Hishamuddin & his keris (1)

Star Online sweetie Joceline Tan, with her manja looks, interviewed Hishamuddin Tun Hussein, UMNO Youth chief and Supreme Guardian of the UMNO keris.

During the interview Hisham averred, as had his deputy who's the world’s most famous SIL, on why it became necessary to allow the UMNO grassroots to release their fears and uneasiness in the controlled environment of the assembly rather than let it get out of hand elsewhere.

Now, what fears or unease were truly had the UMNO leadership not agitate those UMNO members in the first place? Remember the bloke who warned of unscrupulous Chinese exploitation of Malay divisiveness – a division caused by 9,200,000 million factors outside the control of the Chinese community!

Joceline posed the following questions (KTemoc’s queries follow in different highlights)

Q. This general assembly saw the Malay Agenda come out stronger than in previous years.

A. Two questions I get everywhere I go – why more so this year, and why I did what I did. Any leader in a complex society like Malaysia has to feel the pulse of the constituency. It’s like what one of the delegates said about the duck swimming in calm waters but paddling like mad to stay afloat. It’s the same with ensuring stability – it requires a lot of work that is not seen, there’s all this furious paddling beneath the water surface.

What happened this year was because issues raised in the past year or so have created resentment, frustration. I could feel the Malays were very restless over issues like the Lina Joy and apostasy case, the IFC (Inter-Faith Commission), the status of Islam.

SMSes going back and forth about Christian conversions and the Azhar Mansor thing. Geo-politically, there are the issues of Palestine, Iran, Israel. Then there were vocal criticisms from Asli (Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute) and Lee Kuan Yew.

Now, may KTemoc ask – who has been the bloody culprit sending out SMS’es regarding the lie about Christian mass-converting Muslims? Were they Chinese? Indians? Christians?

Why didn’t the authority figure, who was the first person told of the lie, check the facts of the situation instead of inflaming the issue by further spreading the lies to the Muslim NGOs? Why hasn’t this irresponsible agitator been punished? Why had the police gone after a nobody like Raja Sherina instead of the most authoritative figure involved in the spreading of lies?

There is also the process of more transparency and freedom of the press. All these played on the Malay psyche. If they had not been allowed to release their feelings in a controlled channel, it could have been even worse. We are in control of the situation.

Hishamuddin, my dear sir, son of your most respectable and illustrious father and granddad, why didn’t you or your deputy or UMNO other leaders, including AAB, inform/educate your members of the true situation/story? Why did you leaders worsen the situation by deliberately piling pressure on people like your partners in the MCA, Gerakan and MIC? Don't 'act dunno' because we are all too familiar with UMNO's tactics!

Why did you pick on Koh KT, to insinuate he didn’t do enough for the Penang Malays when in fact official statistics show that the Penang Malays are better off than Malays in any other Malaysian States.

If you look at what happened, there was the opening speech, then the delegates spoke, then I pulled them back on track with my closing speech. It’s not about starting a fire and letting it go out of control. I told them Umno Youth has never been as strong as today and that it has to be translated into strength in the Barisan.

Hishamuddin sir, haven’t you heard of the saying “Prevention is better than cure”? Please don’t give us buttered bullsh*t about how remedial you had been.

Q. The target seemed to be non-Malays rather than Umno’s political opposition.

A. If you read my speech in detail, you will realise the targets are those who were wrong in their assumptions and arguments such as Asli and Lee Kuan Yew. People tend to look at things from what one, two, three delegates said. You have to also look at the leadership.

How dare you said the Asli report was wrong without even refuting it in a professional manner? All you UMNO people did was just, as per your modus operandi, threatened Asli? Then what about Dr Fazilah’s research paper?

And f**k that Singaporean. Hey man, he and his lot are 'intimate' buddies of your famous deputy, so perhaps you should go after your deputy, or better still, watch your vulnerable back - just a friendly tip!

I am the leader of Umno Youth. Do I look like somebody out to target the non-Malays? And would I do that intentionally? For what purpose? Pemuda Umno (Umno Youth) is at its strongest. I don’t need that kind of record. We have built up Pemuda to the extent that it is respected. My relationship with the BN Youth is so good. Why would I want to jeopardise it?

I tell you why, because 50% of the time you have been so sh*t scared of your deputy stabbing you in the back (or telling 'daddy') if you don’t backed him up (most of your anti non-Malay tirades had originated from that bloke’s nonsense), and the other 50% of the time you had to show your UMNO Youth members you are more Malay than Khairy is.

We have not been surprise at your keris waving. In fact, I would even concede your waving of the keris had been more to do with keeping your dangerous deputy at bay more than threatening the compliant Chinese.

to be continued ...