U.N. Rights Chief Criticizes Malaysian Antiterror Measure

by Nick Cumming-Bruce

New York Times

APRIL 9, 2015

GENEVA — The United Nations human rights chief on Thursday joined in criticism of the Malaysian government’s planned legislation on sedition and the prevention of terrorism, warning that both bills threatened to severely curtail freedom of opinion and expression and breach the country’s international obligations.

The government’s move to restore powers of indefinite detention without trial and without safeguards against abuse was among “serious shortcomings” in the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said in a statement.

The Malaysian authorities abolished indefinite detention powers in 2012 after years of criticism from human rights bodies, but the new measure allows the police to detain suspects for up to two years, renewable indefinitely, without trial or any form of judicial review.

The act passed Malaysia’s lower house of Parliament on Tuesday, a day after the police arrested 17 people for what they said was a plot to carry out terrorist attacks on police stations and army camps.

The government also plans to broaden the scope of its Sedition Act and impose harsher penalties on offenders, moves that would “make a bad law worse,” Mr. al-Hussein said, noting that the move would reverse a commitment to repeal the act that the government made to the United Nations Human Rights Council two years ago during a review of its human rights record.

The new measures were “particularly worrying” because the existing sedition law had been used in many instances to curb freedom of expression in Malaysia, he added, including through “arrests of individuals for merely tweeting their criticism of government policies and judicial decisions.”

The cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, known by the name Zunar, was charged with nine counts of sedition last week for posting messages on Twitter that criticized judges as “lackeys in black robes” over their decision to jail the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on charges of sodomy.

“Silencing dissent does not nurture social stability,” Mr. al-Hussein said. “Curtailing the legitimate exercise of human rights in the name of fighting terrorism has been shown, time and again, to backfire and to only lead to festering discontent and a strong sense of injustice.”

Prime Minister Najib Razak, facing growing political opposition, including from prominent members of his own party, has attracted sharp criticism from human rights advocates at home and abroad for measures seen as reneging on his earlier promises to liberalize Malaysian politics.

The Malaysian authorities investigated 78 people for sedition in 2014 and 36 others so far this year, the United Nations human rights office in Geneva said. The individuals investigated had not all faced prosecution, but “it’s a dagger hanging over them; it’s clearly an attempt to intimidate,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the United Nations human rights office.

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Umno playing politics with hudud push, Saifuddin tells students in Australia

by Shaun Tan

Malay Mail Online

April 10, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR, April 10 — Support for hudud exists only on the fringes despite the high-profile coverage on the controversy over the Islamic penal law in Malaysia, said Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah.

Speaking during a summit organised by the Malaysian Students Council of Australia (MASCA) in Brisbane, Australia yesterday, the Umno leader also said his party’s apparent support for hudud was “just politics”.

“Hudud isn’t mainstream. The mainstream is moderation and democracy,” he said.

During discussions on the topic, he said while the Quran uses the word “hudud” 14 times, none of the mentions involves a fixed punishment, but instead appears in relation to marriage, divorce and kindness to orphans.

Saifuddin also condemned last year’s Bible seizure by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department and the attempts to ban non-Muslims from using the word “Allah,” as well as the ruling party’s stance on Islam and society.

“Barisan Nasional has lost the plot,” he said. “We have to rewrite the script (and reclaim) the new middle ground.”

Liew Chin Tong, the DAP MP for Kluang, said secularism is vital because it is the only principle that provides equal freedom for all religions.

He urged Malaysian Muslims to put themselves in the position of the minorities in a country and consider the type of political system they would prefer.

“If I was a Muslim in London or Australia, how would I want that society to treat me?” he asked.

MASCA describes itself as the umbrella body for Malaysian students in Australia and boasts seven chapters — one in each Australian state except for the Northern Territories. The summit yesterday, which drew some 600 attendees, and which is held annually, is their flagship event.

Last month, the Kelantan state assembly passed the amendments to its state Shariah Criminal Code, with support from both PAS and Umno lawmakers.

PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang submitted two private member’s Bills on the Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code, which were discussed in Parliament in the recent sitting, but have since been deferred to the next session in May.

The Bills seek to remove legal roadblocks to the enforcement of the controversial Islamic penal code (hudud) that punishes apostasy with the death penalty and theft with the amputation of limbs.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 10 April 2015, 8:52 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia facing not only crisis of identity but crisis of survival for first time since formation of federation in 1963

Malaysia is facing not only a crisis of identity but a crisis of survival for the first time since the formation of the Malaysian federation in 1963.

The month of April has not been a good month for Malaysia, starting with the GST implementation on April 1, which has caused hardships all-round to Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region; followed by a week of infamy when Parliament “stopped the clock” twice in four days to rush through the passage of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Sedition Amendment Act, both of which attracted universal international condemnation for Malaysia becoming the human rights “black hole” as well as opening the Pandora’s Box of undemocratic, arbitrary and repressive powers and laws.

But  looming in the background, there was an even bigger crisis – the crisis of survival for Malaysia as it is intimately concerned with the question as to whether the Malaysian federation, as conceived by the Malaysia Agreement 1963, could survive and flourish or whether it would perish and fail.

In the original Sedition Act amendment Bill, there was the proposal to make any call for secession of any state from Malaysia  automatically an offence of sedition – a provision clearly addressed to some minority calls from Sabah and Sarawak.

Although this proposed amendment was subsequently withdrawn, it highlighted Putrajaya’s failure to understand the deep-seated unhappiness of the people of Sarawak and Sabah at being treated like step-children in a whole spectrum of issues in the past 52 years, ranging from poverty and  socio-economic development for Sabah and Sarawak, the Borneo-isation or the appointment of Sabahans and Sarwakians to state and federal government posts, Sabah and Sarawak’s share of oil royalties, etc.

But worst of all, was the political game played  by UMNO to entice PAS so as to break up Pakatan Rakyat with the lure of Federal government support to the Kelantan PAS government on hudud implementation, which has made the people of Sabah and Sarawak feel that a fundamental provision of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 was being violated.

As a result, the unhappiness and resentment of the people of Sabah and Sarawak at Putrajaya had never been so intense and multi-faceted in the past 52 years.

If this national crisis affecting the very survival of Malaysia formed 52 years ago is not given proper attention, then the country is set on very troubled waters in the coming months and years.

(Speech when opening the 1MDB scandal forum featuring DAP MP for PJ Utara Tony Pua in Gelang Patah on Saturday, 11th April 2015 at 2 pm)

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Najib forewarned that the UMNO “UG” conspirators should not  be allowed to  continue to  play with fire as it could lead not only to the disintegration of  Pakatan Rakyat, but also Barisan Nasional and even the Malaysian Federation

The month-long Parliamentary meeting starting on March 9 and adjourning in the early hours of April 10 has gravely undermined and damaged both the political coalitions in the country, the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.

It has been said that truth is stranger than fiction.

While the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak may rejoice that the “hudud” plot of the UMNO’s “UG” conspirators has succeeded in causing grave damage to Pakatan Rakyat, he should rue its threat not only to Barisan Nasional but the Malaysian federation as well.

Najib had not realised that the “hudud” weapon of UMNO “UG” plotters’ is a double-edged sword, which  could not only damage the unity and solidarity of Pakatan Rakyat with its  success to entice PAS support with purported UMNO endorsement for PAS Kelantan State Government hudud implementation, it also threatens the unity and even survival of Barisan Nasional and the Malaysian Federation as well.

In fact, the “hudud” plot of the UMNO “UG” conspirators has the potential not only to destroy both coalitions, Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat, but also the nation or bring about a  realignment of political forces in the country.

The warning signals are clear for all who have eyes to see.

Three days ago, for instance, the Kuching Ministers’ Fellowship (KMF), a network of church pastors and leaders in Sarawak, joined the Sabah Council of Churches in criticising the passing of the 2015 Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code Enactment with the support of UMNO Kelantan State Assemblymen, as Kelantan’s hudud enactment violates the secular foundation upon which Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak had formed Malaysia.

The KMF chairman Pastor Daron Tan said in a statement:  “The recently-passed Kelantan hudud enactment is in direct contradiction to the aspirations of founding fathers of our nation to keep Malaysia a secular state as evidenced in several historical documents that explicitly state this.

“The introduction of hudud law is a fundamental breach and deviation from the expressed commitment to complete religious freedom, a key term underpinning the Malaysia Agreement signed in July 1963 between Sarawak, Sabah and Malaya.”

Tan stressed that the criminal justice system remains under federal jurisdiction, as stated in the Ninth Schedule of the Federal Constitution.

“Any fundamental change to this package changes the very basis upon which the Christians in Sarawak also agreed to form Malaysia and it requires a thorough re-negotiation of the Federal Constitution,” he said.

The Sabah Council of Churches said last month that Kelantan’s plans to enforce hudud in the state amounts to a “betrayal” of Sabah’s trust when it agreed to form Malaysia with Malaya and Sarawak.

Three days ago, the Civil Society Organisations of Sabah and Sarawak representing 33 civic organizations,  called for a thorough renegotiation of the Federal Constitution if Kelantan insists to enforce its Syariah Criminal Code 2015.

It stressed: “Secular justice system on crimes as a federal jurisdiction is part of the entire constitutional package embodied in the Ninth Schedule of the Federal Constitution. Any fundamental change to this packaged deal requires a thorough renegotiation of the Federal Constitution.”

It ended with the call on the Federal Government or the Sabah and Sarawak state governments to convene a Malaysia Summit attended by all lawmakers and executive branch at the Federal and State levels to deliberate on a new Federal constitutional arrangement, whereby Sabah and Sarawak may have other rights devolved if Kelantan were to have its own criminal justice system.

I will attend such a Malaysia Summit if it is convened to discuss the subject of a thorough renegotiation of the Federal Constitution.

Najib must be  forewarned that the UMNO “UG” conspirators should not be allowed  to continue to  play with fire as it could lead not only to the disintegration of  Pakatan Rakyat, but also Barisan Nasional and even the Malaysian Federation.

The UMNO “UG” conspiracy to entice PAS support to break-up Pakatan Rakyat began a year ago on March 27, 2014  with the  Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Islamic affairs, Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom, surprising even PAS leaders with his completely unanticipated overture in Parliament that the UMNO/Barisan Nasional federal government was ready to work with the PAS Kelantan state government to implement the hudud law in Kelantan.

