How to radicalise our universities

by
Dr. Azly Rahman

My parents, like those of many of you readers too,  only managed to complete Darjah Tiga/ Standard Three of their education. Poverty and the nature of ‘human capital revolution’ during the 1940s did not afford them the luxury of being in an ivory tower. Hard times.

One became a taxi driver and the other first, a seamstress and next, a factory worker in Singapore assembling microchips for a German multinational corporation. They would leave for work at four or five in the morning and come home at seven at night. That was the story of their lives. I am sure they too had the dream of entering a place called the “university.”

They spent their time -hard times- that took toll on their personal lives, raising their children to enter the university.

But they had an intelligent hunch, they believed universities will make everybody come out smarter and able to think critically, creatively, and altruistically. They did not have the knowledge of political economy to decipher the fact that universities are closely linked to the politics of the day.

I still believe what my parents believed, that universities ought to make people come out smarter and able to solve problems in as many ways as they possibly can. Universities ought to make them able to articulate ideas, expound ideas, and make the graduates closer to the ‘masses’ and not to the ‘power elites’.

Universities ought to make its graduates understand the meaning of human liberation. Universities ought to help humans have all the qualities mentioned and at the same time help them get a decent job. One that will evolve into a career and ultimately become a calling.

Like my mother especially who would say, “Belajar lah pandai pandai Ah-Lik, nanti boleh masuk universiti.” (“Study hard Ah-Lik, you can then enter the university”)’

I too believe in this mantra which says that universities must be the place to make one more intelligent.

Cultures of Disability

What has become of our public universities? Have we created cultures of disability in the way we teach our students how to think?

The public seems to be feeling betrayed. Too often now in the emerging progressive media, we hear such lamentations below:

“Our universities have lost their sense of historic and philosophical mission; we are seeing a university shackled by the ideology that has developed historical- materialistically out of the mold of Western and Eastern colonialism.”

Our academic leaders are seemingly trying hard to please their political masters of the day; they seem to be imitating the role of the intelligentsia rather than of organic intellectuals. Their creativity and sense of democracy is ‘guided’ by a philosophy of instrumentalism, rather than radical multiculturalism.

Our academic staff are overwhelmingly afraid to speak up on issues that matter most to the destiny of the nation: increasing authoritarianism, Oriental Despotism, rule of technocracy, the plundering of our national wealth by those in the ruling elites, destruction of our rainforest and our environment, blind following of the ideology of developmentalism, and the silencing of civil servants as well as academicians through dictates and documents that are archaic and styled perhaps after the rule of J.W.W. Birch, the resident of Malay settlement of the 1800s. Their minds are conditioned to obey.

Our students are being treated like extensions of the Malaysian secondary schools and they in turn treat the university as a place wherein facts are merely to be regurgitated at the end of the semester examinations. Therefore they now expect to be spoon-fed all the time, even during job interviews.

Our campuses are becoming a battleground of political leaders from the “pro-aspirasi kerajaan” (pro-government aspiration and ‘pro-pembangkang’ (pro-Opposition.) The words ‘aspiration’ and ‘opposition’ are cleverly used to create the ‘good guy’ versus ‘bad guy’ dichotomy in Malaysian politics, masking the real issues.

We need a brand new political order altogether. Our students are not skilled in reading between the lines, since they are skilled memorisers of facts and blind receptors/recipients of ideologies.

Our classrooms are turning to be real lecture theatres wherein the lecturers and the professors are mostly not keen in engaging in dialogical, dialectical, and didactical teaching. Our university lecturers/professors think they are ‘sages on stage’ and not ‘Socrates the liberator’ and a guide on the side. They have become ‘modular-type’ instructors.

Our universities are more interested in specialising themselves into this and that universities – Management, Multimedia, Agricultural, Technology, Social Sciences, the Arts, etc. etc. – undermining the value of a broad and strong foundation of the arts and humanities which should form the basis of any institution called a ‘university’. Dive and conquer through specialization. might the underlying perspective be.

A ‘Universiti UMNO’ — a little bit too much for an institution — was once mooted. The more specialised the universities are, the better they can be ideologically controlled. This seems to be the nature of hegemonic system of thinking which is prevailing.

Our graduates are being churned out in a diploma mill -some within three years only – we now have unemployed graduates by the tens of thousands. They were given the promise to finish early and they ended up without jobs.

Our academicians do not produce enough bodies of knowledge; ones that would challenge every aspect of the foundation of ideas which are prevailing today. We continue to produce knowledge base that is ‘instrumental reason’ and technocratic in nature; produced out of lecture theatres, tutorial rooms, and textbook-publishing houses that fail to critique the dominant ideology.

Our universities are not only funded by the ruling coalition party that is under scrutiny for big-time corruption, wastage, and at the brink of being replaced, but also by corporations at home and abroad that are interested in seeing that the graduates are graduating from the mold of the corporate-government-industrial complex.

Our universities are fertile grounds for the indoctrination of ideas and the funneling down of slogans – from the idea of a K-economy, Islam Hadhari to modal insan (human capital).

We continue to be sloganised.

Academicians diligently frame their research question, methodology, findings, conclusion, and recommendations to fit the citra-rasa/agenda of the ruling ideology of the day. Our universities ride the waves of Nationalisation, Islamisation, Information Technologisation, Globalisation, and now Bio-technologisation – because they choose not to stop and look at the waves first and ride them later.

We have created cultures of disability in our public universities.

Our politicians, especially those involved in education beginning from the time of Independence have not clearly understood the role of a university in a nation that is coming out of colonialism. Not enough radicalism has been cultivated on campuses.

Because the developmental agenda of the nation is tied to the role of the universities, the latter has become an apparatus of the ideology of modernisation and hypermodernisation; two continuing processes of the development of base and superstructure that define what we are now, a neo-colonialist corporatist nation that is even more complexly tied to the international system of modern slavery ruled via the regime of globalisation.

What inroads need we take to reconstruct our public universities? We must go back to philosophy for possible solutions.

Cultures of Ability

To enable our public universities, we ought to embark upon, borrowing the title of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, a ‘long walk to freedom’ by taking the following  steps:

Understand the philosophy and historic mission of universities; those in the business should be able to articulate the meaning and manifestation of a university.

Understand the meaning of hegemony and how it was crafted in the previous regime of Dr. Mahathir and how we ought to craft ourselves out of it. We ought to understand how not to get into any  newer form of hegemony.

We ought to understand how to be totally free and how to live a philosophical life that values the quest for meaning rather than the quest for political and material Epicureanism.

Understand theories of knowledge and its application to all spheres of university education so that we may not merely turn our ivory towers into creating people and ideas that will turn this nation primarily into a haven for economic exploitation of global multinational corporations, leaving the rakyat homeless in the house capitalism build.

Our universities are increasingly influenced by market forces in that we become slaves to industries that are themselves slaves to technological inventions that do not have an end to their own progress.

Our graduates in the scientific and technological fields are discovering that they are becoming victims to the onslaught of shifting technologies and the emotionless system of advanced capitalist formation that shift jobs and retrenches people in the name of corporate downsizing, corporate re-engineering, and in meeting the needs of specialised labor.

This means that these major global corporations that dictate the needs of labor to be produced from our universities are finding it more profitable to either automate or to move their operations to nations that can sell human labor even cheaper.

Understand the role of universities viz-a-viz for a truly democratic nation; in a democracy that values pastoralism and meaningful participation rather than one that advances protectionism and the plundering of public wealth.

Study progressive reform movements that have helped advance the development of intellectual culture in universities. Create students who are radical enough to challenge not only corrupt practices but also challenge paradigms of thinking. This is the ethos that create frontier thinkers in any society.

Learn to deconstruct ideology by understanding what the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas call ‘ideologikritik’, the art and science of understanding the structure of knowledge and the human-constituted interests which embody it.

By understanding how knowledge, particularly instrumental/technical knowledge is constructed, and who owns and control its development, we can better understand how to deconstruct it to become more humane.

Inject critical theory and critical sensibility into our daily academic practices. Familiarise ourselves with the work of institutions such as The Vienna Circle, The Berlin School of Logical Positivists, The Frankfurt School of Social Research, The Birmingham School of Cultural Studies, LEKRA, ASAS 50, and our own Malaysian school of progressive thoughts.

Encourage cutting edge social and cultural research and understand alternative economic theories that value the development of the people, by the people, for the people.

Improve the quality of Foundation courses so that they may help our graduates ground their studies and future practices in the reading of great works in cross-cultural, inter-religious, and socially-real human experiences. Revamp foundational studies to emphasise on deep and broad reading of great work of literature and the humanities and to have students read timeless classics of Asian and world cultures.

Implement Affirmative Action and Cultural diversity policies that will help us understand and be aware of what ‘Equal Opportunity Employment’ means. Have color-blind policies that include total desegregation of universities that are too ethnocentric. Implement principles of meritocracy as well.

Improve instructional practices across the board, taking advantage of emerging digital technologies that will be used for the advancement of ‘digital proletariatism’ rather than to enrich computer technology vendors well-connected to politicians. Turn lecturers/professors into powerhouses of teaching faculty; ones that are not only well-versed in their subject matter but also skilled in delivery.

Improve faculty workload so that they may have time to think like a philosopher rather than be, like a ‘homo academicus’ in the age of the smart machine, the academician who is being caught in the conveyor belt of knowledge production controlled by those who own the nation and international production-houses of knowledge.

