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Sakmongkol ak 47

ariff.sabri@gmail.com

Monday 13 October 2008

Zaid Ibrahim's Unphilanthropic ways

A former minister ( for a very short time though) has come out with guns blazing and denigrated the former PM Tun Mahathir with vindictive vehemence. Alongside the trenchant criticisms, this former minister was also contemptuous of the incoming PM, Najib.

Sakmongkol has had the opportunity to work with Dato Najib for a considerable time. He has been critical of Dato Najib lately and will continue to be so. Hell, Sakmongkol has even said that Dato Najib is a political invertebrate.. Those are sakmongkol’s personal perceptions and he recognises that those view are not shared by many people. He accepts that but will persist to become just a minor irritant.

But Zaid Ibrahim’s attempt to lump Najib in the same class as Pak Lah, that’ what Sakmongkol finds objectionable.

What sakmongkol expects to happen if and when( more when) Najib becomes the UMNO president and PM, is that Najib will be more circumspect and respectful of Tun Mahathir’s views and criticism. Najib will try to emulate Tun Mahathir in leadership but will be careful not to commit the biggest blunder made by Pak Lah and Pak Lah’s myrmidons- to dismiss Tun in so cavalier manner. Many will remember the vehemence and impertinence with which some ministers who owed their existence in UMNO because of Tun’s magnanimity, came out to denounce Tun Mahathir.

That was the beginning of UMNO precipitous free fall which so rankled Tun Mahathir that he needed to speak up.

Zaid Ibrahim is representative of the substantial number of people who see Tun in their contemptuous blinkers. Associating Tun with being a control freak, cronyism, dictatorial tendencies and so forth.

But an even bigger number of people on the other hand see Tun as representing what a good leader should be:_

  1. Tun represents firmness and decisiveness’. No tweedle dee tweedle dum antics, and no flip flops and shillying and shallying.
  2. Tun Mahathir was a realist
  3. Tun Mahathir stands for independence and freedom
  4. Mahathir represents the undying fighting spirit
  5. Mahathir represents the insatiable frontier ad innovative spirit that power progress.
  6. Mahathir represents the Malaysian indomitable spirit
  7. Mahathir represents determination, resolve and courage
  8. Mahathir represents action based on rationalism instead of camouflaging weaknesses behind a façade of religionism.
  9. Tun Mahathir represents what is good for leadership.

Zaid Ibrahim should realise that managing and leading a country is not like seeping a Dom Perignom and enjoying a monte cristo cigar.

Zaid Ibrahim thought he can overwhelm Pak Lah with his all- for- progress- mystique and when he realise that he can no longer pedal his snake-oilish and populist cosmetics ideas, he has come out with the gunslinger’s mentality to deliver his diatribes. And also because, even he as sakmongkol does, realise that Najib will not be so pliable a putty.

15 comments:

ajip 13 October 2008 at 11:30  

what happens to ku li?

why zaid is snake oilish but not mahathir?

kah kah kah

Anonymous,  13 October 2008 at 16:31  

I wish to say thank you for reminding us of Dr Mahathir's leadership qualities. I am a Mahathir generation, meaning me, my friends, my cousins, we only knew Dr M as the leader of Msia. And you know what? I personally FELT SAFE when he was the PM. We miss him, especially now when it's all so noisy.
My dad says a weak leader should not promise reforms. He will not be able to carry it through.
tq
Kay Por

Anonymous,  13 October 2008 at 17:04  

Too bad some ppl already set their mind to antagonise the great Tun and easily forget what he had done. What i see in Tun :
1. He is a Malay champion to the core. he will do anything for his race (call this racist all you like but i admire his spirit and his passion to bring renaisance to his 'ungrateful' ppl). for d record : i am not a malay and wish with all my heart my race will have a leader like Tun. If u say he had done many unholy stuff (please don't go into holier-than-thou attitude),put yourself in his power, position..u might do worse yourself. We know lot's of ppl come to him for favours, how in God's name he can make sure all the ppl attentions are for all good? come on la beb.. u know how ppl lobbying.. apa masalahnya kalo beri muka dengan orang2 yang rapat dgn dia? jangan je la sampai mcm aab n kj...
2. I admire his lifestyle, his passion for knowledge, i've never know more knowledgeable man than he. his always think out of the box, his sightful vision.. i really honestly can't understand why u malay out there despise tun very much. No wonder Melayu mudah lupa, tidak sedaq diri.. bodoh sombong... tak perlu DEB kunun... cermin bangsa sendiri dulu kay... fight those that ABUSE this DEB dun fight the DEB as it help you to stand tall k.
3. Love the way he brings up his children plus the adopted ones. If i be a parent one day, i want to be like Tun Siti Hasmah.
4. Lots n lots reason, but the most is He showed us he is really sincere in all that he did. Since beginning, when he always give free clinical service for the poor when he was a mere Doctor, the way he fought the Malayan Union, his courage to speak up to the world..

