Lingam Tape – end the rigmarole of Nazri flip-flops, lameduck Haidar Panel and Cabinet micro-managing of inquiry

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz has done a triple flip-flop in four days.

On
Sunday
, he said that the probe into the Lingam Tape will come to a dead end if the witnesses who can verify it do not come forward to establish its authenticity.

He also assured witnesses and whistleblowers of “full government protection, including a change of identities if necessary”, declaring: “I guarantee that we will protect the sources. Trust the government to do so.”

However when he found that the Witness Protection Act or Bill which he had quoted as authority for  such protection does not exist, Nazi said on
Tuesday
 that he would present a strong case to the  Cabinet to provide protection for the people behind the recording of the Lingam Tape.

He said:  “The panel’s investigation will not be able to progress if the protection is not provided. We will not then be able to get to the bottom of this. The panel will be rendered useless.”

However, Nazri sang
a different tune
after the Cabinet meeting yesterday.

He said: “We will assist but first we have to establish what type of protection these people want.

“If it is anonymity, it can be arranged. If it is security, it can be arranged, but we have to know.”

It is most shocking that Nazri could be so ignorant that what the  informants want  is full immunity from any prosecution,  protection from persecution and victimization from the powers-that-be and that there should be no cover-up of the Lingam Tape scandal of perversion of the course of justice with judicial appointments and judge-fixing.

Nazri said the Cabinet had decided to  assist the Haidar inquiry  panel investigate  the Lingam Tape in whatever way it could.  If the panel had difficulty getting those behind the video clip to come forward to be interviewed, it could ask for the government’s help.

“If the panel faces difficulties in concluding investigations, it could submit a report to us and we will assist in whatever way possible.”

It is outrageous that three weeks after the disclosure of the Lingam Tape, the Cabinet is still studiously avoiding the core issues of the Lingam Tape scandal on judicial misconduct and perversion with the course of justice — focusing all the attention on the authenticity of the Lingam Tape which could be established through forensic voice and tape analysis.

The inescapable conclusion is that the Cabinet is buying time until the other main character of the Lingam Tape scandal, Chief Justice Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Halim  has retired from the highest judicial office in the land at the end of the month, hoping that the whole scandal will blow over  after that.

If so, this is to the discredit of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who had pledged a clean, incorruptible, accountable and  trustworthy administration four years ago.

The message Malaysians want to send to the Prime Minister and the government is: End the rigmarole of the Nazri flip-flops,  lame-duck Haidar Panel and Cabinet micro-managing of Lingam Tape  inquiry!  Just set  up the  Royal Commission of Inquiry to restore a  world-class judiciary, leaving the question of the authenticity of the Lingam Tape to be handled by the Royal Commission.

It is late but not too late for the three members of the  Haidar Panel to salvage their reputation by resigning and disbanding the Inquiry Panel, which is headed for an ignominous end  in the annals of inquiries in Malaysian history.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 11 October 2007, 12:13 pm and is filed under
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Hari Raya message – four things to make Hari Raya on 50th Merdeka anniversary most meaningful

Hari Raya this year coincides with the nation’s 50th Merdeka anniversary.

Celebrating this year’s Hari Raya on the occasion of the nation’s 50th Merdeka anniversary will be most meaningful if there is a national resolution and government political will  to achieve four  things:

	A low-crime Malaysia where everyone, whether citizen, tourist or investor can feel safe again in the streets, public places and the privacy of the homes and where the fundamental rights to be free from  crime and fear of crime are not just empty and meaningful words.

	Zero tolerance for corruption, abuses of power and financial scandals.

	Restore national and international confidence in a truly independent judiciary and a just rule of law, which will go a long way to enhance Malaysia’s international competitiveness which has suffered considerable erosion in recent years; and

	A Malaysian national consciousness and identity transcending racial, religious or political differences.

 Selamat Hari Raya to all Muslims in Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 12 October 2007, 12:53 pm and is filed under
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Reply to ‘Organ transplant: Are we on the right track?’ by FK-506

Letters

by Carpe Diem

I would like to comment on the
letter by FK-506.
 However I will try to focus on rebutting factual inaccuracies in his letter, rather than comment on his insinuations and innuendos as my interpretations of his statements may be flawed.

Quote : “………..it isn’t quite right to place patients on VADs which have a limited life of their own into patients, not knowing if they are ever going to get a heart. This cannot be ethically correct.”

Whether this is ethically correct or not depends on the patient’s wishes, the facilities available and expert opinion.  Unfortunately this is one area where opinions matter.  An individual may consider it mental and physical torture to be hooked to a machine with no definite end in sight, but another may consider it a lifeline to a possibly better future.  Is it more ethical to deny me this option, based on not knowing whether I will get a heart in time, if the expertise is available and I am more than willing?

Quote : “Merican howled that what SJMC and Tan did were improper as ignorant patients may “not have been briefed about complications”. Tan, who pioneered liver transplant techniques at King’s College, London, of course left, preferring to base himself in “less ethical” Singapore, leaving Merican to focus on traditional medicine back here in Malaysia.”

Well I have no love for traditional medicine, but  I don’t see how this case affects the current scenario. Anyway, if I am not mistaken the issue against KC Tan then was on unrelated living donors.  Please correct me if I am wrong.

Quote : “Many fail to realise that the most painful thing about losing a family member to a traffic accident is the suddenness.”

I can assure you most if not all doctors realise the emotional trauma of losing a loved one, more so when it is unexpected. That is why more often than not, medical professionals fail to bring up the issue of cadaveric organ donation to mourning family members. We are human too and often find handling strong emotions difficult.  So to imply we are unfeeling to the deceased’s family members is a great insult.  In fact  the opposite commonly happens, where medical staff fail to bring up the option of organ donation as they fear it will distress the family.

Quote : “And if you define human death as brain death and give doctors the power to demand or request organs, a family member might have his heart or lung ripped out even before they have a chance to mourn.”

Human death IS brain death, and this scientific fact has been proven beyond all doubt internationally, and has been accepted medically and legally for many years. I repeat,brain death is death.  Doctors do not have the power whatsoever to demand organ donations. We may mention the option to the deceased’s family and allow them to make the decision.  We answer queries but we do not pressure.  It is up to the family to make a decision.  There is also no guilt in refusing. Ultimately, it is always the family’s choice. Unfortunately, there often is a narrow window of opportunity for cadaveric organ donation.  Once a person is brain dead, ie dead, the organs start to shut down.  Once deterioration is advanced, organ donation is no longer an option; exceptions are skin, bones, cornea, which are viable for longer periods. So it is true a decision is required while the family is still mourning and in shock.  There is no way to sugarcoat it, a decision needs to be made within a few hours time for cadaveric organ donations to take place.  But the final word is always the family’s.

Quote : “Add this to the current perception of widespread political corruption with a judiciary hopelessly entangled in a quagmire from which no one knows if they are ever going to extricate themselves, you will end up with a family or relative not wanting to believe anything the authorities tell you including the fact that their beloved is brain dead.”

I can’t disagree with FK-506 on the low regard many now hold for our current politicians and judges, but to stretch it to include healthcare providers is without basis, as far as I am concerned.  If FK-506’s assumptions are correct, I am sorry, but I do not see any evidence of that at the moment.  If a relative does not believe a person is brain dead, which may happen as a natural part of grief response, so be it. No one will touch the body without prior consent.

Quote : “And is brain death criteria in Malaysia strictly adhered to? Are our anesthetists, neurologists, neurosurgeons or critical care physicians well trained in ascertaining brain death? Will our brain death certifiers be singularly medically unbiased or will they lean towards to a lower criteria as the demand for the organ rises just as in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China and India or if the VAD’s 3,000 hours ticks closer.”

Yes to all the above.

Quote : “Abuse of brain death criteria around the world is widespread and quite possibly in Malaysia if some cases highlighted in the media are anything to go by.”

Widespread?  Can you provide some evidence? Especially for Malaysia since you say it is quite possible.  Which cases were highlighted in the media, was it local or foreign?  Making sweeping statements without basis is  libelous / slanderous.  Sorry I am not a legal eagle, I could never differentiate the two.  Initially you criticized the media for being non-discerning and misleading, now you take other reports as the truth?  We should not cherry pick what we want to believe.

Quote : “In Japan, the name Juro Wada is almost synonymous with how society can turn distrustful of organ donation. …….”

Another incidence of cherry-picking using anecdotal evidence.  For every unethical/illegal example, there are hundreds of ethical counterparts.  These bad hats taught us measures to prevent similar mistakes. Brain death in Malaysia is confirmed by 2 independent specialists through a number of set tests under specified conditions, at repeated at least 6 hours. These 2 doctors must be in no way associated with potential organ recipients.  Please refer to Malaysia Medical Council’s website for details.

Quote : “Even within the medical fraternity no one knows the short, medium and long term results of mortality and morbidity rates of all organs transplanted in Malaysia.”

I am not sure about other organs, but the renal fraternity has an ongoing annual report since 1992.

Quote : “These transplants may be less glamorous but a long and gratifying track record in these areas may warm Malaysians eventually to actually accepting brain death.”

While I agree with FK-506 on the need for equal emphasis on living related transplants etc, how that helps Malaysians come to terms with the concept of brain death is a mystery to me.  The two do not seem to be related.

Quote : “Hopefully someday we will have a primary healthcare system that will prevent the emergence of most diseases but until then we should avoid descending into the questionable achievement of killing people to save the dying.”

