I am sure that each and everyone of us have been hearing about Najib asking the people of Kelantan to try out the BN for 5 years and if things don’t improve by then, to kick them out in the next GE?
Now, to folks like me, I somewhat am feeling the pinch due to the shrinking buying power of each and every ringgit that I fork out to buy most items that I need to survive day by day?
A tank of petrol a couple of years back used to cost just about RM50 to RM60 for an average sedan like the Proton Wira 1.5.
Today RM50 fills up just over half a tank!
Imagine if these BN chaps decide to increase the price of petrol after winning the GE by let’s say another 10 or 20 sens per litre?
Now, where are we going to get those extra bucks to make ends meet?
It’s ridiculous for the BN Govt to keep squeezing each and every ringgit out from the citizens under the claim of rising oil prices worldwide and instead of easing our financial stress by sharing the wealth coming from Petronas profits which amounts to hundreds of billions of ringgits, the powers that be under the BN have been happily loading it up on to our heads?
So Anwar and the Opposition are saying that if Malaysians vote them into power, the very next day, oil prices throughout the nation will be reduced overnight!
Now, who would want to oppose that?
Which sane Malaysian would say no to paying less for his or her fuel needs?
Who would say no to better purchasing power for their ringgits?
So, if the BN can come and ask the Kelantanese to try them out for 5 years, I say why not we try out the Opposition for 5 years and see if they can do us any good?
I mean, things are getting more expensive under the BN’s 50 years rule over us and the disparity between the lording ones and the common average Malaysian citizen is getting wider and wider by each term that we keep voting them back in?
Let me ask you if these BN fellas are faultless?
You and me know very well that there are so many cases of corruption and abuse that has been hushed up by the judiciary here in Malaysia that at times citizens like us just can’t believe that those who were caught red handed can somehow be let go because of insufficient evidence, bla bla bla?
The only ones who get plastered are the small fry whilst the ferocious sharks swim away unscathed and get to retain all their ill gotten gains and even fancy bloody titles to boot?
Used to be a time when the title of Datuk, Dato’, Tan Sri, etc used to be respected by the people and such titles were awarded to those who have in one way or another contributed to the nation and Malaysians by way of exemplary selfless services, etc.
Nowadays, crooks and shysters get awarded such titles and honorifics under shady circumstances. The absurdity of it all is that these ‘slim shadies’ continue to strut around like bloody untouchable peacocks and the wealth that they have illegally amassed is left undisturbed.
So dear Malaysians, how about a change of government?
If the Malaysian Opposition can make our lives a bit better, why not take up the call by Najib for the Kelantanese to try out not the BN for the next 5 years but rather try the Opposition to rule over the nation for the next term of office?
I sure as hell see no reason why we should not?
As far as Chandra Muzaffar badmouthing Anwar and saying Anwar does not merit being the PM of this nation, who the hell is Chandra to decide for the nation what we should do and should not?
Since when has this man ever done anything for us except to yak yakkety yak about this and that forgetting for a bloody moment that hello … the fella did join the very ‘lousy useless crook’ that he is saying Anwar is and was with PKR for a while?
Talk about someone who is pissed off with the PKR for not kowtowing to his dreams and wishes and now making personal attacks against the former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister whom we all know was sacked, assaulted, humiliated to the extent that no other Malaysian leader had ever been through and then thrown into prison under trumped up charges?
For all we know the mysteries and allegations surrounding Anwar’s case are still being debated and discussed by those who are in the legal profession?
Realities before us shows that the very persons who are accusing Anwar about this and that aren’t exactly that squeaky clean themselves and have plenty of skeletons in their own wardrobes so to speak?
Think tanks and political scientists are always coming up with so many theories and assumptions about all other persons but themselves?
What did these fellas ever achieve in reducing the hardships suffered by the people?
All talk and no solutions for the average Malaysians spells nothing for me coming from the likes of Chandra Muzaffar?
