Uprising for the Unthinking Public

No full capacity uprising

Again, we've delayed the second part of our In the Flesh posting.

In the like of the recent Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat 112 (People Uprising Gathering 112) or HRK, it only makes it more relevant. So we have to comment about HRK first.

No, we are not going to argue over whether the figure is 100,000 or 45,000. We've done that arguing after  Bersih 3.0 here and now proven as right.

More so, as a regular follower of the late Malaysian striker, Mokhtar Dahari in his hey days, Stadium Merdeka is an all too familiar site.. We were there to see him from the now demolished upper terrace as he dashed along the left flank to give that whopper of an equaliser against England B in that full capacity night in 1977.

Or was it '78?

So no amount of argument will convince us that there are 100,000 at Stadium Merdeka on Saturday. So let us just discuss whether it was a success or not?

Well ... it depends on which side you are on. Pakatan Rakyat and their satellite NGOs will say it was a success.

They would claim it proves their claim that Malaysians are capable of a peaceful gathering if their rights are not denied and no police obstructions. .

They may want to believe the allegation that it was police in disguise acting as agent provocateur that disrupted past peaceful public gatherings and turned it chaotic. And, they will accuse the Barisan Nasional (BN) government responsible to curb civil liberty.

To them, the number of attendees (whatever it is) proves that the people are against the government and it is time for a people uprising to bring down BN.

That would be the simple argument for the unthinking public. It is easy for the apolitical segment of the public to digest. After all, they do not track political events and closely follow public discourses..

It is this segment of voters that the opposition hope to play the perception game for the fat chance of being self fulfilling.

That is success, BN would say as they refer to the filled to the brim 60th UMNO anniversary at Bukit Jalil

On the contrary, the security forces would not agree. Obviously, they know what the unsuspecting public do not know.

Raja Petra once wrote that PKR have agent provocateurs trained in South Korea in handling riot police.

Opposition fell for it in Bersih 2.0 and Bersih 3.0.

BN supporters will claim many reasons for it not to be a success.

For a start, 30-50% of the attendees were Malay students and youngsters. They are not voters so how many  of those attending are really voters.

The latest report claimed only 5% is chinese, 3% is Indian and the balance 91% are Malays. The Indian has swing against Pakatan Rakyat and is there in force to attend a Dato Najib's function at the site Hindraf marched in Klang in 2008.

It as discovered that some segment of the Malay attendee are paid, provided transport and food to eat. Interestingly, some of them could be UMNO members, who are paid mercenaries to attend political events, put up flags during elections, etc., although they are selective with their votes.

From some blogs with reputation for insider's information, Selangor failed to deliver the 50,000 crowd. There was report of apprehension from Kelantan and other areas to fulfill the requested numbers. .

The BN side is likely to say, claim what you may but Mat Sabu could not deliver the 1 million crowd.

For us, we are only too happy to be proven that the numbers show our past claims of Bersih is right. Opposition usually bloat the numbers.

The simple reason to claim their failed is the peaceful demonstration did not get international news attention.

Anwar's speech, which had a preemptive accusation of collusion between Election Commission and UMNO and subsequently warning a Tahrir-like revolution to topple the government, did not get coverage by  international media.

Nothing kills a politician more than saying something provocative for attention and propaganda but not get reported.

Frankly, the whole drama claimed by Hishamuddin Rais as non-partisan NGOs articulating the voices of the people and they happen to be conveniently anti-BN as unconvincing. [See MobTV here.]

How big is their NGO membership to claim to represent the people?

Basically they are merely mouthpiece of the opposition operating a piecemeal strategy to focus their target on segments of voters.

If all the issues are carried out under any of the political parties of Pakatan Rakyat, it will be unconvincing and inconsistent with the various principle of the parties. It is like championing lots of hudud issues and getting each political parties at odds with one another.

For example, the orange-colored, Anak group fighting for so-called Felda settlers interest may not be an agenda appealing to DAP's absolute equality across all races which will favour their more competitive Chinese members and supporters.

Anak issue is now a lost cause and lost credibility for running away with settlers' compensation. They have been making ridiculous demand and much of their allegations proven as false and slanderous. They are now facing a lawsuit which they are due to lose.

