Najib and Cabinet should do what is right – honour the Hatyai Agreement and allow Chin Peng home to visit his hometown in Sitiawan

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, should do what is right – honour the Hatyai Agreement and allow Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) leader Chin Peng home to visit his hometown in Sitiawan.

It reflects most adversely on the credibility and international standing of Malaysia for the Malaysian government to renege on its solemn commitments and undertakings in the Hatyai Agreement.

When the Hatyai Agreement was signed 20 years ago, both signatories agreed to move on and this is what the Malaysian government and country should do – allow Chin Peng home to visit his parents’ graves in Sitiawan.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 30 November 2009, 5:38 pm and is filed under
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MCCBCHST on Family Law Reform proposals

MCCBCHST Media Release: 30 November 2009

REPORT ON PROPOSALS FOR FAMILY LAW REFORM TROUBLING

The Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism is very concerned about the comments by Senior Federal Counsel Mohamad Naser Disa, as reported in the Sun newspaper of 25.11.2009, relating to proposed amendments to the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 dealing with the situation where one spouse in a non Muslim marriage converts to Islam.

If the comments accurately reflect the proposed amendments, it shows that the gross injustices currently being committed against non Muslim spouses (mostly wives) by their husbands who convert to Islam, by the Syariah Courts and Syariah authorities, and by the civil courts will continue.

The comments also show clearly the skewered method of approaching these amendments taken by the Federal Government and the Attorney General’s Chambers: the people who are suffering are the non Muslim family members of the convert, especially mothers who are unable to see their children or to expose their children to their own faith.
Yet, from the reported comments of the Senior Federal Counsel, the Federal Government seems to mainly be concerned that a man who converts to Islam is being “cruelly treated” because he cannot break his previous marriage contract and get a divorce.

Conversion cannot be used to evade one’s previous obligations

Whilst a person’s right to profess a religion of his choice is inviolate, no one should be permitted to use the fact of his conversion to evade his obligations to his family. The State, however, cannot use this excuse to restrict the fundamental liberty of a person to profess and practise any religion. Importantly, Islam and Islamic law cannot be imposed on a non Muslim who is guaranteed the right to profess and practice his or her own faith in peace and harmony under our Federal Constitution.

The MCCBCHST is gravely concerned that the proposals will indirectly result in Islamic law being forced on non Muslim spouses, especially wives. One example is the reported proposal to limit maintenance payments to his former wife by the husband who is now Muslim to only 3 months. This is the position in Islamic law. But, the non Muslim wife contracted her marriage under the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 which provides that a husband must pay maintenance to his former wife until she remarries or dies.

Why is it that the Muslim convert is allowed to avoid his obligations under his previous contract of marriage merely because of his conversion? We are very concerned that rogue husbands will abuse the system, and convert to Islam as an easy excuse to get out of his marital obligations.

Children and the cabinet decision

There must be a clear statement, both in the relevant Syariah legislation and in other legislation, providing that

A child under the age of 18 cannot be converted to Islam without the permission of both parents

In any event, that child should have the right to choose his or her own religion upon reaching the age of majority

This was promised by the Cabinet in its decision on 22nd April 2009 based on reports in the newspapers at that time. Sadly, the current proposals do not reflect that promise.

Syariah interference with non Muslims must stop

Another glaring omission in the briefing by the Senior Federal Counsel is the lack of any proposal for the inclusion of a clear prohibition on the Syariah courts and Syariah authorities from making orders, decisions and taking any action whatsoever in respect of children born to parents who were originally non Muslim.

We strongly object to any attempts to make laws applicable to persons professing other faiths “Syariah compliant”. In our respectful view, Syariah law should only apply to persons professing Islam, and should not jeopardize or affect in any way the rights, privileges and liabilities of persons who do not profess Islam.

MCCBCHST Proposals

The MCCBCHST has previously come up with comprehensive proposals for law reforms, which we have submitted to the Attorney General’s Chambers. We have previously published the general principles which should guide those proposals in our Note of Protest dated June 2007 entitled “Unity Threatened by Continuing Infringements of Religious Freedom”. We have constantly reiterated in our meetings with the authorities and other stakeholders that the predominant principles governing any proposal for law reform must be as follows:-

Parliament in respect of the Federal Territories and State Legislative Assemblies should pass state laws limiting the jurisdiction of the Syariah Courts and prohibiting Syariah Courts from interfering in matters involving the rights of persons professing faiths other than Islam and giving persons who do not profess Islam an explicit right to seek redress in the civil High Courts if Syariah courts interfere in a non Muslim’s rights.

Any marriage that is solemnised under the civil law and all matters pertaining to it (e.g. marriage, inheritance, custody, religious status of minors, etc) should be under the jurisdiction of the civil courts, and should be subject to the civil law.

The civil courts must be the final arbiter as long as one party involved in a legal entanglement is not a person professing the religion of Islam.

A child cannot be converted to Islam except if both parents agree. Even then, that child must have the right to choose his or her own religion when reaching the age of majority.

Any person who has reached the age of majority has the absolute right to choose the religion of his choice. The law must ensure that any such conversion to another religion does not prejudice that person’s family. Any law on conversion must permit reversion to one’s original faith with equal facility.

With respect, the MCCBCHST proposals in the main will be fair to both the spouse converting to Islam and the spouse who does not. We have not made outlandish proposals nor have we asked for more than what non Muslim spouses should be entitled to under a law that is fair and just. We therefore urge the Federal Government, and all State governments, to immediately implement the MCCBCHST proposals in the respective laws.

As always, the MCCBHST is ready and willing to assist the relevant authorities in reaching a just solution to this problem.

Rev. Dr Thomas Philips,

MCCBCHST President

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 1 December 2009, 9:57 am and is filed under
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Some 630 Malaysians leave the country every day

A total of 304,358 Malaysians
left
 the country between March last year and August this year for better education, career and business prospects, Deputy Foreign Minister A Kohilan Pillay told Parliament yesterday. This is a big leap from 139,696 Malaysians who migrated to other countries in 2007.

This works out to some 630 Malaysians leaving the country every day.

Can Malaysia afford such a continuing brain drain?

This is a big vote of no confidence not only in the Abdullah premiership but also in the present  Najib administration.

In Singapore last month, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the Malaysian Government is reaching out to Malaysians abroad to help promote the country.

It is a most extraordinary way of reaching out to Malaysians abroad by persisting with political, economic, educational  and nation-building policies which strengthen the push-factors and expedite the brain drain from Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 1 December 2009, 3:28 pm and is filed under
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Why not invite me to head an investigation whether BTN’s course had poisoned the minds of a generation of leaders, civil servants and university students with its racist indoctrination programme?

In continuing to justify the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) course as inculcating nationalism and unity among the people, the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin challenged me to join the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) course to see for myself if it promoted racial hatred as alleged.

Undoubtedly, in such a case, the BTN lecturers will act as model Malaysians with exemplary conduct and attitude.

Let me ask Muhyiddin – why not invite me to head an investigation whether the BTN course had poisoned the minds of a generation of leaders, civil servants and university students with its divisive, racist and seditious indoctrination programmes?

No one will have any objection to national civics courses which promotes national unity and inter-racial understanding but it is unpatriotic, anti-national and criminal to say the least to have a government programme which incites racial ill-will and hatred as this is not nation-building but destroying the very fabric of a united, progressive and successful Malaysian nation.

If Muhyiddin and the top Cabinet Ministers have nothing to hide, they should welcome an opportunity to get to the bottom as to whether the BTN course had been guilty of being racist indoctrination programmes and the harm it has done to the entire nation-building process?

Muhyiddin’s continued defence of the BTN course despite irrefutable accounts by those who had attended BTN programmes raises the question whether the BTN revamp, which the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Nazri Aziz, announced yesterday would amount to anything significiant, especially as other top Umno Ministers have continued to defend the BTN.

Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein just said over the weekend in Kuala Terengganu that he is perplexed as to why the BTN issue is only being raised now when the courses have existed for some time now, even claiming: “Probably, the opposition leaders have ran out of issues or are attempting to conceal their internal crisis by diverting attention”.

Hishammuddin is only showing his denial complex, as the issue of the divisive, racist and seditious BTN indoctrination courses had been raised, again and again, both in Parliament and outside. All he needs to do is to check the Parliament Hansard and the press.

In September last year, after I had read out in Parliament the letter of an outraged parent at the trauma his daughter underwent in one such BTN indoctrination course compulsory for JPA scholars, there was a firestorm of complaints and protests about the rank racism of the BTN courses.

