MH 17 HOW DOES THE WEST KNOW SO MUCH SO SOON?

Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 (2001) Now Malaysian Airlines MH 17 (2014)

Oleksandr Kuzmuk, pictured above, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense who resigned after the shooting down of Siberian Airlines Flight 1812.

WAS PUTIN THE INTENDED TARGET OF THE MISSILE ATTACK

Times of India one of many media organizations reports that there is speculation that Vladimir Putin’s aircraft may have been the intended target of the missile battery that brought down MH 17. Both planes are painted in similar colours and if visual contact was required to take out the target, the colours of a Malaysian Airlines aircraft are eerily and deceptively similar enough to look like Putin’s Illyushin IL 96 aircraft.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Whats interesting is that the Times of India once owned by Bennett Coleman is a very pro western paper with one of the largest if not the widest circulation of any publication in the English speaking world.

The claim or suggestion by the Times of India is no more a conspiracy theory than that being floated by US vice president Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott about what and how MH 17 met its end.

Perhaps the Air India pilots who flew within visual range of the ill fated MH 17 could shed some light on what occurred. They were only 25 Kms behind MH 17.

ANOTHER UKRAINIAN SHOOTING OF A CIVILIAN AIRLINER? LEST WE FORGET

The precedent for the shooting of Malaysian Airlines MH 17 in the Ukraine is the shooting down in 2001 of a Russian built Tupolev passenger jet a TU 154 by Ukrainian Armed Forces missile batteries on October 4, 2001.

In that crash 64 Siberian Air passengers and 12 crew on board the ill fated aircraft en route from Novosibirsk to Tel Aviv were killed when the plane was shot down over the Black Sea by a Ukrainian missile. No reason was cited for the shooting down of the plane except for the speculation that it was a military exercise gone wrong. The victims were mainly Jews.

There was an outpouring of grief and the Ukrainians were described as anti Semites by various Jewish groups following this event (and for their history of supporting Hitler and their documented careless disregard for human life in world war 2). It did not help that at the time of the crash their denials over the shooting down of a civilian airliner were equally careless as it is with the crash of MH 17.

More notably the Ukrainian armed forces then too offered speculative reasons as to what happened attempting to blame others for the shooting down of the Air Siberia TU 154.

DENIALS THEN AS THEY ARE NOW

It took a while for the Ukraine to admit that it had in fact shot down the aircraft. And that too after considerable pressure was brought to bear on the Ukrainian leadership by Russian investigators.

Ukraine’s then-president, Leonid Kuchma, eventually conceded that the Ukrainian military was responsible for the shooting down of the Russian passenger jet.

The day of the shoot-down of the aircraft occurred at a time the Ukrainian military was conducting a massive exercise which involved shooting down 23 missiles at drones.

“Experts say that the radar-guided S-200, among the farthest-flying and most capable anti aircraft missiles in the arsenal of former Soviet nations (at the time), simply locked onto the Russian airliner after it raced past the destroyed drone some 20 miles off the Crimean coast,” the New York Times’ Michael Wines reported then.

Then President of the Ukraine Leonid Kuchma accepted the resignation of his Minister of Defense, Oleksandr Kuzmuk, following the admission that the military was culpable.

From 2003 to 2005, Ukraine paid a total of $15.9 million to families of victims following a deal with the government of Israel.

Oddly enough the Ukrainians today rush to play what they say (without independent verification) that they intercepted radio conversation between Russian backed separatists discussing the shooting down of an aircraft at the same time MH 17 went down.

The west likewise keen to demonize the Russians and to take the heat off  the Ukraine on one side whilst conveniently taking the attention off Israel’s butchering of Palestinians by Israel’s military on the other is playing up that smokescreen of Ukrainian “evidence” that Pro Russian separatists brought the aircraft down.

If it indeed was a Russian mistake then how different a mistake would it be to that of the US shooting down an Iranian Air civilian passenger aircraft in the late 1980’s? In that particular instance, the US claimed its radar could not distinguish between civilian and military aircraft. How criminally convenient. But the west bought that excuse till the Pan Am disaster over Lockerbie believed to be revenge for the downing of the Iranian passenger jet. But the US un willing to test the resolve of the Iranians if they went toe to toe over that incident chose Libya instead to pin the tail on for Lockerbie.

