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The deadly sins of Umno

— Jacob Sinnathamby
The Malaysian Insider
Nov 04, 2011

NOV 4 — Every day a layer of deception is peeled away from the men and women who govern this country and who have a choke grip on our fate. The ongoing Parliament session and the reaction to the Auditor-General’s Report and the campaign of lies against Lim Guan Eng’s son have led me to think more deeply about Umno and what motivates them to behave and think and speak in the manner they do.

For ease of reference, I will list out the characteristics of Umno (and here I mean the leaders of the party) and will call them the deadly sins of Umno.

1) Pride. This characteristic flows through Muhyiddin Yassin to Khairy Jamaluddin. The Umno leader has no or little humility, he believes that he is a self-made person and is entitled to every position, privilege he has, not for a moment stopping to accept that it is through God’s grace that he is an elected representative.

Pride is manifested in this party where NO ONE owns up to a mistake and says sorry. Did Muhyiddin or Khairy say sorry for jumping on the wrong bandwagon and perpetuating an untruth against a 16-year-old boy?

2) Avarice. It isn’t a coincidence that billions of ringgit have been squandered and looted in the last 25 years. This is the period in which the sense of entitlement, inflated contracts and the culture off easy money has kicked in with party members. It is no more enough to siphon off a million or two, now it runs into hundreds of millions.

Ever wonder how even second-rung Umno politicians don’t have a steady job but drive Porsche Cayennes, live in bungalows and have a string of aides, etc. There was not even any surprise detected in the speech of government ministers and MPs at the mismanagement and excesses detailed in the Auditor-General’s Report. But why should they be surprised: they know why this is happening year in, year out.

3) Stupidity. Did Nazri Aziz really go to law school? I ask this question because his explanation on the Court of Appeal’s ruling that a law prohibiting student involvement in politics as unconstitutional defies logic. He dismissed the epochal decision, saying that the law is still valid as the court was only stating an opinion. No, this was the nub of the case before the court and the court’s ruling invalidates the law.

Unless the Federal Court disagrees that the law in unconstitutional, undergraduates can go ahead and get involved in politics. And to think that Nazri is one of the smarter ministers!!! Noh Omar gave us a glimpse of the quality of the Cabinet with his mindless explanation of the National Feedlot Centre project. (Even cows would have indigestion making sense of his numbers.)

4) Symbolism. The Umno politician is in love with symbolic acts and public relations. He likes to be photographed having nasi lemak with the masses, donating money to vernacular schools and making a trip to the Vatican. But this is skin deep only because when the crunch comes, his real self emerges, the self where his own racial and beliefs take precedence over everything.

The best recent example is the fairytale about Christians taking over the country and the equally entertaining story of 250,000 Muslims leaving Islam. Instead of setting the record straight and guarding the fabric of this country, Najib Razak and his comrades played dumb. Maybe it is tough being real leaders and much easier making symbolic acts.

5) Dishonesty. There was a time, maybe a long, long time ago, when the word of the Umno leader was good. He told Malaysians about the challenges and problems. Now there is only good news. Despite a global meltdown which is going to make 2008 financial crisis small, we are going to have better growth next year than this year and Idris Jala keeps mouthing some astronomical numbers and GNI and other stuff.

How about some honesty on what is the short-term and medium-term prognosis for this country? We expect our leaders to be honest and truthful about something as important as the economy. You know you have been found out as liars when most private economists want to know what air you have been breathing.

6) Desperation. Desperate people do desperate things and allow bad things to happen. Allowing non-citizens to obtain documents to vote is an act of treachery and a breach of trust between government and citizens. Allowing hate to be nurtured and promoted against a community (Christians or Chinese or both) is bad for the country.

But everything seems kosher these days because some people want to stay in power forever.

20 Replies to “The deadly sins of Umno”

  1. For decades…stealing …plundering…bluffing…enjoying like royalties and not behaving like elected politicians…..jailing innocent people…and much more….led..encouraged and examples shown by Mahathir have made them what they are…feeling the never had it so good all their lives,,,until Mahathir open their eyes….making sure IGP and AG are handpicked to protect them.
    Did that for 22 years and become the habits…the personalities..the mentalities…figuratively speaking…carrying on from father to sons and daughters…in the UMNO b political arena.

