Rebranding Exercises by Barisan Hasbeen

Once upon a time in the not too distant past, a political party got nuked in the elections.Hence, all the component parties decided to rebrand itself.Openness became the new buzzword and fallen politicians that weeks before were seen massaging their liege lord's feet were noted spitting on their faces.

This alliance of sorts stressed that Malaysia was so racist, so ethnocentric that only people belonging to your own race cared for you.Their raison d'etre was the concept of Malaysians being truly united is but a myth.The fact is, we are an uneasy grouping of races, and not supporting your respective racial party means to forsake your rights and shrivel, and die.And your offspring will be sent off to coal mines to work as slaves for the other races, as they are still in power, because they, being good members of their race, supported their racial party.

And so it came to pass that there was this extremely racist Chinese party that only accepted Chinese into its fold.Apart from the stray Indian or wandering Malay that stumbles upon their service center, it mostly helps Chinese.It was not doing such a wonderful job either, as the Chinese perceived this party to be weak and subservient to the needs of its bigger boss, another equally racial party.So the Chinese abandoned ship, and the Indians and a big chunk of the Malays.And so, now, the political landscape changed and so with waning support and a shrinking bank account, these parties need to do something quick before they disappear from the Malaysian history books, just like Chin Peng, ice ball ball and duit pokok pisang.

Malaysians watched, amused as police reports flew up and down, resignations were tendered, retracted, then tendered again, documents shredded, accounts magically vanish and politicians so prominent before seemed to fall off the face of the earth.Malaysians watched in awe when things became revealed that indeed,the level of corruption and flounted extravagance was but a tip of very very very big iceberg.An iceberg so big, if broken down, could chill the drinks of all clubbing Malaysians for a few months.And Malaysians watched as the extravagance continued with ceremony after ceremony and rally after rally was held for this so called rebranding, with NGOs strongly supporting this.And Malaysians wondered where the money came from.NGOs whose presidents, deputies and entire boards comprised of the former has-been parties' members and their wives, and their kids.If you were to add all members of this political party up, together with their allies, I am certain the number wil exceed the population of Malaysia a few times over.

And basically, it appeared as though the rebranding was what Malaysians thought it to be.A mere PR exercise.Pouring old wine into new wineskins, or in this case, lousy old wine into new wineskins.If we were to use the liquor anology, we could say they were pouring spoilt coconut toddy into new Blue Label bottles.

And Malaysia ponders at the stupidity of these parties and wonder how much more amusement we could possibly derive from their lack of intelligence.Cemerlang, Gemilang, Terbilang indeed!