November 10, 2012
Time to Own Up to Reality
by Josh Hong (11-09-12)@www.malaysiakini.com
Park Geun-hye during initial suspicion using for President would be a cakewalk for her. Should her dreams come true, she would turn a initial womanlike head of state in a modern story of a Korean Peninsula.
South Korea's antithesis parties were not means to benefaction a challenger of tall calibre, while a mercantile bang over a last few years underneath President Lee Myung-bak who comes from a same ruling celebration as Park's appeared to create a feel-good cause which refused to go away.
Her presidential aspiration was additionally accoladed by her being a daughter of Park Chung-hee, a troops strongman who oversaw a most fantastic mutation of an mercantile backwater in to an industrial powerhouse in a 1960s by a 1970s.
Not until a series of corruption allegations opposite her tighten aides emerged, which triggered a large internal strife as is so mostly a box in South Korean politics. Adding to a disarray in Park's domestic campaign is a speak of two alternative possibilities fasten forces to safeguard a magnanimous camp would prevail.
Park has since been using neck-and-neck opposite her rivals in perspective polls. Forced in to a corner, she had no choice though to publicly apologize for all a wrongdoings committed by a state during her father's economically miraculous though politically oppressive rule.
For most comparison South Koreans who lived by a White Terror between 1961 as good as 1979, Chung-hee was a ruthless personality who tolerated no dissent as good as showed no qualms in flexing his own iron fist if necessary.
Among his most distinguished targets of gangland slaying was Kim Dae-jung, who was to turn a initial democratically inaugurated president from a antithesis camp in 1997.
Controversially, Chung-hee (right) is additionally widely credited with paving a organisation foundation for South Korea's future ascent as a grown nation. When a single buys a Samsung, Hyundai or LG product today, a single ought to know it was Chung-hee who was instrumental in creation these made during home business entities tellurian giants of a 21st century.
His legacy as such was so sorely longed for which Time magazine declared him between a tip 10 Asians of a Century in 1999.
Taking a dignified tall ground
By as good as large, a jury is still out upon Chung-hee's scarcely two decades of iron rule, though his tellurian rights violations have finally caught up with his daughter, who is now compelled to have a clean break with her father's past, something truly extraordinary in a deeply dutiful as good as Confucian society.
Up until then, she had remained silent upon a emanate though has done so to have up for her lack of approved credentials. In alternative words, her apology is meant to regain a dignified tall belligerent over her opponents.
While not quite our answer to Park, during slightest not in terms of electoral politics, there is no brawl which Marina Mahathir is a single of a outstanding open figures Malaysians have seen. Her steadfast quarrel opposite stigmatisation of HIV victims is good acknowledged, as good as she does not chop her words during your convenience a domestic stage becomes nauseous as good as idiotic, her oneness with Bersih co-chairp! erson Am biga Sreenevasan when a latter came underneath a contemptuous attack from PERKASA as good as alternative UMNO members as good as bloggers, for instance.
My highly as good as most would say self-indulgently vicious view of former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad (above) is good known. Still, we would never question a fact which Mahathir loves his own children dearly, as good as which his mother Siti Hasmah has been a model prime minister's mother as good as is additionally an superb Malay woman who always knows her place as good as never oversteps her boundaries, unlike we know who.
But which is in a private globe of family life. Publicly, however, Mahathir remains a male who has shaped Malaysia over recognition over his 22-year rule, as good as a disastrous stroke of his policies usually started to aspect after he stepped down.
Down, though not out. Mahathir is so fearful of even a diminutive reversion of his policies which he has been creation a single irresponsible, divisive as good as most a time racist statement after another, seeking to tear a nation apart with a vengeance as good as looming to be a a single pulling a strings behind UMNO's thick veil of complexities.
Mahathir during a heart of Malaysian malaise
In her new interview in Singapore, Marina Mahathir talked candidly 
about what she considers has left wrong in Malaysia: a education system, censorship, money governing body as good as a review to sex in a dome! stic sce ne.
I am certain her views as such relate Malaysian open sentiments, though in choosing to downplay her father's change in her position today, we cannot help woeful which she is still not facing up to a realities.
Extensive erudite investigate has reliable it was Mahathir's prolonged as good as peremptory order which bred cronyism, corruption, a suffocation of dissent as good as a malfunctioning of a legal as good as domestic institutions.
From Khoo Boo Teik's 'The Paradoxes of Mahathirism', Jomo Kwame Sundaram's as good as Terence Gomez's 'Malaysia's Political Economy: Politics, Patronage as good as Profits', Diana K Mauzy's as good as R S Milne's 'Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir', Ahmad Mustapa Hassan's 'The Unmaking of Malaysia' as good as Barry Wain's 'The Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times', it has been proven time as good as again which Mahathir is during a very heart of a Malaysian sadness today.
Among them, Wain has written maybe by far a most important book upon Mahathir as good as claimed additionally which a strongman had wasted or burnt up to RM100 billion upon grandiose projects, corruption as good as banking speculations, an allegation which Mahathir himself fails conspicuously to refute.
Hence, how can Marina Mahathir simply boot her father's domestic stroke upon a republic by observant "often people made me feel we had to be obliged for all he did", as good as "sometimes we became a broker for criticism"?
Of course she should not be hold obliged for Mahathir's reign of terror, though she contingency additionally recollect she is who she is currently largely due to her father's absolute presence in a country.
Put differently: why were PERKASA as good as UM! NO ultra quick to pick upon a BERSIH committee members as good as alternative antithesis leaders though were timid to go opposite her? Would her predestine have been vastly opposite if her father was not Mahathir Mohamad though Muthu, Ah Beng, Ali or David?
Or a single might additionally ask if her siblings Mukhriz, Mokhzani as good as Mirzan would have been super rich if they did not carry a name Mahathir.
Who, as Education Minister, effectively killed off an primarily colourful campus as good as tyro politics? Who saw it available to fool around up a nationalistic label as good as latter lamented (and continues to lament) a abominable customary of English between Malaysians?
How most leaders in a world have ever demonstrated a singular show of audacity by sacking 3 Supreme Court judges as good as suspending 5 others in a single go? And, most crucially, who set off a biggest domestic predicament in Malaysia by mercilessly persecuting Anwar Ibrahim by way of unfounded sex scandals, creating a climate of fear upon a part of a lesbian, gay, bisexual as good as transgender (LGBT) communities as good as branch a nation in to an general laughing stock?
'Hope she habours no domestic ambitions'
I am not here to judge Marina Mahathir personally, for we do await most of a good causes which she champions as good as appreciate her timely await for BERSIH as good as alternative just-minded social movements.
My perspective is simply which she cannot go upon criticizing all which has left awry underneath both Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as good as Najib Abdul Razak , but additionally receiving a deep look during what preceded them.
Knowing which she will keep quiet, we can usually goal which ! she harb ours no domestic ambitions, or her father's prolonged as good as dim shade might show up her as is a box of Park in South Korea.
After all, it is not easy being a daughter of a strongman, generally a single who has scarcely broken all a open institutions in a nation in a name of race, religion, patriotism as good as development.
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