Thinking Allowed
Déjà vu, Azalina?
According to The Star, the tabloid’s series of articles alleged that Azalina had bought a RM300,000 Mercedes car for her supposed lover. Azalina has naturally denied these suggestions as “total lies” but has demurred from suing the tabloid and Khalid Jafri to date. Said she, the people behind the reports were mentally not stable and “I will not waste money to take legal action against the paper” (The Star, May 2, 2002). The PM had also got involved and advised her to ignore the accusations (again, familiar lines). Said Mahathir, “These are the type of people who are bankrupt with no work. They make malicious accusations because they want publicity.” But wait a minute, Mr. PM, wasn’t Anwar Ibrahim crucified by just these kinds of people?? To be exact, by the precise personage of Mr. Khalid Jafri who penned the scandalous 50 Dalil Mengapa Anwar Tidak Boleh Menjadi Perdana Menteri! Poor Lina was reduced to a bunch of rhetorical rebuttals but not to tears – she’s too tough for that, this taekwondo blackbelt-er. Replying to Khalid’s tabloid taunts, she fired back: “Are you saying I am a lesbian because I am unmarried and don’t have a husband or children? Is it because I wear pantsuits and don’t cover my head? Is it because I talk and laugh loudly? Is it because I don’t look feminine or giggle?” Poor, poor Lina, you just got baited! You have to show incontrovertible proof to the contrary and even then it may be too late to shake off the muck. But worse, if you continue to evade the main accusation, you’ll be truly and surely nailed. Hasn’t the Anwar episode provided all the necessary lessons for dealing with the likes of a Khalid Jafri? Azalina, Puteri UMNO and the PM have remained in deep denial. Some damage control has kicked in and Perdana Sari has been suspended for three months but ostensibly not for the Azalina expose but for its sensational and graphic depiction of ‘Sex on Campus’ in its fifth issue. But watch out you guys, three months down the road or earlier Khalid will come out with a book entitled “Ada Dalil Mengapa Azalina Mahu Jadi Ketua Puteri UMNO”!! UMNO Caught By Its Own Petards UMNO apologist Shamsul Akmar (New Straits Times, May 4, 2002) has come up with an interesting reflection on the Azalina affair (what else can one call it?). He takes the moral high ground by opining that people without moral standing should not be passing moral judgments. Who can quarrel with that? Ending on a morose note, he says: “…. It would indeed be sad if the movement (Puteri UMNO) suffered because its leader has been maligned for actions which Malay Muslims find unpalatable. Worse would be if the Malay Muslim community at large decides that the accusations are true, whether proven or otherwise.”Well, Mr. Shamsul I hate to inform you that ethics and morality have never been the feature of UMNO politics recently and especially since the Anwar crisis. The Anwar episode itself demonstrated the most mendacious and darkest depths a party could sink into by using the self-same hatchet man that will now be Azalina’s nemesis and inevitable undoing. There’s a thing about hatchet man though – they’re often hired guns. I wonder who is the ‘musuh dalam sarong’ (enemy within) this time around? Half-A-Brain Can Be Great! A fading personality is in the news again in a legal action after a long drought. Her RM60 million suit against PAS and four others including writer Sabri Zain concerns the latter’s celebrated article in the Harakah (March 22, 1999) during the reformasi heyday entiltled “ Malaysia Sweeps 10 Oscars”.
One should make no remarks about an on-going court case as one can be held in contempt. But I must say that in this litigious day and age, the mighty, rich and powerful one can often take political opponents and the media to the cleaners with libel suits, something which some claim Senior Minister Lee, south of the border does with great efficacy. I read recently that he will be suing Toronto’s Globe and Mail for something it wrote about former president Devan Nair, who now lives in exile in Canada. LKY, it would appear has brought a new twist to globalization with his transcontinental legal suit. No doubt, LKY is a brainy guy but if you ask me, anyone with half a brain can still get away with a libel suit if one has a good lawyer, the sympathetic ear of the judge and the blessings of the powers-that-be. Maha-Mutterings
“People know that there are many ways to skin a cat. (Really!!) We have chosen the unorthodox way and the cat has been neatly skinned (Yeow!!). The method does not count.” (Exclamations added). The PM was boasting about Malaysia’s economic recovery after handling the Asian Flu. In the first place, whoever came up with the expression deserves to be buried in six feet of used cat litter! What an unspeakable cruel thing to do – skinning a cat! That the PM is fond of the expression does give us a deep insight into his psychological make-up. A penchant for pain and some S & M, maybe? “I hope no one will hold on to the belief that I will remain as Prime Minister for as long as I live. While I appreciate the confidence the people have in me, when the time comes, I will have to go.”That famous refrain! Spoken at the May Day rally for public sector workers when an idiotic questioner from the floor asked if he would stay at the helm for as long as he lived. The PM’s answer is an important insight into his delusional sense of self-importance. Consider the words ‘for as long as I live’. The idea of leading the country is no longer linked to the fact that he does so because he happens to head the ruling party (UMNO) and ruling coalition (BN); it is entirely because of Mahathir qua Mahathir! Soon, some may want him to lead the country even when he’s dead and gone; indeed, human cloning is on the