Let me make myself perfectly clear here. I’m not talking ‘black hole’ in terms of cruel and suffocating imprisonment as in ‘black hole of Calcutta’, despite the fact that the Umno/BN gang has a way of cramming its critics and opponents into the black holes of its lock-ups and jails.

Nor, of course, am I stooping so low as to characterise the Umno/BN regime as a black hole in the anatomical sense, however deserving of such scatological description that this bunch of bums and its coterie of chums in business and commerce and the Malaysian mainstream media undeniably is.

Instead I’m using ‘black hole’ in its strictly astronomical sense, to make the point that, while teams of scientists have been straining their talents and stretching the limits of their telescopic technologies to try and penetrate the dark mysteries of black spots in distant galaxies, one of these all-engulfing monsters has been here right under their noses, greedily gobbling-up what’s left of Malaysia.

Of course, as purists and pedants will be quick to point out, this is not literally the case, in light of the fact that an astronomical black hole is gravitational, and thus confines itself to sucking-in matter that has physical mass, like stray stars, planets, space dust and, as its name suggests, photons of light; whereas the Umno/BN black hole is merely gravitational, and thus less capable of destroying the universe.

But I would argue quite the opposite. As far as science can foretell, at least for the next few billion years, the universe and most of its components including Planet Earth and the small part of it comprising Malaysia, are perfectly safe from cosmic black holes, however powerful their forces of gravity.

On the other hand, however, it would be difficult to over-state the gravity of the dangers that Malaysia and its people face from the Umno/BN black hole with its astronomical greed and apparently unlimited power to grab itself just about everything it could possibly want.

For almost 60 years now, this gang of racists, criminals and incompetents has been blowing its trumpet about its alleged promotion of the harmony, prosperity and progress of Malaysia, while actually striving mightily to suck out of the nation and its people everything from countless billions or even trillions of publically-owned cash and natural resources to even more priceless protections like accountability, transparency and a proper system of justice, and rights including peaceful protest and free and fair elections.

And in its process of suckering what it perceives as its captive majority of supporters, the moral and ethical Umno/BN black hole has even managed to suck-away ethnic Malays’ freedom to choose what if any faith to embrace and follow.

In fact, so stuck-up have the vacuous current heads of this sucking system become that they clearly imagine that they’ve sucked the word ‘Allah’ in as well.

Emptiest of empty suits

That all-round human vacancy and emptiest of empty suits, or when it better befits the occasion, empty baju Melayu and even emptier songkok, Najib Abdul Razak, seems to imagine that seeing lots of pictures of him apparently praying will convince the populace that he’s innocent of vacuuming-up not only the billions of ringgit undeniably evidence to have appeared in his bank accounts, but all the other countless millions he and his self-styled ‘first lady’ have allegedly squandered on jet-setting and shopping sprees.

And for her part, Rosmah, a notorious black hole of big-ticket, not to mention large-sized, dresses, expensive jewellery, designer handbags and RM1200-ringgit hair-dos has had the arrogance to publicly announce that she has advised Najib to ‘be very, very patient’ in the face of what the rest of the world perceives as incontrovertible allegations of massive fraud and theft, ‘as this is a test from Allah’ .

‘What is important is (that) Allah understands what is the truth,’ she went on, before further adding that ‘whatever it is, we have to pray and leave it to Allah.’

Who if anybody in Malaysia still believes a word of what Rosmah says for transmission to the populace by those black holes of truth and journalistic integrity, the regime’s ‘news’ agency Bernama and the rest of its mouthpiece media, is anybody’s guess.

One thing is for sure, however. There is no chance that ‘Allah’ or anybody else is going to be sucked into the black hole of believing the claim currently being made by various Umno/BN nobodies that the 1MDB scandal has disappeared into a... black hole.

There is still a bottomless pit of evidence of dark deeds to be dug up and exposed by international news organisations and official investigators in at least half a dozen countries, and it most certainly will be.

Whatever emerges, however, I hope that Allah will tell Rosmah to keep passing the message on to Najib that he had better stay steadfastly in office.

Because the longer he holds on to his job, the more inspired Malaysians will be come the next general election, if not before, to get rid of not just him and his most obvious partners and accomplices in crime, but of the entire Umno/BN black hole.

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’.