Archive for category Politics
Ibrahim Ali a clear and present danger
Posted by Kit in nation building, Politics, Religion on Saturday, 21 May 2011
Malaysiakini
May 21, 11
‘Ibrahim, you specifically used the term ‘perang salib’ in your speech, don’t deny it now. Anyway, we know that he and his mentor are immune to ISA.’
‘Don’t use ISA or sedition laws against Ibrahim Ali’
Atan-Toyol: Perkasa chief Ibrahim Ali said that “Islam is being ridicule”. Give me one example, Ibrahim. If Islam is being ridiculed at all, it is you who is doing the ridiculing by your uncalled for calling for a crusade against Christians, when they have not even provoked you.
Ibrahim, you are just doing this so as to appear like a champion and hero to the rural Malays, and ‘protector’ of Islam. Islam does not need protection, Allah will protect his religion, as He says of the Quran also. So, start growing up, and be like a mature Malaysian. Read the rest of this entry »
DAP reaches out to Malays online
By Shannon Teoh
The Malaysian Insider
May 21, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — Unable to shake off its tag as a Chinese chauvinist party, DAP is now hoping to make a splash in the Malay online media landscape with a news portal, a step it says it should have taken “a long time ago.”
Just days after vice chairman Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim’s admission that the party has failed to attract Malay support, DAP will launch a Bahasa Malaysia language website — Roketkini.com — in the hopes of making itself heard among Malays.
“Right now, there is a huge void for us in the Malay media. You don’t hear anything about DAP except for us being attacked,” said political secretary to the party’s secretary general Zairil Khir Johari.
The largely Chinese party has been repeatedly accused by the Umno-led Barisan Nasional (BN) and Malay media of practising racial politics. Read the rest of this entry »
Toleransi politik yang sudah luntur
Oleh Aspan Alias | May 18, 2011
The Malaysian Insider
18 MEI — Kerana terlalu banyak politiking kita lupa kepada asas politik yang sebenarnya. Kesungguhan dalam politik sudah tiada bagi kita orang Melayu. kita melebihkan tumpuan kepada politiking; siapa yang menang dan siapa yang kalah, siapa yang berkuasa dan siapa yang tidak berkuasa. Politik yang asasi, iaitu politik yang membawa penyatuan secara jujur sudah tiada. Politik dan kuasa adalah empunya orang yang berkuasa.
Apabila kita menjadi ahli sesebuah parti matlamatnya ialah untuk menyatukan pemikiran dia antara ahli-ahli dan jika ada perbezaan kita “co-exist” dalam parameter toleransi yang luas. Diawal zaman kemerdekaan negara dahulu pemimpin-pemimpin kita dari berbilang kaum telah meletakan asas kerjasama di antara parti yang di asaskan kepada kaum-kaum di negara ini. Orang Melayu dengan Umnonya, orang Cina dengan MCAnya dan India dengan MICnya.
Read the rest of this entry »
BN condones violence?
Posted by Kit in Mariam Mokhtar, Politics on Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Mariam Mokhtar | May 16, 11
Malaysiakini
Does Umno consider the life of a three-year-old fair-game in the war for political power? When will Umno take seriously the threat to kidnap MP Nurul Izzah Anwar’s three-year-old daughter?
Are Umno politicians so politically immature and morally corrupt? Perhaps Umno’s propaganda machine considers a defenceless child is just a pawn to use to gain political advantage.
Umno vice-president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was sceptical of the threat to kidnap Nurul’s child. He believed it was “just an opposition ploy to gain sympathy”.
Perhaps, if his child were to face similar threats, Zahid, who is also Defence Minister, would not mind if we were to tell him that he should ‘grin and bear it.’
Few will forget Zahid’s embarrassing back-tracking over his statements which alluded to the loyalties of the non-Malays in the armed forces. He wasn’t such a brave man when he faced the nation’s wrath. Read the rest of this entry »
The ‘Get Anwar’ agenda
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Articles, Politics on Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad
The Malaysian Insider
May 16, 2011
MAY 16 — The birth of my first child has given me a new perspective on things. While I do feel older, it has also made me realise that it’s not just my future, or the future of my generation that I have to work for alone now.
So when I found out that my colleague Nurul Izzah Anwar received SMSes threatening her daughter, I was sickened and outraged, as I imagine any parent — any human being — would be.
It is still too early to tell who was behind the SMS or why they did it. It might be part of the bigger political game or it might be some crazy lunatic.