Ignite intellectual fervor in our students. Challenge them with more and more questions, like Socrates did with the Athenians. To be smart one’s thinking need to be radicalised. Encourage students to be involved in political organizations and be radical idealists while at the same time emphasise the need to be academically superior as well.

Improve students’ higher-order thinking skills, challenge them into newer intellectual heights. Encourage them to express their views, cultivate their radicalism and nurture it so that they may become the best and most ethical leaders our nation will benefit from. Award those who can think more than just outside the box but those who can destroy old boxes to create newer and better ones.

Feed the radical students with more and more radical theories of social change, so that when they become leaders they will ignite peaceful revolutions that speaks truth to power and bring happiness to the poor.

Ensure that politicians who do not know much about university education do not interfere with learning. Allow as many politicians from as diverse camp as possible to dialogue with students so that the latter can sample as many ideologies as possible or even challenge the invited speakers.

Involve all levels of people in continuing education. The university must encourage each one of the staff members to achieve as much as they can through programs in continuing education and professional development.

Attract competent teaching faculty from diverse philosophical perspectives to intellectually enrich our students in the universities. Bring in scholars who live and die with their ideologies – capitalists, free enterprisers, Marxists, neo- Marxists, modernists, post-modernists, religionists, atheists, nationalists, internationalists, rockers, rock and rollers and rappers.

Let a thousand flowers bloom in each and every Malaysian university.

Monitor and deal democratically and dialogically with all forms of extremism in thinking. Do not witch-hunt them or order the courts to shut them up.

Explore the idea of creative de-evolution and ‘revillagisation’ as an alternative to urbanism. We should evolve into peaceful and cultured people of the rural and urban greens.

There is beauty in agricultural economy, over the excessive brutishness of industrialism.

Explore transcultural socialism and its philosophical and practical underpinnings; one based on a system of moral economy that ensures equitable, regulative, and distributive justice and one rooted in the supremacy of metaphysics and global ethics.

Since we are interested in the future of our children’s intellectual development, let us begin our dialogue on how to reconstruct our public universities.

Let us inquire into the complex relationship between the State and the Universities and how the contradictions are always present. How much intervention must the Universities allow the State to have?

To whom must the allegiance of the universities lie?

Abolish repressive clauses in the University and University Colleges Act of 1971 and discard the Surat Akujanji that has been used to instill fear in students, staff, and even thinking academicians.

Education is about renewing prosperity, rejuvenating hope, and redefining our practices.

Above all, education is about educare (from the Latin) meaning the drawing out of human potentials, so that our students, as my mother would say, “boleh jadi orang pandai, boleh tolong anak bangsa.” (“can become intelligent and can help the children of your race”)

I would adapt her notion of social justice to boleh tolong bangsa Malaysia (to help the Malaysian race) or, better still, borrowing the great storyteller Pramoedya Ananta Toer,
“boleh tolong anak semua bangsa.”
(“to help the children of Humanity”)

Let us see if we can create a university as such — intellectual progress requires the cultivation of such radicalism. Or let us see which State will be the first to create such a radical place of unbounded, pleasurable, meaningful, and lifelong  learning.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 15 July 2008, 6:55 am and is filed under
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Next  CJ – not affected by “Judicial reforms”

De facto Law Minister, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim has just confirmed that the appointment of the next Chief Justice will not be affected by any judicial reform currently in the pipeline.

I posed this question during the winding-up of the debate on the Judges’ Remuneration (Amendment) Bill 2008.

The Chief Justice, Tun Abdul Hamid will retire on 18th October 2008.

I pointed out that as it does not appear that the much-hyped judicial reform, including the establishment of a Judicial Appoinments Commission, will be presented to Parliament before October although Zaid had earlier promised that the legislative proposals would be presented in the current meeting of Parliament, the appointment of the next Chief Justice will be by the present process.

When Zaid agreed, I remarked that the country seems set to have the first UMNO Chief Justice in the nation’s history.

I had earlier expressed my concern that the government is back-tracking on its promise of judicial reforms.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 15 July 2008, 7:23 pm and is filed under
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Road Block Causes Failure in CLP Examination

Letters

by
Ganesh

I refer to Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar’s apology with regards to the massive traffic jams caused yesterday. What Syed Albar does not realize is that, not only were people late in reaching their offices and thus productivity was affected, many people also missed important examinations.

Monday was the first day of the Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP) examinations held in University Malaysia (UM). As the examination was 9 am, many left much earlier from their houses. As for me, I left 7am from my house located in Subang Jaya. Usually by 7.30 am, I would be passing EPF.

However, to my shock and horror, I only reached UM at 10.30am, by that time, it was too late to sit for that particular paper. I was crawling in a standstill jam all the way on the Federal Highway. It was too late for me to turn and use any alternatives as it was a bottleneck jam everywhere and impossible to use any other alternatives.

Many people sitting this examination were either late or just failed to turn up because as one knows, reaching late to the examination hall, one would be barred from entering the hall.

And the CLP examination is such, that if you miss just one paper, you might as well resit the whole examination the next year as you would clearly fail the whole examination having not sat one paper completely.

The shocking thing is that, this is the last year of the examination before it is scrapped for good. So, how is one going to sit for the examination again?

To make matters worse, there were no protest at all. Even if there were protests, we have had many other protests before, and it was all peaceful protests. So why were there virtually every other road being blocked in KL causing a massive gridlock in the whole Klang Valley?

Some were aware of the roadblocks but many were not aware of the roadblocks as the public were not for-warned about the roadblocks much earlier

As Datuk Syed Albar was a previous lawyer, I am sure he understands this predicament of those aspiring to be lawyers. As this is the last CLP examination, many are stuck now, not knowing what to do. Many have sat this examination several times, hoping they would pass this last attempt before it is abolished next year.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 15 July 2008, 12:46 pm and is filed under
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Strongest “intelligence” for  3-day police gridlock of Klang Valley nothing but a lie – Hamid should apologise and even resign in disgrace

The strongest “intelligence” to justify the three-day police lockdown of Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley has proved to be nothing but  a lie.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar alleged that Pakatan Rakyat leadership had met last Wednesday to plot a demonstration in Parliament yesterday  to coincide with a no-confidence motion on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

This is what Hamid said, as reported by the
Star
:

Syed Hamid said intelligence was also gathered from a July 9 meeting chaired by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. at the PKR headquarters.

“Anwar said at the meeting that some BN MPs would give support to PKR (on the no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister) and he would then lead the demonstration at Parliament,” he added.

Syed Hamid said the meeting was attended by various leaders, including DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, DAP vice-chairman Dr Tan Seng Giaw and PAS treasurer Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli.

“This proves that the threat was very real. The intention was clear, we had to take some action to prevent bigger things from happening.”

There was no such Pakatan Rakyat leadership meeting at the venue, date, time and for the  purpose alleged.

Hamid had accused Anwar Ibrahim for being a
“snitch”
 of the United States, for which Anwar is suing Hamid for RM100 million for defamation.  But he is a Minister  for “snitches” and not honest snitches at that, who could concoct lies like the non-existent high-level Pakatan Rakayt leadership meeting last Wednesday.

May be, Hamid should disclose how much of taxpayers’ funds are being spent to pay for these liars of “snitches”.

Guan Eng, Seng Giaw and I never attended any such Pakatan Rakyat meeting. In fact, none of us had visited the new PKR headquarters in Petaling Jaya.

The so-called high-level Pakatan Rakyat leadership meeting last Wednesday  appears to be the most “solid” and  important “intelligence” for the police mobilisation of 1,600 personnel to immobilise Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley in a three-day gridlock, causing  massive traffic jams where tens of thousands of people were  inconvenienced for three days –  the worst was yesterday, which trapped people in traffic jams for hours on end, where a journey which would normally take a 20-minute ride took two and a half hours or more.

Now that it has been debunked with the denial by Guan Eng, Seng Giaw and I, both the Home Minister and the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Musa Hassan must accept full responsibility for the ridiculous,  outrageous and baseless  massive deployment of police personnel for three days to forestall a non-existent Pakatan Rakyat demonstration in Parliament.

If there was a demonstration yesterday, it was not by Pakatan Rakyat but by Hamid and 1,600 police personnel in an outrageous “show of force” locking down Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley – a clear abuse of police powers.

It is regrettable that the Prime Minister has been  misled into defending and justifying the completely unnecessary police roadblocks, when he should have called up Hamid to present a case to warrant such massive police operation.

The apology by Hamid for  the three-day traffic jams brought about by “heightened security arrangements in the city”  is hollow, empty and utterly meaningless when the strongest intelligence that he has relied upon has proven to be completely baseless.

What other intelligence has Hamid got?  Hamid has said that such intelligence constituted “two political speeches, two blogs and two SMS”.

If “two political speeches, two blogs and two SMS” of dubious veracity and credibility can justify the deployment of 1,600 police personnel in a three-day gridlock of the Klang Valley, Malaysians cannot have confidence in the efficiency, competence and professionalism of the Malaysian police or that the country will be having a world-class police service soon.

If “two political speeches, two blogs and two SMS” are sufficient a launch a massive operation involving 1,600 police involving tens of thousands of police man-hours, which could be better deployed in fighting crime and make Malaysians safe in their homes, work sites and public places, why then hadn’t the very many more speeches, blogs and SMS launched police operations against Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Datuk Seri Rosmah over the murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu?

