This would mean the foreign company is going to be involved what for centuries were in local hands. Even the British in their colonialism did not touch that. In this new world of globalisation, which the National Front government enthusiastically supported, mainly to beat PAS's policies to make life for the rural folk better. But this has now come to its head. Globalisation it supported would result in foreigners controlling what the government does not. Malaysia will produce goods cheaper than the West can for items made there, it would improve its balance of payments, but it would not be in control of the country. This is done in secret, because the only publicity allowed, in its newspapers, actually its public relations arm, is its version of events and policies. The New Straits Times only carries what the Prime Minister and his people say or do; even the deputy minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, is ignored, except when he supports his boss. But this cannot last. It will be a Matter of time before the truth emerges.

I have been allowed into Singapore on a visit pass. specially applied for, from 1971, and banned permanently from 1991. It did not bother me since, an Italian journalist wrote in his book, I had done my shopping. I had written in an Indian paper of Israeli-made Singapore tanks and why they were bought. It was true, but local journalists could not write about it as they can never could get official confirMation. In defence Matters, Singapore is touchy. The speeches I gave to the military staff college here on Singapore led me to be banned from it, a Singapore lecturer was invited to give the lecture instead. I still talk to senior military officials on Singapore privately. Malaysian officials do not want to hurt Singapore even if that makes Malaysia look silly. But is not time for Malaysia to take decisions that are for Malaysia's good and not other countries?

Some of this middle class has provided leadership for the man-in-the-street. More would in time to come. A minister's aide threatened a reporter with detention without trial if she persisted in asking the minister about his mistress and their love house in a housing estate. Pak Lah's relative, who has acquired great wealth illegally by being who he is, now demands he should not be questioned. Any who does is threatened with defaMation or other legal actions. It is a signal that criticisms by the middle class is hurting. But incidents like these will anger the middle class. What happened in Parliament this week is symbolic: debate on what a minister wears is more important than of the Ninth Malaysia Plan. The government could have escaped this had its leaders kept in their mind the importance of the middle class for their survival.

THE NINTH MALAYSIA PLAN causes the spending of about RM200 billion. Yet this is not the major topic in Parliament. A minister's work dress is. It does not Matter if the Ninth Malaysia Plan is discussed as it should, so long as the minutea of the minister's clothes is. So Dato' Rais Yatim is forced to explain why he wears the clothes he does. It shows the utter irrelevance of Parliament in today's Malaysia. What the executive says goes. It does not Matter what Parliament says or does. The executive administration of elected officials in Malaysia has ignored Parliament since 1970, after the racial riots of the previous year. But that is par for the course. In Malaysia, Singapore, and in almost every country that was once a colonial territory. Professor Cyril Northcote Parkinson, of the University of Malaya in Singapore, in the 1950s, wrote of this phenomenon in his Parkinson's Law, where he described this tendency, Where the Matter to be spent runs in the millions, it was settled expeditiously. But when the subject Matter concerned the tea lady, it would be discusssed for hours.

That is a lie because the non-Malay knows he is not welcome. Not so long ago, the best friend of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) was his Indian batch-Mate at police training school, who retired as an assistant superintend of police. So it was in the army.

The British made sure Iraq was kept secular and ruled by the Sunni since l920. It made sure that its prime ministers were Sunni. That was rigorously followed by the leaders who followed. The Americans changed that, and pay the price. The Sunnis – who form a minority in this mosaic of religions – know now they will never get back into power, and destroy what the Americans have not. The oil piplelines are now blown apart. Today, the Americans are on the retreat, do not crow about their 'successes', and are ready to cut and run. It is a failure which has become normal to them: Philippines, Liberia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Vietnam. The freed slaves of America were sent to form the government in Liberia; their descendant rulers were machine gunned on the beach by a native revolt. Whether Saddam Hussein is found guilty or not does not Matter.

But that happened in the Islamic Family Law. This law makes Muslim women second-class citizens, even lower than the non-Malays. The women rebelled. The Pak Lah government, knowing that offending the women will not win elections, ordered an amendment. But it did it so hamfistedly that it creates more doubts. The cabinet minister in charge of women, a woman herself, first spoke with the Islamic authorities about the amendments. Legally, the amendment is flawed. The Islamic Family Law is not yet law. So how can an amendment be passed? But this what happens when every Malay – in Malaysia, he is autoMatically a Muslim – in government, whether minister or civil servant, regards Islam as more important than civil service procedures.