What is clear however is that it is a result of the debased phenomenon we call Malaysian politics. To say politics is dirty is a cliché, but this incident proves that Malaysian politics is filthy to the core.
The country has gone through many tragedies: the Memali incident, the 1988 judicial crisis, the 1998 sacking of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and many others. Combined together, it has damned Malaysia.
Central to the decline is the “Get Anwar” agenda. One may agree or disagree, like or dislike Anwar, but I think not many can dispute that the establishment led by Umno has been consumed by their desire to destroy Anwar at all cost. Read the rest of this entry »
Up and around, here and there
Sakmongkol AK47
The Malaysian Insider
May 11, 2011
MAY 11 — Umno and its mathematics.
I was “bad” at math when I said out of 10, 11 do not believe. I almost believe that I was terrible at math until I scanned the mainstreams papers screaming that DAP wants a Christian PM and Christianity to be made an official religion.
I know, the trappings of power have made some people soft. What I didn’t realise as quickly as I should have is they have made some people soft in the head.
We have 222 parliamentary seats for grabs. DAP contests, at most, 40. Assuming they win all the 40 parliamentary seats, perhaps Umno mathematicians can tell me how, with 40 seats, DAP or anyone else can form a national government? You have 82 seats and even you can’t form a national government.
Malays number 17-18 million. They form 60 over per cent of the population. Even if DAP marshals the entirety of the Chinese support, can 20 per cent of the population outnumber the 60 over per cent? Perhaps the Umno mathematicians can enlighten me.
Next we have the screamer who says “hidup Melayu”. There is no way we will allow DAP to take over the country. If that makes you happy, please scream some more. We can’t argue much against such emotions and illogic.
But PAS is also Malay. So “hidup Melayu” can also mean “hidup PAS” in as much as it can also mean Umno. Umno people have this self-conceited idea, borne from uncontested arrogance perhaps, that Umno is Malay and Malay is Umno. Read the rest of this entry »
S’pore’s political awakening likely to impact Johor
Kuek Ser Kuang Keng | May 6, 11 5:32pm
Malaysiakini
With more than half a million Malaysians working in Singapore, the apparent political shift in the Singapore election campaign is set to shake Malaysia’s political landscape, especially in the southern state of Johor – deemed to be Umno last bastion in the peninsula.
In this polls, described by many as the toughest battle faced by ruling party People’s Action Party (PAP) since 1960s, the opposition campaign had gained impressive momentum, reflected by the attendance of animated crowds numbering in the tens of thousands at their mega-rallies over the past few days.
It has not only rung the PAP’s alarm bell but also received wide coverage from both the international and Malaysian media.
“No question, Singapore’s political opening will shape all those who are here to see politics differently, whether they are from Malaysia or Indonesia,” said Bridget Welsh, an associate professor in political science at the Singapore Management University. Read the rest of this entry »
Most important ingredient for national unity
Posted by Kit in 1Malaysia, Elections, nation building, Politics on Thursday, 28 April 2011
By: K.K. Tan
The Sun
Wed, 27 Apr 2011
DESPITE the debate on racial unity and attempts by the government to achieve it, there seems to be more disunity than ever. It appears that the silent voices of reason and moderation of the majority, who are in support of 1Malaysia, are drowned by the increasingly aggressive voices from a small minority of extremists.
Once again, the destructive and inflammatory proposal to punish a certain ethnic community in the post-Sarawak election blame game is being promoted to “force” a warped kind of national unity. I am not siding with any political party, but touching on a fundamental principle of democracy. Presumably, the punishment suggested would involve the denial of legitimate aid, funding and development to the areas concerned.
According to Newton’s third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Hence, the attempted punishment of voters by the Sabah state government in the Tambunan by-election of December 1984 backfired in April 1985 when the ruling party was routed and lost in the state election.
If such “punishment” didn’t work in 1984, it certainly will not work in 2011. These punishment promoters are effectively undermining 1Malaysia. Read the rest of this entry »
Of political desperados, dingoes and demons
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Martin Jalleh, Najib Razak, Politics on Friday, 25 March 2011
By Martin Jalleh
The PM and Umno are desperate, very desperate indeed. It has dawned very hard on them that they could soon be driven out of Putrajaya and into political oblivion.
Anwar Ibrahim, the man who has been the drawing and driving force behind the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (PR), must be destroyed at all cost. Never before has anyone posed such a danger to Umno.
They had tried very hard to do his political career in with a sham sodomy trial but he bounced back even more determined, and with his coalition, dealt them a severe blow in the last general elections.
