So, Any Questions about *THAT* Elephant in the Room? (No? Alright then.)

Alternative Title:
1) (Dis)information and (Non)answers about the 1MDB Debacle.
2) Why Jabatan Hal-Ehwal Khas (JASA) or Department of Special Affairs should be very well be defunded or disbanded altogether.

Preface: LONG read liberally peppered with profanities and teeming with personal and for certain people, jaundiced and bigoted view, observation and OPINION ahead.

When it comes to current affairs and political issues (especially domestic one happening within Malaysia), I have always preferred to maintain a keen but cautious interest towards all the going-on, setting self to be a generally passive receiver of news observing quietly from the sideline while reserving personal judgment until I have sufficient knowledge and opinion about it and only sharing it when prompted. Therefore, while the 1MDB (1Malaysia Development ) debacle rumbles into background for the longest time, snowballing into a preposterous degree, I remained broadly ambivalent and apathetic by the whole shenanigan. As some of my peers frothing in disproportionate anger hammering Share or Retweet button furiously more often than not captioned with absolute drivel, I was pulling an unimpressed look while being silently judgmental, reveling in self-satisfying smugness as I regard irresponsible and incoherent sharing on "things" they barely comprehend of its magnitude and veracity as the very cardinal sin of the social media, a modern day plague.

My thought when I look at the relentless deluge of "expose" on 1MDB "Billions of ringgit missing or lost due to dubious investments? Surely that's what happened to large business every now and then. Why do people haven't realize big business WILL always swindle money? Government is a total omnishambles? That's common knowledge I would've thought." while pondering why workers' revolution against capitalist scumbags hasn't occur yet, swirling my imaginary wineglass in the meantime. While I certainly do have genuine concern regarding the mysterious "donors" behind RM2.6billion deposited into Jibby's personal account, I am broadly disenchanted by the 1MDB debacle anyway for the fact that concerned members of public will never gain enough information and perspectives (due to the way capitalists and government works) to form a sensible, well rounded value judgment. I am so disinterested that the only possible scenario that I will get truly riled up with 1MDB is when 1MDB transmogrify into an actual being or stabbed me in the eye (judging by the magnitude however, it's more likely to be transformed into a godzilla). To put it simply, my judgment remains largely a blank slate.

About a week ago as I was browsing through USM Info Sharing Corner that a picture post that exhorts "tired of being labelled a keyboard warriors?" caught my eye. Upon reading the post, my interest piqued.

NO, free food is not what piqued my interest.

Apparently, Jabatan Hal-Ehwal Khas (JASA in short) in collaboration of Kumpulan Rakan Siswa Malaysia (KARISMA) USM is having a Townhall meeting of sort to address, debate and discuss...current affairs and issues and according to the Facebook group post, the event promises the attendees can bravely ask "free-for-all, no hold barred, open fire questions" towards the invited panelists on ANYTHING that boggles our mind regarding whatever that is going on in our country in particular of our government. Intriguing, brave even considering the seemingly endless blunders our honourable governments always get into and their utter shambolic, flimsy excuse of responses and action towards criticisms and they decided to have townhall meeting that target university students instead. Not sure how are they going to win us over but props to them, I thought.

Jabatan Hal-Ehwal Khas or Department of Special Affairs (which by the way, abbreviates into DoSA...or sin in Bahasa Malaysia. *snigger*) is a department under Ministry of Communication and Multimedia which according to their website, has the objectives of "to cultivate Malaysians that are confident, matured, morally upright. and patriotic; to promote a conducive political environment that foster national integration; to prepare and ensure a systematic dissemination of information through conventional media." Considering its origin in the 60s when it was formed to "preserve and defend political stability and the Alliance/Perikatan Government", the precursor to the modern day Barisan Nasional, little wonder that DoSA/JASA has been alleged as the propaganda outfit of the government of the day, ready to sing praise to Dear Leader and its Government. Nonetheless, it thought it would still be interesting to learn the government's official position on the endless debacles about them, a sensible departure from the ceaseless cacaphony and drama on the social media.

