THE TRUE HISTORY OF CHINESE & INDIANS IN MALAYSIA

http://malaysianindian1.blogspot.my/2011/01/true-history-of-chinese-indians-in.html?m=1
As stated by Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK)

RPK

A confusion has erupted due to ignorance. It has been stated that the Indians came here as beggars and the Chinese as prostitutes. Actually, if you were to really study Malayan and Malaysian history over the last 500 years or so, you will find that this country’s history is not just about beggars and prostitutes. It is about much more than that.

Malayan history has to be dissected into many periods. And each of these periods saw immigration involving almost all the races in Malaysia, save the Orang Asli (the Original People). In New Zealand, these Orang Asli would be the Maoris and in Australia the Aborigines. Therefore, anyone who is neither a Maori nor an Aborigine is a ‘pendatang’ or immigrant.

THE ARABS IN MALAYSIA

The Arabs and the Indians (Muslims from Gujarat) came to Malaya more than 500 years ago as traders and merchants. These were the people who brought Islam to this country. At that time, the locals were mostly Hindus while those from Negeri Sembilan were Buddhists, plus many who worshipped trees, the sea, rivers, mountains and whatnot. The coming of the Arab and Indian merchants exposed the locals to Islam.
In those days, the people followed their Rulers. Therefore, when the Rulers converted to Islam the people followed – although they may not have believed in Islam or understood the religion. In fact, many till today still do not understand Islam after more than 500 years.

THE CHINESE IN MALAYSIA

Then along came the Chinese and many were actually Muslims as well. Islam first reached China around 100 years after Prophet Muhammad. This means Islam had ‘migrated’ to China about 1,300 to 1,400 years ago, 800 to 900 years earlier than Islam in Malaysia. Of course, in the northern states bordering Thailand, it was earlier than that. (Refer to the Batu Bersurat discovered in Kuala Berang in Terengganu).
Is it not ironical that Malays call Chinese Muslims ‘mualaf’ when the Chinese were Muslims almost 1,000 years before the Malays even heard of Islam?
Okay, now take my family as an example. The Selangor Sultanate was founded in 1745. The first Sultan, Raja Lumu, migrated here from the Riau islands in Indonesia. By then, of course, the Arabs, Indians and Chinese had already been here 200 to 300 years, some even longer.

But these Arabs, Indians and Chinese were traders and merchants, not warriors or fighters, whereas the Bugis from Riau only knew one occupation – fighting and plundering. In short, they were pirates, which was a noble profession back in those days where even Queen Elizabeth the First knighted those English pirates who plundered Spanish ships.

In fact, the Bugis came here because of a sort of civil war in their home country. There was a fight over a girl and the son of the local Ruler was killed in that fight. So the offending party was exiled and had to leave Riau. And that was when they came here in the 1700s and founded the Selangor Sultanate.
Do not members of the Selangor Royal Family fighting with their Ruler and going into exile sound very familiar to you? Yes, 300 years ago this was the ‘tradition’ and still is in my case.

Invariably, the Bugis, being fighters, took Selangor as their territory by the sheer force of its ‘army’. None of the traders, who although were here earlier, would dare resist the Bugis who enjoyed killing (some Bugis still do today, as you may well be aware). But Selangor was under Perak patronage.

So Raja Lumu had to make a trip to Lumut in Perak to get crowned as the First Sultan by the then 17th or so Sultan of Perak. (Can’t remember if it was the 15th or 17th but it was around that). And he took the name of Sultan Salehuddin Shah.
Selangor eventually grew in prosperity. Actually, tin had already been discovered even before Raja Lumu became Sultan in 1745. And it was the Chinese who were working the tin mines. But now, since Selangor had a ‘government’, all the land in Selangor became ‘state property’. And therefore the Chinese had to get permission from the Sultan before they could mine for tin.

Around 100 years later, only when Sultan Abdul Samad took over as the Fourth Sultan of Selangor in 1859 (he was born in 1804) did they properly organise the tin industry. New areas were opened up in Ampang, Rawang, Kajang, and whatnot. And of course, all these tin mines were owned by the Sultan and members of his family — brothers, sons, nephews, etc.

The Malays, however, did not want to work those mines. Conditions were hard and diseases wiped out entire communities. Those who survived these brutal conditions were the exception rather than the rule. So they needed people who were desperate enough to work those tin mines and were prepared to take the risk and probably lose the ‘gamble’.
And who else to talk to if not the Chinese who had already been working those mines for hundreds of years?

