NAJIB'S STRING OF BROKEN DEALS & NOW BLOOD MONEY: MALAYSIANS, ESPECIALLY THE CHINESE, MUST NEVER TRUST THIS MAN

Amanah’s Last Message in Sungai Besar & Kuala Kangsar

What Connects Abu Sayyaf, Chinese Lives, Indians…, 1MDB?

Thien Nyuk Fun (below, left) and Robert Then plucked from Sandakan in May 2015, taken to the Sulu, Then’s head subsequently found in a bag outside a church in Indanan. Few months later, Abu Sayyaf were at it again, this time kidnapping from aboard a passing merchant ship carrying timber to the Philippines.

Robert Then, like the lives of the four Sarawakians (further below), have now become Chinese payments for an Islamic caliphate in the Philippines where there are no demarcations between terrorism, politics and criminality. They are just the three faces of the same Filipino lawlessness, now with Salafi Islam added, Face No. 4. A complete, Thai style four-face idol.

ISIS at the Gates

First came Islam, now comes Abu Sayyaf in the name of Islam.

In their hands, race and not religion now decides who lives who dies. Sounds Umno? PAS?

Up until 2014, westerners (below) were prime targets of Abu Sayyaf. Since last year, it was the Chinese from Malaysia. That race and not religion (Abu Sayyaf last year released a dozen Indonesians a month after their kidnap) now decides who lives and dies in Abu Sayyaf’s hands, there is an eery familiarity to Umno’s political raison d’etre. Is Umno part of this intended caliphate? Same Salafi Islam, same Arab backing, same Malay, same language, perhaps even same minds.

Abu Sayyaf has since 2014 adopted the ISIS/ISIL black and white, Arabic inscription flag seen above with a German hostage in October that year. Ransom price: about 3 million pounds. A month earlier they had kidnapped the Chinese Li Peizhi on holiday with her parents in Zamboanga. In concentrating their abductions on Chinese, nearest available from Malaysia, Abu Sayyaf gives the old age piracy an Islamic piety, like so many do in Umno politics. Murder and racism have become religious obligations in tandem. And why not? The Chinese always seem more ready than others to foot the cost, politics in Malaysia, blood money in Sulu.

Zahid Hamidi says there is no connection between the Abu Sayyaf murderers and the Islamic charities that received, as ‘donation’, the 12 million ringgit ransom money that was handed to the Police for their mediation. Of course, there is; it is called Islam.

Situated alongside Najib’s 2.6 billion donation, the two stories are remarkably similar: donation, Muslim for Muslim, terrorism, extremism, unknown donor before, unknown recipient today, international conspiracy, missing sums of money coupled now to Malaysian lives, and especially this — stories that don’t jive. It has become the characteristic trait of this government: playing footsie with the lives of its people, their monies, and especially when the people are expendable and cash takes precedence.

The Morality of Umno, Zahid Exposed

It sounds uplifting, even grandiose, ‘Save Malaysia’, Mahathir Mohamad’s electoral tagline in the by-election campaign. But it is an oddity among the Chinese, maybe even the Indians: When was Malaysia ever theirs?

The Chinese might as well not have existed so that, other than to sell Malaysia to foreign tourists, no Malaysian government, past or present, had ever given a toss for the Chinese life. Even numerous Malays must have sensed it. For the last two years this sense of utter indifference drove right into the Chinese home each time Abu Sayyaf enters Malaysia, entirely at their will, grab some Chinese, disappear into one of scores of jungle islands, then wait for money.

In Manila and Greater Manila the kidnap of Chinese for money is an industry: official statistics average it at one a day. So it would be a natural progression for Abu Sayyaf to switch their kidnap targets from western tourists to Chinese in Malaysia. Sandakan is a fraction of the distance between the Sulu islands of Jolo, Tawi-Tawi and Manila. Besides Abu Sayyaf have Malay kin in Malaysia and probably knows more about Sabah terrain than even Mindanao.

Should this surprise Najib Razak’s government? Of course not. In April 2000 Abu Sayyaf with just six men invaded the Sipadan resort and made off with 21 people, 11 of them Malaysians, released only the Muslims among them and kept 19. Then there was the Sulu ‘sultan’ invasion after which Zahid Hamidi, as Home Minister, talked about ‘enhanced security’ but pointed to China as a threat to Malaysian sovereignty.

