What is Happening to Us?

I was going around the internet trying to revitalise my dead brain cells.  And no, I haven't finished that thing that I was supposed to complete for submission on Monday.  What I found on my stalking territories are rather disturbing, and I sincerely hope that Malaysians can continue living in relative peace and harmony after the 13th general election.  The general feeling is that there is going to be real trouble.

My take is the BN-led government has done pretty well for this country, so they can't use the same excuses that were used in the middle-east.   If they were to create public distrust, they have to find something else - and that is to undermine the public institutions.

The venom against the security forces and the judiciary, that is the police, the military and the courts, is their way of undermining the security of the land, creating an environment where they are successfully creating the perception of officers of the law are barbaric, and inhumane, the Courts as corrupt and unjust.

This distrust against the institutions upholding law and order will be fully used to justify the anarchy they plan to create if they are denied power.  Whatever measure taken by the security forces and the courts will be seen as brutality, abuse and oppression.  Again, unfortunately, most of our security forces are Malays, and the courts are part of the largely Malay civil service.

The irony is, there are many opposition supporters in these supposedly apolitical institutions, as exemplified by the husband of Normala Sudirman, who was not dismissed from service for misconduct, but was merely transferred to Pengerang and are now actively campaigning for PAS there.  He is still in service, undermining the government in a much more direct way, knowing that he can get away with it.  The fact is, the number of opposition supporters in the civil service is a lot higher than people think, and many are in decision-making positions, but no punitive action are taken against them.

The way I look at it, the Bersih attacks on Election Commission is to create an environment of distrust and public paranoia that will justify what ever situation or violence that they want to create after what they claim to be a rigged election.  All the signs were there, in their ceramahs, statements and the opinion pieces of their propaganda apparatus - Malaysiakini, Free Malaysia Today, Malaysia Chronicle, Malaysian Insider - and being used as references by their followers who have been indoctrinated to a point of blind hatred for the government.

In Helen's two latest postings, here and here, and Annie's post about her parents, there is no doubt that when DAP paint Umno as the source of all evils in the universe, it is actually an incitement of the Chinese to hate the Melayu, because Umno is Melayu and its stand of for Agama (Islam), Bangsa (Melayu) and Tanahair (Land - Malaysia).  It wasn't initially meant to be a clash based on race and religion, but it turned that way for some.

It is unfortunate, but the truth is, PAS and PKR have both lost it and cannot in anyway challenge Umno.  PAS can no longer pretend to be the champion for Malays as they have from the very beginning denounced Umno as assobiyah for championing Malay causes.  PAS then lost their Islamic credentials when they defer to DAP and PKR in the case of Kalimah Allah, and their flipping and flopping in matters related to Islam.  It doesn't help that they are seen as sissies and desperate in their dealings with DAP, always deferring to the DAP's hard-line stance in anything to do with Islam.

PKR are just a collection of formers - former MCA, former MIC, former Umno, etc. - and they have no credibility, their leadership have serious moral issues and tainted with corrupt practices that they carry with them from where ever they came from, the very reasons why they were rejected in the first place.  They are still useful to be used to weaken Umno, but they will not have the political clout, nor the will, to challenge DAP in anything, as what we have seen in recent events in Johor and elsewhere.

For DAP, the predominantly Chinese support base of the DAP makes bashing the non-Chinese, in this case Malays, the easiest way to incite hatred against a largely Malay Umno, police, military and civil service.  The hatred for mamaks is just a projection of their chauvinism that has been quite successful in touching the insecurities of some of the ultra Malays, that mamaks are usurping the Malays' rights and monopolising the wealth that should rightly be theirs.  They are projecting their greed and their egos on to the Malays and this has worked to some extent.

They have successfully created factions within the ranks of the Malays and insidiously turned some factions against Umno's coalition partners, whose goodwill Umno will continue to maintain by fielding them in GE13.  This will ensure BN will further lose Malay support, hence eroding Umno's political position as a credible leader of the multiracial BN coalition, which indirectly undermines Umno's position as leader of multiracial Malaysia.

The latest rant against Hindu Indians and Hindraf is a measure of what DAP's real opinion of others, and will be unleashed on those who turned away from their brand of politics.  Similarly, DAP's treatment of their pact partners, PAS and PKR, clearly displays the disdain that they have for these entities whom they see as inferior to them in every way.  Only those too blinded by hatred for Umno would be unable to discern this fact.

It is now DAP, a Chinese-dominated political party, against Umno, a Malay party that heads a coalition of a number of ethnic-based political entities.  Whoever planned all these have crafted the scenario in such a way that regardless of whoever wins, chaos may not be avoidable.