This final statement is the most shocking lie in the whole letter.  Claiming Malaysian doctors are killing people to obtain their organs is an insult beyond my imagination.  If FK-506 has any evidence on this, I implore him/her to make a police report immediately in order to bring the culprits to book.  If not, he should apologize immediately for spreading falsehood.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 12 October 2007, 10:23 am and is filed under
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Organ transplantation…brain death and financial implications (3)

Letters

by FK-506

In reply to
Carpe Diem’s
cherry picked quotes to the letter,
‘Organ transplant: Are we on the right track?’
,   the writer’s attempts to endorse this country’s nascent transplant program by trying to downplay key issues in any transplant program — financial implications and controversies surrounding brain death is reprehensible.

Quote : “… … … ..it isn’t quite right to place patients on VADs which have a limited life of their own into patients, not knowing if they are ever going to get a heart. This cannot be ethically correct.”

“Is it more ethical to deny me this option, based on not knowing whether I will get a heart in time, if the expertise is available and I am more than willing?”

For how long and at whose cost? Is Carpe going to pay this out from his or her own pocket? Clearly this person doesn’t realize the economic costs of such programs on government expenditure, unless of course, Carpe thinks that it is the state’s moral duty to transplant everyone with end-stage heart failure, liver failure, renal failure, etc. Chua Soi Lek moaned only last year that the MOH couldn’t afford to pay the RM900 million pharmaceutical bill for patients being treated by the Ministry. But miraculously he today is quoted to have said that the Cabinet, which has never shown respect for tax-payers money, is willing to provide even up to a billion ringgit for a transplant program. Incredible. Where is the set of priorities? Why don’t the cabinet approve the billion ringgit so that patients get better care, better follow-ups, better education programs, home nursing and of course better medicines, so that less patients end up in heart failure, renal or liver failures.

The age old idiom “prevention is better then cure” must hold true for this country based on the economy that we have unless Carpe is advocating American style healthcare, in which case, I would like to suggest that the technology be kept going but all transplants be borne by private funds. And I do hope Carpe fathoms the economic consequences of transplant programs. I hope he/she realized what happened to Barnard’s pioneering transplant work at Groote-Schur in South Africa. Transplant programs were immediately shut down by incoming President Nelson Mandela in 1994 when he realized that precious and limited health resources that could be used for Soweto’s populace suffering from cholera, typhoid, malaria and an AIDs incidence of almost 14% in some provinces, were being channeled to a glamorous transplant program.  Are we in Malaysia any different if the startling statistics provided by our own MOH are anything to go by? In Sabah alone, even decades after independence, we have still not eradicated malaria and TB.

Quote: “Merican howled that what SJMC and Tan did were improper as ignorant patients may “not have been briefed about complications”. Tan, who pioneered liver transplant techniques at King’s College, London, of course left, preferring to base himself in “less ethical” Singapore, leaving Merican to focus on traditional medicine back here in Malaysia.”

That Merican howled is a fact. It is also a fact that K.C. Tan announced in the media that he was not willing to work in the ethical environment imposed on him. But the end result of this entire episode was clear. Malaysia’s liver transplant program in the private sector, supported quite earnestly by the media even then, was dead in the water. No RM30 million, 100 million or 1 billion ringgit boost to this program, although it was led by a Malaysian surgeon and the incidence of patients requiring liver transplants were equally a concern. Even private donations collected to help patients in this program were ultimately taken over by the Ministry. Why the double standards? Was it because K.C.Tan was a private surgeon working at a private hospital? Or was it due to something else? Yes the insinuation is direct. I am sure readers can make their own conclusions.

Quote: “Many fail to realise that the most painful thing about losing a family member to a traffic accident is the suddenness.”

In dealing with the emotions of doctors in trying to convince patients to donate their organs, I have to assume Carpe is unaware of Singapore’s HOTA where despite the objections of the family, the state still has the right to the patient’s organs and doctors are duty bound to remove them either by gentle persuasion or by force as in the case of Sim Tee Hua in February of this year. Chua Soi Lek, well known now for his medico-legal bungling, during the euphoria of the recent heart transplant, actually announced that the laws of this nation would be changed so that families of patients who had pledged their organs previously will not be able to object.

Can we implement this in culturally and religiously sensitive Malaysia? A doctor’s feelings will become irrelevant if this Act comes through just as in the HOTA. He/she will just have to carry out his duty irrespective of the suddenness of the death so that organs harvested remain fresh and viable. Culture, religion, family objections including doctor’s feelings will have to take a back seat.

Quote: “And if you define human death as brain death and give doctors the power to demand or request organs, a family member might have his heart or lung ripped out even before they have a chance to mourn.”

Human death IS brain death? Really! By whose standards? Perhaps Carpe has forgotten that human death was always defined as cessation of the beating heart before Barnard did his transplant. The issue of brain death only arose when Barnard did his transplant. The following year an adhoc committee at Harvard Medical School rejected the notion that death was when the heart stopped. Rather they claimed a person was dead when higher neurological functions ceased. They came out with a list of criteria and quickly established brain death laws which were challenged half-heartedly in US courts. (Report of Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death: A definition of irreversible coma. JAMA 1968; 205:337). These criteria subsequently became law in the United States. As all things done in a hurry no one knew the implications it would have in the future. An ever-trusting American public believed the medical fraternity who were largely responsible for coming up with these criteria.

If Carpe thinks Malaysians, with their cultural and religious attachments, would be as gullible as the American public to believe that “human death is brain death”, then surely Carpe has not worked in a Pusat Kesihatan Kecil or on the outbacks of Kelantan, Trengganu or Kedah. It is certainly not going to be the same here and brain death regulations may have to mirror those in Japan rather than Singapore. The 1968 committee that endorsed brain-death syndrome in the United States consisted largely of physicians. But when Japan established its own brain-death committee in 1989, it included human rights activists, social scientists, a Buddhist lawyer, a Catholic novelist, a newspaper editor, an environmentalist, and a labor leader. Whereas the American committee reached consensus quickly, the Japanese committee debated for three years.

On June 16, 1997, brain death became a legal definition of death in Japan, but not the legal definition of death. Under the amended law, only people who sign up in advance to be donors can be pronounced legally dead upon meeting brain-death criteria. For citizens uncomfortable with brain death, the age-old stopped-heart criterion remains the standard.

Carpe’s repeated pronouncement that human death is brain death is not only grossly misplaced but reveals a disturbing impudence in the absolute definition of brain death when this science is still being debated although the rushed Harvard’s consensus and its modified versions are currently accepted as necessary for possible euthanasia and transplant programs.

Quote : “Add this to the current perception of widespread political corruption with a judiciary hopelessly entangled in a quagmire from which no one knows if they are ever going to extricate themselves, you will end up with a family or relative not wanting to believe anything the authorities tell you including the fact that their beloved is brain dead.”

Clearly Carpe doesn’t appear quite current in the often reported medical blunders in the media these last few years. Perhaps in Carpe’s eyes, all of them including failing ambulances, undiagnosed dengue deaths, lost arms, etc are anectodal. They may be. But there is a trend, a trend dangerously associated with the quality of medical schools and students in and out of the country. As theses anectodes appear common place, missing or confirming a person brain dead and thereby removing his vital organs consequentially killing him or her is not a remote possibility.

Quote: “And is brain death criteria in Malaysia strictly adhered to? Are our anesthetists, neurologists, neurosurgeons or critical care physicians well trained in ascertaining brain death? Will our brain death certifiers be singularly medically unbiased or will they lean towards to a lower criteria as the demand for the organ rises just as in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China and India or if the VAD’s 3,000 hours ticks closer.”

Yes to all the above? This is a travesty. The anesthetists in our unit who claim that although they were taught about brain death, admit that they have had little exposure or experience in actually confirming someone brain dead. They seem unfamiliar with the criteria and at times quarrel which criteria should be followed and which one should be given any particular importance. Perhaps they do this to avoid having to make a decision or maybe they are just ethically shy. But ratcheting brain death criteria downwards is a problem in the United States where organs are in high demand.

China has been repeatedly been in the news and was the focus of a BBC documentary this year where prisoners’ organs were booked prior to them being executed. In India, kidnapping for the removal of kidneys is not uncommon. The CEO of a large corporate hospital in India in fact even campaigned that the sale of organs be legalized to reduce the black market trade of organs in India.

Can Carpe really be oblivious to organ trafficking which is an established massive problem globally?  A kidney fetches US$2700 in Turkey. An Indian or Iraqi kidney is a mere US$1000. Wealthy clients later pay for a rare organ up to US$150,000. Organs are even auctioned on e-Bay and can fetch between US100,000 to US 1million depending on the organ and demand. Organ harvesting operations flourish in Turkey, central Europe, mainly in the Czech Republic, the Caucasus, mainly in Georgia. They operate in Turkey, Moldavia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarusia, Romania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania. They remove kidneys, lungs, pieces of liver, even corneas, bones, tendons, heart valves, skin and other sellable human bits. The organs are kept in cold storage and air lifted to illegal distribution centers in the United States, Germany, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, Israel, South Africa, and other rich, industrialized locales. It gives “brain drain” a new, spine chilling, meaning.

