12
speak up!
Reality check
not just yet
Scene: Café Milano, KLCC
MOHAN: So BN lost Kuala
Terengganu. Not unexpected.
Almost everyone I talked to
after nomination day said the
BN was either going to lose or
that it didn’t stand a chance of
winning.
Chong: Or that it was tough
going. The outlook was already
gloomy for the BN from the start.
To the ordinary rakyat the logic
was simple. Kuala Terengganu
has four state constituencies.
PAS won three in the general
election last year. BN won one,
Bandar, through the MCA. And
it’s a by-election.
Mohan: Very few of them
changed their mind despite the
newspapers saying all along and
all the way that BN had the edge
over PAS.
Chong: It was certainly states-
manlike for Deputy Prime
Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak
to concede defeat immediately
after the result was announced.
The BN, he said, bowed to the
people’s wishes.
Mohan: From the reports so far
only one person says that the
result was unexpected: Umno
Youth leader Datuk Seri Hisham-
muddin Hussein.
Chong: The BN expected to
win? I thought, when you called
us from Kuala Terengganu, you
Cuba stands tall but
poor 50 years after
by Eric S. Margolis
HAVANA: I came to Havana to
cover the 50th anniversary of the
Cuban revolution because this
beautiful island holds a big place
in my heart. My parents used to
bring me to Havana each winter,
and we often joined Ernest Hem-
ingway at the fabled Floridita
Bar. He was a big, vivacious man
with a white beard and rumbling
laugh. I still have one of his books,
inscribed, “to Eric, from his friend
Ernest Hemingway, Havana,
1951”.
Eight years later, a Commu-
nist lawyer named Fidel Castro
Ruiz stormed ashore with 81 men
to begin a guerilla war against the
US-backed Batista dictatorship.
Cuba was then a virtual American
colony: Americans owned 60% of
Cuba’s farmland and industry.
On Jan 1, 1959, Castro’s gue-
rilla fighters arrived in Havana
and proclaimed a revolutionary
republic. For the first time in its
long history (Havana is 50-70
years older than Quebec City or
New York), Cuba was genuinely
independent of foreign rule.
Once Castro was in power, his
comrade, Ernesto “Che” Guevera,
an icon of romantic revolution to
the uninformed, ordered the ex-
ecution of over 600 “bourgeois”,
then got killed leading a farcically
inept revolution in Bolivia.
In an era when America bul-
lied and exploited Latin America,
Castro’s revolution was a tri-
umph. His resistance to 50 years
of US efforts to overthrow or as-
WhatTheySay
by Zainon Ahmad
said only very few BN leaders
believed BN was going to win.
Azman: In that case Hisham-
muddin must be one of them.
A loyalist to the very end. Yes,
Chong?
Chong: Sorry. I was about to
say that other people must have
thought so too. Otherwise how
do you account for the 35-table
buffet dinner that was prepared
in the compound of the mentri
besar’s house. It indicated that a
victory was expected.
Zain: Not really, Chong. I don’t
think the dinner was prepared
because the BN expected to win.
People have to eat, win or lose. It
was probably meant for the party
workers. For the BN leaders to
thank them for their hard work.
Chong: Could be Cikgu.
Mohan: Cikgu, as an old Umno
member, what do you think of
sassinate him, and a near-lethal
embargo, was epic.
US attempts to topple Castro
nearly led to nuclear war with
the USSR in 1962. The crisis was
resolved by Moscow withdrawing
missiles it brought in to defend
Cuba in exchange for President
John Kennedy agreeing not to
invade Cuba and pulling US mis-
siles from Italy and Turkey. The
crisis was a victory for Cuba and
the USSR but Kennedy got the
kudos.
The cost of Cuba’s independ-
ence and dignity was poverty,
dictatorship, and becoming a So-
viet satellite. Today, only oil-rich
Venezuela and Canadian tourists
are keeping battered Cuba afloat.
Havana, once called “the
naughtiest city on earth”, is a
museum of the 1950’s: decaying,
melancholy, dark.
Cuba has Latin America’s best
medical and education system,
and highest literacy. But life in
Cuba is grim: food and power
shortages, endless queuing,
grinding poverty and constant
supervision by secret policemen
and Communist party informers.
Castro blames this misery on
the US embargo. The US blames
Castro’s rickety Stalinist econom-
ics. Both are responsible. Cuba
has suffered 50 years of the kind
of collective punishment that
Gaza is now experiencing.
The US has maintained its
crushing boycott under the pre-
text that Havana holds 200 politi-
cal prisoners and is communist.
Yet the US cheerfully deals with
theSun
the outcome.
Zain: Umno deserves to lose.
Chong: Wow! Why do you say
that?
Zain: Look at what Prime
Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi said in Bahrain
when he was asked about the
outcome. He said BN and Umno
would conduct a post-mortem of
the by-election result to identify
weaknesses and rectify them.
In the first place have they con-
ducted a post-mortem on what
happened last March 8 when
the BN lost power in five states
and lost its two-thirds majority
in Parliament?
