Jamila Rahim better off in DAP than Isma, Umno, says Khalid

by Puteri Sabira

Rakyat Times

5 October 2014

PAS Central Committee member and Shah Alam Member of Parliament Khalid Samad says that Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (ISMA) has no place in Malaysia with its extremist views.

Khalid has hit out at ISMA that had described DAP’s new recruit, Jamila Rahim, as a “confused Muslim” and challenged her to prove that the DAP would bring her any closer to achieving her goal of justice.

“PAS is definitely is a better choice for Muslims, but people are entitled to join any political party, I think it’s better for Jamila (left) to join DAP rather than ISMA or Umno,” he told The Rakyat Times when contacted.

Khalid stressed that DAP is a party that champions justice and holds firmly to its principles.

” Transparency, justice and integrity are part of Islamic teaching, therefore it’s crucial for people to uphold these values as long as it was in line with Islam,” Khalid added.

ISMA, Umno extremists

Khalid also said that ISMA or Umno are extremist that thrive on the politics of racism, corruption and arrogance.

“It’s important for Jamila to continue to adhere to Islamic values and maintain the boundaries in the DAP party,” Khalid added.

Meanwhile, a political science lecturer from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Dungun, Che Hamdan Che Mohd Razali, told The Rakyat Times that all quarters have to stop say disrespectful and offensive remarks to prevent further deterioration of race relations in the country.

Che Hamdan also urged all political parties to embrace the diversity and to look after the interests of all races.

“There are many plans being made to promote national unity, but it has always been manipulated by certain quarters that play religions cards to fulfil their agenda,”

Che Hamdan also said that the media and the community has to play a crucial role to promote unity in forging closer relations.

” People need to embrace tolerance to sustain peace and harmony in a multi religious society like Malaysia,” he added.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 5 October 2014, 10:42 am and is filed under
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Najib’s wasatiyyah campaign would have no credibility unless he could rescue the Global Movement of Moderates (GMM) from the suspicion of a semi-underground organization inciting sedition, and take one step further, empower GMM to play a global role to mobilise world moderate opinion against Islamic State (IS)

In his Aidiladha message, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak reiterated that he would keep faith with the “moderation” pledge he made at the 69th United Nations General Assembly last month.

Najib should realize that his wasatiyyah (moderation) campaign of justice, balance and excellence would have no credibility whatsoever unless he is seen as upholding all these principles not only in the international arena but also in his government policies  inside the country.

A news report today that an Umno delegate has called on the Umno General Assembly to discuss abolishing the Chinese vernacular school system on the baseless and spurious ground that it promoted racism and anti-establishment sentiments is the latest testimony of the failure of Najib’s wasatiyyah (moderation) campaign promoting the values of justice, balance and excellence.

The Umno delegate’s proposal to raise the intake of Malay and Indian students and teachers in Chinese schools to 60 per cent is the best proof that Najib’s five-year premiership has not only failed to foster justice, balance and excellence, but has provided a field day for immoderate, ignorant and intolerant viewpoints to spread and flourish.

This is no  surprise when his two most important initiatives on wasatiyyah have proved to be such dismal failures.

Firstly, his 1Malaysia campaign, which is going the way of  the pet project of his predecessor, Tun Abdullah, i.e. the totally forgotten “Islam Hadhari” project. But there is one important  difference: the Islam Hadhari project was abandoned after Abdullah’s forced resignation as Prime Minister but Najib appeared to have himself given up the ghost of his 1Malaysia signature programme, a final triumph for his Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassim who repudiated the 1Malaysia project right from the beginning declaring that he was always “Malay first, Malaysian second”!

Secondly, the pathetic end of his brainchild, the Global Movement of Moderates (GMM), which was conceived as the king-pin of his legacy not only to Malaysia but to the world  community in his stirring call on “moderates of all countries, of all religions to take back the centre, to reclaim the agenda for peace and pragmatism, and to marginalize and  reject extremism in all its forms because the real divide is not between East and West or between developed and developing worlds or between Muslims, Christians and Jews. It is between moderates and extremists of all religions”.

At present, the GMM which he initiated is operating like a semi-illegal organisation, when it had to ask the media not to report the proceedings of the GMM forum on the “Future of Malaysia” with NGOs, because the GMM cannot ensure the freedom and liberty of the participants and protect them from the sedition “white terror” which had deluged Malaysia for over a month.

Najib’s wasatiyyah campaign would have no credibility unless he could rescue the Global Movement of Moderates (GMM) from the suspicion as a semi-underground organization inciting sedition, and take one step further, empower GMM to play a global role to mobilise world moderate opinion against Islamic State (IS).

What is the use of Najib talking about the three main ingredients of wasatiyyah – justice, balance and excellence – when every day, there are ample examples in Malaysia of the  contemptuous disregard  or violation of these values, whether in the seditious dragnet against opposition leaders and activists resulting from remorseless selective and malicious investigation and prosecution under the Sedition Act; gaining world infamy last week in being named as “one of the most corrupt nations  in the world” in a recent survey by Ernst & Young; or another proof of the mediocrity of Malaysia’s higher education in being excluded for the fifth consecutive year from the Times Higher Education (THE) Top 400 World University Rankings 2014 and the admission by the University of Malaya Vice Chancellor that Malaysia’s premier university is not ready to join the Top 400 Universities scrutiny until 2018!

Has Najib any plan or strategy to rescue the Global Movement of Moderates from the baseless swamp of suspicion that it is not promoting moderation but has become quite a subversive organisation inciting sedition in the country, or is Najib resigned to write off the GMM as another of his failed projects?

The majority of Malaysians want the see the GMM succeed for regardless of race, religion or region, I am confident and convinced that the overwhelming majority of Malaysians are moderates and not extremists, who want to see inter-racial and inter-religious harmony, understanding and goodwill being constantly strengthened instead of being weakened and undermined.

If there are any reservations about the GMM, it is whether Najib is prepared to allow GMM full rein to promote moderation and marginalise extremism, whether nationally or internationally.

Let Najib empower  GMM to play a global role to mobilise world moderate opinion against Islamic State (IS), starting with an international conference. Probably, GMM can co-operate with the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (with Tun Abdullah newly appointed as chairman) to organise the international conference moderates to mobilise opinion against Islamic State (IS).

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 5 October 2014, 4:23 pm and is filed under
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PAS reactionaries strike back

By Bridget Welsh

Malaysiakini

Sep 22, 2014

COMMENT
 With emotional outbursts, walkouts and contradictory statements, PAS’ 60th muktamar last week was more of a confrontation rather than a celebration.

 With the PAS president referring to the Islamic party’s Pakatan Rakyat partners as “minor enemies” and its members who stood with ally PKR as “lackeys”, it has become evident that PAS under the leadership of Abdul Hadi Awang appears to be no longer a party that can be trusted to listen to the people and work with other parties to bring change to Malaysia.

 There is a sense of betrayal among the public, whose hopes have been dashed by a reactionary faction of conservative ulama within PAS who think they are the ‘chosen ones’ – many of whom who have acted in a manner that is neither in keeping with their religious values nor reflects wisdom.

 In the wake of this muktamar, where the reactionary forces have dominated the bitter discourse, the Pakatan coalition has suffered a serious blow from within. It appears that the opposition coalition is over.

 This conclusion is understandable but – for now – premature.

 Pakatan is clearly deeply wounded, but the intensity of the battle inside PAS reveals an ongoing struggle that suggests that there are many more battles ahead and the fight to develop an alternative political narrative is not over.

In fact, arguably, the PAS muktamar reveals the scope of struggles that are necessary to overcome in order to give the majority of Malaysians what they have voted for – a better Malaysia.

 In this muktamar, the divide within PAS has come into the open. The skirmishes have been ongoing for many years, repeating historical tensions inside the party and paralleling struggles within Islamist parties globally.

 PAS has moved from a pattern of working toward consensus – even this was fragile – to open conflict. Those that are the most insecure, the conservative religious ulama, have taken to the reactionary tactic of destruction, aiming to derail political reform within PAS itself and nationally.

 Most of the focus of the discussion has centred on Abdul Hadi Awang. The underlying issues facing the party go well beyond its president. There are three interrelated crises facing the party – identity, leadership and democracy. Let me elaborate these further.

PAS identity – in Umno’s image?

PAS’ political advantage has traditionally been that its leaders are portrayed as moral and non-corrupt. This ‘upright’ standing has allowed the party to be compared favourably to Umno. It has underscored the profound respect for spiritual leader Niz Aziz Nik Mat, for example, whose missing moral authority was keenly felt at the Johor muktamar. But PAS’ righteous advantage is disappearing.

 Rightly or wrongly, PAS’ response in the Selangor MB crisis has caused many to question the honesty and integrity of its leaders. Double-speak, contradictions and inconsistencies – in direct contrast to the theme of the muktamar – have left a mark on party’s image.

 PAS has always had a trust deficit among the majority of the country; it only managed to win on average a third of support among Malaysians on its own. The actions over the last few months have deepened distrust and, for many non-Muslims and Muslims alike, shattered the perception of PAS as the ‘good’ party.

 People are asking why PAS leaders have misled the public, visited certain places in the shadow of night and avoided answering questions directly. In the wake of the muktamar, PAS has come off as a party interested in its own power, not listening to the public nor apparently keeping its promises. Has PAS taken a page from Umno, many wonder?