THE MYTH OF THE AUDIO INTERCEPT

The latest from the “audio intercept” as the Ukrainians claim to have in their possession is one which requires very close scrutiny for what it does not say rather than for what it purports to.

The Russians have one of the most sophisticated field radio systems for communication in a battle zone which is designed to hop frequencies and to avoid detection.

The Russian made anti aircraft radio or wire guided missile batteries (BUK) which the Ukrainians and the Americans say brought down  MH 17 is in the military inventories of both nations.

The BUK (s 300 or its predecessor S 200) is a Russian designed and built anti aircraft system often marketed to client states via Belorussia and the state arms corporation Rosoboronexport. To “brother states” like the Ukraine it is sold directly. Most former Soviet states have these missiles in their inventories.

It seems that social media is attributing many absurd claims about the crash of MH 17 to a pro Russian military commander.  And the US and Australia appear to be lending credibility to these absurd comments each time they appear in the  press.

IT WAS ” (THE MUSLIM) COSSACKS” AND THE GRU- GOOD GUYS BAD GUYS

The rush to blame Russia and the Cossacks (the ethnic Muslim Russians who live in the Ukraine supporting Russia) in the “intercepted radio messages” is suspect.  Being Muslims they the Cossacks are an easy target of hatred worldwide. The apocryphal so called radio message “audio intercept” released by the Ukraine does not support Russian  (or any other trained army) protocols for communication on the battlefront in the field.

The Russians and their allies do not contact the GRU directly just as the filed operatives of US backed militia in Iraq, Afghanistan or other battle zones do not contact the CIA and its director directly to report an event. It is highly improbable and would be unprecedented if it did occur.

NEW IDEAS NEW TACTICS- NO SUCH THING AS AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER

There was no such radio intercept of the downing of the 3 other aircraft supposedly downed by Pro Russians separatists in the Ukraine. Suddenly all sides change tactics radically with the Pro Russian separatists speaking to the head of the GRU Igor Sergun and a Russian Major in the armed forces of the Russian Federation we are asked to believe by Holland and the US.

Then we have the paradigm shift in Ukrainian tactics of intercepting highly classified but uncoded open line communications between pro Russian separatists and Moscow.

What is tragic about this incident coming so close to the heels of the yet unsolved MH370 incident is that civilians are now more than ever coming to grips that there is no such thing as “innocent bystanders in a conflict”. That phrase coined by a Palestinian hijacker who hijacked a BOAC VC 10 aircraft in the early 1970’s told his passengers appears to have been prophetic indeed.

A LESSON FOR MAS AND THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT

It is time the government of Malaysia and its national Airline learned how to deal with the world and the western media by engaging professional media consultants regardless of their race colour class or creed when dealing with such disasters.

There is nothing wrong in an investment in quality, impressive public speakers (without the fake US accents) personnel, trained, knowledgeable  and savvy when dealing with the international media.

As it stands the prime ministers own ability to impress is impaired following the MH 370 incident. The then acting minister Hishamuddin Onn although not incompetent was short of what the media had expected. There is a special skill required to deal with a media organizations and agencies run by sensationalists ready and waiting to bait an ill prepared minister or other official in such situations. And that damage from not being prepared in such situations may be irreversible.

There is an art and a skill not present within the existing Malaysian media scrum. Neither is it present in Malaysia’s government apparatus capable of dealing with such a situation. And that’s a disaster in itself.

Government needs spokespersons who are skilled. People who are informed, with a legal background, international current affairs specialists who are forensic, articulate and possessed of people and crisis management skills sufficient for them to be able to interact amiably with the diverse and often hostile international media that throng to KL each time something like this occurs.

The Staccato Malaysian accent is horrible and for most of the time not understood. With punctuation and expressions all misplaced in what should otherwise be a short and sharp response is often dragged on, disabled by the accent, the diction, mispronounced words and inappropriate analogies.