So members of the Selangor Royal Family went into ‘joint venture’ with the Chinese, just like they did in Perak, another rich tin state. The Malay Royals would ‘arrange’ for the tin concessions and the Chinese would provide the labour force to work those concessions. In a way, you could say that the Selangor Royal Family were the first to ‘invent’ the Ali Baba system back in the 1800s, long before the New Economic Policy in 1970.
Anyway, to reach Ampang and those other surrounding rich tin areas, they had to travel up the Klang River. Raja Abdullah and Yap Ah Loy led the first expedition and they landed on the site where the Gombak River and Kelang River meet. The place where they landed is the site of the famous Masjid Jamek in Kuala Lumpur.

From there they marched overland through the jungle into Ampang. And thereafter Kuala Lumpur was never the same again. It prospered and continued to prosper over more than 200 years from the 1800s.

Yap Ah Loy bought up a lot of land in Kuala Lumpur and built his business empire. He opened bars, brothels and all sorts of businesses, legal as well as illegal (illegal by today’s standards though). Even the British Colonial ‘masters’ would patronise Yap Ah Loy’s brothels to sample the latest ‘China Dolls’ brought in from the mainland.

Of course, the normal customers would have to pay for these vices. The British masters, however, could enjoy all these services for free. Yes, even back in the 1800s the Chinese businessmen were already bribing the government officials.
Now, while Yap Ah Loy has been entered into the history books as the ‘Founder of Kuala Lumpur’, Raja Abdullah is never mentioned. The only thing associated with Raja Abdullah is that road in Kampong Baru that carries his name. Yap Ah Loy may have been the capitalist who opened up Kuala Lumpur.

But he was only able to do so because he had a ‘sleeping’ partner, Raja Abdullah, who gave him all this land to develop.
Okay, that is the Chinese story. So, yes, some did come here as prostitutes working for Yap Ah Loy. But that was incidental. Whenever frontier land is opened up the girls servicing these frontier men follow – like in the Wild West of America. Would you say that the White immigrants to America were all prostitutes?


THE INDIANS IN MALAYSIA

Now, over to the Indians. As I said, the Indian (and Arab) traders and merchants first came here more than 500 years ago and even brought Islam to this country. But the ‘other’ Indians, the workers, came at about the time that Yap Ah Loy and Raja Abdullah were turning Kuala Lumpur into a thriving metropolis.
At that time, the British planters were in Ceylon (Sri Lanka today) growing cocoa. Then a plant disease spread throughout the island and all the trees died. But this disease not only killed all the trees but contaminated the land as well. This means the land was now useless and it was not a matter of just replanting.

Then the British looked at Malaya and decided that the conditions (land, climate, etc.) in Malaya were the same as in Ceylon. So they relocated their cocoa estates to Malaya. But there was no way they could get the Malays to work these cocoa estates. Furthermore, the Ceylonese workers were well trained and had been doing this work for years.
So, in the mid-1800s, the British brought the now unemployed Ceylonese cocoa workers to this country to work the Malayan cocoa plantations.

Then disaster struck. Brazil over-planted cocoa and this triggered a worldwide glut. It was no longer economical to plant cocoa. The price you would fetch for your cocoa was lower than your production cost. The British had no choice but to close down the cocoa plantations.
Around that time, the British, who had mischievously smuggled rubber seeds out of Brazil (which was a crime then), successfully grew rubber trees in the Kew Gardens in London. They also did some research and discovered a better way of planting rubber trees where the trees would give a better yield compared to the trees in Brazil. Rubber planting in Brazil was haphazard and not properly organised.

Since Malaya had to close down all its cocoa plantations and it now had idle plantation land and surplus Ceylonese workers, the British planters decided to switch over to rubber. And because the British took advantage of research and technology, the Malayan rubber trees were more productive and profitable. Eventually, Malaya dislodged Brazil as the top rubber producer in the world.

So, from the mid-1800s to around 1920, Indians and Chinese came to Malaya in great numbers. This was more or less the second wave of mass migration. And it was for economic reasons and to provide the labour for jobs that the Malays would never do. But there were earlier and other migrations as well.

For example, around the late 1800s and early 1900s, the British set up English medium schools for Malays. One such school, the Malay College Kuala Kangsar, was a school exclusive for sons of Royalty and the Malay elite. Invariably, they needed schoolteachers who were proficient in the English language. And India offered a good source of English medium schoolteachers (Malays could not speak English yet at that time).

