Education the key to a better Malaysia

— Hussaini Abdul Karim

The Malaysian Insider

Nov 26, 2012

NOV 26 —
“Education is the most powerful weapon, we can use it to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela.

The country needs to change for the better and whoever leads the government that will be determined by the results of the coming 13th general election (GE13) must make change happen as soon as possible and not just continue with rhetoric only.

Given the political situation in the country now, and with the “help” of the Internet, regardless of whether it is spreading nuisance or pleasantries, I do not think it is possible for any coalition of political parties, either Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat, or individual political parties to win by a two-thirds majority anymore.

Those days are already gone as hinted in the last general election when a political tsunami favouring the opposition happened. In the coming GE13, I think it is more realistic to believe that it will return results such as a simple majority, split votes or even a result that will culminate in a hung Parliament and there will be individuals who contest as independents or candidates who represent smaller political parties in selected constituencies to play the role of “kingmaker” after winning their respective contests in those constituencies.

It is therefore “smart” for all political parties to think about how to handle the many fence-sitters all over the country; their number is perhaps more than the total number of voters with set minds, who will determine the outcome of GE13.

In order to win, I suggest, all contestants in GE13, either coalition of political parties like Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat, individual political parties or independent candidates to consider the following factors very seriously:

(Since I am discussing education here, I shall confine this discussion to education only.).

Education may not be the “cure-all pill” to solve all diseases (problems) but it will definitely be able to solve many of the country’s existing and future problems.

Many countries have proven that they are what they are today because of education, giving their citizens proper, high quality and the right education. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea are excellent examples.

Education helps in national development, it is in fact a catalyst for national development, nation building, building solidarity especially in a multi-racial, multi religious country like ours; it helps in the development of our human capital to make them able to compete globally and they can also be independent and not depend on the government all the time.

Whilst the Ministry of Education has made a policy decision to stop the use of the English language in national schools since 1982 when Bahasa Malaysia fully replaced English as the main language used, it seemed to be unsure whether to actually stop the use or to continue the use of the language. As such, from time to time flip-flop policies were introduced and implemented, confusing students and angering parents and teachers. To complicate matters and realising the lack of mastery in English among our students, from primary to university levels, several stop-gap measures were introduced and implemented by the ministry, and after spending a lot of money on them the result or outcome is still zero, zilch!

Even as recent as two weeks ago the deputy prime minister, who is also the education minister, and his team were still evaluating programmes in Australia on the use of the English language in national schools.

Our country’s education policy was changed in the early ‘70s and the one major change was to switch the use of the main language from English to Bahasa Malaysia. Fast forward to the 21st century, about 40 years or so later, the Programme for International Student Assessment’s (PISA) latest report places our country’s education level at 55 out of 77 countries, i.e. in the bottom third, and in the report prepared by Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2012-13, our universities are not even listed in the top 400 in the world. If these are not the consequences of the policy change that the country has made in education, what are they then?

Every progressive nation knows that the way to economic success and global prowess starts with a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education.The perpetual discussion to increase the number of STEM students needs more than incentives offered to make it successful.

Inevitably, a transformation of the science and mathematics curriculum is essential to revive interest in STEM.

The improved teaching pedagogy must also be flexible and be able to evolve with the times. It needs to be more proactive to the fast changing world of science.

Improvements for transformation must address the current method of learning science and teaching by rote, as this is no longer effective in this day and age. Science must be taught in a more enriching and interesting manner to keep the curiosity going.

If we are to transform the way we do science, we must begin to transform the STEM teaching pedagogy, the continuous teachertraining programmes, and also the teachers.

The current batch of science and mathematics teachers have the advantage in their ability to function in scientific English, making them more receptive and adaptable to learning at the same pace with the rest of the world.

The seven years we have left to achieve Vision 2020 is a blink in time. We don’t just need a transformation but a revolution to jolt STEM education to get it up to the OECD average. This is why we need to do it in English. There are more enriching experiences and up-to-date information available and we need not spend unnecessarily.

Countries like Serbia have opted to renew their STEM curriculum with La main à la pâte in stages in 2001 after their bad performance in the PISA test.

This method encourages students to ask questions, experiment, make mistakes, and use their own resources to discover how and why things work.

The latest science PISA 2010 result, although lower than the average Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, saw Serbia placed at 46th position, which is slightly higher than Malaysia at 55 out of 77 countries. The OECD average ranks at position 28.

Our country, in spite of being placed lower, instead of doing something to improve the situation, just does not seem to care at all and insist on continuing to stick to a policy which has been in use for the last 30 years or so that has proven to be a failure. Many suggestions, ideas, proposals, all supported by proper studies, to improve the policy submitted by people from all walks of life, ranging from parents, students, practitioners, educationists, professionals, etc have all fallen on deaf ears.

The majority of the people here recommend and support the use of more than one languages, or at least two with equal emphasis, for use in national schools but the authority concerned, and especially politicians from both sides of the divide, insist on sticking to just one, which is Bahasa Malaysia (BM), with only a token attention given to English and vernacular languages. What is so wrong in making our people bilingual?

Subjects in the fields of science, medicine, technology, engineering, mathematics, for example, are best taught in English at the higher levels. Many local dons, scientists, doctors, engineers and mathematicians disagree and believe that they can be taught in BM but they forgot that they all mastered those subjects learning and researching them at overseas universities in the English language and I do not think they can be as good as they are if they did all that in Malay. Are there enough books and references written in BM for them to use and refer to at that level and are the people responsible to write or translate books and references in BM keeping abreast with the rapid development in the areas of study mentioned. So, why deprive the young people who are keen to study and carry out research to be as good as or even better than the best in the world from learning those subjects in English like what their seniors went through before?

The US, with a population of 311 million people, needs 280,000 science and mathematics teachers by 2015 to ensure its global competitiveness. Malaysia, with a population of 27 million, has 400,000 teachers. On the basis of per capita population of science teachers’ equivalent to the US, we need 21,600 science and mathematics teachers or only 5 per cent of the total teacher population for our country.

The Education Ministry should look at the syllabus and curriculum to teach and train our young to be educated and be smart. They must be taught and trained to be globally competitive as for them to get jobs or do business in a relatively small country like ours will not be easy anymore. They have no choice but to look elsewhere for jobs or do business. This makes learning in English very important and necessary.

Many, including me, have criticised the Malaysian Education Blueprint, saying that the blueprint does not touch the basic issues and is not offering any progressive change at all.

However, looking at the resolution prepared by Yayasan Selangor on behalf of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) and comparing it the Blueprint, their six-statement resolution stated in their “Mereformasikan Pendidikan Negara” is totally hopeless. While the Education Ministry in its blueprint is at least still willing to extend PPSMI until 2016 so that all students who started Form One using this policy can complete Form Five using the same policy, PKR wants to scrap PPSMI immediately and start the 2013 school year using Bahasa Malaysia, much to the chagrin of the majority of parents and students who have been, for the last three years, arguing for PPSMI to be retained or at least, increase the English language content to enhance MBMMBI.

While it took the ministry from April this year starting with the countrywide National Education Dialogue involving thousands of Malaysians from all walks of life and culminating with the launching of the Blueprint on September 11 this year by the PM, PKR through Yayasan Selangor just took one Sunday at an event called “Konvensyen Halatuju Pendidikan Negara — Mereformasikan Pendidikan Negara”.

The convention held at Unisel, Seksyen 7, Shah Alam discussed some papers presented by some retired professors, who have mostly passed their prime, and some disgruntled teachers and a school principal from Sabah and Sarawak in an attempt to show that the whole country is involved. It was attended by some 200 participants who predominantly came from just one community and only one state, i.e. Selangor, and came out with their resolution in the evening. This only shows how little emphasis they give to education in the country. The impression many people and I get is that (PKR) is either not interested in education or their way of treating important matters is just wishy-washy, at best.

It looks like only the DAP in the Pakatan Rakyat coalition seems to support PPSMI and the use of the English language in national schools and a senior party member told me recently that his party members will keep adding the pressure to see how they can gather consensus in the group.

Nonetheless, I believe BN is able to change the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 overnight and to make it people friendly, progressive and effective as they already have more than 2,500 ideas, suggestions and proposals that was collected by the ministry from the three-month town hall series of the National Education Dialogue that they organised.

BN can always direct the ministry to make the necessary change. PR has none. In drawing up a better, a more progressive and a more effective people-friendly education policy, that is the advantage BN has over PR (Pakatan Rakyat).

Education is also able to:

Address and cure social ills

The social ills include corruption at all levels, Mat Rempit, snatch thefts, drug addiction, baby dumping, wife beating, single mothers,child abuse, school bullies, playing truant, vandalism, reckless drivers, road bullies, cheating, rudeness, no ethics, selfish, racism, etc.

Create law-abiding citizens

Education can build civic-minded citizens, a caring society, good, loyal and responsible citizens and who are able to contribute to the nation’s development, build solidarity (perpaduan) in a multi-racial and multi-religious country like ours regardless of race, language or religion and instil in our young integrity and confidence, etc.

Touching a bit on non-educational matters, please stop this nonsense of cash handouts, shops selling cheap goods and issuing discount cards to selected groups. Doing all that isn’t the way to a high-income nation. Our currency has low purchasing power and the subsidies are not directed to the relevant groups. Change that.

Change incapable ministers, there are many of them. There are many good, qualified and capable individuals that BN can pick and choose as candidates to contest in GE13 and they may not necessarily be members of the parties in the coalition. Scrap the AES piratisation and also stop nepotism, cronyism and favouritism, the bane of our country’s progress and move towards being a highincome nation and First World status, which also gives us a very bad image in the international scene.

