By DEAN JOHNS
Even as they shiver with in the first stirrings of the chill winds of change, the blow-hards of Umno/BN are huffing and puffing away with all their customary blasts of hot air.
But, disgusted by decades of having their minds blown by this lying regime and its mealy-mouthed media, Malaysians are increasingly greeting their utterances with storms of scorn or gales of laughter.
Like the response last week to the claim by chief windbag Najib Abdul Razak that a gathering to mark the re-naming of youth group Waris Malaya to Sahabat Barisan Nasional was "a reflection and manifestation of a ‘hurricane' blowing in Selangor."
Harking back to his notorious 2010 call to Umno members to defend Putrajaya even with their "crushed bodies" or "lost lives," he declared that this hurricane "will crush anyone who tries to reject change demanded by the people in Selangor who want to bring the BN back in power in the state".
What
an absolute hurricane of hogwash this was, given how relieved the vast
majority of the people of Selangor have been to be rid of Umno/BN
corruption in state affairs since they swept the filthy-rich Mohd Khir
Toyo (left) and his gang of crooks out of office in 2008.
And perhaps even more laughable was Najib's claim that Waris Malaya, now Sahabat Barisan Nasional (Friends of BN), "shows (that) youths always support the ruling coalition" when in fact this is a regime-stooge organisation whose president Sheikh Whessal Sheikh Ahmad admitted was formed only four months ago with the loony-tunes aim "to shield the country from leaders who were being made tools of foreign powers".
But when it comes to blowing his own trumpet, Najib couldn't care less about truth or reason as long as he has an audience of idiots prepared to listen to him in return for payment of "petrol money" and free T-shirts with his picture on them, and the Bernama ‘news' agency is on hand to faithfully record his airy fantasies.
Nor does he shrink from contradicting himself, as in his recent triumphant tweet that "Malaysia compares well" in a recent global study of Internet censorship - just days after promising an audience of his mainstream media hacks that it is high time to regulate cyberspace in the interests of eliminating "double standards".
While neglecting to mention, of course, that double standards, double dealing and two-faced communication compose the very core of the Umno/BN regime's corruption of everything from Parliament, the judiciary and the police to public opinion, the electoral system and the economy.
And this two-faced, forked-tongue approach is nowhere more evident
than in Najib's deliberately ineffectual efforts at what he calls
"transformation", in which repressive laws like the ISA and PPPA are
"reformed" with either merely cosmetic changes or else replaced with
even worse, like the Security Offences Bill, which appropriately
initialises to SOB.
That superannuated windbag Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been adding a burst of his own trademark bad breath to the Umno/BN hurricane of hot air with the claim that the hated ISA is "not a bad law, but a good one which could curb potential threats".
It is certainly undeniable that the ISA curbed potential threats for Mahathir during his disastrous 22-year premiership, though he has since denied misusing it against his political opponents in the notorious Operasi Lalang incarceration of 106 citizens in 1987, and blamed the police for crackdowns that he himself clearly ordered.
Along
with Mahathir this week, another source of puffed-up hypocrisy has been
that junior windbag and wannabe, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin (right).
Calling university students campaigning for the abolition of the National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN) "rude" and "immature", he attempted to blow in opposite directions simultaneously with the statement that, while he supported students' rights and freedom, their protests must be properly held, and there should be limits.
But this self-styled wira and leader of numerous unruly police-condoned protests against targets of the Umno/BN regime set no limits on his own attempts to fan religious opposition to the students by suggesting that the symbolic coffin they carried was anti-Muslim and "based on Hindu rites".
Despite Khairy's best efforts, however, no Umno/BN utterance this week evoked quite such an ill wind as the contemptuous assertion by de facto law minister Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz that organisers of the Bersih 3.0 rally scheduled for April 28 at Dataran Merdeka should seek permission from the "owners" of this venue.
His implication that Malaysia's historic, iconic "Freedom Square" might have any proprietor other than the Malaysian people themselves drew such massive gusts of disapproval from the populace that Nazri was moved days later to muse that he might retire from his official post after the forthcoming general election.
Or maybe he has intimations of being blown right out of office by the headwind of public outrage that he and his Umno/BN colleagues are experiencing despite Najib Razak's fictitious "hurricane".
Because,
despite the hurricane of hot air to the contrary, support for the
ever-ruling regime is clearly flagging. A fact brilliantly if
unintentionally symbolised by the desperate, not to mention illegal
decision to fly BN flags at KTMB commuter stations in Selangor.
KTMB chairperson Mohd Zin Mohamad, who also happens to be coordinator of BN Selangor, typically denied issuing instructions to his employees to put up the flags, saying "I did not issue any directive. But if they (KTMB staff) want to put up the flags, there is no problem."
But despite Zin's confidence, there is a problem. Or there would be, if the Election Commission is doing its job as Bersih rightly claims it isn't, since, at least as far as I know, campaigning is not permitted before an election is called.
But laws, rules and regulations were never intended to present any problem for Umno/BN and its cronies. So doubtless the BN flags will go on flying in the hurricane of Umno/BN hot air, as yet another provocation to the people to finally hang the regime out to dry, and enjoy the sight of it swinging in the breeze.