Gosh, those of you who are blind enough to even stutter the words of hatred towards Tun, do buy a mirror!! (eh blind mana buleh guna mirror ye tak, no wonder love to listen to their own voice.. well, go ahead in ur dark world lorrr for all we true Malaysian care)

Anonymous,  13 October 2008 at 18:19  

What kind of rubbish?

Tun is THE CAUSE OF today's Malaysia from wasteful spending to everything you can think of as bad.

AAB only crime is he could not undo the damage Tun did to the country.

Strong? Strong to suppress?

kedahan 13 October 2008 at 20:04  

Yes, Tun was and will always be the best PM that Malaysia will ever have. What happen now is because of a weak leadership. Why blame on Tun? Pak Lah indirectly has alienated all the politician who deemed to be pro Tun and thought that he will be better than Tun. Hah, he destroy everything that had been built for 50 yrs. If Tun was bad, why was economy etc were sound and strong when he gave away the realm to Pak Lah. Pak Lah is so stupid to appoint Zaid Ibrahim and so called politician who was against Tun especially Shaberi, Mohd Taib etc. That was a sheer stupidity. Tun did not reelect them. Pak Lah did and still some people blame Tun. Get your facts right ok. Or better still read jebatmustdie. blog. Maybe you will get some indepth knowledge of what has happened then. Even without power and mainstream media alienated him, Tun manage to convince people to oust top gov servant as well as top opposition with a one go. I for one know that Anwar and the opposition is so afraid that Tun is coming back. He is a leader.. no one can deny that. His aura can be felt when you are near him or just by reading his blog. Even if he is considered as very ultra Malay, he took care other races as well and during his term I really love my nonmalay friends. Really do until racial comments began to crept into our life. During Tun tenure, our racial components etnicity was our strength and not our weakness. Now, it is made as a weapon to shoot almost everybody.

Sakmongkol... you are one of my favourite blogger as well as jebat and of course Tun

Anonymous,  13 October 2008 at 23:01  

Kedahan,

What you posted showed you really did not know the reality.

Oh you did see Malaysia developed under Tun? Can you tell us what did Tun build or rather destroy from the economy to judiciary? If I am going into details I can fill books and books.

You did see Malaysia progressed under Tun? Tell us what did he do other than spending huge amount of money building building and building useless non productive mega projects. You just need to go to Putrajaya for example. Need I say more?

Your rubbish on AAB that he destroyed what Tun did is really a unleaned. We all knew when AAB took over the premiership the country was practically bankcrupt. Practically every books under Tun were in the red.

That was why AAB undertook to stop those mega projects still in the pipeline which Malaysia could not afford to go through. Can you imagine what would have happened if the railway project had proceeded at huge multibillion ringgit.

Why do you think Malaysia was still able to survive in spite of all the huge wasteful projects that until today earns nothing unlike such projects like Jengka project under Abdul Razak?

Name me one good project other than wasting money on Proton and that motorcycle company and Lotus all losing rubbish.

What happen to our Universities our currencies MAS etc under him when compared to our neighbour?

You still think he was a great leader or a disaster for the country.

Wake up. AAB's only failure is he couldn't undo what Tun did to the country. If this guy is going to influence future malaysian Politics , sorry Malaysia ... i would say.

Btw... you never give any credit the Chinese businessmen that kept the country going all these years do you?

A true Malaysian.

walla 13 October 2008 at 23:15  

Weak from gut bleeding, i shall write this in points:

- Gratitude is not always a virtue; it depends on whom one is grateful to.

For example, an entire german nation was grateful to one austrian corporal for making them feel great again after the humiliation at Versailles.

- Mahathir's political fortunes coincided with that of the country; the time that he ruled had a first half and a second half;

-in the first half, more oilfields were discovered, and there was magic in the stock market. The stock market enjoyed a tremendous influx of foreign funds. That was because during that time, some law was passed in the US which indirectly encouraged people to put their money elsewhere. If memory still serves me, there was one time when the Malaysian stock market was the global darling of foreign funds managers. The capitalization was stratospheric. And people played contra like crazy. From taxi drivers to ceo's, people were on the phones with their brokers every day. That was a period when wealth creation was assured.