It is best that Malaysia give the media a plausible explanation of events than for them to make up their own minds and lend their own interpretations in frustration from dealing with incompetent spokespersons.

Such a situation always ends up causing untold damage to a nation that has gained so much in a short time and has so much to lose in a shorter time by the poor handling of these events.

 

 

 

‘大耳窿’ THE AH LONG:

A SYMPTOM OF FAILED BANKING PRACTICES AND PERSONAL MORALITY IN AN INSATIABLE CONSUMER SOCIETY

 “The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice” … Aristotle Greek Philosopher.

They are called ‘loan sharks’ in the west, Yamikinyu in Japan, Sauekar in Mumbai or the Kabuli in Delhi. They are the Kabuli because of their Afghan origins.

Ah Long (derived from the Cantonese ‘大耳窿’ ) is a term used to describe loan sharks in places like Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Operating illegally and most often under the patronage of unseen public officials and  corrupt police, the Ah Longs are the product of age old Triad practices that originated in the courts of the medieval clans and warlords who preyed on the poor and thrived on debt slavery in pre Maoist China.

Today the Ah Long in Malaysia operates via the convenience of a wide network of third party mercenary thugs and corrupt off duty policemen.

The Chinese Triads today employ mainly Tamils and Indonesian thugs to execute ‘enforcement’ of debt obligations for them. Typically these thugs are from the ranks of displaced and desperately unemployed youth willing to do anything for a dollar.

A RECENT EXAMPLE OF THE TRIAD THIRD PARTY MERCENARY CULTURE

The Triads engage these unemployed displaced youth in much the same way the wife of murdered businessman Leong Kian Sheong is alleged to have used 3 Tamil assassins to carry out the brutal murders of Kian Sheong and his mistress, Vivien Wong.

Wong’s and Leong’s throats were cut from ear to ear. A ceremonial and symbolic act the hallmark of Triads. The prevalence of Triad activities wherever Chinese communities exist is common as it is pervasive, widespread and sinister. The Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore do not like the existence or the history and cultural origins of the Triads mentioned along racial lines. It is an embarrassment and a convenience rolled into one for the Chinese especially where offences like those of the murder of Leong Kian Sheong involved members of two non Malay ethnic groups in Malaysia, viz the Chinese and the Tamils.

WHO AND WHAT IS THE AH LONG?

The Ah Long  is the loan shark who lends money to the vulnerable, the weak and the economically challenged. Typically their customers are people who are unable to obtain loans from scheduled banks and finance companies.

The Ah Long’s primary targets are inveterate gamblers, low and mid income families, the high level consumer and the asset rich cash poor sectors of communities of Malaysia and other south east Asian nations.

A ready made market exists in the upwardly mobile class of consumers in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore in whose DNA can be found the genes of social climbers and the class conscious, whose ascendancy in society is acquired though financial gain and material possessions at any cost. Asians.

The Ah Long’s services are often spread by word of mouth and public notices. They boldly advertise in public in a style that deceptively borrows the language of licensed lenders and banks. As is the case with loan sharks in the west, in Japan, India and other places, the Ah Long is charcterised by the extraordinarily high interest rates he charges on short term loans unsecured and backed in redemption by the most unimaginable forms of violence and human degradation.

WHITE SLAVERY ORGAN TRAFFICKING AND THE AH LONG

“You have among you many a purchased slave Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,You use in abject and in slavish parts Because you bought them. Shall I say to you Let them be free, marry them to your heirs. Why sweat they under burdens?. . . You will answer The slaves are ours.’ So do I answer you.The pound of flesh which I demand of him is dearly bought. ‘Tis mine, and I will have it.”
(IV.i.89–99) (The Merchant of Venice)

Corruption through infiltration of Australia’s immigration and customs services has finally come to the surface. A report published by the anti corruption commission of New South Wales in December 2012 revealed serious infiltration into the immigration service by mainly Chinese drug gangs from abroad.

The investigation resulted in the arrest of a number of officers serving at terminals in Sydney, Melbourne and two other major air and sea ports in Australia.

