Every prime minister has to visit at least two places before a general election, or simply to boost popularity. Within Southeast Asia region, Indonesia is a must visit for a Malaysian premier in order to get the blessing from the country’s president. After all, both countries are part of the same Malay Archipelago and share common historical roots, cultural heritage and religion.
Next stop is the Middle East. The mission is to get the Islamic credential by visiting the Arab world, preferably a photo-op with the King of Saudi Arabia and if possible, his allies in the region such as the UAE (United Arab Emirates), Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan, just to name a few. Saudi is essential due to its status as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.
Armed with a “Malay” credential from Indonesia and an “Islamic” credential from Arab, a Malaysian prime minister can then proceed to hoodwink Malay-Muslim voters with a perception that he is officially recognized as the defender of Malay and the protector of Islam. A visit to Qatar is also necessary because it is the richest country in the Middle East.
That’s why former Prime Minister Najib Razak cooked up the dubious story that the RM2.6 billion he had stolen was a donation from Saudi royal family. Had Najib said the money was a donation from China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iran, his story will sound silly. Former backdoor Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin too had visited Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and UAE last year for the same political purpose.
The current unelected Prime Minister Ismail Sabri, under tremendous pressure to dissolve the parliament and call for the next 15th general election, was also trying to exploit his foreign visits to boost his popularity and legitimacy. Fresh from his tour of Southeast Asia after he was appointed as the prime minister in August 2021, the turtle-egg man has flown to Qatar and UAE (March 27-31).
But both visits to grab his “Malay” and “Islam” credentials have been disaster, to put it mildly. He tried to impress upon President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to accept Bahasa Melayu or Malay language as the second language in Southeast Asia. If the plan is accepted, he would be the greatest Malay hero as no prime ministers had succeeded to do so in the history since independence.
Unfortunately, Sabri’s political stunt was a non-starter and DOA (dead on arrival) when Indonesia’s minister of education, culture, research and technology, Nadiem Makarim, has flatly rejected the use of the Malay language. The Indonesian minister lectured that it should be Indonesian language – not Malay language – that should be the appropriate choice as the official language of ASEAN.
The Malaysia leader’s visit to the UAE was even more humiliating. Ismail Sabri was the only prime minister in the history who had to wait like ordinary folks in the arrival hall for passport and immigration clearance. Worse, there was no security coverage like motorcade and police escort that should be accorded for a foreign prime minister as per standard operating procedure.
So, what the heck actually happened? It was already bad that the premier did not get to rub shoulders with King Salman or Crown Prince Mohammed. It got worse when he was treated like a “nobody” in Dubai, with not even a single UAE official present to greet him. The normal protocol is to send a senior minister of the host country to receive foreign dignitaries.
If would be a consolation if the UAE had sent a “janitor” to greet PM Ismail Sabri, since nobody would notice it anyway because everyone was wearing a face mask. At least, the government-controlled news media can spin and twist that the Gulf state had sent someone. As a result of the extremely embarrassing drama, two senior diplomats in the UAE were ordered home and put in cold storage.
But was it really the fault of Ambassador Tarid Sufian and Consul-General Hasril Abdul Hamid, the only senior Malaysian officers present at the Dubai airport to receive turtle-egg Ismail Sabri? So far, the blame has been put squarely on both senior officers for failing to coordinate administrative and logistical matters during the premier’s visit to the UAE from March 29 to March 31.
The foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday (April 11) – “The failure had resulted in the prime minister having to wait long at the arrival hall for passport and immigration clearance”. The Sabri administration has also blamed the two diplomats for failing to inform the foreign ministry about the World Government Summit, which was held during the Dubai Expo.
The government statement said – “The Wisma Putra leadership only knew about the summit on March 30 through a different source. Should we have been informed of the summit, certainly efforts would have been made so that the prime minister could deliver a speech at the programme”. Nevertheless, PM Ismail managed to attend the closing ceremony of the summit after receiving an invitation to the event.
Firstly, why make the two diplomats stationed in the UAE as the only sacrificial lambs when Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah is fully responsible for the screw-up? Secondly, how could a senior and experienced diplomats like Ambassador Tarid Sufian overlooked important details involving the country’s prime minister? To do so would be tantamount to committing career suicide.
