Being politically correct (UPDATED with Chinese translation)

And that is the parody of these people. They give a different public image from what they really are. For example both Dr Mahathir and Anwar are republicans and anti-Monarchy. In private and during closed-door meetings they will whack the Monarchy. Publicly, they will whack those who whack the Monarchy.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I personally know Ibrahim Ali of Perkasa. In fact, I used to be quite close to him when I was still back in Malaysia and from 2006 to 2008 I worked with him and a few of the Umno plus opposition Bloggers to organise Bersih (1.0) plus to organise various events for Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in our bid to oust Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah).

Of course, the game plan was to oust Pak Lah so that Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (Ku Li) could take over. A few meetings were held with Ku Li. In one of these meetings Rafizi Ramli, Haris Ibrahim, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, etc., also attended followed by a buka puasa after that. There were also a few meeting between Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Ku Li to discuss the succession plan.

Unfortunately, it is not easy to get two personalities with huge egos to come to an agreement and to ‘meet in the middle’. When both sides take a very stubborn ‘either my way or no way’ stand, the ‘alliance’ is doomed to fail even as it idles on the runaway. Hence Ku Li was finally bypassed in favour of Najib Tun Razak.

One day Ku Li called us to his office to inform us that the deal was off. He and Dr Mahathir could not come to an agreement so the ‘Old Man’ was going to support Najib instead. That is it, said Ku Li. Finished!

However, we were not quite finished with the issue. We felt that between Ku Li and Najib, although both may not be perfect, Ku Li was certainly the lesser of the two evils. And do we not always talk about the lesser of the two evils when comparing Barisan Nasional to Pakatan Rakyat?

We had to ‘disqualify’ Najib, one way or anther. And one way would be to try to link Najib directly or indirectly to the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu. Pak Lah’s downfall was his son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin. Hence the reason for the series of articles called ‘The Khairy Chronicles’ that we ran from 2005 to 2006.

In Najib’s case, his wife, Rosmah Mansor, has to be his ‘Khairy’. So we embarked upon a ‘destroy Rosmah’ campaign -- my June 2008 Statutory Declaration being one of those ‘shots’ that we fired.

Nevertheless, in spite of all the shots we fired against Rosmah, Najib still took over and Ku Li was left out in the cold -- partly Ku Li’s own fault for not ‘playing ball’. One fundamental issue was that Ku Li refused to accept Dr Mahathir as the ‘Minister Mentor’, just like Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, if he were to take over from Pak Lah.

I mean you do not tell Dr Mahathir to go screw himself and still become the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Ku Li should have agreed to everything that Dr Mahathir wanted and then do a U-turn later -- like what Pak Lah did when he took over from the ‘Old Man’ on 1st November 2003.

But Ku Li is not like that. He is a gentleman and his word is his bond. So he did not want to smile and say yes to Dr Mahathir and then do a U-turn and screw the ‘Old Man’ once he takes over. I would probably have done what Pak Lah did -- say yes first and then, after taking over, shaft the ‘Old Man’ good and proper.

Anyway, back to Ibrahim Ali. We would meet in his office at the Four Seasons Hotel in Kuala Lumpur every couple of days to plot and plan Pak Lah’s downfall. And one problem with this was that Ibrahim Ali was never punctual. When we arrived at this office he would be in a meeting with this or that Chinese businessman so we had to wait one or two hours to meet him.

But that did not matter because Ibrahim Ali was an excellent host and we would eat and drink to our heart’s delight at the restaurant in the hotel; free-of-charge, of course. Hence that took care of lunch.

The point I am making is that Ibrahim Ali was always in a meeting with Chinese businessmen. Hence Ibrahim Ali is no racist. He is very much Chinese-friendly, a real contradiction of sorts. This ‘racist’ Ibrahim Ali image that he is intentionally creating is merely a show to be 'politically correct'. It is a ‘badge’ he wears to garner the support of the Malay nationalists or Malay ‘extremists’.

It is just like Anwar Ibrahim and his 'Muslim fundamentalist’ image. Anwar is no fundamentalist. He is actually very close to the American Neocons. Anwar is as fundamentalist as Ibrahim Ali is Malay-centric. In fact, Dr Mahathir too is no racist. When he was Prime Minister, one of the grouses that we had with him is that he made too many Chinese and Indians rich. Dr Mahathir, too, is currently playing the race card for a very specific reason (which we will talk about later).

And that is the parody of these people. They give a different public image from what they really are. For example both Dr Mahathir and Anwar are republicans and anti-Monarchy. In private and during closed-door meetings they will whack the Monarchy. Publicly, they will whack those who whack the Monarchy.

On more than one occasion I have personally heard both Dr Mahathir and Anwar say unflattering things about the Rulers. Dr Mahathir once said something unflattering about the Royalty in front of me (he forget I was there) and then turned to look at me and said, “Present company exempted.”

I remember back in 1965 (I was in form three then) when our teacher lectured us about the evils of smoking. We looked at the cigarette box in his shirt pocket and sniggered. Realising what we were sniggering about, he said, “You must do what I say, not do what I do.”

I suppose the same goes for these people. It is what they do that we must focus on, not what they say. What they say is merely for the benefit of a certain audience. Behind the scenes what they do is the reverse of what they say. So why are Dr Mahathir and Ibrahim Ali playing the race card when behind the scene they are doing deals with the Chinese, left, right and centre?

Ah, that is a story for part two of this series. So stay tuned because something very interesting is going on behind the scenes.

