THORN IN EVERYONE’S SIDE: Controversial blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin is no stranger to controversy. Known as RPK, he in now in exile in the United Kingdom. Lately, he has come under opposition attack for doing a U-turn by apparently supporting the man he once opposed — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
In an email interview with NST, he gave a candid response to that and other issues that put him under close scrutiny — from both sides of the political fence. He recently claimed that he was followed by MACC men when he was in Bangkok. Following are excerpts of the interview.
Q: At one time, between 2004 and 2008, you used to be called the most influential blogger in Malaysia. Now, since 2010, they call you the most hated blogger, turncoat, traitor, and so on. What do you have to say about that?
A:I studied Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion (at Oxford University) and in both these courses, you cannot avoid studying Plato and his student, Aristotle, who, in turn, taught Alexander the Great subjects such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Zoology, Botany, Psychology, Political Theory, Ethics, History, Literary Theory, and so on.
Of course, I studied these courses when I was already above 60 years of age, so it was not for career progression purposes I took these courses, but to help me better understand life and how we should look at life. It also helped me to question established doctrine, which we never questioned before mainly because we were taught not to question certain things. It was around that time, 2010 to 2011, that I began to question many things involving politics and religion. I no longer accepted what could be described as mainstream beliefs. Some consider me a murtad (an apostate) from Islam and others regard me as a murtad from the opposition, or Reformasi cause.
I suppose even people like Galileo Galilei, Martin Luther, Henry VIII, and so on, were condemned for what was considered their unorthodox views. So what more for an insignificant person like me? I mean, even Alexander was considered unorthodox, and today we call him Alexander the Great. So, I suppose, if you want to achieve greatness, then you must be unorthodox and not remain mainstream.
And this is what the opposition cannot accept about me, my unorthodoxness. And that was why they opposed the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) when it was launched in late 2010. They did not know what to expect and it is a natural human instinct to fear the unknown. So, they opposed the MCLM and condemned me for what they viewed as an attempt at creating competition for the opposition. This is just like those people of olden days who insisted that the world was flat and feared venturing too far from shore in case they fell off the earth. Basically, it is all about ignorance. And, when people are steeped in ignorance, they also fear the truth. They find comfort in hiding behind lies and fallacies. They indulge in wishful thinking and become delusional. So when I revealed the truth behind the real face of the opposition, and when I exposed (Datuk Seri) Anwar Ibrahim for the fraud that he is, the opposition cannot accept this truth.
As what Aristotle taught, if you want to discover the truth, then you must first lay down all the facts and sieve through them to separate the wheat from the chaff. You apply logic, which you learn in philosophy, to analyse and evaluate information and subject it to an acid test. Twisted logic and fallacies can never survive that test and will disintegrate as you pursue the truth. And, when you apply these high standards to analyse what the opposition says and does, they fail the test miserably. And, this is what upset the opposition. They are supposed to be the upholders of the truth, and yet I can prove that they lie at every twist and turn. I strip them naked and I expose these lies. The opposition claims to be saints. The opposition claims to be godsent. The opposition claims to be fighting for a noble and virtuous cause. Hence, the opposition has to be subjected to a higher moral standard, since it is claiming the moral high ground. And, since the opposition claims to be far better and far superior than the government, then it has to pass that higher acid test. Unfortunately, they do not, and when I prove they do not, they get very angry with me because I have just proven that the opposition are mere frauds and snake oil merchants. And, the truth hurts, so they hate me for getting hurt. And when they cannot counter what I say because what I say is true, they resort to slander and character assassination, the only thing they know how to do best.
Q: The main “complaint” against you is that you have done a U-turn and that you now support the man you used to oppose, meaning (Datuk Seri) Najib (Razak). What do you have to say about that?