Ambassador Tarid was a career diplomat and joined the Malaysian Administration Diplomatic Sevice in March 1994. He had served as Second Secretary at the Embassy of Malaysia in Philippines and First Secretary in Sudan as well as the Ambassador of Malaysia in Algeria. He became Ambassador of Malaysia in the UAE on September 2019.
This means Mr Tarid was responsible for the Agong’s (King) five-day visit to the UAE in December 2020, not to mention former PM Muhyiddin’s visit to the same country in March 2021. Exactly how could the ambassador successfully manage the official visits of the King Sultan Abdullah and PM Muhyiddin, but somehow failed to so for PM Ismail Sabri?
Even if the diplomat did screw-up, it’s false for Sabri government to claim that it only knew about the summit on March 30 through a different source. What source was the clueless and incompetent government talking about? A simple check with Google shows that as early as March 7, Arab news media had started promoting the World Government Summit, which runs from 29-30 March at Expo 2020 Dubai.
Doesn’t the Prime Minister Office or Ministry of Foreign Affairs have computers or internet to do basic checking? Were all the staffs as clueless as their boss, or had been sleeping on the job? How could the government claim to know only about the summit on March 30 when the PM already knew he would be visiting the UAE from March 29 to March 31, as part of the tour to Qatar and UAE (March 27-31)?
Does it make any sense that the entire delegation was already in Qatar beginning March 27, but none of them knew about the summit until March 30 – three days later? The unfair treatment of the two diplomats apparently has triggered displeasure and anger within the foreign ministry, especially after Foreign Minister Saifuddin’s refusal to protect his own boys.
Another report says the ambassador had actually told Wisma Putra that the UAE government disagreed over the timing of Ismail Sabri’s visit as it would clash with the Dubai World Expo 2021, which attracted hundreds of VIPs from around the world. However, the PM, desperate for the tour to boost his popularity, had refused to consider the advice and bulldozed his visit to the Gulf state.
While the Prime Minister Office can give an ultimatum to the Malaysian diplomats to arrange for the arrival of the PM no matter what the problems are, the diplomats cannot give the same ultimatum to the UAE government. What had transpired could be that Dubai had no time to entertain Sabri’s arrogance and stubbornness, leaving the poor diplomats with the ball in its court.
There’s little doubt that Foreign Minister Saifuddin knew about the problem. The burning question is whether Saifuddin, a member of Bersatu (Malaysian United Indigenous Party), had deliberately sabotaged Ismail Sabri (vice-president of UMNO – United Malays National Organization) or simply did not wish to go against the prime minister, hoping the problem would fix itself.
Mr Saifuddin is quite a useless minister himself. In his attempt to apple polish the prime minister’s desire to make Bahasa Melayu the lingua franca in the region, he sent an official letter in Malay language to the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It was a dumb political stunt as the letter would go straight to the dustbin. He should be grilled to find out whether he did the same with the UAE.
It’s absolutely interesting that the UAE government did not try hard enough to spare an official – any official – to welcome the Malaysian prime minister. Even though the Dubai World Expo 2021 has eaten up resources to accommodate hundreds of VIPs, how many of them were head of state like Ismail Sabri? He is no ordinary VIP, but the prime minister of a Muslim country, albeit an unelected one.
It’s also hard to believe that Dubai did not have any leftover police escort for PM Sabri. Even if there aren’t any junior official or outriders to spare, it was puzzling that the premier, who possessed a diplomatic passport and A-1 Visa, did not enjoy special immigration clearance. It was not a private visit and Sabri’s travel itineraries – security clearance and landing permits – would have to be granted by the UAE beforehand.
Like it or not, it seems the UAE has very little respect for the temporary PM, or did not think he deserved the same treatment as other VIPs from other countries. As a face-saving gesture, a brief meeting with Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum was hastily arranged at the eleventh hour. But the damage has been done. Do you think the Arab will give the same treatment had it been Joe Biden or Xi Jinping?
Perhaps the humiliation is due to a combination of several factors – internal sabotage, incompetence, arrogance and lack of respect for the clueless prime minister. A normal company secretary would have done a better job than the government of Ismail Sabri. The secretary would make sure her boss’ accommodation and travel itineraries are in order before the trip.
