Or more likely until the Umno/BN regime drops. Because her profligate alleged spending on designer fashions, diamond jewellery and a generally jet-setting lifestyle provides so much ammunition to the opposition as to make her a one-woman shopposition.

Admittedly she’s denied all attempts to portray her as Malaysia’s Imelda Marcos, including the story by Andrew Hornery of the Sydney Morning Herald that she recently holidayed with her husband in a RM60,000-per night hotel suite at Sydney’s Darling Hotel and spent RM300,000 at a Paddington boutique.

“It’s all rubbish, wildly exaggerated and not true,” she reportedly told journalists from Malaysiakini and The Sun, adding that “I’ve come across this kind of allegations many times” and that “I’m always the victim.”

Despite such protestations of innocence and pleadings for sympathy, however, public resentment and outrage appears to be rapidly transforming her dearly-desired and expensively-publicised role as First Lady of Malayaia (FLOM) to that of First Lady of Anything But Umno (FLABU).

But as pre-eminent as she may be in her no doubt unintended but nonetheless powerful shopposition to her husband and the corrupt regime he currently heads, she’s by no means alone.

Another prominent shopposition figure is Women, Family and Community Development Minister, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, whose husband and family have allegedly been on a massive self-enrichment and shopping spree courtesy of the government-loan-funded National Livestock Corporation.

But of course when it comes to playing into the opposition’s hands by spending public money for personal and political gain, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak himself puts other generators of shopposition like Shahrizat and Rosmah to shame.

From the squandering of the nation’s funds on the notorious purchase of Scorpene submarines during his time as defence minister, to blatantly buying, or at least attempting to buy, a whole series of by-elections and handing out money hand-over-fist to civil servants and other vote-banks, he’s raised the art of survival through spending to an absolute art form.

But however much support all this shopping with public money might have bought him, it has clearly excited as much if not more opposition.

And even more costly to him and his regime has been his flip-flopposition: his steady loss of support and inspiration of more and more opposition with his ceaseless two-faced attempts to portray himself as a moderate uniter of the nation as “1Malaysia” while employing Perkasa, Utusan Malaysia and other agents of rabid racism and religionism to ruthlessly divide and repressively rule the rakyat.

And let’s not forget Najib’s creation of what could justly be called a hopposition; all those opposition supporters and voters who will never forgive his illegal seizure of the government of the state of Perak by means of persuading or paying representatives to hop frog-like to the Umno/BN side, with the suspicious consent of a dubious judiciary.

As much hopposition, flip-flopposition and shopposition as Najib and his spouse and supporters have managed to generate through their greed, arrogance and double-dealing, however, what I predict will finally spell their political doom is good, old-fashioned copposition.

Under lawful governments in law-abiding societies, the police are generally seen as keepers of the civic peace and protectors of the lives and property of the citizens.

But in Malaysia the police and other so-called law-enforcement agencies are clearly so politicised, and so thus so complicit with their corrupt masters, as to be rightly seen as servants and security-guards of the regime.

Thus every crime the police commit or close a blind eye to generates more political opposition.

A classic example of the kind of copposition thus continuously generated is the chorus of scorn that has followed the denial by Selangor police chief Tun Hisan Tun Hamzah of any real problem when a gang invaded an ABU rally at Shah Alam City Council (MBSA) Hall.

Despite reports that the aggressors were wearing Barisan Nasional and Umno t-shirts and one victim had to be hospitalised, Hamzah told reporters that “nothing happened, the residents were unhappy, that’s all. No BN or Umno supporters disturbed them.”

This is a small but totally typical example of how politically partisan the police are in permitting public protests by regime-related groups like Perkasa and Umno Youth, and ensuring that opposition protesters like Bersih, as de-facto law minister Nazri Aziz recently put it, “face the music.”

And in the field of criminal law the situation is even more dire, with the police conspiring with the judiciary and regime politicians in ferociously prosecuting, indeed persecuting the likes of Anwar Ibrahim and Karpal Singh, while letting the killers of opposition witness Teoh Beng Hock and countless other so-called ‘suspects’ go free.

Nor are the forces of law and order terribly interested in tracing the sources of the massive incomes and assets of those who, like Rosmah Mansor, appear to have virtually limitless funds available for shopping.

In fact, as that ubiquitous regime mouthpiece, Nazri Aziz, claimed recently in response to calls for ministers and their family members to emulate opposition politicians in revealing their assets, such a move “may endanger them.”

Pressed as to what he meant by this curious remark, Nazri appeared at a loss to explain. But all of us critics of the Umno/BN regime and supporters of the opposition are well aware of the endangerment he had in mind.

That the millions of Malaysians who have finally had it up to here with the regime’s endless shopping, hopping, flip-flopping and bad-copping can hardly wait for their next chance to give it a well-deserved chopping.

But such wishful thinking, as sincerely as I express it and hope it comes true for you and your loved-ones, also serves to remind me how frequently our fondest hopes and dearest dreams are dashed by dire reality.

In other words, however optimistic we may be for our own and our fellows’ fortunes in the year of the Dragon, much of mankind is clearly fated to see the same series of dreary old years, or even decades, drag on.

For example, the 1.3 billion inhabitants of the very heartland of the ancient culture that celebrates Chinese New Year, the cynically mis-named “People’s Republic of China”, remain captives of a corrupt and self-serving Communist-party dictatorship that’s been in force for over half a century.

So that, while admittedly a great many of China’s citizens can look forward to a more prosperous year ahead than their Mao Tse Tung-impoverished forbears ever could, they remain largely bereft of human rights, civil liberties and most other protections under the law.

A situation that, despite the heroic efforts of dissidents and growing numbers of protests against illegal land-grabs, perilous working conditions and the pitiful earnings of peasants and migrant labourers, is clearly intended to drag on forever.

And the Chinese people’s next-door neighbours in North Korea can look forward to even less good fortune in the forthcoming Year of the Dragon, having been dragooned into over 50 years thus far of ignorance, slavery and starvation and other horrors by the dire Kim dynasty.

Though founder and “Eternal Leader” Kim Il-Song went to his celestial reward decades ago, and “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-Il did his poor, unfortunate people a favour by dying in the now-expiring Year of the Rabbit, the first family appears determined to stay in power forever, or, if you prefer, until Kimdom Come.

