Tuesday, April 14, 2009

"Ungrateful" Muhyiddin Squirms

un⋅grate⋅ful   [uhn-greyt-fuhl]
–adjective

unappreciative; not displaying gratitude; not giving due return or recompense for benefits conferred: ungrateful heirs.
Source: Dictionary.com
So soon after taking over as the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin found himself squirming to get out of a hole he dug for himself and lashing out at everybody and anybody for "twisting" his words.

On Sunday, in an interview with Mingguan Malaysia (the weekend edition of the notorious Utusan Malaysia), he was quoted as follows when asked about the minority votes in Bukit Gantang.
Q: Tetapi bukankah setiap kali pilihan raya kecil, permintaan kaum bukan Melayu dipenuhi, malah di Bukit Gantang walaupun peruntukan RM1juta diberikan tetapi kaum Cina tidak juga menyokong BN?

[...]

Ini yang mungkin menyebabkan sukar BN mendapat sokongan walaupun kita fikir bila mereka hendak sekolah Cina dibantu, kita bantu, sepatutnya mereka membalas budi. Pada waktu itu, kita pun tidak berharap sokongan kaum Cina akan meningkat 40 peratus dan sebagainya cuma kita berharap ada peningkatan sedikit tetapi apa yang berlaku ia mencatatkan penurunan, macam tidak ada penghargaan terhadap apa yang kita lakukan.

He was figuratively whacked by all parties for in essence calling the Chinese "ungrateful". Sdr Lim Kit Siang wasted no time berating Muhyiddin for insulting the community.
It is most shocking that 52 years after national independence, the Number Two in the federal government of a multi-racial nation could come out with such retrogressive and most unacceptable views about Malaysian democracy and nation building.
Even the normally compliant MCA and Gerakan are forced to issue fairly "harsh" statements against the new deputy prime minister, albeit not by the top bosses themselves.

Now, in a sudden turn of event, Tan Sri Muhyiddin now places the blame all on the Chinese media for "twisting" his words and asked the reporters to "go back to school"!
The deputy prime minister denied he had used the word “ungrateful” to describe the community in the wake of the ruling party’s defeat in the Bukit Gantang by-election in an interview published on Sunday in Mingguan Malaysia.

“If they don’t know Malay, we can send them to school,” said Muhyiddin, who is also the new education minister.

“What I actually said was that the community looked as if it didn’t appreciate Barisan Nasional despite its best efforts during the by-election.”
Let's not speculate and lets look at the fact of the matter. As per the Mingguan Malaysia report, Muhyiddin said "...bila mereka hendak sekolah Cina dibantu, kita bantu, sepatutnya mereka membalas budi."

Then look again at the definition of "ungrateful" above - "unappreciative; not displaying gratitude; not giving due return or recompense for benefits conferred". It's uncannily exactly as stated by Muhyiddin! So I don't see how the Chinese media "twisted" the words of the new DPM!!

As far as I'm concerned, it's Muhyiddin who needs to be send back to school or at least his new Ministry of Education should welcome him with a English dictionary as a present.

(Interestingly, as reported in Malaysiakini, Muhyiddin claims that Ong Tee Keat "had found nothing wrong with his statement in Mingguan Malaysia." So, what says MCA President?)

14 comments:

· 康華 · said...

may be "ungrateful" has a stronger tone than "unappreciative"?

anti-stupidity said...

still playing the racial cards huh, stupid un-educated minister?

Eightrains said...

They are still the same blokes after 50yrs, the ordinary man in the street would expect the BN leaders to be 'matang' but they are still relying on their 'balls' than their brains to govern the country.In the first place they should be helping out the chinese schools regardless of election or no election.Look at 'hindraf',they compile a huge dorrsier on the plight of the indian community and went looking for Abdullah 'Badawee'
because the latter had 'sloganed' it out that 'work with me not for me',but how did it ended? He locked them up in Kamunting.and then came the 'saviour' Najib and freed them. They shouldn't had been locked up in the 1st place....at all.1 Malaysia aka ketuanan melayu..sad to say!!!!

bennyloh said...

EXPLAINED

Anonymous said...

Yb, saya sudah tahu ini menteri cakap orang putih pun dia gagap dan tidak pandai dan cakap Melayu pun tidak berapa pandai, lagi want to put the blame to orhers.
No wonder among the malays they call him "Mat Sembab".
What unlucky Malaysians to have this guy as a Deputy PM.

pneoxian said...

All in all it is still the same intended effect by a weak attempt to thinly veil a portrayal of difference in syntax.

Anonymous said...

the former bozo took out a keris
this bodo is racist
how do u expect such fascists to teach unity 2 schoolchildren?
they will teach unity in classic umno/bn style i.e. use history syllabus to teach subservience n gratitude 2 umno/bn
dumbo deputy !!!

Anonymous said...

Says who Chinese are ungraeful people? There's Chinese saying " When drink water, remember the source" and "Obtained assistance from others, remember for 1,000 years". Did YB Nizar helped the Perak people? Yes he did and that's why the Chinese remember him.

Unfortunately all Perak people remember of BN was looting, abuse, racism, unfair advantage towards certain people, coup, stealing, robbing and all things bad. One cannot steal RM100 from another and then return RM1 and expects the victim to be grateful to him. That's not how it works.

And finally to the DPM, most Chinese are grateful people and I am one of the many. Malaysians (Malay,Chinese, Indian and 'lain lain') would gladly vote for BN if BN changes for the better and truly governs in a fair and just manner.

Anonymous said...

First he doesn't have the brains to make an intelligent statement. Now he doesn't have the balls to apologize. And he's the education minister? What an un-educated choice.

Anonymous said...

dielah macam tu anak-anak kita semua.

Anonymous said...

Actually if you go word by word rather than substance of the text, what he said was Chinese 'should respond in kind' to 'the help' but instead they 'did not appreciate it'.

In core substance it reads ungrateful which meant the translation by Chinese press was conservatively accurate.

A more liberal interpretation would have taken it further and interpret that the Chinese were either ungrateful or just dumb or not of noble character.

In other words, if the Chinese press is inaccurate, the other interpretation is even worst!!! Its why he stop short of clarfying the other meaning of appreciative. All he wanted to do was deflect it with another word not really getting it that it actuallly is worst.

The truth is what he don't get it is that he is using old ways and thinking although he says and think otherwise.

Karen said...

Appreciative and Ungrateful has little difference. It's like short and vertically challenged. What's the difference? The issue is that the BN only fulfills their obligation during elections and by elections AND for fulfilling their obligations, they have the cheek to expect gratitute in the form of votes! Don't they already get their monthly wage plus special allowances and under the table money already as it is?

Anonymous said...

waste of space and time ... no point listening to someone who does not understand the new concept of Bangsa Malaysia ... I bet he cannot explain 1Malaysia

Anonymous said...

Come to think of it, didn't the No. 2 just admitted to committing an election offence? Isnt he indirectly admitting to bribing the chinese community with donations to the chinese school hoping that the chinese will respond in kind. And help they did with taxpayers money that belong to taxpayers in the first place.

It has been 52 years and yet the government is unable to put a system in place to properly finance all schools in Malaysia. What a shame. Goes to show how imcompetent the BN government has been.