One poster referred to a BTN indoctrination course for university students at UiTM in Shah Alam on 6th July 2008, where one BTN speaker, under the pretext of giving a talk on “Pendidikan”, launched into a racist harangue, criticising the then just-held Bar Council forum on social contract, accusing one of the forum speakers Farish A. Noor as a traitor of the Malay race and making disparaging remarks against Karpal Singh.

Among the “atrocious” things this speaker said were:

“Kalau ular dengan India depan mata, ketuk India dulu.”

That the Malays aren’t racist but ”others are racist towards us”.

Bangsa Malaysia does not exist, neither does Malaysian Chinese and Indians, only in the strict sense Malay, Chinese and Indians.

Bahasa Malaysia does not exist, it is Bahasa Melayu.

Nothing wrong with waving the Keris.

Bumiputra hanya 55% di Malaysia, give birth to more people!

The University and University Colleges Act was partly made to ensure a Malay Vice-Chancellor in Universities which should be the way.

Blogs are “berdosa” or sinful.

An investigation as to whether the BTN courses had been undermining nation building and national unity by inciting racial hatred poisoning the minds of a whole generation of leaders, civil servants and university students will be able to verify whether these serious allegations at the various BTN courses conducted all over the country in the past years are true.

Is Muhyiddin and all Cabinet Ministers prepared to support a full investigation to establish whether the truth or otherwise of the serious allegations against the BTN courses?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 1 December 2009, 12:24 pm and is filed under
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BTN’s racist, anti-national and seditious indoctrination courses should not be glossed over or minimized as it makes a total mockery of 1Malaysia slogan and concept

The Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Ahmad Maslan, who is directly responsible for  Biro Tata Negara (BTN), is trying to gloss over and minimize the condemnation of  the BTN courses as racist, anti-national and seditious indoctrination programmes detrimental to Malaysian nation-building and national unity.

Adding insult to injury, Ahmad claimed that BTN courses were based on facts, asking:

“If we say that two-thirds of the population consist of bumiputeras and one-third non-bumiputeras, is that considered racist?

“If we say 66 percent is bumiputera and 24 percent consists other races, is that racist? That is just stating the facts.”

Ahmad, who is also Umno information chief, cannot be so obtuse as not  to know that nobody objects to such factual information.

What is legitimate and most proper cause for objection is the communal poison oozing from the BTN course, inciting racial hatred and prejudices which are a great injustice and disservice to 52 years of nation-building, dividing instead of uniting Malaysians of diverse races and religions.

Ahmad’s claim that “We have thousands of ceramah and maybe one minute of the ceramah, the speaker makes some kind of mistake” reflects badly on his incorrigible denial complex.

If the Umno information chief and Deputy Minister specificially responsible for BTN is responsible, he would have known about the barrage of complaints about the divisive, racist and seditious BTN programmes and would not have feigned ignorance.

For instance, there were three letters on this subject in the Star in one week in May this year.

In a letter ‘
BTN course teaches disunity
” (Star May 22, 2009), “
Disappointed
” wrote:

AS parents we are glad that our grown up children attend the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) course, which is compulsory for government servants. They are all mature professionals.

But what angers me is that, instead of talking integrity, unity and harmony among the various races, participants are taught about disunity and racial hatred. Is this what our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib wants for 1MALAYSIA?

Throughout the five days of the course, participants are repeatedly told not to question Malay rights and so on. The course coordinators keep talking about social contracts and telling non-Malays not to question Malay rights and so on.

Many participants, including my Malay friends, are upset.

Are we still living in a primitive age? If the BTN course is to be conducted in this manner, it is better to abolish it or let it concentrate on only one ethnic group.

The course is not bringing unity but only arousing anger and hatred.

As it is handled by the Prime Minister’s office, please do not say that they do not know what is going on.

Four days later, in the letter “
BTN course turning into a farce
” (Star May 26, 2009),  “GOVERNMENT DOCTOR, Kuching” wrote:

REFERRING to the letter “
BTN course teaches disunity
” (The Star, May 22), I agreed with the writer. I’ve talked to almost everybody who had attended the course and the common reaction was how much more they dislike the Government after the course.

I believe BTN should be dropped. The course is not achieving its objectives.

On the contrary, it is sowing hatred against the Government and encouraging disunity.

All BTN course participants are grown-ups and know what is right and wrong.

By trying to enforce a belief, the Government is instead causing a backlash.

If the organisers of a five-day course think they can convert an opposition-minded government officer to change his mind, they are being naive.

The course is compulsory for all new government servants and those who entered the service from 2002 to 2004.

If one does not pass BTN, one will not get a promotion or salary increase even though one gets “Aras 4”, the highest mark for the PTK (Penilaian Takap Kecekapan) exam.

On May 28, 2009, in the letter “BTN course is having the opposite effect”, “Disappointed Parent” from Shah Alam wrote:

I REFER to the letters “BTN course teaches disunity” (The Star, May 22) and “BTN course turning into a farce” (The Star, May 26).

My son attended the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) course in May 2008 and came out of it very angry and utterly dejected.

Throughout the five-day course, he and other Indian participants were constantly hounded and attacked on the actions of the now out-lawed Hindraf movement.

He and his friends are not supporters nor sympathisers of the group, and yet they felt disgusted and disappointed at the way the instructors kept harping on the issue at every turn and opportunity.

I am not too sure if my son and his friends have become anti-establishment as a result, but I am quite certain that they have neither forgotten nor forgiven BTN and the Government for their unprofessional and crude indoctrination methodologies.

I pray that the Government will scrap the BTN course as it is certainly not in line with the “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now” policy espoused by our Prime MInister.

This is just one example of the widespread disgust, anger and alienation caused by the divisive, racist and seditious BTN course after Datuk Seri Najib Razak became Prime Minister with his 1Malaysia slogan and concept.

Is Ahmad seriously suggesting that he is completely in the dark and knew nothing about these these serious allegations against the BTN course?

If so, he is not fit to continue as Deputy Minister although this might be the most fitting qualification for him to be Umno Information chief.

I call on the Barisan Nasional Ministers and Deputy Ministers to own up and do not try to gross over or minimize BTN’s racist, anti-national and seditious indoctrination courses as it makes a total mockery of 1Malaysia slogan and concept.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 2 December 2009, 4:30 pm and is filed under
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Our failed migrant labour policy

By
Tunku Aziz

Corruption and gross inefficiency make for a lethal concoction. In Malaysia everything that goes wrong is traceable to either one or both of these factors, and we Malaysians do not have far to cast our eye to see examples of enforcement that have gone awry.

Everywhere we go in Malaysia, in urban centres as well as remote rural hamlets, we see foreigners in our midst toiling away day and night at jobs that Malaysians won’t touch with a long barge pole.

It is clear that these people, the overwhelming majority are illegal, are performing a useful economic function, and it is equally obvious that we cannot do without them, such is their penetration into virtually every aspect of Malaysian life. Why, then, don’t we look the problem in the face and do something right by both the country and these illegals who are here for the long haul?

My greatest concern is the ever present threat posed by many of them to security and public order. The large concentrations of illegal Indonesians are a matter of real concern given their known propensity for criminal activities, including armed robberies. The police are doing the best they can, but the rising crime rates are signs pointing to their failure to keep serious crimes under control, in spite of protestations to the contrary by the IGP.

It is not that they do not know the cause of the problem, but they are reduced to merely treating the symptoms because of conflicting ministerial policies. With millions of people from all over Asia who have overstayed their welcome, we persist with the utterly mindless facility of granting visas on arrival to all and sundry.

I once saw a gaggle of bedraggled South Asian “tourists” swarming over an immigration counter for their right of entry under our tourism promotion campaign. Anyone who was not blind could see that Malaysia Truly Asia was a million miles from their minds.

I know that tourism is important to our economy, but what we are implementing is tantamount to an open door policy, particularly in light of a very real terrorist threat to internal, and by extension, global peace and security. Our VOA policy has earned us the kind of notoriety that we need like a hole in the head.

We are seen by human traffickers, drug smugglers, and assorted terrorists in transit as corrupt and flexible in our official transactions. “Malaysia Boleh” of the Mahathir era was not the Freudian slip that we thought. It was a true reflection of “anything goes” in our country. This is what has dragged Malaysia to its current position in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index.

We are perceived as a country where corruption in the public service has intruded into every level of officialdom. We may not agree with the verdict of the international community on our moral rectitude or as far as our corrupt behaviour is concerned, because it is argued by the practitioners of corruption among us that these are nothing more than perceptions.

What they forget is that while perceptions may not have any basis in fact, they are real and do influence and cloud the thinking of overseas decision makers.

