Why we must support Hudud and Najib
So I urge the Pakatan Rakyat supporters to not forget the principles of our perjuangan, which is ABU. We need to support Hudud and Najib so that we can be on the opposite side of Umno. Since Umno does not want Hudud and Najib then we must want it. That is the only way to oppose everything that Umno supports and support everything that Umno opposes. That is the spirit of ABU.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Some Pakatan Rakyat supporters are beginning to forget their perjuangan or struggle. They are beginning to stray from the original objectives of the reform movement that was launched 17 years ago in 1998 when many of you were still in school.
For the first ten years, the battle cry of the reform movement was REFORMASI, pronounced reeee forrrrr maaaaaa seeeeee and with clenched right fist punching the air.
Then, since 2008, it was changed to ABU, meaning ‘anything but Umno’ or ‘asal bukan Umno’. This mainly means we must oppose Umno completely and absolutely with no quarters asked and none given. It is basically a duel to the death with no compromises from either side.
I tried to say that we should not oppose Umno but only certain things that Umno does, which we consider wrong. I argued that not all the three or four million Umno people are bad. In fact, even amongst the leaders and Ministers there are some pretty decent Umno people.
When I said that I was thinking of people like Shahrir Samad, Zaid Ibrahim and Saifuddin Abdullah, amongst just some of those I consider decent Umno ministers. There are others as well, of course, although maybe not as high profile as those three.
But I found that many disagreed with my view. If they are Umno then they are bad, period. There is no such thing as good Umno people. All Umno people are bad because if they were good they would not even be in Umno in the first place. They would have left Umno to join the opposition or would have never joined Umno.
So, since 2008, the sentiment has been ABU, anything but Umno. We must oppose Umno, oppose the people in Umno, and oppose everything that Umno stands for.
If Umno goes left we must go right. If Umno goes forward we must go backward. If Umno says white we must say black. We must not agree with Umno on anything at all because there is nothing that Umno does and says that can be considered good or right.
I found that when I disagreed with this many Pakatan Rakyat supporters whacked me. They called me a traitor. They called me a turncoat. They said I had been bought. They said I had sold my soul to the devil.
Many Pakatan Rakyat supporters also told me that they used to respect me but now I have lost their respect. And this greatly troubled me because their respect is very important to me.
Their respect helps me feed my starving family. All I need to do is walk into a supermarket and tell the supermarket owner ‘my name is Raja Petra Kamarudin and many Pakatan Rakyat supporters respect me’ and the supermarket owner does not charge me one sen for whatever I want to buy. I get it all for free.
I walk into a bank to borrow money to buy a house and all I need to do is tell the bank manager ‘my name is Raja Petra Kamarudin and many Pakatan Rakyat supporters respect me’ and I can get a RM1 million loan without the need for any collateral.
So the respect of the Pakatan Rakyat supporters is very important. It puts a roof over my head and food on the table and clothes on my back. Without the respect of the Pakatan Rakyat supporters I would have to sleep on the streets and eat my meals in soup kitchens.
That is why I no longer preach that we cannot oppose Umno but only the wrong things that Umno does while supporting the good things it does. And I no longer say that people like Saifuddin Abdullah and many of his kind are decent people who have the interests of all Malaysians at heart. I need to call Saifuddin Abdullah a bastard and mother-fooker because he is Umno even though he may actually be a decent person, as even some Pakatan Rakyat people are saying.
Umno opposes Hudud. That is why PAS failed to get Hudud implemented more than 20 years ago in Kelantan and more than ten years ago in Terengganu. Umno made sure PAS did not succeed in implementing Hudud.
So I support Hudud. And I support Hudud not because I think Hudud is good for the country but because Umno opposes it. And anything that Umno opposes I support while anything that Umno supports I oppose.
And that is also why I support Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. It is because of Najib that I can no longer return to Malaysia so by right I should oppose him. But then many people tell me that the majority in Umno oppose Najib (I am not sure whether that is true) so if the majority in Umno oppose Najib then it makes sense that I support Najib.
This is within the spirit of opposing everything that Umno supports and supporting everything that Umno opposes. That is what ABU is all about.
So I urge the Pakatan Rakyat supporters to not forget the principles of our perjuangan, which is ABU. We need to support Hudud and Najib so that we can be on the opposite side of Umno. Since Umno does not want Hudud and Najib then we must want it. That is the only way to oppose everything that Umno supports and support everything that Umno opposes. That is the spirit of ABU.