Statistics reveal an alarming number of young women from the communities of Chinese, Viet Namese, Thai, and Japanese migrants working off Ah Long debts as prostitutes in the west. Many would have arrived in their destinations as students, casual workers in restaurants or factories arranged by Ah Longs and their corrupt network of associates in these places.

On arrival these victims soon discover that the promises of the Ah Longs of a better life in their new destinations is nothing more than an inducement to a life of inescapable misery.

None of the Asian social welfare groups intervene. Not the Churches, not the NGO’s nor their ethnic community groups. It almost always falls on the conscience of the European hosts to assist and to redeem these victims and where possible to repatriate them in a dignified way.

FOREIGN MAIDS- AN AH LONG BUSINESS

Another variation to the Ah Long theme is the menace and tragedy of the house maid phenomenon sweeping all of the prosperous regions of Asia and the middle east.

A large majority of these so called “maids” the NGO communities support are in fact victims of debt slavery. They are often transported to places like Malaysia under the ‘legitimate’ cover of maid employment agencies in order to pay off debts. And perhaps negligently and unknowingly the Churches support and patronise this practice of keeping maids in places as Malaysia by lobbying for more of them to be imported into places like Malaysia.

The vexed and highly emotive issues of the abuse of maids raised by the Catholic church, women’s groups and Irene Fernandez in Malaysia has focused on the working conditions of these victims of a form of white slavery. But none of them have a focus or agenda for eradicating the source of its evils and the trade itself.

There has been no comment or policy initiative from the Church, Women’s interest organizations or from Irene Fernandez herself a lead spokesperson of an NGO at the forefront of this issue.

Other vile and criminal methods inflicted by Ah Longs to enforce repayment of their loans include, serious assaults, knee capping, literally being fed to trained Rottweiler dogs in their cages, rape and forced oral sex on the spouses and female children of borrowers.

The practice has been reported in and around the KL, Kelang, the Syah Alam corridor of Selangor state where Ah Long predators are most prolific in plying their trade. Johore and Perak are not far behind the if statistical data on the subject is to be believed.

POUND OF FLESH- LITERALLY

There are at least 24 reported cases of new born male children of borrowers in Peninsula Malaysia, being offered or forcibly taken by the Ah Long in satisfaction of an unpaid debt. These children are then sold into the lucrative black market for male children to childless couples abroad.

The most common use for young women in debt default situations with the Ah Long is more often in prostitution till a debt is paid off and that could mean forever.

A disturbing trend common in China and India and now emerging in Malaysia and Singapore is the collateral of body parts in satisfaction of a debt.

A Tamil woman in Malaysia is reported to have been lured into sacrificing one of her kidneys to a compatible recipient via the Ah Long in Kuala Lumpur. Actual details of the transaction were made known to us by members of a local evangelical church in Kuala Lumpur. The irony of the transaction is that the recipient of the kidney is also known to be from a family of worshipers at this same church.

The practice is widespread in many developing countries and is beginning to grow legs in Malaysia.

NGO IGNORANCE CHURCH COMPLICITY AND THE DETERRENCE OF SHAME

Much of data collected from the public on the Ah Long culture in Malaysia and Singapore has been collected by foreign researchers and agencies who are more trusted by victims than their local counterparts whose only concern appears to be scoring political points.

The NGO’s in Malaysia are perceived to have no depth, knowledge or genuine concern for the welfare of the weak in their societies. Victims have nowhere to go. The churches in Malaysia too are distracted by the political debates that have been raging there and have no time for the victims of Ah Longs.

There is a widespread culture of mistrust of public officials and anyone even remotely resembling a public official in Malaysia. When it comes to reporting crime it is known that ‘shame’ crimes where especially the chastity of a woman is likely to be called into question 90% of them go unreported.

The more powerful cultural deterrent and disincentive to reporting the Ah Long is the underlying sentiment of shame attached to being a borrower. A borrower from an Ah Long at that. And it is that sentiment that deters victims from coming forward. The social stigma attached to being in the debt of an Ah Long and its ugly consequences further discourages more public discussion on the subject and reporting of the offences of the Ah Long.