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- Even Brother Indonesia Looks Down On “Bahasa Melayu” – When You Step Out Of The Country, Malay Language Is Useless
- 7 New Taxes That Najib & UMNO Plan To Introduce After They Win The 15th General Election
- Malay Dignity – For Lust Of Power, Muhyiddin Was Ready To Free UMNO Crooks Like Najib Back In February
- Terrorist Hadi Wrote A Letter To Scam The Muslim World – Here’s Why The Arab Leaders Would Probably Laugh At Him
- Change Of Story – PAS Holy Men Have New Tales Why They Rewarded Themselves With Mercedes & RM50,000 Cash
- Forget Khat Jawi – Vietnam The Top Producer Of Programmers, Even Myanmar Has Started Computer Coding For Kids
- Obsolete Education System & Racial Politics – Reasons Malaysia Will Miss Major Spoils Of US-China Trade War
- Global University Employability Ranking 2018 – Only Singapore & Japan In Top-10 Among Asia’s Best Uni
- Only Extremist & Racist Would Feel Inferior And Lack Of Confidence Over UEC Recognition
- Mahathir Should Leverage His Popularity To Promote Meritocracy – NOT Racism – For The Sake Of The Malays
- This Chart Shows How Najib Drove The Country To RM1 Trillion In Debt
|
|
April 13th, 2022 by financetwitter
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When that Middle Eastern religion advises its followers to go to China and learn from the country, there’s no point going to the Middle East to gain any credential to look religious. All that is required is the simple action of just going to China. That way one can show at least there’s some understanding of the holy message dear to the hearts of the followers of the faith since ancient times. In fact, the beginning.
The reverence shown rather recently by a bunch of Arab heads of state when they trudged along to China to meet up with Xi while some seniors among them had even refused to come to the phone when Sleepy Joe rang goes a long way to show what China means to them Arabs. And you only need to visit China to see the multitude of Arabs openly showing deep respect and affection for China. The Saudis have China build its high-tech dream chain of cities, the Chinese to build its missile system, the UAE are buying Chinese trainer fighter aircrafts, and among other projects wonderful and even weird, Qatar has its royal guards of honour trained by the Chinese and even using the music of the People’s Liberation Army!
Malaysia is fortunate at being closer to China than to the Middle East, going to China is less of a hassle, our own Sleepy Moe needs only to rouse our men in Beijing to get out of bed, work their fingers, read the email in the inbox to know too late to go the airport to help get our PM past immigration.
The most obvious and the simplest reasons would answer the question why our men in the Middle East fcuked up with not appearing at the airport, they obviously and simply were the usual too fcuking lazy and rubbish at their job, they never read the emails or even opened the inbox. Not doing that and not replying to emails are the must-have essential qualities of Malaysians – even those that are not yet quite dead. It is very difficult to tell the almost-living and the confirmed dead in Bolehland.
Of course Malaysia being a sh*thole country of no consequence, the UAE may not bring out their guards of honour and Chinese military music to greet our PM. And, of course, Malaysia is not China, the ruler of UAE is looking forward very much to Xi visiting, in a previous visit, the ruler took Xi home to be at home with his family in his living room, that’s how chummy the UAE’s ruler plays it. So the alternative reason to the UAE’s headman not showing up at the airport could be the rich fella having to choose between going to the stable to his horses or to the airport for our Sleepy Moe. In the end the UAE ruler settled for a day with his camels.
It may even be our men in the desert did inform the UAE side of the visit by our Premier but them Arabs replied with a “Fcuk off!” Our men in the desert were too afraid to tell our PM that, and, as usual, played dead. This is highly possible, the Arabs generally have very little respect for Malaysians and Malaysia, when our pious wans show the Arabs their Muslim credentials, the Arabs always scoff at the poor ability our chosen wans have with their crap grasp of Arabic. The Arabs definitely have more love for the commie and atheist Chinese.
If an election is coming up and the kampong folks need to be impressed, I’d have suggested our ineffectual wans go to China and fulfill the holy instructions to “go as far as China to learn from the Chinese” than to go to the Middle East to be spat on by some camels – or to be shamed because our men in the desert cocked up so badly they didn’t even remember to get out of bed that day our own Sleepy Moe was held up by UAE immigration because nobody knew who he was or could care less he was from Malaysia Where. Btw, weren’t there complaints about our men in Ukraine over the evacuation effort – or rather, lack of?
