Umno hits the panic button with Perkasa-led Malay meet

John Kashuerin

Now, we have heard it all. Two Muslims from Umno with Indian roots, de-facto prime minister Mahathir Mohamad (Malayalee) and Zainuddin Mydin (Tamil), met in secret in Putrajaya on Mon with 250 other Perkasa diehards led by Ibrahim Ali the motor mouth.

They were also joined by the Tamil-speaking Sanusi Junid, a one time Menteri Besar of Kedah who claims to be an Acehnese, and former deputy federal minister Khalid Yunus.

The secrecy surrounding the meet, according to Mahathir in the media, was to prevent it being labelled as one of racists. He lamented that one could no longer mention the word Malay without being labelled a racist. Indeed, members of Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia – Mahathir being a case in point – are not Malay at all.

Malay is the lingua franca of the archipelago but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a Malay race exists. There’s no such race notwithstanding the definition in the Federal Constitution.

Undeterred, Mahathir lamented that the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia are now split among three political parties i.e. Umno, PKR and Pas. The latter two are allies in Pakatan Rakyat, the opposition alliance, along with the Democratic Action Party (Dap).

Perkasa – a failure

Behind closed doors, Mahathir had to reckon with the reality on the ground that his Perkasa was a failure. Perkasa obtained the outsourcing contract for Umno’s racist agenda but is finding it an uphill battle to flog discredited politics.

Nevertheless, considering the ample funding available, Perkasa will continue to twist-and-turn every issue in Malaysia into a racial and religious issue. The idea is to pit the non-Malays and Malays against each other and scare the latter into circling the wagons and gathering under one political platform – Umno — so that the ruling elite can live it like latter-day oil-rich sheikhs at the expense of the nation.

The Christians, being members of the 2^nd largest faith in Malaysia and a potential 3^rd Force in politics, would be fair game.

The secret meet was more important not for what was discussed formally but more on the sidelines in small groups sipping anything from a tea to the stronger stuff.

Hindraf Makkal Sathi, it was agreed on second thoughts, was a blessing in disguise for Umno. The more Hindraf screams about racism, the more the Malay-speaking communities can be expected to unite behind Umno, is the verdict from the sidelines.

The stakes are enormous in Umno’s politics of what keeps the people apart “so that Umno can continue to divide and rule like the British, the colonial masters of old”.

Shahrizat, MAS, Sodomy II discussed

The Perkasa meet was one held among a thoroughly disoriented and confused lot.  Suddenly, the future appears all but certain. This was the universal consensus at the Perkasa meet of the fellow-conspirators worried over imminent threats to their cushy parasitical lifestyles.

Umno minister Shahrizat Jalil, at the heart of the RM250mil NFC financial debacle,  figured in the talks, according to insiders, but more for being foolish enough to endanger all of them, the others being equally guilty.

Mahathir drew gasps of admiration for stage-managing the withdrawal of a RM600 mil suit against ex-Malaysia Airlines boss Tajuddin Ramli while not insisting on the withdrawal of the latter’s counter-claim which may run into several hundred millions. This is part of the continuing saga of the gravy train maintained by the Public Treasury. There’s something here for everyone.

The question that worries the Perkasa diehards, formally and informally, was how to maintain political power in order to facilitate the continued plunder of the Public Treasury if the Malay-speaking communities no longer buy Umno’s political bullshit, for want of a better term.

Not much hope is being placed on the Attorney-General’s appeal on Sodomy 11 as one way to disorient and destroy the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) and force it to return to Umno.

PAS, DAP and PKR not responding in the way Dr M had planned

The Unity Government with Pas has turned out to be a non-starter. That was a real boo-boo hatched by the unelected Prime Minister and Mahathir’s errand boy Najib Razak.

Likewise, the Dap is not interested in representing the Chinese in the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) but is instead determined to become the 4^th political vehicle in the country for the Malay-speaking communities i.e. after Umno, PKR and Pas.

Mahathir is all for convincing the Malay-speaking communities all over again that they should pretend that they are still a bunch of morons and losers – “pretend that smart ones don’t exist” — who wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance against Indians and Chinese – “all too smart for their own good” — in a free-for-all. In short, Indians and Chinese would make mincemeat of the Malay-speaking communities.

So, Mahathir is all for flogging the same old long-discredited theme i.e. that the Malay-speaking communities must stand united under one political platform – read Umno – so that they can get total political power and usurp all opportunities to share “only among us moron pretenders”.

If there are those among the Malay-speaking communities who don’t buy the Mahathir line, they can migrate to Australia – as they are already doing – like the Indians and Chinese.

Racism as well as nepotism, corruption and opportunism

Mahathir’s simplistic reasoning is that the morons and losers including the pretenders outnumber others in any community and need to make use of the strength of their numbers “to ensure that the brightest and best – all Indians and Chinese, according to Mahathir — don’t lead the way for all”.

Of course, these usurped opportunities would not go to members of the Malay-speaking communities at large but only the ruling elite and their children and the fat cats in tow. Nepotism, corruption and opportunism – mistaken as racism by Hindraf Makkal Sakthi — would be the order of the day.

The Mahathirian political “ideology”, according to the de facto Prime Minister, would be supported by leaders of other communities – Indians, Chinese, Dusuns and Dayaks – who have any number of skeletons in their cupboard. However, these Judas characters would not go unrewarded. They would get some crumbs from time to time from the Umno table after their (Umno) leaders had gorged themselves full, burped, purged  and vomited to their satisfaction.

Perkasa to woo defectors in the aftermath of GE-13

However, these non-Malay leaders must be kept as poor as possible – like Sabah and Sarawak — so that they don’t get any fancy ideas like being financially independent and breaking free of the vice-like grip of the ruling elite.

If all else fails, Perkasa is for Umno to woo defectors from among polls winners in the opposition alliance after the 13^th General Election. The emphasis would be on winners who would be identified by intelligence reports as being vulnerable in more ways than one.

All options are on the table.

The final option, in Perkasa’s thinking, may be a 1969-style declaration of emergency to build a new BN – read destroy the opposition — after a period of National Operations Council (NOC) rule supported by a National Consultative Council (NOC) and a National Economic Consultative Council (NEAC).