The Spaced Race

UMNO's General Assembly has come and gone. Daggers and keris were wagged and smooched, more promises made to uplift the Malays, and each delegate tried their best to outdo their rivals on the podium with non-issues and more rethoric. This time, the ruling party made the decision not to allow live TV coverage of the event. When they last did that, their antics was displayed for all of Malaysia to see and deride.

One of the most amusing parts of local politics is the creation of fanciful phrases. Mahathir did it with his "paradigm shift". Najib also did it with "glokal". For this General Assembly, this year's buzzword would be "mengangkasa bangsa", or "spacing the race" (and obviously the Malay race). Obviously this is a reference to Dr. Muszaphar, our first astronaut in space who blasted off last month, thanks to Russian rocket technology.

Translated, "mengangkasa bangsa" or "spacing the race" means uplifting the Malay race to lofty & stellar heights, socioeconomically, of course.

But translated LITERALLY, Najib's newfangled term "spacing the race" has an entirely different (and hillarious) meaning:

For according to Wikipedia on spacing:

Spacing is a theoretical method of execution (or other sort of killing) by vacuum exposure in space. The primary cause of death would be asphyxia. Unlike the persistent myth, people do not explode due to vacuum exposure or explosive decompression (See Landis' article in links)

and...

Spacing is a staple of science fiction, usually accomplished by ejecting the subject through the airlock of a spacecraft or space station without a space suit.

Fortunately, Najib will get away with it... as not too many UMNO delegates are science fiction fans to understand what "spacing" actually means. Once the GA is over, its back to spacing ordinary Malays and Malaysians into the vacuum of ignorance with fanciful promises and race-baiting.