Archive for category nation building
Bumpy stretch ahead for Malaysia
Posted by Kit in nation building on Tuesday, 1 September 2009
By Cheong Suk-Wai | Singapore Straits Times
AUG 29 – In early May 1969, Australian anthropologist Clive Kessler rode his motorcycle through Kelantan hamlets for 30km to the nearest telephone box. He then called his parents in Sydney and told them: “You’re going to hear about trouble in a few parts of Malaysia in the next few days, but not where I am.”
Sure enough, Malaysia’s bloodiest civil strife erupted. Dr Kessler, who was then there to observe Islamist politics, had predicted it in an article he wrote to the press and in an interview he gave the Times of London in April 1969.
Now 67, the emeritus professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney has been a Malaysia watcher for more than 40 years and published prodigiously on it, including two books.
He had taught at the London School of Economics (LSE) and then Columbia University in New York city from the late 1960s till 1980. In that time, he worked closely with such lions in his field as LSE’s Maurice Freedman and Raymond Firth as well as Princeton’s Clifford Geertz.
He got in touch with me initially about my published review of his compatriot Anthony Milner’s book, The Malays. In the review, I had wrongly attributed to Dr Kessler the view that if the Malay cannot make something of himself, he will try to bend others to his will. Dr Kessler was gracious about my unwitting error and we got to talking about Malaysia in Subang Jaya, Selangor, at the tail end of his two-month sojourn there recently.
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Tolerance..
Posted by Kit in Hussein Hamid, nation building on Tuesday, 1 September 2009
You will never know what it is like to be discriminated against because you are rich or poor or because of your colour, race or religion until you have experience it your self. I was in London in the 60’s and London then still had pockets of areas where you would be treated differently because you are Asian. You will be waiting to be served at these places and you will be ignored until the ‘white’ have been served first. You would go look at a flat that you saw advertised in the local papers and be told that “it is taken”. Invariably we Asians found ourselves living in houses where there were other Asian tenants.
We Asian in turn used to mock the blacks and called them “Gagak” or crows and the whites we sometimes called them “Babi”. In one memorable episode me and some friends were on the London bus and we were referring to the gentleman in a bowler hat sitting behind us as “Babi this and Babi that”…Then as his stop came he stood up behind us with his briefcase and umbrella and politely told us “ Tolong beri laluan ini Babi nak jalan”. He must have been one of those colonial masters that came to administer Malaysia.
My unpleasant experiences in London with discrimination, however slight, made me realize that it was unpleasant to be discriminated against – for any reason. Coming back to KL around the early 70’s brought me head on with the ‘bumiputra’ and NEP situation that gave so much hope and expectations of good things to come for us Malays, regardless of our standing in life. My memories of these times are a bit hazy but one experience can capture the essence of those times. At the apex of my time doing “Project Acquisition” I had two penthouses costing me RM30 thousand a month, two Generals and back up staff under my payroll. Read the rest of this entry »
Acceptance over Tolerance : The severed head of sacred cow.
Posted by Kit in Augustine Anthony, nation building on Monday, 31 August 2009
By Augustine Anthony
I must thank a local TV Channel for reminding me about the 8 values of 1 Malaysia in their talk show on the 52nd Merdeka Day with Lee Lam Thye (Tan Sri) and Dr. Chandra Muzzaffar as their guests.
Something that one of the hosts said attracted me more than all other insignificant murmurings and mutterings. The body languages of everyone present seem to suggest that one of the 8 values and that is “Acceptance” as opposed to tolerance should be the new approach that all Malaysian should embrace.
A quick check on the prime minister’s website 1Malaysia.com reveals the following:-
“ACCEPTANCE
On the importance of acceptance over tolerance
I think there’s quite a big difference between the two (tolerance and acceptance). I think when you say you tolerate, you don’t quite like it, but you accept it because you have no choice. But if you talk in terms of acceptance, it indicates a state of mind that you are embracing something positively. I think it’s important for us to migrate from this concept of mere Read the rest of this entry »
The Myth Of A Moderate Malaysia
Posted by Kit in nation building, Religion on Monday, 31 August 2009
By Sadanand Dhume, 08.31.09, 12:00 AM ET | Forbes
Canings, cows’ heads and ethnoreligious apartheid.