The Ah Long is classed as the biggest social menace in Malaysia and Singapore. It comes a close second to drugs and alcohol and is often credited by social workers for family break ups and suicides especially amongst young women. Women the biggest victims of the Ah Long experience in families. Its consequences are too diverse to fit into a sociologists limited pigeon hole for quick analysis.

THE LONG REACH OF THE AH LONG

There was a time when the Ah Long was the local hoodlum or grocer who had extra cash and a bit of muscle to lend to people in desperate need of money for a wedding or funeral expenses. The practice was condoned but it nonetheless received a degree of social acceptance in the wider community at a time when insurance and banking products did not cater for such contingencies as they do today.

Surprisingly for a country at the forefront of Sharia banking and finance and a Muslim country at that where religious doctrine eschews usury and forbids it as one of the cardinal sins and the root of all evil, Malaysia has one of the world’s highest incidences of the Ah Long experience.

The scourge of the Ah Long is growing unabated in all major cities of Malaysia and has spread its tentacles to the rural heartland of Malaysia. It has reached all levels of society and its spread is said to rival that of the evangelical Christian youth movements and multi level marketing.

STUDENTS & POLITICIANS

Large numbers of Malaysians go abroad to study each year. Amongst this crowd are those who enroll at foreign institutions of learning as students as a means of migrating abroad seeking better economic opportunities than those available to them in Malaysia.

There have been a number of arrests of students engaging in illegal activities in their host nations especially in places as Canada, the UK, Australia, the US.

Non traditional destinations for commonwealth students like Holland, has featured in the spread of the Ah Long and its cultural base. Amsterdam, London and Vancouver have each witnessed an entrenched culture of the Triad develop like a rash in their midst over the past few decades.

In 1973, the Dutch government chartered a Sabena (Belgian Airlines) DC-10 to repatriate a plane load of Malaysian Chinese who they had rounded up, charged and convicted in Holland for various crimes ranging from heroin trafficking, extortion, protection rackets and prostitution.

It was then described by an Interpol officer as “the tip of a very large iceberg”. As alerts were issued for Chinese youth especially from Malaysia at various western entry points after the Holland incident in 1973, a tsunami of “students” slowly  began their gradual and intense migration to these lucrative destinations to ply their illicit trades on behalf of the Ah Long.

Students today account for more than 50% of the illegals from Malaysia into the west caught, charged, tried and deported for various Ah Long related crimes. Most of these sent by the Ah Long through their vast  network of travel & migration agents which includes a few lawyers in the destination countries and in Malaysia.

However the Ah Long’s most high profile couriers to date has been a Malaysian politician caught attempting to smuggle over a million dollars in cash into Australia. The politician in question was apprehended by alert security and customs officials at Brisbane airport two years ago. Sadly this politician is not alone.

DR. VICTOR CHANG – VICTIM OF THE AH LONG

In 1995 pioneering Australian Chinese heart surgeon Dr. Victor Chang was gunned down by two Malaysian Chinese gangsters in what police described as a failed extortion bid.  What’s not publicly cavilled is the proposition that Dr. Chang had in the view of some been the victim of the Ah Long and their Triad organizations. It is believed Chang had refused to sell a part of his invention, an artificial heart to Triad “investors” who had approached him in private to invest. The consequence of that refusal is now deeply embedded in the psyche of many Australians.

Whether there is any truth to that story with Dr. Chang is hard to tell. But to ridicule the proposition is foolhardy considering the extents to which Ah Longs and their Triad organizations have historically gone in the past in pursuit of money through extortion.

The Triads thrive in Sydney openly displaying many of their traits at restaurants in the water front and with the open soliciting for prostitution of young mainly Chinese women in most of Sydney’s major suburbs. The corrupting of Sydney’s police could not have been a very difficult task for the Ah Long considering the long history of corruption within the New South Wales police force and its other law enforcement agencies.

Many Australian politicians are known to have accepted bribes, expensive gifts and other inducement to favour Triad interest in Australia. It includes influencing immigration and business license decisions, government letters to Chinese business people engaging in business in South East Asia and China and for a variety of other purposes such as places at universities and favourable exam results.