Likewise, the demand for a better package for teachers, police and servicemen may not appeal to DAP's neo-liberal Tony Pua who believes in trimming the public sector i.e. downsizing the government workforce.

Not to mention the call to uplift the national language that is at odd with the Dong Zong agenda for lesser time for teaching of Bahasa Malaysia in schools. DAP insist on equal treatment to Chinese characters in Selangor official state letterhead and roadsigns.

In the case of oil royalty demand and lower pump prices, it only proves that the opposition is taking advantage of the public's ignorance and simpleton logic.

Kelantan royalty demand is a lost cause with the courts. They have changed their demand for oil and gas extracted from PM301 to port at Bachok.

The answer to that is to blame the PAS government back for their short sightedness in denying and sabotaging past efforts and plans to build east-west pipeline and landbridge infrastructure via Kelantan.

One laughable demand is from the light green coloured anti-Lynas environmental group.

They started out as protesting against the Lynas factory in Gebeng, Pahang. However, as it progress, this DAP-backed group turned out to be a hoax.

They could only talk in rhetoric at the public hearing. Could not produce a single expert and study to substantiate their their claims. Finally, technical studies reports from various agencies and authorities gave Lynas a clean "bill of health."

In the first place, did this people studied Chemistry? Rare earth is not radioactive and a PAS's nuclear scientist confirm it. Embarassed with the episode, they insisted with their demand on Lynas as they try to find other causes.

They tried to pick issue against an Australian company mining for gold in Raub and only to end up facing a lawsuit. Then these troublemakers suspected of being  backed by some business and foreign government interest are now tormenting Pengerang after PAS's Salahuddin Ayub failed to make in-roads.

Do you believe business-minded and hygienically handicapped Chinese to be environmental conscious? Sure there are dedicated Chinese environmental activist as much as there are Malays, Indians, Sikh, kadazan, Murut, Melanau, etc environmentalists. Environmantal activists are few in number.

All the Bersih demands are being addressed by EC within the practicality and limitation of law. Basically, ... jangan beri peluang pada mereka untuk tuduh SPR tak buat apa-apa dan tak peka.

Like we said repeatedly in the past and Anwar confirmed it again, Bersih is only a part of the process from an old CIA trick to do "regime change" and topple government an dput their stooge.

There is also issues raised by Occupy Dataran Merdeka for the ridiculous free tertiary education demand.  Pakatan themselves failed to managed the existing universities and colleges in Selangor and Kedah.

All these are only political issues generated by the opposition to paint a negative picture of the ruling party. It is not a genuine administrative matter.

It is still fair game.

The problem with the demands and accusations made against the government is that they are already debunked or lost causes in the courts or sensibly ridiculous and preposterous, or outright lies and slanderous.

Hopefully we do not need to elaborate and repeat the explanation, do we? Just google for it.

Now ... since Pakatan Rakyat supporters will support Pakatan candidates and BN supporters will vote BN candidates, it is the undecided and fence seaters that will decide. Every constituent have a high level of fense seaters that they basically decide every constituency.

The Pakatan Rakyat are merely attempting to create pockets of dissatisfaction to draw votes from BN. They have nothing to shout about to offer the voters.

Their Buku Jingga is not viable. Their administration is bad in balancing the various interest groups. For a new party to take over government on a promise of good governance and no corruption promises, they are more corrupted than BN when taken time factor into consideration.

But a certain segment of the public is not thinking and too taken by hype. The Saturday exercise is about getting the votes from the unthinking public by making them into an uprising or angry mode.

It is a wee bit condescending to call others as unthinking but that is what one lawyer friend of ours describe the current state of the public. He claimed, "The public is not thinking."

"If they are thinking, how could they believe Anwar's lies about the whole fees to Perimekar of RM500 million as all kickback. After you wrote that series to debunk the lies on the Scorpene scandal, there is still attempt to put wool over the public eyes. The public is susceptible to lies."

Thanks for the compliment.

The problem as we replied is that these days even the dumbest or shallowest of person thinks they have something important and worthy to say. They want to talk without pondering whether the audience they are talking to already know what they are going to say before they could utter the second sentence.

Speaking yes, but thinking no.

