Whether the PM “has shown his true colours” is the small issue.

There is a larger one in which all are interested to find out, ie : what is the real reason behind political tsunamy of 8th March causing BN to lose Parliamentary 2/3 majority & 5 states?

It would not happen if a significant part of the Malay ground had not shifted against UMNO. What’s the real cause of that??

Then on March 8th and now, UMNO’s policy has been more or less the same : championing race and religion to stay in power.

More so now in aftermath of 8th March and confronting Permatang Puah by election and Anwar’s threats of iminent change of government from cross overs.

The Bar Council forum (especialy with its dissentient comprising Parti Rakyat KeAdilan & PAS’s members) provided the perfect bogeyman to the dominant party of BN that is presently in crisis (some say implosion), unable as yet to reinvent itself to address the multifarious grievances and disaffection of large segment of electorate against its policies, and in this state still wondering whether its loss of support of a segment of Malays, as had happened on March 8th, was largely due to the failure and irrelevance of Ketuanan policies or actually not but some other factors yet to be fully divined, which a present return to and re-emphasis on the well tried formula of traditional appeals to race and religion, that have worked so well in the past, might still yet be relevant to check the party’s decline and unite the factionalism ensuing from March 8th to confront the challenges of Permatang Puah and calls of 16th Sept change of govt.

So there is nothing new – this “no more discussion on matters of religion or race that had already been enshrined in the Federal Constitution” and “no objection to Home Ministry’s discretion to use the Internal Security Act and Sedition Act against those who organize such forums like the Bar Council”. It is an old tried formula reinvigorated : an almost predictable response arising from acute anxiety and self-doubt.

Malaysians have a stake to want to know what actually happened on March 8th 2008 to structure their lives in the future to come.

The important question : did March 8th really signify a seismic paradigm shift of electorate attitudes against the BN’s and UMNO’s platform and well tried formula of traditional communal politics?

Well this is not say that race and religion don’t matter any more or have lost entirely their appeals but that notwithstanding that they do matter and still have appeals, whether on balance, they would outweigh the electorate’s and in particular Malays’ esp. amongst the growing numbers of urbanised young voters’ tiredness of 50 years of continuous mis-governance : that is really the issue!

So, in a perverse sense, it is perhaps timely in the eve of the major battle in Permatang Puah leading to the decisive struggle for crossovers in the months ahead over the allegiance of BN’s members for the leader of BN to beat the chest on race and religion so that all would know whether they would score political brownie points or not much – and whether Malaysians in general and Malays in particular have crossed the Rubicon on March 8th 2008 making race/religion, which still matter, however matter far less than other considerations in the larger scheme of things….

We – and they in UMNO – will want to know and will soon know whether the Rubicon was unmistakably crossed 5 months ago if the BN/UMNO get roundly trounced by PKR/PR in Permatang Puah.