By Sakmongkol AK47 | May 21, 2012
The Malaysian Insider
MAY 21 — When you travel along the Seremban highway you will see so many large posters of Najib exhorting the people with his usual sloganeering — Sejuta Impian, Seribu Keriangan. For slogans he got an A++ from Tun Daim. Translated loosely it says, “A Million Dreams, A Thousand Happiness”.
Where do these dreams and happiness come from? Look at the posters closer. The posters tell of the basic building block on how Umno sees itself. Umno sees itself as the omnipotent being from where all providence spring from. Hence Umno wants to be deified to whom the people, rakyat, owe complete loyalty and allegiance to. It therefore doesn’t understand why people, most notably Malays find Umno revolting.
This is what Najib doesn’t understand. People no longer accept ascriptive stature without demanding more than just your name and position. Beyond your name and position, people want to know what can be achieved. People look out for achieving qualities. What have you achieved and what policies can you offer to achieve the greater good. Otherwise, you can put all the behemoth-sized posters along highways, people will just regard them as another way the government spends money like it’s theirs.
The posters show they (dreams and happiness) emanate from the office of the PM. Everything comes from the government and Najib. His portraits make him look more and more like the Korean Kims by the day. He has certainly shown his dark side by unleashing the repressive forces during the recent Bersih 3.0. How can a leader of his country allow the police to fire tear gas and water cannons on his own people? What kind of PM can describe people as accursed bastards?
That is why Najib goes around saying “lu tolong gua, gua tolong lu” and “give me your nambikei”. This is the fundamental flaw which Najib commits every time he relates to people. He is pictured as the larger-than-life figure, the office of the PM is in the background hovering and towering over the mass of people depicted as the rakyat with the dreams and the hope for happiness. The rakyat, people, my fellow citizens, my fellow Malays are always depicted as smallish entities, numberless digits.
Najib is a leader of the government that sees the rakyat as digits to be manipulated and shaped at will. He might as well say “my fellow slaves, ask not we your masters can do for you, but ask what you can do to enrich and make us more powerful”. Najib’s government is that collection of individuals who exercise the rule of the government over its constituents. Who is that collection of individuals? They are that collective of the elite and powerful. What do they do, every day and time of their waking life? We can call Umno by any name now — kleptocracy, oligarchy, plutarchy.
Najib preys on the susceptibilities and gullibility of the rakyat. The rulers claim a compassionate kindred with the common workers (aka slaves) and simultaneously enjoy the fruits of the labour of these menial serfs, also known as “my fellow citizens, rakyat, people” etc. So Najib goes around claiming, it is people first, achievement this and that.
But the posters tell you a different thing. People are always second. Achievement is a distant objective. The immediate objective is to secure unquestioning loyalty because the leaders are who they are and not what they can do.
So when you look closer at the posters next time, you will see them coming alive and saying ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. You will see that Najib is really saying — ask not what the elite and powerful can do for you, ask what you can do for the elite and powerful. — sakmongkol.blogspot.com
* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).