scientific horizon. “Who would have thought that a goreng pisang seller at Pekan Rabu like myself could one day become Prime Minister? I used to fry bananas. But in the end I managed to become Prime Minister. Still this does not mean that all of us should go out and open up goreng pisang stalls.”Going somewhat “bananas’ after talking about the problems of UMNO Puteri in Jitra and making one of his rare visits to his constituency of Kubang Pasu. The statement is a classic non sequitur conflating humble occupations and political success. The fact of the matter was that, as an adult, Mahathir was first and foremost a doctor by profession not a goreng pisang seller. Secondly, he rose to political infamy long before he attained political success. And the route to power was strewn with politicking. He was expelled from UMNO after he wrote a scandalous letter attacking the Tunku in the aftermath of May 13, 1969. The next quote shows how Mahathir became PM almost by chance. “In the end, I could only become Prime Minister following the deaths of two UMNO leaders Tun Dr. Ismail and Tun Abdul Razak. And even when Tun Hussein became Prime Minister, he could have chosen anyone as his successor. Many wanted the post of Prime Minister but Tun Hussein eventually chose me.”This statement hints at the truth but leaves out a host of fairly well-known details and stories about how Mahathir was chosen. One popular vignette goes like this. Hussein had actually chosen Ghazali Shafie but the UMNO rank and file objected and offered the names of Razaleigh, Musa and Mahathir. Hussein eventually picked Mahathir after much rumination and only he can tell us why! As Mahathir himself intimates, many Chinese were shocked when he became Prime Minister. “Some of them (Chinese) believed that I was supposedly anti-Chinese, but now they support me, sometimes stronger than the Malays do.”How true! The ‘average’ Chinese Malaysian opinion has come full circle from the days when Mahathir was thought to be an “ultra” (an extreme Malay nationalist) to a view that sees him as the epitome of moderation, while the Malays are the ones who recently foisted names on him like firaun, Mahafiraun and Mahazalim Now, is there any chance that this old leopard will change its spots? No, the old Mahathir modus operandi remains – in politics, I have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests, mine!! (Quotations are from NST, May 1, 2 and 7, 2002). To Be Or Not To Be, That’s The Question I would like to thank Dr. Khalidah (not her real name) from Kelantan for conveying her view that my play on the words “Tu dung or not tu dung” (Vol. 22, No.1) may be offensive to Muslims. She averred that the phrase was meant to evoke something “shitty” about donning tudungs. I hasten to respond that no such meaning was intended and if it was so taken, dear reader do accept my humble apology. I merely took the phrase to be a concatenation of ‘to don or not to don’ or perhaps ‘to dunk or not to dunk’. I hope nothing written in this column will be construed as aiming to insult any religious faith. None is ever intended. However, let me take the occasion of a response to Dr. Khalidah to also add that the phrase used is of course semiotically associated with the Bard’s most famous soliloquy, spoken by a grieve-stricken Hamlet, who was contemplating the value of life itself, viz: To be or not to be, that’s the questionHamlet’s ‘death wish’ makes one think of the Palestinian suicide bomber of today, often young, idealistic but bitter about the unending injustice inflicted upon his or her people. And indeed, social and political acts associated with religious strife especially since 911 have entailed decisions of life and death in many parts of the globe. This was epitomized by 911 itself. Religious conflict has become so intractable that it seems to have nudged humanity towards a collective death wish; witness the horrendous events in Palestine, the horrific religious bloodletting in Gujerat, events of the now almost forgotten American-led anti-Taliban war in Afghanistan, Muslim-Christian strife in Maluku, et cetera, et cetera. Hopefully Dr. Khalidah and others like her would help us renew out faith in the universality of religious beliefs, morality and ethics as the only sensible platform to bring about an end to religious strife. D.L. Daun Now tell us what you think. E-mail us. |
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The hottest news, or should we say ‘manufactured hot news’, that has hit the headlines for most of the month has been that associated with Puteri UMNO head Azalina Othman Said. It has taken on tones that have an uncanny similarity to the Anwar episode. A weekly tabloid, Perdana Sari, published by Khalid Jafri (remember him?) had in its second, third and fourth issues claimed to have exposed Azalina as a lesbian. Some incredibly candid and sensational things were mentioned about the Puteri chief. The Star, May 1, 2002 in an article by Joceline Tan (“Rising star learns politics has a price”) provides bits of the juicy information and I will rely on this source since I have not been able to grab copies of the fast dwindling and now suspended tabloid.
Ummi Hafilda Ali, the plaintiff, claimed that the article defamed her and injured her character, credibility, reputation and her business. Under cross-examination, Ummi said that the article “had condemned her to the lowest level by calling her a prostitute” (The Star, May 4, 2002).
Our obsequious papers are each day peppered with the speeches, comments, utterings and mutterings of our ministers. And nary a day passes without an earful or faceful of the PM’s words or voice, so I decided to put together and annotate some of the man’s quirkiest statements last month as an antidote to the incessant propaganda of his minions.