The UMNO “UG” conspirators were so successful that they have caused not only enormous damage to the unity and solidarity of Pakatan Rakyat, they have also gained  the collateral benefit  of drowning out all the issues currently haunting UMNO and the Prime Minister – the 1MDB scandal; the GST implementation; the repressive laws with the passage of Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) Bill  and Sedition Amendment Bill;  Anwar Ibrahim’s five-year jailing; Mongolian Altantunya Shaariibuu’s 2006 murder and conviction of two former police commandos Azila Hadri and Sirul Azhar with motives neither established nor pursued; the new jet for PM; the lavish spending on wedding of Najib’s daughter and above all, Najib’s survival as Prime Minister and UMNO President with the open challenge by former Prime Minister Mahathir.

But UMNO’s apparent support for PAS’ Kelantan hudud enactment was “just politics”, as admitted by the former deputy Higher Education Minister and CEO of Global Movement of Moderates (GMM), Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah at a  summit organized in Brisbane by the Malaysian Students’ Council of Australia (MASCA) two days ago.

Saifuddin said support for hudud is not “mainstream” but exists only on the fringes, and the mainstream is moderation and democracy.

He  said while the Quran uses the word “hudud” 14 times, none of the mentions involves a fixed punishment, but instead appears in relation to marriage, divorce and kindness to orphans.

Saifuddin’s statement tallies with what a  celebrated Malaysian surgeon in California and writer, Bakri Musa recently wrote about hudud in his recent blog, “The Curse of The Obsession With Single-Issue Politics”:

“Hudud also creates an unnecessary chasm between Muslims and non-Muslims. Islam should bring us together. To Muslims the Koran is the word of Allah, its message for all mankind and till the end of time. That is a matter of faith.

“While hudud is based on the Koran it is not the Koran. The present understanding of hudud is but the version interpreted by the ancient Bedouins. It is the handiwork of mortals, with all its imperfections. We should not be bound by it but be open to more enlightened readings of the holy book.”

Saifuddin and Bakri’s views on hudud deserve serious attention, as there is an irresponsible attempt to accuse anyone who disagrees with the PAS hudud enactment as anti-Islam.

Yusuf Qaradawi, the Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, had said that the problem is not with the application of hudud, but with their misapplication; that is, applying them without meeting their conditions.

Internationally noted Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan had called for a moratorium on hudud punishments, as (1) Muslim scholars are not in agreement on the interpretations given to the texts upon which these practices are based, nor do they agree on the required conditions in which they would be applicable; and (2) the application of the hudud laws today is used by repressive powers to abuse women, the poor and political opponents within a quasi-legal vacuum and with a total disrespect for human dignity.

In May 2012 in Hulu Terengganu, PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang said hudud could only be implemented if there are adequate conditions, giving as examples that if there is no minimum wage provision or resolution of the unemployment problem, the conditions for implementation for hudud do not exist.

The majority of Islamic countries in the world have not implemented hudud. Surely no one is seriously suggesting that these Islamic countries are anti-Islam?

The UMNO “UG” plot using hudud as a bait to disrupt PAS and damage Pakatan Rakyat has come full circle, with the PAS President and MP for Marang, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang following up on the Kelantan enactment of the 2015 Syariah Criminal Code with a private member’s bill motion in Parliament in the last three days of the Parliamentary meeting and Jamil Khir’s reply in the last day of the parliamentary meeting that Kelantan’s hudud enactment must comply with the Federal Constitution before it could be implemented.

But Hadi’s private member’s bill motion did not come up for debate in Parliament in the April meeting, and it will suffer the same fate in the May meeting of Parliament, unless Najib want to see not only the disintegration of Barisan Nasional and the Malaysian Federation as well.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 11 April 2015, 9:16 am and is filed under
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Hadi is propounding a political creed where the end justifies the means which seems to be at odds with the essence of Islam on the universal values of justice and trust (adil dan amanah)

I am shocked at the justification by the PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang for violating the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) Leadership Council decision on Feb. 8, 2015 that any amendment to the 1995 Kelantan Syariah Criminal Enactment and any private member’s bill in Parliament on hudud implementation should first be presented at the PR Leadership Council.

Both these consensus decisions of the PR Leadership Council meeting of Feb. 8, which was attended by Hadi personally, were violated as the 2015 Kelantan Syariah Criminal Enactment and Hadi’s private member’s bill motion in Parliament were never presented first to the PR Leadership Council.

From Hadi’s justification, he is in fact propounding a political creed where the end justifies the means which seems to be at odds with the essence of Islam on the universal values of justice and trust (adil dan amanah).

Hadi said that whether UMNO is sincere or not, PAS has to accept talks with UMNO on hudud.

He told a PAS forum yesterday:

 “Umno wants to co-operate with us, then we co-operate. Whether or not they are sincere, let Allah decide.

“It is not for us to decide if they are sincere or not. As of now, we should just take their gesture as sincere. The rest is up to Allah.”

It is Hadi’s prerogative to decide whether PAS should work with UMNO, regardless of PAS experience with UMNO and the late Tok Guru Nik Aziz’s injunction that UMNO can never be trusted or the prevalent view that the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom was merely laying a devious trap to destabilize, divide and destroy Pakatan Rakyat with his purported offer of Federal Government support to the PAS Kelantan State Government to implement hudud.

However, he should be honest and honourable enough to inform the other two parties in Pakatan Rakyat, i.e. DAP and PKR, of such an important change in the political position of PAS in Pakatan Rakyat, as it is tantamount to a  fundamental breach and violation of the PR Common Policy Framework and the operational consensus principle of PR that no single party or political leader can veto or override any PR decision.

Was Hadi’s decision to ditch Pakatan Rakyat made before or after the Feb. 8, 2015 meeting of the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council at PAS headquarters in Kuala Lumpur?

Was it a decision made by Hadi himself as PAS President or by the PAS Central Committee leadership?

Hadi as good as blamed  DAP and PKR for causing PAS to co-operate with UMNO in trying to enforce hudud criminal penalities in Kelantan, claiming that the opposition from the other two parties in PR had left PAS with no other choice.

Had Hadi ever raised at the PR Leadership Council that PAS is ditching the PR Common Policy Framework and is going headlong to co-operate with UMNO on hudud implementation in Kelantan?

Neither Hadi nor any PAS leader have ever raised such a matter at the PR Leadership Council.

This  is not the first time Hadi had arbitrarily and single-handedly sought to veto or overrule a consensus decision of the PR Leadership Council.

The first time was during the May 2013 General Elections when Hadi authorized PAS  candidature to contest in six state assembly seats in the country which were allotted to PKR, resulting in three-cornered fights and the loss of PR in these seats.

The second time was Hadi’s overruling of the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council decision on August 17, 2014 which was attended by the top  leaderships of DAP, PKR and PAS (although Hadi was absent) that the PKR President Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail be appointed as Selangor Mentri Besar.

The third time was Hadi’s breach of his personal commitment at the PR Leadership Council meeting of Feb. 8, 2015 that any amendment to the 1995 Kelantan Syariah Criminal Enactment and any private member’s bill in Parliament on hudud implementation would  first be presented to  the PR Leadership Council.

Hadi had never given notice to the PR Leadership Council that PAS would renege and violate  the PR Common Policy Framework, on the basis of which PAS and Pakatan Rakyat contested in the 13th General Elections and PAS won 21 Parliamentary and 85 State Assembly seats, making significant headway outside the traditional northern Malay states such as Pahang, Selangor, Malacca and Johor.

Hadi as PAS President had given a solemn commitment not only to the other two PR component parties, but also to the multi-racial and multi-religious electorate in Malaysia in the 13th General Elections that PAS would be guided by  the PR Common Policy Framework.

Nobody can stop Hadi from reneging on his commitments under the PR Common Policy Framework  but he should not try to put the blame of such a fundamental breach and violation on others, as neither DAP nor PKR had violated the PR Common Policy Framework or been dishonest and dishonourable about our undertakings and commitments.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 12 April 2015, 4:14 pm and is filed under
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Anwar Ibrahim’s conviction lowers the bar on the Malaysian legal system

Amanda Whiting, University of Melbourne

East Asia Forum

13 April 2015

These are dangerous times for the rule of law in Malaysia. The Federal Court’s decision on 10 February 2015 to affirm Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s criminal conviction for ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’ is shocking, but entirely predictable.

For a while, it seemed that domestic and international condemnation of the harassment of Anwar and the political misuse of draconian laws against opposition politicians and social activists had worked to improve Malaysia’s legal system. The United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) government appeared to have taken on board the response to the 1998–2004 ‘Sodomy I’ legal proceedings against Anwar, and broader criticisms of its authoritarian rule. But the ‘Sodomy II’ proceedings and their aftermath suggest otherwise.

The ‘Sodomy I’ episode bore many of the hallmarks of a classic show trial: police brutality, coerced confessions, denial of basic procedural fairness in court, and an absence of judicial impartiality and independence. Anwar was beaten while in police custody and witnesses were coerced into making confessions incriminating Anwar and themselves. Several defence lawyers were prosecuted when they tried to establish a political conspiracy against Anwar. Anwar’s supporters, and participants in the wider movement of Malaysians calling for an end to authoritarian rule, were subject to harassment, police brutality, and some to periods of detention without trial.

The Malaysian Bar Council, the Malaysian Human Rights Commission, the Australian Bar Association and other international observers condemned the legal proceedings and the harsh treatment of dissenters. So when the Federal Court overturned Anwar’s sodomy conviction in September 2004, the Malaysian Bar hailed the decision as ‘a meaningful turning point in the Malaysian legal and judicial system, demonstrating that Malaysian justice can be independent of politics’. At the same time, the Bar warned that there was still some way to go before the justice system could ‘regain the trust and confidence’ of the people.

Following the establishment of the Judicial Appointments Commission in 2009, the Malaysian judiciary seemed to be on the mend. More appointments were made to the bench from the private Bar, and several important civil liberties and constitutional rights cases have been decided by intermediate-level courts against the state. Also promising was the 2011–12 annulment of the state of emergency, repeal of laws permitting detention without trial and some lessening of government control of the press.

