I am honoured to be invited to launch one of the Tommy Thomas’ two books today: “Anything But The Law”.

We see Tommy as the “Lawyer’s Lawyer” in his book “Abuse of Power”, while his other book “Anything But The Law” we see Tommy as the “Politician’s Politician”.

I want to tell Tommy that the world of politics beckons to him and it is never too late or too old to take the plunge into the political maelstrom for freedom, justice and good governance. Come and fight the good fight!

Tommy has suggested a few minutes of jolly, joyous and light-hearted moments for the occasion but it will be hard to think of an occasion where one cannot be more sober or even somber about our national situation.

Only yesterday, a Deputy Prime Minister who was summarily sacked from his high office some seven months ago was suspended as Deputy President of UMNO, fully vindicating the recent description of the parlous situation of the country by the longest-living former Deputy Prime Minister, viz:

“Within the last few years …life in Malayaia is turning upside down and inside out, that makes it difficult to keep calm! In government and politics particularly, behaviours seem to be based on the struggles that prioritise personal individual survival of the fittest. The end seems to justify the means and anything, anything goes. The dividing line between good and bad, right and wrong, seem blurred.”

The former DPM whose political party position was suspended yesterday warned of the making of a new dictator and called on the rakyat to rise up to oppose tyranny and wrongdoing and to Save Malaysia.

Even the former longest-serving Prime Minister is on the same wavelength, warning that the country is moving in the direction of the North Korean regime.

Another former Deputy Prime Minister, who is currently in incarceration, has rightly cautioned that the only way to implement true change is to address the crisis of confidence that the country is facing, and that mere fixation on an individual will not achieve this purpose – a deficit of trust in the judiciary, the media as well as the country’s democratic institutions and not just the Prime Minister or an individual. Read the rest of this entry »