If you’re looking for an image that captures the conflict between fervent Islam and basic human decency, look no further than the Malaysian city of Shah Alam, about 15 miles west of Kuala Lumpur.
On Friday, a group of about 50 men, agitated by plans to relocate a 150-year-old Hindu temple to their neighborhood, made their feelings clear by staging a protest march from a mosque to a government building. Amidst the usual cries of “Allahu Akbar” and “takbeer,” the protesters deposited the freshly severed head of a cow–an animal sacred to Hindus–before the building’s gate. The group’s leaders made threatening speeches and, perhaps caught up in the spirit of the moment, hammed it up for the cameras, stepping and spitting on the cow’s head. The police–who have been known to arrest people for such crimes as attending a candle light vigil or wearing black in support of the opposition–stood by and watched.
Ironically, those scanning the globe for a Muslim-majority country that inspires neither dread nor despair often alight upon Malaysia. Until a few years ago, the Southeast Asian nation boasted the world’s tallest building, the iconic 88-story Petronas Towers. Powered by electronics, palm oil and petroleum, Malaysia is the world’s 20th-largest exporter, ahead of Sweden, Australia and India. Per capita income, about $14,000 in purchasing parity terms, is about the same as in Argentina. Apart from the obvious prosperity of downtown Kuala Lumpur, the casual visitor notices the comforting trappings of a British colonial past–a parliament, a judiciary, a professional police force.
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Let all patriotic Malaysians regardless of party come together to save Najib’s 1Malaysia from heading for the rocks 150 days after becoming Prime Minister
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, nation building on Sunday, 30 August 2009
52nd National Day message
Recent events, particularly in the past few weeks, cannot but raise the concern and even alarm of Malaysians who want to see the evolution of a Bangsa Malaysia after half a century of nationhood – as Malaysia is only just a decade from the Vision 2020 deadline of achieving a Bangsa Malaysia out of the diverse races, languages, cultures and religions in the country to become a fully developed nation in 2020.
Of late, there is not only a recrudescence of the irresponsible politics of race and religion, the exploitation of the race and religion cards have reached new intensity utterly reckless of their damage to the multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultural fabric of Malaysian society.
As a result, there is a further polarization of race and religion with the hardening of intolerant attitudes and stances, creating situations unseen or unheard of in the previous history of the nation – like the cowhead sacrilege in Shah Alam on Friday where a group protesting against the construction of a Hindu temple threatened bloodshed and committed the ultimate act of religious insensitivity, insult and profanity to Hindus by severing the head of a cow and stomping on it.
Let all patriotic Malaysians of goodwill recognize the danger signals to our plural society. Let all patriotic Malaysians regardless of party come together to save Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia motto from heading for the rocks 150 days after becoming Prime Minister to stave off divisive and centripetal forces from further dividing and polarizing Malaysians along race and religious lines. Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia in past weeks suffered unprecedented battery of adverse world media coverage which gravely undermine our international competitiveness and goal to become developed high-income country
Posted by Kit in nation building, Sarawak on Sunday, 30 August 2009
In the past weeks, Malaysia suffered from an unprecedented battery of adverse world media coverage which gravely undermine our international competitiveness by frightening off intending foreign investors and highly detrimental to the national goal to become a developed high-income country.
The latest incident which has put Malaysia in a very bad light internationally is the global media coverage of yesterday’s Shah Alam cow-head sacrilege in a protest against the construction of a Hindu temple, something which had not happened in 52 years of Malaysian nation building and raising the grave question whether the country is moving towards greater religious intolerance and polarization – and what this means to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia slogan.
