Faisal Akram

As far back as 2013, Pakistani Muslim terrorists had plotted to take “foreign Jews” hostage to trade for ‘Lady Al Qaeda’. In 2022, a Pakistani Muslim terrorist actually went out and did it.

The hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform Temple in Texas, ended with Faisal Akram of Blackburn, another post-industrial English town where Muslims make up a third of the population and Pakistanis account for over 10 percent, dead, and his Jewish hostages set free.

Back home, the Blackburn Muslim Community page announced that “Faisal Akram has sadly departed from this temporary world” and prayed that Allah “bless him with the highest ranks of Paradise”.

The BMC page had previously promoted a “charity” event to raise money for “Palestinians” by the Human Relief Foundation, which had been banned by Israel over its ties to Hamas.

The town has produced no shortage of Jihadists, including the youngest terrorist in the UK, as well as a number of Jihadis who traveled to join ISIS, an associate of shoe bomber Richard Reid, and a terrorist who played a key role in an Al Qaeda plot that targeted New York and D.C.

Blackburn is one of the most segregated towns in the country and has been described as a “no-go zone”. The area that produced the Temple Terrorist has the highest Muslim population outside of London where some claim that flying the English flag has been effectively outlawed.

The setting couldn’t be any better for the media to whitewash the murderous terrorist with the familiar excuses that he was the victim of failed integration in the United Kingdom. His family, in an even more familiar excuse, is claiming that he “was suffering from mental health issues”.

That, along with the claim by FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno that the terrorist, “was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community”, is becoming the very familiar narrative for covering up the latest Muslim terror attack.

But antisemitism, like Islamism, was part of the air that Faisal Akram breathed in Blackburn.

Salim Mulla, Blackburn’s former mayor and current Labour councilor, claimed that Israel was behind ISIS and school shootings in America. Last year, four Muslim men from Blackburn took part in a “Palestinian” convoy while shouting, “F*** the Jews… F*** all of them. F*** their mothers, f*** their daughters and show your support for Palestine. Rape their daughters and we have to send a message like that. Please do it for the poor children in Gaza.”

Siddiqui aka Lady Al Qaeda, on whose behalf the Texas synagogue attack took place, was married to the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and had assorted recipes for mass murder in her possession when she was captured. Despite graduating from Brandeis, a formerly Jewish university, she demanded at her trial that jurors undergo DNA tests to prove that they are not Jewish. And the Aafia Foundation posted bizarre antisemitic rants about the “degree of poisonous venum (sic) within the heart of American mainstream jewry”.

The harted of Jews, like the hatred of all non-Muslims, is a crucial motive for Islamic terrorism.

If Blackburn is a miserable place, the tale of the Akram family may reveal why. The official family statement by the terrorist’s brother, Gulbar Akram, claims that “although my brother was suffering from mental health issues we were confident that he would not harm the hostages” and denied that the FBI had rescued the hostages from being killed by his brother. “Don’t believe the bull#### in the media they were released from the fire exit and Not rescued.”

The Blackburn Community message describes the terrorist as having brothers named “Gulbar”, “Malik” and the “Late Gulzameer Akram”.

Two brothers named Gulbar Akram and Gulzameer Akram in Blackburn had been locked up over stolen cars. Another time, a Blackburn resident named Gulbar Akram almost had his nose sliced off. A Gulzameer Akram ran a massive counterfeiting operation from a Blackburn home. A Malik Akram was locked up for harassing girls. Were all of them members of the same clan?

The best way to cover up a terrorist attack is to shift the context. And that’s what they’re doing. But it’s important to dig into the true context to understand the true origins of the Texas attack.

In his book, Among the Mosques, ex-Islamist Ed Husain described Blackburn as “another global hub for the Deobandis and the Tableeghi Jamaat” where the mosques pray for the destruction of the enemies of Islam and texts declare that “there can be no reconciliation between Islam and democracy”.

The Deobandis, who control many of the mosques in Blackburn, originated the Taliban.

Aafia Siddiqui, better known as ‘Lady Al Qaeda’, is a Deobandi, the terrorist on whose behalf Faisal Akram took a synagogue hostage, and a popular cause with Pakistanis. A few years ago the Pakistani Senate had even named the Islamic terrorist, the “Daughter of the Nation”.

Indian Mujahideen co-founder Riyaz Bhatkal had plotted to take Jews hostage a decade ago in order to force ‘Lady Al Qaeda’s release. British Muslim “charities” were a major source of funding to the Jihadist group as they are for many Pakistani Jihadist enterprises.

While much has been made of the advocacy on behalf of Siddiqui by CAIR and other Islamist colonists in America, top Muslim politicians in the UK also vocally demanded her release, including Lord Nazir Ahmed and Lord Altaf Sheikh.

When Husain visited Blackburn, he warned that, “it is clear that a caliphist subculture thrives here, a separate world from the rest of British society.”

Tableeghi Jamaat, whose mosques are known as “breeding grounds” for Jihad, is closely intertwined with Pakistani Islamism and vectored Islamic terrorism. Quite a number have joined Al Qaeda. It is no coincidence that so many Islamic terrorists have come out of Blackburn.

Nor is it a coincidence that the latest Islamic terrorist attack on America originated there.

Faisal Akram traveled to Texas, where ‘Lady Al Qaeda’ sleeps at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth. He was one of many Muslim pilgrims seeking to extricate her. Just last fall, the Dallas-Forth Worth CAIR and the Pakistani terror regime claimed that Aafia Siddiqui had been assaulted in U.S. custody in the latest effort of many on behalf of ‘Lady Al Qaeda’.

Faisal’s target, a progressive Reform Temple which happened to carry the traditional name of Congregation Beth Israel despite its social justice activist clergyman’s hostility to Israel, was ideally selected to fit Muslim antisemitic obsessions with both Israel and Jews.

The antisemitic rants, the hostage crisis, and the rapid cover-up are all regular features of life for Jews in Europe. Changing demographics are making them a new reality for American Jews.

Any American city or town can become the new Blackburn. That’s the harsh lesson here.

Pakistani antisemitism and obscure Jihadist movements are not local issues, they are global threats. The poison nurtured in a declining British post-industrial town blew up in Texas. We are all interconnected, and that interconnectedness has made the Jihad into a global enterprise. Ideas, tactics, and organizations that once took centuries to colonize the world can travel around it at the speed of the internet and a terror plot can happen at the speed of a jet plane.

We can either police our borders, control our immigration, and build walls around our nations, or we must be resigned to being hunted, stalked, and killed anywhere and at any given moment.

In Blackburn, Muslims anticipate the Texas Jihadist ascending to the “highest ranks of Paradise” where he will enjoy the company of 72 virgins.

False Victory

COMMENT | A recently retired diplomat who worked for BN, Pakatan Harapan and limped along for Perikatan Nasional, posed the question which is the title of this piece.

We have to ask, who is doing the hoping, here? When Harapan political operatives talk about how Malaysians voted for “change” this was not really reflected in who the majority of Malaysians voted for.

However elections have consequences and the fact that Harapan could have carried out a reform agenda but chose not to, is now being framed as Harapan did not have much time or to blame Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Keep in mind that Harapan political operatives were assuring everyone that they had methods to restrain the old maverick before the election. But you know what, and this is the dirty little secret, there were many Harapan non-Malay political operatives who actually approved of Mahathir and were sceptical of Anwar Ibrahim.