Heredity also seems to loom larger than the horoscope, Chinese or otherwise, in determining the political fortunes of Malaysia. The current Prime Minister of the country, Najib Abdul Razak, is the son of a former PM. Najib’s cousin and Home Minister, Hishammuddin Hussein Onn, is the son of another PM, and former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been strenuously supporting his sons in their various bids for commercial and political success.

This system of nepotism, liberally laced with racism, religionism, cronyism and corruption, has thus far kept Malaysia’s Umno/BN regime in power for well over 50 years.

And Lunar Year of the Dragon or no, the powers that be are determined to ensure that this loony situation drags on to the very death. Or as PM Razak put it to his supporters at the 2010 Umno general assembly, “even if our bodies are crushed and our lives lost, brothers and sisters, whatever happens, we must defend Putrajaya.”

Not yet forced to resort to crushed bodies and lost lives, however, he has meantime been defending his and his coalition’s occupancy of the nation’s capital with massive publicly-funded public relations campaigns, false promises of sorely-needed electoral, media and other reforms, and lashings of barefaced lies.

And in the process he’s invented the most bizarre numerological concept since Pol Pot’s notorious Year Zero, “1Malaysia”.

Claimed by Najib as his personal brainchild, though persuasively alleged by some to have been adopted and adapted from sources including Israel and Singapore, this started life as a slogan: “1Malaysia. People first. Performance now.”

It was a total pack of lies, of course, produced to cover-up the very opposites of what it claimed. That far from unifying Malaysia’s races and religions, Umno/BN survives by keeping them as much at odds with each other as possible. That it puts its own interests first and those of the people last, and has no intention of performing as a proper government, now or anytime in the future.

But since its incarnation as part of a slogan, however misbegotten and mendacious as it might have been, “1Malaysia” seems to have morphed, Frankenstein-style, into a monster with a maniacal life of its own.

In other words, Najib seems to have been so convinced and confused by his own deceit that he’s succumbed to outright delusion. Creating a fantasy world or parallel universe, every facet of which he fancies he can dominate with his inane, insane “1Malaysia” brand.

Nothing, it appears, can make him see sense. The abject failure of his 1Malaysia email project certainly didn’t give him pause. And he’s simply been shrugging-off allegations of cronyism, false labelling and sub-standard merchandise that have been plaguing his Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia (KR1M) grocery-store enterprise.

And now, nothing daunted, he’s apparently hell-bent on proceeding with even more 1Malaysia initiatives, including an investment scheme whose ridiculously high promised returns makes it look for all the world like a Ponzi scam.

It might still be the Year of the Rabbit for a few more days yet, but what kind of bunny devotes his time and attention to inventing his own personal, alternative brand and starting bogus small businesses when he’s supposed to be running the country?

Or in Najib’s disordered mind is this actually the Year of the Cow, and the Mad Cow at that, as the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) scandal continues to reveal his promises to end official corruption as just his customary load of bull?

Speaking of which, in the past few days he’s even tried selling his shop-soiled 1Malaysia bill of goods to 1,000 delegates as a Global Movement of the Moderates conference as a guide to the pursuit of “moderation in democracy, rule of law, education, human dignity and social justice.”

Maybe the forthcoming Lunar New Year will snap Najib out of his 1Malaysia mania. But better yet I hope it provokes him into finally calling a general election. Because I have an auspicious feeling that, just as the sign of the Rabbit has spelt doom for so many robber regimes in the Arab world, the Year of the brave and noble Dragon could finally see the end of the dragging-down of Malaysia by the dregs and drones of Umno/BN.

 Though it could be argued that a great many Malaysians have nobody but themselves to blame for this punishing experience, having effectively held themselves captive by voting for their oppressors so repeatedly and for so long.

Some, of course, have supported the powers-that-be in return for petty handouts or promises of special privileges for suitably passive and grateful inmates of the system. But the only crime or offence that most of the Umno/BN regime’s captive voters have been guilty of, it seems to me, is that of ignorance.

Ignorance that has been created and perpetuated by the regime itself through walls of official secrecy and barricades of media bias, selective silence and lies, all carefully guarded by corrupt and politically-partisan police, hopelessly compromised law officers and a notoriously compliant judiciary.

Yet the man most responsible for this disgraceful state of affairs, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, has hailed the acquittal of Anwar Ibrahim on the latest sodomy charge against him as proof that there is “no government conspiracy or interference in the country’s judiciary.”

Mahathir, the very man who destroyed the integrity of Malaysia’s judiciary by firing the Lord Chief Justice and several other leading jurists back in 1987, then went on to claim that “the country’s judiciary was always independent and was not influenced by any quarters, including the government or opposition, in arriving at any decision.”

Current Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak took the same lying line, declaring that “the verdict shows once again that despite what many have claimed, the Malaysian judiciary is an independent institution where neither politics nor politicians have any influence over the dispensation of justice.”

And the operative currently responsible for the political partisanship of Malaysia’s ignorance-promoting mainstream media, information minister Rais Yatim, similarly claimed that the acquittal of Anwar “proves that Malaysia’s courts are free of manipulation.”

In fact this case appears to me and many others to prove quite the opposite. The sodomy charge itself was clearly manufactured. The two-year trial was riddled with irregularities unfairly and unjustly favouring the prosecution. And the “not guilty” verdict was so evidently a sop to Anwar sympathisers ahead of the looming general election that it stank to high heaven of regime manipulation.

Manipulation similar to that so glaringly evident in a great many other infamous trials, or rather mistrials, from that of the alleged murderers of the Mongolian translator involved in the Scorpene submarine scandal, Altantuya Shaariibuu, to the conviction and ridiculously light sentencing of Khir Toyo for corruption and the so-called “Datuk T” trio for publishing a pornographic DVD portraying an Anwar Ibrahim look-alike having sex with a prostitute.

But even more of an imposition on the Malaysian people than miscarriages of justice like the Anwar, Altantuya, Toyo, Datuk T and other show-trials are all the countless no-trials.

Routine failure to prosecute or even properly investigate the hundreds if not thousands of killings of ‘suspects’ in police ‘shoot-outs’ and official custody, for example.

As in the case of the late Ananthan Kugan, who was deemed to have succumbed to “fluid on the lungs” despite internet images of his corpse clearly showing evidence of brutal beatings and torture.

Or in the even more notorious case of Teoh Beng Hock, the young witness whose death in the custody of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was found by an inquest and then a royal commission to be due to “neither suicide nor homicide,” so that no suspect killers could be identified.