Other adverse international media coverage of Malaysia in the past weeks include:
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The caning sentence imposed by a Pahang Syariah Court on part-time model Kartika Seri Dewi Shukarno’s for consuming beer;
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News of government decision to restrict Muslims from attending the concert of international pop sensation Black Eye Peas;
Cow-head politics: Fear not, those who misrepresent Islam
Posted by Kit in Azly Rahman, Islam, nation building on Sunday, 30 August 2009
By Azly Rahman
In the name of Allah Most Gracious Most Compassionate
1. By Al-‘Asr (the time).
2. Verily! Man is in loss,
3. Except those who believe (in Islâmic Monotheism) and do righteous good deeds, and recommend one another to the truth (i.e. order one another to perform all kinds of good deeds (Al-Ma’rûf)which Allâh has ordained, and abstain from all kinds of sins and evil deeds (Al-Munkar)which Allâh has forbidden), and recommend one another to patience (for the sufferings, harms, and injuries which one may encounter in Allâh’s Cause during preaching His religion of Islâmic Monotheism or Jihâd, etc.).
— Surah AlAsr (Time)
For Muslims (those who submit to the Will of Allah) and those who are embarking on a journey of peace, Ramadan is a time for deep reflection and contemplation on the sufferings of the self and of others. It is a month in which the oftentimes arrogant, boastful, aggressive self retreats to this Inner Cave and work hard towards cleansing the body, the mind, the spirit, and the soul. It is a long but reflective journey Muslims believe must be taken.
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The cow-head sacrilege an ominous warning that Najib’s first National Day celebration as Prime Minister will go down as a Black National Day if the genii of racism and religious chicanery are allowed to get out of the bottle
Posted by Kit in nation building on Saturday, 29 August 2009
All patriotic Malaysians of goodwill and reason must condemn in the strongest possible terms the cowhead sacrilege in Shah Alam yesterday where a group of protestors claiming to be residents of Section 23 in the area protested the construction of a Hindu temple and threatened bloodshed and committed the ultimate act of religious insensitivity, insult and offence to Hindus by severing the head of a cow and stomping on it.
If such an ultimate act of religious insensitivity, insult and offence had been committed against Islam, Utusan Malaysia would have gone to town not only with full front-page coverage and denunciation, probably half the newspaper today would be devoted to it. Why the thundering silence from Utusan Malaysia?
In other multi-religious societies, such an ultimate act of religious insensitivity, insult and offence to one of the major religions in the country would have led to mayhem, riots and loss of lives and it bespeaks of the high degree of maturity, mutual tolerance, goodwill and co-existence that cool heads had prevailed in the response to such a deplorable act of sacrilege.
In a multi-religious society, the act of sacrilege to one religion must be regarded as an act of sacrilege to all other religions and the entire nation.
Let this serve as a overarching consensus of all political parties, mass media, NGOs and Malaysians if we cherish and love this nation.
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What a 52nd National Day!
Posted by Kit in Health, MCA, Najib Razak, nation building on Thursday, 27 August 2009
From http://twitter.com/limkitsiang
What a National Day on Monday! Najib’s 1Malaysia gets drubbing in Permatang Pasir. MCA sacks ChuaSoiLek. SamyVellu in MIC. H1N1 – 71 deaths
27th August 2009 07:37 AM
Some unfinished business: Untangling the peoples of Malaysia
Posted by Kit in nation building, Tunku Abdul Aziz on Thursday, 20 August 2009
When Merdeka was granted half a century ago, we inherited a number of items of unfinished business, the most critical of which was the urgent necessity to create a united Malayan nation and, soon afterwards, a Malaysian nation.
The late Tom Harrison, the famous curator of the Sarawak Museum, described Malaysia as “a tangle of peoples” in an article published in the Malaysian Outlook, a small journal I edited in Australia in 1963, in a fit of patriotism. “Konfrontasi” was in full swing then, and, given the dangerously unpredictable and volatile behaviour of Bung Karno of Indonesia, our future as a nation was by no means assured.
