Will Malaysian voters accept this backdoor-government?

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Will the rakyat, accept this backdoor-government?

Azly Rahman

Published: 7:59 pm  |  Modified: 8:41 pm

COMMENT | Chaos. Mayhem The coronavirus infection of Malaysian politics. Something we have expected to happen but unsure if it would happen. 

Until yesterday when hell broke loose and the total damage to our political-economic and social stability is yet to be seen.

What a betrayal. What a bunch of losers we voted into power back in May, two years ago. Little did the voters knew that this magnitude of no-shame politics would happen, derailing all the possible plans we had for a truly multicultural social evolution.

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I was about to write this week’s column on how we ought to brace together as a nation facing the foreseeable pandemic. “Love in the time of Corona” as we should think about, a phrase I borrowed with apologies to the title of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, Love in the time of Cholera.

And then this came. Back door government in the making. What then must the rakyat do? How angry I am sure we all are being played up by those who think that they can fool us.

I wrote these thoughts which hopefully reflect what we all are feeling about this sudden display of spineless politics. Of a game of musical chairs with Death Metal music playing in the background.

In the tradition of a Jamaica Kinchaid rant, I say these in the following paragraphs. You can add more after reading:

Our grave concerns

Maybe the new government may not happen. Maybe the plan will be stopped by the Yang Di Pertuan Agong? A counter-checkmate in place? Or, will the new government materialize and be a haven for old and dying crooks, hobos, parasites, parachuted-politicians and robber-barons seeking blessings and pardons?

Dissolve Parliament, I’d say. It will be fair for the voters. Let the hypocrites face the voters, let the rakyat deal with the betrayal. 

The battle for power will be intense. But I hope no huge rally should be planned. We now have the coronavirus scare. Online protests will be ok.

Just when we are about to see a multicultural sensibility developing, we are seeing a political multipolar disorder surfacing. In the North, this is called "Politik Pelingkup Haprak" (Untrustworthy politicians) where they will "pelekoh" (beat someone to a pulp) each other. 

Rakyat will "mati kering" (die standing). Useless, senseless, spineless, ridiculous bunch of politicians we have. Only concerned with saving their wealth, power, dynasty.

What will the next elections mean anymore? What else is there to vote for? Expect authoritarianism and anarchy to reign? Malaysians will see a long period of instability, at a time when we need to manage the Wuhan effect on our lives and economy.

Pakatan Harapan today

Pakatan Harapan is now the destroyer of the people's hope. The #UndiRosak folks were right then.

Ministers in DAP and PKR are now scrambling to find other jobs. It's like Donald Trump's show The Apprentice. What a country! Harapan ministers, in general, are now worried who will lose their jobs. 

Theirs was a short-term employment. They were “political-temps” made glamorous. They are now clearing their desks as we are reading about this huge mess.

Joyous-weeping Malaysians just voted for a half-term government. The poker players shifted the goal post, laughing to the bank. One man saving himself and his family brought down politics of the entire country. Welcome to the show that never ends.

The birth of Umno 3.0 today and a new Pakatan Nasional signify the most destructive fundamental shift in latter-day Malaysian politics, at a time when we are hoping for stability so that peace and social justice can be the foundation of our economic growth. 

But well good luck, Malaysians. You voted for change!

My call is this: O' Malays, care not just about halal food but about halal politicians and if they get halal income. Open your eyes to hypocrisy.

As badass-gangsta-prez as Trump is, Americans still have choices every four years. 

In Malaysia, the choice is long buried. Malaysia does not have any credible replacement as yet. To replace a toxic culture of political patronage now brewed to madness.

End of a “theory”

The “Rahman Theory” is over in Malaysian politics. It's the age of 3M. Mahathir. Then Muhyiddin. Then Mukriz. Perhaps. Your guess is as good as mine. 

Then comes now the age of madness. To Mahathir, the 1998 Reformasi March to his residence and the aftermath of the 1997 Tom Yum effect seems like yesterday. This vendetta has brought the nation down the drain of history.

I have always said this: Trust not those you see wearing the mask of "Islam" these days. Behind that may lie a big license to plunder, rob, con, steal! Those who embezzled billions today are mainly Malay-Muslim leaders. From Tabung Haji to Tabung Hajjah to Tabung Palestine!

We are all saying ensure rule of law & welfare of all Malaysians, please. Stop protecting only Malays. Especially leaders who embezzle everything!

Voters gave the mandate with their sweat and tears of hope, the government gave the last laugh. Politics of urination, I call it. 

The work of American pop artist Andy Warhol in that genre called “Oxidation” seems holier. Essentially this game of survival of PAS-Umno-Bersatu alliance is selfish, immoral, and dangerous. Think about it. Its consequences.

The longer one is in power, the more fearful one becomes, of being investigated for the abuse of power. Lousy is the culture of "power transition," Malaysia needs to learn at least about and from the US primaries. 

Something's wrong with the Malaysian system of "power-transition" when one refuses to get out and one knocking hard, to get in.

If and when "Pakatan Nasional" is born, the voters & rakyat are fooled, big time. And what was that last GE and Bersih rally about? A big con pre-ordained?

Politicians don't care and don't serve. They just want to keep their job. Taking as much while they ride the gravy train. A post-hypocritical world we're in. Politics means pathos. Politicians aren't worth a dime. Post-existentialism is in for me.

