Below: the Seminator ain’t gettin’ the love this Christmas but he did get his own reality TV show on live ASTRO broadcast at the Aatam 100 Vagai talent show in Penang on Sunday night (23 Dec). A salute to the audience who finally decided they’d had enough, and told Samy to vamoose in no uncertain (and I hear, some unprintable) terms.
So much for continuing to fool the people regarding the real status of MIC. I’m guessing it’s no presents for Minister for Misinformation Lord Zam Zam Alakazam bin Maidin either, because this is one he didn’t see coming and it was live.
This was originally posted as my comment in response to the post “Are the Chinese Short-sighted and Selfish? Pt. 1” on Sagaladoola‘s blog. Sagaladoola hits the nail on the head with his frustrated post, making reference to this article. I strongly recommend reading Sagaladoola’s post before this to better understand the difficulties facing the Malaysian opposition and civil society in overcoming the paranoia, inertia and apathy of Malaysian society in general.
The following is my reply to Sagaladoola (with a few new insertions):
I’m Chinese myself, and with much frustration, I’d have to agree with you: the Chinese community are by and large, fundamentally selfish and shortsighted. More than any other community, the majority of Chinese are driven more by personal fears and incentives than by the greater issues – the result of pragmatism tending towards the mercenary.
The Malaysian Chinese are basically divided into 3 camps: the dedicated opposition camp; the BN government sycophants and mercenaries; and the kiasi/kiasu/kiachenghu/bochap (afraid to die/afraid to lose/afraid of the govt/just don’t care about anything outside their ricebowl) paranoid-apathetic camp – which makes up the majority.
As the article mentions: while there is widespread discontent amongst the Chinese, it is still an open question whether this will translate into opposition votes at the next election, especially if there is a danger that some foolish auntie’s shopping trip might be jeopardised by ‘instability’. This chronic myopia (willingness to sacrifice their rights for false short-term promises of stability) is what allows UMNO to keep playing the race card to bully the docile Chinese back in line.
I run into enormous resistance in the form of paranoia, inertia and apathy when trying to raise political awareness even amongst my own family and friends (who mostly fall into the paranoid-apathetic camp).
In this coming election, I believe the Chinese vote will be decisive. From my observations: PAS and Keadilan together will be able to secure a significant block of the Malay vote – at least 33% = 20% of total votes by proportion. The Indian vote is gone to the opposition I’m sure, which gives another 8%. That’s a min. 28% in the bag, with potentially more from the Malay bloc.
That leaves the Chinese with a critical 25% vote block. From this, at least 5% are hardcore opposition and can be relied on to deliver the votes. 5% are mercenaries and will vote BN.
The remaining 15% will decide the popular vote. Unfortunately, this is the paranoid-apathetic camp.
The Chinese vote will be decisive in the upcoming election. We must capture this block, or risk losing the reform momentum built up so far.
No more sitting on the fence, my Chinese compatriots. Wake up, it’s time to make a choice.
The activists and citizens out there on the streets are fighting for the rights of all Malaysian citizens. Last I checked, ‘Malaysian citizens’ means you and me too. The street protests are happening because there is simply no other way to get through to a regime so bloated on its own corruption and hubris that it cannot or will not hear any dissenting voices. And I will point out that every single recent street protest has been well-disciplined and peaceful right up to the point when the police initiated unprovoked attacks on the peaceful protestors. The real criminals and ‘terrorists’ are the ones in uniform, not the civil protestors.
Statements like ‘Indian grievances are none of my business’ and ‘the BERSIH protests are inconveniencing me’ are criminally stupid and selfish things to say. Nobody WANTS to protest on the streets; they protest because they have no choice. If you truly believe the BN propaganda then you deserve to live under the boot of UMNO-BN.
You can decide to vote for the BN menagerie and live on under the false pretence of stability, hoping every day that your UMNO masters will deign to throw you another table scrap, while your rights are slowly torn away from you and cancerous corruption consumes the country;
OR, you can decide to throw out the whole festering, irredeemable mess that is the UMNO-BN regime. Cut down the BN regime at the next election, and rebuild a country where all are equal, and the institutions of the country exist to protect, not oppress, the people. Bring in fresh, honest blood to rebuild and reinvent the country. Malaysia is a country rich with talent, it’s just not in UMNO-BN;
The choice is literally in your hands, and you need to decide, NOW.