Organ trafficking is an international trade. It involves Indian, Thai, Philippine, Brazilian, Turkish and Israeli doctors who scour the Balkan and other destitute regions for tissues. There have been reports that Moldavia and Romania stopped the practice of baby adoption by desperate foreign couples for fear that babies were being sliced open for their organs. That the abuse of brain death criteria here is not in question, but more importantly how do we monitor and halt this errant practice? Yes, you need to be a legal eagle if you are going to spot a problem in establishing brain death.

As for the local scene, only two reports have been reported so widely as to raise eyebrows. The first is the double lung transplant on an Indian patient whose donor was from a private hospital across town. The NST reported that despite valiant attempts the recipient died on the table. But the lungs came from a hospital where the operating surgeon had a friendly anesthetist with whom he had worked previously with at that hospital. Whether brain death was confirmed by the friendly anesthetist or by a team independent of the operating team was questionable.

However, the recent double transplant was just filled with too many coincidences for comfort. A patient on a VAD, without a heart for a year. Then a media blitz. A heart is found in Ipoh where presumably brain death was certified independently. Then the transplanted heart sustains “hyperacute rejection”. A second heart  “comes by” after another patient is certified brain dead, with the same blood type, size etc and also hopefully certified brain dead by anesthetists/neurologists/neurosurgeons independent of the harvesting team with the usual 6 hour repeat tests or the isoelectric EEG 24 hours apart all within the space of a day. It may have been a miracle, but it does sound too close for comfort. Readers, I am certain can draw their own conclusions.

Splitting hairs, storm in a tea cup? No. Brain death is a serious matter as it involves taking away a person’s life if vital organs are harvested. And no doctor in his right mind will do it unless he is very certain that this patient has absolutely no chance of waking-up. The views of Dr. Yusho Muranaka, parliamentarian Takashi Yamamoto, Dr David Wainwright Evans, Dr David Hill, Michael Potts, the Hastings Centre Report (1993) and cardiologist Yoshio Watanabe, all of whom have expressed dissenting views regarding brain death cannot just be wished away. There are anesthetists even in Britain who don’t carry a donor card because they know what actually transpires when determining brain death. Even Islamic views on brain death are mixed. The strongest proponents, understandably, for the establishment of brain death criteria have almost always been the transplant industry. Brain death is a scientific definition but it doesn’t mean this definition is accepted globally let alone Malaysia.

Quote: “In Japan, the name Juro Wada is almost synonymous with how society can turn distrustful of organ donation. … … .”

Another incidence of cherry-picking using anecdotal evidence? There isn’t any need to. There are enough Juro Wadas from Brazil, right across to China, India and East European countries. Malaysia probably does not have one because we don’t have an active transplant program. The danger is always there when there is little or no surveillance.

Quote: “Even within the medical fraternity no one knows the short, medium and long term results of mortality and morbidity rates of all organs transplanted in Malaysia.”

Excellent. The renal guys have done good. Now if only we can have some data for the corneas, bones, livers, lungs, hearts, etc. I am sure the public will glow with confidence.

Quote: “These transplants may be less glamorous but a long and gratifying track record in these areas may warm Malaysians eventually to actually accepting brain death.”

Do we have an active transplant program for organs that don’t involve brain death? Corneas, kidneys, living related livers, bones, etc. We don’t. Why don’t you show the public that you can do these operations well with little complications and establish properly your organ procurement programs for these organs before you rush into taking out hearts or lungs that causes another person to die. The public cannot be rushed into accepting brain death, especially a society as diverse as Malaysia. But an active transplant program in areas that does not involve brain death will certainly encourage and educate the public about the pros of transplants. One brain death diagnosed wrongly, will see a backlash so bad that the public may not want transplant programs at all.

Quote: “Hopefully someday we will have a primary healthcare system that will prevent the emergence of most diseases but until then we should avoid descending into the questionable achievement of killing people to save the dying.”

Either the writer is hopelessly immature or downright ignorant for taking this phrase out of context. A first class, well funded primary health care system will reduce the emergence of most of these diseases which require transplantation. And yes, if you take the heart or lung out of a person, you do kill him unless you want to paraphrase it differently. And you do put the donor organ into generally a sick or dying patient or at least we hope that’s the way it’s done in Malaysia. Transplant technology entails killing people to save the dying. Hard facts are sometimes difficult to swallow. Carpe Diem is welcome to rephrase this any other way he/she chooses if it helps him/her sleep better at night.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 13 October 2007, 10:21 am and is filed under
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Abdullah the new patron saint for “the truth that is not the truth”?

The Information Minister, Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin  was among the Umno Ministers  joining Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at  the Prime Minister’s Hari Raya Open House at the Putra World Trade Centre yesterday.

When I shook hands with him, wishing him “Selamat Hari Raya”, I remarked that he has become the spokesman  for “the truth that is not the truth”.

Zam knew I was referring to Friday’s Malaysiakini report
“Zam to media: No need to tell PM the truth”
:

Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin has told editors not to play up negative news because Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s pledge to “hear the truth” does not apply to the media.

Zainuddin said this during a one-hour meeting on Wednesday at the RTM headquarters in Kuala Lumpur with the country’s top editors.

The country’s information czar is one of two top government officials to hold meetings with the media top brass this week.

Yesterday, chief secretary to the government Mohd Sidek Hassan in another meeting urged media organisations to avoid emphasising on news deemed negative against the government, such as the 2006 Auditor-General’s report.

According to sources, Zainuddin began the meeting by declaring that he would frequently meet editors to advise them about national issues.

However, he stressed that he would only “advise and not give warnings”.

The information minister claimed that he assumed the new role under the instructions of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Zainuddin then explained that Abdullah’s often repeated pledges of “listening to the truth” were only restricted to government officials and Barisan Nasional leaders so as to assist the cabinet in making decisions.

Based on the account by a well-placed source, Zainuddin said Abdullah’s pledge did not mean that the media have the green light to practice unrestrained reporting because certain topics were considered highly sensitive.

Zainuddin added that the cabinet often scrutinises media reports and have noticed that at times, Abdullah’s statements have been misconstrued. However, the minister did not elaborate on this.

The information minister also ticked off two television stations, warning them to stay away from reporting with a racial slant as this could trigger another ‘May 13’ riots.

Zainuddin did not deny the veracity of the  Malaysiakini report.

Zainuddin is inconsequential.

What is important is whether Zainuddin was speaking the truth when he claimed that he was instructed by the Prime Minister to inform the media, four years after he had first declared that he wanted to “hear the truth”, Abdullah  had not meant  the media  or the general public but was only referring to Barisan Nasional leaders and government officials.

Has Abdullah become the new patron saint for “the truth that is not the truth”? The Malaysian press and public deserve a direct answer from Abdullah and not through any mouthpiece.

If there is no denial or clarification from Abdullah in the next 24 hours, then we can only assume that Zainuddin was indeed speaking the truth when he spinned to media editors about “the truth that is not the truth”.

In such a case, Malaysians  concerned about the latest “tightening of the screws” on the media as well as another reneging of Abdullah’s  pledges of reform and greater  government openness, accountability and trustworthiness must speak up loud and clear against another national retrogression on the occasion of the nation’s 50th Merdeka anniversary as well as fourth anniversary of Abdullah’s premiership at the end of the month.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 14 October 2007, 11:35 am and is filed under
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Practical Policies, Not Party Politics

by M. Bakri Musa

[In a recent private e-mail to me, a reader chastised me for being “NATO” (No Action, Talk Only).  He intimated that if I really loved Malaysia, I should come home and contest the elections.  As many readers share his sentiment of me, I post my reply to him.  His original letter, in the usual rojak style of Malay liberally interspersed with English, follows.]

Dear Johan:

Thank you for taking your valuable time in sharing your thoughts with me.

My retort to your “NATO” (No Action, Talk Only) accusation is simply this:  Been there, done that!  However, such a tart response would not do justice to a diligent reader like you who has, by your own admission, bought all my books!

As for my returning home, I served Malaysia on my own accord (no scholarship or other contractual bonds) for nearly three years way back when.  It was at a time when my presence (at least initially) doubled the number of Malay surgeons in the country!  Although I was proud of my achievements during my brief tenure there, I soon discovered that I would have fewer headaches if I were to stop banging my head against the bureaucratic wall.  So I left.

I have returned many times since.  On each trip, instead of bringing trinkets for my nieces and nephews, I brought boxes of books to donate to my village school library.  On one occasion, the principal proudly displayed to me the mound of books that I had donated over the years.  She proudly drew my attention to the fact it was significantly bigger than a similar gift from the World Bank!

On another occasion, I discussed with the biology teacher of a residential school about donating a video microscope.  He was ecstatic as his school had been requesting that for over four years and had been denied by the ministry.  No funds! — the chronic lament, or more correctly, excuse from our civil servants!  Out of interest I inquired about the cost and was flabbergasted to discover that it was ten times more expensive than what I could have bought it!  I suggested that the school use me as a purchasing agent to buy directly in America and thus effect considerable savings.  Not possible, as the ministry’s policy is that all procurements must be through a particular company.  Needless to say, this company was owned by a member of the royal family active in UMNO.  That confirmed what I had long suspected:  the massive Ministry of Education exists not for the children’s education but as a source of lucrative contracts for UMNO cronies.

Since Abdullah Badawi came into power, I had been warned from the highest level of the police force not to return.  The warning came not as a threat but simply a message conveyed by someone from within the force concerned about my personal safety.  Just to add substance to that threat, my friends in Malaysia have told me that the Special Branch had interviewed them!  Fortunately thus far, it has just been an interview.