Harapan framed the dethroning of Umno/BN as some sort of apocalyptic showdown. When they were in power, they spent most of the time backtracking on their campaign promises and gaslighting the people who voted for them that all was kosher in the coalition.

Harapan blamed the Sheraton Move on the derailing of the reform agenda but this would only make sense if they were not walking back on reforms to the lead up to the Sheraton Move. This would mean the hard work and long efforts that Gene Sharp (folks should read his books) talks about.

The underlying motive of the plotters of the Sheraton Move was racial and religious in nature, in that the DAP was used (again) as the punching bag for Malay anxiety. 

This meant that nobody really believed the New Malaysia propaganda. Keep in mind that Harapan was not a populist movement which was reflected in voter share.

When it comes to ketuanan politics, maybe a good voting chunk of the majority do not want to give up their ketuanan status. 

Nobody wants to give up their special privileges, especially when those privileges sustain families and communities through the vagaries of a changing economic and geopolitical landscape.

But the big question is, do the majority of Malaysians want reform? When I say majority I include non-Malays as well. 

Is there any real interest in reforming the system beyond seeing that Najib Abdul Razak and the court cluster don orange jumpsuits?

What does "hope" mean in the context of this specific demographic? Hope that a political coalition would point out the abuses of Article 153 of the Federal Constitution? 

We know there have been Umno ministers who said that Malay “rights” to entitlement programmes should remain in perpetuity and we know that opposition political operatives have no real agenda to deal with this question, beyond blathering on about needs-based affirmative action.

Hope that a coalition would save the majority from the excesses of religion which is enabled by a vast religious bureaucracy that intrudes into every facet of Malaysian life? Well, Mujahid Yusof Rawa had no problem justifying the budget that Harapan gave to the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim).

Religion of the state

When a religion – any religion – is made the religion of the state, it is, by very definition, potentially confrontational. Non-Muslims have to understand then when it comes to Islam in this country, secular rules of engagement do not apply.

Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in last year’s annual general assembly promised to “empower” syariah law by changing the Federal Constitution if it got a supermajority. 

Does anyone really think a supermajority is needed? All it needs is a vote in Parliament and we would have Muslim political operatives (who are engaged in a protracted political fight in the Malay establishment) attempting to outdo each other in bragging rights about how they turned this country into a model Islamic nation or making justifications for abandoning their non-Malay vote base because this was about the religion of the state. 

Hope that a coalition would support the rhetoric of young Malays like Fadiah Nadwa Fikri who wrote this, and in my piece about the fascist attack (during Harapan’s tenure), I highlighted the three questions she posed, which I will reproduce here because they are damn good questions.

1. Mengapa golongan yang darahnya merah, semerah darah mereka yang dipaksakan kepatuhan kepada golongan itu, mempunyai hak keistimewaan tersendiri?
2. Mengapa golongan yang memerah hasil keringat mereka yang bersusah payah berjuang untuk terus hidup dan mencari kehidupan yang manusiawi perlu diberikan layanan dan pemujaan persis tuhan?
3. Mengapa golongan yang dikurniakan secara mutlak mengikut budi bicara sendirinya kuasa besar dan kekayaan yang dirampas daripada mereka yang diperhambakan, kebal daripada kepertanggunjawaban?

Hope that a coalition would seriously want to reform the state security apparatus? 

The fact that when Harapan was in power, they chose by omission to endorse the victimhood narrative of the state security apparatus when it comes to oversight, should tell us everything we need to know about efforts to reform the police force, not to mention the complete indifference to state-sanctioned kidnappings.

Do I think that the majority of Malaysians hate each other? No, I do not think so. 

Do I think the majority of Malaysians want a just and equitable system? No, I do not think so. 

The average rakyat, no matter who they vote for, do not have the animus against each other that is often in full display on social media or in the machinations of political operatives.

Do I think that Malaysia needs a real alternative to the system in place? Yes, I do.

Wannabe Camel Jockey

COMMENT | Abdul Hadi Awang’s recent rejoinder of PAS’ commitment to a Malay uber alles government is not merely a political commitment towards Malaysia’s ethnocratic state of play but rather a clarion call for believers who understand demographic is destiny.

Commander Thaya in the UK

Hadi’s version of Islam is frankly atavistic, the kind of demagoguery that some “Islamic” states are trying to withdraw from.

What makes Hadi so dangerous is not the electoral prospects of PAS. What makes Hadi so dangerous is not the incompetency of PAS political operatives on a state or federal level. What makes Hadi so dangerous is not the biased response of the state when it comes to his provocations.

What makes Hadi so dangerous is that his narrative of Islam remains unchallenged by the political mainstream. Our slowly eroding public and private spheres is all part of the plan when it comes to turning Malaysia into an Islamic state. 

Think of it this way. Hadi who used to hold high office in an international Islamic organisation deemed a terrorist organisation by certain Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, is confident enough to claim:

“The Arab civilisation was respected because of Islam but is now crumbling under the weight of their own crimes by recognising the Zionist regime and neglecting Palestine and its rights.

"They are now driven by their belief and admiration for the Zionist Jewish powers-that-be, more than to trust in God, Islam and their fellow Muslims." 

So what this means is that religious extremists in Malaysia do not really need to look for inspiration elsewhere but rather the seeds of what they believe constitutes a genuine Islamic state has already been planted in Malaysia. 

In other words, they have successfully influenced policy decisions in certain states, slowly shaping them into what PAS believes is the destiny of Malaysia.

I refer to it as the "balkanisation" of moderation when it comes to the influence of religion on public policy. 

Pockets of areas in Malaysia where the kind of Islam Hadi advocates does not have as firm a grip as it does where PAS and their Malay uber alles allies run riot.

People think it is funny when Hadi claims he does not understand why non-Muslims do not understand why Islam is the solution to humanity’s problems. 

First off, every religion thinks it is the solution to humanity's problem, which is ironic because religion is the cause of most of humanity's problems.

What folk do not seem to understand is that you can mock Hadi all you want on social media, but the reality is that he is winning. 

His ideas have seeped into every facet of Malaysian life. The mainstream political establishment is held hostage by his belief system.

Muslim solidarity

What people forget is that Hadi is not posing that question to non-Muslims. That particular question is aimed at believers who already believe that Islam is the solution and it is incumbent on them to force the solution on everyone regardless of religious belief.

Ideas of majoritarian rule and how demographics enable such are themes in an ongoing fascist take over of this country. 

When Hadi talks of Western ideologies and their effects on mainstream Malay culture and polity, these are ideas that have been used to justify the Islamisation of this country.

For instance in March 2017, during a debate regarding Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 (Act 355) proposed amendments, lawyer Aidil Khalid argued: “In turn, some (of these laws) are based on the principles of morality from Christian principles.

"Muslims in this country have been subjected to the civil laws, we do not complain." 

On the other side opposing the motion were lawyers Ambiga Sreenevasan and Haris Ibrahim. 

Haris said that he would not have the Islam he believes in taken away from him. The tragedy is that his version of Islam is anathema to mainstream Malaysian Islam.

Hadi understands that he will be vilified by non-Malay political operatives but he also knows that when it comes to actual policymaking, his rhetoric and that of his base will have a profound impact, even though politically in terms of representation, PAS may be negligible especially in the federal government.

