What's good for the goose is good for the gander

So you, just like Marina, must take the blame for what your parents did. And because your parents are guilty of the state the country is in, you, just like Marina, have lost the right to speak. Marina must not speak since her father is to be blamed for what happened to Malaysia. You, too, must therefore not speak because your parents are to be blamed for what happened to Malaysia.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Yesterday, a friend from Malaysia phoned me and was very upset with the comments posted in Malaysia Today, in particular those that whacked me. I told him not to worry about it because, measured over any 30-day period,Malaysia Today has more than 700,000 unique readers. So 100-200 nasty comments is not a reflection of the majority view.

I get more private e-mails and messages of support compared to those nasty comments posted in the Internet. And those comments posted in Malaysiakini, The Malaysian Insider, Free Malaysia Today, and so on, are mostly duplicates. They are the same people posting all over the place. These are trolls who will post negative comments never mind what you say. It is not the issue that they address but the person that they whack.

I have also detected many comments from the same person but posted under different names and e-mail addresses but their IP addresses are the same. This gives an impression of many people commenting but actually they are the same person commenting many times under different identities.

These are what we would call hecklers. You see them at football games as well. They will also heckle the players because of their race/ethnicity rather than because of the way they play football. And most of these hecklers would not be able to score a goal even if their life depended on it. Yet they heckle others as if they are great footballers themselves. And most of these hecklers are people with very low intellectuality. Because of their inability to engage in an intellectual discourse they resort to heckling.

For example, they will also heckle Marina Mahathir even when she makes a very sensible statement just because she is the daughter or Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. In fact, what Marina says is what many in the opposition are also saying. And she even attended the Bersih march, mind you. But even if Marina said we need more freedom of religion (which means Muslims can leave Islam if they so wish) and the rights of LBGTs should be protected (which means we should allow gay marriages) they will still whack her not because they don’t agree with what she says but because she is the daughter of Dr Mahathir.

If you should be whacked for what your parents did then no one should be spared a whacking. Remember what happened in the 2004 general election? That was the year that Barisan Nasional made history in the 11th General Election. And who was it that gave Barisan Nasional this most impressive victory?

Many of you will say, “That was not me. That was my parents. My parents voted for Barisan Nasional, as they did in 1999, 1995, 1990 and so on.”

In fact, in 1995, even the ‘giants’ of DAP lost the election. Do you remember that? “That was not me, that was my parents.”

Well, Marina gets whacked because of what her father did. You disparage her and vilify her because she is the daughter of Tun Dr Mahathir. Hence when I disparage and vilify you for what your parents did in 2004, 1999, 1995 and 1990, am I wrong? And if not because of your parents Dr Mahathir would not have been in power for 22 years and Umno for 56 years.

So you, just like Marina, must take the blame for what your parents did. And because your parents are guilty of the state the country is in, you, just like Marina, have lost the right to speak. Marina must not speak since her father is to be blamed for what happened to Malaysia. You, too, must therefore not speak because your parents are to be blamed for what happened to Malaysia.

Why do you resent me calling the Chinese and Indians bodoh for voting for Barisan Nasional all those many years? It may be your parents who did this. However, just like Marina needs to be disparaged and vilified for what her father did, then so should you. That is called ‘one standard for all’, not one standard for you and a different standard for others.

Another issue that these people raise is regarding my financial backers. They want to know who is financingMalaysia Today. If you want to know because you want to contribute to paying the cost of running Malaysia Todaythen I shall be very happy to sit down with you to discuss this matter. I will certainly show you my P&L and Balance Sheet.

I start work at about 5.00am every day. Those who contact me at around lunchtime Malaysian time know this. Those who have visited me in Manchester and have spent the night in my house also know this. Mat Sabu of PAS can in fact confirm this as can those others who have stayed at my house.

I normally do not stop work until after lunchtime (dinnertime Malaysian time) and I continue for another couple of hours at teatime and maybe 3-4 hours after dinnertime. In all, I spend about 10-12 hours a day on Malaysia Today, seven days a week, 365 days a year, holidays included. All in all, I spend 3,600-4,300 hours a year doing work for Malaysia Today.

Let’s average it at 4,000 hours a year. At the minimum wage of £6 an hour, that comes to £24,000 or RM120,000 a year. And that is minimum wage, mind you. If I were an editor of a commercial website I would receive much more than that. Nevertheless, £24,000 a year is what I would also get if I worked 8-10 hours a day as a chef in a restaurant here in the UK.

Then we need three technical people on 24 hours standby at three shifts. And we need these people becauseMalaysia Today is constantly under DDOS attack. Even as you read this we are being subjected to attacks. In fact, we have been under attack this entire month, the worse being this week.

Further to that, we need to pay for hosting and bandwidth. And our bandwidth is very high, mind you, and that is why we are still up and running when many other sites are down due to the traffic being too high.

Hence we need to pay at least RM20,000 a month or RM240,000 a year just to keep Malaysia Today running. With my minimum wage included that comes to a total of RM360,000 a year or RM30,000 a month.

Now, if you are concerned about the finances of Malaysia Today and the reason you want to know who is financing Malaysia Today is because of this concern, I will be very happy to sit down with you to discuss our financial needs. I will also allow you to see all the bills we have been paying over the last nine years since August 2004. I have all the documents to show you.

But take note, though, even if you send me RM30,000 every month that still does not mean you can control me or dictate what goes into Malaysia Today. Back in 2010, Anwar Ibrahim met me in London and gave me £1,000 cash. But I still whacked him.

Anwar then asked for my bank account and promised that someone from London is going to send me £1,000 every month. I gave him my bank account details and the first payment did come in. However, I still whacked him so they stopped sending me money after that.

Hence, even if you send me money that does mean I will do what you want me to do, as Anwar discovered. And you can ask Anwar about this because I have bank statements showing this money coming in -- plus, when he gave me the first £1,000 cash in 2010 during a meeting with Friends of Pakatan Rakyat, more than a dozen people saw Anwar pulling me aside before the meeting started to hand me the money. Yet I still whacked him in that meeting.

After saying all that, I also wish to declare that there is one person I have never met, a Chinese chap who is a Pakatan Rakyat supporter, who is sending me RM3,000 every month. And he has been doing so since the last couple of years. To this unknown person I am very grateful.

And I know he is Chinese and a Pakatan Rakyat supporter because he got in touch with one of our chaps in Malaysia (through my introduction) to discuss what more he could do to help Pakatan Rakyat win the coming general election. He also offered to carry the cost of whatever it is they needed to do.

He does not ask so many stupid questions like many of you do. He just asks what he can do to help and how much he needs to pay to see Pakatan Rakyat succeed in the elections. I am yet to meet this person face-to-face though.