This meant that when Chinese who have been treated so callously before — whereas the like of Abu Sayyaf are considered ‘brothers’, and this is on record — then nothing good could possibly have gone into the release of the four Chinese Malaysian hostages held by Abu Sayyaf. So riddled with lobangs, it’s like the 1MDB story: the police ask for 12million ringgit as ransom money, money is raised from five states, China, Taiwan included, handed to them in 12 cash boxes and money disappears. Zahid says he knows where but won’t say except that it has been donated to some Filipino Muslim charity, that is, Muslim recipients utterly indifferent to the blood nature of the money. Still, Abu Sayyaf would release the four men! And no conditions?

Here then are the common themes running through 1MDB and the Abu Sayyaf kidnapping:

a) mysterious donation,

b) taking public money supplied by various sources,

c) money never reaches its stated destination, because, if it’s not government policy to pay ransom, why then ask for and take it?,

d) theft thereof,

e) a no-conditions deal in the name of Salafi Islam brotherhood, and especially this,

f) the political message behind both; donation to Najib is political funding; releasing the Chinese to coincide with the by-elections, just like the Sekinchan fishermen.

Equal to 1MDB is this list overarching immoralities:

bare-face lies,

outright theft,

broken deals.

It is so plainly obvious — and intended to be so — for the timing of Chinese lives. This returns us to Zahid’s motivations, (i) that Umno wouldn’t give a shit if a Chinese lives or dies unless it suited them, and (ii) the truism in the Save Malaysia campaign; what real value lies therein?

Amanah’s Last Message: Broken Deals

All of us have lived under Barisan Nasional for so long, it’s seems near impossible to think any other way or to see things from any other perspective other than from the framework of lenses constructed for us.

When the vast majority of Chinese last voted in droves for the Opposition, the received wisdom, shared even by the DAP and PKR is that this is a racial phenomenon. Chinese like Malays vote according to race.

Najib Razak then was extolling the virtues of liberalism and plurality, creating 1Malaysia for example. (He lied, of course.) If this were true, then answer this: why, at the height of anti-Chinese racialism during the era of Mahathir, did more than half the Chinese rooted for him? Conversely, the DAP then was at its weakest in parliament.

There are a number of plausible reasons; we won’t go into them here. But, you, Amamah, do accept the fact of a reversal in voting pattern between Mahathir’s time and the GE13th.

More than most Malays, if not all, the Chinese were the first to see through Najib Razak. Hence Bersih 4. It had never before happened (excepting perhaps 1969) in such large numbers, focused on one man. Other Chinese, such as I, would have preferred to give him a little more time especially to overcome the radical, racist factions within Umno. Then, as it turned out, he, too, is fascist; he, too, is racist, radical, and worse. He pretended otherwise; he lies without pretense. It took Hindraf to actually enter government to see for themselves the fraud in the man.

This brings us to Najib’s focus on the Chinese electorate, the key in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar. Other than one or two appearances, he’s almost invisible, in sharp contrast to elections earlier. On the surface this might have to do with 1MDB, and it would be true only to the extent for those who feel strongly about the scam. But 1MDB is not enough, in particular to the population at large.

More significant than that is this difference between the present and past: Barisan does not issue threats against the Chinese, no deals, no grand speeches. Nothing. Instead, things happen out of the blue:

the Chinese are released in Sabah and, simultaneously, right in Sekinchan;

Jamal Yunos, despite his past, go head-on with the Chinese, addressing a Chinese kid beside him the most affectionate term Ah-Boy;

Budiman takes on a Chinese name, 啊MAN or A-MAN, the Chinese transliteration for Budiman.

In Kuala Kangsar is an invisible candidate and this is not necessarily a bad thing. The DAP has in the past fielded candidates (Seputeh, for eg.) still sitting in ISA jail and they win with some of the highest majority. MCA and Gerakan people are in KK talking about hudud, the very thing that Najib has introduced into Parliament. This isn’t contradictory; it is the essence of the strategy directed at the Chinese: we have done things ahead of time and for you that even the DAP can’t or won’t be able to achieve. We have stood up for you.

All this put together, one fears, will probably work in Barisan’s favor. Deeds have preceded talk. When they do, speech won’t sound hollow.

