Shooting themselves in the foot

Dean Johns
Jun 2, 10
11:18am

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the killings by Israeli marine commandos aboard a vessel in the flotilla attempting to break the blockade on the Gaza strip, they've inflicted yet another ugly wound on Israel's reputation.

Just as the recent torpedoing of a South Korean patrol boat will doubtless prove one more nail in the coffin of Kim Jong-Il's deadly North Korean regime.
And the bloody suppression of the Red Shirts demonstrations (left) in Bangkok is likely to be the death of Thailand's current military-backed government.

All of these latest atrocities are just small-calibre stuff, however, compared with the one that blew a gaping hole in the credibility of the big shots who run the People's Republic of China, the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989.

Though the worldwide outrage over Tiananmen Square unfortunately didn't prove fatal to the Chinese Communist Party, it has certainly haunted this corrupt and murderous regime down the years, and to judge by the shroud of official secrecy surrounding it, is still a running sore and a source of shame and embarrassment.

But there's no sign of shame or embarrassment from the regime we observers of the Malaysian scene all know best, and that has such a talent for shooting itself in the foot as to make most other accident-prone governments look like amateurs.

Shoo or shoot

As so many commentators on Malaysia's critics of Israel's activities have observed, former Prime Minister Mahathir (below) memorably greeted the arrival of refugees from the Vietnam War with the order to "shoot them".

Later he claimed that what he'd actually said was "shoo them". But in any case, apparently undaunted, he went on to shoot himself and Malaysia in the foot over and over again, by shooing honest judges out of office, critics off to Kamunting and his former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, off to jail.

He also shooed massive amounts of money out of the nation's treasury and into the pockets of his colleagues and cronies.

And ever since the country finally got shot of him as its misleader, he's been shooting his mouth off at any and every target he finds fair game, from his hapless successor Abdullah Badawi to Zionists and the 'warmongers of the West'.

Shooting from the lip

As notorious a gunslinger as Mahathir was and is, however, current Prime Minister Najib Razak has apparently set his sights on out-shooting him.

Since his days as defence minister and deputy to Badawi, he's been demonstrating his marksmanship if not statesmanship by presiding over a veritable massacre ranging from the murder and C4 dismemberment of the Mongolian interpreter, Altantuya Shaariibuu, to a steady stream of deaths in police 'shootouts' and custody.

And he's proving himself every bit as adept as shooting from the hip - or lip - as Mahathir ever was, and even more prone, if possible, to shoot himself and Malaysia in the foot.

Fabricating a concept as false as '1Malaysia', for example, which turned out to be the work of Apco Worldwide, a propaganda and lobbying organisation run by the old master's favourite victims, Jews, from a country whose existence Malaysia refuses to recognise, Israel.

Then compounding the lie of '1Malaysia' by sponsoring the racist Malay ultra pressure group, Perkasa, and declaring that he would never abandon BN's socially corrupt, ineffectual and socially divisive New Economic Policy despite clearly stated claims that his so-called "New Economic Model" would treat the disadvantaged of all races equally.

Najib (right) also claimed in his New Economic Model that he was setting his sights on combating corruption, then shot straight out onto the campaign trail offering bribes to voters in by-elections, or what have come to be justly known as buy-elections.

And now he's hard at work pretending to give Malaysia's finances a shot in the arm, and wrong-footing himself in the process.

First having one of his top economic advisers, Idris Jala, declare that if the government continued subsidising fuel, power and staple food items at current levels it would be bankrupt by 2019, then coming out himself to declare that Malaysia is on track to achieve Mahathir's long-touted development target of 'Wawasan 2020'.

But to judge by the hundreds of comments I've seen on the news sites, Najib's shot at reducing or eliminating public subsidies hasn't exactly hit the bullseye. In fact it's seen as total bull, serving only to remind the rakyat of the RM100 billion or so that was misspent, squandered or stolen during the Mahathir era, and the cost of still continuing corruption.

In other words, Idris Jala's warning that "we don't want to end up as another Greece" has only reminded a great many Malaysians that they're no longer prepared to subsidise Barisan Nasional's greasing of its own and its cronies palms through corrupt projects like the Bakun Dam and the Port Klang Free Zone, non-transparent awarding of licences like APs and the gambling franchises, and commission-riddled arms and other purchases.

Anwar targeted again

Nor, from what I see, is the populace too happy about the BN's government's latest shot at assassinating the character and killing the political career of Anwar Ibrahim (below) with a second charge of sodomy.

As every commentator with a grain of good sense or integrity seems to agree, this second trial is shaping to be every bit as dodgy and outright unjust as the first.

For a start, in a flagrant denial of due process, the judge has denied Anwar's defence team access to both the witness report and the list of prosecution witnesses, and the alleged 'victim' had meetings with senior police and then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak that absolutely reek of high-level collusion.

But however many weapons BN has at its disposal, from an armed and dangerous police force and the sinister forces of Rela to a bloated and beholden civil service, a compliant judiciary, captive electoral commission and craven mainstream media - it seems increasingly outnumbered if not outgunned.

And we can only hope that, along with the Netanyahu administration in Israel, the Kim Il-Jong regime in North Korea, the current Thai government, the Communist overlords of China and all their ilk around the world, BN will eventually shoot itself in the foot enough times for its self-inflicted wounds to turn fatal.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Already published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini, following earlier collections 'Mad about Malaysia' and 'Even Madder about Malaysia'.

http://www1.malaysiakini.com/columns/133382

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