Given these constructive steps, ‘Sodomy II’ was surprising. Yet, at the same time, it was entirely predictable. Many of the positive legal developments are not securely based. The institutions of Malaysian public and political life are fragile, and have been eroded by cynicism and neglect. They are crumbling under the pressure placed upon them by UMNO’s struggle to stay in power after suffering historic losses in the 2008 and 2013 general elections.

Most of the extravagant show trial elements of the earlier proceedings against Anwar were absent this time around. Unlike ‘Sodomy I’, emergency ordinances were not deployed and Anwar’s legal team was not prosecuted for contempt of court or sedition for conduct directly related to his legal defence. But there were sufficient procedural irregularities. For example, the defence claimed that it was denied access to crucial prosecution evidence.

‘Sodomy II’ is still a classic political trial in the negative sense of that term. The government used the massive power of the state legal apparatus to cast a political opponent as a reviled criminal. The court itself refused to entertain the material that might substantiate a political conspiracy against the accused. In the aftermath of the conviction, more than 100 people who criticised the decision have been arrested.

The decision to prosecute Anwar for consensual ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’ was political. Why, lawyers asked, was the complainant, Anwar’s political aide Saiful Bukhari Azlan, not charged as an accomplice? Anwar was not charged with coercive unnatural sex, and the evidence suggested Saiful’s repeated participation. Why then was Anwar given the heavy punishment of five years imprisonment, and the loss of his parliamentary seat, for a victimless offence?

The timing also reeks of cynical politics. It came a few days after Saiful had a private meeting with the then deputy prime minister (now Prime Minister) Najib Razak, and a short time before Anwar made public his decision to contest a parliamentary seat in a by-election.

Anwar was initially acquitted by the High Court in January 2012 because the DNA evidence — crucial to Saiful’s testimony — had been mishandled and was unreliable. The Public Prosecutor immediately appealed the acquittal, leading to the conviction in February. The common law assumes that the prosecution should not appeal an acquittal, but the Malaysian Parliament legislated in 1976 to permit it.

After Anwar had been imprisoned, the privately appointed prosecutor undertook a ‘roadshow’ to explain the court’s decision to the public. UMNO initially denied the government was involved, but it later admitted some role, and its Youth Wing appears to have been involved as well. The prosecutor obtained an ex parte injunction, stopping the Malaysian Bar from debating its condemnation of the prosecutor’s conduct at its annual general meeting on 14 March 2015. Disciplinary proceedings against the prosecutor are, however, still possible.

Immediately after the guilty verdict was read out, the Prime Minister’s Office released a statement praising the independence of the judiciary. At the same time, Anwar denounced the trial as a political conspiracy and the judges as ‘partners in crime for the murder of judicial independence and integrity’. In contrast with ‘Sodomy I’, the appellate judges in ‘Sodomy II’ have been models of decorum. One can certainly criticise the legal reasoning, but there is no sign of the erratic rulings that marked ‘Sodomy I’.

The courts can and do deliver reasonably sound rulings in ‘normal’ cases, deciding them according to established principles of law and procedure. But in ‘political’ cases where citizens’ rights come up against the UMNO government, the outcome can be surprising. This is because the UMNO government channels political disputes into the courts, distorting legal institutions and the legal process. It is a shocking waste of the courts’ time and of public resources. Furthermore, it ties up Opposition politicians and first-rate litigators in countless court preparation and appearances. Anwar alone has featured in more than 50 reported cases since 1998.

Anwar’s case is not typical, but it is symptomatic of a pernicious and widespread disease within the Malaysian legal and political system.

Amanda Whiting is a Lecturer of Law and Associate Director (Malaysia) at the Asian Law Centre, University of Melbourne.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 14 April 2015, 9:58 am and is filed under
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Kerjasama PAS-Umno umpama pelanduk melupakan jerat, tetapi jerat tidak melupakan pelanduk

 – Zairil Khir Johari

The Malaysian Insider

14 April 2015

Menurut laporan Mingguan Malaysia, Presiden PAS, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang berkata PAS wajib berunding dengan Umno apabila diajak parti tersebut demi memastikan pelaksanaan hukum hudud di Kelantan.

Katanya lagi, pemimpin dan ahli PAS tidak sewajarnya mempersoalkan keikhlasan Umno menyokong pelaksanaan hukum itu, khususnya apabila rang undang-undang persendirian berkaitan hudud dibentangkan di Dewan Rakyat kelak.

Sejarah pengkhianatan Umno terhadap PAS

Hadi bukan orang baru dalam kancah politik Malaysia. Beliau seharusnya faham, Umno cuma lunak kepada PAS ketika mereka terdesak, memandangkan Umno sendiri yang menghalang pelaksanaan hudud pada 1993.

Beliau juga seharusnya maklum bagaimana Umno menipu dan hampir melenyapkan PAS pada 1970-an dahulu melalui penyertaan PAS dalam kerajaan campuran “UG” pertama, iaitu Barisan Nasional. Pada Pilihan Raya Umum (PRU) 1969, Kerajaan Perikatan mengalami kemerosotan apabila banyak undi Melayu berpindah ke PAS. Ekoran pembentukan gabungan besar selepas itu, Umno-BN mendapat kejayaan besar pada PRU 1974.

Namun begitu, jasa PAS dibayar tiga tahun kemudian dengan penyingkiran PAS daripada BN berikutan helah “Darurat” di negeri Kelantan. Akibatnya, PAS bukan sahaja kehilangan Kelantan, malah hampir terkorban apabila parti tersebut dilanda perpecahan dan krisis kepimpinan. Apakah peristiwa hitam ini sudah dilupai?

Bagaimana pula dengan Tragedi Memali pada 1985? Sekiranya PAS ingin bekerjasama dengan Umno, tidakkah mereka perlu terdahulu menuntut kebertanggungjawaban terhadap kematian Ustaz Ibrahim Libya dan pengikut-pengikutnya?

Lebih penting lagi, apakah Hadi tidak mempersoalkan mengapa Umno sanggup membantu PAS melaksanakan hudud di Kelantan, sedangkan Umno langsung tidak menunjukkan minat untuk membentangkan rang undang-undang hudud di negeri-negeri yang mereka kuasai dengan majoriti dua pertiga? Malahan, presiden Umno sendiri terus mengelak daripada menyatakan pendiriannya berkenaan hudud, sementara terdapat menteri Umno yang terus-terang menolak pelaksanaan hukum tersebut.

Jangan lupa amanat Fadzil Noor dan Nik Aziz

Persoalannya, mengapa Hadi begitu terburu-buru untuk mewajibkan kerjasama dengan Umno setelah acap kali dikhianati mereka? Apakah hudud ini sahaja yang dikira mampu untuk menyelamatkan beliau dalam Muktamar akan datang, memandangkan tidak ada lagi kejayaan lain yang mampu disandarkan?

Adalah amat malang bagi PAS dan rakyat Malaysia yang menginginkan perubahan besar sekiranya kepimpinan parti hanya terdaya untuk bergantung kepada musuh politik bagi mengekalkan kepentingan mereka. Setelah berkali-kali ditipu Umno, PAS seharusnya sedar dan tidak menjadi pelanduk yang melupakan jerat.

Berbeza dengan presiden PAS kini, sikap pemimpin-pemimpin terulung PAS seperti Almarhum Ustaz Fadzil Noor dan Almarhum Tok Guru Nik Aziz senantiasa tegas, jelas dan jujur dalam berpolitik. Dalam isu hubungan dengan Umno, kedua-dua mereka lantang mengingatkan agar sentiasa menjauhi Umno yang licik.

Lebih penting lagi, mereka juga menekankan nilai-nilai Islam seperti keadilan dan amanah sementara menggalakkan sikap istiqamah bersama pakatan pembangkang bagi menumpaskan Umno-BN. Walaupun sudah tiada bersama kita, amanat Fadzil Noor dan Nik Aziz ini tidak wajar dilupai. – 14 April, 2015.

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PAS’s problems not as trivial as Hadi thinks, says former veep

BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

14 April 2015

Former PAS vice-president Ahmad Awang, who received three nominations to take on Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang for the top party post, has dismissed the president’s claim that the disagreements within the Islamist party were a “small” issue.

He said if the problems were not resolved, the party could be heading for destruction, adding that contrary to Hadi’s belief, the party was currently facing a bigger crisis than before.

“The president said it is a small thing. But from what I am seeing, the situation is really bad, and if left unchecked, it could destroy the party,” said Ahmad, who was also the former Perak PAS commissioner.

Ahmad qualified to contest the party top post after receiving more than the minimum two nominations recently. His nominations came from Penang’s Bukit Gelugor division and Negri Sembilan’s Jelebu division. He was initially nominated by the Parit Sulong division.

He said the PAS Ulama Council and party leadership should take heed of the situation and put a stop to the internal strife immediately before it worsened.

Speaking at a forum in Shah Alam on Saturday, Hadi had said the disagreements in the Islamist party were a “small” issue and gave his assurance that the party remained strong and would continue to prosper.

He insisted PAS had faced bigger crises in the past, including the decision by its highest leadership to leave the party in the 1950s and 1960s and yet, PAS remained intact.

Ahmad said he, too, had become a victim of the “political games” in the party.

He said certain parties have already started applying pressure on him, including stopping him from giving lectures at a mosque.

The move was believed to be prompted by his writings, which allegedly criticised the way the ulama faction in the party was campaigning ahead of the 61st PAS muktamar in June.

“I received an SMS from the mosque’s secretary telling me to stop giving lectures, following advice from the party branch in the area.”

Ahmad, who yesterday had said he was prepared to take on Hadi for the party’s top post, said that if he decided to run, PAS should ensure that democracy in the party prevailed.

He went on to criticise the newly appointed PAS spiritual leader Datuk Dr Haron Din for supporting Hadi as the party president.

“It is not appropriate (for Haron to do that). This is an abuse of power. Because he is in an influential position,” said Ahmad, who claimed several state commissioners appeared to have forced PAS members in their respective areas to support their candidates.

“Contesting does not mean that we are fighting. But now, friends have become foes.”