No-trials for manslaughter and outright murder, however, are just a part of the punishment Malaysians have been forced to either like or lump during 54 years in Umno/BN custody.

They’ve also been robbed of billions upon billions of their hard-earned ringgit and their nation’s natural resources and expected to stand hopelessly, helplessly by and watch the culprits live high on the hog on the proceeds.

Hardly any specific participants in massive regime-sponsored theft, fraud and embezzlement can legally be named by me or anyone else, of course, as a multitude of suspicions and allegations have resulted in precious few prosecutions and even less convictions.

Suffice to mention, therefore, that countless massive financial scandals involving commodity, power, water and other monopolies, share issues, swaps and trades, ‘soft’ government loans, land-grabs, utility and airline privatisations, motor-vehicle import approval permits, taxi licences and highway toll concessions have come and gone unpunished before such relatively recent specific examples as the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) fiasco and the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) scam.

And a good many prominent families, notably those of former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Sarawak Chief Minister Mahmud “The Termite” Taib and current Prime Minister Najib Razak, have grown so rich that they must have quite astonishing business accumen, or else, as First Lady Rosmah Mansor explained in reference to her proposed purchase of a multi-million-ringgit diamond ring, been mighty savers since they were young.

Of course any Malaysian is free to join Umno or one of its racially-appropriate coalition parties in Barisan Nasional in hopes of scoring a “get-out-of-jail-free” card and a chance to grab a share of the loot.

But most people, it seems to me, would much rather simply be free. Free, like Anwar Ibrahim is at least for now, from the threat of selective, malicious prosecution under Umno/BN’s slew of unconstitutional, repressive Acts of repression and aggression against opponents or protestors.

Free from regulations designed to keep the innocent ignorant and the guilty in government, like Umno/BN’s Official Secrets Act, Printing, Presses and Publications Act and the Universities and Colleges Act.

Free from domination by those who consider their lying word to be law, and themselves and their friends, families and cronies to be immune from prosecution for their crimes.

Free, in short, from a gang of goons so gross as to go to any lengths, from fraudulent legislative ‘reform’ to pulling the strings of its puppet judiciary, to try and rig yet another general election in favour of keeping the future and fortunes of Malaysia and Malaysians in Umno/BN’s greedy grasp.

Or, in other words, that people win political freedom by fighting for their personal principles, not from following cult-figures, political populists or other all-too-fallible personalities.

As tempting as it may be to sit back and wait to be led sheep-like to a political promised land by some self-styled saviour, messiah, hero, leader or even an elected prime minister, president, emperor, Caesar or Feuhrer, such passive hopes of succour and salvation are as false as they’re feeble.

History is rich in examples of the fact that, given sufficient time and authority, a great many heroes turn into zeroes, saviours into enslavers, charismatic leaders into catastrophic misleaders, icons into nothing but cons, and personalities into poisonalities.

Human nature being what it is, power, whether it springs from talent, popularity, wealth, fame or Mao Tse Tung’s proverbial barrel of a gun, really does corrupt. And absolute power corrupts not only absolutely, but, as exemplified by the endless rule of the Communist Party in China, the Kim dynasty in North Korea and the Umno/BN regime in Malaysia, also obsoletely.

And in the fight against such absolute, obsolete obscenities in North Africa and the Middle East, one of the most hopeful aspects to me of the Arab Spring has been and remains the fact that the people at large, not individual demagogues, have led the charge.

Hence my admiration for the burgeoning Anybody But Umno (ABU) movement in Malaysia, based as it is on the peoples’ common desire to be rid of an obsolete, absolutely corrupt and outright criminal government, not in support of some party or person, but on principle.

ABU seems to me to signal a growing popular awareness in Malaysia that personalities, on whichever side of the political divide, are both changeable and temporary, whereas principles like truth, justice and equality of opportunity for all are immutable, indisputable and eternal.

Thus evolutionary and even revolutionary figures like Raja Petra Kamarudin and his fellow formerly popular pro-democracy blogger Ahirudin ‘Rocky’ Attan, as inspirational as they may be for as long as they managed to retain their principles, became irrelevant the moment their messages of hope start to sound suspiciously like personally-interested or even regime-inspired and paid hype.

But as disappointed, disenchanted and even enraged as we former fans and sycophants may feel at our favourites’ falls from grace, let’s at least give them due credit for the two priceless gifts they’ve given us: sorely-needed encouragement back when we needed it most, and now the impetus to realise that we’re no longer dependent on their leadership by example.

Similarly, if on a far larger scale and at infinitely greater personal cost, I believe that Anwar Ibrahim has served his purpose.

Even if Umno/BN manages by hook or crook to permanently thwart his dream of someday becoming prime minister of Malaysia, and whether or not you believe he deserves this come-uppance, he’s done more than anyone else to fatally damage the regime’s credibility.

He’s inspired two arguably far less worthy prime ministers than he might possibly be – first the mendacious, megalomanic Dr Mahathir Mohamad and now the sleazy nonentity Najib Razak – into mounting sodomy trials that have publicly and even globally revealed them as shameless perverters of justice.

And in the process Anwar has served as a convenient and conspicuous persecution-symbol for the opposition and martyr figure for enlisting the support of sympathetic Malaysian voters.

But on the downside, he has also been plagued by suspicions surrounding his earlier incarnations as an Umno ultra and deputy prime minister, and his evident unwillingness to come clean on crimes and misdemeanours committed by the regime during his time as an insider.

And even more troubling, he has apparently been a divisive rather than a uniting force both in his own political organisation, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), and among former friends, colleagues and supporters including Raja Petra Kamarudin.

So much so that, in the mainstream media interview that has so outraged so many of his Malaysia Today readers, or former readers, RPK was quoted as going so far as to concede that Anwar “may be” homosexual, as if his sexuality was somehow politically significant, and “is 99 per cent likely” to be the mystery male in the infamous “Datuk T” sex tape.

This has been widely perceived as part of an Umno/BN-inspired smear campaign on designed to soften-up public opinion in advance of the verdict in Anwar’s second sodomy trial, which is expected on January 9.

But whether Anwar is convicted or not, and whether or not RPK is in the pay or the thrall of the government, it seems to me that both of these controversial figures have played important parts, indeed starring roles, in awakening major portions of the Malaysian public to the perfidies of Umno/BN.

