Selangor UMNO motion on hudud is the third time MCA/UMNO played with fire over hudud issue in the last three months

(Media statement in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, 14 June 2014)

MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai has finally said today that the MCA would oppose any motion or bill on hudud, even if initiated by UMNO.

Liow said this after MCA/UMNO were caught playing with fire over the hudud issue third time in three months after the UMNO Selangor Sg Air Tawar Assemblyman stirred up a hornet’s nest and had to withdraw his motion on the implementation of hudud for the Selangor State Assembly next week.

The first two incidents  when MCA/UMNO played with fire over the hudud issue were:

• The Parliament speech by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Jamil Khir Baharom on March 27 that the federal government was ready to work with the PAS Kelantan state government to implement the hudud law in Kelantan.

• The speech by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in Alor Setar on April 24 that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud.

The MCA leadership had gone along with Najib and Jamil unilateral and arbitrary announcements totally against Barisan Nasional’s stand and the fundamental constitutional principle of Malaysia as a secular state solely to play politics, thinking they could trap the DAP and PR over the hudud issue.

This is most irresponsible as it was a most cynical and opportunistic violation of basic constitutional principle as well as long-standing Barisan Nasional stand, utterly regardless of the harm such betrayal of political principles can do to the people and the country.

It also violated the fundamental Barisan Nasional principle that any change of BN policy must be the result of the consensus of all component parties in the BN and not the unilateral and arbitrary decision by any one party even if it is the hegemon UMNO.

It was Jamil’s speech in parliament on March 27 and Najib’s statement on April 24 which reopened the hudud controversy in the last three months.

The UMNO Selangor motion on the hudud implementation for the Selangor Assembly next week was to be the third occasion by MCA and UMNO to politicise the hudud issue further, but the open minded, democratic and courageous decision by the Selangor Speaker, Hannah Yeoh, to accept the motion and allow a debate has completely scuppered the MCA/UMNO plans.

It is not good enough  now for Liow to declare  that MCA would oppose any motion or bill on hudud even if initiated by UMNO.

He must undo the two previous episodes of MCA/UMNO playing with fire with the hudud issue by:

1) asking Jamil Khir to retract his statement that the Federal Government was ready to work with the Kelantan State Government to implement hudud law in Kelantan, as this had never been Barisan Nasional government stand, and

2) asking Najib to retract his April 24 statement that the BN Federal Government had never rejected  hudud , as this was never BN Federal government’s stand.

As Liow has so far only undone one of the three political mistakes on the hudud issue, he should make it clear to Najib that MCA will not accept any ministership to return to the Cabinet until and unless the other two rectifications are made.

It is time for all political parties and political leaders in the country to stop politicising the hudud issue and playing with fire so that all Malaysians can focus on the real issues affecting the future of the country that is economic competitiveness, educational excellences and national unity and harmony.

In contrast, the DAP has always been constant and consistent on our stand that hudud implementation is against the constitutional principle that Malaysia is a secular  democratic state and unsuitable for a plural society like Malaysia, and that the  DAP is opposed  to any implementation of hudud whether it is proposed by PAS or UMNO.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 14 June 2014, 4:10 pm and is filed under
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Finding Islam’s path: where did we go wrong?

 – Hamri Ibrahim and Daniel Iqram

The Malaysian Insider

15 June 2014

Muhammad Abduh, a prominent Muslim scholar, once said, “I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.”

A recent study was carried out by Hossein Askari, Professor of International Business and International Affairs at George Washington University in the United States. The analysis, which was conducted with his colleague Scheherazade S. Rehman, concluded Ireland to be the country that is most faithful to the Qur’an.

One cannot help but wonder if Askari and Rehman reflected upon Abduh’s words when they stumbled upon their findings, and whether it brought a smile to their faces.

To measure prosperity, the two academics used such tools as the Economic Islamicity Index and Overall Islamicity Index, emphasising on legislature, governance, human rights, politics, and international relations as well.

Aspects, such as corruption of leaders, lopsidedness before the law, and discrepancy between the rich and the poor were all taken into account.

A point of note is that the Scandinavian nations all featured in top places in both indexes. These northern-most European countries also just happen to be ranked among the most peaceful and safest in the world.

The abovementioned countries are most definitely not composed of largely Muslim denizens; most of the populace probably have never even come across a Quran before, much less opened one up.

How is it, then, that they can be deemed to be more Islamic than supposedly Islamic states themselves?

The answer lies in the fact that Islam is very much a universal religion, designed to suit cultures of all orientations.

As rahmatan lil ‘aalamin (the Mercy to All Creation), much of the religion is common sense and espouses good, in line with the inherent nature of Man.

However, it does not take a divine set of beliefs to teach Man what is generally good and what is not, as such notions have already been wired into human thinking by the Creator of creators.

So, what is the deal with Islam, then?

Islam came to the Arabs (although it was ultimately meant for all mankind) at a time when their society was abysmal, devoid of moral depth to the point that nobody batted an eye if a newborn girl were to be buried alive out of shame for the baby’s gender.

Fathers and sons shared mistresses. Tribalism was the order of the day. The lack of humanity was unbelievable.

To us living in modern society, such practices may seem to be unacceptable beyond a shadow of doubt. But here is where one must be reminded of the fact that the human mental faculty is a malleable and ductile thing; the standards by which a person judges actions, whether his or others’, are subject to the forces of culture.

What is right to one man may be evil to another; one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

The point of a true religion, in light of all this, is to set a benchmark applicable across all times and places.

Islam acknowledges that much of Good and Evil are obvious to humankind and need no further debate, but what it aims to do is set right the creed of Man first, to teach him to know his Creator.

Only then can Man learn to discern the good from the bad beyond what is apparent and elevate his virtuousness to the heights he was meant to.

Working on this principle of a threshold standard of virtues common to all peoples, modern Muslim-majority societies could certainly learn to adopt simple, everyday practices integral to Western society.

The custom of saying, “Thank you” to the bus driver upon getting off, or wishing a bypasser, “Good morning” on a routine morning run, for example, are in tandem with the Islamic spirit of fostering good ties with others.

These social courtesies have become second nature in Western society to the point that it would be out of the norm to not utter them when indicated.

In a more local context, the Japanese (whose country ranked 21st on the economic index) are known to be a people disciplined and mindful of their elders, yet possessing a certain gentleness in their mannerisms, the epitome of Asian values.

They are known for their punctuality and their quickness to shame if unable to complete a given task; this from the nation painted as the arch-nemesis of the Asian peoples for their notoriety in World War II.

Again, these are qualities that Islam would be proud for any of its communities to embody.

Even closer to home, the Singaporeans managed to squeeze into a lofty 7th spot in terms of economic prosperity, despite the fact that they are often portrayed as a society unjust to their Muslim minority.

Many a Malay has cried foul over their suppposed de-Islamisation agenda, yet none can deny the remarkable rate at which their country have prospered.

What is undeniable also is their outright emphasis on hygiene, apparent in their bans on public smoking and gum-chewing. Such designated importance on cleanliness would put many of their Muslim detractors to downright embarrassment.

On the contrary (and what an unfortunate contrary it is), no Islamic country, including those in the Arab world, was ranked in the top 25 on any of the lists.

Malaysia was ranked the highest among Muslim-majority countries at number 33, followed by Kuwait at number 42. Saudi Arabia was at the 91st spot, while Qatar was even lower at 111th – paradoxical, to say the least, for cultures who claim to handle their daily affairs in compliance with the Quran.

The sad reality is that Islamic states are far from mirroring the teachings of their faith.

They are rife with sectarianism, warfare, poverty, oppression of the weak, corruption, drugs, endless politicking – the list goes on ad infinitum.

If one did not know any better, one would be wont to think that Islam is a religion that encompasses degeneration of society.

Cliché as it may sound, it should be known to all that Islam is a most complete and comprehensive religion of good, but its steadfast adherents are not able to speak on behalf of those who merely claim to profess the faith.

There has to be a compartmentalisation between it and its followers.

Past generations of Muslims just could not do without flipping through their Book every day of their lives. Where did we go astray? Is the Quran for ourselves or for our shelves?

As a Muslim, I will be the first to admit that whatever prejudices that exist against my kind are firstly our own doing; we are the ones who portray an inaccurate image of our belief through our non-practice, which subsequently generates adverse reactions from others.

The consistent lack of adherence to established principles has caused others to view Islam (and not Muslims per se) with a skewed perspective.

Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam, once said something to the effect of, “I was fortunate to have known Islam before I knew Muslims. If it were the reverse, I would not have embraced Islam.”

Islam, when practiced according to its intended depth, should be an attracting force to outsiders, not one that drives them away.

The Islamic empire was once a revered force and held power over much of the world, commanding respect from both friend and foe. But Muslims today have to stop living in the past and revelling in their fomer glory.

We instead must rise and face the challenges of today with wisdom and with the pride that our belief should confer us.

There may be those who argue against the accuracy of Askari and Rehman’s study, but at whatever rate, the reality that it attemps to present is observable enough on its own.

If anything, it should act as another knock on our door, an effort to wake up the ummah (Muslim community), more so when the ones knocking are Muslims themselves.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) once said, “I have left among you two matters by holding fast to which, you shall never be misguided: the Book of God and my Sunnah (Way).”

