What started out as a debate on whether the opposition was led by "two dictators" as claimed by the government has veered into Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak's grasp of world history.
This was after Salleh, in a blog posting, provided "historical evidence" that there can be two dictators at the same time following DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang's statement that the concept did not make sense.
Salleh, in the blog posting, gave examples of Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin in the Soviet Union and Maximillian Robespierre and Napoleon Bonaparte in France as examples of two dictators at the same time, adding that the same happened in China, while in Cuba, Che Guevara "abandoned the revolution because he did not want to be a joint-dictator" with Fidel Castro.
Lim said the examples were a shocking revelation of the "abysmal education standards of Malaysian ministers" and called for their "re-education".
"Salleh’s three-paragraph blog on 'what a dictatorship really means' is full of fake and false history in every paragraph, which may be the proper background and credentials for one who is to preside over a massive black-ops propaganda campaign of lies, fake news and false information against political opponents.
"I believe that the majority of the 36 Ministers would not be shocked at all or see no reason why anybody should be shocked. This is the very reason why all the cabinet ministers need to undergo a “re-education” programme.
"There have often been complaints about declining educational standards today as compared to yesteryears, and Salleh’s blog provides the strongest proof of such inexorable decline of educational standards in Malaysia over the decades," Lim said in a statement today.
Addressing what Lim claimed was Salleh's "fake history", Lim pointed out that Stalin became a dictator of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953 while Lenin died in January 1924 after suffering a debilitating stroke in May 1922.
"In fact, Lenin suggested during his convalescence that Stalin should be removed as General Secretary of the Communist Party," he said.
As for Salleh's French history, Lim said the example of Robespierre and Napoleon as dictators at the same time during the French Revolution was "even more far-fetched and bizarre".
"Robespierre presided over the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution when the Jacobins, whom he led, sent thousands to their death under the guillotine in 1793-1794, until he himself was executed at the guillotine on 28th July 1794.
"Napoleon was an up-and-coming young general in the French Army in 1794, appointed as inspector of artillery of the French Army in the Alps, and it was not until 1799 when Napoleon was appointed First Consul in a coup d’etat, marking the meteoric rise of the Corsican corporal to French emperor - but Napoleon was never 'dictators at the same time' with Robespierre," he said.
Lim also asked Salleh to name examples of "two dictators at the same time" in China.
As for Cuba, Lim said Salleh's "heresy" that Che Guevara abandoned the revolution because he did not want to be a joint-dictator with Castro will cause "apoplexy" among Guevara fans.
Guevara, towards the end of his life, was leading a band of revolutionary guerrillas in Bolivia but was captured by the Bolivian army and executed in 1967.- Mkini
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