Mahathir’s false accusation of Tunku

by K. Siladass

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former prime minister had indeed accused Malaysia’s first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman of having done something not permitted by law by granting citizenship to one million foreign immigrants.

Historians of repute will be quick to confirm how inhuman, unsound, flippant and exasperating is Mahathir’s allegation. The granting of citizenship to “foreign immigrants” was not the work of one man – Tunku alone. Besides, it is wicked of Mahathir to claim that one million or so residents in Malaya were purely immigrants ignoring the fact that they had lived in this country for generations; and had been an integral part in the resistance against the Japanese occupation and in the fight against communism. Those one million or so “foreign immigrants” as Mahathir arrogantly and wickedly describes are the ones who saw the economic progress of this country from the time the East India Company arrived here, under constant perilous conditions.

It is indeed shocking that Mahathir had not acquainted himself of the negotiations among the Alliance Partners consisting of UMNO-MCA-MIC, the predecessor of Barisan Nasional (BN) which played a prominent role in achieving Merdeka. Aside this, it is also shocking that a man of Mahathir’s stature would descend to cheap politics in hurling condemnation against the late Tunku, who was indeed instrumental in ensuring that the radicals from all sides did not scuttle the movement towards Merdeka by their emotional actions.

These historical facts are there for the world to see; that the partners in Alliance were concerned as to the type of policy that had to be adopted and implemented after Merdeka in relation to education, citizenship and Malay special privileges. These were classified as sensitive issues and it is fair to infer that there must have been a lot of debate over them.

While the citizenship was a thorny issue beginning with the question whether it should be granted on the basis of jus soli or other format, after much consideration and upon reaching consensus on the issues of education and Malay special privileges the Alliance partners agreed on the jus soli principle for citizenship. Further, it was also agreed that the residential qualification shall be less restrictive than the previous requirement. However, according to Joseph M. Fernando, “The Making of the Malayan Constitution (2002)”, the residential qualification was reduced to eight years. The authors Barbara Watson Andaya and Leonard Y. Andaya in their “A History of Malaysia” (2nd edn.) have stated very distinctly the circumstances leading to the compromises reached by the Alliance Partners, and also referring to other features that must have been very significant, namely the influence of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) which was wielding its influence, and its association with left wing Malay nationalists, coupled with the dissatisfaction of the Chinese community with the British; who also seemed to be easy target for MCP’s recruitment. The combination of all these developments would have derailed every effort to find solutions to problems that were tormenting the leaders of all races at that time. These are the other considerations which eventually led to the compromises which everyone in the Alliance was reasonably satisfied.

Granting of citizenship was a joint decision in which decision making process UMNO was the dominant partner. Therefore, it is patently wrong for Mahathir to single out Tunku and condemn him as having done something out of the ordinary. The situation demanded a solution and common sense prevailed to tackle the situation in a pragmatic manner and that was what precisely done. Mahathir’s condemnation is indeed a mischievous distortion, an attempt to conceal or cloud his own illegality in granting citizenship to illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants can never be equated with those who had come here legally and raised their families and contributed for the well-being of this country. When others had come to exploit and take away the wealth of this country those one million immigrants who were granted citizenship had worked hard to earn that right and had reinvested their earnings in this country.

Mahathir and his cronies should realise that there is a world of difference between the status of those who aspired to become citizens under the Alliance arrangement and those that were granted by Mahathir. During the Tunku’s premiership citizenship was granted to those who were legally living in this country for decades. They were not illegal immigrants. The Sabah situation was totally different when illegal immigrants’ status was altered to one of lawful citizens of Malaysia by Mahathir to benefit one political party which was led by him.

Another point Mahathir makes is that by granting citizenship to one million “immigrants”, the Malays’ power had been diluted. Any fair-minded person will tell that this is a preposterous fancy and we have to stomach it because he was an erstwhile premier and the press gives him undue publicity.

Mahathir also claims that not all those who were granted citizenship in Sabah voted for BN. One cannot look for a baser excuse than this.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 9 February 2013, 5:33 pm and is filed under
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60-Day Countdown to 13GE –  When will Najib make a statement whether Malaysia can ever catch up with South Korea or at least begin to close the yawning chasm between the two countries?

On the occasion of Korean pop superstar  Psy’s Gangnam Style performance at the Prime Minister’s CNY Open House in Penang tomorrow, will Datuk Seri Najib Razak make a statement whether Malaysia can ever catch up with South Korea or at least begin to close the yawning chasm between the two countries?

A Cabinet Minister said Psy’s  appearance will make Penang world-famous but it is more important that Penang and Malaysia become world-famous because of our own achievements in all fields of human endeavour.

Sixteen years ago, when we proclaimed the Multimedia Super Corridor as “a gift to the world”, Malaysia and South Korea were on the same level embarking on the IT journey.

Today, MSC and Malaysia have faded away from the world radar screen as an international IT hot spot, while South Korea has powered ahead to become the first country in the world to become a broadband society as well as the land of fastest internet in the world – with an average internet speed in 2012 of 14.7 Mpbs, 650% higher than the average 2.2 Mpbs registered in Malaysia.

In fact, Malaysia is ranked among the world’s worst nations in internet speed – even slower than Thailand’s average internet speed of 2.9 Mpbs for 2012.

In good governance, Malaysia trails behind South Korea especially in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index in the past five years, where Malaysia is perceived as more corrupt, ranging No. 47 to 60 in world ranking in contrast to South Korea’s ranking from 39 to 45.

In the latest 2002 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders),  Malaysia hit a historic low in ranking at No. 145 while South Korea is ranked No. 50.

Recently, the 2011 Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) highlights that Malaysia is the country which suffered the biggest drop in scores among all participating countries for both mathematics and science, while confirming the continuing pattern of domination by a group of Asian education systems – South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong – in these two critical subjects.

Malaysia woefully  lags behind South Korea in educational excellence. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2012-2013, four South Korean Universities are listed among the World Top 200 Universities while six in the World Top 400 Universities – but not a single one from Malaysia.

Has Najib any answer to the question why Malaysia is lagging so far behind South Korea in all fields of human endeavour, when 56 years ago when Malaysia achieved Merdeka, South Korea was poorer and more backward but is now two or three times richer than Malaysia?

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                This entry was posted on Sunday, 10 February 2013, 6:07 pm and is filed under
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Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year

Wishing all a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year of the Snake.

xinniankuaile wanshiruyi gongxifacai

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 10 February 2013, 8:30 am and is filed under
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59-Day Countdown to 13GE –  Ten thousand 1Malaysia flags on occasion of Psy’s Gangnam Style performance in Penang only highlight abject failure of Najib’s key 1Malaysia  transformation programme

The people of Penang woke up on Chinese New Year Day on Sunday, February 10, 2013 to ten thousand 1Malaysia flags lining the routes which would be used by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in his two-day CNY visit to Penang  from Penang Airport to Han Chiang School which would feature the Korean pop star Psy to Georgetown heartland areas around Komtar.

But can the South Korean K-Pop sensation give life, spirit and soul to Najib’s  1Malaysia policy with the 10,000 1Malaysia flags arrogantly, haphazardly and dangerously planted along the main Penang thoroughfares – showing utter  contempt for the welfare, safety and the by-laws in the state as well as  highlighting the abject failure of Najib’s key 1Malaysia transformation programme?

It is pathetic that after four years as Prime Minister, there is only one out of 68  Ministers and Deputy Ministers who dare to openly go against the UMNO/Barisan Nasional mainstream and publicly declare that he is Malaysian first and Malay second.

Is there a second UMNO Minister who dare to emulate what the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, did in September 2010 in declaring that he is a Malaysian first and a Malay second, in line with Najib’s 1Malaysia signature policy as distinct from Najib’s own public declaration?

I say “in line with Najib’s 1Malaysia signature policy as distinct from Najib’s own public declaration” for the Prime Minister, as far as I can recollect and I am prepared to stand corrected, had never said a single time in the past four years that he is a Malaysian first and a Malay second!

Najib said in Penang yesterday that  “I don’t believe in promises that I can’t deliver”.

Has Najib delivered his 1Malaysia promise in the past four years apart from flooding Penang with 10,000 1Malaysia flags in conjunction with Psy’s Gangnam Style performance?

If Najib does not believe in promises that he can’t deliver, why is he not going up and down the country in the past four years to promote the 1Malaysia Policy to create a Malaysian nation where every Malaysian regard himself or herself as a Malaysian first and race, religion, region or socio-economic status second, and putting himself as an example of a Malaysian leader who is “Malaysian first race second”  for all Malaysians  to emulate?

However, in the past four years, Najib has signally failed to get the UMNO/Barisan Nasional Supreme Councils and the Cabinet to endorse his 1Malaysia Policy, ever since his Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin did not mince his words in March 2010 when he repudiated the 1Malaysia policy by publicly declaring that he was “Malay first, Malaysian second” – which Najib dared not reprimand or contradict in the past four years.

In fact, in July 2011, Najib dodged the question when asked at the Malaysian Students Leaders’ Summit whether he was prepared to state that he was Malaysian first and what he thought of Muhyiddin’s infamous remark of being “Malay first and Malaysian next”.

Najib did not answer the question, saying: “I don’t want to respond in a way that will divide me from my deputy. 1Malaysia is our guiding philosophy. It does not matter what you say, just as long as you follow (the 1Malaysia concept).”

Most ominous of all, Muhyiddin had the support of the UMNO eminence grise, Tun Dr. Mahathir who publicly said he did not understand Najib’s 1Malaysia concept and that “Malaysia has become more racial than ever”.

And in the recent months, when Mahathir seemed to have emerged as the real force behind the UMNO throne, the former Prime Minister has put into practice his concept that “Malaysia has become more racial than ever” as seen by his recent utterances:

•	Questioning the citizenship qualification of one million non-Malays which he falsely claimed had been granted by Bapa Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman before Merdeka although “unqualified” – as justification for his treasonous act in the “citizenship-for-votes” scam in Sabah during his premiership;

•	His racist rant that Malay politicians in both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat have become “political beggars” in alleging that their scramble to be Prime Minister has led them to plead for support from the country’s minority races;

•	His seditious incitement that UMNO/Barisan Nasional would need two-thirds parliamentary majority to strip Bersih co-chairperson S. Ambiga’s citizenship.

Is Najib prepared to speak up to deplore all these three latest instances of rank racism and “perverse Mahathir illogic” which are completely inimical to the concept of 1Malaysia where Malaysians regard themselves as Malaysians first and race, religion, region and soci-economic status second?

At the  recent UMNO General Assembly where UMNO delegates stood in silence and shed tears touched by an overseas UMNO club student representative’s rendition of ‘Anak Kecil Main Api’, a song that bemoans the fate of Malays for being sidelined in their own land.