AIRLINE STEWARDESSES AS ESCORTS AND MAS PILOTS TRAFFICKING DRUGS

More recently and notoriously an MAS airline pilot Thiagu Supramaniam was arrested in 2012 at Brisbane airport in possession of a five kilos of meth amphetamine first thought to be heroin on his person. And the problem does not stop there.

Thiagu is not the only known airline pilot involved in the trafficking of large quantities of high grade heroin, cocaine, ice and ecstasy on behalf of the Ah Long.

 More than half a dozen Malaysian Airlines stewardesses abroad particularly  in Europe and in the US have been caught doubling up as ‘Escorts” whilst on stop overs in these destinations. Holland, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney and Los Angeles being the new popular, lucrative spots for these girls to ply their second trade in because of the strong presence of Triads there.

The recent death of a Chinese Malaysian airline stewardess in Holland is widely believed to have been linked to the Triads whose presence in Europe is anchored in Holland. She is believed to have been a ‘working girl’ for the Triads unbeknownst to her family. The real cause of her death has never been revealed apart from the obvious, a fall.

Whilst Hong Kong and Taiwan have previously been  prominent in the “Escort” circuit for airline stewardesses, the preference for these girls and their Ah Long pimps has always been the larger cities of the west where the Triads are now a well entrenched criminal organizations.

PROSTITUTION RIFE AMONGST MAS STEWARDS AND STEWARDESSES 

The practice of prostituting airline stewardesses abroad is quite widespread. In fact it has been reported and brought to the attention of MAS management previously. The problem though is securing a conviction without which the allegations remain just that and the ability of management to act is limited without a conviction. Or at least that is the theory.

MAS stewardesses have long been “party girls” to board members and their official guests at functions in Malaysia and abroad. There are at least two known videos of prominent Malaysian’s from the 1990’s in compromising positions and situations with Malaysian Airline stewardesses. And the vice does not stop there.

By contrast Singapore Airlines (SIA) is know to chaperon their stewardesses whilst they are abroad knowing full well the temptation and propensity for such activities by Asian gangs preying on their girls whilst abroad. SIA too it is known have suffered the experience of the Ah Long preying on young vulnerable women whose families are in debt to them. However to their credit the airline has become more circumspect and vigilant about the problem now.

Reliance on Ah Longs and other shark lenders as alternatives to banking and its red tape in Malaysia as an industry now challenges the dominance of the regular banking and finance sector. This is  the case at least where private personal lending is concerned. The pervasive influence of the Ah Long has deeper and more sinister social undertones that are not immediately apparent in the “ economically prosperous  moral jungle” Malaysia.

Where gambling of all variety thrives especially amongst the Chinese communities in Malaysia and Singapore, the influence and long dark shadow of the Ah Long is ever present. Oddly enough their most desperate victims are the Chinese themselves and if for no other reason than their renowned propensity for gambling.

MURDER AND POLICING THE AH LONG MENACE

The Ah Longs menace has resulted in a number of documented suicides by debtors so hopelessly in debt and unable to cope with the psychological, physical and social consequences of their indebtedness to the Ah Long. The most tragic of which is believed to be the pilot of a Silk Air flight 185 that crashed into a lake in Sumatra Indonesia killing 97 passengers and the crew.

There are reports of murder directly linked to Ah Long activity. However the statistics in this area are somewhat blurred because prosecutions have been frustrated through the inaction interference and omissions of corrupt members of the police force and the involvement of lawyer intermediaries intervening to scuttle due process.

The disturbing trend is such now that off duty policemen are known to accompany Ah Long enforcers, along with Tamil thugs to keep watch whilst they “enforce the Ah Long’s rights” under the debt obligations against the borrower.

This is known to range from a straight forward threat, to molesting a female member of the household, taking a woman away “for a ride” giving the debtor time to make repayment in full within say an hour. The known consequences of these rides have often known to be, a rape, others sexual assaults not quite amounting to rape like forced oral sex and in some cases mutilation.