Hamid should not only apologise for telling a lie that Guan Eng, Seng Giaw and I had attended a high-level Pakatan Rakyat leadership meeting last Wednesday to plot a demonstration in Parliament yesterday, he should even resign as Home Minister if he could not convince Malaysians that the Police and Home Ministry have credible and solid reason for the three-day gridlock of the Klang Valley.

Hamid should support a public inquiry into how and why the police, the Home Minister and the Prime Minister could be so easily misled by “snitches” as to deploy 1,600 police personnel in a three-day gridlock of Klang Valley on the fiction of a massive Pakatan Rakyat demonstration around Parliament yesterday – when Pakatan Rakyat leaders had repeatedly denied any such demonstration and not a soul had turned up for such a demonstration yesterday.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 15 July 2008, 4:00 pm and is filed under
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Anwar’s arrest – police provocative, untrustworthy and unprofessional

In arresting  Anwar Ibrahim outside his Bukit Segambut home just before 1 pm today, the police are being most provocative, unprofessional and untrustworthy.

Anwar had already undertaken to report to the police at 2 p.m after he had given his statement to the Anti-Corruption Agency in the morning, and to spring such an arrest well before 2 pm outside his house has deepened public concerns and fears that the police cannot be independent, professional, responsible  and trustworthy in handling the latest Anwar case.

Coming close in the heel of the three-day 1,600-member police operation inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of people in the Federal capital and the Klang Valley completely without basis or justification – purportedly on the basis of “two speeches, two blogs and two SMS” and the lie of a top-level Pakatan Rakyat leadership meeting on July 9 to plot the non-existent demonstration in Parliament on Monday – public confidence in the credibility, efficiency and professionalism of the police has reached an all-time low.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 16 July 2008, 5:37 pm and is filed under
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Anwar detained by police overnight

Anwar Ibrahim has been denied bail and is being detained by the police overnight, purportedly so that the police could  take a “further statement”.

This is a most ridiculous reason, as Anwar had been questioned for five hours today before he was taken to Kuala Lumpur hospital for two hours.

The Prime Minister and the Police should be aware that world attention is focused on Anwar’s detention and if there is any ill-treatment of Anwar as happened ten years ago, there will be no place for anyone, regardless of station, to hide.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 16 July 2008, 11:26 pm and is filed under
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Another Trial for Malaysia

By
Farish A. Noor

The trials and tribulations of Malaysia’s former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim continue, and history seems to be repeating itself time and again in the country. Ten years after the infamous trial where he was accused of sexual misconduct and abuse of power, Anwar Ibrahim is once again being investigated for charges of sexual misconduct with a man who was a member of his party, the People’s Justice Party (PKR) of Malaysia.

On 16th July Anwar was arrested just after he had given his testimony before the country’s Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA), and on his way to give yet another testimony at the Police Headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. A deadline had been set at 2.00 pm for him to show up at the police office, and though he was already on his way there he was apprehended near his home before the deadline had expired.

Anwar has since been arrested under the laws of section 377a of the Malaysian constitution that stipulates that ‘abnormal sex’ is a crime. Yet Malaysians have grown somewhat weary of the use of this law as the last time it was put to work was in 1998, when Anwar was also accused on ‘abnormal sex’. The trial that followed his arrest in 1998 was a shambolic affair that brought low the reputation of the Malaysian judiciary and security services; and the icing on the cake was the assault on Anwar that led to him being produced in court with bruises on his face and the infamous black eye that has been captured for posterity by the world’s media. Malaysia’s legal institutions suffered the biggest blow to their credibility as the court case that followed was scrutinised in detail by Malaysia-watchers the world over.

Today, things have changed and moved on: In 1998 Malaysia’s political crisis was sparked by Anwar’s arrest and the mobilisation of the masses by his political supporters who used tools like the internet and alternative media. Malaysia then had less than a million internet users, and Anwar’s nemesis Dr. Mahathir was at the peak of his popularity.

Malaysia today has moved on with nearly 12 million registered internet users and the creation of the most well-connected, well-informed and politically savvy electorate in its history. Furthermore the present government does not have half of the support that Dr. Mahathir enjoyed in 1998, with the ruling coalition being badly weakened after the election results of 2008. Anwar, on the other hand, is at the peak of his career and popularity; and many feel that this arrest was yet another attempt to prevent him from leading a popular movement to change the government.

On the night before his arrest, Anwar was seen on TV in a live debate about oil prices with a senior politician, Shabary Cheek. For Malaysians all over the country, this was perhaps the first time they had seen Anwar live on TV and allowed to speak his mind freely since his fall from grace in 1998. And the results of the debate were expected: Local polls suggested that the Malaysians saw Anwar as the winner of the debate and that his arguments were convincing.

Anwar’s arrest could therefore not have come at a worst time for the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The question on everyone’s lips is: How will this latest scenario play itself out in Malaysian politics, and what will be the results in the near future?

For a start it is unlikely that Anwar will be released anytime soon as there are fears that he will once again mobilise his supporters and call for massive demonstrations all over the country. But in jail Anwar is as effective an icon for the opposition and a magnet for those disaffected and disillusioned with the government of Prime Minister Badawi.

Prime Minister Badawi has in turn given assurances that the investigation into Anwar’s case will be done fairly and Anwar will be safe. Such assurances are, however, going to be held to account by a Malaysian public that is no longer prepared to accept the irregularities of the earlier trial of Anwar in 1998. This time round, every single step of the investigation will be watched by discerning Malaysians and the wider international community, and the expansion of Malaysia’s civil society and the internet means that every minute detail of the investigation will be made public.

Perhaps the only thing that can save Anwar, Badawi and Malaysia in the long run is an investigation and trial that is absolutely objective, transparent and accountable. For even the slightest hint of bias or irregularity will add credence to Anwar’s claim that the accusations against him are part of a political plot to prevent him from returning to politics; a fact that was stated in his closing remarks during his televised debate where he stated that he intended to contest at a by-election soon.

For now, the ball seems to be in Anwar’s court and it is he who stands to gain the most from his arrest. Whether in or out of jail, Anwar has resumed his status as martyr and public hero. While this may work in the favour of Anwar and other politicians in the country, other serious issues like economic and institutional reform have been sidelined once again. But this time it is not just Anwar and his reputation that is on trial, but also that of Malaysia and Malaysia’s legal and judicial systems as well.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 17 July 2008, 10:15 am and is filed under
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Police Black Eyes

Anwar Ibrahim has been released on police bail this morning.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi promised that there will not be another “black eye” trauma for Anwar as happened ten years ago.

However, the police has received a “black eye” of its own making, in its highly-provocative, unprofessional and unjustifiable arrest of Anwar  by police commandos in balaclava at 12.55 pm yesterday – when the former deputy prime minister had already promised to report to the police at 2 pm.

This is the second self-administered police black-eye within a week – the other being the completely unjustified three-day 1,600-personnel police operation to lock down the Federal Capital and the Klang Valley to thwart a massive demonstration in Parliament on Monday when there was not a single protestor – causing great and unnecessary  inconvenience and hardships to hundreds of thousands of people, plunging public confidence in the efficiency, competence and professionalism of the police to an all-time low.

The two self-administered “police black-eyes” in the past week raises the question whether the Royal Police Commission set up in the early months of  the Abdullah premiership and which made 125 recommendations to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional world-class police service – with its most important recommendation for an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) – has turned out to be a total waste of time, resources and funds!

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 17 July 2008, 12:32 pm and is filed under
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University of Malaya  medical student intake

Letters

by
cat

A Background Introduction

Entering the Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur is still the prized aspiration of many doctor-wannabes. The medical degree conferred by UM is the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) which is the title awarded by universities in the United Kingdom and Australia. Other local public universities like University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) confer medical degrees in the acronym of MD which stands for doctor of medicine (Latin: Medicinæ Doctor).

Contrary to the common but erroneous perception among pre-university students, there is no difference between the MBBS and MD medical degrees.

Up till 2001, University Malaya along with other local universities practised an intake of medical students based on a quota system. Under the quota system, the ratio of medical students was in the order of 6:3:1 that is, 60% of places for bumiputeras, 30% for Chinese Malaysians and 10% for Indian Malaysian students. Bumiputera students comprised both Malays and the non-Malay bumiputeras from Sabah and Sarawak.

From 2002 onwards, the UMNO government introduced a system of ‘meritocracy’ whereby the intake of students into local universities was based solely on academic achievement without regards to co-curricular activities and ethnic background. Conventionally, bumiputera students took matriculation as the pre-university examinations while the non-bumiputeras took the STPM/Sixth Form examinations. There are occasional exceptions though these are rare. Some Malay students do take the STPM route and vice versa.

As of 2004, the non-bumiputera Chinese and Indians students were allocated 10% of the total matriculation seats. This was the beginning of a new era in the local universities especially for the most competitive courses. Beginning 2004, the majority of non-bumiputera students entering courses like medicine, pharmacy, dentistry and engineering courses were from matriculation background.

