Archive for category Martin Jalleh

It’s a sham! It’s a show! It’s a Shame – it’s our Sick Economy!

By Martin Jalleh

· “The present PM has made some helpful gestures towards liberalising the economy…These initiatives, however, must do more than skim the surface of what must be done. (7 January 2010)
· “Malaysia is a sham democracy, one which existed only in name but grievously compromised in substance, reality and fact… Reforms could not be expected from the incumbents in power.” (8 February 2010)
· “Our economy has stagnated. Productivity remains low. We now lag our regional competitors in the quality of our people, when we were once leaders in the developing world.” (23 March 2010)
~ Tengku Razaleigh, former Finance Minister and veteran leader of Umno

Below is a glance at the sad and scandalous scenario of how the country’s once strong economy has fallen sick with the government putting up a big show (performance now!) of economic reforms in 2010 – full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

1. Flight in capital
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

23 Comments

Long Live LKS!

By Martin Jalleh

You have dared to continue to differ in spite of your double ISA detentions and the “dangers” that come with voicing and doing what is right and just.

You have made a difference whilst others dance to the tune of the status quo and become self-serving servile lap dogs to the dominant powers that be.

You were discouraged, down but not out when the DAP faced a near-death in its dismal 1995 general election performance. You bounced back defying all political odds.

You were determined to soldier on in spite of a debilitating spate of defections in 1996 and disturbing frequent internal conflicts, divisions and factional disputes.

You desired to quit and to assume full responsibility for the DAP’s election debacle in 1999. Yet, you went on to prove that you were no political dinosaur and to disappoint those hoping for DAP’s demise!

You have been the DAP’s driving force and strong disciplinarian for several decades, thereby giving your enemies within and without the DAP the excuse to label you a “dictator”.

You have never despaired in spite of the many downs and dark and depressing moments in your political career, whilst others grew disillusioned and eventually disappeared from the political scene. Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

5 Comments

Of Sin, Siti and small-minded men without sagacity

By Martin Jalleh

Siti Nor Bahyah Mahamood is a well-known Islamic motivator on local television and a popular TV personality, with Semanis Kurma on TV9 and Astro being her biggest hit.

As a famous personality, one would expect her to have all the facts on her fingertips in her efforts to educate, motivate and even propagate her faith! Surely her experience as a professional motivator would teach her that you can’t motivate people by humiliating others!

Recently, she decided to discourage Muslim youth from celebrating Valentine’s Day. It is actually quite a noble effort. I too do not believe in V’s Day (Catholic though I be) and I think it is tragic to have to say “I love you” only once a year and with a blooming rose that costs a bomb!

But I have no problem with the rest of the world who are caught up by the commercialization of love and romance (though now its extended to more than just a celebration of lovebirds) and are ready to pay a crazy and costly sum, probably to make up for their neglect of 364 days in the year!

V’s Day has become a day when, love is blind, the florists flourish, and hotels and restaurants reap roaring profits by holding the ridiculous! It has no religious significance whatsoever! As for those who wish to unleash their lust on V Day, VD (a different kind of rose) might await them!

Sadly, Siti’s ignorance showed when she, in an RTM programme last week, linked V’s Day to Christianity and immoral activities. She said “immoral activities, partying and unmarried couples associating in private are traditions of the Christian community”!

Surprisingly, as a motivator, Siti is glaringly show of understanding. V’s Day is not a Christian tradition and all Christian traditions and tenets do not condone, in fact abhor “immoral activities”, and “unmarried couples associating in private”.

If only Siti would sit quietly and ponder she will realize that vice and virtue lie in the adherents of every faith and there is really no need of making a scapegoat of other religions and insulting them for the sins of the people of her own faithful! Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

61 Comments

Celebrating the Challenge of Christmas!

by Martin Jalleh
Christmas Day, 2010

Christmas is here. For many of us who are Christians, we have allowed rampant commercialisation and the “Walt Disneyfication” of Christmas to reduce our Christian spirituality to mere sentimentality.

By all means, let us enjoy the carols, cakes, cool cards and cozy nativity scenes, but let us also put Christ back into Christmas and remind ourselves that Christ did not enter a world of comfortable spiritual sentiment.

Whilst commenting on what King Herod represents in the Christmas story a Bible scholar describes the real world in which Jesus Christ entered into and why He did: “Herod represents the dark side of the gospel. He recognizes something about Jesus that in our sentiment we fail to see: that the birth of this child is a threat to his kingdom, a threat to that kind of domination and rule. Jesus challenges the very power structures of this evil age.”

