Archive for November 7th, 2008
Tajuddin of Pasir Salak – “tak sekolah ke?”
Posted by Kit in Education, nation building, Pakatan Rakyat, Parliament on Friday, 7 November 2008
Before the disgraceful “bastard” episode in Parliament on Wednesday (5th November 2008), the Barisan Nasional (BN) MP for Pasir Salak, Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman was involved in an earlier parliamentary row when I was speaking on the Prime Minister’s Department on how the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) was poisoning the minds of the new generation of public servants with racist, communal and unMalaysian propaganda.
This was Tajuddin’s “tak sekolah ke?” expose.
Many MPs, not only from Pakatan Rakyat but also from BN, have been wondering why Tajuddin had been enjoying immunity not only for showing utter contempt for parliamentary decencies but even for openly challenging the authority of the Chair, as happened on on 29th October 2008 when the Deputy Speaker Datuk Dr. Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaffar was presiding, and Tajuddin threw the gauntlet:
“Kalau macam ini saya tidak setuju kalau Tuan Yang di-Pertua hendak ambil tindakan kepada saya, ambillah! Betul, ambillah, ambil! Come on. Let’s be fair dengan izin. You dengar ini dengar!”
DAP MP for Bukit Gelugor Karpal Singh was suspended for two days over the “main, main” issue but Tajuddin got away scot-free for unprecedented open defiance to the Chair except to subsequently withdraw the statement.
“Bastard” in the House – most severe action must taken against Tajuddin
Posted by Kit in Parliament on Friday, 7 November 2008
Yesterday, two DAP MPs were suspended from the Dewan Rakyat – a dubious record for a single day of parliamentary proceeding.
DAP MP for Batu Gajah Fong Po Kuan was reduced to tears not because she had committed any crime or wrong but at the injustice of being ordered out of the House for trying to discharge her parliamentary duty to speak up on behalf of her constituents and Malaysians.
DAP MP for Bandar Kuching Chong Chieng Jen was suspended because he stood up to support Fong and complained about the harsh nature of the Speaker’s decision.
On Tuesday, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) MP for Batu, Tian Chua, was suspended from the House for repeatedly demanding to know why the Finance Minister, Datuk Najib Razak was refusing to allow opposition MPs to seek clarification on his new RM7 billion supplement to the 2009 Budget which had not been formally tabled in Parliament.
Last Thursday, DAP National Chairman and MP for Bukit Gelugor Karpal Singh was suspended for two days over the “main, main” issue.
But all these “infractions” of the four Pakatan Rakyat MPs added together are nothing compared to the ultimate parliamentary offence by the obstreperous Barisan Nasional MP for Pasir Salak Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman in his most obnoxious and completely unacceptable conduct on Wednesday when he used the terms “bastard” and “bloody bastard” against the DAP MP for Ipoh Barat, M. Kulasegaran.
Abdullah would fail in judicial reforms if original Article 121(1) not restored
Posted by Kit in Judiciary, Parliament on Friday, 7 November 2008
The parliamentary reply of the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, yesterday on judicial reforms and the RM10.5 million ex gratia payment to six judges who were victims of the 1988 “Mother of all judicial crisis for two decades” has raised more questions.
Firstly, Nazri most irresponsibly tried to rewrite history about the 1988 “Mother of all judicial crisis for two decades” when he denied that the judges, particularly the then Lord President Tun Salleh Abas and two supreme court judges the late Tan Sri Wan Suleiman Pawanteh and Datuk George Seah were “sacked” , saying that they were asked to “retire early”.
Nazri was flying in the face of facts of history in making such a claim, for there can be no dispute that Salleh Abas, Wan Suleiman and George Seah were sacked after the outcome of the two “kangaroo” judicial tribunals set up by the then Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad time, while the other three judges, Tan Sri Azmi Kamaruddin, Tan Sri Wan Hamzah Mohd Salleh and the late Tan Sri Eusoffe Abdolcadeer were victimised when they were suspended and virtually “sent to conventry” for the rest of their judicial service after their suspension was lifted. Read the rest of this entry »
Great news – Court orders RPK’s release
Posted by Kit in Raja Petra Kamaruddin on Friday, 7 November 2008
The Shah Alam High Court this morning ordered the release of Malaysia Today editor and blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin who had been detained under the Internal Security Act since Sept. 12, 2008.
The judge, Justice Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad ordered the police to produce RPK, who is detained in Kamunting Detention Centre, in Shah Alam court by 4 pm today to be formally released.
I would be in Shah Alam Court myself to be a witness to this historic moment if I am not in Penang now and have to be in Alor Star tonight.
The Shah Alam High Court decision sustains hope that basic judicial decency, independence and integrity have not been completely destroyed despite two decades of judicial darkness.
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should ensure that the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar and the police fully respect the Shah Alam High Court’s decision on RPK’s habeas corpus application and uphold the rule of law and should slap down any trickery or stratagem to frustrate the judicial decision, such as a re-arrest.
Welcome back RPK!
Entering the Malay mind
Posted by Kit in Azly Rahman on Friday, 7 November 2008
by Azly Rahman
[Lecture notes of a recent speech given to Malaysian students in New York]
In this digital age of postmodernity, hypertextuality, alienation, and of chaos and complexity in which the historical march of capitalism has dictated the way nations think, it is becoming difficult for us to understand how the mind of a people work – unless we build a metaphysical chariot (like the one Krishna prepared for Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurusektra) to journey into it, through the eyes that will also bring us through their soul. At strategic points in that much the soul is corrupted by the material condition created by those who own the means of controlling the march of “progress” and the definition of “history”. At every epoch in the history of nations, there will be those who will be clueless of what they exist for and who they exist for; marginalized by those who have a better command of the art and science of social control and in the art of war.
I realize that the above sentences, for some, are dense and complex and require clarifications through simpler language; but like the monologue of Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola’s classic, “Apocalypse Now,” we ought to try to understand the meaning of such a statement. Like James Joyce’s stream of consciousness, sentences may flow gracefully with intensity. Read the rest of this entry »
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