The song, which was written by former National Civics Bureau (BTN) chief, was taught to all those who attended the BTN courses, which is compulsory for students before attending local public universities or going overseas on government scholarships.

The questions raised by this episode include:

• 55 years after Merdeka, 42 years after the New Economic Policy and half a century of UMNO political hegemony, who must bear responsibility for the fate of the Malays marginalised in their own country? Shouldn’t the UMNO-putras bear the greatest responsibility?

• With 1Malaysia concept and policy, shouldn’t the focus be on the marginalised and discriminated among all Malaysians in their own country, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Orang Asli, Kadazans or Ibans, and not just one community?

• Is this not the best proof that Biro Tata Negara has become the chief agency in government sowing anti-1Malaysia concept?

These critical questions can only be answered by Najib himself and not by spending millions of ringgit and flying ten thousand 1Malaysia flags inviting Psy to perform Gangnam Style in Penang.

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                This entry was posted on Monday, 11 February 2013, 12:26 pm and is filed under
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Suaris Interview:  The Future of Malays Part 3:

by Bakri Musa

[The original, in Malay, appeared in suaris.wordpress.com on January 31, 2013]

Suaris:  You advocate strategies that are generally deemed to be evolutionary in nature to change the collective Malay mindset. Should Malays be “shocked” with revolutionary changes as we saw with the Japanese and South Koreans that led to their quantum leap in achievement?

MBM:             When Mohamed Bouazizi burned himself to death in Tunisia on January 4, 2011, it was not his intention to start a riot or revolution. He had simply given up hope; he just wanted to end his misery. His personal action however, triggered a revolution not only in Tunisia but also the entire Arab world.

            Gamel Nasser was frothing at the mouth in wanting to revolutionize the Arabs; he was lucky that his Egypt was not totally whipped by Israel in the 1967 War. Senu Abdul Rahman and other Malay leaders like Abdullah Badawi, together with our intellectuals, were also intoxicated with their Revolusi Mental back then. Today, you could not even find the book of the same title that they wrote, and we Malays have remained the same.

            Whether a change is evolutionary or revolutionary depends not on action or intention but on results and consequences. Bouazizi merely intended to end his suffering but his action reverberated throughout the Arab world, taking down hitherto strong men like Ghaddafi and Mubarak.

            Evolutionary changes are small and incremental; revolutionary ones dramatic and disruptive. It is well to remember that we could bring down a mountain by aiming a jet of water at its base (as with the old hydraulic tin mining) as by planting explosives.

            James C Scott, the Yale political scientist who studied the peasants in Kedah’s rice bowl, in his book, Weapons of the Weak, uses a different metaphor. When the ship of state runs aground on a coral reef, attention is directed to the shipwreck (revolutionary) but not the aggregations of petty acts that made those treacherous reefs possible (evolutionary).

            Your reading of the Japanese and South Koreans is not quite accurate. True, viewed today the changes in their societies are truly revolutionary. However, the steps their leaders took much earlier were all incremental and evolutionary in nature, stretching over decades.

            Japan after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 sent thousands of its teachers and senior civil servants to the West to study its systems of education and administration. They were gone not just for a few weeks of “study tour” but for years. Even today, Japan takes in thousands of English teachers from America. Those were all evolutionary not revolutionary initiatives. We take in a handful of teachers from America under the Fulbright Program and we make a big deal of it and deem it revolutionary.

            Likewise South Korea; during the 1970s it sent thousands of its students to the West for graduate work in the sciences and engineering. When President Pak visited America he met with many of them including those who opposed him, to cajole them to return. When they did, they were supported with loans to start their enterprises. Compare that to Prime Minister Najib; the only student he met was a Petronas University flunkie, one Saiful who was purportedly looking for a scholarship.

            I dealt more deeply with Japan and South Korea, as well as Ireland and Argentina, in my earlier book, Malaysia In The Era of Globalization (2002).

            To continue our “Look East,” a closer example both in space and time is China. Mao Zedong was consumed with one revolution after another to, borrowing Najib’s favorite word, “transform” his country. The result? Hundreds of millions of his countrymen suffered or were killed. Hundreds of millions! That would be the whole of Indonesia!

            Then came Deng; his philosophy was simple. He could not care less what the color of the cat as long as it catches the mouse. With that he changed the nature and character of China and its society. Today China has eclipsed economically Japan and Germany, and threatening to do likewise to America.

            Our neighbor Indonesia had one revolution after another under Sukarno, but its people remained destitute. Mahathir too aspired to revolutionize our culture and people. In the end it was he who cried.

            Returning to my earlier garden metaphor, revolution is where you indiscriminately spray Roundup. Yes, that would kill the lalang but also wipe out the useful plants. With evolutionary strategies, you would meticulously pour the concentrated pesticide right at the root of the offending weed while sparing the useful plants. They can now grow unimpeded, the lalang now completely eradicated.

            Liberate the Malay mind, one at a time, in a process that is evolutionary and incremental but cumulative and sure. The results would astound us and be deemed revolutionary. When a mind is liberated, it can no longer be imprisoned. We would then be no longer, to use the terminology of the Algerian philosopher Malek Bennabi, “colonizable.”

             Even more beautiful, a liberated mind will see clearly that the green, lush grass in our garden is after all the tenacious and highly destructive weed lalang and not, as our leaders are trying to convince us all along, alfalfa.

To continue.  Suaris Interview # 4:  It is said that Malays are at a crossroad. This is particularly so with the upcoming General Election 13 where the choice is between feudalism and liberalism. To what extent do you agree with that viewpoint?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 11 February 2013, 10:26 am and is filed under
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58-Day Countdown to 13 GE –  Najib’s elaborate edifice of supreme confidence of winning 13GE has collapsed like a house   of cards as a result of three “Yes” for Psy and three “Noes” for BN  at the multi-million ringgit Psy’s Gangnam Style performance in Penang yesterday

Instead of being a multi-million ringgit coup for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak  and the Barisan Nasional, it has turned out to be a multi-billion ringgit disaster for Najib and BN in the run-up to the 13th General Elections.

Completely forgotten are the millions of ringgit lavished  by unknown sponsors with unknown motives who brought Psy and his troupe in a direct 20-hour flight from Brazil to Penang,  the thousands of 1Malaysia flags which littered Penang island for Najib’s two-day Chinese New Year visit to Penang or Najib’s latest “I help you, You help me” offerings.

What will forever be remembered about Najib’s CNY do in Penang is the  one-minute video which has gone viral and an even hotter sensation than Psy and Gangnam Style – when Najib asked the crowd at Han Chiang School grounds whether they are ready for Psy and ready for BN.

In fact, the thunderous three “Yes” to Najib’s questions whether the crowd was ready for Psy followed by the equally thunderous and spontaneous three “Noes” when Najib asked thrice whether they were ready for BN have destroyed Najib’s elaborate edifice of supreme confidence of winning handsomely in the 13GE , which has collapsed like a house of cards.

It is even more devastating to Umno/BN’s electoral prospects in the 13GE than Bersih 2.0, Bersih 3.0 or Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat KL112 – especially as it is a completely self-inflicted disaster.

It has put paid to the glowing picture painted by Umno/BN leaders and propagandists that Umno/BN will win big in 13GE, not only with a two-thirds parliamentary majority but even winning back the presently-held Pakatan Rakyat states including Penang.

In retrospect, when the history of 13 GE is written, the Psy and Gangnam Style appearance, with the  three “yes” for Psy and the three “Noes” for BN, may mark the watershed of Malaysian political history signifying the beginning of the end for Najib and Umno hegemony in Malaysian politics.

Although Najib and Umno/BN have suffered a major self-inflicted blow in the final lap to the 13GE, Pakatan Rakyat leaders, members and supporters must not be over-confident and regard that the race to Putrajaya as won.

I have always held the view that the outcome of the 13GE is going to be a toss-up, that although Umno/BN have  the edge because of the advantages as well as the abuses of incumbency, PR can still win the 13GE to form the Federal Government as the election campaign period will hold the critical and final key as to who will emerge the winner.

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                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 12 February 2013, 9:53 am and is filed under
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Dr Mahathir and his mouth

— Greg War

The Malaysian Insider

Feb 12, 2013

FEB 12 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad seems to think that Malaysians are still intellectually backward and unable to read. In today’s Malaysia where one has access to immediate news from the Internet, the rakyat are not easily fooled.

Still, some of his public statements have been downright shocking, leaving the rakyat revolted in disbelief and protest. Every time he opens his mouth these days he seems either to spew out venom or spew out lies and hatred. He is a man of 88 but he has not lost any of his vengeful leanings.

Even after retirement, Dr Mahathir’s speeches have continued to stink of racism and his thoughts seem bizarre for an experienced former head of government. Is he sensationalising just to grab the headlines from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak or is he rooting for someone else?

Dr Mahathir conned three generations of Malaysians and kept them in check with his various laws to silence them. One would imagine that after having governed the country for 22 years and having enriched many around him, he would be content to rest on his laurels (sic) and spend some quality time with his grandchildren.

But no. One of his latest targets was the venerable Bapa Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman. Readers will perhaps remember Dr Mahathir’s poison letter against Tunku for which Dr Mahathir was kicked out of Umno. Dr Mahathir never forgot that. Lately when Dr Mahathir was implicated in the Project IC scandal he said Tunku had done something even worse. He blamed Tunku for granting citizenship to Indians and Chinese at the advent of independence. Later he implicated his favourite bogeyman, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, saying that it was Anwar who was responsible for the whole of Project IC.

When everyone, including some from the BN, were condemning Ibrahim Ali for advocating the burning of bibles containing the word “Allah”, Dr M came to Ibrahim’s defence, stating that the Perkasa leader did not mean any malice in his call but was only saying that since those books were supposedly banned, it was all right to burn them.

His latest vitriol is against Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan. Reportedly, he said the government needs to amend the constitution if it wants to strip off the citizenship of lawyers, such as Bersih co-chair Ambiga, who go against the government. Therefore the people must vote in the BN with a two-thirds majority. Desperate election stunt?

The rakyat are not swallowing meekly all that Dr Mahathir is spewing out. One only has to read the online media comments of readers to understand how fed up and tired we have become of his inane rants, both in his blog as well as in the media. Even the son of one his staunch supporters — S. Vell Paari, MIC strategist and son of Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu — let out a tirade against Dr Mahathir. But Dr Mahathir seems to go on and on and on like a broken record. — aliran.com

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 12 February 2013, 7:03 pm and is filed under
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57-Day Countdown to 13 GE – two lessons for Najib from the RM3.5 million farce of the Penang performance of Psy’s Gangnam Style

I was piqued.  I confess that I had not seen Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Chinese New Year advertisement as lion dance troupe drummer although it has been put up for five days.