Have we done enough to do him proud? – June 15, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 June 2014, 10:26 pm and is filed under
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Is the government running scared of religious authorities?

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

15 June 2014

In the past week or so, Malaysians were reminded once again that the country is a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy. That the Federal constitution is supreme.

So why are elected governments appear to fear appointed religious officials who are now thumbing their noses at the government, the country’s top lawyer and the supreme law?

Why aren’t they standing up to these religious authorities and put them in their place? The government of the day, be it in Putrajaya or any of the state capital, was voted by all Malaysians and not just one particular group.

The government represents all, not just one particular group. So do the police and all branches of the government. Instead they now appear to just consider the views of religious authorities rather than following the law of the land.

Two particular episodes come to mind that show the government’s fear of some religious authorities.

One, Putrajaya has stepped into the touchy issue of child custody battles, saying that parents involved in such interfaith disputes should wait for a Federal Court ruling on their quarrel instead of asking the police to enforce court rulings.

Lawyers are in agreement that marriages contracted under civil law should be resolved by civil law should there be any dispute, notwithstanding that one spouse has converted to Islam.

But Putrajaya and the police appear to drop the ball on this, with ridiculous ideas of waiting for the case to take its time to the Federal Court or putting children of such custody battles in state childcare centres until the issue reaches a final settlement.

How long will that take? Which parent will have a say in their children’s welfare? All because the government does not want to confront religious authorities?

The second episode deals with Selangor where Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim’s government is facing a recalcitrant religious council that refuses to follow legal advice and hand back Malay and Iban-language Bibles to The Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM).

Instead of directing the council to follow the law, Khalid wants to seek consensus on the matter. So what happens to the law? Is it just window-dressing for the world to know that Malaysia has some laws?

How is it that the will of the people is now subverted by a group of appointed officials who do not appear to answer to anyone except themselves?

Again, the state government here does not want to confront the religious officials and stick to the law.

These two governments can preach all they want about a belief in democracy and that it is the people’s will but they wilt in the face of religious authorities. If this is the case, why bother with elections and the pretence of a government?

It is a sad day indeed for Malaysia that after 51 years as a nation of 13 states, the elected government at the central and state level is running scared of some religious officials who want to impose their blinkered and narrow views. – June 15, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 June 2014, 10:47 pm and is filed under
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Liow Tiong Lai should not try to bargain for more MCA posts in the impending Cabinet reshuffle  by telling blatant  lies without batting an eyelid  about DAP leaders

I want to advise the MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai not to bargain for more MCA posts in the impending Cabinet reshuffle by telling blatant lies without batting an eyelid about DAP leaders.

MCA have been boasting that it would be getting three Ministerial and five deputy ministerial posts in a Cabinet reshuffle, but there are speculation that MCA may finally be allotted with a miserable allocation of one ministerial and two deputy ministerial posts.

Liow should not try to up the ante hoping to get better ministerial and deputy ministerial allocations for the MCA  from the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak by making baseless attacks on  DAP  leaders through lies and falsehoods.

For instance, Liow yesterday alleged that when I met the Murshidul Am Datuk Nik Aziz Abdul Nik Mat during a  courtesy call on him in Kota Baru last Thursday together with the DAP Teluk Intan parliamentary by-election candidate Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud, I was “so weak and cowardly” as  dared not mention that the hudud issue was one of the reasons for the DAP’s defeat in the by-election.
(Sin Chew)

I really pity the MCA President that he had to descend to such a depth of gutter politics to raise his importance with the UMNO leaders, hoping to get  a better deal for  MCA in the impending Cabinet reshuffle.

I have said that in my meeting with Nik Aziz, I clarified that the DAP MP for Puchong and  Selangor Deputy Chairman Gobind Singh Deo had been misreported as blaming PAS leaders and hudud for the DAP’s loss in the Teluk Intan by-election.

Gobind had said, which I agreed, that  hudud was one of the causes for the Teluk Intan result.

It is time MCA and UMNO end their gutter politics, which are not only unethical, dishonest but contradict each other.

MCA leaders for instance accuse DAP leaders of being afraid of PAS leaders and therefore betray Chinese and non-Muslim rights to PAS leaders while UMNO leaders at the same time make the  accusation against PAS leaders of being afraid of DAP leaders and therefore betraying Malay and Muslim rights to DAP leaders.

In the old days when most Malaysians read only one-language newspapers, it is possible for such lies and falsehoods to be spread before they are discovered and harm done although they contradict each other.

Nowadays when Malaysians can easily read and get access to all language newspapers, it is possible to immediately expose MCA lies that DAP betray Chinese and non-Muslim rights to PAS in Chinese media when on the same day Malay media print UMNO lies that PAS betray Malay and Muslim rights to DAP.

DAP leaders are not afraid of PAS leaders, and neither are PAS leaders afraid of DAP leaders, preventing us from speaking our minds at Pakatan Rakyat meetings.

Pakatan Rakyat is not Barisan Nasional where UMNO hegemony dominates all BN proceedings – and MCA and UMNO leaders should not flatter themselves to think that they are the role models for DAP and PAS leaders!

Liow only betray his lowly politics in resorting such blatant lies and falsehoods to prop up his political position.

DAP has right from the beginning made clear our position that the implementation of hudud is not part of the Pakatan Rakyat common policy programme, as it is against the fundamental Malaysian Constitutional position of Malaysia as a secular democratic state as well as not consonant with a plural society of diverse races, religions and cultures like Malaysia.

DAP has never hidden the fact, whether to PR partners PAS and PKR, and to the Malaysian public at large, that the DAP is opposed to any proposal to move a private Member’s Bill in Parliament for the implementation of hudud, whether it is from PAS or UMNO.

MCA on the other hand is quite different – only daring to oppose hudud if proposed by PAS but until the recent controversy over the Selangor UMNO’s motion on hudud implemention in the Selangor State Assembly next week, dared not take a clear public stand if the hudud proposal came from UMNO.

Now MCA claims that it will also oppose hudud implementation even if the proposal came from UMNO.

Is  MCA to be believed?

Why then the thunderous silence of MCA when

• the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Jamil Khir Baharom said in Parliament on March 27 that the federal government was ready to work with the PAS Kelantan state government to implement the hudud law in Kelantan; and

• the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said in Alor Setar on April 24 that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud?

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 June 2014, 5:15 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia’s Greatest Islamic Warriors

by Lim Teck Ghee

15.6.2014

It is exceptional for one hero to emerge during one’s life time. But two? Unbelievable but yes – this unprecedented happening is taking place right now which makes this an amazing time to be a Muslim in Malaysia.

Riding to the rescue of the rudderless masses – confused by the arrival on our shores of huge numbers of gays, lesbians, dog lovers, Cadbury munchers and other purveyors of polluting and ‘haram’ consciousness and deeds secretly slipped in through our porous land and sea boundaries by western neo-colonialist agents bent on bringing the Golden Chersonese back into the sphere of Christian-Zionist influence – are two heroes and warriors of Islam.

Their war to ensure Islamic supremacy is not only against threats emanating from outside the country. The more dangerous threats are embedded deep within our midst in the form of munafik, pengkhianat, pendatang, penceroboh, Cinabengs, kaki botol, pariah dogs, kiasus,liberals and even moderates. Taking advantage of the Christian and western financed anti-Muslim internet media, these devilish elements intent on destroying the fabric of Muslim society have emerged from the Satanic darkness to spread lies and ply their propagandist filth of moderation, democracy, equality and human rights to the unsuspecting Muslim population.

Islamic Icons

Who are these two warriors whose names should forever be emblazoned in the pages of Islamic history in our country? They are Ahmad Zaik Abdullah Rahman and Mohd. Ridhuan Tee. This extraordinary pair may have come from differing backgrounds but they complement each other perfectly in their uncompromising philosophies.

Ahmad Zaik’s stand is based on “Malays stand united; Islam reigns supreme”. Riduan Tee, a Chinese convert to Islam, cannot wave the Malay flag so easily. His slogan? “Muslims stand united; Islam reigns supreme”?

Imprisonment of the mind is the greatest scourge faced by humanity, especially by Muslims. Not only are these two warriors in a mission to cleanse the country of its unsavoury anti-Muslim minority, but they are also intellectual giants fighting ignorance and helping to rewrite the course of development in the country by less violent means. Clearly a ‘speak loudly and carry a big stick’ strategy. Ahmad Zaik’s accomplishments include a 64 page book, ’30 Soal Jawab Melayu Sepakat Islam Berdaulat’. In this incredibly slim but profound volume, he is able to provide answers rooted in classical Islamic knowledge to all the burning issues of Malays, Muslims and Malaysia.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to think of any other book that has had such an impact on the Malay reading world. It is noteworthy that the book’s forward was written by Deputy Prime Minister and deputy Umno president Muhyiddin Yassin and and launched by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Jamil Khir Baharom, both Islamic warriors too, though of lesser stature, despite their higher political status.

Blockblaster Film Issue and Plagiarism Non-Issue

Incidentally the book also serves as a ‘bible’ to the Isma clubs being established all over the world. At last count, there were over Isma clubs in over 25 counties so that it should not be long before “30 Soal” makes it to the international best sellers list. Also rumour has it that the much castigated and misunderstood director of the Tanda Putera film, Shuhaimi Baba is of the opinion that the book has the makings of a major cinematic hit in the Muslim world; and that she is the right person to bring it to the Islamic green screen.

