Friday, January 23, 2015

Winds of Change (1)

The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.


- Harold Macmillan, PM Britain






On 03 February 1960, slightly more than half a century ago, Harold Macmillan, PM of Britain, made his famous 'Winds of Change' speech in white supremacist South Africa, signalling Britain's increasing concerns over the ultra-racist apartheid system in South Africa. His aim was to persuade the white leaders of South Africa to abandon its racist policies and move towards racial equality.

The phrase 'Winds of Change' became a historical term in contemporary world history, and I want to examine such a possible phenomena in Malaysia today on several areas, but let's start with just one in this post.

So, are we sensing such a 'Winds of  Change' in Malaysia with regards to the government-sanctioned Islamization of Malaysia since 29 September 2001.

Malaysiakini reported that then-PM Dr Mahathir stated in his opening address to Gerakan Party's 30th national delegates conference that: 

“UMNO wishes to state loudly that Malaysia is an Islamic country. This is based on the opinion of ulamaks who had clarified what constituted as Islamic country. If Malaysia is not an Islamic country because it does not implement the hudud, then there are no Islamic countries in the world. 
If UMNO says that Malaysia is an Islamic country, it is because in an Islamic country non-Muslims have specific rights. This is in line with the teachings of Islam. There is no compulsion in Islam. And Islam does not like chaos that may come about if Islamic laws are enforced on non-Muslims.

Lim Kit Siang termed Dr M's pronouncement as the '929 Declaration'. He then sneered at MCA and Gerakan for immediately embracing and enthusing about Dr M's Declaration, not unlike the recent tudung-ed sweeties embracing the Korean pop groups, wakakaka.


Ms MCA and Ms Gerakan hugging K-Pop star Dr M

wakakaka 

Lim KS stated: Before his “929 Declaration” that Malaysia is an Islamic state at the Gerakan national assembly on September 29 last year, MCA and Gerakan leaders had been attacking the DAP for working “hand-in-glove’ with PAS to establish an Islamic State, proclaiming at the top of their voices that Malaysia is a secular and not an Islamic State. 

But immediately after Mahathir’s “929 Declaration” that Malaysia is an Islamic state, the MCA and Gerakan leaders were the first to give their full and unequivocal support that Malaysia had always been an Islamic state from day one of our nationhood 44 years ago ...


... as if the founding fathers and early leaders of MCA like Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Tun Tan Siew Sin, Tun S.H. Lee, Too Joon Hing or even the early UMNO leaders like Onn Jaffar, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein Onn would have agreed to multi-racial and multi-religious Malaysia becoming an Islamic State.

For eight month after September 29 last year, MCA and Gerakan leaders were trumpeting that Malaysia is a moderate Islamic state

Looks like MCA and Gerakan were K-popped - note: not K-Y-ed though on the 929 Declaration it has to be said they were "asking for it", wakakaka.



But Malaysiakini columnist Lee Ban Chen wrote (in 2001) despairing of the MCA and Gerakan (and presumably MIC) as follows:

The most shameful and ridiculous are the non-Malay based component parties of the BN, which have been opposing the establishment of an Islamic state all along, to suddenly make an about-turn and support unconditionally Mahathir's version of Islamic state - albeit with an guilty conscience, if they still have one, that is.

The MCA propaganda machine had to invent an incredible term, "secular Islamic state", as a compromise to their former strong anti-Islamic state stand. It might be okay to appease the muddle-headed who have very little knowledge about Islamic state, but for the knowledgeable, especially among Muslims, a secular Islamic state is just unthinkable because "there is no half-way house between secularism and Islam", to quote Salleh Abas.

MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik has exposed his out-and-out opportunistic political stand when he, on one hand agreeing with Mahathir's declaration that Malaysia is already an Islamic state, on the other said that Malaysia can also be called a secular state and that it was only a matter of interpretation!

He even resorted to sophistry, saying that many things can be called by more than one name. A rose in English is a rose, in Mandarin it is mei-kwei, in Malay bunga mawar and in Tamil roja but they all mean the same thing.