Harrison was not thinking so much about the Malays, Chinese and Indians of the Malay peninsula, but rather the often forgotten peoples making up the many different tribal and ethnic groups with their many different customs, religious beliefs and languages inhabiting Sabah and Sarawak. Almost overnight, they found themselves the citizens of a new and, to them, somewhat vague political creation called Malaysia. The Kadazan Dusuns, Bajaus, Punans, Penans, Kayans, Muruts and various others, I fear, still remain very much outside our consciousness, even after more than four decades of Malaysia. Need I say more about this serious lapse of memory? What national unity are we talking about without them?
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Common sense in Politics?
Posted by Kit in Hussein Hamid, nation building on Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Time and time again we have been told that the last 50 years have seen unprecedented growth and development for Malaysia – more development and material progress then at any time of our history. Our technical and scientific skill has increased to allow our country to be a developed country in the global context. Yes – unprecedented growth as compared to what? Compared to the last 500 years of our history? If it has been so why not work towards the development and growth of our country for the next 50 years? Why does the Government of Barisan Nasional instead concern itself with the control of our society in which we live in and in ways and means of ensuring itself a lengthy stay in Government?
Is it not now than at any other moment of our history that we should concern ourselves with morality and ethics? That statesmanship and government must be for the well being of our people?
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Muhyiddin – stop playing Jekyll and Hyde with Najib’s 1Malaysia
Posted by Kit in Muhyiddin Yassin, nation building, UMNO on Tuesday, 18 August 2009
As Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin should stop playing “Jekyll and Hyde” on Malaysian nation-building and in particular with Prime Minister’s Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia concept.
Yesterday, Muhyiddin played Dr. Jekyll by talking like a Malaysian statesman, telling the National Level and International Invitation of Student Leaders’ Unity and Integration Gathering at Persada Johore by reminding Malaysians that the country’s biggest challenge would always be in maintaining unity and racial harmony among its people from various ethnic backgrounds.
He added: “It is the same foundation on which the 1Malaysia concept was based on which Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak implemented it to establish Malaysia as a united country, where its people readily accepted and respected one another and shared success and prosperity.”
But the for the past week, Muhyiddin was playing Mr. Hyde, launching a vitriolic attack on Pakatan Rakyat by remorselessly and relentlessly spearheading an Umno campaign to crank up communal sentiments starting with his repeated charge that Parliamentary Opposition Leader and PKR chief, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is “a traitor to the Malay race” (with Umno divisions mobilizing all over the country to support Muhyiddin in calling Anwar a Malay “traitor”), as well as other baseless and mischievous allegations that PAS has betrayed Islam by working with DAP and that DAP had insulted Islam by working with PAS! Read the rest of this entry »
On Malay Heroes and Traitors
Posted by Kit in Bakri Musa, Muhyiddin Yassin, nation building on Monday, 17 August 2009
By M. Bakri Musa
Malaysiakini.com August 13, 2009
It is truly despicable that Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Muhyiddin would see fit to label the leader of the loyal opposition Anwar Ibrahim a traitor. I expect such infantile name calling and boorish behavior from the likes of UMNO Youth leaders and mainstream media editors, not from a DPM.
Muhyiddin has yet to learn that as DPM he is leader of all Malaysians, not just of UMNO and Barisan supporters. In mentality and behavior he remains a parochial UMNO politician, not a national leader. He has yet to make the necessary transition to being the occupant of the second highest office in the land, and literally a heartbeat away from being Prime Minister.
Muhyiddin is now clearly way over his head. His is the classic personification of the old Peter Principle, of someone finally rising to his level of incompetence. Not that he was particularly capable in his previous role as Agriculture Minister.
