By Nomad Muslim | The Malaysian Insider
MARCH 2 — Dear Editor, I would appreciate if you publish this long but terribly important letter on Zulkifli Nordin, Umno, the Malays and the tragic state Malaysia finds itself in today. Thank you and may Allah (sw) bless you.
The letter:
I did contribute to Zulkifli’s victory and I’m sorry dear Malaysians
I’m a Muslim student in Malaysia from an African non-Muslim country. I have been here for a while to know much about this country.
Although I’m in the science stream, I follow the Malaysian political scene with fervour. In fact, foreign students particularly Muslims follow Malaysia’s sorry state with disgust and shock.
A nation we thought we could be proud of and sell to others including our countries, but unfortunately hell-bent on proving that God’s Grace can be a curse.
As Malaysia prepared for the now historic March 08 elections, we did whatever we could in our own simple ways of contributing to the Pakatan (later formed of course) groups particularly PAS and PKR.
Either we encouraged our Malay brethren whom we knew were registered to go and vote or at least help in disseminating the PAS and PKR political platforms and popularize their candidates. One such candidate was Nulkifli Nordin, a Reformasi stalwart.
Reading his blog then which was started in Feb 2008 was interesting. What a shameful metamorphosis indeed! In case he deletes it, we have captured it for posterity and Allah (sw) knows much more. Now here comes what I did.
On March 02, 6 days before the poll, as I went through Malaysian blogs, I came across damaging information against the UMNO candidate for KULIM Abdul Aziz Sheikh Fadzir published in the blog of former DAP MP James Wong, who linked to a statement issued by The Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH).
The statement was carried by The Merdeka Review and it was in Chinese. I immediately alerted Zulkifli through email and a comment left at his blog. I also sent him the link to Lim Kit Siang’s reaction to what Abdul Azizi has done by threatening to burn down the KLSCAH in 2000.
By then, the people who were visiting his blog were very small in number. He was desperately popularizing his blog through Malaysia-Today, Harris Ibrahim and Zorro blogs which are of course very popular. But my information will change a lot. As I left the comment in his blog, I requested that his not publish my comment but act on its message. He heeded my call. To him, I was just a concerned “Malaysian” who was fighting with him (or for him?) to secure him a victory against Umno.
Zulkifli Nordin thanked me and on the same date that I alerted him published the KLSCAH information plus Lim Kit Siang’s press statement on Abdul Aziz Sheikh Fadzir’s antics. Using the photo provided by Merdeka Review, he added: Tolak budaya samseng and then wrote: (We thank you wanyama for alerting us on this news….).
Wanyama was the fake name I used to sign in. The reaction was swift. That particular entry was published in Malaysia today. I personally linked it to Harris Ibrahim’s blog and Zorro’s too through commenting in their blogs. 20 people including me commented on the entry and I wrote: “Well, I’m the one who rang the alarm bell. Mr Zulkifli, this is a big chance to awaken the Chineese. It should be printed today and made sure every Chinese voter gets it. It is politics of honesty, accountability, responsibility and good manners. UMNO samsengs have no such qualities no wonder they are threatening people with fire. How can such people be made MPs? Kulim voters, be they Chinese, Malays or Indian, reject samseng.”
Zulkifli who was struggling with the Chinese vote got a golden chance to awaken the Chinese in Kulim and distributed thousands of flyers over this “Extremist” UMNO man (to use his own words…how days change). This also proved fatal to UMNO. Desperate to defeat him, UMNO was distributing demonic CDs against Anwar Ibrahim in Kulim and Zulkifli was campaigning on the premise that he was a Reformasi man and that he was DSAI’s lawyer. Rather than continuing on its demonic spree against DSAI, UMNO in Kulim was put on the defensive and by March 06, it was clear that Zul was headed for an emphatic history.
UMNO tried to disqualify him 2 days to the polling date on the premise that he didn’t submit his Account Statement and he lodged a police report against the Returning Officer and also sent a scathing letter to The Star for publishing a report titled: “Question mark over Zulkifli” and demanded that it publishes his press statement. Later the EC clarified that he was eligible to contest. Note that UMNO wanted to act against him only after his chances of winning became clear and didn’t object to his candidacy on the nomination day as usual.