What separates Hadi from the rest of the Umno-aligned herd is that the PAS base still believes that they have a shot at truly influencing the direction of this country. 

They do not view what Hadi says as malicious or bigoted, indeed because of the millions of ringgit spent on religious schools and governmental propaganda, the kind of Islam PAS advocates is mainstream.

And it does not matter if PAS does not win elections, especially in urban areas. Actually, more often than not, it is a point of pride that they continue hacking away, even though they lose. 

This is why Hadi gets to dismiss corruption and not suffer any blowback.

If Zakir Naik can claim that it is better to vote for corrupt Muslim leaders than honest non-Muslim leaders, Hadi can certainly propagate the narrative that Muslim solidarity means never having to be sanctioned for corruption.

I remember when Pakatan Rakyat had that "PAS for all" propaganda which I was bitterly opposed to.

Illegal Rohingyas

COMMENT | Two years back, I got into trouble with my 'progressive' friends for writing a piece about the Rohingya issue that was not politically correct. I have not revised my opinion on the matter.

I reproduce three points from the article that demonstrate why political operatives and advocacy groups profit from the Rohingya and refugee issue while further dividing this country.

(1) We should be denying and curtailing the influx of Rohingya into this country, who for years have been living off the political machinations of the Malay Muslim political establishment.

When it was convenient to use these 'economic' migrants for political and religious purposes, Malay political operatives from both sides of the divide were using them as examples of the 'injustices' the Muslim community faced in the world and using them as a rallying cry for local Muslim solidarity.

(2) Of course, there has been no discussion or accountability of the millions of dollars of aid from Muslim countries and Western organisations for the benefit of the Rohingya community.

Neither has there been accountability for the numerous Rohingya organisations that claim to advocate for the community but have been assimilated into various Muslim advocacy groups in the country.

(3) What we are dealing with is the economic fallout of decades of political and religious manipulation of the state and the misguided intentions of non-Malay participants in creating a powder keg of racial imbalances in the majority Malay community.

MCA Beliawanis (MCA Young Women's Bureau) chief Ivone Low Yi Wen got some folks' knickers in a twist when she commented on the thug-like behaviour of “refugee children” in a series of online video clips.

Pengerang MP Azalina Othman Said said children should not be blamed when 'the country' failed to protect them.

Well actually, no, the 'country' did not fail to protect them. The political apparatus of this country failed to protect them as it has failed with a great many issues.

Depending on the racial and class structure of the country, a certain section does not want them here, another section is using them for political mileage, and another section probably thinks that open borders are a good thing.

Predictable voices of condemnation

The predictable voices of condemnation came from social activist cliques, paid activists, and the usual assortment of political operatives – who to be fair to them some have done sterling work on marginalised communities here in Malaysia.

These voices are just further perpetuating political narratives that complicate homegrown issues of race and religion. Both sides are using children to score political points.

It really does not matter if it is BN, Perikatan Nasional, or Pakatan Harapan. Each at one time or another, most likely when out of government, has used refugees, especially Muslim refugees, as pawns in an effort to discredit the ruling party or attempt to show how the support of refugees translates to supporting the Malay polity.

All this is not only hypocritical but also mendacious as both attempt to portray the situation as a religious one - when it comes to Muslim refugees - as opposed to economic or political ones.

Consider the online reception then human resources minister M Kulasegaran received when he reminded the Harapan government of its campaign pledge to allow refugees to work.

Here, and in other places, he was vilified for not looking after “Malaysians first” and predictably the Harapan government had a rethink on how to approach this issue.

But this did not stop political operatives – Malay and non-Malay – from pontificating on the “plight” of refugees in Malaysia.

As it is, we have enough Malaysians who are having it rough because successive elected governments are more interested in maintaining power through race and religion than by actually formulating policies that would help all Malaysians.

All these Malay uber alles political operatives are now discovering that decades of religious and immigration malfeasances have resulted in a polity that is competing with a host of Muslim migrants in a time of a pandemic.

And the resentment is slowly bubbling to the top. This is why we have articles in the foreign media about how once welcomed refugees are being harassed online and in the streets of urban areas in Malaysia.

All this should be understood in the context of the nexus between political power, the state security apparatus, and criminal enterprise when it comes to not only human trafficking but also corporate needs when it comes to cheap labour, which is further complicated in the era of Covid.

Meanwhile, non-Malay political operatives are reinforcing political narratives of the Malay power structures they are attached to.

The MCA for instance understands the agitation and resentment bubbling to the top in the Malay community when it comes to this issue. This is why Low gets battered online in the English-speaking/liberal Malay sphere and treated as a truth-speaker in the Malay sphere.

Meanwhile, it is the height of hypocrisy when non-Malay Harapan political operatives virtue signal when it comes to this issue but when in power, they and their base discarded this issue because they realised it was political kryptonite.

This is exactly why high-profile Malay political operatives from Harapan who are extremely vocal on certain issues are muted on this issue.

Someone in the Malay political establishment – politically unaffiliated – who for years stoked this issue (for BN and Harapan), now tells me that he is shocked by how out of control this situation has become. And like me, he is worried about the security issue.

The reality is, and I know folks do not want to hear this, but if you think that we have extreme religious ideas here, you have no clue of the extreme ideas that could be (and have been) injected into the religious discourse by elements moving in migrant communities.

Both sides are attempting to get political profit from this issue. The question then becomes which side is going to reap the rewards.

The UNHRC vote [authorizing the formation of the COI] took place within weeks of a report by the Human Rights Watch NGO which accused Israel of “apartheid.”

This accusation is of course ludicrous. Israeli Arabs demonstrably enjoy equal civic and religious rights, while the Arabs living in the disputed territories aren’t Israeli citizens at all. Those who accuse Israel of apartheid not only defame Israel but belittle the real evil of apartheid in South Africa.

Yet with the three members of the commission each having a record of extreme hostility towards Israel, there are plausible fears that the inquiry is a stitch-up designed to produce a kind of Human Rights Watch report on steroids – and with the imprimatur of the UN.

Moreover, the commission has no expiry date but is to issue reports in perpetuity. In other words, it’s an institutionalized engine of demonization and delegitimization of Israel.

This three-man commission, all of them known to be hostile to the Jewish state – with a staff of 24 – is meant to issue quarterly reports on the “human rights” and “war crimes” situation in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, not merely for a year or two, but presumably forever, for nothing was said either by the UNHRC or by the General Assembly, which authorized the financing of the COI, about its ever coming to an end. It’s an open-ended probe of “war crimes” supposedly committed by those endlessly wicked Israelis.

There are particular fears that the inquiry’s criminal charge sheet may result in Israelis being hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has previously displayed bias against Israel. However, the ICC’s new prosecutor, the British lawyer Karim Khan QC, may not be the pushover [by the anti-Israeli crowd] that might be assumed from the court’s previous record.

At his first news conference in The Hague earlier this month, he said he would be reviewing his over-heavy caseload – which currently includes a deeply contentious investigation into accusations against Israel made by the “State of Palestine.”  

Karim Khan, QC, the new prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, sounds as though he thinks the ICC’s docket has been overburdened with cases, and that he will therefore be decreasing his caseload, pruning it of the least meritorious and least convincing cases of putative misdeeds. He has still not endorse the charges brought against Israel by the “State of Palestine,” as he might have — a good sign. More importantly, he added that he would only proceed in cases that had a “realistic prospect of conviction.” Another good sign.