 In fact, while scholars point to Umno becoming like PAS in its advocacy of exclusionary Islamist policies, there has been another phenomenon, PAS – or at least some within the party – is becoming more like Umno.

This perception is reinforced by a closer look at the backgrounds of PAS leaders. Gone are the days of humility and humbleness. Today many PAS leaders appear to be interested in securing international positions, wealth and material goods. The sins of greed and pride appear evident.

 Observers are asking how religious schools led by some PAS leaders have amassed such wealth, while others secured lucrative business contracts. Questions are being raised about the ties of many PAS leaders with those from Umno over assets and finances.

 Corruption and nepotism within PAS are even being quietly discussed in the sense that some are using the party for position, their families and personal wealth rather than the ideals the party supposedly espouses. Worse yet, religion is being used to justify positions that appear to be more about self-interest rather than actual religious principles.

 For decades, PAS has been wrestling with how to promote an Islamist agenda and what sort of Islam it should be advocating. As it engaged in a more inclusive manner through Pakatan, the myopic focus on implementing hudud and syariah laws has been challenged by more inclusive shared religious values of justice, good governance and stronger humanity.

 A spirit of humanism and community has been fostered, where greater inclusiveness and appreciation for equality have disputed the narrow-minded thinking of many conservative ulama that see themselves a step above ordinary people.

 Many conservative ulama within the party are uncomfortable moving outside of what they know, and in fact have increased their efforts to indoctrinate younger members with their interpreted religious views. They advocate an exclusionary approach that not only divides Malaysian society, but also follows the line of dictating to others.

 They just don’t get that the overwhelming majority of Malaysians want to choose how they practice their own religion, and that the majority believe that the country is not ready for hudud.

 Moreover, they do not realise that citizens are not willing to turn over moral authority to religious leaders that appear to be acting immorally. PAS’ conservative ulama appear to have forgotten that the means are as important as the ends, and by choosing to adopt practices that promote division and disrespect they are not acting righteously.

 Sadly, of late, a path of destruction has been adopted by Hadi and his ulama camp against their professed goals. The message that stands out is not only one of further parallel to Umno in the prominence of arrogance and use of division, but it is also a signal that ironically strengthens Umno as the choice for government over the long term.

Crisis of leadership

Malaysians have been searching for leaders they can respect and put their faith in. More and more have been putting their belief in PAS. But this muktamar has not inspired any such confidence.

 Rather than working together to move the country forward, PAS under Hadi appears to want to move the country and his party backward. When Hadi assumed the presidency in 2002, he had difficult shoes to fill following the death of Fadzil Noor. Not only was the former president willing to listen and work with others, he inspired support that brought new people into the party and won additional states to govern.

 By any measure Hadi cannot be credited with the same gains, especially in recent months. Hadi’s decisions contributed to the loss of Kedah, Terengganu (twice), Perak and potentially Selangor, and his leadership has weakened rather than strengthened the party.

 The future of Hadi’s leadership will continue to play out until the next muktamar when a party election is scheduled. The rally-around-the-leader dynamic of this muktamar was as much a reflection of weakness of Hadi’s leadership as it shows that many within his own party are alienated by his actions.

The leadership problem in PAS is broader than one person. One dimension is the role of the ulama in the party hierarchy. Many in PAS do not agree that the conservative ulama should lead the party. It is a long-standing battle in PAS, and this battle has intensified.

 Until this muktamar, the conservative ulama have been losing ground. Conservative ulama have played limited roles in Pakatan, with many of them not even attending decision-making meetings. The ulama leadership in states like Kedah was rejected by the electorate.

 The key PAS actors involved in successful Pakatan governance have been those with the direct skills and knowledge to address the country’s problems, the non-ulama. The party delegates and general public understand this. In last year’s muktamar, progressives were elected in the majority for positions, as the delegates opted for more non-ulama leadership.

 The conservative ulama fear marginalisation and in this muktamar fought back. They defended the decisions and positions of their teammate Hadi who has increasingly taken on less reform-oriented positions.

 The conservative ulama clearly are unwilling to accept a different and more advisory political role. The recent meeting shows that they are willing to do anything to stay in premier positions, even if it means dividing PAS and weakening the opposition as a whole.

 Painting themselves as martyrs for the conservative cause, the current ulama are seen to be trying to assure the survival of younger conservatives, many of whom are from the same families of the current ulama leadership. At its root is a reactionary goal – to stop reforms in the party and nationally.

 A second leadership problem is that PAS currently does not offer a viable prime minister candidate. This has to do in part with the competition among the more progressive leaders among themselves. It also stems for a lack of grooming and experience of many PAS leaders in government and on the national stage.

 For a party that supposedly claims to seek national power, it has a deficit in giving voters an alternative that can not only lead the country but also inspire confidence. While there are many PAS leaders that have potential to fill this role, the current situation and traditional PAS party culture of accepting hierarchy has prevented them from coming to the fore.

 If the progressives are to have any chance at all they will need to agree and present an alternative leader. This will require significant reform within PAS, and successful measures involving courage that thwart the reactionary turn.

Moving away from democracy

 A third interrelated dimension of PAS’ current crises involves democracy. PAS is grappling with the conflict between different political bodies within the party, namely the syura council versus the central working committee.

 It is wrestling also to respond to an increasingly demanding and diverse membership and electorate. In recent months, the PAS ulama leadership has moved in a more authoritarian direction, with decisions by fiat rather than through consultation.

 In fact, minority views have prevailed, as the majority were ignored, dismissed and even ridiculed. Clearly, the mandate of the delegates and voters has been ignored. The conservative ulama appear not to understand that dictatorial practices lead to the downfall of Islamist parties, as happened in Egypt. They similarly do not understand that as an opposition party calling for more democracy, their own lack of democratic governance reveals hypocrisy.

 PAS, like other parties, wrestles with engaging democratic practices. As Umno and PKR have introduced more democratic internal party elections, allowing members to select the party leadership, under Hadi PAS has resisted opening up. This has not allowed new blood to come into the leadership and different ideas to emerge. It has signaled a lack of respect for the wisdom of its members.

Another challenge has been including women in political positions within PAS. The party leadership’s recent attacks on a politician – although not everyone in PAS – because she is woman, has not conformed to democratic values of inclusion.

 Equally important, members in PAS have been supporting decisions that are not in line with the public mandate on who was voted into office and why. Unlike a decade ago where PAS was leading the path toward democracy in the Malay community, the Islamist party has stagnated in expanding democracy. In this muktamar, the reactionary conservative ulama have further resisted democratic reforms.

 An example is the supremacy of the syura council in party decisions. Syura members have the undemocratic power to choose their members and they are not accountable to anyone. Is this the type of body that Malaysians are willing to accept to wield ultimate decision-making power and those who assume positions not from an open election?

 Who should have power and whether that power should be accountable to the delegates and ordinary voters has come to the fore.

 This involves the difficult issue of legitimacy. Who should legitimately hold power? How should leaders be chosen by the people? What should be the source of legitimate power is right for PAS? Should it be the party constitution, elections from members or archaic practices of a syura council that is neither representative to the party itself or appears willing to respect and listen to the views and aspirations of ordinary voters?

 Reforms to the party constitution will be necessary if the party is to move in a more democratic direction. The reactionary push-back in PAS has resisted these democratic pressures. More broadly, the party’s authoritarian turn had been damaging for democracy in Malaysia.

Difficult future for Pakatan

 The reactionary elements in PAS have been there for decades. In this muktamar, they have come out into the open. The intensity of their responses reflects ongoing struggles over identity, leadership and democracy.

 The fact that they have come out as they have, fighting in a no-holds-barred manner, reveals weakness not strength. They are afraid and insecure. They are willing to do everything to stay in control of PAS to maintain their reactionary position.

 The use of reactionary politics is sadly increasingly common across the political spectrum in Umno as well as PAS. Its roots however have to be seen to derive from the increasing democratic pressures and demands from the public on leaders who are neither willing nor able to accommodate them.

 The fact that more of these reactionary measures are being used shows that Malaysia is changing and those in power are unwilling to change with it.

 PAS is headed for further internal struggles. The more progressive forces in the party may appear to have lost ground at this muktamar, with reactionary forces dominating the discourse. They clearly were not prepared to fight openly against the reactionary forces. But they have survived to fight another day, and the party election in the next muktamar as well as the Selangor issue will be the next battlefields.

The muktamar showed that the internal battles will continue to rage, and that the fight within PAS is far from over. The important decision ahead for the progressives in PAS involve whether or not to stay within the party, the development of strategies that strengthen internal party reform and movement toward offering an alternative leader to Hadi.

 What does this mean for Pakatan? Is it dead as many have claimed? No question, the working relationships of leaders and partnerships have soured, and will likely to continue. The opposition coalition may enter a period of decline. As long as the reactionaries control the party decisions in PAS, the Islamist party will not be seen as a trusted partner. This will feed distrust among the opposition parties.

 Pakatan’s future will heavily depend on the outcome of the battles within PAS. It is important at this juncture not to completely dismiss PAS and the reality of the difficulty of its internal struggles. Indeed, the battle for democracy in the Malay community is taking place on many fronts.