Ahmad said he also regretted the use of T-shirts attacking PAS deputy president Mohamad Sabu last Saturday.

Vendors, he said, were selling T-shirts that read “Yes to Hudud, No to Mat Sabu”.

“Perhaps the organisers are not aware, but now that they know, action must be taken,” said Ahmad.

The party has been hit with internal strife because of differing opinions among the three component parties of Pakatan Rakyat, which include DAP and PKR.

Among them was the move by PKR to replace Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim as the Selangor menteri besar and the by-election for the Kajang state seat.

The Selangor saga was prolonged when PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was picked as the candidate for the menteri besar post, which PAS disagreed, despite PKR and DAP agreeing that only one name should be submitted to the Selangor Sultan.

The fraught relationship between PAS and its component partners was worsened by PAS Kelantan’s decision to table amendments to the Shariah Criminal Enactment 11 in the state, in a bid to pave the way for Islamic law to be implemented in the state.

Following that incident, a few PAS members decided to set up Persatuan Ummah Sejahtera Malaysia (PasMa), a cell within the party, for the purpose of strengthening the opposition pact. – April 14, 2015.

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Repression in Malaysia – Disconnect

Economist

Apr 11th 2015

A thuggish government is playing racial politics. Najib Razak should be dressed down

MALAYSIA’S prime minister, Najib Razak, paints his country as a model of moderate Islam —a multicultural democracy and a beacon of tolerance. He has spoken of scrapping oppressive British-era laws and nurturing a creative economy. Meanwhile, his spin-doctors explain that their liberal master is the man to vanquish the reactionary forces in his political party, UMNO, which has never been out of power and which is prone to cronyism and political thuggery. Barack Obama, for one, buys this story. He is the first American president since 1966 to have visited Malaysia. And late last year in Hawaii he enjoyed a round on the golf links with Mr Najib. The two men are said to click. The White House gushes about a “growing and warming relationship” between America and Malaysia.

Race to the bottom

Yet it is time to call Mr Najib out on the widening gulf between spin and substance. On the economic front is a growing scandal over dubious connections and misused funds at a national investment fund, 1MDB, that Mr Najib launched and which is now burdened with $12 billion of debts. Malaysia’s human-rights record is of even greater concern. Three years ago Mr Najib scrapped a notorious colonial law, the Internal Security Act, which allowed indefinite detention without trial. This week he, in effect, reintroduced it. The new Prevention of Terrorism Act allows suspects to be detained indefinitely. Though it is aimed ostensibly at jihadists, lawyers and civic groups are appalled at the law’s sweep.

This fits a pattern. The coalition that Mr Najib leads uses foul as well as fair means to keep the opposition down. In the most recent election, in 2013, it lost the popular vote for the first time. Yet it held on to power thanks to gerrymandered voting districts. Even after that dubious victory, it continued to persecute the charismatic opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, who in February was sentenced to five years on trumped-up charges of sodomy. American criticism was perfunctory.

In the past year growing numbers of activists and opposition figures have been arrested under the Sedition Act, another colonial law aimed originally at advocates of independence. Mr Najib, who once promised to remove it from the statute book, now plans to strengthen it with harsher punishments and a clause forbidding speech that denigrates Islam.

Among those already arrested under the Sedition Act are opponents of hudud, corporal and capital punishments, including stoning to death for adultery, laid down in Islamic law. Hudud does not apply in Malaysia, but Islamists from an opposition party want it introduced in Kelantan state in the north-east. The government does not like the idea but is quietly supporting it in a cynical ploy to widen splits in Pakatan Rakyat, the opposition coalition struggling without Mr Anwar.

By encouraging the Islamists, the government is fanning racial and religious divisions in a majority-Malay (and Muslim) country with large ethnic-Chinese and ethnic-Indian minorities. In 1969 bloody race riots nearly tore Malaysia apart. Playing racial politics could be disastrous in this multiracial country. A better and more enlightened way for Mr Najib to boost UMNO’s prospects would be for him to repair its image with ethnic Chinese and Indians.

Malaysia’s friends should be blunter about this where they have been mealy-mouthed. They should condemn Malaysia’s corruption, its decaying freedoms and its racial politics. They should call for both the Sedition Act and unlimited detention to go. Until matters improve, not only should golf be off the agenda; so too should the prime minister’s hoped-for trip to Washington this year.

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Undi bukan Islam tidak penting?

A Shukur Harun

The Malaysian Insider

14 April 2015

Ramai yang berkongsi kerunsingan dan menyertai kebimbangan bekas pemimpin PAS, Ustaz Haji Ahmad Awang apabila beliau berkata, “ramai yang sedih melihat gelagat beberapa pimpinan PAS yang menunjukkan sikap tidak menghargai dan bersyukur atas kewujudan Pakatan Rakyat. Sama ada mereka mempunyai wawasan masa depan politik yang begitu terbantut atau agenda tersendiri yang masih belum didedahkan hanya Allah yang mengentahui.”

Menurut Ahmad Awang, kata-kata seperti “PAS mampu bersendirian”, “Putrajaya bukan matlamat kami”, “Sokongan bukan Islam tidak penting” dan sebagainya adalah sangat bercanggah dengan wawasan pimpinan terdahulu.

Ungkapan seperti ini bermunculan ketika tercetusnya krisis berat dalam PAS sendiri sekarang ini, lebih-lebih lagi menjelang Muktamar Tahunan PAS  bulan Jun depan.

Menurut pendapat saya, pandangan PAS mampu bersendirian sementara sokongan bukan Melayu tidak penting adalah kata-kata yang menggambarkan betapa naifnya bacaan politik mereka ini, yang sama sekali tidak berasaskan realiti politik yang ada.

Bahkan pandangan begini membahayakan kelansungan masa depan PAS lebih-lebih lagi apabila golongan ini berkata, “Putrajaya bukan matlamat kami”.

Pandangan seperti ini bukan saja aneh, tetapi juga membayangkan pemikiran paranoid, kecelaruan, bahkan kedangkalan politik.

Belum pernah dalam sepanjang sejarah politik moden seperti PAS

yang berjuang untuk kemenangan politik dan kuasa, tiba-tiba merasakan Putrajaya (pusat kuasa) tidak penting. Kalau begitu adakah PAS mahu berhenti sebagai parti politik dan hanya mahu menjadi badan dakwah? Pendapat begini bertentangan dengan wawasan pemimpin masa lalu. Perlu diingat, pelaksanaan hudud itu sendiri, umpamanya memerlukan kuasa politik. Oleh itu sangat aneh dan dangkal pemimpin politik yang berkata, “Putrajaya bukan matlamat kami.”

Sepanjang sejarahnya, selama ini pemimpin PAS berjuang dalam politik diiringi dengan niat untuk mencapai keredhaan Allah. Ini bermakna kemenangan politik dan redha Allah itu tidak pernah terpisah. Oleh itu, janganlah ada pemikiran dangkal memisahkannya.

Sementara itu, jika ada pemikiran PAS perlu menumpukan perhatian kepada pengundi kawasan majoriti Islam saja untuk menang, maka pemikiran politik seperti itu sangat naif dan ketinggalan zaman.

Ia hanya merugikan PAS sendiri dan tidak menolong usaha memperkukuh Pakatan Rakyat yang dipersetujui bersama dalam empat kali muktamar tahunan PAS sebelum ini.

Keadaan ini berasaskan realiti demografi pengundi di negara ini yang taburannya pelbagai, di mana negeri di Pantai Timur – Terengganu dan Kelantan – jumlah pengundi Melayunya besar. Tetapi di Pantai Barat, jumlah pengundi Melayu sekitar 60% atau kurang dari itu, sementara jumlah pengundi bukan Melayu ialah sekitar 40%.

Adalah sangat naif jika berfikir cukupkah kalau PAS dapat menang di negeri yang majoriti Melayunya besar, seperti di Pantai Timur.

Sikap seperti itu hanya mahu menarik PAS undur ke belakang 20 atau 30 tahun. Tidak munasabah jika PAS yang sudah berumur 63 tahun hendak ditarik ke belakang semakin jauh.

Sementelah lagi apakah teori memberi fokus lebih kepada kawasan Melayu itu saja, konon kerana orang Melayu majoritinya “pasti” akan mengundi PAS dengan andaian ia didukung orang Melayu/Islam. Sejarah pilihan raya yang lalu menunjukkan keadaan seumpama ini jarang, malah tidak berlaku.

Menurut suatu kajian lain pula, jumlah pengundi Melayu di luar bandar akan jauh merosot di tahun-tahun akan datang di mana mungkin susut hingga tinggal 25% saja dari jumlah keseluruhan peratusan pengundi di Malaysia hingga PRU akan datang.

Ini kerana jumlah pengundi di luar bandar banyak berpindah, mengikut anak di bandar, meninggal dunia dan beberapa sebab lagi ke bandar. Dengan itu jumlah pengundi Melayu seperti di Lembah Kelang, sekitar bandar di Johor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah, Pahang dan lain-lain akan terus bertambah.

Oleh itu, tumpuan pengundian pada asasnya kini ialah di dalam bandar, iaitu pengundi Melayu dan bukan Melayu. Ini tentunya sangat signifikan dalam menentukan kemenangan sesuatu parti yang bertanding dalam PRU akan datang.

Dalam PRU yang lalu, banyak calon PAS menang di kawasan campuran iaitu di bandar seperti di Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Johor dan Perak. Tanpa sokongan pengundi bukan Melayu, terbukti sukar bagi calon PAS untuk menang. Inilah hakikat yang sebenarnya dan terimalah realiti ini walaupun mungkin sukar diterima. Parti politik yang matang menerima realiti yang wujud dan berusaha berasaskan rialiti yang ada.

Bagaimanapun saya yakin, pendukung PAS yang berfikiran jauh ke depan tidak akan berfikir untuk bertanding secara bersendirian dalam PRU akan datang betapapun didorong kemarahan atas apa yang berlaku dalam Pakatan sendiri. Emosi dan pemikiran sempit tidak wajar diberi ruang dalam membuat keputusan politik.

