if there is any truth in his relevations

he has chosen the wrong time to say it

there is nothing current in what he said

he could have said it donkey years ago when he crapped out of keadilan

knowing him he is too clever to have got his timing wrong

he has kept it as his triump card to release it when it matter most

to destroy the ever gaining momentum of the opposition this round

and betray us

which then makes me wonder how much have been deposited into his swiss account

Analysis:

Chandra is right on one point: Political leaders must be honest and consistent in their ideology and political philosophy. They must not be double-tongue and practice double standards.

But what Chandra revealed about Anwar were things and acts that Anwar had committed before 1999, that is, when Anwar is Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. But in 1999, Anwar was sacked and jailed.

So why is he saying and singing something which was his own as well as Anwars?

If Anwar’s ideology and philosophy are things that runs contrary to Chandra’s belief and the philosophy of multi-ethnicity, the most puzzling thing is that Chandra elected himself to form KeADILan together with Anwar and got himself appointed and elected as it’s deputy president for 6 long years until December 2005 when he was disgusted with certain matters and in-fightings within KeADILan, and decided to quit.

So, hypothetically, Chandra must have acknowledged Anwar’s acts and belief and had endorsed Anwar’s political philosophy. Otherwise he wouldn’t have stayed as deputy president of PKR for 6 years. He must have concurred with the education system, concurred with Kampung Jawa’s dictum of Anwar, and agreed on all these discriminatory system of Anwar.

Most puzzling is that he is saying he do not want the non-Malays in this country to be deceived by Anwar’s new political philosophy of multi-ethnic stand.

There are two paradoxes:

Firstly, if we accept the explanation and revelation of Chandra and his claim of altruism to prevent the non-Malays from being deceived by a Malay and to protect the multi-ethnic society, we must also accept that Chandra is a “Malay” (by constitutional definition) and to highlight something like “a ploy of a Malay” to deceive the non-Malays is by itself a betrayal of his own community. He should have openly called on Anwar and seek clarification as to why Anwar had decided to changed his political philosophy and dumped his bigotry. By being close friends and political allies and brotherhood, Chandra did not attempt to find out the new Anwar. If he had done a research on Anwar and discovered that Anwar had intended to deceive the non-Malays, then his statement of hypothesis is acceptable and credible. This he did not do.

Secondly, if we hold Anwar to his past philosophies and deny that he could adopt and adapt another philosophies which is part of human passage in life, that itself is flawed. For example, in 1987 Najib who was then the UMNO Youth president had said that he would bath the keris with Chinese blood; but today Najib is singing a new song of multi-racialism and equality and fairness of all races.

UMNO Youth information chief Datuk Azimi Daim said at the UMNO General Assembly: “When certain issues come up, it is natural for the warrior blood in the veins of the Malays to become heated.”

Razali Idris (Terengganu)at the UMNO General Assembly said: “This wide disparity will create unrest and an incident like May 13 might repeat but this time, the parang will not fly. An ants’ nest should not be disturbed.”

Hasnoor Sidang Hussein, (Malacca)Umno said: “UMNO is willing to risk lives and bathe in blood in defence of race and religion. Don’t play with fire. If they mess with our rights, we will mess with theirs.”

Tan Sri Mohamad Rahmat said: “Don’t test the Malays, they know ‘amok.”

Perlis UMNO Hashim Suboh said: “Datuk Hisham has unsheathed his keris, waved his keris, kissed his keris. We want to ask Datuk Hisham: when is he going to use it?

There are many others which will not be cited here, but it is clear that we only hear of these racial threats from UMNO; we have not heard of even one racial threats from PAS or KeADILan or DAP. PAS ruled Kelantan and Terengganu but they had never at their general assemblies threatened the other races. And Chandra was against PAS ultraconservative Islam which in itself did not discriminate against the non-Muslims.

The rational conclusion is to accept that people and politicians do change their political philosophy and adapt to the surrounding circumstances as and when they are in power; it’s about political reality within a multi-racial society. UMNO had being seditious throughout and this we can observed at every of their general assemblies. To conclude, we can say safely that PAS has proven to be the most consistent and honest and had never threatened the non-Malays. DAP is consistent too but the party is managed by the minority race and thus could not be defined in this aspect.

I would give Anwar the benefit of doubt for reason that he had gone to jail, suffered enough and had over these period learnt much about social integration and harmony. He has matured and grown wiser.

On another aspect, I do accept that BN is truly multi-racial but the majority within the coalition adopt a big-boy bullies attitude, ensuring equal amongst the unequal. And the worst of all is, corruption absolutism of the highest order. Thus we have the oligarchy empire and ruler within a democratic system of government.

http://maverickysm.blogspot.com/2008/03/chandra-muzaffar-lossen-tongue.html

Captain Yusof Ahmed

I was quite appalled to read Chandra Muzaffar’s very personal attack against Anwar Ibrahim (read today’s the Star’s report, here and also Aril Mikhail’s letter to Malaysiakini, here) when he said that it will be an “unmitigated disaster” for Malaysia if Anwar becomes prime minister. Since he was a former PKR man himself, it is rather daunting to imagine the sudden wave of disillusionment that must have swept over such a ‘brilliant’ man and cause him to utter such balls.