In addition, from 2001-2003, University of Malaya accepted additional students from the Royal College of Medicine Perak (RCMP) in a supposed and controversial twinning program between the two institutions. The number of RCMP students taken in between 2001-2003 numbered 13, 60 and 90 respectively. These comprised mostly bumiputera Malay students. Upon graduation, these students were conferred a medical degree indistinguishable from the degree awarded to ‘genuine’ University of Malaya medical students.

The Motive

This article intends to inform and reveal statistics as they really are. The numbers quoted do not include students accepted into the faculty from the Royal College of Medicine Perak.

I have divided the intake of students into the MBBS program by ethnicity and route of entry.

Discussion

You are at liberty to draw your own conclusions by studying the charts and tables.

In order to facilitate thinking however, I have arbitrarily chosen three different points of view.

From a Racist Angle

The pre-‘meritocracy’ era ensure a minimum number of students from each major ethnic group. The bumiputeras made up 60% of the total intake, from which usually about 15 were composed of non-Malay bumiputeras from Sabah/Sarawak. As seen from the charts, their numbers have dwindled from a pathetic 9% to a miserable 1% under the current so-called meritocracy system.

Indian Malaysians used to form 10% of the student population under the quota system, numbering around 15-18 depending on the total annual intake. In 2003, Indian Malaysian students were left in a quandary when they had but one solitary representative in the medical faculty of University Malaya. Since then however, their numbers have somehow reached a figure comparable to that under the quota system. Their absolute number may not have slid much, but the percentage has decreased remarkably. HINDRAF apologists should take note of this.

The supposedly marginalized Chinese Malaysians have the least to be dissatisfied over. From a mere 30% representation under the quota system, they have increased in both absolute numbers as well as percentage, forming about 40-50% of the annual student intake. This came at a costly price though, as most of these Chinese students were from matriculation background. The Chinese students from STPM background can never compete with the matriculation students despite attaining excellent results.

If ethnicity is the sole issue here, the non-Malay bumiputeras from Sabah and Sarawak are the biggest losers among the races in meritocracy Malaysian style. Chinese Malaysians should zip up and continue throwing their support behind the beggar political party named MCA so that the MCA can continue their boot-licking heritage to beg and plead for the crumbs falling from UMNO’s golden platter.

It should not be forgotten that from 2001-2003, the Ministry of Education admitted additional Malay bumiputera students into the MBBS course via a backdoor named the Royal College of Medicine Perak. The official reported figures therefore do not reflect the actual student composition seated in the lecture halls of University Malaya Medical Faculty. When these RCMP students are added to the total student intake, the non-Malays student population in both absolute number and percentage falls to a very low figure indeed.

Do the maths yourself.

From an Academic Perspective

The essence of meritocracy is remarkably similar to Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’.

The pre-2002 quota system was a very flawed one.

Ethnicity was a very crucial criterion for acceptance into university, medical school included. Merit took second place and thus compromised the selection of students into every discipline. Universities had little or no autonomy as the selection of students was decided by the Unit Pusat Universiti (UPU), an institution under the Ministry of Education.

Academic achievements in national exams accounted for 90% of the points for entry into university while co-curricular achievements the remaining 10%. Many a time, students are tied in terms of academic achievements. The final deciding factor therefore was one’s co-curricular achievements. However, students are not required to submit their certified documents in order to support their claims of any grandiose extra-curricular activities.

The current system of meritocracy is no better and in fact worse. Since its introduction in 2002, the evaluation methodology has undergone such frequent changes that no one knows for sure what measures are employed to gauge students’ qualification into local universities.

Converting one’s STPM grades into a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) as practised for matriculation students is like trying to smell the color 9. It is not possible, not intelligent and is basically an effort of make-believe only. The two pre-university examinations are different in syllabus, level of difficulty, and criteria for final assessment.

The odds are heavily stacked against STPM candidates and therefore directly non-bumiputera students. Comparing STPM with matriculation results has resulted in the drastic drop in STPM students in competitive courses over the last five years. When the playing ground is unequal, true meritocracy and fair competition is practically impossible.

On another note, that the Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya has noticeably increased its annual intake of medical students by almost 30% over the last eight years. This is alarming in view of the limited resources in our local institutions. Like other public universities, University Malaya has lost a great number of experienced academicians over the years. Its teaching staff now comprises mostly junior lecturers who are still climbing their career ladder or themselves undergoing training under the Skim Latihan Akademik Bumiputera (SLAB) program.  A great number of these SLAB lecturers have barely one year of clinical experience before joining the academic ranks. Can they be relied upon to provide quality teaching and sound guidance?

Infrastructures and facilities are also not unlimited. Laboratories that were designed to host 15 students are now cramming 25 students. The quality of teaching and learning is therefore significantly compromised. Small group teaching is almost non-existent.

Indeed, the oft repeated quantity versus quality axiom never goes stale.

More important than a student’s entry qualification is one’s performance throughout the duration of study and the quality of product upon graduation.

The entry of non-bumiputra students into matriculation and therefore university has vastly changed the university’s landscape. Non-bumiputra matriculation students now outnumber their STPM counterparts in ratio of 10:1. In the last five years, the performance of non-bumiputra students in most local universities has deteriorated remarkable, a phenomenon not previously seen commonly. Failure and dropout rates across the races have skyrocketed to alarming levels. In 2004, the first year when non-bumiputra matriculation students first entered university, the failure rates for medical students were as high as 15%. Over the years the failure rates have decreased somewhat but still significantly higher than yesteryears. One hypothesis is the lack of competition among students. Previously, weaker students were forced to measure up to the more competent ones. In a scenario where most are equally inept, there is no drive and motivation to rise beyond mediocrity.

We have yet to witness the graduating products of these students with predominant matriculation graduates. From their performance thus far in university, one cannot be labeled pessimistic for being less than hopeful.

From a Sensible Viewpoint

Malaysia doesn’t need a committee of experts and academicians to produce an expensive and much-hyped blueprint in Malaysian higher education.

It’s not rocket science, advance trigonometry or quantum physics.

At the heart of most pressing issues is political will. Where there is no will, there is no way our local institutions can lift itself out of the doldrums.

UMNO controls everything and the narcissistic UMNO mindset seeps far and wide into the upper echelons of local universities.

Selection of students may be meritocracy in rhetoric but very much race-based in practice. The ratio among the races has changed little since the inception of Malaysian meritocracy. In the background are probably unseen political forces and manipulative hands that ensure a certain distribution of races into the faculties. The non-Malay bumiputeras from Sabah and Sarawak have not really been marginalized in terms of university intake. They have simply opted to apply to University Malaysia Sarawak and University Malaysia Sabah for reasons that are obvious.

The university authorities are not oblivious to the radical plunge in the quality of students entering competitive courses like medicine.  The apparent arrest of high failure rates beginning 2004 was not because of proactive measures taken by the universities but because the goal post has been moved and widened to allow for easier passage.

Importantly to note, an STPM or matriculation background is no guarantee of one’s performance in and beyond university. STPM students flunk examinations even in the so-called glorious days in the distant past. Similarly, matriculation students have aced assessments without the need of crutches or leaked questions.

Regardless, academic achievement in university is no reflection of one’s competency at work later on. It is however, a partial and reliable testimony of one’s attitude towards responsibilities and job commitments.

The solution to our higher education woes is not difficult actually.

The answer becomes obvious and clear when we look towards our tiny neighbour called Singapore.

Singapore stands tall among the shoulders of giants.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 17 July 2008, 12:40 am and is filed under
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Hamid Albar the greatest national security threat

Datuk Seri Syed Albar is a major security threat if the Home Minister is so gullible as to launch a massive three-day 1,600-personnel police operation to lock down Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley causing great financial losses and inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of people  based on “rubbish” intelligence about a non-existent high-level Pakatan Rakyat leadership meeting, two speeches, two blogs and two SMS.

Hamid had promised Parliament on Tuesday to
retract
his allegation that DAP Secretary-General and Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng, DAP National Vice Chairman and MP for Kepong, Dr. Tan Seng Giaw and I had attended a top leadership meeting of Pakatan Rakyat at the Parti Keadilan Rakyat headquarters on July 9 to plot a mass demonstration in or at  Parliament last  Monday to justify the deployment of 1,600 police personnel to create a three-day gridlock of the Federal capital and the Klang Valley.

Why is Hamid so conspicuously silent about his promise in Parliament in the past three days?

Is he still checking on whether he had been taken for a ride by his dishonest informers who  had concocted such tall tale about a fictitious meeting of top Pakatan Rakyat leaders on July 9, purportedly attended by Guan Eng, Seng Giaw and myself – when it is just a pack of lies?

Hamid said yesterday that  Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim should not worry about giving his DNA samples if he were interested to seek the truth behind the sodomy allegations against him.

Anwar has said that he has no faith in the system  as he is concerned about the fabrication of DNA test results.

If there is a national opinion poll, I believe the majority of Malaysians is behind Anwar in having grave doubts about the credibility and integrity of the institutions of government, particularly those headed by Hamid.

Hamid’s own conduct has given ammunition not only to justify Anwar’s lack of faith in the integrity of the system of police investigations and administration of justice, but also public skepticism that government institutions, whether the police, the judiciary or the Home Ministry could be fair, independent, impartial and professional in the handling of the latest sodomy allegation against Anwar.

