JB Jeyaretnam, R.I.P.
Sakmongkol promises to take a break for Hari Raya. He is afraid , that is a promise he cannot keep. For he has just learnt about the passing of JB Jeyaretnam, for several years, Mr Opposition in
Sakmongkol met JBJ once in
Sakmongkol wishes to convey his heartfelt condolences to his surviving family members. RIP JBJ.
Of him, one can say…
FORTITER IN RE, SUAVITER IN MODO- RESOLUTE IN ACTION, GENTLE IN MANNER.
We must find out why a temple in Selangor is torn down. The reasons may be the same as when the previous BN government which ruled Selangor tore down a temple.
So before we create a ruckus and make fuss over the whole thing, please ask any of our ministers, MP and ADUNS to check the facts first.
In most cases temples are constructed on land which have not been designated places of worship. You cant construct temple, mosques or suraus any place you want. You have to apply for such land from the land office and then get permission from the relevant municipal council to build one.
Most likely, on one fine day, some people get together with some holy man, and decided on the spot to construct a temple on such a location. And maybe, it was done with the tacit connivance of the local ADUN who may have said, build first , we can belakang kira. When a temple was built on such a location, all the council people, the politicians for that area, winked on its construction.
All of them, including the holiest among us, ignored the fact the land has not be designated as a place of worship. And maybe the land has not been applied for. Now, pray tell, wasn’t building a place of worship without government approval a wrong? Do we now condone that transgression and are prepared to create a precedence that as of now, any Tom, Dick and Harry can start constructing temples, mosques and whatever structures we desire in defiance of the law?
Mana boleh itu macam?
Read more...Much hopes are attached to our new finance minister. Many hope he will steer the economy well. His only qualification, doing justice to these hopes appear to be the fact that he is a different person from Pak Lah. Therefore, being different, we expect him to offer some new ideas.
This kind of fixation with the idea that something fresh will usher in new and fresh ideas has been proven futile. When Pak Lah took over Tun Mahathir the last time, everyone were jubilant in heralding a new openness or even some transplanted form of glasnost. What happened since then? The same canaries who sung songs of praises the last time, this time around, are tripping over each other to slay Pak Lah Lah.
Therefore sakmongkol says, do not place high bets on our new finance minister. He has already showed his ‘mental sloth-ness’ over the handling of our economy. He has summarily dismissed the merits of re-pegging the Malaysian Ringgit.
Sakmongkol is sure Tun Mahathir will feel vindicated. During the financial crises of 1998, sakmongkol is sure that besides Anwar Ibrahim, the local high priest of the IMF chapter, there were some among his cabinet members who thought the old man had gone bonkers. And knowing now the state of Pak lah’s mental agility, at that time , he was just following Tun Mahathir. In all probability, he didn’t know what it was all about.
The Bush administration is now fighting hard to pass through a very divided and questioning Congress a USD 700 billion rescue package deal to save the financial institutions, businesses of all sorts like bakeries, retailers etc.
So if we were to apply the Najibnomics principles in absolute trust of the market, then he would want to waste no time in advising
These will be interesting times.
PART 3.
And here is the 3rd part of the essay Can UMNO heals itself? It is obvious the anonymous person who sent in this piece is arguing that UMNO cannot. Reason? Because UMNO is actually contaminated with Fascisct ideology. Sakmongkol will attempt to answer these isues later.
This obsession with a racialism not only afflicted the German Nazis, but also several eastern European nationalist and fascist movements including those in Croatia, Slovakia, Serbia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Ukraine. Anti-Jewish bigotry was rampant in all of these racialist movements, as was the idea of a link between Jewish financiers and Marxists. Even today the tiny Anti-communist Confederation of Polish Freedom Fighters in the
“Reactionary concepts plus revolutionary emotion result in Fascist mentality.”
_Wilhelm Reich
One element shared by all fascist movements, racialist or not, is the apparent lack of consistent political principle behind the ideology_political opportunism in the most basic sense. One virtually unique aspect of fascism is its ruthless drive to attain and hold state power. On that road to power, fascists are willing to abandon any principle to adopt an issue more in vogue and more likely to gain converts.