On the commercial side, there were many Indian businesses, workers and whatnot. But there was no way they could qualify for loans from British-owned banks. So the Indians from the Chettiar community came here to set up money-lending businesses to service their community.
When the Malayan rail network was being developed, where else to get the workers if not from the country with the largest railway in the world, India?

WE ARE ALL MALAYSIANS

The play maker's autobiography

The Sea and the Hills 

The Life of Hussain Najadi (An Autobiography; 2012)

He survived the feared Bahraini intelligence who worked under the hawkish eyes of their British colonial masters as he stirred his leftist ideas after the Algiers uprising through his rebel movement at the age of 16. The Bedouin travellers took a special liking to his as he escaped to Beirut through the mirage inducing hostile environment of the Arabic desert and its scorching heat. Somehow he even escaped the infamous Iranian SAVAK police. The storm aboard the vessel along the Mediterranean Seas did not dampen his spirits. By twist of fate he missed an ill-fated Swiss flight which crashed soon after take-off. And he averted an invitation aboard a Filipino flight which later crashed. He even survived an automobile accident on the notorious Malaysian highways. To cap it all, he even endured 8 years of imprisonment in a Bahraini prison after incurring the wrath of its royalty.

He raised the ladder of success and fell off it as quickly he climb on it again. This man's life story is a classical case of rag to riches - a son to a Persian immigrant fruit seller in the markets of Manama raising to levels where he mingled with world leaders and royalties and decided the destiny of many emerging economies and countries.

Sadly many of near misses, from which he was saved simply by 'kismet' (fate) and his mother's constant prayers, came to a tragic end in 2013, a year after this book, when he was shot in the back under mysterious circumstances in Kuala Lumpur.

Growing up in the British protectorate of Bahrain, it was a time of uprising. The colonial subjects have awoken from their slumber. They demanded self administration. Battle of Algiers set the nidus for the young to rebel. A young Hussein got himself entangled in the leftist activity. Working in a British petrol refinery, he had to abscond from his native country. Just like how his father had left Iran for better life in Bahrain with a young wife, Hussein had to run, but for his life. With plans to start life anew in Germany through a contact at his work place, he had worked out his itinerary.

A young Hussain Najadi meeting Tun Razak

He travelled through the brutal Arabian desert to reach Beirut. All through his travels, we get a feel as if there is guardian angel constantly by his side to pave his future, constantly clearing his path and meeting him with the right people.

His initial plan to travel to Germany was cut short through a chance meeting with a Persian gentleman who just happened to be walking in a park. A cursory conversation and next thing he knew, Hussain was flying to Iran. The gentleman turned out to be the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon! Hussain was referred to the leading bank in Teheran. He started his career in banking, enjoyed the good life and started working with the Canadian embassy a researcher. His stint was cut short by SAVAK, the Iranian secret police for his earlier political work in his homeland. He dashed out before he could be apprehended. Back he came to Lebanon. Broke, he finally made it to Germany by sea.

He blended nicely into the German culture at a time as Germany was making amends and trying to make it for the lost times after the devastations of a world war. Working in Mercedes Benz factory and learning the language and with the cordial relationship with his adopted family, he felt quite at home.

The next step in his life turned to be another turning point in his career/life. He join an international company in Switzerland selling mutual funds. It was something new to the Arab world. At a time when the Middle East was plush with money from the black gold, he travelled to the Bahrain now as an employee of a multinational company. His modus operandi has always the same - when you approach someone, always see someone with a lot of clout; and remember, people always want to hear what they like to hear! He also became an international player when he revitalised an ailing Swiss company making hovercraft (hydrofoil).

With many feathers in his cap, he became a deal maker. Being charismatic and multilingual, he moved with ease in the circles of royalties and dignitaries. He even try to broker the entry of an Italian petrol giant into Middle East to break the hegemony of the Anglo-American oil cartel, The Seven Sisters.

His hydrofoil business spread to Far East and he soon relocated to Singapore. There, after selling his company for a fortune, he set a business deal in Singapore. Slowly, his services were needed in his last home country, Malaysia, where he established Arab Malaysian merchant bank and even try to get International Islamic University off the ground with funds from Middle East investors.

Going through his life story, one cannot help but to think that it is too good to be true. Everything seem to fall nicely the way he wanted to. With so many adventures, suspense, element of surprise, bosomy blondes, marriage, near misses and politics, it has all the ingredients of Hollywood blockbuster. Even after his death, his name seem to herald the death knell of a certain current politician....

