Malaysia’s headless chickens As I’ve pointed out many times before, the only thing that prevents Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak from pre-empting former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad as the most pathological liar on the planet is Najib’s penchant for making Freudian - or, if you prefer, fraudian - slips, thus unconsciously revealing what’s truly on his mind. Perhaps the most compelling example of this fatal flaw was his claim some years ago that the US perceived Malaysia as a “model” nation, thus unintentionally exposing his underlying fear of compelling and still-persistent suspicions that he was peripherally if not personally involved in the murder and C4 dismemberment of Mongolian ‘model’ Altantuya Shaariibuu. But the Freudian/fraudian fluff he made this this week made all his previous efforts look tame. Just two days into the search for the missing Flight MH370, with his BN birds of a feather flapping around like headless chickens in their response to its mysterious disappearance, he decided to have a flutter at damage control by staging a highly-publicised and much-photographed shopping expedition for, of all things, a headless chicken. So there he was all over the mainstream media, gaily presiding at the launch of his patently propagandist ‘Fair Priced Shops’ award and crowing that this was “a great government effort to help consumers make ‘informed decisions’,” and adding in his most poisonously patronising fashion that “if we can do some comparison, we can still buy our necessities at very reasonable prices”. Failing to foresee, apparently, that the spectacle of him smirking with characteristic self-satisfaction as he proudly displayed a chicken he had allegedly bought for RM1 would be seen by most Malysians, not to mention the world at large, as a symbol of not only his government’s chaotic involvement in the search for MH370, its passengers and crew, but also of what’s wrong with him and his incurably foul BN regime. The very concept of ‘chicken’ itself, for a start, is a reminder to many of not most of us that BN is too cowardly to face the voters of Malaysian without the police, judiciary, civil services, ‘religious’ authorities, mainstream media and above all the Electoral Commission all ranged illegally and even criminally on its side. In fact this craven regime is so accustomed to thus ruling the roost and treating the Malaysian people like a flock of dumb clucks content with being fed propaganda by the parrots of its tame mainstream media that it instantly turns chicken in the face of world media attention. Crying “unfair” and “poor little Malaysia” when exposed to hard questions, let alone well-deserved criticism, as demonstrated most recently by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim’s squawking that overseas journalists covering the disappearance of MH370 have been “bullying” BN spokespersons. Flying into frantic flap Then, to proceed from the core cowardly significance of Najib’s ‘chicken’ to the starkly evident fact that it was headless, it would be hard to find a more powerful symbol of the frantic flap his whole flock of BN high-flyers have flown into as they issued a flurry of confusing, contradictory and even self-contradictory information, misinformation and possibly even disinformation about MH370, to the anguish of the families, friends and colleagues of the passengers and crew, and the scorn of the wider world. In fact Najib’s chicken even drew scorn from the very kampong and kangkung audiences that Najib was most at pains to impress with his shopping exploits: those Malaysians who are either too poor or else self-absorbed that they care for nothing but the prospect and cost of filling their stomachs. The fact that Najib was out shopping at all when he should have been leading - or more likely further misleading - the search for the missing aircraft was as vivid a reminder to penny-pinching parochials as to the rest of us that he and his spouse Rosmah Mansor are infamous for flying, indeed swanning it around the world on shopping sprees. Flying on private aircraft at public expense to the tune of RM400,000 or so per international trip, and on Najib’s personal part purchasing such items as massively overpriced submarines, military aircraft and radar and other ancillary systems, none of which items have apparently proven of much or indeed any use in the location of MH370. With the result that even the most gullible of the audience whose support he is constantly at such pains to purchase with chicken-feed savings and hand-outs seem to have perceived Najib’s scoring of a headless chicken for RM1 as not so much inspirational as insulting. Especially in light of the fact that the allegedly cheap chicken that he was cheeping on about was also, as nobody who saw the press pictures could have avoided noticing, not only as headless as Malaysians have long known and now the rest of the world is similar aware that Najib’s government is, but was also comprehensively plucked. And thus provided even further symbolism of the fact that the members and cronies of the plucking BN regime have been feathering their nests so lavishly and for so long at public expense that the prospect of calculating how many billions of RM1 chickens it would take to repay what they owe to the people would give even the most accomplished accountant goose-bumps. Risk of killing the goose that laid the golden egg In fact BN has stolen and squandered so many squillions of ringgit from the rakyat, and for these criminal purposes simultaneously robbed the people of precious and priceless rights like justice, freely informative media, social and religious rights and liberties and even proper education, that it risks killing the goose that laid the golden egg. In domestic affairs, of course, the BN vultures can duck for cover behind a smokescreen of secrecy and deception, as they appear to have successfully done following the most recent previous occasion on which they disastrously resorted to their headless chicken routine, last year’s Lahad Datu ‘incursion’. But in the case of MH370, there’s a crucial difference. The disappearance or crash of a commercial aircraft is a global event, and unavoidably subject to global scrutiny. So as much of a ruling rooster as the BN regime considers itself to be in its own fowl/foulyard and on its very own dunghill, and as heedlessly it tries to resort to its headless chicken routine, the truth will for once come out. Not just for the sake of the thus far lost passengers, crew and their loved-ones, but also for the thousands of talented and dedicated Malaysian pilots, stewards, stewardesses and ground staff who have made MAS such a great and safe way to fly all these years despite having to deal with crony financial (mis)management, suppliers and contractors, but also for benefit of the Malaysian people at large. As I write, the world still waits and wonders and wishes that the people aboard MH370 are still alive somewhere. But if not, all of us that they leave behind can take some small comfort in the fact that at least their disappearance has brought the BN regime’s chickens home to roost. Or in other words, this tragic loss could prove to be what it takes to finally end almost 60 years of the tragic trashing of the rich and beautiful country of Malaysia by the headless, heedless chickens of the Umno/BN regime. DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia, ‘Even Madder about Malaysia, ‘Missing Malaysia, ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 07:52:58 +0000
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