And now it’s up to every Malaysian to be sufficiently inspired and emboldened by these shining examples, however tarnished they now may be or possibly have yet to become, to stand up as leaders rather than just followers; as fighters for their principles rather than passive supporters of public figures.

Or, if you prefer, as proud members of and loud advocates for Malaysia’s principled, non-partisan and above all personality- and personage-free movement for freedom, fairness, honesty and justice for all, Anybody But Umno (ABU).

But, as she quickly went on to explain, she is vividly aware that numb and dumb is precisely how Umno/BN want Malaysians to feel, and keep on feeling, so they’ll keep tolerating the ruling regime’s regimen of repression and robbery.

And that she knows, as I do, that her momentarily depleted emotions and energies will soon be re-charged by her passion for participating in the massive awakening and spirit of change that is sweeping Malaysia.

Unhappily, however, there are still far too many Malaysians who remain politically naive or napping, having been lulled into slumber by Umno/BN’s endless litany of lies. And then there are the countless hard-core cases; cronies and supporters of the regime so hopelessly narcotised by regular fixes of patronage, power and loot, that they’ll do anything to help sustain the dopey status quo.

But it seems to me that an unstoppably growing majority of Malaysian citizens is wide-awake to the fact that Umno/BN has degenerated from a formerly respectable political coalition into nothing more than a criminal conspiracy. And they’re increasingly politicking, blogging, protesting, walking, talking, calling and above all yearning to vote for honest, transparent and truly progressive government.

And now that I’ve seen and felt some of the power of this popular movement in an up-close and personal way, everywhere from the coffee-shops to the recent Anything But Umno (ABU) rally, I’m convinced that the end of Umno/BN is finally in sight.

Especially convincing to me is the fact    that the regime appears panic-stricken at its evident powerlessness to turn back the tide of revulsion and revolt that could soon make the ‘tsunami’ of 2008 look like a ripple.

In fact every counter-move that Umno/BN makes seems to do nothing but evoke bigger and more threatening waves of derision, dissent and determination to achieve its political extermination.

The more Najib Razak and his partners in grime and crime trumpet their rallying-call of “1Malaysia. People first. Performance now”, the more nakedly it is revealed as numbingly dumb and duplicitous.

This gruesome government’s every deed clearly demonstrates that “1Malaysia” is nothing but a mask for a two-faced system in which there’s one Malaysia for the Umnoputras and another for the rest of the people.

One law for the Umnoplunderers of projects like the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ), National Feedlot Corporation (NFC)and countless other massive, unsolved and even un-investigated scams, and another for opposition figures like the endlessly-prosecuted and persecuted prominent opposition figure, Anwar Ibrahim.

One law for the killers of Altantuya Shaariibuu and ‘suspects’ in the custody of the Umnoputras’ lapdog police and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), and another law altogether for ‘common’ criminals.

One permissive attitude to protest by Umno/BN-sponsored rabbles abusing a severed cow’s head at a Hindu temple, or against false allegations of attempts by Christians to proselytise Muslims, and quite another response altogether to people rallying to call for clean and fair elections and harmlessly banner-defacing students.

One kind of lifestyle, RM15,000 Birkin Handbags, RM60 million diamond rings and all, for the Umnoputras, and another for the peasants, to whom Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia (KR1M) stores have committed the KRIME of selling not only mislabelled foodstuffs to needy families, but also peddling sub-standard milk powder to the parents of babies.

One standard for the proprietors and operators of upmarket bars-cum-brothels like the Beach Club and Thai Club off Jalan Sultan Ismail, and another for more down-market “massage parlours” and prostitutes lacking high-level protection.

One system for those who display giant posters and pictures of their political icons that arguably contravene the belief that such idolatry is haram in Islam, and another, contrary system for those legitimately displaying non-Muslim religious symbols or even publicly singing Christmas carols. 

In short, it’s clear by now to every Malaysian who’s not totally numb and/or dumb that the “1Malaysia” slogan signifies at the very least two Malaysias: one for the Umnoputras and their families, cronies and supporters, and quite another for the rest.

And as if the “1Malaysia” part of Umno/BN’s false and self-serving slogan wasn’t making the populace feeling sufficiently insulted, the “People first. Performance now” part is driving many of those I’ve spoken to into a veritable frenzy of resentment.

Perhaps the most vivid reaction I’ve seen in this regard has been the disgust by so many people I’ve met at the arrogant, overbearing way the Umno building has been lit so as to lord it over KL’s night-time sky.

This domineering display of both sainted and living Umno/BN prime ministers in a celestial blue glow is a glaring symbol of the fact that Umno/BN considers itself first, and puts the people swarming below dead last.

Especially considering that these people are endlessly stuck in monster traffic jams caused by decades of ‘people-last, performance never’ Umno/BN governments that have overseen poor planning and traffic-engineering, pathetic traffic and illegal-parking policing, and toll roads cleverly designed to line the crony contractors and operators.

And those of us who choose to walk instead of drive are confronted by footpaths that, where they exist at all, are often obstacle courses if not outright death-traps cluttered with poles, broken pavement, parked vehicles, piles of rubbish or manholes with missing covers.

So much, then, for putting people first and performing now, if ever. Thus it’s small wonder that so many Malaysians feel a tad numb in the face of the shocking contrast between the 1Malaysia portrayed by Umno/BN and its public-relations flacks and media hacks, and the stark reality of 1Malaise, ya!.

But just as my young activist friend’s innate fire and life-force will soon overcome her current emotional numbness, so will more and more of her formerly numb, dumb or glum fellow Malaysians regain their true feelings and voices. And the rakyat will finally have the both the will and the numbers to say “no more” to the numb-nuts of Umno/BN.

On the upside I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a new nephew and two new nieces who have arrived since I was last here, and enjoyed the warmest of welcomes, as ever, from my wife’s beloved parents and brothers and sisters and their families.

I’ve also been extended the most heart-warming of hospitality by old friends and countless new ones among those I’ve long seen as my spiritual family, the pro-democracy bloggers and political and social activists of Malaysia.

Not to mention most of these wonderful peoples’ names lest I put them in official, professional or social jeopardy. But they all very well know who I’m referring too.

And then there are those whose names and works are public watchwords among those of us working towards a new incarnation of Malaysia, and on whom those of us who write rather than blog depend to have our stuff exposed to potential readers.