But sophistry won't alter facts. An Islamic state in English is an Islamic state, in Mandarin it is hui-jiao-guo, in Malay kerajaan Islam. It is true that they all mean the same thing, but they definitely do not mean secular state as suggested by Ling!

I hope you know the meaning of 'sophistry'. It's a polite term for bullshit! The dictionary calls it 'use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving'. Wakakaka.



Apart from Lim KS's objection, significantly two Malaysian leaders disputed Dr 's Declaration. The first was the former Lord President Salleh Abas, who pointed out that the highest law in the country is the Federal Constitution, with Syariah law (Islamic law) being only a branch within the constitution.

Malaysiakini (12 Nov 2001) reported: Salleh said that his stand on Article 3 was clearly stated in a 1988 judgment which ruled that the term 'Islam' in Article 3 referred only to acts relating to "rituals and ceremonies". He stressed that Malaysia can only be converted into an Islamic state when the word 'Islam' in Article 3 is amended so that Syariah could be applied fully to at least all Muslims.

Today we read/hear the same Salleh-like ruling in the recent Court of Appeal decision reaffirming the limits of Shariah law to only familial matters.

Note the word 're-affirming' which means the limited powers of the syariah courts were long since affirmed, as per what former Lord President Salleh Abas had ruled.

The Malay Mail Online reported in its Review Shariah law ambit, observers say after landmark court ruling (extracts):



Voices for change will lead to Winds of change

Lauding the appellate court’s written findings that expressly stated the secularity of Malaysia’s legal system based on the Federal Constitution, Muslim women’s group Sisters in Islam urged authorities to suspend Shariah criminal laws that exceed the stated restriction.

“This is indeed a landmark decision and echoes Sisters in Islam calls to review the Syariah Criminal Offences law given the many unconstitutional provisions that violates fundamental liberties as guaranteed under the Constitution,” Ratna Osman, the executive director of SIS said. [...]

In its written judgment on a high-profile transgender case, the Court of Appeal said that that the Federal Constitution restricts Islamic legislation to marriage, divorce and inheritance, based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in the landmark 1988 Che Omar Che Soh case.

Former de facto law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim lauded the “clear thinking” judges for the decision and said that it took “lots of courage from Muslim judges to pronounce the appropriate place of Islamic law under the Constitution.”




He noted however, such decision has already been made decades ago but today’s ruling is an affirmation to that.

“If our judges had been willing to make the correct pronouncement of the law, the country would have been spared the uncertainty and confusion which 20 years of ambivalence has generated,” he said.

Syarie lawyer Akbardin Abdul Kader also agreed that the Federal Constitution limits Islamic law to familial issues, saying that the restricted jurisdiction has always been “clearly defined.”

“The state legislature has to pass enactments and laws according to these only,” Akbardin added. [...]

The three-judge panel of Malaysia’s second-highest court led by Justice Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Yunus cited former Lord President Tun Salleh Abas, who had ruled that the framers of the Federal Constitution had confined the word “Islam” in Article 3 — which says that Islam is the religion of the Federation — to the areas of marriage, divorce and inheritance law, based on the history of Islamic legislation in Malaya during British colonial times.

“In short, the Supreme Court takes the position that it was the intention of the framers of our Federal Constitution that the word ‘Islam’ in Art. 3(1) be given a restrictive meaning,” Hishamudin said in the appellate court’s full judgment released on January 2 in the case of three Muslim transwomen fighting a cross-dressing ban under Negri Sembilan Shariah law.


The second Malaysian leader to dispute Dr M's Declaration that Malaysia was an Islamic State was, would you believe it wakakaka, none other (then) the spiritual leader of PAS and the Menteri Besar of Kelantan, Pak Haji Nik Aziz who said:




“You can talk all you want. You can declare a piece of wood to be gold, or a wheelbarrow as a Mercedez, but in reality, nothing has changed.
For us, an Islamic country is one which is governed according to the tenets of the Quran and Hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammed). Malaysia is a secular State. If the present Malaysia is already an Islamic state, then what do you call the state ruled by Prophet Muhammed and his friends?”