So even if the Pillay commission’s toxic ball lands at Khan’s feet, it doesn’t follow that he will necessarily pick it up and run with it.

Karim Khan’s remarks about are evidence that he is not to be counted as automatically anti-Israel. The Palestinians who have been overloaded the ICC docket with accusations against Israel, will no doubt assume that a prosecutor named Karim Khan will be on their side; I suspect from his statement that they will be most disappointed.

Nevertheless, the real menace of this inquiry lies in its potential to demonize Israel in the eyes of the world regardless of any court proceedings. Such delegitimization not only makes people indifferent to attempts by Israel’s enemies to wage war against it, but also causes leading nations to seek to thwart its attempts at self-defense.

The UNHRC’s decision to establish this permanent Commission of Inquiry to look into misdeeds, including “war crimes,“ of Israel alone, coming on top of the Agenda Item #7 that commits the UN Human Rights Council, at every session, to report on the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories,” the world’s unwary — which is most of us — are likely to assume that there must surely be something terribly wrong with Israel, for so many investigations to be interminably launched into its conduct. This is what the author, Melanie Phillips, means by the potential of the COI to “demonize” Israel in the eyes of the world. Even If the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, decides not to bring charges against Israel before the International Criminal Court because of a lack of convincing evidence, the damage to Israel’s image will still have been done. The Jewish state’s enemies – especially the terror groups Hamas, PIJ, and Hezbollah — will be heartened, and “leading nations” may try to dissuade Israel from its perfectly legitimate attempts at self-defense. Because the terror groups deliberately hide themselves, their weapons, and their rocket launchers in civilian buildings – schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, it is not possible for the IDF to avoid all civilian casualties, though it makes heroic efforts to minimize them. And because of those unavoidable civilian casualties, there are countries that try to prevent Israel from defending itself. They demand of the Jewish state an impossible purity of arms that they demand of no other country, including themselves.

Accordingly, the Pillay inquiry constitutes an existential attack against Israel – the latest product of an obscene and exterminatory UNHRC obsession.

The council and its predecessor body the Commission on Human Rights – whose members have included such human rights abusers as Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, Pakistan and Russia – have passed more resolutions condemning Israel than every other country in the world combined, while adopting no resolutions on human rights abuses committed in China, Cuba and Russia….

This obsessive focus by the UN Council on Human Rights on Israel as a “violator” of human rights is accompanied by an equally disturbing unconcern with such abusers of human rights as Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and Russia.

These visionaries failed to grasp that, since the world was dominated by states and regimes that were both repressive and deeply imbued with Jew-hatred and hostility to Israel, any world body or supra-national system of law would itself become an accomplice to tyranny and antisemitism.

I’m not sure that Melanie Phillips is correct in stating that the world has been dominated by states that are “deeply imbued with Jew-hatred and hostility to Israel”; this strikes me as a more recent phenomenon, one that is linked to two things: the vast increase in wealth and political influence of the Sunni Arab states of the Gulf, and the enormous increase in the Muslim population in Europe and North America, which has spread antisemitic and anti-Israel views.

That’s why “lawfare,” or the weaponization of international law to wage war with better PR, has become a prime weapon against Israel, singling out the Jewish people alone for such unhinged attack….

Along with terror attacks on Israeli Jews, and the attacks on Israel’s economic wellbeing promoted by the army of BDSers, the Palestinians have used the UN to attack Israel as a “violator of human rights” when, at every session of the UN Human Rights Council, Agenda Item #7 is brought up. Now they will have still another lawfare weapon, that to be found in the open-ended investigation of “Israeli war crimes” that will be conducted by the UNHRC Commission of Inquiry.

If the decent nations of the world, led by the United States, and including most European nations, as well as Canada and Australia, were to halt their funding of the UN unless and until the UNHRC were shut down as “a malignant promoter of antisemitism in its singling out of Israel for criticism,” it just might come to pass. The US alone provides more than $11 billion a year to the UN, between one-fifth and one-quarter of the UN’s total budget. China, with an economy close in size to that of the US, contributes far less – only $1.7 billion a year. America’s withdrawal of its support to the UN would require the organization to pull in its horns. If in addition, the other Western nations were to join the US in withholding funds, this would amount to a 70% decrease in the organization’s budget. This would cripple the UN. Or, if a wholesale shutting-down of the UN Human Rights Council seems inadvisable to some of its critics, then another tack might be taken. In order for the UN to retain the financial support of the US and its allies, the Human Rights Council could continue to exist, but would be required to get rid of both Agenda Item #7 (that requires the UNHRC to take up Israeli “violations of the human rights of Palestinians” at every session) and of the newly-formed Commission of Inquiry, with its open-ended investigation of Israeli “war crimes.”

Sounds like a plan.

Why does this keep happening? In France, a Muslim quoted Qur’an while raping his victim. A survivor of a Muslim rape gang in the UK has said that her rapists would quote the Qur’an to her, and believed their actions justified by Islam. Thus it came as no surprise when Muslim migrants in France raped a girl and videoed the rape while praising Allah and invoking the Qur’an. In India, a Muslim gave a Qur’an and a prayer rug to the woman he was holding captive and repeatedly raping.

And the victim of an Islamic State jihadi rapist recalled: “He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God…He said that raping me is his prayer to God.” In India, a Muslim kidnapped and raped a 14-year-old Hindu girl, and forced her to read the Qur’an and Islamic prayers. In Pakistan, another Christian woman recounted that her rapist was also religious:

“He threw me on the bed and started to rape me. He demanded I marry him and convert to Islam. I refused. I am not willing to deny Jesus and he said that if I would not agree he would kill me.” Rapists demanded that another girl’s family turn her over to them, claiming that she had recited the Islamic profession of faith during the rape and thus could not live among infidels.

The Qur’an teaches that Infidel women can be lawfully taken for sexual use (cf. its allowance for a man to take “captives of the right hand,” 4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30). The Qur’an says: “O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.” (33:59) The implication there is that if women do not cover themselves adequately with their outer garments, they may be abused, and that such abuse would be justified.

However, anyone who points all this out will be excoriated as a “racist” and an “Islamophobe,” and accordingly ignored. If these foreigners aren’t Muslims, this incident still illustrates some of the folly and danger of mass migration.

It was just past 1:30 AM on New Year’s Eve when a girl was surrounded and harassed by about 30 boys near the Palazzo Reale in Milan, in the city center, a few steps from Piazza del Duomo. The 19-year-old tried to defend herself using the bag she carried with her, which was grabbed by her attackers as she tried to push them away.

This is the girl’s story. She told law enforcement that she had been groped and that at one point the group even tried to undress her. Fortunately, there were numerous law enforcement and police officers in the area, who quickly received the young woman’s alarm and were able to intervene immediately.

At the sight of the uniforms, the attackers disappeared in various directions, making their escape. The girl was immediately rescued by the officers, and for her, beyond a huge fright and shock, there were no more serious consequences. The young woman told investigators that her group of attackers was allegedly of foreign origin.

The fact has brought to light an age-old security problem common to all large cities on New Year’s Eve. It was 2016 when, in Cologne, Germany, 90 women reported having suffered harassment and violence by about 1000 drunk men, described by the victims as “apparently of Arab origin.”

