Friday, August 15, 2008

Disposable Garbage (1): Biro Tatanegara


“Do not challenge us. Do not test our patience. Do not question. If you want to fight, we are prepared anytime and you will regret…”


Disposable Garbage (1): Biro Tatanegara

“Do not challenge us. Do not test our patience. Do not question. If you want to fight, we are prepared anytime and you will regret…”

“The immigrant population should be grateful because the Malays were so generous as to grant them citizenship in Tanah Melayu…”

“Dr. Azhari Hussin would have died as a true martyr if he had blown himself along with George W. Bush.”

“Anwar Ibrahim is responsible for the recent disappearance of several children in the Klang Valley because he wanted to make the Royal Malaysian Police Force look bad before the general elections…”

“Canny Ong should be held responsible for her own rape and death because she chose to dress provocatively and seductively….”


Prologue

Snide remarks and ridiculous statements are nothing extraordinary in Malaysia. In fact in UMNO general assemblies, comments loaded with racial hatred and extreme religious elements have more or less become customary and the norm rather than the exception.

The above statements however, were not collected from an UMNO gathering but over a recent four-day program organized by the Biro Tatanegara.

A Brief Background
The Biro Tatanegara (BTN) is an organization under the direct purview of the Prime Minister’s Department. The BTN first came into being in 1974. Among others, it functions to organize programs aimed at instilling a sense of patriotism and national unity. Its core target population is primarily students in local public universities and Malaysians in civil service.

The BTN currently has 14 branch offices, one in each Malaysian state. It manages 16 camps known as Kem Bina Negara or KBN in short.

Participation and successful completion of BTN programs is compulsory for all civil servants in all government offices and students in certain public universities. Failure to attend and complete a BTN program may result in the denial of promotion for Malaysians working in the civil sector.

More information on the Biro Tatanegara can be accessed here.

The BTN Doctrine
In stark contrast to its supposed claims of building a united Malaysian race capable of confronting the daunting challenges in a new millennium, the BTN is yet another mouthpiece of UMNO aimed at preserving UMNO’s political hegemony by means of blatant brainwashing propaganda and a Malaysian history tampered to UMNO’s interests.

Many personal testimonies and honest accounts have been written in detail about the BTN program. They can be read here, here and here. Alternatively, one can just google BTN, and I am fully aware that google is not officially recognized as a verb in the English language yet.

A summary of the BTN doctrine is as follows:

The Malays were the original residents of both peninsular Malaysian and Borneo. The fact that they migrated from Jawa does not make them any less original than the aboriginal orang asli because the current Thailand, Indonesia, Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo and Philipines were supposedly a grand Malay archipelago. Therefore, the Malays’ migrating from Jawa to Peninsular Malaysia/Borneo is akin to one traveling from Pulau Pinang to Selangor.

The independence of Malaya was fought and won with little and negligible contribution from the non-Malays. In view of that, non-Malays including the non-Malay bumiputeras of Sabah and Sarawak are eternally indebted to their Malay counterparts.

Lee Kuan Yew is the founder of DAP and DAP is the party responsible for the May 13 tragedy.

The sovereignty of Malay Malaysians is at all times under threat externally from the British, Jews and communist agents and internally from the Chinese and Indian Malaysians.

There exists an official and legally-binding social contract between the ethnic groups of Malaysia.

The people of mainland China are so poor that they are eating dead fetuses. Chinese Malaysians should therefore be grateful that they have four meals per day.

The HINDRAF rally in Nov 2007 was violent and intended to be so. HINDRAF is a terrorist outfit that has no loyalty to the nation because they petitioned the queen of England and brandished pictures of Mahatma Gandhi.

Reflections...
Malaysia is a super-rich nation.
For much too long, Malaysians have been led to believe that the nation’s resources are limited. The truth cannot be further than this.

The BTN camp in Kundasang, Sabah occupies the most strategic location in the whole area. It is perched atop a hill that accords one the most breathtaking view of Mount Kinabalu. Its facilities and infrastructure are maintained in tip-top condition. There are no less than six luxurious mini-bungalows within its ground that house visiting UMNO speakers/facilitators.