Steven Gan and Prem Chandran, who co-founded Malaysiakini 12 years ago and thus were among the earliest inspirations for us all, and who now, with the help of their 70 or so talented and dedicated staff, attract around 400,000 unique readers per day.

And another major figure providing us writers with an audience is the widely admired and loved Pak Chong who, having started his working life as a construction labourer, then languished in prison for eight years on suspicion of socialist activism, has by now become one of Asia’s leading publishers of academic and activist literature through his Strategic Information and Research Development (SIRD), and its book-retailing arm, Gerakbudaya.

Just as I’m indebted to Steven, Prem and their colleagues at Malaysiakini for publishing my weekly columns online for the past five years or so, I have to thank Pak Chong first for collecting my columns into hard-copy books, and now for sponsoring my return to Malaysia to belatedly launch them.

I say “belatedly” because I was for one reason or another never able to get to Malaysia at the appropriate times to launch each book individually. But now, finally, all four of Pak Chong’s books of my Malaysiakini columns – “Mad about Malaysiia”, “Even madder about Malaysia”, “Missing Malaysia” and “1Malaysia.com” – are to be launched this coming Friday 16 December at 7pm at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in KL.

And immediately following the launch will be a forum on the future of the Malaysian media between Steven Gan, members of the audience and me, moderated by Dr Carmen Nge, Assistant Professor/Dean, Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR).

But despite all this good fellowship I’m enjoying, this brief return to Malaysia by no means entirely a love-fest.

In fact the more I see of Malaysia at first-hand again after so long observing and writing about it from a distance, the more intense my loathing for all the repression, corruption and outright criminality that my Malaysians are subjected to by the ever-ruling Umno/BN regime.

And nothing brings this sense of loathing home to me more intensely than the process of forcing myself as long as I’m here to read the appalling local mainstream press.

Only the English-language sector of it, thank goodness, as my illiteracy in any other tongue spares me the horrors of the hardest-core regime-controlled hate-rags like Utusan Malaysia.

But the Star and New Straits Times are disgusting enough to be going on with, due to not only their blatant pro-Umno/BN bias in selecting which ‘good news’ to report, spin and if necessary fabricate about the government and which ‘bad news’ to neglect to mention, but their sickeningly sycophantic treatment of any story whatever about the ‘officially’ powerful and privileged.

For example this past Monday 12 December both these so-called ‘newspapers’ carried virtually identical front-page ‘stories’ positively swooning over the alleged success of one of the Umno/BN regime’s monster and arguably monstrous investment schemes.

The Star headlined its take on this non-story “A greater Iskander”, pictured the Prime Minister trying on a tie, and quoted him as declaring that “There is no doubt that Iskandar will be a vanguard for Malaysia and the region in the years ahead.” In case any readers were thick enough to miss the message, the tale continued inside the paper with four more puff-pieces headed “JPO (Johor Premium Outlets) set for more top brands,” “Premium Outlets a hit among the celebs, too,” “Najib lauds southern corridor as a national success story,” and, to show that Umno/BN has a heart for non-celebs as well, “Home sweet home in Iskandar”.

The New Straits Times headed its shameless sales-pitch “Iskandar Malaysia soars,” then followed it up with items headed “Investors see Johor’s potential,” “12 new deals worth RM1.73b inked”, and as a sop to the peasants, “A roof for all under the Iskandar sun”.

Having parroted the government’s sell on the Iskandar scheme, the NST then switched to plugging the Prime Minister himself with the story “King lauds government under Najib”, that quoted the outgoing Agong as saying that he is “concerned about the inclination of certain parties to raise sensitive and racial issues and to politicise matters which should not be politicised.”

It was my understanding that royalty should not permit itself to be politicised. But apparently not, as the Star ran a somewhat similar article stating that the Sultan of Selangor “advised the Malay community to stay united in protecting the sanctity of Islam and not be divided due to differences in political ideologies and beliefs”, which sounds to me tantamount to advocating a concerted Malay vote for Umno.

Considering that this is the kind of rubbish that the mainstream press prints in support of its Umno/BN overlords, it’s small wonder that I or anyone else who sincerely loves Malaysia take to writing, blogging, or whatever else he or she can possibly do to oppose this lying, cheating, thieving and altogether utterly loathsome regime.

So I was far from surprised that, of all the lovely people I was privileged to meet at the Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia (SABM) dinner in KL last Saturday night, the new acquaintance I found most utterly enchanting was the youngest ‘member’ or at least attendee, a three-year-old aptly named Joy.

 There were two reasons why my heart went out to this delightful little sprite. Firstly her spirit of frolic and fun that inspired me to play so many silly games with her that I ended up limp with exhaustion and soaking with sweat, while she was still as fresh as the proverbial daisy and ready for more.

And secondly she reminded me of my own similarly joyful daughter Sammie, whose birth in Malaysia 16 years ago transformed me from an appalled but passive expatriate observer of the local political scene to an outraged critic of the evils I saw her as having to face if she stayed in Umno/BN’s Bolehland.

Happily she’s been spared most of such problems, thanks first to the efforts of her mother, maternal grandparents and some very good teachers in Malaysia, and also her subsequent relocation into the admittedly far-from-perfect but at least somewhat more progressive Australian educational system.

But as is perhaps evident in the columns I write for Malaysiakini, I’ve maintained the protective rage that her arrival in my life generated, and remain inspired to vent this emotion on behalf of Malaysian sons and daughters of all ages, races, genders and religions.

Rage at the fact that, as almost everybody in this nation with even a shred of awareness knows by now, Umno/BN, behind its pretence of promoting and protecting Malay rights, religious beliefs and prosperity, has been misleading, suppressing and shamelessly ripping-off the Malaysian people, Malay and non-Malay alike, for decades.

And perhaps most reprehensible, at least in the long-term, is this kleptocratic regime’s depriving millions of young Malaysians of the truly excellent and enlightened education they need and deserve, while sending its own pampered offspring overseas or, in flagrant breach of its own rules, to local international schools.

And now, apparently no longer content with educationally and otherwise victimising children and adolescents, Umno/BN has been cheating toddlers and babes in arms by selling sub-standard milk powder to their unsuspecting parents through its lavishly publicly-funded chain of ‘discount’ stores known as Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia, or KR1M.