I mean if the man is really that concerned about protecting the nation from ‘crooks’ like Anwar, what the hell has he done or achieved to reduce corrupt leaders in the BN from screwing the nation during Abdullah Badawi’s watch?
I don’t recall hearing even a squeak from such folks?
Did any of you?
All these faultfinding somehow seems to come only during these crucial times when we are about to cast our votes and decide our fate together on March the 8th, 2008?
Why did Chandra not make any noise before this when he was so happy to sit besides Wan Azizah and commandeer the PKR?
Why now and not back then?
I have a funny feeling about all these and the way that bloody banner turns up at Tasek Gelugor and Telok Ayer Tawar?
Something’s just not right and as we know the propaganda machines are in full swing over at RTM and all the other kowtowing tv channels!
If this ain’t a dirty campaign by the BN, I don’t know what is?
I for one feel that we ought to go with our heart and chart our future together in unity of purpose which is to live a better more affordable life with our loved ones and not fall prey to another term of bullshit spewing bla bla bla b’leadership of the clueless eunuchs lording over us?
What do you folks think?
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Dear Maha,
The ilk of Chandra is an intellectual cheat and an assassin for hire. He epitomizes the disease of the Muslim World’s ruffians: cheap charlatans for hire at any given time. They have no integrity, character, decency, sense of honour, responsibility and God’s fear. It is very ironical that he lambastes Anwar saying that he is fighting for justice, yet he is unjust both to Anwar and to all the Malaysians screwed up by BN and UMNO warlords. It is very unjust that he character assassinates someone in a newspaper that will not give Anwar the right to rebuttal or to be heard, yet he talks of integrity. Wonders will never end. My brother, I came to know one thing: that some of our Indian Muslim brothers and sisters are very naïve. Some in their blind pursuit for economical goals leave decency behind and even try to reject their identity. I’m sure you read of the Indian Malaysian Muslim Youth Association saying that they want to be called “Malays” because they dress and eat like Malays. What a joke! Why do you want to deny the identity Allah has given you? It is a sign of God’s existence that we have different people, skins, languages and manners. Appreciate it and work hard for your personal success. This brings me to the Mamak disease we have. Most of them like Chandra are pussyfooters who have no sense of responsibility but in their blind pursuit to gain acceptance in the midst of Malays, do what even a eunuch can’t do. They need to know that we the Malays have no good whatsoever without Islam. Without Islam, Malays are brute bunch of people. It is Islam that salvages them though Islam Hadhari is destroying them nowadays. As long as we are Muslims, we have one identity and that’s Islam. So Chandra should know that launching a scathing attack on Anwar in the hope that he will be elevated is very misplaced and it shows how pugnacious, ill, unregenerate and an uncouth he is.
Concerning your appeal to give the opposition 5 years, well, some are ready, some not. Those who are not ready lack courage and an innate love for better Malaysia. Fear has overcome them, conquered them and UMNO feeds them with unmitigated lies and sealed information and they consume. We need courage, hope, and the will.
I’m reminded of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner who said: “Courage. Courage comes. Courage comes from cultivating. Courage comes from cultivating the habit. Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing. Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one’s actions.”
A CLASSIC CHANDRA-WARA !
by Martin Jalleh
It is simply amazing how someone who was deemed “irrelevant” by the caretaker PM and of whom the mainstream media (MSM) chose to send into oblivion has now become the cover story of the MSM – for very obvious reasons of course!
“Who is Anwar? ” the PM had asked sarcastically. He is finished. His political career has folded up. But now, almost every other day Pak Lah answers his own question! Anwar’s “spirit” haunts, hounds and heckles him – even though Anwar is not eligible to stand!
Very evidently the script and sandiwara for the General Elections by the boys on the Fourth Floor have spun out of control. The sycophants surrounding the PM have been caught with their pants down.
