Was it a sheer coincidence that the Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times and Berita Harian today all reported an article entitled “Apa salahnya DAP jadi TPM” which appeared on online portal Malaysiakini yesterday, and all omitted that it was an article written by Zulhazmi Shariff, Ahli Jawatankuasa Biro Guaman DAP Kedah.
This was power play at the most blatant, someone – who is actually UMNO’s Goebbels – who had the power to direct the three UMNO-owned “mainstream newspapers” what to print, how to print, and what to omit!
For most of the past five decades of my political life, I was virtually a non-person to the UMNO-owned and controlled “mainstream media”, never reported about or mentioned except on occasions to demonise me or to put me in the worst possible light.
But for the past four weeks, I had become quite a “regular” in these three UMNO-owned “mainstream media” which had treated me as a “persona non grata” – not because these three “mainstream media” have suddenly realized that the journalists’ craft is to tell the truth, but for the UMNO propaganda masterminds to set me up so that UMNO leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers could discredit, destroy and demolish me.
They were modern-day Malaysian practitioners of the Nazi craft immortalized by Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels who said the infamous words – “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
In commanding the UMNO-owned “mainstream media” to exploit the Malaysiakini article, but avoid mentioning that it was written by Zulhazmi Shariff, member of the Kedah DAP Legal Bureau, UMNO’s Goebbels was flaunting his power. What he did not realise was that he was also advertising his failures as UMNO’s Goebbels to make his Big Lies accepted by the public as Gospel Truths.
UMNO’s Goebbels’ first propaganda offensive was to accuse me of wanting to be Prime Minister and Finance Minister, for which a fake Cabinet line-up with me as Prime Minister and Finance Minister and Tun Mahathir as Deputy Prime Minister started circulating on the social media in the first few days of December.
But such a gambit could not get off the ground for it was demolished by DAP Secretary-General and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng who, in an act of serendipity, said at the DAP National Convention on Dec. 4 that DAP had never proposed to have a Chinese as Prime Minister of Malaysia taking into account the political realities in the country.
This had forced UMNO’s Goebbels to launch a second propaganda offensive – accusing me of wanting to be Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, alleging that this was the secret deal concluded by Mahathir and me in our Dec. 3 meeting.
When I denied that there was ever any Dec. 3 meeting between myself and Mahathir or any secret deal like Mukriz as Prime Minister and I as Deputy Prime Minister, UMNO’s Goebbels would not concede suffering a double whammy – but he clung to a desperate attempt to keep alive his second Nazi Big Lie about my wanting to be Deputy Prime Minister.
UMNO’s Goebbels’ power could be gauged by his ability to get the Prime Minister himself and UMNO Ministers and leaders to repeat or defend his Nazi Big Lies, not to mention the army of UMNO cybertroopers under his control and the UMNO-owned and controlled “mainstream media”.
The power of UMNO’s Goebbels could be seen by his power to turn UMNO Ministers into aides and aides into UMNO Ministers – and this is where the Prime Minister’s aide, Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad had been roped in to challenge me to “admit” my alleged ambition of wanting to be deputy prime minister.
I am tickled to no end by such puerile tactics.
I could have replied by any one of the following:
• Asking Najib to first make a statutory declaration that he is not “MO1” and that he is not personally implicated in any manner in the international multi-billion 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal;
• Asking Najib to first confess 1MDB scandal will cost the Rakyat billions; confess that listing of Felda is a crying shame of a failure; confess that the country’s education system had been damaged by BN/UMNO; confess that the country’s security had been compromised and confess that the universities and hospitals are squeezed for money;
• Whether Tengku Sariffuddin would prefer a corrupt Muslim-Malay leader to an upright non-Malay, non-Muslim leader? and;
• Finally, the question asked by many Malaysians – “What’ s wrong about LKS becoming DPM? If a Black can become a President of USA and a Muslim (President Kalam) can become a President of Hindu India, then what’s wrong with anak Malaysia (LKS) becoming DPM?”
For me, let me reiterate that I had never aspired to be Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister, but to ensure that through our political efforts, to leave for future generations a more united, competitive, just, democratic and prosperous Malaysia.
I welcome yesterday’s judgment by Justice Hue Siew Kheng in the Kuala Lumpur High Court yesterday ordering former Selangor exco member Hasan Ali to pay Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad RM200,000 in general damages for defamation.
In her oral decision, Hue said religion is a highly sensitive issue in this country. To accuse someone to be anti-Islam or traitor to the religion carries extremely dire consequences for the victim.
She said: “The defendant’s baseless allegation has brought him public odium and he has suffered as a result of it.”
I have asked my lawyer to go through various articles, statement and speeches which had made defamatory allegations against me like accusing me of being “anti-Islam” when it is completely false and untrue, and to institute legal proceedings to stop such defamatory and pernicious practices.