It was after reading Kee Thuan Chye’s
Malaysiakini
 article
“The PM is Demeaning Himself”
 that I searched YouTube to see for myself whether Kee’s caustic comments were justified, and I must say, Kee hit the bull’s eye.

I particularly checked on  the veracity of  the criticism about the erroneous writing of the Chinese word “吉”, (as Najib has adopted Ah Jib Gor as his Chinese name) with the upper horizontal line being shorter than the bottom one which connotes bad luck for Ah Jib Gor.

Kee is absolutely right.

Clearly, Najib is not well-served by the best political strategists and public relations advisers that money can buy, although money is the least of his problems, considering the money Najib and UMNO/Barisan Nasional are  pouring like water all over the country in the past months, including the millions of ringgit just to organise the Psy’s Gangnam Style  extravaganza in Penang on the second day of the CNY.

But money clearly cannot buy everything.
I passed by Han Chiang School grounds this morning, and it looked like a giant  wasteland of litter and garbage. Money could bring the Korean K-pop superstar and his Gangnam Style troupe in a 20-hour flight straight from Brazil to Penang, but not to restore Han Chiang School grounds to its  clean and spotless condition despite passage of 48 hours after the disastrous Najib CNY do.

This is an expensive lesson to Najib and the UMNO/BN that there are things that money cannot buy – like love, loyalty, patriotism and of course, votes!

Or Najib would not have to suffer public humiliation at the BN CNY do in Penang with the one-minute video continuing to go viral with more and more Malaysians seeing for themselves the unforgettable spectacle of the Prime Minister being answered with three thunderous “Yes” when he asked the crowd “Are you ready for Psy?” followed by three thunderous “No” when he asked: “Are you ready for BN?”

In fact, a  second video clip of Najib’s disastrous “Psy’s Gangnam Style” CNY outing in Penang is now going viral, a seven-minute video of Najib’s second embarrassment where he and former Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah were stranded on stage waiting for the Korean superstar to join them in the “Toss Yee San” ceremony, but who eventually had to sheepishly leave the stage when Psy refused to join Najib in the “yee san” ceremony.

Najib has tweeted that the performance by Psy and his Gangnam Style troupe, which costs some RM3.5 million,  did not involve any public money.

There are two lessons for Najib and his political minders and spin-doctors:

Firstly, they should not be so naïve as to regard Malaysians are so gullible as to believe that Psy’s appearance in Penang, flying straight for 20 hours from Brazil, would not eventually have to be paid by the Malaysian taxpayers in one form or another.  This is why the actual financier of the Psy appearance is being kept a secret, although the real identity of the funder is an open secret.

Secondly, that there are things that money cannot buy – like three “Yes” to Najib’s question three times whether they are ready for BN, or more importantly, votes for the 13 General Elections to determine whether for the first time in the country’s 55-year history there should be a change of Federal Government and for a  Pakatan Rakyat government to replace Barisan Nasional in Putrajaya.

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                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 13 February 2013, 2:55 pm and is filed under
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For God’s sake?

 — Clive Kessler

The Malaysian Insider

Feb 11, 2013

FEB 11 — Disputation in Malaysia over the kalimah Allah, the name of God, has not abated.

On the contrary, it continues to become ever more acrimonious and worrying.

These days we now even have some enthusiastic “idealists” who give advance notice of their readiness for a virtually premeditated amok — or to excuse others who might resort to that kind of intimidatory violence — in order, paradoxically, to uphold their notions of moderation, mutual acceptance and tolerance in interfaith relations.

A question of many parts

There are many aspects to this dispute, all of them requiring close and serious consideration.

There is the constitutional and legal aspect, which is fundamental, and which — especially in habitually litigious  Malaysia, where everybody always seems ready for a large and long-lasting “lawyers’ picnic” — can never be ignored or taken lightly.

There are important considerations in the areas of political philosophy, especially of democratic and multicultural theory, which are relevant and need to be acknowledged.

There are questions in the area of historical linguistics, especially in the field of comparative Semitic philology (from old Syriac and Ugaritic through Hebrew and Aramaic to Arabic) which must be considered.

After all Middle Eastern Christians have been using the name of Allah to denote, and reverentially to address, their God for many long centuries going back to the time before the birth of Muhammad.

There are issues that arise from the religious and civilisational history of the Southeast Asian world, especially the fact that the Bible, or key parts of it, have been translated into Malay in which the idea of the Christian God has been rendered as Allah for several hundred years.

All these aspects of the current dispute are important.

They need to be fully discussed.

But I shall not go into them here. Others have already explained these matters with great patience and precision.

Instead I wish to suggest and explore another, different dimension of the present controversy over the invocation of God’s name.

The cultural anthropology of the Malay world

I wish to address and highlight a cultural aspect of the problem.

I want to suggest that this controversy is “a very Malay thing”.

Here I mean “a very Malay thing”, or “something that is in its own way very Malay”, in a very specific sense and manner.

I mean in a “cultural” sense, as old-fashioned cultural anthropologists used to, and might still, understand the matter.

Those of us who know something about Malay village life, either as inhabitants of that older, now disappearing world or else as intrusive cultural analysts and reporters, know of the role of the village bomoh, the spirit healer, and of its great social and human importance.

How does the bomoh work?

By calling upon the “spirit world” through spirits with whom he is familiar, with whom he has a continuing relation, upon whom he may make some kind of moral claim.

And how does the bomoh do this?

He does so by summoning those spirits to him, into his presence, in a séance or spirit mediumship session.

He summons them by means of powerful jampi, invocations.

If you have ever heard these jampi recited — or read about them in the old works of Skeat, Gimlette, Annandale, Wilkinson, Winstedt and the like — you will know how they work.

Through these jampi the bomoh calls upon his connections in the spirit world.

He calls upon them, imploringly but at the same time commanding them, virtually requiring them to come and help him.

He does do by asserting ritually, in his densely coded jampi or incantation, his right to their presence, assistance and serviceable intervention.

He does so by reminding them they are not strangers to him, nor he to them. That he has a claim upon them, and that they are obliged to recognise his claim upon them.

How does he assert this?

He does so by means of a number of the standard “formulaic” expressions of his ritual language — through the arcane phraseology and idioms of his jampi.

“I know you!” he declares. “I know your name. I know your origins.”

That is crucial.

Knowing its name and then to assert knowledge of a spirit’s origins and place in the hidden recesses of the cosmos is to be able to hold it to oneself, and its power to one’s needs and purposes.

By the affirmation of this relationship — a special and very personal, even exclusive, relationship — the bomoh not only reminds the spirit that he, the bomoh, is there.

He affirms his claim, and asserts an obligation on the spirit’s part, for that power to come to him, to help him, to render some special assistance to him: some special assistance that the spirit would not and need not render to others who do not know its name — who do not know and therefore have no basis or right to call upon it, since they do not have that same special relationship with the spirit.

The spirit has a superhuman or supernatural power. By the ritual affirmation of that special relationship, the bomoh asserts and establishes his right to recognition, consideration and assistance from that extra-human power. He voices his claim to enjoy the benefits of that power that he is able to invoke.

Power and knowing names in the Malay world

This matter of knowing the names of things and their origins — and the idea that this knowledge is both empowering and that it is also an entitlement of power, that this knowledge confers and revalidates and announces a great moral power that the person who knows these things may enjoy — is not just a matter that applies to bomoh.

It is a more general and pervasive theme in what used to be called “traditional Malay culture”.

To give but one example, one of some recent and contemporary significance, people may recall how on a number of occasions in modern memory various state Rulers have intervened with the designated road, highway and mapping authorities to insist that certain street and place names be changed.

The names given by the road and mapping authorities may, by the latest standards and conventions, have been linguistically impeccable. They may have pleased the sign-makers and mapping experts, but so far as the Malay Rulers were concerned they were simply wrong.

And, in the end, it is the Malay Ruler who truly knows the proper, correct names of places. He knows because it is he who — perhaps ironically, as part of his pre-Islamic Hindu-Buddhist cosmological inheritance as focus of the human world and anchor of its relation to the wider universe — gives them their names, on the basis of his authoritative knowledge of their true if obscure origins.

So “incorrect” place names and signage are changed.

They are changed because the Ruler says so.

But not capriciously.

He says so because that is what, in part, it means to be a Ruler. In the “traditional Malay cultural universe”, places and people have no names and no fixed, clear social existence or identity until they are named and recognised by a Ruler — in their royally-given names.

The leading scholar Anthony Milner has written an important work entitled “Kerajaan” expounding this idea. And he does it with great clarity and scholarly depth.

Names, power and the current controversy

So how is this relevant in the present dispute?

A grasp of this anthropological kind of “cultural knowledge” about the Malay world is essential, I suggest, to understanding the current controversy, or at least one very significant and intractable part of it.

It has often been pointed out, as this dispute has evolved, that in the Middle Eastern Arab world the name of Allah is routinely used, and has long been, by non-Muslims and, what is more, that most Muslims in that Arabic-speaking historical context have no problem with their doing so. It is simply a routine matter to them.

So why, it is asked, should Malays, why should Southeast Asian Muslims far from the historical heartlands of the Islamic faith community, object? Do they know better? Can they know better? On what basis?

The answers given have been complex. But they have been very similar, most of them. Many have even invoked Islamic notions, at times employing Arabic linguistic terms, of the need to respect local custom and usage, to accept local society and its practices.

In published commentaries, both Professor Sidek Baba of the International Islamic University (UIA/IIU) and Ustadz Fathul Bari Mat Jahya of the Himpunan Ulama Muda Malaysia (or iLMU) have invoked the notion of fiqh ul-waqi.

This idea is usually employed to urge a “realist” rather than a normatively idealist or absolutist approach towards implementing Islamic law: to promote the view that all such efforts should recognise the importance of national variations. That they should take account of the obdurate “on the ground” facts of local law, custom and practice.

So, in short, behind all these rejoinders there is really one simple answer to the question “why object?”

It is an answer that is either totally compelling or totally inadequate, merely a postponing or avoidance of the issue, depending on one’s point of view.

That is the answer that “here things are different”. This, some people say, is the Malay world, and what may pass muster in the Middle East will not necessarily do so here. And whether it does or not, they further assert, is the “call”, the choice, of the local Malay Muslim community. It is a matter for them, and them alone, to decide.

The basis of an answer? To what question?

Now, I do not suggest that bringing in this kind of anthropological knowledge about, or perspective upon, Malay culture can possibly decide the central question — the substantive issue of the permissibility or otherwise of non-Muslim use of the name of Allah — one way or the other.