A: Actually, John Berthelsen of Asia Sentinel asked me that same question. After I sent him an email pointing out the errors in his latest article (“Malaysia’s Najib-Mahathir ‘Guerrilla War’ Heats Up”) he sent me a reply saying, “Noted. So what made you change course and embrace one of the most corrupt politicians in Asia, if not the world?” I replied to Berthelsen saying that it was Anwar Ibrahim who first declared war on me in 2010. I have, in fact, written about this many times. But it appears even clever people like Berthelsen cannot understand the issue unless I repeat it 10 or 20 times. They still ask me questions to something that I had already replied to so many times.
Anyway, what is wrong with opposing Anwar? Is that as sinful as leaving Islam and declaring that you no longer believe that Prophet Muhammad is not the Prophet of God? Even if I do leave Islam and declare that I no longer believe in Prophet Muhammad, is that not my right? Is that not called freedom of choice and civil liberties, which the opposition and people like John Berthelsen of Asia Sentinel are fighting for?
The trouble with white people like Berthelsen and those non-governmental organisation types from the opposition is that they think only they are right. If we do not agree with what they believe, we are wrong.
In case you may have forgotten, one of the key issues in my disagreement with Anwar was his “agree to disagree” policy, and his refusal to resolve many disagreements in the opposition, hudud being one of them. I said if he did not address this issue, then one day soon, Pakatan would disintegrate.
And, for that, he attacked me. And, now, have I not been proven right? Has Pakatan not disintegrated? So, why can’t I oppose Anwar when he is the cause of the disaster and when I had already warned him and he declared war on me because I had brought his matter up?
Remember, I did not declare war on Anwar. He declared war on me. I am just responding to a declaration of war. And, is this not my right? It is just like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad declaring war on Najib. Is it not Najib’s right to destroy Dr Mahathir and any others who are in the enemy camp?
So, tell me, what is the issue here? Is the issue: others can whack you but you must just take it and not hit back? What is wrong with these opposition people? Mat Sabu (Mohamad Sabu) calls Malays stupid for not supporting his party, Amanah, which could not even get 500 people to attend a rally in front of Sungai Buloh Prison. He was so angry he went berserk and could not control himself. He even threw the microphone down.
Pas’ (Datuk) Mahfuz Omar has meetings with Dr Mahathir and Tun Daim Zainuddin to see how he could help bring Najib down. And, the pictures go viral on the Internet. Should Mahfuz not be more concerned about DAP trying to destroy his party, Pas, and his party president, (Datuk Seri ) Abdul Hadi Awang?
Then Pas deputy president (Datuk) Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man says they can never work with Umno because Umno will not support hudud. But, they have no problems working with DAP that also opposes hudud and that supported the creation of Amanah, which is supposed to replace Pas in the opposition coalition.
I can go on and on, and list the many issues and take up 10 pages of your newspaper, if you want me to. But the point is: is this the opposition you are telling me I should support? The opposition has become a circus and only circus clowns would work for a circus. And, I am not a circus clown. I would like to believe I have better brains than that.
Q: The one issue that affects your credibility the most is your
U-turn on the Statutory Declaration (SD) that you signed in June 2008. You said (Datin Seri) Rosmah (Mansor) was at the scene of Altantuya (Shaariibuu)’s murder and then you retracted that SD. What is your comment on that?
A:First of all, you cannot retract an SD. Once filed, it remains filed. The SD no longer belongs to you but to the court where you filed it. You can, however, if you want, sign a new SD to update the earlier SD or to correct the errors in the first one. I never retracted the SD or signed a second one. There is only that one SD. The only thing I did was to explain what I said in the SD to correct the wrong perception that people had.
Within a day after I filed that SD, the then attorney-general and inspector-general of police, (Tan Sri Abdul) Gani Patail and (Tan Sri) Musa Hassan, respectively, announced that I had filed a false SD accusing Rosmah of being at the scene of the crime and that they were going to arrest and charge me. Gani and Musa were two people whom I had attacked regarding the lawyer Rosli Dahlan and (then) Commercial Crime Investigation Department chief (Datuk) Ramli Yusuff case. So, in that sense, it was very personal and they were out to get me like they were out to get Rosli Dahlan and Ramli.