Pemikiran besar dan jauh ke depan perlu ada pada pendukung PAS. Maka di sinilah saya masih ingat pesan Tuan Guru Datuk Nik Abdul Nik Mat, beberapa tahun lalu:

“Kita (PAS) berada dalam Pakatan Rakyat, banyak manfaatnya. Kita dapat berdakwah dengan luas kepada semua kaum. Kita dapat menjalin hubungan dengan mudah dengan bukan Islam.”

Memang diakui sejak krisis yang menimpa Pakatan Rakyat lebih tujuh bulan lalu dan merecik menjadi krisis dalam PAS sendiri, tetapi ini tidaklah boleh menyebabkan sesetengah pendukung PAS terdorong mahu PAS bersendirian dalam perjuangan politik walau apa hujah pun.

Seperti diketahui, sebanyak empat kali muktamar PAS bukan saja menunjukkan komited dengan Pakatan Rakyat, bahkan berikrar memperkukuh Pakatan Rakyat.

Jadi tidaklah wajar ada sesetengah pihak di dalam PAS sendiri, walau dalam status apa pun, begitu mudah mengeluarkan kenyataan bersifat mengugut, mendesak, mengancam, menyindir, memberi kata dua dan sebagainya mengenai kedudukan PAS dalam Pakatan Rakyat. Yang perlu di sini ialah PAS bersama komponan Pakatan perlu kerap berunding untuk menyelesaikan segala masalah yang timbul. – 14 April, 2015.

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As Najib shores up leadership amid criticism, tiny Gedong may play a big role

Bloombert/MMO

April 15, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR, April 15 — The oil palm-growing district of Gedong in the eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak is too tiny to get its own zip code. Even so, its 6,712 voters will soon have their own government representative.

Electoral officials are adding 11 seats to the Sarawak legislative assembly by carving out new constituencies ahead of a state election due by next year—wards that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will want to go to his ruling coalition. The Sarawak vote is a test for Najib as he seeks to shore up his leadership amid criticism of his economic and social policies and public demands by a former leader that he step down.

Najib’s efforts to retain support in the resource-rich state has seen his government build more municipal facilities from hospitals to water treatment plants. His Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is banking on the states of Sarawak and Sabah on Borneo island — its traditional strongholds — to keep it in power as Chinese voters on Peninsular Malaysia defect.

“BN not doing so well in Sarawak will weaken Najib within the coalition and add to criticisms against him,” said Wan Saiful Wan Jan, head of the Kuala Lumpur-based Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs. “A strong win will give him a reprieve from all the unhappiness on imposing a goods and services tax this year and concerns about growing debt of government entities.”

BN lost eight seats in the Sarawak state poll in 2011, and in the 2013 general election it lost the popular vote for the first time since independence in 1957, even as it retained power. Sarawak has 31 federal seats of which BN holds 24.

Sliding ratings

Najib, 61, has seen his approval rating slide to around 40 per cent as he moves to plug a budget gap with steps including an unpopular 6 per cent consumption levy that started this month. At the same time, the debt of 1Malaysia Development Bhd., a state investment company whose advisory board he heads, is weighing on the nation’s sovereign rating.

Ex-Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in power from 1981 to 2003, has lashed out at Najib, saying Malaysians no longer trust the premier and the coalition will lose the next general election due by 2018 if he stays. He has cited the mounting debt at 1MDB and the consumption tax.

As Mahathir stepped up his attacks, Najib spoke for an hour on national television last week, saying he has a mandate and will stay leader as long as he has the support of his party and citizens. His deputy later spoke out to back him.

Sarawak, with its oil fields, hydroelectric dams and rainforests, was Malaysia’s third biggest contributor by state or federal territory to gross domestic product in 2012, accounting for almost a 10th of output. Together with Sabah it has 60 per cent of Malaysia’s oil and condensate reserves, according to government data.

The states are politically significant, dubbed “fixed deposits” because they are depended on to keep the coalition in power. Sarawak and Sabah were key to BN securing a parliamentary majority in 2013.

Favourable districts

Even in those two states the opposition has made headway in recent years, said Maria Chin Abdullah of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, or Bersih.

“They don’t want to lose Sabah and Sarawak,” said the chairwoman of the non-governmental group that seeks electoral changes in Malaysia. “They want the boundaries redrawn in their favour for state assemblies to make sure they control East Malaysia.”

The Prime Minister’s Office didn’t reply to three e-mails and two calls seeking comment on whether the redraw will help the national government retain control of the states.

The result of the Sarawak state polls is key in part because the assembly’s composition determines if the chief minister is an ally to Najib. The opposition has gained voters with pledges to stamp out graft in government and to fight for a bigger share of oil revenues.

Oil royalties

Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem, who has sought greater oil royalties for the state, is popular with voters. His BN coalition party would be well placed to win the new seats, said James Chin, director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania.

Najib has visited Sarawak several times in recent months, to lay the foundation stone for a new hospital and break ground on a community centre, state news agency Bernama reported. He’s pledged to build a 1,663-kilometre toll-free Pan-Borneo Highway at a cost of RM27 billion.

Tan Sri Dr James Masing, a Sarawak assemblyman and president of BN’s coalition member Parti Rakyat Sarawak, said it’s necessary to raise state seats to 82 from 71.

Jungle life

“For a less-developed Sarawak, one must give a lot of weightage to rural areas,” said Masing, who is Sarawak’s land development minister. “Human life in town is also as valuable as human life in the jungle of Sarawak. They deserve our service as well.”

The election commission’s proposals to redraw Sarawak’s electoral map garnered 64 objections, of which 41 were deemed valid. Those included a lack of effort to clean up electoral rolls, Bersih’s Abdullah said.

“We welcome the objections and have looked through them but we have to do our job for Sarawak,” said Election Commission of Malaysia Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof. “It can be so remote. We need to make more seats for the people.”

The proposed increase in assemblymen in Sarawak will “dilute the presence of the opposition,” according to Democratic Action Party lawmaker and state opposition leader Chong Chieng Jen. The DAP doubled its seats in 2011 to 12.

“They are also raising the seat numbers to ease friction among the BN parties who are fighting for more allocations,” said Chong. “They want more share of Sarawak’s economic cake.” — Bloomberg

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Want to stop people from joining groups like the Islamic State? Try tackling core problems first.

By Stephan Bauman

Washington Post

April 14, 2015

Why would teenagers from Denver or schoolgirls from London skip class to join the Islamic State? Because they want to “belong to something special…,” said John Horgan who studies the psychology of terrorism at the University of Massachusetts. “They want to find something meaningful for their life.” Such crises of identity coupled with an appeal to religious loyalty entice even the most unlikely of candidates. We shake our heads in astonishment.

But there is more to the story.

Global unemployment topped 200 million for the first time in history, with record numbers among youth. Unemployment rates among Arab youth are the highest in the world, with 1 in 4 unable to find a job. Some say the numbers are as high as 35 million people without work, with more than 100 million jobs needed by 2020 to meet the growing population. The unemployment issue amounts to a questionable future for many, especially students aspiring to a meaningful career.

But a bleak future alone does not lead a person to consider joining groups like the Islamic State. Millions of Arabs feel they are being denied basic human rights. “The typical Arab citizen, with few exceptions, has felt humiliated… by his or her government,” said one expert. According to a Gallup poll, just over half of Arab youth have confidence in their government — in poorer countries it’s as low as 37 percent — and only a third believe their national elections are honest. Without a government they can trust, people are left feeling desperate and helpless. Some turn to the Islamic State as a result.

In their book, “Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us,” Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko describe how surprisingly normal people with strong beliefs and passion can be radicalized through mechanisms ranging from personal grievance, love, status and an appeal to selflessness. But the authors also present how these same mechanisms can equally mobilize people toward good. They cite the strengths of peaceful activism and “trajectories of self sacrifice” in response to world events, such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo where violence and war have ravaged for decades, unemployment is endemic, and human rights are nonexistent. Rebel militias regularly commit atrocities not unlike the Islamic State. But I have seen firsthand how people have turned their desperation into good. In what is known as the rape capital of the world, women are finding strength in each other to help their “sisters,” some as young as nine, to heal and rebuild their lives. They have joined together to form Village Peace Committees, groups of citizens working to solve local conflicts, create economic opportunities and mitigate future violence. Today, thousands of peacemakers are waging peace in Eastern Congo one village at a time.

While research shows that poverty does not necessarily create an environment conducive to terrorism, a lack of civic involvement does. When people find meaningful and effective ways to shape their future, whether through political engagement or civic participation, violence and terrorism are far less likely. On this front, the Congolese have something to teach us.

Having taken a front seat to war and violence over many years, any signs of tangible hope are worth noting. Consider, for example, one story where potential violence was stopped not by the government but by a group of village citizens. About a year ago, the wife of a rural man living near Goma, Congo, was abducted by a rebel militia. The man looked for his wife but could not find her. She didn’t come home. After six months, he met with the pastor who married them. “My wife is dead,” he feared. “What should I do?” The pastor released him from his marriage, and, some months later, the man took another wife.

But after nine months of captivity in the bush, serving as a slave to the rebel army, the man’s first wife was miraculously released. She came home to her husband and children.

The man appealed to members of a newly formed Village Peace Committee. “What should I do?” he said. “I don’t want to dishonor God or my new wife, but I want to be married to the mother of my children.” Committee members met with the pastor and each wife, and counseled their extended families. After praying, the second wife asked to honorably step out of the marriage. With some help, she found another husband. The pastor married the new couple and also re-married the man to his original wife.

The complexity of the situation struck me so I asked the Village Peace Committee leader, “What would have happened had there been no intervention?” He said the wife who was held captive would have blamed the pastor for marrying her husband when he hadn’t “found her grave.” He said, “the courts would have eaten all their belongings,” meaning, they would have bribed the families for the little, if any, justice they could provide. And the families of the two wives would have settled into enmity, avenging one another for generations to come.

While the Democratic Republic of Congo is a long way from the Middle East both politically and culturally, the Congolese are resilient, independent and innovative like most Arabs. They are not waiting for their government to exercise their civic responsibility. Instead, they created their own mechanisms to begin tackling chronic and entrenched problems. As they began to see progress, they were motivated to do more. And their work inspired hundreds of others to join.