Finally, practise meritocracy to the letter.

If BN wants to retain power, please listen to us the people and make the necessary changes.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 27 November 2012, 9:17 am and is filed under
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Academicians: M’sia may descend into ‘kleptocracy’

by Pauline Wong

thesundaily

27 November 2012

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia may descend into a “kleptocracy” if corruption is not addressed effectively and comprehensively, academicians warned today.

They warned that the country would be ruled by the corrupt if graft is not tackled in a far-reaching manner which can be felt by the people.

“Kleptocracy”, derived from the words “kleptomania” and “-cracy” or “rule” refers to a government filled with those who seek status and personal gain at the expense of the governed.

At a forum on “Eradicating Corruption: How successful have we been?” organised by the Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) today, National University of Singapore Associate Professor Dr Syed Farid Alatas voiced the danger of kleptocracy taking root as corruption is not a random or occasional occurence but tends to be systemic.

He said “kleptocrats” are usually not mid-level officials who extort money as a means to make a living, but high-ranking officials who see it as a way to accumulate wealth.

Despite positive outcome from anti-corruption initiatives rolled out by the government through the Government Transformation Programme and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, Syed Farid said the effects were still not felt by the people.

“The people are still pessimistic about the way authorities are tackling corruption,” said Syed Farid, a Malaysian who was formerly a Universiti Malaya lecturer.

Commenting on Malaysia’s deteriorating position in the Corruption Perception Index, from 37 out of 80 countries in 2003, to 60 in 2011, Syed Farid urged the government to work towards the formation of a truly independent anti-corruption body.

“The MACC, for example has no power to initiate prosecution. The power to prosecute lies with the Attorney-General’s Chambers – which is as such free to practise selective prosecution,” he claimed.

Meanwhile, another panelist, Universiti Malaya Faculty of Economics and Administration Professor Dr Edmund Terence Gomez said grand corruption must be tackled from the top.

“We must first talk about devolution of power, where important institutions like the MACC and the AGC, and even the Judiciary must be independent.

“We have to do this soon, because degenerative corruption is becoming pervasive. Money is being channeled into the political system and we see this in permeation of money politics,” he said.

He also called for a fair and just implementation of good and noble policies to eradicate corruption.

The forum was attended by former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi under whose tenure the MACC was formed.

“When we talk of corruption, we must talk about the integrity of our judiciary. It must be a respected and respectable institution, able to prove that they are able to demonstrate that they are the highest institute of correctness and integrity,” Abdullah said in his closing speech.

Calling for the strengthening of the judiciary to fight corruption, he said the judiciary itself must be above doubt.

“There must be good governance, or corruption will run rampant in the nation,” he said.

Ideas also released yesterday its interim report “Combating Corruption: Understanding Anti-Corruption Initiatives in Malaysia’.

The report concluded that there is a disconnect between public perception and actual data on corruption, and that corruption cannot be measured by perception alone.

“Public perception as measured by the Corruption Perception Index implies that corruption is rampant and the situation is bleak. But data suggests that the problem is not as bleak as the CPI score has painted,” the report stated.

The 55-page interim report which analysed the causes, cost and implications of corruption in Malaysia, also reviewed initiatives taken by the MACC under the National Key Result Area (NKRA) for combating corruption.

The report is funded by the MACC-NKRA division and other local and foreign sponsors.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 28 November 2012, 9:21 am and is filed under
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It’s the system that turns good leaders bad

Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz | November 28, 2012

Free Malaysia Today

Malaysians think that by changing the present set of bad people with good ones everything will be all right, but nothing is farther from the truth.

COMMENT

People do not want to believe that if you have an intrinsically bad system, you are good at the beginning, but you are eventually going to degenerate.

But people don’t want to accept this.

Let’s assume Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is a good person (he probably is) but the system which sustains him is bad. It will eventually cause him to turn bad.

So it isn’t enough to transform society by changing the people leading it, but the system that structures our society must be changed too.

That is our (Pakatan Rakyat’s ) agenda now. Not just changing of guards, but changing the system that structures our society.

Just as a free market requires a libertarian system or liberal democracy, so do good people at the top who can stay good but only if we have a good system of government.

The leader who respects the opinions of the people he leads stays a good leader but only if the system sustains him so.

But Najib can’t stay a good leader because Umno structures the world around us in a bad way.

Najib’s New Economic Model (NEM) in reality is just an extension of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s way of renouncing the NEP and choosing to jump-start Malay economics by picking and choosing winners.

He, at that point, chose mostly devils he knew and enriched them.

Najib is now continuing to do the same by his market-driven affirmative action that forms his NEM.

Dangerous thinking

Author Fredrik Hayek makes an interesting point in his book, “The Road to Serfdom”. He explains why the worst get to the top.

If we interpret his observation against modern terms, it is that people are willing to suspend reality in exchange for a sanitised world.

Hayek opines that it is dangerous to think that “good men can overcome a bad system”. It is simply wrong thinking.

Malaysia unfortunately appears to be in that situation.

We adjust ourselves and accommodate totalitarian tendencies believing that such a system or political arrangement is not at fault.

We think that by changing the present set of bad people with good and decent people, everything is all right.

But nothing is farther from the truth.

The agenda the opposition seeks is not only changing the bad people on top, but reforming the structure of this country.

If we don’t put the correct structure in place, even when good men lead, they will soon be overwhelmed by the system.

The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman but has since joined DAP. He is a FMT columnist.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 28 November 2012, 9:32 am and is filed under
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The Hair-Raising Truth About the MCA

By Martin Jalleh

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 28 November 2012, 4:30 pm and is filed under
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UMNO General Assembly re-enacting last year’s “drama”:  Who lied –  Najib/Muhyiddin,  Chua Soi Lek or all three?

The 66th UMNO General Assembly is in full-swing but it is only a re-enactment of last year’s 65th UMNO General Assembly “drama”.

At the end of  the 65th UMNO General Assembly last December, I posed the question: “Who lied – Najib/Muhyiddin or Chua Soi Lek? Or all three?”

Although the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak will only be delivering his UMNO Presidential address tomorrow and his winding-up speech on Friday, one does not have to be prescient to know it will be equally valid and pertinent to pose this same question at the end of the 66th UMNO General Assembly.

The Deputy Prime Minister and UMNO Deputy President, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, has already started the ball rolling for the re-enactment of this “drama” last year of whether “Who lied – Najib/Muhyiddin or Chua Soi Lek? Or all three?”

Last night at the opening of the UMNO Youth, Wanita and  Puteri Assemblies,  Muhyiddin dismissed PAS’ Islamic State goal as “a daydream”.

But this is the very exact opposite of what the MCA President Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek is warning the Malaysian Chinese and non-Muslims up and down the  country of “a point of no return” for the PAS agenda of an Islamic state if Pakatan Rakyat wins Putrajaya in the 13th general election!

This is a vindication of my thesis that one important difference between the Pakatan Rakyat and the Barisan Nasional is that the Pakatan Rakyat coalition practises the politics of “Unite and Rule” as distinct from the traditional but divisive and destructive politics of “Divide and Rule” of UMNO/BN, polarising instead of uniting Malaysians along racial and religious lines.

Through the politics of lies, falsehoods and fear, UMNO/Barisan Nasional parties spread different and conflicting messages among different racial and religious groups, sowing the seeds of suspicion, distrust and even hatred, which is totally against the task of Malaysian nation-building.

Muhyiddin has proved himself to be a quite a political chameleon in the past 48 hours – invoking the image of a moderate on Tuesday night when closing the International Forum 2012 on war and conflict  in conjunction with Umno’s 66th General Assembly, exhorting the virtues of “moderation and fairness to all”,  but donning the garb of a racialist 24 hours later when opening the UMNO Youth, Wanita and Puteri Assemblies.

Malaysians find Muhyiddin “a bit rich” when he launched an attack on the Pakatan Rakyat parties, labelling DAP for instance as “racists” and “chauvinists” when DAP leaders publicly declared their full support of the 1Malaysia concept of Malaysians regarding themselves as Malaysian first and their race, religion, geography and socio-economic status second while the country will not forget Muhyiddin’s defiant declaration of being “Malay first, Malaysian second”!

However, I must admit that up to now, Muhyiddin has yet to outdo his mischief and venom at last year’s UMNO General Assembly where he made history as the only Deputy Prime Minister in the world caught telling a bare-faced lie while playing the race card when he falsely accused the DAP of being anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay Rulers, even telling the lie that the DAP’s agenda is to establish a Republic in Malaysia.

There was  completely silence from Muhyiddin when I challenged him to substantiate his allegation that the DAP wanted to abolish the constitutional monarchy and establish a Republic.

But the day is still young for the 66th UMNO General Assemblies and we have still to see who are the UMNO leaders who will stand out this time in making the DAP a “whipping boy” with all sorts of groundless and even  seditious allegations and lies against the DAP – that the DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam, anti-Malay Rulers and “agents of Christianisation” to bring about a “Christian Malaysia”.

Najib has often said that UMNO must change or UMNO will be changed.

Will the speeches of UMNO leaders and delegates at the 66th UMNO General Assembly show that UMNO is incapable of change on its own and that it must be changed by the voters by giving UMNO an opportunity to play the role of a loyal and responsible Opposition in the Federal Parliament after the 13GE?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 28 November 2012, 2:16 pm and is filed under
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Najib’s omission of three paramount issues in his Umno presidential address confirms vital necessity of political change in  13GE to take Malaysia to next step of national development

No Malaysian is shocked that Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Umno Presidential Address to the 66th UMNO General Assembly this morning is a war-cry to UMNO leaders and members to “fight like Churchill” to defend UMNO political power in Putrajaya in the 13th General Elections which I expect to be held within four months by March next year.

