The Americans, and now the British, accept as their credo that they do not pay bribes, nor ransoms. They find other means to do so. When I was working for the Malay Mail 35 years ago, I asked an Australian business man how much bribe he was prepared to pay. He said on the surface none, since that was paid by his local agent. He said: "Nothing can be got without a bribe, in Australia or South East Asia." When I lived in the United States in 1976, a town council official, who I knew, accepted a bribe in my presence. He said he accepted the bribe not to lower the standards, but so that he would go early than late to the man's residence. That, I suppose, is all right. That is, in the American credo, not corruption. Hmm!

Rightly, Malaysia insisted on a share of that profits. Another public relations barrage attacked Malaysia for asking a share of the profits. But Singapore is on the defensive. It knows it cannot look Malaysia in the eye. There is talk of invading Malaysia. The crooked bridge is not as fanciful or odd as it seems. This would prevent a Singapore army from ever invading Malaysia. They do not have the ingenuity of the Japanese army, who finding the Australian sappers had bombed the causeway, crossed into the island from Johore Bahru by cross the channel on bicycles with propellers. The British were sure the Japanese would attack the island in conventional ways, had all its heavy guns trained outside, when the Japanese army caught them unawares from behind.

There is one example from those days. Tun Lim Yew Hock, had been found holed up in a boarding house with an Australian dancer when he was Malaysian high commissioner to Australia. There was much debate in Parliament, and the opposition catigated the government, with the attack led by the then "Mr Opposition", Tan Sri Tan Chee Khoon. Tengku Abdul Rahman was Prime Minister. He allowed the debate to go on for while when he stood up to reply. He said all of the MPs made mistakes and did what Tun Lim did in Australia, and challenged any in the House to stand up who did not do what Tun Lim had done. After a pause, and in pindrop silence, with every MP looking at each other, Dr Tan stood slowly up. No one else did. The Tengku defused the situation by telling Dr Tan that he felt sorry for him. The whole House burst into laughter, and a tense confrontation was defused! This is not possible now.

Dato' Ibrahim asked for two conditions for withdrawal: he be reinstated as Pasir Mas UMNO divisional chief, to which he had been elected, and Pak Lah had removed him; and Dato' Annuar Musa be removed as UMNO chief for Kelantan. He went off for his daughter's graduation in Australian, and on his return, met Tan Sri Rashid, who in the meanwhile had presented Dato' Ibrahim's conditions to Pak Lah, who was not agreeable to Dato' Ibrahim being Pasir Mas UMNO chief but agreed to sack Dato' Annuar Musa as UMNO chief in Kelantan. Dato' Ibrahim Ali stood as a candidate in Pengkalen Pasir, and got what was predicted for him by the Election Commission. The Election Commission was in full force in Pengkalen Pasir to see that he also did not get more, besides seeing that PAS did not win the seat. PAS had won the seat before the postal votes were counted but the Postal Votes edged UMNO in, but after more votes than allowed were counted.

THERE Australian OUTCRY ON Singapore's anticipated hanging of an Australian of Vietnamese origin is expected. There was a similar outcry over Malaysia hanging two Australian Caucasians. There is no difference in the outcry. The Australians have found reasons for the media that the trials were unfair. But they make no such claim when Singaporeans, Malaysians, Thailand, Vietnamese citizens are hanged. Their attitude is they deserved it, and they were not 'our' citizens anyway. There is much wrong in the way death sentences are handed out in these two countries, and many have kept their date with the hangman innocent. So what is special about Western and Australian citizens hanged in Singapore and Malaysia? Nothing, only that these countries are the prostitutes of globalisation and should know their place. They should not upset on the West or Australia by hanging one of their citizens. Malaysia defied that, during Tun Mahathir's term as prime minister, by hanging two Australians and one Englishman. Singapore makes an issue once in a while, jailed an Englishman for breaking Singapore laws, sent an American home when he has sure of being convicted under drug laws and hung. The Australians are not interested if one of their citizens who is not Caucasian, and so he will be hung. As he should be. No country, not even a prostitute of globalisation, should be deterred against carrying out its laws. The death sentences for carrying minute amounts of drugs was put into the law books, in Singapore and Malaysia, at the West's insistence. It is now a problem in these countries, given their unfairness, that death sentences are carried out in secret, and the Malaysians know of it usually only after the fact. It a political issue here so it is kept hidden. In contrast, the Australian leaders are on the defensive that one of its citizens, a model, found with banner drugs in Indonesia, is in fact a Muslim.