Overcoming despair with action, the Congolese discovered a new sense of belonging, an identity not limited to an ethnicity or ideology, but to the broader ideals of peace, hope and community. And, their faith not only served to catalyze their commitment, but also helped them shift their values toward greater good. By serving across ethnic lines and religious differences, they began to see one another as people with intrinsic dignity and value. By helping women afflicted by violence, communities began welcoming them back rather than shunning them.

A sense of belonging, a more meaningful life and a way to constructively express faith are common values found among youth, especially those who feel desperate and hopeless. The Islamic State exploits youthful desires, manipulating them toward evil ends. But desperate times, injustice and even outrageous oppression can lead people to respond well. There are thousands of people and numerous organizations throughout the Middle East and North Africa responding with good.

Unfortunately, we rarely hear narratives of those responding well. Now is the time to herald these stories of hope, praising the heroes who create them. A younger generation longs to give their lives to something grand, hopeful and life-giving. Let’s give them the better option.

Stephan Bauman is president and CEO of World Relief, which empowers the worldwide church to overcome global poverty and injustice. He is also executive director of The Justice Conference, and author of the new book, “Possible: A Blueprint For Changing How We Change the World.”

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It’s had some military success, but the Islamic State is no existential threat

By Rosa Brooks

Opinions

Washington Post

April 16 2015

ISIS -The State of Terror

By Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger

It is dangerous to underestimate your enemies — or overestimate them. The United States has an uncanny knack for doing both, often at the same time.

Take the self-proclaimed Islamic State. On the one hand, President Obama tells us that the group, also known by the acronym ISIS,“has no vision other than . . . slaughter” and “can never possibly win [anyone] over by its ideas or its ideology — because it offers nothing.” There is no need to send U.S. ground troops into combat against the militants: “It’s not necessary to defeat [them].”

On the other hand, former defense secretary Chuck Hagel insists that the Islamic State is an “imminent threat to every interest we have,” Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) says the group is “a clear and present danger,” and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urges the president to deploy U.S. ground troops to fight the extremists in Iraq and Syria “before we all get killed here at home.”

Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger’s new book, “ISIS,” should be required reading for every politician and policymaker. Though it bears some of the inevitable scars characteristic of books written in a great hurry — it is uneven and a bit rough around the edges — their smart, granular analysis is a bracing antidote to both facile dismissals and wild exaggerations.

Berger and Stern paint a picture of the Islamic State as a sophisticated, adaptive organization with a clear blueprint for the future, an elaborate internal administrative structure and strong millenarian appeal. Yes, it employs extreme violence and brutality — but it does so with deliberation and purpose. However, Stern and Berger also remind us that while the group’s “military successes are formidable,” it is not “an existential threat to any Western country.”

Stern and Berger offer a nuanced and readable account of the ideological and organizational origins of the group, emphasizing the early fault lines between Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of the Islamic State’s precursor, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Even before 9/11, they note, bin Laden mistrusted Zarqawi’s embrace of extreme violence, particularly against Muslim civilians. But Zarqawi and his inner circle were heavily influenced by a 2004 tract called “The Management of Savagery,” by Abu Bakr Naji. The book urged jihadists to draw “the United States into a continual series of conflicts in the Middle East to destroy its image of invincibility,” Berger and Stern explain. It also advocated what became the Islamic State’s hallmark: the “embrace and wide broadcast of unvarnished violence as a tool to motivate would-be recruits and demoralize enemies.”

After Zarqawi’s death, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) was formed with support from al-Qaeda leaders. In 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a veteran of the U.S. detention facility at Camp Bucca, became ISI’s leader. Baghdadi understood instinctively that ISI would eventually need shrewd managers and planners as much as charismatic ideologues, and he recruited into its leadership a number of secular former Iraqi Baathists he had come to know at Camp Bucca. Their military, technical and administrative skills proved invaluable.

In 2011, Baghdadi sent a deputy to establish an offshoot in Syria. This group “came to be known as Jabhat al Nusra, which . . . positioned itself as an independent entity.” Baghdadi sought to reestablish direct control by declaring in April 2013 that the Islamic State of Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra would merge to form a new Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. But the Syrian group instead broke away from the Islamic State and swore allegiance to al-Qaeda. Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State were soon fighting each other as well as the forces of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, and in February 2014, the Islamic State was formally disavowed by al-Qaeda.

This didn’t slow the group, which steadily gained in military strength and media sophistication, producing an increasingly professional series of videos distributed via YouTube and a growing stream of pro-Islamic State tweets. By mid-2014, the militants had captured enough money and equipment from conquered territories and the disintegrating Iraqi army to become “the richest terrorist organization in the world.” In June 2014, the Islamic State declared itself a caliphate, with dominion over Muslims worldwide.

The proclamation struck many as laughable, but the group was dead serious. Baghdadi was intent not simply on terrorizing Iraq and Syria, but also on remaking civic order, Islamic State-style. Even as the extremists posted graphic videos of beheaded Western hostages and massacres of hundreds of unarmed prisoners, they also focused on the nitty-gritty of municipal administration. The group actively recruited foreign technocrats, engineers and doctors, and soon it possessed all the trappings of governance, from a detainee-affairs office and a consumer protection bureau to nursing homes for the elderly. The Islamic State, Stern and Berger note, “was offering something novel” by “emphasizing two seemingly disparate themes — ultraviolence and civil society. They were unexpectedly potent when combined.”

I would quibble here with the authors, who view this combination of ultraviolence and civil order as “strange” and “unprecedented.” Hardly: Historically, societies around the world have found spectacles of extreme violence essential to the consolidation of power and the maintenance of civic order. Consider the Roman games, the public burnings of heretics in England, the ritual violence of the Spanish Inquisition or the more than 15,000 enemies of the revolution sent to the guillotine during the reign of terror following the French Revolution. In Europe, public executions attracted mobs of revelers. In the American South, lynchings of African Americans drew rowdy crowds well into the 20th century.

Gruesome public executions served to display and consolidate the power of those capable of inflicting such atrocities upon their opponents. Such spectacles were, as Michel Foucault famously put it, the “ritual destruction of infamy by omnipotence.” In the longer term, however, such public ultraviolence often became self-defeating: As Foucault also noted, the bloodthirsty crowds gathered to witness public executions sometimes developed a dangerous tendency to turn upon the executioners. Awakened bloodlust is difficult to control. Wise leaders eventually learn to dispense with spectacles of ultraviolence; unwise leaders may find themselves eventually dispensed with in their turn.

In the end, however, this strengthens rather than weakens Stern and Berger’s conclusions. “A first step to countering ISIS is to put it in perspective,” they note. “We should not downplay its threat below a realistic level. But neither should we inflate it.” If we exaggerate the threat, characterize “our conflict with ISIS in stark ideological terms,” and allow ourselves to be drawn into an escalating but poorly thought-through series of military confrontations, we risk reinforcing the militants’ apocalyptic narrative “of an all-consuming battle between true believers and apostates.”

Better, they suggest, to contain and undermine the group. While it is impossible to eliminate all jihadist propaganda, anti-Islamic State authorities and companies such as Twitter can, at a minimum, “rais[e] the cost of participation and reduc[e] the reach of radicalizers.” Stern and Berger also urge exposing the group’s vulnerabilities and failures by documenting atrocities against Sunni Muslims and publicizing the poverty and corruption that remain rampant in areas under the Islamic State’s control.

Ultimately, the book is also a cautionary tale about unintended consequences and self-fulfilling prophesies. False U.S. assumptions about the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda led to the Iraq war, which turned Iraq into the very terrorist hotbed we had imagined it already to be; similarly, U.S. detention camps for those suspected of terrorist links became potent radicalization centers for ordinary Iraqis. Today, Stern and Berger warn, “we in the West must continually ask if we are living up to our own values of human rights and the importance of self-determination, and we must correct our course if we go astray” — for like al-Qaeda before it, “ISIS derives far more strength from our response to its provocation than from the twisted values it promotes.”

                This entry was posted on Friday, 17 April 2015, 1:09 pm and is filed under
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Karpal Singh in memoriam

@limkitsiang tweets
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11:32 am – 17 Apr 2015

Although 8,000 km away in Cairo, thoughts are on Karpal on 1st anniversary when a light was snuffed out on his sudden departure.

11:37 am – 17 Apr 2015

Karpal a towering Malaysian – leaving a void in public life which cannot be filled. Always an inspiration 2all 2walk tall 4justice n freedom

11:42 am – 17 Apr 2015

Msia in vortex of great uncertainties – Karpal’s example of uncompromising in principles but visionary in exploring new vistas remain guide.

11:45 am – 17 Apr 2015

Best tribute 2Karpal 2continue the path blazoned by Tiger of Jelutong – a Malaysia which is beacon of hope where all Msians can feel proud.

11:51 am – 17 Apr 2015

One Karpal has been laid to rest but let a multitude of Karpals rise up, not just Jagdip Gobind Ramkarpal Sangeet 4cause of justice/freedom

12:03 pm – 17 Apr 2015

Not only DAP but all Malaysians are proud of Karpal’s contributions achievements – Karpal’s legacy 2DAP n Msia. We are all Karpal Singh!

12:09 pm – 17 Apr 2015

Karpal never allowed political clowns/pygmies 2deflect him from his political purpose. We must all be Karpal 2b strong 2face new challenges.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 17 April 2015, 2:40 pm and is filed under
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Missing Karpal

 — Lim Guan Eng

The Malay Mail Online

April 17, 2015

APRIL 17 — As we mark the first year anniversary of the sudden departure of DAP national chairman Karpal Singh, we mourn the party’s and the people’s loss. Whilst we can never replace the pain and sorrow felt by his family, Malaysia is clearly poorer without Karpal.

Karpal pushed the party’s profile as a Malaysian party and advanced our cause for justice, freedom and democracy. He did not just simply create history by becoming the first non-Chinese DAP National Chair but used his legal prowess to demonstrate the true meaning of Malaysian Malaysia, by defending the rights of everyone regardless of race, religion, background and even nationality. Indeed for Karpal, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I wish to relive Karpal the person. Karpal Singh was one of the few DAP leaders who radiated an inner light that gave hope to many and remembered for his innate goodness. He was respected because he cared about other people, and was willing to be a good listener with the unique gift to make the individual feel valued.

