Where is democracy?
July 9, 2009
At the Bar Council today
July 11th marks the first 100 days of Najib’s premiership.
Will his 100-day performance serve as an indicator for how our country is likely to be governed for the next four years, or was it all a big public relations exercise?
The next 100 days is just as critical and we, civil society organisations (CSOs), want to throw the gauntlet down to Najib to extend his program of reform to all aspects of life in the country, especially in the critical sphere of good governance. We would like to announce civil society’s Key Performance Indicators for the Government that can strengthen the process of democratization in Malaysia.
A group of 10 organisations who initiated this call will hold a press conference on Friday, 10 July 2009 at 11am at the Main Auditorium, Level 1, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, Jalan Maharajalela, KL. We cordially invite a journalist and photographer from your organisation to cover the press conference.
For more information, please call Chia Wei Loon at 012-6517 282 or Gayathry at 019-7257970 or read more about this HERE and HERE
Sponsoring Organisations:
Liau Kok Fah, Chairperson, Civil Right Committee, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (CRC-KLSCAH)
Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Executive Director, Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
Dr Lim Teck Ghee, Executive Director, Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI)
Andrew Khoo, Convener, Civil Society Initiative for Parliamentary Reform (CSI@Parliament)
K, Arumugam, Coordinator, Group of Concerned Citizens (GCC)
Maria Chin Abdullah, Executive Director, Pusat Janadaya (Empower)
Zaid Kamaruddin, President, Jamaah Islah Malaysia (JIM)
Haris Ibrahim, Convener, People’s Parliament
Tah Moon Hui, Coordinator, Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram)
Wong Chin Huat, Chairperson, Writer Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI)
The latest UMNO ‘foot in mouth’ case
July 9, 2009
Malaysianinsider reports today that
Before...
...& after
who must really be feeling the heat from all the attention being given to his RM24m? / RM3.5m? istana
in Shah Alam, blurted out what must be the worst possible justification for his grandiose abode.
“I am a former mentri besar, you don’t expect me to stay in a pondok”, he is reported to have said.
This ex-MB has forced upon himself this imperative comparison.
Tok Guru Nik Aziz is still the serving MB of Kelantan, since 1990.
Yes, he still lives in this ‘pondok’.
Want a better view?
An anak Bangsa Malaysia’s call to Uthayakumar
July 8, 2009
Shakuntala sent in a comment to the “A Challenge to Uthayakumar…” post. It really does articulate what so many of us feel that I felt it deserved a reproduction here as a post.
It’s reproduced in full below.
Thank you, Shakuntala.
_________________________________________
I’m first and foremost an Anak Bangsa Malaysia and I want the numbers to grow….they are already. I believe in being an Anak Bangsa Malaysia only because the concept embraces all of us, whether we are black, yellow, a lighter shade of pale,dark brown, light brown and even white.That’s how far we have come already!There is no stopping the tide.
If we look ahead, our children and their children are not going to be in their particular national grooves…they are all going to be mixed and more mixed…they are definitely going to be MALAYSIAN. There’s no two ways….only ONE, the Malaysian Way.
A true leader who has the welfare of all Malaysians at heart, will heed the call…. for unity and intergration of all races.Because that’s the character of our country, Malaysia. We want the lousy word RACE to end and the only way to do it, is to unite and put an end to this damned thing called RACE which is causing no end of negatives…and problems.
Uthayakumar,….I heard that you fought very hard for a Chinese boy, who was a victim of police brutality, a few years back. I’m not sure if you were successful,or what came of it, but it just shows the kind of person you really are, not a race based crazy fanatic, but a far-sighted all embracing, generous person of the calibre of, maybe,Nelson Mandela?
You’ve been in prison like him. The experience has not embittered you, that is quite obvious. As a result too,of your prison term, you must be imbued with an extra, born again spirit ..a far- sighted one looking beyond the confines of nearness and of only one race,..but rather one that spans miles to embrace a nobler and worthier cause..That cause is the call to a better and united Malaysia and the only way that can come about is, when all of us become ONE PEOPLE ONE NATION, without separation into different races.