It cannot resolve the question whether or not it is, or should be, permissible for non-Muslims in the Malay world, and Malaysia specifically, to employ the name of Allah formally to denote, and ritually to address, their God.

It does not tell us whether non-Muslims may employ that designation to refer to God by name in Malay and other vernacular translations of their sacred texts.

But what it does do, I believe, is to clarify, and it goes a long way towards explaining, the great tenacity with which some Malay Muslims, as in this present controversy, insist upon their right, their own exclusive right, to use the name of Allah. To assert, that is to say, their own exclusionary or “sumptuary” right to its use.

They cling to and uphold their notion of this right — regardless of what cultural usages in the Arabic–speaking Middle East may be, and irrespective of the learned arguments of wise, generous and acclaimed Islamic scholars worldwide may be — in a very Malay way.

Like the bomoh who places great value on the spiritual importance and social significance of what it means to know, and have the right and ability to use, the name of certain spirits from the “Malay spirit universe”, many contemporary Malays, I believe, carry forward this same, deeply-rooted and entrenched Malay attitude into their Islamic religious consciousness and sensibilities.

In a land where many people are forever worrying about the boundaries between the Malay and the non-Malay worlds — and where some people often call upon the prestige, standing and authority of Islam to “sacralise” and reinforce their ideas of these boundaries, and of their importance and unviolability — it seems clear how the notion of a proprietary Muslim entitlement to the name of Allah, to the exclusion of the followers of all other faiths and faith communities, might take hold. More, how it has come to be valued, and become the object of an embattled yet highly assertive defence.

That Malay Muslims might, even unknowingly, understand and express their sense of themselves as Muslims in what are often very Malay ways should surprise nobody.

But, once you can see this, you can also recognise that what is at stake in this current and evolving confrontation is a largely matter of ethnic identity and the defence of ethnic boundaries, not (as so many seem to believe) the upholding of the standing and dignity of a global faith, of its beliefs and entitlements and its traditions.

Why, for God’s sake, will people not plainly admit that this is the fact? That this is their underlying motivation, their explicit purpose and considered strategy?

Why must they call upon the majesty of God to lend power, and seemingly divine authority and sanction, to their mundane ethno-political purposes?

“Wallahu alam”!

God alone truly knows. — New Mandala

* Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 13 February 2013, 7:52 am and is filed under
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The PM is Demeaning Himself

By Kee Thuan Chye

Malaysiakini

Feb 12, 2013

It looks like Prime Minister and Barisan Nasional (BN) chief Najib Razak has outdone himself at self-debasement. His appearance in the now much-talked-about Chinese New Year advertisement has not only shown his desperation to win Chinese votes in the soon-to-be-held general election; it has also elicited responses from viewers full of derision and contempt.

I showed it to someone who is non-partisan, sensible, well-educated and who exercises good judgment, and these were her reactions as she watched it:

“Hak sei ngor! (Shocking)” … “Unheard of” … “Eeyer! Geli! (Makes my skin crawl)” … “Trying too hard”.

Her remarks are uncannily similar to those that have been expressed on Facebook by many other Malaysians.

In the advertisement, as Chinese New Year preparations are under way, a little girl brings out a small drum to play. A figure suddenly appears. To instil a sense of mystery, the video shows only his legs. He asks the girl, “Do you know how to beat a drum?” Then we see the man for the first time, but only the lower part of his face. Najib’s famous pink lips and moustache are instantly recognisable!

It is at the recognition of Najib that my friend gasped, “Hak sei ngor!”

The girl gives Najib her drum. But why? We don’t know. Going by his question, wasn’t he supposed to show her how to beat a drum?

The scene changes, and the lyrical background music gives way to drum beats. We then see a close-up of a pair of hands beating a large Chinese drum with sticks. A lion’s head appears. The girl gasps. Firecrackers are set off. A lion dance is on. More drummers join in. A crowd watches the dance with awe. But after a while, their expressions change to curiosity. One or two crane their necks to get a better view of the drummers. More firecrackers explode.

Then an elderly man lets out a cry of surprise. No wonder! The drummer is revealed in full glory. It is – lo and behold! – none other than Najib! Wearing a red Chinese costume, Najib beats the drum once, twice, then flings both arms out like an eagle to signify the end of the performance with a cry of “Hah!”.

At this point, my friend exclaimed, “Eeyer! Geli!”

The smiling crowd applauds. More firecrackers explode. Next we see the girl whispering something in Najib’s ear. A smiling Najib says something back to her. This is followed by a shot of a Chinese word on a piece of red paper and then of Najib, hands clasped together, wishing everyone, “Gong Xi Fa Cai.”

My friend had a good laugh. “He’s trying too hard,” she remarked.

Paying attention to detail

On Facebook, those who know Chinese criticised the writing of the Chinese word and pointed out it should have instead been written as “吉”, with the upper horizontal line being longer than the bottom one. In the advertisement, it is rendered the other way around, which apparently connotes bad luck.

And since the word denotes an approximation of “Jib”, which Najib has come to adopt as his Chinese name (Ah Jib), it doesn’t forebode well for him.

One really wonders why his advisers did not pay attention to detail. And why they did not caution him that performing in this advertisement might bring him lower in public esteem.

To be sure, there were some Netizens who expressed appreciation for the advertisement and his role in it, but far more were full of ridicule.

“Oh, gosh! This ad actually made my mind go blank for a good five minutes … that’s before I burst into laughter. Stupidest ad ever!” wrote one. And this was among the milder ones.

On Najib’s performance, many said it was “lawak” (clownish). One called him “an absolute clown”, another called him “Maharaja lawak” (king of clowns).

A kinder critic wrote, “We do not need a PM who can play drums, we need a PM who can stop corruption.”

In almost the same vein: “Dear PM, we would like to see you spend more time managing the country rather than carry out a PR exercise like this.”

And of course, some demanded to know how much of the people’s money was spent on this “desperate act by a desperate PM”.

Also, because the advertisement endorsed the burning of firecrackers, which is actually banned in Malaysia, one Netizen summed up the sentiment surrounding this issue by commenting, “Sejak bila kaum Tiong Hua dibenarkan membakar mercun? Janji tidak ditepati!” (Since when has the Chinese community been allowed to burn firecrackers? Promise unfulfilled!)

A most telling comment was the one that echoed my friend’s: “Aiyer … geli!”

And the one that sought to predict the near future: “Hahahaha … jawatan baru lepas kalah PRU13 … Ketua Ketuk Gendang Tarian Singa!” (Hahahaha … new job after losing GE13 … Head Lion Dance Drummer!)

Najib’s public relations advisers have truly mucked up. Strategies such as putting out this advertisement to try and win votes can, in fact, have the reverse effect. They annoy people.

It’s the same with the letters, postcards, SMSes that BN has been sending out wishing people Happy Chinese New Year or Happy Birthday or greeting them during other festivals. It freaks people out that BN is privy to their private particulars, like their birthdate or their mobile phone number.

The recent Chinese New Year letter is accompanied by ang-pow packets with Najib’s face on them. What a waste of money printing them! Who is going to use ang-pow packets with his face on them? For some Chinese, it could mean bad luck!

Normally, ang-pow packets carry symbols of happiness, luck, prosperity or the image of the animal of that year. Never the face of a person. A person steeped in Chinese culture said to me, “Even Mao Zedong never had his face on a red packet!”

Obviously, Najib’s advisers are not well-versed in Chinese culture. They were also not smart in getting the Korean K-Pop sensation Psy to perform his ‘Oppa Gangnam Style’ number at the BN Open House in Penang on the second day of Chinese New Year.

Obviously, the event was meant to attract a mammoth crowd so that BN could boast that it and Najib had the support of Penangites. But as it turned out, most of the people who went for it were not there for Najib but for Psy. And once Psy’s performance was over, many left in droves. That took the thunder away from Najib.

More than that, cynical questions were raised about the astronomical cost of bringing Psy in for such a brief performance. Even though the organisers said that a private sponsor underwrote it, the gesture showed a penchant for extravagance that starkly contrasted the difficult economic times, especially for common Malaysians coping with the rising prices of essential goods.

As for winning votes, one doubts Penangites would be fooled into siding BN just because it brought Psy in to perform for them. However BN may underestimate their intelligence, Penangites are not stupid.

Sure enough, just before Psy was about to appear, Najib asked the crowd three times, “Are you ready for Psy?” and each time the crowd shouted, “Yes!” But when he followed that with the ill-advised question, “Are you ready for BN?”, the crowd replied with a resounding “No!” And he foolishly asked it three times as well, each time getting the same negative reply. Frankly, he looked stupid. So much for Malaysia’s prime minister.

One Netizen summed it up aptly on Facebook: “The irony for BN is they spent close to RM3,000,000 for a publicity stunt that backfired, and it became a people’s forum to say NO to BN.”

In his desperation to ensure victory for BN at the coming general election – and especially the two-thirds majority that he may need in order to keep his job – is Najib aware that he is losing his self-respect?

Well, the way he’s been going around begging the people to keep BN in power for another term; the lack of confidence he exhibited when he said on Jan 5 that he hoped he would still be prime minister to have the opportunity to open KLIA2 on June 28; the cash handouts he’s been throwing out to win the people’s favour; and now the Chinese New Year advertisement and Psy circus, he seems willing to do anything to attain his desperate goal. Even if it means losing his dignity.

Perhaps he thinks that if he keeps doing it, people will kesian (pity) him and give him sympathy votes. But any way you look at it, that’s really pathetic. Especially for the person who holds the nation’s highest office. What he needs to understand is that people will not respect him if he doesn’t respect himself. And without respect, he has no business being PM.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the bestselling book No More Bullshit, Please, We’re All Malaysians, and the latest volume, Ask for No Bullshit, Get Some More!

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 13 February 2013, 12:16 pm and is filed under
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Twins of evil

by Mariam Mokhtar

Malaysiakini

Feb 12, 2013

He was a Machiavellian ruler who is alleged to have corrupted his way to the top, and became Malaysia’s longest serving prime minister, but will the historians have to revise Malaysian history?

Some argue that former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled Malaysia with an iron fist for 22 years, should be remembered as a visionary leader and a tireless administrator. Others disagree and call him a ruthless dictator who silenced his critics and allowed corruption, cronyism and nepotism to flourish.

Today, Mahathir is as divisive as ever and despite being retired, has managed to upstage the current Prime Minister, Najib Abdul Razak, many times during the latter’s tenure.

Najib could have ordered an investigation based on Mahathir’s own admission about the influx of illegal immigrants being given citizenship provided they voted for the ruling party; but Najib is more scared of Mahathir. If Najib had not been weighted down by so much baggage, he could have silenced Mahathir once and for all.

