Umno a party of 'zero intellectuals'

There is a lack of intellectual discussion among political parties, even among those in Pakatan Rakyat. However, their situation is not as bad as Umno, which has "zero intellectuals", a forum in Penang was told.

Institute Kajian Dasar executive director Khalid Jaafar said this when referring to several world leaders who are intellectuals, such as former Indonesian president Sukarno, Father of Modern China Mao Zedong and Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.

"We want to have such leaders who are intellectuals, instead of these (Umno) people... just professional politicians without ideas," Khalid, who is also a PKR central committee member, said at a forum on Sunday.

The lack of intellectual discussions, he said, has led to certain ideas being criticised, for example, "liberalism".

This system of thought has been criticised by the National Fatwa Council, religious extremists and even by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who said liberal thinking was "wrong and a threat to Islam", Khalid noted.

"We have a prime minister who does even respect his own father (former prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein), nor does he understand the depths of the latter's soul.

"In truth, Razak was the architect of the Rukun Negara, which in its preamble states that we want to built a liberal country," Khalid said.

Khalid was speaking during the launch of the Malay translation of F A Hayek's well-known book, Road to Serfdom, by state executive councillor Dr Afif Bahardin.

Other speakers at the event were Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin and the person who translated the original, Mustaqeem M Radhi, who also moderated the forum.

‘In the throes of facism’

Khalid said Malaysia was already in the throes of fascism, for there were groups in the country that did not accept those who thought differently from them and wanted these people banished.

He named Malay rights pressure group Perkasa as one of the examples of the fascists, saying Perkasa wants those who think differently from it to leave the country.

"It does not only happen in religion but in politics as well. And now, there is a campaign against those who are accused of being Shiites. Those making the accusations are fascist Sunnis," Khalid said.

"These things took place in Japan, Italy and Germany as well in the past, when those who did not adopt or follow the official line were victimised, abused, punished and persecuted," he said.

Sim (left) in his speech said although Umno and BN wanted to portray themselves as pro-market, the truth was that they were socialist in nature as their rule had always been based on planning (Malaysia's five-year development plans) for the people, from the 1970s.

He cited the examples of the Chinese community being placed in new villages, the opening up of Felda and Felcra and the New Economic Policy for the Malays to correct the social and economic imbalances in society.

"However, later in the years, and in the 1980s, the country (with Dr Mahathir Mohamad as the prime minister) entered an authoritarian state, with the government wanting to take control of and intervene in businesses," Sim said.

"Even the privatisation of toll highways has been carried out by the Economic Planning Unit. How about the Multimedia Super Corridor initiated by Mahathir?" Sim asked.

"Some initiatives and policies where the government has intervened have become failures, while in others, only BN cronies benefit, like the NEP," he said.

Sim cited the cases of some successful business ventures in the aviation field, for example, AirAsia, and the tourism sector, which had little or no government intervention.

"So, please do not intervene in the economy. The business of governments is not to get involved in businesses," he added.