I first met Dr. Chandra Muzaffar (photo) sometime in early 1983. He was then riding high as an academic cum NGO human rights activist and had been invited to speak at an Asia Pacific Regional Conference of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) in Kuala Lumpur, which I chaired as founder chairman of the ITF Malaysian Council. I cannot recall what he spoke about, something about union rights I think, but I remember the strike-happy Aussie dockers unions were full of praise of him and wanted cassette tape copies of his speech. I wasn’t very impressed and neither was the late Dr. V. David of the Transport Workers Union, who co-chaired the conference. We believed then that it was easy to be gung-ho and say a lot things when you are not carrying the baby or be responsible for the rights and livelihood of many member workers. Perhaps there is something to be said about the old adage “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach”. So perhaps also Chandra should just stick to teaching and not get involved in politics and the affairs of men. What a sell out, indeed.

http://cyusof.blogspot.com/

Amar | Malaysiakini

For someone who heralded Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s ascendancy to premiership in 2004 by stating something to the effect that it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for Malaysians to change leadership, it is sad to note that Chandra Muzaffar now appears deluded by the invidiousness of BN’s 50 years in power.

He castigates, in the mainstream papers today, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim as being effectively anti non-Malay. The examples he quotes in the report were events that happened way before Anwar lost Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s patronage and interestingly, these were events that took place before Anwar’s reformasi movement commenced.

On what basis did Chandra join PKR as deputy president given that he had reservations over Anwar’s past decisions?

Does not Chandra, being an eminent political scientist, realise that people do change their opinions and principles as a result of circumstances in life? Has not Mahathir changed his ‘tune’ since leaving office, a tune Malaysians would have loved to hear in his 22 years as prime minister?

It is said that no one is a permanent friend or enemy in politics. This is also applicable to a rational electorate where we, as citizens, should be prepared to dump a leader if need be and likewise embrace one when they appear to be talking sense; and Anwar is talking a lot of sense presently. Likewise, does Abdullah command the confidence of right-thinking Malaysians now vis-B-vis 2004?

For all that he accuses Anwar of, does Chandra want us to list down the anti non-Malay statements made by current Umno leaders? What alternative does Chandra have in mind? Perhaps another term and a two-thirds majority in the legislature for the BN which has proven itself to be a curse on nation-building?

Chandra has single-handedly, at the eleventh hour, thrown the spanner in the works for all Malaysians looking forward to mitigating the injustices of giving the BN a two-thirds majority. Truly disappointing for someone who was the founder of Aliran.
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/79146

Aril Mikhail-Malaysiakini

Many years ago in the 1980s, then leader of the Labour Party in England, Denis Healey, was openly criticised for having been a member of an extreme Left political party in his younger days.

His simple response was that he also believed in Santa Claus in his younger days. Indeed, all of us – without exception – change as we age and as we learn more about life. Some more so thanothers, of course, but change we certainly do.

This, unfortunately, is something that seems to have been lost on Chandra Muzaffar in his widely – almost gleefully – published diatribe against Anwar Ibrahim in the mainstream newspapers today.

Like his equally disingenuous friends in the BN coalition who, perhaps unable to counter much of the opposition front’s critiques against the failure of BN rule, Chandra – out of the blue, after having been quiet for so long – suddenly decided to rip into Anwar.

‘He’s singing a different tune now’, asserted Chandra. Anwar ‘Deceiving Malaysians’ claimed another headline attributed to Chandra.

The gist of Chandra’s personal attack is that Anwar is saying things now that are the opposite of what he said and did when he was high up in Umno. This, of course, is nothing new and Anwar himself has addressed these criticisms often enough.

It’s a trifle ironic that Chandra is ‘coming clean’ and saying all this of Anwar now, when he himself appears to be doing the exact opposite of what he was doing when in Aliran and PKR. Before, he consistently argued against the BN having a two-thirds majority and the need for a strong opposition.

Now, on the eve of the elections, he seemingly dismisses the opposition and asserts that, despite its flaws, there is no other viable coalition beyond the BN. How fortuitous. I guess when you’ve been offered a cushy position in a state university for two years, you tend to ‘change’ somewhat.

Dear Chandra, selling out is fine. But becoming a willing tool of a corrupt, arrogant and racist regime at this critical juncture devalues, indeed destroys, whatever good work you may have done thus far. May God guide you.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/79148

Statement: Wee Choo Keong

Dr Chandra Muzaffar, a self-proclaimed intellectual and arm-chair critic of BN of yesteryears, suddenly saw it fit to allow himself to be manipulated by the Barang Naik party to cast malicious aspersion against Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim and to indirectly influence Malaysians not to support the opposition.

This is, for all intent and purpose, an affront to basic freedom and democracy.

For a start, Chandra is just an intellectual fraud. He only pays lip-service to words like freedom and democracy.

In 1998/99 I was sacked from the DAP under strange circumstances and many other DAP leaders throughout the nation resigned from the DAP. At the same time, we were thinking of joining PKR in order to carry on our struggles against injustices, corruptions and abuses of power. During that period, Chandra was the Deputy President of PKR and he, as unreasonable as it was, saw it fit to make a unilateral declaration that all former DAP leaders were banned from joining PKR.

To say the least, this behaviour of his was absolutely bizarre and mind-boggling.

We were extremely shocked and disappointed with Chandra, whom we thought was a real democrat and a great defender of freedom and injustice. After the said infamous declaration of his putting a blanket-ban on former DAP leaders from joining PKR, we knew then that Chandra was merely an arm-chair critic and intellectual fraud when it comes to freedom and democracy.

Whatever Chandra had uttered last night at the forum organised by The Star was not unexpected given his past record. And those utterances should be consigned to the foul-smelling garbage bins much like his mouth at the time surely.

Moreover, Chandran’s vile gibberish of last night was also verbiage and an obvious act of sabotage against the people of this country.

We call upon Chandra to carry on being an arm-chair critic in his academic ‘prison’ and to immediately stop insulting the intelligence of the public.

Chandra would also do well to go back to school to re-learn the basic principles of freedom and democracy.

http://www.weechookeong.blogspot.com/