In comes an eminent human rights advocate who would spew out an “intellectual” diatribe – Chandra Muzaffar – a man whom in elections of recent times (except when he was in the Opposition) the BN would unleash before the final curtain.
“If Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim becomes Prime Minister, it will be an ‘unmitigated disaster’ for Malaysia. . . he is not the sort of leader the country needs as he is now singing a different tune from when he was in the Government, ” charged Chandra, the former deputy president of PKR.
Chandra changed?
A member of the public named “Amar” who wrote to the editor of Malaysiakini pointed out that the “examples he (Chandra) quotes in the report were events that happened way before Anwar lost Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s patronage and interestingly, these were events that took place before Anwar’s reformasi movement commenced. ”
“On what basis did Chandra join PKR as deputy president given that he had reservations over Anwar’s past decisions? ” he quite appropriately asked.
In a similar vein respected journalist and former MP James Wong Wing On quotes a retired academician who attended the forum during which “Chandra Muzaffar had ‘really succeeded’ in damaging or even destroying his own credibility by re-launching ‘a very bitter and vindictive’ attack on Anwar Ibrahim’s ‘past records’ in the BN government”:
“If Chandra Muzaffar had always known Anwar’s “past records” in BN…why did he continue to support Anwar in the period from 1998 to 1999 and also became Parti Keadilan Nasional’s deputy president and its parliamentary candidate in the 1999 general election? ”
A “Aril Mikhail” wrote to Malaysiakini highlighting the irony that “Chandra is ‘coming clean’ and saying all this of Anwar now, when he himself appears to be doing the exact opposite of what he was doing when in Aliran and PKR. Before, he consistently argued against the BN having a two-thirds majority and the need for a strong opposition. ”
“Now, on the eve of the elections, he seemingly dismisses the opposition and asserts that, despite its flaws, there is no other viable coalition beyond the BN. How fortuitous. I guess when you’ve been offered a cushy position in a state university for two years, you tend to ‘change’ somewhat.
“Dear Chandra, selling out is fine. But becoming a willing tool of a corrupt, arrogant and racist regime at this critical juncture devalues, indeed destroys, whatever good work you may have done thus far. May God guide you, ” was Mikhail’s parting blessing!
In other words, it appears Chandra is also singing a different tune?
Chandra Confused?
In their response to Chandra’s cutting criticism of Anwar, the Malaysian Media Monitors’ Diary, a joint project of Charter 2000-Aliran, the Centre for Independent Journalism and the Writers Alliance for Media Independence, along with independent volunteers, showed how confused Chandra was:
“Chandra also expressed his fear of serious polarisation in the country: ‘My fear is that this coming election will reinforce and aggravate the ethnic polarisation if a large number of non-Malays vote for the Opposition, and worse if a large percentage of Malays vote for the Opposition. This will cause Umno to be very cautious in making any changes to the ethnic question and addressing issues related to religion. ’
“Such an argument only raises further questions: in the first place, isn’t the increase in polarisation due to ethnic-based policies and practices of the past Umno-led administrations, as alluded to by Chandra himself? If so, how on earth could Umno be relied upon to make meaningful changes that could redress problems related to ethnicity and religion?
“And why was there an emergence of amorphous groups such as Hindraf that articulate legitimate grievances (to a large extent) from a particular ethnic community?
“Secondly, how can ethnic polarisation worsen if both the non-Malays and the Malays vote for the Opposition? If anything, a multi-ethnic ruling coalition and a multi-ethnic opposition would lessen polarisation and ensure that issues raised are debated in the interests of all Malaysians. Is it the only the Barisan Nasional that can resolve ethnic issues and polarisation. The record indicates otherwise. ”
Chandra Consistent?