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' and ‘1Malaysia.con'.
Even as they shiver with in the first stirrings of the chill winds of change, the blow-hards of Umno/BN are huffing and puffing away with all their customary blasts of hot air.
But, disgusted by decades of having their minds blown by this lying regime and its mealy-mouthed media, Malaysians are increasingly greeting their utterances with storms of scorn or gales of laughter.
Like the response last week to the claim by chief windbag Najib Abdul Razak that a gathering to mark the re-naming of youth group Waris Malaya to Sahabat Barisan Nasional was "a reflection and manifestation of a ‘hurricane' blowing in Selangor."
Harking back to his notorious 2010 call to Umno members to defend Putrajaya even with their "crushed bodies" or "lost lives," he declared that this hurricane "will crush anyone who tries to reject change demanded by the people in Selangor who want to bring the BN back in power in the state".
What
an absolute hurricane of hogwash this was, given how relieved the vast
majority of the people of Selangor have been to be rid of Umno/BN
corruption in state affairs since they swept the filthy-rich Mohd Khir
Toyo (left) and his gang of crooks out of office in 2008.And perhaps even more laughable was Najib's claim that Waris Malaya, now Sahabat Barisan Nasional (Friends of BN), "shows (that) youths always support the ruling coalition" when in fact this is a regime-stooge organisation whose president Sheikh Whessal Sheikh Ahmad admitted was formed only four months ago with the loony-tunes aim "to shield the country from leaders who were being made tools of foreign powers".
But when it comes to blowing his own trumpet, Najib couldn't care less about truth or reason as long as he has an audience of idiots prepared to listen to him in return for payment of "petrol money" and free T-shirts with his picture on them, and the Bernama ‘news' agency is on hand to faithfully record his airy fantasies.
Nor does he shrink from contradicting himself, as in his recent triumphant tweet that "Malaysia compares well" in a recent global study of Internet censorship - just days after promising an audience of his mainstream media hacks that it is high time to regulate cyberspace in the interests of eliminating "double standards".
While neglecting to mention, of course, that double standards, double dealing and two-faced communication compose the very core of the Umno/BN regime's corruption of everything from Parliament, the judiciary and the police to public opinion, the electoral system and the economy.
Ineffectual efforts at 'transformation'
That superannuated windbag Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been adding a burst of his own trademark bad breath to the Umno/BN hurricane of hot air with the claim that the hated ISA is "not a bad law, but a good one which could curb potential threats".
It is certainly undeniable that the ISA curbed potential threats for Mahathir during his disastrous 22-year premiership, though he has since denied misusing it against his political opponents in the notorious Operasi Lalang incarceration of 106 citizens in 1987, and blamed the police for crackdowns that he himself clearly ordered.
Along
with Mahathir this week, another source of puffed-up hypocrisy has been
that junior windbag and wannabe, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin (right).Calling university students campaigning for the abolition of the National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN) "rude" and "immature", he attempted to blow in opposite directions simultaneously with the statement that, while he supported students' rights and freedom, their protests must be properly held, and there should be limits.
But this self-styled wira and leader of numerous unruly police-condoned protests against targets of the Umno/BN regime set no limits on his own attempts to fan religious opposition to the students by suggesting that the symbolic coffin they carried was anti-Muslim and "based on Hindu rites".
Despite Khairy's best efforts, however, no Umno/BN utterance this week evoked quite such an ill wind as the contemptuous assertion by de facto law minister Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz that organisers of the Bersih 3.0 rally scheduled for April 28 at Dataran Merdeka should seek permission from the "owners" of this venue.
His implication that Malaysia's historic, iconic "Freedom Square" might have any proprietor other than the Malaysian people themselves drew such massive gusts of disapproval from the populace that Nazri was moved days later to muse that he might retire from his official post after the forthcoming general election.
Or maybe he has intimations of being blown right out of office by the headwind of public outrage that he and his Umno/BN colleagues are experiencing despite Najib Razak's fictitious "hurricane".
Because,
despite the hurricane of hot air to the contrary, support for the
ever-ruling regime is clearly flagging. A fact brilliantly if
unintentionally symbolised by the desperate, not to mention illegal
decision to fly BN flags at KTMB commuter stations in Selangor.KTMB chairperson Mohd Zin Mohamad, who also happens to be coordinator of BN Selangor, typically denied issuing instructions to his employees to put up the flags, saying "I did not issue any directive. But if they (KTMB staff) want to put up the flags, there is no problem."
But despite Zin's confidence, there is a problem. Or there would be, if the Election Commission is doing its job as Bersih rightly claims it isn't, since, at least as far as I know, campaigning is not permitted before an election is called.
But laws, rules and regulations were never intended to present any problem for Umno/BN and its cronies. So doubtless the BN flags will go on flying in the hurricane of Umno/BN hot air, as yet another provocation to the people to finally hang the regime out to dry, and enjoy the sight of it swinging in the breeze.
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' and ‘1Malaysia.con'.
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