“Jesus enters a world of real pain, of serious dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression. Jesus was born an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee, and finally he becomes a victim to the powers that be. Jesus is the perfect savior for outcasts, refugees, and nobodies. ” Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

17 Comments

Pure Puppetry in Parliament

By Martin Jalleh

See how well the Speaker of Parliament in Bolehland performs to every pull and push by the hideous hands of the Umno political Masters in parliament.

So pliantly and passionately Pandikar Amin plays and dances to their every tug and tune, much to Umno’s great delight, pleasure and purpose.

So pleasingly the former Kota Marudu Umno division chief mouths and moves at every prompting, with perfect poise and pace, assisted by his deputies and political props in Parliament.

So slavishly he parrots and faithfully acts out the self-serving script of his political Masters (who believe they are superior beings) and whom he knows could at any time pull the plug on him!
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

7 Comments

Best Bloated Bureaucracy to Bleed Bolehland to Bankruptcy!

by Martin Jalleh
9 Nov. 2010

Deputy PM Muhyiddin Yassin believes that the BN is “back in business”. The buoyant “Malaysian-second” in Bolehland, said that BN’s future is bright and the Opposition better not underestimate them!

Bolstered by two big by-election victories he even boldly declares that the bureaucrats in Bolehland are “the best civil servants in the world”! The civil servant “have done a lot, but the people want better”.

The Deputy PM was at his ironic best: “The people do not want rhetoric. The era for rhetoric has long gone. The era where the government knows all, like what the prime minister has said, has long gone.”

[Strange, but it is APCO (the international communications firm which Najib is paying a bomb to spruce up his image and lobby for support in Washington) which feels that Malaysia is just another backward hole where Government knows best and press freedom is a figment of the imagination (Malaysian Chronicle)!]

Yes, the rakyat knows best Muhyiddin and we fully agree with you that the civil service in Bolehland is the “best in the world” in the following ways: Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

30 Comments

TK is not OK

By Martin Jalleh

Political Irony of the day

Today, in The Star we read of former Gerakan President Lim Keng Yaik (KY) telling his protégé Koh Tsu Koon (TK) not to stay longer than he is welcome. Tsu Koon has been the president of Gerakan for only about three years, Keng Yaik has been at the top of the party for 27 years! Who has been overstaying?

For the younger generation who do not know who Lim Keng Yaik is, well his last Cabinet post was Minister of Energy, Water and Communications. Reporters would be ready to attest to the fact that KY was a very communicative Minister with lots of energy and “water” to spare!

The old man must have forgotten that four years ago he told The Star: “When I took over from Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu in 1980, they said, this KY will not be able to measure up to Chong Eu. I think I can now safely beg to defer. No two persons are alike. I told him (TK) to be himself just as I was myself.” As you can see, KY is still very much himself!
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

21 Comments

Gerakan’s “Animal Farm”

By Martin Jalleh

Gerakan’s president Koh Tsu Koon continues to preen and strut around on the political stage like a peacock, and ignores the protruding truth that he looks more like a turkey whom Umno will turn into a stew one day.

Tsu Koon, described by his critics, especially during his tenure as the Chief Minister of Penang, as Umno’s lap-dog with his tail between his legs, appeared recently at a Penang Gerakan extraordinary general meeting (EGM) which he initially insisted he would avoid.

The EGM was meant to push for a motion of no-confidence against Penang chief Teng Hock Nan, whom many members feel have been hibernating like a hedgehog since Gerakan lost all its seats in Penang in the last general elections.

Tsu Koon turned up to cast his vote for his close ally who had a close call, prompting many to wonder whether it was time to “close shop”! The slim majority was a slap in the face for the more-mouse-than-man president, who naively expected everyone to “close ranks”.
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

14 Comments

Traitors – A Trademark & Tradition of Umno!

By Martin Jalleh

The Umno-dominated government stubbornly sticks to the same old tricks to try to sink the Opposition. One such stale attempt is to label as “traitors” those who refuse to suck up to its spent elite leaders.

And so Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid (AZ) who apparently ran out of steam to shut the Opposition up on the Scorpene submarines scandal, resorted to calling Nurul Izzah a “traitor”.

It seems that the Member of Parliament (MP) has stained the nation’s image by revealing on 4 Aug. 2010 in an interview with Kompas, a newspaper in Indonesia, that the country’s first submarine cannot dive.

Below are his comments (in bold) followed by a response which when added up points to the ironic conclusion that it is the Defence Minister and Umno who could be the real traitors after all!
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

3 Comments

MACC “commits suicide”!

