I finally got hold of Dr Kua Kia Soong's latest book,
May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969. More to the point, I read it all the way through with interest, and it was an exercise that set off quite an elongated train of thought. When the violence erupted 38 years ago I was living in the quiet southern town of Batu Pahat where nothing untoward happened, although I remember people were tense and uneasy, and the streets were unusually deserted. My severely pregnant wife was almost due then and I would take her for a spin around town every evening - and not once did I sense we were in any danger whatsoever. Our first daughter, Moonlake, was delivered at home on May 28, in the same house where I had been born and - believe it or not - by the same midwife who had delivered me 19 years earlier!
In other words, I had a lot else on my mind at the time. Local politics and vague reports of mayhem in the faraway capital and a few other towns didn't seem as significant as becoming a father for the first time. The news reports were muted, to say the least, and rumors flew around - but I don't recall paying any attention to them. The general feeling, however, was that some folks are bad losers. Politics seemed to me just like a poker game played by a bunch of testosteronal types and, just like it always happens in the Hollywood westerns, some unshaven cowhand will start a gunfight when down on his luck at the saloon.
I didn't believe for a moment in May 1969 that the "race riots" had flared up spontaneously - and declassified documents unearthed by Dr Kua from the Public Records Office in London among other sources clearly testify to that. Well, thanks, Kua! What you've done carries profound significance. It's on more or less the same scale of importance as having some reputable scholar dig up long-buried evidence that, after 44 years, finally resolves the JFK murder mystery and names everyone involved in the plot. Bye-bye, Lone Shooter Lee Harvey Oswald theory. Boo, Warren Commission! What sort of punishment would befit folks who would go to such lengths to snuff three members of the Kennedy clan? Remember what happened to John F. Kennedy, Jr - just as he was on the verge of announcing his presidential candidacy?
By the same token, I'm closely monitoring the unstoppable build up of grassroots support for the 9/11 Truth Movement. Ironically, the people who really ought to know better have mostly turned out to be aggressive deniers of what's plain as day to anyone with unclouded eyes and unclogged nostrils - why do they find it so goddam hard to acknowledge that all governments are perfectly capable of doing unthinkable things just to stay in power? Of course, the blame always has to be pinned on some useful bogeyman like the Communists or the Terrorists. Haven't they read Machiavelli? Actually, I've never even SEEN that oft-quoted handbook on how to win elections and influence history - but we all know what "Machiavellian" means, right? Machiavellian... Orwellian... Cartesian... Antaresian.... nah, doesn't quite do the trick, that last one!
Just consider this: why would the Roman Church, say, be so rattled by the popularity of a Dan Brown potboiler that it would get into damage control mode and begin to debunk instead of debate the distinct possibility that Yeshua (better known as Jesus the Christ) and Myriam of Mygdala (better known as Mary Magdalene) were a royal couple descended from a very ancient and revered bloodline? The answer is obvious: it would shatter the very foundations of a 2,000-year-old belief system and totally undermine the moral authority of the Pope - and, by extension, the entire Vatican. And when the faithful realize that the Church they have supported all these generations has actually been actively engaged in destroying, or at least suppressing, inconvenient truths - and that it is, in fact, the dreaded "Anti-Christ" incarnate... well, there goes another House of Cards, so what?
For a start, history would have to reconsider herstory. Because the central tenet of Patriarchy is that the female is subjugate to the male. Women would finally have a say in matters economic and geopolitical - and that would spell the end of a cruel and ruinous era of constant warfare ruled by "naughty boys with dangerous toys." In short, humanity would enjoy the very real option of envisioning Heaven on Earth - instead of in the Afterlife!
May 13 and 9/11 have one common feature: they were cunningly and ruthlessly crafted public traumas designed to concuss, confuse, and confound the masses - and, while the voters were in temporary shock, they would be robbed of any control over their own future. That's right, folks: the name of the REAL game is "Hand over all your power!"