So it seems, the government has the millions to erect a first-class, brain-washing boot camp in Kundasang but none of the same to upgrade the ailing rural schools of Ranau and broken village roads.

No, Malaysia is not limited financially or economically. Malaysia is a super rich nation capable of achieving all that she wants to for her citizens. As it is, the current ruling parties squander millions of taxpayers’ ringgit to brainwash young minds instead of opening them up in a world increasingly without borders.

The question is one of political will, or the lack of it.

The Prime Minister’s Department is officially the centre of racism in the nation.
As the BTN is under the direct powers of the Prime Minister’s Department, Abdullah Badawi is therefore officially responsible for the BTN’s racial elements and divisive teachings.

Would it not therefore be reasonable to conclude that the Malaysian Prime Minister is a racist as well?

Bullshit is marketable – it all depends on how one packages it.
The information provided by the BTN program is invariably one-sided, frequently erroneous and occasionally nonsensical. Both history and current national events are presented in such a manner that favors UMNO’s political interests.

We are told that Anwar Ibrahim is a spy for the Americans and Jews and that Venice is in Holland.

Nevertheless, one will be surprised just how successful UMNO’s brainwashing propaganda is. The feedback from participants shows that a great number have changed views or converted to UMNO-ism altogether. There are a thousand and one reason for Malaysian’s gullibility – a lifetime of feudalism, sheer ignorance, the lack of an independent media and all else.

Regardless, bullshit sells really well if one knows just how to package it. The Pakatan Rakyat parties will have a hard time reaching out to BTN converts.


The nation is almost hopelessly diseased.
Far from its officially stated goal of uniting Malaysian towards an increasingly elusive Vision 2020, the BTN thrives on the divide-and-conquer principle. As UMNO and therefore Barisan Nasional was founded on communalism, it can only remain viable for as long as racial politics reigns in Malaysia.

The BTN aids UMNO by inciting racial hatred through its habitual practice of explicit threats of impending violence in a multi-racial nation.

It has been hugely successful to say the obvious.

And that is indeed a saddening thought.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

True.

One of the mcq in the exam was to pick the correct statements among "Orang Cina dan India tidak mengenang budi orang melayu yang melepasi hak jus soli", "Orang Cina monopoli ekonomi tanah malayu"... Could anyone find any true statement from A to E?

Among our small group discussion topics were "who have you voted in the last election", "how could UMNO win the majority", "why only bumiputra should be given government's project and tender---answer was because the Chinese has monopoly all the bahan mentah"...

It is obviously a camp to "pecah dan perintah" rather than to unite. Even the fellow Malay participants were amazed by their statements.

Anonymous said...

Another correct answer in the MCQ was 'Bukan bumiputra sangat terhutang budi kepada bumiputra'. I'm so ashamed of being a Malaysian!

Anonymous said...

you forgot JPA and MARA scholars. Even b4 we turn 21, we're already filled with all that crap.
Thank God I was so sleep-deprived during the camp that I remember almost nothing of it after 4 yrs. Sigh no wonder they keep making us go.

Anonymous said...

very true, very succesful capmpaign !! i was there....
did u mention about how often everyone smokes ?

Anonymous said...

malaysia has lotsa potentials but policy makers are screwing everything up...

can you imagine BTN speakers welcoming illegal immigrants into sabah, and ugring us to be thankful that there are slaves to serve us? (please bare in mind that they are given IC and will later be 1st class citizen)

and they are breaking up sabahans, instilling ideas like bumiputra are melayu, those who do not take the idea will suffer later.

why? there are "hidup melayu", and not "hidup bumiputera"

can you imagine non locals convert melayu rulling sabahans in the near future in sabah soil?

ignorance is malaysia politic's worst disease...

for god sake wake up sabahans and malaysians

Anonymous said...

Already give up on M'sia under the BN government...

PhD student in Singapore

Anonymous said...

They (UMNO Malays) often ask us to be grateful, then are they grateful enough for what our Chinese Ancestor did for them that came to aid the Malacca Sultanate, protecting their ancestors from being attack by Siam (Thailand) ?

Malay & Chinese are very good friends for more than 450years until UMNO existence screwed us all !

What a stupid program ! F*** UMNO !