No Malaysian is surprised that UMNO leaders at the various UMNO Assemblies are raising the warning that the defeat of UMNO in the 13GE would result in the Malays in the country losing their political power, although rational and level-headed Malaysians can immediately see the fallacy of this falsehood as it is the UMNO leaders and not the Malays who will lose political power with the Umno/BN Federal Government replaced by the Pakatan Rakyat coalition of PKR, PAS and DAP. Furthermore, this is in direct contradiction to MCA propaganda that it is the Chinese and non-Malays who will suffer further loss of their political, educational, socio-economic and citizenship rights when Pakatan Rakyat comes to power in Putrajaya.

Although Malaysians are outraged, it is also not completely outside their expectations that apart from exploiting the race and religious cards at the UMNO Assemblies, UMNO leaders are also  try to stoke fear by playing the “May 13 card” – proof  that UMNO leaders are under great “pressure” as they know in their heart of hearts that the 13GE could signal the end of UMNO hegemony in Putrajaya despite all the brave front put up by UMNO leaders that UMNO/BN are  sure to be returned to power in the 13GE, even to  regain its parliamentary two-thirds majority.

But what must have come as a surprise to Malaysians is the  total lack of vision in Najib’s UMNO Presidential speech of what Malaysian nation he wants to build in the second half of the first century of the  country’s nationhood – apart from the cliché of “high-income developed state”.

There is nothing more empty and hollow in Najib’s Umno Presidential Address  than when he shouted “1Malaysia” at the start of his speech, as his 1Malaysia concept and objective to create a Malaysia where every Malaysian regards himself or herself as Malaysian first and race, religion, region and socio-economic status second is the greatest failure of all the Najib sloganeerings – reduced to pathetic multiplication, commercialisation  and cheapening of the slogan to try to win votes for Umno/BN in the 13GE.

Najib’s omission of three paramount issues in his Umno presidential address confirms the  vital necessity of political change in 13GE to take Malaysia to next step of national development.

The three paramount national issues omitted by Najib are:

•	Announce zero tolerance for corruption and full commitment to wage war against corruption and uphold integrity both in UMNO and the country.

•	Establish Najib’s sincerity in his 1Malaysia concept by declaring that Ketuanan Rakyat Malaysia and not Ketuanan Melayu  is the overarching UMNO objective.

•	Demonstrate full democratic credentials and loyalty to his declared objective to make Malaysia “world’s best democracy” by committing UMNO to fully respect the right of voters to choose the government they want and full assurance to transfer power peacefully to Pakatan Raykat if this is the voters’ verdict in the 13GE.

Will Najib rectify these three vital omissions in his winding-up speech at the end of the Umno General Assembly?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 29 November 2012, 4:00 pm and is filed under
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In fact…Umno is God!

By Martin Jalleh

                This entry was posted on Friday, 30 November 2012, 7:35 pm and is filed under
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Irresponsible threats of May 13 and chaos if Umno loses 13GE, falsely claiming that Malays will lose political power, is best proof of failure and hypocrisy of Najib’s 1Malaysia policy

The irresponsible threats raised by UMNO leaders at the 66th UMNO General Assembly of “May 13” and chaos if UMNO loses the 13th General Election, falsely claiming that Malays will lose political power and will be rendered “destitute in our own land”,  is the best proof of the failure and hypocrisy of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia policy.

If the 1Malaysia Policy proclaimed by Najib after  he became Prime Minister in in April 2009 is more than election gimmicks for votes in the 13GE, its philosophy “to create a Malaysian nation where every Malaysian will regard himself or herself as Malaysian first and race, religion, geographical region or socio-economic status second” should have been the guiding spirit of speeches of UMNO/BN leaders and their party conferences.

But this is clearly not the case despite the onset of the 43rd month of Najib’s premiership, as illustrated by the 66th Umno General Assembly.

In the first place, an Umno/BN leader fully imbued by the 1Malaysia spirit of “Malaysian first and race, religion, geography or socio-economic status second” would never entertain any notion let alone utter any threat of May 13 or chaos regardless of the outcome of the forthcoming 13th general election, as anyone who could toy with any May 13 threat or warning of chaos because of the free democratic choice of Malaysians in the 13th general election has not only failed to imbibe the spirit of 1Malaysia, but is acting in a most disloyal and unpatriotic manner utterly heedless of the higher interests of the nation and the best future for the country.

Such disloyal and unpatriotic notions is all the more reprehensible as they are built on despicable lies and falsehoods, that the defeat of UMNO in the 13th GE will result in the loss of political power of the Malays resulting in the Malays, to quote one speech: “..if we go down in this struggle, we do not have anything left.  We will be brought down to our knees, and eventually become destitute in our own land”.

That fate may befall UMNO leaders – and that is if UMNO is incapable of reform even after being ousted from Putrajaya – but definitely it will not be the fate of the Malays.

This is because replacing UMNO/BN in Putrajaya will be the Pakatan Rakyat coalition comprising PKR, PAS and DAP – comprising Malaysians from all races, religions and regions representing the best interests of all.

Do MCA and the other BN component parties agree that if UMNO/BN loses in the 13GE, the Malays will lose political power?

MCA leaders are in fact saying the very opposite – telling the Chinese that if Pakatan Rakyat defeat UMNO/BN in the next general elections, the Chinese will lose even more political, economic, educational, socio-economic and citizenship rights!

Let UMNO and MCA leaders decide on one common message – whether it is the Malays or Chinese who will lose political power if UMNO/BN is replaced by Pakatan Rakyat in the 13GE.

The true answer is that it is not the Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Ibans who will lose political power but the UMNO-putras and their hangers-on in the other BN component parties – with ordinary Malaysians regardless of race, religion or region coming into their own to have rightful  share in the decision-making process in a more democratic Malaysia.

It is time that UMNO and MCA leaders stop their irresponsible politics of “divide and rule” and compete with Pakatan Rakyat parties instead on “unite and rule” for a more democratic, just, prosperous and competitive Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 30 November 2012, 2:21 pm and is filed under
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Its Najib and not Zahid who should respond to Deepak’s most serious allegations at the UMNO General Assembly tomorrow

Defence Minister and UMNO Vice President Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi has said that he would respond tomorrow to allegations made by businessman Deepak Jaikishan on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s family which is also related to the high-profile and long-running  Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case.

It is not Zahid but Najib himself who should be responding in his winding-up speech at the 66th UMNO General Assembly tomorrow, for three reasons.

Firstly,  Deepak’s allegations pertain to Najib’s family, that he had paid an undisclosed sum for the premier’s intervention to allow him to come in as a party in a RM100 million defence ministry project in 2005 when Najib was the Defence Minister –  stitching a deal with a Selangor UMNO Wanita leader’s company where he would participate as a third party in the project.  As Najib is not only around but chief of the pack in UMNO, he should respond as whatever Zahid could say would only be hearsay with neither credibility nor legitimacy.

Secondly, the Deepak connection with the high-profile and long-running Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case. Deepak has expressed regret of his involvement in getting private investigator P Balasubramaniam to make a second Statutory Declaration which reversed an earlier one linking Najib to murdered Mongolian Altantuya. Deepak said in interviews that he got involved in Bala’s case to help “the family of the prime minister”.  Again, Zahid’s response to Deepak’s allegation cannot be satisfactory as only Najib is in a position to respond with any credibility.

Thirdly, this is an acid test of Najib’s UMNO Presidential Address yesterday which had asserted that Pakatan Rakyat should not be given a chance to win the 13th General Election as UMNO/Barisan Nasional could  boast of great success in governing Malaysia in the past five decades – one of which is the “efficacy of national institutions”.

The sordid Deepak/Bala/Altantuya scandals are shameful testimony, not to success but corruption and subversion, of the “efficacy of national institutions” as  Malaysia would not have reached such a sorry pass in the Altantuya murder case if various national institutions, whether the Police, the Judiciary, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the Malaysian Press had maintained and upheld their integrity, independence and professionalism.

Is Najib prepared to fully vindicate himself, his government and the country by subjecting himself to a  full and independent public inquiry into the sordid Deepak/Bala/Altantuya scandals and announce it at the UMNO General Assembly winding-up tomorrow?

If Najib is prepared to submit himself to a full and independent public inquiry into the Deepak/Bala/Altantuya scandals, his apology in his UMNO Presidential Speech  on behalf of the UMNO leadership for any “mistake” or “oversight” would be a bona fide one.  If not, his “apology” is just mere rhetoric.

Artikel ini juga boleh didapati dalam Bahasa Malaysia di:
https://blog.limkitsiang.com/2012/12/03/najib-yang-sepatutnya-menjawab-dakwaan-serius-deepak-pada-perhimpunan-agung-umno-esok-bukannya-zahid/

                This entry was posted on Friday, 30 November 2012, 6:12 pm and is filed under
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Malays not under threat, Umno is

Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz | November 30, 2012

Free Malaysia Today

There are 18 million Malays in this country and all the security forces plus every level of the government is Malay, so what threat is Najib Tun Razak talking about?

COMMENT

You can’t produce anything different from the same mould. As such, the idea which Malaysians must emulate is to change this government and move forward from there.

Let us all leave Najib Tun Razak and his pot of Mongolian alphabet goulash behind.

Change comes from a changed leadership and a new government.

Now, let us examine what Najib means when he says Malays must unite and Malay unity is no threat to others.

