In the Islamists version of hell, that is the one in Malaysia, voting against the PAS is a vote to hell.
This is part of the campaign to promote a united PAS-UMNO front in Malaysia, and the elite of the Islamist party are going national in their attacks against Muslims who are resistant to the idea.
“It is important to unite PAS and UMNO in order to eliminate the DAP,” says a WhatsApp group message.
The group – unknown since the name is not published on the posting in a pro-opposition Facebook page – changed its Icon to that of a PAS-UMNO hand shake.
The message continue: “If you want to enter hell, you can vote DAP.”
But if you wan to enter paradise.”Vote PAS”
The message does not end there.
It goes further into declaring – similar to an Islamic edict or Fatwa – that people who does not vote the PAS will be made ‘kafir harbi.”
The threats are not new in Malaysia.
On 23 June 2016, the Mufti of Pahang shocked Malaysians by stating that it is a sin for Muslims to support the Democratic Action Party (DAP), which he labelled as Kafir Harbi (infidels against whom war can be waged).
The statement received mixed reactions from the Muslims: some voiced their support while many opposed it. For non-Muslims, it became a source of fear, given recent threats announced by the Malaysian Islamic State (IS) based in Syria, and the first bombing incident by IS in Malaysia.
Following the overall rejection of the labeling by Muslim scholars and intellectuals who claimed that the label was invalid and unsuitable under contemporary circumstances, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that no Malaysians should be placed under the Kafir Harbi category.
There is in Malaysia an unfortunate practice of using the term Kafir Harbi for political reasons, and for demonising certain opposition political parties and certain non-Muslim groups.
When they were completed in 1998, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur were the tallest buildings in the world. At 1,483 feet, they beat out Chicago’s Sears Tower — which had held the record since 1973 — by only 10, but all the same, the superlative was a trophy for a Southeast Asian nation that had transformed itself from a sleepy agrarian society into a crucial economic center in less than a quarter of a century. Specifically, they were a point of pride for Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who had led Malaysia in its rebirth; so personal was the accomplishment that he himself chose the fixtures in the skyscrapers’ bathrooms.
On Saturday, Mahathir was one of the many of thousands of people who gathered in the shadow of the towers to demand that Malaysia’s current Prime Minister, Najib Razak, step down from office. “Time has come for us to topple this cruel regime,” Mahathir said, standing on a portable stage before a crowd of roaring supporters dressed in yellow. “Najib is no longer suitable to be the prime minister. He is abusing the law.”
Saturday’s protest, organized by a group of pro-democracy and anti-corruption activists collectively known as Bersih (the Malay word for “clean”), was the second massive display of outrage towards Najib since July 2015, when the Wall Street Journal and investigative news website Sarawak Report reported that his personal bank accounts held nearly $700 million in cash apparently siphoned from a state development fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Najib has strenuously denied the allegations.
The rally — which attracted around 40,000 people, according to local media reports, though one organizer placed it at twice that — was peaceful, even festive, despite the endemic frustration here. Attendees blew vuvuzelas and shared bottles of water when the equatorial heat proved too oppressive. (Before afternoon thunderstorms accumulated overhead, the thermostat hit close to 90 degrees.) Police blocked access to Merdeka Square, where the march was scheduled to culminate, so organizers deftly regrouped and informed participants over social media that they would instead head to the Petronas Towers. Reports that violent pro-government groups would be there to provoke demonstrators proved false.
“We’re not out here to create any sort of problems — we just want to be seen and be heard,” 37-year-old Rizal Ahmad, who says he is currently unemployed, tells TIME. “The situation is getting worse, and people are becoming more desperate. We need to be heard.”
Fahmi Reza, a street cartoonist who has previously been arrested for his work, is blunter. “We live in a country that’s full of clowns and crooks stealing money from us,” he says, raising over his head a large cutout of a caricature of Najib.
It is hard to discredit their frustration. Najib took power in 2009 promising to bring the country into the 21st century, emphasizing ethnic plurality, economic growth, and good governance. Instead, he has supported not only policies that not only reinforce the country’s ethnic tensions — Malaysia is about 60% ethnic Malay, 25% Chinese, and 10% Indian — but plot the blueprint of a security state. In the year and a half since the 1MDB scandal erupted, he has penalized his detractors, shutting down or prosecuting media outlets that aspire to transparency in their political reporting. His party, the right-wing United Malays National Organization (UMNO), is stronger than ever.
“We are looking at a collision between what has been a clubby, insular Malaysian political order and the norms and the expectations of the wider world,” Michael Montesano, a researcher at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, tells TIME. “The nagging question is whether movements like Bersih point to patterns in social change in Malaysia that will lead to a different outcome.”
The prelude to Saturday’s protest was an anxious one. The night before, it was reported that Maria Chin Abdullah, Bersih’s chairperson, and her colleague Mandeep Singh had been arrested at the Bersih headquarters on charges of “activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy.” On Monday, Rafizi Ramli, a prominent opposition politician, had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for revealing “state secrets” concerning the 1MDB scandal.
