In one fell swoop, Tengku Adnan has become  the most callous and heartless of all Cabinet Ministers

Six months ago, it was reported that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had directed mandatory media training for his ministers to speak sensibly and to prevent missteps that have made his administration the laughing stock among Malaysians.

At that time, the country had periodically been rocked by “foolish” remarks by Ministers which spawned Internet memes and jokes detrimental to Putrajaya’s image, like:

•	Minister for Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Datuk Seri Hasan Malek who wanted the people to be thankful for having “sincere” leaders who “prioritise people’s needs above all else” in response to the people’s unhappiness at subsidy cuts and price hikes;

•	Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor who made insensitive responses to the complaints of property owners in Kuala Lumpur to the hike in assessment rate;

•	Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar offering  advice to the people to stop eating chicken if the prices were too high and to use alternative roads if they did not want to pay toll on highways, when he spoke of impending hike in toll rates;

•	Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muyiddin Yassin telling the Education World Forum 2014 in London that education should produce a “global citizen” mentality after his infamous and never retracted announcement that he was “Malay first, Malaysian second”;

•	Even the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself with his “kangkung” and “RM1 chicken” gaffes.

I do not know whether such mandatory media training had been conducted for the Malaysian Cabinet Ministers and who conducted them, but if held, these media training did not seem to have any marked improvement on the public conduct of Ministers, who seem to be partaking in a Cabinet competition as to who could make the most foolish statements and decisions.

The most recent Ministerial “folly” was the latest outburst by the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi who disgraced his ministerial office with his callous remark condoning the severed cow’s head dumped in front of DAP Penang Assemblyman R.S. N. Rayer’s house, saying it was the result of Rayer’s  “big mouth” with regard to his “Umno celaka” remark at the Penang State Assembly last month.

But Zahid’s folly and callousness is being challenged by the Federal Territories Minister, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who warned today that soup kitchens in Kuala Lumpur have until Monday to relocate out of the city centre if they do not want to be fined by City Hall – a day after he warned that his ministry would impose fines and other penalties on the givers of alms and beggars.

Did Adnan get his inspiration to criminalise begging from Norway, one of the world’s richest countries which is flushed with oil wealth, with a gross domestic product per capita at about US$100,000?

There was before the  Norwegian Parliament last month legislative proposals to allow the local municipalities in introduce immediate bans on begging.

If Adnan is emulating the Norwegian example, he should first seek parliamentary approval for his callous ban on soup kitchens and beggars in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur.

In one fell swoop, Adnan is proving to be the most callous and heartless Minister in the  Cabinet – what a start for the expanded Cabinet with the inclusion of two MCA Ministers and one Gerakan Minister appointed last week.

Adnan should suspend all proposed punitive actions on soup kitchens and beggars and should instead have discussions and consultations with the Federal Territory   Members of Parliament and relevant NGOs on the best way, to address the problem, bearing in mind the socio-economic ramifications of poverty involved.

If Adnan is stubborn, callous and heartless in wanting to act against the soup kitchens and beggars on Monday itself, then the Prime Minister should intervene and override him so as not to make Malaysia a laughing-stock in the world.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 July 2014, 6:44 pm and is filed under
Najib Razak
,
Parliament
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


The Caliphate Fantasy

by Khaled Diab

New York Times

July 2, 2014

The jihadist insurgent group ISIS, or as it now prefers to be called, the Islamic State, appears well on the road to achieving its stated goal: the restoration of the caliphate. The concept, which refers to an Islamic state presided over by a leader with both political and religious authority, dates from the various Muslim empires that followed the time of the Prophet Muhammad. From the seventh century onward, the caliph was, literally, his “successor.”

The problem with this new caliphate, which, an ISIS spokesman claimed on Sunday, had been established under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Islamist militant leader since the early days of the American occupation of Iraq, is that it is ahistorical, to say the least.

The Abbasid caliphate, for example, which ruled from 750 to 1258, was an impressively dynamic and diverse empire. Centered in Baghdad, just down the road from where ISIS is occupying large areas of Iraq, the Abbasid caliphate was centuries ahead of Mr. Baghdadi’s backward-looking cohorts. Abbasid society during its heyday thrived on multiculturalism, science, innovation, learning and culture — in sharp contrast to ISIS’ violent puritanism. The irreverent court poet of the legendary Caliph Harun al-Rashid (circa 763-809), Abu Nuwas, not only penned odes to wine, but also wrote erotic gay verse that would make a modern imam blush.

Centered on the Bayt al-Hikma, Baghdad’s “House of Wisdom,” the Abbasid caliphate produced notable advances in the sciences and mathematics. The modern scientific method itself was invented in Baghdad by Ibn al-Haytham, who has been called “the first true scientist.”

With such a proliferation of intellectuals, Islam itself did not escape skeptical scrutiny. The rationalist Syrian scholar Abu’l Ala Al-Ma’arri was an 11th-century precursor of Richard Dawkins in his scathing assessments of religion. “Do not suppose the statements of the prophets to be true,” he thundered. “The sacred books are only such a set of idle tales as any age could have and indeed did actually produce.”

It is this tolerance of free thought, not to mention the supposed decadence of the caliph’s court, that causes Islamist radicals to hark back to an earlier era, that of Muhammad and his first “successors.” But even these early Rashidun (“rightly guided”) caliphs bear little resemblance to jihadist mythology. Muhammad, the most “rightly guided” of all, composed a strikingly secular document in the Constitution of Medina. It stipulated that Muslims, Jews, Christians and even pagans had equal political and cultural rights — a far cry from ISIS’ punitive attitude toward even fellow Sunnis who do not practice its brand of Islam, let alone Shiites, Christians or other minorities.

How did this ideological fallacy of the Islamist caliphate come about?

In the late 19th century, Arab nationalists were great admirers of Western societies and urged fellow Muslims, in the words of the Egyptian reformer Rifa’a al-Tahtawi, to “understand what the modern world is.” Many not only admired Europe and America but also believed Western pledges to back their independence from the Ottoman Empire.

The first reality check came when Britain and France carved up the Middle East following World War I. Disappointed by the old powers, Arab intellectuals still held out hope that the United States, which had not yet entered Middle Eastern politics in earnest, would live up to its image as a liberator.

But after World War II, America filled the void left by France and Britain by emulating its imperial predecessors. It avoided direct rule but propped up a string of unpopular autocrats. This resulted in an abiding distrust of Western democratic rhetoric.

Then there was the domestic factor. The failure of revolutionary pan-Arabism to deliver its utopian vision of renaissance, unity and freedom led to a disillusionment with secular politics. At the same time, the corruption and subservience to the West of the conservative, oil-rich monarchs turned many Arabs against the traditional deferential model of Islam.

Out of this multilayered failure, which often included the brutal suppression of both secular oppositionists and moderate Islamists, emerged a nihilistic fundamentalism, which claimed that contemporary Arab society had returned to the pre-Islamic “Jahiliyyah” (an “age of ignorance”). The only way to correct this was to declare jihad not only against foreign “unbelievers,” but also against Arab society itself in order to create a pure Islamic state — one that has only ever existed in the imaginations of modern Islamic extremists. These Islamists misdiagnose the weakness and underdevelopment of contemporary Arab society as stemming from its deviation from “pure” Islamic morality, as if the proper length of a beard and praying five times a day were a substitute for science and education, or could counterbalance global inequalities.

The wholesale destruction of Iraq’s political, social and economic infrastructure triggered by the American-led invasion created a power vacuum for these “takfiri” groups — first Al Qaeda and then the more radical ISIS — to fill. Despite the latter’s recent battlefield success, however, there is little support for the jihadists or appetite for their harsh strictures among the local populations, a fact reflected by the 500,000 terrified citizens who fled Mosul.

Even in the more moderate model espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist dream of transnational theocratic rule appeals to a dwindling number of Arabs. Only last week, Moroccan women showed their contempt for the conservative prime minister, Abdelilah Benkirane, by converging on Parliament armed with frying pans after he’d argued that women should stay in the home.

Rather than a caliphate presided over by arbitrarily appointed caliphs, subjected to a rigid interpretation of Shariah law, millions of Arabs strive simply for peace, stability, dignity, prosperity and democracy. Three turbulent years after the Arab revolutions, people still entertain the modest dream of one day having their fair share of “bread, freedom, social justice,” as the Tahrir Square slogan put it.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 July 2014, 9:44 pm and is filed under
Foreign
,
Islam
,
Islamic state
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Was justice done to the Herald?

Mohamed Hanipa Maidin

Malaysiakini

July 2, 2014

COMMENT
 Personally I was upset with the decision by the Federal Court refusing leave for the Herald to appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal. As a lawyer I found the decision was weird. As a Muslim I am of the view justice was not done to the Herald.

 We all know that the issue raised by the Herald in the Federal Court was very, very important. Needless to say that being the final arbiter of any legal controversy the Federal Court should have held that the Herald ought to be given the leave to appeal.

 Yes, an appeal to the Federal Court is not automatic, meaning that the Herald needed to obtain leave to appeal. Nevertheless, the practice has been that the apex court would normally grant the leave when the issue at hand involves novel and crucial legal or constitutional question and the same also attracts public interest.

No doubt the issue raised by the Herald had met all the legal prerequisites for leave to be duly given. It had raised a very important constitutional issue namely the correct interpretation of Article 11 of the federal constitution in particular Article 11 (4). Via the appeal, the Herald sought to be enlightened by the apex court the proper meaning and perimeters of freedom of religion enshrined in Article 11 of our highest law of the land.

 Being the final arbiter and intepreter of the federal constitution, the decision of our Federal court would serve as a very useful guidance to the whole nation, in particular the legal fraternity.