When Najib uses the phrase “Malays must unite”, he can mean the following things:

i) All Malays must make sure Umno wins so that he can continue to be prime minister.

ii) Malays submit themselves under Umno.

iii) Malays must ensure Malays dominate Malaysian politics.

The first two meanings are self-serving. The third implies that if Malays stay disunited, they will face threats.

So we ask in turn, threats from whom? There are 18 million Malays in this country. All the security forces and every level of the government are already controlled by Malays.

So where does the threat come from and to whom is the threat directed? The threat arises from the political and social consciousness of the people.

Threat not ‘people to people’

After 55 years, Umno has carried out ruinous economic and social policies that have resulted in a less than prime economy and a more divisive nation.

This is the lie that Umno has imposed on Malays by making them believe that they are protected only if Umno is around.

The truth is the threat is directed towards Najib’s PM-ship and Umno.

The threat is not from the people to the people but directed towards a parasitic ruling class that has enriched itself while creating economic injustice on the people.

How do you unite a nation so divided with no shared ideals and beliefs?

How do you motivate the majority to have the acquisitive inclinations to move up the social ladder when they see those cutting corners and bluffing their way through getting equal rewards?

Najib can’t unite people, much less a nation. The sad truth is, Najib does not know how to secure unity.

He doesn’t see that the way to structure the country upon shared beliefs and ideals must start with a universal acceptance of the supremacy and rule of law.

When the rule of law is compromised, it is impossible to establish shared ideals and beliefs. This is because the various groups as stakeholders in the country will always harbor suspicions that the other will seek to manipulate power to their own advantage.

When one is equally protected by the law, there isn’t a necessity to refer yourself according to your ethnicity, as is now done in Malaysia.

The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman but has since joined DAP. He is a FMT columnist.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 30 November 2012, 10:45 am and is filed under
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Rethinking wage policy to reposition our economy

― Liew Chin Tong

The Malaysian Insider

Nov 28, 2012

NOV 28 ― Although the minimum wage law is scheduled to take effect in January 2013, the Barisan Nasional government does not seem to be particularly committed to re-imagine the Malaysian economy through wage policy reform. Efforts to smoothen the transition for small and middle industries are seriously lacking too.

Minimum wage is meant to tackle several long-standing structural issues of the economy at once. As the United States and Europe struggle to stay afloat economically, Asia can no longer remain as an exporter, we need to grow our domestic/Asian markets; a higher income among locals will help generate a more vibrant domestic market which in turn will generate more jobs.

Also, with minimum wage, companies and industries will likely to rely less on cheap labour but invest in longer term potentials, capabilities and hence productivity of the workforce.

This is a virtuous cycle that will check dependence on unskilled foreign workers and brain drain at once.  Skilled citizens who work in foreign countries are likely to consider resettling back to their homeland if the wage difference between their home and host countries is narrowed.

Gangnum-style policy making

Essentially, BN lacks a coherent new economic framework.

I frankly do not think that the BN government and its leaders had any idea why there was a need to introduce a minimum wage. Like many other policies, it was done just to respond to the opposition’s agenda.

While BN is currently the longest serving elected government in the world that is still in office and wanted to be re-elected for policy continuity, most policies were made in what I call “Gangnam style manner” ― on the horseback, basing on just back-of-envelope calculation. Consultants were brought in later to make ad hoc decisions implementable.

So we hear hilarious claims by MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek and his son, Chua Tee Yong, that minimum wage leads to national bankruptcy and that paying foreign workers minimum wage will amount to more currency outflow through remittance.

By the way, Dr Chua Soi Lek also claimed that Pakatan Rakyat’s policy to renegotiate toll rates with concessionaires and to end North-South Expressway toll collection would result in tens of thousands of toll workers losing their employment.

To Pakatan Rakyat, removing many monopolies and rent seekers in the economy will help generate higher disposable income for ordinary Malaysians. To Dr Chua and BN, any change to the crony economy is a bad idea.

Why minimum wage?

Before we venture into the rationales for a minimum wage in Malaysia, let us first understand the regional economic dynamics.

On November 21, 2012, newly elected Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo raised Jakarta’s monthly minimum wage by 44 per cent to Rp 2.2 million (RM700).

On the subsequent day, West Java increased the minimum wage levels of its 26 districts and cities by an average of 25 per cent; one of which, Bekasi, is at Rp 2.1 million, just slightly below Jakarta’s level. More regions are likely to match Jakarta’s level close enough to prevent their own workers from flocking to Jakarta.

The immediate response from the Indonesian stock market was huge appreciation of share prices for companies producing consumer goods, as higher wages mean higher domestic consumption. Of course some employers were not happy with the rise but many can immediately spot the benefit of a bigger domestic market.

In the Eastern seaboard of China, such as Shenzhen, minimum wage is at RMB1,500 (RM735) while new daily minimum wage level in Thailand is at 300 baht a day (RM30, almost equal to Malaysia’s minimum wage).

What do these figures mean for Malaysia? The Barisan Nasional government sets its minimum wage at RM900 for Peninsular Malaysia and RM800 for Sabah and Sarawak while Pakatan Rakyat proposed a RM1,100 package with transitional funds to facilitate vulnerable industries to adapt.

The challenge for Malaysia in the years to come is whether there will still be abundance of supply of foreign labour from neighbouring countries like Indonesia and Burma where their wages are close enough to that of Malaysia’s.

The Malaysian economy will soon to be at a standstill if supply of cheap labour dries while Malaysia’s skilled labour and professionals look elsewhere for greener pastures due to low pay and lack of upward mobility in general in Malaysia.

Minimum wage is but one of the many reforms Malaysia that needs to undertake to move to the next level.

A new agenda for SMIs/SMEs

Many of the reforms like helping labour-intensive industries to become skill and knowledge intensive should have happened twenty years ago in 1992 when Malaysia first reached middle income nation status. But because for every foreign worker brought into this country, someone close to the establishment makes a cut through licensing and other sorts of payment, there is a huge lobby to resist any change.

While minimum wage has very little impact on most industries especially those with very high value added, it is also clear that the implementation of minimum wage, even at RM700 – not to mention higher rate, causes problem for small and medium industries in low-end manufacturing.

To help them is not to stop implementing minimum wage but to support them with financing as well as skill development so that they can be less labour-intensive. What is lacking in BN’s minimum wage policy is a facilitation fund as proposed by Pakatan Rakyat to assist these affected industries.

Beyond minimum wage, Malaysia’s small and medium businesses face other challenges. Corruption, red tape and dominance of GLCs in the economy make it very difficult for the “small guys” to operate in. A form of “tax terrorism” in heightened tax collection and frequent tax raids on SMIs/SMEs have caused fear among small businesses.

What Malaysia needs is a rethinking of our wage policies in a new global and regional environment. Anything short of that won’t take us very far. ― The Rocket

* Liew Chin Tong is the member of parliament for Bukit Bendera

* This article was originally published by The Rocket (http://www.therocket.com.my/en/rethinking-wage-policy-to-reposition-our-economy/)

                This entry was posted on Friday, 30 November 2012, 7:40 pm and is filed under
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RM40m Sabah Umno ‘donation’ is pittance, say Umno delegates

By Mohd Farhan Darwis and Leannza Chia

The Malaysian Insider

Nov 30, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 — Several Umno members appeared today to dismiss the controversy over Sabah Umno’s RM40 million “political donation”, saying the sum was pittance compared to the millions the party dishes out during elections.

Arsit Sedi @ Sidik, a delegate from Sabah, even described the sum as “a very small dot” and revealed that in the Putatan constituency in his home state, Umno would have to spend up to RM6 million during the polls.

“RM40 million is a small sum, I don’t think it can even support the next election.

“The amount needed is very high, especially Sabah. If you are talking RM40 million, it is not enough to even move the election machinery.

“RM40 million is a very small dot only,” he told The Malaysian Insider when approached on the sidelines of Umno’s 66th general assembly here.

Sabah Umno chief Datuk Musa Aman has been at the centre of allegations linking him to a RM40 million corruption scandal that the opposition has been using as fodder to discredit the Barisan Nasional (BN) state government in its east Malaysian fortress.

The issue hit media headlines last month when Umno minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz told Parliament that Musa had been cleared of corruption and money-laundering allegations in a case involving Sabah timber trader Michael Chia.

“I think it’s only the opposition trying to make a huge issue out of it; it is a very small allegation,” added Arsit.

Sabah delegate Sahak Noh from Batu Sapi also agreed that the amount stated was insignificant for the needs of the coming election, and that this issue would have no effect on the state.

“In my opinion, this is a personal issue that has been manipulated by the opposition so close to the general election,” said Sahak. “I’m certain that the people will realise that this is an issue meant to trick the public.”

When asked, former Home Minister and now Land Public Transport Commission chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar refrained from describing the RM40 million as insubstantial, but did admit that Sabah would likely need a lot of funds because “there is a lot more work to be done” in Sabah as the area is “wide” and “a lot of the places are inaccessible”.

Musa’s alleged link with Chia first exploded in the media following an April article by whistleblower site Sarawak Report, which had claimed that latter was caught trying to leave the Hong Kong International Airport with the RM40 million in Singapore currency.

At the time, Chia had allegedly told the authorities that the money was meant for Musa, kicking off a probe on the series of funds transfers from Malaysia to Hong Kong that was then believed to be the possible laundering of monies generated from illegal logging activities in Sabah.

But Nazri said Musa’s name was cleared after Malaysian and Hong Kong anti-graft authorities found that the money was a “political donation” to Sabah Umno and was not meant for Musa’s personal use.

