Gerakan and The Boot

Gerakan will no longer kow-tow to Umno?

Do you even realise that your representation in any part of the country is courtesy of Umno, giving you face?  

Do you even realise that MCA and Gerakan political representation in this country after GE13 is courtesy of Umno's tireless grassroots activism?

Have you no shame?

You think you could have won in Simpang Renggam and Pemanis if it hadn't been for Umno branches campaigning without any support from Gerakan members on the ground?

As far as I am concerned, Gerakan should show some self-respect and leave the coalition.  You are not only dead-weights, you are also a major liability to BN.

Umno will not give you The Boot, so you should just go, you know, walk the talk and take your stinky hide out of the Coalition.

You are giving a bad name to all those "superior", "classy", so-called Malaysians with your caving in to the inevitable "we will continue to be part of BN" thing that you finally came up with at the end of all that blaming Umno for everything wrong with your party.

I dare Gerakan to pull-out from BN.

Otherwise, you are just proving yourselves to be a bunch of spineless wimps of the most despicable kind.

Musings: Politically Speaking

I have refrained from putting down my thoughts here during all that Umno thing that has been the main topic of the political kind these past weeks because I was hoping against hope that Umno leadership will seriously walk the talk - you know, about all that transformation bull and stuff - but the results of the Wanita and Pemuda elections kinda tell me that all that transformation talk was just that - bullxxxx.

The thing is, I'd rather not make predictions early on as I had no wish to see my fears confirmed, but unfortunately the outcome was such that I spent the most part of yesterday creating content for my favorite computer game instead of being useful around the house.  It was really disheartening.

However, I am not going to start getting all emotional and throwing tantrums with proclamations of "Umno is dead, long live PR/DAP/PAS!" or things of that nature.

I haven't lost it all yet, for despite the less than stellar leadership line-up within Umno, it has far more credibility and variables than those presently in power within DAP and PAS.

At least BN/Umno still has some conscience, especially since it has not resorted to the kind of bigoted demonisation that has been used against them by the PR/DAP/PAS and their liberalised "classy" minions from both sides of the divide in cyberspace, twitterdom and elsewhere.

The next political struggle to watch for in the Peninsular states will be within PR/PAS.

PAS has never been politically active in Sabah and Sarawak, so its fight will largely be focused on the  Peninsular Malays, presenting an alternative to BN/Umno, and will be taking advantage of the present dissatisfaction among urban and young Malays with Umno's insular attitude.

That's why Khairy Jamaluddin's winning the Pemuda leadership is the saddest thing for Umno's future as I think he is out of touch with the majority of young Malays urban or rural - he is seen as too liberal, too untrustworthy, too in love with himself and too fake - that I think they will eventually flock to PR/PAS if Pemuda continues its present "syok sendiri" mode, its current trademark.

I have just completed re-reading about Pemuda Umno, and my quick assessment is that its decline really began in the late 80s to early 90s, so it is not surprising that the present Umno leadership is the way it is right now.

Looking at the voting trends from 1999 to 2008, there has been a steady decrease of support for BN/Umno at the ballot box among the younger voters even in Malay-majority areas.  The results of GE13 would be an interesting analysis.  However, I digress.

The way I look at it, PR has milked all it can milk, politically, from the Peninsular Chinese through DAP's chavinistic politics, and will now focus most of their energy in converting Sabah and Sarawak.

What happened at GE13 sort of proved that PR and their backers cannot win the federation purely by playing on Chinese sentiments.

Despite using PAS and their rhetorics to undermine Malay solidarity in semi-urban areas, and gaining almost all the Chinese heart and soul, they failed to win sufficient seats to form the federal government.

The Chinese and the liberal Malays have largely ghettoed themselves into highly dense urban enclaves of "the haves" that have limited their effectiveness during elections.

All PR can do now is play the Chinese sentiments to maintain the status quo within the Chinese enclaves, that is playing up all the Chinese issues they can find to keep the fire burning, so to speak.