Many Malaysian housewives are familiar with the ‘Buku 555′; the four inches by three inches notebook in which they would record purchases from their travelling grocer. Mahathir is alleged to have a ‘Buku 555′, which is worth its weight in gold; it allegedly lists the wrongdoings of his cabinet ministers and cronies.

Few ministers would dare act honourably, fearful of the release of potentially explosive material which could end their political careers and jeopardise their ill-gotten fortunes.

Four decades ago, Mahathir used the Malays to further his own political ambitions. He and others realised that the Malays were in deep trouble. So, out came the economic policies which were supposed to help them but which only benefitted his close allies and family members.

Now, Mahathir is again using the backwardness of the Malays to urge them to vote for BN. He used emotive language such as “The British managed to conquer Malaya without losing a single soldier,” and that the Malay rulers had a hand in this.

If Mahathir’s memory was not so bad, he would have remembered his history lessons and known that the foreign invading forces had superior firepower. Perhaps the Malay rulers wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. It is disingenuous and disrespectful of Mahathir to blame the Malay rulers in this flippant manner.

A few hundred years earlier, at the invasion of Malacca in 1511, the certain traders valued their trading rights more than their honour and betrayed the Malacca sultan, thus forcing him and his sons to retreat into the jungles and flee to Perak, Johor and Sumatra.

Last week, Mahathir accused the Malays of relinquishing their economic power to non-Malays. He said, “We let immigrants take over because we do not want to work and do not want to learn to do new things… we prefer to fish and plant padi.” Ironically, most of the immigrants were brought in by Mahathir in his ‘Project M’.

Dependence culture

It was Umno which created this dependence culture and it was Umno’s affirmative action economic policies which made the Malay less competitive. Umno sold them the idea that the Malays were the greatest and they believed that they could achieve success, without hard work.

Today, Najib has carried this trend of affirmative action further, by giving them cash. When will the Malay become independent of government handouts?

Perhaps, Mahathir’s most despicable act is the call for the constitution to be amended, so that Bersih co-chairperson S Ambiga can be stripped of her citizenship. She did not admit hundreds of thousands of foreigners to our shores. Mahathir did.

Umno does not respect diversity nor does it encourage fairness. It has reduced Malaysian politics to salacious entertainment.

Najib has appeared on television in Chinese New Year adverts dressed in Chinese costume and beating drums. In a radio advertisement, he speaks Mandarin with his son. This induced many to switch off their radios.

At Thaipusam, why did Najib not carry a kavadi and get pierced? Is the Indian vote not important? Did Najib think that doling out packets of rice to the Indians was sufficient? At Christmas, why did Najib not don a Father Christmas costume and dole out his BR1M vouchers from his sack of goodies?

It is time Najib stopped treating politics as a reality television show. If he wanted to get the public on his side, he should get a firm grip on his leadership, and punish the people who are responsible for police brutality, corruption and abuse of power.

Instead, he protects those who are guilty. No one has been made accountable, no one has been sacked, and no one has been shamed.

When Mahathir said that BN had to win a two-thirds majority in GE13, he was issuing a warning to Najib and to the greater public, especially the Malays. Najib had the audacity to remind the opposition not to create chaos should it lose the general election and yet, at press conferences, when he was asked if BN would agree to a smooth transition of power to the winner, Najib would not comment. He would just walk out and abruptly terminate the session.

Whatever the outcome of GE13, Mahathir already has a musical named after him, ‘Tun Mahathir’. Dance routines and songs depict his life from his childhood to his premiership; though it is more of a fairy tale than a musical. None of the corruption, cronyism and nepotism which flourished under his rule, are featured.

According to the Petronas blurb, the Twin Towers which dominate the KL skyline are supposed to symbolise modernity and a progressive nation. They are supposed to be the brainchild and inspiration of Mahathir and T Ananda Krishnan. The outline of the towers resembles the letter ‘M’ for Malaysia.

Who knows, one day, some sycophant might say that the ‘M’ stands for Mahathir and they will be renamed the Mahathir Towers.

How awful it would be if, every time we see the twin towers, we were reminded only of the twin evils of corruption and cronyism.

——————————————————————————–

MARIAM MOKHTAR is a non-conformist traditionalist from Perak, a bucket chemist and an armchair eco-warrior. In ‘real-speak’, this translates into that she comes from Ipoh, values change but respects culture, is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 13 February 2013, 5:57 pm and is filed under
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56-Day Countdown to 13 GE –Turn Najib’s three self-inflicted embarrassments at the RM3.5 million Psy and Gangnam Style bash into a boon for Malaysia

Instead of being the entertainment and political coup in the nation’s 56-year history propelling the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, UMNO and Barisan Nasional to a convincing victory in the 13th General Elections with a two-thirds parliamentary majority and regaining Pakatan Rakyat states including Penang, the Psy and Gangnam Style appearance  at the Barisan Nasional Chinese New Year bash in Penang  has proved to be a political and public relations disaster of the first magnitude.

It inflicted three major embarrassments on Najib and the UMNO/BN coalition, but even worse, it also brought shame to the country.  The three major embarrassments are:

•	The one-minute video of “Three Yes to Psy and Three Noes to BN” which immediately went viral after the  Han Chiang School extravaganza with over half-a-million views on YouTube from over a dozen sites since Monday.

•	The five-minute video of “No Psy, Najib/BN  left red-faced during yee sang toss”, the second video of Psy’s appearance at the BN CNY bash in Penang which has gone viral, showing the Prime Minister, former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah and  Cabinet Ministers waiting expectantly for five minutes for the Korean superstar to join them  and sheepishly leaving  the stage  without yee sang toss when Psy refused. This is the episode which hurt our national pride and make all Malaysians whether PR or BN feel ashamed – that the Prime Minister and former Prime Minister had to sacrifice  national honour and dignity even for a Korean K-pop sensation.

•	Psy’s refusal to perform “Gangnam 1Malaysia Style”.  Najib had announced on stage after his disastrous “3 Yes to Psy and 3 Noes to BN” exchange with the crowd of  Psy’s “very exciting show”, proclaiming that Psy “is ready for us and he will show you the proper Gangnam Style…and I am told he has a surprise for you – the Gangnam 1Malaysia Style”. But Psy did not deliver the “surprise” of “Gangnam 1Malaysia Style” depriving Najib and BN leaders like Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Ng Yen Yen the opportunity to dance the “Gangnam 1Malaysia Style” with the South Korean pop sensation in Penang.

There were other public relations disasters like

•	the failure so far to explain who are the funder/funders who foot the bill of at least RM3.5 million for the “Psy and Gangnam Style” appearance in Penang – straight from Brazil in a 20-hour flight – as no one believed that it is really free and that Malaysian taxpayers would not finally have to pay every sen of it and in fact many times over;

•	in the early hours of first day of CNY, over  10,000 1Malaysia flags flooded  the major routes of Penang Island which would be used by Najib in his two-day CNY visit, showing utter arrogance of the “mysterious sponsors” of the Psy and Gangnam Style bash – flaunting arrogance and contempt for the law, as the flag were put up in utter disregard of public safety and the by-laws.  The whole operation of printing and putting up over 10,000 1Malaysia flags  in a matter of hours in the early hours of first day of CNY would easily cost around RM100,000 – another reminder that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

•	Denial up to now by  the Penang BN official organisers that they were responsible or even knew who put up the over 10,000 1Malaysia flags, claiming that they have “no idea’ who had put them up.  How irresponsible and/or incompetent can the Penang BN leadership be?  Is this proof that there were more powerful forces at work behind the Psy and Gangnam bash and that the Penang BN leaders were just puppets being pulled on strings by other people?

But all these are secondary issues and questions to what should be the primary and  pivotal question – how to turn Najib’s three self-inflicted  embarrassments at the RM3.5 million Psy and Gangnam Style bash into a boon for Malaysia.

Najib deserves the nation’s thanks if the Psy and Gangnam Style fiasco can focus all Malaysians on one question – why South Korea had developed  so phenomenally at the expense of Malaysia when 56 years ago, Malaysia was twice as rich and developed as South Korea but today South Korea is two to three times richer and more advanced than Malaysia and ahead of Malaysia in all fields of human endeavour?

One answer is that South Korea was ahead of Malaysia by 15 years in becoming a normal democratic country, effecting a peaceful transition of power through general elections with the Opposition candidate Kim Dae-Jung winning and sworn in as South Korean President in the 1998 South Korean presidential elections.

Can Malaysia undergo a peaceful transition of power with Pakatan Rakyat replacing Barisan Nasional as the new  Malaysian government in Putrajaya in the 13GE?

If this can be achieved in the 13GE, then it will turn Najib’s self-inflicted embarrassments in the Psy and Gangnam Style fiasco into a national boon – allowing Malaysia to start on a new page to achieve our Second Merdeka where Malaysians can hold their heads high to compete with the rest of the world and not just among themselves.

Artikel ini juga boleh didapati dalam Bahasa Malaysia di:
https://blog.limkitsiang.com/2013/02/14/pengiraan-detik-56-hari-ke-pru13-mengubah-tiga-peristiwa-memalukan-najib-yang-ditimpakan-ke-atas-dirinya-sendiri-sewaktu-pesta-rm3-5-juta-psy-dan-gangnam-style-menjadi-rahmat-buat-malaysia/

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 14 February 2013, 12:46 pm and is filed under
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Efforts by the state to make the minorities halal

CPI Introduction

One of our readers sent this lament from an anonymous source of the way in which the racial factor works in this country and has been exploited by those that wield power. Although it may be read as an alarmist, biased and exaggerated analysis of how racial and religious dynamics are pushing the country towards a downward spiral, it does provide food for thought.

We have left out its most contentious parts lest we be accused of attempting to stoke racial sentiments and intolerance. It is an article which, however unpleasant to read, reflects many of the feelings at the ground level of the country’s marginalized communities, and which politics and policies have disappointed to a dangerously pessimistic degree.

Even if our body politic is not afflicted by a life-threatening cancerous growth as alleged by our anonymous writer, the cure for the country’s numerous boils and abscesses is to lance them, drain the contaminated pus and clean the wound. The country desperately awaits leaders who can heal rather than compound the damage to our citizenry.

Citizens to Pendatangs – Frogs on a slow boil

By
Ice Cream Seller
 | Tuesday, 12 February 2013 09:13

I am no science buff but remember reading about putting frogs in cold water and then slowly putting the water to boil. The frogs (unlike the Perak species) will die as they will be unaware of the change in temperature that will ultimately prove fatal.

Dear Malaysian brethren of whatever ilk, we will suffer the same fate as the innocent frogs if we let the country spiral to another Iran or Pakistan.

