BN must be destroyed

Dean Johns

Malaysiakini
Mar 6, 2013

I’ve expressed this obvious message in so many ways over the years – in attempts to spice it up with variety – all to no apparent avail thus far, that it strikes me that I should try mindless repetition for a change.

This will be terribly tedious for us all of course, but the possible gain could be well worth our collective pain. Because repetition of the patently, blatantly obvious has worked a treat in the past.

Most famously, as history recalls, for Cato the Elder, who in the years between 175 and 146BC bored his fellow ancient Romans witless by ending his every speech in the senate with the statement that “Carthage must be destroyed”.

Four words that for years rendered Cato a figure of fun. But finally taken seriously and given force by the Roman sword, they proved to be a death sentence to the dreaded Carthage.

Thus my hopes for the similar success of my mantra for the foreseeable future, or at least until Malaysia’s endlessly-awaited 13th general election: BN must be destroyed.

Admittedly, BN is not a foreign threat to Malaysia as Carthage was to Rome. But this criminal coalition is arguably as dangerous to the future of the Malaysia and Malaysians as any external enemy might be.

For more than 50 years, and especially in the past 30, BN has been an insidious, creeping evil attacking and infesting Malaysia by stealth.

Steadily stealing as much of the nation’s land, oil, timber, corporate wealth and hard cash as it can get away with, and simultaneously robbing Malaysians of all possible forms of defence or redress.

BN may not be an invader, but it is certainly an all-pervader. It has systematically colonised and co-opted the civil services at every level from federal to local with its own relatives, cronies, sycophants and place-seekers.

Perverting the system of justice

It has flooded the country with foreign workers to ensure cheap, sweated – if not slave labour – for its captive economy, and secretly handed-out citizenships to illegal immigrants selected as most likely to show their gratitude in the form of votes.

And simultaneously the regime has robbed Malaysians of their proper protections in the face of such assaults on their rights and property by subverting the forces of law and order, perverting the system of justice, corrupting the electoral commission and turning the people’s last hope of protection, the mass media, into its own pack of propagandising ‘prostitutes’.

BN must be destroyed. As of course someday it certainly will be, just as Carthage was over 2,000 years ago by its destroyer, Rome, centuries later.

But BN won’t last for 500 years, despite its desperate attempts to emulate Roman emperors’ ‘bread-and-circuses’ method of control of their subjects with 1Malaysia-styled 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) and sandiwaras.

In fact, 50+ years look to be pretty much BN’s limit. Most Malaysians with any brains are utterly scornful of the regime’s efforts to forgive the plundering of countless billions of their cash and resources in return for ‘gifts’ of trifling sums of hush-money.

And the sandiwaras intended to amuse and divert the populace seem to be alienating more of the masses than they impress. Throwing Christians to the lions seemed to have been a big hit with ancient Romans for a while, but BN’s threats to burn Christian Bibles seem to have gone down like a lead balloon.

As have many former entertainments that BN has arranged for the diversion and instruction of the public, like the shooting and C4-dismemberment of Altantuya Shaariibuu, the throwing of Teoh Beng Hock out of a window of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) building, and the deaths of dozens of ‘suspects’ in police shoot-outs and custody.

Similarly, while displays of armed combat to the death were reportedly highly popular back in ancient Rome’s Coliseum, the Malaysian people are apparently giving the thumbs-down to the gladiatorial contest that BN has been staging between its commandoes and police and a band of insurgents from the Southern Philippines in Sabah.

Considerable suspicions cast over BN

It has not only resulted in the considerable loss of lives, but has cast considerable suspicions over the BN regime’s grip on the national security that it claims as its forte, the usefulness or otherwise of its armed forces, grossly over-priced weapons acquisitions, and its innocence of involvement in Muslim uprisings in the southern Philippines and Thailand.

But perhaps the most telling casualty of this long-running and still ongoing saga has been any shred of credibility that the BN regime might have retained.

The regime first claimed that two Malaysian casualties had been caused by mortar fire, then changed the story to shooting.

But even then the powers that be couldn’t get their stories straight, with Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein (right) explaining that gunfire had begun when the insurgents tried to make a rush to break through their surrounding cordon, and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak claiming that the Malaysians casualties had been tricked into presenting themselves as targets by the other side’s waving of a white flag of truce.