CONSUMERISM: SOCIAL STATUS AT ANY COST

A sociologist describes this phenomenon as a by- product of a consumerism. It is known to be common in societies especially amongst Indians and Chinese where social status expressed in material acquisitions, a larger house, a newer car, a child studying abroad, expensive jewelry, brand name accessories, overseas trips and other lifestyle addictions are common. But the greatest and most common source of the vice is from gambling. And the Chinese have no monopoly in this vice in Malaysia today although they control much of it.

Malays from across the spectrum of Malay society have acquired a taste for the good life and with it the promise of fast wealth from gambling. A game of chance. And with that many chance their lives away.

Government negligence is something that most people are unable to explain nor the government explain away. The cost to the economy is immeasurable at the social, human and economic level. The reason is that much of this vice and its effects often go unreported. Debtor victims are ashamed for being in debt and many more are ashamed of the punishments inflicted on them by the Ah Long. And the price they pay in various assaults, the degradation and personal humiliation for their sins is the price for their silence.

There is a particularly ugly and enduring stigma attached especially to female members of families of the Ah Long experience.

GOVERNMENT TURNING A BLIND EYE- A BLACK EYE IN FUTURE

If government were to seriously go about attacking this menace they would enforce available criminal sanctions against the Ah Long in an exemplary manner. Many within the police force and other government organizations would be affected if this did occur.

What the government may be ignoring in all of this also is a huge potential vote bank. If it only took the initiative to force “debt forgiveness” against Ah Longs or impose punitive high taxes on Ah Longs when caught to discourage them from continuing in the business it could well drive Ah Longs out of business and recoup unpaid taxes in their networks reducing considerably the impact of this huge social menace in Malaysia.

The Ah Long may well be Malaysia’s Greek debt problem which the state chooses to ignore. One day the chickens will come home to roost and that one day may not be too far away.

THE GOSPEL OF BISHOP DATUK NG MOON HING

IT IS NOT DIVINE TO ERR

The Church’s attempts to embroil itself in the divisive politics of contemporary Malaysia with an open and blatantly provocative message from Bishop Datuk Ng Moon Hing (dated 18 July 2012) requires a befitting response. That provocation was published widely over the internet on behalf of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (an American NGO sponsored political initiative).

Ng’s “prayer” for more open government, equality and egalitarianism in his desired model for  “democratic government” is by his letter founded in part on the Old Testament whereby God is meant to have ordained Adam as ‘custodian of this world.’

 ADAM WAS NO CHRISTIAN

Adam, if his existence is to be believed, was not Christian but a semite.The Hindus had Manu long before Adam. In fact thousands of years before the Story of Adam came into existence. What Ng appears to have conveniently left out of this statement is the reprobate of Gods promise to Adam with the New Testament which Christians believe in as being the true word of God. The New Testament having been written at or immediately after the time God’s only begotten son Jesus Christ had come down to this earth as foretold in the Old Testament (Christian doctrine).

In the Old Testament, God makes the promise to Adam (repeated by Bishop Ng in his letter) which Adam also becomes disentitled to through committing original sin. Adam thereafter is no longer the beneficiary of the promise from that moment of disentitlement when he eats of the forbidden fruit. Perhaps the Bishop in the exercise of his canonical knowledge has conveniently forgotten to include this aspect of the promise in his letter to the Malaysians (not to be confused with St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians).

 A CHRISTIANS DUTY TO THE LAW

Why dig any deeper for the truth in Bishop Ng’s distorted ranting, when the real truth is evident in the words of the master himself. It can be found in the Synoptic gospels (in Mathew 22.22). Jesus Christ provides his answer to the ‘Bishop Ng’s of this world’ and their false teachings with these words:

“render unto Ceaser what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”.

In that single statement, the son of God as he is known to Christians the world over, Christ draws the first article, lays the foundations for the doctrine of separation of church and state.  Bishop Ng has a gospel of his own. He now proffers an ignorant political doctrine which appears to be at odds with the teachings of Christ. Well….that may not be the case if one considers charlatans like the Rev. Billy Graham, Jerry Fawell, Jim and Tammy Baker and other predators like them including the Bishop Ng category of evangelists to be ‘prophets’  and men of God  ‘inspired by the Holy Spirit’.

