Reject Najib And His Dedak-Fed Enablers

Reject Najib and His Dedak-Fed Enablers

M. Bakri Musa

www.bakrimusa.com

Prime Minister Najib Razak is painful to listen to; I have long ago tuned him out. His shrill voice grates. He raises it often when he tries to make a point. Instead, all he succeeds in doing is to sound like a hooker who has been spurned. His frequent and irritating hand gestures make him look like a monkey in heat. He mangles his rojak “Manglish” to the point of being incomprehensible. Those would be hilarious if caricatured by a consummate comedian. Najib however fancies himself a mesmerizing orator with a great stage presence. Such divergence of fantasy from reality!

     Those irritating habits are not enough to ignore him. After all, he is Prime Minister. The reason I tuned him out is less his inability to discern fantasy from reality rather that the stuff coming out of his mouth nauseates me. What he utters is also dangerous to Malaysia. Likewise his actions; he is unabashed in his support for the rabidly racist “red shirts” in his party. Way back when he was UMNO Youth leader, he was notorious for his racist taunts, as with brandishing his keris dripping with tomato sauce, to symbolize Chinese blood. He soiled, literally, a hallowed icon of our culture.

     Compared to those, his telling Malaysians and the world that the billions he received from Saudi Arabia that ended up in his personal bank account was a generous “gift” would seem benign and ordinary, more so in corrupt Third World Malaysia.

      I do not fault Malays in the kampungs for believing him on that one. Not that they are gullible. Far from it! Rather they harbor and cherish the old Malay values of respect and trust in our leaders. Malays are tolerant of their leaders to a fault. However as with everything else, there is a limit to that.

     What I find incredulous is the gullibility of his ministers and officials. Even the sultans bought into Najib’s spin, or to be more accurate, Najib bought them! Kampung folks call that dedak, the rice husks they feed to their chickens. Throw some into their pen and they would rush in. Then all you had to do was close the barn door behind you. You had secured those birds for the night.

      Najib’s dedak comes in many guises; for his ministers, continued appointments; senior officials, promises of post-retirement lucrative GLC directorships; and party apparatchiks, headships of statutory bodies or an ambassadorship to Timbuktu. For the sultans, a few lucrative contracts thrown their way and they would then outdo the similarly dedak-fed ulama in quoting hadith on the importance of loyalty to leaders.

     Back to that earlier generous Saudi “donation.” First he claimed that was “reward” for Malaysia’s fight against ISIS. Then when reminded that ISIS was formed much later or that he had once urged his UMNO Youth members to emulate them, Najib backed down. Those millions then morphed into an outright “gift.” Even Najib did not believe that for he later claimed he had returned it. I wonder at his donor’s reaction to that!

      The man cannot keep his story straight. He is a liar.

      Gift or donation, that transaction triggered massive legal proceedings in no fewer than five jurisdictions, including the mother of all lawsuits, the American DOJ civil asset forfeiture under its Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative (KARI). Switzerland and Singapore have jailed a few of the involved principals. The DOJ suit euphemistically referred to Najib as “Malaysian Official 1,” the top culprit.

      Unlike many in Malaysia including his current nemesis Mahathir, my low expectations of Najib began much earlier. If not for his many enablers, Mahathir and Tengku Razaleigh in particular, men indebted to his late father, Najib would today be at best nothing but a middling civil servant in one of the many backward districts in Pahang.

      Unlike Najib’s many enablers, I discerned Tun Razak’s many sinister sides in Najib. So too his kampung constituents back in Pekan, for Najib had a near-death political experience there in the 1999 election when he squeaked in by a mere 241 votes out of a total of over 26,000. The number of rejected votes far exceeded his majority. The influx of “late” postal votes from the army tipped the balance for him. At that time he was the Minister of Defense.

      Tun Razak is today hailed a national hero; his body rests in the Heroes Mausoleum at Masjid Negara. Less acknowledged is that he enlisted in the Japanese Army during The Occupation. Today his son Najib carries on that traitorous tradition. Najib (and UMNO) collaborates with China’s Communist Party, forgetting that it helped its Malaysian counterpart during the brutal Emergency years.

      Tun Razak’s hypocrisy is also well hidden. He claimed to be a nationalist and a champion of Malay language. He exhorted Malay parents to enroll their children in Malay schools. Meanwhile he sent all his to English schools, and in England to boot. I wonder where he found the money for that; his minister’s pay would not do it. Najib inherits that hypocrisy. He exhorts everyone to be frugal and adjust to the high cost of living triggered by his GST. Meanwhile he and his family jet worldwide and vacation on luxury yachts in the Mediterranean, at taxpayers’ expense of course. His stepson, whose father was an army officer, owns luxury condos and mansions in Manhattan and Beverly Hills. He did at least until the KARI lawsuit.

      Most unpardonable as well as dangerous of all is this: Tun Razak was instrumental in the ugly race riots of May 1969 following a drubbing his coalition suffered in the very divisive general elections. This upcoming May 9th general elections have already degenerated into an even uglier and more divisive battle, except that the polarization this time is now among Malays in contrast to the interracial one, specifically between Malays and Chinese, in 1969. This coming election could prove even uglier and more vicious.

      Najib’s father divided Malaysians. Najib now divides Malays. Malaysians, Malays as well as non-Malays, cannot let him do that. Malaysians must never, ever let the country descend into another orgy of bloodletting.

     Najib is a leader with unbounded greed, devoid of trust, lacking in competence, and most of all, without an iota of integrity. He is pemimpin takde maruah dan tak beramanah (amoral and untrustworthy leader). Voters must reject Najib and his Barisan. Do it for the country. Finish the job Pekan voters attempted to do and nearly succeeded in 1999.

The author's latest book, The Son Has Not Returned. A Surgeon In His Native Malaysia, his second memoir, chronicles his years as a young surgeon in Malaysia in the 1970s.