Remember,Uthayakumar, your children are the children of Malaysia.They are no longer Indians in this land. They want to live in a united world, a world in which they do not have to fit into race lines and be within a frame….they want to be free to be called just human beings. And because they live in Malaysia they want to be called Malaysians. They will not want prefixes, ie, malay, chinese indian.It is a very strong and enduring wish.
So please look ahead and see this as something to work for, to fight for, to live for, and finally to achieve … a hand is being stretched out that needs grasping.Shake that hand of friendship and far-sightedness, it belongs to Haris Ibrahim, but it is really all of our hands, the hands of the Anak2 Bangsa Malaysia, reaching out to you and Hindraf to join forces.
Take hold of that hand of friendship, and go together as ONE PEOPLE ONE NATION, to secure Justice and Equality for all Malaysians.
The joker in the pack : Koh Tsu Koon
July 6, 2009
If Tsu Koon ever got tired of politics, the race-based kind or otherwise, and wanted to move on to something else, I always thought he would do well as a stand-up comedian.
In fact, quite a few in BN would do extremely well.
I don’t mean to make fun of a person’s looks, but don’t you think that if he was slightly worked over in the studion, he could very well stand in as Malaysia’s own Mr. Bean?
Anyway, NSTonline today amply confirmed that Tsu Koon is definitely ‘funny man’ material.
In relation to the ongoing Kampung Lorong Buah Pala land dispute, Tsu Koon is reported to have rebuked Guan Eng for trying to pass the buck and said that the present CM of Penang should just get on with the job.
“When they (the current Penang state government) can’t do something, they will blame either the previous state or Federal Government. That is the trick of their trade”, Tsu Koon said.
Good one, Tsu Koon!
Can’t stop laughing!
A challenge to Uthayakumar : Come together as one and secure justice and equality for all
July 6, 2009
The following are excerpts from a post here on 28th November, 2007 :
“… in substance, both Hindraf and the ‘One People, One Nation’ initiative desire the same thing.
We are, therefore, not opponents.
BN and its ‘divide and rule’ blueprint is our common enemy.
….The Hindraf leadership, I hope, will forgive me for this observation, and that is, that Hindraf has thus far taken an isolationist approach in pursuing its cause.
Perhaps, until Sunday, circumstances made it necessary.
The danger that we face now is that, if we pursue our respective strategies and methods independent of each other rather than working together on a common strategy, neither will get anywhere and the current status quo will remain.
In all humility, I say that if Hindraf is to take the cause that it now champions to its desired end, it must now change course.
I ask the Hindraf leadership to reflect upon this with an open heart.
My friends and I would welcome with open arms the Hindraf leadership to come together as one and secure justice and equality for all”.
News reports have it that Uthaya has been very critical of both DAP and PKR in that they are said to have done little for the marginalised Indians post the 12th GE.
It is also reported that Uthaya is in the process of applying to register a new political party called PAHAM.
Here, then, is the challenge to Uthaya.
Register PAHAM as a multi-racial party.
Make the stated objectives of PAHAM, not the championing of merely the marginalised Indians, but every marginalised anak Bangsa Malaysia.
Do that, Uthaya, and then join the political fray and teach Pakatan Rakyat the A to Z of how to rid this country of race-based politics.
Do that, Uthaya, and you and HINDRAF would have taken a huge leap from 25/11/2007.
Why Najib’s 1Malaysia will fail – Final
July 5, 2009
On 15th June, in Parliament, Najib purported to explain his 1Malaysia.
This is Malaysianinsider’s Hafidz Baharom’s take on that explanation :
“Personally looking at it, I still don’t understand just what exactly the 1 Malaysia concept is. I mean, even Mahathir’s Vision 2020 and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s Islam Hadhari had better explanations.
If there was one thing our beloved Prime Minister has done, it’s to confuse everyone in Malaysia with a policy that isn’t “too rigid” but unoriginal, unexplainable and downright incomprehensible to anyone but himself”.