This is an incredible opportunity for FINAS, JAIS, Khazanah, etc.to provide funding for a noble cause which can only add lustre to Malaysia’s Muslim credentials. Besides, it will provide the catalyst to the establishment of an Islamic film industry in Malaysia to take down the decadent and Islamic soul destroying Hollywood empire build by Jewish money. I am sure our Saudi colleagues will want to joint venture with us; but even if they do not want to, we have the petro dollars to make this happen.

But our bureaucracy needs to hurry up. Rumour also has it that Ahmad Zaid has already turned down a similar offer from the Malaysian financiers of the Hollywood film, The Wolf of Wall Street. This was despite the concession apparently made that no partial nudity will be shown in the film – not even of uncovered arms and legs. If this rumour is true, it is yet another mark of the purist Islamic character of this remarkable ustaz for whom fortune and fame appear to have little or no meaning – just the pursuit of the jihad. On a lighter note, female fans of this formidable warrior have swooned over his hirsute chest revealed in recent photos but this, I am assured, is due to his sharp sartorial style rather than any latent exhibitionist tendencies.

In comparison, Ridhuan Tee has been more prolific in his literary output and can be considered to be the intellectual star in UMNO’s media empire. Because he is so prolific at churning out masterpieces of Islamic commentary in his weekly column (and this is in addition to his formidable academic output), detractors have claimed that some of his work has been plagiarised from other sources. Obviously, intellectual giants are fair game for ultra kiasu hate mongers. There is in fact no need for Prof. Madya Ridhuan to respond to the allegation of plagiarism. After all, it is not a word or concept that is found in the Malay or Muslim dictionary; neither is it taken seriously by our universities. In fact, we can consider it a”haram”western word and concept with bad intentions, aimed at devaluing and demeaning our local scholars who are increasingly being exposed to the best Islamic tradition.

Saudi Influenced or Malaysianized Islam

What next for our Islamic warriors? There is one pressing issue to be resolved before achieving the paradise on earth that they envisage for Muslims and Islam in the country. Is it fundamentalist Shaf’i Islam that they are advocating or are they intent on creating a new form of Islam? A form analogous to Wahhabi Islam in doctrine and in liturgy, but purely Malay or at least (for Riduan Tee’s sake) purely Malaysian Muslim. This notion would be revolutionary for Malaysia: that a new Malayanised Islam open to converts in Malaysia, but at the same time aggressive, racist and exclusive, is being created before our very eyes. If this is their intention, clearly the patron saint of the new Islamic movement should be none other than Dr. Mahathir, the country’s number one Muslim convert.

Meanwhile, there have been suggestions that the duo should be honoured with state or federal honours – minimally dato-ships or even tansri-ships. Other suggestions have included appointments to higher positions and monetary and other material awards from a grateful Ummah in the way that the best koranic readers were rewarded in the annual national contests which, unfortunately, has been abandoned for reasons totally unfathomable.

All in good time quite soon surely, but perhaps the most appropriate honour for now– especially since their mission here is nearly complete – is to send them on a flight out to fight the enemies of the Muslim world where they least expect it – Antarctica?

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 June 2014, 8:05 am and is filed under
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Is this what the 10th MCA President has been reduced to, hankering only after Cabinet positions …?

Instead of just mechanically re-launching the MCA School of Political Studies and the forum on the Thoughts of Tun Tan Cheng Lock with empty words, it would be more worthwhile if the MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai remembers the spirit and struggle of the MCA founder and used the occasion to demonstrate that he is a worthy successor to Cheng Lock.

In 1957 under Cheng Lock’s leadership as MCA President, together with other Alliance leaders Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun V T Sambanthan, the Alliance leadership submitted a memorandum to the Reid Constitution Commission stating clearly and unequivocally that the religion the country shall be Islam with the assurance: “The observation of this principle shall not impose any disability on non-Muslim nationals professing and practising their own religions and shall not imply the State is not a secular state”.

What has Liow and the present MCA leadership done to uphold Cheng Lock’s uncompromising principle during the Merdeka days that Malaya and now Malaysia will forever be  a secular state?

Last week, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Jamil Khir Baharom said in a reply to the DAP MP for Sibu Oscar Ling Chai Yew that Malaysia is not a secular state due to the special position of Islam in the framework of the Federal Constitution.

On March 27, Jamil told Parliament that the federal government was ready to work with the PAS Kelantan state government to implement the hudud law in Kelantan.

On April 24, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said in Alor Setar that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud.

If Cheng Lock is still alive today, he would be in the forefront repudiating all these three pronouncements as totally against the fundamental principle of the Constitution as well as the commitment and guarantees given by the Alliance founders.

Is Liow living up to the memory and following in the footsteps of Cheng Lock?

If MCA leaders still honour Cheng Lock’s memory, Liow will not allow UMNO Ministers or even the Prime Minister from reneging on the  word and spirit of Merdeka Constitution that Malaysia is a secular nation.

Cheng Lock would be horrified that a MCA President like Liow is only passionate about whether he could get back to the Cabinet as a Minister in the shortest possible time, hoping that Najib would be charitable enough to give the MCA three Ministers and five deputy ministers!

Is this what the 10th MCA President has been reduced to, hankering only after Cabinet positions but completely forgetting the memory and struggle of the founding MCA President, Tun Tan Cheng Lock?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 June 2014, 3:27 pm and is filed under
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Look up the history books, Malaysia is a secular state

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

16 June 2014

Here we go again. A Malaysian minister is insisting that Malaysia is not a secular state, and that is anchored in Islamist roots because there are the Malay rulers and state Islamic laws exist for Muslims.

That argument might have worked if it was just Malaya that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datul Seri Jamil Khir Baharom was referring to in a written reply in Parliament to Oscar Ling Chai Yew (DAP-Sibu) today.

But you know what, Mr Minister, we are now in Malaysia and perhaps you should go read your history books.

This country was formed in 1963, and brings together Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak. Singapore was told to leave in 1965.

Jamil Khir is not the first minister to believe that Malaysia is not a secular state and is possibly an Islamic nation because Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said as much years ago.

Another minister in the PM’s Department, Datuk Seri Mohd Nazri Aziz, said the same in 2012. And Malaysians will continue to hear this figment of their imagination because there are people who want to believe Malaysia is not secular.

The reality is, of course, different. Malaysia is a secular state where the rule of law is supreme. The Federal Constitution is the basic law, not the Quran.

This is a country which practises parliamentary democracy and is a constitutional monarchy. Anyone can become the prime minister or minister, and sometimes that is the reason behind inane pronouncements that we are not a secular state.

But you don’t have to go far to contradict the likes of Jamil Khir or expose his ignorance. Just open up the history books and refer to the words of our founding prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The Malaysian Insider in October 2012 referred to several Tunku Abdul Rahman’s statements that Malaysia was a secular state, and not an Islamic one.

He was first recorded telling Parliament on May 1, 1958: “I would like to make it clear that this country is not an Islamic state as it is generally understood; we merely provided that Islam shall be the official religion of the state.”

The Star had also reported Tunku speaking on February 8, 1983 at a gathering to celebrate his 80th birthday, with the headline “Don’t make Malaysia an Islamic state – Tunku”, where he said “the country has a multiracial population with various beliefs. Malaysia must continue as a secular state with Islam as the official religion.”

In the same newspaper, Malaysia’s third PM, Tun Hussein Onn, was reported as supporting his predecessor in rejecting Malaysia being made an Islamic state.

“The nation can still be functional as a secular state with Islam as the official religion,” Hussein said.

National University of Singapore’s Hussin Mutalib had interviewed Tunku for his book, “Islam in Malaysia: From Revivalism to Islamic State”.

In the interview, Tunku said: “There is no way we should have an Islamic state here… The nature of our political parties, our coalition government, our democracy, and our multiracial life are sufficient foundations which can be used to build a prosperous and peaceful Malaysia. Why must we look to Iran and other Islamic states?”

An Islamic state is defined as a country where the primary basis for government is Islamic religious rule, the Shariah law. Article 3 of the Federal Constitution states that Islam is the religion of the federation, and it is used to support the claim that Malaysia is an Islamic state rather than secular.

However, in drafting the Constitution of Malaysia, the Reid Commission had this to say about Islam as an official religion, in its report in February 1957: “The observance of this principle shall not impose any disability on non-Muslim nationals professing and practising their own religion and shall not imply that the state is not a secular state.”

The ignorance what Malaysia is, some 50 years after its formation, points to one thing. That we need citizenship and civics classes to know what Malaysia is all about.

It should be a requirement for all, especially those who take the oath of office in Parliament as our ministers. After all, would you find a casino in an Islamic state or a secular one? – June 16, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 June 2014, 5:55 pm and is filed under
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A Disastrous Void: Why The MH370 Public Response Failed

By Zoe Mintz

International Business Times

June 16 2014

It seems likely to go down as one of the worst examples of botched corporate communications in history: On March 24, 16 days after Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared on its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the airline delivered official condolences to the relatives of the 239 people who had been on board.

By text message.

“Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived,” the airline declared in its text, acting on fresh satellite data that purportedly confirmed that the flight had crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

For practitioners of the trade known as crisis management, here was a textbook illustration of how not to go about it. Here was a recipe for turning a terrible event into an irredeemable destroyer of brand image.

“The most important stakeholder in an aviation crisis is the family,” Carreen Winters, executive vice president, corporate at MWW, a public relations firm based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, says. “Malaysia Airlines checked off the box, but didn’t figure out a way to communicate with families in a way that was human to tell them their loved ones were presumed dead.”

One hundred days after a jet loaded with the usual trappings of modern aviation somehow vanished into the void, the disappearance of MH370 is shaping up as a case study — and cautionary tale — for communications specialists stuck having to explain the next unthinkable disaster.

In the telling of PR experts, the catalogue of mishaps is vast. Official mouthpieces for both the Malaysian government and the airline laid out often-incomplete and internally inconsistent accounts, enraging relatives of passengers and undermining confidence in their future pronouncements. They stumbled in their dealings with a demanding international media, appearing awkward, confused and less than forthright.

All of this gave life to rumors, speculation and conspiracy theories, making the government and the airline appear worse than mere actors in a tragedy: They came to seem like conspirators, as if they had something to hide.

James Lee, CEO of Los-Angeles-based the Lee Strategy Group Inc., which specializes in aviation crisis management, says the ultimate error was keeping relatives in hotel rooms in Malaysia for weeks after the plane’s disappearance.

“That was really bad,” he says, adding that the relatives should have been sent home much sooner and then supplied regular updates. “You created a media-feeder every day where family members would come out after daily briefings and they became more emotionally distraught. I’m sure from Malaysia’s standpoint, it’s viewed as sign of compassion, but the problem is there’s a difference between compassion and prolonging agony.”

And yet there was almost nothing the government or the airline might have said that was going to make things right. In an era in which nearly every public issue is analyzed as one of image management, the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight was effectively impervious to communications spin, its bare essentials all-defining. Without any physical evidence to work with — no debris, no black box, no bodies — those tasked with interacting with the public essentially had nothing to offer. All that was known was precisely what was unknown: 239 people were missing, without any explanation.

“There is a tendency nowadays to attribute the core tragedy or original sin to the mismanagement of its aftermath,” Eric Dezenhall, a crisis communications strategist and founder of Washington D.C.-based public relations firm Dezenhall Resources, says. “In other words, if the PR was better managed, there wouldn’t be so much outrage. This is a false construct.”

Every crisis is different, Dezenhall adds. This one was perhaps uniquely unsuited to the traditional crisis management playbook: just play straight and lay it out there. There was almost nothing to lay out there beyond the frustrating lack of information. In an age in which GPS trackers are found on children’s shoes, the public was going to have a difficult time grasping how a jumbo jet could simply disappear.

THE WORKINGS OF AN INFORMATION VACUUM

Communications experts are big on metaphors. For Matthew Seeger, a communications professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, the Malaysia Airlines disaster presents “like a murder without a body.” It gave rise to no end of speculative explanations.

“Every crisis creates an information vacuum,” Seeger says. “There’s an outstanding occurrence that is outside the norm so there’s an intense need for information to explain what’s going on. At the same time there’s a lack of information.”

In the case of MH370, that lack of information was near total — fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Everything from government cover-ups to alien abductions have been pitched as possible explanations for what happened. Perhaps that was inevitable, but the chaotic and contradictory responses from the Malaysian government made it worse.

Communications people are fond of reminding companies that they need to have plans in place long in advance of disaster striking. For years to come, one may safely assume, MH370 will be cited as a potent example.

“99 percent of crisis communication is preparation,” Lee, the Los Angeles-based crisis management expert, says. “If you don’t have something in place beforehand, or practice it, then when the real thing happens you’re flailing to catch up. That was Malaysia’s problem.”

Many airlines maintain protocols that spell out how to respond to tragedies. Family assistance centers are set up along with information hotlines. Relatives are put in touch with designated representatives via email and telephone.

This was what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, recalls Ernest DelBuono, senior vice president at Levick and chairman of the firm’s crisis practice, who ran the family assistance center for American Airlines at Dulles International Airport.

“There were American Airlines employees that actually took up residence at the families’ homes,” he says. “That’s how close, in some cases, the relationship was. The family member actually saw that the airline representative as a part of the family.”

Relatives of passengers aboard MH370 found that what facilities were set up generally proved to be disorganized. Malaysia Airlines put up relatives in hotel rooms in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur and convened there to brief families about the search, but news was delivered sporadically — and often late.

“We receive all of our meaningful information through the press and our network of private experts,” Sarah Bajc, the girlfriend of American MH370 passenger Philip Wood, says. “The updates from the Malaysian government are usually a day or two after the information hits the news.”

At other times, the Malaysian government has seemed to jump the gun and share news too early. In one instance, the government reported a precise timeline that indicated when the plane’s two radar mechanisms shut down — a  finding which suggested there had been a takeover in the cockpit. A few days later, the government backtracked and said it didn’t know when the communications systems went dark.

“If given the choice between angering people by saying ‘we don’t know’ and giving out bad data, it’s preferable to do the former because the latter looks like a mendacious attempt at spin,” Dezenhall says.

THE PERILS OF INFORMATION

In many disasters involving corporate interests, the communications people are inclined to disclose what they have to inoculate the company from later charges of covering up bad news. But other executives bring the opposite inclination, fearing that too much information is like chum for lawyers bringing lawsuits.

“The people that we have to deal with that are the most resistant to that idea — in companies and even governments — is counsel,” Lee says. “Their natural inclination is to shut everything off and have no one say anything because they’re worried about liability.”

No conclusive evidence has emerged that Malaysian Airlines or the national government withheld crucial information about the flight or the search, though some critics have suggested as much. But many PR experts agree that the country wasn’t prepared for an aggressive international press, particularly because Malaysia’s own press is effectively muzzled by curbs on free expression.

“In this country, we are used to high levels of transparency, and that’s what we expect around these particular episodes,” Seeger says. “That assumption does not hold when dealing with other countries — not just Malaysia but China and other players associated with this event. We have seen this in other airline disasters, that those kinds of episodes reflect negatively on the country.”

Those who recall, say, BP’s communications missteps in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may beg to differ. So, too, may those with memories of the Exxon Valdez grounding in Alaska in the late 1980s or Goldman Sachs’ struggles to rid itself of the taint of the 2008 financial crisis. Yet the involvement of the Malaysian government — which has jailed journalists — seems to have sown special distrust.

The problem was exacerbated by the government’s comparatively slow development of a clear consensus about where to search for the missing Boeing-777. The government was also criticized for not asking for international help sooner.

“A lot of it is national pride,” Lee says. “You find this in the southern hemisphere, and with first world countries that think they are just as capable when they are clearly not. It’s no denigration. They don’t have the technology, they don’t have the experience and they don’t have the resources. They want to hang onto the lead because they feel a moral obligation.”

Once Australia took the lead in the search effort, things ran more smoothly, PR experts say. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau gave daily briefings and gained a social media presence that informed the general public on any progress made.

“Australia had a more limited role. It was very clear they were acting from a position of greater strength,” Josh Zeitz, a senior vice president at MWW, says. “They weren’t the airline, the responsible party. They weren’t the Malaysian government, who’s expected to regulate the airline, follow its course, track it and know where it was. They weren’t the Chinese government that has trust problems to begin with. They were a third party being helpful.”

Yet a hundred days after the flight’s disappearance, the same basic problem confronts anyone who must account for the tragedy: No one really knows what happened, making any explanation dubious on its face.

“As long as we don’t know what happened to that plane, Malaysia will be seen as having botched this,” Dezenhall says. “My view is that they just don’t know what happened, and in an age when we receive our cues from the entertainment industry, where everything is crisp and clean and all-knowing, this seems unfathomable.”

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DAP wants Jamil Khir referred to rights and privileges committee over Islamic state claim

by Elizabeth Zachariah

The Malaysian Insider

17 June 2014

DAP wants Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom to be referred to the Rights and Privileges Committee for his claim in Parliament yesterday that Malaysia was not a secular state.

Oscar Ling Chai Yew (DAP-Sibu) filed a motion under Standing Order 36(12) to refer Jamil  to the committee for allegedly confusing the House.

Speaking to reporters later, Ling said Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia has agreed to call Jamil Khir for an explanation.

In his written reply to Ling, Jamil said the formation of Malaysia was based on the Islamic administration of the Malay sultanates and that the Malay sultans were heads of Islam in their respective states.

“This was reinforced by Article 3 of the Federal Constitution which places Islam as the religion of the federation, though other religions can be practised peacefully anywhere within the federation,” he said in the reply.

DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang, who was also present today, said the first three prime ministers – Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Abdul Razak and Tun Hussein Onn – would have been “horrified” with Jamil’s answer.

“They would have been completely horrified by the answer as it is completely against their understanding of the foundation of the country.

“The founders of the Alliance – MCA and MIC – will be shocked because that is not the nation that they founded, not the constitution they have been a party to,” he added.

Lim, who is also Gelang Patah MP, said the Alliance Memorandum to the Reid Commission in 1957 states clearly that Islam is the religion of the federation but others are free to profess their own religions.

“But it does not mean that Malaysia is not a secular state. That was in the memorandum.