Dato' Aziz's conviction represents what is wrong with people of other races becoming Malay and what their place is in the scheme of things in Malaysia. He is neither fish nor fowl, when pushed to a corner. He thought he was buying protection by doing wrong at the politician's bidding but found out too late that his minister was more important to be in jail than he. In Malaysia, the Muslim takes preference. In the past, it would be the Malay, Chinese and then Indian. Now it lis the Malay Muslim, other Muslims, Chinese and Indian. The recent decision of the authorities to seek an English or Australian to hed MAS was taken to prevent a Chinese or Indian Malaysian to take up the job. It was no so in the past. The change came after the racial riots in 1969. From that time, as part of Malayisation, the Chinese and Indian were weeded out of top posts in civil, government service, or government-linked companies. In the New Straits Times, the editor-in- chief is criticised for bringing in Indians into top positions. The Malays have proved they can't handle the job, and the new man, politically and racially acceptable but an Indian all the same, is blamed for not giving Malays jobs. His family was probably a Muslim years before his attackers among the Malays became Muslims. But that does not matter. It is important Malays must hold all senior positions, it does not matter if they are inefficient. If a non-Malay became a Muslim to rise in his job, he will fall by the wayside as Dato' Aziz has done. The Islamic faith will not protect as it has not Dato' Aziz although he was already a Muslim.

AL-QAEDA SUICIDE BOMBERS ARE blamed for bombing three Amman hotels. Abu Musab Al-Zarkawi, who is believed to be dead, is the agent directly responsible, the television news and talk shows try desperately to inform the world that this bombings are the trade mark of Al-Qaeda. There is great effort to blame Al-Qaeda for the bombing although there is no hard evidence. But the United States and others have decided that Al-Qaeda is responsible. And that gets world wide play. But is it? Jordan is a soft target who could cause mayhem in the West's war on terror. Iraq is to the left of it, Syria to the north, Israel to the East. It need not be Al-Qaeda or the believed dead Al-Zarkawi, it could be any of the myriad of countries and organisations that could be responsibe. It could also be the West, which is why the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which we are told can investigate it, is rushing to Amman to aid the Jordanian authorities. But is the FBI going there as the Australian police authorities are going to Bali to help the Indonesian authorities investigate the bombing in Bali: to remove the evidence of their involvement?

The West thinks it can ask Muslim nations, those who support it, to treat Muslims as they have often been treated by these governments. But they forget that these Western nations, like those of old, adopt Islamic methods of punishment. The prisoners at Guantanamo prison and the British ulltra-legal methods are contrary to their legal system, and are adapted from the Islamic brethren. Aft the earlier crusades, from Pope Urban II's in 1089, the Christians learnt from the Moslems, as they have in the latest Crusade as President Bush put it. Though what the Western nations have taken to heart is what they reject. It is Islam's great fault, but now it is the Christian nations' fault as well. No one talks of it, but it is a fact that the Christian nations of the West have taken to heart all the things they criticised in the past. Is the West telling us that education teaches us to be cruel to our fellow men? On the other hand, Muslim nations are blamed for what they do at the West's behalf. I happen to know the background, most of which still confidential, of Malaysia and Indonesia's role in East Timor. It was egged on by the United States, Great Britain and Australia, among others, and the two nations did a creditable job. But the Western nations turned against Malaysia and Indonesia after East Timor had become independent, and it was these countries that were blamed, and discredited. Even by Great Britain, the United States and Australia. We now know why. It was to enable an Australian firm to grab the oil revenues between East Timor and Austria. It was important at that time of Portugal discarding its last two enclaves, Macao and East Timor, of those in Macao, and therefore the Chinese, coming freely to East Timor and going freely into Indonesia. It was the time of the clash between capitalism and communism, and countries were either with the West or with the others. Malaysia and Indonesia acted on the side of the West, and were blamed for being colonialists after the threat was over.