Karpal fitted his life around the needs of others more than to his own. In the process, he had to endure some pain and loss. This pattern of defeat, recognition, redemption was repeated again and again. But he always told me that pain and suffering was part of the struggle and even useful to inject iron into the soul. His constant refrain was, “Look at Kit (Lim Kit Siang) and me. We both lost in elections and both went to prison but were never weaker because of it”. He believed defeat was not the end but a necessary test of our faith in principles.

Karpal was unfailingly loyal to his old and trusted comrades, especially Kit and Dr Chen Man Hin, and others who had stayed on with the party when we were nearly wiped out electorally. He shared in the joys, sorrows and pains of fighting an oppressive ruling regime.

I miss Karpal the leader, the mentor and the person who not only gave hope but inspired us with the optimism to hang on tightly to our principles. I miss his hearty genuine laughter filled with good cheer that would lift our spirits to just pick ourselves up again and again after being knocked down. Most of all I miss his indomitable spirit to simply carry on, no matter that the odds are never in your favour.

Rest in peace, Karpal, you will always be remembered.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 17 April 2015, 2:35 pm and is filed under
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U.S. Says Ramadi at Risk of Falling to Islamic State

By Julian E. Barnes

Wall Street Journal

April 16, 2015

Anbar residents flee provincial capital as Islamist forces advance

WASHINGTON—U.S. defense officials said a provincial capital in Iraq could soon fall to Islamic State, while America’s top military officer sought to minimize the strategic importance of the city.

At a Pentagon news conference, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested that maintaining control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, isn’t central to the U.S. and Iraqi aims of defeating Islamic State forces.

“The city itself is not symbolic in any way,” Gen. Dempsey said. “It’s not been declared part of the caliphate on one hand, or central to the future of Iraq.”

Earlier this week, Pentagon officials minimized the possibility that Ramadi was going to fall. But U.S. officials have monitored large numbers of civilians fleeing from the city, a sign that residents fear an imminent takeover.

Islamic State fighters have taken over a number of villages surrounding Ramadi, destroyed bridges and other infrastructure and reversed recent gains by Iraqi Security forces, defense officials said Thursday.

The U.S. has been stepping up strikes around Ramadi, but those have been insufficient to blunt the advance of Islamic State fighters.

Officials compared the city with Kobani, a Syrian city that was on the brink of being taken over before Kurdish fighters, aided by U.S. airstrikes, retook it.

“It is getting worse,” said one U.S. military official. “Right now, Ramadi looks like Kobani before the Kurds starting pushing. It is teetering.”

Still, military officers backed Gen. Dempsey’s assessment, arguing that if Ramadi does fall it won’t expose a weakness in the current U.S. campaign of airstrikes but merely highlight how Iraqi forces must refocus their efforts in Anbar.

Iraqi forces are stepping up their campaign to drive Islamic State forces out of strongholds in Anbar, where the group has a threatening foothold northwest of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

Gen. Dempsey’s views could put the Pentagon at odds with Iraqi leaders who have launched a risky military campaign in Anbar. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is wrapping up his first official visit to Washington, where he made an appeal for more U.S. military and financial support.

On Thursday, Mr. Abadi said Islamic State’s fight for Ramadi was timed to his visit to Washington. He dismissed suggestions that the offensive was a sign that the militants had regrouped after being forced from the major city of Tikrit last month, with the help of U.S. airstrikes.

“This is a war, and in a war you can win in a place and lose somewhere else,” Mr. Abadi said in a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “If you look at the Iraqi map, over the last six or seven months, the green areas, the areas controlled by the government, are increasing.”

If Ramadi were to fall to Islamic State fighters, Gen. Dempsey said, it wouldn’t be a significant strategic defeat for the U. S-Iraqi campaign.

“I would much rather Ramadi not fall but it won’t be the end of the campaign should it fall, we would have to get it back,” Gen. Dempsey said.

There has been intensified fighting around Ramadi in recent days, as Islamic State forces have seized control of villages on the city’s outskirts. The U.S. military has stepped up its airstrikes around Ramadi, but it has placed more attention on protecting the Beiji oil refinery north of Baghdad.

On Thursday, Islamic State released a 15-minute video that appeared to show its forces inside parts of the oil refinery. The footage showed militants seizing what appeared to be a U.S.-made Abrams tank and using an armored Humvee in a suicide attack.

“The best of American manufacturing is beneath the feet of the soldiers of the Islamic State,” read one caption on the video translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.

Iraqis have been fighting with Islamic State forces for months over the control of the oil refinery. Several times Iraqi forces have pushed out Islamic State fighters, only to have militants push back in.

“Beiji is a more strategic target, and that is why the focus is on Beiji,” Gen. Dempsey said. “The refinery itself is at no risk right now. We are focusing a lot of our [aerial surveillance] and air support there.”

Still Islamic State fighters control the town of Beiji, and Iraqi forces are unable to resupply the refinery by ground forces.

Gen. Dempsey said the attack on Ramadi shows the need for the Iraqi government to expand and link its pockets of control in the Sunni-dominated province.

“This latest attack on Ramadi is another indication what the government of Iraq needs to be is connect the inkblots of legitimate security forces so there isn’t this constant back and forth,” Gen. Dempsey said.

The U.S. has minimized the strategic importance of other cities in the past, only to step up its focus when Islamic State militants attacked.

U.S. officials repeatedly questioned the strategic importance of Kobani, only to make it the prime focus of American airstrikes as Islamic State militants sent hundreds of fighters to the area to try to take the city from Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Gen. Dempsey made his comments at the first formal Pentagon news conference held by Ash Carter, who took over as Secretary of Defense two months ago. Mr. Carter said the U.S. and Iraq were making progress in the campaign against Islamic State fighters, often referred to by the acronym ISIL.

“A lasting victory over ISIL requires inclusive governance in Baghdad and respect for local populations in all areas liberated from ISIL control,” Mr. Carter said.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 17 April 2015, 12:49 pm and is filed under
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Freeing Anwar Ibrahim from Sungai Buloh prison must be top agenda of the “Save Malaysia” Grand Coalition post-BN and post-PR

Seven weeks ago, at the Bukit Bintang DAP anniversary dinner, I threw up the idea of a new coalition government post-BN and post-PR to “Save Malaysia” as Malaysia seemed suddenly in “no man’s land” in over half-a-century  of independent nation after Merdeka in 1957 and formation of Malaysia in 1963.

The events of the past 26 days have fortified the need for new thinking, even thinking the unthinkable, about the unprecedented political landscape evolving in the country, for not only are the two political coalition in the country, the ruling Barisan Nasional and the Federal Opposition Pakatan Rakyat, in serious trouble, the very existence of the Malaysian federation has been called into question for the first time since the formation of Malaysia in 1963.

The past seven weeks have seen the premiership of Datuk Seri Najib Razak coming under even greater challenge, with the former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad leading the attack, raising issues which Pakatan Rakyat leaders have kept in the national forefront all this while,  in particular the RM42 billion 1MDB financial scandal, the unanswered question of motive in the Altantunya Shaariibuu murder trial, amidst a  host of questions about  nation-building, good governance,  the rule of law; the independence and professionalism of the judiciary,  Police and the Anti-Corruption Commission; respect for  democracy, human rights and freedom of expression and the press in Malaysia.

Never before has the ruling  coalition in Malaysia come under such intense attack – at a time when the Opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition, which had created history in winning the majority of the electorate in the 13th General Elections but denied the majority of the parliamentary seats and therefore the Putrajaya seat of Federal power because of unfair and undemocratic gerrymandering of electoral constituencies, is itself facing an unprecedented crisis!

It is no exaggeration to say that both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat are facing a ‘life-and-death crisis, which has mushroomed into a life-and-death crisis for the Malaysian Federation formed in 1963.

It would appear that the cause of this unprecedented crisis for Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Rakyat and the Malaysian Federation is over one issue  – hudud law and implementation in Malaysia, but deeper study would show it is otherwise.

Pakatan Rakyat is facing a crisis of survival not because of hudud, but whether PAS under its President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang is prepared to keep to the solemn promise to be committed to the Pakatan Rakyat Common Policy Framework and the PR consensus operational principle  which all the three component parties, DAP, PKR and PAS have sworn would  bind them,  forming the basis of general election manifestos.

If the PR Common Policy Framework  or PR consensus operational principle could be unilaterally destroyed by anyone of the three PR component parties, then the basis for the continuation of PR has ceased to exist.

The greatest challenge facing PR today is whether this PR Common Policy Framework and PR consensus operational principle can be salvaged and restored, or whether PR has  just become history!

Similarly, Barisan Nasional is facing a survival crisis, for if the present UMNO leadership is allowed to arbitrarily and even unilaterally jettison the core nation-building principle which had been espoused not only by all the BN component parties but by the first five Prime Ministers of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah that hudud laws are against the Malaysian Constitution and the Malaysia Agreement 1963 and unsuitable for a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation like Malaysia, then the very raison d”’etre for Barisan Nasional is not only dead, the very basis for the formation of Malaysia is also destroyed!

It is in these abnormal political circumstances where the politics of the country seemed to have entered “no man’s land” that I had mooted the idea of a Grand Coalition which is post-BN and post-PR to “Save Malaysia”.

This ‘Grand Coalition is not a ‘”Unity Government” like the UG concept of UMNO and PAS, but a completely different creature altogether.

It is a Grand Coalition of MPs from both sides of the political divide as well as both sides of the South China Sea, Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia, to defend constitutionalism and rule of law with a new Prime Minister and a new Malaysian Government – going beyond the existing political parties.

The new Prime Minister can come from either side of the political divide who wants to Save Malaysia and defend the Federal Constitution and the rule of law, who can be a man or a woman.

Is this idea of a Grand Coalition, going beyond the existing political parties, a practical and achievable concept.

This is the greatest challenge facing Malaysians today.

For such a Grand Coalition to work, it must meet also other criteria to be a viable and sustainable government, as for instance, being fully inclusive of all Malaysian races, religions and regions, in other words, a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-regional new Malaysian coalition government comprising Muslims and non-Muslims, Malays and non-Malays, and Malaysians from Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah.

