1. I was reading the comments on my blog on ‘Mengingati Pejuang-Pejuang’, when I came across a comment which respectfully disagreed with me that the defeat of BN in the General Election was not due to support for the opposition but disaffection with BN.

2. He said if that was the case they could have voted for the third candidate who actually lost his deposit.

3. I had lost in the Election of 1969 in a constituency with 35,000 voters of whom 30,000 were Malays. I had won in this constituency in 1964 with more than 4,000 votes majority. I figured that in 1969 that even if the non-Malay voters did not vote for me I would still win because support for me amongst the Malays had increased by almost 3,000.

2. In the last three quarters AIG lost US$18.5 billion dollars (68 billion Ringgit). AIG is struggling to raise funds to overcome its difficulties. If it fails it may have to opt for bankruptcy. But AIG is going to lose even more.

3. The failures are all due to playing with money, selling mortgages, selling papers and all kinds of financial dealings which have been invented by the finance houses in order to make huge sums of money out of nothing. Currency trading is one of them.

1. Spinning is a method of making thread from cotton wool. But today, spinning has an entirely different meaning.

2. I was told about the spin doctors used by Tony Blair very soon after he became Prime Minister. I did not know what spin doctors do. And so I rejected the suggestion that I should employ spin doctors for press relations.

3. Now we all know all about spin doctors, the chief of whom is Kalimullah. He decides how to spin any report on Abdullah. Reporters often apologise to me because their reports on what I said at press conferences are quite different from what they wrote. But they claim they have no say on what appears in print from their reports.

1. When the Barisan Nasional did very badly in the last general election many observers inside and outside the country claimed that the Malaysian people of all races have rejected race-based politics.

2. The remarkable increase in the opposition Members of Parliament is said to be due to their representing the alternative to the race-based politics of the BN. How they can ignore the entirely Malay PAS and the overwhelmingly Chinese DAP I do not know. These are race based parties.

3. If indeed the people as a whole reject race-based parties as represented by the component parties of the BN, then they would reject PAS and DAP. And we should see an improvement in race relations.

1. Putrajaya, dedicated to Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra is a city built on a greenfield site.

2. It has attracted a lot of visitors, both local and foreign. Many countries have studied the development of Putrajaya when they are planning their new administrative capital.

3. Malaysians are divided in their opinions of this artificially developed city. Some think it is a mega project which costs too much. Some seem to like it.

2. If we study other nations where people of different ethnic groups have immigrated, we will find that integration and unity depended on several important factors. Firstly the indigenous people or the people who had set up the country make up at least initially, a very big proportion of the population. Additionally they would be dominant and materially successful. The small numbers of immigrants trickling in found it judicious and beneficial to be identified with the numerically superior and powerful dominant inhabitants. They would willingly forget their original languages and adopt the language of the people of the country as well as their culture; they would intermarry and over time they would be totally absorbed and assimilated and identified with the indigenous people. In such a situation unity is not a problem. The United States is one such country where the original language and basic culture of first settlers are accepted by later immigrants.

3. In the old days before the coming of the Europeans the few Chinese and Indians who settled in Malacca adopted the language and much of the culture of the Malays. Though there was no assimilation nevertheless good relations existed between the immigrant settlers and the Malays. Unfortunately when later the China-born Chinese-speaking immigrants dominated in numbers as well as economic wealth, the Malay speaking Baba and Nyonya deliberately dropped their Malay language and Baba culture and reverted to being Chinese in every way possible.

1. Wonder what has happened to Mazlan Harun’s report to the Anti Corruption Agency regarding corrupt acts by Dato Seri Abdullah and Dato Seri Najib, President and Deputy President respectively of UMNO.

2. According to Kadar Shah the report had also been made to the party but he did not think the party would act. It would incriminate the leaders of the party itself.

3. Previously when UMNO members in my former division of Kubang Pasu came with evidence that money was used to persuade the delegates not to vote for me, the case was dismissed by the UMNO Disciplinary Committee even though clear evidence were presented that they had been paid money not to vote for me.

1. There is a tendency these days to condemn the National Front as being effete and an obstacle to the modern concepts of a free democratic Government. The miserable performance of the Barisan Nasional in the March elections is attributed by foreign observers as evidence of a wind of change, as a rejection of race-based politics of the past.

2. They believe that the Malay, Chinese and Indian voters voted for a change to a more liberal regime.

3. I have explained in a previous article that the debacle suffered by the Barisan Nasional was due to the voters’ disgust with the leadership of Dato Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

2. Young Malays, including professionals are said to have espoused liberalism and meritocracy. They question the need for affirmative action and the New Economic Policy. They believe that the Malays should compete with the other races. If they fail then they do not deserve the dominant role in the politics of Malaysia. They should accept non-Malay leadership of the country.

3. This view of the young Malays sounds refreshing. Unfortunately these liberal Malays are in a minority. The majority of the Malay professionals and young Malays have hardened their stand on the position of their race since the disaster of 2008. They are incensed especially by the arrogance of the Bar Council. They now question the social contract and reject the need to adhere to it. This sounds almost like the Chinese stand. But the difference is startling and disturbing.

1. There are only 365 days in a year. Take away 104 days of Saturdays and Sundays weekends and we have left 261 working days. But Malaysia is multi-religious and we must not work during Raya, Chinese New Year and Deepavali. But we must also not work on Wesak Day, Taipusam, Christmas, New Year, Federal Territory Day, various Muslim holy days and I do not know what else.

2. But we must not work on by-election polling day also. Then there is the Agong’s Birthday and the birthdays of all the Sultans and Governors.

3. We seem to find more reason for not working. If the holiday falls on a weekend, then have a long vacation beginning the day before Saturday and the day after Sunday – four days in all.