By Martin Jalleh

18 Aug. 2010 – The Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), very tragically, “committed suicide” today. It killed the very little that was left of its own integrity and credibility.

Its public image plunged to the very depths with the help of its advocate Abdul Razak Musa. He had at first advocated self-strangulation. He even demonstrated how it could be done.

When that failed, the very experienced lawyer of 24 years assisted the Commission to take a wild leap out of the window of logic, common sense and civility. Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

34 Comments

Let the Thrill-Ling Show Begin!

By Martin Jalleh

Bolehland’s economy is buckling
FDIs are drastically a-tumbling.

The impact of corruption is crippling
The brain drain numbers are appalling.

Many ordinary people are struggling
The elite, nation’s wealth are gobbling.

Umno’s “internal security” is crumbling
Confidence of its members is wobbling.
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

8 Comments

Bolstering and Breeding Bigotry in Bolehland

By Martin Jalleh

The light, lenient, ludicrous and laughable court sentences on the cow-head protestors lends credence to the growing belief that Umno lives and lasts on bigotry

On 28 August last year, more than 50 people, shortly after their Friday prayers, marched from the Selangor state mosque in Shah Alam to the Selangor State Secretariat to protest the relocation of a 150-year old Hindu temple to their neighbourhood.

Amidst strong chants of “Allahuakbar!” they dragged and paraded the severed and bloodied head of a cow. One of their leaders shouted “I guarantee bloodshed and racial tension (if the temple relocation takes place)”.

Some of them made fiery speeches, spat on the severed cow’s head, kicked it, stomped on it, dumped it in front of the gates of the State Secretariat and proudly posed for photos, as police stood stoically, silently and submissively by.
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

21 Comments

SUPP (SOAP) OPERA IN SIBU!

By Martin Jalleh

The Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), Sarawak’s oldest political party, knows that it would be in real political hot “supp” (soup) if it loses in the coming by-election in Sibu.

The PM who recently received a slap in the face by the Chinese community in Hulu Selangor will have to turn the other cheek if the Chinese who are the majority in the Sibu constituency fail to support SUPP.

This helps to explain why the second coming of Najib (to Sibu) which just took place was so necessary. The PM descended on Sibu like a savior determined to deliver its citizens from the evil Opposition by offering the Chinese a slew of expensive gifts.

You do not need to make an educated guess why Najib presented the Chinese educationists and others allocations totaling RM18 million.

Though it was not a very educated thought, many outside Sibu could not help but wish that the days of their own MPs on earth would be few so that they too can enjoy the PM’s saving grace.
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

53 Comments

Datuk Hee? So ‘Hee-larious’!

By Martin Jalleh

It was an historic occasion for Hee Yit Foong. She was bestowed the honorary title “Datuk” by his Highness the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah, on the occasion of his 82nd birthday.

Hee must have been “hee-elated”. It was the high point of her life after having gone through the depths of great public humiliation and to contend with the hate heaped on her especially by Perakians.

Indeed, she has been hounded and abuses have been hurled on her when she did the hop-step-and-jump political dance. She hopped out of her party, stepped on the people’s will and jumped into the waiting arms of the BN as an “independent”.

During a State Assembly meeting, several DAP lawmakers gave her hell, threw RM1 notes at her and told her to resign as they said she had no honour left for selling her soul and State away!
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

35 Comments

Nazri Aziz – the Minister of Lies

By Martin Jalleh

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz acts tough, talks big and throws his weight around. He thinks he is very smart and knows everything! After all, he is also the minister in charge of parliamentary affairs and the de facto Law Minister.

Those who refuse to tolerate Nazri’s nonsense have to contend with his temper tantrums and theatrics. Apart from his childish threats and taunts, the Minister has become adept through the years with turning and twisting the truth whilst calling others liars.

It was typical of him to accuse Thai pathologist Dr. Pornthip of being a liar: “She lied in the inquest and she is lying now”. Dr. Pornthip has claimed that Putrajaya has exercised “political pressure” which “could affect her work” in Southern Thailand thereby forcing her to pull out from testifying in the on-going Teoh Beng Hock inquest.

It is indeed ironic that the Minister should be so quick to accuse others of lying, for when it comes to telling lies no one has left such an indelible mark on Malaysian politics than Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz.
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

9 Comments

In sympathy with Matthias Chang

By Martin Jalleh
(Martin Jalleh (MJ) responds to a letter purportedly written by Matthias Chang (MC) before he chose to go to jail after being charged for contempt of court by the Kuala Lumpur High Court.)