I could not help but notice that by omission or commission, there seem to be a discrepancy in events surrounding his near miss mishap in the 1963 Swiss Air tragedy and Enrico Mattei's aeroplane accident. It is said that the Swiss Air incident preceded Mattei's purportedly planned assassination. In actual fact, Mattei's jet plane crashed in October 1962 whilst the Swiss accident was in September 1963!

You give love a bad name!

Death of a Princess (1980)
It is always the same story. "Denial, this is not the true teaching, it is one person's interpretation and so on.." The reality is this. They need a major public relation exercise and re-branding. The morale is at all time low.

This drama-documentary rocked the Arab-English-transAtlantic relationship when it was released. The English ambassador was sent back and millions were paid to stop its screening in US. Like a storm in a teacup, the tiff fizzled out within a few months and international trade between these countries resumed just as quickly as the tension started initially!

The director got the idea of making this documentary after a tête-à-tête at a party of a certain Arabic princess and her lover who were executed publicly. Hence started an almost wild goose chase trying to find the bottom of the story. Due to pressures from above, the name of the princess, the kingdom and the name of informers were omitted but it was the reference to Princess Misha'al bint Fahd al Saud, the granddaughter of the brother of the then King of Saudi Arabia.

The film starts with the call of Friday prayers. People leave the premises with satisfied look after completing their prayers. A car park is changed to a make shift courtyard. People gather to witness a lady in purdah and a man knelt on the ground. The girl is shot multiple times and the man is beheaded but the procedure had to be repeated apparently due to the unprofessional manner of the executor. People then return to their normal duties afterwards, feeling contented that God's laws have been executed on Earth. Amongst them is a Caucasian who took snapshots of the event with a camera concealed in a cigarette box.

The director, Antony Thomas, took it upon himself to do a bit of investigative journalism to unravel the mystery surrounding the slaying of the couple. Unfortunately, various interviews revealed conflicting and sometimes contradictory stories that did not collaborate. He found out that every avenue seem to meet a dead end. People were generally not forthcoming with the true turn of event. Even the university in war-torn Lebanon where the princess allegedly had studied also denied admission of such a student!

Finally Thomas, through his connections, came a break through, via a contact with someone from the palace (under cloak of anonymity) who revealed the real story. The princess was a 19 year old free spirited girl who fell in love with a musician whom she saw on TV. Using her position as a member of the royal family, she communicated with the musician, who happened to be the son of Saudi's ambassador to Lebanon. The problem was that the princess, at that time, was already married through family matchmaking to a cousin, a prince. The informant also inform of the palace women's unlady-like behaviour of engaging the services of gigolos that really upset the Saudi House.

To escape the scandal, the princess and her beau conspired to fake her own death by apparent drowning. Unfortunately, her trickery was discovered when a servant squealed. She was detained at the airport when she tried to leave the country disguised as a man.
The following turn of events is bizarre. The couple was never put on trial but ordered by the grandfather to be executed, not by syaria manner but as an honour killing to maintain to pride of the family.

It just leaves a bad after taste at the end of the film. The self appointed guardians of the fastest expanding religion whose believers believe it is just is let down. The world feels that the justice meted in the princess' case was tribal justice, not religious. In the process, they have given the believers a bad press.

All in the name of oil and gas!

BBC Storyville: Mad Dog, Gaddafi's Secret World (2014)