This way of seeing the Chinese electoral preferences slits open the early question: do the Chinese vote exclusively on the basis of race. The answer is, no. Of course, a segment of the Chinese might do so but this is still a very small, statistically insignificant minority. (Also, recall PAS during GE13th?) Once you set aside that argument, then it’s possible to see why Barisan’s present by-elections strategy might work in its favor.

The short answer is that the Chinese are raised from childhood to be Confucianist: Don’t tell, show me what kind of human you are. Translate that into politics you can immediately see how it impacts voting preferences, which are driven by judgments of individual character traits, achievements, nobility and, especially this, human ethical considerations. None of which has anything to do with political affiliations, with parties, with ideology, and with especially these two things — race and religion. You can put up Satan (which has no equivalent Chinese concept) and if he does good Satan will be elected.

Malaysia is lucky to have kept the Chinese schools where ideas of good and evil are centered on the human, not on what some voodoo man walking on water said they are. Which is why formal, organized religion has no appeal to the vast majority of Chinese: Kublai Khan can become Muslim; the Chinese don’t care. Ethics, how a person should live, are derived from Chinese history, that is, of lived experiences of individual lives, of governments, of officials aggregated, not by some commandment delivered from a mountain top by men claiming to be prophets.

This is the fear about Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar: Zahid finding Chinese to release from imprisonment speaks volumes to that ethics, to that humanity. No words are necessary.

It is not my station in life to advise politicians. But, here are some thoughts on your work so far and, if those need rectification, you don’t have much time left and the by-elections are critical, win or lose.

You rely too much on the DAP, again, on the fallacy that Chinese talk to Chinese is more persuasive. Wrong. The reason you rely on the DAP is because of the language hurdle. That’s all. But if you don’t present yourself then how are the Chinese to fully judge you and be convinced? How are there to judge your ethics?

Language is only the medium, not the arbiter of the vote. Speak in Malay direct to the Chinese. Have a good translator beside you, translating meanings not word for word. Speak sincerely and truthfully, for the Chinese have a very powerful intuitive sense on truth and falsity.

The reason Nga Kor Ming is so highly valued as speaker and so appealing to the Chinese is because of his content, the ethics that fills his Chinese language. When a message is driven by ethical considerations, the anecdotes on Najib’s corruption are merely the props of a highly unethical government.

There is just one ethical message in your final two days of campaigning: Najib’s government is an untrustworthy, unreliable, and a deceitful government.

Evidence A: Hudud in Parliament, backstabbing even the MCA, friends and partners. Proof: Unreliable.

Evidence B: Hindraf in Najib’s Cabinet, 2013. He gives him a position, a staff of two, and no money. Hindraf left eight months later. Proof: Deceitful, Untrustworthy.

Evidence C: Creation of 1MDB, with more than 50 billion borrowed that never went to the intended investments then backstabbing the Arabs, which he calls brothers. Proof: Deceitful.

Evidence D: Creation of PSI jv, took from Malaysia 13bn then close the company. Proof: Cheat.

Evidence E: 1MDB reneging on deals with IPIC, not once but twice; first over promises to turn over Edra but sold it instead and after that refuses to repay an American loan. Another 13bn. Proof: Untrustworthy.

Evidence F: Sending Malay soldiers to fight other people’s war in Saudi Arabia while he got the Saudis to pick up his lie about a king’s donation to his account. Proof: Duplicitous.

Evidence G: Saying it is ransom money, Zahid Hamidi collects 12 million in 12 money box-full for the Sabah hostages, never used it, doesn’t say where it goes, talks to Abu Sayyaf, hostages released, and the money disappears. Now Zahid says money has become a donation to the Filipino people as if Malaysians don’t need the donation, as if the money is his to give away as he likes. Is the Najib government even in cahoots with Abu Sayyaf? Proof: Deceitful.

Evidence H: Najib gets his henchmen Jamal Yunos to say ‘Tutup SJKC’ and calls the Chinese babi. Then he gets Jamal to go out to sea to receive 2 Sekinchan fishermen imprisoned by Indonesian in Batam. Proof: Duplicitous.

Conclusion: Unvarnished, truth can be simple and straightforward. Najib is bad, very bad. He has betrayed everybody without exceptions; a string of broken deals. Even among Malays, even Mahathir, Muhyiddin and half of Umno don’t trust him. Nor should the Chinese.

After your speech, circulate a summary of the same story in pamphlet form, written in Chinese. - shuzheng.wordpress.com