In the ensuing debates on the issue, however, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers chided Nazri for declaring Musa innocent without providing proof that Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) had cleared the chief minister of its own accord.

According to Nazri, the ICAC had closed the case after the MACC discovered in its probe that the money in Chia’s possession was meant for Sabah Umno and not Musa.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 30 November 2012, 4:52 pm and is filed under
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Shame on you, Shahrizat: You are a fear-monger

— P. Ramakrishnan

Aliran

Nov 30, 2012

NOV 30 — As a former minister, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil should have more sense to be responsible and appreciate the democratic process. Instead, she comes across as someone who is not prepared to accept the verdict of the people in a democratic election if that verdict went against Umno.

Is she planting the seeds of hatred in the minds of Umno members and instigating them to run amok and create havoc?

How does one view her statement when she said at the Wanita Umno assembly: “If we are no longer in power, we would lose political stability. Certainly, the Malays, the majority in this country, would be unsettled” (Malaysiakini, November 28).

“I am concerned and worried that this would bring racial tensions that could lead to a repeat of the May 13, 1969 tragedy.”

Is she threatening Malaysians that there will be a recurrence of the May 13, 1969 tragedy if Umno were to lose power? Why should that be so? Is she calling on Umno members to get ready to do the unthinkable if they were forced by the electorate to vacate Putrajaya?

Is she aware of the terrible consequence of rioting following the likely routing of Umno? She doesn’t care to think for a moment of the destruction and the loss of innocent lives that can ensue in such an eventuality. Her concern seems not to be for the well-being of the country and the people but only focused on remaining in power at whatever cost.

This is utterly irresponsible!

Her unintelligent gibberish only bewilders thinking Malaysians. Consider this for a moment when she rambles: “We must address this now if we don’t want to be refugees in our own land. A split in the Malay vote would dull the political power of the Malays.”

How can citizens become refugees in their country? Refugees are people who flee their own country because they no longer feel safe for their lives. Refugees run away to another country for some valid reasons: political oppression, social upheavals, unrest, persecution, absence of rule of law, absence of protection from the government, inability to eke out a livelihood, etc.

Can anyone foresee this ever happening in this country i.e. people being forced to flee? She has to exaggerate this lie to create fear and horror in the minds of unthinking Umno members!

How would “a split in the Malay vote dull the political power of the Malays”? The Malay vote has been split for decades. That has not dulled the political power of the Malays. This goes to show that Umno doesn’t necessarily equate with the Malays, and vice versa. The political reality is much more complex than Umno would like us to believe. Besides, Malays, like any other ethnic group in the country, should instead unite around noble principles of justice, equality and compassion.

Take Kelantan, for example. There was and has been a split in the Malay vote but has that dulled the political power of the Malays? Has that forced Umno members to seek refuge elsewhere outside the country?

There was a change in government in Kedah. Has that dulled the political power of the Malays? How many Umno members fled Kedah to seek safer haven elsewhere?

Take the case of Perak that was taken over by the Pakatan Rakyat. In recognising the political reality and the make-up of the polity of this country, Datuk Nizar Jamaluddin was appointed the mentri besar of Perak. Obviously, Pakatan was very sensitive to the Malay sentiment and did not do anything that could be upsetting. We are not aware if Umno members were involved in any exodus from Perak!

Then there is Penang, which fell to Pakatan Rakyat in March 2008. In keeping with the tradition and original understanding — unlike Malacca — Lim Guan Eng was sworn in as chief minister. There was no unrest. There was no flight of refugees from Penang.

So there is no basis to claim that the Malays will become refugees or that their political power will be diminished. What has been established is the fact that change can be peaceful and that the harmony of the country will not necessarily be destroyed.

As long as we accept and respect the political process as a legitimate avenue of expression, political change will be without any untoward incident. By and large, the majority of Malaysians are peaceful, sensible and responsible. However we must be on the lookout for the few who may try and stir up trouble. We should leave them to the police to take care of.

Umno must be desperate if such lies have to be manufactured! — aliran.com

                This entry was posted on Friday, 30 November 2012, 1:06 pm and is filed under
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BN will recapture all Pakatan states, win two-thirds majority, say Umno leaders

By Clara Chooi

The Malaysian Insider

Dec 01, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 1 — Umno is confident of wresting back all four Pakatan Rakyat-led (PR) states and even recapturing its two-thirds parliamentary majority in the coming polls, buoyed by a strong belief that the Najib government’s reformist measures have successfully impressed the Malaysian electorate.

Several leaders told The Malaysian Insider that Umno is now fully prepared to march to the battle lines, having struggled through four years of heavy transformation from the party’s administration to the mindsets of its over three million members.

Emerging fully charged after the second day of the party’s assembly here yesterday, the leaders wasted no breath in declaring that achieving two-thirds is no longer an aspiration for Umno but a comfortable reality.

“Of course,” Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said, when asked if the party was confident it would once again occupy two-thirds of Parliament’s 222 seats after the polls.

“I believe that we will win back two-thirds and we will get back at least all the four Pakatan states… including Kelantan and Penang,” he added. Kelantan has been in PAS’s hands since 1990.

Generous estimates of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) chances at the ballot boxes have included Kelantan as a possible casualty for PR but most observers believe that the federal opposition pact will withstand any onslaught in Penang.

Despite this, Tengku Adnan was not alone in his prediction.

Former Perlis Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim appeared to agree that Penang should not be regarded as impossible to recapture.

“We are confident of getting back Kedah, even Kelantan and Selangor… and Perlis, of course. Maybe we have to work harder in Penang,” he said of the state led by DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

Umno deputy minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi was equally as confident as his party colleagues of BN’s chances next polls.

“Oh definitely, two-thirds majority. I’m very confident,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

Tengku Adnan is confident Umno will win back all the four Pakatan states.

The leaders owed their optimism to what they said was a flagging support for PKR and renewed confidence in the much-changed BN government under the leadership of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who will close the Umno congress later this evening.

The bespectacled son of Malaysia’s second prime minister has already earned himself the title of “Father of Transformation” for his countless transformative initiatives and reform measures that include historic legislative changes.

Key among these was Najib’s decision to pull the Internal Security Act (ISA) from Malaysia’s statute books, a long-time demand of opposition leaders and civil society groups.

The prime minister also enacted a fresh law to regulate mass public gatherings, which was in the past deemed a crime under section 27 of the Police Act.

He even mooted amendments to allow greater media freedom and permit student participation in politics, keeping to his promise to widen civil liberties in Malaysia.

“This is a big example of walking the talk. Najib is clearly serious about making changes and although he ruled without a two-thirds majority, it did not pose as a hurdle to his intention to fulfil his promises,” Puad said.

The deputy education minister added that Najib and BN also have their fingers on the pulse of today’s voters and have acknowledged that it would be the fence sitters, new voters, youths and women who will determine their future at the ballot boxes.

He explained that this was why Najib has been pulling out all the stops in ensuring he remains close to these voter groups by keeping in touch with them constantly and doling out initiatives tailored specifically for them.

As examples, Puad pointed to the BN Youth job fair, the My First Home scheme for young homeowners and even the extension of Bantuan Rakyat 1 Malaysia to the youth group.

But apart from BN’s tireless campaign to shore up support, the Umno leaders pointed out that voters have also begun returning to the ruling pact because they have had time to weigh in on the promises dished out by those in PR.

They repeated old lines of the purported failure by PR member parties to strike a cohesive agreement to iron out key ideological differences which, they said, could prove detrimental if the pact comes to power without resolving these issues.

Over the past few days of the assembly, delegates have been warning of instability in the nation under a PR federal government, largely due to the protracted dispute between PAS and the DAP over the former party’s struggle for an Islamic state and hudud laws.

Shahidan said it was due to BN’s power-sharing formula that Malaysians have managed to enjoy decades of peace among the races, warning that this could be ruptured under PR.

“In Malaysia, if you want a strong government and you do not want a crisis, they you need this formula,” he said.

He said that even though Umno is a race-based party like some of its partners in BN, it was not “racist”.

“But somehow, because we still see some disparity between the races, we have to fight for our respective races… this is important in a sense because one race would know about their community better than others,” he said.

The Malaysian Insider reported in October that BN expects to win more than the 140 federal seats it took in Election 2008 despite the onslaught and talk by PR that it can capture Putrajaya in the next general election.

Puad said BN has its fingers on the pulse of today’s voters.

But BN politicians also conceded that as many as seven parliamentary seats in Sarawak and six in Sabah are vulnerable to PR but maintain that their hold on rural areas remains strong. There are 222 parliamentary constituencies and 505 state seats up for grabs in the coming 13th general election.

It is understood that BN is expecting to lose some of the seats held by four Sabah MPs who left the coalition while the urban Chinese sentiment in Sarawak could see those seats going to PR. In Election 2008, the DAP was the sole PR component party to win a federal seat each in Sabah and Sarawak.

However, the opposition has questioned BN’s confidence as the ruling coalition expects to lose more seats in Sabah and Sarawak in the coming elections than before. “How is BN going to make up for losses in the fixed deposit states?” asked an opposition lawmaker when contacted by The Malaysian Insider.

“BN knows it can lose up to six in Sabah and seven in Sarawak but it hopes to make it up elsewhere, especially in the peninsula where sentiment is swinging back to the government,” one Umno leader told The Malaysian Insider, saying programmes like BR1M have had a positive effect on voters.

The BR1M began earlier this year and some RM2 billion was spent for over four million households. The BR1M 2.0 also includes a one-off RM250 for unmarried people between 21 and 30 who earn up to RM2,000.