Malaysiakini reports that the police are cordoning off Dataran Merdeka and have issued warnings to prevent citizens from attending the above silent, peaceful candlelight vigil for the 5 HINDRAF leaders now under ISA detention. The vigil is scheduled for tonight, at 8 pm.
The UMNO-BN government’s response was to be expected, of course.
Well, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, this is what I have to say. Make sure you pass the message to your attack dog Musa Hassan and your lapdog Johari Baharom.
It is our fundamental and inalienable RIGHT as free citizens to peaceably assemble and to voice our concerns without interference from the state. We as citizens have never relinquished the right to public assembly; instead, the state has illegally misappropriated our right by ‘giving’ the police the power to ‘approve’ public assembly.
Listen well, Abdullah.
I do not recognise the authority of the police or the state in this respect. And neither do an increasing number of citizens in Malaysia.
In every single one of the previous civil protests, the violence was instigated and initiated by the police, not the citizens who participated in the protest. In fact, I am glad to see how disciplined the civil protestors have been, whether they be from HINDRAF, BERSIH, the Bar Council or otherwise. It is the PDRM that has proven to be lacking in discipline and professionalism, shirking their professional code to act as the thugs and enforcers of your shoddy regime.
And now you send your attack dogs in uniform to once again bar the people from peacefully assembling in solidarity with the HINDRAF leaders you unjustly detained under the ISA, an obsolete and draconian law that should have been expunged from the Constitution decades ago.
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, I have no respect whatsoever left for you. To address you by your birth name is a courtesy I do not intend to maintain much longer.
You are a failed leader of a failed government, trying desperately to protect a festering mess of failed policies.
I no longer recognise you as the Prime Minister of Malaysia. You are not fit hold the post. Nor do I recognise your Cabinet of fools, imbeciles and bigots.
You forget, Abdullah, that *I* am your boss. I am one of the rakyat, and the rakyat are very angry.
I am in Ipoh, by chance. 5 HINDRAF leaders have just been detained under the ISA, a number of them reportedly detained right here. There is clearly an increased police presence here.
Early this afternoon, the High Hypocrite Abdullah Ahmad Badawi invoked the ISA against 5 HINDRAF (Hindu Rights Action Force) leaders, detaining them without trial for 2 years and denying them access to legal representation, trampling on their civil rights and making a mockery of The High Hypocrite’s baldfaced lie (not that he needs any additional help) that Malaysia is a functioning democracy.
These are the HINDRAF leaders detained:
1. P. Uthayakumar
2. M. Manoharan
3. R. Kengadharan
4. B. Ganabathi Rao, and
5. Vasanthan
Shortly after we received the news of the ISA arrests, I passed 2 police checkpoints along the Jelapang-Chemor road and also received independent reports of a significantly increased police presence in and around Ipoh. The police manning the checkpoints were heavily-armed and appeared to be mainly stopping motorists of Indian origin.
My assessment is that the police operation was part of a police net set up to : (1) catch HINDRAF leaders, or (2) pre-empt a community response against the arrests of the HINDRAF leaders. I am trying to verify this conclusion, though events seem to be bearing out my assumption.
Still believe Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s baldfaced lies and pretence at being a “kinder, gentler, moderate, honest and fair ‘Prime Minister of the people'”?
Still think that Barisan Nasional is ‘okay lah’?
Still think that ‘let’s not rock the boat lah?’
The only way to save Malaysia is to rid it of the cancer called UMNO-BN.
People, your rights as citizens are being violated upon right in front of you. We no longer have the right to say, “We are not happy with the government, and it is time to change.”
This is real, it’s happening now.
Take back the country. Do not stand by while fellow citizens are being persecuted for the ‘crime’ of expressing their unhappiness with the way things are going in this country.
Vote BN out.
——————————
The situation is still developing. More reports and responses:
Reuters is the first international news network to carry the reports.
Seen on Elizabeth Wong’s blog: photos and videos of opposition leader Tian Chua being assaulted, dragged out of his car and taken away by PDRM-Gestapo thugs near Parliament this morning. According to (independent) reports, the car he was in was later found torched. Draw your own conclusions from that.
You must have seen the heavy police presence on the streets of KL this morning.
You may even have seen the ‘news’ on Rangkaian Televisen BN (RTBN, a.k.a. ‘RTM’, ‘TV3’, etc) or God forbid, the New Straits Times or The Star.