Then the DAY came and Zul went on to win the Kulim seat. His ranted against the evil, corrupt, extremist and disgraceful Umno (his words) and the people listened and voted for him. One day after the victory, a Mahathirist commentator who used the pen name: arb_ok wrote: “Assalamualaikum YB, Congratulations on your recent election as the people’s representative. On behalf of my friends from KL who went back all the way to Kulim just to vote you, we sincerely hope that you shall carry your new responsibilities to the fullest.
Please remember not to take the voters for granted. The Kulim folks are no longer awed by the BN. I personally hope that despite you winning on Keadilan ticket, you shall not pursue the cause of DSAI as he is a gone case. Please remember to serve the Kulim folks well and you shall be rewarded handsomely.
And I must let you know that my vote went to the candidate and not the party. I despise Keadilan for their struggle on Anwar. Largely the Kulim folks are not fond of Anwar but we were simply sick of the PM and his advisers.
Selamat berkhidmat. Wassalam and syabas YB.”
I responded to this rabid Mahathirist and defended Anwar, Zul and PKR as a “Malaysian” and I wrote:
“Dear arb_ok
Ass.wr.wb
Your understanding is warped and your intellectual poverty is immense and heartrending that it needs attention. Let me address the issues that you have raised one by one.
1. You congratulated the new YB on his victory which is right. Then you went on to claim credit on behalf of your friends in KL. Well, you need to show the evidence that there were friends of yours who authorized you to speak on their behalf. I myself is from KL and went to vote in Kulim for Noordin. You said the new YB should carry his duties well since Kulim voters are no longer awed by BN. Agreed! But it is Malaysia which also is not awed by BN and its pussyfooters.
2. Then you addressed the new YB saying that he shouldn’t pursue the cause of DSAI since he is a gone case. It is here that I’m very interested in. first of all, what’s DSAI’s cause and who determines that cause? Secondly, how did you know that he was gone? Using which barometer? By what law, by what justice? Your calculation that you voted for the candidate but hates his party unearths your buffoonery since at the end of the day a candidate is voted on the basis of the ideals and manifestos of his/her party. Moreover, if Noordin is good, then it means the party that fielded him must have been good in the sense that it looked for the good people.
3. You wrote: “I despise Keadilan for their struggle on Anwar.” I must say that your hatred to Anwar the person has rendered you a buffoon beyond salvation point. This is because KeADILan is a party made of diverse people with diverse background driven by one goal: a better Malaysia. The fact that Anwar is part of that mass movement or party shouldn’t confuse you my dear. Yes, I can see you hate Anwar but Anwar even is not aware of your existence, so it will be civil and informed not to nag others about him as you are desperately doing here. Furthermore, the fact that KeADILan was formed after Anwar was jailed doesn’t make it an Anwar party. In any way, a party is borne at a given moment due to a certain political, economical or national cause at a given moment too, and therefore KeADILan’s birth at the height of the political assassination of DSAI doesn’t make the party bereft of any idea or its multifarious supporters and winners a hapless bunch of people wallowing in intellectual penury.
4. You said Kulim people are not fond of Anwar. Hehehe Which Kulim people are you talking about? It is just like how you said on behalf of KL friends. Mah! You are so cheap and condescending my dear. Your view and atavistic rage against Anwar can’t be said to be that of Kulim or its people. I’m sorry to inform you that Kulim is not you. Kulim has thousands of people with different ideas, perceptions, beliefs and orientations, therefore, your childish rants that the people of Kulim are anti-Anwar as if you are the Kulim itself makes your argument utterly naïve and ludicrous. Just say, as far as I’m concerned, ok? Thanks, wassalam.”
One may ask why all this trouble, well, we did all this to support the change and Malaysia’s prospect for a better tomorrow. We support the Islam of Tok Guru Nik Aziz (note I say Nik Aziz and not Ustadh Hadi) and the leadership of DSAI and now Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. We did this in order to support the people we thought were conscientious enough to understand that there is a crying need for a new paradigm in this nation and the salvation of this outwardly glamorous nation but deeply rotten inside. We did this because we have seen how rotten the system is, how failed Malaysia is becoming and how defeatist culture and inherent opportunism is becoming the accepted norm.
In 2006, a friend from another country was arrested in Kedah while he was going to Thailand. He was informed that his visa had expired the previous day by the Kedah Immigration and then he was detained. A relative of his requested me to accompany him to Alor Star to visit the man. I did. What I saw was shocking. Rather than putting the man through due process, the Immigration men demanded RM10,000. And when we informed them that his case has already being taken to court, a lawyer from UiTM who was working with the Immigration men said this to me: “all this will be solved. Both the prosecutor and the judge are known to me and he will be released immediately provided you pay the amount”, and then he gave me his account number.