Read the rest of this entry »
Sordid politics in Malaysia – Hitting below the belt
Posted by Kit in Anwar Ibrahim, Politics on Thursday, 24 March 2011
The Economist
Mar 24th 2011
EVER since he ascended the greasy pole, the political career of Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has been mortgaged to his private life. He is currently on trial for sodomising a male aide, which he denies, in what has become a virtual rerun of a similar case in 1998, after he was sacked as deputy prime minister. Then he was sent to jail for six years, until an appeal court ruled that his conviction had been unsound.
Now a new scandal has broken out over a video clip that purports to show Mr Anwar having sex—this time with a woman. Mr Anwar has furiously denied that he is the man in the video. (The footage was screened on March 21st to a group of Malaysian reporters, all of whom were required to surrender phones, laptops and recording devices.) A man who refused to identify himself said that the video was a secret recording made at a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur. He explained that he had discovered the recording device after a “prominent politician” asked him to search the hotel room for a missing watch. He said he wanted to show that the “prominent politician”—guess who?—was immoral and “not fit to be a leader”. The man of mystery has since revealed his identity, and that of an accomplice: surprise, surprise, they’re longtime political enemies of Mr Anwar’s.
Read the rest of this entry »
Freeing Education From Politics
There is one particular issue in this country that never fails to incite fierce debate, with passionate arguments – and the occasional flying brick – from all sides of the divide. This has been the case for a very long time, and its history is one that runs parallel to our nation’s own. To chronicle its story would be to journey through the annals of our own ethno-political experience, from early immigrant settlements to colonial dominance and finally to the many compromises that have been effected since political independence was achieved. Today, the story is by no means over; it is one that is constantly evolving (and tormenting) our socio-political structure.
And what is this matter that is as naturally fundamental as it is exasperatingly sensitive? Why, it is this little matter called education.
Few would dispute the contention that there is something fundamentally wrong with the education system in our country, but polemics abound when solutions are proffered or undertaken. Take, for example, the recent remonstrations surrounding the reversal of the PPSMI (teaching of mathematics and science in English) or the sudden announcement that history will be made a mandatory SPM pass subject from 2013. Or better yet, consider also the replacement of the PMR by a school-based assessment programme. Initially reported to take place in 2016 in order to provide sufficient time for a transition that would not burden the affected students, it has now been abruptly brought forward to 2014. And then there are the really thorny issues, such as the question of vernacular education and its place in our national polity, or the standard of our national school model and curriculum, viewed by many as tools of political indoctrination and partisan propaganda. Read the rest of this entry »
Returning to democratic foundations should be the top priority
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Corruption, Judiciary, Najib Razak, nation building, Parliament, Politics on Monday, 17 January 2011
Breaking Views
by Ahmad Mustapha Hassan
The Malaysian Insider
January 17, 2011
January 17, 2011JAN 17 — Malaysia is considered by the present leaders as being a democratic country. It goes to the polls every five years or whenever the ruling coalition feels the time is right. It allows its citizens to practise whatever religion they choose, with some major exceptions. It allows the media, electronic and print to exist, with again very major restrictions. But, of course, the rationale behind all these restrictions is to maintain peace and order. This is the common cliché used to justify the existence of all the preventive and restrictive laws. Of course, the real reasons are to maintain power.
Looking back on how Malaya then was formed, there was every reason to believe that our model of democracy would be a shining example to all the newly independent countries that were once colonies of Britain. Malaya followed the Westminster model. Malaya had all the trappings that would make all other countries envious of it.
It had a bicameral legislature just like Britain. Instead of the House of Lords, it created a nominated House known as the Senate. Members of Parliament were to be elected through a general election. It separated the functions of the Executive and that of Parliament. Each had a definite power of its own. The Judiciary was independent of the Executive. The separation of power was put in place to allow democracy to flourish. The media was to act as the fourth estate.
To top it all, Malaya created a unique constitutional monarchy to be rotated every five years by the nine Sultans in the country.
And the civil service was to remain neutral.
It was beautifully conceived by the founding fathers. The country was to be secular in nature although Islam was made the official religion with all other religions allowed to be practised. There was, in other words, religious freedom. Read the rest of this entry »
When did Najib get the veto power as BN Chairman to veto parliamentary and state assembly candidates proposed by the other BN component parties?
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced in Kuching yesterday that he will exercise his rights as Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman to veto potential candidates to ensure only winnable ones become BN candidates in the next election.