Analysts say the expanded coverage would include most of the 2.2 million first-time voters expected to cast their ballots in the next elections. There are now just over 13 million voters in the country of 28 million people.

BN politicians also point out that they are expected to get back support from the Indian community, who number 1.7 million, as the coalition has been fulfilling their requests and also extended more aid to them.

Many Indians had blamed former MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu for their poor financial circumstances and turned their backs on him and BN in Election 2008. Samy Vellu also lost in his Sungai Siput stronghold in that election.

The BN mandate expires in April 2013, leaving Najib just five months to call elections.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 1 December 2012, 9:56 am and is filed under
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Is interracial integration more possible under convergence or divergence?

— Boo Cheng Hau

CPI

30 November 2012

DEC 1 — The recently announced National Education Blueprint contains nothing new. And it shows the powers-that-be have no real intention to listen to the public or make any bold reforms to our ailing education system.

It is a repetition of the sad old story about racial prejudice, not much different from the so-called “National” Education Policy which was largely based on Umno’s Malay nationalist belief that the national language should be the sole medium of instruction.

Proponents of the Malay-medium-only policy also emphasise the Malay nationalist perspective of history that having one common language — such as in our neighbours Indonesia and Thailand — can save Malaysia from disintegration.

Racial prejudice and political demagoguery as the basis for our nation’s education agenda of true unity will not get us far. Let me prove how discriminatory is our education system and the false impressions that it projects.

How my friend succeeded in the US

I had a taste of victory for what it means to have “equal opportunities” in education about 30 years ago when I argued for admission, on behalf of a schoolmate, into an American university which has produced some Nobel laureates.

My friend was originally from Taiwan but studied in a Chinese independent secondary school in Malaysia. She did not sit for the SPM or UEC. To my surprise, the admission officer of the American university requested for UEC results in lieu of SPM qualifications.

She did not sit the UEC because the exam was still new at that time. After a long discussion, the admission officer agreed with my proposal that she be admitted conditionally on producing evidence of completing 12 years of primary and secondary education — a standard which almost all American universities and colleges go by.

She was then admitted “under probation” for one semester, meaning she would be considered a regular student after the period of study with a GPA of 2.0 and above (an average of C and above). She graduated eventually without any impediment.

Her experience goes to show how democratic, liberal and flexible the American education system is. This is one of the key factors that allow the United States to become the most technologically advanced country, and one to which many talents from other parts of the world choose to emigrate.

The value of the UEC

In the 1970s, nobody in Malaysia took the UEC exams seriously except for the powers-that-be which attempted to ban it on account that the exam was (perceived to be) “anti-national”.

Nonetheless besides Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore where the UEC was recognised, many American universities and colleges had already begun accepting it as a gateway for college admission. As far back as exactly 30 years ago, one of my classmates was admitted to the famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology based on her UEC results and Chinese independent school coursework assessments.

Would our public universities and UiTM open its admission policies and welcome UEC holders by integrating them into the mainstream higher education institutes rather than discriminating them? Some top American universities even admit Chinese independent secondary school students based on school results and class ranking without referring to standardised examinations such as SPM, UEC, GCE, SAT and the like.

Yet after 30 long years, our own Malaysian government still despises the UEC as “anti-national”. In fact, except for respective language subjects, all UEC subjects are offered in three languages, in other words, one can opt to have his maths, science or other papers tested in English, Malay or Chinese.

Chinese independent school graduates are barred from using their UEC results as a means of admission to local public universities and teacher training colleges. This discrimination is deemed necessary to maintain Umno’s self-righteous “National Education Policy” for the promotion of “interracial unity”.

How can political demagoguery such as Umno’s ever help in promoting national unity and interracial integration? One could argue that the party is actually more interested in maintaining its tight grip on power by continuing to mislead the country that vernacular schools somehow pose a hidden threat.

STPM and matriculation — apple and orange?

The powers-that-be have since declared that racial quotas are no longer applied in local public universities. Instead, they claim a “merit-based” admission system has been put in place.

However, at the same time, university admission standards are “diversified” into two separate entry points — STPM and matriculation.

After years of protests by the non-Malays, only 10 per cent of matriculation programmes has been opened up to the non-Bumiputeras, and even this percentage is described by the Malay nationalists as a “sell-out” of Malay rights.

Non-Malays are supposed to be grateful for this small “kindness”, like once upon a time coloureds were supposed to thank their white masters for allowing them to go to schools in apartheid South Africa despite great disparities along racial lines in school facilities.

Almost all the non-Malays who managed to gain a seat in local public universities are students who sat the STPM. Many rue this blatant division of university entrance assessment — de facto along racial lines — as comparing apples and oranges.

Satu Sekolah’s inherent contradiction

The authorities contradict themselves by professing a single-language system to promote national unity through putting children under one roof but at the same time segregating them either at Form 1 or when they finish Form 5.

There is an obvious discrepancy between the teaching facilities provided to the vernacular schools which sorely lack government aid and support and the residential schools and Mara junior science colleges as well as the elite schools catering for Malays — e.g. the prestigious Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) and Tunku Kurshiah College (TKC).

Institutional racism practised in public university admission routes gives rise to an added dimension of polarisation. The racial distribution of students is further exacerbated when non-Malays, erroneously seen as well-to-do, are enrolled in private higher institutions of learning. Most people seem to forget that privately funded education, whether locally or abroad, comes at a heavy cost to their parents.

The indirect makings of apartheid

To generalise most Malays as “poor” and all non-Bumis, particularly the Chinese, as “rich” is just as good as apartheid.

The Malay ultras believe they are above being associated with the apartheid system in South Africa created with the ostensible excuse of helping the “poor”, Dutch-speaking whites of that country.

But then what should the international community make of UiTM — Malaysia’s biggest public university with campuses in every state — where almost all its students belong predominantly to a single race?

In the former apartheid of South Africa and during the 1950s in the Confederate states of the American south, physical segregation was made visible by the sign saying “No Coloured and Dogs allowed”.

In Malaysia, there are no signs to say “No Non-Bumis and Dogs allowed”. However, de facto apartheid still permeates through the fabric of the Malaysian public education system. It is de facto racial segregation in its utmost hypocritical disguise without leaving any physical evidence.

Therefore, I see no difference between those poor whites in the former Confederate states of the American south that once held demonstrations against university admission of black students and those Malay ultras that hold demonstrations barring “non-Bumiputeras” from entering local public institutions.

UiTM students did after all demonstrate against their university opening its door a crack when Selangor Mentri Besar Khalid Ibrahim proposed relaxing the admission just a tiny bit to the so-called “non-Bumis”.

America’s highest court ruled for equality

In Brown vs Board of Education (1954), the US Supreme Court unanimously decided that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”.

It stinks of double standards if not a glaring blind spot when vernacular schools keep getting blamed for institutional racism in Malaysia. If mother-tongue vernacular schools (open to all students) are incorrectly termed as racist, then the one-race UiTM is nothing but apartheid.

The old, presumed poverty line along the race divide is no longer valid, not when Malaysia has endured discriminative policies predicated on ethnicity since 1970, which is all of 42 years or almost half a century.

There are very few Malay intellectuals willing to tackle the truth of the matter but Dr Azly Rahman is one of them. At least he’s been honest and bold enough to speak out on the “bankrupt Umno ideology” of race supremacy in his article
“Dismantle Our Apartheid Education”
.

What is required is for more members of the Malay intelligentsia to question the veracity of a “moral” claim in the perpetuation of a quota system that amounts to apartheid. The only difference is that segregation, like that perpetuated by residential schools, Mara junior colleges and UiTM, is couched using terminology portraying a righteous morality.

The other difference is that Chinese schools are accessible to any non-Chinese but UiTM does not welcome the non-Malays. In some Chinese independent secondary schools, non-Chinese are given a blanket free tuition.

Are Malays courageous to re-evaluate?

The Malays are a strong majority in numbers and without doubt politically dominant. Why should Umno cling tenaciously to the view that preferential treatment based on race is the “affirmative action” that Malays still require?

Professor Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi in
“Memories of Unity”
 vividly describes his confidence to compete in his science class and how he emerged one of the top students among his almost all Chinese classmates back in the 1970s.

I had a Malay classmate who went to the same Chinese independent school as I did. He graduated as one of the top students and went to a local public university, and he is currently a lecturer at another local public university.

It is a myth that Bumi students are unable to compete with non-Bumi students on a level playing field. This misconception is wrongly used to justify the institutional racism imposed on the public education from top to bottom.

There are tens of thousands of Malays who have made it in local and prestigious foreign universities and thrived in adverse sociocultural settings. There is no moral justification for segregating Malaysian post-secondary students into STPM/ matriculation except for satisfying Umno’s racial imperatives.

NEP and education apartheid

A few successful Malay billionaire cronies do not mitigate the failure with regard to certain protectionist areas of the NEP. This includes educational apartheid. The rejuvenation of the vernacular schools since the late 1970s when NEP went into full swing is a consequence of our race policies, and not the chief cause of racism.

The NEP was based upon the empirical generalisation that Chinese and Indian Malaysians were all well off and should be “positively discriminated” against in order to help the “poor Malays”.

It’s a different story today as the civil service has become Malay dominated and this is empirical truth. The tables have been turned as Malaysians of Chinese and Indian descent are marginalised.

The original purpose of the NEP to eradicate the identification of race with profession — Malay farmer, Chinese shopkeeper, Indian clerk — is sidetracked when the civil service has become wholly identified with the Malay race. The racial traits along professions, as reflected in the hiring practices of both the private and public sectors, have been deepened by the NEP.

