Is it Important if Zul Noordin is Good or Bad?

I submit that whether Zul Noordin is good or bad, ethical or unethical, loyal or disloyal is not as important as the PR handling the situation and showing the leadership that will make it come up stronger than UMNO.

By batsman

With the flood of anti-Zul articles, I hope MT will post one that is well … “less anti”. 

Politics is not merely a referendum. It is not merely shouting “fair or unfair, like or dislike, good or bad”. It is not even a matter of lobbies – those who shout loudest and longest or have the most money to gain influence get their wishes met. It is about being proactive at the same time reacting to complex adverse situations in a smarter way than your opponent. Comments are welcome of course, but if commenters wish to play politics instead of just joining a referendum or forming a noisy lobby, read on, otherwise read something else. 

I submit that whether Zul Noordin is good or bad, ethical or unethical, loyal or disloyal is not as important as the PR handling the situation and showing the leadership that will make it come up stronger than UMNO i.e. PR has to play it smart. And to do so, it may have to go against the wishes of some of its members. Of course it must at the same time depend on the members’ brotherly spirit of unity that will hold it together in spite of emotional and contentious issues. 

Unfortunately the unity among the races is not so dependable. That is why PR members may consider themselves as the leading edge of politics and must not fail in this important role. PR therefore needs to depend on this unity of their members in order not to fall into the trap of looking like puppets of minority races or religions. It is no longer a matter even of ethics. The trap has been set and will be sprung if people become too obsessed with ethics or fairness. Just because Zul Noordin fell into the trap (consciously or sub-consciously) does not mean everyone else has to follow blindly and fall into the same trap looking like a bunch of beached whales. Don’t ignore the mistakes of the past (what happened to PAS in Perak) and repeat the same on this issue. 

UMNO is full of dirty tricks and we need to be alert to them. Whether you think this is just another conspiracy theory or not, is up to you, but I think the “Allah” controversy and the recent ISA detentions are the start and end of UMNO dirty tricks on just this one single episode. 

The “Allah” controversy was a means to divide people and to give warning to some to tow the line … otherwise … but it backfired and the US got involved with the missing engines episode complicating things for UMNO. 

I believe that in order to placate the US, UMNO found it necessary to instigate some gangsters to burn mosques and throw pig heads inside one – just to show that it is not just an anti-Christian thing and that instead the US should sympathise with it for having to handle difficult racial and religious situations in a good way. It further got the PAC to investigate the missing jet engines in order to show that no high ranking officers are involved – again to placate the US which may then continue to trust it since it apparently is not policy to betray US secrets and technology by high ranking politicians and military officers. The icing on the cake baked specially for the US was the arrest of some people under the ISA to show that UMNO is after all a loyal ally in the fight against terrorists. 

Whether this is advice from APCO or dreamt up by UMNO dirty minds themselves, is difficult to say – I have no opinion on this. 

Unfortunately some stupid Malaysians got caught in the trap of the “Allah” controversy. This is an appetizer for UMNO. How people respond to this depends on whether they have the attitude of patriots or whether they think like women spurned. I wrote about this in a previous write-up – Has the Nature of Patriotism Changed? 

Strangely enough, most people realize that the pig heads episode is a provocation – a dirty trick. I suspect they don’t want to see blood flowing in the streets – nobody does except maybe psychopaths. Unfortunately they have no qualms about seeing blood letting in the PKR with vicious comments against DSAI and trying to provoke Zaid and DSAI to go at each others’ throats. 

I repeat again – how people respond to these complex issues depend on whether they take the attitude of patriots or of women spurned. Patriots think about the good of the country and are not overly emotional about certain issues. They accept differences in values and thought as long as there is no physical harm done to colleagues or serious damage done to patriotic parties due to sabotage – whether intentional or by “accident”. 

On the other hand, taking the attitude of women spurned gives rise to extremes of emotions. The invective and obscenities that dominate comments on this issue is symptomatic of the attitude of women spurned. Such hatred can only be placated by complete surrender to the wishes of these spurned women. Sadly, should UMNO adopt tactics of seduction (which our PM seems to be expert at), such spurned women will AGAIN give themselves wholeheartedly to UMNO. This is why I submit the emotions that these people show are extreme to say the least. 

Of course I am just painting a sick picture just to emphasise my point. I have nothing against women or their lovers. Instead of spurned women, I would just as well have said people who quarrel over goodies. Such people also exhibit extremes of emotion and become extremely bitter and angry if they feel they have been cheated out of some goodies or have been given the wrong end of the favouritism stick. The other extreme is that they become very supportive of anyone who gives them goodies and attention. 

This is a fact of life. All of us, Malays, Chinese and Indians are exposed to these complexities at one time or other and none behave perfectly or correctly each and every time we are offered goodies or seductive attention. 

At the beginning, I talked of ethics and of compromise. I do not for one moment suggest abandoning ethics altogether if one has to play politics. UMNO rule has created a living environment plagued with corruption and sin everywhere we turn. Giving bribes is a common fact of life. Some people even say bribery is necessary in order to live in Malaysia. Sin, crime, violence, drug and alcohol abuse stares us in the face on a daily basis. It is like living in a cesspool. It is not possible to stay clean or decent in such a living environment. 

UMNO is synonymous with corruption. Its poison spreads to every corner of daily life and to every person even if they try to be decent and to hold on to good ethical values. It is such perversion that we face when we play politics. If we do not compromise on less important issues, we lose on the big issues. We are already in the cess pool covered with excrement, thanks to UMNO. We therefore need to keep our eyes focused on the future where there is a chance of getting a good shower and getting clean again. 

In the meantime, play smart! Zul Noordin is not important. If he is really a bad apple, he will show it sooner or later. In the meantime, let us not ask for blood-letting in the PKR just because of Zul Noordin.