It is public knowledge that all along, the final decision on the list of candidates rests with the presidents of the respective Barisan Nasional component parties, whether MCA, Gerakan, MIC, PPP or the Sarawak/Sabah component parties.
When did Najib get the veto power as BN Chairman to veto parliamentary and state assembly candidates proposed by BN component parties?
There is nothing in the Barisan Nasional constitution which confers on the BN Chairman the veto powers to reject the parliamentary or state assembly candidates proposed BN component parties.
If Najib can veto potential candidates proposed by Barisan Nasional component parties to ensure only winnable ones become BN candidates, can leaders of the other BN component parties veto proposed Umno candidates on similar ground of winnability in the next general election?
Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysia ranked ‘partly free’
Posted by Kit in Human Rights, Politics on Saturday, 15 January 2011
By Shannon Teoh
The Malaysian Insider
January 15, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 — Malaysia was ranked ‘partly free’ in terms of political rights and civil liberties with Indonesia the only country in Southeast Asia to be ranked ‘free’ for 2010 in a report released by US-based freedom watchdog Freedom House yesterday.
On a scale of one to seven, with one being the best score, Malaysia obtained a four for both political rights and civil liberties while Indonesia managed a two and three respectively.
Malaysia edged out Singapore (5, 4) in the Freedom of the World 2011 assessment while Burma obtained the worst possible rating of seven for both categories which resulted in the tag of “Worst of the Worst.”
Other countries that scored two fours were Honduras and Nepal while Australia, Belgium, Germany, the US and UK were among those that obtained the best possible score of two ones. Read the rest of this entry »
Kenapa Saya Memilih Roket
Sejak berita keahlian saya dalam DAP telah diumumkan oleh media massa selepas ucapan perbahasan saya semasa Konvensyen Pakatan Rakyat di Kepala Batas tempoh hari, soalan yang paling kerap diajukan kepada saya adalah: kenapa DAP?
Pada saya jawapannya amat mudah. Secara ikhtisar, saya telah memilih untuk menjulang perjuangan rakyat dalam kancah politik negara kita melalui Parti Tindakan Demokratik (DAP) sebagai satu kesinambungan pewarisan dan jasa arwah ayahanda saya kepada negara tercinta. Ada yang mungkin mengatakan bahawa tindakan sedemikian adalah satu percanggahan, sedangkan ayah saya dahulu bukan sekadar ahli biasa UMNO, malah seorang pengasas parti itu sejak tahun 1946 dan merupakan seorang pemimpin kanan yang pernah memegang jawatan Naib Presiden dan Setiausaha Agung. Malah, ada yang sudahpun mengecam perwatakan saya sebagai seorang pengkhianat bangsa atau ‘Melayu lupa diri’, kononnya saya ini ibarat kacang yang telah melupakan kulit dengan tindakan membelakangi sebuah parti yang sudah kian lama dianggap sebagai pembela bangsa.
Saya memang akur bahawa UMNO merupakan sebuah parti yang masyhur dan bersejarah, dan atas usaha dan pengorbanan pemimpin-pemimpin terdahulunya telahpun berjaya meraih kemerdekaan tanah air kita daripada penjajah British. Namun sejak kebelakangan ini, niat asal penubuhannya, atau raison d’être, untuk membebaskan negara dan memartabatkan bangsa sudahpun ternoda. Read the rest of this entry »
Chong Eu a great Penangite, a great Malaysian, and a great patriot
Posted by Kit in nation building, Penang, Politics, Thomas Lee on Thursday, 25 November 2010
By Thomas Lee
Mysinchew.com
2010-11-25
Wednesday 24 November 2010 was a sad day for Malaysians, especially Penangites. It was on that day that the beloved Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu passed away.
Chong Eu was born in Penang on Wednesday 28 May 1919 to a young medical doctor Dr Lim Chwee Leong and his wife Cheah Swee Hoon. He was given the name Chong Eu, which roughly translated from Chinese means “heaven’s blessing”.
Dr Lim Chwee Leong was just 22 years old when he graduated as medical doctor and left his hometown of Singapore to work and settle in Penang. The young doctor’s decision to make Penang his permanent abode was certainly a heavenly blessing for the island state as his first child Chong Eu was destined to be the person who would bring abundant blessings to the people of Penang.
