Strongman required in Malaysia?
KTemoc Konsiders
Some times we wish we have a strong person in charge of Malaysia’s. Najib is already notorious for his, or perception of his softness/weakness. Anwar Ibrahim is no better, well-known for his manmanlai tap dancing.
The two persons I deem as strongmen in this narrow sense have unfortunately retired. They are Dr Mahathir and Pak Haji Nik Aziz. On the outer, unfortunately, would be Zaid Ibrahim and Haris Ibrahim. I won’t include RPK as he has indicated he won’t be returning to Malaysia.
In early days I have been told the really strongmen were our 1st PM, Tunku, his successor Razak and Razak’s deputy Dr Ismail.
My Uncle told me that years ago, before there was such a thing as Internet, a Star reporter (Indian) who was responsible for the entertainment page unwittingly insulted Islam through a slip of his writing.
Poor bastard was shivering in his pants when the Muslims went berserk over his sentence that “There isn’t anything on TV tonight other than the boring Quran reading competition”.
He was saved by Tunku (then retired from politics and living in Penang, and fortuitously for our Aneh, also The Star Chairperson), who told the raving mob to shut the fxxk* up as the young reporter had already apologized. Matter was immediately closed in a most kowtim-ish manner, such was the wibawa of Tunku.
* of course Tunku didn’t use the f* word – it’s just kaytee improvising wakakaka
Imagine how Tunku would have dealt with the current Cadbury nonsense which now see Jakim officials stating they are willing to munch Cadbury chocs to prove there’s no porcine DNA, wakakaka. If you can’t, then recall this: when asked by a (presumably western) reporter from the by-now defunct Far Eastern Economic Review (once the most daring weekly current affairs magazine in Asia) about a proposal for implementing the Islamic penalty of stoning adulterers to death, he replied that: ‘I fear that there would not be enough stones left to construct our roads’, wakakaka, though of course he pissed PAS and its supporters off.
Another one about this great man: He was a man who loved his drink, and never hid the fact. After he was forced into retirement, he was selected personally by the Saudi King (Good Lord, the King of Islam Holy Land?) to be the first secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC).
Humbly he refused, explaining honestly to the king that he was not a good Muslim as he loved his drink – no one can ever accuse Tunku of being a hypocrite, that’s for sure.The King replied rather interestingly that he didn’t want Tunku to be the Mufti of Mecca but only as the secretary-general of the OIC, indicating Tunku’s drinking didn’t faze him at all.
Hmmm, I wonder if it was the King of Saudi Arabia who had said: “I fear that there would not be enough stones left to construct our roads if we stone every adulterer to death”, would PAS have received it differently? Wakakaka.
But in the final analysis, Tunku was spot on, indeed right down to a T, in that there would not be enough stones left to construct our roads if we stone every Malaysian adulterer or for any act of incest, rape (especially statutory rapes) or other forms of sexual acts, wakakaka.
Unc told me in his days many young Malays hated Tunku for betraying them, specifically for being too friendly to the Chinese – he had additionally adopted CT’s wee daughter after her parents were killed. Some even accused him of corruption because of his closed association with the Chinese.
Now, I’m sure you all have hear from RPK that when Tunku went on the pre-election campaign trail for Perikatan (BN’s predecessor), he refused to be paid his PM’s wages on principle as he deemed that he wasn’t doing work for the rakyat as a PM.
Also, in our nearly 60+ years of independence, it would not be incorrect to argue that Tunku stood out in a unique way as the only Prime Minister of Malaysia who left office virtually destitute (pokkai atau almost miskin). Corrupt?
In fact after he was ousted by his successor, Razak had to quickly pass a bill in Parliament to endow him with a pension appropriate to a retired PM, including a house in Penang – who knows whether out of compassion, guilt or perhaps just to avoid Tunku’s destitution from embarrassing Malaysia.
Though a PM, Tunku was known to buy goat meat in Kedah when he visited Alor Setar occasionally because he said that meat was cheaper there than in KL – hmmm, would that be indicative of a fiscally naughty PM?
When he was stripped of his powers and packed off into retirement, he continued to be surrounded by his friends of all races, but particularly Chinese. Those were the days of that silly old concept called loyalty, even when a man was no longer in power to be of any use to anyone.
Compare that loyalty to a 1998 ingrate, no, make that two, wakakaka, or Dr Mahathir’s experiences when he was ’embargoed’ wakakaka by the AAB mob – see Et Tu Baharom and The UMNO interdiction of Dr Mahathir, wakakaka.
