Maze
Technorati tags: Humor, Politics, Permatang Pauh, By-elections, BN, PKR
Webster's Dictionary (the online version, at least), defines the word "Maze" as
- Complex system of paths or tunnels in which it is easy to get lost.
- Something jumbled or confused
Spell the word backwards, and you get Ezam. Both definitions still hold.
Would you trust someone like Ezam? To Walski, he's always been a race-first kinda guy. But don't just take Walski's word and viewpoint for it - from Tok Mummy (earlier this year, in May):
"I’m joining Umno now, not in the strongest position. My decision is based purely on my conviction that Umno now is capable of bringing about the necessary reforms."
Initially, he said, Keadilan was set up as a multiracial Malay-based party, but slowly, it dropped the "Malay-based" aspect and just became a multiracial party.
Ezam said that to lose that foundation is "a big sin." "It crossed the line," he said.
(source: Tok Mummy)
Clearly, kini, dulu and forever, for Ezam it's only race. His own, first and foremost.
(the dying paradigm of race-based politics, and more, in the full post)
But wasn't March 8th, among other things, about the rejection of race-based politics? Isn't race-based politics - or for that matter, race-in-religion-clothing based politics - a dying paradigm?
Okay, right about now some of you are probably thinking "Yeah, Walski - coming from a good for nothing God-damned liberal, your views are of the minority... hardly worth considering."
Oh, really?
Via The Malaysian Insider, from a couple of days ago (emphasis by myAsylum).
Amid the usually staid setting of a studio at Radio Television Malaysia, the country's state-owned organisation considered by critics for many years to be propaganda machinery for the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, a lively discussion on politics took place live and uncensored yesterday evening.
On a news crawler at the bottom of the screen over RTM2, live and unedited text messages in English and Chinese were displayed.
In English, one viewer had written: "BN is a racist group. BN uses racism to cover corruption."
Most of the other messages also contained similar sentiments against the ruling coalition, and was telling about Chinese sentiment five months after the March general election.
A significant number of messages called for political parties to embrace multiracialism and discard the race-based system of the BN.
Based on the text messages alone, it could be surmised that animosity towards the BN, especially Umno, remains at an all-time high.
(source: The Malaysian Insider)
For race-first stalwarts like Ezam, however, these things probably don't matter. UMNO is capable of bringing reforms, he says. Even Pak Lah doesn't give a shit that his popularity ratings are at an all time low. As reported by Aisehman, the ratings actually look pretty darn bad.
"Nevermind Lah", the guy's probably thinking, "I'm PM until 2010 - at least - so who the hell cares what the rakyat thinks."
And that examplifies the mindset of UMNO - denial is okay, as long as you're in power. And when push comes to shove, there's always emergency rule. Which technically, Malaysia is still under, since emergency rule, last invoked during the May 13 tragedy, was never actually revoked.
If you were to ask Walski, Mohamed Ezam Mohd Nor should be the one contesting against Anwar in Permatang Pauh. If he has the balls to do so. Which, going by a statement Maze-spelt-backwards had made - that he'd abide by whatever UMNO choses to do - indicates that the dude is more talk than anything else. Empty, past-its-useful-shelf-life talk, at that.
Someone wrote to Malaysiakini, suggesting that Saiful Bukhari Azlan be fielded as the opposing candidate. Supposedly for the sake of sympathy votes. Walski can almost imagine what his campaign poster would look like...
A very unlikely campaign poster...
Ok, perhaps not a very likely thing to happen, but as of earlier this evening, BN has still not named a candidate. Perhaps, even as Walski writes this, they're still drawing straws as to who should be the sacrificial lamb...
Or maybe they're just confused. Like being blindfolded, spun around a couple dozen times, then having to find one's way out of a maze.
Which is Ezam spelled backwards. With both definitions holding firm.