Tinkering around the edges of our failed immigration policy on foreign labour is not the answer. We have to make a conscious political decision to legalise those who are already here by registering them and giving them a two year stay, renewable subject to conditions. At least in this way we know who they are. Those who are not registered will be regarded as illegal and appropriate action will then be taken.

There must be a more orderly way of dealing with this very important national issue because by leaving matters as they are, they are not going to go away. If we have a proper system of foreign worker registration, we will reduce police harassment and extortion, common complaints by these illegal workers.

We have had instances of illegal workers under detention fighting the police and other enforcement officers because they are fed up with the continual acts of extortion. The police should set up a special undercover unit to monitor police operations against these illegals to make sure that human rights abuses do not take place.

An all party parliamentary committee should be established to study the issues involved and make appropriate recommendations for implementation.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 2 December 2009, 9:07 am and is filed under
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An alternative to BTN: cross-cultural understanding

By
Azly Rahman

BTN is tsunamied. It’s demise might be inevitable. The writings are on the wall — and in cyberspace.

Malaysians wish to see the closing down of the operations of Biro Tata Negara – for good. I think it has done more harm than good. It is based on a flawed understanding of Malaysian history and promotes a communalistic and combative rather than cosmopolitan and collaborative Malaysia.

The danger is in hegemony; the fish does not know it is in the water and keeps on swimming round and round in the fish bowl.

Let us consider an alternative to teaching Malaysians how to become and behave like Malaysians.  The root of this change must come from our reconceptualization of language and culture. Through education for critical consciousness, we can all begin the dismantling process of dismantling race-based institutions such as BTN.

Imagine our university students, in a class called ‘Cross-Cultural Perspectives’ exploring the grand narratives of the major cultural traditions to understand how language and culture flows.

Cultural flow

To celebrate and help preserve the diversity of languages, we need to first understand how language and culture get transmitted. I present an ‘Essentialist’ perspective; one that sees culture being passed down from one generation to the next.

According to this perspective, the core culture would remain intact, passed down as highly coded information. The level of creativity in interpretation of the values of the core elements may be guarded by the senior members of the society in order for cultural tradition to remain preserved. The major texts are called grand narratives.

Let us further illustrate what grand narratives are used for. The cultural flow and the transmission of traditions might be in the case of the teachings of the great books of world’s religious and philosophical traditions such as Ramayana, Mahabharatha, the Vedas, Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita to the Hindus, the I Ching, Tao Te Ching, and the Analects from Chinese philosophers to generations of Chinese, or the Al Quran and the Hadith and Al Ghazalli’s Ihya al-Ulumuddin, or the Granth Sahib, or the Lotus Sutras, or the Old and New Testament passed down to Christians.

All these represent knowledge/information designed to be passed down from generation to generation through a variety of media such as parables, drama, music, shadow plays, Japanese kabuki theatre and Noh drama.

Although the grand narratives above contain universal messages of human liberation, they ‘speak’ originally to distinct cultural groups. In the texts transmitted, the antagonists and protagonists, the crisis, conflict, climax, conclusions and moral lessons utilise specific cultural settings within their respective milieu.

Thus for example the Hindu texts are rich in magnificent imagery of ancient India, the Chinese grand narratives are written with pastoral ancient Chinese civilisations as backdrop, the Al Quran is revealed in the beauteous land of rolling hills of Arabic desert beauty, and the Bible are stories or parables set in the serene ancient land of Israel.

Herein lies the foundation of Malaysia’s cross-cultural civilisations. Add the grand narratives of the indigenous peoples to the list, and we have a beautiful tapestry of linguistic and cultural diversity.

How beautiful the study of language and culture can be. It is even more beautiful to a child learning about the authenticity of the human self in his/her mother tongue.

Why then do we need to make political statements accusing this and that group of being linguistic and cultural chauvinists?

Cultural contradictions

I am now humming the government-propaganda song Muhibbah which I am familiar with as a child growing up in Johor Bahru. The last few verses I can still remember are:

Marilah kita berganding tangan

Hapuskan lah jurang perbezaan

Many decades hence, we have the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer. We have the upper class few smiling broader and many in the middle class becoming quieter.

We have few schools getting the most sophisticated computers, while the rest get crumbs of the Information Age.

We have children getting all As and being recognised for memorising and regurgitating more and more facts, while some get many Fs and drop out earlier in the new Malaysian rat race.

We have more intensified problems with national integration, while the children’s multi-cultural needs are being neglected in the few crucial formative years of their language and cognitive development.

We have more and more smart and tall buildings, but we continue to produce fewer and fewer people who can say Stop! to material progress and to focus more on human intellectual development and racial tolerance, and prioritise basic needs over insatiable wants.

We have more and more arguments over the possibility of interfaith commissions with a few initiative to help explore and encourage meaningful religious dialogues.

We have more and more leaders screaming, shouting, and scheming for democracy and reformasi, but we have fewer and fewer people understanding why we must create even newer and better alternatives to this.

Constructive paths

Let us then think of newer ways to resolve the contradictions of homogeneity and heterogeneity, between the need to think as one and the necessity of respecting voices of the many.

Let us, politicians and educators alike, construct newer ways of ending squabbles and start exploring newer pastures in language and culture, building from the promising existing condition.

Politicians, let us:

Learn the complexity of language and nation-building.

Look at language as a gift not a Trojan horse.

Stop making statements on language and schooling that confuse and anger people.

Seek advice from the progressive and humanistic linguists.

Help the media highlight the beauty of human expressions through the languages.

Collaborate with the new radical multiculturalism that is emerging through the new voices.

Stop making references to this and that superiority in language.

Seek avenues for problem-solving in education that will help children enrich and explore their inner world through the language they grow up in; as a preparation to learn other languages.

Teach citizens to deal with the ‘imperialistic’ onslaught of the corporate English language.

Learn to deconstruct the meaning of language and symbolic power.

Educators, let us:

Educate ourselves on the beauty of all languages.

Look at the child as a ‘teacher’ who will teach us his/her language.

Help children preserve their native language.

Teach them to take pride in the language of their inner world.

Enrich our children through cross-cultural perspectives of teaching.

Draw out the ethical and social dimensions.

Perceive and conceive it as a chariot to intellectual and cognitive development.

Use it to combat linguistic and social dominance.

Teach peaceful conflict resolution through language.

Design trans-disciplinary connections in classroom learning.

Let us help our children develop all the possibilities of cultural imagination through the celebration and nurturance of the language they speak; to see the differences as anugeraha and not as a path to our nation’s future sengsara.

Let us also be reminded by the sage Mahatma Gandhi who once said: “I want all the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.”

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 December 2009, 10:21 am and is filed under
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Can Malaysia rise from the lost “decade of stagnation”?

Second Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah’s speech at Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) National Economic Outlook Conference 2010-2011 on Tuesday that Malaysia has lost ground to neighbours such as Indonesia in the race for foreign investment and the imperative need to rebuild confidence by building the highest standards of governance did not say anything new as they have been repeatedly raised by DAP and Pakatan Rakyat leaders inside and outside Parliament.

It is nonetheless unusually refreshing as it is the first admission by a top government leader of a lost decade of “stagnation” after the 1998 Asian financial crisis.

Just like the pledge by the former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to declare war on corruption when he came into office in six years ago and the pledge by the present Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak just eight months ago to lead a government committed to the concept of “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now” but which have not followed by action and the political will to “walk the talk”, will Husni’s remarkably frank speech end up as the latest addition to  a mountainous  pile of high-sounding speeches of government leaders never translated into deed and policy?

The first eight months of Najib premiership provide more than ample grounds for skepticism as to whether it will be different from previous Barisan Nasional administrations in conducting a wholesale reform of government policies if Malaysia is to rise from the last decade of stagnation.

It is not good enough for Husni to admit that Malaysia is “trapped in a low-value-added, low-wage and low-productivity structure”, that our private investment is now half of what it was since before the Asian crisis while both manufacturing and service sectors have become less capital intensive; or that “the long-term success of the nation’s economy must take precedence over the short-term interests of a few protected groups”.

The issue at stake is whether there is the political will to carry out long-needed reforms and not just to  admit to  a lost decade of stagnation.

Parliament this week was give two stark facts about the aggravation of the national situation, viz:

that a total of 304,358 Malaysians left the country between March last year and August this year for better education, career and business prospects, working out to some 630 Malaysians leaving the country every day – a big leap from the 139,696 Malaysians who migrated to other countries in 2007.

the number of Malaysians who surrendered their citizenship has almost doubled in this year –  about 3,800 Malaysians have given up their citizenships to date compared to 2,000 last year.