Furthermore, it must have  a visionary and forward-looking programme to restore Malaysia’s greatness and allow Malaysia to punch above its weight in many areas of human endeavour, whether political, economic, social, educational, information technology or environmental – creating a clean, incorruptible government of excellence which upholds the rule of law and human rights.

Undoubtedly, one of the top agendas of the  “Save Malaysia” Grand Coalition will be the release of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim from Sungai Buloh prison to be back in the mainstream of Malaysian politics.

Recently, the former Information Minister, Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin had an interesting blog where he speculated that former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad was well aware that he, too, could face jail time if Pakatan Rakyat comes into power.’

This was why Mahathir’”s strenuous urgings for  Najib  to buck up should not be seen as a personal attack on Najib  but a call to action for greater good.

Zainuddin wrote: “Mahathir, seen as the authoritarian, will be arrested first, followed by Najib and others on charges of abuse of power, related to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) or other matters.

“So, by making this gentle yet stern reminder, Mahathir is warning not only Najib but also himself. It is a warning meant for the safety of all.”

I do not know what Zainuddin was referring to, as he appeared to be privy to many skeletons in Mahathir””””s cupboard.

But the focus of the present must be  unwaveringly to  “Save Malaysia” from the present   roller-coaster policies which threaten to plunge Malaysia down the slippery slope, whether in nation-building, politics,  economics, education or other aspects of national life  to that of a “failed state”.

For this formidable task, we must be prepared to put our differences in the past to one side and concentrate all our energies on one common agenda, to save Malaysia from all centrifugal forces to tear the country asunder.

On this agenda, I am prepared even to work with Tun Mahathir to “Save Malaysia”.

(Speech  to Malaysian students in Alexandria, Egypt on Friday, 17th April 2015 at 8pm)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 18 April 2015, 4:44 pm and is filed under
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PAS does not have the numbers for Hadi’s private member ’s bill motion in May Parliament

I do not believe that PAS has the numbers for PAS President and MP for Marang Datuk Seri Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill on hudud implementation in the May meeting of Parliament.

As Hadi was reported by Malaysiakini today, he had previously presented a similar private member’s bill in Parliament in 1996, but it had remained on the Dewan Rakyat Order Paper and never went to the stage of being presented to Parliament for debate let alone for a vote.

I believe the same will happen in the May meeting of Parliament where Hadi’s hudud private member’s bill motion will appear  and remain in the Dewan Rakyat Order Paper but will not reach the stage of being presented to Parliament for debate and vote.

 Hadi’s hudud private member’s bill motion will only be able to progress beyond appearing on the Order Paper to be presented to Parliament for debate and vote if the UMNO/Barisan Nasional government decides that parliamentary time be given to it – which will present a double major crack in Malaysian politics, firstly in the Barisan Nasional, in particular for the Sabah and Sarawak component parties of BN, and secondly,  even more critical, a major crisis point for the survival of the Malaysian federation since its formation 52 years ago in 1963.

Even for Hadi’s hudud private member’s bill motion  to appear on the Parliamentary Order Paper in May without reaching the stage of a debate and vote will represent a continuing  crisis for Pakatan Rakyat, for it will be another instance of a major  breach of the Pakatan Rakyat Common Policy Framework as well as the PR consensus principle.

Hadi has defended his unilateral private  member’s bill motion in the March/April meeting of Parliament, claiming that it was normal for him to keep PAS leaders in the dark about the  private member’s bill motion  as this was also what happened in 1996.

He said that in 1996, his private member’s bill motion  was also not brought to the attention of the other  PAS leaders.

I do not want to be involved in the internal PAS polemics, resulting from PAS’ Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad’s  accusation  that  Hadi  had  sidelined the party leadership by failing to bring the private member’s bill for discussion at the PAS central committee and that even  PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali was not in the loop on Hadi’’s private bill motion  in the March/April meeting of Parliament.

However, what Pakatan Rakyat is concerned  is the specific commitment by Hadi at the PR Leadership Council meeting at PAS Headquarters on Feb. 8, 2015 where the PR Leadership Council took the unanimous decision that any amendments to the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Enactment in the Kelantan State Assembly  or any private member’s bill in Parliament on hudud implementation will be presented first to the PR Leadership Council.

Both these commitments have not been honoured by Hadi, although he represented PAS at the PR Leadership Council meeting on Feb. 8, 2015.

If serious and solemn commitments made by PR leaders at the PR Leadership Council are openly ignored and violated, how can PR  continue to operate as a viable political coalition or  continue to command the respect and support of the people at large?

This is the root cause of the PR crisis which will spell the survival or demise of the Pakatan Rakyat.

(Speech  to Malaysian students in  Cairo, Egypt on Saturday 18th April 2015 at 8pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 19 April 2015, 3:44 pm and is filed under
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“Save Malaysia” , “Save UMNO”  and “Save Najib” are three entirely different concepts but they provide another example of  the poor comprehension levels and declining educational standards in Malaysia

Although Barisan Nasonal Ministers continue to claim, without batting an eyelid,  that Malaysia has one of the best educational systems in the world which is comparable if not better than the best in the world, there is no lack of example of the poor comprehension levels and  declining educational standards in Malaysia.

These are not just from the results of international assessment tests like PISA (Programme for  International Students Assessments) or  TIMSS (Trends in Mathematics and Science Studies) where Malaysian students scored consistently in the world’s lowest one-third bracket, four or even five years behind their peers in the  world’s top achieving countries like Shanghai, Singapore, South Korea and Japan or the various world top university rankings where Malaysia seemed to have slipped into the zone of oblivion.

Malaysian are often regaled by frequent bloopers like the recent case of the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, who sent the police into a frenzy of action because he thought that a tweet by an Opposition Member of Parliament “Royal my foot” was a blatant and seditious  attack on the institution of constitutional monarchy or the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi who believed that his infamous letter  to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in the United States vouching for the character and integrity of an international gambling kingpin was merely to confirm that the “14K triad” did not exist in the country.

Of course these bloopers were nothing compared to the one made collectively by Najib’s 35-member Cabinet which created history and a record of sorts when they completely misunderstood the call by the Minister for Agriculture and Agro-based Industries, Datuk Ismail Sabri Yaakob to Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses as not targetting Chinese traders alone but aimed at all traders.

But the biggest howler must be those who cannot differentiate the complexities of three entirely different concepts – “Save Malaysia”, “Save UMNO” and “Save Najib”, thinking that they are one and the same.

When I said in my speech to Malaysian students in Alexandria on Friday that I am prepared to work with former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir on the “Save Malaysia” agenda, I was not thinking of “Save UMNO” or “Save Najib”.

In fact, there is nothing for me to work with Mahathir or anyone else as far as “Save Umno” or “Save Najib” is concerned, as UMNO is an incorrigible party set in the ways of money politics and abuses of power, and the greatest contribution UMNO can make to the healthy development of democratic politics and Malaysian nation-building is for UMNO to go into the Opposition benches to allow Malaysia to become a normal democratic country where the transition of power from one political coalition to another is not regarded as a national catastrophe but a necessary rite of passage from a country to graduate to become a normal democracy.

I believe the first and third Prime Ministers of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Hussein Onn would agree with me and this was why both of them refused to join UMNO Baru which was formed by Mahathir in 1988 and both remained outside UMNO Baru till their last breath.

Despite his poor health, Tunku insisted on campaigning for DAP and Gagasan Rakyat in Penang against Mahathir  in the 1990 general elections, and although Tun Hussein did not openly campaign against UMNO Baru or Mahathir, I still remember vividly what he told me at the Petronas headquarters in Dayabumi where he kept an office as Petronas Adviser, confiding in me that his greatest political mistake in his life was to appoint Mahathir as Deputy Prime Minister, and later elevated as Prime Minister for 22 long years.

I do not believe Mahathir would have made the elementary mistake of equating “Save Malaysia” with either “Save UMNO” or “Save Najib”, but there are those including UMNO/BN editorialists and cybertroopers who thought that there is no diference among the three concepts of “Save Malaysia”, “Save UMNO” and “Save Najib”.

I stand by what I said to Malaysian students in Alexandria that the focus of the present must be unwaveringly to “Save Malaysia” from the present roller-coaster policies which threaten to plunge Malaysia down the slippery slope, whether in nation-building, politics, economics, education or other aspects of national life to that of a “failed state”.

I have said that for this formidable task, we must be prepared to put our differences in the past to one side and concentrate all our energies on one common agenda, to save Malaysia from all centrifugal forces to tear the country asunder.

Not only both  the political coalitions of Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat are facing an unprecedented crisis, the Malaysian Federation is facing its greatest survival test for the first time since its formation in 1963 as the 1957 Merdeka Constitution and the 1963 Malaysia Agreement are facing their greatest challenge over the latest UMNO-PAS power play on hudud implementation.

If both the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat cannot survive intact as a result of the hudud challenge, then Malaysians must think the unthinkable of a new political landscape, which is post-BN and post-PR, if Malaysia is to continue to survive as a nation.

This is why I had mooted the idea of a Grand Coalition which is post-BN and post-PR to “Save Malaysia”.

This ‘Grand Coalition is not a ‘”Unity Government” like the UG concept of UMNO and PAS, but a completely different creature altogether.

It is a Grand Coalition of MPs from both sides of the political divide as well as both sides of the South China Sea, Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia, to defend constitutionalism and rule of law with a new Prime Minister and a new Malaysian Government – going beyond the existing political parties.

The new Prime Minister can come from either side of the political divide who wants to Save Malaysia and defend the Federal Constitution and the rule of law, who can be a man or a woman.

Is this idea of a Grand Coalition, going beyond the existing political parties, totally premature or a practical and achievable concept.

This is the greatest challenge facing Malaysians today.

I mooted this idea of a possible “Save Malaysia’ “Grand Coalition” which is post-BN post-PR in my personal capacity, as this is a proposal which had not been discussed at the top DAP leadership councils.

It is indeed a great  insult to the political intelligence of Malaysia if this idea of a “Save Malaysia” Grand Coalition is reduced and degenerated into a “Save UMNO” or “Save Najib” coalition.

(Statement in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, 19th April 2015)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 20 April 2015, 3:29 pm and is filed under
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