Journey of a thousand lies

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Apr 25, 2010

The Hulu Selangor by-election adds another stomach-churning element so revolting that even the most hardened of us are hard-pressed to hold in our vomit: the sight — and the sound — of a leader past his expiry date shamelessly prancing into the circus ring to say some of the stupidest things ever heard on any campaign trail.

By Stanley Koh (FMT)

Malaysian politicians past and present are notorious for utterances that range from brazen insults to blatant lies, and at election time we can trust our leaders to prove that they are capable of producing the appropriate noises from the larynx.

Here is a lesson for our retired leaders: check to see whether your brains are still functioning properly before trying to return to the spotlight to feed your craving for national attention. Check, especially, what you are going to say now against what you said when you were younger, lest you get caught in a contradiction.

For the rest of us, it is perhaps pertinent to refer again to some footnotes from Malaysian history.

Back in 1988, Tunku Abdul Rahman warned Malaysians against the smooth and sweet talk of politicians, particularly from his own party, Umno.

“Beware of merchants going round the country offering new lamps for old,” he said, addressing particularly the Malay community.

The Tunku, our first premier, was a liberal statesman well respected by Malaysians of every race, faith and gender. He issued his warning after realising that Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was then Umno president and prime minister, had mobilised the mass media to the hilt to discredit him and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who were moving to form a party called Umno Malaysia. The original Umno had been declared unlawful on Feb 4, 1988.

Mahathir acted quickly to upstage the Tunku’s effort. He set up his own Umno. And Umno Baru, registered on Feb 13, 1988, became Mahathir’s organisation, a party he fully controlled until he resigned in 2002.

Hard lesson

It was a hard lesson for the Tunku. He advised Umno followers and Malaysians in general to “look hard and think hard” about what was happening and being said by their so-called leaders.

“Try to distinguish actual facts from old wives’ tales,” he said.

Let us heed the Tunku’s advice and consider Mahathir’s description of Pakatan Rakyat candidate Zaid Ibrahim as a frog.

If Zaid is a frog, then what label shall we use for those who have hopped from the opposition to the BN, although they now call themselves “independents”? Are we fools to believe they are truly independent, especially now that one of them has earned a royal award and two have been freed of corruption charges, obviously in appreciation for their high jump, which contributed to the collapse of Pakatan Rakyat rule in Perak?

Mahathir also said that Zaid had “benefited from the government, and yet he chose to leave the party and join the opposition for his personal interest”.

Zaid, said the former premier, “is like a frog who will hop according to his needs”.

To anyone of average intelligence, this is twisted — in fact deformed — logic.

A Malaysian I spoke to said he felt Mahathir’s vision was getting blur. He wondered if the former prime minister was upset because he thought Zaid was stupid. “Maybe he thinks Zaid should have closed his eyes to injustice, dumped his conscience and, like many BN leaders, continue to enjoy the enormous benefits of being part of the BN administration and keep on milking the cash-cow government,” he said.

The fact is that Zaid quit as a minister, forsaking all the benefits of being a big man in BN. And he did not wilfully jump from one party to another; he was sacked from Umno. When he joined the opposition, it must have been because it shared his values, principles and passion for justice, upon which a better Malaysia can be built.