Hitler, for his part, committed his act of abandonment bloodily and dramatically. When the industrialist power brokers offered control of
What distinguishes Nazism from generic fascism is its obsession with racial theories of superiority, and some would say, its roots in the socialist theory of proletarian revolution.
Fascism and Nazism as ideologies involve, to varying degrees, some of the following hallmarks:
*** Nationalism and super-patriotism with a sense of historic mission.
*** Aggressive militarism even to the extent of glorifying war as good for the national or individual spirit.
*** Use of violence or threats of violence to impose views on others (fascism and Nazism both employed street violence and state violence at different moments in their development).
*** Authoritarian reliance on a leader or elite not constitutionally responsible to an electorate.
*** Cult of personality around a charismatic leader.
*** Reaction against the values of Modernism, usually with emotional attacks against both liberalism and communism.
*** Exhortations for the homogeneous masses of common folk (Volkish in German, Populist in the
*** Dehumanization and scapegoating of the enemy_seeing the enemy as an inferior or subhuman force, perhaps involved in a conspiracy that justifies eradicating them.
*** The self image of being a superior form of social organization beyond socialism, capitalism and democracy.
*** Elements of national socialist ideological roots, for example, ostensible support for the industrial working class or farmers; but ultimately, the forging of an alliance with an elite sector of society.
*** Abandonment of any consistent ideology in a drive for state power.
It is vitally important to understand that fascism and Nazism are not biologically or culturally determinant. Fascism does not attach to the gene structure of any specific group or nationality. Nazism was not the ultimate expression of the German people. Fascism did not end with World War II.
After Nazi
But if so much is already known of this period, why does journalist and historian George Seldes call the history of
This widely-accepted, albeit misleading, historical record has been shaped by filtered media reports and self-serving academic revisionism rooted in an ideological preference for those European nationalist forces which opposed socialism and communism. Since sectors of those nationalist anti-communist forces allied themselves with political fascism, but later became our allies against communism, for collaborationists became the rule, not the exception.
Soon, as war memories dimmed and newspaper accounts of collaboration faded, the fascists and their allies re-emerged cloaked in a new mantle of respectability. Portrayed as anti-communist freedom fighters, their backgrounds blurred by time and artful circumlocution, they stepped forward to continue their political organizing with goals unchanged and slogans slightly repackaged to suit domestic sensibilities.
To fight communism after World War II, our government forged a tactical alliance with what was perceived to be the lesser of two evils_and as with many such bargains, there has been a high price to pay.
“The great masses of people. . .will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”
_Adolph Hitler
Sakmongkol wants visitors to his blog, to read with pleasure. Accordingly, he has downloaded a few classic songs on the sidebar. Please click to listen to these songs. They may evoke some nostalgic memories.
Read more...
Here is the second installment of Can UMNO heals itself.
To all readers of Sakmongkol’s blog:-
Please click to hear the classic song which sakmongkol has downloaded. Its at the side bar. It says please click to hear this classic song.
That is his way of saying SELAMAT HARI RAYA and MAAF ZAHIR BATIN.
To his readers who will travel to their kampungs, do be careful.
To his blogger friends, sakmongkol says write on.
So listen and enjoy.
Read more...Sakmongkol wants to brightens things up a little bit. So watch this video clip please. Feel free to guffaw, roll on the floor or whatever. Sakmongkol wishes to thank a regular visitor to his blog for pointing out the similarities between Badan and Nyawa to Badawi and najib:-
counting the poor.
The UN defines the hardcore poor as those earning USD1 per day or RM3.40 per day. Or in terms of a monthly income, the poorest earn RM100 per month. The UN figures of course take into account the very poor of the world’s inhabitants. Those who live in places in sub-Saharan Africa,
We are lucky
So the PLI is an income level of the normal poor or ordinary poor.
It is easy to accept this concept. Imagine the normal poor as a person who earns RM1000 per month. RM1000 is therefore the PLI. A dirt poor person is one who earns a certain portion of this PLI per month. Using this concept, the government recognises that different set of people require different set of policies.
The dirt poor are those who are not able nor capable of earning RM1000 per month. They include old and sick people, single mothers, the infirmed, the incapacitated and the debilitated. They must be cared for from a social fund.
