Puteras down the toilet

Dean Johns



'Tanda Putera', a propaganda film made by Shuhaimi Baba under the auspices of the National Film Development Board (Finas) as a pre-election ‘frightener’ for Malay voters, should perhaps by rights be re-titled Tandas Putera.

Because to judge from the popular stink it’s causing, it is yet another bungled attempt by the Umnoputras to save themselves from disappearing down the toilet in the coming general election.

In a desperate effort to demonise the DAP, Umno/BN cybercreeps have been crowing over the film’s alleged portrayal of Lim Kit Siang urinating on a flagpole outside the residence of then Selangor menteri besar Harun Idris, prior to the May 1969 race riots.

Yet evidence shows that the flagpole in question was inaccessible to Lim or any other member of the public - and Lim asserts, and can probably prove, that he was not in Kuala Lumpur in the period during which the incident allegedly occurred.

In an attempt at damage-control, the scene that has provoked this scandal that Lim has dubbed ‘Urine-gate’ or ‘Pee-gate’, has reportedly been removed from preview prints of the film.

And a still of the scene uploaded onto the film’s Facebook page on July 20 with a caption ‘Lim Kit Siang telah kencing di bawah tiang bendera Selangor yang terpacak di rumah menteri besar Selangor ketika itu, Harun Idris’ (Lim Kit Siang had urinated at the foot of the flagpole bearing the Selangor flag at the then Selangor Menteri Besar Harun Idris' residence), has since been taken down.

But not soon enough, thank goodness, to prevent the Umnoputras and their lying propagandists on the screen, the Net and in the mainstream toilet-papers from once again exposing themselves to public scorn and ridicule.

Which they do every time they try and yank the public’s chain these days, having spent half a century flushing away every shred of their credibility with mendacious statements like those made this week by their so-called ‘leaders’.

Like Umno Wanita head Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, who claimed in court that she had no knowledge that her husband had bid for the RM250 million National Feedlot Corporation’s (NFC) feedlot centre project.

Or like disgraced president of Umno’s moribund coalition crony-party MCA, Dr Chua Soi Lek, who made the ludicrous claim that the DAP’s long-term plan is to join the BN and replace the MCA to protect its position in Penang.

‘If you love Mahathir ...’

Even more pathetic was the call by Mukhriz Mahathir to the people of Kedah to prove their love for his father, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, by voting BN back into power.

“The defeat in 2008 has brought shame to us. Among those who are embarrassed is Mahathir because he is a Kedahan.

“If you love Mahathir, don’t let him be embarrassed twice,” he continued, idiotically ignoring the reality that Mahathir and most of his works are so loathed by many if not most Malaysians that they’d like to see him not only embarrassed but behind bars.

But outdoing Mukhriz in sheer sanctimony if not filial piety, was the current head of Umno/BN’s programme of corruption, patronage, plunder, perjury and repression, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

First he told a gathering, where he handed out tithe contributions to the needy in his parliamentary constituency of Pekan, Pahang, that “the country’s wealth must be distributed in a balanced manner in a bid to create a fair and just society”.

“Don’t link Islam with poverty. Allah likes and will reward those who are successful and have a charitable attitude,” he declared, adding that “whoever spends in the name of Allah, will receive the reward from him.”

This lavish spender, indeed squanderer of public money on his “I help you, you help me” attempt to buy electoral success next went on to tell a group of welfare recipients in Bachok, Kelantan, that the government is always fair and transparent to all Malaysians.

“We are fair to all Malaysians because we fear Allah, and not other people,” he lied.

“We do not deceive, that is why when the oil issue arose... it could not be resolved until now. (But) Datuk Pa (Mustapa Mohamed), Awang Adek and I too have been targeted, accused of cheating the people of Kelantan. Here, in Kelantan and in this holy month of Ramadan, (we state that) we are not denying the rights of the Kelantan people.”

Of course this arch-hypocrite and his accomplices have been denying the rights of the Kelantan people to their fair share of oil revenue, just as they have long denied all Malaysians their rights to their fair share of the nation’s prosperity.

Not to mention denying all Malaysians their rights to public protest, free media, an independent judiciary, unbiased law enforcement, honest governance and free and fair elections.

Seeing through machinations

And in the same week as he was speaking, Najib’s claim to be “fair and transparent” to all Malaysians was totally given the lie by the arrest of PKR director of strategy Rafizi Ramli on a charge of disclosing bank records related to the NFC scandal.

It was also Rafizi, of course, who blew the whistle on the covert role that the “transparent” Najib himself allegedly played in the mysterious awarding of the massive Ampang LRT extension project to the highest and least technically and financially qualified bidder, George Kent (Malaysia) Bhd.

Rafizi doesn’t qualify for protection as a ‘whistleblower’ in the NFC case, the government has alleged, since he released secret bank figures publicly instead of reporting them to the proper authority, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

But who in his right mind would report corruption to the MACC, the very organisation that the Umno/BN regime relies on to bury allegations against itself and its cronies, and even, when necessary, to bury witnesses like the late, lamented Teoh Beng Hock?

Of course every time the MACC is accused of covering up or failing to pursue allegations against regime figures, as currently in the case of persistent allegations against Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail, it denies such derelictions of its duties.

“There are no cases referred to the (MACC) which have been swept under the carpet,” deputy chief commissioner (operations) Mohd Shukri Abdull claimed this week, adding that the agency’s operations are “transparent”.

In fact, the only thing that’s transparent about the doings of the MACC or indeed all of Umno/BN’s deliberately opaque machinations is that these days most Malaysians can see right through them.

But a see-through toilet is not a pretty sight. So it’s no wonder that more and more Malaysians can’t wait for a chance to flush all this filth and putridity down the Tandas Putera, into the sewer of history.