 It also needs to be acknowledged that PAS alone is not responsible for all the troubles in Pakatan and considerable responsibility lies with the folly of the ‘Kajang move’ and inflexibility of other Pakatan leaders in the handling the Selangor crisis. PAS’ Pakatan partners need to look inside themselves to appreciate why reactionary forces in PAS have become so predominant.

Pakatan now enters its most difficult phase and this will decide whether the coalition will survive and the struggle for political reform is a genuine one. It will involve courage, faith and wisdom. One decisive factor ahead will be the willingness of leaders across the opposition coalition to learn lessons from Selangor and set in place measures that offset the damaging cycle that has emerged.

 Current conditions suggest this is not yet promising. People are increasingly losing confidence in Pakatan and words will not be enough. What will matter is whether the opposition remembers why it is in office in the first place – to serve the people.

 Malaysians want results and solutions to problems rather than politicking that results in more problems. The time now is for reflection, not reaction or ‘reactionarism’, and a return to respecting the mandate that made the Pakatan coalition a reality in the first place.

 BRIDGET WELSH is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for East Asia Democratic Studies of National Taiwan University and can be reached at
[email protected]
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                This entry was posted on Sunday, 5 October 2014, 8:14 pm and is filed under
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Secularism and a more honest Islam

Zairil Khir Johari

The Malaysian Insider

4 October 2014

Secularism and liberalism are not unfamiliar terms in this country, although how Malaysians understand them is a different matter altogether.

In the halcyon post-Merdeka days, our founding fathers would proudly proclaim such ideals to be their philosophical bedrock, so much so that the word liberal actually appears in the preamble to the Rukunegara (national principles). To be secular and liberal was to be constitutional and inclusive.

Things have changed much since then. Today, the very same terms are used deleteriously as a mark of shame, such that it has become the proverbial scarlet letter of the Malay-Muslim society. To be secular and liberal is to be ungodly and aberrant.

A dichotomy

To make matters worse, some are beginning to define these terms in contradistinction to Islamic ideals. Take, for example, remarks made at the 60th PAS Muktamar held in Batu Pahat, Johor last weekend. In his closing speech, the president of Malaysia’s second largest Malay-based party after Umno, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang, took an unequivocal stand in differentiating his party’s Islamic struggle from his coalition allies’: “PAS members must understand that there is a difference. PKR is based on pragmatic secularism” while “DAP is based on socialistic secularism”.

Whether he realises it or not, Hadi’s statement envisions a dichotomy between Islam and secularism, as if they were two disparate concepts that were not only different but also antithetical to each other. In other words, one can either be Islamic or secular, but not both.

Although our first three prime ministers would disagree with Hadi (and the first and third have actually taken public stands to that effect), the unfortunate reality is that such an opinion now reverberates amongst most Malay-Muslims in the country.

One only has to drive around our universities, community centres and even mosques these days to see the proliferation of banners peppered with phrases such as “the dangers of secularism”, “secularism: the main threat to the Muslim ummah” or “Islam vs secularism”.

Meanwhile, this perception is further propagated by the government-controlled media, with columnists quick to label those inclined towards secular and liberal ideals as Jewish or American agents. Coincidentally, these agents almost always turn out to be opposition politicians or sympathisers. As we can see, no rational discussion can take place whenever these terms are invoked.

In fact, it wasn’t too long ago when my parliamentary colleague, Nurul Izzah Anwar, spoke in a forum on the issue of freedom of religion. Specifically, she mentioned that such rights had to be consistent between non-Muslims and Muslims. In her mind, she was merely repeating a sacred commandment from the Quran itself, which prohibited compulsion in matters of faith. Yet the next thing she knew, a furore broke out and she was accused of supporting apostasy amongst Muslims.

While one may expect such extreme reactions from hard-line conservatives, the apostasy issue actually gained such mainstream traction that Nurul Izzah had to defend herself rigorously. From this episode, it is safe to conclude that while not every Malay-Muslim thinks the way Utusan Malaysia editors do, the community continues to be haunted by fears and insecurities.

Conflation between Islam and the state

One may ask, at this point, why does an intrinsically human value such as freedom invoke so much fear amongst the Malay-Muslims in our country? Why is it that they would go so far as to insult Islam by implying that the religion would not be able to survive if its followers were not bound to it by force of law? Are Malay-Muslims so insecure in their own faith that they think mass apostasy would occur the instant they are given the freedom to do so?

The origins of this deeply-rooted fear in the Malay psyche can perhaps be traced back to the colonial experience and the ensuing need to perpetuate a feudal relationship between the ruling class and the masses.

Following the signing of the Pangkor Treaty in 1874 between the British and the Sultan of Perak, the Malay rulers began to lose their absolute power. In fact, they were soon left only with authority over matters relating to Malay culture and religion. This effectively meant that authority over Islam became the main source of legitimacy for the rulers.

Today, the sultans and rajas have been relegated to playing a largely ceremonial role as the symbolic protector of Islam. However, because there was a need to maintain the same power relationship, the state, being the new ruling class, has thus assumed the rulers’ previous role as defender of Malay-Muslim culture.

Hence, from the 1970s onwards, the state began to strengthen its monopoly over Islam by forming various Islamic institutions to better protect (or control) the faith, such as the Islamic Dakwah and Training Institute (INDAH), the Malaysia Islamic Economic Development Foundation (Yapeim), the Malaysian Dakwah Islamiah Foundation (Yadim), and the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (Ikim), to name a few. The culmination of this effort was the creation of the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) in 1997, a central body meant to coordinate the administration of Islamic affairs in Malaysia, despite the fact that Islam is supposed to be devolved to the states.

As a result of this systematic attempt to institutionalise the religion, Islam in Malaysia has become characterised by tight state control over its interpretation and administration. In other words, the state dictates every aspect of the Malay-Muslim life, from whether it is permissible to use Facebook, practise yoga or dance the poco-poco, and even right down to determining what schools of thought can or cannot be practised, as if God required help from the Malaysian government. Thus, it is obvious that the conflation between Islam and the state has resulted in a relationship of dependency that has correspondingly reinforced Malay-Muslim insecurities.

Greater freedom is a threat to the government, not Islam

Seen in this context, any ideology that encourages freedom of thought and conscience is therefore seen as a threat to the state’s monopoly on Islam. Hence, the Islamic authorities’ newfound obsession over the “perils” of secularism and liberalism.

The truth in this matter is in fact ironic. Far from threatening Islam, a secular state based on democratic ideals would actually emancipate the religion from the vested interests of the state. This would in fact further the cause of Islamic thought and discourse.

We only need to look next-door to see a contemporary example. Indonesia is a majority-Muslim country that is constitutionally secular and culturally liberal, yet there is no great fear amongst Muslims there that they are in danger of losing their faith. In fact, it is generally recognised that the practice of Islam in Indonesia is more diverse, more vibrant and, in the absence of Big Brother Ulamak, more honest.

It is the same case when we consider how Penang in the late 19th and early 20th century became the regional centre for Islamic islah, or reformation, during a time when it was, for all intents and purposes, a truly secular state with no mufti or sultan to mind the people’s religious affairs. At the time, Penang housed many reformist Islamic journals as well as producers of Quran commentaries (tafsir). It is arguable that this would not have been the case had there been controls imposed by higher authorities over religious matters.

It is therefore clear that greater freedom poses no threat to Islam. If the Malaysian authorities fear the freedom that secularism and liberalism may entail, it is because they fear losing their ideological monopoly over the people, and hence their legitimacy.

To the contrary, it is suggested that secularism and liberalism are philosophical ideals that would strengthen and embolden Islam. A truly Islamic society is one that is free in thought and conscience, where Islam is practised honestly and where rituals are performed out of firm belief and not out of fear or pressure. – October 4, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 5 October 2014, 8:34 pm and is filed under
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Sentiment divided at haj pilgrimage over role of Islamist militants

By Amena Bakr

Reuters

October 3, 2014

ARAFAT Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Former Egyptian army officer Suliman Ouda minced no words as he climbed Mount Arafat, denouncing Islamist militants in Syria and Iraq as terrorists.

But Syrian engineer Ahmed Orabi, standing nearby on the hill where Muslims on their haj pilgrimage beg God’s forgiveness, disagreed.

“Islam is about peace and kindness, not murder and violence, and I don’t consider these fighters in Iraq and Syria to be Muslims,” Ouda told Reuters as he joined the mass of pilgrims early on Friday. “They bring shame to the word Islam.”

Orabi, in his 40s, served time in Syrian prisons for criticising the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before fleeing to Turkey. One of his sons was still in jail.

“If the Islamic state, or Nusra, or any other group can fight the government, I’m in full support of them,” he said in a hushed voice.

“Bashar is the terrorist here, Iran is the enemy. And although I can’t raise my voice today and say that, I’m crying out to God in my heart to give victory to those brave Islamic fighters.”

The haj, a hectic journey that brings millions from around the world to Mecca and Mount Arafat, is tinged this year with concerns over the threat posed by Islamist militants who threaten to target allies of the United States, including Saudi Arabia.

In past years, Shi’ite Muslim pilgrims airing political views were the main threat for security forces keen to keep the haj free from politics. But the rise of political Islam since the Arab Spring protests of 2011 has focused attention on Islamist Sunni groups as a new potential source of friction.

While a systematic poll of pilgrims’ views at the haj would be impossible, a random sampling indicated sentiment is divided over Islamic State, who have dominated the news since they captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in July.