We move now from generalities to specifics. The normal poor are those that fall into the category of earners of a monthly income as defined by the PLI. We have already established that as the Poverty line Income. For those who are interested in history, the concept of poverty line was first spoken by Winston Churchill.
What’s a PLI?Or rather, what does a PLI represent? This is an income level defined by the government as being sufficient for a family of 4.6 people to sustain themselves by being able to buy a basket of selected food items and to maintain a decent level of living.
Who defines the PLI? Which food items are selected to be representative of what people like? What is the lifestyle that the planners think and imagine those whom they are researching on would like to have?
Certainly sakmongkol suspects not field workers going on the ground identifying the facts. They probably reached the PLI figure based on assumptions and imagination. Sometimes Sakmongkol suspects that PLI is deliberately kept low, to keep the masses there. if a too high an income level is chosen, that might cause rising expectations which could not be easily managed. The poor are just digits after all; to be inserted into reports.
Well ,people are usually opposed to nebulous definition. So the government comes out with a concrete number to reflect the above definition. It is an income of RM529 in peninsula
In 2005, the government revised this figure. They acknowledged the initial figures to be unrealistic. They broke up the PLI into two components. One, being the food PLI( income to buy a representative basket of food) and the other Non Food PLI, which is a portion of the money income used to maintain a certain standard of living. The food PLI for Peninsular Malaysia is RM398, RM503 for Sabah ad RM482 for
The Gross PLI for peninsular is now between RM663-RM657) and RM881-RM897 for Sabah and RM753-RM777 for
Now for certain people, the monthly income of the poor is just the price of a Château Laffite. Probably a small box of the finest cigars. A Moet Chandon perhaps? Or a night out at Morton’s the steak house? And of course to those people who got rich by their ill gotten gains( commissions from the sale of spruced up submarines, refurbished airplanes and dressed up patrol vessels, sale of ECM Libra, monopoly in supply of train carriages, buses etc) POOR is a 4 letter word.
Which makes the government definition of PLI at below RM1000 no longer defensible.
With the price of food items and non food items on the rise, the incomes accepted as PLI, are no longer defensible. Perhaps it is better to make use of a single level of income as a standard measure. Since the differentiation of an urban and rural poor is hardly significant, perhaps it is better to use a single unified level of income. A figure of RM 1200 is more plausible. RM600 to buy food and RM600 to have a decent standard of living.
The very dirt poor are then those earning less than RM600 per month. It will be become obvious that if this income level is used, then many Malays will fall into this category.
It is also praiseworthy of the government to recognise that those who fall into this category are mainly Malays and indigenous people of Sabah and
Let’s hope the government will address their attention to these issues. But please don’t be so pedantic and disdainful by saying that concern for the poor is a characteristic unique only to Barisan Nasional. Even UMNO people are queasy hearing these patting on the back claims.
update: the title was supposed to be 'The Malaysian Poor'.
UMNO's Badan and Nyawa dividing the loot? When commenting on the actions taken by the two top UMNO leaders on the their plan to hand over powers, Tengku Razaleigh had this to say;
"I think I speak for the country when I say we are embarrassed at the sight of two grown men playing this endless children's game of 'yours and mine' with the most important responsibility in the land, oblivious of the law, oblivious to the damage they are doing to the nation.
"Instead of a national economic plan or any kind of reform all the UMNO leadership has given us since March 8 is a transition plan designed to save two individuals from the inconvenience of facing elections.
"Their personal careers appear to be more important than the future of the nation," the UMNO stalwart said yesterday.
Which makes the action by the duo, very laughable. The fate of UMNO is decided between the two. That means the fate of the country.
Which quickly reminds Sakmongkol of the great P.Ramlee comedy, Nujum Pak Belalang( a film made in 1959).
The scene played out by the two thieves, Badan (aziz Sattar) and Nyawa(
In the scene, the dialogue between the two, if Sakmogkol remembers roughly went like this;
After entering the cave, the 2 thieves sat down to divide the loot.
Aziz sattar took the headdress from Shamsudin and started counting:-
Satu untuk engkau, satu untuk aku
Dua untuk engkau, dua untuk aku
Tiga untuk engkau, tiga untuk aku..