Malaysians have been asking: What’s up with the transition of power? Nobody wants to leave. Too risky. Chaos looming. Our pathos. 

Those who voted for the new government are now served with a new soap opera of power transition. It is a betrayal of the voter’s trust. A waste of time spent on casting that precious vote.

Now, "Have a cigar" Pink Floyd's song on corporate-crony success playing in my head. As I continue to read the story on bribery, robbery, hypocrisy in the never-ending game of Malaysian politics.

What then must the voters do?

We seemed doomed.

From high hopes to shattered dreams. As I wrote about recently.

The Truth about the defenders of the Malay Language

Not a joke to teach English to kampung folks

Azly Rahman

Published: 6:56 pm  |  Modified: 6:57 pm

COMMENT | The so-called national laureates, who are opposed to the teaching of Maths and Science in English, think it is a joke that Malays should forever be pushed backwards in mastering the language of science and technology.

English is the language of post-industrialism, of Artificial Intelligence (AI) philosophy, of this and that of the advanced hyper-modern society that our nation ought to understand of its underpinnings, if not ride on its wave. 

Together with the Malay or Islamic youth movement, Malay writers group and the other sentimental-illogical Malay band of opposers of English as a medium of instruction, they are plagued with a sense of vain-gloriousness and idiotic, if not false, sense of pride in defending the Malay language to the detriment of the future of the Malays themselves.

These are groups that are quite useless as participants in the dialogue for language advancement, frequently mounting arguments of pro-Malayness that are either stale, invalid and incapacitated in the face of the advent of higher science, or they are just plain ignorant of the needs of today's Malay children who are crying for a future that would not relegate them to becoming Mat and Minah Rempits (illegal motorcycle racers).

Those protesting against the extensive use of English can be considered merely troublemakers in the path constructed for the advancement of the Malays who continue to be called "lazy" by their own leaders. Leaders who are in the first place, lazy thinkers, who have failed to insist that the education system be in tune with the rhythm of globalisation.

The real joke

No, it is not a joke, mind you, to be mandating that the subjects of Maths and Science be taught in English. The real joke, in the long run, will be to see the next generation still wondering what the Multimedia Super Corridor and Tun Razak Exchange is all about, when we know that the English language as a medium of doing business, is what it is about, with these newer architectural structures the country is building to house more advanced systems of laissez-faire.

The joke will be when more and more Malay kids, and even graduates of local universities, are unable to make themselves comprehensible in interviews to hopefully gain employment in the private or semi-private sector, and even worse, the joke - the national laureate joke - will be that the interviewers will have to coach the interviewee on how to answer the interview questions they are being asked. 

What a joke the national ultra-Malay literary laureates and so-called national poets or national Malay-whatever would be then. 

That joke will be on our children, especially those "kampung boys and girls" whose confidence of mastering English will forever be damaged. What a joke it will be for their future.

I hate hypocrisy in education. I hate it when I know that in order for these "national laureates", "Malay-Muslim youth leaders", and other gangs of hypocritical defenders of the Malay language, to get where they are, to have their voice heard in the media, they themselves had to learn English and perhaps master it at a comfortable level.

They had to be able to have read great works of literature, canonical works on great ideas that move nations, and even write in English so that they could be a little known in the world outside of their Malay-language-Malay-Muslim-only literary coconut shell. They had to, I am sure.

Let us stop joking

But why the refusal to advocate for the advancement of science, technology, engineering, and maths especially when we know in this world of post-industrialism, English is far superior and functional than Bahasa Melayu which perhaps can never be at par as a language of science and technology? I repeat: Bahasa Melayu just does not have the cut yet to be a language of scientific progress.

Let us not waste our time in useless arguments over Bahasa Melayu as a language of this new nature of progress. It is not a "bahasa ilmu sains dan teknologi baru" (language of knowledge for science and new technology). It is not. It can only be an imitation of a world of high science that is already rooted in English, which is rooted in the Indo-European-Germanic-Latin world of symbolic meaning.

Just focus on first, mandating the teaching of Maths and Science, and train our teachers in getting them to the level of competency needed. Make them happy to learn English so that their children too can happily master the lingua franca. 

Use innovative ways of teaching English to help the teachers prepare themselves as an ongoing professional development agenda, and teach the teachers to stop listening to those fatalistic and defeatist advice on anti-English being given with idiotic pride by some non-sensical this and that literary laureate, and ultimately to move forward with changing times if we still wish to talk about world-class education.

It is not a joke that a Malay kampung kid can and ought to master English. I was such a kampung kid. My parents do not speak English. Nor do my grandparents and my Johor kampung folks. 

But I am glad they did not heed the advice of some Malay national laureate of this and that, of some Malay-Islamist-Salafi youth group spewing this and that Islamic confusion, nor any ultra-Malay nationalist groups who opposed the teaching of Maths and Science in English, yet sending their children to some expensive-elite-Malay-only boarding school so that the latter can take the Cambridge IGCSE or the International Baccalaureate Programme to lure them away from becoming Mat and Minah Rempits.

Let us not joke anymore about our children's future. Just have them master English. Because Bahasa Melayu can never be at par with English – as a language of today’s advanced cybernetic world. 

Don't push the Malay kids further back into the kampungs.