The prosecution of two largely popular progressive figures “tipped the scales,” opposition lawmaker Wong Chen says, prompting Malaysians to flood the streets rather than stay at home. “The government really wants to keep people away, and I think it’s backfiring,” Ambiga Sreenevasan, a human-rights lawyer who organized earlier iterations of Bersih, tells TIME. “The Malaysian people are fuming.”
Rafizi Ramli is currently out on bail, and when he showed up at Saturday’s demonstration, he was treated as a celebrity. He was a good sport about the dozens of selfies he was asked to pose for.
“I’ve been in the so-called reform movement since I was 21, and every year we make gains inch by inch,” he told TIME late in the afternoon, as rain began to fall over the city. “It may not seem momentous, but it’s 10 or 15 times more than what it once was. The fact that people come out, in spite of all the intimidation, means that we have reached something that is unstoppable.”
KEPALA BATAS, July 8 — Two NGOs today lodged four police reports against Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming of the DAP over what they claimed to be a Facebook post that insulted Aidilfitri.
The Malaysia Heritage Club (Keris) and Malaysian Association of Youth Clubs Penang made the reports at the police station here through Keris Secretary-General Azman Hassan and MAYC Penang Chairman Saiful Anuar.
Azman claimed that Nga’s Facebook post carried a caricature of children and guests receiving Aidilfitri ‘duit raya’ cash packets and likened it to bribery.
“Nga’s action is clearly an insult demeaning a noble deed at a time when Muslims are celebrating Aidilfitri,” he told reporters after lodging the reports at the police station.
He said it was hoped that the police would investigate the person who drew the caricature as well as the owner and administrator of the Facebook account.
Azman said Nga, as an elected representative, should have been more sensitive and not link the Aidilfitri celebration to political elements.
“We ask Nga to withdraw the post and make an open apology in the same Facebook account,” he said. — Bernama
Do you know the best way to defeat the Malays? No need to fight them. Just sit back and watch them kill one another. So what DAP’s ‘Superman’ said during the Sarawak by-election was actually very true. All the Chinese need to do is to support one group of Malays to fight another group of Malays and the Malays will wipe themselves out.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
I was already 18 going on 19 in 1969 when the race riot (and not the first race riot, mind you) erupted on 13th May, three days after the Saturday, 10th May, general election.
Much has been said and written about one of these dark periods in Malaysian history (oh yes, we have had many dark periods in Malaysian history). Nevertheless I was there, so I can tell you what happened (or partly about what happened) from an eyewitness’s account.
It is true that on the 11th and the 12th of May the non-Malays were parading (at least from what I witnessed in Bangsar and Brickfields where I lived) and were shouting insults at the Malays and telling the Malays to leave Kuala Lumpur and balek kampung because the Chinese now own the town(s), etc. However, that was not why ‘May 13’ started. That was the excuse they used to start ‘May 13’.
In fact, I was not only a witness to the events in early 1969, I was also at the anti-government demonstration in front of Pudu Jail earlier (where we got shot with tear gas) and I attended all the opposition ceramahs in Brickfields, which were very inflammatory and racial in tone.
So, yes, there was a build-up to the 13th May 1969 race riot and it was built up over a period of time. But then this was intentionally allowed to happen. And as much as Tunku Abdul Rahman tried to curtail all this and he issued instructions to the police to clamp down on the racial rhetoric, there were others in Umno and in the government who countermanded the Tunku’s orders and undermined Tunku so that the racial heat can build up even higher.
And this was why the Tunku stepped down one year later in 1970. The Tunku did not step down because of May 13 or because he failed to stop May 13. He stepped down because of a broken heart. His heart was broken by the fact that so many Malaysians had to die unnecessarily (some estimates put it at 600 and others at thousands, although ‘officially’ it is less than 200) just because some people in Umno were trying to oust him from power.
Even decades later the Tunku would still break down and cry whenever he talked about this. You can see he was still upset until the day he went to his grave and one of the people he blamed for ‘May 13’ was Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The Tunku even went so far as to say that Malaysia would be cursed if Mahathir ever took over as Prime Minister.
Over the last ten years since 2006 (when Mahathir first launched his campaign to oust Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) Mahathir has travelled the length and breadth of Malaysia to talk about how Malays lost power. Yes, that is the gist of Mahathir’s lectures — about how Malays lost political power and now have to share power with the non-Malays.
Mahathir starts with the story of Melaka and about how some Malays collaborated with the Portuguese, which resulted in the collapse of the Sultanate in 1511 and which resulted in Melaka and eventually the rest of Malaya getting colonised for hundreds of years (and for Penang and Singapore becoming Chinese-owned).
Anwar Ibrahim, however, has a slightly different version of that same story. Anwar says it was because of the treachery of the Mamak that Melaka fell. And that is why ‘Mamak Bendahara’ (meaning Mahathir, the then Prime Minister) must be ousted. It is actually quite hilarious considering that Anwar himself is Mamak so it was actually a battle of the Mamaks but using the Malays to fight this battle.