On the day of the event itself, a very good friend of mine is back in Penang for a holiday and we were having dinner at Ivory Plaza near USM when I remembered about the Townhall meeting. Since we are pretty much bumming around with no plan, we two USM alumni made the journey into USM again to the event hall at Kompleks Cahayasiswa or Student Activities Complex.

The stage, waiting for the invited panelists to arrive. It's fairly obvious that JASA have been going out public universities across Malaysia for this, judging by the Jelajah Kampus (Campus Tour/Roadshow) backdrop.

Upon registration, we were given fliers about panelists and most intriguing of all, one glossy booklet.

1MDB: Siapa Kata Tidak Dijawab (Edisi Baru), lit. Who Said There's No Answer though I would have translated the title as Our Answers. New edition as in November 2015 while the first edition was in September 2015. That's a quick republication, isn't it? Picture taken when am back at home after event's over.

Is the event going to focus on that biggest elephant in the room among all, the embattled government investment arm 1Malaysia Development Berhad or 1MDB (not to be confused with imdb) then? Considering the length and cost JASA goes to produce a full-coloured, glossy booklet that gathers the government's responses/answers to accusation heaped upon them about 1MDB and giving it away for free for all the Townhall meets, the night's going to be interesting and heated and I was feeling fairly giddy to heated exchange and discussion about it.

Upon flipping to the foreword/prakata right on the third page on the booklet however, whatever expectation I have about the Townhall was rapidly and violently torpedoed and sunk when I was left flabbergasted by the very first opening line of the foreword.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." attributed by this booklet to Paul Joseph Goebbel, the Nazi Reichminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Also note the typo in the opening line right underneath the quote.

At that very moment, I have actually witnessed Godwin's Law in flesh, alive and kicking in a government sanctioned "informative" booklet, an potent indicator of total absence of credibility and dubious veracity not just of the booklet itself but the event that is going to unfold soon after. Without any shame or irony while exhibiting total disregard of historical context (a,k.a. WWII), a JASA's publication has quoted a dubious maxim from an infamous Nazi, notwithstanding that the alleged quote itself has multiple and ambiguous origins (it could be an apocrypha of Joseph Goebbel's speech/philosophy in which the Big Lie idea or Große Lüge originate from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf which then misattributed to Vladimir Lenin thanks to USA's House Committee of Un-American Activities (1946). In fact, the very idea itself could very well be a synthesis of similar ideas or quotes from various person during various points in history.) while insinuating the mounting criticisms against 1MDB and the current Malaysians Government as one Big Lie perpetuated by liars and crooks with malicious intent hellbent to destroy the "democratic institution" of this country, oblivious to the ironical and farcical situation that a) JASA themselves is a governmental department allegedly specialized in propaganda much like Goebbel's Reichministry was and b) Nazi Germany themselves too employed a Big Lie of their own throughout its existence to justify their war and the millions of innocents exterminated in Death Camps. Is this quote a reflection of JASA's defensive psyche and the eventual end in which JASA's willing to carry out their task in..."information dissemination", justifying their mean of implementing task at hand?

While am still reeling from the almost fatal cringe and repulsion thanks to Godwin's Law, the event commences with formalities (including a speech by Deputy Vice Chancellor (Student Affairs) whom were fairly ecstatic too about the event, calling students to be daring in its questions) before moving on opening statements/presentations round by the panelists.

Panelists' presentation.

The panelists with additional annotation/byline (click it to embiggen!) by me which in my opinion gave a fair summary of not just my personal reception to the panelists' presentation but as well as a unambiguous observation on how the Townhall Meet actually went down thanks to their...individual"personalities".