Abdel-Rahman al-Gahtani, a Saudi haj organiser, said the militants, known in Arabic as Daesh, gave Islam a bad name.

“Our sheikhs told us that Daesh are terrorists and we believe they are. Those who kill in cold blood and make threats to kill innocent people are not Muslims like us,” Gahtani, who works at food and water distribution, told Reuters.

The sermon given by the preacher in the local Namira mosque on Friday included a reference to the Islamic State and the pledge that “Islam is innocent of their actions”, pilgrims who attended said.

But Mohammed Askar, a Syrian teacher, said militants fired by religious zeal may be the only way to topple Assad.

“I know America and the Gulf countries see the Islamic state as terrorists, but they should not think that way,” Askar said.

“These are the people who can fight to get rid of Bashar, and after Bashar is gone I swear to you no one will want Islamic State. We are just using them.”

HEIGHTENED SECURITY

Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, has funneled cash and arms to rebels fighting against Assad in a conflict which has raged for three years and killed nearly 200,000 people. But it has also consistently opposed Islamist militants within the insurgency. Last week, Saudi air force planes pounded targets in Syria in U.S.-led air strikes.

Security appeared much tighter than usual at this year’s haj, with more men in uniform deployed in holy sites and frequent vehicle checkpoints.

“I came to haj two years ago and I don’t remember seeing so many special forces as there are today,” said Amr Abdallah, an Egyptian engineer on his way to the summit of Mount Arafat. “They must be worried about the threat of Daesh.”

Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Mansour al-Turki said the kingdom has allocated more security personnel and National Guardsmen along its borders with Iraq.

“We have enforced our security readiness at all the border of Saudi Arabia, the northern border and the southern border,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of a news conference.

The authorities continue to warn pilgrims against any political protests. Last week Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef told the Saudi state agency (SPA) that Saudi Arabia will have a zero tolerance policy.

“Authorities will deal with all propaganda, intellectual and political slogans because the purpose of haj is worship alone,” Prince Nayef said in a statement.

The haj has attracted some 3 million people this year, including 1.4 million from outside the kingdom. To the casual observer there appears to be fewer Iraqi and Syrian pilgrims than last year, and many more visitors from Asia.

Saudi authorities have said that no restrictions have been placed on visas to Syrians or Iraqi for political reasons, however.

“There are over 10,000 pilgrims from Syria this year and I’m not aware of any restrictions placed on Iraqis or Syrians, every country has a quota and we follow that system,” said Major General Turki.

(Reporting by Amena Bakr; editing by Sami Aboudi and Sonya Hepinstall)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 5 October 2014, 10:34 am and is filed under
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Hit the Islamic State’s pocketbook

Opinion

By PATRICK B. JOHNSTON. AND BENJAMIN BAHNEY

Newsday

October 5, 2014

The U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is taking aim at the terrorist organization’s pocketbook. The coalition has launched airstrikes on mobile oil refineries in eastern Syria that the Pentagon believes generate up to 500 barrels of petroleum each day for the group.

The Islamic State has emerged as the world’s richest terrorist group, with estimated assets of $1 billion to $2 billion. Its sophisticated and strategically driven financial scheme is a key reason that U.S. officials say this fight could last years.

An examination of newly declassified financial documents the group created dating to 2005 reveals an organized criminal operation that is funded through rackets like protection, extortion and the co-opting of the region’s oil industry. This makes the group a self-sustaining operation, largely free of reliance on the largesse of wealthy foreign patrons. While airstrikes may disrupt the flow of oil and profits, they will not lead to the group’s financial ruin anytime soon. Based on our research, we estimate the Islamic State will bring in $100 million to $200 million this year. And that’s being conservative.

Most of its profits come from Iraq and Syria, though it smuggles oil to other countries in the region. And it has to get that money from these countries back into Iraq and Syria somehow — either through money laundering or through informal financial institutions. With about a dozen oil fields and a number of refineries under its control, the Islamic State has plenty of oil to sell to the tune of millions of dollars per day.

This is not new. The documents indicate that the Islamic State raised hundreds of millions of dollars through oil smuggling and racketeering. What is new, though, is how much it has in its coffers to sustain itself in pursuit of a broader Islamic State.

The Islamic State has built its organization using a financial strategy characterized by ruthless efficiency and pragmatism. It spends money on organizational necessities such as equipment, weapons and facilities like safe houses. It pays a small, flat rate to each member, and adds a premium for each wife and child a member has.

Records show that in 2005-06, the rate in Iraq’s Anbar province was $491 a year, with an additional $245 per year for each dependent. The group pays the premiums even after operatives are captured or killed, and helps its fighters with rent, medical expenses, legal costs and performance bonuses, all of which are audited to mitigate potential abuse. Taken together, its own documents show it has long invested in its organization, growing its infrastructure base and incentivizing recruits to join and existing members and their families to remain loyal.

The group is also making long-term investments in state building. This, too, requires money that can be invested in administering controlled territory and establishing institutions to implement and sustain sharia governance. In some areas, it is able to provide reliable electricity, access to clean water and serviceable infrastructure. But in the areas it controls, it invests in bureaucracies that consolidate sharia law.

While the group has hardly mastered the provision of public services, it is governing its territories to an extent, paying salaries to civil servants, facilitating trade, collecting taxes and engaging in other forms of statecraft aimed at keeping populations content and passive.

Dismantling its financial empire will take more than airstrikes and will require engagement from a new government in Iraq that includes Sunnis. Enhanced U.S.-Iraqi intelligence cooperation also can help to root out the group’s financial system, including the informal network of money brokers known as hawalas.

In addition to airstrikes on and around refineries, Iraqi and Kurdish forces should seek to take back oil assets from the Islamic State in northern Iraq. And Baghdad should form a joint strategy with other regional players like Jordan, Turkey and the Kurdistan regional government to attack the group’s oil operations and clamp down on trade-based money laundering and hawalas (money exchanges) that do business with the Islamic State.

Hitting the Islamic State in its pocketbook will be critical if the terrorist group is to be defeated. Striking its refineries is one step, but ultimately, it will take a concerted international effort buttressed by sustained local measures to cut off the riches with which the Islamic State was built.

Patrick B. Johnston is a political scientist and Benjamin Bahney is a member of the adjunct staff at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corp.

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Hold a referendum to let the 50,000 undergraduates and post-graduate students of UM and UKM decide whether to join or boycott the THE university rankings

The Universiti Malaya Students Association (PMUM) has come out in support of Universiti Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia opting out of the annual Times Higher Education Top 400 World University Rankings.

PMUM president Fahmi Zainol said the two universities deserve praise for their move, pointing out that the institutions have been plagued with problems for being too focussed on rankings.

I can understand the view that quality education is not dependent only on university rankings and that universities should not be too obsessed with them. In fact, it has been asked: “University rankings: reliable or rubbish?”

The Norwegian government has even commissioned a study of the placement of Norwegian universities in global rankings and concluded that university rankings are “useless” as a basis for information if the goal is to improve higher education as they are so based on subjective weightings of factors and on dubious data. This Norwegian report was described as “A Kiss of Death for university rankings” by a Norwegian academician.

There are undoubtedly pros and cons on university rankings.

Have Fahmi thought through the whole subject of university rankings and are his views his personal ones, or the official view of the PMUM Executive Committee, as well as representing that of the UKM Students Council?

Are they the views of the 50,000 undergraduates and post-graduate students in the two universities?

If Fahmi is opposed to UM and UKM taking part in the annual THE World University Rankings, why does he support the two universities taking part in the annual QS World University Rankings and UM’s decision to take part in the THE World University Ranking in 2018 when UM is more ready to compete with other established universities around the world?

It would be a good for hold a referendum to let the 50,000 under-graduates and post-graduate students of UM and UKM decide whether the two university should join or continue to boycott the THE university rankings, and let the proponents of both the pros and cons of the argument to state their case, not only to the university student-and-lecturer population but to the nation at large.

This referendum proposition is a subject  which PMUM and the UKM Students Council should seriously consider to  take up with the university authorities.

Let us look at the history of UM and UKM with university rankings.

The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) commissioned QS Quacquarelli Symonds, an education consultancy, to collect and compile the data which formed the basis for the THES-QS World University Rankings from 2004 to 2009.

Recall that in the first year of this ranking, UM came in ranked 89 in the world and USM was ranked at 111.

The reason for this high ranking was that QS mistakenly thought that Chinese and Indian Malaysian students in these universities were foreign students leading USM to score 78 out of 100 (ranked 4th overall) and UM to score 68 out of 100 (ranked 6th overall) for the International Student Score.

A similar mistake was made for the Chinese and Indian faculty by QS. QS later came out to confirm this mistake.

Once this data was corrected, UM fell from 89th in 2004 to 169th in 2005. Its international student score dropped from 68 in 2004 to 7 in 2005 and its international faculty score dropped from 29 in 2004 to 12 in 2005. USM dropped out of the top 200 completely.

In the 2006 rankings, UM fell further from 169 to 192 although UKM made an appearance in the top 200 rising from 289 in 2005 to 185 in 2006, overtaking UM.

In 2007, both UM and UKM dropped out of the Top 200 to 246 and 309 respectively. USM and UPM remained outside the top 200 at 307 and 364 respective.

