Najib slammed for cliched, hypocritical UN maiden speech

Malaysia Chronicle

Pakatan Rakyat leaders ticked off Prime Minister Najib Razak for making a speech “full of cliches” that not only embarrassed the nation but also drew world attention to the huge double standards practiced in Malaysia, which many have said is just a step away from the full-blown apartheid system previously practised in South Africa.

“Frankly, no one in the UN will bother to listen to him especially when he has the reputation of being the mastermind behind Sodomy II. So when he makes a speech like this that every other leader has at one time or another said before, it is sweet dreams time for them. Tell me, which leader would call for extremism and not moderation,” Batu MP Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.

Extremism and racism at home

Amid great fanfare and trumpeting by the Umno-controlled media, Naib made his maiden speech at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday. In his speech, he called on the world to reject extremism, saying that extremists were holding the world hostage with their bigotry and bias.

Tian Chua - Najib's speech lacked fresh ideas

“We must, and I repeat, we must urgently reclaim the centre and the moral high ground that has been usurped from us. We must choose negotiations over confrontation. We must choose to work together and not against each other. And we must give this effort utmost priority for time is not on our side,” Najib exhorted the august assembly.

“To further strengthen our process of national unity, I have introduced a philosophy known as 1Malaysia ... a vision that seeks renewal and rejuvenation to bring all people together in a just and harmonious relationship. 1Malaysia calls for the acceptance of diversity as a source of greater unity. We seek to celebrate our multi-ethnic and multi-religious society for strategic strength and harmony.”

Yet even as he spoke, back home in Malaysia, the National Civics Bureau which is directly under his department was busy sabre-rattling Malay rights, insisting that only Malays were fit to rule Malaysia.

The point made by the bureau or BTN was immediately endorsed by the head of the Umno Youth women’s wing Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin. Najib is the president of ruling party Umno. Her comments were even more extreme, not only denying the non-Malays who florm 45 percent of the country’s 28 million population the right to even hold the No. 2 post.

“I believe and I’m confident that without a Malay filling the post of prime minister and other important posts, the position of the Malays will be eroded. As what we have read and understood, even the opposition leader himself dares to sell the honour of the Malays by offering a second important post in the country if he becomes prime minister,” Rosnah said.

Time is running out - for Najib

Nonetheless, despite Najib’s famed double-speak, opposition leaders said he was right in one aspect – time was running out, especially for Malaysia where racial polarization has deteriorated with each passing year.

Lee Boon Chye

This year alone, apart from the manifestly fabricated sodomy trial brought against Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim tagged by the press as Sodomy II, several incidences have tarnished country and scared investors away.

One such incidence was the reaction to the use of the Allah to describe God by non-Muslim. Najib and his party taken the stand that Allah could only be used by Malays and Muslims, although top Muslim clerics in the country, the Middle East and even U.S. have ridiculed such a postulation as “extreme”.

It was also Najib's tacit approval for the staging of mass demonstration against the court ruling allowing non-Muslims to use the word that led to the spate of church violence across the country, lasting nearly a fortnight.

And it was amid this huge negative publicity that Najib and his cohorts in Umno gave the green light for the birth of ultra-Malay rights group Perkasa, to which Umno “outsourced” its extremist ideas. Perkasa is now the executing arm for the race-championing and religious bigotry tactics that Umno traditionally deploys to divide the races and cling to political power in the country.

“What more can we say about Najib, I think almost every Malaysian has given up on him. He must stop this very irritating habit that showy public relations can solve the country’s problems. He is the prime minister, not APCO (Najib’s controversial PR consultant),” Gopeng MP Lee Boon Chye told Malaysia Chronicle.

“Racism, skewed educational opportunities, macro and micro management of the economy must be done, not talked about and U-turned on even before they can be implemented. If he wants to show he is serious, start by taking action against extremist elements in Malaysia – Perkasa, BTN, Mahathir. Just do it and the citizens will respond. The UN and the world leaders are not fools. They will gauge him based on the satisfaction level of the people in his country, not his grand speeches.”