If a Home Minister, the No. 1 man in charge of the Police force in the country, can so blatantly and without shame and impunity,  purvey a lie about a non-existent top leadership meeting of Pakatan Rakyat on July 9 purportedly attended by Guan Eng, Seng Giaw and I to plot a non-existent demonstration in Parliament on July 14, using it as an excuse to launch a massive three-day police operation to lock down Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley, who could ever trust in the credibility and integrity of government institutions?

Hamid should  stop advising Anwar or any Malaysian to trust in the integrity of national  institutions, organs and agencies  until and unless he is prepared to set the example of being a Home Minister who understands the meaning of honesty, credibility, impartiality and  integrity.

Hamid had been doubly offensive when he had said that he wanted to check on our alibis to establish that the three DAP leaders were not present at the so-called July 9 Pakatan Rakyat leadership meeting.

It is not for Guan Eng, Seng Giaw and I to prove our alibis but for Hamid to prove that there was indeed a top Pakatan Rakyat leadership meeting on July 9 which was attended by the three of us.

Hamid should stop his double standards of applying the principle that Pakatan Rakyat leaders are guilty until proven innocent, while for Barisan Nasional the principle to be applied is that they are innocent unless proven guilty.

This was why I had asked in Parliament on Wednesday why Hamid had not launched police actions against the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and other Cabinet Ministers as there were so many blogs and SMS making serious allegations against them – if two speeches, two blogs and two SMS were sufficient to justify the launching of a three-day 1,600-personnel massive police operation to lock down Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley.

When is Hamid going to own up that the so-called July 9 top Pakatan Rakyat leadership meeting attended by Guan Eng, Seng Giaw and I is a pure figment of imagination and accept responsibility for the totally unnecessary and unjustified three-day inconveniencing of hundreds of thousands of people in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley by getting Cabinet approval to pay compensation to all those who suffered financial losses, whether major or minor?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 18 July 2008, 1:20 pm and is filed under
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With whom will the army stroll?

by Azly Rahman

No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,

as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were:

any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,

and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

– John Donne, English poet

We do not need an emergency rule unless we are still living in 1969. Those days are over. Majlis Gerakan Negara (MAGERAN) is history. This is a time for the natural state of things to unfold. A time to let a hundred flowers bloom. The semiotics of structural violence must not be paraded in front of Malaysians who now know how to protest peacefully.

They know what a totalitarian regime means. They now know what separation of powers means. They want to see an urgent evolution of this philosophy. Only those in danger of losing power want to maintain hegemony and will use the ideological state apparatuses to maintain power. Machiavellians included.

Emergency rules are for nations in desperation. For dictators facing an imminent and violent political death. For despots who refuse to detach themselves from power. For governments that allow prime ministers to rule for as long as they like. Ours is not. We do not have dictators. We have democracy yearning to break free.

Suharto, Idi Amin, Shah Reza Pahlavi, Somoza, Noriega, and Marcos were are all tyrants. Some fell from grace because of the greed of their women. Typical Marie Antoinette syndrome.

Police must maintain justice

We are evolving into a civil society in which civilians are beginning to speak up in the name of building our own civilisation from the possibilities of social and global justice, universal human rights, cosmopolitanism, and radical multiculturalism. A deployment of the army will kill this image of a civil society, right at its infancy.

Soldiers fight to protect external enemies of the people, not to protect corrupt politicians against their own people. The latter is philosophically wrong.

The police are supposed to be maintaining justice in a world of irrationalities and unjust behaviour. The police need no extra protection if they are true to their conscience and always available and reliable to protect the citizens, even against elected representatives who abuse power.

An image of the army on the streets will be a violent one – both in truth and perception. We need not go that route – the route of Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Uganda, or Burma. We are gentle people with gentle ways of dealing with conflicts. We are not a junta nation. We do not have Hutus and Tutsis.

A gentle people

Gently done, we know when to remove a regime that is no longer gentle to the people who voted it into power. Gently, the Internet will take its natural course in igniting mental revolutions first, and peaceful revolutions next. Gently done, we know how to protest loudly against the violent and sudden price hikes, massive corruption, death of the judiciary, and even unsolved murder mysteries.

We do not need the army on the streets. We need to instead arm ourselves with revolutionary ideals, to hold on fast to our dreams of a republic of virtue, and to use the Internet to voice our dissenting views and to engineer regime change.

We are already an army of intellectuals in our own way, patrolling the mindscapes of Malaysia, spreading the message of peace, policing against politicians that are corrupt to the core. We are an army and a police ourselves. We do not need the semiotics of violence to take root.

Malaysians are gentle people. Only the media is getting more and more violent, feeding our children with stories upon stories of sex, lies, murders, and political intrigues.

Forgotten, unheard stories

We have forgotten the more important news of the day: the rakyat suffering through the recession and possible depression, youth losing their moral compass, failing schools, sprawling urban poverty, continuing systematic spread of racist propaganda in schools and universities, breakdown of family values, siphoning of the nation’s wealth out of the country, declining standards of our universities and a plethora of other issues we should be addressing and finding solutions to.

And many more. Stories of the rakyat. These are the masses whose stories must be heard. These are not the elite whose stories are pushed daily to the forefront, shoved into our consciousness ad nauseum.

No, the army must stay home and meditate or at best be deployed as peacekeeping forces for the United Nations. The people must be trusted to express themselves freely, peacefully.

Malaysian rallies are becoming huge family events. People come in all shape and sizes, from all walks of life, from a hard days’ work to listen to music and their favourite revolutionary leaders, and to renew their commitment to regime change.

The people are armed with better knowledge of what will work for them as Malaysians and what has miserably failed. They want change because the only permanent thing in this world is change.

No, we do not need the army patrolling the streets. The family members of the army and the police are also suffering from the recession and the astronomical increase in the price of everything. They too are armed with the knowledge of why the country is messed up as a result of the messing up of global and local politics.

For whom the bell tolls

In the end, the bell tolls for thee. When the time comes for the truth to surface, no army can stop it from violently appearing from the ground beneath. No police can guard truth from appearing in the eyes of the public.

No army can defeat revolutionary forces that install better regimes through peaceful, silent, ethical and intelligent means. No iron bars can imprison the conscience and the yearn for one to speak the truth to power. The goodness in men and women will be the best police and the best army.

Man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains.

No army on our streets, please. We are Malaysians. We must let justice take it natural course.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 19 July 2008, 6:14 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia more uncompetitive since the March 8 “political tsunami”

(Speech at the opening  of the Tasek Dalam DAP Branch, Ipoh on Sunday, 20th July 2008 at 12 noon)

The International Trade and Industry Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said yesterday that his ministry will be looking into
attracting investors
who are pulling out from  China because of high costs there.

Muhyiddin is being too optimistic when he should know that Malaysia has become even more uncompetitive in the past four-and-a-half months since the March 8 “political tsunami” because of the political weakness of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi which has resulted in his failure to deliver his numerous  long-overdue reform pledges.

This is one important reason why despite the Mid-Term Review of the Ninth Malaysia Plan,  the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) on Friday plunged to its lowest level since the end of 2006!

After the recent general election, Abdullah had assured Malaysians that he had finally heard their voices and would begin to implement reforms to regain public confidence in his administration.

Nearly five months have passed and apart from rhetoric, very little has been delivered by Abdullah.

In the three areas of police, judicial and anti-corruption reforms which Abdullah had made specific mention, Abdullah has nothing to show.

What is worse, recent events, in particular the  scandal of the two statutory declarations by private investigator Bala Subramaniam and his disappearance, the continued harassment of Anwar Ibrahim and Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the abuse of police powers and the lack of accountability by the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar over the three-day 1,600-strong police lockdown of Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley based on the  false intelligence of a non-existing Pakatan Rakyat top leadership meeting to plan massive demonstration in Parliament, have further undermined national and international confidence in the Abdullah government.

As a result, the past four-and-a-half months have witnessed the continued deterioration of the  crisis of confidence  confronting Abdullah, although  the Barisan Nasional had been returned with  a strong majority of  58 MPs in the recent  general election – with even leaders in Barisan Nasional losing confidence in Umno and BN government.

 Malaysia is not going to be attractive to foreign investors unless the nation is capable of being globally competitive through major institutional reforms and by giving top priority to meritocracy in all spheres of national endeavour.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 July 2008, 6:55 pm and is filed under
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Teo Seng Koon – Remember him?

Very few Malaysians will know who is Teo Seng Koon. His name came up after  the world’s No. 1 squash player
Nicol David
, 25, became the youngest Datuk when  she was honoured by the Yang di Pertua Negri of Penang Tun Abdul Rahman Abbas and former men’s badminton doubles ace
Ng Boon Bee
, 70,  was made a Datuk in conjunction with the 86th birthday of the Yang di-Pertuan Besar Negri Sembilan, Tuanku Ja’afar.

Seng Koon, 90, is the surviving member of the country’s first Thomas Cup team, which included legends Wong Peng Soon and Ong Poh Lim and created history by winning the inaugural Thomas Cup in 1948, beating Denmark 8-1.

The  very fit and sprightly nonagenarian turned up at the media conference convened by DAP MP for Ipoh Barat, M. Kulasegaran as we believe that the country should give proper recognition to sportsmen and sportswomen who have made great contribution to the country, like Seng Koon.

Seng Koon, who played doubles, told reporters that it took the Thomas Cup players three weeks to make the trip to the United Kindom by sea in 1948.