At the individual level, a person was able to stack and contra in such a way he could come out in six months of trading with enough money for three of the biggest ticket items in his entire life: a fully-furnished freehold link house, a two-litre shiny motorcar, and funds for further education or travel. It didn't matter a hoot if the company invested in didn't have any fundamentals.

At the corporate level, companies were listing like mad and then leveraging their shares as collateral for big bank loans; instant millionaires they became, those ceo's of newly listed companies. More golf-courses were built and money-no-problem entertainment allowances were just signed off.

At the industrial level, it was the look-east policy. Rafidah had such an easy time cultivating the japanese industrialists who came in droves. Followed by the taiwanese, koreans, americans and germans. Malaysia's industrial zones boomed. There was a shortage of engineers and accountants. Foreign workers were taken. Everyone worked overtime. Lights were up three-shifts.

In parallel, there was a construction boom. Houses, apartments, and roads were in hot demand. The property developers and construction industry were busy as bees. All the downstream suppliers had full orders and working late.

Naturally enough, in such buoyant times, people were happy and lifestyles changed.

It was towards the later part of the first half that the really big things were announced by Mahathir. Proton, MSC, KLIA, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, Twin Towers, and the Bakun Dam. Despite the shape of things to come from such disturbing things like BMF, Perwaja and Sabah Papermill, these were some of the big things which had fired up everyone's imagination. The media were kept on their toes. Not a day went by without another new project. It was all a constant stream of projects.

And Umno, led by Mahathir, was in the thick of it. Naturally enough, the NEP was also heightened. Many malays were sent overseas to return as modern intelligentsia. In one blazing path of ten years, a new middle-class was created.

- in the second half, reality hit. A quick and dirty rule of thumb is to say Malaysia is about one year behind Singapore which is about two years behind the US. Behind in what it doesn't matter. After all it's just a thumb. It was the bursting of the dotcom bubble which overthrew even this elongated rule and coalesced everything together within one quarter of 1997.

The very factor of success became its same factor of failure. Greed had made normally sane men embrace irrational exuberance of the digital economy, promised land of instant wealth from instant gratification. Analysts took a flexiruler and just curved the graph upwards, exponentially, correlating expected growth rates of internet users to millions of future ecommerce users. Money was thrown at those dotcom companies which then started to burn them like Genghiz Khan at the gates because they thought their business would soon return even more exponential wealth to their venture benefactors. The business case and feasibility study were more articles of affected imagination than practical economics rooted in reality.

When the bubble finally burst, it coincided with a similar withdrawal pang in the non dotcom world. The funds managers saw Malaysia not as a single site but as part of the same basket of economies. Korea fell, then Thailand, then Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. The eflux caused even more damage than the influx had caused euphoria. Companies defaulted on their loans, Danaharta came about which later benefited Daim who had cherry pickings of the deflated assets, and at the individual level, entire families saw their fortunes, savings and livelihoods wiped out.

Unfortunately the parallel things like the NEP continued from the taxpayer funds, mostly contributed by the nonMalays. For the govt to be oblivious to this, it was like getting onto a fierce tiger and not being able to get off. Moderate it and the Malays would cry foul, especially during downturns which would affect them more. Maintain it and the nonMalays would rankle, and they did.

It was like being caught, and then gored, between the horns of a dilemma.

- There were other things; Anwar, Semangat and lots of corrupt practices in the political and government systems; the public delivery system was also failing in a bad way; little warlords abounded and nepotism, cronyism and so on became the words even coffeeshop customers could glibly say.

- Yet, despite all this, the politicians of the govt continued to sleepwalk their way. When Mahathir finally called it a day, it was because he saw that he would become a liability to Umno if he had stayed on for GE11. Indeed a three hundred and sixty degree rotation of the wheel of fortune for someone of such magisterial statesmanship.

- And that's the missing question. Why was BN given its biggest majority when Mahathir resigned? Was it because the rakyat (a) didn't like the prospect of PAS?, (b) saw in Badawi a saviour, and/or (c) anything except Mahathir? Or all of them?

At this moment, one can already discount (b). So it must be either (a) or (c), unless someone can add a (d), (e) or (f).

- Having started with 'gratitude', let me end with 'leadership'.

Of all the Umno leaders in the living memory of my generation, Mahathir stands out the most outstanding personality with those leadership qualities that sakmongkol has so clearly enunciated while patiently allowing me to ramble this far.

But any quality, whether of leadership or friendliness or what, has to be tested against the realities of life that every Malaysian has to go through. In one of his slanted responses in his own blog, he trasnmitted a message amidst the thousands of comments. Sparsely, he admitted in so few a word that he sacrificed one part of our society so that another part could gain some self-respect to rise for once.