I am – in today’s parlance – a 3rd generation pendatang. Let’s call it Genpentiga (Generasi Pendatang Tiga). I suppose it can’t be that bad when a Genpendua became PM for 22 years. But then he metamorphosed into a Malay and cut his Indian roots only to go back to Kerala recently to see if there were any offshoots, I suppose, or perhaps some trait of mortality dictated that he visit his roots in his autumn days.

I look at my children Genpenempat and wonder what place they have left under our sun. Should I leave them in the water where they are comfortable or kick them out of their ‘comfort water’? Old frogs like me might as well die in the Malaysian water anyway; we are fast reaching our sell-by date.

I would like to share, if I may, some developments and events that have brought me to this juncture and by doing so, hope that the Genpenempat open their eyes wider and see beyond what meets the eye. These are in no order of priority but illustrate the point to me nonetheless.

Fuad Stephens

I am no East Malaysian but I remember how he perished in a plane crash with a few others. What if his plane was sabotaged? What would have been if this did not happen? Would Sabah be the same as it is today, with millions of new Malaysians? Would he have stood up to the shenanigans in KL? Would Sabah be 1/4 partner in Malaysia together with the Malaya, Singapore and Sarawak instead of being colonised into 1/13 and be submissive to Putrajaya? Would Malaysia be the same today?

Perak heist

What played out in the ‘transfer’ back to BN control opened my eyes as to what could happen on a Federal level. If the elected Speaker can be literally dragged out of his seat, what is there to suggest they can’t drag you out of your house? Remember, you are a PENDATANG. Of course, his replacement could not be a Malay so they had to get another pendatang to be the puppet to try and even the score. The new Menteri Besar is also a pendatang but he has the right qualification as PM Genpendua if you get my drift.

Selangor

The goings on currently in Selangor mirror Perak to some degree. The previous Menteri Besar, also a Genpendua but with the deemed suitable qualifications, ran the administration like a bandit in Java but still has not been brought to the 14th floor in Shah Alam to coerce some information from him about how he managed to have such a successful dental practice to be able to own a palace bigger than what he could have seen in Java.

Teoh Beng Hock

Pendatangs beware. If your children are getting married soon, even the next day, keep them under house arrest for their own safety. Every time my kids go out, we worry till they are back safe. If you work for the ‘wrong’ boss, it could cost you your life. But then, if you work for the ‘right’ boss, you may save your life and yet lose your soul. So pendatangs, choose between your life and your soul.

Kugan

I ask myself if the same fate would have been met if it was someone with a fairer complexion or at least the same ‘qualification’ as the ex-MB of the same state in which he died. Kugan and his type are today seen as an inconvenience, pests, scroungers and lately even christened “pariahs”. I suspect Kugan had deeper roots in Malaysia than the ex-MB. Whatever wrong he may have done, the video clips of his relatives barging into the mortuary and the outpouring of anguish left a lasting impression.

In the same vein, when one of my staff was killed in a motor accident, the records at the mortuary showed that the cause of death was “mabuk”. He was a teetotaller. On my insistence and with the timely arrival of the foreign pathologist who was employed there, the records were corrected. Just because he was of Indian origin, it was felt apt to put in “mabuk”!

History syllabus

In the school that I went to (Victoria Institution), we were taught history only till Form 3 unless you did Arts in Forms 4 and 5. My children were both Science stream students till Form 5 but they had to do History. I had a peek at their textbooks; seems like History has changed a fair bit.

They are fed rubbish, to put it mildly. It is His Story as told and imagined by a few bigots. My daughter’s book had an image of a Sikh with a turban but with the description Orang Bengali! Don’t they know that Bengalis are from Bengal and Sikhs are Punjabis from Punjab ?

I suppose this is to be expected when many wear the mantle of ‘Malay’ despite coming from all corners of Asia. They have tried to lose trace of where they originate. Turks, Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Cambodians, Thais are all re-badged Malays. We now await the Africans, Caucasians and Eskimos to join ranks and be members of Umno Baru. A relative of Obama might yet lead Malaysia .

SPM answer scripts (I laugh so loud on this…)

When my children sat for their SPM examinations a few years ago, they had to tick a box to indicate if they were Muslim or not. Was it because they were in need of divine intervention in the event they are not Muslim? Or were the scripts marked according to whether they were halal or not?

Matriculation courses

It is widely accepted that the successor to the HSC, the STPM, is a tough examination. But stroll into an STPM class and you will observe that the Bumi students are conspicuously less. They are doing matriculation which we are led to believe is on par with STPM for entry to local universities.

Genpempat are likewise conspicuously less in matriculation courses. The intakes to universities are then claimed to be on merit despite being based on different examinations. With all this, how does one unify a nation?

Allah

The very fact that there is an attempt to copyright this word shows acute insecurity. In Pakistan, I was greeted withAssalammulaikum during my work visits there. To them, it was just being polite and civil. Here, it becomes “confusing” and threatening. The fact that the Catholic Church won a High Court case in this matter only to have it appealed with no hearing date in sight illustrates the insecurity and illuminates the deceit of the authorities.

Sabah

When they joined to form Malaysia, little did they realise that this majority Christian state was going to be swamped by aliens to the extent that the aliens outnumber the natives. The flushing in of these aliens over a concentrated period of time had a very sinister motive. Pendatangs should always be conscious of this. In Malay I call it niat jahat. The parallel that comes to mind for me is Ali Jinnah and his actions in carving out Pakistan (history as I learned many, many years after leaving school) from pre-independence India. Till today, Pakistan knows no peace for a sustained time.

Judiciary

The man in the street seeks justice on earth in the courts. Our judicial system simply fails the test on perception alone. Our history books as they stand are not going to record how this institution degenerated into the sewers by the actions of one man principally. The Attorney General has an image problem (and I am not referring to his face). The Chief Justice is supposed to be on record as having admitted to bribing clerks or junior staff to get things moving during his time as a lawyer. Add to that he was an Umno member. Pendatang, do you see the writing on the wall?

Scaling Mt Everest

Two of the mountaineers who reached the summit were of Indian origin. Rumour has it that the premier at the time was dismayed that the expedition leader couldn’t be there instead due to blisters on his feet. The injured leader however, never begrudged them and shared in the joy of the conquest.

One of the two mountaineers has since died and his widow is still bewildered over the snatching of his body on claims that her husband had masuk Islam. Pendatang, when you die, your wife may be subject to so many hassles you wonder if it was worth conquering Everest. Your carcass is more important than your conquest.

(I use the term “carcass” deliberately.)

Jail for Lim Guan Eng

This Pendatang is now a Chief Minister and doing a damn good job in between ducking attacks from Utusan and Umno and their stooges. But remember he went to jail for speaking up for a victim of rape. From a perverse point of view, was it because he was a Pendatang and the alleged perpetrator was not? Pity there wasn’t Wikileaks then.

Cow head incident

Blatant, flagrant, insulting. But not as dangerous as a candlelight vigil with women taking part. Whilst the cow’s head went on display in Shah Alam, the Home Minister went on display to show the cow brains over television. That the police allowed them to bring it all the way to the MB’s office gate shows their partiality as far as I am concerned. Mark this episode, Pendatangs.

Rela

Malaysia’s own fifth column. Just observe how they move about like uniformed thug especially when raiding foreign workers’ quarters. They are just insecure bullies garbed in state sponsored uniforms. Many are not in it for love of country. More for love of money from extortions. Close parallel to what exists in Iran. Ideal source for extra judicial activities, so Pendatangs, be wary. Also progressive/liberal/moderate Muslims need to be aware. Again, just like what happened over the years in Iran and Pakistan.

Proton

A car I have vowed never to buy for what it represents. Aggregate all the money to protect this deity, we could have used the same to fund a decent public transport system in the country. Like others taken for a ride, I beamed with ‘pride’ when the first car was launched. Now, it has become a mirror of the NEP implementation –

overpriced, under-performing, waste of resources. I suspect the hidden agenda behind this project was to have a halal car.

Buka puasa

My Muslim friends tell me that buka puasa is a time to have a simple meal to break the fast. What we are having on display is an orgy of gluttony. Tables in hotels overflow onto passageways and corridors for this time of year. And many a time, the host of a table is a Pendatang. The guests come sometimes shamelessly comparing the offerings at different hotels in front of their paying hosts. Is there any meaning left in this supposedly holy month?

Ivory Coast

The person clinging to power in the Ivory Coast – at great cost to his country – is giving us a taste of what can happen in Malaysia. Please pay attention to what Laurent Gbagbo does. The same ingredients are here. Umno will take heart from him, from the Burmese Junta, from Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka, from Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

For Ibrahim Ali, these are angels sent from heaven and will be given honorary Perkasa membership.

Legacy of Mahathir

There is no denying his intellect. Unfortunately, I will remember him as the person who singularly destroyed what Malaysia was to me. No need to elucidate – it is there for all to see.

The Malaysia as I knew and loved is no more. It died a slow death after battling cancer for 22 years but is there hope for resurrection in the horizon not for me but for Genpempat?

*
The write-up above had earlier appeared in Malaysia Today on 10 Jan 2011.
*

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 14 February 2013, 11:43 am and is filed under
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Pengiraan Detik 56 Hari ke PRU13 – Mengubah tiga peristiwa memalukan Najib yang ditimpakan ke atas dirinya sendiri sewaktu pesta RM3.5 juta Psy dan Gangnam Style menjadi rahmat buat Malaysia

Kemunculan Psy dan Gangnam Style pada pesta Tahun Baru Cina Barisan Nasional di Pulau Pinang  sepatutnya menjadi hiburan dan rampasan kuasa politik di dalam sejarah negara sehingga membawa Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, UMNO dan Barisan Nasional kepada kejayaan meyakinkan dalam Pilihan Raya Ke-13 dengan majoriti dua pertiga parlimen dan mendapatkan semula negeri-negeri Pakatan Rakyat termasuklah Pulau Pinang, telah bertukar menjadi kemusnahan besar politik dan perhubungan awam.

Tiga aib besar menimpa Najib dan perikatan UMNO/BN, tetapi lebih buruk lagi, ia turut memalukan negara. Tiga aib besar itu ialah:

Video satu minit “Tiga Ya untuk Psy dan Tiga Tidak untuk BN” yang pantas tersebar selepas kemeriahan di Sekolah Han Chiang ditonton hampir setengah juta di You Tube dari banyak laman sejak Isnin.