Shamsudin grew exasperated and exclaimed;
Lama sangat dah, mari aku bilang.
Whereupon he started:-
Nyawa: 1 utk engkau, 1 utk aku. 2 utk engkau, 2 utk aku. 3 utk engkau, 3 utk aku. errr... lepas tiga no brapa ar??
Badan: Hentam sajalah...
Nyawa: Hentam sajalah utk engkau, hentam sajalah utk aku. Lepas hentam sajalah??
Badan: Bedal daa...
Nyawa: Bedal daa utk engkau. Bedal daa utk aku. Lepas bedal daa??
Badan: Ei, dlm dunia mana ada nombor bedal daa!!
Nyawa: Ei, dlm dunia mana ada nombor bedal daa utk engkau. Ei, dlm dunia mana ada nombor bedal daa utk aku.
Badan: Aku bagi
Nyawa: Aku bagi
Badan: Ei, ko nak mampus ye??
Nyawa: Ei, ko nak mampus ye utk engkau. Ei, ko nak mampus ye utk aku.
Badan: E-eeiii... dia ni....
Nyawa: E-eeiii... dia ni....utk engkau. E-eeiii... dia ni.... utk aku.
The scene went to and fro. Just like what is being re-enacted today. Our two leaders are doing what the two thieves in Nujum Pak Belalang were doing in 1959 and what Tengku Razaleigh is saying in 2008.
Read more...
Sakmongkol has received a rather long comment from another anonymous. He/she is not the same as the anonymous whom Sakmongkol styled as the author of the whodunit series.
This author has posted under the comments section of sakmongkol’s blog, an intellectually stimulating discussion as to why he/she thinks UMNO is beyond redemption. He sees UMNO is too fascist in practice. Sakmongkol re produces his posting here, with his permission of course.
It shall be divided into several parts. Here is part 1. Sakmongkol is in two minds whether to feel honoured or otherwise to be a recipient of lengthy comments which should be better posted as a blog article.
The author’s theses is of course the impossibility for UMNO to reform itself. Why? Because, as his lebgthy discourse seems to suggest, fascist practices have extensively infiltrated into UMNO’s bone marrow.
Why UMNO cannot REFORM itself, and is FOREVER DOOMED ….
Is UMNO a Fascist Party or Not???
————————————————-
What is Fascism?
From: NLG Civil Liberties Committee
Sept. 27, 1992 by Chip Berlet
This article is adapted from the author’s preface to Russ Bellant’s book “Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party,” co-published by South End Press and Political Research Associates.
“Fascism, which was not afraid to call itself reactionary… does not hesitate to call itself illiberal and anti-liberal.”
_Benito Mussolini
We have all heard of the Nazis_but our image is usually a caricature of a brutal goose-stepping soldier wearing a uniform emblazoned with a swastika. Most people in the
Technically, the word NAZI was the acronym for the National Socialist German Worker’s Party. It was a fascist movement that had its roots in the European nationalist and socialist movements, and that developed a grotesque biologically-determinant view of so-called “Aryan” supremacy. (Here we use “national socialism” to refer to the early Nazi movement before Hitler came to power, sometimes termed the “Brownshirt” phase, and the term “Nazi” to refer to the movement after it had consolidated around ideological fascism.)
Danse Macabre.
The pattern seems to be repeated over and over again. In an earlier MKT meeting, when 5 UMNO caporegime spoke to insist the time table for the hand over from Pak lah to Dato Najib, be speeded up, our dear Pak Lah was almost in tears. He was lucky to be spared the embarrassment because of the timely intervention from the beneficiary of the deal, Dato Najib.
When the MKT met within the week from this meeting, Pak Lah had a tete-a-tete with Dato Najib, before the MKT meeting.
It seems that solving the ills of UMNO is almost always preceded or followed by a private discussion between the two besieged UMNO leaders. Sakmongkol hopes for the sake of UMNO, what they are discussing is in the best interests of UMNO.
Sakmongkol must repeat the observation made by Cao Cao in the Romance of Three Kingdoms when told of the collaboration of two of his adversaries, Liu Bei and Sun Quan. When a loser combines with a coward, they accomplished nothing.