 The fact that seven Federal Court judges were assigned to hear the leave application spoke volumes of the significance of the Herald’s appeal. As far as I remember this was the first time in our judicial history a leave application was heard by seven judges. The huge number of judges in itself indicated that the issue was of paramount importance, yet ironically the leave was simply denied.

 By refusing leave we have to reluctantly accept the decision of the Court of Appeal on Allah’s name being the law of the land. As it stands now the court of appeal has set a weird precedent that Allah is belong exclusively to Muslims despite the fact that Islam holds a different view.

Actual meaning of freedom of religion?

 In spite of Allah’s name has been used by many non-Muslims throughout the world, the Malaysian court proudly held that in Malaysia the freedom of religion excludes the non-Muslims from using this sacred word. Was this the actual meaning of freedom of religion envisaged by Islam or our forefathers who drafted the constitution?

 With the greatest respect to the Federal Court and the Court of Appeal, I am of the view that the judgement of the learned High Court judge was more legally sound and constitutionally correct.

She was right in holding that the Herald’s constitutional right to freedom of religion pursuant to Article 11 had been infringed the moment the home minister made a decision imposing an unreasonable and unconstitutional condition that the name of Allah could not be contained in the Herald’s publication. As far as I am concerned, the judgment of Justice Lau Bee Lan, despite being a non-Muslim, was legally correct and Islamically sound.

 As we all know that the freedom of religion in Article 11 of the federal constitution has been curtailed to the non-Muslims in that they are prohibited from propagating their religious doctrine to the Muslims. The curtailment is found in Article 11 (4) of the constitution. I believe the element of public order triggered this provision.

 Unfortunately such a restriction in Article 11 (4) has now been further eroded by a novel interpretation of our constitution by the Court of Appeal when the Herald was not allowed to use the name of Allah in its publication despite such a publication being only circulated to the Christian adherents.

The Herald never offended its constitutional right yet the Federal Court, being the final gatekeeper of our citizen’s constitutional right has, with due respect, unduly abdicated its solemn duty to protect the right of David against the mighty Goliath.

 To our Muslim brethren, let us be reminded by this wise advice given by our distinguished ulama namely the late Ibnu al Qayyim Al Jauziyyah when he said, “Islam is all about justice, mercy and wisdom… any thing which transgresses the principle of justice or mercy or wisdom has nothing to do with Islam.”

MOHAMED HANIPA MAIDIN is the MP for Sepang. He is a lawyer by profession and a PAS central committee member.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 3 July 2014, 7:13 am and is filed under
Constitution
,
Islam
,
Judiciary
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Judges must remain neutral even out of office, says Ambiga

by V. Anbalagan

The Malaysian Insider

4 July 2014

Biased or discriminatory views expressed by judges even after their retirement reflect negatively on the judiciary and undermine public perception of their independence, former Bar Council chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan said.

“The prestige of the judiciary is determined by judges themselves, not just when they were on the bench but even when they retire,” she said in a statement, responding to former chief justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad’s criticism of the Bar Council’s role in the drafting of the National Unity Consultative Council’s (NUCC) three bills to replace the Sedition Act and aligning the Bar with the opposition.

On Monday, Hamid said he did not want to join the NUCC as he feared being used by certain parties, who wanted to cast aside Malay rights and the position of Islam in the country.

He said the opposition had “taken over” the NUCC, and questioned why the opposition, particularly the Bar, was allowed to determine policies and according to their agendas.

Former Bar Council chairman Lim Chee Wee and several opposition MPs sit on the NUCC.

Hamid also said his reason for associating the Bar with the opposition was in connection with a dinner organised by the Bar after the 12th general election in 2008, when he was the Chief Justice of Malaysia. Ambiga was chairman of the Bar at the time.

“The event was nothing more than a celebratory dinner for the opposition’s win,” he said.

Ambiga yesterday recalled speaking at the dinner about members of the Bar who had stood in the 2008 general election and won.

“For us, it was a source of pride that members of the Bar offer themselves to serve the nation in Parliament no matter which party they belong to.

“I recall stating that we had high expectations of them. (Tun) Hamid’s criticism is, therefore, baseless,” she added.

Ambiga said those who sat in judgment of others were themselves judged by higher standards.

“That judges are human and have personal prejudices, is appreciated. However, it is a requirement of their oaths of office that they rise above their personal prejudices when they decide cases,” she added.

“The responsibilities of a judge are, therefore, onerous, as so much more is required of them.”

Ambiga also said Hamid’s attack on the NUCC which is seeking to unite all the people of Malaysia was unfortunate.

Ambiga said those who truly believed in a united Malaysia would give the NUCC a chance but those who championed the rights of only one community would not appreciate its work.

“What is disappointing is that a respected former member of the judiciary feels that way.” – July 4, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 July 2014, 4:43 pm and is filed under
Judiciary
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Our varsities neutered and muted, say academics

by Sheridan Mahavera

The Malaysian Insider

4 July 2014

A culture of fear and pressure to follow the dictates of political masters built over three decades has made public universities anti-intellectual and mediocre, say academics.

They told The Malaysian Insider that while universities were supposed to be the conscience of society, they, however, have been neutered and muted.

They said political pressure to “toe the line” is a daily reality in universities, and those who are critical are harassed while those who kowtow are rewarded with plum posts.

At the same time, cronyism and racism have led to genuinely hardworking researchers being passed over for salary raises and promotions, while others less qualified, but on good terms with the top administrators, are easily elevated.

If the culture continues, the academics warn, standards in these varsities could plunge, making their degrees virtually worthless and their graduates almost unemployable.

Academics tell of how they always have to answer to their superiors for doing research or making statements critical of government policy.

They have been issued show cause letters, or told to tone down their public statements, or even hauled up to explain themselves to their vice-chancellors.

An academic serving at a public university in the Klang Valley recalled that he had been issued a show cause letter for his work on the plight of religious minorities.

The academic was examining allegations that local religious authorities had denied the rights of minority communities to worship. The university authorities, however, objected to the academic’s contact with a group that represented this community.

“I believe that the letter was intended to make me feel uncomfortable. It affected my ability to focus on my research.

“Other academics have also been told off this way. Some have retired,” said the Selangor-based senior researcher.

Fearing reprisal from their institutions, many academics interviewed insisted on anonymity.

One senior academic from University Sarawak Malaysia (Unimas) spoke of how state politicians had interfered in 2001 to stop a seminar on the Sarawak state elections held that year.

“In 1997, there was an external directive that we could not give any public statements on the haze that year,” said the Unimas academic. “Some academics who speak critically in public are hauled up to explain themselves to their vice-chancellors,” the lecturer said, adding that he had also been told that university officials were uncomfortable with his public statements.

Professor Datuk Dr Mohamad Redzuan Othman’s removal as the head of Universiti Malaya’s Centre for Democracy and Elections (UMcedel), then, comes as no surprise, given the centre’s past work.

Following The Malaysian Insider breaking the news of his termination, former deputy higher education minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah claimed that Redzuan was forced to resign by certain quarters within the Education Ministry.

It is believed that Redzuan had upset ministry officials with some of UMcedel’s more prolific surveys which were unflattering to the Barisan Nasional government and its leaders.

UM vice-chancellor Datuk Dr Mohd Amin Jalaludin, however, denied that the ministry had pressured Redzuan to resign. He claimed that the decision was made after taking into account the university’s interests, and was not due to any outside pressure.

Loyalty over merit

Researchers and lecturers who are critical are passed over for promotions or salary increments while others who are not as critical are rewarded.

This breeds another culture of conformity. Pliant academics connected to certain politicians get appointed and they in turn appoint like-minded individuals to influential posts in the university, said the Unimas lecturer.

This gives birth to a generation of academics who “cari makan” — individuals who try not to rock the boat and who instinctively toe the line, said Prof Zaharom Nain of University of Nottingham’s Malaysia campus.

Zaharom, who had served for more than 20 years in Universiti Sains Malaysia, said that younger, inexperienced academics in the arts and social sciences practise self-censorship in their work.

“It’s a disease that started creeping into Malaysian society, arguably, from the early 1980s onwards due to greater political and social control.

“It has nurtured a culture of fear and conformity in almost every sphere from education to journalism to the civil service.”

Even worse is when not only the independent-minded academics are sidelined, but also those who genuinely work hard but without “connections” to their department heads.

“One senior academic told me that no matter how good your research was, it was not worth it because it’s difficult to get a promotion,” he added.

Zaharom said he had seen hardworking academics being passed over just because of race.

“I know of one woman ex-colleague who has published so much more (and more widely) than a combination of the other lecturers, but she remains stuck at senior lecturer level while the others, by virtue of their ethnicity, have been promoted.”

The academics believed that to reverse the rot plaguing public universities, politicians must keep their hands off the universities and let them be run on merit and ability. – July 4, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 July 2014, 10:46 am and is filed under
Education
,
university
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Under Isis, Iraqi women again face an old nightmare: violence and repression

Yifat Susskind

Guardian

3 July 2014

The militants are using rape and brutality to control women who have not stopped mobilising since the US occupation

In a PBS NewsHour video report in June, Isis extremist militants parade through Mosul, Iraq, one of the first cities to fall to their onslaught in early June. The armed men are hanging off the back of trucks, as the crowd films them. One fighter leans out a car window, wagging his finger. The footage provides a translation. The fighter has spotted a woman, and he is ordering her to cover up.

This is how an extremist agenda is imposed: on women’s bodies. That fighter had barely arrived in Mosul yet his first order of business gives us a chilling glimpse of a broader strategy, one that targets women with repression and violence. In recent weeks, women living under Isis control have been seized from their homes and raped. They have been ordered to cover themselves fully and stay in the house.