In 2008, none of the Malaysian universities cracked the top 200. In 2009, UM managed to crack the top 200 by coming in at 180.

After the THE-QS World University Rankings 2009, QS and Times Higher Education  went their separate ways with QS continuing the old methodology while THE formed a partnership with Thomson Reuters, the data and media giant.

In the QS World University Rankings 2010, UM fell out of the top 200 to 207. Since 2011, UM has been gravitating between 151 (2014-2015) and 167 (2011 and 2013-2014). For now, UM’s position in the top QS World University Rankiings  200 seems to be secure even though the QS rankings may be volatile for universities above 100.

Table 1: THES-QS and QS World University Rankings (2004 to 2014/2015)

Year / Institution

UM

USM

UKM

UPM

UTM

IIUM

UiTM

2004

89

111

NA

2005

169

NA

289

2006

192

NA

185

2007

246

307

309

364

2008

230

>200

>200

>200

2009

180

314

291

345

320

THES and QS broke away and started their own respective ranking systems

2010

207

309

263

319

365

2011

167

335

379

358

401-450

2012-2013

156

326

261

360

358

401-450

+601

2013-2014

167

355

269

411-420

355

501-550

+701

2014-2015

151

309

259

376

294

501-550

651-700

Source: QS-THES World University Rankings (2004-2009), QS World University Rankings (2010 to 2014-2015)

The Difference between the QS and THES Rankings

THES broke away from QS in 2010 because it decided to ask Thomson Reuters to provide data for the basis of the THES rankings. One of the reasons was because of the criticism against the heavy weightage of QS academic reputation survey (40% of total rankings). Thomson Reuters went on to compile new data from a Global Institutional Profiles Project (GIPP).

Instead of relying on just 6 measures which is used by QS, THES uses 13 indicators to achieve a greater balance and consistency in their ranking system.

Both QS and the new THES ranking systems have had their share of criticisms.

What is Malaysia’s approach to QS and THES?

After the break-up between the QS and THES rankings, most Malaysian universities seems to have participated in the QS rankings but not the THES rankings.

The number of Malaysian public universities being featured in the QS survey has increased from 5 in 2009 to 7 in 2010.

According to the list of participating institutions provided by Thomson Reuters, only UKM, UPM and UUM participated in this survey of global institutions. However, in the latest 2014-2015 report, THES says that both UKM and UM failed to participate in this survey.

Are the reasons for non-participating in the THES survey valid?

The Malaysian Insider have the following reasons for UM’s decision not to participate in the THES survey:

“UM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Mohd Amin Jalaludin says the institution did not take part in the THE rankings. ‘There are two reasons why UM chose not to participate in the THE World University Rankings. The first is because UM is still building up its publications and citations in the Web of Science database. UM’s policy on this began only in 2008. It is now only beginning to bear fruit but is not yet sufficiently mature to make an impact. ‘The second reason is related to the amount of funding that UM receives. It is not in a strong enough financial position to compete with other richer, older and better-ranked universities,’ he explains.”

Table 2: Operating and Development Budgets for IPTAs according to the 2014 Budget Estimates

Rank

IPTA

Operating

Development

Total

1

USM

587,960,300

28,000,000

615,960,300

2

UM

529,944,700

74,000,000

603,944,700

3

UTM

521,384,700

73,000,000

594,384,700

4

UKM

510,091,700

46,800,000

556,891,700

5

UPM

508,899,300

42,000,000

550,899,300

6

UIAM

490,108,300

14,000,000

504,108,300

7

UMS

300,137,300

37,000,000

337,137,300

8

UMP

203,640,700

92,000,000

295,640,700

9

UTHM

249,381,800

28,000,000

277,381,800

10

UUM

230,817,500

29,800,000

260,617,500

11

UNIMAS

202,895,600

25,500,000

228,395,600

12

UTeM

177,627,700

47,000,000

224,627,700

13

UniMAP

171,948,900

51,500,000

223,448,900

14

UPSI

157,568,200

41,000,000

198,568,200

15

UniSZA

117,967,200

65,000,000

182,967,200

16

USIM

114,460,100

51,150,000

165,610,100

What is even more interesting is UM’s decision to participate in the QS Stars Rating System for which it must pay a few to be audited every year.

Under the QS Stars Rating system, UM received 5 Stars for which it had to pay an initial audit and license fee of US$16,750 and a yearly license fee of US$6850.

If UM is willing to pay for the privilege of being audited, why not participate in the THES rankings which does not require a participation fee?

Even Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) participated in the QS Stars rating system for which it was praised by Prime Minister Najib: “Congrats to @PROUniMAP on the 3-star rating by QS Intelligence. Hope so to see more public unis follow suit,” said Najib.

The UKM has also given The Malaysian Insider its reason for not participating in the THE World University Ranking 2014, viz:

“In an immediate response to Baty’s comments, UKM’s Strategic Centre deputy executive director (performance assessment) Associate Professor Dr Masturah Markom told The Malaysian Insider that the university preferred to focus on rankings that were fair to its direction.

“’This ranking (THE) has different indicators and it’s more suitable for universities that have been established far longer. Indicators, such as ‘industry income’, are unfair to us as Malaysia’s (industry income) is not as much as in the United States, for example. We cannot compete with them so it is best if we spend on rankings that are better suited to our direction and focus,” she said, referring to the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) rankings.’”

Again, this is not a good reason for not participating in the THES rankings since (i) industry income comprises less than 5% of the total score for the THES rankings (ii) Malaysian universities are being pushed to innovate more and to have more public private collaborations which would bring in research income for the researcher and the their university. This is an important tracking mechanism for Malaysian public universities moving forward.

Summary

One cannot help but think that Malaysian universities such as UM prefer to participate in the QS Survey over the THES survey because:

QS is a client of UM and moving forward, other public universities as well in the provision of consultancy services, marketing and subscription of the QS Stars rating system and hence would be more favourable towards these institutions in terms of ranking;

Under the QS Ranking, a university may find it easier to ‘game the system’ by increasing scores on certain indicators e.g. faculty / student ratio:

Citation scores under THES make up 30% of the overall score compared to 20% for QS. Since this is an area which is the hardest to ‘game’ the system and where Malaysian academics have performed badly, it is not surprising that some public universities want to avoid ranking systems which give a higher % weighting to citation scores.

Clearly, it would be preferable for public universities in Malaysia  to participate in as many rankings as possible so that it has numerous data points to judge its performance.

But at the same time, the universities must have its own internal targets to improve on its own performance which are not subject to the vagaries and ‘gaming’ of the various ranking systems.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 6 October 2014, 11:16 am and is filed under
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Hong Kong protests face test of stamina as city returns to work

By John Ruwitch and Donny Kwok

Reuters

35 minutes ago

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong started to return to work on Monday after more than a week of pro-democracy protests disrupted the Chinese-controlled city, with the protest movement facing a test of its stamina after more clashes with police and pro-Beijing opponents.

Civil servants began arriving for work at the main government offices of Hong Kong’s leader, Leung Chun-ying, which have been the focal point of protests that initially drew tens of thousands onto the streets. The bureaucrats were allowed to pass through protesters’ barricades unimpeded.

Numbers of protesters fell sharply overnight into the hundreds. The protesters remained at a stalemate with Leung’s pro-Beijing government and there was no sign of movement on talks that were proposed to end the stand-off.

The protests have ebbed and flowed over the past week, with people leaving the streets overnight to return later. The test on Monday will be whether that pattern continues in the face of the government’s determination to get Hong Kong back to work.

Fearing a crackdown after city leaders called for the streets to be cleared so businesses, schools and the civil service could resume on Monday, protesters who have paralyzed parts of the former British colony with mass sit-ins pulled back from outside Leung’s office.

One civil servant, who gave her surname as Hung, said she had received notification she was to return to work as usual. “It’s much better than earlier,” she said.

Only about 100 protesters remained on the road leading into the Central business district but the road was still closed to traffic even though many had pulled back during the night. Heavy traffic was reported on other thoroughfares.

Over the past week, tens of thousands of protesters have demanded that Leung quit and that China allow them the right to vote for a leader of their choice in 2017 elections.

Facing separatist unrest in far-flung Tibet and Xinjiang, Beijing is fearful that calls for democracy in Hong Kong could spread to the mainland. The Communist Party leadership has dismissed the Hong Kong protests as illegal but has so far left Leung’s government to find a solution.

The protest groups bowed to pressure from the government, businesses, shop owners and taxi drivers and said they would dismantle barricades barring the way to key government buildings and allow civil servants to get to work on Monday.

Some banks that had closed branches during the unrest of the past week also threw open their doors for business on Monday.

The protests have presented Beijing with one of its biggest political challenges since it crushed pro-democracy protests in and around Tiananmen Square in the Chinese capital in 1989.

In an echo of Tiananmen Square, activists in the main government district built a “Goddess of Democracy” statue out of wooden blocks near government headquarters.

The statue held a yellow umbrella, which has become the symbol of the Hong Kong protests after students used umbrellas to ward off pepper spray used by police a week ago.

DISCREPANCIES ON TALKS

While the government has vowed to clear the streets, the status of the talks remained unclear. Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK reported that student leaders met government officials at Hong Kong University late on Sunday but no clear resolutions emerged.

“It’s clear there is still discrepancy between the expectations from both parties towards the dialogue,” Lester Shum, vice secretary of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, told a news conference late on Sunday.