Investigations by Tony Pua and other diligent opposition politicians have revealed that the now-discontinued 1Malaysia ‘growing up’ milk powder previously sold for months in KR1M outlets contained no trace whatever of 15 essential nutrients, vitamins and trace elements, and provided a mere 4.5 per cent of the calcium and just 7.4 per cent of the iron that the relevant food regulations deem necessary for healthy growth and development of young bodies and minds.

And arguably even more disgraceful was that this same product for babies and toddlers was found to contain many times the maximum permitted level of Vitamin A, which in excess can lead to symptoms including liver dysfunction, reduced bone mineral density, skin discolouration and hair loss.

Yet, when faced with these shocking revelations, the BN Minister for Health, Liow Tiong Lai, the same Lai who lied when he denied that police fired water cannons and teargas grenades into the grounds of a hospital during the Bersih 2.0 rally earlier this year, rather than apologising or better yet resigning, attacked Tony Pua for revealing the truth to the previously unsuspecting public.

In fact Lai had the hide to accuse Pua of “trying to politicise the matter”. Which was hypocritical in the extreme in light of the plainly evident reality that the entire KR1M operation is just another cheap and shabby attempt by Najib Razak and his Umno/BN colleagues and cronies to use their fraudulent “1Malaysia” concept to politicise every possible aspect of society.

And speaking of trying to kid the Malaysian people, the head of Wanita Umno and Minister for Women, Family and Community Development, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, was apparently too busy defending her husband and children against allegations of impropriety in their involvement in the notorious National Feedlot Corporation scandal to bother about such trifles as dangerously defective milk powder.

Though admittedly her department did lavish heaps of cash on full-page colour ads in the mainstream newspapers showing her interacting with children with disabilities to demonstrate was a truly caring person she would like to be perceived as.

But there was precious little concern shown by Shahrizat or anyone else for mothers, babies or children, or indeed for any Malaysian families other than those of members and cronies of the ruling regime, in the recent Umno General Assembly.

All we saw and heard was one infantile rant after another against the opposition, and juvenile calls for members to swear oaths of loyalty to the ever-predatory Party.

Not a word about any plans to address any of the countless genuine concerns confronting Malaysian families, like the rising cost of living, the worsening of the nation’s corruption index, the massive wastages, frauds and thefts revealed by the recent auditor-general’s report, and the budget cuts on education and health the better to enable the purchase of outrageously-overpriced ‘defence’ items like the world’s most expensive patrol boats, and a fleet of armoured personnel carriers whose prices have mysteriously multiplied several times over between their purchase in Turkey and delivery to the Malaysian army.

So it’s as clear today as it has been for generations that, for as bright a future as possible for my young friend Joy and her contemporaries, and for even younger and as-yet-unborn babies, it’s vital to put an end to the criminal misrule of Malaysia by this gang of Umno/BN boobies.

But from all the symptoms I see, the vast majority of Malaysians are as “slightly less intelligent” as Dr M and his Umno/BN colleagues could possibly wish them to be, and gibbering idiots are as plentiful as ever.

In fact Malaysia’s perennial epidemic of political idiocy continues to rage unchecked, with millions of apparently sentient adults still so intellectually or ideologically-impaired as to be somehow unable or unwilling to register to vote.

And even more Malaysians are so stupid or at least naive as to still swallow the overdoses of lies perpetually prescribed by Dr M and the rest of Umno/BN’s teams of spin-doctors, and forced down their throats day after day by the editors (ediots?) of the mainstream media.

Then there are those political figures who are ever-ready to resort to idiocy, whether genuine or cunningly simulated to disguise rat-cunning, in attempts to dupe anyone feeble-minded enough to take them seriously.

Like YB Hasan Ali in his recent support of the claim by the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) that Christians are proselytising Muslims using “solar-powered hand-held talking bibles”.

Like Deputy Sports Minister Razali Ibrahim in his statement last week that the hostile reception given by Indonesian fans to Malaysian teams at the SEA Games in Jakarta was because “opposition leaders have been making a beeline for Indonesia to bad mouth our country.”

Like that serial offender in the idiocy stakes, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Abdul Aziz, who recently outrageously proclaimed that “homosexuality goes against Islam, the religion of the federation of Malaysia, and its practise in the country is therefore unconstitutional.”

Like dimwit Perkasa President Ibrahim Ali, who welcomed the government’s retrograde Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 as a “positive move”, adding that “after 54 years we have come to this stage. Maybe in the next 25 years people will be educated and can enjoy full freedom, but for the moment Malaysia still needs time to educate its citizens.

Or like the allegedly educated Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin with his warning the other day to his junior Umno idiots against stupidly hurting their corrupt party’s “more progressive and liberal” image during its impending annual general assembly.

And the most idiotic performer of all, of course, is Prime Minister Najib Razak, who seems to be operating under the delusion that the whole world is full of dummies just dying to be deceived by his lying words and devious deeds.

Witness his promised ‘reforms’. The Printing, Presses and Publications Act, for example, the very legislation designed to keep the Malaysian electorate as idiotic and ignorant as possible, to remain utterly unchanged save for the need to apply annually for a government licence.

Then there is the ‘improvement’ of Malaysia’s grossly unjust, unfair and outright corrupt electoral system to be ‘studied’ by a committee until, if possible, after the next general election.

Malaysia’s detested and disgraceful Internal Security Act (ISA) is supposed to be ‘abolished’, but in practise seems set to be rendered an Eternal Security Act by new provisions for detention without charge or trial.

And the lifting of current prohibitions against public assembly, only to replace them with a piece of legislation that puts so many fresh obstacles in the way of public expression, and give so many discretionary powers to the police, so that rather than the Peaceful Assembly Bill it should rightly be dubbed the Policeful Assembly Bill.

So many far-from-idiotic and even formerly idiotic Malaysians have vented their outrage at all this chicanery, however, that Najib was recently moved to “implore” his Umno colleagues to “accept reform efforts or face an Arab Spring-style revolt.”

“When you have been in power for such a long uninterrupted period, you have a sense of political invincibility; you may think that whatever happens you will be in power,” he said.

So far so accurate, I guess, but soon he slipped back into tell-Malaysian-idiots-anything mode, claiming that “what has happened in the context of the Arab Spring and many other countries, change is coming from the bottom up. In Malaysia, change is coming from top to bottom.”

Then he proceeded to get his tops and bottoms mixed up, so that he felt the need to explain that he meant “top down in the sense that we are listening to the people. I started by saying that the day of government knows best is over…we must feel the pulse of the people.”