As Iraq descends into war, women are not only on the frontlines: they are the battlefield. But here is the part that too many media reports have missed: they are not just victims; they are critical first responders.

To understand this, we need to rewind to the worst days of the sectarian violence that erupted under the US occupation. In those bloody years, the US dismantled Iraq’s secular government bureaucracy. It imposed a system that allocates political power according to religious sect, turning a theological difference into a dangerous political divide.

The US also backed militias who enforced that divide with brutality and used US money, training and weapons to impose their own fundamentalist agenda on the population. Under US rule, sectarian militias launched a campaign of terror, hunting down activists, artists, academics and anyone who challenged their vision of society. Women were targeted specifically. In 2008, graffiti on the walls in the city of Basra threatened, “Your makeup and your decision to forgo the headscarf will bring you death.”

Women were not even safe at home, especially after the clerics of US-empowered political parties endorsed “honour killing” as a religious duty for families to police women’s behaviour.

In response, Iraqi women mobilised in unprecedented ways. For instance, the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (Owfi), a partner organisation of Madre, created a network of underground safe houses for women fleeing violence at home and in the streets. Under conditions of military occupation, civil war and fundamentalist witch-hunts, the women of Owfi spoke out against policies that created sectarian divisions and fuelled gender-based violence.

Fast forward to today, and Iraqi women are facing the new incarnation of an old nightmare. In Baghdad, sectarian violence is again on the rise. Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is fanning those flames by rejecting calls for unity and resurrecting the militias that only a few years ago turned public hospitals into torture chambers and raped women who stepped out of line.

As men leave to fight, tens of thousands of women are becoming heads-of-households, responsible for meeting the urgent needs of their vulnerable families and communities. Meanwhile, in communities occupied by Isis, fighters have kidnapped women from their homes, telling their families that these attacks are justified by a “sexual jihad”. Four women committed suicide after militants raped them.

This violence is not random. Rape is a terrifyingly common weapon used to terrorise and control communities during warfare. Yet, only recently has the topic been treated with the seriousness it warrants. On the day that Isis conquered Mosul, world leaders were in London for a summit to address the scourge of war-time rape. Now, governments’ commitment to protecting women in war zones from sexual violence is again being tested.

World leaders have a vital source to turn to for solutions to this crisis: Iraqi women themselves. In cities across Iraq, Owfi, with Madre and other international allies, is rallying resources to provide shelter, medical care and humanitarian aid to women who have survived rape or have been forced to flee Isis-controlled areas. Owfi is providing food aid to women who are heads of households, who can then reach the most vulnerable displaced people, including children and the elderly.

Even in Anbar Province, where Isis flags are flying high, Owfi is there, offering protection and aid to those who are most at risk of sexual violence. These are the women who never stopped organising through the years of invasion, occupation and civil war. Once again, they are facing down brutality.

• Yifat Susskind is executive director of Madre, an international women’s human rights organisation

                This entry was posted on Friday, 4 July 2014, 4:33 pm and is filed under
Foreign
,
Islamic state
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Muhyiddin is confessing the failure of BN government’s nation-building polices under Najib past five years when he suggested “Another May 13 not impossible”

The Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, is confessing the failure of the Barisan Nasional government’s nation-building policies under Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in the past five years when he suggested
“Another May 13 is not impossible”
 during a Ramadan event in Pagoh, Johore yesterday.

Najib’s failure will be all the more conspicuous as it would also mean the total failure of his 1Malaysia policy to create a Malaysia where Malaysians regard themselves as Malaysians first as their race, religion and region second – which had been publicly repudiated by Muhyiddin right from the beginning – and his Global Movement of Moderates campaign, both national and international, for “the voices of moderation to drown the voices of extremism”.

The UMNO mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia, gave the headline
“Tidak mustahil 13 Mei 1969 berulang – TPM”
 for Muhyiddin’s speech yesterday, where he said that ethnic tensions that were allowed to simmer would lead to unrest when the various communities start to eye each other with suspicion.

“Because of that there exist all kinds of assumptions when ethnic ties become strained and unhealthy. This can cause that event and I do not want to mention the particular date,” he was quoted as saying by Malay language daily Utusan Malaysia.

Muhyiddin did not mention the date specifically but Utusan Malaysia inserted May 13, 1969 to his quote in parentheses.

The first duty of any Federal government in Malaysia, whether Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat, is to ensure that another May 13 is not possible in Malaysia, and a Malaysian federal government which allowed ethnic ties to deteriorate until the Deputy Prime Minister could publicly suggest that “another May 13 is not impossible” has lost all moral and political justification to continue to rule the country.

On Muhyiddin’s statement in Pagon alone, the Cabinet and the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council should be convened in emergency session for the country is faced with the most critical situation in 45 years if a Deputy Prime Minister could publicly say that “Another May 13 is not impossible” – as no Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister in Malaysia would have made such a statement in the past four decades.

Will any Cabinet Minister requisition the convening of an emergency Cabinet meeting or turn next Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting into a special session to discuss Muhyiddin’s warning in Pagoh – and to tell Malaysians whether the Cabinet endorses Muhyiddin’s warning and what it proposes to do to save Malaysia from another May 13?

Will any component party of Barisan Nasional, a coalition of 14 parties, requisition an emergency meeting of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council to discuss the grave situation reflected in Muhyiddin’s Pagoh speech?

If there is not going to be any emergency meeting of the Cabinet and the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council over the Deputy Prime Minister’s warning in Pagoh, then the next question to be asked is whether Muhyiddin was just giving legitimacy to a small group of extremists responsible for the worst racial and religious polarization in the nation’s history in the past year as a result of incessant incitement of racial and religious hatred, conflict and tension with periodic threats of another May 13?

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 5 July 2014, 2:39 pm and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
Muhyiddin Yassin
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


‘Allah’ struggle not over, moderate Muslims should lend support, says UN official

by Jennifer Gomez

The Malaysian Insider

6 July 2014

The struggle for the right of non-Muslims to use the word Allah in Malaysia is not over, a United Nations official said, suggesting that moderate Muslims and intellectuals get on board to lend weight to the church’s fight.

UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, said many Muslims believe the court ruling undermines the credibility of Islam.

“A vast majority of Muslims will agree that it undermines Islam by turning Allah into a personal name of the Islamic God,” he said in a phone interview from Germany.

Muslim scholars and clerics, both locally and worldwide, have criticised the ban, pointing out that the word predates Islam and it meant “God” in Arabic.

Former Perlis mufti Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, known to supporters as the “voice of reason” and to critics as a “promoter of liberalism”, was one of those who had criticised the ban.

He had previously said that as long as the word Allah was used to refer to “the Most Supreme Being”, the non-Muslims could use the word.

“So actually it is a non-issue. Muslims believe in one God. So how can we say your God is different from mine?” he had asked.

Then there is PAS MP Datuk Dr Mujahid Yusuf Rawa, who had visited about 30 churches nationwide with his message of peaceful coexistence and that Allah was for all, and his efforts to promote interfaith dialogues.

Vocal Muslim activist Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa, who heads Islamic non-governmental organisation Islamic Renaissance Front, in a comment last October on the legal restriction on the use of the word Allah, had said: “The way Muslims are treated here is condescending. It’s ridiculous to think that if other religions use the word Allah, us Muslims would start converting to other religions.”

Other Muslim activists who have also publicly disagreed with the ban include Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, who had turned up with a group of people at a church in Klang to show solidarity with Christians at the height of the controversy over the use of the word Allah, and Zainah Anwar, co-founder of the Islamic group Sisters in Islam, which advocates equal rights for women, human rights and justice.

Meanwhile, Bielefeldt also said that the fight to use the word Allah was not a Catholic issue but a freedom of religion issue.

“Freedom of religion is a right of all human beings, it’s a human right, it’s a universal right and so it cannot be the business of the state to ban the use of the word Allah,” he said.

He pointed out that in the first place, the ban on the use of the word Allah in the Catholic weekly, Herald, was not imposed by the court but by the Home Ministry.

Bielefeldt said the Federal Court ruling on June 23 which upheld the ban was unprecedented.

“My reaction and that of everyone else was how can this be possible, it is bizarre, strange and totally unacceptable,” he added.

“In fact, this is not an infringement of human rights, it is a clear violation of human rights.”

He added that he was not aware of any comparable court decision in any other country that prohibited the use of the word by non-Muslims.

He pointed out that Christians in the Arab world had been using the word for thousands of years.

“If you read the New Testament in Arabic, Jesus is the son of Allah, because Allah is not the name of the Islamic God but a generic concept of God,” he added.

Bielefeldt is also concerned that he has yet to get a response on a letter he had sent to the Malaysian government last November seeking clarification on the matter and voicing concern over the ban.

His letter was supported by UN Independent Expert on minority issues Rita Izsak and UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, Frank La Rue.

“I am still waiting for a response, and hoping this can’t be the final word of the government.

“It also can’t be the final word of the judiciary,” he said, referring to the Federal Court’s decision on June 23 to deny the church’s application to challenge the Home Ministry’s ban.

This is the second time Bielefeldt has weighed in on the Allah issue. He had issued a press statement in Geneva late last year urging the Malaysian government to reverse its ban on Herald.

In the statement, Bielefeldt, along with Izsak and La Rue, had warned that the Allah case would have far-reaching implications for minority groups in Malaysia.

However, he felt there was no danger that other countries would take the cue from Malaysia and ban non-Muslims from using the word Allah.

“I don’t think many countries will follow because it is too absurd, it will not be a popular demand in the Muslim world because the ban really undermines the credibility of Islam.