A helicopter accident happened in Nibong Tebal on 30 March 2006. The newspapers reported how Dato' Patrick Lim was so sad about the loss of his friend, Mr Joseph Chan Sum Foo, the general manager of Abad Naluri Sdn Bhd, killed when the rotor blade struck him unexpectedly. Dato' Patrick is executive chairman of Equine Capital Berhad, and known to the cogniscenti as Patrick Badawi, and the Chinese face to his son's Scomi Berhad, one of whose subsidiaries has got the double tracking contract for Malaysian Railways. This company has no experience in rail way construction, but does it Matter in Malaysia? Scomi came into the news a few years ago when the United States objected to Scomi making tubes for a Pakistani nuclear scientist for ultiMate resale to Muslim countries of the Middle East as a component of nuclear weapons. here Front page photographs of Dato' Patrick crying over his friend's body near the helicopter are staged, but that is normal when they believe they are some body or want others to believe they are.

I find calling its help desk often. I have not been lucky to get the person the first time. Each time, I am left holding the telephone, often for ten minutes or longer, hearing the sickening message that "your call is important to us". and being cut off after some time, this time without any apology or message. I have to call again. I have had been cut off two or three times on occasion. AutoMation is introduced in Telekoms, as with other Government Linked Companies and government departments to free the telephone operators from having to speak to callers. This is regarded as being modern. Funny, though, I could get who I wanted when in London, Tokyo, Paris, Washington, even Bangor, Maine, even if I did not get to the operator. I shudder these days of having to call Telekom to report the phone out of order, or to get help. I must first make sure I am not going out in the next two hours, and I have time to waste. It is more important to have labour saving devices, it seems, than find out it if that benefits the public.

We live in an age of public relations. What the spin meisters say is more important than what is. This is true for Malaysia as it is for the United States. What happened is not important, what the spin meister says is. The United States went to war in Iraq on a lie. But the world is told by the United States the lies do not Matter, what was important is that Saddam is gone. In the runup to destroying Iraq, the United States let out that if Iraq continued to be ruled by Saddam it was a disaster for the United States. But is the United States more in more danger after Iraq had been destroyed? American proxies are now in power in Baghdad, those who govern cannot leave the former Saddam administrative centre, the so-called Green Zone, without being armed to the teeth, they do not travel to the countryside, except rarely but only if they watch their step.

But such gathering as yesterday's would not Matter as it is of outsiders in Kuala Lumpur. Some speakers said that similar groups in the state should be enouraged to agree with their views. That is dangerous. There should already be such groups there, in tandem with the capital, that could be brought together to form a united bloc. Any attempt to form it will play into the National Front's scheme of things. This gathering was allowed because the people's problems are put into constitutional focus. It was academic, at best, and what was discussed would never see the light of day. People like to hear contrary views, especially on what the government does, and this was one such. It would not be surprising if the government used the gathering to prove their case.

There has been frequent demonstrations over the fuel price rise, but the media ignores it. That is the work of opposition parties, so says Pak Lah so that Malaysians would know who their enemies are. In any case, discussions and demonstrations of the withdrawal of subsidy is allowed, so long as an official account of Petronas' RM1,000 billion theoretical earnings are not demanded. Since people will protest at rising prices, the National Front government would rather keep the lid on this demonstration than explain what they cannot explain. There are theories where most of that money went, the government – which prides itself as being caring – will be in worse trouble if it explains that. It is reported in the Internet that Petronas has sold petrol to Taiwan until 2010 at a fixed price of under RM20 per barrel for loans it took in advance when the deal was signed. It does not Matter if that is true; but it is belived by signifcant sections of people so that any government explanation is disbelieved. Pak Lah and the cabinet knew about it. And they have to juggle Matters to hide that at any cost.

With the result, even the chief secretary, the highest civil servant, look to this group before he takes a decision. But this attitude pervades the uniformed services as well. A solitary Indian joins the police as an inspector 33 years ago, good at his job that he was made the Malaysian representative to an international crime preventing organisation, retired as an assistant superintendent of police, never having gone on a beat, or served in the police districts. He was posted to district headquarters once, but that was because he was to be promoted before he retired. But one of his Malay batch Mates became Inspector-General of Police, and several, all Malays, were in the chairmed circles surrounding him. There are no senior non-Malay police officers now who can interact with their communities.

Mahatma Gandhi in India forced the British to hand over the government to the Indians, and that helped in the decline of the British Empire. It took 90 years – from Mangal Pandey objecting to using lard-encased bullets, which also got the Muslims to side with the Hindus, in 1857 to Mahatma Gandhi in 1947. He had the genius of hitting the establishment where it Mattered, not the carrots the British threw to divert his campaign. He refined civil disobedience. He called it satyagraha, and his movement hit at the guts of the British rule of India. He realised early that the British wanted opposition limited to the non-essentials of its rule. He was clear in his mind that that was unimportant.

