Any suggestion that Umno has reformed, let alone been transformed as Najib Abdul Razak continuously claims, was totally given the lie at this putrid party’s latest general assembly.

It was absolutely business as usual, with all the usual suspects busily playing on the gullibility of their ever-dwindling ranks of supporters, and frantically praying for yet more years in office to continue preying on the rest of the populace.

And what a shameless pack of predators they are, having plundered Malaysia of hundreds of billions of ringgit or even US$ during Mahathir Mohamad’s 22-year premiership and untold more billions since through the Scorpene, PKFZ, NFC, AES and countless other rip-offs.

Never a sign of so much as a shred of regret, let alone reform, and not a sign of proper prosecution of any of the culprits, let alone recovery of the massive quantities of cash, land and natural resources they have stolen.

Yet this criminal conspiracy posing as a political party has the hide to condemn PAS for praying for its downfall in the coming general election. And the sanctimonious sacrificial lamb in the NFC scandal, Wanita head Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, has the effrontery to threaten Umno’s opponents with a repeat of the May 1969 riots if they don’t keep quiet.

winston churchill But the real stars, or rather monstars, of this year’s Umno general assembly, were those allegedly equipped with the vision to lead new generations of Malaysia to a glorious future, Umno Youth.

Now 36 and thus almost as youthless as he’s useless, Khairy Jamaluddin led the charge to captivate young voters with a stirring call to arms in which he quoted or at least paraphrased one of Winston Churchill’s ( right ) most famous World War 2 speeches.

Thus raising not only the question of how many of the youthful products of Malaysia’s dreadful public-education system have the faintest idea who Winston Churchill is or was, but also causing many of us to contemplate the similarity between Umno and Churchill’s mortal enemies, the Nazis.

Not, I grant you, that Umno has ever embarked on an attempt at world conquest. As I mentioned in my column last week, former prime minister Mahathir has explained that he had ruled-out war against neighbouring nations on the grounds that “Malaysians are cowards who don’t want to be injured or die but would rather enjoy life”.

But in many other ways, as numerous commentators have pointed-out over the years, Umno has chilling similarities with the late, unlamented Nazi Party.

Deranged delusions of racial supremacy, for example, as instanced by incessant calls to support Umno in its “struggle” to defend Malays against citizens of other ethnic backgrounds, and a penchant for state-sponsored false propaganda.

And of course the raised arm and clenched fist that accompanies self-adoring cry of “Hidup Umno” is inevitably and eerily reminiscent of the “Heil Hitler” salute.

Historical hysterics

So Khairy Jamaluddin’s historical hysterics, as captivating as they may well have been to his audience at the Putrid World Trade Centre, served only to remind the rest of us how outrageous it is that Umno should threaten to fight legitimate opposition, be it on the beaches or anywhere else, in response to Najib’s notorious call to defend Putridjaya even at the expense of crushed bodies and lost lives.

Of course it’s quite possible that Umno will never need to resort violence again, May 13 style, as despite Najib’s much-vaunted “transformation” of the nation the electoral system remains so blatantly biased in the regime’s favour that it would take an absolute landslide to get these crooks out of office.

NONE And in any event no change of regime can possibly happen as, according to Umno Youth information chief Reezal Merican Naina Merican ( left ), Umno has God on its side.

“Remember, we are the mukhtarin , the chosen ones,” Malaysiakini quoted him as telling his audience at the general assembly, “and as such, no matter how people want to choose otherwise or have the right as humans to make their own choices, they must realise that they are bound by God’s dictates.”

“It is God’s choice,” he ranted, “that the assembled delegates are Malays living in the chosen land of Malaysia and is to be liberated and administered by Umno.”

As I’ve mentioned before somewhere, every man and his dog has tried enlisting God in his cause this way: even the Nazis against whom Winston Churchill uttered the famous words so inappropriately quoted by Khairy Jamaluddin claimed “ Gott mit uns ”.

And whether God was or was not with the Nazis, he certainly didn’t save them. In fact it’s entirely arguable that he destroyed them, or stood by and greatly enjoyed watching them destroyed, for being so presumptuous as to employ his name in support of their evil enterprise.

Similarly, or so it seems to me as a mere unbeliever, any entity deserving of the name God would be dead against the rule of any nation, including Malaysia, by a criminal conspiracy like Umno, let alone approving of or actually supporting it.

God is supposed to have issued commandments like, for example, “thou shalt not steal”. And that would suggest to me that he might take a very dim view indeed of Umno-style looting of public property.

Just as another well-known commandment, “thou shalt not kill” gives me the impression that God would be almighty unimpressed by such deaths as those of Altantuya Shaariibuu, Teoh Beng Hock and so many others at the hands of Umno’s forces of so-called law-and-order.

Pathological lying

Nor would any God worth his salt approve of Umno’s pathological lying to the people of Malaysia, let alone its appropriation of the nation’s entire mainstream media for the purpose of spreading its calumnies.

In short, far from achieving anything positive by claiming that God is on their side, the liars, thieves and assassins of Umno are surely only provoking His wrath by keeping on preying while so piously pretending to pray. And thus all those who believe that God is good, or as I do that good is God, are secure in the belief that Umno’s end is nigh.

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’.