Sadly, many Malaysians fall for the script again and again and again - being the all peaceful people who don't want any trouble, even if it mean selling out their own children's future.
So here goes the long, but interesting script ....
We do not countenance your ways
and we do not fear you, UMNO
January 28, 2010
Moderator’s note : Seorang pembaca blog ini bernama Peter, dengan menggunakan kemudahan yang disediakan oleh Google, telah menterjemahkan posting ini ke dalam Bahasa Malaysia. Terjemahan tersebut, walaupun bukan begitu tepat, boleh dibaca di SINI.
Tahniah, Peter.
___________________________________________________________________
I was too young to fully understand all that was happening when the May 13 tragedy struck.
I have since had the benefit of reading up on this dark passage of our nation’s history from every possible literature I could lay my hands on, including Dr. Kua’s “May 13″.
Until an earnest attempt to lay bare the truth about the riots of 1969 is made through a mechanism akin to that of a truth and reconciliation commission, we may never really ever know what brought about the violence and mayhem which , as we now know, made all talk thereafter of nation-building, as envisaged by our founding fathers, rhetoric and little else.
At the same time, the race-based ‘divide and rule’ blueprint laid out by the Malay nationalists of the day and carried forward by their progeny to this day has, over the years, been allowed to take root and firmly grip this nation by, again and again, playing out to a fearful people, the spectre of race and religion-based violence erupting to disrupt a peaceful existence sustained, not through genuine respect, acceptance and understanding, but the absence of dissent through fear.
Again and again, the people are reminded of the dark history of May 13.
Take the script of May 13. Tweak it a little.
New actors.
Present-day props.
The stage is set.
Act One : Racial posturing by one group
Act Two : Retaliation by another group
Act Three : Media reports of volatile racial tension
Act Four : Police threat to take the necessary action to restore calm
Act Five : Pre-emptive strike by the powers that be to arrest the ‘trouble makers’ and detain the same under preventive detention laws ( read this as ISA ). Strangely, the actors in Act 1 and Act 2 escape the net that has been cast far and wide
No need for real bloodshed. Creating public fear of the same would have the same desired effect.
Take the Najib-Lee Kim Sai sandiwara of 1987, that was the prelude to Ops Lalang.
Racial posturing, leading to racial tension, and then mass arrests.
The net cast wide, so that the real targets of detention are not immediately discernible, in the context of media-reported racial tension, in the hope that a fearful people will not retaliate to these arrests.
The main players?
Scot-free. Job well done.
Glean through the history of this nation and one will find that every time the Malay nationalists in UMNO have found themselves politically weak and up against the wall, they have resorted to the script of May 13.
Times have changed, though.
The mainstream media no longer has a monopoly over the dissemination of information to the people.
We are a better informed people now.
Post the Hindraf rally of 25th November, 2007, the ultras in UMNO planned a rally on 19th December.
It was called off.
They were advised that the components of that planned rally would be largely mercenary Mat Rempit and Perkida. Should there be a retaliatory gathering on the same day by those marginalised Malaysians who had protested earlier on 25th November, and should these two groups clash, there would be a bloodbath. Within minutes, sms’s would carry news of the same throughout the country.
The nation would be in flames.
That the ultras in UMNO then called off the rally tells us that they too, then, could not afford a nation in flames.
The economy would be in ruins. There would be no riches to pilfer in the guise of governance.
What they then did was, through the mainstream media, to contrive fear of racial tension.
Every other day, in that December of 2007, the IGP was quoted asking people not to be influenced by e-mails and sms’s warning of trouble looming in the country.
That was enough.
It worked.
Every other day that month, I received sms’s asking me to take care as I travelled in the course of my work, social activism or otherwise.
Looking back now, it would seem that that ploy was too little, too late.
The results of the 12th GE bears testimony to this.
The rakyat were not taken in to vote for stability. Half of those voting voted for change.
Has UMNO since abandoned the script of May 13?
No.
Since Najib launched his 1Malaysia, it’s become difficult for UMNO to openly play the race / religious ‘divide and rule’ card.