- But it was all predicated on the first half. And the real-life experiences in the second half would make any practical-minded realist wonder if all those policies and projects could ever work.

- And we have seen how nothing but failures and dust coming out from the pores of carpets under which they have been swept aside in the grand chase of unsustainable dreams. Why?

- Because human nature, without the trappings of politics or personal gratification, wants to be consistently fair.

- That's the real and final strength in all of us.

Would any future Umno leader be able to champion, and be seen to champion, this most basic of all things Malaysian as the prerequisite for all else in the next set of projects and dreams and visions and rah-rah's?

- Get the answer wrong, and it will cost us another RM100 Billion burnt.

- Like those dotcom companies burning other peoples' money.

i rest my case, Your Honour (but only i am bleeding again).

Anonymous,  14 October 2008 at 10:26  

anon 23.01 a.k.a true malaysian..
wah.. you really have all funny facts kan? maybe you should make ur book fill in both side, what you think tun had destroyed (with facts and figure of course) and what tun had build. i guess you are not a malay, and i understand your frustration. really couldn't understand those malays who defy tun anyway.
what's wrong with putrajaya? as a PM he foresee the need of putrajaya, the concept and the future. What do u think will happen to KL nowaday if we dun have putrajaya, and what will be to that now-putrajaya area? a wasteland? or better still a home for all the homeless in malaysia. sounds angelic kan? hehe.. pasal bangunan tak betul pasang ker, jalan berlubang ker, salah tun juga ker? tak paham betul aku.. owh, I AM SO PROUD OF PUTRAJAYA. Like to show off to my foreign friends and they are so impressed. Hah, tot we still live near paddy-field ya! ;)
ermm.. when did our country totally bankrupt? my my my, did you see it with ur own eyes all those red? aiya, all talk malas nak layan la beb. dah la kita baru survive the 1997 crisis, no thanks to moron soros, and thank god for tun's team for such a brave approach. tak yah la nak tunduk ngan IMF, anyway maybe for those yang bukan keturunan bumi bertuah ni, menda2 mcm maruah negara is not important kot.. true malaysian konon..asal duit masyuk, peduli ler nak ikut telunjuk saper aa.. apa la dis kind of attitude.
that railway project is a must.. pasal aab delay ler kos meningkat..sekarang tak pasal2 railway tu setakat ipoh jer.. komplen pengangkutan awam teruk, org nk bina railway cakap membazir pulak.. frust x dapat projek ni ler ya?.. that's another story k.. oits get ur fact straight k..
aiks? kutuk proton pulak? national icon, something we can be proud of.. yang penting teknologi tu beb.. dari dulu org kita reti buat kreta kayu jer, kan dah mampu buat kreta betul.. ada masalah ka? memang perniagaan tu tak semestinya nak selalu untung jer, tapi this is our own!! dari mula2 kita bina guna teknologi jepun (lupa nak tanya Tun pulak apsal pilih tknologi jepun, bukan german ker, britain ker). sejak pak lah amik alih pekejadahnya, tak dijaga.. semua dipolitikperibadikan.. salah tun jugak? awak tak bangga kreta malaysia, jangan la gatal nak ngaku true malaysia ye.. bikin panas.
education system, MAS.. semua salah tun ya? menteri terbabit, ceo berkenaan semua x salah ye?

bagi aku yg orang kampung ni, PM menerajui kepimpinan, arahtuju kita, polisi kita, pendirian kita.. implementation tu menteri2 terbabit.. too bad some of them are weak.

amik ayat si anon ni kejap : Wake up. AAB's only failure is he couldn't undo what Tun did to the country. If this guy is going to influence future malaysian Politics , sorry Malaysia ... i would say.

eleh, sebelum pak lah umum nak berundur dia ler yang beriya2 ngutuk. Sekarang Pak Lah dah nak turun baru cakap ringan sikit. ONLY failure pulak tu.. pandai awak ye..

saper tak acknowledge chinese businessman? apsal chinese jer? semua org main peranan, kalo takda kawan india kita yg hidup melarat motong getah di estet, org melayu yg sampai bongkok tanam padi, sampai terbakaq jadi nelayan, apek2 yang tanam sayur , ternak babi, awak ingat chinese businessman sajer boleh survive??

Orang Kampung

Anonymous,  14 October 2008 at 13:28  

Anon aka orang Kampung....

LOL by your comments, there is no need to explain.

Your answers on Putrajaya is laughable LOL ... spending billions for a few tourist LOL

Proton... you know how much the entire project had to be borne by Malaysians ....it would have cost much much less for a car if not for Proton.

