ormer prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, known for his decades of inhumane administration, has come out strongly against Human Rights in Malaysia. This was after Rahim Noor, the thuggish former policeman who beat up Anwar Ibrahim while he was handcuffed, equated the Human Rights movement with Communism.
Mahathir declared that he was against Human Rights because it would allow people of the same sex to marry. Clearly he is mixing it up with gay rights. But then, Mahathir always seems to have homosexuality on his mind, right from his graphic description of a homosexual act on national television in 1998. He also built the twin towers, an entirely unnecessary piece of real estate for a small nation like Malaysia, and a phallic symbol if there ever was one. It remains an unviable and loss-making entity, propped up by Petronas and clever accounting.
What Mahathir needs perhaps is a clinical psychologist, one who could delve into his childhood and discover the roots of Mahathir’s psychosis and his many pet hatreds and fears . Perhaps the psychologist could explain to Mahathir that building tall buildings and making up tall tales will never serve to save him from his own feelings of inadequacy. Many serial killers had childhoods like Mahathir; a doting mother, a distant father, an oedipal son. Watch Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Don't ever question me!
What Mahathir is really against is the right of Malaysians to question him. Particularly to question the many projects of his witless sons and insatiably greedy cronies. For with Human Rights comes free speech and with free speech comes transparency. For a financial Nosferatu like Mahathir, transparency is as deadly an enemy as sunlight was to Count Orlok.
So we have this sinister, contrived dance between Mahathir and Rahim Noor. First we have the Neanderthalian Rahim Noor, of whose capability to count to ten we cannot be entirely certain, postulating the preposterous hypothesis that Human Rights is like Communism.
This is then followed up with Mahathir’s remarkable theory that Human Rights is some kind of gay movement. There is, of course, a pattern here. Communism and homosexuality are both anathema to Malaysia’s Malay community. Mahathir would like to render Human Rights unpalatable to the majority of Malaysia’s voters.
Unfortunately for Mahathir, he is at least ten years behind time. Neither the Malays, nor any of Malaysia’s other communities, are easily fooled any more. It will not work, as the earlier attempt by Himpun, a collective brainchild of Umno and Perkasa, did not succeed in driving a wedge between religions.
Behind time
Xenophobia, Mahathir will find, is no longer so easy to stir up in Malaysia. Mahathir, and his devious, contemptible tactics, have no place in the new, post-2008 Malaysia.
However, it is not just Mahathir who is against Human Rights. The BN is also most certainly against Human Rights. But while Mahathir appears to take pride in politically incorrect statements, quite convinced perhaps, that this makes him look clever; the BN engages in deceit and doubletalk.
Prime Minister Najib Razak offers to scrap the ISA, but in the same breath notes that it will be replaced by two new laws. The Emergency Ordinance is repealed; but only after it would have been political suicide to ever use it again.
Malaysians will never be given back the freedoms guaranteed them in Malaysia’s constitution as long as the BN is in power. If Malaysians want genuine freedom, they will have to take it for themselves, in the next General Election.
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