The fate of UMNO is no longer in the hands of just two leaders or even the MKT. UMNO must undertake its own bloodletting if it wants to save itself. Whatever pious statements that emanate from Pak Lah( I love UMNO) and filial observance by Dato Najib( UMNO has a tradition that he intends to follow), will not be able to contain the groundswell of hopelessness. That sense of emptiness is caused by the impervious leadership of UMNO, that insulates itself from the voice of the people.
In the end, Pak Lah and Dato Najib and the cabal of visibly frightened corrupted and abusive caporegimes will all lead us to the demise of UMNO.
Sakmongkol is afraid that, the shilly-shallying of the present UMNO leaders is indeed a Danse Macabre. Sakmongkol is reminded by a German poem on the Danse Macabre;
Her keyser euch hilft nicht das swert
Czeptir vnd crone sint hy nicht wert
Ich habe euch bey der hand genomen
Ir must an meynen reyen komen
Emperor, your sword won’t help you out
Sceptre and crown are worthless here
I’ve taken you by the hand
For you must come to my dance
Are our two leaders doing this to us?
update at 8.48pm/27th September 08
"Instead of a national economic plan or any kind of reform all the Umno leadership has given us since March 8 is a transition plan designed to save two individuals from the inconvenience of facing elections.
"Their personal careers appear to be more important than the future of the nation," the Umno stalwart said yesterday. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah
It was easy to discern who Pak Lah meant when he delivered these diatribes. When asked whether he will be defending his position as UMNO president, Pak Lah stated in his usual bland style- it is his business. He will announce when its time. In the meantime, the press can go jump in the river.
But it’s the snide asides that were more suggestive. He said he loved UMNO. He didn’t leave and form Semangat 46. he was never with them. Even though sakmongkol remembers seeing a photograph of him with team B leaders jointly led by TRH and Pak Lah’s mentor- Musa Hitam. Obviously he was referring to Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah who remains defiant to stand and fight. And with reports coming in that Dato Najib is even more unpopular than Pak Lah, Tengku Razaleigh can become the new gravitational force in UMNO.
And then Pak Lah continued- he certainly didn’t go to speak on an opposition party rally. No prize for guessing who he meant by that. Tun Mahathir once spoke on a PAS rally in the years he was given a sabbatical leave from UMNO.
Ah ha- so after all the saber rattling in the MKT meetings, Pak Lah fears the coming together of Tun Mahathir and Tengku Razaleigh.
No one loves UMNO more than Pak lah. He is the most honorable Roman....err UMNOan.
Locking the stable doors, after the horses have bolted!.
Kifarat or kifarah can also mean paying for our sins. Then, the author seems to suggest, we are now paying for the sins for allowing Tun Mahathir be in power. Perhaps it is similar to the Christian concept of carrying the original sins of the father? Indeed the author alludes to this when he stated that UMNO members had to endure living under 22 years of dictatorial rule.( see page xi)
Sakmongkol declines to apply the meaning in this sense, because it elevates the debate to a pseudo- religious thrust and parry. It would also imply that allowing Tun Mahathir to be in power is such a sinful act. Therefore, sakmongkol prefers to apply the term in a more basic and less religiously toned meaning- the after affects of Tun Mahathir’s rule. Sakmongkol is thankful to be able to clarify this point as a result of a comment from a regular visitor to his blog who calls herself Mekyam.
The book launches immediately with tirades against Tun Mahathir. It attempts to point out the differences between the UMNO created in 1946 and the UMNO Baru created by Tun Mahathir. The author piously points out that the original UMNO was formed out of genuine nationalistic feelings uniting all the people/read Malays. And the author is quick to point out the new UMNO was formed by a group of individuals interested in retaining power.
The new UMNO according to the author, was formed to destroy the unity of the Malays.
The gold standard of a perfect UMNO is the UMNO that was formed in 1946. We all know about this. How UMNO came about to unify the Malays to reject the concept and the formation of a Malayan Union. Dato Onn Jaafar and other tireless and selfless leaders galvanised Malays to oppose the creation of the Malayan Union, believing it to be British Imperialism’s tool to steal
But if Sakmongkol remembers, this original UMNO was also seen as another collaborator of imperialism. This was the perception held by many revolutionary strange bedfellows like Mr Kamarazaman himself.