PR realise that they need to garner the rural votes themselves as PAS has failed to deliver rural support - this is proven in Johor and Perak.

They can only do that among the bumiputra of Sabah and Sarawak.  Their tool is Christian evangelism.

At least that's why I think PR/DAP are going all evangelical for the past 2 terms and why they immediately went into campaign mode for Sabah and Sarawak barely a month after GE13.

Their focus will be in using Christianity to get the rural votes from Sabah and Sarawak, and that is why they are working with the various churches to increase both flock and votes - a mutually beneficial partnership indeed.

PR/DAP have not seen massive success yet, but their backers and strategists are confident that their "superior intellect" and massive funding through NGOs will prevail against the "simplistic and less than intelligent" natives despite failing to rouse a Malaysian Spring into the summer of 2013.

After all, the only thing in their way is currently being controlled by self-serving pursuits of the few and lulled into complacency from within.

The Expected Happened

The Pemuda result was totally expected, as having seen Pemuda in action over the past two years (or rather inaction where it matters) I was fairly certain that YB Khairy would win.

I wasn't expecting her to win, but I was definitely hoping that Datuk Maznah wouldn't be given such a rout by the Wanita delegates.

Wanita was indeed a disappointment.

On the other hand I hope YB Emy will bring about a difference to Puteri and bring her activism on the ground to the rest of the Puteri Wing.

Although it is important for Puteri to take up issues faced by young Malay women, I sincerely hope that YB Emy's experience as the rep for Masjid Tanah will give her greater understanding of grassroots issues which will help her give greater substance and relevance to Puteri's political and social activism.

Congratulations and my best wishes YB Emy.

Rooting for Datuk Maznah

I have been reading up on Datuk Maznah's candidacy for the Wanita Umno top post.

I don't know the lady personally, and I have never met her in person, but what I have read seems to be fairly neutral and devoid of negativity.

Even my sister thinks she seems to be an OK person from her dealings with her.

Among the three contesting, I have the most confidence in her to clean up Wanita's image and bring back the original spirit of the Wanita grassroots movement that has always been the backbone of Umno social activism, without which Umno political activism would not have been sustained all these years.

I am not a Wanita member, but I have a great deal of respect for a number of Wanita members I have met and worked with over the past 2 years.

I also believe that the work that they do on the ground is not only good for Umno, but also good for the community that they serve.

Both Wanita and Puteri should be working together in developing social programmes that capitalise on their collective strengths,providing feedback that can be incorporated at policy-making levels to ensure Umno political activism continues to be relevant.

I have great hopes that the new Wanita leadership will look upon Puteri as apprentices and future leaders as opposed to rivals, and I hope we will eventually see a seamless continuity of Puteri activism when they graduate into Wanita.

Nauseating

The latest Demi Negara piece is an absolute must read for those who wants to understand why I no longer respect the present Umno leadership and why I have been rather scathing when it comes to writing about the "classy" people surrounding our PM.

I have been unfortunate enough to have seen some of them in action, in this case the PEMANDU crowd, and I must say that I wasn't too impressed with what I saw.

If everyone in PEMANDU had been so fabulously talented, and everyone had performed commendably, why do we still need McKinsey, Boston Consulting, et al?

I also had the misfortune to have had dealings with the political types from Umno War Room HQ prior to GE13, and that wasn't too pleasant either.

How can he be so blind as to surround himself with these kinds of people when I have encountered others on the ground who are far more sincere and just as capable if not more so than these types that he depends on for advice?

For example, although I am a city girl myself, my social circle is rather limited and does not include the urban poor as mentioned by Demi Negara.  That is inexcusable, but I can only say that I will attempt to rectify that as soon as possible.

However, if that is inexcusable for me, it must be more so for people who make decisions that affect other people's livelihood and the future socio-economic opportunities for generations to come.

Maybe PM himself would have all these photo-ops with poor people, but does he really understand these people's needs?

When I was a Management Trainee with a British multinational, I had to spend at least 3 months each in Customer Services, Marketing Communications, and Product Development before I was finally placed in Management Consultancy Services as an Associate.