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DAP does not insult Islam
Posted by Kit in Letters, nation building, Religion on Saturday, 15 August 2009
By Aaron Ngui
I am an ardent reader of your blog. Your insights into the Malaysian political landscape are nothing short of biting and accurate. May you continue to write, and serve as MP, for a long time to come.
I’m writing this letter to you in response to your posting entitled “DAP does not insult Islam or any religion and does not condone any DAP leader or member in insulting Islam or any religion”. Your points in the posting are good and well noted. The post is in rebuttal to the recent brouhaha over Nik Aziz’s supposed comments. In addition, I have never seen any leader from DAP or Pakatan Rakyat insulting Islam.
Might I be so bold to point out that there might be errors in the news reports over Nik Aziz’s comments. I think the point to note is that Nik Aziz NEVER condoned DAP, or any other political party, to insult Malaysia’s official religion. From the report(s), he only opinied on why DAP leaders allegedly insulted the religion – a shallow understanding. Again, the PAS spiritual leader DID NOT give the green light for anyone to insult the religion; all he did was presumed that people who (supposedly and stupidly) insulted Islam were doing so out of ignorance. This is entirely different from what the report(s) presume.
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Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia’s immunity to flout the law by continuously inciting racial hatred and religious discord a public slap-in-the-face for Najib’s 1Malaysia concept
Posted by Kit in nation building on Sunday, 9 August 2009
Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia’s immunity to flout the law by continuously inciting racial hatred and religious discord is a disgrace to Malaysian journalism and a public slap-in-the-face for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia concept.
Just five days ago, Utusan Malaysia carried an editorial “Tidak sedarkah Melayu sedang di hina?” and an article “Melayu jangan jadi bacul” spouting unabashed rank racism, incitement and sedition totally subversive of Najib’s 1Malaysia slogan.
Today, Utusan Mingguan tried to create an explosive tinderbox by making baseless but incendiary allegations in a multi-religious Malaysia that DAP is anti-Islam in its Sunday editorial “DAP anti-Islam?”
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RACE: TIME FOR A NEW BEGINNING
Posted by Kit in nation building on Sunday, 9 August 2009
by Tengku Razaleigh
(Speech at Kelab Umno Australia Seminar “Racial Integration and its Challenges” in Melbourne on Sunday 9th August 2009)
RACE: TIME FOR A NEW BEGINNING
Distance, home and reflection
1) The opportunity to study abroad is gift. I remember my days as a student in Belfast so long ago. Now as then, overseas study gives us the chance to be educated at some of the finest, best established institutions of higher learning anywhere, and to be exposed to the best that has been thought and done, and to measure ourselves against the highest standards. It is an opportunity to see the world.
2) Travel and living abroad takes us far away from home, but in doing so it also brings us closer to ourselves, and closer to home. Have you experienced this? Have you felt time and distance making you more conscious of how unique and precious the places, relationships, colours, smells and yes, tastes, of home are? Distance can help us see things more clearly. Home is such an immediate, dense and total experience that we often need to go away to see its contours. Home is such an emotional experience that we often understand it better in the coolness of distance. We sometimes need the elevation of distance to see the map of our own country.
3) I want to use this privileged distance that we now share, here in Melbourne, to speak frankly with you today about a matter that is usually so tightly wound up, so emotional, that at a national level we have not been able to have a rational discussion about it.
4) I want to invite you to look across this distance at the map of the life in common that we call our country. I want to look across the distance of fifty two years of independence, across changes over my own lifetime, to understand where we have come from as a nation and where we are going. My topic is race and racial consciousness in Malaysian life, and especially in our politics. Read the rest of this entry »
Greatest disappointment of all 18 Najib Cabinet meetings – utter failure to address six urgent national issues from crime, corruption, education, health to nation building
Posted by Kit in Education, Health, Human Rights, Najib Razak, nation building, Police, Teoh Beng Hock on Friday, 7 August 2009
The Cabinet meeting this Wednesday (5th August) is the greatest disappointment of all the 18 Cabinet meetings in the 124 days of Najib premiership because of its utter failure to address at least six urgent national issues ranging from crime, corruption, education, health to nation building.
