A Reminder : Lest we Forget

We see in Malaysia now the emergence of an UMNO trying to ensure that its sovereignty over the country continues not only to be total but prolonged. Political leaders of Barisan Nasional has yet to openly turn to murder of opposition group as a tool of governance but are comfortable in promoting the need to maintain their own rule under a virtual one party dictatorship - a preference entrenched the longer they stay in office. It would seem now that they are soon moving towards the temptation of also joining the traditional rulers where the practice of passing power to their children or preferred successors becomes the norm. We must not let this happen!

Tunku handed power over to Tun Razak more or less voluntarily. Tun Razak died in power. Tun Hussein took over, as he should by virtue of being his deputy. Mahathir took office in the same manner as had his predecessor Hussein. But Mahathir did not hand over power to Pak Lah willingly and with as much dignity as he could muster. His actions were later to descend to the level of farce and brought disrepute and shame to his stature as a past Prime Minister. Pak Lah has so far managed to suffer in dignified silence and to his credit avoided the lure of handing power or the possibility of power to his in son in law. If anything Pak Lah left power when he must have realized that to UMNO, power was to be used for its own ends – not the Rakyat.

Mahathir decided that his personal inclination to longevity in power required the strategy of building loyalty and support within UMNO and outside UMNO by sharing out contracts and Federal funds handed out to family, cronies and the preferred few within UMNO and Barisan Nasional. And his government became the ‘Royal Court” from which all favours and the politics of patronage was dispense from. Even if Mahathir could not have handed over power to his sons he left behind lessons of holding power which allowed many UMNO politicians to create their own vulgar new dynasties of material wealth and power  - forever tainting UMNO and the Malays to equate money, material wealth and greed with Politics. Money politics at its worst. This, to his shame, is Mahathir's legacy to us!

Looking at the wealth of  Mahathir’s children would be enough for one to question the audacity of their father to proclaim to the world of his stand against money politics, against corruption and against greed.

Yes we have not had the misfortune of having Military rulers like our neighbours in Indonesia and Thailand but these UMNO Politicians who held onto power with the use of all means at their disposal – legal and illegal – did imposed upon us consequences worse then our neighbours have had with rule under the military. Though without any Military pedigree all our Prime ministers were well educated and without the burden of inferiority complexes. This makes me wonder why Mahathir and Najib have degenerated into the psychotic kleptocracy and megalomaniac tendencies we have seen with Suharto and the many African despots like Mobutu and Idi Amin.           

But I think for the people of Malaysia ours is not to mourn for these crimes that our own leaders perpetuated against their own people. We must now start fighting back. We must expose and denounce all the beneficiaries of over fifty years of corrupt and dictatorial patronage politics imposed upon us by Barisan Nasional. We must not allow them to rig elections or impose on our people such draconian laws as the ISA and continually use the Police to harass the opposition and our people. We should not allow Barisan Nasional to impose upon us any racial, religious or economic sanctions that will sabotage the emergence of democratic politics. And we should certainly not allow them to repress opposition parties that strives to offer a credible alternative to the rort that BN now has set upon us for the last 12 general elections.

There must be support across our nation – and where it does not exists, we must create that support -  for the foundation to be laid for national development and respect for our people human dignity. This should be the least of our demand now while we await the coming general elections to bring us much needed relief against a government that seeks to further their odious hold on power over us through any means at their disposal. So go and seek the means as to how this must be done. There are enough people around you to learn from. Enough things written on the Internet for you to read and do. Go register to vote. If you can, give money to the opposition, so that they will have the  funds to fight against the well funded Barisan Nasional election machineries. And always keep the fire burning. You are one. With me we are two.