Then, I was arrested and charged for the crime of alleging that Rosmah was at the scene of the murder. But, then, I did not make that allegation and I told the court that. I explained to the court that the charge against me was defective and mala fide. I was being charged for a crime I had never committed.
The press gallery was full of reporters at the time, and they asked me why I had said that the charge against me was defective and mala fide. I then explained that I had actually said in the SD that the No. 2 in the Special Branch of Military Intelligence had alleged that Rosmah was there. I stated in my SD that this was the allegation and that the police should investigate this to determine whether it was true or not.
But, then, the way the (then) A-G and IGP said it, it was as if I was the one making that allegation, which was not true. But, then, they had to say this to justify my arrest and to make the charge stick. If not, then, they could not arrest or charge me. And, that was the reason I told the judge that the charge against me was defective and mala fide.
And, I still maintain my stand until today that I never said that Rosmah was at the scene of the murder. In fact, since then, in November 2008, five months after I signed the SD, I came into possession of photographs that proved Rosmah was at a function attended by hundreds of orphans at the Tabung Haji building the night of Altantuya’s murder. So, that means she could not have been at the scene of the murder.
Q: But the question still remains that you did not really know whether what your source revealed to you was true or not and yet you still signed that SD. Can you explain why?
A:Well, any journalist or citizen journalist, such as bloggers, will tell you that you need to trust your source. And, my source was someone I had known since I was 13, which is more than 50 years ago. I have known this chap for longer than I know my wife. But when this chap, who works for Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, first told me the story, I did not believe it. I found it far-fetched that someone like the deputy prime minister’s wife would trek so far into the jungle to murder someone. I mean, without any disrespect intended, you need to be fit to trek into the jungle, especially late at night. So, I asked Tengku Razaleigh about this matter, and he confirmed the story. And, then, I asked Anwar about it as well and he, too, confirmed the story. I had already made my statement to the police when they interrogated me about my “crime”, and that was what I told the police as well.
Fellow blogger Din Merican can, in fact, confirm this. Tengku Razaleigh and Anwar both told me that the No. 2 in the Special Branch of the Military Intelligence was a strong opposition supporter who had, in the 2008 general election, helped with a lot of information that had helped the opposition.
So, with the confirmation from Tengku Razaleigh and Anwar, that gave me the confidence to sign that SD. But, even then, I got a lawyer to draft the SD for me, because this was based merely on hearsay and I was not a witness to the events. And that is why there is no way that I could have made any allegation against Rosmah, since I was not a witness, but my information is based on hearsay. How can you allege something you never saw but what someone said?
The chap working for Tengku Razaleigh wanted me to sign the SD so that Najib could be blocked from becoming prime minister. By then, we already knew that Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was going to resign. At first, Dr Mahathir had agreed that Tengku Razaleigh would take over as prime minister. However, Tengku Razaleigh did not agree to Dr Mahathir’s terms, so he dumped Tengku Razaleigh and chose Najib instead. Our opinion was that it was not so much that Dr Mahathir loved Najib more than Tengku Razaleigh, but that Dr Mahathir feared Tengku Razaleigh more than he feared Najib. Dr Mahathir and Tengku Razaleigh have a lot of history and bad blood, and it would have been payback time.
So, our job was to try to sabotage Najib and get him disqualified so that Tengku Razaleigh could take over as prime minister from Abdullah. And that was the reason for the SD — to throw a spanner in the works — and it almost worked if not for the fact that Rosmah had an alibi the night Altantuya was murdered and had hundreds of witnesses to back up her alibi.