Chandra also said “the most important quality of a leader in a multi-ethnic country was honesty and when a leader spoke on sensitive ethnic issues, he must say the same thing to non-Malays as to the Malays…You cannot play games because it is very dangerous. ”
There could be no better response to this than that provided by the Malaysian Media Monitors’ Diary: ”If, as rightly pointed out by Chandra, the issue of trust and honesty is vital, then shouldn’t we, or rather forum moderator Wong Chun Wai, also ask whether leaders such as keris-wielding Hishamuddin can be trusted to be one of the country’s leaders.
“After all, didn’t Hishamuddin change his political stance pertaining to the issue of Chinese and Tamil schools in the country in the run-up to the general election? Isn’t that political expedience of the highest degree?
“Hasn’t his tune changed? Wasn’t it in Umno that you had a few politicians talking of unsheathing the keris and threatening to bathe it with Chinese blood? Did this escape Wong’s (or Chandra’s) memory? ”
Yes, what about the “honesty” of caretaker deputy prime minister Najib Tun Razak who in 1987, as UMNO Youth Chief, vowed to bathe the keris with Chinese blood, and who now never fails to spew out a verbal diarrhea of multi-racial mutterings?
As for consistency, did the caretaker PM not preach to the gathering of Christians at the Plenary Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches at the beginning of his premiership on “Dialogue The Key To Unity Of Multireligious, Multiethnic And Multicultural Societies” and yet, four years later ban the Building Bridges Conference, a inter-religious seminar meant to bring together Christian and Muslim scholars of international repute?
Alas, Chandra seems so out of tune! Even the Aliran Executive Committee feels so. In a statement today they provide two examples: “It is odd, (therefore, ) that Chandra should be so concerned about the problem of money politics in PKR per se. At the same time, he has not said much of late about the money politics which has always been associated with the BN. ”
”Chandra also has highlighted the supposedly racial scare tactics used by PKR during the Lunas by-election. For us, such dirty tricks have been resorted to by all parties especially the BN. Again, all forms of racial baiting by all parties should be condemned. ”
Chandra’s chicanery?
In recent years, Anwar has in fact addressed what Chandra has accused him off. As Aril Mikhail has put it quite succinctly: “The gist of Chandra’s personal attack is that Anwar is saying things now that are the opposite of what he said and did when he was high up in Umno. This, of course, is nothing new and Anwar himself has addressed these criticisms often enough. ”
Indeed quite recently Anwar has met head-on criticisms and the portrayal of him as a political chameleon (especially by the MCA). When asked to respond to a 4-page leaflet by the MCA entitled “Disclosing the true face of Anwar”, Anwar said:
“The notion that I’m a political chameleon misses things by a mile…Nothing I did and said in the language and cultural spheres were not standard BN-Umno policy and nowhere did I take my championing of any issue to the extent that I waved a keris and called for bloodletting, stirring crowds to emotive outbursts”
(Malaysiakini).
Anwar was referring to the October 1987 Umno Youth-led demonstration in Kuala Lumpur where a band of Malay leaders, including present Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, harangued the crowd with inflammatory rhetoric.
At that time, the posting of non-Mandarin speaking administrators to government-aided Chinese schools ratcheted up racial tension in the country: “Those were fraught times and I hold that the distinction one ought to make between a responsible and a chauvinistic leader in that context lay in how you argued your point without inflaming public sentiment.
“I stood on the sane side of that divide while there were others in power today who breached that line with impunity, ” he said.
In early February this year, Anwar subjected himself to a rigorous examination of his stances on religious issues in the presence of about 200 Christian clerics and lay activists and appeared to have emerged intact (Malaysiakini).
There was no variance between his public pronouncements and his private assurances to his inquisitors, said an observer at the closed-door dialogue held in Petaling Jaya, organised by the Christian Federation of Malaysia.