The Cabinet has irresponsibly skirted grave and urgent national issues including:
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Cabinet’s failure to heed nation-wide outrage at its refusal to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the causes and circumstances of Teoh Beng Hock’s mysterious death at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on July 16 instead of breaking up the process into two parts – an inquest into the causes of Teoh’s death and a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into MACC interrogation techniques.
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had said in Pekan on Tuesday that the Commission of Inquiry into the MACC’s interrogation methods would only begin its work after the inquest into Teoh’s death.
It is Najib’s ensuing statement that the RCI “will take into consideration the findings of the inquest” which has given Teoh’s family the false hope that if they are not satisfied with the inquest findings, Najib is prepared to consider their request for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the causes and circumstances of Teoh’s death.
Utusan Melayu … or Ugutan Melayu?
Posted by Kit in Azly Rahman, nation building on Friday, 7 August 2009
By Azly Rahman
What is the function of a newspaper in a multicultural society? Is it to expand the mind of readers or to instill fear of others –or even of oneself?
Utusan Melayu (I am still familiar with this name rather than Utusan Malaysia) or the Malay Messenger has some good stuff to contribute to society but generally its and mission and vision is to build soul cages of the Malays. The mind of the Malay is warped, distorted, and archived into a realm of fear of itself and of others. Through the Malay language it brings thinking into a tabloidic dimension and relegates politics into a subject of advancing the backwardness of ultra-communalism.
Utusan Melayu is synonymous with Ketuanan Melayu, Tuntutan Melayu, Rasul Melayu, Kongres Melayu, Kesatuan Melayu, and other forms of glorified anomalies of the progressive Malay mind yearning to be free from the shackles of feudalism, superstition, and neo-feudalistic and urban-superstitious beliefs.
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Saya Melayu
Posted by Kit in Hussein Hamid, nation building, UMNO on Friday, 7 August 2009
By Hussein Hamid
The problems we now face does not only concern Perak, Kelantan, Penang and Selangor but the whole country. It does not only concern the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians but everybody who are Malaysians. It is not a concern for today, tomorrow, next week or next year but a concern for not only today but more important, of the future. The errors we make, the foundations we build and all that we do now will be there for posterity – to be judged by those that come after us. If we are not there to hear the verdict, our children will.
While the individual leaders within Pakatan Rakyat have long been in Politics their ability to govern and govern well is yet to be tested. But time favours them.
Time does not favor UMNO. The years of UMNO rule, while all not bad, has brought into question whether more of the same excesses are to prevail in the years to come?
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Dare Ministers from MCA, Gerakan, MIC and from the Sabah and Sarawak component BN parties put the rank racism, incitement and sedition in Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian totally subversive of Najib’s 1Malaysia slogan as the No. 1 agenda in Cabinet
Posted by Kit in Najib Razak, nation building on Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Utusan Malaysia has joined Berita Minggu to come out with an article entitled “Melayu jangan jadi bacul” by Noor Azam which spouts unabashed rank racism, incitement and sedition totally subversive of the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia slogan.
If any Chinese or Tamil newspaper had published an article of the same nature but replacing the rank Malay racism with rank Chinese or Tamil racism, there can be no doubt that not only the writer would have been instantly arrested by the police and charged for racist incitement and sedition but the newspaper concerned would have been banned immediately!
Is the Barisan Nasional government having one law for Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian while another law for Chinese and Tamil media publications?
Are the Ministers from MCA, Gerakan, MIC and from the Sabah and Sarawak component Barisan Nasional parties going to raise in the Cabinet tomorrow Noor Azam’s racist writing in Utusan Malaysia today – placing it as the No. 1 agenda in the Cabinet meeting tomorrow as otherwise all the talk of Najib about his administration’s new motto of “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now” would have lost all credibility. Read the rest of this entry »
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