high 69 per cent in the opinion polls, while the UMNO coalition's support has been a lacklustre 46 per cent or so, suggesting the public give Najib marks for trying but don't think his efforts will work. About a third of those favouring Najib say they will still vote for Anwar's opposition.

What could be, won't be with Najib at the helm

Najib's support also has flicked sharply downwards when familiar instruments of repression are wielded. A movement for electoral reform called Bersih (meaning ''Clean'') led by a doughty woman barrister, Ambiga Sreenavasan, has had its demonstrations declared illegal and then met with massive police force. The latest was in Kuala Lumpur last Saturday, attended by tens of thousands. Xenophon and other observers shared in a dousing with tear gas and water cannon.

Bersih's concerns are echoed by the foreign observer group. The electoral system gives wide scope for gerrymandering, with electorate sizes ranging from 7000 to 100,000 voters. Suspiciously, numbers of new voters, over 30 per cent of the previous total, are being registered in opposition-held electorates. Party monitors have just been barred from scrutinising the eligibility of intending voters at polling stations.

Armed force and police personnel have their votes scrutinised by senior officers, and the 240,000 public servants assigned to election duties are required to make postal votes. But strangely, the hundreds of thousands of Malaysians working overseas or employed away from their home towns are not allowed to make absentee votes. A snap poll - a campaign is usually only about 10 days - means a lot of the country's best and brightest won't have time to return to their place of registry.

Bersih's experience with the Malaysian traditional media - owned either by the ruling parties in the case of the newspapers and commercial television, or by politically-directed state broadcasters - illustrates the problem of unequal access to campaign coverage. Before its recent mass demonstrations, media stories have linked it variously to Christian, Jewish and communist conspiracies, and even Islamic extremists.

The internet has given outlets for opposition voices and analysis that reach urban, well educated voters. But rural people get only the slanted pro-government media, at best anodyne, at worse mendacious.

Xenophon's experience suggests the settings won't change for the election Najib seems about to call. It's a pity, given what Malaysia could be.

http://www.smh.com.au/