“If the government resorts to clearing the site or using force, there will be no way for dialogue.”

Across Victoria Harbour in the gritty Mong Kok residential neighborhood, protesters also pulled back from where scuffles had broken out at the weekend with supporters of the government, prompting police to use pepper sprays and batons again.

Hundreds more remained, disputing reports on social media that their leaders had called for them to leave.

“We want everyone to leave because we don’t want to see any more bloody conflicts … we will come back again if the government doesn’t respond (to calls for direct talks),” said Tang Sin-tung, a 16-year-old high school student.

Many residents have criticized ineffective police handling of the unrest in Mong Kok, a traditional stronghold of Hong Kong’s notorious organized crime gangs, or Triads. Police have defended their tactics and denied allegations of any collaboration between the security forces and gang members, some of whom were arrested after altercations with protesters.

“We’ve been pepper-sprayed. We’ve been tear-gassed. We’ve seen Triads. Now we’re not afraid of anything,” said Kit Lee, 41, who was among those remaining in the narrow streets of the neighborhood, one of the most densely populated on the planet.

The protests have disrupted businesses and helped wipe close to US$50 billion off the value of shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Financial Secretary John Tsang wrote in a blog that Hong Kong was at a critical moment and its “financial foundations and core values have inevitably been shaken”.

Economists at Australian bank ANZ predicted the political deadlock would eventually hit business sentiment and consumer confidence in the city, which is also a gateway for many international investors to mainland China.

(Additional reporting by Clare Jim, Twinnie Siu, Elzio Barreto, Charlie Zhu, Alexandra Harney, Clare Baldwin, Joseph Campbell, Yimou Lee, James Pomfret, Bobby Yip, Irene Jay Liu, Farah Master, Diana Chan, Kinling Lo and Venus Wu in HONG KONG, and Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 6 October 2014, 10:51 am and is filed under
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In hunt for Malaysians joining Islamic State, a faceless menace

by Yiswaree Palansamy

Malay Mail Online

October 6, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 — It could be anyone. The next Malaysian leaving to join the Islamic State (IS) jihad in Syria could be the besuited man reading from his tablet computer sitting to your right on the train to work.

Or it might be the typical college-goer, clad in jeans and a T-shirt, seated your left and scrolling through his smartphone.

This is how obscure the profiles of young Muslims aspiring to join jihadist militant movement that police investigators are discovering in their bid to stem the tide.

According to Bukit Aman’s counter-terrorism division senior official Datuk Ayub Khan, gone are days when those involved were the stereotypical bearded men wearing serbans and carrying prayer beads.

“They come from various backgrounds now. Not a specific group like in the case of now defunct terrorist group, Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM), or Malaysian Mujahideen Movement, where religious schools were used to recruit for jihadists cause.

“It is all encompassing- from those in the private sector, your local grocery shop owners and even businessmen,” Ayub told Malay Mail Online.

Another major concern is that those radicalised by the jihadist movement are getting younger — between the ages of 20 and 30 — bringing a new set of challenges to authorities trying to track them: tech savviness.

Social media networks the main breeding ground

Once, recruits were discreetly cultivated and enlisted in quiet prayer halls away from view.

Today, this is being done across anonymous social networks and text messaging apps

“There is no need for preachers of any sort or physical communication for them as they are all tech-savvy,” Ayub said.

The concern over the use of the Internet for enlistment and the spread of propaganda is two-fold: It gives recruiters a much wider reach and authorities a monumental task in finding them.

It could also mean that new recruits may be indoctrinated remotely by someone who is not even in the country.

With the anonymity that can be achieved using social networks, Ayub said it was a complicated task to discover the individuals behind the movement to send Malaysians to fight in Syria, and to keep tabs on any they do discover.

The use of modern communications has also made the task of ferreting out those who may be involved in IS doubly hard, as it was getting more difficult to rule out the usual suspects even when they are not seen to be active.

“So far, we do not have any intelligence report on our students in Egypt to confirm of their involvement, but just because we do not have such confirmation, it does not mean that they are not participating, because of communications via Facebook,” he added.

However, Ayub said that while the police may face an uphill task in “culling” IS recruitment and activities in the country, they will not let up until they are able to sever all militant links in Malaysia.

Saying that authorities have been monitoring IS-related activities since 2012, Ayub revealed that police still managed to locate and detain 25people over the movement despite the technological hurdles.

“We are not going to slow down our moves simply because they use a ‘faster approach’, social media.

“This is going to be an all-out fight,” Ayub said.

From doctors to canteen workers

The range of those known to be involved in the militancy illustrates the arduous task in putting a face to the menace.

In 2012, police arrested two men with links to the Tanzim al-Qaeda militant group, among the precursors of what would eventually become IS.

They were cafeteria assistant Muhammad Hilmi Hasim and former army captain Yazid Suffat, who is also a trained biochemist.

The two later became the first people to be charged under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012, which replaced the repealed Internal Security Act 1960.

This month, a jihadist claiming to be a Malaysian doctor also began making headlines after the media caught wind of her posts of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

“Stethoscope around my neck and kalash on my shoulder. Martyrdom is my highest dream,” the woman who dubbed herself “Shams”, wrote on Twitter.

Shallow understanding, a romantic notion, and ‘jihad tourism’

The success of IS in drawing Muslims is because it understands its target audience well.

While it touts its bid to forcibly form a caliphate in Iraq and Syria as an Islamic struggle, critics point out that its violent methods and goals were not based on the religion.

“But to know this, one must be clear on their faith; [otherwise it] allows for confusion when movements like IS come up and unleash war in the name of Islam,” said Professor Datuk Abdul  Halim Sidek, the secretary of the National Professors Council’s politics, security and international affairs cluster.

National University of Singapore (NUS)  associate professor Dr Maznah Mohamad said young Muslims were also drawn by the romantic notion of an Islamic caliphate.

“The concept of a Caliphate appeals to them (young Muslims) as they are tired of being under a national government and find the alternative idea of a new non-national state purely for Muslims attractive, like in the yesteryears,” Maznah told The Malay Mail Online.

A caliphate is an Islamic state that encompasses every Muslim in the world and led by a supreme religious leader. It originates from the time of the Prophet Muhammad, when he was succeeded by Abu Bakar, the first caliph (Arabic for “successor”).

Indonesia-based terrorism expert Jasminder Singh said IS recruiters were wily at marketing their recruitment as “jihad tourism” to draw those curious about the movement and the perceived excitement it entails.

He said young Muslims often buy into this idea with the intention of wanting to feel what is it like to be in “Bumi Allah” (Allah’s land).

He added that the strong anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments aroused here over the Palestinian conflict is another factor steering young Muslims towards militancy on the notions of “saving their people”.

“One only needs a minimal amount of cash to fly to Syria, about RM 2,000, to be part of the movement, as other necessary needs are usually takencare of.

“What starts out as a curiosity however, ends up as a serious life mission,” Jasminder said when met at a forum in Kuala Lumpur recently.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 6 October 2014, 7:31 am and is filed under
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Islamic State withstands bombing campaign, plots Baghdad invasion

By Rowan Scarborough

The Washington Times

October 5, 2014

The Islamic State holds just about the same number of towns in Iraq today as it did two months ago, when the U.S. began a bombing campaign to whittle down the terrorist army and support Iraqi ground troops trying to retake territory.

More troubling, analysts say, is that the Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL, is ramping up what appear to be operations designed to one day invade Baghdad.

Its objective is to take the international airport and begin conquering the capital, section by section. The Islamic State is continuing its urban attacks with car bombs, some of which have been detonated by foreign suicide bombers.

The Pentagon is not openly confident that the Iraqi Security Forces will hold Baghdad. A spokesman has declined to predict that the sprawling city will stay in government control.

The 2-month-old air campaign can be viewed in two ways. On one hand, the U.S. coalition strikes have slowed and, in some cases, stopped the Islamic State’s advances. On the other hand, they have done little to achieve the ultimate goal of breaking the terrorists’ grip on Mosul, Tal Afar, Fallujah and more than 10 other towns in northern and western Iraq.

The Islamic State has captured large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and has declared itself a caliphate.

One Iraq War veteran said the bombing has been falling short.

“I judge the bombing, quite frankly, to the strategic aims in Iraq being two objectives,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who supervised the training of Iraqi forces during the 2007 U.S. troop surge. “Restore the sovereign border of Iraq and, two, eliminate ISIS as a threat to the sovereignty of Iraq. And they have certainly not done anything to those aims.”

Others see a positive side. Slowing the Islamic State’s advances “shows that we have been successful with the easier, first stage,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution. “The hard part, as predicted, is taking territory back. Air power can’t, won’t do it.”

In Iraq on Sunday, the Islamic State publicly killed six Iraqi soldiers captured in western Anbar province, where the terrorists continue to advance despite the expanding U.S.-led campaign of airstrikes, residents told The Associated Press.

In Syria, the terrorist army shelled the beleaguered Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, near the border with Turkey, as part of its weekslong offensive against the town and surrounding villages that has forced 160,000 people to flee across the border.

Analysts for the Institute for the Study of War regularly publish a map titled “Control of Terrain in Iraq,” which uses color codes to designate who controls what, and what remains up for grabs.

It is noteworthy how similar the map of Aug. 10, when the air campaign began, is with the one published Friday, two months later. It paints the picture of an entrenched Islamic State that is still threatening government-held territory in Iraq.