Chandra’s Condemnation
There also remains the hopeful reality that politicians do and can change for the better through time and circumstance. James Wong quotes a good Christian friend who also attended the forum wherein Chandra spoke:
“…whatever his “past records” in the BN government, Anwar has ‘cleansed’ himself by his willingness to suffer grave injustices and tortures from 1998 to 2004, and also by working hard now to oppose BN’s unjust policies. Seen in this light, Anwar is definitely a better person than those in the BN who still refuse to make amends for the better. ”
“Has Dr. Chandra Muzaafar himself changed for the better or worse? ” asked James Wong
By portraying Anwar as untrustworthy and unprincipled Chandra is pronouncing the “death sentence” on the man who has already paid a very costly price for challenging the head of a hegemony who was capable of the most heinous!
Chandra also confounded the whole country when he said that although BN was “flawed”, there was no other coalition in the country. In its statement Aliran stated that it “does not share Chandra’s recent remarks vis-à-vis Anwar Ibrahim and PKR. Neither do we share his views that the BN despite its flaws is a better choice. Indeed, we are rather perturbed by his apparently emotional outburst. ”
Asked why he was breaking his silence now, Chandra said it appeared that people were being deceived by Anwar and (i)t is something for which I am prepared to go on record now so that people will not be deceived”.
Chandra should keep in mind what he had once declared: “Malaysians are not idiots or imbeciles. ”
Apparently Aliran was not satisfied with the answer given by its former president and so it stated and asked: “The most disturbing aspect of this episode is how Dr Chandra Muzaffar has wittingly or unwittingly lent himself to be a part of the BN propaganda machine. It is sad that a prominent intellectual and long-time activist of his standing has such a blinkered view of the issue at hand. We wonder why he did not make these alleged goings-on public earlier and follow up on them conclusively given his public stance on integrity and accountability. Why only now? ”
Alas, Chandra should not allow himself to be a hydra of the BN!
Martin Jalleh
5 March 2008
Well said or shared, gentlemen!
It’s a shame for both of you rational sounding folks to not be bloggers!
Do the right thing. Blog about what you feel strongly about and share with the nation and the blogosphere all that is right.
Capable people like you both ought to come forward and state the truth.
Fear no one but The Almighty.
Even He asks of us to fight for justice and not to remain as eunuchs before those who are tyrants.
Verily each of us are approaching Death by each passing second, by every heartbeat of us, towards the ultimate end.
Do not let it be said that we remained silent when injustice was being propagated by those who are corrupt and putting up a charade of being righteous when clearly they are not?
Join us in blogging and do your part towards nation building.
God knows we need more like you to expose the assassins of the truth!
May Peace, Blessings and the Mercies of Almighty Allah be upon us all!
Ameen.
Assalamualaikum,
Brother Im just wondering since Ive been keeping score for awhile now about whats going on and so forth with the US elections. It is just this one thing that really gets to me.
Those politicians abroad got balls to have a debate about any issues, but why such thing do not occur in Malaysia.. you got any idea?
India was ruled by Congress party for many years since independence. They practised closed economy, which means no trade or little trade with foreign countries. Foreigners is not welcomed to invest. To recall back issues such as Coco Cola, Mcdonald , Ford can�t operate at that time. After 1995, BJP took over. BJP was an opposition earlier. They revamped the economy policy and look where is India now. Emerging economy, flourishing in the area Information Technology, new infrastructure development and etc. Even though Congress is back and ruling now, the Opposition has made great differences is a short period.
Isn�t it is a good example?
Wa’alaikumsalam.
Malaysia’s politicians aren’t eloquent and as oratorically inclined as the likes of the politicians of the US.
Only a few of our local politicians have the intellectual base and public speaking capabilities as we find in Anwar Ibrahim and others.
Failure of the BN Government to allow or accept public debate is also a major cause as to why local Malaysian politicians won’t stand a chance if put to such a test during the elections campaigns now?
We need more articulate people in government.
Saw how our Minister of information screw up when interviewed by Al-Jazeera during the BERSIH protests incident?
That’s the kind of people the BN has in abundance.
It will be political suicide if they ever accept the calls for a public debate between the BN and the Opposition!
That’s why!