Revenge of the effete snob

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ARCHIVES 2012

Wednesday, 27 June 2012 Super Admin

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In July 2007, a PKR blogger by the name of Nathaniel Tan was hauled in by the police for investigations on a post in his blog, related to allegations against Johari Baharum.

I joined dozens of bloggers in registering our protests against Nat’s detention and appealed for his release – see To PM AAB - Please free Nathaniel Tan.

Nat Tan had once served as Anwar Ibrahim’s private secretary and thus, at that time, an anwarista wakakaka – not sure what he is today. Nat was the bloke who would ask me (via comments in my posts) why I ‘hated’ PKR or Anwar, when I blogged my usual, wakakaka.

Nat is also the same bloke recently described by Zaid Ibrahim as an effete snob for writing/talking cock, wakakaka, to wit, criticizing Zaid Ibrahim among others for changing political parties more than once. Zaid lambasted him as follows (extracts only):

In Nathaniel’s calculus, one has to be blindly loyal at the cost of one’s own principles to qualify as having integrity.

There must be many Nazis that Nathaniel is proud of, seeing as they stood by Hitler to the bitter end. On the other hand, Sir Winston S Churchill must be a spineless party-hopper since he crossed from the Conservatives to the Liberals then back again.

Churchill had many qualities - some good, others bad - but lacking principle or integrity is not one of them.

Who is this pompous writer to go around with his own constructed “integrity-barometer” castigating others for lack of principle? If he wants to test his mettle and is willing to let others measure the level of integrity in his system, then I bid him welcome to the world of politics.

Just in case you may wonder what Zaid had meant by ‘effete snob’, well, it means a range of things, but I will attribute to Nat the mildest one, namely, an ‘over-refined elite’, someone who is residing (intellectually if not physically) in an Ivory Tower – a dreamer disconnected with reality or the real world wakakaka.

Ivory Tower

Okay then, let's examine another piece by the effete snob wakakaka. On 02 September 2008, just 2 weeks before the infamous Malaysian bullsh*t of all times wakakaka, I posted September 16 - shall Malaysians 'rise above their goodness'? in which I said the following about Nat:

I have to confess I like Nathaniel Tan, who writes at periodic intervals for Malaysiakini. He is a nice earnest young man who is apparently sincere in the politics he believes in, and in the man he reckons will deliver (on 916) ..... incidentally I share with him some of his former beliefs BUT definitely, absolutely and irrevocably not his latter - wakakaka.

Nathaniel used to work for Anwar Ibrahim – I don’t know what’s that political relationship now but you may bet he’s an Anwar Ibrahim supporter. He has just written for Malaysiakini an article titled Sept 16: What will 'cornered animal' BN do?

The title itself tells you where his political sympathies lie. To him, UMNO is the cornered animal just because Anwar has been boasting about katak-fication, whereas (again according to Nat) Anwar who fled to the Turkish Embassy had merely dropped in for coffee at the ‘invitation’ of the Ambassador - wakakaka.

Sometimes I feel sad that a bright young man like Nathaniel can be so easily bewitched by a renowned snake oil salesman who will promise anyone anything so long as it serves His Brahma-ic Majesty to ascend the political throne.

Mind you, notwithstanding his bias for Anwar Ibrahim, Nathaniel wrote a number of truths in his article. He reckons UMNO may be about to turn nasty towards Anwar Ibrahim, and enumerated the various possibilities.

But he overstretched himself when he alluded to the possibility of political assassination. He wrote: Assassination, in all honesty, is probably still a bargain as well. Yes, there will be a massive uproar, Anwar will be martyred, and discontent will reach unprecedented levels. Yet, at the end of the day, police investigations will be inconclusive, Anwar will be gone, and Pakatan becomes eminently vulnerable.

I don’t believe Malaysian politics would ever sink down to such a level ..... racial riots (chop up a few Chinamen or Indians), yes ..... but political assassination of an UMNO or former UMNO bloke, absolutely no ..... there is a line drawn in the sands of the heartland that won’t ever forgive the person responsible for that. The assassin might as well politically assassinate himself.

Incidentally, Nat is the scion of a well-to-do family where he was known to be picky about food, as once revealed by his ex girl friend, Soon Li Tsin. In July 2007 when he was confined by the police for a couple of days, his GF was allowed to visit him in the cell with some food (probably a local dish), but he asked her instead for gourmet sandwiches wakakaka.

Gourmet sandwiches ;-) hmmm, maybe he was living up to his 'effete snob' image, several years before Zaid dug into him.