Perak- Slay the UMNO monster
by Joe Lee
The utter disgrace of May 7th 2009 is the greatest manifestation yet that UMNO, the biggest samseng in town, would resort to any tactic, perform any dastardly act, break any law, destroy any institution, to retain the reins of power.
Malaysians are horrified, but perhaps should not be surprised that in UMNO’s dirty tricks book, there is very little that is off limits.
When the entire government apparatus, the civil service, the police, the judiciary, and some might add, royalty can be illegitimately used against an elected state assembly and government, the people of Perak and Malaysia must wonder whether we are very quickly descending to a kind of tin pot dictatorship, the kind that is more usually associated with the likes of Zimbabwe.
This Perak political and very physical smash-and-grab is a portend to what may happen in the next General Election. There is a real lesson here for the leaders of Pakatan Rakyat.
Winning the next GE does NOT automatically mean a transfer of power from UMNO to Pakatan!
Malaysia is now, to all intents and purposes, just like Burma or Fiji. The ruling clique will be very indisposed to give up power. It’s entirely foreseeable that, in a situation where it has lost the electoral mandate in the GE, a ‘national emergency’ situation will suddenly emerge, and hence a ‘National Operations Council’ will be quickly formed to effectively put democracy in the freezer for as many years as is necessary. (We have in fact been there before- exactly 40 years ago).
All Malaysians must understand that regime change in Malaysia won’t be easy. Slaying UMNO and the entire feudal-cum-patronage ideology that also now encompasses big business and big vested-interests will not be easy.
UMNO will always have a few aces up its sleeves. Playing the race card, alluding to non-Malay threats will invariably be handy. If that does not succeed, just stir up a few big disturbances, the more racial, the better.
UMNO is also fortunate in that it can always count on our largely meek Chinese Malaysian citizens. It knows that the Chinese will put up with repeated insults, as long as they are given a little leeway to ‘cari makan’. As Mahathir, was wont to say a few yeas ago – Chinese Malaysians are the luckiest in the world. At the same time he was saying that, his hatchet men were saying that Chinese Malaysians were ‘lucky’ because they were not being subjected to rape and pillage compared to Chinese Indonesians. Whilst it needs to please at least half the Malay electorate, UMNO knows it can brow beat the Chinese into submission.
UMNO the big school yard bully boy is old and decayed, but its fangs are still sharp. It still has incredible skills in orchestrating the reach of its ‘internal security’ apparatus, in neutralising or corruptly co-opting its opponents. In short, not even a General Election defeat is likely going to stop it from maintaining its stranglehold of power in Malaysia.
Malaysians need to understand that freedom and democracy are not FREE- you have to stand up and fight for it. Exactly like how Hindraf is fighting for their rights. Prolong non-violent resistance is the way to wear down the UMNO monster.
It will take a very united Malaysia, PAS, PKR and DAP, to defang it. And we could need a few more Hindraf-type non-violent resistance movements to stand up for a progressive Malaysia.
If you don’t stand up and fight, tough luck – it will be the law of the jungle. And please don’t bet that UMNO losing the GE in 2012-2013 result will mean the demise of an UMNO government.
The Perak fiasco should have by now informed you that UMNO, in the event of it losing the GE, will likely opt for a Burmese or Fijian solution.
UMNO the monster, the mastermind of the most disgraceful attack on democracy in Malaysia, the violent attacker of our Assembly Speaker Sivakumar, will not die on its own accord. We, the citizens of the country, have to actively work to snuff it out and to bury it.
