Tag: Mohamed Haniff Omar

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Dog Eat Dog

A parade of members of the Communist Party of Malaya

Perak-born Che Dat bin Anjang Abdullah, otherwise known as Abdullah CD, was a top ranking member of the Communist Party of Malaya. He was once captured during the early months of the First Emergency (1948-1960) in Pahang and was sent to an internment camp in Melaka. As the camp was new, Abdullah CD and other detainees were tasked as labourers to complete the construction of the camp. There he met with a Malayan Civil Service official who was transferred to the camp to supervise its construction. Abdullah CD became friendly with this official and they frequently had casual talks. That night, Abdullah CD escaped. He went on to form the 10th Regiment of the Communist Party of Malaya and continued to wreak havoc until the Hat Yai Peace Agreement was signed on 2 December 1989.

When Dr Mahathir commented on the issue of Chin Peng’s ashes being brought back to Malaysia he said that if the likes of Shamsiah Fakeh and Rashid Maidin could be brought back home without any hassle, why can’t Chin Peng’s ashes be brought back too? What could his ashes do? Mahathir is known for his display of malingering amnesia, usually seen in people who fake amnesia to commit insurance fraud or to avoid criminal punishment.

Shamsiah Fakeh joined the CPM after PKMM, API and AWAS were declared illegal by the authorities. After eight years of struggle, she was ordered to go to Beijing where she operated the Siaran Melayu Radio Beijing Antarabangsa, otherwise known as Suara Revolusi Malaya (I used to listen to it over short wave frequency when I was a teenager). In 1965, she was in Indonesia where she formed the Malayan National Freedom League, when Suharto launched a coup and Sukarno was deposed. As a result, Shamsiah Fakeh was arrested and spent two years in prison.

She returned to China in 1967 to find that the CPM had split into three – the CPM, the CPM Revolutioner and the CPM – Marxist Leninist. She and her husband Ibrahim became strong critics of the CPM and were eventually expelled from the organisation. This was probably one of the reasons that she was brought back by the Prime Minister’s Research Department on 23 July 1994; psychologically she was already against the CPM. Who was the Prime Minister who allowed her to return then?

Were Rashid Maidin and Abdullah CD allowed to return home as claimed by Mahathir? The answer is no. However, they were granted visit passes as agreed in the Hat Yai Agreement. Each time that they wanted to enter Malaysia to visit relatives they would have to inform the police first and a pass would be issued to them. Rashid Maidin died in Amphoe Si Sakhon, Changwat Narathiwat in September 2006 while Abdullah CD still lives in Amphoe Sukhirin, Changwat Narathiwat and is 96 years old. Who was the Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs who denied them citizenship and a chance to return to Malaysia?

Remember how Abdullah CD escaped from an internment camp in Melaka after speaking to the Malayan Civil Service supervisor? He would not have made it to the apex of the CPM if he cannot convince people and turn them over. Chin Peng was also good at psychological warfare.

It was in the mid-1980s when my father who was the Inspector-General of Police asked Sarawak Police Commissioner Yuen Yuet Leng if it was a good time to ask the CPM to surrender. Yuet Leng replied, “Sir, I believe the CPM is very tired. If you give them a pillow, they will go to sleep.”

It was around this time that Abdullah CD wrote a letter to then Encik Ghafar Baba asking to negotiate for peace. The police then assigned Rahim Noor who was the Director of Special Branch then to handle the issue. The police asked permission from Ghafar to assume his identity and correspond with Abdullah CD. In the end, the CPM agreed to receive someone who would be in the position to make decisions on behalf of the Malaysian government. For this, the police extended the service of a Chinese police officer who was on the verge of retirement (not Yuet Leng as the CPM knew him) to pose as this senior official. This senior police officer was then brought to Mahathir’s office for a photo of them together to be taken and shown to the CPM. The CPM took the bait and allowed Rahim and the Chinese police officer to negotiate with them, with Yuet Leng in the background advising.

Spending too much time with Chin Peng can make you sympathise with him easily, just as Abdullah CD was with the MCS supervisor. One day Rahim came to my father and asked if it would be okay for him to bring Chin Peng to speak directly to Mahathir as how he had spoken directly with Tunku Abdul Rahman in 1955.