A feudal organisation tolerated by British imperialism as a bulwark against the rise of the Malay and revolutionary left. It is surprising to Sakmongkol, that the author who is a pure and true socialist( whatever that means to him then and now) ,now finds it convenient to use the UMNO of 1946 as the gold standard. Whereas the Malay left has always regarded the UMNO of 1946 as an imperialist creation, tolerated and allowed to live because it can stop the rise of the left. And the author has always identified himself with the urgings of what he perceived as revolutionary struggles.
One immediately becomes conscious, that the author’s real intentions are not about mollycoddling UMNO 46 but to condemn the UMNO Baru, which the author thinks was the sole creation of Tun Mahathir. And therefore, in defiance to his long held leftist leanings, he conveniently adopts UMNO of 1946 as the gold standard. Sakmongkol suspects he does not like the original UMNO but finds it convenient to pummel the UMNO Tun Mahathir revived.
Therefore the first 20 pages are nothing but an indictment of Tun Mahathir. One can already deduce the ingredients which will flavour this book. The author thus quickly set out to establish that:-
Tun Mahathir was responsible for the demise of the old feudal UMNO of 1946 by not interfering with the courts to stop them from being confronted with no other decision but to declare the UMNO of 1946 illegal. The author insisted that Tun Mahathir should have stopped before the courts resorted to using Section 12(3) of the Societies Act.
And even after UMNO was declared illegal, Tun Mahathir who was the Home Affairs Minister then could have used ministerial powers through section 18(F) and section 70 of Societies Act to revive UMNO and to excuse UMNO from being de-registered. Tun Mahathir did not and because he didn’t, the author charges that Tun Mahathir was the one destroying UMNO.
And once a new UMNO was resurrected, Tun Mahathr, says the author, launched a night of the long knives seeking and destroying his political enemies. These enemies whom the author believed would have taken
The real intention of Tun Mahathir, says the author is this:-
“ keghairahannya untuk menggenggam kuasa terserlah kepada rakyat. Sifat keangkuhan dancuna menafikan kehendak perwakilan dan rakyat sudah tidak terselidung lagi. Sikap inilah yang di bawa nya ke mana mana sehingga rakyat dapat mengenali nya. Rakyat semakin kenal siap beliau. Rakyat dapat menyingkap topeng dan mengenali wajah sebenar nya”.
His appetite to grab power becomes more transparent to the people. His imperviousness and conceit and dismissal of the wishes of the UMNO delegates and people cannot be hidden anymore. This is the attitude he portrays all around as the people get to know the real him. The people can unmask and reveal his true face.
Now, Sakmongkol asks, is the author talking about Tun Mahathir or are the same words and temperament be applied to our present UMNO president?
Read more...
Our Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Jim Hacker, (LSE)
THE ART OF LYING.
True to the law that says people rise to the level of their incompetence, James Hacker MP, Minister for Administrative Affairs, has ascended to the highest political office in the land.
Once again our indefatigable Prime Minister, the Rt.Hon. Jim Hacker( LSE) was caught in his own web of deceit. As do almost all politicians.
Sir Humphrey: Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple, and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifying assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement, inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated, and the facts insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated is such as to cause epistemological problems, of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear.
Jim Hacker: Epistemological, what are you talking about?
Sir Humphrey: You told a lie.
Jim Hacker: A lie?
Sir Humphrey: A lie.
Jim Hacker: What do you mean, I told a lie?
Sir Humphrey: I mean you ... lied. Yes I know, this is a difficult concept to get across to a politician. You ... ah yes, you did not tell the truth.
Jim Hacker: You mean we are tapping Hugh Halafax's telephones?
Sir Humphrey: We were.
Jim Hacker: We were? When did we stop?
Sir Humphrey: [checks his watch] Seventeen minutes ago.
Jim Hacker: You can't call that lying.
Sir Humphrey: I see. [pause] What would you call the opposite of telling the truth?
Jim Hacker: I...I didn't mean to mislead them! I wouldn't knowingly mislead the House.
Dedicated to all those who studied in the land of Fish and Chips Imperialism. Cor Blimey!
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