UMNO leaders – the other leaders in the National Front will not talk except to echo UMNO words, whether its members and the communities they represent agree or not, virtually telling their people that the leaders would do as they like. But it has to be careful now. The ordinary Malaysian do not believe that. In the past, they had no avenues. Now they write or say their piece on the Internet, which is more believed than the National Front public relations rags which appear as newspapers or relevision and radio stations. The Government makes sure that all follow its line. It replies to Internet queries in formal press conferences, which is reported as a secretary would write her report. The Malaysian media, orwned by the government or National Front members, do not report opposition to government policy. So the reaction to the petrol rise on the Internet is believed more than the the official media, the megaphone to authority. The reporters, knowing which side their bread is buttered, go along. But these reporters know what is going on. In Myanmar or Singapore, for instance, the the reporters know what happens, and are more accurate and believable than the diploMatic briefings. It is beginning to be so in Malaysia.

PAK LAH IS IN DIFFUCULTIES because his son-in-law. Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, does what he likes and any one who questions him can be entangled in libel suits. Mr Husam Musa, a PAS MP, asked a few questions, in an online PAS hewspaper, about his sudden wealth, and ECM Libra has sued both. The company has decided that asking Mr Khairy questions like Mr Husam's is a blight on it. But a defaMation suit can take years in the Malaysian courts, particularly if Mr Husam and the PAS Publishing company defends it. The chances are good that it will last after Pak Lah leaves office. Tan Sri Vincent Tan sued me in 1993, I lost all the way to the federal court, but another federal court bench decided the bench headed by the then chief justice, who went to New Zealand on holiday with the lawyer for Vincent Tan, was flawed. I am still waiting for the federal court re-hearing. 12 years after i was sued. Mr Khairy could be in the same boat as Tan Sri Vincent. But Pak Lah is already saddled with the backlash over this.

No new thinking is allowed in the National Front. Only the leaders Matter, even in UMNO, the leading party in the National Front. They talk of unity of the races but do their best in practice to keep them apart. Some of the more thoughtful in the National Front accept that this. The Malays are widely divided as the other races in the country, as between the peninmular and Sabah and Sarawak. In Sabah and Sarawak, Kuala Lumpur is seen in the two states as a coloniser, and the superficial unity there ignores the nationalism mostly on religion and race. UMNO one thought it needed to be in Sabah, and deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, took it there. Today, it is the dominant party in the government but the infighting in the National Front there, and non-Malay parties having accepted the UMNO shilling, it is Partai Keadilan Rakyat, whose eminence grise is the same Dato' Ibrahim, could be the party to drive UMNO into the opposition. The PKR has taken the precaution of allowing the Sabah unit complete independence from headquaters. People in PKR headquarters do not like this, but not the people in Sabah. PAS tried with UMNO and was rejected.

The diploMats New Delhi sends out do not try to understand the local situation, and often is seen by the locals as bulls in a china shop. In the Philippines about 25 years ago, the press ate out of the Indian ambassador's hand. News reports of anything Indian that he or his embassy send out got into the local newspapers. The Philippines government consulted him frequently. All because he studied the Philippines situation before he took his post, made his diploMatic calls according to protocal, when almost every ambassador in the country did not. I had hardly checked into a hotel in Manila when a visitor whom I did not know called me for a cup of coffee. It puzzled me a bit as I had told few outside my contacts in Manila. It turned out the Philippines foreign ministry had told him. This is not what happens today, where an Indian of whatever citizenship visiting the Indian embassy puts him in a bad light.

THE PRIME MINISTER HAS excused New Straits Times but not the Sarawak Tribune and the Guong Ming Daily News. NST's front page apology on the front page showed the paper was contrite, said the Prime Minister. No body is penalised, as has happened in the two newpapers although they did apologize. All the television stations have carried cartoons deemed offending the Prophet, but how can they be punished? The inforMation minister, Mr Zainuddin Maidin, who is himself a former newspaper editor, who has been running a feud with the former editor-in-chief of the NST group, Mr Khalimullah Hassan, is caught with a dilemma over the television stations under his control. TV3 is run by acolytes of Pak Lah's son-in-law. NTV7 is not in the charmed circle, so will escape if the other television stations are not punished. But they carried the cartoons too. On that will depend on the National Front government's credibility.

More than 100 die everyday. It does not Matter who killed them. The Americans kill at leisure. The insurgents kill to frighten the Americans, the Iraqis who have sided with them, to get the support of the Iraqis. Others get killed, as they would in any situation like Iraq is in now. And like the Americans, there are several groups among the insurgents who do the killing.The Americans, with Britain and a host of countries arm twisted to send troops, have spent billions of dollars to bring the insurgents to heel. But they have begun to fight with the government they established. The latest American weapons have been tested in Iraq, but it is the insurgents with their car bombs have spread fear into the foreign troops and Iraqis. It is now not what it used to be. The car bomb has been modified with low technical skills and using common every day appliances like doors. It has become a deady weapon, especially the Americans and others fear death by these bombs more than anything else.

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