Feeling the pulse of the people would surely be an improvement on Umno’s long-standing practice of stealing from the purse of the people.

But apparently undaunted by the fact that government largesse and outright loot is precisely what attracts so many snouts to the Umno trough, in another speech he attempted to pretend otherwise.

In a brazen bid to win the sympathies of any citizens so idiotic as to have forgotten such Umno/BN thefts as the Scorpene submarine, PKFZ, NFC and countless other daylight robberies by Umno/BN and its cronies, not to mention his own and his wife’s jet-setting lifestyles, Nazjib staged a press conference in which he called on Umno members to “put party above self interest.”

But lest such a clarion call for idealism lose him masses of the rent-seekers and commission-hungry contractors planning to attend the then imminent and now ongoing annual Umno General Assembly, he quickly explained that “we are not asking them to sacrifice their wealth for the party or take personal risks.”

Of course there will be loads more Umnonsense like this over the next few days as one ass after another addresses the appropriately-named Assembly.

And every asinine word will give the lie to Najib’s claim that the programme is “not primed for the general election, but a vehicle to highlight the party’s intellectual value.”

Umno? Intellectual?? Unelectable, more like it. Except, of course, by a bunch of utter idiots. Of whom, despite Dr Mahathir’s regrets that there are hardly any left, there are evidently still millions of them either supporting the Umno/BN regime, or too dumb or nit-witted to oppose it.

But unhappily the very fecundity of the country and the good nature of the populace also make it a veritable paradise for parasites.

Malaysia’s Umno/BN regime has been fattening itself and its cronies at the nation’s expense for decades, and eaten away most of the people’s human rights, civil liberties and legal protections the better to feel free to feed its insatiable greed.

As Malaysia’s 13^th general election draws nearer, and the signs grow that Malaysians are as sick of their parasitical rulers as their fellows in the Arab world are, the government is making frantic attempts to convince voters that it’s cleaning-up its act.

But paradoxically, the more this regime pretends to reform and transform itself, the more its honeyed words are contradicted by its heinous deeds.

In fact in the past few weeks, far from suspending its parasitical activities, it seems to have been engaging in an outright feeding frenzy.

The most evident examples of this, appropriately enough in light of the fact that Umno/BN views ‘ordinary’ Malaysians as so many dumb animals to be farmed, fleeced and otherwise exploited, have been events in the stock market and livestock industry.

Those in the know have apparently made a killing in the shares of Tricubes Bhd, the formerly failing company that was mysteriously selected last year as the beneficiary of the 1Malaysia Email project.

Since renamed MyEmail, this project has not proven to be the cash-cow that Umno/BN intended it to be, so recently Tricubes was – with the usual lack of tender or transparency – given the prize of collecting traffic fines through ATMs and issuing summons information via SMS.

Naturally the price of Tricubes shares soared on this ‘surprise’ news, no doubt to the delight of insider traders.

But the 50% bonus for Tricubes shareholders was chicken-feed compared with the 2,575 percent feast for those smart enough or sufficiently forewarned as to hold shares in little-known timber-products company, Harvest Court Industries Bhd, whose price jumped from 8 sen to more than RM2 on the news that Mohd Nazifuddin Najib, second son of Prime Minister Najib Razak, had been appointed to its board of directors.

Nazifuddin reportedly owned 3 million of these shares or 1.7 percent of the company and his business partner Raymond Chan 13.8 percent or around 20 million shares, so the 24-fold increase in price was a nice little earner for them and all others concerned.

And now we all watch with interest to see if Harvest Court Industries gets as lucky as Tricubes when it comes to the awarding of government contracts.

Or else ‘soft’ loans, like the RM250 million in capital advanced a few years ago to the husband and children of Women, Family and Community Development Minister, Sharizat Abdul Jalil, to fund their National Livestock Corporation.

The full, sleazy story of the NFC is too long to relate here, and in any case it’s been common knowledge for weeks, and subject to so much scathing comment that all possible puns and on the subject have, much to my disappointment, long been used up.

But for any reader not yet aware of this scam, highlights include losses of RM7 million in 2008, RM11 million in 2009, expenditure of RM827,000 on an overseas holiday by the family owners in 2009, and the recent purchase of two condominiums for RM6.9 million each.

Sharizat, who owes her own political position to typical Umno/BN largesse, having been humiliatingly defeated in the 2008 general election and restored to her ministerial position through her subsequent back-door appointment as a senator, has defended her family against charges of malfeasance with the comment that they “work very hard”.

And lots of other Umno/BN fat-cats have rushed to her and her feed-alot family’s defence. One of the most prominent of these defenders of the indefensible has been Khairy Jamaluddin, who as we all recall had his early public career funded by ECM Libra Berhad.

As ECM Libra chairman Kalimullah Masheerul Hassan told the High Court recently, despite the fact that Jamaluddin was a “relatively junior staff” he was also appointed a director of the company when he joined it in 2004.

Though Kalimullah denied that “preparations were made to bring Jamaluddin into the company as a shareholder on the basis of his relationship with Abdullah (Badawi), who was finance minister at the time,” he reportedly did concede that “people have connection with businessmen and politicians…the more the relationship the more easy for business to be done. It is good to have someone who has good connections.”

As if the whole world wasn’t aware that good connections are everything in the Umno/BN system of nepotism and cronyism, lots of other well-connected figures joined Jamaluddin in rushing to the rescue of Sharizat and her family.

The most arrogantly dismissive and arguably least persuasive of these apologists has been Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who claimed that the government was “well aware of the status of the issue,” and declared that “we will not swallow every story concocted by the opposition.”

When pressed by an interviewer on whether the government was satisfied with the NFC’s explanation of the apparently scandalous state of its affairs, he replied that “that is up to the public, whether to accept it or not.”

From what I’ve seen so far there is no sign that the public has accepted this latest in a long, long line of financial depredations committed by the increasingly desperate desperadoes of Umno/BN.

And no sign that the public is falling for the regime’s customary diversions. One of its latest schemes to distract attention from its creaming-off the nation’s wealth with scams like the NFC, the chain of shops known as Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia (KR1M), appears to be just a scam for bilking and milking the poor and needy.

Milk powder sold under the KR1M ‘brand’ has allegedly been found to contain up to six times the safe level of Vitamin A, and chilli sauce to be contaminated with unhealthy levels of lead and mercury.

And into the bargain, KR1M prices have been shown to be little if any cheaper than those in some respectable commercial supermarkets.