On the order of The High Hypocrite Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, roadblocks were set up and several top opposition leaders and human rights lawyers and civil society activists were arrested while trying to exercise their democratic rights: attempting to submit a memorandum to Parliament opposing the term extension of the current Election Commission chief, Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, who doesn’t even try to pretend he isn’t an UMNO lapdog.
Over 20 BERSIH leaders have been detained this morning (some have been released), plus 8 lawyers arrested on Sunday (Human Rights Day), plus several opposition and civil rights lawyers arrested yesterday in a nationwide sweep.
———————
If, confused by the propaganda mill of the UMNO-BN regime, you still don’t know what BERSIH is, or believe govt propaganda and think that BERSIH is a terrorist organisation linked to Al-Qaeda, the CIA, Mossad, Tamil Tigers, etc, let me tell you:
BERSIH is a coalition of over 70 NGO’s and civil rights organisations campaigning for free and fair elections in Malaysia, for we all know that UMNO-BN is such a good government, even dead people come back to vote for UMNO in this wonderful country.
HINDRAF is a group speaking for the Indian people, who have been sold down the river by Samy Vellu and the MIC for decades.
See the video of the lawyers’ march and subsequent arrest on Human Rights Day last Sunday near the Central Market.
We want our rights back. As citizens, as human beings.
The past month has seen an unprecedented and increasingly desperate assault by the Badawi administration on the civil liberties of the people of Malaysia.
If by now we still cannot see, or worse, refuse to see the ugly truth of what is happening in this country NOW; the fact that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, UMNO and the PDRM-Gestapo are turning Malaysia into a fascist state, where the slightest dissent is tantamount to ‘treason’, then we may as well go to North Korea and start singing praises for Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, for that is what we will become if we do not make a stand now.
Of course, the very fact that we refuse to subscribe to UMNO-BN’s ‘reality’ and Rangkaian Televisyen BN’s ‘truth’ makes us ‘criminals and terrorists’ in the feeble mind of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, a gentle monster who is well on his way to becoming the next Nikolai Ceausescu and Kim Jong-il.
Contrary to the propaganda mill, in every instance of the past few street protests, the violence was instigated and initiated by the Polis diRaja Malaysia and the FRU, firing tear gas and chemical sprays without provocation into a gathering of peaceful protestors who wanted nothing more than to demonstrate their discontent at the inequalities and discrimination they have suffered for decades.
You don’t need to to take my word for it; If you haven’t already seen it, just go and see the evidence on YouTube and search for ‘BERSIH rally 10 Nov’, ‘HINDRAF rally 25 Nov’, ‘Al-Jazeera HINDRAF report’, ‘Human Rights March Malaysia’ etc.
The judiciary is such a joke that Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail (another unapologetic UMNO lapdog) was mockingly laughed down at a press conference packed with lawyers. The fact is that the government has declared war on the Bar Council, along with all of us who refuse to submit.
How much more abuse must we suffer before we say that “Enough is enough!”?
The government serves us — the people — not the other way around. When the government of the day fails, it is our right to throw it out and replace it. When the government manipulates elections and suppresses the media, it tramples on the rights of the people.
Exercise your democratic right. Reclaim those rights that the govt has taken away from you. Throw out this rotten government.
There comes a time when silence is betrayal.
I’ve made my choice.
Make your choice. Now.
Take back the streets, take back the government and take back the country from the criminals that run it. Or, submit quietly and live as slaves of a fascist regime.
ALL READERS ENTER THIS SITE VOLUNTARILY. If the opinions expressed in this site do not agree with your worldview, you are free to leave this blog at any time. At no time will you be compelled to engage opinions and facts that do not subscribe to UMNO-BN's delusional version of 'truth' that it tries to forcefeed to everyone.
Unlike the Malaysian mainstream media, this blogger sees and thinks for himself, and tells it as he sees it. If it's ugly it's ugly. As long as you are prepared to debate in a civil and intelligent manner, all comments and opinions are welcome. As angry as you may be, profanity is discouraged on this site, with certain exceptions.
The ISA and OSA are not recognised in cyberspace, and you can stick them up the Law Minister's boorish arse with my regards.
This blog is (for now) dedicated to the fascists in UMNO, without whom this blog would never have come into being.
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