There are few if any people I admire more than Zulkifly Anwar Haque aka Zunar, who for years has used his cartoons to lampoon the platoons of goons, buffoons and loony-tunes, not to mention the loony-Tuns, who have long been running - and ruining - Malaysia.

He’s a hero in the struggle against the zeros, zanies, zealots, xenophobes and moral and ethical zombies of the zalim Barisan Nasional regime, an inspiration to his fellow critics, and a shining, shaming example to the millions of Malaysians who remain too lazy, dozy or cosy to take a stand against these criminals and crazies.

So I’m deeply diszappointed that I won’t be able to make it along to this week’s launch of Zunar’s 20th book of cartoons, ‘The Conspiracy to Imprison Anwar - Najib Convicts, Judges Follow the Script’.

In fact I’m surprised that Zunar can find the time to attend the launch himself, considering the incredible quantity of BN stink that’s just begging for him to bag with his inimitable pen and ink.

Or, more accurately, his punning pen and ink, as his propensity for word-play is as awe-inspiring as his drawing, and thus one of his pictures is often worth the proverbial 1,000 of my words in portraying the BN hogs at the trough and communicating their every “oink”.

So naturally Zunar is supremely successful at zapping the zoological specimens that pass for ruling-regime politicians and supporters, and just as naturally they have paid him the perverse compliment of trying to zip his lip.

But threats, sedition charges and seizure and banning of his books, far from cowing or silencing Zunar, have only served to inspire him to greater heights, and spur him to award-winning international eminence.

Such eminence that he has even been published by one of the world’s globally-acknowledged great newspapers, the Washington Post .

Predictably enough, his March 18 appearance in the Post drew criticism from the online version of one of the world’s most pathetic ‘newspapers’, BN regime mouthpiece The Star , in which some alleged “academician” Mohamed Mustafa Ishak described Zunar’s critical take on Malaysia’s response to the disappearance of MH370 as “insensitive”, “misleading” and “preposterous”.

Three words which, to anyone who has closely followed the MH370 fiasco, would far better describe the BN regime’s bungling of the MH370 affair than of Zunar’s justly-critical cartoon.

Damning light

And in any event, with all considerable due respect to Zunar, no cartoonist, however talented, could possibly portray the BN regime’s entire attitude to the MH370 tragedy in a more damning light than the gibbering idiot of a so-called “acting transport minister” (and actual defence minister) Hishammuddin Hussein did in his recent, giggly appearance in an ABC Four Corners special, viewable here .

Nor could any cartoonist, even the tireless and indomitable Zunar, possibly hope to comment on more than a small sample of the veritable tsunami of inanities, insanities and iniquities that the BN regime and its accomplices ceaselessly inflicts on Malaysians.

Like this week’s police-unprevented “storming” of the Penang state legislative assembly by members of Umno Youth, Perkasa and the Federation of Peninsula Muslim Students in protest against DAP assemblyperson RSN Rayer’s calling several Umno members to be “celaka” (damned).

While Rayer insisted that he had intended the “celaka” epithet only for those members to whom he had specifically referred, and not (though for the life of me I can’t think why not) Umno members in general, the protesters claimed that the word was an insult to all Malays and Muslims.

Whatever, some members of Umno Youth then upped the ante by threatening to torch DAP headquarters in KL, a move that Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin typically failed in his duty to condemn, instead defending it as “natural” .

“This was just a spontaneous reaction. They feel called to defend the party’s honour when someone calls the party ‘celaka’,” he declared, thus reminding most of us of the fact that Umno’s only “honour” is that proverbially among thieves, and thus that “celaka” is putting it mildly.

Victimisation of watchdog

Another rich opportunity for Zunar or any other cartoonist this week was the police victimisation of R Sri Sanjeevan ( left ), chairperson of crime watchdog MyWatch for alleging corruption on the part of the son of a state police chief, who, though unemployed, reportedly has assets including two cars worth RM1.1 million.

Sanjeevan, who was almost fatally shot last July by two thus-far unidentified assailants, promptly had his phone and pendrive confiscated for his anti-corruption pains, and was reportedly warned by inspector-general of police (IGP) Khalid Abu Bakar “not to hold the police at (sic) ransom by threatening to expose more police wrongdoings unless they dutifully investigate his (shooting) case.”

As laughable as this was in a gruesome kind of way, however, the most humour-rich recent topic, and the subject for at least one Zunar cartoon, has been the BN-regime response to the DAP’s selection of Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud, a young female Malay-Muslim lawyer whose mother is a member of Umno, as its candidate for the Teluk Intan by-election.

Among the chorus of critics of this move were Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil of ‘Cowgate’ infamy, who reportedly called Dyana “a traitor to her race” , and arch-racist Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who professed to be “disappointed” and “unable to digest the fact that DAP is fielding a Malay candidate who hails from a family of long-time Umno supporters”.

But Dyana’s Umno-member mother Yammy Samat ( right ), bless her heart, put Mahathir back in his box with the riposte that her daughter had turned out more like his daughter Marina, a social activist whose views often run counter to her father’s.

“I tried teaching her to be like Mukhriz,” she sarcastically stated, referring to the daddy’s boy menteri besar of Kedah and state Umno liaison committee chairperson, “but when she grew up she became like Marina”.

And Marina Mahathir herself took the opportunity to praise Dyana in a Facebook posting as a “smart girl who can think... she can articulate... she can write.”

“That’s three up over most politicians already,” she said, before later posting the disclaimer that her praise for Dyana personally should not be construed as an endorsement of the DAP.

But hey, this column is supposed to be an endorsement of Zunar and his new book of cartoons, and I seem to have wandered somewhat off the point.

In the process taking over 1,000 words to try zapping the celaka, kangkung RM1 chickens and zombies of the BN regime, when Zunar can do it in just one of the brilliant pictures he draws. And thus I’m left wishing that I had the talent to take a leaf out of his book.   

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.