December 14, 2012
Biro Tata NegaraThe Ethnic Hate Machine
by J Bellamy (12-13-12)@http://www.malaysiakini.com
COMMENT: I was once a part of of a organisation of government servants forced to attend a Biro Tatanegara (BTN, or National Civics Bureau) "nationhood" course.
This Orwellian dialect began hold up as a 'Youth Research Unit' in 1974, underneath a Youth Ministry. It was re-invented as a BTN in a Prime Minister's Department, underneath Dr Mahathir Mohamad,Prime Minister during a time.
Prime Minister Najib Adul Razak's overfed, weak dialect bestowed a BTN with RM74 million of public money in 2009.
BTN has repaid taxpayers with racial slurs. Hamim Husin (left), a deputy executive of a Federal Territory office of a BTN, called a Chinese 'si sepet' (slanted-eye) as well as a Indians 'si botol' (alcoholics) during an UMNO meeting in September 2010. Hamim managed to alienate some-more than thirty percent of a nation's race in one breath.
Half a year earlier, in Feb 2010, Nasir Safar, a "special assistant" to Najib, was forced to renounce after expressing his contempt for a non-Malay 'pendatang' or immigrants.
At a 1Malaysia event, Nasir called Malaysian Indians "beggars" as well as Malaysian Chinese "prostitutes". His half-crazed debat! e was blamed upon brainwashing by a BTN. BTN officers must have been celebration too most of their own essence of ethnic hatred.
The BTN took a hammering in a press for a wanton attempts during indoctrination. There were calls from a MCA , MIC as well as NGOs for a BTN to be dismantled, as well as to be packed away in a same flat drawers as a 'psy-ops' experts of China's Cultural Revolution or Stalin's Gulag Archipelago.
Since 2010, a BTN has improved somewhat: a during large reported insults opposite non-Malays as immigrants or 'pendatang' have been toned down. Non-Malays have been no longer educated to publicly announce they have been 'pendatang'. Instead, they have been invited to state, during organisation discussions, their dialect organisation as well as their ancestral homes in China or India, as a kind of confession of their 'pendatang' status.
'BERSIH' is dirty
The previously routine racist attacks in BTN have largely been transposed by a tepid platitudes of 1Malaysia. But a BTN has not given up a staple diet of championing Malay supremacy, of lauding UMNO, as well as of aggressive PAS, PKR's Anwar Ibrahim as well as a DAP.
The BTN continues to emphasize a so-called "unchangeable" articles in a Federal Constitution which strengthen a "special position" of a Malays (Article 153), a Malay Rulers, Islam as a sacrament of a nation as well as Malay as a national language.
Copies of a constitution have been handed out, as well as BTN participants have been warned repeatedly never to question these supposedly inviolate articles.
We were reminded several times about a inherent embodiment afforded to a government of a day to impose constraints up! on parti cular liberties, such as freedom of debate as well as expression, in a name of "sedition" as well as "public order as well as morality".
'BERSIH' is a dirty word. We were educated which a definition of democracy was unchanging elections, not travel rallies. Public demonstrations have been clearly seen as a threat to Umno's monopoly upon national power.
Psy ops, BTN style
One evening, you were softened up primarily by a lightsome contest, behaving nationalistic songs. After a intercourse as well as delight of a competition, you were brought behind to earth by a role-playing game, written to remind us of a evils of colonialism.
We were given despotic instructions to sojourn silent, whilst being set a clearly impossible task, trying to compare up stones of different sizes.
During a task, BTN facilitators pulled out several participants, assumingly during random. These "detainees" had masking tape placed over their lips as well as strings scored equally loosely around their wrists, to impersonate a senseless injustice of colonial rule. After 20 minutes, a couple of comparison participants were authorised to speak, as well as then to recover a "detainees" upon a sidelines.
After this pantomime liberation, you were told to accumulate in a crowd around one immature male as well as shoulder him aloft, carrying a giant Malaysian dwindle whilst singing a happy nationalistic song.
Finally, you were treated to a video essentially a tinge film directed during traumatising participants, so which you would feel which Muslims as well as Malays have been victims as well as therefore Malays must unite opposite a larger world.
There was a slide uncover of stomach-turning violence, depicting Iraqi as well as Palestinian young kids as well as women buried alive, bleeding from facial wounds, as well as butchered by American or Israeli soldiers. One photograph focussed upon an American soldier's T-shirt, temperament a slogan 'Bor! n to Kil l'.
A repulsive video was then played, display religious assault between Muslim as well as Christian Malays in Ambon, together with a stage of an attacker hacking a defenceless male with a machete, until a square of his skull was partly detached, whilst Policemen looked on.
These horrific scenes were interspersed with images of unidentified Malay protesters throwing stones as well as BERSIH demonstrators picking up as well as hurling tear gas canisters. The last summary of Malay togetherness was driven home using a weeping debate by former Prime Minister Mahathir, reminding us tremulously which a Malay "struggle" is not over. Several of us were in tears by this stage.
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