History, it is said, is always written by the winners. The loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books.
Malaysians have seen how past events have been distorted or “revised”. Historical events and personalities have been omitted, and names of streets and towns have been given chosen names for reasons of wanting to show political, racial, or religious superiority and dominance.
Varying attempts have been made to change the course of events, which has resulted in RM2.6 billion ending up in the bank accounts of former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.
As the judicial process continues in various countries, fresh information emerges, adding to the bulging volumes of documents that will eventually be archived.
Others, from news reports only to be regurgitated to remind the public to be reminded of the dark past and to record events that were previously viewed and accepted in a different light.
Today’s column is not another episode of “Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah” (Today in History), but it marks the seventh anniversary of Najib’s “triumphant” return from Washington, where he had met then-president Donald Trump with an armful of goodies to “help make America great again”.
Details of Najib’s “offerings” can be found here.
Exactly seven years ago, on Sept 15, 2017, Najib told some 1,000 supporters at the Bunga Raya Complex, next to KLIA, that Trump was so honoured to host the Malaysian delegation at the White House that the latter personally saw them off.
Recalling the end of his meeting at the White House Cabinet Room, Najib said one of Trump’s aides had wanted to arrange a handshake photo-op outside the president's office.
Friends and convicts
Friends are indeed based on a single common bond - both are convicted felons.
But that is where the similarities end, and they have been having floundering fortunes.
Some quarters across the Atlantic are screaming, “Lock him up”. But at home, many Malaysian politicians, including lawmakers, have embarked on a “Free Najib” campaign.
Despite exhausting all legal avenues to exonerate himself, Najib and his supporters refuse to accept his guilty verdict, claiming he did not get a fair trial.
Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who leads this group, once infamously declared that he had met the “Arab donors” when there were none.
On this claim, former trade and industry minister Rafidah Aziz retorted: “It must have been in his dreams. Zahid must have seen the apparition of an Arab. Because nobody has been able to pin down which Arab (donated the money).”
He now claims that the royal pardon that was decreed entitled Najib to serve his reduced sentence under house arrest.
A month after that meeting in the White House, Najib told Parliament that he did not pay for Trump’s invitation.
Najib also dismissed the significance of where he had stayed during the visit after then-opposition leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail asked why he had not been invited to stay at the president’s guest house, unlike then-Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, who was accorded the privilege during an official visit earlier this month.
“Although I did not stay in Blair House, I received an invitation to play golf with Trump, and he ushered me to the car,” Najib said.
Najib quipped: “I did not pay anything for the invitation [but] my predecessor did that to get an invitation from (former) president (George) Bush.”
The money trail
This was far from the truth. In April last year, a US political lobbyist detailed his efforts to get the Trump administration to stop a federal investigation into the 1MDB scandal, including a failed bid to arrange a round of golf between the then-US president and Najib.
As a prosecution witness in the money laundering trial of hip hop star Prakazrel “Pras” Michél, an associate of fugitive Malaysian businessperson Low Taek Jho, lobbyist Elliott Broidy said he was hired to convince top US officials that the Department of Justice's (DOJ) pursuit of those involved in the scandal would be detrimental to bilateral ties.
Broidy had previously pleaded guilty to illegal lobbying but was later given a presidential pardon by Trump.
Broidy told the court that he also met Low in Thailand in 2017, a year after the DOJ filed lawsuits to seize properties tied to 1MDB after investigators uncovered the misappropriation of billions from the Malaysian state company.
The Washington Post quoted him as telling the court that he was paid a retainer fee of US$8 million and a US$1 million “appearance fee” for travelling to Thailand to secretly meet Low, adding that he could have earned US$75 million if his efforts had succeeded.
More details surfaced in January last year. A 156-page report released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said Najib’s administration paid US$248,962 to Trump International Hotel between 2017 and 2020.
In the report, the Democrats accused Trump of exploiting the presidency to benefit himself and members of his family financially.
Trump’s businesses, according to the report, received at least US$7.8 million from corrupt and authoritarian governments, including China, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
The report detailed that from Sept 7 to 15, 2017, in the days before and after the White House meeting, a Malaysian delegation, including Najib, stayed at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, and was charged a “direct bill” of US$247,352 (about RM1.15 million).
It said Najib stayed in the hotel’s presidential suite, billed at US$10,000 (about RM46,000) per night. The costs accrued by Najib alone totalled US$44,562 (about RM205,000) over three nights and four days.
How will these figures relate to hundreds of poor Malaysians who depend on soup kitchens for food and mere cardboard cartons as their mattresses?
Efforts to recover the billions stolen from 1MDB are continuing, and investigations continue in international jurisdictions,
What will be written?
But how will history be written down the road? Will it be a true reflection of events or amended and revised to meet the requirements of politics and politicians?
If Zahid and his party had their way, it would be recorded as “an attempt by Western powers to unseat a democratically elected government”, a phrase often repeated in the past.
Will details of how the country was looted be removed and all references erased so that a “can’t do wrong” personality is complimented as a statesperson?
Will court records be expunged to create a new persona for the convicted felon?
Or will the lies be repeated to mention a sizeable Arab largesse to ensure the propagation of race and religion?
But have we forgotten that the 1MDB scandal was declared “one of the world’s greatest financial scandals,” and the DOJ termed it the “largest kleptocracy case to date in 2016”?
But then, mainstream newspapers developed and applied a new order that our history authors and the government have adopted for convenience.
If previously the mantra was “when in doubt, check it out”, the new mantra during the 1MDB fiasco was “when in doubt, leave it out”.
Policymakers may declare that only “feel good” stuff must be recorded for posterity and decree that the unsavoury bits should be left to journalists, researchers, and busybodies. - Mkini
R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist who writes on bread-and-butter issues. Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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