The individual panelists presentation begins Shouty McFatcunt (a.k.a. Lokman Noor bin Adam) barnstorming the stage...and within his opening line belches out incoherent drivels, tenuous analogies and factual fallacies, all in unnecessarily (he's mic-ed for fuck's sake) EAR-GRATING, LOUD, BELLOWING GRUFFALO vnoicse almost as if he's up for a punch-up at any given moment (which is unlikely as it's Sunday night, most of us are students and we are all freezing in the hall). With my ears in pain and my eye glazed over by his whole antics, any attempt to pay attention is largely jettisoned as I resisted so hard to withhold my fatal cringe as well as fury of just grabbing the microphone stand beside me to him and impaling him through his fat gob of a mouth aiming for his vocal cord, skewering him through his inner organs before popping out from his anus. THIS is how much hate I have for him.

His opening pitch is about the toll hikes that is happening or will be happening next year as per agreed in highway concessionaires' agreement with the government. His thrust of argument is actually to be deliberately divisive, driving a wedge between urban and rural populace, 1) people who own cars are mostly urban middle and upper class and since most of the toll hikes are/will be for urban tolled road, the urban middle/upper class can bear the hike anyway and 2) when the government negotiated the highway concessionaires' agreement, it is stipulated that motorcyclists will not be charged tolls (despite the two Penang Bridges do and persistent rumour that a number of highway concessionaire do mull charging toll for motorcyclist) as to be "considerate and caring of poor/lower classes who uses motorcycles to travel". To hammer his point further, he decides to sow more seed of hate against the urban dwellers, saying "if the government didn't approve to toll hikes, the government will have to fork out billions of ringgits from own tax coffers thus spreading the burden to all people in the countries such as rural populace who rarely uses tolled road as well as Sabah & Sarawakian whom seldom/never seen tolled road in their lifetime. ADAKAH INI ADIL!? *audiences murmur* ADAKAH! INI! ADIL! *weak whimper from audiences*" With such patronising stance towards rural populace being littered on us, my eyes rolled so hard. Are the government really that supine that lopsided highway concessionaires' contracts are nonnegotiable in anyway or they are simply given up and not making any further effort anymore to pacify the urban dwellers, deeming them lot a lost cause in any future election?

The townhall meet lumbers on with the second panelist, Tun Faisal Ismail Aziz (*not actual Tun the honorary title, just born with it). Sharply contrasting with the previous Shouty McFatcunt, the second panelist is decidedly more congenial in his demeanour and approach (a deliberate shit-stirring stick and carrot tactics? Who knows), prefacing his pitch with an anecdote about his time in Universiti Sains Malaysia ("Saya bertengkar dengan Encik Nazru masa zaman dulu!". Encik Nazru is the longtime strongman of USM's Student Affairs Department hence the one that handles many student disciplinary cases and..."incidents".) before moving on to his focus: the much maligned Goods & Services Tax or GST, a Malaysian take on Value-Added Tax (VAT). Despite a more palatable presentation, the line of reasoning being trotted out to the audience sticks closely to government's official narrative, namely 1) GST is indispensable, crucial and has helped the country in addressing the shortfall of GDP due to declining oil prices; 2) our GST is fair as only those who spent a lot (i.e. the urban upper/middle class) will pay more while most of the essential daily necessities are zero-rated or GST free; 3) at 6%, our GST is still on the lower end if not the lowest among the majority of countries that implemented VAT and since a majority of the world has VAT/GST, its a sensible way to raise income for the country.

He then proceed to address the now broadly lampooned promise during GST Awareness Campaign of more saving on average and lower retail prices for all, complete with an illustration of before-after GST comparison of shopping trolleys. He says that while the government do notice the promise they have done before remained a pipe dream, he pinned the responsibility solely on the businesses, the manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers as well as service providers which apparently refused to make adjustment to their price despite purported savings and resorted to passing the burden to consumers using price hike to cover any increment in spending due to GST. He also mentioned that only a small number of businesses took up the sales tax compensation scheme which ensure business do not pass down the burden to consumer. While there is element of truth behind the government's narrative about GST, it certainly raises the question on why the government isn't doing any more effort in the form of regulation and law enforcement in keeping the errant businesses at bay and keeping the burden lower for consumers. Instead, the government prefer to absolve self of any duty and responsibility, pinning the blame solely on capitalist market forces, all while willingly bend over and get shafted by them business magnates. Calling back to previous panelist's drivel, it's OK to be "we're all in this together" for GST but when it comes to toll hikes, urban dwellers and businesses can gettaefuck?! The level of hypocrisy is simply unfathomable and stomach-churning in equal measure.