Violence on New Year’s Eve

In that same area, a short distance from where the 19-year-old was attacked, just before dawn there was another episode of violence, with a fight that led to the injury of some young people. According to the first reconstructions, it seems an 18-year-old was stabbed in the neck by a 16-year-old at the height of a quarrel near Piazza del Duomo. Now the 18-year-old is hospitalized at the Milan polyclinic and is in serious condition. The operators found him in a pool of blood and her conditions immediately appeared very serious, so much so that now the young man struggles between life and death.

In all, 10 fights were recorded yesterday near the center of Milan. The work carried out by the police was important, who, in riot gear, guarded the pizza del Duomo and the surrounding areas trying to reduce the gatherings but it was impossible to avoid the formation of boys’ hats. Moments of tension also occurred in decentralized areas, such as Piazza Gae Aulenti, after around midnight the cars carried out an intervention due to an attack suffered by two boys by 7 foreigners.

For Commander Thaya's detractors, he was in the Navy long before you were swimming in your father's balls or just a dirty glint in your daddy's eyes!!

COMMENT | DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang said recently that Pakatan Harapan needs to resolve its “communication failures” before the next GE if not it will suffer from “misperceptions”. The four issues plaguing Harapan as enunciated by Kit Siang are not communication problems but rather credibility problems.Do not get me wrong. Harapan’s messaging, to put it bluntly, sucks. It is extremely difficult getting the messaging right when you claim to be an egalitarian coalition when you are too busy not spooking the Malays.

However, this could be overcome by tempering propaganda and concentrating on bread and butter issues.The credibility problem is more damaging and points to the dysfunctional nature of opposition politics in this country and the often toxic nature of the discourse that Harapan engineers. As for the “contradictory perception” that the DAP was both anti -Malay and sold out the non -Malays. The former is a political strategy as admitted by none other than the son of the old maverick. Mukhriz Mahathir is on record as saying the demonisation of the DAP by Umno, and by extension, all Malay uber alles parties, was a specific political strategy when they could not answer for the failings of governance.

The latter, though, is factual - the result of crushed expectations and a deliberate policy to benefit the Malay polity at the expense of the non- Malays. How do we know this? 

We know this because the former Harapan prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said so when publicly castrating Lim Guan Eng, who was the finance minister then.

To recap, Mahathir said - "We still have to give them, but what we gave to them was very small (compared to what the Malays got). But we could not say it then, because then the Chinese would be angry. "That's why we didn't talk about that. But now we have to because I have to explain this thing."

So, this idea of the DAP “selling out” the non- Malays is in reality the kind of politics that the DAP accused the MCA of practising. 

Not to mention while Guan Eng was kowtowing to the old maverick, he was waging a very public war with the MCA over the funding of TAR University College (TAR UC), going so far as telling the MCA, "Your time is up, your time is over. Let it be run as an educational institution."

While an education establishment, like UiTM – a bumiputera only one – gets all the funding it needs, TAR UC has to contend with the political machinations of the DAP using “government funding“ as window dressing to carry on a petty political dispute with an adversary it claims has no power or influence in the Chinese community.

This is why the Bangsa Malaysia kool-aid is so damaging to Harapan. The DAP for instance propagates this nonsense but neither in agenda nor policy does it have any intention of living up to this idea. 

I would argue that this propaganda has become some sort of political brainwashing.

The second issue is of course the failure of Harapan to deliver reforms. It is extremely cynical to claim that the Sheraton Move derailed the reform agenda. Firstly the prime minister had claimed that corruption was no longer a serious issue in Malaysia. 

Like I said in my previous piece, the old maverick prefers to advance a false narrative rather than confront the reality of corruption in Malaysia with all its religious warts.

Then the old maverick claimed that corruption brought down the Harapan government. Meanwhile, Harapan political operatives were busy attempting to retain power and publically feuding over who deserved to be prime minister when they obviously did not have the numbers to even make such a decision.

And as far as the reform agenda, Mahathir said that the Harapan manifesto was not worth the paper it was printed on - “We thought we were going to lose. We put in tough things in the manifesto so that if we lose, the (BN) government would be in a quandary (after winning the polls)."

“But now, we are the government. We are victims of our own manifesto.”

And before you go blaming the old maverick, Lim Guan Eng later admitted that everyone knew that Mahathir was not committed to the manifesto as reported in press – “Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was no longer committed to fulfilling Pakatan Harapan's election pledges, claimed DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.”

We now know that the Sheraton Move was orchestrated by elements, including the former prime minister, and all Harapan and the DAP did was hoodwink the public by claiming that all was the figment of the imagination of the press.

As for the third point, that of ending the political hegemony of Umno. This all goes back to the Manichean view of politics that comes with two-party systems. Ending Umno hegemony means attempting to reform the system not merely replacing the pieces on the political chessboard.

The fact that Harapan chose to continue existing racial and religious policies and use the excuse of time, may satisfy hardcore supporters but for those who harken back to the days of Umno stability, this does not carry any water.

Harapan could have formulated policies and funded entitlement programmes which actually would have helped the dominant Malay polity - but it instead attempted to take over existing Umno programmes to maintain political hegemony and the result is that Umno still managed to make a comeback, with convicted political operatives leading the charge while embroiled in internal party feuds.

And finally the MOU. Come on, Harapan and the DAP were not transparent about this issue at all. The original deal that could have been made with former prime minister Muhddyin Yassin was the better deal. Indeed one of the architects - or at least the public face of the first one - said more or less the same thing.

Instead, Harapan used the first deal to go for the killing blow and turned this country over to a bunch of incompetent political operatives. 

The second MOU, or whatever it is called, is proving to be a fig leaf and not worth the time commenting on, so communicating to the rakyat of this worthless deal should not be in the messaging of Harapan. 

As someone who supported both initiatives, the failure of both serves to remind me how duplicitous political operatives are. As if I needed reminding but I was honestly hoping that some sort of bipartisanship would serve the public better.

How on earth could Harapan supporters believe anything coming from Harapan? We need an opposition to hold the establishment accountable but so far all Harapan is demonstrating is that it wants to replace the establishment without changing the system.

Wouldn’t folks just vote for the original instead of the neo?

Mahathirudan

Malaysiakini : “Equality may be a fiction but nonetheless one must accept it as a governing principle.”― BR Ambedkar

COMMENT | In his rather downer New Year’s Eve speech, former (twice) prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, as reported in the press, said “…politics in Malaysia had become 'bad', and that the country was on track to becoming a failed nation”.

Well yes, the country has been on that track for some time now. It is pointless going over who put us on this track because the fact remains there has never been a political coalition that wants to get us off this track.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, then this yearly hoping for change from the political establishment (which includes the opposition) is well, insane or maybe just a comforting delusion that the political class encourages and certain voting polities eagerly cling too.

The reality is that Mahathir (above) is right. Little will change, or rather, little will change for the better. The change, if any, is the accelerated dismantling of our civil, economic and social rights under the guise of Malay/Muslim social, political and religious cohesion.

False narrative

If there were a central historical narrative as to why this country failed, it would not be because of corruption. It would be that our public institutions, our private and public spaces were overwhelmed by toxic religiosity that enabled a class of potentates free from the sanctions of secular laws – unlike the tenuous grip such laws now have on the ruling class.

People like Mahathir propagandise corruption as the route to a failed state but this is a false narrative. There has always been corruption in this country. What has made the system worse, the corruption acceptable are the efforts of religious extremists who are slowly emerging from the shadows. These religious fellow travellers use global economic and social vagaries as an excuse to further spread a toxic form of religiosity to control any agitation in the dominant voting polity.