As for our 'Melayu mudah lupa' Dr M himself, just last year he sang a different tune, saying that Malaysia is neither an Islamic nor a secular state, but just an 'ordinary state' (whatever that means, wakakaka) with Islam as the official religion. Wakakaka.



He told reporters that although Malaysia has been proclaimed as an Islamic country before (I wonder by whom, wakakaka), it did not mean that Malaysia has to take steps to “make it Islamic”.

Well, your government as well as those of your successors (wakakaka) have.

He stated: “We are just an ordinary state that recognises Islam as the official religion of the country, and we practise things that are not against the religion of Islam.”



“We have declared ourselves as an Islamic state before, but that does not mean that we have to do all kinds of other things to make it Islamic. There are so many Islamic states that don’t even declare they are Islamic and they don’t practise many of the things that are supposed to be associated with Islamic states.”

Anyway, back again to 2001 - Far far more interestingly, and PLEASE TAKE NOTE of this one, Malaysiakini also reported (bearing in mind the news report was in 2001):

Terengganu Mentri Besar and PAS national deputy president Abdul Hadi Awang was quoted as saying that once an Islamic state is established, non-Muslims will be subjected to Islamic laws involving public interests although there will be exceptions for certain areas.


Gulp gasp omigosh, so there you have it, our dear Pak Haji Hadi and his 'non-Muslims will be subjected to Islamic laws involving public interests'.



In concluding I just want to say two things:

(a) it's evident that the political-ideological relationship between PAS and DAP now has to be, nay, must be deemed as irreconcilable (unless you're obdurately blind), and that DAP will suffer its 1999 punishment if it still insists on proceeding with an alliance with a hudud-bent PAS with serious severe consequences for non-Muslims - see my DAP - remember 1999 in which I penned the following (extracts only):

While politics is the art of the possible, there has to be a limit, i.e, short of a Faustian Pact in working together with PAS.

The DAP has done well enough - see my 2012 post The 2 dreams of Lim Kit Siang.

While it's natural for a political party like the DAP to aspire to majority rule eventually, either in a coalition or even by itself, I urge the party not to be stampeded by the personal agenda and timeline of Anwar Ibrahim who is known to be impatient and whose entire once-glorious career was let down by this, his Achilles heel.

It would be true to say that the concept of Pakatan, one in which a socialist-secularist DAP was brought to work with PAS, obviously a working relationship of dubious but undeniably short-term fashion, has been born out of Anwar's most un-manamanlai impatience to be PM.

Regardless of whether the Erdogens take over PAS, its stripes, fangs and predatory (big cat) scent are now more than ever very obvious to the Chinese and Indians.




And the Chinese in particular love to punish political parties which they believe have betrayed their cause or interests - recall Wong Pow Nee's Perikatan in 1969, Gerakan in 2008, MCA in 2013, wakakaka.

And DAP, please do not forget 1999.

(b) Finally but not least of all, I want to thank the 25 prominent Malaysians who signed an open letter to PM Najib expressing deep concern about the growing influence of extreme Islam in Malaysia. I believe this has given courage to many Malaysian Muslims to come out to the front to say what they have always wanted to say.



43 comments:

  1. Nothing will come out of the Group of 25.
    Most Malays see them as "lost" (sesat) , too Western oriented, too elitist.

    Ah Jib Gor sent some office-boys to meet them instead of a direct meeting which they had requested.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "DAP has done well enough" - many of the new seats DAP has gained outside of its traditional overwhelmingly Chinese districts - are won partly because some Malays have become comfortable enough to vote for DAP in the context of an alliance with Islam-based PAS, and Malay-majority PKR.
    That includes Lim Kit Siang's latest Gelang Patah seat.

    DAP needs to think very carefully about its future before cutting off ties with PAS.
    I personally feel it will not be good for the country's future.
    A lot of the current conflicts, I feel can be settled through discussion, though not through the megaphone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DAP can expect some minor losses but the political reality is PAS needs DAP more than DAP needs PAS - the difference and DANGER for DAP is that PAS has a go-it-alone mentality when things are going swimmingly for them - ta'ada kamcheng, gratitude or brotherhood lah

      Delete
  3. Another one of yr manmanlai-bashing ego trip!