MC: Message from Matthias Chang. To My Dearest Friends and Colleagues

MJ: Dear Matthias, I was shocked that you have been charged for contempt of court. You must in synergy with your former boss who was most contemptuous of the courts!

MC: I have fought against injustice throughout my life and as a practising lawyer

MJ: Perhaps it would be more accurate to say throughout your pre-political-secretary life? The rest of your life you have been faithfully fighting for your former Master, Mahathir.

MC: …upholding justice when there are abuses by the judiciary
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

15 Comments

DR M, Father of the Regressing Malay

Mahathir forgets easily (II)
By Martin Jalleh

Recently, Bolehland’s Statesman Dr Mahathir (Dr M) launched Perkasa, a right-wing Malay group, (some consider it as an ultra-fanatical wing of Umno) at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur.

The former premier was the replacement for the much wiser Sultan of Selangor who turned down Perkasa’s invitation. The Malay CEOs of government-linked companies (GLCs) also declined.

Dr M and his wife were greeted with a silat performance, strains of traditional music and a huge replica of a keris which stood out on the side of the stage. In the midst of speeches were shouts of “Hidup Perkasa”.

Dr M said that the Malays’ faith in Umno has weakened since it’s disastrous performance in the 2008 general elections. The BN government was weak and all this was due to the then weak leader! He inferred that the Malays needed a strong voice like Perkasa.
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

19 Comments

Charge N H Chan for contempt or resign, CJ?

By Martin Jalleh

The integrity of the judiciary has been badly mauled by a legal lion who does not mince his words no matter how high or mighty a judge thinks he is. He has called a spade a spade and certain members of the judiciary an “incompetent” and even an “idiotic” bunch!

All the Chief Justice (CJ) and the judges in the Palace of Justice have managed to do is remain mum, mute and mumble amongst themselves as N H Chan methodically makes them out for who they really are and the mockery they have made of the law!

The respected, renowned and retired Justice N H Chan is very frustrated, fed-up and furious at how the judiciary which he had served so faithfully has been reduced to a farce run by those who are legal and intellectual frauds or what he has called “imposters”!

With each passing compromised judgment N H Chan unhesitatingly hits out at judges with an increasingly sharper sting. He leaves no stone unturned, no errant judge uncovered. They can “no longer mask their hyperbole judgments with unintelligible garbage”.

“Fools on the bench”
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

23 Comments

AG’s Acumen for Asinine Answers

By Martin Jalleh

Attorney-General (AG) Abdul Gani Patail want us to believe that he is committed to ensuring that the rule of law is upheld in Bolehland. In his address to members of the Judiciary and the Bar entitled “Opening of the Legal Year 2010”, on 16 Jan., he declared:

“(I)t cannot be over emphasized that the concept of justice is grounded on the basic principles of equality, fairness, and rule of law. The AGC (AG’s Chambers) is committed to promoting the rule of law and ensuring justice be given to all people whatever their race, religion or class.

“AGC in carrying out its duties is well aware of the maxim ‘justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done’, and hence the explanations issued by AGC from time to time on cases handled by it so that the public would not have misconceptions of biasness.”

Such purported profound and passionate zeal for the rule of law by the AG turns into mere political BN propaganda when one applies it to his pathetic excuses for not pressing charges against the two reporters of the Al-Islam magazine who had committed a most sacrilegious act against the Catholic community.

Gani’s Gall
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

21 Comments

Of the opposition, obstacles, opportunity and oblivion!

By Martin Jalleh

The public has increasingly perceived the fledging PR to be a “fragile”, “feuding”, “fraying” and “faltering” coalition – one that was “not on a firm footing”.

Last year saw the end of the euphoria that enveloped the whole country after the political tsunami of March 2008. It was a year during which the Opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (PR), was brought down to earth and forced to face the enormity of the challenge to deliver what it had promised during the elections.

It was also a year when the public increasingly perceived the fledging PR to be a “fragile”, “feuding”, “fraying” and “faltering” coalition — one that was “not on a firm footing”. In light of this scenario, the PR was hard pressed to convince the public that they could form the next federal government.

One would have thought that the PR, after having lost Perak to the BN in February 2009, would come to its senses about the need to be united.

But it continued with its petty and puerile public inter and intra-party squabbles, spats and skirmishes, much to the surprise and scorn of the public and the satisfaction of Umno!

Meanwhile, the great hope which the apolitical Hindraf gave to the Indians and in fact to Bolehland came to a halt.
Read the rest of this entry »

Print Friendly

36 Comments