We have finally limp towards the awaited Q&A session which as I remember at the start of the session promised to be no-hold barred and everything goes. What we got instead from the questions from audience (a mere TWO) as well as the panelists' response were predictable and underwhelming. One is about the public transport fare hikes (panelists' "response": the public transport operators have withhold price hikes for years at the request of government and in times of rising operational spending and thinning profit margins, the hike is inevitable. As for KLIA Express Rail Link which attracted widespread flak due to steep hike, again the narrative that the government will have to compensate the operator, YTL Group, if the fare revision is delayed again this year and that the lopsided operating contract were signed during Tun Mahathir years is being trotted out without any concrete effort and promise. JASA probably can't promise anything anyway since they're not MOT or MOF.) and the second question is about Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the free trade agreement among Pacific rim nations including Malaysia (questioners: "are Malaysia that blind to walk into an obvious trap with USA dominating the trade pact?" panelists' "response": instead of addressing the question directly, they begin by talking about the origin of TPPA being a multilateral free trade agreement between Brunei, New Zealand etc. before expanding it include all Pacific rim nations before assuring that Malaysia hasn't signed any agreement just yet as the terms and conditions are still being ironed out and the government will ensure that Malaysia's sovereignty and interest will not be jeopardised and the terms and conditions will be scrutinized thoroughly by the government before putting up to a vote in parliament. The panelists also chastised anyone who read about ISMA's opposition to TPPA as reading outdated documents for purposes in other countries while urges the public to take TPPA in a positive light as an opportunity for Malaysian entrepreneur to tap into trans-pacific market.)

Sensing the tepid atmosphere among the audience, appropo out of nothing the moderator decides to so-called "raise the tension" by asking the panelists to explain about the RM2.6 billions "donation" in PM Najib's personal account as well as why Muhyiddin and co. were dropped in the cabinet reshuffle...and Shouty McFatcunt seize the microphone and deliver yet another round of nauseating bellowing and droning.

The page about the mysterious RM2.6 bils in Najib's personal account within the 1MDB booklet, the gist of it is essentially; "Yes, RM2.6 bil do exists in Najib's personal account and some Arab oil barons donated it. Whatcha' gonna do 'bout it, huh?"

Without an ounce of shame, he declared that political donation is a common accepted practices for all political parties in Malaysia which he then started talking about his stint in the early days of Parti Keadilan Rakyat where the party headquarter in KL is donated by a businessman and is registered under Wan Azizah's name and he were kicked out of the party when he..."raise a little hell". Coming back to RM2.6 bils itself, he mentioned that it's UMNO's common practice to register party assets and donations in trust of the party president's name and personal account and the tradition goes back to the turbulent days of the 1980s when the old UMNO under Tun Mahathir's reign is facing internal revolt and split which eventually lead to its deregistration. When Mahathir-lead UMNO Baru rises from the ashes of old UMNO, it is then decided by the leadership that any assets or donation to the party will be registered in the trust of party president himself. Mahathir bring his shrewd self didn't stick to it however, preferring to doling it out to his closest confidante such as the likes of Tun Daim Zainuddin for investments thus bolstering party finances indirectly. Shouty McFatcunt then lumbers on about the source of RM2.6 bils "donation", proclaiming YES, it does EXIST and in his own word, some generous "Pak Arab" graciously donated it to PM Najib, ostensibly with only two "conditions", namely 1) "to stem the rise of extremism and terrorism especially ISIS and spread of Shi'ite. and 2) "to uphold the sanctity of Islam in Malaysia.". Once again po-faced and without an iota of irony, the FATCUNT proclaimed that its "better" and "halal" to receive donation from Pak Arab who wants to uphold Islam than to receive donation from either USA/George Soros/Yahudi who have ulterior motive to "destroy Islam" or from crony business tycoons who demands contracts in return. YANG MANA LEBIH BAIK? YANG MANA LEBIH BAIK?!