Video lima minit “Psy tiada, Najib/BN merah muka ketika acara menggaul yee sang”, video kedua tentang kemunculan Psy di pesta Tahun Baru Cina BN di Pulau Pinang yang pantas tersebar, memaparkan Perdana Menteri, Mantan Perdana Menteri Tun Abdullah dan Menteri Kabinet menunggu bintang Korea itu selama lima minit untuk menyertai mereka dan tersipu-sipu meninggalkan pentas tanpa menggaul yee sang apabila Psy menolak. Ini merupakan kejadian yang merosakkan maruah negara dan memalukan semua rakyat Malaysia tidak kira PR atau BN – yang mana Perdana Menteri dan mantan Perdana Menteri terpaksa mengorbankan maruah negara demi kehangatan K-pop Korea.

Psy menolak untuk mempersembahkan “Gangnam 1Malaysia Style”. Najib telah mengumumkan di atas pentas selepas kerosakkan “3 Ya untuk Psy dan 3 Tidak untuk BN” berkenaan “persembahan menarik” Psy, mengisytiharkan “(Psy) is ready for us and he will show you the proper Gangnam Style…and I am told he has a surprise for you – the Gangnam 1Malaysia Style” Tetapi Psy tidak mempersembahkan kejutan “Gangnam 1Malaysia Style” menghancurkan harapan Najib dan peluang pemimpin BN seperti Menteri Pelancongan Datuk Seri Dr. Ng Yen Yen untuk menari “Gangnam 1Malaysia Style” dengan bintang pop Korea Selatan itu di Pulau Pinang.

Terdapat kemusnahan perhubungan awam lain seperti:

Setakat ini kegagalan untuk menjelaskan siapa penaja/penaja-penaja yang melangsaikan sekurang-kurangnya RM3.5 juta untuk kemunculan “Psy dan Gangnam Style” di Pulau Pinang – terus dari Brazil melalui penerbangan 20 jam – memandangkan tiada siapa percaya bahawa ia benar-benar percuma dan pembayar cukai Malaysia akhirnya tidak akan menanggung walau sesen;

Pada hari pertama Tahun Baru Cina, lebih 10,000 bendera 10,000 bendera 1Malaysia memenuhi jalan-jalan besar di Pulau Pinang yang digunakan Najib dalam lawatan dua hari Tahun Baru Cina, menunjukkan keangkuhan “penaja misteri” pesta Psy dan Gangnam Style – keangkuhan menunjuk-nunjuk dan menghina undang-undang, memandangkan bendera itu dinaikkan tanpa mengambil kira keselamatan dan undang-undang. Keseluruhan operasi mencetak dan menaikkan lebih 10,000 bendera 1Malaysia dalam tempoh beberapa jam pada awal-awal pagi hari pertama Tahun Baru Cina tentu menelan belanja sekitar RM100,000 – satu lagi peringatan bahawa tiada benda yang percuma.

Penafian sehingga kini oleh penganjur rasmi BN Pulau Pinang bahawa mereka bertanggung jawab atau tahu siapa yang menaikkan 10,000 bendera 1Malaysia, mendakwa mereka “tidak tahu” siapa yang menaikkan mereka. Betapa tidak bertanggungjawab dan/atau tidak cekap pemimpin BN Pulau Pinang? Apakah ini bukti bahawa ada kuasa yang lebih besar di sebalik pesta Psy dan Gangnam serta pemimpin BN Pulau Pinang hanyalah boneka yang dikawal pihak lain?

Tetapi semua ini adalah isu kedua dan soalan-soalan apa yang sepatutnya menjadi soalan penting – bagaimana untuk mengubah tiga aib Najib yang ditimpakan ke atas diri sendiri  pada pesta RM3.5 juta Psy dan Gangnam Style menjadi rahmat buat Malaysia.

Najib berhak menerima ucapan terima kasih sekiranya kemelut Psy dan Gangnam Style mampu membuatkan rakyat Malaysia fokus kepada satu soalan – mengapa Korea Selatan telah membangun begitu hebat berbanding Malaysia sedangkan 56 tahun lalu, Malaysia dua kali lebih kaya dan membangun berbanding Korea Selatan akan tetapi hari ini Korea Selatan dua hingga tiga kali ganda lebih kaya dan maju berbanding Malaysia dan mengatasi Malaysia dalam semua bidang usaha?

Jawapannya kerana Korea Selatan 15 tahun jauh kedepan berbanding Malaysia dalam menjadi negara demokratik yang normal, telaksananya peralihan kuasa dengan aman melalui pilihan raya dengan calon Oposisi Kim Dae-Jung menang dan menjadi Presiden Korea Selatan pada pilihan raya presiden Korea Selatan 1998.

Mampukah Malaysia melalui peralihan kuasa yang aman dengan Pakatan Rakyat menggantikan Barisan Nasional sebagai kerajaan Malaysia yang baru di Putrajaya pada PRU13?

Sekiranya ini dapat dicapai dalam PRU13, maka itu akan mengubah aib Najib yang ditimpakan ke atas diri sendiri di dalam kemelut Psy dan Gangnam Style menjadi rahmat buat negara – membolehkan Malaysia membuka halaman baru untuk mencapai Merdeka Kedua yang mana rakyat Malaysia mampu berdiri sama tinggi dan bersaing bukannya hanya sesama sendiri tetapi juga dengan negara-negara lain dalam dunia.

This article is also available in English at:
https://blog.limkitsiang.com/2013/02/14/56-day-countdown-to-13-ge-turn-najibs-three-self-inflicted-embarrassments-at-the-rm3-5-million-psy-and-gangnam-style-bash-into-a-boon-for-malaysia/

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 14 February 2013, 3:38 pm and is filed under
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Pengiraan Detik 58 Hari ke PRU13 – Keyakinan tinggi untuk memenangi PRU13 yang dibina Najib runtuh berkecai akibat daripada tiga “Ya” untuk Psy dan tiga “Tidak” untuk BN di persembahan jutaan ringgit Gangnam Style Psy di Pulau Pinang semalam

Yang sepatutnya menjadi rampasan kuasa jutaan ringgit Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak dan Barisan Nasional, bertukar menjadi kemusnahan jutaan ringgit buat Najib dan BN menjelang tibanya Pilihan Raya Umum ke-13.

Yang luput dari ingatan ialah jutaan ringgit daripada penaja yang tidak diketahui membawa Psy dan rombongannya dalam satu penerbangan terus 20 jam dari Brazil ke Pulau Pinang  dengan motif yang juga tidak diketahui, beribu-ribu bendera 1Malaysia yang mencemar Pulau Pinang untuk lawatan Tahun Baru Cina dua hari Najib ke Pulau Pinang atau tawaran “I help you, You help me” Najib yang terbaru.

Apa yang akan selamanya dikenang tentang Tahun Baru Cina Najib di Pulau Pinang adalah video satu minit yang sudah tersebar luas lebih hangat berbanding Psy dan Gangnam Style – ketika Najib bertanya kepada hadirin di Sekolah han Chiang sama ada mereka bersedia untuk Psy dan bersedia untuk BN.

Sebenarnya, gema tiga kali “Ya” untuk soalan Najib sama ada orang ramai telah bersedia untuk Psy diikuti dengan gema yang sama kuat dan spontan tiga kali “Tidak” ketika Najib bertanya sama ada mereka bersedia untuk BN telah memusnahkan keyakinan tinggi untuk menang besar dalam PRU13 yang dibina Najib, yang telah hancur musnah.

Kejadian itu lebih memusnahkan peluang pilihan raya UMNO/BN dalam PRU13 berbanding Bersih 2.0, Bersih 3.0 atau Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat KL112 – lebih-lebih lagi apa ia adalah kemusnahan yang ditimpakan ke atas diri.

Kejadian itu telah mencalarkan gambaran indah yang dicipta pemimpin dan propagandis UMNO/BN akan menang besar dalam PRU13, bukan sahaja dengan majoriti dua pertiga parlimen malah untuk memenangi semula negeri-negeri yang kini ditadbir Pakatan Rakyat termasuklah Pulau Pinang.

Melihat kembali kelak, apabila sejarah PRU13 dicatat, kemunculan Psy dan Gangnam Style dengan tiga “Ya” untuk Psy dan tiga “Tidak” untuk BN, akan meninggalkan kesan di dalam sejarah politik Malaysia menandakan bermulanya pengakhiran buat Najib dan penguasaan penuh Umno di dalam politik Malaysia.

Walaupun Najib dan UMNO/BN telah mengalami tamparan dalam pusingan akhir ke PRU13, pemimpin, ahli dan penyokong Pakatan Rakyat hendaklah tidak terlebih yakin dan menganggap perlawanan ke Putrajaya sudah pun dimenangi.

Saya sentiasa berpandangan bahawa hasil PRU13 sukar ditentukan siapa pemenangnya walaupun UMNO/BN mempunyai kelebihan  juga kerana penyalahgunaan kuasa, PR masih boleh memenangi PRU13 untuk membentuk Kerajaan Persekutuan memandangkan tempoh kempen pilihan raya adalah kunci penting dan terakhir menentukan siapa akan menjadi pemenang.

This article is also available in English at:
https://blog.limkitsiang.com/2013/02/12/58-day-countdown-to-13-ge-najibs-elaborate-edifice-of-supreme-confidence-of-winning-13ge-has-collapsed-like-a-house-of-cards-as-a-result-of-three-yes-for-psy-and-three-noes-for-bn-at-t/

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 14 February 2013, 3:26 pm and is filed under
1Malaysia
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Pengiraan Detik 59 Hari ke PRU13 – Sepuluh ribu bendera 1Malaysia pada majlis Gangnam Style Psy di Pulau Pinang hanya menonjolkan kegagalan program transformasi 1Malaysia Najib

Warga Pulau Pinang bangun pada Tahun Baru Cina pada hari Ahad, 10 Febuari 2013 dengan sepuluh ribu bendera 1Malaysia membarisi jalan yang akan digunakan oleh Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Razak dalam lawatan dua hari beliau ke Pulau Pinang dari lapangan terbang ke Kolej Han Chiang yang akan menampilkan bintang pop Korea Selatan Psy kepada Georgetown dan kawasan sekitar Komtar.

Akan tetapi bolehkan bintang K-pop Korea Selatan memberikan kehidupan, nyawa dan roh kepada dasar 1Malaysia Najib dengan 10,000 bendera 1Malaysia yang dipacak dengan sombongnya, tidak mengikut peraturan dan berbahaya di sepanjang jalanraya utama Pulau Pinang – menampakkan sifat tidak peduli  terhadap kebajikan, keselamatan dan undang-undang negeri serta menonjolkan kegagalan program transformasi 1Malaysia Najib?

Amat menyedihkan selepas empat tahun sebagai Perdana Menteri, hanya satu daripada 68 Menteri dan Timbalan Menteri yang berani secara terbuka menentang arus perdana UMNO/Barisan Nasional dan secara terbuka mengumumkan dirinya rakyat Malaysia dulu dan Melayu kemudian.