The thing is, the police also have copies of these photographs, so what is puzzling is why do they not show these photographs to the public? Maybe it is because, as what the No. 2 in the Special Branch said (and publicly and openly on top of that), they supported Dr Mahathir and opposed Najib. Well, this is what he said, not me. But, then, this shows that the Special Branch and many other government agencies are playing politics. And, the opposition welcomes this just as long as it favours the opposition, but they get upset if it favours the government. This, again, is the double standards and hypocrisy that the opposition demonstrates. You can abuse your power if the opposition benefits, but not if it favours the government.
Q: You mentioned earlier about John Berthelsen of Asia Sentinel and about you sending him an email pointing out the errors in his latest article (“Malaysia’s Najib-Mahathir ‘Guerrilla War’ Heats Up”). What is that all about?
A: Well, John Berthelsen’s article says that I suddenly became very rich and opened a restaurant in Manchester and bought a brand new BMW after I started working for Najib in June last year. Actually, the BMW is not brand new and was not bought recently. It is a second-hand car and was bought a couple of years ago.
In the UK, even students, and even students on scholarships as well, mind you, own second-hand BMWs. So, it is not a big deal. I actually managed to buy that BMW with absolutely no downpayment. I just traded in my old Mini, which I also bought second-hand when I first arrived in the UK in 2009. Cars, especially second-hand cars, are so cheap here that you can own a good car with just six months’ salary — which in Malaysia would cost you 10 years or more of your salary.
So, Sarawak Report, Malaysiakini, Malaysia Chronicle, The Malaysian Insider, Asia Sentinel, and so on, are trying to suggest that I was a poor beggar when I first came to the UK and survived on donations from Anwar and his friends, but suddenly became very rich last year when I started to support Najib.
So, I sent John an email telling him that I sold my semi-detached house in Bukit Rahman Putra in Sungai Buloh (where even just a terrace house can cost more than
RM1 million) to set up the family kopitiam in Manchester. I also told him that he should not assume I am bangsat just because I am not a white man like him. I told him my uncle used to be the Agong, while the sultan of Selangor is my cousin. So, I am not as bangsat as that white man in Asia Sentinel or that white woman in Sarawak Report is trying to suggest.
That is the trouble with these people. They think that just because you do not support the opposition or you support the government, that can only mean one thing: and that one thing is you are bangsat and you are doing this because you need the money. It never occurred to them that we are supporting the government because we want to make sure that the Chinese DAP-led opposition does not grab power and set up a Chinese DAP-dominated government with Malays from Amanah and PKR as their proxies and puppets. And, when I say that, they call me a racist. So, I am a Malay nationalist. So what? Why does that make me a racist? The Scots, Welsh and Irish are nationalists as well. My mother was Welsh and she was a nationalist. Whenever anyone asked my mother whether she was English (Malaysians assume if you are from the UK, that means you are English) she would indignantly say, “No! I am Welsh.” She would feel insulted if you called her English. So, my mother taught me that there is nothing wrong with being a nationalist and you should be proud of it. So, I am a nationalist Malay and am proud of it. And, if you find that offensive, that is your problem, not mine. First, close down all Chinese and Tamil schools before coming to talk to me about “there should be no Malays, Chinese and Indians, but only Malaysians”.
Let me repeat that. I am a Malay nationalist and I will never accept a Chinese DAP-led government with Malays from PKR and Amanah as proxies and puppets. These Malays are what Chinese would normally call running dogs. Go ask any Chinese what the term “running dogs” means and they will enlighten you.
Chin Peng used to tell the Chinese that you must support the CPM (Communist Party of Malaya) or else you are a traitor to the Chinese race. Today, DAP tells the Chinese you must support Pakatan or else you are a traitor to the Chinese race. So, why can’t I tell the Malays you must support Umno or else you are a traitor to the Malay race? What makes them right and me wrong?
Enough of this nonsense! They can remain fools if they want to, but do not expect me to also join this gang of fools. If not, then my father would have wasted his time sending me to Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) to get educated. And, I come from three generations of MCKK students and am proud of it. And, in MCKK, they taught us how to be proper Malays, which many Malays now do not know how to be.