June Wong’s take on Rosmah Mansor
Yes, if June Wong is doing fair reporting she should not single out Rosmah. She should mention all the other wives of Cabinet Ministers, Menteri Besar and Chief Ministers as well. Even Lim Guan Eng’s wife goes for shopping sprees in Hong Kong and the Chinese towkays pick up the tab.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Today, June Wong wrote in The Star, “Will the real Rosmah Mansor please stand up?” (READ HERE).
The operative words in that article are Marie Antoinette (Queen to King Louis XVI of France) and Imelda Marcos (First Lady to President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines).
June’s article shows she lacks an education on history. And this is the problem with most Malaysian journalists. In fact, the reference of Rosmah Mansor to Marie Antoinette and Imelda Marcos has been done so many times before. Hence June is merely ‘borrowing’ this reference from others.
Hence, in short, what June wrote is NOT original.
King Louis XVI was ousted by the nobles, not the rakyat
In the 1700s, the time of King Louis XVI of France, 20% of the land was owned by the church and 20% by the nobles. The rakyat, mostly peasants, worked on this land and paid taxes to the church and/or the nobles.
The church sent the money to Rome (they did not pay any taxes to the King) while the nobles paid tax to the King.
In short, it was a form of oppression by the church and the nobles on the people.
The King had to maintain an army and look after the security of the nation. France was always at war with England, Spain, etc., and wars cost a lot of money. And to finance this army and the wars, the nobles had to contribute to the cost in the form of taxes while the church paid nothing other than what it sent to Rome.
But as more and more wars were fought the money soon ran out. So, King Louis was forced to raise the taxes and the nobles did not like it. Hence they plotted against the King (in fact, the nobles had been plotting against the King since the time of Louis XIV and Louis XV).
Queen Marie Antoinette was a victim of propaganda and she was accused of doing a lot of what she did not do
To make King Louis unpopular, they spread the story about Queen Marie Antoinette. They even spread stories such as her saying, “Let them eat cake,” which historians say there is no evidence she ever said that.
This is what Encyclopaedia Britannica said: More important, though, there is absolutely no historical evidence that Marie-Antoinette ever said “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” or anything like it. So where did the quote come from, and how did it become associated with Marie-Antoinette?
In short, it was the nobles, not the rakyat, who were behind the plot to oust King Louis. And it was because they did not want to pay taxes. And the nobles instigated the rakyat to rise up so that it would be seen as a rakyat’s uprising rather than a nobles’ uprising. And they used the ‘kesusahan rakyat’ as the platform for the uprising.
In the Imelda Marcos case, the United States wanted the Philippines as any ally against communism in South-East Asia. So, the US gave the President and the First Lady a lot of money through the CIA to buy their friendship. And they disguised the payment as aid for various programs headed by the First Lady.
Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were being funded by the CIA disguised as ‘aid money’ to by-pass US laws
In short, the US or the CIA was helping Imelda syphon out money disguised as US aid. But it was not really US aid. It was payment to President Marcos and his First Lady to become strong US allies.
So, was Imelda a crook? It was the US government who were the crooks. They paid the Philippines leaders (many others included) billions to buy their friendship. The US knew where the money was going and they could have stopped it. However, instead of stopping the flow of money from the US, they increased it and kept paying more and more.
June Wong appears ignorant about these two very important facts of history.
Now, in the Rosmah Mansor case, when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad decided to oust Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in 2006, he demonised Khairy Jamaluddin. He made the rakyat hate Abdullah by making them hate Khairy.
And it worked.
It was Vincent Tan and all the other Chinese tycoons who bought those handbags for Rosmah
The same happened when Mahathir wanted to oust Najib Tun Razak. He demonised Rosmah Mansor so that the rakyat would hate Najib through Rosmah, a plan that succeeded in the Abdullah case.
Maybe Rosmah did shop a lot, as do most wives. But then much or what Rosmah possesses were presents from Chinese towkays. And all these Chinese towkays are cronies of Mahathir, Vincent Tan being one example.
If Mahathir is upset with Rosmah’s shopping then why are his cronies giving Rosmah all these presents? Mahathir knows that his Chinese cronies are involved. Yet Mahathir kept quiet. Or did Mahathir encourage them so that he can use this against Rosmah later?
They talk about Rosmah’s Birkin handbags. Vincent Tan paid for these handbags and Vincent Tan is Mahathir’s proxy-crony. So who is the guilty one here, Rosmah or Vincent Tan? Pakatan Harapan whacks Rosmah when they should be whacking Vincent Tan instead.
Muhyiddin’s wife was buying Birkin handbags while he was still just the Menteri Besar of Johor and long before Rosmah did
Anyway, Muhyiddin Yassin’s wife has been buying Birkin handbags while he was still just the Menteri Besar of Johor. And hence have many other Cabinet Ministers’ wives. And they have been buying these handbags long before Rosmah did. But why does no one talk about Muhyiddin’s wife or the wives of the other Cabinet Ministers?
Yes, if June Wong is doing fair reporting she should not single out Rosmah. She should mention all the other wives of Cabinet Ministers, Menteri Besar and Chief Ministers as well. Even Lim Guan Eng’s wife goes for shopping sprees in Hong Kong and the Chinese towkays pick up the tab.
And June Wong must study history before using Marie Antoinette and Imelda Marcos as examples to describe Rosmah Mansor. History is written by the victor and the setan (devil) image of Marie Antoinette was created to justify what they did to her while Imelda Marcos got all her money from the CIA, disguised as ‘aid’ so that no questions will be asked by the American public.
June Wong did not mention that Guan Eng’s wife also goes for shopping sprees in Hong Kong and Chinese towkays pick up the tab