How can Malaysia succeed in securing international confidence when there is an increasing tide of Malaysians registering their lack of confidence by voting with their feet?

Can Malaysia rise from the lost “decade of stagnation”?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 December 2009, 4:25 pm and is filed under
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Enhancing The Role of the Private Sector in Education

By
M. Bakri Musa

[First of Six Parts]

Introductory Remarks

In the proposed Tenth Malaysia Plan scheduled to be unveiled next year (2010), the government will again re-commit to develop human resources through improving our education system. We have heard all these before, but the twist this time is that the government will actively engage the private sector.

I applaud this. There are many avenues for private sector involvement in education at all levels, either independently or in a variety of public-private partnerships (PPP).

Two points are worth noting as Malaysia embarks on this endeavor. The first is that there are already many models of private sector involvement in education throughout the developed and developing world. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. All we have to do is study these existing models, ascertain their strengths and weaknesses, and then adopt with suitable modifications the ones that would best suit our needs.

There is no point in adopting wholesale a system that works wonderfully in South Korea or the Netherlands. Their society is very different from ours. Theirs is homogeneous ethnically, culturally and also linguistically. Ours is diverse, separated by race, culture, language, and religion, among others. Failure to recognize this essential difference would doom any plan.

The second is that no matter how brilliant and diligent our policymakers are, they cannot anticipate everything. Thus the policies they create can never be perfect. Even when the policy is sound but if the implementation were flawed, that would also destroy and discredit the policy. That would make the later resurrection of what otherwise had been a sound policy that much more difficult.

In Malaysia there is a wide gulf separating the formulation and implementation of a policy. There are many ready examples, the latest being the debacle over the teaching of science and mathematics in English. In the end it is our students, not our leaders and officials, who bear the brunt of that poor planning and execution.

I may be stating the obvious, but it would take more than just a bit of humility on the part of our leaders to acknowledge and then accept this reality. Our leaders and policymakers think they know it all.

When formulating a policy, you want the greatest possible input from all sources, especially the various stakeholders. The best time to do this is after you put forth your preliminary plan. Then post it on the Internet and invite written submissions from all. Go beyond simply issuing a passive open invitation but actively solicit the views of key players like heads of private universities, leaders of industry, local and foreign educators, student and faculty leaders, and yes, even if not especially politicians. Make it clear to all that the plan at that stage is only preliminary and subject to radical changes.

Again I would also post those submissions on the web so others could view them. At this stage the submissions would have to be written to ensure that only those who are serious and willing to put their thoughts on paper would respond. This is also an effective way to weed out those who are interested only in posturing and spouting off. This would also discourage ugly and distracting demonstrations.

Asking for submissions before you have a preliminary plan would result only in unfocused and jumbled submissions, as responders would not have an idea of the scale and scope of your proposed reform.

When all the comments are in, I would invite those with substantive ideas (as judged by their submissions) to direct conversations. Only after all that would I rewrite the policy incorporating the fresh insights and perspectives. This is the only way to garner the widest possible input and to tap the wisdom of the crowd. It is also an effective way to make the stakeholders buy into your proposed policy as they had been engaged in its formulation.

Even after all these I would still be cautious when implementing it. I would first do some downstream analyses anticipating possible problems and sources of opposition. Anticipate a problem and you are already halfway to solving it.

Again to be cautious, I would start small, with a limited number of pilot projects that could be easily monitored closely. It would also be easier to iron out the inevitable kinks, get feed back from the participants, and evaluate the preliminary results. Only when all is working smoothly and as expected would I expand the program nationwide. Anything less and you would risk jeopardizing your policy.

Likewise with the upcoming policy of engaging the private sector in education; I would post the proposed policy on the Internet, seek the widest possible input, and then revisit your policy based on those comments. When implementing the final policy, be cautious and start with a manageable number of pilot projects. Only when all is smooth sailing would you expand the program.

Malaysia has yet to recognize the full potential contributions the private sector could make to education as there is as yet no coherent policy to govern it. Instead, what we have is a series of ad hoc rules and policy pronouncements.

If we were to have an enlightened policy we would realize that creatively marshaled, the pubic sector’s contribution could be significant. It would lighten the government’s load, thus enabling it to focus on the truly needy and be able to do a better job. With its flexibility and responsiveness, the private sector would be in a better position to meet the increasingly sophisticated and varied educational needs of Malaysians. Most importantly, the entry of the private sector would provide much needed competition thereby improving services all around. It would also provide our students (and their parents) with some meaningful choices.

Before these could happen however, our leaders must rid themselves of their entrenched “zero-sum” mentality that views the private sector in adversarial rather than complementary terms. Otherwise all those fancy policy statements and earnest public pronouncements would mean nothing; the reality on the ground would remain unchanged.

In this six-part essay I explore ways for meaningful and productive private sector participation in Malaysian education. Following this introduction, I will discuss the rationale for such a participation (Part Two), followed by my examination of the current state of affairs. The fourth part is my appraisal of the experiences elsewhere, from both developed and developing countries, for useful lessons that Malaysia could learn. The next two parts are my specific prescriptions for greater private sector involvement in our schools (Part Five), and then post-secondary institutions (Part Six).

We have seen far too many examples of ill-conceived policies, of sound policies incompetently implemented, and privatization projects that benefited only the few at the expense of the many. I hope this time around the government will do it right. This commentary is my contribution towards that goal.

Next:
Part Two: The Rationale For Private Sector Participation

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 December 2009, 10:41 am and is filed under
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Miri the Oil City

Letters

by Sara

We’re really proud with Miri as The Oil City.

After the government made a decision to switch more to RON95, it’s funny for me to say that it’s very difficult to get RON97 at Petronas Station around Miri City.

Only 2-3 Petronas station sell RON97. If you go to this station, always stated that “MINYAK RON97 SUDAH HABIS”.

This is Oil City, but difficult to get RON97 comparing to KL.

Oil City…. haaaa.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 December 2009, 10:51 am and is filed under
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Perak DAP convention doormat incident a lesson to all politicians

The Perak DAP convention doormat incident on Sunday was not the best of political judgment, taste or example.

I was taken by surprise when confronted with the doormat and tried to avoid stepping on the three pictures but not completely with success.

I fully share the apology made by the DAP leadership over the incident. In fact, I had on the very same day of the convention suggested to the Perak DAP leadership to tender a public apology over the incident.

The Perak DAP convention doormat incident is a lesson to all politicians to be particularly mindful about  sensitivities of Malaysians in a plural  society and the propensity of irresponsible politicians to turn a non-racial issue into a racial one.

The DAP leadership has learnt from the mistake.

But have the UMNO and Barisan Nasional leaderships learnt any lessons, whether before or after? The answers to both can only be in the negative.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 December 2009, 12:00 pm and is filed under
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Replace the BTN, which spent RM550 million in past ten years to incite racial hatred and animosity to create more racists than Malaysian nationalists, with an independent non-partisan institution answerable only to Parliament

Biro Tata Negara (BTN) spent RM550 million in the past ten years from 2000 to 2009 to incite racial hatred and animosity to create more racists than Malaysian nationalists and was a major push factor for the brain drain driving Malaysia’s best and brightest from Malaysian shores in the past decade.

The annual budget for the BTN in the past ten years, totalling RM548 million, is as follows:

Year

Expenditure
 (RM)

2000

28,928,500

2001

27,172,300

2002

34,199,700

2003

35,620,163

2004

86,165,889

2005

68,160,330

2006

43,097,076

2007

74,339,400

2008

76,348,700

2009

74,023,100

For next year of 2010, RM62.5 million has been budgeted for BTN.

These are huge sums of money. How can there be justification for the expenditure by such vast sums of money for an agency to continue its anti-national agenda to divide Malaysians with its divisive, racist and seditious indoctrination programmes, as further testified by student council representatives from several public universities yesterday.

University of Malaya Students Council president, Mohd Ridzuan Mohammad, described the BTN course as “unsuitable” as it “incites racial sentiments and does not help provide better representation to the student body”.

University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), student council member Hisyamuddin Che Ali said Faculty of Islamic Studies complained that racial sentiments were fanned at BTN courses…for example, they were told that the Chinese are lording over the country.

The RM550 million spent by the government on BTN have undermined nation building and national unity, resulting in the nation losing greater international competitiveness as it is a major push factor in driving the best and brightest Malaysians out of the country – contributing to Malaysia’s lagging in economic development to neighbouring countries in the past decade.