In Customer Services, I had to understand our customers, their different issues, how to communicate with them directly, and how to address their problems.

In Marketing Communications I had to learn all the different perspectives, master the mass communications skills and tools required to reach a large audience of diverse backgrounds, to gain acceptance of our corporate messages.

In Product Development, I had to understand not only the products that the engineers develop, but also to relate that into real applications that can address real customer issues, while others had to translate market requirements to be incorporated into product life cycle plans.

I quickly became a full-fledged consultant once I mastered the art of the con, the use of communications tools to impress the audience, and there was one occasion that a customer actually asked for me because they remembered me and was impressed by my presentation.

In short, it is all about understanding customer requirements, meeting customer expectations and manipulating marketplace/customer perception, i.e. creating a need where there is none.

Guess which one our politicians have been good at lately?

Frankly, I find them all nauseatingly fake.

Intellect Beyond Measure (Edited)

Oh my!  The current darling of the neo-liberal has spoken!

In 10 to 15 years they (he and his exalted like-minded companions of the super-intelligent IDEAS) are going to do away with Articles 153 and 3 of the Malaysian Constitution.

(These pieces at Free Malaysia Today, Pure Shiite and rocky's bru as reference.)

So people, be prepared for the day, 10 to 15 years from now, when we shall no longer have Islam as the official religion of the Federation, while the Malays and Bumiputras of Sabah and Sarawak no longer can claim the pride of being sons of the land as defined in the Constitution.

The land of their ancestors will be theirs no more.

And there will no longer be justification of federal funding for Islamic pursuits such as for JAKIM, IKIM, Tilawah Al Quran, etc., nor should Malaysia be a member of the OIC, as that would be unfair to the other religions.

It will happen for sure, as these IDEAS chaps are supremely intelligent beings, immensely meticulous researchers with infallible analytical predictive models that can predict the future socio-political landscape of any given society.

Well, of course what they predict always comes true ... not only are they supremely intelligent, they are all educated in London, and all lead classy lives.

Remember when IDEAS went around the country telling government servants that they must be prepared to accommodate a smooth transition of power once the Pakatan takes over control of the Federal government after GE13?

That really, really happened.  Pakatan took over Putrajaya and the transition was smooth because of IDEAS efforts to ensure smooth government transition, so smooth that you don't even see much difference other than some loonies and their 505 black something or other.

What do you mean BN is still in power?  Stop hallucinating ... supremely intelligent beings don't make such mistakes when declaring future events ...

You think if they are not supremely intelligent and infallible, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Washington, D.C. would want to be their partner ke?

Or that IDEAS would receive grants from the International Policy Network and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation ke?

That one I got from wiki la .. 

Only the super classy newspapers and media outlets understand them enough to quote them regularly in justifying their opinions of current issues.

Just like at one time there were media people who were in love with IKD and Khalid Jaafar.

That one was a Pakatan outfit?

Well, you think this one is not?

As for me, I am more of a down to earth practical kind of person and I prefer to spend time scrutinising materials with enough depth and substance for my less than superior intellect to digest.

Life Goes On

I find Chin Peng and the people who idolise him totally repulsive.

I admit that I am glad that that particular terrorist is dead.

He was not a citizen of Malaysia, he fought against the country when it was Malaya, he fought against it when it became Malaysia, so he didn't deserve to be interred in this land.

For people who wish to bring this dead terrorist home, go and find where his loyalties were as that would be the proper home for him and for you too.

Anyone who justified terrorising and killing his own countrymen, innocent ones at that, purely for ideological differences and for being in the way of his own political ambitions, deserve an ignoble death.

Those who consider him a hero, or freedom fighter, deserve the same, for nothing justifies murder of innocent people.

As for me, we have far better things to think about and do for the country than to glorify an alien mass murderer who directed a bloody terrorist war against "tanah tumpah darahku" that lasted a couple of decades.

End of that story.

Life goes on for the rest of us.