“I am optimistic this will not be a model for other Islamic countries to follow,” he added.

The special rapporteur said he also expected the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) to take a position on the ban, adding that otherwise, they would run into problems with the international network of human rights institutions.

Bielefeldt also raised the seizure of the Bibles in Malay and Iban by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais), saying that it has created a climate of intimidation.

He hoped that the Malaysian spirit of appreciating and embracing diversity which the nation had portrayed in the past could be recaptured given recent developments that are cause for concern.

“There is a heritage of appreciating diversity that needs to be recaptured and I see this as the potential for Malaysia to rectify the strange developments of late,” he added. – July 6, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 6 July 2014, 11:05 pm and is filed under
Constitution
,
Islam
,
Religion
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Have The Islamist Militants Overreached In Iraq And Syria?

by Deborah Amos

NPR

July 05, 2014

The Islamist radicals who have declared an Islamic caliphate on land they control straddling Iraq and Syria are waging an audacious publicity stunt, according to some analysts.

While it may bring them even greater attention, it’s also likely to be an overreach that will open riffs with its current partners, the Sunni Muslims in Iraq who welcomed the militant group in early June. They all share the goal of overthrowing Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his sectarian rule, but the more secular parts of the Sunni coalition didn’t sign up for an Islamic state.

“By announcing the caliphate, they are picking a fight with everybody,” says David Kilcullen, a guerrilla warfare expert and former chief counter-terrorism strategist for the U.S. State Department.

The militants were known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. But in announcing a caliphate, which is a single, unified Islamic state, they are now simply calling themselves the Islamic State.

The group has been taking territory since last year, first in Syria and now in Iraq. They grabbed international attention last month when they seized the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, one of the largest and most important population centers in Iraq.

But so far, at least, the Islamic State has not tried to make the city the centerpiece of the declared caliphate.

“No, no, there is nothing like that in Mosul,” insists a former Iraqi military officer when reached by phone. He dismisses the caliphate with a snort, because, he says, “the other groups object.”

The former officer says he fears retribution from the Maliki government and didn’t want his name published. He says he is part of the Sunni alliance in Mosul that originally welcomed the Islamic State. Now, he has some doubts.

People walk through the market area in Erbil, Iraq. Tens of thousands of displaced Iraqis and Syrians have converged on the ancient city after fleeing fighting in their hometowns.

People walk through the market area in Erbil, Iraq. Tens of thousands of displaced Iraqis and Syrians have converged on the ancient city after fleeing fighting in their hometowns.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

“We will soon name one of our people to be the boss in Mosul,” he says. “There is no caliphate here.”

A Sunni Alliance Of Convenience

The Islamic State declared the caliphate on June 30, three weeks after a successful sweep across northern and western Iraq in a land grab that includes strategic border posts.

A small group of IS fighters served as the “tip of the spear” in this Sunni alliance of convenience. In the first thrust of the spear, IS was supported by tribal chiefs, village elders, Islamist groups, former military officers from an army disbanded by the U.S. in 2003, and former members of the outlawed Baathist party that governed Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

But now IS is in classic overreach mode, says Kilcullen. Other analysts agree that IS’s ambitions will create divisions.

“It will help and hurt” the Islamic State, says Ramzy Mardini, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. Declaring a caliphate “creates uncertainty for the Sunnis that backed” the group, he says. Mardini points out that IS arrived in Mosul in early June with a limited force of around 2,000 fighters. They were prepared to spring prisoners from the jails. They didn’t expect the Iraqi army to collapse so quickly.

“They weren’t prepared to take over a city of 2 million people,” he says.

The caliphate, with deep religious symbolism that harkens back to the early days of Islam, is a recruiting bid to a wider audience, says Mardini.

The brash quest to redraw the map of the Middle East was trumpeted on IS’s social media outlets in a video titled “Breaking Borders” and translated into English, Russian, French, German and Albanian.

IS is now calling on Muslims to immigrate, specifically “religious scholars, particularly judges, those with military, administrative and service experience, doctors and engineers.”

“They are over-stretched. They need new blood,” says Mardini.

‘Iraqis Like To Drink, Dance And Smoke’

The self-declared caliphate had immediate detractors. Rival groups fighting in Syria were the first to speak against the caliphate. IS has already hijacked the Syrian revolt, turning a citizen’s rebellion into a terrorist war.

Religious scholars across the region called the caliphate “nonsense.” Arabic-language Facebook pages popped up to satirize the elusive IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and imaged his rejection of a “friend” request from the al-Qaida boss, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Even al-Qaida considers IS too extreme.

But the reaction of Iraq’s Sunni community is a key to the future power of IS.

“In Iraq, 99 percent of the Sunni Arabs don’t want to live under a caliphate,” says , who served as a political adviser to U.S. ambassadors and top military commanders in Iraq and the Middle East from 2003 to 2010. He resigned in protest when the U.S. supported Maliki’s second term as prime minister.

“Iraqis like to drink, dance, and smoke. They don’t want to be ruled by Chechens and Afghans and live under 7th-century standards,” Khedery says.

In some IS-controlled neighborhoods in Mosul, masked fighters enforce a radical Islamist code of behavior announced in some mosques and on social media. But other neighborhoods are controlled by local Sunnis who ignore IS edicts.

After an initial exodus of the Christian community, some are returning to Mosul, including the head of Chaldean Church, Archbishop Emil Nona. Many IS fighters have moved on to the front lines, so their presence in limited in Mosul and in the Christian villages in the suburbs of the city.

“I can’t say if there is future or not, because we don’t know which future we have,” says the wary archbishop.

However, IS is “filling a vacuum as the Iraqi state collapses,” according to Khedery, the former U.S. adviser.

‘They’ve Booby-Trapped The Whole City’

So far, the Sunni coalition has not publicly split with IS. There is no incentive, says Ramzy Mardini, as long as Maliki is still a contender for a third term in office. Iraq’s Sunnis are not yet willing to “take their foot off the accelerator,” he says.

The Sunnis believe undercutting IS now would lift the pressure on Baghdad.

But the longer IS remains unchallenged, the stronger is is likely to become, says Mardini.

Take the example of Tikrit. The city was captured in a matter of hours by IS militants on June 11. Soon after, IS posted photographs of the spoils of war after capturing a prison and executing scores of Iraqi soldiers.

“When they first came to Tikrit, it was a bunch of guys in pickup trucks,” says Zaid Al-Ali, the author of The Struggle for Iraq’s Future and someone who has close family ties in Tikrit.

“Now, they’ve booby-trapped the whole city,” he says. IS brought compressors to dig up the streets and plant bombs on strategic roadways, according to relatives who witnessed the takeover.

IS is growing in strength, says Al-Ali, “The longer Maliki stays in office, the more entrenched they become.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 6 July 2014, 10:14 pm and is filed under
Foreign
,
Islamic state
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Militant Leader in Rare Appearance in Iraq

by Alissa J. Rubin

New York Times

July 5, 2014

BAGHDAD — Wearing a black turban and black robes, the leader of the self-proclaimed Islamic state that stretches across eastern Syria and much of northern and western Iraq made a startling public appearance, his first in many years, at a well-known mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul, according to a video released on Saturday whose contents were confirmed by experts and witnesses.

Until then, there had been very few photographs on the Internet of the insurgent known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. But on Friday he delivered a public sermon in a city once under American control with an audacity that even Osama bin Laden never tried.

Previously he had been all but invisible, seemingly reluctant to risk a public appearance as his group grew in strength and he became the United States’ second-most sought-after terrorist, after Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Al Qaeda. The United States government has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.

The victories gained by the militant group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were built on months of maneuvering along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which define a region known as the cradle of civilization.

But on Friday at the pulpit of Mosul’s Great Mosque, Mr. Baghdadi appeared confident, calm and measured as he urged the faithful to fast during Ramadan and undertake jihad. He also asserted his position as caliph, or spiritual leader, of the Muslim faithful, calling himself “Khalifa Ibrahim,” or caliph Abraham, a reference to the prophet Abraham, who appears in the Quran. Mr. Baghdadi’s militant group declared its territory in Iraq and Syria a caliphate, or Islamic state, on June 29.

“Do jihad in the cause of God, incite the believers and be patient in the face of this hardship,” he admonished the congregation. “If you knew about the reward and dignity in this world and the hereafter through jihad, then none of you would delay in doing it.”

ISIS militants took over Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, on June 10, after the Iraqi Army fled. ISIS fighters patrol the streets, although far fewer than in the first days after the takeover, and while some people have gone back to work, the city is far from normal. The congregation at the mosque in the video had been ordered to come to Friday Prayer, said a man who was there but who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

When worshipers arrived at the mosque, they were searched thoroughly by armed ISIS fighters, and the congregants were told where and how to sit, said the man. No one was allowed to leave until 10 minutes after the end of Mr. Baghdadi’s sermon, the man said.

The sermon was no extemporaneous cameo, but a carefully crafted speech in which he asked for the congregation’s support and struck an almost humble and pious tone that was difficult to square with the group’s tactics on the ground, which include kidnapping for ransom, summary executions and beheadings.

“I was placed as your caretaker, and I am not better than you,” he said, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online. “So if you found me to be right, then help me, and if you found me to be wrong, then advise me and make me right.”

“I do not promise you, as the kings and rulers promise their followers and congregation, luxury, security and relaxation; instead, I promise you what Allah promised his faithful worshipers,” he said.

Mr. Baghdadi’s address appeared to be aimed at several audiences, analysts said. He seemed to be appealing to followers of other militant groups in Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, and also to Iraqi Sunnis to look to him as a leader rather than the Iraqi government.