  2. Under the disguise of NEP, Umno has created a new DNA for the group of people it was supposed to protect and cultivate to meet the ever changing world. Instead it spent all the time to swindle the nation dry. After over a generation of such behaviour, how would they change that behaviour to that which can compete honestly in an open market?. They forget that cultivated DNA will become part of their heritage over time. They will continue to behave that the whole world owe them sometime wothout the need to lift a finger. Such syndrome is an assured ticket to dreamland in the 21 st century once the Petronas well dries up. Yes, we can support the bloated sleeping civil service so long that Petronas can generate those billions! They refuse to look around them even in the Asean region let along CHINA and India. Such acquired DNA is already in action in the PIGS in Europe. Yes the CREATOR has said: THere is no free meal anywhere! Umno still refuses to accept the basic fact that the current psyche of the majority of the population; yes including some of the non-Bumis has been created by the syndrome of free ride. You just look at the quality of houses being built, the attitude of the general workers, and the expectations of getting easy money without sweating; all these come about become many Malaysians are being induced to believe that without sweating you can make money. Why are there so many Ah Longs around? They know that it is easier to behave like criminals to get what they wanted. Why? the Police and related agencies have got a price tact. We have so many regulations yet nothing moves as expected. Why, because thoseregulations are used to create easy money; like negotiated tenders! We are condoning people who made a nuisance of themselves just like the Mamak in Penang and of course the Police condoned his action! as if the general public is not aware of his action of disruption! Do carry on until the GE, and see if MCA/GERAKAN can retain Penang!
    While the rest of the Far East is racing to remain relevent, we spend so much time politicizing issues which should be based on simple needs of the nation: like learning the English language! We can keep on harping all these issues without any real productive gain and soon enough we will export our maids to Indonesia or Thailand and then we can see whether we need to cover everypart of the body!

  3. Seven deadly sins…one die….sure to go to hell.
    Some of these UMNO b committed more than 7 deadly sins.
    Mahathir and Najib are two examples.
    These two will BURN in hell…to become roasted ghost..smell like sheeeet burning.
    With moon fut faces and long red tongues…and long fangs…most ugly ghosts with no power.
    Instead of walking…hoping .hoping hoping like two idiots.

  4. cintanegara will join them …sooner or later..fanning from behind to keep his two masters as cool as he can.
    He was born to be so…and is destiny is always carrying Bls of these two.
    Bless him for calling me mad….for sure I am mad with crooks stealing Malaysians money….including mine ….with no shame.
    These sick living jackals ..stealing no enough….must dress up with false tittles …..so much so…the ordinary Indonesians Muslims hate them like poison….for insulting the Islamic religion.

  5. Who is afraid of the big bad Malaysian wolves?
    Answer:…..no one.
    For in Malaysia….no wolves….all acting with no false fangs and no biting power.
    Virginian wolves are real fierce.
    cintanegera rambutan tree is dying….a sign that 13th GE…his master’s party…….finito…kapook…liow le….sayonara…chia chen….vamoos….bye bye.

  8. No need to be personal & question whether Nazri Aziz really qualified from law school or allege he’s stupid. The fact is logic has no play in this deeply divided country at this moment where everyone is partisan and proceeds on emotions than logic on most issues. Nazri might be imprecise to say the UUCA was still good law after Court of Appeal impugned it as unconstitutional – this is because until such time Federal Court overrules it, the Court of Appeal decision stands as law – but in the broader sense the Court of Appeal decision is not only appealable to Federal Court, but if appealed, is likely to be overruled quite as easily as legally and constitutionally untenable, with dissenting judgment of Low Hop Ping (favourable to govt) being legally and constitutionally nearer correct that the other 2 majority judgments that we here favour.

  10. It does not mean all lawyers or doctors or any degree person is qualified to perform what he studied and put in practice.
    Look at Mahathir..Lingam….Samy Vellu…Chua Soi Lek…and it is enough to tell you….these are money crazy people..getting millions upon millions without working.
    Yes…they become rouges and thieves with their degrees.
    Can’t you see that?

  11. I don’t know what degree Najib has to qualify to be PM.
    But Mhuyiddin…will certainly be the lowest educated man ….if he ever becomes a PM.
    Last time…UMNO b rejected the late Gaffar Baba saying …he was not qualified due to his low education backgroud.
    Like everything else…they change the rules to suit their whims and fancies.