The PM's Bumiputra Economic Empowerment Initiative

When the PM first announced that he would be announcing some measures to address the Bumiputra economic agenda recently, I wasn't too excited as I have often been disappointed with his decisions in the past.

His decisions in the past have been proven to be Bumiputra-unfriendly and he has spent the larger part of his time as Prime Minister pandering to the demands of the louder non-Bumiputra groups that despite all the groveling that he did, they showed him what they really think of him and his efforts by supporting the Pakatan en masse during GE13.

So this time around, I am taking the attitude of wait and see, before deciding whether this time it is a sincere effort to uplift the poor, or just another gimmick to garner support before the Umno General Assembly.

Finally I get to see Najib's speech text at Annie's, a bit too long to digest immediately, though, so I need time to see what he has to offer the Malays and Bumiputra in the form of economic empowerment.

It is good that PM Najib acknowledged early on that BN won because of Malay and Bumiputra support.  It is a sign that he knows whose welfare he should pay attention to as head of the BN coalition.

It is also good that he noted that Bumiputra represent almost 68% of the Malaysian population, forming the majority despite their voice being hardly heard in the din created by the minority groups.

It is interesting that he did not elaborate about how his Model Ekonomi Baru was initially devoid of the Bumiputra agenda, and how he then qualified the meritocracy in Rancangan Malaysia Ke10 as meritocracy with respect to competition among Bumiputra.  Heh ... good one there ..  so the meritocracy is just among Bumiputra ...

For me, I think the most significant part of the whole thing is where Bumiputra-engagement, in various forms, is included as part of Heads of GLCs' KPI, and the setting up of a materials supply chain for Bumiputra businesses.  The rest isn't particularly exciting to me, not even the ASB2 if its going to be managed the same way as ASN and ASB.

The role of GLCs in nurturing Bumiputra enterprises is such an important part of the Bumiputra economic development mechanism as it provides opportunities for Bumiputra organisations to gain the much needed experience and networking to compete effectively while creating job opportunities for the Bumiputra workforce.

There is no point in training, re-skilling or even marketing our Bumiputra human capital if we cannot develop organisations willing to employ them at their market value.

Hopefully these Bumiputra organisations will prove that despite our Bumiputra graduates' lack of command of the English language, as is claimed by so many people to be the reason why they are unemployable, they can excel in their jobs, given the opportunity and support.

The proposed supply chain  to assist Bumiputra businesses to be more competitive is also something to look forward to as cost of supplies has been a major stumbling block for Bumiputra businesses to compete effectively in the open market.

To conclude, based on my early assessment, I look forward to the implementation of these initiatives, and will be looking at how the government intend to check for abuses on the part of the enablers, i.e. the GLCs and the Ministries, to ensure that this time around, Bumiputra economic empowerment can really be achieved.

Wanita Umno Revisited

Annie got tired of Umno decide to kacau Sin Chew as a hobby.

Well, I got tired of Umno and DS Shahrizat a long time ago.  She is just the most obvious example of the "tak sedar diri and mabuk kuasa" syndrome within the upper echelons of that political party.

I would say that the majority of the so-called Umno leadership are inflicted by the same syndrome.

We have seen the decay within the Pemuda wing and we are now seeing Wanita going the same way as Pemuda.

What makes it worse for Umno is that Wanita is the backbone of its grassroots programmes and their acceptance at the grassroots level is much closer associated with the public acceptance of  BN.

Worse still, is the lack of new blood in Wanita leadership at the middle and grassroots levels, or more specifically the demise of Puteri leadership once they become of age and graduate to Wanita.

Puteri was supposed to be the training ground for young women who are supposed to be groomed as future leaders of the Wanita wing.

They are supposed to bring youth, new ideas, innovations and vibrancy and to continue making Wanita more relevant to a larger crowd.

In order to do this, Wanita should be working with Puteri, grooming and training them to succeed them and eventually make way for new blood to invigorate the movement.

This is obviously not happening.