Daniel Benjamin, a senior counterterrorism official in the State Department from 2009 to 2012, said that if the video was authentic, Mr. Baghdadi’s appearance would be a “remarkable event.”

“If Baghdadi has emerged from hiding, it suggests that he is adopting a posture as a different kind of leader from Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahri and the like, and by implication a greater one,” said Mr. Benjamin, now a scholar at Dartmouth College. “He is demonstrating that ISIS has what they didn’t: territory that is secure, and he is its ruler.”

“As a public demonstration of leadership, you’d have to go back to April 1996, when Mullah Omar appeared on top of a building in Kandahar in a cloak that was said to belong to the prophet and was declared commander of the faithful,” Mr. Benjamin added.

Peter Neumann, a professor of security studies at Kings College London, said the appearance was “a sign of confidence” and a “message to all these other jihadists, this is really happening, it’s not going to go away anytime soon.”

The video was still being authenticated late Saturday by the Central Intelligence Agency. A spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Brig. Gen. Saad Maan, told Reuters that the ministry thought it was fake, but Mr. Neumann said he had little doubt that it was authentic, in part because ISIS would have little to gain from a falsified video. An American official who spent extensive time in Iraq said that the man in the video appeared to be Mr. Baghdadi.

Two people who were in the mosque when Mr. Baghdadi spoke said they had no question it was him. But they had never seen him before, so their certainty was based primarily on how the ISIS fighters treated him.

Also on Saturday, official Iranian news agencies reported that an Iranian pilot had been killed in fighting in Iraq, which appeared to be the first confirmation of the deployment of Iranian forces there. There have been unconfirmed reports that Iran had sent military advisers and jets to Iraq.The Islamic Republic News Agency said that the pilot, Col. Shoja’at Alamdari, was killed in Samarra defending a Shiite shrine. The Fars News Agency said that he was a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The agencies provided no further details about his death, and it was not clear whether he died on the ground or in the air. There have been no reports of planes shot down by the rebels.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 6 July 2014, 8:24 pm and is filed under
Foreign
,
Islam
,
Islamic state
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


On soup kitchens, and MCA aping DAP

 – Sakmongkol AK47

The Malaysian Insider

6 July 2014

Umno leaders have no compassion for the poor. MCA is a monkey of a party. Monkey does what monkey sees.

The singular characteristic of Umno leaders which is more pronounced than anything else is their arrogance and holding in perfect contempt the rights of others. Perhaps this stems from being in power for so long, which generates a feeling of invincibility and infallibility.

Hence, Tengku Adnan Mansur announces punitive measures to get rid of soup kitchens.

He has issued a directive that no soup kitchens can operate within 2km limits of Lot 10. He is afraid; the sight of vagabonds, homeless and beggars will offend the sensibilities of patrons and denizens in the citadels of luxury and opulence in the Golden Triangle.

The only sin of the soup kitchen organisers is to provide hot food to the destitute and poor in the city. The measures ought to be commended but BN holds such efforts in contempt, because it embarrasses them that the world will know there are many poor people in Malaysia.

Feeding the poor is not a glamorous act like presenting demands at the immigration department to secure the release of a teenager remanded by the authorities.

In this country, only Umno has rights that supersede all else. If Umno were the party to initiate the soup kitchens, such acts would be hailed as exemplary, caring and commendable. Praises would be heaped and the TV stations will be running congratulatory salutations and tributes to no end.

But because, Umno cannot claim ownership over such a humanitarian act, it pronounces the acts by others as contemptible and can lead to embarrassment of the government. More so, if the soup kitchens are initiated by opposition parties.

We have a sound welfare system that provides shelter and nourishment to the very poor. That is what is claimed by the government. The claim now seems to be at odds with what is really happening on the ground.

The fact that soup kitchens have operated and have received good response is an indictment on the efficiency of our own welfare system. It can suggest that there are too many poor people who are loose on the streets; it can mean that our welfare infrastructure is deficient to cope with the large number of the poor; it can mean that work to feed and clothe them has not been done properly.

I have been to welfare homes in Raub, for example, and will not be quick to disapprove work done by the welfare department. I think this part of the welfare department’s portfolio is sorely underfunded.

On the care and treatment to residents at welfare homes, I can only empathise with the people doing their job. I want to say thank you to them.

It is demanding to work with the homeless, the aged and the marginalised people. At the same time, efforts carried out by other people should not be held in contempt and should be regarded as complementary. We are all moved by a common desire to alleviate sufferings of others. The acts of kindness by others do not diminish at all the efforts carried out by our welfare departments.

The announcement by Adnan deserves to be held in utter contempt by the public, especially by the volunteers of the soup kitchens. These volunteers who are citizens of this country are moved by the plight of the poor, the vagabonds, the drifters; they are not motivated by pursuits of popularity and glamour. These are the unsung heroes of our society who deserve support and encouragement, and definitely not threats of punitive measures.

The efforts of these people, mostly unknown to the rest of us, should be celebrated as the act of conscience on behalf of the many of us who do not have the inclination or the courage to do what these volunteers do.

The world of Malaysia is defined as how Umno wills it. Umno of course has conferred on itself almost god-like, and therefore unimpeachable, qualities.

If the world is racist, abusive, crude and coarse, that world is not of Umno making. It is the world crafted by others.

The DAP, for example, is being singled out as the main culprit. The recent outbursts of the former minister Zainudin Maidin, is typical thinking of Umno leadership. The standard reference of all contemptuous conduct and behaviour is that of the DAP.

If others challenged the official, and therefore, the only politically correct view as defined by Umno, the violator has caught the DAP disease. After all, the DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam, anti-Malay rulers and is a godless communist party.

MCA, its pet poodle is aping DAP by uttering what MCA did. And what did MCA do that has irked others? It has only questioned the narrative of events surrounding the pig’s head thrown as Rayer’s house. All civic and right thinking Malaysian citizens ought to condemn this heinous act and whomsoever condones, justifies and excuses such dastardly act, deserves to be condemned too.

The DAP has been right at the front in condemning Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s inane narrative of the act in question. Zahid, despite earning a doctoral degree, has never been known for intellectual finesse.

Equating the recent acquired conduct of MCA with the consistent commitment of DAP in the struggle for political decency is an insult to the DAP.

Between MCA and DAP, is a wide divide as large as that between the sky and earth. No political party can be markedly different as that between DAP and MCA.

DAP speaks for the marginalised, the abused, the wronged, the common people. Its leaders exemplify the character of the people it represents by being down to earth and unassuming, committed and serious in their role as the voice of the voiceless, the poor, the disenfranchised, and the wretched.

MCA speaks on behalf of special interests, that of the Chinese Hongs and the Chinaman who thinks Chinese culture is represented by a sumptuous feast featuring Empress Dowager’s Dim Sum exotic morsels.

While pouring out scorn and contempt towards MCA and even declaring MCA can go to hell, I find Zainudin’s concluding comments perplexing and enigmatic. While using DAP as a barometre measuring all that is contemptuous and vile, he has suggested that it’s better for Umno to cultivate DAP.

Now, why should pure and pristine and unimpeachable Umno would ever want to cultivate DAP? That can only mean that DAP’s unshakeable belief in democratic principles and its commitment to a fair and just society have earned the respect even from its enemies. – sakmongkol.blogspot.com, July 6, 2014.

* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de guerre of Raub MP Datuk Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 6 July 2014, 5:23 pm and is filed under
DAP
,
MCA
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Bernama should own up to the charges of plagiarism by Jakarta Globe as the international disgrace for Malaysian journalism is  easily established by a  quick read of the four articles concerned

I was intrigued by the admission by the Bernama editor-in-chief Zulkefli Salleh that there was some basis in the accusation made by the Indonesian newspaper Jakarta Globe that two of its articles published online pertaining to the ongoing Indonesian presidential debates had been plagiarized by Bernama.

As a result, I read in detail the allegations by Indonesian Globe.

The most recent incident occurred on Sunday when Bernama plagiarised “word for word” an article published on the Jakarta Globe website entitled
“In Closing Debate, Joko Promises Bureaucratic ‘Breakthrough,’ While Prabowo Strives for ‘A Dignified Nation.’”

The article was part of Jakarta Glob’s live coverage of the fifth and final Indonesian presidential debate which was published on July 5.

Bernama  published a similar article the next day under the heading,
“Joko Promises Bureaucratic ‘Breakthrough,’ While Prabowo Strives for ‘A Dignified Nation.’”

Jakarta Globe alleged that Bernama  had copied the Globe’s piece verbatim, attributing one of the many quotes in the article to the newspaper.

Bernama also removed the names of Globe reporters Josua Gantan and Andrea Wijaya, the original authors of the story, replacing the byline with a Bernama journalist, Elmi Rizal Alias.

The Jakarta Globe also accused Bernama of plagiarising an earlier story by its reporter Basten Gokkon on the fourth debate
“Hatta Says Indonesia Should Take Advantage of Its ‘Demographic Bonus.’”
, which was published by Bernama under the headline
“Indonesia Should Take Advantage  of Its ‘Demographic Bonus’ – Hatta”
.  Bernama claimed it was written by its reporter Elmi.

As the four articles, two by Jakarta Globe and two by Bernama,  can be downloaded easily, it can be immediately established that Bernama had indeed been guilty of plagiarism as accused by the Indonesian newspaper and not just “there was some basis” in the plagiarism allegations.

The Bernama editor-in-chief should be frank and forthcoming in keeping with journalistic ethics and traditions and own up to the two charges of plagiarism and make the necessary amends, instead of playing tai-chi claiming that Bernama does not condone plagiarism but yet want to buy time with the plea that an immediate investigation needed to be held.