The August map showed the terrorist group in control of 14 Iraqi towns, plus the Mosul Dam, which coalition forces later retook. The latest map shows the Islamic State group in control of 13 towns. A collection of villages east of Mosul has gone from Islamic State domination to “contested” — not a significant development in more than two months of bombings.

The Islamic State’s main target is Baghdad. Scenes of a U.S. evacuation would be a major battlefield and public relations victory for the al Qaeda spinoff group and its brutal, homicidal methods.

Mr. Dubik, the retired general who is now an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, expressed worry that the Islamic State is setting the stage for an invasion by systematically knocking off Iraqi troops while staying below the radar so as not to attract airstrikes.

“I don’t think there is immediate danger of portions of Baghdad falling right now,” he said. “But I think they are trying to set the conditions to try to control parts of Baghdad. The Iraqi forces are not doing as well as we expect them to in and around Baghdad.”

Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, press secretary to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, has defended the air war strategy steadfastly as just one piece of a larger plan to degrade and then destroy the Islamic State.

One almost immediate effect is that the Islamic State is no longer free to move around Iraq as it did in June and July, when fighters swept into northern Iraq from Syria and captured about a dozen towns.

“They, not surprisingly, have gotten better at concealment,” Adm. Kirby said. “Before the airstrikes happened, they pretty much had free reign. They don’t have that free reign anymore, because they know we’re watching from the air.”

“They have dispersed,” he said. “Whereas before they were more structurally cohesive in certain places, almost acting like, in some ways, an army. We’ve not given them credit for being an army, of course, but we have talked about the military-type organizations and skills that they had been developing.”

Asked last week whether the Iraqi army can hold Baghdad, Adm. Kirby was noncommittal.

“There’s a lot of things I’m not good at,” he said. “One of them is predicting the future. The Iraqi Security Forces have been continuing to stiffen their defense around the city. We believe that they’ve done a good job with that. They’ll continue to focus on it.”

Adm. Kirby also disclosed that the Pentagon, two months into the anti-Islamic State operation, does plan to give it a name, as is procedure for all significant U.S. military campaigns.

Pentagon insiders have been telling reporters that President Obama does not want an operational name because he then would be personally tied to his own initiated war. He depicted himself as a president who ends wars, not starts them.

“I can tell you that there is an effort underway to consider a potential name for this operation,” Adm. Kirby said.

Giving it a distinct name — “Operation” — would make military personnel eligible for a campaign ribbon.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 6 October 2014, 11:42 am and is filed under
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Leveraging Residential Schools

by Bakri Musa

6th Oct 2014

A Modest Proposal for the Champions of Ketuanan Melayu (Part III)

[In Parts One and Two I suggested that we should focus on enhancing Malay competitiveness and productivity instead of forever begrudging the success of non-Malays or bemoaning the presumed deficiencies of our race and culture. We should begin with our young, the best of them, those at our residential schools. Have high expectations of them, put them through a demanding program, and expose them to rigorous competition.]

            The key to any high performing school is the teachers. Both Korean schools (Daewon and Minjuk mentioned earlier) actively sought graduates of top universities to be on their staff. Such highly qualified teachers inspire their students. And when it comes to writing letters of recommendations, those teachers carry much weight, especially when students apply to their teacher’s alma mater.

            You do not need and it is impossible for all your teachers to have sterling credentials, only that there should be a critical number of them to set the tone and change the culture. Besides, there are many excellent teachers who are graduates of lesser universities.

            Look back at MCKK of yore, with Oxbridge and London University graduates on its staff. At KYUEM, a local college prep school with exemplary record of student achievements, most of its teachers are local but there are sufficient graduates of top universities, including the headmaster, to set the pace and establish a high academic ambience.

            On another level, it would be difficult for a local graduate to understand the intricacies and nuances of applying to top foreign universities, or the challenges of attending one.

            With the present pay scheme there is little hope to recruit such top graduates. This is where the private sector could help by sponsoring highly educated foreign teachers. Petronas sponsors Formula One and the KL Philharmonic. Why not economics teachers for MCKK? Such “endowed” appointments are very common at American schools and colleges. If MCKK were to charge wealthy parents it could also hire its own foreign teachers.

            You do not have to pay as high a salary as in Singapore or South Korea as Malaysia has much cheaper living expenses. Thailand has no difficulty getting excellent expatriate teachers at US$30-40K per annum.

            For every three students we send abroad, we could recruit two American teachers and benefit many more students at home. In terms of actual loss of foreign exchange, it is far cheaper to recruit one American teacher than to send a student abroad as that teacher’s salary would be spent locally with the attendant multiplier effect, while the entire student’s scholarship money is expended abroad.

            Such highly-paid foreigners would not generate resentment from their local colleagues. Local teachers at KYUEM are paid less than their expatriate colleagues yet they do not resent the preferential treatment. Of course if you do get a Malaysian who is a graduate of a top university and is an excellent teacher, then he or she too should be paid as well as the foreigner. There should be differential pay based on the quality of the teacher, not citizenship.

            Apart from recruiting from abroad, there are Malaysians who are graduates of top universities whom, given the augmented pay, SBPs could employ as teachers, or at least tap as mentors.

Policy Makers and Executors

Stable, competent, committed, and inspiring leadership; those are the essential ingredients to a successful organization, more so a school. The headship of SBP should be a terminal appointment. There should be nothing else after that except retirement and glowing in the reflected glory of your students’ success. The appointment should never be a stepping stone for someone on his way to be Undersecretary for Procurement at the Ministry.

            The headmaster should also serve for a sufficient term. As Howell noted, “No headmaster can leave his mark on a school and have a lasting influence on its development in under five or six years.”

            He or she must also be a graduate of a respectable university, again to set the tone. He need not have an advanced degree. Given the choice, all things being equal, I prefer someone with a good bachelor’s degree over a candidate with a higher degree but from a less stellar institution.

            Like great individuals, little is known about nurturing great institutions. One thing is certain however. Like individuals, if institutions are held under tight control and not given the freedom to grow, they will quickly become sclerotic and unresponsive. The job of policymakers is to select capable individuals to helm these schools. Once that is done, they should be given the leeway to carry out their mission without micromanagement from the ministry.

            This means SBPs must have full autonomy–academic, administrative, and financial. They hire and fire the teachers. The ministry’s lever should be at the macro level, as with selecting the board of governors and through funding.

            SBP’s measure of success should only be this:  number of their students ending up at top universities. All other measures, except where they contribute to this singular goal, are irrelevant. At Speech Day the headmaster should be announcing which top universities his or her graduating students would be attending, just like the graduation exercises at top American prep schools.

            The policy does not end with these students being accepted to top colleges. They must also be assured of a scholarship and then be given the freedom to choose whatever field of study. If they are smart enough to be admitted to those top institutions, then they are smart enough to plan their future wisely, certainly better than those folks at JPA, MARA, or Khazanah.

            It pains me to see bright young Malays pursue a course of study for which they have minimal passion because that is the scholarship they were being awarded, based on supposed “national interest.”

            Providing scholarships for matriculation (sixth form) is misplaced. I would wait after the students have been accepted to a top university. That would free them to choose whatever route (matrikulasi, twinning programs, Sixth Form, IB, or A level) that best suits them. Meanwhile use those funds to support IB and “A” level programs at SBPs to benefit many more students.

            After they have graduated, do not tie their hands with rigid rules like having to return immediately or work for a specific entity. Grant them some freedom. If they are offered graduate work or a job abroad, let them. Do not stand in the way of their pursuing their aspirations.

            The only stipulation is that they should serve the nation in whatever capacity they see fit for a specified period during the first decade after their graduation. Only when they fail to do so would they have to reimburse their sponsor.

GLC and Private Sector Participation

Khazanah through its subsidiary already has a successful model–KYUEM. It prepares students for “A” level. That is more productive in developing quality human capital than the route Petronas and Tenaga chose in setting up their own universities, which are nothing more that puffed-up technical colleges. Khazanah is also involved in joint ventures with the government through the “smart school” programs.

            There are other ways for private sector involvement. One is the current system of letting anyone set up a private college and charge whatever the market will bear. That would benefit only the few wealthy Malays.

            An alternate route would be for Khazanah to pursue its own path a la Singapore’s Raffles Education Group. Freed from governmental strictures, Khazanah could lead the way with its string of prep schools modeled after KYUEM. Without the residential component, the cost would be considerably less. Then it could proceed to a university, modeled not after local ones but the likes of the American University in Beirut or the Aga Khan University in Pakistan.

            Education is as valid a sector for private investment as tourism or health. It is doubly profitable, enhancing both human and financial capitals. It would certainly be more productive than pouring money into a floundering airline.

            It is time for Malays to discard the old destructive narrative of the “lazy native” imposed upon us by the colonialists and slavishly perpetuated by our intellectually-indolent “nationalists.” When the colonialists concocted that narrative, they benefited from it. It was their rationale for bringing in hordes of foreign indentured labor. When our latter-day Hang Tuahs aped that, they only made a monkey out of themselves. What benefit do they derive by denigrating our culture and nature?