Christ’s questioners had (in Matthews Gospel in his rendition of this debate), assumed that there was an inevitable (and hazardous) dichotomy between discharging one’s obligations to the state and discharging one’s obligations to God (as Bishop Ng mistakenly believes it to be the case here).  Christ it is said refused to confront the dichotomy as framed by his hostile questioners and instead pointed to the assumptions behind it. The Bishop needs a serious revision on theology and to spend less time being a stooge of the disruptive, undemocratic and non-secular forces that lead and finance his flock. In the alternative he ought to stay clear of politics. His ignorance doing more damage to him than his silence could to his enemies.

 NG STIRRING A NEST OF HORNETS (HOLIER THAN THOU)

Ng clearly is out of his depth as he shows no sign of the intellect and analytical qualities and abilities required of Bishops in Christian communities. They are pillars of the Church and sources of authority in interpreting its cannons. What does Ng’s ignorance in this matter demonstrate to the rest of us? A departure from that long line of tradition which requires Bishops to be learned men of the church? Or that merit is now a casualty (as has long been suspected) and not the criteria when deciding who becomes Bishop in the church. Or does he serve another master other than Christ?

On what authority, moral, political or legal does Ng proclaim the country does not enjoy democratic government? On what authority does he make those provocative claims that there are no religious freedoms or that religious worship in Malaysia is curtailed by government (assuming it is for no good reason if at all) or that the constitution of Malaysia provides for absolute freedoms whether these be religious or political?

 CHRISTIANS AND CLERGY LIKE NG IN SUPPORT OF SHARIAH

Is Bishop Ng suggesting that Hudud laws and the Shariah have a place in the politics and government of Malaysia? If that’s what he is saying or if it is a position he supports (which I say he is) then perhaps the good Bishop should be reminded to think about what it is he is asking for. He may end up getting more than he bargained for, much more. And Malaysia may not be ready for his brand of Theocratic government he appears to be advocating for in his letter to his flock.

Bishop Ng, there is no strict separation of church and state. Not in England, not in Australia, not in the United states. The Queen as head of the Church of England (their pope after Henry the VIII got rid of the Holy See) rules over parliament in Westminster, Australia and New Zealand. She may be titular head of a parliamentary democracy in each of these places, but that title carries with it certain constitutionally protected powers in reserve which she uses liberally to sack properly elected governments (Whitlam in 1975) and to thwart the passage of laws enacted by her parliaments in Westminster and Canberra. Therein lies the fiction of the doctrine of the separation of powers and the separation of Church and state. And to date that fiction has served countries like Malaysia well. Why not leave well alone. Especially when you  offer no viable alternative to the present system of government except for your bigoted theology which is neither Christian nor democratic?

 BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR

It is better that that demon of theocratic government lies trapped as a benign fiction of history than for someone as ignorant and mischievously irresponsible as Anglican Archbishop Ng Moon Hing to awaken it to a point we will never be able to control it when it does awaken.

Ng and his backers are in a very unsubtle way re-igniting the unwelcome debate on the Church’s (religion’s) role in government. And by it Ng is inviting religious interference in a secular democracy. In so doing he is providing further ammunition and support to the advocates of Sharia and Hudud laws in furtherance of their causes.

In much the same way as Ng believes his God and his bible are the only right way to redemption and to heaven , so too do the Muslims believe their God and their Koran is the ultimate and only way to salvation and heaven. And on a  show of hands they will win outright. Then what?

The Muslims, like the bible bashing evangelical Christians, the paedophile infested Churches of Catholicism or the caste ridden Hindus may not be everyone’s cup of tea.  However in a democracy they the Muslims are in a majority and have the capacity, the means and the will to field by their superior numbers at the next election sufficient numbers of candidates who will support a Muslim theocracy capable of menacing and exploiting any government that comes to power at the 13^th general elections.

And for that the Bishop Ng’s of this world will have to shoulder responsibility. There is no greater sin than self inflicted ignorance Bishop Ng.