If the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak is serious about national reforms to “recatalyse” the country with the  1Malaysia concept, he should have no hesitation in closing down the BTN with its racist and anti-national agenda and replace it with n independent non-partisan  national civics institution which is completely independent of the government-of-the-day and answerable to Parliament for its curriculum and management to foster national unity and Malaysian consciousness.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 December 2009, 3:01 pm and is filed under
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Under Abu Kassim, can MACC redeem itself and restore public confidence, which has plunged to lowest ebb in nation’s history, as an independent, professional and fearless fighter against corruption?

Generally news of the early retirement of Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Ahmad Said Hamdan have elicited two responses.

Firstly, Ahmad Said’s 30-month tenure as anti-corruption chief saw public confidence in the  anti-corruption agency, Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) and later MACC, plunged to the lowest ebb in nation’s history.

This is supreme irony and greatest national disservice. The MACC which started operations this year had been touted as modeled after world-famous Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and would be an even more effective anti-corruption  agency because of the various panels and mechanisms exercising oversight to ensure its independence and professionalism.

It is however no exaggeration to say that public confidence in the ACA in its 40-year history had never fallen as low as during the first year of operation of MACC.

Who must bear responsibility for this ignominious state of affairs if not Ahmad Said as the first MACC Chief Commissioner?

Ahmad Said was appointed ACA director-general in May 2007, and the 30 months he headed the country’s anti-corruption agency, first ACA and later MACC, would be remembered as their “darkest days”  when public confidence in ACA and MACC plunged to the lowest depth in the nation’s history.

Ahmad Said completely failed the first National Integrity Plan launched in 2004 to “effectively reduce corruption, malpractices and abuses of power”with the important target and  specific objective to improve Malaysia’s ranking in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 37th place in 2003 to at least 30th position in 2008, and to better the CPI score of 5.2 for Malaysia in 2003 to at least 6.5 by 2008. (10 being the best and 0 the worst).

Instead, during his 30-month tenure as head of the anti-corruption agency, Ahmad Said presided over  Malaysia’s double plunge to unprecedented lows, falling 22 places in TI CPI ranking from No. 44 in 2006 to No. 56 in 2009, with the CPI score also falling from 5.0 in 2006 to an unprecedented 4.6 in 2009.

Malaysians will not forget Ahmad Said’s infamous saying that as far as the MACC is concerned, there is no difference between corruption involving a few ringgit and corruption involving a few hundred millions of ringgit or the black marks in his record as MACC chief, including:

The mysterious death of Teoh Beng Hock at the MACC headquarters on July 16, 2009 with overwhelming public opinion rejecting the theory that Teoh had committed suicide by plunging from the 14th MACC Headquarters at Plaza Masalam;

The failure s to go after the “ikan yus” but only going after the “ikan bilis”;

Playing the catspaw of Umno and Barisan Nasional to declare war on Pakatan Rakyat instead of declaring war on corruption.

The second response to the news of a new MACC chief  is whether the MACC, under Datuk Abu Kassim Mohamed, can redeem itself and restore public confidence, which has plunged to the lowest ebb in nation’s history, as an independent, professional and fearless fighter against corruption?

The Malaysian public want to have an anti-corruption agency which has teeth and which can sent to jail the corrupt, regardless of position or status, responsible for Malaysia’s continuing  plunge in international competitiveness.

The MACC was created to be more effective than ACA, with more powers, funds and personnel, to combat corruption, even to outshine Hong Kong’s ICAC.

Why then is the MACC facing the worst crisis of confidence among the Malaysian public, who generally regard the MACC as even worse and more useless than the ACA after less than a year’s operation?

Is Abu Kassim prepared to lead the MACC as an independent and professional anti-corruption body like Hong Kong’s ICAC, not at the beck and call of the political masters of the day, or will MACC be “more of the same” as under Ahmad Said?

If it is the former, DAP and Pakatan Rakyat are prepared to render full support and co-operation. If it is the latter, the people and history will be the judge.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 5 December 2009, 2:38 pm and is filed under
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BTN – why is Muhyiddin backing Ahmad Maslan and not Nazri?

When asked about the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) controversy after  the National Land Council meeting in Putrajaya on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Ahmad Maslan, who is directly responsible for Biro Tata Negara (BTN), had already given the necessary explanation.

Asked whether the BTN course would be revamped, Muhyiddin said this was not a new course, that it had been decided on by the Cabinet a long time back and that he did not need to explain further.
(Sin Chew 5.12.09)

Muhyiddin was being most irresponsible for evading the issue, especially as the Deputy Prime Minister had led the UMNO hawks including the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, the Agriculture Minister Datuk Nor Omar, the Women Minister Datuk Shahrizat Jalil in Cabinet in defending the divisive, racist and seditious BTN indoctrination courses.

Muhyiddin cannot be unaware of the public spat between Ahmad Maslan and the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, over the disagreement over the  Minister’s statement that the Cabinet had decided to “revamp” the BTN course
“to fall in line with the prime minister’s 1Malaysia concept” so that its  curriculum will be “inclusive rather than divisive” and that a directive to revamp the BTN courses has already been given to the chief secretary of the government.

This was disputed by Ahmad Mazlan, the supremo of BTN, who said it was an “upgrade” or “improvement” and not a revamp, declaring that there was “nothing wrong with the current course structure”.

In explaining the upgrade of the BTN course to incorporate the 1Malaysia module, he said:

“The changes were made in April. There is a different focus when there is a new leader. With Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, BTN focussed on Vision 2020, and with Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, it was on human capital.”

He said the 1Malaysia module teaches unity and eight core values – culture of excellence, perseverance, humility, acceptance, loyalty, meritocracy, education and integrity.

Ahmad Maslan was guilty of both irresponsibility and dishonesty.

No wonder Nazri responded with the riposte that there was no point in denying the true nature of BTN, as no matter how much the leaders tried to deny it, there were “other” former government leaders who are now in Pakatan Rakyat who had been involved with the BTN and know of its contents.

When Ahmad Maslan  said that  1Malaysia module teaches unity and eight core values – culture of excellence, perseverance, humility, acceptance, loyalty, meritocracy, education and integrity, is he admitting that the previous Vision 2020 and Islam Hadhari modules of BTN did not inculcate unity and these eight core values?

If so, why were the core values of the Vision 2020 and Islam Hadhari modules of the BTN course which make them different form the 1Malaysia module?

The issue in contention is not about these core values but the underlying and  persistent agenda of the BTN course to pump communal poison and incite racial hatred and animosity among  civil servants, university students and future leaders, which had continued unabated even after the so-called “upgrading” of the BTN course in April.

Ahmad Maslan’s claim is debunked by  three letters to the editor in The Star in May this year, denouncing the divisive, racist and seditious BTN indoctrination programme after April this year –  especially the May 28, 2009 letter
“BTN course is having the opposite effect”
 by
“Disappointed Parent”
 from Shah Alam, viz:

I REFER to the letters “BTN course teaches disunity” (The Star, May 22) and “BTN course turning into a farce” (The Star, May 26).

My son attended the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) course in May 2008 and came out of it very angry and utterly dejected.

Throughout the five-day course, he and other Indian participants were constantly hounded and attacked on the actions of the now out-lawed Hindraf movement.

He and his friends are not supporters nor sympathisers of the group, and yet they felt disgusted and disappointed at the way the instructors kept harping on the issue at every turn and opportunity.

I am not too sure if my son and his friends have become anti-establishment as a result, but I am quite certain that they have neither forgotten nor forgiven BTN and the Government for their unprofessional and crude indoctrination methodologies.

I pray that the Government will scrap the BTN course as it is certainly not in line with the “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now” policy espoused by our Prime MInister.

If more proof is needed, there is the comment piece
“BTN: Divisive, racist, politically-motivated”
by
Mariam Moh
ktar on her traumatic experience at  having to undergo such divisive, racist and seditious indoctrination programme in the past.

Why is Muhyiddin backing Ahmad Maslan and not Nazri on the BTN controversy?

The refusal on the part of Muhyiddin to support Nazri and come clean and admit that the BTN course had been divisive, racist and seditious, and instead to support Ahmad Maslan’s denial, raises doubt that there would be any meaningful revamp of the BTN course.

When the UMNO information chief is the head of the BTN programme, Umno’s ideology of hegemony becomes the poison in the BTN courses.

The removal of Ahmad Maslan, who is Umno Information Chief, as the BTN supreme must be the first step to any meaningful “revam” of the BTN course.

The BTN as present constituted with its racist and anti-national agenda  is not “revampable” and  must be scrapped.