When I recently requested some documents to be certified by a government department, the Malay clerk gave me a jealous one-eye wink knowing that it was for the purpose of applying to colleges in the US. The one-eye wink might perhaps have been nothing more than the coded message that all you “Chinamen” are rich and can afford to send your children overseas to be educated. This only goes to show up the failure of the NEP in correcting the racial prejudice among races in Malaysia.

How the Chinese prioritise education

The fact is that I told my children I would sell our house and live in a smaller one if we needed funds for their education. I mean education is where they would learn something new and be happy including getting away from institutional racism. We neither hope for JPA or any other government scholarships after hearing so many sad stories of racial degradation.

Selling homes and other property for the sake of children’s education among the lower and middle-class Chinese Malaysians is not a new practice. I remember my mother decided to sell off the six-acre rubber plantation left by my deceased father to put me and my sister through university.

She later worked as a babysitter to cover all our expenses studying overseas. We always thought that there might be more Malays who did not have land to sell. Nonetheless, our good reasoning has not helped many Malays to get rid of their own ingrained racial prejudice both against themselves and other races.

As I write this article, coincidentally, my 17-year-old daughter has just received news that a high-ranking American university has agreed to admit her into their Fine Arts programme based on her multiple talents, multilingual skills and ability to play the Chinese zither and flute. Some universities already made it clear, admitting her by waiving the requirement of her SPM or UEC results.

On the contrary, her talent in playing ancient Chinese musical instruments is definitely not a criterion for admission into any local public university. On the contrary, it may even work against her favour as it could be looked at as a form of Chinese chauvinism and clinging to our ancestral roots.

Deserving of places in local universities

I am not trying to boast about my daughter’s academic achievement. She is actually a B-average student but it sure makes a parent proud when one’s child deservedly gains recognition for her talents, and more importantly she will be able to further develop her talents without being labelled as a non-Bumi.

I am glad that her dedication to social work and extracurricular activities, including organising a joint concert of Chinese orchestra and western bands, won her recognition from some highly ranked American universities.

One of her recent achievements is receiving a gold medal in an international Chinese essay-writing contest in Taiwan. Instead of chucking her unique credential aside, an American university admission director gave great words of encouragement, such as “your family must be very proud of you (for the gold medal received) …We would like you to be with us, and I hope you will continue to contribute to the international programme here if you decide to join us”.

I was surprised that she was offered admission and given a partial academic scholarship before we even sent out applications to other American colleges and local private universities.

Some universities are amazed that our students can master two or three languages. They usually give positive encouragement like: “Considering English is your third language, your English is really good.” No parents will send their kid to a college where he or she faces the possibility of being humiliated and degraded on account of race, creed and “non-native status” when my daughter is actually a native-born fourth-generation Malaysian.

As a matter of fact, most UEC holders have a greater proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia, which is their second language, compared to English, which is their third language. If the UEC holders can do well in universities overseas that teach in English, why can’t they be given the same opportunities by our local public universities?

It might be true that their Bahasa Malaysia may not be as good compared with SPM/STPM holders just as their English may not be as good as the Americans, British or Australians when they enrol in American, Australian or British universities. However if they are given the opportunity to enrol in local public universities, they will be able to polish their BM just like how when given the opportunity to study abroad they are able to polish their English.

More importantly, such openness is needed in order to “converge” the vernacular school alumni into the local higher education institutions and complete an education integration process than forcibly “diverge” them to local private institutions and overseas colleges.

We have to be fair and realistic in assessing our students’ language ability based on what is the best they can do in their learning environment. In fact, cultural immersion is the best method to improve Malay language or any other second language proficiency instead of educational segregation like what has been practiced here.

Some 30 years ago, it was rare to encounter Americans learning an Asian language. Today there are American reporters who insist on interviewing me in perfect Mandarin or Bahasa Indonesia. It is a fast-changing world out there but it seems our Umno elites — with the exception of Najib Razak whose son is a fluent Mandarin speaker — are lagging behind time.

The very first step for the Malay ultras to take in the right direction is to cease making a scapegoat out of Chinese and Tamil primary schools. It is an unfounded charge that little children are responsible for racism and racial disunity in Malaysia.

It is, on the other hand, our fear to embrace cultural diversity and true interracial integration that has left us lagging behind many other countries. It is time for the Malay ultras to open their eyes and correct their ingrained prejudice that has worked against their own competitiveness.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 1 December 2012, 10:46 am and is filed under
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Najib is right – when UMNO and MCA cannot agree on the core issue whether Malays or non-Malays would be the losers  if PR wins in 13GE, BN has lost the morality and  legitimacy to rule in Putrajaya

In his UMNO Presidential Address on Thursday, the Prime Minister and UMNO President Datuk Seri Najib Razak returned to the oft-repeated UMNO theme asking how Pakatan Rakyat comprising PKR, PAS and DAP are going to form a coalition government because of the differences on the core issues separating them.

Surely Najib knows that although PKR, PAS and DAP have our ideological differences, we have agreed to form Pakatan Rakyat and committed ourselves to a Common Policy Framework and the Buku Jingga programme of action for the 13th General Election and PR will be guided by what unites us and not by what divides us  – but that is for another statement.

What I want to point out now is that Najib had hit the nail on the head although this was not his intention – as he has exposed the fact that Barisan Nasional has lost the morality and legitimacy to govern multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious Malaysia when UMNO and MCA cannot agree on the core issue whether Malays or non-Malays would  be the losers if Pakatan Rakyat wins the 13th general election.

In the first day of the 66th UMNO General Assembly, UMNO delegates and  the Malay community were warned that if UMNO loses the 13GE, Malays will lose political power and will be rendered “destitute” in their own land – a line rejected by the MCA leadership which had been going up and  down the country invoking the spectre of an Islamic state and  warning the Chinese and non-Malays that they will lose even more of their political, economic, educational, socio-economic, religious and citizenship rights if Pakatan Rakyat replaces UMNO/BN in Putrajaya.

UMNO leaders claim that if PR wins the 13GE, Malay rights would be sold down the drain – which is fully contradicted by MCA leaders who claim that the  real losers in such a situation will be the Chinese and non-Malay rights.

Yesterday, this irresponsible, dishonest and anti-national politics of “divide and rule” continued in the UMNO General Assembly, with UMNO delegates warned of the danger of losing their Malay rights and the sovereignty of the Malay Rulers if DAP and Pakatan Rakyat are allowed to rule.

This is pure sedition, using lies and falsehoods to incite hatred and worsen racial and religious polarisation  in the country just for Umno leaders  to win votes and parliamentary seats in the 13GE, heedless of the damage, division and disunity this would cause to Malaysia.

This is the basic difference between the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.

Unlike BN, PR wants all Malaysians to be the winners in the 13GE –  the ordinary Malays, Chinese, Indians, Orang Asli,  Kadazans and Ibans.  Of course there will be the losers – the UMNO putras and their cronies in the Barisan Nasional component parties.

If Najib is sincere about his signature 1Malaysia policy, he should denounce the  irresponsible,  divisive  and dastardly politics of “divide and rule” based on lies and falsehoods perpetrated by UMNO, MCA and BN leaders.

But is Najib, who cloaks himself in the garb of “Father of Transformation”,  capable of such transformation himself  to be a “Malaysian First” to end the politics of “divide and rule” in UMNO and BN and compete with Pakatan Rakyat on the positive and constructive  politics of “unite and rule”?

Artikel ini juga boleh didapati dalam Bahasa Malaysia di:
https://blog.limkitsiang.com/2012/12/03/najib-benar-apabila-umno-dan-mca-tidak-boleh-bersetuju-dengan-isu-asas-bn-telah-hilang-moraliti-dan-legitimasi-untuk-memerintah-putrajaya/

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 1 December 2012, 3:22 pm and is filed under
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Greatest Najib disappointment at the 66th UMNO GA – failure  to declare all-out war against corruption which is proof that UMNO incapable of change so long as it remains corrupted in the corridors of power

UMNO’s “war” 66th General Assembly has ended with UMNO leaders confident and euphoric, with the UMNO Secretary-General Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and other UMNO leaders declaring that UMNO will not only triumph in the next general elections, but will win back the two-thirds parliamentary majority as well as all the four Pakatan states including Kelantan and Penang.

However, “Man proposes, God disposes”.

The possibility of Barisan Nasional wresting back the four Pakatan Rakyat states of Penang, Kelantan, Selangor and Kedah or blocking Pakatan Rakyat from winning back Perak State Government cannot be dismissed completely.

At the national level, the 13GE is going to be a nail-biting finish, with the outcome a toss-up as it could go either way with Barisan Nasional returned to Federal power in Putrajaya or Pakatan Rakyat replacing BN as the new Malaysian government breaking UMNO political hegemony.

The 13GE will be faced with a new Malaysian political demography – with the majority of the 29 million population  of today born after Malaysia Day, with nearly 70 per cent living in the urban areas, eighty per cent are under the age of 45 while half of our people under the age of 25.

Who wins Putrajaya in the 13GE will not be decided by the BN or PR hardcore but the middle ground voters, comprising some 30 per cent of the 13.1 million, i.e. 4 million,  registered electorate.

In the past fortnight, Pakatan Rakyat suffered its worst damage in this middle ground since its formation after the “political tsunami” of the 2008 general election.

Pakatan Rakyat must undo this damage if PR is to make history in the “mother of all general elections”  in the 13GE expected in the next three to four months.

Pakatan Rakyat must not forfeit  the trust, confidence and support of the middle ground voters to Barisan Nasional by default or any form of political insensitivity as PR needs the support and vote of every possible Malaysian, whether Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan or Iban; in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah or Sarawak;  hard core supporter or middle ground undecided voter, if PR is to succeed in the herculean task of defeating BN in the 13GE.

