The People’s Parliament

A. Murali

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On the night of December 27, 2007, my wife and I, whist having dinner at a restaurant in Subang Jaya, witnessed a man hitting a child (presumably his son).

The little boy was in our estimation no more than 5 years old.

The man delivered slaps across the child’s face with frightening force. The man only stopped after I intervened and threatened to call the police. He, however, continued to verbally abuse the child.

A lady (presumably his wife) was also seated at his table together with another toddler. The lady appeared fearful of the man.

My wife and I were concerned that the child may be habitually abused by the man and we decided that we should, for the sake of the welfare of the child, report the incident to the authorities.

As he left the restaurant I managed to make a note of the registration number of the car he drove.

The next day, I called the child abuse hotline, set up by the welfare department, to make a report of the
incident. The person who attended my call informed me that she was unable to take my report as I could not
provided her with the address of the person against whom the report is made. The car registration number
alone, I was told, was insufficient for them to investigate the matter.

Although I felt that the welfare department had the resources to trace the owner of the vehicle I chose not to debate the point with her. Instead, I conducted a search with the JPJ and obtained the name, address and identity card number of the owner of the car.

On 21st January 2008 I sent a letter, by courier, to the Jabatan Kebajikan Subang Jaya to report the
incident.

On the 3rd March 2008 I called the department to find out the status of their investigations into my report.

I was told that the department was not able to trace my letter and I was asked to send the letter again.

As requested I sent the letter again this time by facsimile.

I then made several calls to the department to determine if it had taken any action on my report. I
was not successful in getting any information on the matter. I was told that the officer in charge was
either not in or was unavailable. My calls were also not returned by officer in charge although I requested
that he/she calls me back.

I then resorted to lodge a complaint with the public complaints bureau with regards the failure of the
welfare department to take any action on my report. I made the complaint to the public complaints bureau on 2nd April 2008 through their online complaint system.

I checked the status of my complaint on 3rd, 4th and 8th April 2008 and found that my complaint to the
bureau was still under investigation.

I followed up by posting additional messages on the bureau’s message board expressing my frustration that the complaint is still under investigation. In my follow up messages I tried to impress upon the bureau that what is important is to ensure, for the sake of the safety of the child, that the welfare department takes immediate steps to investigate my report.

On 16 April 2008 I received an e-mail from the public complaints bureau informing me that the bureau would seek an explanation from the welfare department as to why it has not acted on my report.

I replied this e-mail and informed the bureau that explanations are not important. What is important is that the welfare department takes immediate action to investigate the report that I made.

When no reply was forthcoming, from the bureau or the welfare department, I sent a further e-mail to the
bureau on the 30th April 2008. This time I informed the bureau that if I did not, within 48 hours, receive
any information with regards the steps taken by the welfare department to ensure the safety of the child I
will bring this matter to the attention of the media, including the alternative media.

I have since still not received any communication from either the public complaints bureau or the welfare department.

I am shocked and dismayed at the manner in which the welfare department has dealt, or rather not dealt,
with this matter. It is, after all, the institution entrusted to protect the welfare of children.

What could be more deserving of their urgent attention than a complaint regarding the abuse of a child?

It has been more than 3 months since I first made my complaint to the department. I dread to think what may have happened to the child in this period.

I am also disappointed with the public complaints bureau.

It took the bureau 2 weeks just to inform me that it will contact (which suggests that no contact had yet been made) the welfare department to request an explanation as to why it has not taken any action. I am not even sure whether the bureau has contacted the welfare department at all.

I am at my wits end as to what I should do to make the welfare department investigate my complaint.

I sincerely hope that the Peoples Parliament takes this issue up with the welfare department. It could
mean saving a child from further torment from an abusive father.

Update at 4.10pm : The vigil is on.

Received the following sms at 1.17pm today

Malam solidariti ke atas RPK malam ini 7/5, rabu, 9 mlm, pintu utama Penjara Sg Buloh. Jgn lupa bw lilin dan payung. Sebarkan.

Am presently trying to verify this. Await updates

By Helen Ang

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The post headline refers to,

Article title: ‘MCA must regain its vision’

Publication: theSun, April 30, 2008

Section: Comment & Analysis

Author: Ms Fui K. Soong

Position: CEO of Insap, the MCA think tank

Url: http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=21896

It’s been said that Raja Petra, though no lawyer, articulated in his post on the Altantuya trial what the Ahmads, Ah Chongs and Muthusamys privately question but are afraid to express publicly.