Seng Koon was formerly the Ipoh bureau chief of the defunct Echo.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 21 July 2008, 9:57 pm and is filed under
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That Boring Yet Necessary thing called Governance

By
Farish A. Noor

For two weeks now, this political scientist has been sidetracked from his work on transnational religio-political movements by the controversy that has erupted in Malaysia as a result of the accusations of sodomy levelled against former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. This is not the first time I have been way-laid in the line of duty; for scandals, controversies and conspiracy theories have the rather nasty habit of popping up when you least expect it in the Asian region.

Now this comes as an unwelcome change for me as I have spent half my life in Europe and the last seven years in Germany. Allow me to make a very simple (and admittedly general) comparison here: Politics in Germany, like much of Western Europe, tends to be dull, dull, dull. Politicians have less colourful lives than their Asian counterparts and it would be the event of the century if a senior German politician was caught with his pants down or accused of sodomy of all things.

Indeed, one of the outstanding features of German politics – particularly on the level of local governance – is how dreadfully boring it is. It also happens to be painfully serious, and as someone who has seen local government at work in Germany I can tell you that it can put even the most imaginative among us to sleep in nary a second.

But this is what politics and governance ought to be like. Politics is serious business, and it ought to be taken seriously. Much of daily governance however is laborious and time consuming, but necessarily so. I have sat through local council discussions on road-widening projects, environmental campaigns, kindergarten fund allocations and such things, and I was struck how every single one of these issues were treated with utmost seriousness as if the budget of Germany was being discussed.

Furthermore, German politicians I met and know tend to be a rather grey lot. Unlike the President of France whose wife has added considerable sparkle to French politics, Germany’s politicians are as grey as the suits they wear. They also tend to be a dour, humourless bunch who plod along as they read their files and write their speeches; and they tend to take every single word they read and write seriously. There were times during my seven-year stay in Germany that I felt that they were over-doing the ‘serious public servant’ role a bit, but in retrospect I feel that such a dose of seriousness is precisely what Asia needs at the moment.

Looking at the political culture of South and Southeast Asia, we see that politics has been overtaken by political culture instead; and what a crass and crude culture it is too. Never mind the occasional bout of sodomy-frenzy in Malaysia: From Pakistan to India, Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, Malaysia to Indonesia, Thailand to Philippines; the political culture of many South and Southeast Asian politics is determined by the behaviour and antics of politicians who often behave as if they were movie stars or who were themselves former movie-stars. Politics is seen as a demonstration of power and largess, and power has to be demonstrated and performed in the public domain in the most spectacular manner.

Hence the tendency for Asians to leap on to the bandwagon of cult leaders and hero-worship, to glorify their heroes and vilify their enemies. Our politicians walk the earth like demigods of the age of Dewarajas, our parliaments and local councils resemble the colonial durbars of old with their hollow pomp and expensive pageantry. In every single Asian country I have visited or worked on, politicians never shy from the camera or would even pay to have it pointed in their direction; red carpets are the earth upon which they tread, flower petals make up the carpets that cushion their feet. They cut ribbons, pander to the gallery, raise the political temper at will whenever it suits them.

Since the elections of March 2008, hardly a day has gone by in Malaysia without some ruckus or scandal erupting in the corridors of power. This reminds us of the shambolic mess that was Indonesian politics between 1998 to 2005 when a succession of populist leaders were heaved upon the political throne of the nation, only to be brought low again – President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) even left his office in his boxer-shorts, ostensibly to make a point though the effect was to heap even more ridicule upon an office that was losing credibility fast. The President of the Philippines caused a scandal when she appeared on the cover of a popular magazine in the guise of a movie-star; and Philippine politics inched one step closer to Bollywood in its emulation of froth and glitter with no substance.

Europe of course did not get to where it is today without plentiful reforms and even violent revolutions. But Europe’s success lies in its capacity to transform the revolutionary potential of these social upheavals into concrete institutional change, which today has sedimented and become routine. Governance was not always a serious thing for we know that up to the 18th century European politicians were little more than robber-barons bandits too. But as the revolutionary impact of these reforms were institutionalised, opening the way for the emergence of an independent middle-class and the industrial revolution, genuine and lasting social change took place.

Asian societies today cannot afford to stagger behind in this race for societal development. There is no point for the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India or Pakistan to weave elaborate fictions or dream of development as long as our collective understanding and praxis of governance remains mired in the stagnant swamp of neo-feudal mentality, the cult of heroes and villains, the drama of farcical politics and the culture of conspiracies and rumours. Sooner or later, these politicians have to learn, or be taught, that they were voted not to cut ribbons or make fiery speeches, but to govern properly: That means getting the drains to work, building schools, alleviating poverty and illiteracy, etc. That means less talk and drama, and more reading of Parliamentary files and reports. It means less gala dinners and balls and more late nights understanding reports on economic performance and alternatives for development. In short, it means doing that dull but necessary thing called governance.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 22 July 2008, 12:28 am and is filed under
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UMNO-PAS “Malay Unity” talks

The Federal Government spent RM100 million for the 50th Merdeka anniversary celebrations last year.  For what?

It should be to celebrate half-a-century of nationhood to build a multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-lingual nation where our diversity is the strongest national asset and to chart out the path  to achieve the Vision 2020 objective of a Bangsa Malaysia in the remaining 13 years.

But Malaysian nation-building has gone backwards and the Vision 2020 objective of a “Bangsa Malaysia” is increasingly frowned upon as a misplaced target.

The recent revelation by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that there has been three Umno-PAS talks to  address issues of Muslim and Malay unity since the March 8, 2008  general election has raised to the fore  the question why the pre-eminent issue bothering the Prime Minister is still that of Malay unity rather than Malaysian unity.

Has he forgotten another of his pledges to be the Prime Minister of all Malaysians and not just for any race?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 22 July 2008, 2:04 pm and is filed under
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Stop harassing Anwar for DNA

by
Dr. Chen Man Hin

THE POLICE SHOULD STOP HARSSING ANWAR FOR A BLOOD SAMPLE, AS HE HAD GIVEN SEVERAL DNA  SAMPLES BETWEEN 1998 AND 2004.

It is unfair and mischievous to put the blame on Anwar as he is justified in refusing to give further samples. It is not Anwar who is un-coperative. It is the police forensics who are at fault, and insisting on further blood samples when he had already given many times over between 1998 and 2004.

The onus of providing an DNA sample is on the police as it has ample DNA samples of Anwar in its possession.

From the experience of police forensics in other countries, DNA samples collected are well preserved  for many many years, and do not get ‘old’ as claimed by PM Abdullah.

The police forensics have misled the prime minister.

The home minister and the police should not try to pull over the eyes of the people. By claiming that Anwar’s DNA samples are old, they are making themselves the laughing stock of the whole world.

Why DNA samples do not grow old.  There are many living examples:-

1.  Stephen Hawkings Nobel Prize winning physicist has donated his DNA samples to the Human Genome institution for posterity and for research. Professor Hawkins does  not subscribe to the claim by PM that a DNA sample can grow old.

2   In advanced countries, DNA samples are collected and stored for purposes of statistics and scientific research.

3.  Police forensics in developed countries have DNA libraries of felons and crooks. There are innumerable cases of rapists who escaped but were nabbed years after the crime, because they left tell-tale semen on the clothes of the rape victims .

4   Scientists have discovered preserved DNA in prehistoric humans and animals.

It is obvious that Anwar’s DNA samples given between 1998 and 2004 must be available and intact for examination purposes by police forensics department

The home minister and the police must stop harassing Anwar for new DNA samples. The onus is on the police to provide DNA samples, not by Anwar.

The frantic appeal to Anwar to give a blood sample has caused suspicion that the police have no substantive evidence of sodomy on the body of Saiful in their possession

Public perception is that a fresh blood sample from Anwar is desperately needed in order to fabricate evidence against him.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 July 2008, 1:04 pm and is filed under
Dr. Chen Man Hin
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Why Abdullah gave blessing for a one-race, one-religion Selangor state govt after March 8, 2008?

Former Selangor Mentri Besar, Datuk Seri Mohamad Khir Toyo thought he was doing the state, people and nation a great service when he tried to  mid-wife a UMNO-PAS Selangor State Government after the March 8 general election.

He wrote on his
blog
that he arranged for a muzakarah between PAS leaders and the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi after the general election and offered PAS the mentri besar post, deputy mentri besar post as well as four executive councilors in a PAS-UMNO coalition government in Selangor to champion Malay interests.

There is some discrepancy in Khir’s account from that of Selangor PAS leader and MP for Shah Alam,
Abdul Khalid Samad
, who had attended the muzarakah, with the latter recounting that Khir wanted the Deputy Mentri Besar post although Khir claimed that he was willing to be left out of the state government line-up if that would encourage PAS to accept the “power-sharing”.

Khalid, who had described the muzarakah as “coloured with a racial agenda” of Umno, had denied that PAS harboured any intention of any power-sharing arrangement with UMNO in Selangor as PAS had already agreed to the proposal to name PKR’s Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim as Mentri Besar.

In the
Berita Harian
 today, Khir was quoted as saying that discussion over his Umno-PAS power-sharing arrangement went on for four days but was unsuccessful because of external influences.

Right-thinking Malaysians must find it most shocking and outraged  that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who had just presided over a RM100 million 50th Merdeka national celebrations and repeatedly pledged to be Prime Minister of all Malaysians and not just for any one race, could give his blessing and endorse the formation of a one-race, one-religion government for the most advanced state in Malaysia  – Selangor – in the year 2008!