We are at this weird moment on the destination of a failed nation status. Religious extremists are using gullible, kleptocratic political operatives to further their agendas, but there has never been a time when opposition to such agendas has been the most vocal. There is a false comfort in that.

Folks fixate on political personalities and while their attention is diverted, a whole slew of legally challengeable actions are attempted as some sort of dress rehearsal then withdrawn – in some cases – as a nod to Muslim/non-Muslim cooperation.

Think about it. When he babbled on about a Muslim-only cabinet in 2017, his dream came through with the treacherous Sheraton Move. 

The fact that the current bloated monstrosity masquerading as a cabinet that Abdul Hadi Awang envisioned is running this country is not the point. 

Maintain a facade

The point is that there are more than enough fellow travellers in the political, security and bureaucratic apparatus who believe that this is the natural God-given order of things. 

Do not get me wrong. The reason why this country has been able to maintain the facade of being a “moderate” Islamic country is the urban demographic and policy decisions that enabled relative economic success despite all the leakages. In other words, there was political will that this country would not turn into just another failed Islamic state.

The kidnapping of Pastor Raymond Koh and Amri Che Mat has emboldened religious operatives who believe their agendas supersede that of the state. The numerous deaths in custody normalise a certain kind of behaviour in the state security apparatus. 

Both make the supplanting of civilian rule to something darker much easier, especially with a cowed public.

In some Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia being the most glaring example, the idea of moderation as an economic survival mechanism is slowly gaining traction.

Malaysia in fact could make the claim that at one time, it was the kind of moderate Muslim success story that other countries could emulate.

Political situation unstable

However, while some Muslim countries learnt the hard way, that religious fascism destroyed their country, Malaysia is determined to tread that path. 

Because the political situation is unstable and because the ketuanan mentality has never dealt with disparate political coalitions, desperate political operatives are retreating to old tools that they believed ensured political hegemony.

The funny thing is that state governments controlled by the opposition bend over backwards to accommodate Muslims’ preoccupations and have to continuously defend themselves against charges of racism. 

This is why religious extremists understand that they do not need political power to change social and political paradigms.

What they need are feckless “reformers” who use religion (as they do as a means of control) and non- Muslim political operatives who gaslight the non-Muslim polity on respect and tolerance when the state is busy dismantling rights that ensure such tolerance and respect.

All these natural disasters, political machinations and the ongoing meltdown of the opposition is the fertile field in which these religious operators, aided by desperate political operatives, will continue planting their divisive policies.

This is what we have to look forward to in 2022. I hope that rational Malaysians will not buy into the kool-aid and remember that although we have not held the political establishment accountable for various partisan reasons, what makes us Malaysian, still shines through in moments of adversity.

There will be no such moments under a theocracy.

COMMENT | Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming’s sharing of his sunburn tweet captures the narcissism of some Harapan political operatives in dealing with this flood. Ong is so insecure that online folks are dissing the flood activism that he needs to respond to folks (anonymous or otherwise) that his actions are the real deal. It is not. Any time you see a political operative at a disaster site dressed in the required yellow boots or otherwise posing as if they are doing something, chances are they are not.Ong’s role in this disaster, as is the role of any federal MP, is to coordinate with the federal bureaucracy and keep updating the rakyat on the efforts of the federal government to mitigate the problems of those affected.

Meanwhile, state assemblypersons should be organising volunteer efforts and coordinating with various state agencies, NGOs, and the federal apparatus to ensure that whatever aid given is coordinated and not replicated while maintaining lines of communication with the public and the press.

If the report is true and the army had decided to intervene in flood relief efforts because of the inaction of state and federal operators, this opens up a whole can of worms when it comes to how the state and the federal governments are interacting when it comes to the welfare of the people.

All those fait acommpli statements by federal operatives and the Selangor MB sanctioning this intervention by the army is not only perverse – the army should have been called in immediately – but points to the dysfunctional politics of this country.

The man who wants to be the prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, calls for another useless royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on this whole fiasco because he needs to deflect from the utter incompetence of his own cohorts in running the state. 

I would argue for an independent third-party post mortem on Selangor’s response to this disaster that includes flood preparation but what would be the point?

Meanwhile, the man who is prime minister says for him “everyone must be held accountable,” which basically means no one will be held accountable and all this will devolve into a partisan pissing contest. 

Each side attempts to shape the narrative that folks were left stranded, abandoned, and in some cases dead, because of the inaction of the other side.

You can see the politics at play when it comes to the state National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) position when DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang implying that the PM had something to do with the change of position – which he most probably did – and Syahredzan Johan asking "Why didn’t the (then) Selangor NSC chairperson call for a state-level NSC meeting?"

Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari said that his not being the state-level chief of Nadma hampered efforts but he did all that he could including calling the prime minister and pleading for federal help.

Now if the reportage is factual and the Selangor Nadma were reluctant in calling in the army’s help, then there is a severe dereliction of duty and there should be an investigation. 

All this, of course, would turn into a partisan witch-hunt and unfortunately, no lesson would be learnt beyond partisans demonising each other.

Circular firing squad 

The real question is why the Selangor MB did not call for a meeting with all relevant agencies. Indeed why didn’t the MB, Harapan operatives in the state and federal levels offer the rakyat a coordinated plan of action instead of Twitter and Facebook activism of touring the disaster site and showboating?

Malaysian Relief Agency (MRA) vice-president Khairil Annuar Khalid claimed: “They (authorities and agencies) have no idea what to do because Klang Valley has never experienced a flood like this. There was no coordination between the federal and state governments, as well as inter-district coordination.”

The first point at first seems reasonable but considering that Selangor (Klang Valley) has a host of environmental issues which occur on a regular basis, claiming that you were not prepared for this kind of flooding when flooding does occur on a regular basis, makes fools of the folks who voted for you.

Now of course everyone seems to be pointing their fingers at various departments and agencies, which they claim were not listened to. 

All of this actually amounts to a circular firing squad and the fact that political operatives only listen to experts when they tell them things they want to hear and very often federal and state agencies are ignored because, as I said, the issues they bring up are not sexy enough for partisan appetites.

When I was in the armed forces, you made plans for the worst-case scenario and not only for things you can handle. 

There are enough policy and environmental wonks in Selangor who have been sounding the alarm for better preparedness for years but who have been ignored by the political apparatus.

The reality is that relevant state authorities and disaster management response teams do not get the same kind of political consideration as do other more press-friendly issues that state operators deem important to keep them in power.

The second point shows how the political culture in this country has become so toxic, that the average rakyat is at the mercy of political operatives who only seem responsive to their needs – and badly at that – when they can score political points.

Nobody should be arguing that the federal response was not complete horse manure but the reality is that the state is the first responder and how the state deals with this disaster demonstrate not only a lack of planning and coordination but more importantly, a lack of empathy.

Meanwhile, we have reports that “foreigners” were saving people, everyday citizens were helping out each other and folks had to hire boats to save themselves and their families. 

Former minister Rafidah Aziz had it right when it came to the federal response when she said: “All that the government seems to understand is to fall back on cash handouts, when people have lost their clothes and wouldn’t even be able to shop for things, with roads and vehicles badly damaged.”