            We need a modern relevant narrative, grounded in solid social science. Our problems stem from our being not competitive and productive. Fix that and we solve our problem. Bend our rebong now and a generation hence our bamboo groves would be more to our liking. By then we could not care less whether the likes of Perkasa’s Ibrahim Ali and Tun Mahathir would eat their words. They and their myths would have long been forgotten.

            As for me, Insha’ Allah (God willing) I look forward to one day meeting many young Malays at San Francisco Airport on their way to Stanford and Berkeley. That would be the sublime and truest expression of Ketuanan Melayu.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 6 October 2014, 12:00 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia’s Deplorable Sedition Act

Editorial

New York Times

October 6, 2014

The Malaysian government has increasingly employed the Sedition Act, a British colonial era law, to intimidate and silence political opponents. The law criminalizes speech uttered “to excite disaffection” against the government and defines sedition so broadly that it is an invitation to authoritarian abuse.

Prime Minister Najib Razak had promised to repeal the act, but, since the general elections in May last year, his government has made full use of the law to hound his critics. While Mr. Najib’s ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, won 60 percent of the parliamentary seats in the election, for the first time since independence in 1957, the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat, won a 51 percent majority of the popular vote.

The elections seem to have shaken the government enough for it to arrest and prosecute an array of politicians, journalists, academics, students, religious leaders and civil society activists who did not advocate the overthrow of the government.

 For example, a senior opposition politician was charged with sedition for criticizing a decision by the appeals court in a statement to the news media. A local state assemblyman was charged for allegedly saying “damn, damn” about the government’s United Malays National Organization to several assemblymen. Since 2013, at least 14 people have been charged. Those found guilty can face up to three years in prison.

Mr. Najib’s crackdown is a deplorable attack on free speech and a serious threat to democracy. He appeared to understand this danger when he promised to repeal the Sedition Act. He should do so immediately.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 6 October 2014, 9:58 pm and is filed under
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PAS badly needs to rejuvenate to stay relevant

By Mohamed Hanipa Maidin

Malaysiakini

Oct 5, 2014

MP SPEAKS
 It is a great relief the crisis of Selangor MB has finally been laid to rest. But rest assured Pakatan’s nightmares are far from over. A lot of soul searching needs to be done. The top leaders of Pakatan badly need to go to the drawing board again to devise and revise its strategies and priorities in order to reclaim the support from all Malaysians.

 As far as I am concerned PAS is the most vulnerable at this juncture. Its flip flop stands in Selangor fiasco puzzled not only its friends in Pakatan but also some of its own leaders. Maybe Umno also shared the same puzzlement so much so it did not feel there was a need to capitalise the issue to its political advantage.

Umno’s inefficiency in capitalising on the Selangor issue appears to have upset former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad. To be fair to Umno, when its political enemies had assumed Umno’ role in self-destructing their own political survival, what more it could do to aggravate the damage?

 No doubt PAS is the most important partner in Pakatan. Whatever one may perceive about PAS, the destruction of PAS is not good for Pakatan. In the same vein the strength of PAS is a bonus to Pakatan.

 Be that as it may, the partners in Pakatan must galvanise all the options they have to ensure PAS remains in Pakatan. No doubt the only winner if PAS is out from Pakatan would be BN.

 But to stay in Pakatan, PAS itself needs to change. No, it must change. Failure to change is not an option for PAS.

 The change, as far as I am concerned, must emanate from its top leadership. Like or not the top leaders of PAS have frustrated many Malaysians, particularly those who voted for PAS in the last general election. In fact many believe that PAS has unduly betrayed their trust and vanished their hopes.

True values of leadership absent

 Two entities in PAS are the prime sources of political bewilderment to many. First is the PAS’ president and the second is its syura council. The way these two entities seemingly exerted their power even within PAS has frightened those outside PAS. Of course the latter were justified to show their utmost concern, as this is the party that they have placed their trust, together with DAP and PKR, to helm political leadership in this country.

In Selangor fiasco the president and the syura council had unfortunately failed to seize the golden opportunity in exhibiting exemplary leadership in handling the crisis. It goes without saying that a true and able leadership is gauged when a leader is tested with crisis and tribulation.

 The way these two entities in PAS handled the Selangor menteri besar issue left many to bewilderment and frustration thus eroding any residual trust they had in PAS.

 It seemed that in venturing their decision making process the president and the syura council failed to display wisdom, humility and tolerance, which are the hallmarks of prophetic leadership shown by the beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).  Instead people saw anger, vengeance and even arrogance reigning supreme

 There is another thing which has become the source of concern for many Malaysians in the way PAS showed its stand vis a vis the issue of appointment of a new Selangor MB by His Highness the sultan of Selangor. Yes, the royal institution , being part of our constitutional make up, deserves our utmost and undivided respect and honour.

 Any disrespect of the monarchy deserves condemnation. Nevertheless the respect and honour to our royalty does not give anybody a licence to derail the royal institution from its constitutional position. We embrace constitutional monarchy thus it is in the interest of all Malaysians including the monarchy itself that the position of constitutional monarchy is kept in its proper place.

 PAS has to resign to the fact that the idea of power sharing in governance is still new to the party. Many Islamic movements such as PAS would face this critical challenge in their political journey to power.

 The success or failure of power sharing depends on the ability of the players in such a scheme to make necessary adjustments in their political manoeuvre. In a power sharing paradigm the threshold of tolerance is very high indeed. Thus to remain viable, all actors in power sharing agreement must be able to focus on long term rather than short term gains.

 PAS needs to make necessary and bold adjustments to its strategies and priorities in order to keep it relevant to the current and future political scenario. The adjustment does not call it to forgo altogether its core principles. Taking into account that Islam is rich with excellent and persuasive traditions and precedents, I do not see PAS should feel it is constricted by Islam in order to readjust its political manoeuvre.

 To think otherwise means to deny the richness and vastness of Islamic traditions and worst still, to deny the capability of Islam to remain relevant  at any periods of time.

Don’t forget people are the boss

 PAS needs constant reminder that it operates within the democratic system to compete for power. But power resides in the people namely all Malaysians. To claim power from Malaysians, PAS leaders have to convince Malaysians that they are ready and willing to represent them in its quest for political leadership.

PAS equally has to respect the sanctity of democracy and be willing to defend it. It needs to honestly address the legitimate concerns that Islamic movements are using democracy to climb the ladder of power only to destroy it once they are in power.

 But the most important, it has to prove its sincerity through actions rather than its verbal and rhetorical expression. In politics your actions speak louder than your tongue.

 Political power is about trust. Trust, like Rome, is not built in one day. It has to undergo a long, painful and tenacious process. You need only one day to destroy the trust and once it is lost, you may need hundred years to rebuild it. A fragile trust is like a sand castle easy to be destroyed.

 If PAS wants to stay relevant in Malaysian politics it has to build a solid and embedded trust among all races and religious beliefs in this country. Until and unless such a trust is solidly grounded, there is no point for PAS to expect its Islamic products would attract the market. In this respect, PAS badly needs a bold and major rejuvenation. This perhaps the first step for PAS to rebuild its trust and reclaim confidence, if any, from the people.

 MOHAMED HANIPA MAIDIN is Sepang MP and PAS central committee member.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 6 October 2014, 12:00 am and is filed under
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PR leadership council should meet during  Parliament budget session to answer whether PR is still relevant and to restore public confidence

It is now two weeks since the PKR Deputy President Mohamad Azmin has been sworn in as the Selangor Mentri Besar but the question whether Pakatan Rakyat is still relevant to the hopes and expectations of Malaysians who had looked up to PR for political leadership and change have yet to be answered.

There can be no denial that Pakatan Rakyat suffered its worst crisis and haemorrhage and the  most serious blow of public confidence in its six-year existence as a result of the protracted Selangor Mentri Besar crisis, and the jury is still out whether PR can recover from such a major crisis in the 14th General Elections.

The saving grace of the protracted and avoidable Selangor Mentri Besar crisis is that  the Selangor Barisan Nasiona/UMNO was so weak that they could not exploit it to their advantage.

I can understand Tun Mahathir’s disappointment, frustration and anger that Selangor UMNO was not able to capitalize on the PR “disarray” and “imbroglio” in the Selangor Mentri Besar crisis – but the next time, the PR is not going to be so lucky.

The Pakatan Rakyat component parties of DAP, PKR and PAS owe to the 52% of the electorate who voted for the PR parties  in the 13th General Elections a clear and unequivocal answer whether the coalition proposes to address the critical issue of whether it is capable of closing ranks or whether we are at the end-game stage of the PR coalition.

This is why Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council, which was virtually crippled because of the breakdown of one of the two basic principles of PR, i.e. consensus principle, must meet urgently during the budget Parliament session starting tomorrow  to reaffirm the component PR parties’ commitment and adherence to the PR’s two founding principles – upholding the PR common policy framework and abiding by the  PR operational principle of consensus among the three component parties.

These are the two principles on which Pakatan Rakyat had developed into a formidable force within the  span of one general election and would have replaced the Umno/Barisan Nasional coalition in Putrajaya in the 13GE  if the electoral system had been a fair and democratic one without any gerrymandering, founded on the principle of “one man, one vote, one value”.

A working committee with three or four representatives from each PR component party should be entrusted with the urgent responsibility to formulate recommendations as to how the PR could learn from the recent PR crisis as another repeat of such a crisis would spell the end and demise of the PR coalition.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 6 October 2014, 3:39 pm and is filed under
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