But not satisfied with endangering Malaysians’ health and cheating them of their hard-earned money, Umno/BN also takes a terrible toll of public morale.

By tolerating if not supporting such ignorant bigots as Hasan Ali of the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais), whose latest claim is that in Christians are proselytising Muslims using “solar-powered hand-held talking bibles”.

Almost as ridiculous a departure from reality has been the call by inspector-general of police, Ismail Omar, for the public to provide him and his forces of outlaw and disorder with new ideas on how to reduce crime rates in the country.

And arguably the most insulting recent diversionary tactic of all is the campaign by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief commissioner, Abu Kassim Mohamed, for young Malaysians to be educated and enlisted in the fight against corruption, as if we’ve all forgotten the still-unpunished killing of the young suspect in MACC custody, Teoh Beng Hock.

In short, Malaysia is dangerously if not terminally infested with Umno/BN putras and other parasites. And the country is never going to become the comparative paradise on earth that it could and should be until Malaysians get up the nerve to finally do whatever it takes to get rid of them.

As if it’s not enough to constantly rip-off the rakyat, pervert the system of justice, procure the police force, corrupt the civil services, debauch the media, shame the Malay race and defile the good name of Islam, these moral and ethical deviants even contrive to give sex a bad rap.

In the process so confusing the gullible and the ignorant as to give rise to such idiocies as the Obedient Wives’ Club with its aims like teaching Muslim wives the difference between “Muslim sex” and “Jewish sex”, whatever that may be.

The employment of such a fundamentally natural, vital, pleasurable and indeed essential activity as sex for political ends and the persecution of so-called ‘minorities’ is an absolute outrage, and grossly hypocritical to boot.

The fact that a despoiler of the nation’s institutions like Mohamad Mahathir and a lothario if not lady-killer like Najib Abdul Razak can get away with such naked miscarriages of justice as the serial prosecutions of Anwar Ibrahim on trumped-up sodomy charges is a national and international disgrace.

As is the endless publication of the so-called ‘evidence’ in these trials in all their anal, rectal, seminal and other gory anatomical and serological detail by the prurient regime-controlled media for the mingled delight and disgust of pseudo-prudish sectors of the populace.

Yet the same Mahathir who was happy to treat the nation and indeed the world to the tawdry and illegal spectacle of Sodomy 1 has the effrontery to support the recent and current police ban on Seksualiti Merdeka with comments like “There must be a law…you have to have a standard to adhere to.”

Warming further to his theme, he predictably proposed that there were limits to freedom. “What will happen to us when people decide they will walk naked in the streets? We can’t stop them, that is their right. If people decide, as I’ve seen in some countries, to have sex in public, what will happen to us?”

Speaking of having sex in public, I recall no objection on Mahathir’s part to the widest possible public dissemination of a DVD purporting to portray Anwar allegedly having sex with a ‘Chinese prostitute’.

And even more grossly hypocritical was the fact that the best-known of the three datuks responsible for the filming or more likely faking of this production was Abdul Rahim Tamby Chik, Malacca chief minister during Mahathir’s term as premier.

After it was alleged that Tamby Chik had sex with a 15-year-old girl back in the 1990s, Mahathir removed him from his chief-ministership, but allowed him to escape further penalties.

The girl in the case wasn’t so fortunate, however, suffering three years’ ‘protective custody’ in a house for wayward girls.

And Lim Guan Eng, now opposition Chief Minister of Penang, was tried and condemned to three years in jail for publishing a pamphlet detailing the allegations against Tamby Chik.

The latest if abortive attempt by Umno/BN supporters to create a sex scandal has been allegations of sexual misconduct by the 16-year-old son of Tamby Chik’s former nemesis, Lim Guan Eng, with a ‘schoolgirl’.

However, the ‘girl’ in question was quickly revealed to be 21-year-old student at Wellesley College in the US, who stated that she has “never met or even heard of the people involved,” and that the only way in which her modesty had been outraged was through the publication of her picture in connection with “these scurrilous and unfounded rumours.”

But then truth was never an Umno/BN strong point, and in any case it has emerged that the latest sex-related cause celèbre, the police banning of Seksualiti Merdeka, is not so much an attack on sex itself, or even on alleged sexual deviance, as on human rights in general.

Race-hate group Perkasa first zeroed-in on the sex issue, to be sure, with its youth chief Irwin Fahmi Ideris ranting that “supporting gays and lesbians will destroy our country” and vowing to counter such culture “to the last drop of blood.”

But the group’s attention was more powerfully focused on  Ambiga Sreenevasan, head of Bersih 2.0, who was due to officially open the event, with banners demonising her as “The Antichrist” and calling for her arrest under the ISA.

So a protest that was ostensibly against sexual licence as represented by Seksualiti Merdeka, a festival justly celebrating the human rights of people of diverse sexual orientation and gender identity which has been held annually, after all, since 2008, revealed itself as part of a larger-scale Umno/BN plot against Bersih’s call for clean and fair elections, and human rights in general.

Former inspector-general of police, Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor, recently emerged from wherever he’s been lurking following his disgraceful assault on Anwar Ibrahim a decade ago to warn the 2^nd Perkasa Annual General Assembly, against “a human rights wave” that would threaten the “principles” on which Malaysia was founded.

On the same day, Noor’s former boss Mohamad Mahathir, who famously claimed that Anwar’s assault injuries had been self-inflicted, said he agreed that the “human rights wave” was a threat to Malaysia, and added that “certain quarters” are using human rights “for their own purposes instead of to save people.”

He added that “while we respect human rights as a universal value, (they) should be implemented within our capabilities,” before proceeding to lambaste “the West” for human rights lapses and excesses.

And another Umno/BN stooge that has since added his voice to the anti-human rights clamour has been Ridhuan Tee Abdullah, who said he fully agreed that the “human rights wave” is akin to a revival of communism, and further declared it to be a “wicked plan to destroy and erode the sanctity of Islam.”

Personally, as a civil libertarian who couldn’t give a fig for racial or religious rivalry, I’m far more concerned with the preserving the sanctity of sex. In fact I’d rather be practising it right now with one or more other consenting adults of compatible genders than sitting here discussing the perfidies of Umno/BN.

But sadly, as long as my mind is full of libido-killing images of this repellent regime’s porno-politicians and their scumbag supporters and cronies, the very thought of sex totally sucks.