Mohan: You mean almost a
year after March 8 they haven’t
sat down to try to pinpoint the
causes of their near-rout? The
trails could be getting cold.
Azman: I thought they had.
Chong: Apa lah you Azman.
You are a journalist and you
don’t know. If I am not mistaken
there is going to be one next
month. However, I don’t believe
a correct picture would emerge
just yet.
Zain: I agree with you. That can
only emerge after March when
Abdullah is gone. Anyway,
I hope so. And then BN and
Umno must embark on reforms,
restructuring and re-alignment
of objectives and strategies. New
basis for continued coalescing
must be worked out too. Other-
wise I am not sure BN and Umno
can hold on to power at the
federal level and in the rest of the
states that are not governed by
Pakatan Rakyat beyond the next
few years. If they had done their
post-mortem earlier, perhaps
a newer approach could have
been taken when defending
Kuala Terengganu.
Chong: MCA did better.
Zain: That was because the
party examined itself earlier
communist China and Vietnam,
and itself holds 36,000 Iraqi po-
litical prisoners, not to mention
Guantanamo.
I hope one of President Barack
Obama’s first acts is to demand
Congress end the hypocritical,
idiotic embargo. Even half of Mi-
ami’s once fanatically anti-Castro
Cubans now support ending it.
Obama could neatly break the
Cold War ice by flying down to
Cuba for a round of golf. Or let
Canada, which is hugely liked in
Cuba, open the doors.
It’s high time the West Indies’
largest island was welcomed
back to this hemisphere and
given civilised treatment. Equally
important, Chinese influence is
moving into Cuba, and Russia is
reasserting its strategic presence.
Moscow plans to rearm Cuba’s
military. So the US has little time
to lose. First Fidel, and now Raul
Castro, have been happy to keep
the US at arm’s length. An end to
US-Cuban hostility could bring
up to two million US tourists. The
dying communist control system
could not withstand this invasion.
So the party, which refuses to im-
plement Chinese-style reforms,
may keep Cuba frozen in time.
The age of ham-handed Yan-
kee imperialism in Latin America
is over. Cuba raised the banner
of revolt, and paid the price. We
should now help Cuba rejoin
the polity of Latin American
democratic nations and hope
Washington will have learned to
tread lightly in Cuba and show
more respect.
Eric S. Margolis is a contributing
editor to the Toronto Sun chain of
newspapers, writing mainly about
the Middle East and South Asia.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.
com
| TUESDAY JANUARY 20 2009
and decided early what were the
reasons for the Chinese to give
up on it. And now the leaders are
more truthful and open when
talking about the party’s rela-
tions with Umno. The Chinese
may be rallying behind it again.
Chong: I agree with you that the
outcome in Kuala Terengganu
could have been different had
the BN adopted new approaches
and strategies.
Zain: The BN used the same
approach and strategies in
Permatang Pauh and Kuala
Terengganu as it had used in
the by-elections after 2004. After
March 8, those approaches and
strategies are no longer valid,
practical and acceptable. Things
have changed. A new grouping,
Pakatan Rakyat, has emerged
and is challenging the BN. It
is vying for power and is con-
stantly reminding Malaysians,
through all kinds of means and
tactics, that it has not given up
hope of capturing the federal
government even before the next
general election. In that kind of
a situation, how can you use the
old and tired ways? Anyway you
can be certain that the victory
in Kuala Terengganu is going
to be flogged by the leaders for
whatever propaganda advantage
the new coalition could get. BN
and Umno must change if they
are to retain power and win the
next general election.
Azman: Can the Pakatan Rakyat
truly coalesce? They are fighting
each other most of the time. PR
may not survive.
Zain: I think it can. They have
problems, sure, but these, I think,
are teething problems. I remem-
ber the Alliance, the forerunner
of the BN, almost broke up in
the early stages. As an Umno
member I am still hoping for BN
to improve itself to be a credible
ruling party again.
letter
letters@thesundaily.com
Let retirees
decide on
withdrawals
I CAN only guess at the reasons
behind the government’s proposal
to mandate a monthly withdrawal
of EPF funds upon retirement, as
opposed to a lump sum that is
usually doled out. My best guess
is the concern that retirees would
mismanage the funds quickly.
Though the concern is real, the
real solution is in education. Our
educational system does not equip
us with the knowledge of money
and how it works. As a result, most
schoolleavers graduate knowing
mathematics but not of the time
value of money, or why keeping
all the savings in the bank is not
sound financial advice (especially
when inflation is higher than the
average savings rates).
As a short-term action, I urge
the government to hold seminars
on the basics of financial knowl-
edge, with a focus on the EPF
withdrawals. Focus should be in
the kampungs and rural areas, not
only the large towns and cities. A
longer-term solution is to teach
subjects on finance in schools
– and for all students, not just those
who pick accounting subjects.
Forcing retirees to accept
monthly withdrawals is a knee-
jerk reaction to a real problem
and is myopic at best. Let the
retirees decide what they want to
do with their money. Making that
decision for them is a step back in
governance.
V. Vijayandhran
Petaling Jaya