Harapan holds itself to a higher standard and they should because this current government is demonstrating that it has no problem sinking to depths unheard of in past administrations, but all this just proves that Harapan yet again, could not organise an orgy in a brothel.

This time though it is about life and death.

COMMENT | Around this time, I usually put forward my own top news story and newsmaker of the year. This year, however, for me at least, the top news story is the flood and how the aftermath was badly mismanaged but more importantly, the ordinary Malaysians who come out to help their brethren in this time of crisis.

When it comes to the situation in Selangor, for instance, what we have seen is total incompetency and blame-shifting from the people who always claimed to be the better choice or “the lesser of two evils” – the common speak of partisans. 

Meanwhile, the federal government’s response borders, I believe, on the criminally negligent.

This flood has exposed not only the systemic dysfunction of a federal bureaucracy that only exists to sustain the hegemonic interests of ketuanan political parties but also the indifference of political elites towards the rakyat.

Can you imagine the deep cynicism and complete indifference to the suffering of flood victims when Women, Family and Community Development Minister Rina Harun stages her clean-up efforts? 

I know this was staged because various volunteers and citizens have been sending me images of what it took to stage such an event. 

Indeed, so mendacious was this stunt, that an old PAS friend, who is carrying out relief efforts on behalf of PAS, was livid and went on a long text rant about how “uncaring” this publicity stunt was.

If average citizens did not rise to the challenge, this could have been much worse. What this flood has demonstrated is that the rakyat cannot rely on the government.

The old conservative in me, who was always distrustful of big government, was conflicted because, even at a local level, the rakyat was let down.

Of course this being Malaysia, there were incidents where some folks decided that it was a good time to bring in race and religion. 

The fact that the hard work and spirit of volunteerism by all ethnic groups centred in a gurdwara was called into question by certain elements is further proof (as if we needed any) that the racial and religious indoctrination by the political establishment threatens to destroy the fabric of Malaysian society.

Remember when in July of this year, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang was reported in the press as saying that any decisions made in managing a disaster should place religion above other matters, including to preserve economic interests.

This is why the current government handing out token sums to people who have lost everything, is just sickening. 

Federal government failed

Meanwhile, politicians from both sides of the aisle were in damage control mode. 

All of which is pointless because there is enough blame to go around, but the cold hard truth is that the federal government failed in carrying out its responsibilities and obligations.

Agencies such as the police and the fire and rescue services failed in meeting the task that they were supposed to be trained for. 

For years the PDRM arrogantly claimed that they had the best interest of the rakyat at heart.

Honestly, with all the scandals facing the police force, one would have thought that this was the time when they mobilised and rose to the occasion.

Instead, they seem more interested in stopping an assemblyperson from greeting the big cheese.

I may be biased but the situation could have been a lot worse if the army did not step in.

The fact is that the armed services, and their various tributaries, should have been mobilised. But instead, a certain kind of paralysis prevented the political apparatus from discharging its duties.

This paralysis happens when you spend most of your time – if you are a Malay uber alles party promoting racial and religious supremacy – and if you are the opposition, telling everyone that you would do things differently but unfortunately, you don’t.

As someone from the state security apparatus who can remember a time, when the government was at least functioning even if mired in the slowly simmering tensions of race and religion, I know, what a functional response is, to these natural disasters. 

At least they were natural at one time, but corporate and political interests sustained by cronyism and corruption made such disasters unnatural.

I mean, are folks still wondering why federal and state authorities are carrying out projects which are obviously detrimental to the urban ecosystem? 

Honestly, most of our “natural disasters” are self-inflicted. One coalition starts something which is obviously going to cause problems down the road and the other merely carries on the project blaming the actions of the coalition that preceded it. 

Does this sound familiar? How has that been working out for Malaysians?

The glimmer of hope in this tragedy is that while the government did not rise to the challenge, average Malaysians rose to the challenge. 

They showed compassion and empathy that is missing from the political apparatus. They did the hard work of organising and going out to face the vagaries of the flood head-on, instead of doing drive-bys.

Maybe we should reclaim the term “Malaysia Boleh” because those folks demonstrated they had the right stuff, unlike the current government. 

As the new year approaches, I recall Romans 14:19 – “So then, let us pursue what leads to peace and to mutual edification.”

It's been good talking to you this year, Malaysia, whoever you are.

COMMENT | In calling for the old guard to make the ultimate sacrifice by stepping down, Malaysiakini assistant editor Zikri Kamarulzaman made this rather queer point about how the DAP has failed to make an inroad into the Malay community because of “the anti-Malay DAP bogeyman that Umno, Bersatu and PAS like to harp on”.

Hence, “…if these veterans really do have DAP’s interest at heart and if they really want their party to make more inroads among the Malay community - they must step aside and make way for new leaders”.

So, in other words, because of racist propaganda, these leaders have to step aside for new leaders, and what then, will the propaganda stop for these new leaders?

Remember Muhkriz Mahathir has publicly stated that the anti-DAP propaganda was a concerted effort by Umno to demonise the DAP when they could not provide solutions to any given problem. In other words, this is a strategy and not about personalities.

Do not get me wrong. For nearly a decade now, I have explored much like what another Malaysiakini associate editor Martin Vengadesan does here about how DAP is essentially a Chinese-based party with token Indian and other representation all wrapped up in a weird cult-like ideology of toxic online behaviour and national victimhood.

It is as if Umno’s Chinese bogeyman political party was willed into existence after decades of racial and religious policies and a certain percentage of the electorate is suffering from some form of PTSD.

Furthermore, the Bangsa Malaysia ‘kool aid’ is an even more dangerous form of propaganda than anything the state came up with.

Not only was it mendacious, the DAP as a political party certainly did not reflect such inclusivity but more importantly in terms of policy decisions did not aspire to what the DAP was pushing to its base, sublimating honest conversations about race and privilege in this country.

Crucial overhaul

So yes, the DAP must reflect in party composition the multi-racial ethos it claims to have. This would mean a crucial overhaul of well, everything, and the abandoning of the sycophantic culture which defines the party at the moment.

The problem with Martin’s piece, like Zikri’s, is that both assume a new batch of younger leaders would not be stamped by the imprimatur of the old guard.

These young leaders, including some named by Martin, have done nothing to demonstrate that they would be any different from the old guard; indeed in many instances, they are responsible for promoting much of racial and religious compromises that the old guard and indeed many Malaysians believe forms the social contract in Malaysia.

In Pakatan Harapan’s brief tenure in the federal government, former prime minister (twice) Dr Mahathir Mohamad publicly castrated Lim Guan Eng, when he said that Lim had to run everything through him before he made any important decisions.

Furthermore, there was a concerted effort to give the Malays more at the expense of the Chinese community, but nothing could be said at the time because this would upset the DAP’s non-Malay base.

Zikri contends that these new leaders of DAP must “…strike a balance between its ‘liberal’ ideals and the conservative realities of Malaysian politics”.

Malay power structures

In my experience, conservatism in the Malaysian context means do not spook the Malays which essentially translates to do not disrupt the existing political paradigm even though it has proven extremely toxic economically, socially and politically to the majority community.

This is exactly what Lim and probably most DAP supporters found out when the party assumed federal power with its allies.

The DAP, like the MCA, has engaged with Malay power structures in much the same way, that is, through appeasement and rejecting the secular and egalitarian values they preach to their base.