    1) Hiding behind this 'grand-touring' about the in-&-out of that mamak's proclamation of islamic state & the treachery of the other kaki-ampu' component parties of BN, that real crayfish behind the rock is glaring!

    Must give u credit for yr consistency in persuading yr task at hand, after that jibby-altantuyaa trash!!

    2) Yr advice to DAP is just like giving yr egoistic farce an adrenalin boost. DAP of 2015 is not the DAP of 1999. Neither is PAS of 2015, the PAS 1999. What happened in 1999 would be unlikely to repeat due to;

    a) Lessons learned by ALL parties
    b) PAS has now a more liberated & growing Erdogens to counteract the conservative ulamas
    c) The enlightened Chinese & Indian Malaysians have a bigger tolerance for a liberal PAS than the self-enclosing ulamas now. Mamak’s old huduh threat would pay dirt if it ever repeats!

    3) What I dont/cant understand is the fact that u can give credit to the group25 for arousing the subconscious dis-comfort of the Melayu about the growing islamization in bolihland, u cant give credit to AI for his similar if not greater effort in championing the congregation of the various opposition parties into a formidable force as an alternative to BN.

    U continuously drill into his past deeds as if he cant change. In fact, whether AI can change or not is NOT important. The most important fact is he has unleashed a new vision for the Rakyat to look forward to as a viable possibility & alternative to a corrupted hegemonic & racist political setup known as BN.

    That vision WOULD has its own momentum, with &/or without AI's pivoted role play - as we can start to see now.

    Do remember that Abraham Lincoln was a known racist during his senate years in Kentucky. His liberation of the Black American slaves was not purely altruistic. It’s just fall into his political plan, then, & he had later ‘seen’ the light & let the liberation momentum carry through on its own course without much interferences.

    By so doing, he laid the foundation of the great state on Earth. In short, he gainfully utilized the situation, which is simmering to boil then due to years of oppression.

    In that regard, AI falls into the same role for M’sia.

    Whether he can reach the high of Lincoln’s status, that’s not for us to foretell. Just as u keep trying VERY hard to down-play him by keep crystal-balling his every moves to the dark side. AI’s future role in M’sia is not determine by him BUT by the enlighten Rakyats, period.

    & DON’T u label me as anwarista!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I admire your ardent dedication. May I label you a Myrmidon? wakakaka

      Delete
    2. Moron, could an AI Myrmidon not praying for his ascension in power?

      At most, I dont defend AI subtly, as u do to rosmajib.Right?

      What's a freelancer to a paid hand (yes????) to whitewash the indefensible????

      Delete
    3. wakakaka, descending into abuses?

      Delete
  4. The whole Muslim world moved towards fundamentalism in the aftermath of the fall of the Shah of Iran and the Iranian revolution 1979.
    It was a shock among other governments to see the powerful US-sponsored Shah , with a well-trained army and with Billions of dollars of oil money to be spread around being brought down by Islamists. He actually spent substantially on social welfare and promoted education for girls, which was previously non-existent in Persia. Yet his people did not appreciate that side of his reign and saw him as a stooge of the Christian Americans.

    The Islamisation trend continues today. The majority of Malaysian Muslims actually want a form of an Islamic state.
    Not a Isis caliphate, more of government laws and regulations aligned with Islam, immoral activities such as gambling, public drinking of alcohol, illicit sex all forbidden and punishable - for all.

    What the Majority wants, the Majority will get.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And also to make it punishable for corruption, abuse of public funds...
      what is the punishment for buying clocks at RM3,810, scanners at
      RM14,670 each?

      Delete
    2. what about blasphemy?

      I'm interested in punishing people who claim that this or that (eg. flood) was caused by the wrath of god, or that god wants voters to vote for a party, etc

      Delete
    3. KTemoc @ 3:52 pm, that's just a rhetorical question. Those people with mandate from Heaven issue decrees on behalf of Heaven, so they do not consider themselves blasphemous.