  12. The Court of Appeal’s recent decision is “epochal” for 2 reasons: (a) it reaffirms & restores on its own our fundamental liberties in Article 5(1) of Constitution and (b) upholds whatever we say about of separation of power and independence of judiciary to check intrusive powers of combined powers of Executive/Legislative. It is morally correct decision, and it’s what the country needs to undo what the Mahathir administration has done. However it is arguable that the majority Court of Appeal’s is legally/constitutionally correct/defensible (at the moment based on present law) only because the judicial power of courts to challenge what Executive/Legislature has done/intended to be done by a piece of draconian legislation like UUCA had already been taken away by constitutional amendment by TDM’s administration/BN 2/3 Parliament in 1988, and until that is reversed by another amendment, Courts’ role is (strictly) to interpret the law as Parliament intended in UUCA and no power to go behind and review whether the intentions of Parliament behind UUCA were “reasonable” in balance against the guarantee of our civil liberties in Article 5 – which is basically what Judge Low Hop Ping has decided, dissenting from the other 2 majority.

  13. Back to point about “sins” of UMNO or its leaders one of the most prominent characteristics is factionalism ie power struggle. This simply means the leader is allowed to warm the seat a while and enjoys the perks & powers of office but don’t be too long because the next one waiting in line will be impatient and will undercut (subtly obliquely seldom confrontationally) and galvanise the rest to usher the leader out. This has happened and will happen, the only exception so far being TDM who, come what may and even if Hell breaks loose, fought 3 of his no. 2s to make the point that he would go on his accord when he was ready but not otherwise.

  14. There are 2 unfortunate consequences to the nation arising from this intense factionalism. The first is when the power struggle is on each contestant will try to rally support against the other based ostensibly on party’s ideals survival and well being. The problem is since early Alliance’s days the structure of politics is communal drawn on race line – for eg UMNO, MCA & MIC, and therefore it means what is ideal and good for the party is what is ideal and good for a particular race as against the others which is precisely the formula that leads the country/people itself to become fractionalized & divided with one segment of te rakyat in continuous “power struggle” mirroring the going ons up in UMNO (and lesser extent the other coalition parties)!

  15. The second consequence is that the institutions (courts, civil service bureaucracy and the actors within by their actions & decisions etc) also get affected by this political factionalism up there as they take side to sokong the personalities/leader of their preference and their political positions in the contest above. So whilst everyone talks about principles and logic, no one really cares a hoot of them being guided more by emotions and which side they want to take by their actions.

    All these 2 unintended consequences of factionalism are very detrimental to the very notion of inclusive national identity and nation building and it has been amply shown by our steady deterioration all these decades.

  16. So if there’s a sin – that (factionalism from the need to fight and quickly take over from the other) is the cardinal sin. Of course there’s also pride, avarice, stupidity, symbolism, dishonesty and desperation but these are not just sins monopolised by UMNOputras – they are the sins of all Mankind but they are more pronounced and obvious to people like Jacob Sinnathamby only because of the intense going on of factionalism (behind the scenes in spite of the hypocrisy and outward facade of party unity) that accentuates thse normal human frailties…

  17. What else do we not know already? And those elaborated above are not the worse. Wot’s worse is the fact that umno claimed the right to do everything listed by the author as a constitutional ketuanan privilege. That is why umnoputras could see nothing wrong with the auditor general’s report. Buying a 2000 ringgit item for 50,000 ringgit. That is alright. 10 yrs to complete a building at maybe 3times the original costs. Anything wrong with that. Certainly no, according to umno. And the worst of the worst is the fact that their constitutional ketuanan rights are not questionable. Doing so would amount to anti-agung, anti-sultan, anti-islam jenis umno, anti-melayu (actually umno), ungratefulness, unpatriotic, communism, terrorism etc etc.

  19. Whatever the monster UMNO is today, its creation is due in no small part to the cooperation of their partners in crime, their coalition partners, MCA and MIC in particular.

    In the beginning they allowed themselves to be bullied into submission, then decided if you cannot beat them, then join them. After the departure of giants like Tun Tan Siew Sin and Tun Sambathan, the succession of coalition partners’ leaders, instead of acting like equal partners and safeguarding the national interest, abdicated their responsibilities and join the bandwagon.

    Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thats what UMNO is and if these BN coalition partners had seen this, they could have prevented the rot we see today.

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