It should instead be replaced by an independent non-partisan national civics institution which is completely independent of the government-of-the-day and answerable to Parliament for its curriculum and management to foster national unity and Malaysian consciousness among all sectors of Malaysians.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 6 December 2009, 6:05 am and is filed under
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“Teoh Beng Hock’s case is nothing. It is a very small case.” – Ahmad Said’s guilty mind speaking

The outgoing Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Ahmad Said gravely damaged his own case that he was not stepping down early because of political pressure.

Denying that the mysterious death of DAP political aide Teoh Beng Hock at the MACC headquarters at Plaza Masalam, Shah Alam on July 16, 2009 had attributed to his early retirement, Ahmad said:

 “Teoh Beng Hock’s case is nothing. It is a very small case. We have handled much bigger cases.’’

This is generally received by Malaysians as Ahmad Said’s guilty mind speaking, admitting that the MACC cannot exonerate itself or exculpate responsibility for Teoh’s death whatever the outcome of the ongoing inquest to Teoh’s death.

Ahmad’s statement is heartless and grossly insensitive, rubbing salt into the wounds in the hearts of all decent and justice-loving Malaysia.

How can the head of an independent and professional anti-corruption agency dismiss Teoh’s mysterious and shocking death as “a very small case” and of no consequence?

How many lives must be lost in MACC precincts before they become major issues?

Ahmad’s insensitive and offensive statement about Teoh’s death as a “very small case” is only exceeded by his earlier distasteful statement implying that Teoh had committed suicide, saying that “if people investigated could not withstand the pressure and jumped from the building, there was nothing that  MACC could do”.

Ahmad’s statement is also patently untrue, as there can be no denial that Teoh’s mysterious death and MACC’s culpability had been the single biggest factor in bringing Malaysia’s ranking in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2009 by a few notches – with Malaysia falling nine places to 56
th
 position from 47
th
 last year and an unprecedented drop of 0.4 CPI  score from 5.0 last year to 4.6 this year.

Before he steps down as MACC Chief Commissioner, can Ahmad spell out the reasons why Malaysia’s ranking and score in the TI CPI 2009 had suffered such a grave double plunge, and to let Malaysians know the role played by Teoh’s mysterious death at MACC headquarters for the loss of national and international confidence in the independence, professionalism and integrity of MACC?

In fact, Ahmad has provided Datuk Abu Kassim Mohamed who is to take over as the new MACC chief the opportunity to show whether Malaysians can expect a real difference in the MACC culture, benchmark and modus operandi with a change of MACC leadership – whether Abu Kassim endorses or dissociates himself from Ahmad’s outrageous statement that Teoh’s death is “a very small case” just as whether Abu Kassim will dissociate himself from another of Ahmad’s outrageous attitude that “as far as MACC is concerned, there is no difference between corruption involving a few ringgit and corruption involving a few hundred millions of ringgit”.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 7 December 2009, 1:14 pm and is filed under
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Government should respect PAGE and empower parents to decide whether to use English to teach/learn maths and science in primary/secondary schools

During the 2010 budget debate on the Education Ministry late this evening, I called on the government to respect the Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) and to empower parents to decide whether they want their children to use English to teach/learn mathematics and science in primary and secondary schools.

I reiterated the DAP stand that maths and science should be taught in the mother tongue or home language in Std. One  and spoke on the decline in mastery of the English language by Malaysian students, all the way to the university level.

The government had been talking about the importance of ensuring fluency and proficiency of English students, especially university students, but little had been achieved going by the employers’ complaints about the poor English command of graduates.

This has undermined Malaysia’s international competitiveness as English is an international language and a language of competition in the world arena.

As many parents in the country have expressed their wish that English be used as the medium for mathematics and science, I called on the Education Ministry to declare its stand on PAGE’s call to allow parents the choice of deciding whether their students in schools should use English to be taught mathematics and science.

I also called on the Education Ministry not only to allow Chinese and Tamil languages to used chosen as SPM subjects in a 10 + 2 formula, but to ensure that both subjects are recognized officially for scholarship and other official purposes.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 7 December 2009, 10:43 pm and is filed under
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Public Forum : Whither the Constitution?

Live webcast of event at
http://tv.dapmalaysia.org

Whither the Constitution? Lessons to be learnt from the Perak Crisis

Date : 9th December 2009

Time : 8.00 pm

Venue : MBPJ Civic Hall (Auditorium)
Map

For GPS user : N3 05.824 E101 38.720

Admission : Free

Enq : 03-7981 2831

Organised by
merdekareview.com

Panellist :

Dato Seri Nizar Jamaluddin – MP for Bukit Gantang, Pakatan Rakyat MB for Perak

Professor Dato’ Shad Saleem Faruqi – the author of “Document of Destiny” and a constitutional law expert, he has taught for many years in local universities and is a regular columnist for the STAR.

Professor Kevin Tan – from Yale University and author of numerous books and articles on the Malaysian and Singapore Constitutions. Besides lecturing in Singapore, he has also given lectures in constitutional law to students in Monash University in its campus in Kuala Lumpur.

View
DAP’s Point of Interest
 in a larger map

                This entry was posted on Monday, 7 December 2009, 10:54 am and is filed under
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(Update) Why no other Cabinet Minister, whether Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC or from Sabah and Sarawak, speaking out publicly to endorse Nazri’s denunciation of Mahathir as a racist for defending racist BTN course

Why is there no other Cabinet Minister, whether Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC or from Sabah and Sarawak, speaking out publicly to endorse Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s denunciation of former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir as a racist for defending the racist Biro Tata Negara (BTN) course?

It has been said that “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”. Are there any “tough” Ministers in Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC, Sabah and Sarawak to endorse a revamp of the divisive, racist and seditious BTN indoctrination course which had done the nation-building process a great national disservice since Mahathir’s premiership to divide the diverse races in the country by promoting racial hatred and ill will among Malaysians?

Mahathir had said that there is no need to revamp the BTN course “as in the current form, they were fine for instilling the patriotic spirit among Malaysians”, claiming that “the BTN curriculum had helped foster unity as the courses conducted by the agency were attended by Malaysians of all races”.

Rubbing salt into the wound, Mahathir yesterday went on to charge that criticisms against BTN as an “exaggeration”, insisting that the BTN course had taught participants “new values” needed to succeed.

He said:

 “We have this thing (BTN) for 20 years during the time I was Prime Minister. Nobody complains about anything. And the people who attended these courses always found that it was very useful.”

Mahathir’s question why “nobody complains about anything” during his premiership can be easily answered – his high-handed and autocratic rule which brook no dissent especially in the public service with his propensity to abuse his powers against all who crossed his path including the abuses of  draconian laws like the Internal Security Act and  the Official Secrets Act.

Dare Mahathir fully support a public inquiry into the BTN course since his time concerning serious allegations that it not only failed to instill a patriotic spirit, but was divisive, racist and seditious creating greater racial polarization and national disunity in the country?

I fully agree with Nazri that it is long overdue that patriotism was not meant only for the Malays but for all Malaysians, and Nazri could not be more right when he said:

“You must be a Malaysian whether you’re a minister or not. You must walk your talk. Don’t just because when you were PM, you wanted everyone to support you, you’re Malaysian and the moment you’re no longer PM, that’s it, only talk about the Malays so I cannot accept his comment. When you read his blog it is bloody racist.

“I strongly feel the BTN courses must be in line with the 1 Malaysia slogan by the PM.”

This is why the statement by the Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Ahmad Maslan yesterday that the BTN module would be “fine-tuned and not revamped” raises the question whether Nazri or Mahathir will have the final say about the BTN course and why the silence of all Ministers from UMNO, MCA, Gerakan, MIC, Sabah and Sarawak are so deafening!

Update – Veteran Umno leader, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, has added his voice to the swelling  demand for the closure for the BTN,  which promoted  hatred and racism, recounting how he was a victim of the BTN hate indoctrination course when he was Semangat 46 and Gagasan Rakyat leader.

Malaysian Insider 8.12.09

‘I was battered by BTN’, says Ku Li

By Adib Zalkapli

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 8 – One of Umno’s most respected leaders,Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, has come out to back the closure of the Biro Tata Negara (BTN), saying he was a victim of its controversial courses when he led an opposition front.

“Yes I have heard, I have been battered about in seminars, discussions in BTN,” the Gua Musang MP said when asked if he has been a victim of BTN.

“They said a lot of things,” he replied when asked to elaborate on the nature of the attack against him.

The Kelantanese prince was also a victim of hate campaign during Election 1990, when photograph of him wearing an East Malaysian headgear was widely distributed just days before polls.