Meanwhile, BN’s original assertion via Hishammuddin that the insurgents were not terrorists but fellow Muslims, which struck most of us as quite amazingly oxymoronic, has now morphed into the accusation that Anwar Ibrahim is behind the whole thing.

BN mouthpiece ‘news’ media, including Bernama, Utusan Malaysia, Star Online and TV3 have reported Najib as having urged the intelligence authorities to “probe claims that the opposition had instigated the heir of the Sulu Sultanate to reclaim Sabah”.

This allegation was reportedly based on a claim that Anwar recently met with the leader of the Moro National Liberation Front, Nur Misuari. But embarrassingly for Najib, Misuari recently stated in an interview with the Philippines’ Davao Today that Najib is his friend and a cousin of his grand-nephew.

Thus adding weight to what many of us suspect – that far from Anwar and the opposition, it is actually BN that is using the incursion to destabilise Sabah, either for the purpose of postponing the coming general election, or declaring a state of emergency in line with Najib’s stated strategy to retain power even at the cost of broken bodies and lost lives.

In short, this is yet another sign that it’s way past time for Malaysians to put an end to this rotten regime’s reign of robbery, terror and error. Or as old Cato would put it if he were alive today, BN must be destroyed.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia’, ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’, ‘Missing Malaysia’, ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.

Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/223054

Migrants, church may end BN’s Borneo vote bank -- Rev. Cindy Jacobs has already prophesied

East Malaysia is leading the change in 13th GE, Rev. Cindy Jacobs has already prophesied recently: http://allenstae.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-three-prophecies-on-malaysia-by-rev.html

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October 08, 2012

REUTERS

Sabah Christians walk during a procession ahead of Sunday Mass to celebrate Malaysia Day in Tambunan on September 16, 2012. With a general election due within seven months, the ruling BN is banking on Sabah and Sarawak state to prolong its 55-year grip on power. — Reuters pic

KOTA KINABALU, Oct 8 — Housewife Fawziah Abdul wants to thank former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for making her a citizen 10 years after she illegally slipped into Borneo from the southern Philippines in search of a better life.

The 50-year-old lives on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, where her tin-roofed shack jostles for space with more than 1,000 others in a slum where children play beside heaps of rubbish.

She is hopeful that her three children will get a new home and identity cards if she votes for the government again.

With a general election due within seven months, the 13-party ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is banking on Sabah and neighbouring Sarawak to prolong its 55-year grip on power.

But its support in the two Borneo states, which account for a quarter of Parliament seats, is showing signs of slipping.

Residents of Pulau Gaya’s water village, who are mostly Filipino migrants, gather outside their houses on the sea outside Kota Kinabalu on September 17, 2012. — Reuters pic

A large presence of Muslim immigrants, like Fawziah, has fuelled complaints of government discrimination against Christians who have also been a bedrock of government support.

Fawziah said she was a beneficiary of a secret plan said to have been approved by Dr Mahathir that has helped fuel a five-fold surge in Sabah’s population since the 1970s and turned it into a vote bank for the ruling coalition.

“I am part of Project Mahathir,” she said, referring to the plan. “I was told to turn up at an office with two photographs and some money,” added Fawziah, who showed her identity card that lists her as a Sabah-born citizen.

Without support in the two eastern states, the ruling coalition would have lost power in the last general election, in 2008, when a resurgent opposition won a majority of votes on Peninsular Malaysia. Now that support looks fragile.

Residents of Sabah complain about competition from Filipino and Indonesian migrants for jobs in the oil and gas-rich region, whose revenues are mostly channelled to the federal government and where one in five people lives on less than US$1 (RM3.10) a day.

Christians, mostly members of indigenous groups such as the Kadazandusun in Sabah and the Dayaks and Ibans in Sarawak, once made up nearly half of Sabah’s population but now form less than a third of its 3.2 million people.

But they can still give a potentially vital boost to the opposition, which won a majority of votes in mainland Malaysia in 2008 but only got three of 56 seats in Sabah and Sarawak.

