— Sakmongkol AK47
The Malaysian Insider
Apr 23, 2012

APRIL 22 — Some of my readers will recognise that my previous article borrowed its title from Fukuyama’s hugely popular book. I am sceptical, however, that someone who writes of Najib Razak as being the prime minister of this blessing land instead of this blessed land has read Fukuyama’s book.

I haven’t got the time to enter into useless polemic with this fellow as it would only serve to dignify his blog, which isn’t widely read anyway.

One admission. My blog nowadays does not pretend to be a forum for unbiased debate. Since I joined the DAP, while I try to present an objective viewpoint, I am functioning increasingly as a pamphleteer with a specific political objective. I don’t have to explain myself as many know what I am inferring of.

Back to Fukyuma’s “End of History”. It tells the end of totalitarian and undemocratic rules all over the world. Whether it has brought about the emergence of liberal democracy in exact terms as described by Fukuyama remains to be seen.

What is happening all over the world is this: ALL totalitarian and undemocratic rules in the world have had to adjust to the new realities brought about by the empowerment of people. This is what is happening in our country too.

As a result, despite the shamefaced claim of the rise of the PM’s popularity, of promises of development that they have failed to deliver for so many years, there is an unmistakable sense of nervousness in the ruling government that this time; it’s not going to be business as usual.

The prominent feature of this government is that it has trampled over the people and stampeded through them with tyrannical policies and programmes designed to shackle the spirit of freedom. At the worst receiving end are the Malays, forever blinded and bonded to Umno’s lying machine.

In this article I am following up and using much of the material written by the intrepid and much loved commentator in my blog, Walla. He has observed that along a similar trajectory to Fukuyama’s thesis, the same is happening here because our rakyat have all woken up to what Umno has been doing.

Umno is a machine that is just racketeering to protect its coterie of cronies while spinning short-term spurts of feel-good vibes around. Umno is nothing but a mere syndicate playing on the emotions of our simple-minded rakyat.

Take last night’s event at Dataran Merdeka. While they had paid performers to gyrate around and smile for the cameras so that viewers around the country can get zapped and bedazzled by sights and sounds, our youngsters were huddling at one corner in cold tents in the same square that is emblematic of how national their plight remains.

The students had sacrificed themselves to bravely voice out their sense of injustice at how a political party can, at its whims and fancies, dish out to its own cronies millions while denying poor students a basic scholarship for their education even to the extent of hiring thugs to bully them and take away their tents the morning after.

This is as stark as you can get that Umno has walked the opposite direction of its so-called people-centric talk. If that’s not hypocrisy against the interest of the rakyat, what is? And Najib is talking cock about his track record and big ideas. Even his big ideas are rejected by the Umno people; elsewhere we want to be thick faced so as to want to delude ourselves and force ourselves and families to accept all the theatrics and rhetoric that Najib is selling. He is a snake oil salesman.

Meanwhile, Umno’s paid lackeys launch ad hominem attacks on people like Aspan Alias. Doesn’t even one of them remember how he had sat timidly next to Aspan during one get-together, when Aspan was sincerely and humbly discussing issues faced by our Malays in the country?

If one can do that to a fellow man of distinction and honour, what residual value can possibly remain in any defence of the corrupt paymaster that is Umno?

And this is what Umno has done to our country and society. It has divided and separated itself above us. More than that, it has also debased us. Didn’t someone just confess in a previous post he was not such a cheapskate to want only two hundred ringgit?

What they don’t know is, the paymasters consider those who had taken that money from Umno as cheapskates. The RM200 paid to these lackeys are but loose change to people who had dispensed money taken from the rakyat. The RM200 loose change are just alms given back but in little amounts disproportionate to the vast sums stolen in broad daylight by the paymasters under the protection of all the federal institutions of the country. Perhaps it’s all part of a soul cleansing ritual. This kind of scheming tomfoolery must end at GE13.

Just look at the clowning; watch, for instance, the Pemandu TV ad on anti-corruption. Ask yourself, how can a government ask companies to pledge not to be corrupt when the government itself is corrupt? Collect for yourself any number of A’s you like if you can honestly answer that question. Muhyiddin Yassin and Khaled Nordin won’t mind but that’s because they would never miss any they never had.

Now, some may still wonder what will happen to Umno after GE13. The answer has already arrived. Look at the Pakatan Rakyat-run states today. Umno is in the opposition in those states. And that’s how it will be if Pakatan Rakyat routs Barisan Nasional in GE13.

In those Pakatan-run states, are our Malays worse off by a long shot? Have they lost their Ketuanan, by any chance? Isn’t it odd that the occasional bellyaching is only made by a few “Malays” who don’t even look like our Malays?

As was written before, the best way to see for yourself the true colours of a political party is to look at it when it is NOT running the country. When it is the opposition, see whether it really cares for the rakyat.

Has Umno as opposition reps really cared for the rakyat in Pakatan-run states as much as Pakatan has been caring for the rakyat as their opposition reps in Barisan-majority states?

Let us next ask ourselves: If Najib has to hire flag-waving motorcyclists and Umno’s NGOs can bully their way against student and social movements of the rakyat, on which side does the word “rakyat” sit?

Therefore, on which side does Najib and his Umno NGOs sit? Sorry, limit’s up on A’s.

Are you on the side of the Oppressor or the Oppressed? — sakmongkol.blogspot.com

* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).