As for others, cannot even comment or rebuke anything ....LOL

A true Malaysian

Singh Is Kinng 14 October 2008 at 23:08  

If it could have been a better Malaysia, tell us hypothetically;
1. under whose hands,
2. how it's done
3. what would be the outcome.

Don't simply hit, run and hide behind name unknown to everyone.

Anonymous,  15 October 2008 at 02:59  

Any honest down to earth person could have led Malaysia to greater heights than this TUN.... with all the resources, background of the Malaysian people, the no disaster land, the advantage of having one of the largest Chinese business community in SEA, the hardworking Indians and a self built confident Malay community (instead of NEP types) would have put Malaysia an advanced developed nation.

Instead all of these are wasted by silly exploitation of Malaysian resources and riches so much so children/cronies of almost all those in power somehow became super able to get contracts.

Just watch with the changing of guards, another set of people will be getting all the contracts. the old ones no more.

Tens of thousands of unemployable graduates, Univerisities of low grades, currencies dropping etc etc.

One even able to go from a small time housing developer to become International banker buying up banks.

Even the Chinese in Malaysia are far behind those in China, Taiwan and Singapore ...in that order because of neglect.

In fact, singh, tell us what you have in mind that Malaysia is great and let me shoot you down.

Just look around you know what I mean. If not for oil , where would we be?

It is amazing that there are guys out there praising this Tun to the sky. I did once asked one of these guys... mention just one project that he did made money for the country rather than having to spend more money maintaining them.

22 years .. just one.

I can mention many that lost lots and lots...

Even in Putrajaya, you can see huge buildings used only once a year for functions.

No one could provide an answer so far.

Any Tom Dick and Harry would have done better ... if not corrupted that is all.

Anonymous,  15 October 2008 at 13:14  

hahaha... any Tom, Dick And Harry wud be better u say?

senang jer babe, lu bertanding next PRU nanti... tunjukkan diri tu x corrupt (ingat tau, sebagai PM ada kuasa besaq ).. sekarang lu masih lagi anon Dick, senang la nak cakap. Dalam corrupt ni tak pernah ada satu pihak, mesti yang beri rasuah, yg terima rasuah.. lu cakau jer semua org yg datang lobby g ofis PM lu nanti. Lu bagi le tender kat org kampung (bukan org kampung lu atau kampung sebelah lu tau). Sanak saudara, bau2 bacang kena banned dari jumpa.

Pasal kita pilih ordinary DICK sbg PM ler kita jadi gini. semua org besaq kepala. Jauh sekali le kalo pilih Dick mcm lu.

Tapi agaknya lu tak tau pelembagaan pembentukan kerajaan. Any Tom Dick Harry or Ahlong bukang senang nak jd PM kalo bukang ketua parti yang menang. Jadi lu takyah nak sembunyi2 la saper lu fikir lu nak jadi PM. Malu2 pulak. Bukan Anwar kot (sebab dia bukan any Dick, lgpun corrupt juga). Lu cadang Nik Aziz je la.. tu tok guru kuat iman, tak corrupt kot.

1st time la seumur hidup aku yg singkat ni dengaq the only requirement to be a PM is corrupt-free. LOL LOL LOL LOL..

Anonymous,  15 October 2008 at 14:07  

LOL

Balik lah ka katak dibawah tempurung you.

Satu jawapan pun tada hendak debat bulak. LOL

Anonymous,  16 October 2008 at 12:54  

It's normal when people have so much regret in life but they are trying to deny, thus projecting the blame on others as the cause of failure.

Pity you anon, due to too much denial you are now also delusional, creating your own world of fantasy in your head. I guess in your world of fantasy, the country is ruled by Tom and Jerry.

Get real please !!!

Anonymous,  16 October 2008 at 16:33  

Hey Piggy said...
"It's normal when people have so much regret in life but they are trying to deny, thus projecting the blame on others as the cause of failure.

Pity you anon, due to too much denial you are now also delusional, creating your own world of fantasy in your head. I guess in your world of fantasy, the country is ruled by Tom and Jerry.

Get real please !!!"

Now now, Piggy Sighn before you start to state we are delusional please state your facts. I just challenged you to state what good or contribution has your dear Tun did during his 22 years.

Start from the time our currency at par with Singapore our MAS same or better than SIA.

Then let us go into the direction of our Currency, after that the fiasco trying to be great player in forex and how many billions lost? I need not go on... I only need YOU TO STATE your points before I shoot you down again.

LOL
Dream on brother ... looks like we are going to have more of him..

Best of luck.

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