Puteri seems to have less success in the transition into Wanita.  I think this is best illustrated by what is happening between DS Shahrizat and DS Azalina in the fight for Wanita leadership.

This is a fight between a sitting MP who won convincingly, a single woman, relatively younger and with a track record of not only leading the Puteri movement but was responsible in enabling its formation, who have some baggage herself but has no sufficient impact to kill her political career, against the incumbent Wanita leader who lost her constituency to the opposition but was given a position in government only because she was the Wanita Head and promptly lost that because of a scandal that has also become a major liability to Umno and BN.

DS Shahrizat not immediately dissociating herself and her family problems from Umno, never acknowledging that she is a massive liability to the organisation, that she was willingly subjecting Umno to the humiliation of having one of its top leaders being associated with such a damning scandal, clinging on to power by whatever means, is a problem in itself.

What makes it dire is the support of other women in Wanita who cling to her in fear of change, living in a cocoon that insulate them from the realities on the ground.

This same "ostrich with head in the sand" syndrome is the real reason why Umno will not be able to transform into something more relevant to the public.

Being Classy

Unspinners, rocky's bru and OutSyed The Box have been knocking at PEMANDU's door for the unbecoming behavior of some of its highly paid cons ...

Fellas, don't you people know that this is all part of the government's plan to ensure that the nation becomes a "highly developed nation" populated by extremely "classy people" with a lifestyle that can match the Pakatan's social icons of their many amateur video actors?

Pakatan have the two iconic sexual exhibitionists and their various liberated politicians, so PEMANDU must also create similar icons, you know, to fight fire with fire, so that we can also have very "classy" gomen people to avoid being dubbed low-class by the Opposition.

For pro-BN bloggers, your views, opinions and requirements are not important, no one listens to you now as you are already captured slaves and all the Prime Minister's men are only concerned about attracting those Opposition-inclined voters.

You know la how the gomen people always kena hantam, with Pakatan politicians and those cons from IDEAS saying they want to reduce the number of gomen servants?

No good la if BN and gomen always kena hantam for not keeping up with the time, so we need to hire as many liberal-minded "classy" cons as possible to prop up the government's image, and indirectly BN's image, so they can say that we are just as liberal, just as classy, and just as shallow as the next Pakatan supporter.

They are Opposition sympathisers?  Man .. BN-led government are equal opportunity employers, what ... and we must show all those "low-class" BN members that they must emulate the thinking of these liberal-minded people before they are "classy" enough to be considered for all that "transforming" that is happening throughout the country.

You don't want to transform and become "classy", PM carik la already classy people to advise him.

You see that clever KJ?  He is very clever one, emulating PM with his classy Press Secretary.

Sheesh ... as if you don't already have many PAS and PKR people in the gomen, want to complain about some liberal-minded Opposition-sympathisers and supporters joining the government service ke?

Why PEMANDU?  Probably because their skills and salaries wouldn't fit in the present SPA structure (and probably they wouldn't have been able to pass the entrance exams anyway), but PM probably wanted classy people around him pronto, so the PMO must create a reason for their existence.

You know, probably one of his transformational KPI is to have more classy people around him or something to that effect?

To justify the humongous salaries required to maintain their "classy" lifestyles, we need to create important-sounding jobs and functions, not that they are doing anything that existing gomen people and their functionaries aren't capable of.

They don't speak Malay?  Alah ... so low-class la, speaking in Malay, why do you expect classy people to speak Malay?  The stronger the British, Australian or American accent, the classier.  You don't know that?  So low-class la you ...

Besides, you don't expect our Prime Minister to be surrounded and advised by ordinary rakyat, living ordinary lives, like you and me, do you?  Tak class la camtu.

For those who aspire to be a PM adviser, you also need to learn all those fancy English words that consultants normally use to confound their clients (and the public at large), otherwise you are not "classy" enough or intelligent enough to advise the PM.

And remember, everything else is not important, as long as you can convincingly spout fancy words in a reasonably foreign accent and can blow your own trumpet while hobnobbing with the big guys, you'll fit in with the PEMANDU crowd.