The amount of WTF coming out from FATCUNT's filthy gob makes me want head-desk so hard that my brain explode into ludicrous gib just to spare myself the fatal cringe and indignity of sitting through his SHIT. Regardless the source of donation, the fact that a huge of sum of money is hold in trust on an individual personal account rather than, say a collective trust of a party or organisation is questionable at best and TOTALLY WRONG in essence. The way political donation influence political decision and sovereignty of a country is THE SAME, Pak Arab or the Jews or cronies alike! There's NO SUCH THING as a "better class" of donors! To make the matter worse, there is no inkling of exact identity of the donors apart from he's one or a group of "Pak Arab" to quote Shouty McFatcunt and Najib himself its not revealing the identity of the donor. Hell, even MACC cannot compelled Najib to reveal the name of the donors to the public even after ascertaining the identity as "they are not legally empowered to compel to PM to reveal.". Coming back to the townhall meet, the FATCUNT's line of reasoning (or total absence of it) and his pointlessly boisterous presentation transfer the audience out from the austere university lecture hall to the ceaseless cacophony of grievance and festival of bellowing and discrimination complex that is Perhimpunan Agong UMNO (UMNO General Assembly) which incidentally closes on the same day as this townhall meet. There's little doubt that the fatcunt's "calibre" (and I use it VERY loosely here) is about as "good" as the two political vessel that he saddles upon namely UMNO and Keadilan.

While am managed to compose myself reeling in from the fuckery while he dribbles, I began forming a couple of pertinent questions in mind for the next round of Q&A which I will try to seize the microphone when the fatcunt finally's going to shut the fuck up and the attention back to the audience.

The page within the booklet about the Auditor General's audit report on 1MDB which is still going on even as of writing despite the purported 17 December deadline as "they're still working on compiling the report."

1) As noted within the booklet itself, since the Auditor General is still in the midst of producing the audit report on 1MDB and investigation by Public Accounts Committee is still ongoing, how many information can this booklet actually reveal without compromising any legal and secrecy aspect with regards to Auditor General's Report and PAC investigation? And since the only source information the booklet based from are from 1MDB, the very defendant (for the lack of better term) of the current debacle and JASA itself too is on the recipient side of information as much as the public are by the nature of not being 1MDB itself, how much should we the members of the public accept the veracity of the information published in the booklet? Where are the complete list of citations for the booklet if there is actually one?

2) In an increasingly confusing and uncertain world riddled by cacophony of noises teeming with information and disinformation, each vying to be the "proclaimer of absolute truth", does JASA accept the fact/reality that JASA too is a net contributor to the collective noise confusing the public? And since JASA, Department of Special Affairs is a governmental department under the Ministry of Multimedia and Information, Government of Malaysia, wouldn't it be correct to say that any information or position disseminated by JASA is by default, biased which make JASA equally guilty and liable as any other alternative source of information? How much should we, members of public accept and believe anything coming out from JASA knowing that JASA could very well be engaging in the BIG LIE as JASA alleged other parties might have done right at first line of the preface of this booklet? Do you actually came here under the impression that we will and we should accept information by JASA as it is without any skepticism and criticism?

...but before I got to ask these questions, the moderators closes the floor right as soon as Shouty McFatcunt finally shut up as "we're running out of time" and it's time for the panelists to sum up the townhall session.

FUCK. WHAT A WASTE OF MY FUCKING TIME MULLING THE QUESTIONS AND BOTHERING SHOWING UP TO THIS SESSION DESPITE BEING AN ALUMNI ALREADY. WHY THE FUCK DO I EVEN NAIVE ENOUGH TO BELIEVE THAT THERE WILL BE SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE OR VAGUELY BELIEVABLE COMING OUT FROM THIS.

For the closing, "Tun" Faisal is doing most of it, talking about the war of perception that is currently raging on in social media, making a plea for the student audience to consider the government position and JASA as a "viable and reliable" source of information on current affairs in Malaysia. He urges all audience members to make intelligent, sensible value judgment after taking into consideration of all sides of information.

