If only Umno delegates repeated their comments in English: And the Oscar goes to ...

The Umno General Assembly this year was the pits despite no one waving the keris (Malay sword) this time for once and/or otherwise pledging to soak it in the blood of the Chinese.

Beijing, New Delhi please take note!

However, there was enough going on at the Umno Assembly to make the descendants of the original Malay settlers in the Malay Peninsula – actually the southern half of the Kra Peninsula – cringe in shame if not fury at the antics of those who, for self-serving reasons, chose to speak in their name.

If Umno leaders were to repeat their thoughts in the English language, they would have made headlines all over the world with their Nazi-style rhetoric. They would have been placed somewhere between the pitiful clowns in politics often epitomized by Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Australia's Pauline Hanson and the criminally insane.

The speeches of Umno delegates have gone from bad to worse over the years. The rot has set in beyond redemption as delegates vied with each other to come to public notice and try to outdo each other in portraying themselves as “wira bangsa, agama, negara”, whatever that means.

And the Oscar goes to ...

Umno Wanita Chief, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, takes the award this year for the worst performance ever at the party annual meet.

She was going bonkers and berserk all at the same time, in unison sometimes, in a departure from her prepared text. She thoroughly made a fool of herself this time, revealing her true colours. Ironically, she seemed to be taking great pride in whatever she was doing oblivious to the fact that she was on national television. The army of sycophants around her, all in the communist-style red tudung, nodded like robots and giggled nervously, no doubt embarrassed at her digs at Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) leaders.

She earned no credit by calling upon PKR President Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to resign her post “since Anwar (her husband) had been found guilty on Sodomy II charges”. Shahrizat must be privy to something that others don’t know since the case is still in Court. She did not explain the connection, if anything, between the PKR presidency and the Sodomy II charges. And best of all, she was a practicing lawyer not long ago - an example of why the affirmative action New Economic Policy does not work. It is a mere short-cut, badly abused and will boomerang back into the Malays themselves.

Anyway, many saw her lunging at Wan Azizah as a feeble attempt to distract the public from her own mounting woes over the unsavoury disclosures by PKR on the National Feedstock Corporation (NFC).

The police have been suspiciously on target to announce there were no elements of criminal breach of trust in the continuing NFC fiasco. Still, what about there being definite elements of conflict of interest, abuse of power, misuse of NFC funds from the public for private purposes and, if all that fails, being highly irregular in its dealings.

Shahrizat should either resign from Government or be booted out if she hangs around shamelessly. Umno should also start looking around for another candidate to stand in Lembah Pantai or wherever Shahrizat was supposed to be fielded.

Then there were the stand-up comics

Umno president Najib Razak was as usual high on his raving and ranting delivered Hitler-style. There was nothing new here.

Deputy Umno president, Muhyiddin Yassin, comes a close second to Shahrizat for repeating, as often as he did, that Umno was not racist and that others were 100 times more racist.

He singled out the DAP particularly as being anti-Malay and anti-Islam in his raving about bangsa, agama and negara.

Now, the definition of a racist is one who denies others their place in the sun. Just like the Human Rights Party, Umno continues to paint the plight of the Malay community as being left voiceless, demonised, marginalised and exploited by the other races.

Although the HRP, led by the extremist P Uthayakumar, is for the Indians, who undoubtedly have been left behind, as are many Malays and Chinese, to insist that the plight of one's community must take precedence smacks of gross incapability and lack of ideas. Until they change, HRP - like Umno - should be avoided like the plague.

Both parties are racist to the core. And this is ironic, for it is clear that Umno considers itself supreme and disdains the Indians and the other races. It is a sad vicious cycle of illogic and twisted reasoning that continues to turn only because of self-interest and greed for power.

Nothing to offer but bombast, bluster and vulgarities

In any other part of the civilised world, leaders and members of the ruling party would give an indication of the direction of party policies which can be translated into action by the government of the day.

Instead, the spectacle that was Umno degenerated generally into pure venom directed at the opposition, especially PKR and DAP. Umno leaders showed their anti-Chinese streak by carrying on as if the PAP of Singapore - on its way to Putrajaya disguised as the DAP - had finally succeeded in bringing their party to heel.

The paranoia of the ruling elite stems from the fact that the PAP managed to get Singapore – once a part of the Thai kingdom but seen as Malay from the time of western colonialism -- for themselves. Their Malaysian chapter, the DAP, have now finally got their hands on Penang to turn it into another Singapore, Umno leaders moan.

However, we don’t see the Malays fleeing Penang like latter-day refugees. If anyone is losing out in the Pearl of the Orient – at one time the Prince of Wales Island – are leaders of Penang Umno who are beginning to look somewhat scruffy like kuching kurap. Their message during the Umno meet was that the Malays – meaning the leaders themselves – were being pushed to the wall in Penang under the vice-like grip of the DAP.

So intellectual and bursting with grey cells were these Penang Umno political thugs that words like bapok, pondon, and takda telur were used with impunity. Truly, if only Umno had spoken in English. Imagine the global headlines, Malaysia's ruling party calls political foes "sissy", "transvestites", and "no balls". So refined and truly Asia - or is it just Umno?

This is why Umno is racist

Finally, here is a whole laundry list of why Umno is racist. Sad to say, it is not exhaustive.

Umno is racist for denying the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak, the Christians in particular, the benefits of Article 153 of the Federal Constitution and the New Economic Policy.

Umno is racist for denying the Christian Natives in Sabah and Sarawak their share of heading Federal Government Departments in Sabah and Sarawak. The party has also embarked on policies of internal colonisation in Sabah and Sarawak to steal those countries from the Dusuns and Dayaks respectively and replace them with illegal immigrants for electoral and other purposes.

Umno is racist for reserving 90 per cent of jobs in the civil service, Judiciary, teaching, diplomatic service, police, armed forces, and GLCs for just members of one community who form less than 60 per cent of the population if the non-Malay Bumiputera are excluded from the number.

Umno is racist for denying the non-Malay communities their legitimate aspirations as provided for under the NEP and the second prong of Article 153.

Umno is racist for keeping Article 153 and the NEP the exclusive preserve of a handful of people with links to the ruling elite and unilaterally extending the same Article and the NEP to every facet of life in Malaysia.

The NEP pledged at the outset in 1970 that it would be limited to a 20-year shelf life. During that period, it would seek to eradicate poverty irrespective of race and creed; eliminate the identification of race with economic function and place of residence; and ensure that the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak and the Orang Asli and Malays of Peninsular Malaysia would own, manage and control 30 per cent of Malaysia’s corporate wealth – that listed on the stock market – by 1990.

Instead, the NEP has been observed more often than not in the breach through deviations and distortions. It has been extended unilaterally to every facet of economic life in the country and in defiance of the pledge on corporate wealth.

Likewise, Article 153 has been observed more often than not in the breach through deviations and distortions – special position being passed off as special privileges, for one. The non-Malay communities continue to be increasingly dispossessed in the process.

Article 153, for which only the King is responsible, reserves a reasonable proportion of the opportunities in only four specific areas for the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak, and the Orang Asli and Malays of Peninsular Malaysia. These are: intake into the civil service; intake into institutions of higher learning owned by the government and training privileges; government scholarships; and opportunities from the government to do business.

Article 153 is not a “sapu bersih” (clean sweep) clause as made out to be by Umno to the benefit of the leaders, their nominees and the fat cats and to the exclusion of the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak, the Orang Asli and the non-Malay communities.

Malaysia Chronicle