As enthusiastic a supporter as I am of any protest against the revolting Barisan Nasional government, I'm a bit disappointed that this year's Umno general assembly was so upstaged by the Bersih and Hindraf rallies.

It's always good for a glimpse into the psyche of a party hell-bent on keeping itself in power despite having so laughably yet tragically lost the plot.

But besides being overshadowed by subsequent events, this year's Umnofest was also a somewhat low-key affair.

It was mostly un-televised to conceal from the rakyat the kind of racist antics that characterised last year's event, and unhappily happening to coincide with the celebration of Deepavali.

Whether this conflict of timing was a calculated insult to the Indian Malaysian community, as many suspected, or an unavoidable clash dictated by the need to fit in with the PM's hectic touring itinerary, it's impossible for an outsider to tell.

But Umno Youth deputy head Khairy Jamaluddin blamed the Indians, not for the scheduling clash itself, but for having the effrontery to take a break on the very day that the presidential address to the Umno faithful should have been plastered all over the newspapers for the edification of the nation.

"Today is the first time the Umno president's speech is not being read by the masses," he thundered, "because a particular ethnic group controls the distribution line of newspapers and they are on holiday."

Arrant and arrogant nonsense as this was, at least it shows he's had a glimpse of how "the masses" feel about a particular ethnic group's control of the content of the newspapers with the result that the truth is on perpetual holiday.

The truth is customarily absent, too, from the party president's platitudinous speeches and his peroration to this year's general assembly was no exception. So the masses didn't miss much as a result of the newspaper distributors' dereliction of duty.

High-flown nonsense

One speech I wouldn't have missed for the world, however, was Deputy President Najib Abdul Razak's 'Reaching for the stars - elevating a national civilisation'.

This ramble through topics as disparate as party unity, organ transplants and Malaysia's first "astronaut" featured such gems of hyperbole and wishful thinking as: "We have seen that Malays have been able to cross vast oceans, conquer the highest summit and explore the North and South Poles. We are now in the midst of attempting extreme expeditions in seven continents, cycling solo round the world, and most recently we have begun exploring space."

He went on with such high-flown nonsense for 90 minutes, but finally crashed back to earth with the astonishingly primitive proposition that Umno can best resolve disputes in Malaysia by means of the traditional "three prong" Bugis solution: the tongue, the penis and the keris.

Which naturally got me wondering which of the current Umno leadership he had in mind as personifying each of the prongs.

By the tongue, I assume, he meant Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who after four long, sleepy years as prime minister has thoroughly proven himself all talk and no action.

As for who the penis signifies, as far as I'm concerned it's a toss-up. On the one hand it could be a self-reference to Najib's own rumoured fondness for a spot of phallic recreation. And on the other it could be his sly way of characterising his upstart rival, Khairy, as nothing but a political gigolo.

The keris is dead-set obvious, of course. That can only be Hishammuddin Hussein, the man who threateningly brandishes his weapon at every conceivable opportunity, then claims he only does it in the cause of racial harmony.

Say 'No'

Such conjecture as this leads me to the mystery that's been plaguing me for years: how can the party of Malaysia's revered Tunku Abdul Rahman have sunk so low as to be led by the likes of Abdullah, Najib, Hishammuddin and Khairy?

How, in just two generations since the glorious achievement of Merdeka, has the high and mighty Umno descended into the rabble that today rules Malaysia by means of money politics, rigged elections, corrupt institutions, unconstitutional laws and lying media, not to mention teargas and water cannon?

One possible explanation could be that the party may never have been so pure of spirit, or the founding fathers so principled, as they've since been painted for us by the official PR machine.

But surely the Tunku must have had some honour and decency, as his writings after he left office clearly show that he was shocked and appalled by the lack of such qualities in some of his contemporaries and successors.

One of the first signs of the Tunku's disenchantment was his well-supported suspicion that Abdul Razak engineered the May 13 riots in an attempt to depose him. And for years after he fell from power, if not grace, he deplored the emergence of others in the party whose characters he despised, like Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

And the good Tunku was dead right. During the 22 years of rule by Mahathir ( photo ) and now four by his hand-picked successor, Umno has degenerated into something so stupid it should be called Dumno and so corrupt as to deserve the term Scumno. Staunchly supported and sustained in power by the MCA, MIC, Gerakan and the rest of its coalition accomplices, a group we could justly call Chumno.

Of these illegitimate descendants of the original Umno and its allied parties, Dumno may well boast the biggest numbers - millions of party members and voters so stupefied by relentless media hype or hopes of material gain that they still believe the government lie that it honestly represents the best interests of the rakyat .

Some prominent party stalwarts, like the notorious bocor MPs and cabinet ministers Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz ( right ) and Zainuddin Maidin ( left ), seem likely candidates for Dumno too. But I suspect they're actually just acting stupid to conceal the fact that they're actually part of Scumno.

This group comprises everything from contractors whose party loyalty is bought and paid for, through suspiciously-prosperous civil servants, on up to members of Parliament and cabinet ministers who employ their positions and connections for their own rank ends.

Malaysia deserves much better than this. So let's all work together to crank up the level of protest.

And at the same time let's hope that the pain of projected fuel, toll and other price rises will convince even the most complacent citizens that next time Dumno, Scumno and Chumno try begging and buying their votes, the electorate's answer should be um...no.