Sometimes one can be manipulated to think, comment and subsequently act and react in such manner to meet the manipulator's interest. It is the manipulator's that is thinking. Ah ... many would naturally point their finger at manipulative mainstream media.

At one time, we would agree. The government-controlled mainstream media used to be filled with propaganda to the point that one cannot differentiate between dissemination of fact and propaganda spin. But not anymore.

We were told of a study that say that the media with the highest impact on public opinion i.e. politics is not your mainstream newspaper or TV. In Malaysia, it has gone classics to old communication medium like ceramah, pamphleteering and one-to-one conversation.

This is basically saying that calling for peoples' uprising like HRK is like asking the public to not think rationally and be taken by manipulator's emotional play and overly simplistic logic.

Usually the "unthinking" public is likely to be convinced by simplistic line of story and arguments. Much as they think they do, they do deeply understand the fact, "story" and arguments. However it is not their mistake and why should they be blame.

The opposition can make all such demands but the problem is the answer to such demand is not quite accessible, fathomable and reaching the population.

Our explanation would tend to be too simplistic and cliche. Public expect more than mere denial or it is government policy for this and that. Some UMNO and BN politicians are living in denial and hoping that the truth will present itself. As we were told off one Wanita UMNO personality, you will not be in government by then.

It is the major shortcoming of museum piece, Dato Seri Dr Rais Yatim and the limitation of some Information Chief.

It is because of this shortcomings that enable Pakatan Rakyat to offer a Buku Jingga that will cause a RM200 billion deficit within 6 months and get away with it. Despite some attempt to explain, some how many does not see it.

The public think they are thinking but they are not when they can take in to Anwar's claim that they can raise money to fund the deficit by cutting on corruption. Wouldn't he need to spend first before he can cut corruption?

Because the public is not thinking clearly, we will face shortage of water soon.

It is not about rainfall, or water supply, or any other reasons but capacity of existing water treatment plants does not have enough capacity to process water to meet the growing needs.

Since the public outcry hard;y dented him, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim can deny the water statistics by only saying is figure differs without showing his figures and telling the name of experts helping him crunch such figures. He could risk water supply by refusing to build the Lamgat II water treatment plant.

Sure not everyone in the public is not thinking but Anwar's great oratarial skill has enabled him to reach out and sell his simplistic views.

Whilst, the "truth" cannot reach it's target. The replies on the Internet is out-googled. The media is not direct enough to address and convincing.

And there is Rais Yatim.

So the fight is about Pakatan's offering the sky and manage to make the public unable to spot their shortcoming and indiscretion made despite being in government for a only few years.

They are fighting against BN that is not rhetoric or academic but doing real work, facing real issues and making real choices and balancing of interests. And they are the ones able to debunk lies against them but could not effectively communicate and disseminate.

One handicap of BN is it's past.

Corruption is an area which Pakatan is working hard to paint of  BN. However, BN have made steps to reduce corruption and established an independent commission to combat corruption. During Najib's era, there had not been any major accusations and cases. Most of the cases are legacy cases.

However, middle class will not accept that fact. The reason being that Anwar is effective in playing up corruption issues against BN.

Second, the game to show that Pakatan Rakyat government is no better is not strong enough.

Third and relevant reason is that the middle class faced all sort of mismanagement, delays, inefficiencies and power abuse that all is assumed to be because of corruption.

Thus an uprising and irrational public favours Pakatan.

While, BN needs a public that is rationale and appreciate the problems and difficulty to administer such a mosaic society with a variety of interest. Thus far, the voting public is more rationale and can see through the Pakatan antics.

To quote Anwar, "we have the number" and Harris Ibrahim will have to carry his ABU campaign for another four years. BN should win and regain few states, and even the odd chance of taking over Kelantan.

If Najib really wants to get a two third majority, Najib's team need to improve their political communication. He will need it beyond the current election.

After the general election, he could be facing a highly discontented Malay which voted him in but realised that he waned on his Malay agenda and the non-voter Chinese had a better deal. Majority are keeping quiet and voting UMNO in because they do not trust other political parties to take the lead.

By then, it will be their turn to speak.

So beware of the silent public and cheering ones too.