      Delete
    4. 6:03,
      Who has "mandate from heaven"?
      Ridhuan Tee Abdullah?
      I think it's self appointed. No?

      Delete
    5. Re RPK: Is a God a terrorist too? I can debate for hours and write pages and pages on this topic! Wakakaka...

      - hasan

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    6. It is self-appointed, with the collective consent of the masses. Look at the history of how a small clique of humans, with the same physical capabilities as their subjects, can impose their will over the masses. Sometimes just one person can impose his will and even his madness over a subservient nation to a crazy war/revolution or even to famine. He is no superhuman, where did he get his power from?

      Delete
    7. 8:17pm,
      Then you are referring to human's mandate and not heaven's mandate right?
      Just like Hitler fits your description of human's mandate.

      Delete
    8. @ hasan, me too, wakakaka

      Delete
  5. "When the winds of change blows.....others built windmills"
    This is a Chinese proverb?
    Quote from who?

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    Replies
    1. actually I don't know, just picked up those images from the Net - sounds kind of catchy not unlike "if you have a lemon, make lemonade", in other words, make the best out of your adverse circumstances rather than whine, wakakaka

      Delete
    2. Wakakaka.... Thought you were quoting some ConfusedZhi. Liked it though.

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    3. @ KT & TA

      It is by the great master - Confucius

      Traditional: 風向轉變時,有人築牆,有人造風車

      Simplified: 风向转变时,有人筑墙,有人造风车

      When the wind of change blows, some build walls, while others build windmills.

      But more important is in which category are you/kt/me in?

      - hasan

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    4. thanks hasan, good research. good question though, wakakaka

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    5. Hassan,
      Don't know about you but I'm with the wind category. Hehe

      Thanks to Hassan and Confucius

      Delete
  6. At the time South Africans called the "Winds of Change" speech as Harold's Flatulence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. and where are those white supremacist south Afrikans and white supremacist Rhodesians now?

      Delete
  7. This got to be one of KT's best writes. Let's see from here how those pushing so hard for Hudud and eventual Islamic state for the whole country would react to this affirmation that the country is indeed secular.

    Like Zaid Ibrahim....these 20 years of needless anxiety and uncertainty is so wasteful on our energy and attention, all thanks to that Madmadey and his cohorts.

    And indeed as KT had warned.....DAP should give pause and think really really carefully and thoroughly of this new wind of change a-coming upon us all, what more with the economic storm charging ahead towards our direction too.

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  8. i dun think chinese care much abt the islamic state rhetoric, we wary politician like hadi more, this guy thought process n logic really baffle me.

    ps/ kt, if u reread (since yr counter argument often assert others cant read, i hope u dun mind i imitate) my past comment, i rarely speculating anything, unlike u. but yr thought process n logic when attempting to defy others' speculation with yr own speculation is laughable, u sound like that hadi fella. n pity (in fact saddening) u brough up canny to beef up yr speculation, which i dun see any resemblance at all.

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    Replies
    1. the topic was on "motive" - what was the "motive" of the rapist-murderer of Canny Ong? Could that same motive be attributed to teh murderers of Altantuyaa?

      As a saying goes some people have eyes but still see not, wakakaka

      Delete
    2. @ HY, I agree with KT. It was about motives. But if the motive for murders would be the 4Ls, what then is the motive of God to send the tsunami, typhoons, floods, etc etc..

      @ KT, perhaps we should co-write a book 'Is God A Terrorist Too?'; By KTemoc and Hasan. Wakakaka...

      By the way I have previously work in South Africa for many years; the white supremacists are either enjoying life with big mansions and farms or have gone home carrying along their wealth to their mother country.

      By the way, to me Malaysia is a heterogeneous state/country; to ensure a peaceful coexistence of the varied ethnicity, cultural and religious background, the people, be it Muslims or Nons, when they do wrong and are caught, they should be allowed to choose a trial under the secular law or syariah law. Afterall, how many per cent of Malaysians are gangsters, rapists and murderers? In regard to small and petty thefts by the poor and have-not, there is no need to cut their limbs lah. It is the 'wajib' duty of the State to feed and to house them. If they steal just to eat so that they can live, and kalau itu pun kena 'hudud' then the cleric is a terrorist, not God.