I have told them that I would not forgive myself if their friendship or association with me were to bring grief to them.

Consequently I advised them to say whatever they want of me if that would get the authorities to back off.

I have been called many names, but stupid is not one of them.  Nor would I take stupid risks.

As you may have found out from my earlier books and essays, I was equally severe in my criticisms of Abdullah’s predecessor.  Yet at no time was I concerned about my personal safety even during the height of the 1997 economic crisis when Mahathir faced his most daunting challenges.  It is indeed ironic (and reflects the insecurity and the hoax of piety of an Imam of Islam Hadhari) that Abdullah feels threatened by my commentaries.  He and his sycophants have nothing to worry from me if, to paraphrase you, I were only a village champion out for glory.

My writing is the only way I know for me to continue my effort or jihad, if you would like to put it that way.  As long as Malaysians and others like you are reading what I write, I will continue doing so.  If nothing else I would have done my part in increasing the Malay contributions to the published world.  That would be a satisfying enough accomplishment for me, and certainly more than what many could claim.

As an aside, I do have a day (and on many occasions, night time too!) job here that is both personally and professionally very rewarding.  As such I can afford to contribute my royalties to a Malaysian charity.

As for my joining UMNO or any political party and contesting the elections as you suggested, we Malays must disabuse ourselves of the silly notion that the only way to contribute is through politics.  I do not blame you for suggesting that, for some of our brightest Malays feel the same way as you do.  And they end up wasting their precious talent.

One of my classmates in secondary school once headed a thriving and (at the time) the biggest medical clinic in Malaysia.  I was so excited at his prospects that I thought of giving up my practice here in America to join him.  He had the potential of creating a Malaysian Mayo Clinic.  Alas, my friend, anticipating your advice, caught the political bug.  He ended up nowhere politically.  He did however reach the state “Exco” level and get his Datukship.  To some, those are achievements enough.  As for his once promising clinic, it is now a shamble.

I now look askance at another young Malay, a brilliant entrepreneurial lawyer who successfully created the largest law firm in Malaysia, all before his 50th birthday!  That is a solid accomplishment by any standard!  However, he too got caught up politically.  The last time I read about him, he was found guilty by UMNO on some trumped-up charges of “money politics!”  At least he could be comforted that it was not some framed-up sordid sex scandal!

Nonetheless he fought hard to reclaim his good name, but to no avail.  Knowing the caliber, character and reputation of its senior operators, to be ostracized by UMNO would be a singular badge of honor.  When criminals become judges, virtuous deeds get criminalized.  Remember, even former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir could not get voted in as a lowly UMNO delegate.  That was a blemish not on him but on UMNO.

Creating the largest medical clinic or legal firm would have been a singular achievement.  Imagine the reflected racial glory!  Such an endeavor would take smart work, extraordinary diligence, and more than just good luck.  I am therefore not surprised that many Malays opted for the easy path out, like wildly brandishing their krises or endlessly exhorting “Ketuanan Melayu!”

I am interested in policies that work, not in party politics for personal glory.  Under the present circumstances, my returning to Malaysia would only risk my personal safety, and I have no desire to be a martyr.  Perhaps you could pay a visit to Kamunting Camp some day to see what I mean.  If you do, especially during this time of Ramadan, please bring something for those poor souls incarcerated without trial.

       Please note that as many of my readers share your sentiments of me, I have taken the liberty of “Bcc’ing” my response to you as well as your e-mail among my Internet chat groups, as well as posting it on my blog.

Sallam,

M. Bakri Musa

Johan’s original e-mail (with my translation):

NO ACTION TALK ONLY.  Syabas Encik Bakri, saya mendapati banyak tulisan awak sangat bernas and menyegarkan
[Congratulations, Mr. Bakri!  I found your writings spirited and refreshing].
  I even bought all your books.

       Tetapi lama kelamaan, saya mendapati awak menulis hanya semata-mata untuk menunjukkan yang awak ni pandai atau mungkin semata-mata mencari glamour.  Kalau betul-betul awak ni sangat cintakan Malaysia mengapa awak tidak balik saja dan bertanding dalam pilihanraya.  Awak ni macam hero kampong, berkokok seluruh kampong tapi tidak ada hasil.
[On further reflection, I believe that you write merely to show off how clever you are, or perhaps you are seeking glory.  If you really love Malaysia, why not return and contest the elections?  You are like a village hero, crowing loudly put producing nothing.]

       Ya, awak mesti fikir saya ni orang suruhan UMNO kan.
[Yes, you may think I am an UMNO hack.]
  But sorry to disappoint you, I’m not even a Malaysian.

       Sekurang-kurangnya Pak Lah dengan segala kekurangan dia cuma untok melakukan sesuatu untok Malaysia.
[At least Pak Lah with all his deficiencies is doing something for Malaysia.]
 But you, berkokoklah kuat-kuat
[continue with your loud crowing]
.  But remember to clap your wings even harder.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 15 October 2007, 8:33 am and is filed under
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Proton-Volkswagen deal – “a buyer’s market”

GERMAN MEDIA FRENZY OVER POSSIBLE VW-PROTON ALLIANCE

Wednesday, October 10, 2007; Posted: 02:06 AM

FRANKFURT (Germany), Oct 10, 2007 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) — Germany’s print and broadcast media, not to mention the specialised trade media, have been churning out reports over the past few days about an impending deal between Wolfsburg-based giant carmaker Volkswagen (VW) and Malaysia’s national car company Proton (KLSE:5304).

Germany’s leading dailies such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt and the Handelsblatt have been speculating that VW may finally be on its way to forming an alliance with Proton, by either acquiring a 20 per cent stake in Proton or forming a joint venture company which would include Proton assets.

Later, VW might increase its stake in Proton to 50 per cent. An indication to this effect was given by VW head Martin Winterkorn himself in a recent interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, when he said that VW would “move in that direction”.

VW’s acquisition of Proton will strengthen the German carmaker’s position in Southeast Asia.

But VW, according to Winterkorn, would like to see the risks minimised and is also interested in Proton’s extensive network of dealers and agents.

But he also emphasised in the interview that VW was “nowhere even near a due diligence”. He would first see what concessions Malaysia had to offer.

However, German industry pundits said that VW could afford the luxury of waiting longer while the Malaysian side could not.

Indeed, VW will insist that the Malaysian government provides a “soft landing” cushion to compensate it against any losses at Proton for, at least, three years.

Winterkorn, who has been steering the management wheel at VW since last year, is expected to visit Malaysia “in the very near future”, as one company spokesman said, without elaborating.

The “on-off-on” talks between the two sides were first initiated in October 2004 when the Malaysian side, no longer able to withstand the financial bleeding of the national carmaker, was desperately looking for a foreign partner who could either turn around the loss-making Proton or completely take over the company.

Most German analysts see the comments made by Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as providing clues to Proton’s future survival. Abdullah said recently that Volkswagen was studying Proton for a possible strategic deal that could help “save” the Malaysian carmaker.

The word “save” is the keyword here as it implies, according to German industry experts, that Proton faces a gradual corporate death if it is not quickly resuscitated by someone with the financial muscle of VW.

The VW management is, ostensibly, conscious of the fact that a deal with Proton would not only catapult the latter to regain the top spot in Malaysia’s car market, but also enable it to get a foothold inside Europe which it has already tried in the past but was unsuccessful because of its high prices.

Due to Proton’s plight, VW believes that it holds the better card in the corporate poker game.

VW seems to relish its unique position. With rivals General Motors and French carmaker Peugeot having withdrawn from partnership talks with Proton, VW is now the only one whom the Malaysian carmaker has to turn to.

The fact that Proton reported a loss of RM46.75 million in the first quarter to June has further strengthened VW’s bargaining power because it knows that the Malaysian government will now be under pressure.

“It’s a buyer’s market,” said Wolfgang Frank, a Frankfurt-based German analyst who works for a local bank and monitors the automotive market.

But a recent analysis by A.T. Kearny projects Malaysia as not relevant in the near future for carmakers, either as a market or as a production site.

The study, a copy of which the Duesseldorf-based Handelsblatt claims to be in its hands, has raised questions in German industry circles as to why VW wants to get involved with Proton.

A.T. Kearny’s Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index, which reflects the investment plans of international corporate executives, showed that China and India lead the list of favourite investment destinations while Malaysia ranks 35th.

Frank Rattey, one of the authors of the study, said that the costs are much higher in Malaysia than China and the market is limited.

Also, the government does not want Malaysia as a production site but only as a site for high-value services, particularly for financial institutions.

According to Kearney, nearly half a million cars will leave the assembly lines of Malaysia’s automobile plants this year.

A total of 15 car plants are based on the western Malaysian peninsula, where in addition to Proton, rival car manufacturers such as Perodua, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and the alliance partners Renault-Nissan assemble and build cars.

The biggest plant produces 250,000 units each year and is operated by Perodua together with Toyota.

The company produces cars under licence from the Toyota associate Daihatsu.

Perhaps, as German analysts speculate, the temptation for VW to join hands with Proton does not lie in Asia but in England where the British sports car plant Lotus, a Proton associate, is based.

(BERNAMA-OANA)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 15 October 2007, 12:17 am and is filed under
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Zam the “Minister for Truth” ala-Orwell’s 1984 in Abdullah administration?