Hafidz, in his article, alluded to his penchant for referring to Hansard. If you would like to refer to Hansard to get a blow-by-blow account of what Najib said on his 1Malaysia, you can access the same, in PDF, HERE. Go directly to page 8 for that account. Take it from page 1 if you want to read about the antics that followed Nizar’s swearing-in.
Personally, I preferred to try and make sense of Najib’s 1Malaysia, if at all possible, from his dissertation that was uploaded on his blog on 15th June and 18th June.
He starts off in the second paragraph by declaring that the ultimate goal of 1Malaysia is national unity which, he says, has been the vision of the leaders before him.
Tunku, I believe so. Hussein Onn, perhaps.
Razak?
Mahathir?
Pak Lah?
A bit of Mahathir’s ‘distortion’ creeping into 1Malaysia, don’t you think?
1Malaysia, Najib says, differs from the aspirations of earlier leaders only in its approach and implementation.
Let’s see.
In the next paragraph, with regard to his proposed approach, Najib tells us that the approach he proposes is to run in tandem with and to complement government policies thus far.
Government policies thus far?
Read that to mean a continuation of the policies put in place during Mahathir’s 22 years and Pak Lah’s 4.
The immediate objective?
Reinforce our solidarity!
The end objective?
Guarantee stability towards achieving higher growth and development for Malaysia and her people.
Hold on!
Didn’t he say earlier that the ultimate goal of 1Malaysia is national unity?
Now its higher growth and development?
In what remains of the third paragraph of his first post, Najib or whoever wrote this up for him got so confused and inadvertantly let the cat out of the bag.
See what he says :
“.…1Malaysia is a formula conceptualised as a precondition in ensuring the aspirations of the country to secure a developed status by 2020 are met”
It gets better.
“If the idea of “Bangsa Malaysia” which was engendered through Vision 2020 becomes the final destination, then 1Malaysia is the roadmap that guides us towards that destination. This definition is built upon the argument that in order achieve the status of a developed nation in the predetermined time frame, the key requisite is a strong and stable country, which can only be achieved when its people stand united“.
If I understand this man, he would have us believe that his 1Malaysia is the roadmap to the Bangsa Malaysia that Mahathir spoke of and, again, with developed-nation status as the ultimate goal!
Put simply, we must all strive for national unity to achieve developed-nation status by the year 2020 because that is what we all desire!
Are you getting a sense of the jiwa of the man who now proposes to unite us all as a nation of a single people?
Not yet?
Read the rest of his posts.
1Malaysia is not about assimilation but about acceptance, “where one race embraces the uniqueness of other races”.
The bedrock of his 1Malaysia is “justice for all…welfare of all Malaysians will be looked after, leaving noone behind”.
For this, he says, “government policies…that protect the interests of disadvantaged groups will continue to be implemented”.
Really?
Go and tell that to the 30,000 who took to the streets on 25th November, 2007. They’ll be so, so relieved.
In the seventh paragraph of his first post, where he seems to link nation-building with “the Rakyat must be the first to be developed”, I got a little hopeful.
Could it be that this man just might understand what needs to be done to begin the process of undoing the ‘divide-and-rule’ that his predecessors had crafted and to slowly but surely build a nation of a single people?
More importantly, does this man care enough to begin that process?
I read what was left of his first post and all of the second.
A lot of fancy words with no concrete ideas about how “the Rakyat must be the first to be developed” , about how to go about changing hearts and minds so that Malaysians see each other as just Malayisan and not Malay, Chinese, Indian, etc.
In both of his posts, he never touched, even in passing, on what, in my view, is the most important change that we need to see happen if the government of the day is serious about national unity.
Education.
Leslie Lau, in an article in the Malaysianinsider, shared his thoughts on this :
“The idea of national unity cannot be forced on a people. It really depends on one thing. And that is whether people believe in a country. For the most part, that probably happens when there is a sense of belonging, fair play and opportunity. And that comes from our attitudes toward each other. Education is ultimately about providing the opportunity for knowledge. If Malaysians think our education system is failing us, we must examine why and then fix it. I do not know whether the answer is to maintain the system we currently have or to have a single school system. What I do know is that schools are not the place to fix the distrust and suspicion we have of each other as Malaysians. To fix that, we have to change our attitudes”.