Although the  just-concluded “war” 66th UMNO General Assembly was painstakingly choreographed and orchestrated, with a lot of do’s and don’t’s for those who spoke at the four-day UMNO Assemblies to optimise UMNO’s appeal in the 13GE, the ineluctable conclusion of rational and thinking Malaysians  is that despite all the talk of “transformation”, UMNO leaders and UMNO are incapable of change so long as UMNO remain corrupted in the corridors of power.

This is why I would rate the Prime Minister’s failure to declare an all-out war against corruption as the greatest Najib disappointment at the 66th UMNO General Assembly.

Compare this with the speech of China’s President and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Hu Jintao at last month’s 18th CCP Congress where he warned that corruption could trigger the collapse of the Party and the fall of the State – a theme which was taken up in the first speech of the new Chinese Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, who denounced the prevalence of corruption and said officials needed to guard against its spread or it would “doom the party and the state”.

There is in fact more reason for Najib than Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping to give priority to the grave problem of corruption as in the last two decades, China have been making measurable progress in the battle against corruption while the reverse is the case for Malaysia.

If the trend of China’s improvement in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in the past 17 years (1995-2011)  and Malaysia’s regression continues unchecked, China will be placed in a better position than Malaysia in the TI CPI in less than five years.

Umno and Barisan Nasional have become synonymous with corruption in Malaysia and the 44 months of Najib premiership have shown that Najib is only good at mouthing anti-corruption slogans but totally lacking the political will and commitment to root out corruption, especially grand corruption involving political and government leaders.

This is why the 66th UMNO General Assembly presented the sad spectacle of the Sabah Chief Minister, Datuk Seri Musa Aman, successfuly performing the “disappearance” act despite valiant efforts by the media representatives on a look-out for him to respond to demands by Sabah UMNO delegates that Musa explain the scandal of the RM40million “political donation to Sabah UMNO” which involved him and the Sabah timber trader Michael Chia.

Also most disturbing is the backing out and silence of the Defence Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi  coupled with the failure of Najib to respond to the serious allegations of integrity about a RM100 million defence ministry project in 2005 raised by businessman Deepak Jaikishan implicating the Prime Minister’s family and which is also related to the high-profile and long-running Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case.

Haunting Najib at the 66th UMNO General Assembly was the ghost of Altantuya Shaariibuu. Why couldn’t Altantuya’s ghost be appeased?

Artikel ini juga boleh didapati dalam Bahasa Malaysia di:
https://blog.limkitsiang.com/2012/12/04/perkara-paling-mengecewakan-daripada-najib-pada-perhimpunan-agung-umno-kegagalan-mengisytiharkan-perang-ke-atas-rasuah/

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 2 December 2012, 2:23 pm and is filed under
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God, comedy and the Umno general assembly

Kee Thuan Chye

The Malaysian Insider

Dec 2, 2012

COMMENT

The Umno general assembly has often come across as reality comedy. Its ‘performers’ unwittingly amuse us with their unintentionally comic turns. This year, they didn’t disappoint.

Wanita chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, whose family is embroiled in the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) scandal that forced her not to renew her senatorship, says that for the upcoming general election, she is a winnable candidate. God help her.

Indeed, God was invoked on several occasions throughout the general assembly, sometimes for the sake of seeking his help.

President Najib Abdul Razak urged Umno members to pray hard to God in order to win the general election. “Let us pray so that with His blessings, we will continue to be the country’s ruling party,” he said.

The subtext of that smacked of a loss in confidence.

In fact, Najib’s rhetoric in the past several months has been reflective of that. He has been practically begging his audiences to “give us another term”, an appeal no Umno leader has ever stooped to. They had always taken it for granted that they would rule long-term.

He has been persuading voters not to change the government, as if he were expecting them to. He has been bashing the opposition parties at every available opportunity, to influence voters not to vote for them.

At the general assembly, he even entertained the prospect of losing: “We can replace treasures or honour that are lost, but if we lose this fight, we will be left with nothing.”

He was of course exaggerating – because not winning Putrajaya doesn’t amount to losing everything – but he was nonetheless acknowledging the possibility of defeat.

No other Umno president before him has ever had to countenance that.

Apology too little too late?

Now Najib cannot bank on the confidence of the Umno of the past to carry him cockily to the general election; it has been too deeply mired in corruption and cronyism, and the rakyat have got wise to it.

He even apologised at the general assembly for all the wrongdoings of Umno and the other parties in the BN coalition. But, as they say, it may be a case of ‘too little, too late’. And it certainly is of no use if the corrupt practices are still continuing.

Why, for instance, he has not answered the allegations of businessman Deepak Jaikishan that for his help in facilitating a project deal, his family was paid by the latter, and that Deepak got involved in the case involving the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu because he wanted to help Najib’s family? Why did Najib leave it to Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to volunteer to reply to Deepak?

This exposé, the NFC scandal and the question surrounding the RM40 million ‘political donation’ received by Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman have caused untold damage to Umno. It may not fully recover from the blows.

Even so, there was much bravado flaunted at the general assembly. There was talk among Umno leaders of winning the general election with a two-thirds majority and recapturing all the four states now in Pakatan Rakyat’s hands. They might have prayed to God first before they offered these predictions.

Pahang Menteri Besar Adnan Yaakob even told the media, “I tell you, DAP cannot win in Bentong. Cannot win! If DAP wins in Bentong, you cut off my ears and I’ll jump into the Pahang river.”

Such haughtiness! Well, just to see if he will keep his word, the electorate should vote BN out of Bentong. Earless Adnan might be a more humble person after that!

Hey, but the next day, probably feeling scared that his Bentong prediction might actually prove wrong, he did a flip-flop. That, however, made him even more laughable. He said he didn’t mean “cut off my ears” literally. He said he was using figurative language.

“Do you know figurative speech? In English language, we have figurative speech. We have simile, we have metaphor, hyberbole,” he said. “So when I say cut off my ears, that means they (DAP) can never win … not that if we (BN) lose, they (the opposition) will take a knife and cut off my ears literally.”

And why did he use “figurative language”? His reply: “… to let people learn English”!

Ha ha ha! That got me rolling on the floor – because “cut off my ears” is not at all a figure of speech in the English language. And it definitely wouldn’t mean someone can’t win. Adnan doesn’t know that and he wants others to learn English? What a clown, the epitome of the know-nothing who behaves like a know-all. Or a case of someone who’s caught and simply tembak (shoots).

And since there’s no such figure of speech, dear voters, please continue sharpening your knives.

Divine intervention badly needed

Meanwhile, enjoy the most hilarious, most misplaced joke that came out of the assembly – courtesy of Umno Youth information chief Reezal Merican Naina Merican, who said Umno is the party chosen by God to liberate the chosen land of Malaysia.

Woweee! This is fresh, this is creative! This is … divine!

He even said God’s chosen people are the Malays living in Malaysia.

But hang on, doesn’t ‘God’s chosen people’ traditionally refer to the Israelites? And the chosen land to the nation of Israel? Jews, baby.

Did Reezal make a boo-boo in associating with the enemy? Was he even aware of it?

He said God is the true authority over all governments, the giver of power to those that he has chosen, so he must believe that Umno-BN will win the next general election. But what if it doesn’t? Will he stop believing in God?

What kooky thinking. Here’s something Adnan could learn from in terms of the English language – an example of a hyperbole.

Reezal was probably trying to outdo his Umno Youth boss, Khairy Jamaluddin, by waxing so hyperbolic. The day before, Khairy quoted from Winston Churchill’s famous speeches in his call to fight Pakatan Rakyat, but he obviously went overboard.

He was comparing the next general election to World War Two. But come on lah, brudder, they’re not the same lah.

While Churchill’s “we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets” and “we will continue hand in hand like comrades and brothers until every vestige of the Nazi regime has been beaten into the ground” are inspiring, Khairy’s “we will debate them in Parliament, we will smash their arguments in coffeeshops, we will expose their lies in cyberspace … we will lay this wretched Pakatan coalition into the ground!” sounds terribly frivolous. Schoolboyish even.

Level of intellect worrying

The scary thing about all this comedy is that among the people spewing this rubbish are holders of high public office, and that some of the Umno Youth upstarts may one day become ministers.

Even outside of the general assembly, you get the Malacca Chief Minister Ali Rustam, accusing Singapore of interfering in Malaysian politics simply because the briefing by French lawyers on the Scorpene investigations in France was recently held there.

Worse, last week Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Latiff Ahmad disparaged the name of French lawyer William Bourdon by changing the surname to ‘Bodoh’ (stupid). The jury may have no difficulty in deciding who was being ‘bodoh’ in this case, but it showed the level of class and intellectuality among our so-called leaders.

It is the level of intellectuality that comes from decades of playing to the gallery, of pandering to the masses who have been deliberately manipulated to remain politically immature and intellectually challenged through being provided substandard education. And so to reach out to these masses, our so-called leaders appeal to the lowest common denominator.

They are the avatars of “the devil we know” – the phrase Mahathir Mohamad recently coined to describe Umno-BN – and they often exhibit the worst characteristics of politicians. The crucial question is: do we want these types to continue leading the country? Do we want them to be the chosen ones, i.e. chosen by us? At the coming general election, do we vote them in – again?

All I can say is, God help us if we do.

KEE THUAN CHYE is the author of the new book ‘No More Bullshit, Please, We’re All Malaysians’.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 3 December 2012, 1:07 am and is filed under
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