Lim also questioned why Jamil had answered the question, in which Ling had asked to state if hudud contradicted the Federal Constitution, which was addressed to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

“Who is Jamil Khir to answer this question? It is an invasion of power on his part. It is completely improper and unprecedented. What is his portfolio?” he asked.

“It is most unfortunate we have a prime minister who is very negligent of not only his parliamentary duties but also of his prime ministerial duties.

“If the prime minister could not answer the question posed by Ling, it should have been answered by the minister in charge of law and constitution, Nancy Shukri.

“Why wasn’t this question answered by Nancy Shukri?” he asked, and questioned why Nancy was “shunned to the side”.

“The minister in charge of Islamic affaris has become more and more powerful, more dominant in the Najib Cabinet. This is an unhealthy thing,” he added. – June 17, 2014.

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Flight MH370: What are they hiding?

By Chris Goodfellow

The Telegraph

16 Jun 2014

Former pilot Chris Goodfellow maintains his view that the loss of MH370 was due to an accident but says matters should be turned over to Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch to find out what really happened

In the early days of the search of MH370, when the mainstream media was favouring a terrorism-hijacking scenario or questioning if one of the pilots was suicidal, I put forward an alternative theory – that the loss of the aeroplane might have been the result of an accident. This theory was picked up on the web and went viral. I did not seek or expect such an enormous response: I wrote simply as a pilot with some knowledge of the issues defending two fellow pilots who were being much-maligned and who could not defend themselves.

More than three months have elapsed since the Boeing 777 vanished after taking off from Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of March 8, bound for Beijing. Yet the mystery of how a modern aircraft can disappear from the face of the earth continues to fascinate and appal. In this era, when delivery companies like UPS and FedEx routinely track vehicles via global satellite positioning (GPS), it seems incredible that this passenger jet, capable of auto-landing in total fog, did not carry a device broadcasting its position in real time and independent of all other systems on board. If one good thing comes out of this accident, it will be a new regulation making the fitting of such a device compulsory.

Since the aircraft belonged to Malaysian Airlines and the incident is presumed to have started in Malaysian airspace, the lead nation in the investigation is Malaysia. In my opinion, this is the Achilles heel of the inquiry.

The majority owner of Malaysian Airlines Systems (MAS) is PMB, a Malaysian government holding company. MAS has clocked up net losses of $1.3 billion (£766 million) in the past three years. This is a clear conflict of interest, which has resulted, intentionally or otherwise, in a bungled investigation. If the bungling is intentional, then might it have something to do with the cargo that MH370 was carrying (more of which later)? Until this matter is resolved, the disappearance will continue to be surrounded by conspiracy theories. For me, the answer is clear: the one party benefiting from the continuing state of confusion surrounding MH370 is Malaysia.

The disappearance of this twin-engine wide-body airliner is without parallel in modern aviation, a mystery replete with questions. But what is certain is that something fast and furious occurred on that aircraft as it flew over the South China Sea.

There is always the possibility of design flaw in anything mechanical, and there is an established procedure by which aircraft manufacturers and regulators handle these issues. Service Bulletins (SBs) issued by manufacturers, and Airworthiness Directives (ADs) issued by regulators keep the industry informed. The Boeing 777 has had its share of such notices, and there are two in particular that are relevant to MH370 – one involving a short-circuit in the hose feeding emergency oxygen to the crew, and one warning of possible rupturing of the aircraft pressure vessel due to the mounting of a satellite communications antenna.

The former was responsible for a well-documented accident (fortunately on the ground at Cairo) involving an Egyptair 777. The resultant fire destroyed the cabin and burned a hole through the plane, and would have been catastrophic if it had occurred in mid-air. The satellite antenna issue could also be fatal, tearing the aircraft’s skin and resulting in rapid depressurisation. It is time for the Malaysian authorities to show that checks and modifications regarding these issues and contained in SBs and ADs were complied with.

But the issue that requires most clarity remains the plane’s cargo. It took almost three weeks for the world to learn that MH370 had been carrying a consignment of lithium-ion batteries. But we do not know for sure how many. What else of a hazardous nature was being carried? Published cargo records show neither the real shippers nor the real recipients. The international community should demand total transparency from the Malaysians in regard to this. After all, huge resources have been spent by Australia, China, the United States and others on the so-far fruitless search for debris in the Indian Ocean.

The US is party to the MH370 investigation for two reasons: American citizens were aboard, and the aircraft was American-built. The FBI has all but cleared Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the flight’s captain, and Fariq Abdul Hamid, his co-pilot, of deliberately causing the disaster. Sure, the captain may have disagreed with his government on some issues, but that does not make him a suicidal mass-murderer. If making a point was his aim, why did he not nose his aircraft straight towards the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, two of the world’s tallest buildings and a headline-grabbing target? His young co-pilot was about to get married and had a wonderful career ahead of him. There is no evidence of either man having been motivated by Islamic extremism.

In the end, everything comes back to the Malaysian authorities. Criminal and civil liability can be big motivators when it comes to cover-ups. If crucial maintenance checks – on the bonding of satellite antennae for example – were being delayed by a loss-making airline to save money, we need to know. If dangerous cargo was being carried to augment revenues, we should be told. The wreckage of MH370 could give us the answers, but we don’t have it. The Malaysians need to come clean.

I will maintain my view that the loss of MH370 was due to an accident until it is proved otherwise. As I stated three months ago in my online post, the crew were almost certainly dealing with a major emergency when they made their unannounced turn to the west. Why west? Because they were diverting towards the island of Langkawi, on the west coast of Malaysia. Langkawi’s international airport boasts a long runway which is easy to approach, a must for a large aircraft in trouble. The 777’s silence could be accounted for by a sudden major fire that knocked out all its systems, or the crew being distracted by their tasks.

At the time that I proposed my theory, the only radar track produced by the Malaysian military showed the aircraft turning west off its scheduled flight path and tracking towards Penang. A few days later, the Malaysians produced another track indicating that MH370 overflew Penang before navigating up through the Straits of Malacca. These course alterations were cited as evidence of human intervention, but they could be the result of the autopilot making its way through pre-programmed waypoints – if indeed the aircraft performed these manoeuvres. Doubt has been cast on all the radar tracks produced by Malaysia in relation to this matter. Maybe MH370 never went west.

Where to search now? There have been sightings from the Bay of Bengal to the Maldives. For the moment, attention remains in the southern Indian Ocean, way to the west of Australia. Mapping of the seabed is expected to be followed by a renewed search in the late summer. That region has been the focus of the search following pings received from MH370 by an Inmarsat communications satellite. But these calculations have been the subject of much controversy.

Only one thing is certain: Malaysia has lost all credibility in regard to the MH370 investigation and should yield control to a competent and impartial authority. That is why I believe matters should be turned over to Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch. Founded in 1915, it enjoys an unrivalled reputation for thoroughness and independence. Maybe then we will begin to make some progress towards resolving the mystery of the MH370 ghost flight.

Chris Goodfellow is a retired businessman and former pilot who lives in Florida. He is a graduate of McGill and Cornell universities and a former director of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority

Update: Since this article was published, it has been pointed out that flight MH370’s Boeing 777 was not fitted with the satellite antenna involved in one of the Airworthiness Directives mentioned. This Directive was therefore not relevant to flight MH370.

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MH370: How long will the search continue?

By Sophie Brown, CNN

June 16, 2014

(CNN) — When authorities confirmed last month that four “pings” heard in the southern Indian Ocean had nothing to do with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, it was a devastating blow for those involved in the investigation, the families of those on board the missing jet, and the countless number of people around the world who had become captivated by the mystery surrounding the plane’s disappearance.

What was described as “the most promising lead” in the search had proved fruitless.

The investigation into the ill-fated flight is already the most expensive in aviation history. Malaysia has spent $8.6 million so far, Australia is expecting to spend around $84 million, and other countries involved in the search have reportedly set aside sizable sums. Meanwhile, families of the missing passengers are working to raise $5 million to encourage anyone with information about the plane’s whereabouts to come forward.

Sunday marked 100 days since the Boeing 777 disappeared. To the frustration and disappointment of many, no tangible evidence has been found. How long will authorities keep working to solve this expensive mystery and what are their reasons for doing so? CNN speaks to aviation experts for their views.

Aviation safety and security

Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation, says there’s a tremendous need to find the plane, particularly if mechanical failure, and not foul play, is to blame.

“The longer time that goes on, the more it appears it was not terrorism, hijacking, sabotage, (or) suicide, and it does appear that something else happened — something mechanical, some kind of a catastrophic failure, an explosion, something that debilitated the persons on board; and they really need to solve that mystery because until we solve it we can’t improve air safety,” Schiavo says.

Some improvements have already begun. Malaysia Airlines has changed its cockpit regulations. International aviation bodies such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have called on the aviation industry to change aircraft tracking systems.

But convincing the industry to implement safety measures before an accident happens remains a challenge, Schiavo adds.

“In the United States and in many other countries, we legislate by counting bodies. We don’t make something the law until someone has died, and that’s just awful and unacceptable but that’s the way our regulations work,” she says.

Maintaining the political will to implement the changes is part of the problem, said David Soucie, a former safety inspector at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and author of “Why Planes Crash.” Findings can come years after an accident by which time the sense of urgency has subsided.