It is clear from a quick read of the four articles concerned that the episode marks an international disgrace for Malaysian journalism, and Bernama should not prolong the shameful episode but should instead own up to the charges of plagiarism together with taking the necessary remedial action, including apology, retraction and action against the journalist concerned who had brought disgrace not only to Bernama but to Malaysia as well.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 7 July 2014, 3:23 pm and is filed under
Media
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Is Muhyiddin playing the classic bait of threatening another May 13 to distract attention from his dismal  failure as Education Minister in the latest violation of academic freedom in University of Malaya jeopardizing plan to restore its ranking as world’s  Top 100 University?

Is Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin playing the classic bait of threatening another May 13 to distract attention from his dismal failure as Education Minister in the latest violation of academic freedom in University of Malaya which jeopardizes the plan to restore its ranking as world’s Top 100 University?

Muhyiddin must answer this question for this is the first time in four decades that a Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister had threatened another May 13 riots – but will any Minister dare to ask Muhyiddin this question point-blank at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday?

Not the MCA President, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, who had virtually defended Muhyiddin’s May 13 threat, describing it as a “reminder” for Malaysians not to take unity for granted.

Liow spoke about the efforts by our forefathers to build and unite the nation, but what he has forgotten is that our forefathers, whether Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Tun Tan Siew Sin or Tun V.T. Sambathan would never have endorsed, condoned or sanitised a racial riot threat like the one issued by Muhyiddin in Pagoh on Friday night and would have demanded a retraction and apology if not resignation!

If all the Cabinet Ministers are like-minded as the MCA President, who could sanitize a “threat” of a racial riot  as a “reminder”,  then for the first time in the 57-year history of Malaysia, the nation has a Cabinet which is not fit or qualified to lead Malaysia’s multi-racial and multi-religious nation.

There can be no question or doubt that a Deputy Prime Minister who could issue a threat of another May 13 is not fit to be Deputy Primer Minister in Malaysia and a Cabinet which could condone, endorse or sanitise the May 13 threat as a “reminder” is not fit to be the Cabinet Malaysia.

It will do good for all the Cabinet Ministers, including the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Muhyiddin,  to re-read and digest the Proclamation of Independence by Bapa Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman at Merdeka Stadium on August 31, 1957, and the Proclamation of Malaysia on Sept. 16, 1963.

The Proclamation of Indepencence in 1957 ended with the following high commitment:

“But while we think of the past, we look forward in faith and hope to the future; from henceforth we are masters of our destiny, and the welfare of this beloved land is our own responsibility: Let no one think we have reached the end of the road: Independence is indeed a milestone, but it is only the threshold to high endeavour- the creation of a new and sovereign State.

“At this solemn moment therefore I call upon you all to dedicate yourselves to the service of the new Malaya: to work and strive with hand and brain to create a new nation, inspired by the ideals of justice and liberty – a beacon of light in a disturbed and distracted world.

“High confidence has been reposed in us; let us unitedly face the challenge of the years. And so with remembrance for the past, and with confidence in the future, under the providence of God, we shall succeed.”

The Proclamation of Malaysia pledged that Malaysia shall
“forever be an independent and sovereign democratic State founded upon liberty and justice, ever seeking to defend and uphold peace and harmony among its people and to perpetuate peace among nations”
.

Muhyiddin has shown no commitment to the ideals of justice and liberty for the nation to be “a beacon of light in a disturbed and distracted world” but is doing his worst for Malaysia to be part of “a disturbed and distracted world”.

Muhyiddin’s May 13 threat  is giving legitimacy of a small group extremists who had in the past year since the 13th General Election been responsible for the worst racial and religious polarization in the country with their incessant incitement of racial and religious hatred, conflict and tension with periodic threats of another May 13.

Muhyiddin was not only dishonest and but downright irresponsible when he tried to justify  his May 13 threat on the ground   that the Malays and Islam were under siege in Malaysia, when there can be no basis for such belief, which is the mischievous creation of those who want to sow  and incite racial and religious discord in the country.

All eyes are now on the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, whether it would reprimand Muhyiddin for the mischievous and irresponsible May 13 threat, and what steps and assurances the Cabinet can give to Malaysians and the international community that another May 13 is not possible in Malaysia.

I hope there will be a Minister who will ask Muhyddin whether his May 13 threat was intended to divert attention from his dismal failure as Education Minister in the latest violation of academic freedom in University of Malaya which jeopardizes the plan to restore its ranking as world’s Top 100 University.

Former Universiti Malaya vice-chancellor Tan Sri Professor Dr Ghauth Jasmon has revealed to The Malaysian Insider today that he was constantly harassed by Putrajaya over the unflattering findings by the university’s research centre, Centre for Democracy and Elections (UMcedel), lending weight to claims that the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition was unhappy with its work.

Tan Sri Professor Dr Ghauth Jasmon, who served as vice-chancellor at the public university from 2008 to 2013, said a senior politician had scolded him for not controlling former UMcedel director Professor Datuk Dr Redzuan Othman.

He was even warned about his job as UM vice chancellor.

In the run-up to the last genera election, the Barisan Nasional coalition had been rattled by UMcedel’s findings which showed the prime minister trailing behind opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

A UMcedel poll showed that more than 60% of voters surveyed favoured Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) manifesto, compared with just 50% who preferred BN’s election pledges.

It also showed that 43% of respondents believed that Anwar was qualified to be prime minister, pipping Najib by four percentage points.

Ghauth said despite the pressure from Putrajaya, he had defended Redzuan.

“UM is an academic institution, not (a) political institution. My job as VC is to defend the sanctity of the academic institution,” he said.

“Regardless of whether people are happy or not, the academic freedom of the institution is above everything.”

The university terminated Redzuan’s services as UMcedel director on March 31, although his contract only expired on December 31, 2014.

Redzuan’s tenure as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences was also not renewed on July 1, even though he was said to have received the highest votes from the academic staff to continue heading the faculty.

Ghauth said he was saddened over what happened to Redzuan, but added that he was still hopeful and believed in UM.

Ghauth said he and his peers had planned to steer UM into the list of top 100 universities in the world by 2015.

“I set the target of taking UM into the top 100 by 2015. I personally believed this would bring up Malaysia’s standing globally.”

But he was doubtful that UM could reach the goal under the current circumstances.

“I  am not sure but I sense that it will be very tough,” he said.

UM has announced its goal of entering the QS World University Ranking’s top 100 by 2015.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 7 July 2014, 9:17 am and is filed under
Muhyiddin Yassin
,
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


PERISTIWA 13 MEI TIDAK AKAN BERLAKU LAGI…….

Abu Hassan Adam

Monday, July 7, 2014

Aku semacam tidak percaya kenyataan TS Muhyiddin Yasin mengenai kemungkinan Peristiwa13 Mei akan tercetus lagi. Aku terfikir takkanlah kenyataan sedemikian boleh terkeluar dari mulut seorang Timbalan Perdana Menteri.  Ataupun berkemungkinan kenyataan beliau itu adalah ‘misquoted’ atau disalah tafsir oleh piha media tentang kenyataan beliau itu. Walaubagaimana pun apa salahnya bagi seseorang Timbalan Perdana Menteri memberikan peringatan kepada rakyat tentang bahaya sedemikian.

Tetapi persoalan yang agak memeningkan kepala aku (mungkin kepala aku seorang agaknya) ialah apakah mudah benar bagi masyarakat Malaysia yang kononnya telah mencapai suatu peradaban yang tinggi, boleh mencetuskan perbalahan kaum. Sejarah telah menunjukkan bahawa selepas peristiwa tahun 1969 itu tidak pernah wujud lagi perbalahan kaum yang sedemikian rupa. Maknanya sudah 45 tahun kita rakyat Malaysia sudah boleh hidup dalam keadaan aman dan damai, walaupun terdapat perbalahan-perbalahan kecil di sana sini. Itu biasalah….

TS Muhyiddin menggunakan rasional dan memberi amaran tentang keumngkinan berlakunya peristiwa pahit itu memandangkan “perbalahan kaum ketika ini sudah menjadi kebiasaan apabila satu kaum mengkritik kaum lain……..Sebab itu timbul pelbagai andaian apabila hubungan kaum sudah sampai ke tahap cetus ketegangan dan hubungan tidak baik. Ini boleh menyebabkan peristiwa tersebut dan saya tidak mahu sebut tarikh itu (13 Mei 1969).

Dalam sesebuah negara demokrasi seperti Malaysia ini kritik mengkeritik antara satu sama lain (ataupun antara satu kaum dengan kaum lain) adalah merupakan perkara biasa, apatah lagi dengan kemunculan media baru yang sudah tidak dapat dikawal dan dibendung ini. Aku tidak mempunyai statistik tertentu tetapi apa yang aku perhatikan yang menjadi bahan keritik media baru ialah mengenai rasuah dan penyelewengan yang dilakukan oleh pemimpin-pemimpin UMNO (BN) dan para pegawai kerajaan.

Walaupun seribu alasan diberikan oleh pihak kepimpinan negara mengenai sesuatu ‘penipuan’ yang dijalankan, namun pihak yang terlibat tidak boleh ‘melangsaikan’ persepsi rakyat tentang sesuatu isu itu.  Misalnya walaupun diberikan berbagai hujah untuk ‘menghalalkan’ pemberian kontrek untuk membangunkan beberapa UITM baru-baru ini, rakyat tetap mempersoalakan kewajarannya.

