How To ... LOSE THE PR WAR! (or MASSAGE THE MESSAGE)

Dear MB Selangor and MACC,

1. Forget that people generally have a healthy respect of their own intelligence.

2. Forget that people normally use their intelligence to decide whether they like or dislike your organisation.

3. Look at your miserable polls and ratings. You cry.

3. Pick up the phone and call a PR consultant.

4. They will massage your ego, telling you that OBVIOUSLY you are competent, ethical and efficient! People just don't understand you. You are diagnosed as the OLDEST TEENAGER in the world.

5. Convinced by Dr. Spin to have a PR campaign, you now actually tell people that WE WILL CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION.

6. How do you think joe public will react? Open their minds to your message or become even more suspicious?

7. So you pay the PR boys/girls to start the campaign. Websites, Facebook sites, Twitter, radio ads... blogs, etc. At least you now have ACTIVITY to compensate for your actual lack of success.

8. Finally, you wait in your comfy chair, twiddling your fat fingers. Waiting anxiously for your public perception to hit the stratosphere of popularity. The PR Witches jump back on their broomsticks, and cackle like banshees all the way to the bank.

And you say the people are naive.

How To Be ... MY MALAY LEADER!

I am a Malay and there is a great big leader-shaped hole in my heart. Can you be my leader? If you are not sure, run yourself through my own patented How To Be My Malay Leader, and see how you score.

1. Do you want to lead? If you are leading, where are you taking me? Into the next week? The next year? Next century? If you are not thinking at least 5 decades ahead, I am not interested.

2. Do you know where you are from? After all, to begin leading, you need to start somewhere. And to understand where you are now, you need to know how you got there in the first place. Too difficult a concept to understand? Then, forget it.

3. How do you score in history? See step 2 for relevance.

4. Too timid? Too afraid to hurt feelings? I am looking for someone with Ceasar-like qualities. Which means can you be a bit of a bastard? If you bleat like a sheep, maybe this is not the job for you. We are looking for Lions.

5. Age and refinement. Unless you have the intelligence and determination of Pitt the Younger, don't try it, boy. You know who you are.

6. How is your morality? Really, I am not looking for a saint. Who cares if you used to sow your oats far and wide. But do you have the energy to look after my children’s need if you are easily distracted by a bit of crumpet? Your call.

7. How are your manners? In this context, manners include customs and traditions of the Adab Melayu. Score poorly? Its okay if you are willing to learn, but at your age, can you change?

8. Principles. It is good to have principles, but if you can start with proper Adab, that is good to begin with.

9. How’s your sciences? I am not asking for Einstein, but basic knowledge of the combustion engine is a plus.

10. Rich or not? Its okay to have money, even to flaunt it a little is fine. But for God’s sake, have a little class. Some good taste. If you cannot trust yourself, find a decent designer. And please don’t go for the post-modernist minimalism so common nowadays. You are not Ozzies, are you? Even though you may have house(s) there. You know who you are.

11. Sexuality. This is a touchy subject. Successfully heterosexual must a minimum standard. Sorry, but Bung Mokhtar gotta be comfortable with you in the parliamentary showers.

12. Wife? To quote my buddy Julius, “Ceasar’s wife must be above suspicion.”

13. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. Are you fit? Do you have a mid-life paunch developing? I want a healthy and bouncy leader. You should be able to do 1km in 7 minutes.

14. Intelligence and wit. Mandatory requirement.

15. Must love the Malays. That goes without saying, doesn’t it? But these days, and looking at the current cadre… sigh, you cannot be too sure.

16. Charisma. That would pay dividend.

We are looking for genuine good leaders not because we believe in democracy, but in spite of democracy. Do you have what it takes to unite the Malays? If you think you do, cross the Rubicon. We are waiting.

p.s. Sorry for the Roman metaphors. Just finished reading Adrian Goldsworthy’s “CEASAR”. Sublime. That means “limau kasi kurang” in Latin.

How To ... BE A MALAY

1. Don’t read much.
2. Always play the victim.
3. Aim low.
4. Sell vote cheap.
5. Believe government propaganda.
6. Then believe opposition propaganda.
7. Listen to your leaders, however stupid they may be.
8. Don’t listen to opposing / alternative views.
9. Be politically inactive and watch the country crumble.
10. Be politically active. Then be naïve and fail. Or play the game and make a name/money... While watching the country crumble.
11. Ignore the teeming masses of Malays unable to save at all.
12. Allow banks to drown Malays in credit card debts.
13. Steal ideas from Malay businessmen.
14. Gerrymander the education system to leave Malays barely employable.
15. But send your children to private school.
16. Support Malay business by squeezing them for every pound of flesh that they can stand. Then squeeze some more.
17. Borrow money to spend, not expand.
18. Get a second wife.
19. Validate your life with conspicuous consumption.
20. Validate your life with conspicuous piety.
21. Get government contract / concession and sub it out.
22. Use religion to compensate your lack of success.
23. Stand eyes-wide open in awe, and watch as foreigners work like dogs to succeed in your own country.
24. Do nothing to improve your condition. But do a whole lot of envying.
25. Be the proverbial frog under the coconut shell.
26. Retain same frog-under-the-coconut-shell attitude. But now stand on top of the shell and shout it out to the world. So that everyone knows just how horribly ignorant, narrow-minded and intolerant you are.
27. Be a global citizen with global loyalty. Malaysia? Its just an address.
28. After doing all this, pour scorn on your own people and forget that you too are, alas, a Malay.