This has always been the problem for Malaysians who want an honest deal. This is the definition of “moderate politics” in Malaysia and that has resulted in the erosion of our public and private spaces because the Malay political establishment had no pushback whatsoever from compliant non-Malay political partners.

This is why in 2019, Harapan non-Malay political operatives were accused of not defending non-bumiputera rights on the matriculation quota (for instance) by Gerakan, another supposedly multi-racial political party.

“Oh Tong Keong said the fact that the Harapan government had agreed to maintain the 90 percent quota for bumiputera students in the matriculation programme, was due to failure by DAP to assist more non-bumiputeras to enter in the programme.

“He said Education Minister Maszlee Malik’s statement linking the matriculation quota to language requirements for job opportunities was uncalled for.”

This is what non-Malay political operatives do. They cannibalise each other because the role of the non-Malay political operatives is to provide a fig leaf of moderation and inclusivity for their Malay counterparts.

This has of course resulted in non-Malay resentment. Non-Malays like to think that the political parties that they support will stand up for their rights. That these parties will act as a counter-balance to the extreme political and religious impulses of the Malay establishment.

Propaganda and brainwashing

The reality is that both the MCA and the DAP while playing the moderate game failed to do this, and the Malay polity - that which supports Malay uber alles parties - has become further entrenched in the propaganda and brainwashing carried out by the state.

There is nothing radical about calling for new leaders or forming a new political party. What is radical is actually adhering to the supposedly progressive ideas the party claims to have.

What is radical is maintaining a strictly secular political stance. What is radical is working with anyone on issues constructively even though such parties do not subscribe to your views for the betterment of the country.

What is radical is rejecting policies by any parties (even those you have worked with on certain issues) if such policies go against democratic and egalitarian norms.

In other words, ideology is the draw of the party and not a race, even though there will be a section of the majority polity who will never be drawn to what you are offering. This would mean the goal of federal power is not the sole motivation and yes, federal power may not be in reach. This means not blindly supporting your coalition partners merely because their unhinged strategy is supposed to bring the coalition to federal power.

Malaysiakini : “The decision of the Kedah state government to not renew such gaming licences is ultra vires the Constitution as the power to issue such licences is exclusively within the jurisdiction of Parliament.”

- DAP's national legal bureau chairperson Ramkarpal Singh

COMMENT | As for the trouncing of Pakatan Harapan in Malacca, I wrote this a few articles back:

“Now, of course, all this boils down to messaging. Harapan’s messaging sucks. Nobody is interested in the principles that Lim (Kit Siang) talks about, even the non-Malays, because even when Harapan fails to carry out reforms, they would still vote for them anyway to spite Umno/BN/PN. Therefore, the base can take a lot.

“Harapan should tailor its message on a state level instead of attempting a grand national narrative that more often than not does not resonate. Mind you, these state-level messaging may at times conflict with the national message that Harapan is putting out.

“The goal is to be as vague as possible so the other side cannot pin you down. Hammer down bread-and-butter issues on a local level because, more often than not, national agendas mean very little to folks struggling to make ends meet.”

Having said that, DAP is on point when it comes to the Kedah issue.

Here, in the words of the Kedah menteri besar, is the key to religious and racial extremism in Malaysia:

"I am a Muslim and cannot gamble. Later in the hereafter, I will be asked what I did on this issue, and if I did not do anything, I will be punished. While I have the power, I should use it.”

Power, in this case, is used to destabilise the economic rights of non-Malays in the pursuit of the political and religious agendas of his political affiliation.

Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor explained that his policy to ban number-betting outlets was his way of obeying God's command and giving thanks for the state's many blessings.

Malaysians should face this extremism head-on as what the DAP is doing by helping local Kedahans mount a legal challenge against this ban.

If being unreasonable means using your religious beliefs to enact a ban that you have no power to carry out, maybe justice will be served.

If being unreasonable means telling Malaysians to be creative and find other means of earning a living, perhaps justice will be served.

If being unreasonable means telling non-Muslims that their rights are subject to the religious interpretations of an individual, then maybe justice will be served.

The decision made by the PAS menteri besar is a decision of a racial supremacist. Keep in mind that in this country, race and religion are not mutually exclusive.

Do not take my word for it. He says so right here: “There are many Muslims here. The decision was made based on the need to maintain harmony and on the basis of being grateful for the bountiful blessings.”

Now, of course, Sanusi is the kind of political operative who says the quiet part out loud, which basically means, for the ketuanan (supremacist) types, every policy decision they make is based on the fact that the Malays are the majority and the rest of us should be “pak turut” (yes men).

Racial and religious extremism does not happen in a vacuum. Right now, as reported in the press, the prime minister has “proposed quotas for Bumiputera-owned businesses in strategic locations such as shopping malls as part of efforts to increase the community’s participation in the economy.”

All this is being done under the Keluarga Malaysia concept, which, like the ruling of the Kedah menteri besar, is a display of raw racial and religious power. What we are dealing with is the fallout from the fractured Malay political establishment.

I have no idea if there is a good-natured and good-hearted majority who would speak up against such injustices.

My view is that the majority polity, after decades of policymaking by the ruling elite and an opposition who does not offer an alternative, probably believes that the political class, following the will of God, is beneficial to the majority polity.

Not to mention the rights and privileges that give them preferential treatment in everything from education to housing.

Furthermore, those Malays who do speak are targeted by the state and are left high and dry by Malay political operatives who are supposedly progressive and enabled by non-Malay political operatives who need Malay political power to have any input in policymaking decisions.

In this context, the DAP stepping up and standing up for the rights of all Malaysians is something to be acknowledged.

The fact that PKR and Amanah have not joined in on this legal action says a lot, but for those Malaysians who do not believe that fascist menteris besar should get away with their religious bigotry, we must acknowledge that the DAP is going out on a limb here politically.

What the DAP is doing, by mounting a legal challenge for local Kedahans, is the way democracy should work.

What the DAP is doing in this instance - and they should be doing a lot more of this - is fighting for the legal, economic, and social rights of all Malaysians but specifically the non-Malays, which strangely, other supposedly progressive Malay political operatives should be doing but are not.

When I say all Malaysians, I mean all Malaysians regardless of race, religious affiliation, or gender identity. This is the antithesis of what the PAS political operative Sanusi views as the Malaysian experience.

Now I get that the DAP will be demonised by mainstream Malay political operatives and who knows if this action will be disavowed by members of their own coalition.

However, this does give non-Malays a fighting chance because at least somebody in the political establishment is fighting for their basic rights and attempting to push back on the racial and religious extremism that is faced by the non-Malay polity.

This is far better than what the MCA and Gerakan are doing. Gerakan wanting to have a “chat” with the menteri besar who rebuffed them just shows you how ineffectual they are but more importantly how PAS views them.

The MCA actually having the nerve to accuse the DAP of placating Muslims voters because of the crucifix mix-up is downright laughable.

Get one thing straight, the DAP placates their Malay coalition partners but, then again, so does the MCA.

However, the DAP in this instance demonstrates the right stuff, which is far more than what the rest of the non-Malay political establishment is doing.

I sincerely hope that the DAP continues these attempts of pushing back against racial and religious extremism and this inspires Malaysians to mount legal challenges against extremist laws.

But then again, I am someone who believes in free speech, freedom of religion, and, well, good old-fashioned democratic ideas, which I suppose makes folks like me the fringe minority.