Sebenarnya perpaduan kaum semakin kukuh kini berbanding dengan zaman sebelumnya. Yang melakukan kritikan yang berbagai-bagai melalui media sosial bukannya kaum bukan Melayu semata-mata tetapi kebanyakannya adalah terdiri dari cerdik pandai Melayu yang sudah tidak boleh ditipu dan dikelentong. Adalah salah sekiranya diandaikan bahawa yang menentang kepimpinan Melayu dalam UMNO itu hanya terdiri dari kaum bukan Melayu sahaja. Ramai juga orang Melayu yang menentang UMNO selagi UMNO tidak diperbetulkan.

Telah berlaku beberapa perhimpunan yang dianjurkan oleh Bersih. Dengan jelas telah memperlihatkan kepada kita bahawa perpaduan di Malaysia sudah semakin mantap. Kerjasama yang ditunjukkan oleh berbagai-bagai kaum di Malaysia patut dipuji. Dan di peringkat bawahan kerjasama ini amat erat dan tidak menampakkan langsung kemungkinan seperti yang disuarakan oleh TS Muhyiddin Yassin itu.

Aku berani mengatakan bahawa peristiwa seperti mana yang tedapat pada 13 Mei 1969 itu tidak berlaku dan tidak akan berlaku.Sudah begitu banyak provokasi yang dilakukan oleh pihak-pihak tertentu untuk menaikkan kemarahan kaum lain, namun ‘jawapan’ yang diberikan oleh kaum lain adalah jawapan beradab sesuai dengan masyarakat yang hidup dalam Kurun ke21.

Mengapa tidak berlaku keadaan yang tidak dingini apabila dilakukan provokasi sedemikian? Sebab kaum bukan Melayu merasakan bahawa yang melakukan perbuatan biadap yang sedemikian bukan dilakukan oleh majority orang Melayu. Orang bukan Melayu tahu dan sedar bahawa majority Melayu yang ada di Malaysia adalah terdiri golongan yang mahukan kedamaian. Dan hanya segelintir Melayu yang menjadi ‘tentera upahan’ sahaja yang berperangai sedemikian. Lantas tidak berlaku perkara-perkara yang tidak dingini.

Oleh itu apa yang dirisau dan dibimbangi oleh TS Muhyiddin itu tidak akan berlaku. Yang pasti pihak kerajaan seharusnya melaksanakan undang-undang dengan seikhlas-ikhlasnya supaya jangan ternampak langsung unsur pilih kasih dari pihak kerajaan. Kegiatan biadap yang dilakukan oleh pihak-pihak tertentu sepatutnya ditangani dengan tegas oleh pihak polis supaya jangan timbul perasangka yang bukan-bukan dari rakyat. Berindak dengan adil kepada semua kaum. Tak kiralah kaum Melayu, Cina, India, Kadazan dll seharusnya diberikan layanan yang sama. Pasti tidak akan timbul keraguan terhadap kerajaan yang memerintah.

Kini timbul kisah seorang diplomat yang bertugas di New Zealand melakukan perkara yang tidak  sepatutnya dilakukan oleh seorang yang bergelar diplomat yang pastinya mencemarkan namanya dan nama Malaysia ( sekiranya betul pertuduhan terhadap diplomat berkenaan). Jikalau diperhatikan melalui facebook dan tweeter majoriti yang memberikan pandangan merasakan Diplomat ini mesti di hadapkan di mahkamah di New Zealand. Dan kebanyakan yang memberikan komen sedemikian adalah terdiri dari golongan bukan Melayu. Seolah-olah ‘bergembira’ melihat kesusahan yang dialami oleh orang Melayu.

Bukan begitu. Orang Melayu yang rasional cara berfikirnya juga pasti merasakan bahawa Diplomat berkenaan harus diadili dengan seadil-adilnya. Bukan cuba ‘menutup bangkai gajah dengan nyiru’

Peribahasa Melayu ada mengatakan, ‘harapkan pagar, pagar makan padi’. Dikatakan sedemikian kerana peranan Diplomat adalah membawa ‘bendera’ negara. Tercalarnya Diplomat itu bererti ‘terkoyak’lah bendera Malaysia.

13 Mei pastinya tidak akan berlaku, Insyallah. Yang pentingnya pihak kepimpinan negara harus menyelami hati budi rakyat terbanyak dan jangan ‘take for granted’ budi baik rakyat Malaysia ini samada dari keturunan Melayu, Cina, India, Iban dll. Sebenarnya rakyat Malaysia sudah bersatu. Cuma ada anasir-anasir yang cuba memecah-belahkan rakyat Malaysia.

Tak tahu ler aku, betui ke tak betui apa yang aku tulis. Maaf ler kalau tersilap………..

abuhassanadam

7 Julai 2014

                This entry was posted on Monday, 7 July 2014, 10:57 am and is filed under
Muhyiddin Yassin
,
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


DAP and PR will not condone or tolerate any May 13 threat but we are prepared to fully co-operate with UMNO and BN to ensure there will not be another May 13  in Malaysia

Who is the UMNO Youth leader, Khairy Jamaluddin trying to “rescue” in his naïve but self-serving statement accusing me of manipulating the May 13 remark by the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and sensationalising it into a threat – to save Muhyiddin or the MCA President, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and Gerakan President, Datuk Mah Siew Keong?

I do not want to waste time on Khairy’s fling with sophistry, claiming that the Deputy Prime Minister’s May 13 remark was not a threat but a reminder to Malaysians to safeguard national unity.

I would be the first to applaud Muhyiddin if he had spoken as Deputy Prime Minister of all Malaysians to all Malaysians on  the imperative need to safeguard national unity in a multi-racial and  multi-religious society so as  to be a model of harmony and solidarity of a plural nation for the world, but this was not what he did.

Instead, Muhyiddin was warning of another May 13 riots if ethnic relations continue to worsen because Malays and Islam were under siege (which was not only biased but baseless), saying:

“As deputy prime minister, every night before I sleep, I think about how to manage the country. Someone sent me a text message (asking) what will happen to the Malays, why is Islam being insulted and other similar issues.

“These things are definitely happening and it is worrying. We must all return to the right path. Let religion as well as our culture and customs be our strength.”

Are the Malays and Islam in Malaysia under siege by non-Malays and non-Muslims in Malaysia resulting in the possibility of another May 13?

If it is not true that Malays and Islam are under siege by non-Malays and non-Muslims in Malaysia , why is the DPM of a multi-racial and multi-religious nation warning of a recurrence of May 13 because “these things are definitely happening and it is worrying”?

At least Cabinet Ministers are now admitting that national unity “are becoming more and more fragile today”, but if this is the real concern of Ministers, why have the Cabinet done nothing to halt the stoking and incitement of racial and religious hatred, tensions and conflict by a small group of extremists in the past year?

Will the Cabinet tomorrow end its “do-nothing” policy allowing national unity to become “more and more fragile today”, by giving top priority to the issue of how to ensure another May 13 cannot happen in Malaysia?

DAP and Pakatan Rakyat will not condone or tolerate any May 13 threat but we are prepared to fully co-operate with UMNO and BN to ensure there will not be another May 13  in Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 8 July 2014, 12:21 pm and is filed under
DAP
,
Muhyiddin Yassin
,
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


No one would expect the three new  MCA/Gerakan Ministers will fail their make-or-break test in their first week in Cabinet

No one would expect the three new MCA/Gerakan Ministers will fail their make-or-break test in their first week in Cabinet.

Firstly, no one expected the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to put them in a bind by making his May 13 threat at a  Ramadan event in Pagoh on Friday night.

Secondly, instead of reprimanding or at least dissociating themselves from the May 13 threat, both the MCA President Datuk Liow Tiong Lai and the Gerakan President Datuk Mah Siew Keong sought to sanitise Muhyiddin’s May 13 threat by describing it as a “reminder” to Malaysians to stand united.

Muhyiddin was of course not making any such reminder as his  reference of another May 13 was solely in the context worsening ethnic relations arising from the Malays and Islam in Malaysia under increasing attack, painting a false picture of Malays and Islam under growing attack by non-Malays and non-Muslims, which is not only untrue but  utterly irresponsible coming from a Deputy Prime Minister as there is no basis for such political scenario.

Do Liow and Mah agree that Malaysia is today facing a scenario where there could be a recurrence of another May 13 because of worsening ethnic relations as a result of Malays and Islam coming under incessant attack by non-Malays and non-Muslims?

And if so, who are these non-Malays and non-Muslims who are guilty of such incessant attack on the Malays and Muslims in the country?

What is the role of the Government, Cabinet Ministers, the DPM and PM if the country is in such dire straits on the verge of another May 13 riots?

Isn’t this itself proof of government negligence and incompetence to allow the country to slide to a situation on the verge of another May 13?

If the scenario of Malays and Islam under relentless attack by non-Malays and non-Muslims is completely fictitious and a figment of imagination of a small group of provocateurs and extremists out to sow and incite racial and religious hatred, conflict and tensions, how could Muhyiddin’s reference to another May 13 be a “reminder” to Malaysians to stand united?

I do not  think Mah was being  responsible when said he had not read  the “whole thing” of Muhyiddin’s May 13 reference although it is the  third day of the controversy – yet he had no hesitation in passing judgment on the matter.

Mah said “we are fighting very hard for 1Malaysia”. Who is “fighting hard” for Malaysia? Is he referring to Muhyiddin, whose “Malay first, Malaysian second” stand was a repudiation of Najib’s 1Malaysia policy to create a nation were Malaysians regard themselves as Malaysians first and race, religion and region second?

Mah said “It’s about time Malaysia treated the moderates as heroes instead of saying moderates are neither here nor there”.

He estimated that of the Malaysian public, 15 to 20 per  cent hold leftist views and a similar number lean to the right, while 60 per cent are in the middle. He reckoned that right now, the ones who make the most noise are on the right, and they are the ones treated as heroes, and the media gives them the most coverage.