It is five days since last
Wednesday’s extraordinary briefing
to the country’s top editors by the Information Minister, Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin that the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s pledge to “hear the truth”  does not apply to the media as it was restricted to Barisan Nasional leaders and government officials — and three days since the public revelation of such a “directive” by
Malaysiakini
 in an exclusive report on Friday.

As there had been no clarification or correction by the Prime Minister to such a briefing by Zainuddin, who specifically told the editors that he was acting under Abdullah’s instructions to convey to the media that the Prime Minister’s  repeated pledges to “listen to the truth” did not mean that the media have the green light to “practice unrestrained reporting”, I feel compelled to pose in Parliament when it reconvenes next week  the following question:

Does Abdullah want Zainuddin  to be his “Minister for Truth” ala-Orwell’s 1984, exemplar of “doublespeak and doublethink” in his administration?

George Orwell’s novel 1984  painted a totalitarian country  paralleling Stalinist Russia and Hitlerian Nazi Germany,  where there is incessant brainwashing and re-education in a society saturated by doublethink and doublespeak.

There is a Ministry of Peace which concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and Ministry of Plenty with starvation.

Is Malaysia on the occasion of Abdullah’s fourth anniversary as Prime Minister  heading in the direction of the “doublethink and doublespeak” of Orwell’s 1984, starting with the directive to the editors that the Prime Minister’s pledge to “hear the truth” does not apply to the press or the public at large?

Is this the reason why Abdullah’s pledge to eradicate corruption and to be the modern-day Justice Bao is meant to be understood in the reverse, resulting in even-worse corruption in the country in the past four years?

And why on the occasion of the 50th Merdeka anniversary, when there should be a greater sense of national unity and oneness, the prevailing sentiments in the country are the reverse?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 15 October 2007, 11:08 am and is filed under
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Who lied? Zam or Pak Lah?

Who lied?  Was it the Information Minister, Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin or the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself?

On Friday, 6th October 2007, speaking at the
Gerakan National Delegates Conference
, Abdullah called on “leaders, especially those in Barisan Nasional” to tell him the truth and to stop “be in a state of denial”.

He exhorted:

“Tell the truth, even if it is painful.

“The prime minister must have the courage and readiness to listen even to the worst stories, whether it is related to the country or himself. Never allow yourself to sink in a hole of denial and feel that everything is alright.”

Four days later, on Wednesday 10th October 2007, Information Minister Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin summoned top media editors to a
special briefing
and in the name of the Prime Minister, laid down the law that

	Abdullah’s pledge to “hear the truth”  does not apply to the media as it was restricted to Barisan Nasional leaders and government officials; and

	the Prime Minister’s  repeated pledges to “listen to the truth” did not mean that the media have the green light to “practice unrestrained reporting”.

It is a reflection of the deplorable  state of press freedom in Malaysia that no mainstream media had protested or written about Zainuddin’s violation of a free press, especially under a Prime Minister who had pledged greater openness, accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance!

In fact, Zainuddin’s summoning of the top media editors to direct them what to print and what  not to print would be completely unthinkable in the past 50 years of the nation’s development, as no Information Minister would have such temerity to regard himself as the Comptroller-General of the Press.

One of two things would have happened if any former Information Minister had done what Zainuddin did last Wednesday:

	A public exposure or protest appearing in one or more of the mainstream press; and/or

	Demand for confirmation that Zainuddin was really speaking in the name of the Prime Minister and the further demand by the top media editors for a meeting with the Prime Minister himself.

But neither one of these two things happened — and if not for Malaysiakini’s expose in last  Friday’s report, the Malaysian public would have continued to be kept in the dark about the spreading tentacles to stifle press freedom in the Abdullah administration.

Almost four years ago, when he first became Prime Minister, Abdullah had made his first call to be told the truth

Speaking at the opening of the MIC branch chairmen convention on November 9, 2003, Abdullah told Barisan Nasional component party leaders and members to give him correct information to enable the government to respond appropriately to the people’s needs.

He said:

“Tell me the truth.

“Sometimes people do not provide truthful information for fear that I will cry, worry or lose sleep over it. But as a leader, I have to know the truth.

“If we (leaders) are not prepared to hear the truth, then we should not become leaders.”

Had Abdullah been telling a lie in the past four years or was it Zainuddin who had lied.

Malaysians are entitled to an immediate  answer from the Prime Minister.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 16 October 2007, 11:56 am and is filed under
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Haider Panel on Lingam Tape – greatest service to cause of justice is to resign en masse

Sin Chew Daily
 and
China Press
reported today that the Haidar Panel into the authenticity of the Lingam Tape, which was supposed to meet for the second time today, has postponed its second meeting indefinitely.

China Press
 reported that the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA)’s inability to complete its investigations  into the Lingam Tape as the reason for the postponement of its second meeting today, which was fixed when the Haidar Panel met for the first time on October 3.

It is three weeks since the Haidar Panel’s appointment by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Sept. 27 to complete its terms of reference within a month.  The Haidar Panel took  one week to prepare for its first meeting on Oct. 3, after which it went into hibernation for two weeks leaving all the legwork to the ACA.

China Press
 reported that the next meeting of the Haidar Panel may be on Oct. 27, the last day  of its one-month life tenure.

In the past fortnight, the three-man Haidar Panel disappeared from public view completely upstaged by the two-act histrionics of the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, viz:

	Firstly claiming that witnesses and whistleblowers are protected by the law, even offering  plastic surgery to give “a new identity or even new look” for the person or persons who took the Lingam Tape,  only to find subsequently that there is no such Witness Protection Act or Bill; and

	Secondly claiming that he will ask the Cabinet to provide protection for the people behind the recording of the Lingam Tape, only to announce after the Cabinet meeting that there would be no such protection.

During the period, the ACA had issued an ultimatum to Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) vice president R. Sivarasa and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s personal assistant Sim Tze Tzin to reveal the source of the Lingam Tape or face prosecution and jail — with both defying the ultimatum.

With ten days left before its deadline of Oct. 27 to submit its report, who believes that the Haidar Panel is capable of submitting any report to authenticate the Lingam Tape after hibernating in the past three weeks and relying completely on the ACA to do all the legwork and refusing to call in technical experts to verify its authenticity without having to demand for  the source of the recording?

It is significant that there has been no clarification from any official quarter  about Najib’s statement on Oct. 3 that the Haidar Penal was not to call any witness, although after its first meeting the same day, the Haidar Panel called on witnesses to come forward despite its admission of the farcical  “Five No’s” — no power to administer oaths, no power to compel witnesses to come forward, no power to commit anybody for contempt, no power to provide immunity and no power to protect witnesses.

It may be said that the Haidar Panel would have achieved its  purpose if the  real objective of those who appointed it  was for it “to fail to authenticate” the Lingam Tape by October 27.

In fact, the government should explain why it is necessary to set up  the Haidar Panel to establish the authenticity of  the Lingam Tape, as it should be left to the ACA if all the investigation is to be done by the ACA.  Or is it because the powers-that-be are not very sure about the reliability of the ACA on the matter of establishing the authenticity of the Lingam Tape, if the ACA is allowed to carry out its investigations without any interference whatsoever?

The Haidar Panel should realize that it lacks public confidence and credibility, both in terms of its narrow scope of term reference which served the purpose of shifting the focus of the Lingam Tape scandal on the independence, integrity and meritocracy of the judiciary, as well as on the integrity of the Panel membership, in particular the conflict-of-interest role  of Tan Sri Haidar  Mohd Noor because of his past and present positions.

The greatest service the Haidar Panel can do to the cause of justice is for its three members  to resign en masse and to ask the Prime Minister to end the state-of- denial and establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Tape scandal and to restore public confidence in the independence, integrity and meritocracy of the judiciary.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 17 October 2007, 8:57 am and is filed under
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“Never” suspend Myanmar from ASEAN – Hamid’s statement most deplorable and reprehensible

I am totally flabbergasted by the
statement
of  the Foreign Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar that ASEAN will never suspend Myanmar despite its bloody crackdown on mass protests after his meeting with the United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari yesterday.

Hamid’s declaration is  most deplorable and reprehensible as it has undone the “revulsion” statement of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers in the United Nations last month  over the  violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations in Myanmar, given encouragement to the  Myanmar military junta’s hardline position and  undermined Ibrahim Gambari’s diplomatic efforts to kickstart a political dialogue in Burma for national reconciliation and democratization.

Malaysia’s public position that Myanmar will never be suspended from ASEAN under any circumstances will only strengthen and harden the Myanmar military junta in its defiant and unrepentant responses to the international outrage at  its bloody repression of peaceful dissent, shrugging off international action to punish it for its crackdown of the saffron revolution last month, even as Japan cut aid and European nations widened sanctions.

Even if the Malaysian government is currently of the view that Myanmar should never be suspended, let alone expelled, from ASEAN whatever egregious violations of human rights and democratic freedoms of the people of Burma are committed by the Myanmar military junta, why was it tactically necessary for Hamid to make such a public statement at a time when every lever should be applied to single-mindedly  impress on the Myanmar military junta the unity and weight of regional and international opinion that it should respond positively to United Nations initiatives for a political dialogue for national reconciliation and democratization in Burma and to end all human right violations.

However, is it the position of the Malaysian government under the premiership of Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that Malaysia will oppose any suspension or expulsion of Myanmar from ASEAN regardless of what human right violations and atrocities are committed by its military junta?

