Politics: doing wrong for the right reason

Lim Kit Siang supports Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in spite of the damage the latter did to the country. PAN, a so-called Islamic party, supports Anwar Ibrahim in spite of his two jail terms for sodomy. Rafizi Ramli helped oust Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim on false allegations of corruption because the latter refused to spend the state’s RM3 billion reserves on the party. There are so many examples of doing wrong for the right reason. So right and wrong are subjective.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Politics is not about doing the right thing. Politics is about doing wrong for the right reason. And if you do not understand this then you are not yet ready for politics. Idealism and principles have no place in politics. Those who are guided by a moral compass are dead heros and martyrs, to be honoured for their ‘sacrifice’.

Another term for that would be the end justifies the means or, in Malay, matlamat menghalalkan cara.

Those who sacrifice themselves are idiots. Your job is not to die for your country or cause. Your job is to make your enemy die for his/her country or cause. You do not join the armed forces to die. You join the armed forces to kill. Whether it is to kill in defence or in offence does not matter. Your job, either way, is still to kill.

It is wrong to support Mahathir if he opposes DAP but right to support him if he opposes the Prime Minister

So, who do you support? The Umno-led Barisan Nasional or the DAP-led Pakatan Harapan? To the Pakatuns and Dapsters, if you support Barisan Nasional then it is either because you are corrupted (you have been bought or bribed to support Barisan Nasional) or you are stupid (which is why the main support for Barisan Nasional is in the rural areas where the fishermen, farmers, and natives of East Malaysia live).

Of course this is how the urbanites look at things. People who received a college or tertiary education who live in brick houses along nice streets and boulevards with a couple of cars costing more RM100,000 each parked in the driveway and half a dozen credit cards in their pocket and so on would look down on these rural citizens of Malaysia who support Barisan Nasional.

These people sitting on their high horses say that Malaysians who support Barisan Nasional do so for money. These people sitting on their high horses talk as if they do not do things for money. Everybody does things for money when you do not have money. Only when you have plenty of money can you afford to do things not for money.

Why do you think these people sitting on their high horses went to college or university? Was it so that they can gain knowledge to serve their country? It was so that they can get a high-paying job later in life and earn a lot of money. It costs about RM1 million or more to become a doctor. It costs only a few thousand to become a bricklayer. So why burn RM1 million when you only need to spend a few thousand? Well, that is because you can get super-rich if you are a doctor but cannot even afford to feed your family as a bricklayer.

They tell me that many (or most) doctors and lawyers are anti-government. They can afford to be anti-government when they have tons of money. Those who live from hand-to-mouth have no time to be anti-government because they have other priorities, such as to put food on the table. And they are very grateful to the government for the RM500 or RM1,000 aid that they receive — which is not enough for shopping on Oxford Street for the urbanites.

Rafizi needs RM4 million for his Invoke but if others work for money that is called makan dedak

So, yes, those who support Barisan Nasional might be doing so for economic reasons. But what is wrong with that? Why insult them by calling them ‘dedak-eaters’? Even Rafizi Ramli is collecting RM4 million from the public to finance his Invoke for just ten months. Do you think Rafizi can run his Invoke with his 80 staff if he does not get the RM4 million that he needs? Will those 80 graduates work for the cause free-of-charge for the next year without a penny?

At the end of the day even causes need money.

When the Japanese invaded South East Asia in 1941, the Americans set up resistance groups in all the occupied countries. The British did the same in Malaya. The main problem was to motivate these ‘freedom-fighters’ and ‘patriots’ to fight for their country. And this ‘motivation’, of course, was money. So even ‘freedom-fighters’ and ‘patriots’ need money before they will fight.

General Douglas MacArthur, who had been kicked out of the Philippines, established a network of freedom-fighters throughout the occupied territories. Their main target was so-called ‘collaborators’. Locals who worked for the Japanese government such as officials, police officers, and so on, were assassinated.

The Americans used thieves (the Chinese triads and the Japanese Yakuza) to fight thieves and to defeat Communism

The Japanese set up what the Americans called ‘puppet governments’. These are people the Japanese chose to become the President (such as in the Philippines), the legislators, mayors, police chiefs, etc. The Japanese may have occupied these countries but they still needed people to run or manage these countries. And they chose the locals to do this. And the Americans targeted these people for assassination so that no one dared work for the ‘Japanese’ government. In short, the Americans wanted to bring these countries to a grinding halt at the expense of its citizens.

The Americans then went into alliance with the underworld — the local triads and mafias — and turned them into a ‘secret army’. These triads and mafias were allowed to monopolise the black market and smuggling trade, and even trade with the Japanese to make money. In the end they stole from the Japanese and sold back what they stole to the Japanese in another place. The drug and opium business flourished under the management of the triads and with the protection of the Americans.

General Douglas MacArthur used the triads all over Asia, Japan’s Yakuza included, to defeat the leftists and in the process they made US$100 billion over 1941-1945

By 1944, the entire American-backed anti-Japanese resistance movement was just one huge business underworld network that stretched as far as Japan. Yes, the Yakuza flourished during WWII and it was because of the Americans. It is estimated that at the end of the war the South East Asian underworld controlled about US$100 billion in wealth, all made just over four years during 1941-1945. And this does not include another RM100 billion that is estimated to have been plundered by Yamashita, who General Douglas MacArthur hanged after a sham trial that was highly condemned by the west.

When the war ended, the main focus of the Americans was to make sure that the Communists do not take over. That was around the time of the Joseph McCarthy era in America. And the organisations that would ensure the Nationalists won over the Communists were the Chinese triads and Japanese Yakuza.

The triads and Yakuza assassinated many of the far-left so that the far-right or anti-Communists would emerge the rulers. The governments in Japan, Taiwan, Burma, Vietnam, the Philippines, etc., were most corrupt and had deep links with the underworld, who helped keep them in power. As far as America was concerned, as long as you are not leftist that is all that matters. Never mind how corrupt you may be (just like what happened in Cuba and other Latin American countries).

So post-WWII saw many most corrupt but anti-Communist governments emerge all over South East Asia that used the bullet rather that than the ballot to attain and retain power. America’s policy was simple: ABC or anything but Communist. It took many years for countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma, Taiwan, Thailand, etc., to break free from such governments. It could have happened in 1945 but it did not. And that was because America found it was easier to work with corrupt people.

Ferdinand Marcos was a Japanese collaborator and Kempeitai agent who the Americans made the President of the Philippines by doctoring his war record to turn him into a war hero

Fortunately Britain and not America decided what happened to post-war Malaya. And when Communism became a problem in Malaya as well, instead of asking the underworld to assassinate all those people like what the Americans did, the British embarked on a ‘war’ to win the hearts and minds of the people. Thank God General Douglas MacArthur did not have his eye on Malaya or else Malaysia would be a very different country from what it is today.

So that is politics. Politics is not about doing the right thing. Politics is about doing wrong for the right reason. You might think you support the DAP-led Pakatan Harapan because that is the right thing to do. Well, this is not about doing the right thing. This is about doing it for the right reason even if it is the wrong thing to do.

For more than 1,800 years the church had been killing pagans, apostates, heretics, witches, warlocks, etc., so that their souls can be saved and they would be sent to heaven instead of hell. That is an example of doing the wrong thing for the right reason. So right and wrong are subjective. It is right when you are doing the killing and wrong only if you are the one being killed. So who are you to say that supporting Pakatan Harapan is right and supporting Barisan Nasional is wrong?