I’ll add to that and say that you don’t use the schools to sow the seeds of distrust and suspicion.
You use the schools to buiild the minds and hearts of our young so that they see themselves as one people of this nation.
More specifically, teach our young the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about how all the races contributed to the early development of the Malay states before independence and how those same people worked collectively to achieve independence.
Remember Kelana Jaya MP Loh Seng Kok complaining in Parliament that the syllabus of history textbooks ignored the contribution of non-bumiputeras, that “the fight against the Japanese Occupation during World War II is portrayed as only the effort of the Malays but ignored the role of Chinese and Indian Malaysians”? Malaysiakini has the report HERE, if you don’t remember.
Make the Federal Constitution a compulsory part of the history syllabus.
Teach our young that all are equal under the constitution, and that all disadvantaged Malaysians must be helped without discrimination on grounds of ethnicity or faith.
I do not suggest that this alone will cure the ills that we see in our society inflicted by the divisive policies of the past and present government.
Ignore this, however, and all other measures at forging real national unity will come to nought.
It is not that Najib is clueless.
Indeed, his recent readiness to hold talks with PAS on Malay unity and the possibility of forming a unity government is most telling.
As one commentator said in Malaysianinsider : “…when confronted with the choice of Malaysian unity or Malay unity, you would plump for the latter but attempt to wrap it as a option which would be consistent with your 1Malaysia concept”.
Like Mahathir, Najib’s jiwa is not with the people.
He does not care.
On 20th November, last year, I had written to JAKIM requesting for a fatwa on the question of whether concepts of ‘Ketuanan Melayu’ and the Bumiputra-non Bumi distinction that seems to be constantly pursued by UMNO is unIslamic.
I had blogged about this last year and the post and the letter to JAKIM can be viewed HERE.
Both in that post and the letter to JAKIM, I had quoted Nik Aziz as reported in BERNAMA. I reproduce that quote below.
“Di dalam Islam tidak mengira bangsa, apa yang penting adalah takwa kepada Allah s.w.t. Tidak kiralah bangsa apa, Cina, Melayu, India dan Arab. Tuhan hanya melihat ketakwaan seseorang itu… kerana bila kita bertakwa kita takut kepada Allah dan menjalankan tanggungjawab kita”.
Needless to say, I’ve not got a response from JAKIM.
Malaysiakini yesterday reported PAS president Hadi Awang as being against the “dropping the 30 percent bumiputera equity in businesses, describing the proposed measures by Prime Minister Najib Razak as detrimental to the race”.
For those of you who are not subscribed to Malaysiakini, Malaysianinsider has a similar report .
Malaysiakini reports Hadi as saying that “The bumiputeras are still lagging behind in terms of experience and their position…We want to be fair to all races but at the same time the bumiputera position should be strengthened…They lag behind in education amenities (for example). They cannot compete with the urbanites of other races who have such privileges”.
Could the leadership of the Kelab Penyokong PAS (KPP) please ask Hadi to explain what position, unique only to the bumiputras, needs to be strengthened?
Could the leadership of the KPP ask Hadi if he is aware that, like the bumiputras, a great many people of the other races also lag behind in education amenities and cannot compete with urbanites of any race, bumi or otherwise?
Could the leadership of KPP ask Hadi if his stand on this bumi – non bumi divide is at odds with the final sermon of the Holy Prophet, as reproduced below?
“All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab. Also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over a white except by piety and good action.”
Until KPP gets clarification and shares the same with us, we must assume that Hadi’s PAS might just stand for Parti Ajaran Sesat.
Why Najib’s 1Malaysia will fail – Part 2
July 1, 2009
In an illuminating piece that appeared in NSTOnline on 29th May, 2009, Dr Salim Argoes wasted no time getting to the points that needed to be made.
In his opening sentence, this is what he said :
Dr Salim then addressed the contention by certain quarters that Bahasa Malaysia can be a unifying factor, first noting that language can also be divisive, and then made the following all-important observation :
If Dr Salim’s right, and I think he is, where did Mahathir go wrong with his Vision 2020 such that he failed to put in place all that was necessary to establish “a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common and shared destiny” ?