The photograph of Razaleigh in the headgear, which bore motif similar to a crucifix, is credited with turning away significant numbers of Muslim votes from Semangat 46, which he led.

The BTN, under the Prime Minister’s Department, runs compulsory courses for civil servants and undergraduates and has been accused of promoting hatred and racism by Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders.

“I think BTN should close down, it has been used to promote personality cult and also used for badgering people who oppose the leadership,” he told reporters after delivering his speech at the United Nations Human Rights Day here.

“It’s a waste of money,” said the Gua Musang Umno chief.

The PR-led Selangor government recently imposed a ban on its civil servants and students within its state-run educational institutions from attending BTN courses, while Penang — another PR- governed state — is said to be considering similar action.

But the hawks in Umno, through Malay-based dailies like Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia, have moved to defend BTN and attacked its critics as “traitors” who are trying to politicise the issue.

On Sunday Utusan urged the government not to “bow down” to the opposition on BTN.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz had said that BTN training modules would be revamped to better reflect the 1 Malaysia concept introduced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

However former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been defending the BTN courses saying that the criticism against is has been exaggerated.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 8 December 2009, 12:57 pm and is filed under
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Muhyiddin is chief Cabinet hawk siding with Mahathir against Nazri – ball in Najib’s court facing critical test for his 1Malaysia concept which is virtually in tatters

The Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has come out as the chief hawk in Cabinet to side with former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad against the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz in the row over the divisive, racist and seditious Biro Tata Negara (BTN) indoctrination course and Umno as a racist party.

The ball is now in Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s court with Najib’s 1Malaysia concept facing a critical test.

 Nazri is right in describing Mahathir as a racist in defending the divisive, racist and seditious BTN course and Mahathir is right in his response that Umno is a racist party.

The question is why Umno should continue to impose its racist ideology on the government and country and to turn BTN into an instrument to purvey its racist philosophy and pernicious doctrine, totally subversive of the Vision 2020 concept of Bangsa Malaysia as well as Najib’s 1Malaysia.

So far, only the veteran Umno leader Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has come out publicly to call for the closure of BTN.

Three UMNO Ministers,  Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister, Datuk Seri Noh Omar and Women, Family and Community Development, Datuk Shahrizat Jalil have aligned themselves with Muhyiddin and Mahathir in defending the BTN programme.

The Gerakan President and KPI Minister Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon  has waffled with an ambivalent and weak-kneed position, looking for excuses for Mahathir when he said  that the former Prime Minister might not have been aware of the “latest slant” in the BTN course though Mahathir would not appreciate Koh’s mitigation plea for him.

But what is the position of all the other Cabinet Ministers from Umno, MCA, MIC and from  Sabah and Sarawak – and most important of all, what is Najib’s position?

Najib must be forewarned that with the BTN row and other recent developments, his 1Malaysia concept and slogan is virtually in tatters.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 9 December 2009, 4:27 pm and is filed under
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What Chin Peng’s story can teach us

We need to explore the story behind the armed struggle to understand the ideology behind the movement. We might denounce the atrocities of the communist insurgents/Malayan co-freedom fighters, but we must also recognise the intellectual value and power of the Marxist critique of society as a legitimate, systematic, liberating, humanising and praxical (the translation of theory to practice) body of knowledge that has evolved into an organic discipline itself.

By
Azly Rahman

The story of the Malayan nationalist leader Chin Peng’s request to come home interests me academically. I hope he will one day be given the chance to speak in Malaysia’s universities, sharing his story on Malaysia’s struggle against imperialism.

After 50 years of Independence, we still cannot tell the difference between say, communism, Marxism, socialism or anarchism. We are well versed in the foundations of crypto-corporate-cybernetic-crony capitalism, of the inner workings of the capital markets, and on how to get cheap labour and squeeze profits out of modern-day indentured slaves from countries impoverished by the policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

We are good at talking about ‘global economics’ and the ‘glocalisation’ of Wall Street and Silicon Valley industries. What we think profitable at the global market we import into our local economies, and what we see profitable in our country, we force our farmers and labourers to produce for the global economies.

We then complain about the evils of globalisation without realising that the big capitalists amongst us are the new globalisers of our own labour. At a time when we are exploring the possibilities of becoming a ‘bio-technologised nation’ (whatever that means to the padi planter/farmer in Changlung, Kedah or Tambun Tulang in Perlis), we still have not explored the meaning of ideas we ‘fear’. We still equate communism only  with armed struggle – just like some Western media conglomerate’s tendency of equating Islam with terrorism, and many other concept/word associations that are not accurate and dangerously misleading.

We need to explore the story behind the armed struggle to understand the ideology behind the movement. We might denounce the atrocities of the communist insurgents/Malayan co-freedom fighters, but we must also recognise the intellectual value and power of the Marxist critique of society as a legitimate, systematic, liberating, humanising and praxical (the translation of theory to practice) body of knowledge that has evolved into an organic discipline itself.

One must engage in a systematic study of Marxism in order to be well-equipped with the understanding of what ‘national development’ means. Without this knowledge, we will forever colonise ourselves by importing more and more members of international advisory panel of any national project we blindly embark upon.

We need to ask these questions:

Had the Communists won in Malaya, what kind of sharing of power would there have been?

How might the character of neo-colonialism have turned out had Malaysian political-economic arrangement been based on non-communalism?

Would there be conspicuously rich and and – at the other end of the spectrum – silenced under-class poor Malaysians?

Would there be a BN? – What would have been the fate of the monarchy? – What would have been the nature of the distribution of wealth in society and what might the ‘digital divide’ mean?

How might the reformasi movement learn from the theoretical foundations of Marxism, as a radical critique and restructuring tool of society?

What themes in Islam does Marxism share in the areas of social justice and the social control of greed?

How might ancient Chinese philosophy be a powerful and non-oppositional force to Marxism?

How might the concept of Marxist-metaphysicalism emerge from the synthesis of foundational tenets of the Western and Eastern societies? These and many more might help us explore the possibilities of emergent ideas and make our graduate/Masters/Ph.D students smarter and our politicians more learned.

Imagine the quality of dissertation topics we will have in the archives of our public universities? These topics should generate interest in looking at the possibilities of newer and better arrangement of base and superstructure of Malaysian society as we develop newer commanding heights, and as we continue to profess our status as an independent nation that is slowly suffocating in the haze of globalisation.

Marxism and other ‘isms’

I have a few suggestion to create an augmentation to this argument over Chin Peng’s return:

I suggest we have our undergraduate students read the variety of ‘isms’ and have them construct their own understanding of what this ‘nebulous of ideas’ means. We must give our students the message that these ‘truths’ must be explored and not be shied away from.

We cannot, in this context of the issue, ban books on radical political change anymore. We must even have courses on Marxism, socialism, capitalism and anarchism and encourage our teaching faculty to teach their favourite thinkers such as Karl Marx, Ibnu Sina, Al Farabi, Ali Shariati, Che Guevara, Socrates, Krishnamurthi, Radhakrishna, the French Existentialists, Einstein, Malcolm X, Plato, Habermas, Bourdieu, Foucault, Syed Hussein Al-Aattas, Sukarno, Raden Adjeng Kartini, Jose Rizal, Lee Kuan Yew, Gandhi, Kung Fu Tze, Lao Tzi, and Mao Ze Dong. One could even develop a course around the life and times of the American poet-musician Bob Dylan. Or teach about the struggles of the Malaysian radical thinkers of the Independence movement and create an educational, social, and political paradigm of change out of their ideas.

I believe, we will create better thinkers amongst our students and faculty. Campus authorities will not need to use scare tactics during student elections nor university lecturers need not be fired by vice-chancellors and by extension, the higher education ministry, who are bankrupt of intelligent arguments. We must let a hundred flowers bloom.

“The simplest questions are the most profound,” said Socrates.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 9 December 2009, 3:52 pm and is filed under
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Enhancing The Role of Private Sector in Education – Part 2

By
M. Bakri Musa

[Second of Six Parts]

[In
Part One
, I emphasized the importance of getting the widest possible input in formulating a policy. Then when the policy is adopted, to start with small and manageable pilot projects to iron out the inevitable kinks, get feed back from the participants, and strengthen the weaknesses, and make the needed modifications. In this second part I discussed the rationale for private sector participation in education. MBM].

The Rationale For Private Sector Participation

Education, specifically the language of instruction in its institutions, is a highly politically-charged issue in Malaysia, as with any plural society. America for example still grapples with how best to integrate through its schools the children of minorities. Until recently Canada had to contend with its own English-French language rivalry.

