Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, taking a leaf from Mahathir Mohamad, has launched the Global Movement of the Moderates (GMM) in Putrajaya on Tuesday this week.
But of what good can it do for Malaysia or the world is a source of national and international puzzlement. What is certain though, the event will cost Malaysian taxpayers a pretty penny indeed - all for the purpose of boosting Najib's ego and padding his resume or legacy, if you will.
The implication here is that Islamic fundamentalists everywhere are engaged in a Global War of Terrorism against the west and its allies. The so-called moderates, like Najib, want to distance themselves from this militant form of Islam propagated by a tiny minority. In the process, they want to buy “respectability’ and support from the international community for their own self-serving political survival.
Muslim extremism or terrorism
The idea is to turn increasingly vulnerable Muslim youth into illiterate suicide bombers who can be relied on as so much cannon fodder and/or to strike terror in public places, and military establishments, and sow a general feeling of government ineptitude and helplessness in the face of insecurity in the non-Muslim world and among the ruling elite in the Muslim world.
The objective: to increase the cost of doing business in the non-Muslim world, the west and India in particular, increase insurance and security costs and depress values in currency, collateral, land, shares, properties and other investments and instruments.
The objective: to drive the non-Muslim world, the west and India in particular towards insolvency and the collapse of secular Muslim regimes.
The objective: to foster the emergence of a worldwide Muslim Empire in the form of the return of the Caliphate, to replace secular Muslim regimes, while destroying the papacy and ensuring the subjugation of the non-Muslim world.
Nearer home, Pakistan sees militant Islam as a unifying force against being re-absorbed by India, its giant secular neighbour which continues to get more powerful by the day and cause jitters among the ruling elite in Islamabad.
Anwar was a moderate long before the word became politically popular
The west meanwhile also stands accused of being engaged in endless wars, arms peddling and the like, unlike the so-called moderates like Najib and Malaysia who ostensibly preach a more “moderate”, presumably pacifist, vision in diplomacy, crisis management, conflict resolution and economics. This is a repeat of Mahathir’s attempts to get the world community to criminalise war.
The west would argue that they would have to demonstrate their ability to ensure global security, at least for themselves, in the face of all forms of militancy. The level and degree of maintainance of global security, in turn, would manifest itself in facilitating cost-efficiency in doing business and the like as already outlined.
By latching on to the “moderate” label, Najib is obviously also trying to erase public perceptions of him as an extremist, racist, ultra and perhaps even a fanatic in a way.
But can a leopard change its spots
Memories of Najib raising the Malay keris or sword at an Umno Youth meet, some time ago in his past, and swearing to bathe it in Chinese blood are still fresh in the public mind. Anyone with access to the internet can Google the despicable incident complete with pictures.
If we are going to give the benefit of the doubt to Najib, and assuming the leopard can indeed change its spots, the question that arises is whether he can go beyond mere rhetoric and rise to the occasion.
Charity begins at home.
Najib cannot wear the moderate hat outside the country and the hat of opposites – extremist, racist, ultra, fanatic – at home.
He has to choose whether he wants to be known and remembered as a moderate, both at home and abroad, or show himself in his true colours.
Not qualified
Patently, Najib the ‘keris’ is not qualified to claim the moderate label unless he can redeem himself from his past.
For the record, Najib presides over a government and system which has institutionalised racism – prejudice and opportunism included -- and encourages virtually slavery through statelessness, human trafficking and illegal immigration.
This issue among others, including the observance of key tenets of the Federal Constitution more often than not in the breach, has been flogged to death in the past.
Briefly, Article 153, Article 3, Article 8, Article 10 and the like and the New Economic Policy (NEP), the use of the term Bumiputera for groups not sanctioned by the Federal Constitution, a misreading of the term “Malay” and politicising Malaysian history when not basing it for chunks on the fairy tales in the Sejarah Melayu.
Lying to the country is bad enough, stop lying to the world
Najib has tried to pull the wool over the public eyes by emphasising on government transformation and economic transformation and so far all on paper.
But man does not live by bread alone. Najib cannot impress Malaysians by trotting out figures on Key Performances Indexes, the amount of foreign investment gathered and the like.
He needs to grab the bull by the horns and ensure fundamental political reforms are put in place. No one in the richer states and the urban areas is any longer interested in bread-and-butter issues.
Promising even more development – including in the form of piped water and electricity more than 50 years after the British left – and doling out our money to ourselves in the form of vote-buying bribes under various guises is not the way to go.
One can bluff some of the people some of the time but not all the people all the time.
It’s high time that Najib and his ruling Umno stop the politics of distraction and disruption and decide where politics ends and good government begins. Either shape up or ship out. Don’t waste our time!