I’m proposing an experiment and calling for public participation because we cannot depend on lone individuals to do these chores solo. Ahmad, Ah Chong and Muthusamy have to start pulling their weight in our civil society contestation of views with the ancien regime.

In my posts, I’ve personally done a fair bit of deconstruction on MSM. The politics parts I can handle; some specialist areas I can’t. Recently, I came across in theSun – again, but what else is new – an opinion piece which I don’t deem to be credible.

I can pronounce with some confidence that the author – Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research (Insap) CEO Fui K. Soong – has a writing style that is assuredly bad and the structuring of her thoughts worse. The politics she propounds as MCA think tank boss is evidently self-serving of her party. I’m no trained economist but even as a layman, I could see that the arguments were not entirely sound.

Hartal has mentioned before that theSun is Malaysia’s ‘special’ newspaper in that it advertises itself aggressively. It engaged a PR-advertising consultant to do its marketing campaign and the then MD-cum- editor- in-chief had remarked that public perception of a newspaper is weighed by its ability to provide balanced news and commentary which educates.

The consultant claimed it “leveraged on theSun’s philosophy that good journalism goes hand in hand with well-thought out opinionated writings to best reflect the growing maturity and sophistication of the Malaysian public.”

theSun‘s opinionated piece titled ‘MCA must regain its vision’ failed to “educate” me as a reader. It was replete with big words and showy phrases alright, and but ultimately conveying little sense. How can such writing then be considered “good journalism”? Nor was it “well-thought out” as it contained so much jumbled jargon jiggling all over the place.

At the crux of Soong’s article is this gripe: “What is painfully apparent is that we have allowed the Opposition to dominate the social justice debate during the elections as if it were the rightful place of socialism or socialist democracy, as they like to be called these days.”

While it is true that PAS introduced ‘Welfare State’ in its election manifesto, I don’t see how the Islamist party or the rest of the Opposition can be deemed professing “socialism or socialist democracy” like she claims. PSM is the only one into socialism and it is an unregistered party.

Soong also dismisses the Opposition’s concern for the oppressed classes as pushing “populist ideals” which are passé.

But when Soong herself liberally sprinkles her work with the terms “socialism”, “socialist democracy”, “social welfare state”, “social welfare concept” and “a language of social justice”, it comes across as only one-upmanship. MCA is a towkay party, after all, so the posturing hardly denotes sincerity.

She imputes “a socialist ideology” to subsidies, associated with price controls promised by the Opposition during election. But subsidies are given to the American farm sector too and the US is not usually thought of as socialist by any stretch of the imagination.

And why is Soong so disparaging of ‘welfare’ when the Opposition shows itself people-oriented? Or is she merely contemptuous of their success with the simple message that the richer are getting richer, the poor poorer, and BN means ‘Barang Naik’?

If I were better versed in economics, I’m sure I should be able to decipher more anomalies in her contentions. However, as I’m not, I shall have to throw the ball by calling on enlightened readers to help me thoroughly deconstruct Soong’s opinions – which I suspect are humbug.

Below are reasons why the essay should be dissected:

(1) The author is not just some hack but CEO of the MCA think tank and as such, hers is a policy document that bears scrutiny.

(2) The article attempts to put across the party’s ‘rebranding’, and we should examine MCA’s new approach to recovering lost ground.

(3) Her views seem to be going stronger on Chinese communalism and race grievances, which is a hardening of positions coming at the same time that the Malays are insisting on supremacy.

(4) In light of the party’s present attempt at reinventing itself, it is worth discussing MCA history to learn from the past and how their leaders have done a gross disservice to Malaysian Chinese.

Please click on this url of Kit Siang’s blog.

http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2008/03/29/results-of-space-tests-out-soon-opinion

The links features Dr Lee Wei Lim, a Marie Curie Fellow and Malaysian scientist in Maastricht University quizzing a Star report on the space test results from our Malaysian Angkasawan.

IMHO, the MCA think tank CEO should be subjected to the same sort of vigorous debunking. Please read Soong at

http://www.sun2surf.com/article.cfm?id=21896 and share your comments with us.

Sun-stroke! on Insap to be cont’d as a mini series with your active participation