The story of a the son of a Bedouin goatherd sounds almost similar to many other leaders who initially starts a revolution with many big plans to uplift the welfare of the people. He has grand plans but some how many of the plans fall flat. People start asking questioning whilst others support him. He gains absolute power and it corrupts absolutely. His enemies become enemy of the state and witch hunt starts.
One thing leads to another and things spiral out of control. Despot is killed by the same people who hailed him as king. Does it not give you the sense of deja vu?
This documentary makers managed to track down some of the people who were close to the despot when the going was good. Many of them were on the FBI's most wanted list; Gary Korkala, former poison dealer; Frank Terpil; Lutz Kayser, a German rocket scientist.
Muammar Gaddafi's father went out of his way to ensure that his son got some education. Gaddafi hero worshipped President Nasser of Egypt and yearned to build a socialist republic in Libya. After graduating from Royal Military Academy,  he masterminded a coup de tat of the Libya royalty King Idris. With the plush of oil money to spend obscenely, he initially invested a lot for the country. Unfortunately, the plans did not really work well. For example, schools were built but then there were no teachers to teach. Gaddafi soon developed a sense of grandiosity. He started financing terrorist activities. He became suspicious of his enemies. Anwar Sadat who tried to patch up with the Isralites became his enemy. Gaddafi even offered a reward for his assassination. As his influence waned in the Arab world, he started associating himself with the rest of Africa. He was close to Idi Amin and he called himself the King of Africa.
He openly supported the famed assassin Carlos the Jackal and Charles Taylor, the dictator from Liberia. Even the Africans started laughing at him.
He is said to have brokered the 1988 Pan Am 103 explosion in Lockerbie, Scotland.
International sanction of Libya followed. Gaddafi became a lonely man suspicious of all around him. He had a band of female bodyguards. He shot a local plane down just to show to the international audience and local people on the atrocity of international sanctions. He had a harem of girls and boys to entertain him. He was an avid user of Viagra. He even had a band of soldiers to apprehend young university students that pleases his eyes to gratify his urges.
Another grandiose plan of his is to be a nuclear power. Admiring Pakistan for their nuclear capabilities, he tried to engage a certain Pakistani scientist to this end. He also tried to buy Soviet bombs but in vain.
At one juncture, he was caught red handed trying to smuggle nuclear centrifuge part. Libya was warned as it might have the same fate as Iraq. Time went on...
Suddenly, the superpowers of the world lifted international sanctions. Libya and Gaddafi were no ore international pariahs, all in the name of oil and gas.
A rebel uprising in 2011 opposing widespread hardship and corruption executed him.

A feeble attempt to justify a just war!

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Yet another American glorifying Muslim bashing terror slashing military procedural film which looks at American problems as world problems. Their gung ho way of handling terror is through more violence and more might and fire-power!

I was quite surprised that this movie received many rave reviews and praises from critiques. Personally, it is just another lob sided depiction of terror without addressing the issue holistically but from a very miopic unintelligent view of a jaundiced American vision. I guess this type of 'patriotism' is gaining momentum of late. 

History tells us that Hollywood plays its stellar 'tour of duty' role whenever the going gets tough in America. During WW2, the silver screen played its role as a morale booster when the war was heading nowhere. It cushioned the sad news of the fall of their young soldiers by trumpeting American's just fight for liberty and freedom. After its faithful duty all these while, now, of buffering its economic recovery, what better way can there be then to fan nationalistic sentiments. Evidence of this is evident in the number of patriotism reminiscing movies by big directors - like this one by Kathryn Bigelow, Lincoln by Spielberg, Django by Taratino (but looking at US history in a rather cynical way).

Kathryn Bigelow who, in 2009, received many accolades for her other patriotic flick 'Hurt Locker', did this movie in the same fashion. Fighting in a just war, trying to protect their homeland from invaders who do not their idea of liberty and freedom, Maya, a green horned CIA agent, who was head hunted from high school, goes on personal vendetta on a crusade to hunt down terrorists with the information obtained through her interrogations of suspected terrorists. The interrogation techniques which were in the news for all the wrong reasons like violent torture, water boarding and 'walking the dog' are shown here. 

This story is a semi historical narration of the events which precede and subsequently ended with the death of Osama Bin-Laden. Stereotyping of Muslims are its fullest heights here. I wonder why all the leaders who were crying foul over the depiction of their counterparts in 'Vishwaroopam' are mum here. Well, we all know that all the hullabaloo which preceded its launch was business in origin, not religious in origin. What better way to stir emotions for personal reasons than to fall on racial and theological sentiments?   

James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano of the series 'Sopranos') plays a memorable role as a CIA chief here. His way of acting is exactly like how he acted in 'Sopranos' as a mob boss- with the arrogance, attitude and the explicit superlative expressions. Guess they are all the same - law enforcers and law breakers, only that one uses the law as a shield whilst the other shield themselves from the law with lawyers!

Maybe because I do not particularly fancy purposeless shooting of people just because they wear a turban! And it is quite difficult to fathom civil servants fighting their superiors because of public interest.

And the Americans say, "We didn't start the fire! It was already burning."

The bunnies bite back

Dean Johns
Feb 2, 11
11:52am

10 friends can read this story for free

As the Year of the Rabbit gets under way, it is wonderful to witness what no soothsayer, astrologer or 'intelligence' expert apparently predicted: the spreading revolt by Arabs against governments that have been treating them for decades like nothing but dumb, helpless bunnies.

It's like reading a rewrite of 'Animal Farm', seeing the formerly timid, compliant and defenceless multitude turn on the corrupt and greedy pigs and self-appointed top dogs that have so long made their lives a misery.