He was a treacherous man selling his motherland. He is a product of a corrupt system that’s hailed as a success. We wanted the likes of Zulkifli to do something for Kedah, Malaysia and all those who love this nation. And those petty Umnoputras who rant against the world for demanding a fair tribal for DSAI, it is because even poor foreign students know how corrupt Malaysia’s judiciary is. We are witness to it and the world knows much than you can imagine.
Like would a Malay(sian) student in the US would in all probability support Obama, or the same student in India would do a dig for the Congress, the overwhelming majority of foreign Muslim students in Malaysia unequivocally support Anwar Ibrahim. Make no mistake about it and we aren’t stupid about it. We also salute beloved Tok Guru Nik Aziz whose courage and fatigue represent the spirit of the nation. And we also salute the always urbane and truly patriotic Ku li. For me and many others, these three men (plus many others in the trenches) are the real patriots. A patriot is the one who demands the best of his/her nation, not a vile, tribal posturing, knife (keris) waving buffoon who can’t express himself in an intelligent way. These three men also have been victims of the system and they are ones who can only correct it.
For us, Zul was part of the true patriots. The man who accused his UMNO rival of extremism became its ugly and unacceptable face. There was no intellectual input from him on any issue, a typical Ibrahim Ali, only younger. The fact that Ibrahim Ali is a vile character who can bad mouth others isn’t a sign of patriotism and neither would his empty tribal rhetoric take the Malays to a new frontier. I have been observing Zul, and I must say I feel sorry that I did little to help him win an argument against a rival whom he embraces today betraying the men and women who struggled with him all along. May be the Arab saying that revolution eats its children is true.
In fact, the Malays are very strange people if not the strangest on earth. Say, if you work together and you disagree, they will become your enemies and even do unimaginable things to you simply because you parted ways. Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.
They will also go to your “original” enemies simply to spite you but it is they who spiting their own souls and dignity. You can say they are a people who cut off their noses to spite their faces. Ya Allah! Take former PKR Secretary General Dato Salehuddin Hashim for example. The fact that he has had few disagreements with (may be) some PKR leaders, today, he wants to destroy the party! That’s his way of his struggle and reformasi. Reading his statements in the Malaysian Insider and The Edge yesterday reminded me of the Quranic verse: “And do not be like she who untwisted her spun thread after it was strong [by] taking your oaths as [means of] deceit between you because one community is more plentiful [in number or wealth] than another community. Allah only tries you thereby. And He will surely make clear to you on the Day of Resurrection that over which you used to differ.” (16: 92)
When Malaysian MPs were going to Korea two weeks ago, I was at KLIA leaving for my country-South Africa. As I waited for my flight and roamed the airport, I saw PKR MPs Zuraidah Kamaruddin and Kapar MP M. Manickavasagam, PAS MPs like Dr Hatta Ramli and Dr. Lo’lo Ghazali and some UMNO MPs. Zul was the loudest and the most uncouth. Wearing a tight jeans and a T-Shirt (infidel clothes I guess), he never even greeted the Pakatan MPs. He stuck with UMNO MPs and you could see him haughtily laughing from around the corner. Loudly speaking on the phone, you could think he was excited for flying. I almost wanted to talk to him, but some UMNO MPs guarded him and I was fearful knowing that I’m a foreigner even if a Muslim.
Definitely he was a trapped man, and a perfidious character devoid of God’s fear. I want to say this to Zul, dishonesty and betrayal of ideals and friends is not part of serving Islam. And Islam is not served by attacking private premises, bad mouthing others, tribalising its universal message and turning it into a base political tool. Islam is more than that my dear! One way of serving Islam is respecting your friends and comrades even if they are non-Muslims let alone Muslims and disagreements in ideas and ideologies in Islam is a mercy. If certain PKR leaders take a position and you take another, that’s a mercy unto you all. Don’t force others to take your position and don’t humiliate others and be conscious of God in Whose Court you shall answer alone. Your intentions should be for Him and remember God wants us to prove that we love Him by loving humanity.