There is an Australian researcher in town looking at the early foundantion of ASEAN, and speaking to the people involved in it, and I have accompanied her on many occasions, the story she got was not what the printed records of historians and researchers reveal. So, which are theories, and which facts? Or do participants lose their objectivity 40 years after the event, and it is the historian and the book writer of the period who has the facts correct? There is a fetish about "correctness" of facts, but how historians and journalists get their facts correct is by going to who is in authority and take their word for it. They do not delve into events beyond what they cannot see. Four days after the Bali bombings last week, it is a replay of events three years ago at the Bali bombings, but the reporting is the same. There is no attempt at anaysis, except to blame Al Qaeda and its fraternal organisations. Indonesia is not allowed to conduct its own inquiries, Australia, like the Bali bombings in 2002, have offered to 'help' Indonesia to solve the 'crime". But is Australia coming in to help or to rub out its own involvement? We do not know if Australia is involved, but reporters were quick to blame Al Qaeda and its fraternal organisations. And they would not blame Al Qaeda and others if the Western embassies do not say so. (I have worked for Reuters, and I could not write a story until a Western embassy 'confirmed' it.) It has to do with the war in Iraq and the war on terror. It is not going well, as any invasion would not, but it is going worse than in Vietnam. Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country, and it was important to the 'West' it is on board. So pressure is put on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyone and his governent, and the result is conflict between the Indonesian people and its government, just as there is in Pakistan.

TUN MAHATHIR GOT IT RIGHT. He did not apportion blame on the Bali bombings to Al Queda or the Jemayah Islamiyah or to other Muslim groups. But the ease with which both these organisations were blamed, and that this has been on the news particularly round-the- clock ever since the bombings last week, and the defensive posture of the Indonesian government followed by the British blaming the Australians for not letting it know of its 'early warning' to Australian revellers in Bali, and the constant berating of those who would listen that Al-Qaeda was involved, suggests something has gone wrong. The Western governments, or its intelligence agencies, are behind it, and keep at it because the people on the ground in Indonesia and elsewhere do not believe the events in Bali last week. The United States (and Australia, among others) created incidents in South Vietnam in the 1960s, blaming it on the Vietcong. There is no unanimity among Western reporters that Al Qaeda was involved, Jason Burke of the Guardian thought that Al Qaeda could not be involved, and the discordant voices in the Western media is matched by the ordinary people around the world, Muslim or otherwise, having doubts on the official story of the Bali bombing.

The eerie silence in Sangkancil today is but a reflection on Malaysian society. When a young Australian-based Malay researcher found evidence of a civilisation in the rain forested jungles of Kota Tinggi in Johor that could push Malaysia's history back to its Hindu past in the first millennium, his find was lauded for a few days, and then ignored. Those who lauded him soon found excuses not to. The weight of the bigots and vigilantes made that certain. They do not want a history of Malaysia beyond the 15th century when Islam first came to Malaysia. All history before that is verboten. Their single-minded obsession holds even Malay culture and Islam to ransom. If Islam conflicts with this view, then Islam should be sidelined. So Islam is not a representative in the interfaith commission. Even if it wanted to, it would not be allowed to.

What has come out of this clash is less savoury: the rise of an ideological Islamic fascism, which questions other religions, rewrites history, denigrates non-Malays and non-Muslims. It is not yet the force it threatens to, but if unchecked, and with UMNO and PAS unwilling to, it could emerge as a third force in Malaysian politics to which the Muslims and non-Muslims, the Malay and non-Malay, would live in fear. One saw a whisp of this when a young Australian-based Malaysian amateur archeologist found evidence of a pre-Islamic civilisation in the jungles of Johore. The euphoria of the news, and political and intellectual pride it brought lasted no more than a few days, after which no one of any note would even talk of it. On the several Internet newsgroups and weblogs, any mention of Islam, however casually, is enough for this group to emerge.

