Another " half-past-six " statement on history

The Star today reported Home Minister Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad (picture) as saying that allowing Lelaki Komunis 'Terakhir' to be shown is "like allowing a film portraying Osama Bin Laden as a humble and charitable man to be screened in the United States". It is another half-past-six statement made by yet another setengah-masak politico in the tradition of Saigon SOBs.

As Chin Peng does not even appear in the film, how can he be portrayed as "a humble and charitable man"? And comparing Chin Peng with Osama bin Laden is even more stupid because it shows the setengah-masak minister can't even distinguish between terrorism and wars of national liberation in the aftermath of World War II which happened not only in Malaya, but also in many other ex-colonies like Indonesia, Vietnam and Cuba.

Would Mohd Radzi dare to publicly compare Ho Chi Minh, Sukarno, Dr. Mohamad Hatta or Fidel Castro to Osama, even though Ho Chi Minh was also responsible for the founding of the Communist Party of Malaya, as the first modern anti-colonial political movement in Malaya, in a workers' quarters of a rubber plantation in Negeri Sembilan's Kuala Pilah on 30 April 1930?

The government of the United States has never signed any peace treaty or accords with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda. But, the Governments of Malaysia and Thailand did officially sign the Haadyai Peace Accords with the Communist Party of Malaya, of which Chin Peng is a signatory, on 2 December 1989. The Communist Party of Malaya had also had treaty relations with British military command at Fort Canning, Singapore in 1941 as well as Allies' South East Asia Command (SEAC) in 1943 and it was recognised as a legitimate negotiating partner in the 1955 Baling Peace Talk and the 1988-1989 Tripartite Truce Talks involving Bangkok as well as Kuala Lumpur.

I really do not think the governments of Britain, Australia and Singapore would allow Osama to conduct archival research at Kew's Public Record Office, Cambridge University's Rhodes House Library, Imperial War Museum and Australian War Memorial, or to address the Institute of South East Asian Studies. Canberra's Australian National University (ANU) would never invite Osama as a Visiting Fellow.