“Who is Chin Peng to speak to Mahathir? Tunku was not a Prime Minister when Chin Peng spoke to him. Chin Peng is only at your level. That is why I sent you to speak to him,” said my father to Rahim.

Judging by Rahim’s attempt to get Chin Peng to meet with Mahathir, and his recent comment on the issue of the former’s ashes, it is of no surprise that Rahim could be suffering from the Lima Syndrome which is the total opposite of the Stockholm Syndrome. How can a former Inspector-General of Police who was also a former Director of Special Branch have forgotten the sacrifices of the men of the Royal Malaysian Police fighting with this monster? How could he, as the Director of Special Branch, allowed himself to be used by Chin Peng?

And as for Mahathir the political chameleon, it is evident that in order to score political points, he would say just about anything short of “come and lynch me”. It never matters to him who died, who had lost a husband, sons, brothers be they Malay, Chinese, Iban or Indian, fighting the communists, as long as he is seen ‘rationale’ in the eyes of those who had wanted Chin Peng back in this country. The epitome of dog-eat-dog.

I only have one word to describe Mahathir and Rahim – disgusting.

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A Lesson On Fake News In Malaysia

STUDENT activism in Malaysia peaked in December 1974, having started in September of the same year in Tasek Utara, Johor Bahru, when some 5,000 students demonstrated at the Selangor Club Padang (now Dataran Merdeka) and as expected, clashed with the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU).

As a result, the students retreated to Masjid Negara with the FRU hot on their heels.  The demonstration was culled and 1,128 students arrested. The student leaders who were holed up on the University of Malaya campus were soon arrested and so were those who hid inside their rented rooms in nearby Kampung Kerinchi.

Three representatives of Kampung Kerinchi complained that the FRU had taken harsh measures to apprehend the students by firing tear gas and that had resulted in the death of a baby.

My father immediately summoned his then deputy, the late Tan Sri Mahmood Yunus, and then Director of Special Branch, the late (Tan Sri) Mohamed Amin Osman, and asked them if the FRU had indeed fired tear gas into Kampung Kerinchi. Amin was adamant the FRU did nothing as such.

When asked if he (Amin) had checked the allegations himself and also the report received from the FRU troop leader, Amin said no.  So my father instructed Amin to go to Kampung Kerinchi to check himself.

“Celaka! Depa tipu saya!” (“Hell! They lied to me!”) exclaimed Amin when he saw the empty tear gas canisters that littered the lanes of Kampung Kerinchi, to which my father replied, “You fell for it because you did not check the information yourself!”

Fake news is a neologism that has entered the lexicon, used to collectively describe rumours, hoaxes, misinformation, propaganda and recycling of old rumours that had been debunked, that mislead people into believing that they are current and true.

Fake news caused the Barisan Nasional to lose its long-held two-thirds majority in 2008 because it was complacent and not quick enough to react and dispel these rumours.  Back then, political discussions and dissemination of fake news or propaganda occurred in chat rooms, in SMS, and blogs which were only a handful then.  Now there is Facebook, Twitter, Line, Telegram, WhatsApp, YouTube over and above the media available almost ten years ago.

Claire Wardle, Executive Director of First Draft a non-profit organisation dedicated to finding solutions to the challenges associated with trust and truth in the digital age housed at the Shorenstein Centre on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, categorised mis and disinformation into seven types:

Satire or parody – this type of misinformation has no intention to cause harm but has potential to fool. A good example of this is of a message purportedly sent by a passenger of the MH370 who said he managed to hide his iPhone5 up his anus!  This had been debunked as a prank, but there are those who still believe that the person did manage to shove a five-inch by two-inch phone up his anus without any problem on the island of Diego Garcia.

Misleading content – most recent would be issues tweeted by two artistes that evolve around the rising cost of living, the weakening ringgit, a shambolic economy, designed to rile up anger in their followers. The tweets, not backed by published facts and figures, would do damage to those who have no inclination to check for the truth and to retweet or forward to others.

Imposter content – these are usually propaganda designed to use genuine sources but impersonated as theirs. A simple example would be of Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azmin Ali’s recent event officiating the opening of the Rawang-Serendah Bypass, eight days after the bypass was opened by a minister.