And even more satisfying is that this series of grassroots revolutions has caught the whole world on the hop, and once again exposed the hypocrisy of the American eagle in its hypocritical foreign policy of trying to run with the hare and simultaneously hunt with the hounds.

'He may be a son of a bitch, but at least he's our son of a bitch' has long been the cynical US defence of its moral and financial support for criminal despots in contravention of its high-flown rhetoric in favour of fundamental freedoms and universal human rights.

This policy of appeasement or support of any regime that can be paid or pressured to fall in line with its perceived economic, ideological and military interests has cost the US enormous quantities of popular credibility and clout, not to mention squillions of dollars and the lives of countless military and civilian casualties.

Its support for banana republics and fascist military dictatorships in South America and the Caribbean has enabled, if not caused, untold human misery for more than a century.

The Vietnam war, in which several successive US administrations backed a corrupt and brutal Saigon-based regime in a conflict that caused massive destruction, claimed millions of lives and triggered the rise of the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, was an unmitigated, self-inflicted disaster.

But it was apparently by no means a learning experience, as then came US support for first the obscene regime of the Shah during the Iranian people's revolution, then for both sides in the bloody Iran-Iraq war, resulting in the deadly enmity of today's Iran and a campaign that's still being fought to rid Iraq of the legacy of former US 'son of a bitch' Saddam Hussein.

Admittedly the US occasionally appears to back its democratic and humanitarian words with less self-serving deeds, as when it was dragged, albeit kicking and screaming, into leading Nato in ridding the Balkans of Milosovic.

More often, when its geopolitical or economic concerns aren't directly at stake, it abandons helpless people to their fate, as perhaps most notoriously in the Rwandan genocide.

But it can't resist meddling in the muddle of the Middle East, as oil, the Suez Canal and its client-state Israel are all at stake. Thus it is in the ridiculous position of further bankrupting itself in the fight to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan, while supporting autocracies and dictatorships in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and tolerating other equally undesirable regimes in Algeria, Libya Syria and elsewhere.

Year of 'robbit'

The kind of creature the US promotes, permits and protects despite its avowed support for the rights and freedoms of the common people in the region is dramatically illustrated by the opposition voiced by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to the popular uprising in Egypt.

“No Arab or Muslim can tolerate any meddling in the security and stability of Arab and Muslim Egypt by those who infiltrated the people in the name of freedom of expression, exploiting it to inject their destructive hatred,” he ranted.

In other words, as far as his majesty and his henchmen are concerned it is a case of security, stability and business as usual, and to hell with the people and their freedoms.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and other Western government spokespersons admittedly haven't been quite so people-unfriendly. But like the US president, who seemingly hasn't yet decided whether to play the situation as Barack or Mubarak Obama, most seemed to come down not on the side not of the people, but of the status quo, or “stability”.

Happily for those of us who truly believe in government of the people, for the people and by the people, however, the rabbits in Tunisia and Egypt have pushed open the stable door, and the proverbial horse has bolted. And the rabbits are showing similar signs of restlessness in countries including Algeria, Jordan and Yemen.

With most of the world's governments and media rabbiting on about these momentous events, it is interesting to observe that they've received little if any official mention in Malaysia. 

In fact, as eager as it customarily is to ape pretty well anything Arabic, and to venture an opinion on any issue relating to Islam, Malaysia's BN regime has been as quiet as a mouse.

Some might put the BN government's suspicious silence down to domestic preoccupations like buying the recent by-election in Tenang and trying to deal with its latest crop of financial and homicidal scandals.

But of course the true reason for ignoring the achievements of people power in the Arab world or anywhere else is that it is mortally terrified of a similar outbreak of anti-regime rage at home.

As I and many others have mentioned before, the Tunisian people's hatred of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, his wife and cronies is eerily similar to the loathing of many Malaysians for Najib Abdul Razak and his consort, colleagues and cronies.

So, far from commenting on the Arab cause on one side or the other, Najib has taken himself and his entourage off to Dubai, ostensibly in quest of investment capital.

This leaves his deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin (right), in charge of election investment, and his Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein to keep up the pressure on opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim by accusing him of being funded by terrorist-linked Saudi Arabians.

All of which suggests to me that, as far as the BN regime is concerned, this is not such much the Year of the Rabbit as, according to its custom, just another year of the robbit.

Or, in recognition of its practice of bribing elected opposition members to hop frog-fashion into the BN ranks, yet another year of the ribbit.

But hey, here's wishing you a happy and healthy one anyway.