Anyway, the point that Mahathir was making (at least in his lectures over the last ten years since 2006) is that the Malays perpetually fight amongst themselves and in the end the foreigners take over the country. And Mahathir is also telling us that unless the Malays unite then Malaysia will always be in danger of getting colonised or the non-Malays would be able to grab political power.
This was what Mahathir told the Malays in 2006-2008 when he wanted to oust Abdullah and this is what Mahathir is telling us now when he wants to oust Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. The Malays fight with the Malays and the non-Malays or foreigners end up taking over the country.
In 1969, Mahathir told the Tunku that the reason the Malays were very angry (and did not vote Umno) was because he (the Tunku) gave too much face to the Chinese. In 2013, Mahathir told Najib the same thing: that he (Najib) was giving too much face to the Chinese (who do not support the government anyway) and was neglecting the Malay voters (who are actually Umno’s support base).
As Mahathir is so fond of telling us, the Malays love to self-destruct. The Malays love fighting each other. Malays suffer from a syndrome called PHD (perangai hasad dengki). They can’t stand seeing someone have more than them so if you spend RM1,000,000 on your daughter’s wedding then I must spend RM1,500,000 and if you invite Mahathir as your VIP guest then I must invite Mahathir and Muhyiddin Yassin.
Yes, the Malays first became divided in 1951 when PAS was created (by Umno people themselves). Then, in 1987, the Malays further became divided due to a power struggle within Umno (that involved Mahathir and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah) and which resulted in the creation of Semangat 46. In 1998, the Malays became divided, yet again, due to, yet again, another power struggle in Umno and Parti Keadilan Nasional was created followed by an opposition coalition.
So the history of the Malays is that every few years they will fight and they will get divided and they will become a little bit weaker because of it. And the non-Malays will take advantage of this (as they should) and unite while the Malays divide.
Over the last two years the Malays have become divided even more, the worst ever in history. Umno is divided with the Mahathir faction leading the ANC (Anti-Najib Campaign). PAS is divided with the creation of PAN a.k.a. Amanah as the breakaway party. PKR, a Malay-based multi-racial party, is also divided with the Anwar and family faction on one side and the Azmin Ali faction on the other.
Yes, and while the Malays are divided into six, or maybe even seven or eight, the Chinese are united under Pakatan Harapan. And because the Malays now see how weak they have become and now that they realise they no longer have bargaining power like they used to (and that even MCA, MIC, Gerakan, etc., now dare challenge Umno when in the past they would not dare squeak) the Malays need to find someone to blame. And the most convenient scapegoat would be to blame the Chinese for this.
This is a typical Malay attitude. When they are lazy and they fail, they will say this is God’s will (so they blame God for their failure). When they fight amongst themselves and become weak, they will blame the Chinese for uniting and for splitting the Malays. When they are bankrupt of ideas, they will use Islam as the political weapon or political platform and then will blame the non-Muslims for insulting Islam or for not respecting Islam.
Do you know the best way to defeat the Malays? No need to fight them. Just sit back and watch them kill one another. So what DAP’s ‘Superman’ said during the Sarawak by-election was actually very true. All the Chinese need to do is to support one group of Malays to fight another group of Malays and the Malays will wipe themselves out.
Malaysia’s opposition alliance said yesterday it will scrap a planned High Speed Rail (HSR) line between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur if it won federal power, and replace it with a railway connecting two key cities in East Malaysia – Tawau in Sabah and Kuching in Sarawak.
The proposal to ditch the HSR project and pump the estimated RM35 billion (S$11 billion) saved into East Malaysia was presented by Pakatan Harapan (PH) on the sidelines of a Parliament session, ahead of Prime Minister Najib Razak’s tabling of the 2016 Budget tomorrow.
The opposition claimed the HSR line would largely benefit only those working in and around Kuala Lumpur and in Singapore, and that the project is unnecessary at this point because Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are already served by excellent air and road links.
Selangor MP Ong Kian Ming, a member of PH’s Budget drafting committee, argued that the HSR would likely cost more than a rail network linking Sabah and Sarawak, and would significantly add to Malaysia’s debt levels if both were to be built together.
“HSR is not as important given that there are many cheaper and affordable options to travel between Malaysia and Singapore. The multiplier effects would be lower compared to a new railway network in East Malaysia and hence, the preference for the second cheaper and more necessary rail project,” he told The Straits Times.
Sabah and Sarawak have long been stronghold states of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition. With Sarawak state polls to be called by next year, the move by the opposition is seen as a concerted play for East Malaysian votes. National elections are due in 2018.
Democratic Action Party chairman Tan Kok Wai said the new railway and other financial benefits to be allocated to Sabah and Sarawak in the opposition’s “alternative Budget”, are meant to develop the two states “long neglected” by BN.
The HSR plan has gained traction, with about 150 firms responding to Malaysia’s Land Public Transport Commission and Singapore’s Land Transport Authority’s Request For Information exercise this month.