Apakah ada Menteri UMNO kedua yang berani mencontohi apa yang Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz telah lakukan pada September 2010 mengisytiharkan dirinya rakyat Malaysia dulu dan Melayu kemudian, seiring dengan dasar 1Malaysia berbeza dengan pengisytiharan terbuka Najib?

Saya berkata “seiring dengan dasar 1Malaysia berbeza dengan pengisytiharan terbuka Najib” untuk Perdana Menteri, kerana seingat saya dan saya bersedia untuk diperbetulkan, saya tidak pernah mendengar walau sekalipun sejak empat tahun lalu beliau mengatakan beliau rakyat Malaysia dulu dan Melayu kemudian!

Najib berkata di Pulau Pinang semalam bahawa “Saya tidak akan berjanji sekirangya tidak mampu untuk menunaikannya”.

Sudahkah Najib menunaikan janji 1Malaysianya sepanjang empat tahun ini selain melambakkan 10,000 bendera 1Malaysia bersempena dengan persembahan Gangnam Style Psy?

Sekiranya Najib tidak menjanjikan perkara yang tidak boleh beliau tunaikan, mengapa beliau tidak menjelajah ke seluruh negara sepanjang empat tahun ini untuk mempromosikan dasar 1Malaysia bagi mewujudkan bangsa Malaysia yang mana setiap rakyat menganggap diri mereka rakyat Malaysia dulu kemudian barulah bangsa, agama, tempat atau latarbelakang ekonomi, dan menjadikan dirinya sebagai teladan pemimpin Malaysia yang “Rakyat Malaysia dulu, bangsa kemudian” untuk dicontohi semua rakyat Malaysia?

Bagaimanapun, sepanjang empat tahun lalu, Najib telah gagal mendapatkan sokongan Majlis Tertinggi UMNO/Barisan Nasional dan Kabinet buat dasar 1Malaysia, sejak Timbalan Perdana Menteri Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin tanpa berlapik pada Mac 2010 sewaktu beliau menolak dasar 1Malaysia dengan secara terbuka mengisytiharkan bahawa dirinya “Melayu dulu, rakyat Malaysia kemudian” – yang mana Najib tidak berani menegur atau berbeza pandangan sepanjang empat tahun lalu.

Malah, pada Julai 2011, Najib mengelak soalan ketika ditanya di Sidang Kemuncak Pemimpin Pelajar Malaysia sama ada beliau bersedia untuk menyatakan beliau meripakan rakyat Malaysia dulu dan apa pandangannya terhadap kenyataan Muhyiddin yang terkenal bahawa dirinya “Melayu dulu dan rakyat Malaysia kemudian”.

Najib tidak menjawab soalan itu, dan berkata: “Saya tidak akan jawab soalan yang akan menyebabkan perpecahan di antara saya dan timbalan saya. Percayalah saya, 1Malaysia akan menjadi pedoman kita. Tidak kiralah apa yang anda katakan selagi mana anda mengikut konsep 1Malaysia.”

Lebih-lebih lagi, Muhyidin disokong oleh orang berkuasa di dalam UMNO, Tun Dr. Mahathir yang secara terbuka mengatakan beliau mengatakan beliau tidak faham dengan konsep 1Malaysia Najib dan “Malaysia telah menjadi lebih perkauman daripada biasa”

Dan pada beberapa bulan ini, ketika Mahathir kelihatan sudah muncul sebagai kuasa sebenar di belakang takhta UMNO, mantan Perdana Menteri itu telah mengamalkan konsep “Malaysia telah menjadi lebih perkauman daripada biasa” seperti mana dapat dilihat dalam ucapan-ucapan terbarunya:

Mempersoalkan kelayakan kewarganegaraan satu juta bukan Melayu yang diberikan kerakyatan oleh Bapa Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman sebelum Merdeka walaupun “tidak layak” – untuk menjustifikasikan perbuatan khianatnya dalam penipuan “kewarganegaraan untuk undi” di Sabah ketika masih menjadi Perdana Menteri;

Kata-kata kesat perkauman bahawa ahli politik Melayu dalam Barisan Nasinal dan Pakatan Rakyat telah menjadi “pengemis politik” dalam dakwaan bahawa perebutan mereka untuk menjadi Perdana Menteri menyebabkan mereka merayu sokongan daripada kaum minoriti di dalam negara;

Hasutannya bahawa UMNO/Barisan Nasional memerlukan majoriti dua pertiga untuk melucutkan kerakyatan pengerusi bersama Bersih S. Ambiga.

Adakah Najib bersedia untuk meluahkan kekesalan terhadap ketiga-tiga contoh terbaru perkauman dan “lojik degil Mahathir” yang benar-benar memudaratkan konsep 1Malaysia yang mana rakyat Malaysia menganggap diri mereka sebagai rakyat Malaysia dulu dan bangsa, agama, tempat dan latarbelakang ekonomi kemudian?

Pada Persidangan Agung UMNO terkini yang mana perwakilan UMNO berdiri dan berjujuran air mata tersentuh dengan lagu ‘Anak Kecil Main Api’ yang dinyanyikan oleh wakil kelab pelajar UMNO luar negara, sebuah lagu meratap nasib Melayu yang terpingir di bumi sendiri.

Lagu itu yang ditulis oleh bekas pengarah Biro Tata Negara (BTN), diajar kepada semua yang menghadiri kursus BTN, yang wajib dihadiri pelajar sebelum masuk ke universiti awam tempatan atau ke luar negara dengan biasiswa kerajaan.

Soalan yang dibangkitkan kali ini termasuklah:

55 tahun selepas Merdeka, 42 tahun selepas Dasar Ekonomi Baru dan setengah abad penguasaan politik UMNO, siapa yang patut bertanggungjawab terhadap nasib Melayu yang terpinggir di negara sendiri? Bukankah UMNO-putra yang sepatutnya menanggung tanggungjawab itu?

Dengan konsep dan dasar 1Malaysia, bukankah fokus sepatutnya terhadap semua yang terpinggir dan tertindas di kalangan rakyat Malaysia di negara sendiri, sama ada Melayu, Cina, India, Orang Asli, Kadazan atau Iban, dan bukan saja satu masyarakat?

Bukankah ini bukti terbaik bahawa Biro Tata Negara telah menjadi agensi utama dalam kerajaan menyemai konsep anti-1Malaysia?

Soalan penting ini hanya boleh dijawab oleh Najib sendiri dan bukannya dengan membelanjakan berjuta ringgit dan mengibarkan sepuluh ribu bendera 1Malaysia menjemput Psy membuat persembahan Gangnam Style di Pulau Pinang.

This article is also available in English at:
https://blog.limkitsiang.com/2013/02/11/59-day-countdown-to-13ge-ten-thousand-1malaysia-flags-on-occasion-of-psys-gangnam-style-performance-in-penang-only-highlight-abject-failure-of-najibs-key-1malaysia-transf/

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 14 February 2013, 3:23 pm and is filed under
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Pengiraan Detik 60 Hari ke PRU13 – Bilakah Najib akan membuat kenyataan sama ada Malaysia mampu mengejar Korea Selatan atau sekurang-kurangnya mula merapatkan jurang yang semakin besar antara dua negara?

Pada majlis perembahan Gangnam Style bintang pop Korea Psy di Rumah Terbuka Tahun Baru Cina Perdana Menteri di Pulau Pinang esok, adakah Datuk Seri Najib Razak akan membuat kenyataan sama ada Malaysia mampu mengejar Korea Selatan atau sekurang-kurangnya mula merapatkan jurang yang semakin besar antara dua negara?

Seorang Menteri Kabinet berkata kemunculan Psy akan menjadikan Pulau Pinang terkenal di serata dunia dan yang lebih penting daripada itu adalah Pulau Pinang dan Malaysia menjadi terkenal di serata dunia kerana pencapaiannya sendiri dalam semua bidang usaha.

Enam belas tahun lalu, ketika kita mengisytiharkan Koridor Raya Multimedia sebagai “hadiah buat dunia”, Malaysia dan Korea Selatan pernah pada tahap yang sama memulakan perjalanan dalam dunia IT.

Hari ini, MSC dan Malaysia semakin hilang dari peghetahuan dunia sebagai tempat penting IT antarabangsa, sementara Korea Selatan telah jauh menjadi negara pertama di dunia menjadi masyarakat jalur lebar juga negara yang yang mempunyai internet terpantas di dunia – dengan purata kelajuan internet pada 2012 14.7 Mbps, 650% lebih tinggi daripada purata 2.2 Mbps di Malaysia.

Di dalam tadbir urus yang baik, Malaysia tertinggal di belakang Korea Selatan terutamanya dalam Indeks Persepsi Rasuah Transparency International sejak lima tahun lalu, yang mana Malaysia dilihat lebih korup, antara No. 47 hingga 60 dalam kedudukan dunia berbeza dengan Korea Selatan yang berada di kedudukan 39 hingga 45.

Dalam Indeks Kebebasan Akhbar terbaru yang disusun oleh Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders), Malaysia berada pada kedudukan paling rendah dalam sejarah pada No. 145 sedangkan Korea Selatan berada pada kedudukan No. 50.

Terkini, Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) 2011 menonjolkan Malaysia sebagai negara yang mengalami kejatuhan terbesar markahnya untuk matematik dan sains di kalangan negara yang menyertainya, sambil mengesahkan corak berterusan penguasaan sekumpulan sistem pendidikan Asia – Korea Selatan, Singapura dan Hong Kong – dalam dua subjek penting ini.

Malaysia dengan sedih  tertinggal di belakang Korea Selatan di dalam kecemerlangan pendidikan. Di dalam Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2012-2013, empat universiti Korea Selatan termasuk dalam senarai antara 200 Universiti Terbaik sementara enam di dalam 400 Universiti Terbaik Dunia – akan tetapi tiada satu pun dari Malaysia.

Apakah Najib mempunyai jawapan kepada soalan mengapa Malaysia ketinggalan begitu jauh di belakang Korea Selatan di dalam semua bidang usaha, sedangkan 56 tahun lalu ketika Malaysia Merdeka, Korea Selatan lebih miskin dan mundur tetapi kini dua tiga kali ganda lebih kaya daripada Malaysia?

This article is also available in English at:
https://blog.limkitsiang.com/2013/02/10/60-day-countdown-to-13ge-when-will-najib-make-a-statement-whether-malaysia-can-ever-catch-up-with-south-korea-or-at-least-begin-to-close-the-yawning-chasm-between-the-two-countries/

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 14 February 2013, 3:20 pm and is filed under
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