Chong Eu was born and grew up during a very exciting epoch-making period of world history, involving two great World Wars, several national revolutions, especially those of Russia and China, many regional wars, including the Korean War and Vietnam War, and the emergence of the anti-colonialism liberation movement in the Third World countries. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Malaysia, don’t go our way’ call rings out
Posted by Kit in nation building, Politics, Religion on Thursday, 25 November 2010
by M Krishnamoorthy
Malaysiakini
Nov 25, 10
Malaysians were urged not to take the path of religious fanaticism and not allow politicians to exploit religious or racial issues when campaigning for votes.
“If politicians use religion or race to sway the people’s minds then the country may head for disaster,” said Pastor James Wuye and Imam Muhammad Ashafa in a public talk to an audience of over 200 last night at the Hussein Onn Eye Hospital.
Organised by MRA/ Initiatives of Change Malaysia, they concurred that religious leaders should be sincere, fair and mediate conflicts without any agenda for political advantage.
“Neither should politicians use religious leaders to influence the people, and in countries which have used such propaganda have torn their social fabric and were doomed,” Pastor Wuye said.
The net result of any wrong actions by politicians will be a political tsunami and governments can be brought down if religion or race is preached the wrong way to win the people’s support, Ashafa stressed. Read the rest of this entry »
Kangaroos in full view
Once thought to only exist in Australia, we now know better. In fact, even in Australia, these unique animals are more easily spoken about than viewed. In the sixties when on my first visit to that country, I was on the farm outside Perth and my hosts felt it their bounden duty to show this young Malaysian the real thing. So I was put on the front seat of the Land Rover and literally taken for a ride. The powerful vehicle went all over the bush land, in and out of large holes in the ground but eighty minutes of focused search found not a single one of those fascinating animals. The only real kangaroo I could speak of was the one on the lunch table which I partook of only after much coaxing by the gracious hostess!
How was I to know that in this day and time, to view kangaroos, any Malaysian or for that matter any visitor to our land, need not take the Air Asia flight to Australia nor get into a powerful Land Rover. Here in Kuala Lumpur, they need not even have to make their way to the zoo. They need to just go to Jalan Duta. Read the rest of this entry »
The thing about viewpoints
Letters
by Goh Keat Peng
As I read a sports commentary on England vs NZ All-Blacks, it becomes quite clear how the view from an onlooker looking down from his seat in the terraces of Twickenham Stadium and that of a player on the field is really very different.
“…a fast flat pass left from Youngs then put Mike Tindall in space on the Kiwi 22, the old battering-ram hesitated, dawdled inside and then threw a change-of-heart pass behind Lewis Moody on the outside. Chances made, chances lost,” writes Tom Fordyce, the famous sports commentator featured on the BBC website.
This to me sums up quite well the difference in viewpoints within the same arena. Both commentator and player were in the same stadium at the same time engrossed in the same game. But one was up there on the terrace able to see at once the entire field and all the 30 men plus three match officials; the other was on the field where the match is in ongoing progress. The two men literally have two very different points of view, not just in terms of sight but also insight. Understandably so.
Almost at once as I read Tom Fordyce’s insightful commentary on a rugby test match between two giant teams, I am brought back from faraway Twickenham to the present-day realities of Malaysian politics.
It becomes for me like a parable as to how we view the going-ons of the national political scene. Depending on which side we are rooting for, we are filled with a mixture of emotions- hope? foreboding? glee? despair? humour? disgust? Just like the team you support in the Premiership, or Super Bowl, or Tri-Nations. Real matches and games are being played out before us (on television) the outcomes of which may send us into ecstasy or embarassment or, as in politics, sedition charges! Read the rest of this entry »
The prerogative of choice
This we have to admire about the more established democracies: that there is no monopoly about which party will form the government of any level. The two or more main parties or coalitions of parties have reasonable chance. The people are not saddled effectively with just one choice. In recent times, the world has witnessed a change of government in Britain and just days ago, the House of Representatives in the US has changed hands. Just two years after a very popular president was swept into office, Congress is now in the hands of the opposition.
This should be the case in most things in life. An exception being family. We can of course choose who to marry or whether to marry at all. But we cannot choose which family we wish to be born in. This is of course because you can’t make choices before you have come into existence in the first place!
You go to a neighbourhood grocer’s and there is not just one brand of toothpaste or, for that matter, toothbrush. With multiple choices for any product or service, an alternative is available. So a decision becomes necessary on your part. It could be that you walk into a megastore of today with ten choices of anything and still only stick to one brand of anything. That’s your prerogative.
Choice is on the whole healthy for human beings. To have the prerogative of choice is what you and I must have. Read the rest of this entry »
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