FLEXING POLITICAL MUSCLES

The election is expected to be the closest in the former British colony’s history after the coalition lost its two-thirds majority for the first time in 2008.

This is partly due to Christian, Buddhist and Hindu minorities in the mostly Muslim country abandoning the coalition, complaining of discrimination over issues such as the airing of Islamic programmes on state television.

Arnold Puyok, a political scientist at Universiti Teknologi Mara Sabah, says the frustration could translate into votes for the opposition led by Dr Mahathir’s former deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, which could pick up at least 10 seats out of 25 in Sabah.

Opposition strategists say they need to win an extra 10 seats each in Sabah, Sarawak and mainland Malaysia to win the election with a simple majority of 112 seats.

The opposition — a coalition of Borneo parties and a mainland alliance that campaigns for greater transparency — won 15 seats from the ruling bloc in Sarawak state elections for its best showing in 24 years. It got votes from indigenous Christians as well as from the ethnic Chinese minority.

As Christian frustration grows over Muslim migrants, churches are becoming more vocal. Malaysia’s largest evangelical group held a 40 day-fast last month, which included prayers for the resolution of what they see as the immigrant problem.

A Sabah Christian reads from a prayer book with the Arabic word ‘Allah’ in reference to God, at a church in Tambunan on September 16, 2012. — Reuters pic

The National Evangelical Christian Fellowship also held prayer meetings across the country for Malaysia Day on September 16 — a holiday marking Sabah and Sarawak’s entry into Malaysia 49 years ago. The Borneo states agreed to join Malaysia on condition that religious freedom as well as the protection of native lands and cultures were guaranteed.

“There are quite a few unhappy Sabah people. Sabahans do not usually show it openly, they are doing it through prayer,” Stephanie Rainier, a Kadazandusun among 7,000 worshippers at a stadium in Kota Kinabalu, said of people’s frustration.

“They are taking over businesses. They are everywhere,” she said of migrants.

INQUIRY, INTOLERANCE

The ruling coalition can still rely on an election system that is skewed in its favour, particularly in Sabah and Sarawak. Seat allocations are weighted heavily in favour of rural constituencies with smaller populations compared with urban centres that are more likely to favour the opposition.

But in an apparent sign of concern over his coalition’s chances in Sabah, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak bowed to pressure in June and formed a royal commission of inquiry into the granting of identity cards to illegal immigrants.

A survey by independent pollster Merdeka Center found that immigration was the number one concern among Sabah voters. The survey also found scepticism over Najib’s motive for announcing the inquiry, with only 46 per cent of respondents believing it was a genuine attempt to address the problem.

“Only because there is an election around the corner, the government decides to do an inquiry,” said Wilfred Bumburing, a lawmaker in Sabah who quit the government coalition over its handling of the immigrant issue.

Government sources say the inquiry panel has yet to meet due to opposition from the dominant party in the ruling coalition, Umno, that controls Sabah, and from the still influential Dr Mahathir.

While repeatedly denying links to Project Mahathir to the media, Dr Mahathir said in his blog that the Filipinos and Indonesians were qualified to become citizens as they had stayed in Malaysia for more than a decade and spoke the Malay language.

The influx of Muslims, who can largely be counted on to support the ruling coalition, would appear to bolster the government. But despite that, some Christians worry about what they see as Muslim authorities’ growing intolerance.

An example, some Christians say, is the unease over Christian congregations in Sabah and Sarawak using the Arabic word Allah to refer to God.

While these Catholics, like their brethren in Indonesia, have used “Allah” since converting to Christianity in the 19th century, the government says the use of the word is subversive and is aimed at converting Muslims.

Mindful of votes, Najib has not stopped Christians in Borneo from using the word in prayers. But the government has appealed against a court ruling that allowed a Catholic newspaper to use Allah in its Malay-language editions.

“I hope there is tolerance. In reality, not publicly, subtly, you can feel there is some erosion of religious tolerance,” said Catholic Bishop Cornelius Piong after Sunday Mass in the rice-growing region of Tambunan.

“If there is no balanced leadership, people will think and they will decide,” he said, referring to the election. — Reuters

Source: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/migrants-church-may-end-bns-borneo-vote-bank/