This should not be the position of the Malaysian government as the Malaysian Parliament has never given a mandate to the government to extend unconditional support to the Myanmar military junta whether regionally or internationally regardless of its human rights violations or atrocities or even crimes against humanity.

It is not enough for any ASEAN nation to say  that ASEAN backs the United Nation efforts and urges Myanmar to co-operate with Gambari and the United Nations to find a political solution.

There is not much optimism that Gambari will succeed in achieving a breakthrough with the Myanmar military junta, as evidenced by the continuing campaign of arrests and terror in Myanmar while Gambari continued to call for talks, unless all important players — especially China, India, ASEAN and the UN — do more.

All eyes are also on the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore next month as to how ASEAN is going to translate into action its “revulsion” at the bloody suppression of the saffron revolution last month and the continuing reign of terror in Burma, or whether 40th ASEAN anniversary which is to culminate in the signing of an ASEAN Charter would prove to be empty and meaningless occasion.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 17 October 2007, 9:26 am and is filed under
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ASEAN Charter – why sign it in Singapore Summit if it will be instantly discredited by Myanmar?

United Nations special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari has asked ASEAN nations
“to turn rhetoric into real action”
.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday after a two-day visit to Malaysia, which had included “substantive discussions” with the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,
Gambari
said:

“We appreciate the strong statement coming out of ASEAN but now is the time to work together for concrete results.”

The next one month must see concrete results from both  Gambari and the ASEAN Summit in Singapore to get  the political dialogue for national reconciliation and democratization in Burma off the ground or ASEAN and UN would again be led up by the garden path by Myanmese military junta to aid and abet the repressive and corrupt military rule in the narco-state.

Although Gambari said that the
United Nations
will not compel ASEAN to suspend Myanmar as a member but instead encourage it to remain engaged with the junta government to restore the democratic process and respect for human rights in the country, the suspension and expulsion of Myanmar from the regional organization must remain an option of  the ASEAN governments and peoples if the Myanmese military junta remain totally impervious after  two decades to calls for a tripartite dialogue among the generals, pro-democracy activists led by Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic nationalities to start the process of  national reconciliation and democratization.

The claim by the Foreign Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar that there is no mechanism for the suspension of Myanmar in ASEAN is not persuasive or convincing enough to justify the junta’s continued membership in ASEAN when it persists with its unrepentant,  intransigent and flagrant suppression of fundamental human rights which has brought ASEAN into international  odium and disrepute.

For instance, what is the purpose of the signing of the ASEAN Charter at the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore next month if the Myanmese military junta is at liberty to  defy national and international opinion,  enjoying full  impunity to continue its  egregious violation of human rights — turning the  ASEAN Charter instantly into  a discredited document and ASEAN the   laughing stock of the world?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 18 October 2007, 4:32 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia’s worst-ever ranking in RSF worldwide press freedom index – could be even worse!

In the
latest worldwide press freedom index released by Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
, Malaysia scored two “worsts” — the sharpest plunge  of 32 spots from 92 to 124 placing, which is also Malaysia’s worst ranking in the RSF annual worldwide press freedom ranking since it was started in 2002.

In the past six years, Malaysia had been ranked poorly in RSF’s annual worldwide press freedom index —

RSF Worldwide Press Freedom Index  (Malaysia)

2002	–	110  (out of 139 countries)

2003	–	104  (166)

2004	–	122  (167)

2005	–	113  (167)

2006	–	   92 (168)

2007  	–	124  (169)

Last year, when Malaysia jumped 21 spots to 92nd ranking from the previous year’s 113rd position, the
New Straits Times
crowed:

“This is the best ranking that the country has achieved since the global media watchdog first introduced the Index in 2002, when we came in 110th.  In fact, this is the first time the country has scored higher than all the other Asean countries. Last year, we were fourth, and the year before were fifth.”

The
New Straits Times
today did not report the 2007 RSF worldwide press freedom index released yesterday  and  Malaysia’s worst ever ranking and plunge.

This year, Malaysia cannot make the same claim of scoring higher than all the other Asean countries, as we are behind Cambodia (85) and Indonesia (100) while in the Asia-Pacific region, we are behind  Taiwan (32), Japan (37), South Korea (39), Hong Kong (61),  Timor-Leste (94), Bhutan (116) and  India (120).

Malaysia is one of five of the 169 countries which had suffered the worst plunge as compared to last year’s RSF  worldwide press freedom index, dropping by 32 places.

Malaysia’s drop and placing for this year’s RSF 2007 worldwide press freedom index would have been  worse if the shocking development that the Prime Minister does not want to hear the truth from the media and the public had been taken fully into account.

Can Malaysians expect a response from the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself to the shocking plunge and  placing of Malaysia in the RSF 2007 worldwide press freedom index in view of his earlier pledge to show greater respect for press freedom as compared to the previous administration?

Malaysia’s worst placing in the RSF 2007 worldwide press freedom index joins a lost list of indicators that all is not right with Malaysia on the occasion of our 50th Merdeka anniversary — that while we should  be proud  of our national achievements, we have greater reason to be concerned about our many national failings.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 18 October 2007, 11:20 am and is filed under
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Challenge to Ahmad Fairuz – resign as Chief Justice  if there is proof he lied and misled Nazri in misleading Parliament with his denial  as having advocated abolition of Common Law in August

Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim’s application  for
six-month extension as Chief Justice
should be rejected as he has brought the judiciary into greater disrepute and a new crisis of confidence in  the 55 months he was the highest judicial officer of the land.

In fact, in the past month Ahmad Fairuz had  gone into hiding since the Lingam Tape expose by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim  exactly a month ago, after the Chief Justice was implicated in the latest judicial scandal involving the perversion of the course of justice concerning the fixing of judicial appointments and court decisions — making total nonsense of the important principle of judicial accountability.

It is most scandalous that Ahmad Fairuz had not come out publicly to personally and categorically issue a denial of his involvement in the Lingam Tape scandal and had chosen instead to rely on the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz to bat for him and  claim that Ahmad Fairuz had phoned him to deny that he was the one talking to Lingam.

Firstly, in depending on a Cabinet Minister to “clear” his name, Ahmad Fairuz had undermined the doctrine of the separation of powers and the  important principle of the independence of the judiciary, making the Chief Justice and the  head of the Judiciary subservient and  beholden to the “favours” of a Cabinet Minister who is from the Executive.

Secondly, the “proxy” denial of Ahmad Fairuz through Nazri  lacks credibility, as he had used this stratagem once to deny what he had actually advocated –  the abolition of the English common law.

On
5th September 2007
,  Nazri replied in Parliament to my earlier speech criticizing Ahmad Fairuz’ call for the abolition of the common law system as being most unbecoming of the highest judicial officer of the land sworn to defend and uphold the Constitution and the Merdeka social contract.

Ahmad Fairuz had made such a call at the seminar on the thoughts and academic works of the late Tan Sri Ahmad Ibrahim on August 21, which made the front-page headline in the Utusan Malaysia the next day.

Nazri tried to give a very “slippery” reply. He gave a flat denial that Ahmad Fairuz had ever made such a call for the abolition of the common law system saying that the Chief Justice’s speech made no such mention whatsoever.

Nazri blamed reporters and their poor quality reporting for the mistake. However, when I asked why no correction had been made by Ahmad Fairuz for close to two weeks of the public controversy over his call, Nazri said Parliament was the best forum for the explanation.

Nazri’s explanation is completely unacceptable as under the doctrine of separation of powers, the Chief Justice should  not depend on a Cabinet Minister to clarify and explain what the head of the judiciary had said and meant.

The Chief Justices of other Commonwealth countries where the doctrine of separation of powers are given meaningful respect do not depend on Cabinet Ministers to clarify their speeches and statements, and rightly so, and there is no reason why Malaysia should start going down such a slippery path where members of the judiciary have to compromise their independence by  depending on members of the executive to extricate them from “tricky” situations of their own creation.

I have reasons to believe that Nazri had been misled by Ahmad Fairuz to mislead Parliament with the denial that the Chief Justice had proposed the abolition of the Common Law.

I challenge Ahmad Fairuz to surface publicly to deny that he had proposed the abolition of the English common law in August and to resign forthwith as Chief Justice if proof could be produced of his advocating the abolition of the  Common Law in Malaysia in August this year.

This would have meant that Ahmad Fairuz had lied as well has having misled Nazri into misleading Parliament with his denial  as having advocated abolition of Common Law in August.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 19 October 2007, 12:19 pm and is filed under
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Landmark  RM2.5 million damages ISA decision – AG should make policy decision not to appeal

The Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail should take the policy decision not to appeal against the landmark decision yesterday by High Court judge Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus in awarding Abdul Malek Hussin
RM2.5 million in damages
for having been unlawfully arrested, detained and beaten up while in police custody in 1998.

In ruling that Abdul Malek had succeeded in suing former Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Noor, a police officer and the Government, Hishamudin said “The behaviour of the defendants is inhumane, cruel and despicable, as the plaintiff was not just arrested and detained unlawfully for 57 days but was also subjected to a vile assault, unspeakable humiliation, prolonged physical and mental ill-treatment”.

A policy decision by the Attorney-General not to appeal against the Hishamuddin judgment will set a shining example and send a clear message that the era of human rights has arrived in Malaysia and the police and all public servants must respect human rights.