Zul today wants PAS and PKR to severe ties with DAP but he thought it fit that he should use DAP support to win. He saw it fit to use Lim Kit Siang’s statement against his UMNO rival to get the overwhelming Chinese vote and today he talks as if UMNO gave him the seat. Any person with an iota of intelligence will tell you that Lim Kit Siang is more pro-Islam and Malay today than he was on March 07, 2008. Rather than capitalizing on that; and bringing the nation together and giving the Malays dignity and bringing to an end this heartrending mentality of: “we are sensitive people, (you mean others aren’t?), we will ran amok. We are weak, we need eternal crutches”, Zul is going back, back on anything good.
If he was a visionary leader, he would have understood that neither UMNO nor the current mentality will sustain the Malays. He would have taken his people to a new frontier much as they may hate it because a great leader takes his people where they DON’T want but aught to be while a leader (UMNO type) takes his people where they WANT. (Responding to base reactions, empty rhetoric and visionless politics devoid of God’s fear and based on brutal tactics).
Allah (sw) has been good to you Malays in many ways. He made you Muslims, He brought the Chinese and Indians to this country, if you doubt their benefit and contributions, ask others. Ask us! After Islam, the presence of the Chinese and Indians in this country is the greatest grace Allah (sw) has bestowed upon you Malays. He gave you a beautiful, an abundant nation. He gave you meek people who accept second class status and never demand much-the Sabah and the Sarawak Bumis. He gave you resources and a strategic place to call home. Rather than glorifying God and taking care of this nation, you cry daily, whine daily, threaten others daily, refuse to ask yourselves critical questions. Blame others, shame yourselves by repeatedly saying ‘we are weak, we are sensitive’ and defame Islam by using it as a tribal bomoh culture rather than a universal message.
You cry our “Allah”, since when did Allah become your tribal god? Please explains to us Muslims from the four corners of the earth why “Allah” is yours for example? You are not more Muslims than us. Are you? So tell us why? You won’t respond and if you do, it will be along the usual lines: “Our people will be confused.” All that you know is to say: our people are weak, our people are sensitive, our people are easily confused, and our people can easily run amok”. Is that’s how you prove your intelligence? Is that’s how you want others to respect you? Is that’s how you want Muslims in other countries to take your case and explain it to others? Is this is how you want to be viewed globally? My dear brethren, my dear Malays…till when? For us Muslims in other parts of the world, we know why! Unfortunately the people who are responsible for this tragic state are the same people who are leading you today and you never even stop for a moment to ask: where are we heading. May be you will wake up when you have already fallen to the pit!
Islam is not for Muslims alone. Non-Muslims can use Islam against us if they feel we aren’t being true to what we purport to believe in. If the Chinese and Indians say NEP is un-Islamic, that’s true. The Prophet (pbuh) would have decreed the same today. The Prophet (pbuh) would have issued a decree saying the poor Chinese and Indians should be given aid too. But a typical UMNO-Zulikifli type would respond: “We are sensitive, hak kita, ini bumi kita…we will use the keris… we will run amok…May 13” There won’t be a single intelligent response. An Islamic input, a humanist input, an economical input. It will be the same Ibrahim Ali and May 13 rhetoric. Not only you shame yourselves, you do that to those who love you because of Islam.
There is a crying need for the Malays to wake up and realize that business can’t be as usual. That protests don’t build a powerful community. They need to realize that Islam is for all and that UMNO’s tribal posturing will harm them more others and that the world isn’t waiting for them. You are being overtaken by all and sundry while you rant and rave, stuck in your own created quagmire. The Ibrahim Alis, demonic Utusan-undoubtedly Malaysia’s face of evil-, the Puad Zarkashis, The Alhabshees, BTN, and opportunist, inherently dishonest turncoats who can be bought for few Ringgits won’t help you in becoming a better people and a nation.
A man who can’t show your capability, but rather trades in your anguish, a man who sacrifices your future for political expediency, a man who doesn’t share with you the latest economic figures, research out, etc but sings a tribal song to you in order to inflame you and arouse your base emotions is not the one who will make you prosper and succeed in the Two World. You need intelligent leadership, a God fearing leadership, an honest leadership, true Malay leadership. You need Ku Li, Nik Aziz and DSAI. Allahuma Fashhad (O God be the witness).
“And that ears (that should hear the tale and) retain its memory should bear its (lessons) in remembrance.” Holy Qur’an 69: 13)
Wassalam!
Your brother from South Africa