Abdullah owes all Malaysians a full and proper explanation!

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 July 2008, 3:22 pm and is filed under
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
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nation building
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PAS: Caught between Old and New

By
Farish A. Noor

Now that the cat is out of the bag and the whole of Malaysia knows that there have been secret backroom dealings between UMNO and PAS; ostensibly to bring the two parties together in the name of Malay-Muslim communal solidarity, we need to pause a while and look at the political factors at work.

I highlight the political factors at work here for frankly, I see little of Islam or Islamic ethics at work in this latest round of UMNO-PAS dialogue.

Some basic historical facts are in order: PAS has, in the past, already been part of the BN UMNO-led alliance in the mid-1970s. This was during the time when PAS was led by Asri Muda, perhaps the most ethno-nationalist among PAS’s leaders and a man who was seen by many as a Malay first and a Muslim second. PAS’s entry into the BN was not without opposition: Many PAS leaders and members abandoned the party and gave up on the Islamist struggle for good. When PAS was in the BN it had to toe the BN line and even contested on the BN ticket. PAS was discredited in the eyes of an entire younger generation of Malaysians and this opened the way for the rise of new Islamist groups like ABIM and Darul Arqam instead. PAS’s marriage of convenience led to it being effectively emasculated by UMNO and when it finally left the BN in late 1970s, its base-state Kelantan was in a shambles where a state of Emergency had been declared. PAS lost Kelantan and it took the party more than a decade before it won it back in 1990.

It is for this reason that PAS veterans like Tuan Guru Nik Aziz feel so strongly that this latest round of dialogues between UMNO and PAS should stop, as he senses hidden hands that are out to instrumentalise PAS yet again.

But who are the ones who are trying to bring PAS and UMNO together? It is widely reported that among the PAS leaders who are trying to engineer this deal there are the younger PAS leaders who were not even members of the party in the 1970s, and hence they do not have the same bitter memories of betrayal and defeat like Nik Aziz does.

Looking at the profile of some of these PAS leaders, we see that they tend to come from the more outwardly conservative faction who seem more interested in superficial aspects of Islam and Islamisation such as dress codes, making people go to mosques, promoting dakwah (missionary) activities and the like.

Yet PAS is divided between the old and the new and there are also new, progressive forces in the party that understand the need to bring PAS into the political mainstream and to make the party relevant to the Malaysian public as a whole, regardless of race and religion. These are the PAS leaders who were at the forefront of the BERSIH campaign for free and fair elections, the ones who have been calling for more transparency and accountability, the ones who have tried to re-construct PAS into a modern, relevant Islamist party with national aspirations.

Between these two factions, who were the ones who helped to give PAS its victory at the recent March elections?

It is obvious that PAS’s gains this time round were partly due to the efforts of the PAS progressives who had managed to re-invent the party’s image as a modern Islamic party that is more concerned with economic-structural issues like transparency, accountability, free elections, free press and democracy. These were the issues that captured the minds of the new electorate in Malaysia, and not questions like what length a Muslim’s beard ought to be. Furthermore, it was they who managed to secure the support of thousands of non-Malay and non-Muslims who voted for PAS as part of the Pakatan Rakyat on the basis of trust (amanah) and were willing to give PAS a chance to prove that it could reach beyond its Malay-Muslim electorate and speak for all Malaysians.

As a result of this current round of UMNO-PAS negotiations, PAS’s image as a new, modern Islamic party is being deminished by the day. So is the trust and confidence of the Malaysian electorate, in particular the non-Malays and non-Muslims, who in the end may conclude that PAS’s appeals to the Malaysian nation as a whole was just cosmetic and that in the final analysis, despite calling itself an Islamist party, it is simply a Malay party concerned about Malay issues and promoting Malay interests. How can PAS ever hope to recover the goodwill of the non-Malay and non-Muslim voters who voted for them, should PAS lose their trust?

It is also ironic that PAS is being courted by its arch-nemesis UMNO, when we consider the simple historical fact that it was UMNO that has been demonising PAS all along. Have we forgotten the clashes of the mid-1980s, like the Memali incident (leading to the killing of PAS leader Ibrahim Libya and his followers), Operation Kenari (that led to arrests of PAS members and the accusation of PAS harbouring militants), the KMM and al-Maunah incidents when PAS was again accused of having links with terrorist groups? So is this new Hadari version of UMNO now about to cut a deal with the very same PAS that they have been accusing of being militant and radical; and if so, what will this do to the image of the Malaysian government if and when it has this very same ‘militant’ PAS in its company?

Which brings us to the last point: For more than three decades now the Islamisation race between UMNO and PAS has witnessed UMNO’s sustained attack on PAS as a party that is cast as fundamentalist, reactionary, militant and dangerous. Now as a result of the poor showing of the BN at the March 2008 elections, UMNO is doing another volte-face and courting PAS in the name of Malay racial and communal solidarity. But throughout this period (1980-2008) it was UMNO that cast itself in the international arena as the ‘good’ Muslims and PAS as the ‘bad’ Muslims.

The current establishment has even gone as far as broadcasting to the world that UMNO’s brand of Hadari Islam is the correct, moderate and modern Islam to be emulated, juxtaposed to PAS’s Islam which is painted in Taliban-esque colours. To bring PAS that has been so vilified into the BN coalition would certainly raise eyebrows the world over and give cause for foreign governments and investors to think twice: Who was lying then, UMNO or PAS? Was UMNO wrong to cast PAS in a negative light? Or has UMNO now endorsed PAS’s version of Islam that it once decried as being fundamentalist and militant? Either way, the image of Malaysia and the Malaysian government is at stake at a time when the world is already watching Malaysia closely as a result of the repeat of the sodomy allegations against Anwar.

All of this points to the picture of a weak government that has lost its politcal bearings and compass. UMNO’s courting of PAS (and vice-versa) reminds us that racial considerations come before all else in Malaysia still, and that despite the attempts to turn PAS into a truly Islamic party that transcends race and communal politics, there remain pockets of ethno-nationalist sympathy in that party.

One can only hope for the sake of Malaysia, and Malaysia’s weak but slowly emerging democracy, that the modern progressive voices in PAS will prevail to scuttle this dubious round of backroom negotiations.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 July 2008, 12:06 am and is filed under
Farish Noor
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PAS
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One “black eye” after another – Hamid’s special briefing to diplomats on Anwar “a big flop”

The special briefing on Wednesday by Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar to  96 foreign diplomats on government action and police investigations into the sodomy allegations against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is clearly a big flop, with the caustic criticism by  the United States Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice
within 24 hours with her call for transparency and the rule of law into the new allegations against Anwar.

Rice rejected the earlier claim by her Malaysian counterpart, Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim that the United States was meddling in Malaysia’s internal affairs by raising concern over Anwar’s arrest.

She said the United States would continue to speak on cases involving human rights and politics although it did so “in a spirit of respect for Malaysia”.

She stressed that the United States “doesn’t recognise this very firm barrier that it is simply internal affairs when a case of this kind comes up, but we are going to continue to work with Malaysia”.

Rice made these remarks at the ASEAN Ministerial talks in Singapore yesterday, just before her bilateral meeting with Rais.

In these circumstances,
Rais’ claim
after their meeting  that Rice had “acquiesced” to Malaysia’s stance that Washington abstain from making further statements pertaining to Anwar and the country’s rule of law will have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Rais subsequently  said he was unaware of Rice’s statement prior to their meeting – giving the bad impression that the Malaysian foreign service  is not as well-informed as it should be.

Be that as it may, Hamid’s special briefing for 96 diplomats suffered a
second blow
today when three leading figures on the international stage called for the dropping of the sodomy charges against Anwar.

The trio who issued a joint statement are  former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin, ex-World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, and Michel Camdessus, the former head of the International Monetary Fund.

As former Foreign Minister, Hamid should be particularly sensitive to Malaysia global faux pas in getting one “black eye” after another in the international arena over  the government and police action on  the sodomy allegations against Anwar and he should do his utmost to end the national agony and shame with the  spate of adverse international publicity for Malaysia which is not helpful at all in enhancing the nation’s competitiveness to ensure the success of the Ninth Malaysia Plan, the National Mission and Vision 2020.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 July 2008, 4:27 pm and is filed under
Anwar Ibrahim
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Third World Reality Beneath Malaysia’s First World Veneer

Book Review:
Beyond the Veneer:  Malaysia’s Struggle For Dignity and Direction

(Ioannis Gatsiounis : Monsoon Books, Singapore. 2008 : 273 pages  Indexed : US $15.95)

By:
Bakri Musa

Soon after Abdullah Badawi led his Barisan Nasional coalition to a landslide electoral victory in 2004, I wrote a blistering critique of his leadership.  He had hoodwinked voters, I wrote, with his slick “feel good” campaign, and that sooner or later Malaysians would see through his emptiness.  I had the piece previewed by my friend and frequent collaborator Din Merican.  He suggested that I hold back and instead give Abdullah a chance.  I did.