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政治上是正確的

這就是這些人的‘矛盾面具’。他們給大衆的形象和他們自己本身的人品是大不同的。給你個例子，敦馬和安華倆都是共和主義者和很反對皇室制的。在閉門會議裏他們都會干屌皇室，但一旦出現在公開場合他們就會干屌那些干屌皇室的人。

我本身是認識土權會的伊不拉欣Ibrahim Ali的。事實上，儅我還身在馬來西亞時我跟他還走得很近呢，而在06年-08年間我和他還有其他巫統會員曾聚一起策劃Bersih1.0，我們也曾經幫敦馬出籌畫略來推翻前首相阿都拉。

當然，當時的計劃是把阿都拉拉下馬以便能將東姑拉扎利捧上位。我們和東姑開了不少會議，其中一個是在開齋后的，而Rafizi Ramli, Haris Ibrahim, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar等人也有出席。敦馬也出席了當中的幾個會議來討論接班人的事情。

很不幸的，要這兩個高傲的人做出妥協來達到目的是很難的。儅雙方都開出‘只有照著我的方法做’時這個‘聯盟’在還沒開始前就已結束了。所以東姑拉扎利開始被冷落而納吉則開始‘受寵’。

直到有一天東姑拉扎利把我們叫進他的辦公室裏，告訴我們談判已破裂了。他和敦馬無法達成共識，所以那‘老人’決定支持納吉。情況就是這樣，東姑拉扎利說。沒戲唱了！

無論如何，我們覺得此事還沒完呢。我們覺得，雖然說這兩人都不是完美的，但比起納吉東姑拉扎利是個較不爛的蘋果。我們不是一直講説民聯比起囯陣來比較不爛嗎？

我們必須‘取消’納吉的‘資格’。其中一個可行的方法就是把納吉和阿丹杜雅的死間接或直接地扯上關係。我們要阿都拉因他的女婿凱利而倒臺，所以我們在2005年-2006年間寫了一系列稱爲‘凱利的記錄史The Khairy Chronicles’的文章。

對納吉來講，他的老婆，儸斯瑪，必須是他的‘凱利’。所以我們開始了‘消滅儸斯瑪’這個戰略----我08年6月的法定宣誓書就是其中一發子彈。

無論如何，在我們朝儸斯瑪開了許多槍以後，納吉還是上位了----這很多都要怪東姑拉扎利，因爲他不懂得‘順著其他人來’。他最大的敗點是他拒絕在他儅首相后委任敦馬成爲‘指導部長’，就像新加坡的李光耀被委任為內閣資政般。

我的意思是，沒有人能夠告訴敦馬‘去吃自己’然後還能成爲首相的。東姑拉扎利應該先答應那些敦馬所想要的，然後再來個大U-轉----就像是阿都拉在03年11月的做法般。

但東姑拉扎利並沒有那麽做。他是個君子，他對他的諾言看的很重。他不想笑著臉對老馬說‘是’然後在事後來個U-轉再把老馬給幹掉。我想如果是我的話我應該會像阿都拉一樣吧----先答應，然後上位了以後再好好地來收拾這個老人。

好了，話説回來，我當時和伊不拉欣每隔幾天就會在他位于吉隆坡四季酒店的辦公室見面商討要阿都拉倒臺的計劃。他最大的毛病就是不守時，儅我們到達他的辦公室后他會還在和他的華裔生意夥伴開會，我們往往一等就是一兩個小時。

但這對我們來講並不是問題，伊不拉欣他是個很好的主人，我們能夠在他的地方任吃任喝。所以一般上我們的午餐都是在那解決的。

我要講的重點是和他開會的一直都是華人們。所以說伊不拉欣他並不是一個種族主義者，相反地，他對華人熱情得很。‘種族主義’是他特意製造出來的形象，目的是要自己看起來更爲‘政治上是正確的’。這是他用來收取馬來民族主義者或馬來極端主義者的支持的‘徽章’。

這和安華的‘穆斯林基本主義者’的形象是同出一辙的。安華他根本就不是什麽基本主義者，相反地，他跟美國的新保守主義團體走得很近呢。安華的基本主義就和伊不拉欣的種族主義一樣。事實上，敦馬他也不是什麽種族主義者，我們對他的其中一個不滿就是他把太多華人和印度人給養富了。敦馬他現在也因某种原因而打出種族主義這張牌（我們以後會更加一步地細談）。

這就是這些人的‘矛盾面具’。他們給大衆的形象和他們自己本身的人品是大不同的。給你個例子，敦馬和安華倆都是共和主義者和很反對皇室制的。在閉門會議裏他們都會干屌皇室，但一旦出現在公開場合他們就會干屌那些干屌皇室的人。

我在不止一個場合裏親耳聽到敦馬和安華對皇室大談不是。敦馬曾經在我的面前（他忘了我有在場）大談皇室的不是，然後再轉身對我說,‘（以上言論）不包括在場的人’。

我還記得在1965年（我還是個中三學生）有一位老師向我們闡述吸煙的壞處。我們對著放在他口袋裏的香煙盒咧嘴而笑。他知道了我們笑的是什麽以後，他就說：“你們必須做我講的，而不是做我做的。”

我想這可以用來形容以上這些人吧。我們必須把注意力放在他們所做的事情上，而不是他們所說的事情。他們所說的只是要特定的聽衆聼得舒服而已，他們在後面所做的一切往往都是和他們所說相反的。所以說，正當敦馬和伊不拉欣一直都和華人有往來時，爲什麽他們還要大打種族主義這張牌呢？

對了，這只是兩篇文章的第一篇而已，所以敬請期待下一篇更爲精彩的文章來繼續為你揭露政治的内幕。