...and that's the only thing worth taking away from the two hour long townhall meet, a prolonged, grueling and taxing session of (dis)information and propaganda bombardment. They do give away JASA's as well as their own Whatsapp contact number for anyone who wishes first hand information from JASA but JASA can just gettaefuck as am not going to let my Whatsapp be spammed with utter rubbish.

...and apparently they have been traversing not just across Malaysia addressing different segments of audience from public universities' students, civil servants in training courses to kampung folk but as well as the globe. especially students in the United Kingdom. All on taxpayers money, ladies and gentlemen.

As I was munching away my kueh, karipap and beehoon while sipping my teh panas in cool after rain (the only worthwhile perks of attending government related event), the only thought that I have in mind is: if this is the level of discourse that I can only expect from government's position, stooping so low with questionable veracity and absolute disinformation, if this is the level of "calibre" (or the total absence of) that the Panel Pemikir or Thinkers'/Scholars' Panel (especially the lot that actually has vested political interest) that JASA has on taxpayers' payroll to handle dissemination of information/propaganda for the masses, if this is the standard (or the utter dearth of it) JASA is operating on and they still expect the public to believe anything from the government...

Jabatan Hal-Ehwal Khas (JASA) should very well be the very FIRST department to be defunded and/or disbanded altogether in times of austerity and spending cuts for the DISSERVICE and CRIME it has done firstly to the government for failing in all front of public relation and engagement about policies of public interest, instead actively repulsing and driving away concerned members of public from engaging constructively with the government of the day and secondly to all taxpayers and Malaysians as a whole for being a waste of office space in Putrajaya and draining the nation's coffer for pointless vanity trips across the world besides cheapening with the level of discourse and collective intelligent of all Malaysians. And Shouty McFatcunt will be in line to get the chop. Viral Command Centre my arse. The only thing viral he need to catch is Ebola.

Not even sure why the booklet by JASA do bother to include a two-page spread of 1MDB's Corporate Social Responsibility as if it can soften the its beleaguered reputation. Are JASA even a government's department or 1MDB's Public Relation Team. Then again, don't think JASA peeps are remotely qualify for 1MDB's corporate PR team at all since 1MDB is still a corporate company and not say, an inept governmental department with questionable objective.

Props to students of Universiti Sains Malaysia for giving the only reaction and feedback that these JASA lots deserves: tepid, dispassionate, apathetic and nonchalance, mostly there only for the free foods and MyCSD points. That is default emotion USMers have these days anyway. Only MyCSD, campus bus service and parking summon can arouse passion from USMers.

...or maybe. Just maybe.

Perhaps these townhall meeting roadshow in public universities in only a ruse. JASA is not here with explaining government's position in mind at all. It is here instead for disinformation, intimidation and coercion of members of public (especially students) into a state of disenchantment, confusion and apathy, actively discouraging the general public from generating keen, critical sense of interest towards current affair happening in Malaysia right now, separating the discourse from the public and keeping it within the grasp and control of vested interest groups and politico-business elites. After all, keeping the public in a perpetual state of disenchantment and apathy works charm in maintaining the hegemony of those people currently in position of power especially in light of the shortfall of first-past-the-post voting system that doesn't care about apathetic and/or unlearned non-voter, the very group most vulnerable to unfair government policies. Denying the public the opportunity to engage in healthy, constructive democratic discourse is a mockery and a disgrace of Malaysians collective intelligence. And we're definitely in this together, everyone.

The day we stopped caring after being driven away is the day the evil wins.

So where to, Malaysians? Let's start...thinking and questioning critically, shall we?

Postscript: Bloody hell procrastination, only finish up this post three weeks after the event has occured and its no longer topical anymore. *bang wall* My worst vice indeed. I wonder will anyone find the heart, strength or patience to read it to the end, stumbling upon this postscript at all. Last post of December and 2015 quite likely. Have we Malaysians hit rock bottom yet because we have to go up soon somewhere.