“Knowing what happened and knowing what could be done to improve a crash investigation, while that’s extremely important, often civil aviation authorities make a particular recommendation and it falls on deaf ears because our memories are so short,” says Soucie.

In the case of Air France Flight 447, which crashed en route to Paris in June 2009 with 228 people on board, the plane’s black boxes weren’t recovered until May 2011. French authorities made a series of recommendations, including that the flight recorders’ pinger duration should be increased from 30 days to 90 days, but by that time the motivation to do something had dwindled, Soucie says. Since then, some carriers have implemented those adjustments voluntarily but they haven’t become mandatory across the industry. Still, the accident did prompt changes in pilot training and Airbus tweaked a key cockpit sensor.

“I’m worried about that with this accident as well — that the longer we take to find it, the less passionate people are about doing something about what it is that we find,” Soucie says.

David Gallo, an oceanographer and Director of Special Projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was involved in the search for Air France Flight 447. He says it’s critical to find the wreck soon to prevent a similar accident occurring again, and that the amount of money being set aside for the search is trivial in this context.

The authorities have allowed a jumbo jet to just disappear and to stay missing, and that’s just not acceptable.

Sarah Bajc, wife of missing passenger

“If it happened at one time it can happen again,” says Gallo. “We can (find out what happened) and I’m confident that we will,” he adds.

But it requires certain things: “It takes the right technology because it’s at the bottom of the ocean which is deep and vast. It takes the right team because at the depths where the plane may be — at some of the greatest depths of the sea — the club is very small of people that know how to go to those depths and work. Most importantly, it takes the right operational plan. And then on top of that, it takes a bit of luck and a lot of prayer,” he says.

Who’s responsible?

Under an international pact between aviation nations, there’s a pecking order of who takes charge of a crash investigation. At the top in this case is Malaysia, but Malaysia is allowed, and in fact encouraged, to bring in other countries or hand off the task to other countries that can do the job. In early April, Australia accepted an invitation from Malaysia to lead the search for the missing aircraft and participate in the investigation as an accredited representative.

“I think it was very sensible that (Malaysia) did that. I really think that Australia is doing all that they can… and it’s a very big and expensive task,” says Schiavo.

But there’s a precedent for that kind of expenditure, she adds. The two-year search for Air France Flight 447 cost around $40 million, according to French authorities, while the investigation into the Trans World Airline 800 crash into the Atlantic in 1996 cost in excess of $50 million.

Although Malaysia has delegated the responsibility for the search to Australia, it is still responsible for the accident investigation. That’s something that concerns Soucie.

“Once the aircraft is found — if it is — at that point the Australians will be pretty much done with their part and the Malaysians will conduct the investigation, which concerns me a great deal because there are going to be a lot of unknowns, even when we have the aircraft in hand. What we’re really trying to do is get to the bottom of what happened, and that doesn’t come from the search; that comes from the investigation following the search,” Soucie says.

Closure for families

More than three months since they last saw their loved ones, the families of those on board MH370 still live in a state of limbo.

“For us this is frustrating, and befuddling, and at the end of the day I go to sleep disappointed, but for the families it’s a nightmare that never ends,” says David Gallo. “It’s not something that they can just turn off for a while. I speak to several of them on a fairly routine basis and it’s just absolutely horrible what they’re going through.”

Beyond the emotional closure that would come from finding out what happened to the flight, there’s the question of compensation.

“When this plane fell out of the sky, it fell into the murky world of airline liability insurance litigation,” says Schiavo. Officially, no one involved in the crash has been declared dead. Malaysia Airlines has begun to give families an initial compensation payment of $50,000 with the final amount to be determined “when the issue of the tragedy” is over, Malaysian authorities said last week.

But Schiavo says this is a fraction of the $176,000 carriers are liable to pay under an international aviation treaty, even before any evidence is found. Under the Montreal Convention, carriers are automatically liable to their passengers unless the airline can prove somebody else is responsible — which Schiavo believes won’t be possible in this case, so they’re going to have to pay.

“The fact that they’re telling people they’re going to give them $50,000 is really an outrage because the treaty itself sets forth the initial automatic amount they are responsible for, without any evidence whatsoever,” Schiavo says. The aviation lawyer calls the airline’s payment outrageous but “they’re not alone….carriers always wait to be sued,” she says.

Lack of trust?

As new leads have emerged and been discredited, the public’s faith in authorities has waned, says Soucie.

“I think that trust in the investigation has faltered, but I hope that people would understand that when there’s little or no information at all, there’s not a whole lot (authorities) can do,” he said.

All clues, no matter how trivial must be examined. For instance, one of the latest leads is an underwater sound that could possibly be related to the final moments of the missing plane. A scientist assisting the investigation into the noise admits it’s a long shot: “We consider it’s extremely unlikely,” says Curtin University’s Alec Duncan, but “the chance of (the sound) being related to MH370 is not zero.”

Sarah Bajc, whose husband Paul was on the flight, says that she and other families are “beyond frustrated,” at this point.

“We’re just totally fed up,” Bajc said in a recent interview with CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield. “The authorities have completely failed the families in this case. They’ve failed the flying public. The authorities have allowed a jumbo jet to just disappear and to stay missing, and that’s just not acceptable.”

Angus Houston, who heads the Australian search efforts understands their frustration. “I think the families are in a very difficult position at the moment. They’ve got no closure. They want to find the aircraft and they will do whatever it takes to find the aircraft… If I were in their shoes, I’d probably feel exactly the same way,” Houston told CNN’s Andrew Stevens.

When investigation ends, quest for answers will continue

The search is taking place in very deep and vast waters, but David Gallo believes it may not be so long before the plane is found, and experts mostly agree that attention is focused on the right area.

But if the wreck isn’t located, funds will be exhausted at some point and authorities will have to end their investigation. They will be required by the International Civil Aviation Organization to make their work public, even if there is no cause or concrete findings, says Schiavo.

“At that point I suspect that various groups and organizations and the families themselves will then take that information and try to keep searching. It will remain to be seen whether (the authorities) will be truly open and make all of (their data) public,” she says.

As officials prepare for the next stage of the search, David Gallo stresses the need to find the aircraft as soon as possible to obtain any evidence before it’s worn away by the action of the sea.

“We have to understand what happened for the sake of the families of those passengers, for the sake of the flying public, for the tens of thousands of people that fly every day, and for the sake of the aircraft industry,” he says.

“We need to find that plane, because the plane itself may be a mobile crime scene. The only witnesses to what happened that night are those black boxes that are inside the plane.”

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MH370 Search Revives Age-Old Mystery In The Indian Ocean

By Alan Huffman

International Business Times

June 17, 2014

MH370: 100 DAYS LATER

Right up until the late 18th century, when the first weighted lines were used to probe the ocean depths, many people believed the seas were bottomless — the watery equivalent of infinite outer space.

Even after scientists and mariners began systematically probing the ocean bottoms, the most profound depths remained incalculable, the stuff of dreams and nightmares.

Today, we know that the idea of a bottomless sea is absurd. An eighth-grader with a globe can pinpoint the most profound depth, a seven-mile-deep abyss in the western Pacific known as the Mariana Trench. Three people have actually traveled to the bottom of the trench aboard specially designed submersibles.

In our quest to define and describe the world, we have crisscrossed the oceans and continents compiling exhaustive knowledge about its life forms and features, and extended our physical reach through technology, which provides us instantaneous and pervasive access to information about seemingly everything. No realm seems beyond our jurisdiction. We can now make cell phone calls from the summit of Mount Everest; our backyards are visible to strangers on Google Earth; and our daily movements are tracked by GPS and surveillance cameras.

Yet as the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 made clear, knowledge and access to information can be deceptive. After 100 days of relentless searching, involving  more than 40 ships and 39 aircraft from 12 countries, we know little more about the missing Boeing 777 than we did on the day it disappeared.

The sea, it turns out, isn’t ours for the taking. Even if MH370 is eventually found, it has already reordered our views about geography, data and monitoring.  Radar, computer tracking, X-rays, satellite imagery, listening apps: All have significant limits.

Even the airliner’s black boxes — our failsafe against such mysteries — have been of little use; the signals from their locator beacon proved as distressing and cryptic as the underwater calls of whales that sailors once heard while lying in their berths at night.

“The closer the search for MH370 gets to the source of its black box beeps, the further away it seems,” observed author and cultural historian Philip Hoare in the U.K. Guardian newspaper. “Lost in the profound deeps, its forlorn sound seems meaningless now, in human terms at least. It is only a signifier for grief. It seems hardly believable that, in an age when a satellite can read a car number plate, we cannot locate an entire airliner.”

For now, we have no more solid information about what happened to MH370 than we did on the day it disappeared. That’s because our knowledge of the deep oceans remains remarkably limited. In fact, we know more about the surface of the moon.

An unsolved mystery of such proportions, which defies our collective knowledge and best technology, is a shock to the system. It’s as if our old concept of the unfathomable sea has suddenly been restored, forcing us to re-evaluate what we know and what can be known. How could 239 people disappear without a trace? All we know is that the answer almost certainly lies somewhere beneath the deep blue sea.

