1MDB: Najib’s Mission Impossible

In fact, you may have a better chance trying to convince people that Christianity does not exist than trying to convince people that there is nothing wrong with 1MDB.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

After Hari Raya they plan to organise road shows throughout Malaysia to explain the 1MDB issue to Malaysians. I would call this folly ‘Najib’s Mission Impossible’. Do you really think that any amount of explaining is going to change people’s mind and turn non-believers into believers or vice versa?

I think that is a total waste of time and most likely a waste of money as well. That time would be better spent looking through the statistics of the 222 parliament seats to decide which 125 of those 222 Barisan Nasional has a chance of winning and what needs to be done to win them.

I have discovered one thing. Once people have made up their mind nothing you can say or do will make them change their mind. If they think you are a crook they will remain convinced you are a crook. And they do not need evidence to be convinced. Rumours are good enough.

The rule of thumb here is simple. If you hate DAP and Pakatan Rakyat you will be convinced that Anwar Ibrahim is guilty of sodomy. However, if you hate Umno and Barisan Nasional you will be convinced that Anwar is innocent and that all the allegations against him are false and the ‘evidence’ have been fabricated.

Most of the people who are convinced that Anwar is either innocent or guilty never once step foot in court to follow the trial. They never even read the court trial transcripts. But they are either convinced that Anwar is guilty or innocent based on their hate for either Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat.

Take my case as an example. There are those who are absolutely convinced that I made a deal with the government so that I could get my son out of jail. Even portals like Malaysiakini reported that my son had been jailed for theft. And that is Malaysiakini, mind you.

First of all, my son was not jailed for theft. He was under remand awaiting trial because I refused to bail him out. Some friends, however, volunteered to bail out my son even though I was against it. I told them they can do what they want but they do so without my blessing.

Then two lawyers volunteered to defend him in court pro bono because I refused to pay for a lawyer. That is my son’s problem, I told them. He got himself into trouble so he can get himself out of trouble without my help.

Anyway, in the end the person who my son was supposed to have stolen from testified in court that his mobile phone was never stolen while the policeman who arrested my son testified that the stolen motorcycle was in the car park while my son was nowhere near that motorcycle at the time he was arrested.

So why did they arrest my son? The policeman could not explain why so the judge discharged my son without calling for his defence on all charges. However, until today, my critics still insist that I am making a deal with the government so that I can get my son freed from jail.

Freed from jail? My son is not in jail. He has been living in London for the last few years. But do my critics care for these facts? No. They prefer the story that my son is still in jail and that I am making a deal with the government so that I can get my son released from jail.

The same goes for the April 2008 Statutory Declaration that I signed. My critics insist that I made an allegation against the Prime Minister’s wife linking her to Altantuya Shaariibuu’s murder and that I have now withdrawn that allegation.

First of all, I did not make any allegation against Rosmah Mansor. Secondly, how do I withdraw an allegation I never made? But these are facts and facts are not important to my critics. What is important is what they believe.

One such critic is actually a lawyer. One of my friends tried to explain to this lawyer that if he reads the Statutory Declaration properly he would see that what he believes is wrong. This lawyer had never read my Statutory Declaration and he replied he is not going to waste his time reading it.

Okay, so he never read what I said and he is not going to waste his time reading it. So how does he know that I made that allegation and later withdrew it? This is what he heard. This is what people are saying.

There you are, a lawyer, someone who is supposed to deal in facts and evidence. But he refuses to read the evidence and makes his judgement based on what he heard and what people say. These same people are also basing their judgement of 1MDB based on what they heard and what people say. Do you think they are interested in facts and evidence? So why waste time with this mission impossible of trying to explain 1MDB?

People have been conditioned into believing without the backing of facts and evidence. And this is because this is how religious beliefs work. Religious belief is based on what people say and what you have been told and not based on facts and evidence. It is a faith-based belief system and not an evidence-supported belief system.

For example, Muslims believe in the Hadith. And it is because of these Hadith that Muslims are divided and kill each other. The Muslims do not dispute the Qur’an. They dispute what is not in the Qur’an. But try telling Muslims that they need to re-evaluate the Hadith to see which make sense and which are nonsense and they will call you an apostate.

You must believe in the Hadith to be a Muslim and if you do not believe in the Hadith you are not a Muslim. Is this in the Qur’an? No, it is not, but those are facts so why should we allow facts to change our belief?

The Christians, too, are just like Muslims. They base their beliefs not on facts and evidence but by what they heard and what they have been told. If I were to say that Christianity does not exist the Christians would get very upset with me. They will accuse me of whacking Christianity.

I am not whacking Christianity. Just as Christians exercise their right to declare that Jesus is the Son of God I, too, am exercising my right to declare that Christianity does not exist. Is this not what democracy and freedom of speech is all about?

Okay, let me explain why I say that Christianity does not exist so that you will understand that I am not being malicious or mischievous but have solid reasons for my belief.

Christianity was invented by Saul and not by Jesus. Jesus was preaching only to the Jews, not to the gentiles. Jesus wanted to correct many of the wrong beliefs and practices of the Jews who had deviated from the teachings of Moses. Jesus wanted to bring the Jews back to Mosaic laws.

Saul, however, did the opposite. He wanted to take the Jews away from Mosaic laws and open Judaism to the gentiles by introducing a new religion called Christianity. And because of this James and Peter clashed with Saul and he was almost killed if not because of the Romans.

Saul was a Roman citizen so the Romans saved him and brought him back to the safety of Rome. If not Saul would have been lynched by the angry mob that was out for his blood.

Basically, the conflict between the two, rival Jesus movements lies in the differences of opinions between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were basically the Jewish priesthood while the Pharisees were the breakaway group and Jesus was anti-Pharisee (“The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law are experts in the Law of Moses. So obey everything they teach you, but don’t do as they do. After all, they say one thing and do something else” — Matthew 23.2-3).

Matthew goes on to 23.34 with Jesus condemning the Pharisees.

Muslims call the Pharisees by the name Parsi. And Parsi means Persian. Hence the Pharisees are actually practicing Persian beliefs, which is Zoroastrianism. The Pharisees were the Jews who had been captured and taken to Persia as slaves 2,500 years ago. This was when Zoroastrian beliefs seeped into and corrupted Judaism that began taking the shape and form of Zoroastrianism. Later they returned to Judah and brought back this contaminated form of Judaism, which Jesus wanted to eradicate.

However, in the end the Jesus movement lost the battle and Saul, who later because Paul, won when the Pharisee (or Parsi) version of Judaism became what we now know as Christianity, a religion very close to Zoroastrian dogma.

Well, that is what I believe but I can assure you that even after this explanation not a single Christian is going to accept it just like no Muslim will reject the Hadith. And just like many still believe that my son sits in jail and that I need to make a deal with the government to free him, or that I made an allegation against Rosmah, many will still believe that Najib is guilty of a crime involving 1MDB.

In fact, you may have a better chance trying to convince people that Christianity does not exist than trying to convince people that there is nothing wrong with 1MDB.