Annie and Najib's advisers

Someone asked me the other day why I 'm being harsh towards the advisers of PM DS Najib Razak.

Apparently he read this post by my blogging captain Rocky,

"If Mahathir was my father ..."

Excerpts:

Of all the online scribes who have tried to remain "neutral" in the protracted Mahathir-Najib fight, I think Life of Annie tried the hardest. She has been frank but fair in her commentaries on Najib Razak although she has been harsh towards the PM's so-called advisers, and she has deftly avoided any kind of personal diatribe aimed at Mahathir.


I have many reasons for not liking the Najib's advisers but one of the biggest is how they badly treated good people and prefer to hire mercenaries such as those who encourage Umno to tear itself apart from within.

"Either you are with us or against us" they preached.

These mercenaries also promote the idea of Umno being an extremist Islamic Malay party.

"Combine with Pas, throw out MCA, Gerakan, etc" they said.

"Hate the Chinese, hate the Christians, etc" they added.

And these people tried to promote individuals who never apologise for calling Umno a racist party and practicing a system of government similar to apartheid and white supremacy.

Let me tell you all a story.

Back in the run-up to the last general election, I was helping Johor Umno prepares the defence of the state.

Despite that, I was at first quite okay with then Johor DAP chief Dr Boo Cheng Hau.

That was until he came up with an article in some publication equating our civil servants as being similar to those of former apartheid regime in South Africa and Nazi Germany.

This is a reply to Dr Boo's article written by former Johor NST bureau chief Ben Tan, who is a Christian Chinese,

'Nazi' label a disservice to the civil service

2011/07/04
By Ben Tan

MOST of the time, I am all for free speech, as long as the speaker or writer can be truthful and back up their words with facts. I even agree with the recent controversial Facebook posting by Johor DAP chairman Dr Boo Cheng Hau on the country's civil service with regard to the lack of participation of non-Malays.

But my support ends there as I feel that his statements that our country is run along the lines of a totalitarian state akin to the Third Reich of Nazi Germany were unfair. His remarks were reported in the New Straits Times last Friday.

Dr Boo, who is also Skudai assemblyman, had on June 18, posted his article titled "Isn't a one-race civil service a form of apartheid?" on The Centre for Policy Initiatives website, which was later linked to his own Facebook page. This later caused a stir at the state assembly meeting last Thursday.

Being born and bred in this country for over 35 years, I do not see it being a police state or run militarily like how Germany was under the Nazis.

My opinion is that Dr Boo is being overly dramatic in drawing parallels between our country and "Nazi Germany" and also the civil service in promoting "racist", apartheid-like policies.

In his article, which has received widespread links in several online portals and blogs, Dr Boo alleged that Malaysia has a "huge and largely ethnic Malay civil service, completely loyal to Umno, but increasingly incompetent" and that is the biggest obstacle to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's 1Malaysia.

"Non-Malays have been gradually cleansed from the public sector with only a few remaining now in crucial and inevitable sectors such as teaching in vernacular schools."

Dr Boo then described Umno members as "ultra-nationalists" who defend majority-race dominance as justifiable, as opposed to the minority-race dominance previously in South Africa, under apartheid.

"Like other totalitarian states in history such as the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, Umno needs a large number of Malay civil servants to control the populace through racism," he added.

Interestingly, in his Easter Day message in April, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, too, had hinted at "Hitlerian" ideas and had asked Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders if it was wrong to oppose racial supremacy.

A Malay friend of mine, who is a rank and file personnel attached with the Johor police contingent, disagreed with Dr Boo and described his statement as being over-the-top, to the extent of mildly promoting racism. My friend, 25, had spent the past three years in service.

He said he would like to see the participation of more Chinese, Indians and those from other races in joinng the force as it would be an ideal platform to promote unity.

"But it's more of a choice for the non-Malays. They feel that the private sector can offer much more, thus the lack of appeal to join the civil service," he said, adding that the issue was far from just favouring a particular race.

This generally-held perception is accepted by many. You just cannot stop people who want a better life for themselves. After all, it is not like we are forced to serve our entire lives with the civil service.

Like most Chinese Malaysians, I am happy to say that I am not forced to wear shirts with a "Saya Cina" patch and interned in concentration camps, to be ethnically cleansed or gassed to death like how the Nazis did the Jews.

On the other hand, I enjoy the company of many Malay friends that I have had the opportunity to meet during the course of my work. There are some that I even consider my mentors.

Conversely, my Malay friends, some from varied backgrounds, also hold the same respect for me.

In many ways, I think Dr Boo's analogy of our country with the Third Reich and the apartheid regime is unfair.

The Nazis, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, used the race card (or rather, the claimed supreme Aryan race) to crush any opposition, but it ultimately burned itself out. The word "Nazi" is today a dirty word.

The same goes to the now-defunct apartheid regime of South Africa.

So, with Dr Boo's article, we appear to be revisiting another nasty label in an attempt to provoke society. Such reference is nothing new, but it appears to be resurrecting itself for possible political gains. The issue of non-Malay participation in our country's civil service is quite well known and have been highlighted by the media many times before.

Dr Boo, or even those that tend to agree with the issue of non-Malay participation in the civil service, should instead come out with solutions instead of making a comparison on how similar we are to failed totalitarian regimes that run along racial lines.

I am not against constructive criticism. I do it all the time myself as I am doing it now.

But pulling out the racial card, such as Nazi-labelling, is a cheap trick that desensitise with a profound meaning that should be reserved only for its historical significance and the horrors that they were known for.

Ben Tan was then heavily condemned by a lackey of Dr Boo.

I wrote about the scum in this post,

Meroyan bottom of wok

I'm not even going to dirty this blog page with the link to that rant against Ben Tan.

And you know what, now one of those hired mercenaries is attacking me for what I wrote about that buntut kuali.

As for Ben Tan, he was the one who led the Johor NST team during the GE13.

I know him around that time and think he did a decent job in support of the establishment.

However , NST, which was supposed to be pro-establishment and led by supporters of Najib forced Ben Tan to quit his job last year over some petty issues.

And what Najib's advisers do about these sorts of things?

Nothing.

Instead they hired those mercenaries.

And this Ben Tan's story is not the only one.

Yup, that's one of my main issues with Najib's advisers.