Politics is as old as man itself, in fact since the days when humankind first lived in caves, politics was already a force to reckon with. Those were the days when the leader was chosen based on the size of his stone baton and the ability to bash your enemies into pulp.

Politics has progress beyond the size of the stone mallet one carries around but size still plays a major part in everyday politics. In the case of Malaysian politics it is the size of ones ego that plays a huge part. It doesn't really matter if you win or lose, as long as you get to cut down your opponent; the rest doesn't really matter.

So it was no surprise to me when our (new) Tourism Minister issued a statement saying that federal funding for the opposition states would be withdrawn.

Tourism is a national matter and in itself a-political. It is neutral and involves that livelihood of the nation. We pride ourselves are being Truly Asia (only because it sounds nice) but not truly in the real sense. So by desolving the state tourism committee, which she highlighted as being chaired by BN reps because the states are now "Opposition" run, is she actually saying that the job will not be done well?

How can she truly be sure tourism would flop under the Pakatan government? She herself is a new-comer to the post of Tourism Minister.

Heck, if the BN could have second thoughts about the allocation of mega-projects, what more to say tourist dollars? So five states would be without tourism support from the federal level. How ironic...if tourism dollars cannot be channel into your own banks then better not at all. Tourism dollars are easy picking if you are in the right place at the right time. How many cronies stand a chance to earn from all those Tourism Expos? How many cronies stand a chance to travel overseas to promote culture?

Yes, Malaysia is Truly Asia minus the cultural heritage of Penang, Perak, Kedah, Selangor and Kelantan. Look closely and you'll see that the five states govern by Pakatan are also the bastion of historical and cultural influences for Malaysia.

A few days ago, Pak Lah spoke on saboteurs being the reason UMNO lost in areas deemed white-areas (sure win areas). Well, if you look closely at this whole issue of tourism monetary allocations you will notice that it is blatant sabotage and the saboteurs are the federal government themselves.

They are bent on sabotaging the Pakatan state governments and in turn sabotaging the choice of the rakyat. In short, they are sabotaging the rakyat. Taking revenge against the people who vote. In the bigger sense, they are sabotaging the livelihood of Malaysia.

This is in truth political revenge - BN style.