In my view, Mahathir did not pay heed to his own observation in that famous Vision 2020 speech of his that this united Malaysian nation that he urged us to forge “cannot be in place so long as there is the identification of race with economic function, and the identification of economic backwardness with race”.
Mahathir did nothing to undo the years of race-based divide-and-rule.
What did he do?
Responding to Part 1 by way of comment, Paul Warren remarked :
“Haven’t you heard of such a thing as “shiok sendiri rhetoric?” Mahathir was full of it for a long time. Epitomised by such things as all his megalomaniac building programmes such as starting with Daya Bumi and ending up with the Twin Towers!!”
I don’t know about the ’shiok sendiri’ part but, yes, if you take cognisance of Mahathir’s megalomaniac building programme, then you begin to get a sense of the old man’s Vision 2020.
Malaysia attaining developed nation status by 2020 meant putting in place all the outward trappings ordinarily associated with such a nation.
And the heightened consumerism which ordinarily accompanies a growing middle class.
As an oil-producing nation, we certainly had the resources to build, build and build.
And build Mahathir did.
Bakun.
KLIA.
Putrajaya.
We had the resources, so why did not the Mahathir regime build universities in every state and make education free at every level, set up more dialysis and cardiac centres throughout the country and make such treatment accessible to all at no charge?
As Farish Noor put it in his ‘My ideal politician’, ‘Rather than more bridges crooked or otherwise — built by crooks or otherwise — airports, shopping malls and monuments, we need to build some Malaysians first’.
Why was not the salary scale of those involved in the teaching profession at all levels significantly upgraded so that our children would be taught by the very best that money can buy?
Just one reason.
The jiwa of the man behind Vision 2020 was not in sync with that of the ordinary Malaysians who struggle to make ends meet.
And so, I ask again, what is the difference between Mahathir’s Vision 2020 and Najib’s 1Malaysia?
Is there such a difference between Mahathir and Najib that we should be encouraged to believe that, whilst Mahathiir had little impact in taking us anywhere near the Bangsa Malaysia he spoke of, with Najib, it will be otherwise ?
Why Najib’s 1Malaysia will fail – Part 1
June 23, 2009
Let’s try to put a context to where Najib is coming from and headed to with his 1Malaysia.
What is Najib’s grand design that he now calls 1Malaysia?
Is his 1Malaysia novel and innovative, or re-hashed from a model that we’ve seen before?
Two days ago, Malaysianinsider reported Mukhriz as saying that it would be difficult to realise the “1Malaysia” concept if the Malays are not united, as the the Malays are the pillar in making 1 Malaysia a reality and played an important role in ensuring the country’s progress as they are the majority in the country.
I quote Mukhriz from that report :
“If they are not united, how are we going to realise the 1 Malaysia concept? This will not only be detrimental to the Malays but also to other races…When we talk about Malay unity, we are not talking from the racism point of view. We have accepted the fact that there cannot be a government which is led 100 per cent by Malay leaders … we have been practising power sharing for so long”
What do you discern from this?
One, ‘Malay unity talk’ ala UMNO-style is not racism.
Two, power sharing in the governance of this country is set, not on the premise of having the best men and women in place to get the job done, but along racial lines, with a predominance of Malays at the helm of government because they are the majority, because this is how power has been shared thus far.
If you want to know where Mukhriz is coming from, you don’t have to go far.
Just read his father’s ‘The Malay Dilemma’.
I’ve just finished re-reading that book.
If you’ve never read this book, you should make the effort to.
It’ll give you an idea of how this country found itself on that slippery slope into the cesspool we now are in when Mahathir took over the PMship.
It will reveal how this man, in the late 60’s / early 70’s, conveniently distorted a prevailing ‘have versus have-nots’ class issue into a racial one, portrayed as being that of the ‘marginalised Malays versus the non-Malay community’ and, through his years of rule as PM, perpetuated this thinking, with the acquiescence of the other BN component party leaders, of course.