A decision by Gani Patail  to appeal against the Hishamudin decision can only mean that the Attorney-General himself and the government he represents is yet to “walk the talk” of respect for  human rights and is still condoning human right violations by the police and public servants — making nonsense not only of the establishment of Suhakam but also  of Malaysia’s calls for respect for  human rights in international forums, including the recent statements of outrage by Malaysian leaders at the human rights violations and atrocities by the Myanmar military junta in the brutal suppression of the “saffron revolution” in Burma.

The Hishammuddin judgment had been long in coming, as human rights abuses in the form of physical violence and other forms of torture had been common treatment meted out to ISA as well as non-ISA detainees — which must be condemned in no uncertain terms and stopped forthwith.

The Internal Security Act in allowing indefinite detention without trial is itself a gross violation of human rights and should be repealed without delay — as there are adequate laws to deal with national security and law and order in the country.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 19 October 2007, 1:28 pm and is filed under
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Lingam Tape – Another “Three No’s” to Haider Panel’s “Five No’s”

How pathetic! After three weeks,
no one
has come forward to give information to the Haidar Panel on the Lingam Tape!

This itself speaks louder than anything about  the  confidence the Haidar Panel commands among the Malaysian public  concerning  its credibility, independence, authority and legitimacy — which is zero!

The Haidar Panel has proved to be very “creative” in interpreting its month-long duration to complete its narrow term of reference to establish the authenticity of the Lingam Tape from Sept. 27 to 30 working days rather than 30 calender days — stretching its tenure to November 8, after the retirement of Tun Ahmad Fairuz as Chief Justice unless he gets an extension.

The Haidar Panel had started with the infamous “Five No’s” — no power to administer oaths, no power to compel witnesses to come forward, no power to commit anybody for contempt, no power to provide immunity and no power to protect witnesses.

It appears to have  acquired another Three No’s after three weeks – not knowing whether Chief Justice Tun Ahmad Fairuz was at end of the phone, not knowing whether senior lawyer V.T.  Lingam who appeared in the tape was the  real one  and not knowing whether  the video clip is genuine!

We are now told that the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) is sending the Lingam Tape to experts in Hong Kong to determine its authenticity.

Why did the ACA waste one whole month since the public expose of the Lingam Tape by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on Sept. 19 before seeking expert help to determine its authenticity?

Why didn’t the Haidar Panel simply asked Lingam and Ahmad Fairuz to state whether they admitted or denied the veracity of the Lingam Tape?

Or the Haidar Panel didn’t even have such powers to ask?

Today, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, who seemed to have been assigned a new portfolio of being the Minister responsible for the Lingam Tape, disclosed a  new gem of information.

Nazri said: “The panel does not have the power to investigate unless it gets the consent of the attorney-general”.

Nazri made this statement when he said that the Haidar Panel would have to depend on ACA investigations if no one volunteers to provide information on the authenticity of the video clip.

This is a most ludicrous situation. The Haidar Panel is appointed as an Independent Panel, but one attribute it clearly does not possess is being “independent”.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had publicly said that  the Haidar Penal was not to call any witness. Now it is revealed that the Haidar Panel does not have the power of investigations unless it gets the consent of the Attorney-General.

What are its other limitations or “un-doables” which have not been revealed?

What is the role of the Police in the Haidar Panel inquiry, as the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Musa Hassan also turned up at the first meeting  of the panel, apart from the Attorney-General and the ACA’s No. 2.

It is ridiculous that the Haidar Panel’s job is reduced to accepting  or rejecting  the ACA’s investigations on the authenticity of the tape. The ACA is supposed to be an independent and professional body, working according to the highest standards of investigation.

It is a serious  aspersion on the professionalism of the ACA that its investigations should be subject to the second-guessing of the three-man Haidar Panel whose members  enjoy no expertise whatsoever in the field.

The rigmarole  of feet-dragging over  a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Tape and the pressing issue of restoration of confidence in the independence, integrity and meritocracy of the judiciary had been dragged out  for too long and in the national interest, the Prime Minister should establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry without any further delay.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 19 October 2007, 3:37 pm and is filed under
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Ahmad Fairuz is not fit to continue for a single day as Chief Justice

I am calling this media conference to prove that the Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim had misled Parliament in his denial that he had advocated the abolition of the Common Law at the seminar on the thoughts and academic works of the late Tan Sri Ahmad Ibrahim two months ago on August 21, which made the front-page headline,
“Mansuh Common Law — Ketua Hakim Negara mahu perundangan lapuk Inggeris diganti”
, in the Utusan Malaysia the next day.

On 5th September 2007,  the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz  replied in Parliament to my earlier speech criticizing Ahmad Fairuz’ call for the abolition of the common law system as being most unbecoming of the highest judicial officer of the land sworn to defend and uphold the Constitution and the Merdeka social contract.

Nazri gave a flat denial that Ahmad Fairuz had ever made such a call for the abolition of the common law system saying that the Chief Justice’s speech made no such mention whatsoever.

Nazri blamed reporters and their poor quality reporting for the mistake. However, when I asked why no correction had been made by Ahmad Fairuz for close to two weeks of the public controversy over his call, Nazri said Parliament was the best forum for the explanation.

Nazri also made the following claim:

“Hari pertama perkara ini keluar, Ketua Hakim telah menghubungi saya untuk menyatakan bahawa itu merupakan satu perkara tidak benar yang dituliskan dalam akhbar. Saya tidak menyalahi beliau kerana dengan izin I have got bad experience juga dengan surat khabar. Apa juga yang kita nafikan yang dilaporkan mereka, tidak mendapat tempat yang sama seperti mana mereka telah melaporkan sehari sebelum itu sebab credibilitynya. Saya rasa, pada saya, it is a waste of time.”

It is significant that up to now, Ahmad Fairuz had neither  refuted nor confirmed Nazri’s denial on his behalf  that he had ever called for the abolition of the common law although the Chief Justice should know that his call  had set off a public controversy in legal circles and the public domain which  is still raging on.

Did Ahmad Fairuz call for the abolition of the common law in Malaysia 50 years after independence?

I have here a tape recording of Ahmad Fairuz media interview  after his opening speech at the seminar on the thoughts and academic works of the late Tan Sri Ahmad Ibrahim on August 21, which clearly confirmed his call for the  abolition of the Common Law, viz:

“My own opinion I think there is no need for us to go to the  Common Law of England now. We have a lot of our pakar undang-undang sekarang ini  yang boleh memberi pendapat masing-masing mengenai undang-undang bagaimana  cara  nak solve undang-undang. Why should we go to Common Law?”

Earlier, Ahmad Fairuz told the press about his proposal at the seminar:

“I am just suggesting to the seminar, perhaps they  can look into this matter, whether you want to still maintain and keep this position ataupun you  show to the government that we can put another substitute to this method, why go to Common Law? And pulak tu tahun 1957?”

Ahmad Fairuz is not fit to continue for a single day as Chief Justice. If he could use  Nazri to mislead Parliament to deny on his behalf  that he had advocated the abolition of Common Law in August, when he had actually done so as proven by this Fairuz Tape, he could easily mislead Nazri a second time to issue the denial that he was the other party in the Lingam Tape.

In his 55 months as Chief Justice since March 2003, Ahmad Fairuz had brought the judiciary into a new crisis of confidence and greater national and international disrepute joining the ranks of Tun Abdul Hamid Omar (1988 — 1994) and Tun Mohamed Eusoff Chin (1994 — 2000)  as the three Chief Justices who had brought shame and ignominy to the Malaysian judiciary and system of justice.

It is a national tragedy that Ahmad Fairuz had not chosen to join the ranks of illustrious Lord Presidents like Tun Mohamed Suffian Mohamed Hashim (1974 — 1982) and Raja Tun Azlan Shah (1982 — 1984) who had won international respect and standing for the Malaysian judiciary and system of justice which had been dissipated away in the past two decades of one judicial crisis after another.

Writing in April 2004 in his book
“Constitutional Monarchy, Rule of Law and Good Governance”
, former Lord President Sultan Azlan Shah observed:

“Concerns have been expressed that some judges were not writing judgments, or that there were long delays in obtaining decisions or hearing dates in certain instances. Further, the conduct of certain judges was being questioned in public… Whether these allegations are true, is not for me to say.  However, having been a member of the judiciary for many years, it grieves me when I hear of such allegations.  Since Independence, the early judges have always cherished the notion of an independent judiciary and had built the judiciary as a strong and independent organ of government. The public had full confidence of the judiciary and accepted any decision then made without any question. Unfortunately, the same does not appear to be the case in recent years.”

Sultan Azlan Shah’s critique of the parlous state of the judiciary is even more pertinent today than when he wrote it  in April 2004,  the entire period falling under the term of Ahmad Fairuz as Chief Justice — a powerful reason why it does not serve the national interest for Ahmad Fairuz to continue an extra day as Chief Justice.

In the media interview on August 21, Ahmad Fairuz was also  asked about the scandal of a Federal Court judge  who had an outstanding arrears of over 30 grounds of decisions as High Court judge which had not delivered.

It is significant that at the time, Ahmad Fairuz gave a blanket denial that there was such a Federal Court judge, even moralising:

“It is  very dangerous when we said something which is not the truth. In Islam it’s called fitnah. It is very bad. You don’t say anything which is not the truth. You check first then you say it.”