Little did I know that at about the same time (October 2004) an American journalist in Malaysia, Ioannis Gatsiounis, had written for Asia Times an essay titled, “Abdullah’s Honeymoon is Over in Malaysia.”  Although more restrained in tone, nonetheless as judged by the title, he revealed a similar lack of enthusiasm for Abdullah as a leader.  His “soft but firm” leadership, Gatsiounis wrote, “has shown … to be more soft than firm.”

That kind of perceptiveness is rare for a foreign observer, or a local one for that matter.  Today, as judged by the current headlines, Gatsiounis’s judgment of Abdullah has become the common wisdom.

Such insights and perceptiveness do not come easily or quickly, even for the most astute of observers.  Gatsiounis has been reporting from and on Southeast Asia since 2000, beginning first in Jakarta and later in Kuala Lumpur where he now resides.  This gives him an intimate knowledge of Malaysia and a nuanced understanding of its racial dynamics and political tensions.  He is not easily persuaded by smooth official press releases or slick PR gimmicks.

This volume, Beyond the Veneer:  Malaysia’s Struggle For Dignity and Direction, contains his 42 essays written from about 2003 onwards.  There are three commentaries on the recent “most crucial general elections in the country’s 50-year history,” one written just before the elections, and two, right afterwards.

“The Malaysian government’s authoritarian instincts,” Gatsiounis wrote in his first post-election essay (“A New Democratic Era in Malaysia”) “were finally checked by democracy at Saturday’s highly anticipated elections.”

Noting the immediate fractiousness among the opposition parties on power sharing, Gatsiounis observed (“The Malaysian Race Card”) that the “Chinese and Indians have become more vocal in opposing discriminatory policies, but they have given little indication that if they were granted greater equality they would rise above their own clannish tendencies.”  As I said, Gatsiounis is a perceptive observer.

No Christaine Amanpour-type of Journalism

Today because of budgetary restraints, American media are cutting back on their foreign news operations, relying instead on what I would call the Christiane Amanpour-type of coverage.  Fly in your celebrity journalist, interview the top local honchos, pick some cute quotes from the “man on the street,” choose some recognizable backdrops (which in Malaysia would be the Petronas Twin Towers), and then file your brief three-minute report that would appear just before the toothpaste commercial in the evening news.

Thus it is not surprising that Americans are poorly informed on matters beyond their borders.  Such ignorance would ultimately percolate up to the leaders and policymakers.  The results, as can be seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, can be devastating both to the natives as well as their “saviors.”

Thanks to the Internet, I have read many of Gatsiounis’s commentaries that have appeared in such publications as the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, Washington Times as well as Asia Times.  Let me assure readers that his reporting is the very antithesis of CNN’s Amanpour.

His is more along the Independent’s (Britain) seasoned Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk.  Had Tony Blair listened to Fisk’s wisdom, he would probably still be Prime Minister today.  More importantly, he would have spared himself, as well as those British soldiers in Iraq, much grief.

Malaysia is, as evidenced by the observations in this book as well as explicitly stated in the introduction, “trying to run the rat race of globalization on one good leg.”  That is the leg Malaysia shows to the cameras, the gleaming Petronas Towers and the ribbon of smooth highways.  The other, the bad leg that is severely handicapping the country, is the rampant corruption, deepening rich-poor divide, deteriorating institutions, and the increasingly dangerous polarization of race relations.  To Gatsiounis, Malaysia has all but ensured that its “diversity is a weakness and not a strength.”  I could not agree more.

There are no interviews of the powerful in this volume except for one longer than usual essay (“Malaysia’s Leader-in-Waiting”) based on a 40-minute interview with Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, a man very much in the news today, but for all the wrong reasons.

Gatsiounis observed that while Najib Razak “displayed a firm understanding of the kind of world Malaysia is entering and the attributes it would need … to be competitive, … he has also been a staunch defender of UMNO’s status quo … which has hindered Malaysia’s competitiveness and social harmony.”

I would say that Najib, like all UMNO leaders including supposedly better educated younger ones like Khairy Jamaluddin, are not so much defenders of UMNO culture rather that they are trapped by it, unable to escape its suffocating clutches.  Their collective response to the March 8 electoral thumping for example, was not to seek changes but rather more of the same.  To me, UMNO’s implosion is inevitable, and soon.

Instead of interviewing the powerful, Gatsiounis relies on his own observations.  According to official accounts on the massive public Bersih rally calling for clean elections, the shopkeepers were fed up with the demonstrators who had disrupted businesses.  In actual fact, as reported by Gatsiounis (“Opposition Steals a March in Malaysia”), those shopkeepers welcomed the increase in foot traffic.  Their businesses were rudely interrupted only when the police came rushing in wildly brandishing their truncheons and firing their water cannons.

With such critical and penetrating reporting, I am surprised that Gatsiounis is not on the radar screen of the Home Ministry.  One reason could be that those officials think that he writes primarily for foreigners.  Those bureaucrats could not be more wrong.  Through the Internet, Gatsiounis commands a sizable local audience, as evidenced by the praises on the book cover by such local luminaries as Ramon Navaratnam, Khoo Kay Peng and Ibrahim Suffian.

I asked Gatsiounis whether he felt intimidated by the authorities.  Much to my surprise – and relief! – he answered no, although obviously he is aware of the realities.  He however, wisely avoids flouting those restraints.

Malaysian journalists and writers regularly blame the myriad of restrictive rules for their timidity.  They have to exercise self-censorship to survive, they claim.  It is more an excuse.  As Gatsiounis has shown, one can still be true to one’s professional ideals even under such trying circumstances.  In truth, Malaysian journalists and pundits grovel to the powerful less for self preservation and more for ingratiation.

A challenge in publishing a collection of essays is organization, whether to arrange them thematically (as this one) or chronologically.  The disadvantage of the latter would be that readers would have to jump from one topic to another.  A combination would be better.  On a section about Abdullah for example, arrange the essays chronologically.  After all, a highly critical commentary on his leadership written in 2008, when Abdullah had clearly and fully exposed his incompetence, would not have the same impact as one penned earlier.

A further modification would be to have as a footnote at the bottom of the title page the date when the essay was written, instead of at the end.  That would save readers from having to flip through the pages to the end of the article to find out when it was written.

With the current headlines filled with sordid details of the sexual escapades (real and imagined) of the politically powerful, and of police reports and sworn affidavits submitted and then retracted by those whose wish to ingratiate themselves to the powerful, we are again being reminded of the pitiful lack of solid reporting and penetrating analyses in the Malaysian media.  By publishing this volume, Gatsiounis extends his reach among Malaysians, making them (hopefully) better informed.  More importantly, this book also reminds Malaysians of what they miss in their daily news and information staple.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 July 2008, 3:24 pm and is filed under
Bakri Musa
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PM has turned Terengganu Perdana/Mercedes controversy into pure fiasco

The  Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has transformed the Terengganu Proton Perdana V6 Executive/Mercedes E200 Kompressor controversy into a
pure  fiasco
.

What is the solution? The 14 RM245,000 Mercedes E200 Kompressors purchased by the Terengganu government for RM3.43 million are to be used only by VVIPs – “foreign dignitaries” for “major functions” – while the State Excos must continue to use the fleet of 16 RM130,000 Proton Perdana V6 Executives bought in 2004.

Reason?
 This is from Abdullah’s own words, explaining the Cabinet decision: “Since the cars have been bought and to sell them would only result in a loss, all of them must be used for state guests or dignitaries.

”This is the decision, nothing more, nothing less.”

Wouldn’t this ridiculous and laughable solution result in greater losses to the public coffers?

Who are the VVIPs or “foreign dignitaries for major functions” who would qualify to be chaperoned around the state in the 14 Mercedes E200 Kompressors?

Would there be 14 or 28  or 42 such “VVIPs” visiting Terengganu per year? Can the people of Terengganu and Malaysia be informed of such VVIPs who had visited Terengganu each year since 2004, or will the 14 Mercedes E200 Kompressors go into the Guinness Book of Records as the most garaged and unused Mercedes Kompressors in the world?

Mingguan Malaysia of 20th July 2008 had reported that the 14 Mercedes E200 Kompressors for the 10 Excos, the State Speaker, State Secretary, State Legal Adviser and State Financial Officer had already been delivered, as they had been seen as being used by several Excos and the State Secretary at official functions.

Are all the State Excos, Speaker, State Secretary, State Legal Adviser and State Financial Officer to return the 14 Mercedes Kompressors to the state garage and to take back their  old Proton Perdana V6 Executives?

The front-page headline report of Utusan Malaysia of 23rd July quoted the  Mentri Besar’s office as alleging  that the  maintenance costs for Proton Perdana V6 Executives had totalled as much as RM132,357.36 to RM175,229.97 each for the fleet bought in 2004.

The Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) has started to probe into the high costs of maintenance of the 16 Proton Perdana V6 Executives, and rightly so,  and I will ask for a report on the outcome of these ACA investigations when Parliament reconvenes on August 18  next month.

What is noteworthy is that the ACA investigations into the Terengganu Exco Proton/Mercedes imbroglio has prompted a
retort
from the Terengganu Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said why the authorities had not investigated into the  other high-profile projects in Terengganu like the prestigious Monsoon Cup sailing event and the Islamic Civilisation Park.

Ahmad is indeed very right in his retort.

The Prime Minister should answer this pertinent rebuttal from the Terengganu Mentri Besar in Parliament next month.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 26 July 2008, 12:34 pm and is filed under
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
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Corruption
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Good Governance
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