Though the oceans make up 70 percent of the planet’s surface, only about 5 percent has been mapped, which leaves about 65 percent of the world uncharted and unknown. The ocean is the last frontier of human empirical knowledge; even the contours on that eighth-grader’s globe are the product of a mix of scientific measurement, inference and conjecture.

Wide-ranging theories have sprung from MH370’s disappearance, including the possibility of a pilot suicide, mechanical failure, a hijacking by terrorists, or, from the outer fringes, that it was beamed up by aliens. Such unsolved mysteries highlight our lack of knowledge in deeply disturbing ways, tempting us to fabricate plausible explanations or myths to fill the void. Every theory bears an asterisk, indicating a seemingly intrinsic flaw. The most plausible explanation for MH370’s disappearance is that it ran out of fuel and went down in the Indian Ocean, never to be heard from again.

Oceanographers, including marine explorer Don Walsh, who in 1960 was part of the first excursion to the Mariana Trench, compare the abiding mystery of the underwater realm with outer space. Due to our limited capabilities and understanding, descending to the bottom is in many ways like traveling blindly through the celestial void. Had MH370 gone down on land, it would certainly be found. Most of the planet’s terrestrial surfaces are visually accessible through video cameras and satellite imagery, if not physically within reach. Even the approaches to Mount Everest are now littered with human debris. One can drive to Timbuktu, which for centuries was synonymous with inaccessibility.

Yet even Google’s new app for viewing ocean bottoms is limited by how little is documented there. It’s a crucial gap when trying to find a lost plane. The Guardian in March quoted Malaysia’s acting transport minister saying the MH370 search area covered 2.24 million square nautical miles — large enough to contain almost two billion Boeing 777s, encompassing about 1.5 percent of the world.

Those who predict that the ocean will ultimately give up MH370 point to two famous and ultimately successful deepwater searches, for the location of the wreckage of the Titanic, which sank in 12,500 feet in the North Atlantic and was found decades later, and Air France flight 447, which disappeared en route from Rio to Paris in 2009 and was located at 13,100 feet, two years after its first floating pieces were identified. But the search for MH370, which is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, is complicated by the lack of information about its flight path and presumed crash site, which means a closer corollary would be the search for Amelia Earhart’s plane, still fruitless after 77 years. As evidence of our inability to endure such long-term confusion, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery this month announced a new search for Earhart’s plane in the waters off the Pacific island republic of Kiribati.

Among the further complications are that the oceans’ surfaces are largely opaque and their depths darker than outer space, which at least is riddled with stars. Underwater sound is also more muted and confounding. A supposed recording of a jetliner striking the water could also be a tremor in the Earth’s crust or a call from a marine mammal hundreds of miles away.

Then there’s the sheer depth, which is measured through sonar, a localized and limited approach. As the National Geographic documentary “Drain the Ocean” points out, the only way to map the ocean bottom would be to crisscross every foot of it, back and forth, taking sonar readings. Through computer animation, “Drain the Ocean” illustrates what the ocean bottoms would look like if the water were drained away: miles of flaming rifts, weird pinnacles and gaping chasms that make the Grand Canyon look like a gully. But that information, too, is based on composites of scattered sonar readings, inferences gleaned from satellite-mounted radar altimeters and 3D computer modeling.

The relevant part of the Indian Ocean — assuming that’s where MH370 went down — is a little less than half as deep as the Mariana Trench, about three miles at its deepest point. As if that weren’t daunting enough, no one knows which three miles we’re talking about, which would be a prerequisite for determining where best to dive or send underwater drones.

Amid all the speculation, theorizing and rumor-mongering about MH370 have come reports that the pilots at one point ascended to 44,000 feet in altitude, which, if true, would mean that by the time the jetliner came to rest on the bottom it would have traveled within a vertical space of about 12 miles, and that vertical space isn’t fixed — it could be anywhere across a horizontal area the size of Australia. Like the trajectory of a stone thrown into a broad pond, there are an infinite number of possible descents and points of entry.

Surface water makes up two-thirds of the planet’s 29,100-mile circumference, yet its total volume is exponentially larger — about 320 million cubic miles,  according to the nonprofit research facility Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The reason is simple: Water is three-dimensional; its surface area is magnified by its depth.

The challenge to finding anything that vanishes into such an abyss is compounded by physics: The farther we probe, the colder it gets (just above freezing at the bottom of the Mariana Trench), the more pressure comes to bear (more than 1,000 times that of the surface) and the less sensory data we receive. For most humans, the combination of cold, isolation, lack of oxygen, crushing pressure and utter darkness is the stuff of claustrophobic nightmares. For searchers, it represents a different kind of nightmare — a logistical one.

Still, in the give and take between the known and the unknown, most experts put their faith in technology and predict the Malaysian airliner will eventually be found. Technology enabled the discovery of the Titanic and Air France 447, and made it possible for Walsh and the late Jacques Piccard to accomplish that first five-hour descent into the Mariana Trench aboard a specially constructed bathyscaphe known as the Trieste. But for now, technology has fallen short.

On June 4, IBTimes UK quoted the Australian Transport Safety Bureau predicting that MH370 would be found within 60 miles of an arc transposed upon the Indian Ocean using available data, where the aircraft is believed to have exhausted its fuel and crashed. But the bureau’s statement acknowledged that the arc encompassed a huge swath of the ocean, and that it was the second arc transcribed to indicate a possible crash zone. All of which means that we have some idea of the size of the MH370 mystery, but not much more, which is cold comfort for the searchers and the loved ones of those aboard. For all practical purposes, the airliner may as well be a phantom white whale, or a ship that sailed off the edge of the Earth.

In  “Moby-Dick,” Herman Melville describes a scene in which the whaling ship Pequod encounters another Nantucket whaler in the Indian Ocean, somewhere off the Crozet Islands, in the general vicinity of what is now the search area for MH370. During the brief exchange between the two captains as the vessels closely pass, the Pequod’s Ahab calls out, “Have ye seen the White Whale?”

Stunned by the mere mention of the legendary beast, the other captain drops his speaking-trumpet into the sea. After observing this, the novel’s narrator, Ishmael, mulls the futility of Ahab’s chasing “that demon phantom” around the world. Ahab, Ishmael observes, is obsessed with a torment “that, at some time or other, swims before all human hearts — then while chasing over this round globe after those mysteries — they either lead us on in barren mazes, or midway leave us whelmed.”

In 2014, despite our best technology, we are still strangers in the deep, probing uncertainly for clues. We may relish the idea that there remains an unconquered realm on Earth, but for the survivors of those who vanished aboard MH370, the mystery is excruciating.

The ocean’s enduring mystery was brought home for filmmaker James Cameron when he repeated Walsh’s and Piccard’s descent into the Mariana Trench in March 2012 — a solo excursion aboard a submersible known as the Deepsea Challenger. Cameron, the director of “Titanic,” afterward told reporters in a teleconference call that the ocean bottom, illuminated by the submersible’s lights, “was completely featureless and uniform. My feeling was one of complete isolation from all of humanity.”

But more than anything, Cameron said, the experience conveyed to him “how tiny you are down in this big, vast, black, unknown and unexplored place.”

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 June 2014, 4:25 pm and is filed under
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MH370: searchers not looking in the best place, satellite experts say

AFP

The Guardian

17 June 2014

Scientists from British company Inmarsat tell BBC that Australian vessel was distracted by bogus signals

The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is yet to target the most likely crash site, having been distracted by what is now believed to have been a bogus signal, satellite experts have claimed.

Scientists from Inmarsat, the British company that has been helping the search effort, told the BBC’s Horizon programme there was a “hotspot” in the southern Indian Ocean in which it most likely came down.

The flight lost contact with air traffic controllers on 8 March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with total of 239 passengers and crew on board.

Hourly pings sent by the plane were received by Inmarsat’s spacecraft, leading scientists to calculate its likely path.

Australian naval vessel Ocean Shield was dispatched to investigate, but before reaching the likely site, began to detect a signal that it believed was coming from the plane’s black box, Inmarsat told the BBC programme.

Two months were spent searching 850sq km of sea bed north west of Perth, but the source of the “pings” was not found and a submersible robot found no evidence of the airliner.

“It was by no means an unrealistic location but it was further to the north east than our area of highest probability,” Chris Ashton at Inmarsat told Horizon.

Experts from the satellite firm modelled the most likely flight path using the hourly pings and assuming a speed and heading consistent with the plane being flown by autopilot.

“We can identify a path that matches exactly with all those frequency measurements and with the timing measurements and lands on the final arc at a particular location, which then gives us a sort of a hotspot area on the final arc where we believe the most likely area is,” explained Ashton.

After coming under criticism from relatives over the futile search, Malaysia’s civil aviation authority and Inmarsat last month decided to release the raw data.

However, its complexity has led to few independent conclusions being drawn about the likely crash site.

Malaysian Selamat Umar, whose son Mohamad Khairul Amri was on the ill-fated jetliner, questioned the motives behind the data release.

“I am not convinced at all by the data,” he said. Why are they releasing it now? Before when we asked for it, they did not want to release it. What can we do with it now?

“I think they could have made some changes to the data,” Selamat, 60, added.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 June 2014, 4:36 pm and is filed under
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M’sia not secular state – what say Sabah, S’wak?

Malaysiakini

Jun 17, 2014

YOURSAY
 ‘Position of Sabah and S’wak, where there is no official religion, is clear.’

