A riot of rot from Umno/BN

Dean Johns

The rat-cunning that Umno/BN has so long employed to conceal its rorts and robberies and to confuse and confound the rakyat has an air of desperation these days. Or so it seems in light of the riot of utter rot its spokespersons have been spouting recently.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has as usual led the campaign of desperate deception with his claim that the riots in London and other cities in the UK show how justified his regime was in its crackdown on the July 9 Bersih 2.0 rally.

“There was no guarantee that any street demonstration would remain peaceful as there could be bad hats who join in and cause trouble,” he said, ignoring the fact that the only “bad hats” who caused any trouble in KL were, as everybody knows, his own police.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein talked a similar load of rubbish, and deputy inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar pushed the same lying line.

And Information, Communication and Culture Minister Rais Yatim, whose very title is an absolute riot given the system of misinformation, con-munication and culture of corruption he represents, made the ludicrous claim that participants were paid to attend the rally.

He then followed-up this scurrilous slander by further insulting his audience with the call to “look at the courtesy showed [sic] by the Royal Malaysian Police when dealing with the Bersih protestors and controlling the situation during the rally as compared to what happened in London”.

Brazenly denying the clearly evident fact that the Malaysian police used tear gas and water cannon and the British police did not, he then went on to claim that “police in other countries would not hesitate to use brutal tactics in enforcing the law in their country, but the Malaysian police had displayed (a) high level of patience and tolerance despite being provoked and bad-mouthed by aggressive demonstrators”.

If Rais imagines he’s winning any sympathy or support for himself or the rest of the Umno/BN gang by talking such pernicious trash, he’s seriously misguided, if not utterly deluded.

But not so dangerously deranged, perhaps, as renegade opposition figure and now Umno Senator Mohd Ezam Mohd Nor, who has threatened to “wage war in defence of Islam”, and in the process “burn down” online news portals.

“We are saying there that we will launch an all-out war to defend our faith if they (anti-Islam elements) do not stop (and) use their agents - Malaysiakini and Malaysian Insider - which were biadap(rude) towards the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais),” he declared to a crowd outside the Selangor state mosque.

“Malaysiakini, Malaysian Insider, we are giving you a very last warning. If you do not stop this rubbish, we are going to burn you down.”

He then turned his inflammatory attention to the staff-members of these online news portals, branding Muslims among them “barua(running dogs)” of “kafir (infidels) that go against us” and calling for them to “repent”.

Blot on Islam

Who in hell does this fatuous self-styled firebug think he is, calling on others to repent? As everybody, Muslim or otherwise, is perfectly aware by now, the regime he formerly opposed and now so pathetically represents is an absolute blot on Islam.

In fact the corruption, larceny and every other kind of criminality Umno/BN feels the need to resort to in its robbery and misrule of Malaysia would be an absolute disgrace to any set of religious or ethical beliefs.

And as for repentance, forget it. Far from repenting, apologising or even admitting the fact that it insults the very idea of Islam by using the faith as a facade for its crimes, it blithely persists on its hypocritical path to perdition.

It accuses others of attacking Islam or proselytising Muslims, as in the recent illegal raid by Jais officers and police on a dinner on the Damansara Utama Methodist Church premises, when in fact the true enemy of true Islam in Malaysia is the venal and vicious ruling regime and its agents and cronies.

And under cover of protecting the interests of the nation’s overwhelmingly majority religion as though it was somehow under threat, this gang of sanctimonious crooks gets on with business as usual.

With financial scams like the current attempt to pass off the proposed murky merger between Malaysian Airlines and Air Asia as being good for Malaysian consumers and investors.

Or the even more monstrous, the ongoing atrocity of using the Election Commission (EC) to ensure that none of the demands by Bersih 2.0 for clean and fair elections are ever met. No mention of any reform of massive gerrymandering in the government’s favour, or a halt to voter bribery, or fair opposition coverage in the mainstream media.

In fact, despite all their protestations about protecting Islam, it seems to me that what these crooks and pathological liars are most at pains to achieve is protection of the Malaysian people from the truth.

Hence not only the threat by Mohd Ezam (left) to torch online news portals, but the lame assertion this week EC deputy chairperson Wan Ohmad Wan Omar that there is no need to grant the opposition access to the mainstream media, as they’re well-enough served by party organs and the alternative media.

There has also been another characteristic claim by Hishammuddin, as big a liar as god ever put breath into, that the alternative media are being used to spread untruths.

And at the same time, the government has released a report falsely proclaiming that freedom of speech and information are on a par with international standards and the International Declaration of Human Rights.

In short, the past week has seen a riot of absolute rot that leaves Malaysia languishing in its long-accustomed political, social and spiritual rut. And leaving Malaysians still well and truly under the thumb of Umno/BN’s dismal collection of moral, ethical and spiritual runts.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia’, ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’, ‘Missing Malaysia’ and ’1Malaysia.con’.