Heil 1Rosmah, queen of our hearts? HAH!

Sarah Brown is never to be referred to as this country’s “first lady”. Were we to have that term in English usage, it would refer to Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Brown is merely the wife of the Prime Minister.

Simon Heffer
Associate Editor
The Daily Telegraph

» Memo to the journalists of the Telegraph on 23 August 2009, about how to refer to the wife of Gordon Brown, then British prime minister

Did you notice?
The Malaysian constitution just got rewritten.

There’s a new menu at Parliament — tripe and waffles, served piping hot. Not in the canteen, but in the chamber itself. The prime minister himself was dishing it out this week, protecting the presumed position of his wife Rosmah Mansor, the usurper and pretend queen of the land, while pretending to defend the position of the constitutional Queen, the Raja Permaisuri Agong.

In the process, he just about rewrote the constitution. And all the papers went along with the gag, bending every which way to avoid calling out the plain facts.

One plain fact was that the prime minister was dishing out tripe. Another plain fact is that the prime minister avoided giving an answer. Question: Is it accurate to describe the prime minister’s wife as the “first lady”? Response: Twisting and turning like a snake charmer, he talked instead about the position of the Permaisuri Agong.

Talk about getting your knickers in a twist.

Here’s how the Insider reported it, with a headline that summed it up: Najib debunks ‘first lady’ term used on wife. And the headline at Malaysia Today.com (the other one, not RPK’s) was more to the barbed point: Najib defends ‘First Lady’ term used in NY advertisement for Rosmah

Alas the Insider report itself could have been more forthright. Still, they did say this, which no one else did:

Najib did not directly answer if his wife was accurately called the ‘first lady’ but noted that if the practice was used in Malaysia, the ‘first lady’ should be a person whose status is below that of the Raja Permaisuri Agong.

“Many people believe that in the Malaysian context, the term ‘first lady’ refers to the Raja Permaisuri Agong.

“This perception is inaccurate. This is because the position of the Raja Permaisuri Agong is higher than the ‘first lady’,” he said.

See what he said? If the practice was used and This perception is inaccurate.

Oi, that’s what we want to know, la. Why are they calling your blarddy wife the blarddy First Lady? Is that an official term? Is that on the protocol list? On what basis? Who decided? Who gave you the right to create a position like that? Is it gazetted? Is she being paid out of the Consolidated Fund?

Answer the question la. Blarddy hell.

Well if anyone wants to know the abysmal state of what is pathetically called the “mainstream” press, take a gander at these:

• Najib: ‘First Lady’ not higher than the queen – Malaysiakini
• ‘First lady’ lower than Queen: Najib‎ – The Sun
• Najib: Permaisuri Agong Higher than ‘First Lady’ , Malaysian Digest
• Queen is not ‘First Lady’, says PM – Free Malaysia Today
• Permaisuri Agong higher than “First Lady”, says PM – NST
• PM: Queen’s status higher than First Lady – The Star
• Najib defends ‘First Lady’ term used in NY advertisement for Rosmah – Malaysia Today
• Queen higher than ‘First Lady’, says PM – Daily Express
• Permaisuri Agong Higher Than ‘First Lady’, Says PM – Bernama
• Najib debunks ‘first lady’ term used on wife – Insider

See how it’s been twisted?

Everyone’s trying hard to accept the lie. The lie that there is such a thing as First Lady, that is. A lie which the 1Najib was too craven to admit..

He deflected.* With all his waffling, he turned the argument into a matter of who’s higher and who’s lower. Avoided angering his wife, avoided saying the truth: that there is no such thing in Malaysia as a “first lady”. The press went along. And everyone made it seem there is indeed such a thing as “first lady”. Pah!

It’s all Mahathir’s fault, anyway. Or his wife’s. That’s when the “first lady” nonsense began, with Siti Hasmah.

Since then, endless repetition of the lie in the press has worked to slowly and surely turn it into fact, with the connivance of administrators.** That’s how propaganda works, and that’s how politicians and our press grind down resistance and change the public’s thinking.

Political language is subversive. It’s meant to subvert your minds. And no one has been more subversive in this than Mahathir Mohamad and his mafia.

* How come everyone’s using this word now?.
** I’ll betcha there’ll be unofficial instructions to use the darned term more often now.
p.s. Tripe also comes out of an old cow, I’m told

© 2010 uppercaise