Hardly much point making any show over the faith, the Saudi ruler got rid of the Hadiths, central to the interpretation, or some say, contradictions – or even corruption of the Quran. For those who keep the Hadiths, what Saudi Salman did was heretical, while for others it was earth-shattering, effectively castrating the confusing and often dumb manual for misunderstanding the Arabic Manual for Life.
Our witless followers of other people’s faith simply failed to see the great significance of what Salman boneSAW did. Or those who did, had the testicle to rise up and challenge the prince. Or maybe our pious lot of religious fakes simply do not have the practical ability with enough Arabic to discuss or debate the scriptures or to buy turtle eggs in the desert. Or get past immigration.
Instead of visiting Saudi Arabia to show piety, religiosity or whatever to other people’s religion, Malaysian pretenders to the religion should be gravely shocked by the action of the prince, for those unquestioning sheep and questionable meek kambing followers among our unthinking, castrating the Hadiths would mean the age-old confusion of interpretations by ancient experts of the scriptures would have to be replaced by our very own home-grown organic free-range confusion, these grow in abundance in Bolehland but to begin with our pious wonders hardly manage the difficult Arabic to get anywhere with the huge blessed confusion of the religion.
Once wan understands what I am saying, those who want to pursue further that other people’s religion would find themselves becoming sillier and sillier eventually turning into ridiculous appropriately-attired desert folks on the way to Gagaland.
For those who do not understand what “other people’s religion” means, the Big Woman up the Sky said She would send messengers who speak the appropriate tongues to all countries to deliver Her Word. Up to now, there has been no FoodPanda or Grab biker messenger that has done that even in the Indonesian tongue. Even our mullah Hardy hasn’t received the Word in our primitive speak from the Big Woman up the Sky, let alone mullah Laurel. Some have contradicted The Word of the Alamighty by claiming that adequate translations have been made of Arabic into other tongues. That’s a great big pile of bollocks. There are, to begin with, already at least 26 Arabic versions of the Word! So where do you even begin?
Clearly, the Alamighty must dislike Malaysians. She tells all to go to China to learn from the Chinese, the Arabs have dutifully being doing that, and our morons bugger off to the UAE to get ignored by them Arabs! The Big Woman up the Sky has also cursed us continuously with crap, crooked and corrupt mullahs and politicians only. Worse of all, we have only the pretend-religious and pirated copies of Arabs and Afghans to stake our claim to being religious. You can trust our morons to bugger off to the deserts and not get picked up by camels at the airport, while the Word is to go to China to get educated by the Chinese.
Mullah Hardy is Hardy, the rest of the Ollies and Alis are also Hardy – and Laurel too, wtf! Centuries ago, the Arabs even consulted the Chinese about thelr holy book! Before you shag yourself coming up with anything racist about the Chinese, go do a bit of research about that!
None of any classic stupidity we have with our diplos would have happened if they were sent to China to learn from the Chinese. They wouldn’t have gone to the wrong airport the wrong day to greet our commander-in-chief. Remember wan of our diplos parked his ass on some woman’s porch and deposited his wisdom the doorstep in the anals of our history books, and in the anals of international relations… it was said by some of our legal bigwigs he was practising a pagan ritual, wtf, it forced some poor terrified Oz woman to come on television to protest the Grab delivery, wtf!
True followers of Bolehland, especially our leaders, should lecture the Saudis about adherence to the Hadiths, simply going to the desert patch to get the cred that wan is faithful to the religion to flaunt to our sheep while not defending the holy Hadiths is totally unacceptable as the profession of faith in Bolehland has not rejected the other just as confusing main part of the holy scriptures, there is no “Quran only” following in Bolehland where one can stick with wan part of the confusion only. And Bolehland are still very much in love with money from the Saudis, you don’t tell your benefactors they don’t know their religion.
Given the kind of government and civil service we have, I wouldn’t have made a fuss about not being greeted at the airport – and not being able to hold up ambulances in an unlikely motorcade. I would have forgiven the two fcuking clowns, it’s a fcuking gomen and a civil service, wtf otherwise can you expect? Can you hatch golden eggs from our rotten turtle eggs?
I’d leave out the Malay “language” thing for this epistle, save to say the Indonesian tongue has my support, it sounds better – and the Indonesians are way more civilised folks – they don’t torture our maids – ok, they don’t have our maids they have to rouse every morning to get out of bed…