Dr Kua's straight-talking book confirms for many of us that May 13 was, in actuality, a coup d'état wherein a core group of ambitious Malay bureaucrats and politicos had conspired to seize control of the country using the pretext of a national emergency - and thereafter, in the absence of parliamentary opposition, bulldoze constitutional changes that would legislatively install an ethnocentric doctrine of "Malay dominance" in perpetuity - even if nobody has ever successfully determined what defines a Malay. Couldn't be the
songkok and the
kain pelekat, surely, or a penchant for
sambal belacan? The fear that such racial violence could erupt again anytime the non-Malays begin to assert themselves beyond certain boundaries has been effectively used to ensure that the incumbent government keeps getting re-elected with its two-thirds majority (which, for the first time, it had lost in the 1969 general election, hence the resort to the atavistic politics of blood-in-the-streets).
Imagine the consequences of an unforeseen shift in what the mainstream media considers "newsworthy" that incontrovertibly reveals the hand of Dick Cheney behind the 9/11 atrocities. And following swiftly upon this, the public
unmasking of how secret societies and Old Boys' networks have, since time immemorial, been deceiving and dividing humanity along artificially pumped-up ethnic and religious fault lines to maintain their power base on this planet, which they view as their private property, bequeathed them by a barbaric tribal deity. Not likely to happen in our lifetime, huh?
And what about Altantuya Shaariibuu, the 28-year-old Mongolian beauty who got a bit out of her depth in political intrigue and ended up in smithereens? The thing that truly mystifies me: how come we've only ever seen ONE official photo of her? She was said to have occasionally modeled. A few glam images found on the net were quickly dismissed as belonging to some popular Korean songstress.
Anyway, all Altantuya really wanted was what she saw as her rightful share of the booty. Her business partners probably didn't expect her to be so pushy; they thought she'd accept what was offered and leave well enough alone. They thought wrong. Altantuya was no angel. She felt she deserved top money for the extraordinary services she rendered. She was certainly a poor judge of character. Big boys involved in multibillion dollar arms deals don't like being pussywhipped by their mistresses.
It just got nastier and messier than anybody expected. It might have been a perfect murder if nobody had heard the loud bang in the middle of the night. I'm told some Orang Asli encamped in the vicinity were the first on the scene and they lodged a report... oh oh... tough shit! Somebody had already instructed some immigration officer to delete the computer record of Altantuya's arrival in the country. Somebody had authorized assigning ministerial bodyguards to do the dirty work. Somebody had also signed for the release of some C4 explosives.
But... could it somehow have been a form of Mongolian suicide? After all, the Japanese are fond of eviscerating themselves... maybe Mongolian women are adroit at blowing themselves up in dense jungle? Nice try, kiddo.
Stuffing money in the pockets is routine political behavior and most folks would avert their gaze and shrug it off as par for the course.
However, shedding blood incurs heavy karmic consequences that inevitably bring down the high and mighty.
This is indeed the Time of Reckoning for the entire human race. Skeletons tumbling out of closets wherever you look. The CIA's role in the assassinations of JFK, RFK (and, I expect, JFK, Jr too) has recently come to light. That dirty business will sooner or later implicate George H.W. Bush (who joined the CIA during JFK's presidency and subsequently became top dog in the Agency under Gerald Ford). Long-term plans to seize the Iraqi and Iranian oilfields were being laid even then by George H.W. Bush - but their implementation would have to await the ascent to ultimate power of the Idiot Bastard Son.
Conspiracy theories and dynasties are fascinating, aren't they? Lee Kuan Yew and his son Hsien Loong. Abdul Razak (the "evil genius" behind May 13) and his son Najib. George H.W. and George W. Bush. Fascinating indeed. But what are we going to do when we discover they aren't just "theories"?
The following poems are part of a new collection of poetry written by Guantanamo Bay detainees to be published in late July. For more information about the book, go to NPR.org.