Not that they don’t anymore, but it has become difficult.
It’s a credibility issue, so the PR boys have advised.
Play the race and religion card by all means, so the advise goes, but distance UMNO from this.
Do it surreptitiously.
Enter the many NGOs that leave a trail leading back to UMNO, that have sprung up to do the dirty work of stirring alarmist race and religious sentiments amongst our Malay / Muslim brothers and sisters.
Read this to include PERKASA, PEWARIS and Pekida and any other NGO in any way howsoever connected to Ibrahim Ali or Dr M.
Add to this the vile and dangerous rantings of the likes of Zul Nordin and Hassan Ali.
These are the new actors to the drama, founded on the script of May 13, that we see being played out today.
Aided and abetted by the mainstream media and the numerous blogs and websites that serve the racist agenda of UMNO.
Utusan, Berita Harian, NST, The Star, and all the state and UMNO-owned TV and radio stations.
Must I name the bloggers?
We all know who they are.
The history books of this nation may some day record their names, and their deeds, for posterity. Time will tell.
So the script of the new drama unfolding before us and carried out to the Malay heartland by the media is largely the same.
The May 13 script, tweaked to suit present circumstances and needs.
The actors are new.
What of the props and the modus?
Remember the cow-head incident in Shah Alam in August, last year?
How the perpetrators of that shameful act claimed to be PAS members and finally, most, if not all, turned out to be UMNO members or UMNO-connected?
Things, however, didn’t go as they had hoped.
Why?
Our Hindu brothers and sisters did not fall into the trap of the evil perpetrators of that most ugly deed by reacting with any retaliatory move, thereby unwittingly setting the stage for Acts 3, 4 and 5.
Back to the drawing board.
Solution : If the good people of this nation will not retaliate to staged provocation, stage the retaliation as well.
If the Hindus will not retaliate to cow-head stomping and the Christians will not react to church-torching by desecrating Muslim places of worship, do it on their behalf.
And then let the UMNO-subservient media do their work to get word of this staged retaliation to the unsuspecting Malays in the heartlands who have no access to alternative news.
Consider the seeming tit-for-tat church burnings and desecration of mosques and surau that we are witnessing.
The intended demonstrations on 8th January after Friday prayers against the the High Court decision in the “Allah” issue fizzled out.
The church burnings of the same day drew outright condemnation from civil society, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
And little else.
What of the desecration of surau and mosques that followed?
I have no doubt in my mind that these, like the church burnings and the attack on the gurdwara, were staged by UMNO and their thugs.
In the midst of all this comes the announcement of the use of the ISA to detain those alleged to be involved with international terrorism.
Is Act five looming?
Let’s wait and see.
Let’s also say it like it is.
The two biggest enemies of peace, justice and equality in this our nation, are UMNO and their controlled media.
Both are dying a slow death.
If in December of 2007, UMNO appeared to still want to avert any real bloodbath, increasingly now, they do not seem to care.
Or it may be that UMNO now is so fractured and like the days of Pak Lah, the leadership today is unable to reign in the warlords.
Whichever, UMNO has unleashed its agenda of terror.
What of the rest of the nation?
More than ever before, we need to be united to face these enemies from within.
We must not backslide and lose the little ground we have gained over the last few years.
We must all do what we can to neutralise the impact and effect of the lies being spun by the UMNO-subservient media on those who do not have access to the alternative news.
And should mass detention ala Ops Lalang come to pass, we must be ready to step forward to offer leadership in place of those who may be taken in.
What we must not do is to react and give them the stage that their desperate plan requires.
We must counter the message of hate being churned out by UMNO and its media with acts of love, kindness and understanding.
This is our collective responsibility.
If we respond to our enemies agenda with calm and cunning, by God’s Will, we shall soon bury them.
What is the message that we must send to UMNO?
DO NOT MISCONSTRUE OR ACTS OF LOVE, KINDNESS AND UNDERSTANDING TO BE BORNE OUT OF FEAR.
WE DO NOT COUNTENANCE YOUR WAYS AND WE DO NOT FEAR YOU, UMNO.