In a speech that he was supposed to have delivered at the Harvard Club of Malaysia on 29th July 2002, this is what Mahathir is reported to have said :
“When I wrote The Malay Dilemma in the late 60s, I had assumed that all the Malays lacked the opportunities to develop and become successful. They lacked opportunities for educating themselves, opportunities to earn enough to go into business, opportunities to train in the required vocation, opportunities to obtain the necessary funding, licences and premises. If these opportunities could be made available to them, then they would succeed. …… So what is the new Malay dilemma? Their old dilemma was whether they should distort the picture a little in order to help themselves. The new dilemma is whether they should or should not do away with the crutches that they have got used to, which in fact they have become proud of. There is a minority of Malays who are confident enough to think of doing away with the crutches, albeit gradually. But they are a very small minority. Their numbers are not going to increase any time soon. They are generally regarded as traitors to the Malay race. ….”
There you have it!
Distort the picture in order to help themselves!
That the truth then was that every marginalised Malaysian, regardless of race, “lacked opportunities for educating themselves, opportunities to earn enough to go into business, opportunities to train in the required vocation, opportunities to obtain the necessary funding, licences and premises”, was buried in the distorted picture that was presented, so that certain quarters could help themselves.
11 years before that reported speech to the Havard Club, in 1991, Mahathir launched his Vision 2020 where he also spoke of establishing a united Malaysian nation; a Bangsa Malaysia, as he put it. I have alluded to this in a previous post last year. This is what Mahathir had said in 1991 of that Bangsa Malaysia :
“By the year 2020, Malaysia can be a united nation, with a confident Malaysian society, infused by strong moral and ethical values, living in a society that is democratic, liberal and tolerant, caring, economically just and equitable, progressive and prosperous, and in full possession of an economy that is competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient. There can be no fully developed Malaysia until we have finally overcome the nine central strategic challenges that have confronted us from the moment of our birth as an independent nation…The first of these is the challenges of establishing a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common and shared destiny. This must be a nation at peace with itself, territorially and ethnically integrated, living in harmony and full and fair partnership, made up of one ‘Bangsa Malaysia’ with political loyalty and dedication to the nation…The eighth is the challenge of ensuring an economically just society. This is a society in which there is a fair and equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation, in which there is full partnership in economic progress. Such a society cannot be in place so long as there is the identification of race with economic function, and the identification of economic backwardness with race.”
18 years on from that inspirational speech of his, why is it that we do not appear to be anywhere near establishing that one ‘Bangsa Malaysia’ with political loyalty and dedication to the nation ?
Was Mahathir’s Vision 2020 no different from his ‘Look East’ policy that he innovated soon after taking office, in that both were made up of inspiring rhetoric with little political will to carry through and which got us all sufficiently distracted so that the privileged hands that were raiding the national coffers could work at will and unnoticed?
What is the difference between Mahathir’s Vision 2020 and Najib’s 1Malaysia?
Is there such a difference between Mahathir and Najib that we should be encouraged to believe that, whilst Mahathiir had little impact in taking us anywhere near the Bangsa Malaysia he spoke of, with Najib, it will be otherwise ?
Oh Jibby, thank you for the sharing. We are so moved!
June 21, 2009
Did you all read about how Tun Razak’s prompt replies to Jibby’s aerogrammes whilst the latter was away at boarding school left such an indelible mark on our current pee m?
Malaysianinsider has the story HERE.
Quoting from that story :
Najib urged Malaysians who are fathers to continue trail-blazing paths that their children may follow.
“A father’s active and positive participation in a child’s life will increase the likelihood of his or her development into a valuable adult.
“It is not about lavishing gifts and material wealth. Rather, it is about equipping the child with the right tools, values and upbringing to manage their well-being after they leave the comfort of the parents’ care,”
Thank you, Jibby, for inspiring us.
Here’s hoping the video clips below will inspire you, Jibby.
Judging from the same, Dr Shaariibuu Setev’s father, too, must have left a trail-blazing path for him to follow.
For what it is worth, Happy Father’s Day, Dr. Shaariibuu.
