My second lesson for Abdul Rahman Dahlan is the Confucian saying 名正才能言順 as he is not BN Director of Strategic Communications but BN Director of Strategic Lies

Today, I want to give Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan a second lesson, which is the Confucian saying 名正才能言順 as he is not BN Director of Strategic Communications but BN Director of Strategic Lies.

In a nutshell, the Confucian saying means that "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name."

If for political mileage and survival, Abdul Rahman must mastermind a campaign of lies, fake news and false information against the Opposition, don’t couch them as euphemisms when they are downright falsehoods, like claiming that he is Director of Strategic Communication when he is nothing more than Director of Strategic Lies.

Abdul Rahman had been responsible for many “strategic lies” which include:

  • The most intense and diabolical campaign of demonization directed at me in the past three months in the UMNO/BN owned and controlled mainstream media and the social media with lies, fake news and false information describing me as a devil, an hantu, puaka or even jembalang; that I am anti-Malay, anti-Islam; that I was the cause of the May 13 racial riots in 1969 (exactly 48 years ago) although I was never in Kuala Lumpur during that period and was in fact in Kota Kinabalu on that tragic day of May 13, 1969; that I am a communist; a stooge of Singapore PAP, etc, etc.
  • The lie, fake news and false information of a secret meeting between Tun Mahathir and myself on Dec. 3, 2016 where we struck secret deal for Mukhriz Mahathir to be Prime Minister and me as Deputy Prime Minister when UMNO/BN are ousted from Putrajaya in the next general election;
  • The lies, fake news and false information that there are DAP grassroots members and leaders who want a change of DAP party leadership and want me to retire from politics;
  • The lies, fake news and false information that I had masterminded electoral fraud in the DAP party elections in 2012, which is a new twist to a tissue of lies which had been concocted and disseminated in BN/UMNO misinformation campaign in the past few years.
  • The lies, fake news and false information that Anwar Ibrahim, Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Isamil , Tun Mahathir, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Mohamad Sabu are all my pawns and stooges, while to the Chinese ground, MCA and Gerakan propagandists go on a diabolical campaign to paint me as the stooge and puppet of Mahathir, Anwar, Muhyiddin and Azizah.

May be I should be grateful that in the latest campaign of lies, fake news and false information, I am not accused of having urinated at the flag pole at the official residence of the Selangor Mentri Besar in Kampong Baru, Kuala Lumpur on the evening of May 13, 1969!

I am still waiting for Abdul Rahman’s reply to my question yesterday why he and the UMNO/BN leaderships are so afraid of me that they had to launch such an intensive demonization campaign against me although he claimed publicly that I am an utter political failure in the DAP and should go into retirement?

I am fully vindicated when yesterday I quoted the Chinese saying 朽木不可雕 to express my shock and sorrow that he is so unteachable because he is so unlearnable as Rahman has continued to score his own goal!

I was most amused that in the major offensive he masterminded against me in the UMNO/BN owned and controlled mainstream media like New Straits Times, Berita Harian, Utusan Malaysia, Bernama, Star and TV3 as well as the social media, he had recruited an army of cybertroopers whose “dirty work” include concocting a “trending on Twitter” with hashtags like #ResignKitSiang.

Has Rahman a pathological compulsion to score his own goal, so he should be be concocting a “trending on Twitter” with the hastag #Don’tResignKit Siang so that he would stop scoring his own goal?

If Rahman just cannot grasp what I mean by him scoring his own goal, I am prepared to give him a free lecture.

However, Rahman has now an opportunity to redeem himself, whether he is BN Director of Strategic Communications or BN Director of Strategic Lies.

New Straits Times today gave a Page 10 page headline of “MINISTRY: 1MDB DEBT-FREE”, Utusan Malaysia gave a three-column heading “1MDB langsikan semua hutang” in P. 16 while Star gave only a small single-column heading in Page 26 “1MDB free of short- and long-term debts, says Najib” to answers by the Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to DAP MP for Bakri, Er Teck Hwa.

Clearly, Rahman has failed in his self-styled job as BN Director of Strategic Communications because no news could be more “strategic” to UMNO/BN than that Najib had resolved the 1MDB scandal and freed 1MDB and the Malaysian Government of all 1MDB debts – which run into tens of billions of Malaysian ringgit, the largest in Malaysian history!

The news that Najib had cleared 1MDB of all debts and resolved the 1MDB scandal, which had made Malaysia a global kleptocracy and Najib and Malaysia the butt of national and international jokes, ridicule and contempt should be front page headline news screaming from all the newspapers and news outlets – not just the UMNO/BN owned and controlled ones!

But even UMNO/BN owned and controlled mainstream media, like New Straits Times, Utusan Malaysia and Star hide this “strategic news” in the inside pages, (Berita Harian even omitted this “strategic news” completely), when they should carry this as front-page headline news screaming that the 1MDB scandal, which had haunted and hounded Najib and Malaysia all over the world in the past few years, have been resolved and Malaysia has cleared itself of the curse, infamy and ignominy of a “global kleptocracy”.

Why the stony treatment for the “strategic news” that 1MDB scandal is no more?

Is this because even UMNO/BN propaganda operatives know that the 1MDB scandal is very much alive, that it had not been resolved, and Malaysia cannot claim that it cannot be called a global kleptocracy because the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal is no more or had disappeared?

Rahman would do well to explain this “strategtic” development on the 1MDB scandal and the pathetic UMNO/BN attempt to mislead Parliament, Malaysia and the world that the 1MDB scandal has been resolved and all the tens of billions ringgit of 1MDB debts settled, instead of going on a wild goose’s chase to try to demonise the Opposition with lies, fake news and false information.

Lim Kit Siang DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Gelang Patah