Fabricated content – this type of content is 100 per cent false and is designed to deceive and cause harm. If you remember in July 2007, PKR’s Tian Chua admitted that he had fabricated a photo to show that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was together with Abdul Razak Baginda and now dead Mongolian-model Altantuya Shaaribu in Paris.

False connection – this is when headlines, visuals and captions do not support the content. The most famous example from recent times was of The Star’s headline that said “Malaysian Terrorist Leader” while having a huge photo of Muslims praying during the first night of Ramadan. Although The Star apologised for the error, it was not the first time it had made a similar mistake.

False context – this is when genuine content is shared with false contextual information. Artiste Fathia Latiff put up a screen capture of the price of fuel in various OPEC countries on Twitter, asking why Malaysia, as an oil producing country, charges very high for petrol?  The screen capture is of oil prices back in 2014. The average value of fuel prices for Malaysia between September 4, 2017 and December 11, 2017, was RM2.23. For comparison, the average price of petrol in the world for this period was RM5.82!

Manipulated content – this is when genuine information or image is manipulated to deceive. Recently, there was a video of a skinny polar bear with muscle atrophy struggling to find food in a snowless land that was made viral. This was attributed to global warming. However, the video was filmed in August when the tundra was snowless. It was only published in December.  Even the indigenous community living in the area thought it was a stunt to raise more funds and was doing a disservice to the war against climate change.

I don’t know why Malaysians are so gullible and eager to share fake news.

In WhatsApp groups, you can see how some people could post about something religious and then help spread fake news – something totally against religions. Nowadays, this fake news comes with a disclaimer – “Dari group sebelah”.

Every time we forward or share a post without double-checking or verifying, we add to the noise and confusion.  We never consider the source, we never consider the supporting sources and worst of all, we never check our biases.

The late Tan Sri Amin learnt this the hard way.

Having seen that he was misled about the FRU not firing tear gas into Kampung Kerinchi, he went on to check about the claims of a baby that had died as a result of the tear gas.  None of the three village representatives had themselves seen the dead baby and no one had actually reported to them of the death.

When asked where the information had come from, they replied, “From Anwar Ibrahim and the other student leaders!”

It seems that nothing has changed since 1974.

(This article was first published on The Mole)

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A Birthday Story

My father after receiving his Doctorate of Law honoris causa from his alma mater the University of Buckingham in March 2012

He was born 78 years ago and named after the man whom had helped made the marriage between my grandparents possible.

Although he was the apple of his father’s eye, he was brought up to be independent as quickly as possible – a method you and I would later understand as you continue to read this story.

At seven, his father said to him “Haniff! Tomorrow you go to the school and enrol yourself. If anyone asks, just tell them you are Omar’s son!”

Alone my father went; and because others had their parents with them, no one saw Haniff. As the school was about to be closed for the day, the teacher saw him sitting alone and asked, “Who are you and why are you here?”

“I am Omar’s son,” he replied.

“Good God!” the teacher exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

One day, his father said, “Haniff, a week from now you will not have any backbone.” My father didn’t know what that meant.

His father worked at the district office and was the Billiards Champion. A week later he was going to defend his title.

Earlier that night, the family had dinner together. After dinner, his father walked down the stairs to his bicycle, ready to leave for the Billiards Club.

My father went after his father and wished, Good luck, Dad!”

My grandfather looked up, smiled and replied, “Thank you, son. Where I’ll go I will need all the luck.”

His father suffered a heart attack defending his title. Exactly a week after the prophetic message he told my father.

When my 13-year old father heard the news he ran barefooted to look for his father first at the hospital, then at the Billiards Club. He saw his father being laid down on the bench with onlookers encircling.

The last time he held his father’s hand when his father was alive was inside the ambulance when a hand dropped and my father lifted it back up.

My father never left the side of his father’s body inside the mortuary, and slept very little for fear that someone would take the body away while he was asleep, and for fear that he might miss the opportunity to be with his father for the last time.

As a result he became insomniac, sleeping three hours a day at most, till now. His insomnia allowed him to read and read.

From that point onwards he was the man of the house, and had to be independent.

And that led him to be who he is today.

Happy 78th birthday, Ayah. I can never top the greatest way a son could ever love his father the way you love yours but I love you with all my heart nevertheless.

Thank you for being the greatest father this son could ever have.