Malaysia not secular state, gov’t says

Aries46:
 The Federal Court has in no uncertain terms declared that we are a secular nation and this has been reaffirmed even in a High Court decision last month.

Even a layperson is aware that we are a constitutional monarchy and our constitution is based on secular and democratic principles under parliamentary supremacy.

Even Muslims are subject to the civil courts notwithstanding the fact that the Syariah Court has jurisdiction over their religious and customary family matters.

While the civil court may not have purview over matters related to the syariah court, the latter is also not empowered to trample on the constitutional rights and provisions under civil law that is legally binding and exclusive to non-Muslims, under the guise of conversion.

This is an injustice universally under any law, Islamic or otherwise.

Magnus:
 Hinduism, Christianity and Islam are strong enough in their true faith constitutions and true followers to withstand and survive their religious hypocrites, corrupt politicians, inquisitions/crusades/jihads, mad Ayatollahs, defenders of the faith and other nasty terrorists.

So I am sure that a secular Malaysia is also strong enough in the strength of its founding federal constitution and decent citizens to survive all the religious hypocrites, corrupt politicians and the awesome stupidity, nonsense and crassness unfortunately still running amok in the nation, courtesy of the 57-year of nauseating, stuck-in-the-rut incompetent non-governance delivered by treacherous and incompetent BN politicians like Minister in the PM’s Department Jamil Khir Baharom and countless others like him whom decent Malaysians misguidedly elected in trust to do a good paid job for them in public service and to wisely govern and safeguard their collective interests and the common good of their nation.

Fernz:
 Article 3(1) and 50.4 percent of the 30 million population in Malaysia being Muslim do not make the Federation an Islamic state.

Also, the subject of Islamic state was not raised in 1963 (when the Federation was formed). This is a political question and should be settled politically, not in court or by the king.

The position of Sabah and Sarawak, where there is no official religion, is clear. No Islamic state.

Adsertor:
 Malaysia is a secular country by the very virtue that Islam is not the official religion in the two largest states in the country – Sabah and Sarawak.

Jamil Khir should read the Sabah and Sarawak agreements. These agreements supersede the constitution in areas they covered. Besides there are articles in the constitution that ascertain the secularism of the country.

Cogito Ergo Sum:
 If we are not a secular state, then the federal constitution is not supreme law of the land. And if it is not, what is?

By his declaration Jamil Khir had made a fatal flaw and if not rectified by the cabinet, will cause a catastrophic breakdown in the day to day running of a democracy.

Will someone with common sense stand up and up do what is right?

Turvy:
Could the learned YB also explain what this means in terms of the consequences his interpretation has on his government? Could he also explain what he means by the term secular, because this appears not to be obvious in any legal document.

I can say that this country is tropical and everyone would understand this. But he in his ministerial authority, wearing what appears to be a western, Christian-inspired suit, cannot fall back on any so obvious definition of secular. So instruct us please.

Or is this a means to scare us Muslims and non-Muslims alike? And he gets away without understanding what he is talking about? What is secular? And what is non-secular? And then, could he answer the question that was raised in relation to hudud?

Is his answer, now in present continuous tense, to be always present and continuous?

Asitis:
 So is Jamil Khir saying that Tunku Abdul Rahman, the founding father of this nation who was present when our constitution was being drafted, was wrong?

The Tunku made it very clear that Malaysia is a secular country. Whatever Jamil Khir said now is his own personal opinion, and a misinformed one at that.

David Dass:
 Insisting that Malaysia is a secular state is like waving a red flag.

Malaysians of all faiths are deeply spiritual. Islam is the religion of the Federation and Muslims are subject to Islamic personal law. So nothing is achieved by insisting that Malaysia is not an Islamic state.

That said, we have a written constitution which is declared as the supreme law of the federation. Our rights as citizens devolve from the constitution and Islamic law is not applicable to non-Muslims.

For hudud law to apply to Muslims, the constitution must be amended. To amend the constitution to allow hudud would be a mistake. Non-Malay politicians should educate themselves carefully on the implications of making such an amendment.

Pemerhati:
 A more apt and true label has been given to Umno-controlled Malaysia by knowledgeable foreign observers. It has been described as a false democracy or a dictatorship.

This is because Umno can get the courts to give any verdict it wants because no judge would want to jeopardise his career by refusing the order of PM Najib Razak and Umno.

From time to time, Umno plays this game of letting the people who oppose them win their case in the lower courts but then overturns the verdict at the higher courts.

If it is a minor case, they may even let the opposition win. This is to create an illusion to the public and the foreign investors that Malaysia is a democratic country where there is rule of law.

The advantage of creating such an illusion is that the foreign investors will bring in their money to invest which will be good for Umno as they can siphon some of it for themselves.

The other advantage is that the leaders in Umno do not become international pariahs like the dictators of North Korea and Syria.

Lim Chong Leong:
 We are a lawless country. No democracy, no constitution, no police, no courts. Anarchy.

The police chief refuses to abide by a court order, the PM says there is no need for High Court but go straight to Federal Court, the attorney-general needs to consult criminals and victims before taking action, AG’s orders to the seizure of bibles are said to be illegal not adhered to and he takes no action.

Now a minister interprets the constitution to his own bigoted liking. ‘Habislah’ (It’s the end), unless the true Muslims stand up.

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                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 June 2014, 9:50 am and is filed under
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A happy PM, but a sad nation

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

18 June 2014

Although the country is imploding, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his advisers believe that all is well. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, June 18, 2014.Although the country is imploding, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his advisers believe that all is well. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, June 18, 2014.In Seri Perdana, sits an increasingly happy and contented man.

Never mind that the country is witnessing early signs of anarchy. Never mind that Islamic religious authorities seem to be setting the agenda for this multiracial and secular country, threatening to do what Boko Haram is doing in Nigeria: destroying Bibles. Never mind that Malaysia is veering so far off course that even its most ardent defenders have lost faith… in everything.

In the serene enclave in Seri Perdana, all is well, according to those who have spoken to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak recently and some of his advisers. He does not wear the post-GE13 dead man walking look, the look of someone destined for the political scrap heap through a combination of his own ineptitude and the prodding of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, instigator-in-chief.

Why the new bright outlook? The PM and his inner circle believe:

* that the internal challenge from Umno for the top job in the country has all but dissipated with Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin disinterested in challenging for the top job in Umno and Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi not inclined to be the stooge of Dr Mahathir, a man who sacked him from Umno and detained him under the Internal Security Act.

So by sheer default and perhaps even cowardice on the part of Umno leaders, Najib looks secure as the Umno president and prime minister, foibles and flip-flops notwithstanding.

* that the push back from the centre against the Sultan of Johor’s attempt to snare executive powers has painted him as a leader with a spine and gained some points for the PM across the country.

Putrajaya believes that the majority of Malays and Malaysians want the royal households to behave and yearn for the strong hand of Dr Mahathir in disciplining and curbing their ravenous appetite for power and projects.

And because the Sultan of Johor has been hemmed in by the centre, Najib feels that his government will pick up some brownie points and his image as a weak and indecisive politician will be rehabilitated somewhat.

* that the PM is untouched by the debate on cronyism sparked off by YTL’s Tan Sri Francis Yeoh’s infamous speech several weeks ago.

At a Global Malaysia series forum run by Pemandu, the tycoon had allegedly said that 85% of YTL’s businesses were in Britain, Singapore and Australia because these countries did not tolerate corruption, and practised meritocracy and stood for the rule of law.

He added that in these countries, he did not have to kow-tow to a prime minister before a deal is done. Yeoh later clarified that his words were misrepresented but even a mea culpa did not stop the savage attack against him that followed, leading to searching questions being asked about the YTL’s involvement in a power plant in Johor.

Najib’s team believe that little muck from this debate on cronyism will attach itself to the PM since Yeoh is generally identified as a beneficiary of the Mahathir era.

* that the victory in the Teluk Intan by-election suggests that the worst is over for Barisan Nasional (BN).

So at least in Putrajaya, the feeling is that all is well.

How out-of-touch is this man and his phalanx of advisers? He may be safe from a challenge in Umno but the country is imploding. No one seems to be in charge.

Court decisions are ignored. A ruling by the Attorney-General (A-G) is snubbed by religious authorities. And every day there is a threat being issued by one group of Malaysians against another group of Malaysians.

The East Malaysians are restless. Sandwiched in between all this are state-abetted acts of thievery and plundering on a scale not seen before.

No wonder a latest survey indicates that a very high percentage of Malaysians feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction.

The PM’s personal approval rating is still hovering around the 50% mark.

Yet, the occupant of Seri Perdana believes things are getting better. Last night, he issued a statement ostensibly to add some weight to the stalemate issue of seized Malay and Iban-language Bibles that first began on January 2.

Najib asked everyone to respect the A-G’s decision not to charge the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) with keeping the Bibles.

He also urged the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais) to discuss with the A-G if it feels that the decision should be reviewed, adding that the solution to the issue should be based on the provisions and spirit of the country’s constitution and law, so that it would be  accepted by society.

That’s what he said, without giving any idea where he stood on the matter.

The simple fact is that we have a weak Prime Minister; an occasional PM. – June 18, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 June 2014, 8:48 am and is filed under
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