The hate campaign that Umno/BN has been waging against such groups as communists, Christians, Socialists, Liberals and LGBTs reached something of a crescendo this past week with paranoid claims of more plots against the regime.

That perennial blot on Malaysia’s conscience and reputation, former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad, led the charge with a typically ludicrous claim that US financier and philanthropist George Soros is “funding local NGOs in an attempt to install a prime minister (who) would do his bidding”.

NONE This was the same Soros, of course, who Mahathir blamed for the devaluation of the ringgit during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.

As Malaysiakini recalled the other day, this accusation was followed by a spat in the course of which Mahathir dubbed Soros “a moron” and Soros replied with the statement that Mahathir was a “menace to his country”.

Which indeed he was and remains, having cost the nation an estimated RM100 million through plunder and blunder in his 22 years in office, in addition to corrupting its civil and political institutions for his own and Umno/BN’s benefit.

But as unrepentant as ever, Mahathir is now getting his own back by using the funding of Suaram and other Asian human rights and press freedom groups by Soros’ Open Society Foundation as evidence that his old adversary is to institute regime change in Malaysia.

And when he was asked whether other NGOs and news portals like Malaysiakini were part of this alleged plot, he replied “ Semua, lah (all of them)”.

“(Soros) knows when he donates, supposedly it is to promote democracy and freedom - so apparently we do not have freedom here,” said Mahathir.

And of course the mainstream media leapt at the chance to demonstrate that no, we do not have freedom here, or at least the freedom to report anything but the lying Umno/BN line, with Utusan Malaysia , Berita Harian , New Straits Times (NST) and TV3 all reporting Mahathir’s fantasies as fact.

Hatchet job

The NST took this opportunity to go totally for broke against not only Suaram, which is currently under concerted regime assault for its role in keeping the Scorpene-class submarines and Altantuya Shaariibuu murder cases alive, but also 10 other organisations including Malaysiakini , the Centre for Independent Journalism and Loyar Burok.

NONE This hatchet job carried the byline of NST Putrajaya bureau chief Farrah Naz Karim, a press hack of such dubious independence and integrity that she was ‘honoured’ last year with the Best Journalist award from Umno/BN’s tame Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

And her story headed ‘Plot to destabilise Govt’ claiming to link pro-democracy funders and organisations with the downfall of dictatorships in the so-called Arab Spring extensively quoted former Aliran and opposition figure and now turncoat, regime-supporting ‘political scientist’, Chandra Muzaffar.

According to the Sarawak Report , by issuing dire warnings of ‘foreign plots’ to destabilise the government and indeed ‘global security’, Chandra has “astoundingly associated BN with a whole slew of slimy dictators”.

“Plainly forgetting that Malaysia is supposed to be a democracy already and therefore supportive of such key as aspects of the free world as press freedom, the right to freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest, Chandra has engaged in a rant against some of the world’s most respected pro-democracy foundations.”

“But,” the Report rightly asks, “what about the huge sums that have been channelled by Umno/BN into his own organisation, 1Malaysia Foundation? And what about the vast illegal sums that are taken from state coffers to support his own political party’s 50-year stranglehold on government?”

Such stolen public money is used to fund the activities of such contemptible clots as Anuar Shaari, renegade former private secretary to Anwar Ibrahim, who last week claimed in Umno-owned ‘newspapers’ that Suaram and Malaysiakini are the “stooges” of a “Jewish submarine builder from the West” who is “jealous” of Malaysia’s purchase of submarines from French company, DCNS.

mahathir and bush and jack abramoff Such rabid Jew-baiting would be hateful enough in itself, of course, but it’s rendered even more heinous by its outrageous hypocrisy. Arch anti-Semite Mahathir notoriously paid the corrupt Jewish lobbyist Jack Abramoff US$1.2 million for an audience with then US President George W Bush, and the PR consultancy responsible for Najib Abdul Razak’s lying 1Malaysia campaign is the notorious Israeli-owned Apco Worldwide.

But Najib’s Apco-assisted plot to buy himself a few more years in power by blinding Malaysians with lies and bribing them with their own money doesn’t appear to be working too well.

Or so it would appear in light of the need by his mouthpiece ‘news’ agency Bernama to doctor pictures of his public appearances to make his ‘adoring’ crowds look bigger.

In fact, in his growing desperation to prove his alleged popularity and hide or deny the blots on his own and his regime’s rotten record, he’s only succeeding in looking more like a clot.

Last week he was calling on God to save his and Umno/BN’s skin; this week he has been shaming the devil.

NONE He has arrogantly dismissed the now global awareness of the US$15 billion fortune corruptly amassed by Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul ‘The Termite’ Taib Mahmud. with the comment “there are all kinds of allegations, jangan kita layan (let’s not entertain it)”, while continuing to oversee the persecution of Suaram for receiving comparative peanuts in foreign funding.

At the same time it was revealed that postcards in his name have been sent to young potential voters in Selangor urging them to drop the “confrontational culture” for the benefits of Malaysia’s multiracial society.

This, as many noted, from the man who has called on his supporters to defend Putrajaya from the opposition even if “bodies are crushed” or “lives lost”, has overseen police and other violence against protestors and opposition figures, and young people being handcuffed and charged with defacing or otherwise disrespecting his picture.

azlan But still he’s out there telling the same tired old pack of lies, like the one that he has “delivered real change” and thus that there’s no need for Pakatan Rakyat, and that Umno/BN can do even more if given another term in power.

“Even though we are proud of being a successful nation,” he raved, “the challenge now is he management of that success”, before going on to proclaim his megalomanic vision of “building an advanced civilisation”.

Having thus reminded most of us that, far from building an advanced civilisation, Umno/BN has succeeded thus far only in advancing criminalisation, he finally had the effrontery to claim, as Malaysiakini reported, that the “it is considered taboo” to hand the running of the country to the opposition.

Leading me to conclude that I’m delighted to participate in whatever plot there may be to get rid of Najib and his fellow Umno/BN blots and clots, and to giving my very best shot to helping stop the rot.

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’ and ‘1Malaysia.con’.