      - hasan

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    3. r u telling me the 2 police (or special guard/force or wharever) a rapist? u see this with yr own eyes? or they tell u their motive? or as usual u just do your own guessing?

      no eyes still non stop bs, y not u write a topic on blind men and an elephant?

      Delete
    4. Did you hear with your own ears Najib instruct the policemen? Did Najib tell you his motive? So what was your thinking process? I dare say my/our 'educated' guessing would be no less reasonable than yours, in fact actually far superior to yours which is fraught with political/influenced prejudice.

      Delete
    5. your 'educated' guessing is fraught with political/influenced prejudice -
      1. profound antipathy towards PKR , which has fought to keep the concerns and discrepancies in the "official narrative" about Altantuya case alive in the public eye.
      2. bias towards Najib, combined with deep dislike for Anwar.

      Delete
    6. don't you actually mean your "... PKR which has fought to keep the concerns and discrepancies in the "official narrative" about Altantuya case alive in the public eye" has been to provide AI with advantages over his nemesis, wakakaka

      Delete
    7. Fucker,
      Forgive Kaytee as Anwar has fingered his sister cat nong nong time ago.In the eyes of kaytee, anwar is a condemned man worthy to be dead by thousand slices or decapitated head

      Delete
  9. Comparing Ahmad Najib Aris (Canny Ong's killer) to Chief Inspector Azilah and Corporal Sirul is like comparing a brand new BMW 720 to my 15 year old Perodua Kancil. Both are called cars and have 4 wheels. The similarities end there.
    Najib was a lone wolf prowler on the lookout for a target of opportunity. He didn't even have enough credit on his handphone, so he used Canny Ong's phone to call home - providing one damming piece of evidence.

    Azilah and Sirul were highly trained elite Special Forces , Deputy Prime Minister's bodyguards. They were working as a team on what they believed was a directed mission. Menurut Perintah.
    They carried out their mission efficiently, dispassionately , without remorse. Just a job to be done.
    Nothing personal, but we have orders to blow you up with C4. Sorry about that, mate.



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    Replies
    1. wow, "... they believed was a directed mission. Menurut Perintah.
      They carried out their mission efficiently, dispassionately , without remorse. Just a job to be done. Nothing personal, but we have orders to blow you up with C4. Sorry about that, mate."


      you know EVERYTHING - Brilliant!

      Delete
    2. WoW... do u....??

      2x5 & 5x2, samax2 sh'ja!!!!

      Indeed brilliant whitewashing BS.

      Delete
    3. evidence - mananya? wakakaka

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  10. I bet at some point ASIS - Australia's version of the CIA - officers will get to interview Corporal Sirul.
    He is now in maximum security detention in Sydney, supposedly to prevent escape, but also to prevent any unauthorised persons to "get" or silence him.

    What he knows about the actual events behind the killing of Altantuya could be an intelligence coup for Australia.

    It could provide Australia with valuable "leverage" in dealings with the Najib administration.

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    Replies
    1. and to ensure madhater died of a heart attack

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    2. looes you f**king cibal hopeful - no chance of this as he comes from a family with longevity genes - you'll probably die first, wakakaka

      Delete
  11. Ktemoc, that's what I was saying about the two-headed snake PAS/Hadi Awang but my former party leaders told me although they agree with me I must keep quiet for the greater good of Pakatan Rakyat. In short, at the midnight meeting at Thistle Hotel, Johor Bahru they told me " Let us take power first, rest belakang kira. Now sweep the issue under the carpet. Let us convince the Chinese that PAS now is not PAS of 1999".

    Of course, I was not prepared to hoodwink the people.

    Norman Fernandez
    Former Johor State DAP Deputy Chairman.

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    1. Norman matey, you have been vindicated. I stand by you. Cheers

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    2. Norman,
      I agree with DAP top management. Settled with UMNO (Hitler) first and then deal with PAS (Mother Russia) later. Was Stalin a 2 timed fella

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