Unless Pak Lah decides he is primus inter pares in UMNO and as prime minister, governs by consensus. allows constitutional formalities to be followed, nothing would change. He could start by allowing the Sultan of Selangor to decide who should be Dato' Seri Khir's succesor. If that is too drastic, allow the state assembly to elect whom it wants as mentri besar. He succeeded Dato' Seri Abu Hassan, who was forced out of office after his creative matrimonial arrangements came to light, a new broom, as it were, after Tan Sri Mohamed Taib resigned after his Australian caper. A man untouched by scandal was called for to succeed him. Tun Mahathir found him in his son's choice: Dato' Seri Khir. His successor is probably the man who missed out when Dato' Seri Khir was anointed. That is, if the prime minister would break out of his belief he must control every detail in his vast domain. Then he could at least hope of remaining prime minister beyond the UMNO party election in 2007.

They knew UMNO would cast him to the wolves, hedged their bets, and hoped they would be selected to replace him. In the past 35 years, Selangor had had four mentris besar, of whom only one – Dato' Seri Hormat Raffei – left office with his head high: one went to jail, one was forced out after he was caught with RM2.4 million ringgit worth of foreign currency which he did not declare to the Australian customs, and Dato' Seri Khir would be for his mishandling of the Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam park.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Asia Pacific TV ABC AP TV

Who found the cracks? German and Australian consultants. When things go wrong, we rush to the nearest foreign expert for help. But should it not be the responsibility of who built it and their consultants – Bumi Hiway, Sukmin and KKMJB on plans drawn by the engineering firm of Maunsell, Sharma and Zakaria Sdn Bhd? Dato' Seri Samy Vellu tries to excuse this consortium from blame. And let the government be held responsible.

Capt. Chandran, 24, passed out of Portsea, the Australian Sandhurst, and, according to his friends, meticulous and painstaking to a fault. When he investigated - or, in military slang, recce'd - reports of an MCP presence, he found a well fortified and bunkered camp and between 40 and 60 well-armed men. The 5th Assault Unit was an advance party of the CPM to reinstate their lost strongholds, and had established a beach head at this spot, as they moved south along the Main Range to Cameron Highlands to Pahang, where the 6th Assault Unit was to establish a base in the Tras-Raub area, where in the 1950s, the MCP had a semi-permanent base. Chin Peng was there for a while.

The Gelang Patah-Tuas bridge has opened a new link between the two countries. The Southern Gateway has another unmentioned aim: to allow water to flow through the straits for the first time since 1941, when Australian army sappers blew up the causeway - which until then had a drawbridge to allow free passage of ships through the straits - to deny the invading Japanese troops easy access to the 'impregnable fortress' Britain mistakenly thought Singapore then was. It was not, as later events proved, but that is another story. The Southern Gateway now is an afterthought. Johore feared that if the second link was widely used, Johore Bahru would become a dead town. There was even a suggestion that the Johore capital would be transferred to a Putra Jaya-like capital at the site of the capital of Johore Lama of the 16th century up the Sungei Johore. All that is, it now turns out, the rantings of politicians on the make. And so the Southern Gateway.

AN Australian TV STATION AIRS a documentary which in these days of Washington's war on terror bears little or no relationship to the truth. The United States' sheriff in Asia has to intrude into the region with a blunderbuss, and does not miss a trick to hold Southeast Asia to ransom. So it establishes seigneurial rights in Bali to impose a monument for those who died in a terrorist attack on a Bali night club last year. It would regret this in time to come. When those accused were charged and convicted under an unconstitutional law, about the only people in court to observe the proceedings were Australians, there to ensure that the courts would not do something stupid, like acquitting them for lack of evidence or unconstitutionality. With Indonesia under its belt, the sheriff moves to Malaysia to link it to terror. The SBS TV station aired the sheriff's first salvo on its "Dateline" programme on Wednesday, 22 October 2003, a shoddy piece of work cobbled to help Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, prime minister before this week is out, to destroy his jailed rival and former deputyh prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, but which backfired.

The Alliance, as the BN's predecessor was known then, was as supremely confident in 1969. I covered politics for the Malay Mail then with an Australian reporter and good friend, Michael Quinn, now alas no more. On the morning of the elections, we went to see the Alliance secretary-general, Senator Tan Sri T.H. Tan. The Alliance was so upbeat that many who should have known better talked a clean sweep. When Quinn suggested it would be 80 for the Alliance and I thought 73, we were ushered into Tan Sri Tan's room, who wanted to know how we came to that.

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