While education can be a divisive issue in a plural society, ironically when creatively handled it could serve as an important instrument for social integration. For Malaysia, it is critical that educational institutions should serve this important function and not be satisfied merely with their traditional role American public schools have been remarkably successful, at least until recently, in integrating its various immigrants into the mainstream. Perversely, Malaysian schools during colonial rule, specifically the English language ones, were more successful in this integrating role than our current national schools.

Failure in this crucial role would result in a society that is highly educated but deeply divided; another Northern Ireland. The increasing polarization along racial lines that we see in Malaysia today is attributed in part to the failure of our schools and universities to play this important role of social integration.

Education in Malaysia has the added burden of being an important cultural symbol. The emotional and political significance of that cannot be lightly dismissed, for both can be overriding and at times overwhelming.

The consequence is that Malaysian education has, since independence, been under the tight control of the central government, with the private sector playing only a peripheral role. Recent moves towards liberalization may have altered the details of the landscape, but the underlying theme remains. As a result the full potential of the contributions of the private sector has yet to be realized.

The move to co-opt the private sector in helping the nation become an “educational hub” has less to do with educational objectives but more with economics: the earning and preserving of valuable foreign exchange. Consequently the ensuing discussions rarely if ever focused on first elevating the quality of education.

If we concentrate on enhancing the quality of our education, foreigners would pay premium dollars to attend our institutions, thus contributing to our foreign exchange. At the same time our students would make our colleges and universities their first choice instead of looking abroad, thus preserving valuable foreign exchange. The economic objectives would thus have been met.

As I see no major policy shift in the near future, Malaysian public universities will continue to be under heavy government control, making them unlikely to shine. They will continue to suffer the same sorry decline afflicting all our public institutions. So do not expect our public schools and universities to lead us to greatness. Recent angst on the state of our public universities supports my contention.

Consequently private universities, colleges and schools, freed as they are from governmental micromanagement, would be our only salvation. Hence the need to nurture them! For them to make their proper contributions however, they must be freed from governmentally-imposed barriers. Private institutions do not necessarily need government support – although that would help – rather we need to rationalize their role so they could play a more positive part.

A major stumbling block is to overcome the current mindset that views the private sector as an unwelcome competitor instead of accepting its legitimate role of complementing public institutions. Our officials still have that old “zero-sum” mentality, viewing the private and public sectors as two candles, one trying to outshine the other. They expend their efforts not on making their own candle shine brighter but on snuffing out the other. As a result what we have today are two dim candles. The challenge is on making both candles shine brightly so together they would brighten the nation.

I liken the private and public sectors to the Petronas Twin Towers, each block enhancing the appearance as well as capacity of the complex as a whole. Unlike the Twin Towers however, we should have not one but many levels of interconnecting bridges between our public and private educational institutions so students could seamlessly move from one to the other.

Rationalizing the role of the private sector is not merely to increase the number of private institutions rather in having quality ones that would meet the needs and aspirations of a modern Malaysia.

The increase in the number of private educational institutions that we see today may not necessarily reflect a healthy development. On the contrary, that may be the consequence of the sorry state of our public institutions. Singapore does not have many private schools and colleges simply because their public ones are so superior. The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University are such quality institutions that mediocre private universities would not have a chance competing against the two; likewise with its schools. Even international schools there do not have a waiting list.

Similarly in oil-rich Alberta, Canada; there are few private schools for, as the Economist rightly noted, even rich Albertans send their children to public schools. Their public schools are that good!

Malaysia is ahead of many developing countries in recognizing that the government is not the only entity capable of providing basic public goods and services. However it is only recently that this realization is being applied to the education sector.

The advantages to private sector participation are obvious. With the private sector partially bearing the load, the demand on the public sector would thus be lighter, enabling the government to provide even better services. This is especially true for a developing nation where resources are scarce and the demand heavy. In a developed country where the citizens are sophisticated and likewise their educational needs, there is no way the government could meet them. In this situation, the nimbleness and flexibility of the private sector come in handy.

Malaysia is in between, with a sizable population clearly demanding a First World level of sophistication in the educational needs of their children but with the vast majority still needing the basics. There is no conceivable way for the government to meet these varying needs and expectations even if it has unlimited resources. Nor can these varied needs be satisfied through a rigid single-school system, as advocated by some misguided souls. Instead what we need is to enlist the private sector with its flexibility and responsiveness to add to the diversity of services and offerings.

Regardless, whether in a developed or still developing country, the entry of the private sector would provide much-needed competition. Properly harnessed, like all competitive situations, that would only improve services all around, including alleviating the urban-rural as well as rich-poor divide.

What we do not want and have to be vigilant in order to avoid, is for the entry of the private sector to result in increasing the social divide and greater polarization of the nation.

We should not expect the entry of the private sector to be welcomed especially where the public sector has been entrenched and acquired powerful constituencies. The teachers’ unions for one would be rightly concerned about loss of job security, among others. Powerful political entities would equate the entry of the private sector to a loss of control. Sometimes under such circumstances it would be best not to confront those entities directly but to start afresh somewhere else, as with new schools and colleges.

This is an opportune time to examine and rationalize the role of the private sector in education. In the Tenth Malaysia Plan the government will commit itself to re-emphasizing the development of human capital. A critical examination of the roles and contributions of the private sector should be a major part of that planning.

Next: Part Three – The Current Situation

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 10 December 2009, 9:15 am and is filed under
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Pakatan leaders sceptical about PKFZ arrests

The Malaysian Insider

Thursday December 10 2009

Pakatan leaders sceptical about PKFZ arrests

By Syed Jaymal Zahiid

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 10 — Pakatan Rakyat national leaders were unimpressed and sceptical about today’s arrests made in connection to the RM 12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal, calling it a scapegoating exercise where the main culprits still remain free.

DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang said the arrests were a small move and had yet to prove the federal government’s will to get to the bottom of the scandal that involved bloated land valuations and double charges.

“Although we are seeing some movement, the arrest is a very small piece of a larger picture,” said the Ipoh Timur MP, who has been at the forefront of the Pakatan campaign on the PKFZ scandal.

“And unless there is a greater political will to deal with those responsible for the mother of all scandals and this only touches the surface of the problem,” he told a press conference in Parliament here.

The police, together with graft-busters MACC, today arrested former general manager of the Port Klang Authority (PKA), Datin Paduka OC Phang, along with two others. All three were later charged for criminal breach of trust (CBT) and other offences at the Klang Sessions Courts. The trio were released after posting bail.

So far it is unclear if more personalities — such as former transport minister Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy or Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, who controls PKFZ contractor Kuala Dimensi Sdn Bhd (KDSB) — will face any action.

PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar brahim speaking to reporters in Parliament also shared Lim’s scepticism over the arrests.

“We welcome this move albeit it being a small move but just as what had happened to Perwaja, the smaller fishes were caught while the bigger sharks escape so in the PKFZ case, I hope this is not the beginning of a cover up on the issue,” he said.

Anticipating public doubt, the Attorney-General has said that the arrests of the three will not be the end of the PKFZ probe.

He said more are expected to be arrested and charged this Monday, with one of them being a KDSB engineer.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 10 December 2009, 7:20 pm and is filed under
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How many Malaysians will agree with Attorney-General that Phang, Stephen and Tan are “big fishes” in the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal?

Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail yesterday said that former Port Klang Authority (PKA) general manager Datin Paduka O.C.Phang, Kuala Dimensi Sdn. Bhd. Chief operating officer Stephen Abok and architect Bernard Tan Seng Swee of BTA Architect charged with multiple counts of criminal breach of trust and cheating are “big fishes” in the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal.

How many Malaysians will agree with Gani that these three are the “
big fishes
” in the PKFZ scandal?

Guilty or otherwise, there can be no doubt that the trio are mere “cogs in the wheel” of the “mother of all scandals” and the authorities concerned have still to bring the “big fishes” to justice.

Gani said that investigations into the PKFZ scandal are ongoing and more people would be brought to book.

What Malaysians want to see are not just the prosecution of the “cogs in the wheel” but the masterminds of the PKFZ “mother of all scandals”.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PcW) investigations and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) inquiries have laid building blocks for the full whole sordid tale of the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal to be told to Malaysians, right from the beginning of the PKFZ land acquisition in the nineties, and for all those involved in the intricate and complex conspiracy to be revealed.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should “walk the talk” of his commitment to combat corruption and abuses of power by establishing a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate and reveal all about the PKFZ “mother of all scandals” or he would have failed his first KPI test of placing “fighting corruption” as one of six priority sectors.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 11 December 2009, 12:36 pm and is filed under
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