The future of plural Malaysia is in the hands of the moderates. But if  Mah is right, that there are some 15 to  20 per cent of the population “from the right” who are extremists, then Malaysia is  in deep trouble.

I believe that the extremists in Malaysia are still an overwhelming minority while the moderates in Malaysia an overwhelming majority.

Let us not forget that in  the 13th General Elections last May, some 52 per cent of the electorate voted for Pakatan Rakyat while Barisan Nasional formed the federal government on a minority vote – first time in the nation’s history.

Those who voted for the Pakatan Rakyat, whether DAP, PKR or PAS, are moderates who want a democratic change of government and do not want another May 13 riots.

Those who want another May 13 would come from the minority of the Barisan Nasional’s 47% minority vote – which I would put as a tiny percentage of the national vote in contrast to Mah’s claim of 15 to 20 per cent of the population.

But it is this small group of loud-mouthed extremists and provocateurs, representing a tiny percentage of the population, who are holding the country to ransom in the past year with the incessant stoking and incitement of racial and religious hatred, conflict and tension but who seemed to enjoy patronage from those in power in their immunity and impunity for breaching the peace and breaking laws – and periodically issuing May 13 threats.

I have said that a person is not fit to be a DPM, and Ministers are not fit to be in the Cabinet, if they are not prepared to ensure that there cannot be another May 13 in Malaysia.

Is the Cabinet tomorrow  prepared to demonstrate that it is a Cabinet of patriots, fully committed to ensure that there will not be another May 13 riots in the country ?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 8 July 2014, 8:11 am and is filed under
Gerakan
,
MCA
,
Muhyiddin Yassin
,
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


DPM’s ‘May 13’ remark, threat or reminder?

Ravinder Singh

The Malaysian Insider

8 July 2014

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has stirred up a hornet’s nest with his recent statement “it is not impossible for another race riot to occur again in the country”.

His colleagues are in open support of what he said, i.e. the statement is “a reminder to behave”.

Opposition politicians and many members of the public think otherwise, i.e. that it is a veiled threat to do a “May 13” unless the BN wins big in the next election.

So how should that “May 13” statement be read?

There are always two main parties to any communication – the message creators and the message receivers.

Messages can be straight to the point or have hidden meanings. The receivers of the messages can take them at face value or interpret them according to the orientation of their minds.

One person can make the message, but millions may be hearing or reading and interpreting it.

Messages must therefore be seen in the context in which they were made (e.g. who made it, when, why, on what occasion, in what tone and body language) and the audience to which they were directed (closed door group of same mental orientation and equally matured minds as the speaker/writer, general public consisting of morally good citizens and also, bigots, racists extremists and jihadists [for short I will call them ‘brej’] with minds that see those different from themselves as their enemies).

A few recent historical facts must be taken into account to understand how the brej, with minds that see those different from themselves as their enemies, would have understood the “May 13” reminder. These groups, the brej, are the area of concern, not the millions of peacefully living citizens.

 Some people had carried banners asking whether people wanted another May 13 and walked the streets. Although this would be an offence under the Penal Code (PC), no action was taken.

    A cow’s head was thrown at the gate of a Hindu home. Again it is an offence under the PC but so far no one has been apprehended.

    Firebombs were thrown into churches. This is an offence under the PC, but we have not heard of anyone being brought to book.

    Before the last election the Prime Minister himself had said that he would defend Putrajaya even with broken bones and crushed bodies. What ideas would this have given the brej? Are those ideas no longer in their minds?

    Prior to that the keris had been waved in Umno’s (or Umno Youth’s?) general assembly and words uttered that it would be bathed in the blood of certain people. Did the brej not hear it and how did they interpret it? Have they no more memory of this?

    After the last General Election a senior, retired judge lashed out at certain people for having betrayed the Malays and that when this is done it touches their “pantang larang” and the traitors must be prepared to face the “dendam kesumat” that the betrayed would unleash. How did the brej understand this?

The above list is not exhaustive, but just a sampling of the messages that have been heard or read, and actions seen, by the brej lurking among the peace loving citizens.

Have their wicked minds not been influenced to become more wicked by these statements that were made by persons in high office and by seeing that those who throw Molotov cocktails into churches and cow’s heads at the gates of others go scot-free?

The “pantang larang” and “dendam kesumat” has been laid out as an excellent excuse for the brej to hide behind, and for no action to be taken as it is something that “can’t be helped”.

This was reinforced by the Home Minister in the cow’s head case when he said that the victim deserved it for his big mouth. So it is not unlawful to release “dendam kesumat” in any way.

The Minister for Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan had this to say in defending the DPM’s “May 13” statement: “Is racial tension on the rise? Yes”. “Is religious bigotry getting worse? Yes”. “Do we need a reminder to behave? Yes”.

Yes, a reminder to behave is certainly required. The multi-million dollar question is who needs that reminder?

The millions of peace-loving people of various races, cultures and religions who have lived as brothers and sisters for centuries, or the small groups of the brej out to create mischief and trouble in the name of defending race and religion?

Giving the “pantang larang” and “dendam kesumat” excuse is like being a father who does not want to control his few years old tantrum throwing child who is breaking things in a shopping mall but instead turning around and telling the store hands to leave him alone as he is “just a small boy, so let him enjoy himself”.

Highly irresponsible. You can only expect the little boy to throw more and worse tantrums in future as he knows that he is protected by his father.

The DPM’s “May 13” statement was therefore not a reminder to the brej to behave themselves, but veiled words of protection like those of the tantrum throwing child’s father’s.

On a balance of probability, are the “May 13” words of the DPM more likely to goad these brej to carry on their ugly agenda or to make them “behave themselves” and not create trouble?

All those who feel that the words of the DPM were harmless are actually giving more weight to those words which the brej are going to take as approval of their agenda as they have gone scot-free so far despite doing unlawful things.

So it is not wrong for right-thinking persons to be extremely concerned that those words would only emboldened the brej.

A minister has admitted that “racial tension is on the rise” and that “religious bigotry is getting worse”.

So what has the government been doing to stop these brej? How come so many extremists have been discovered suddenly? How come some of them have gone to foreign lands on jihad? How come they are found in institutions of learning?

It is these brej who need “a reminder” by having the book thrown at them. Please do that Muhyiddin and show us that you mean well for the nation. Mere words will never be “a reminder” to the brej who are behaving like spoiled kids.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. It may look cruel to throw the book at the brej, but if you want to be kind to the nation, you have no choice. If you don’t reign in the brej, no one will believe that your words about “May 13” were a reminder not to create trouble. – July 8, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 9 July 2014, 7:34 am and is filed under
Muhyiddin Yassin
,
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Ironic and tragic if Najib is forecasting the disastrous future of his government and country under his premiership when he referred to Brazil’s 1-7 massacre by Germany in World Cup

It is both ironic and tragic that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak could point to Brazil’s 1-7 massacre by Germany in the World Cup as the fate of absence of leadership when he himself has set Malaysia on auto-pilot without any leadership from him in the past year.

Where is Najib’s leadership in his 1Malaysia signature policy to create a Malaysia where every Malaysian would regard himself or herself as Malaysian first and race, religion or region second – in contrast to the “Malay first, Malaysia second” policy enunciated by his deputy, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin?

Where is Najib’s leadership in his Global Movement of Moderates for “the voices of moderation to drown the voices of extremism” when in the past year, there has been an incessant stoking and incitement of racial and religious hatred, tension and conflict in the country resulting in the worst racial and religious polarisation in the nation’s history?

Where is Najib’s leadership in the war against corruption, with Malaysia placed  in the worst ranking of  Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) during  his premiership 2009 – 2013 when compared to  the premiership of the two previous Prime Ministers, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah – and what is even more mortifying to Malaysians, being overtaken by countries which had worse TI CPI rankings in the past like Taiwan, Spain, South Korea and Hungary and in danger of being left behind by other countries regarded in the past as even more corrupt like Turkey, Thailand, China or even Indonesia in the not too distant future?

Coincidentally, the latest update of the  Asianomics Country Report today painted a gloomy outlook for Malaysia, predicting failure for the second phase of Putrajaya’s economic transformation plan due to Najib’s lack of will and leadership although he  remained secure as Prime Minister as there is no worthy successor.

Even international observers and analysts have despaired at Najib’s lack of leadership!

The Cabinet meeting today does not indicate that Najib is prepared to provide the leadership to lead the country, as he preferred to leave it to coast along on auto-pilot.

This was the reason for my five tweets before the Cabinet meeting this morning:

1.	All eyes on today’s Cabinet meeting – second after inclusion of Liow Tiong Lai, Wee Ka Siong,  Mah Siew Keong. Will it behave like  three monkeys – no see, no hear, no talk?

2.	Will Ministers suffer collective attack and ignore Muhyiddin’s May 13 threat altogether? Or endorse “reminder” version? Or distance from it?

3.	One Minister says national unity “more and more fragile today”. Another says racial tension “on the rise” and religious bigotry “getting worse”

4.	But Najib Cabinet blind to these developments which are most comic if not very serious with arch-extremists calling for action against extremists?

5.	Malaysians and  world waiting – is Najib government really on auto-pilot with “do nothing” as its governing motto? Final test of Najib’s transformation!

Najib does not seem to be ready or able to provide the leadership which the government and country had been lacking for the past 14 months since the 13th general elections in May last year.

It will really be ironic and tragic if Najib is forecasting the disastrous future of his government and the country under his premiership when he used the analogy of Brazil’s shocking 1-7 loss to Germany in the World Cup semi-finals.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 9 July 2014, 4:09 pm and is filed under
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.