However, when
New Straits Times
a few days later front-paged a report that a Federal Court judge had not written grounds of judgment in 33 criminal and civil cases, which were thus stuck in the appeals process; and DAP Chairman and MP for Bukit Glugor, Karpal Singh named in Parliament the Federal Court judge concerned, Datuk Hashim Yusoff, who had accumulated 35 unwritten judgments; the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi broke his silence just before the 50th Merdeka anniversary celebration on August 28 that the Chief Justice must answer the allegation that a senior judge had failed to write the grounds of judgment in over 30 cases.

On Sept. 5, Ahmad Fairuz announced that he had written to the Prime Minister about the Federal Court judge who had not written his grounds of judgment  in 35 cases when he was High Court judge but he declined to disclose what he had told the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister was right to  demand judicial accountability from the Chief Justice, but Ahmad Fairuz had also  violated the doctrine of the separation of powers in only accounting directly and personally to the Prime Minister when he owes to the entire Malaysian public the responsibility of judicial accountability.

Up to now Malaysians have been denied information about the scandal of the Federal Court judge who had accumulated 35 unwritten judgments from his High Court tenure, which is also a most adverse reflection of Ahmad Fairuz’ judicial leadership.

There are ample grounds  to indict  Ahmad Fairuz  for his failure  as Chief Justice to restore national and international confidence in the independence, integrity and meritocracy of the judiciary, including:

	Failure to honor his public undertaking when he first became Chief Justice more than four years ago to recast the Judges’ Code of Ethics 1994 to restore public confidence in judicial independence, impartiality and integrity.

	Publicly tarnishing the image of the judiciary by failing to take action and substantiate grave charges which he made against judges for accepting bribes.

	Failure to take action against judges, including from the Federal Court, who had obstructed the course of justice in not writing up judgments;

	The seven-month constitutional deadlock over the appointment of a suitable Chief Judge of Malaya after the retirement of Tan Sri Siti Normah Yaakob on January 5, 2007.

	The Lingam Videotape scandal implicating him in an expose on the perversion of the course of justice involving the fixing of judicial appointments and the fixing of court decisions and judgments.

With the production of proof that Ahmad Fairuz had lied when he denied that he had advocated the abolition of the Common Law  in August and that he had misled Parliament last month with the denial, using Nazri as his tool, Ahmad Fairuz is not fit to continue as the highest judicial officer of the land and should tender his resignation forthwith, without exposing the judiciary to further  crisis of confidence.

Under the circumstances, any notion  of an extension for Ahmad Fairuz’ tenure as Chief Justice from Nov. 1 for whatever period would be completely unthinkable.

(Media Conference Statement at the DAP PJ Hqrs on Saturday, 20th October 2007)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 20 October 2007, 11:05 am and is filed under
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Education – How to be top

What works in education: the lessons according to McKinsey

From The Economist

Oct 18th 2007

THE British government, says Sir Michael Barber, once an adviser to the former prime minister, Tony Blair, has changed pretty much every aspect of education policy in England and Wales, often more than once. “The funding of schools, the governance of schools, curriculum standards, assessment and testing, the role of local government, the role of national government, the range and nature of national agencies, schools admissions”–you name it, it’s been changed and sometimes changed back. The only thing that hasn’t changed has been the outcome. According to the National Foundation for Education Research, there had been (until recently) no measurable improvement in the standards of literacy and numeracy in primary schools for 50 years.

England and Wales are not alone. Australia has almost tripled education spending per student since 1970. No improvement. American spending has almost doubled since 1980 and class sizes are the lowest ever. Again, nothing. No matter what you do, it seems, standards refuse to budge (see chart). To misquote Woody Allen, those who can’t do, teach; those who can’t teach, run the schools.

Why bother, you might wonder. Nothing seems to matter. Yet something must. There are big variations in educational standards between countries. These have been measured and re-measured by the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which has established, first, that the best performing countries do much better than the worst and, second, that the same countries head such league tables again and again: Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore, South Korea.

Those findings raise what ought to be a fruitful question: what do the successful lot have in common? Yet the answer to that has proved surprisingly elusive. Not more money. Singapore spends less per student than most. Nor more study time. Finnish students begin school later, and study fewer hours, than in other rich countries.

Now, an organisation from outside the teaching fold–McKinsey, a consultancy that advises companies and governments–has boldly gone where educationalists have mostly never gone: into policy recommendations based on the PISA findings. Schools, it says*, need to do three things: get the best teachers; get the best out of teachers; and step in when pupils start to lag behind. That may not sound exactly “first-of-its-kind” (which is how Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s head of education research, describes McKinsey’s approach): schools surely do all this already? Actually, they don’t. If these ideas were really taken seriously, they would change education radically.

Begin with hiring the best. There is no question that, as one South Korean official put it, “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” Studies in Tennessee and Dallas have shown that, if you take pupils of average ability and give them to teachers deemed in the top fifth of the profession, they end up in the top 10% of student performers; if you give them to teachers from the bottom fifth, they end up at the bottom. The quality of teachers affects student performance more than anything else.

Yet most school systems do not go all out to get the best. The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, a non-profit organisation, says America typically recruits teachers from the bottom third of college graduates. Washington, DC recently hired as chancellor for its public schools an alumna of an organisation called Teach for America, which seeks out top graduates and hires them to teach for two years. Both her appointment and the organisation caused a storm.

A bias against the brightest happens partly because of lack of money (governments fear they cannot afford them), and partly because other aims get in the way. Almost every rich country has sought to reduce class size lately. Yet all other things being equal, smaller classes mean more teachers for the same pot of money, producing lower salaries and lower professional status. That may explain the paradox that, after primary school, there seems little or no relationship between class size and educational achievement.

McKinsey argues that the best performing education systems nevertheless manage to attract the best. In Finland all new teachers must have a master’s degree. South Korea recruits primary-school teachers from the top 5% of graduates, Singapore and Hong Kong from the top 30%.

They do this in a surprising way. You might think that schools should offer as much money as possible, seek to attract a large pool of applicants into teacher training and then pick the best. Not so, says McKinsey. If money were so important, then countries with the highest teacher salaries–Germany, Spain and Switzerland–would presumably be among the best. They aren’t. In practice, the top performers pay no more than average salaries.

Nor do they try to encourage a big pool of trainees and select the most successful. Almost the opposite. Singapore screens candidates with a fine mesh before teacher training and accepts only the number for which there are places. Once in, candidates are employed by the education ministry and more or less guaranteed a job. Finland also limits the supply of teacher-training places to demand. In both countries, teaching is a high-status profession (because it is fiercely competitive) and there are generous funds for each trainee teacher (because there are few of them).

South Korea shows how the two systems produce different results. Its primary-school teachers have to pass a four-year undergraduate degree from one of only a dozen universities. Getting in requires top grades; places are rationed to match vacancies. In contrast, secondary-school teachers can get a diploma from any one of 350 colleges, with laxer selection criteria. This has produced an enormous glut of newly qualified secondary-school teachers–11 for each job at last count. As a result, secondary-school teaching is the lower status job in South Korea; everyone wants to be a primary-school teacher. The lesson seems to be that teacher training needs to be hard to get into, not easy.

Teaching the teachers

Having got good people, there is a temptation to shove them into classrooms and let them get on with it. For understandable reasons, teachers rarely get much training in their own classrooms (in contrast, doctors do a lot of training in hospital wards). But successful countries can still do much to overcome the difficulty.

Singapore provides teachers with 100 hours of training a year and appoints senior teachers to oversee professional development in each school. In Japan and Finland, groups of teachers visit each others’ classrooms and plan lessons together. In Finland, they get an afternoon off a week for this. In Boston, which has one of America’s most improved public-school systems, schedules are arranged so that those who teach the same subject have free classes together for common planning. This helps spread good ideas around. As one educator remarked, “when a brilliant American teacher retires, almost all of the lesson plans and practices that she has developed also retire. When a Japanese teacher retires, she leaves a legacy.”

Lastly, the most successful countries are distinctive not just in whom they employ so things go right but in what they do when things go wrong, as they always do. For the past few years, almost all countries have begun to focus more attention on testing, the commonest way to check if standards are falling. McKinsey’s research is neutral on the usefulness of this, pointing out that while Boston tests every student every year, Finland has largely dispensed with national examinations. Similarly, schools in New Zealand and England and Wales are tested every three or four years and the results published, whereas top-of-the-class Finland has no formal review and keeps the results of informal audits confidential.

But there is a pattern in what countries do once pupils and schools start to fail. The top performers intervene early and often. Finland has more special-education teachers devoted to laggards than anyone else–as many as one teacher in seven in some schools. In any given year, a third of pupils get one-on-one remedial lessons. Singapore provides extra classes for the bottom 20% of students and teachers are expected to stay behind–often for hours–after school to help students.

None of this is rocket science. Yet it goes against some of the unspoken assumptions of education policy. Scratch a teacher or an administrator (or a parent), and you often hear that it is impossible to get the best teachers without paying big salaries; that teachers in, say, Singapore have high status because of Confucian values; or that Asian pupils are well behaved and attentive for cultural reasons. McKinsey’s conclusions seem more optimistic: getting good teachers depends on how you select and train them; teaching can become a career choice for top graduates without paying a fortune; and that, with the right policies, schools and pupils are not doomed to lag behind.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 20 October 2007, 6:43 am and is filed under
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