The First Casualty of "BN Government in Perak": Orang Asli

The only group of people who is happy with the return of BN to Perak I think is loggers...

Orang Asli in Perak apprehensive, byZedeck Siew, The Nut Graph

BIDOR, 24 Feb 2009: Orang Asli community leaders in Perak are worried that the state's recent political developments will signal a return to a disregard of their rights. "We feel concern and sadness at what happened. Where are we in all this? Will Orang Asli issues, that were hot in the last 10 months, once again be sidelined?" said Jaringan Kampung Orang Asli Perak (JKOAP) secretary Tijah Yok Chopil.

Tijah, a Semai, revealed that in the days following the swearing in of the Barisan Nasional (BN)'s Datuk Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir as menteri besar on 6 Feb, several trees in the forest near Kampung Chang, in the outskirts of Bidor, had been marked with red paint for logging purposes.
"There are helicopters flying around, surveying the land," she said when met here on 14 Feb.
Other Orang Asli leaders in the state who spoke to The Nut Graph said logging activities in Sungai Siput, which were halted and had their permits revoked by the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state government, have also been renewed.

A sand mining operation upriver from Kampung Pos Bersih, which was stopped only a week before, was restarted on 12 Feb, they added. On 14 Feb, Tijah chaired a meeting of Semai leaders from 10 separate Orang Asli villages between Tanjung Malim and Ipoh in Kampung Chang, Sungai Gepai, where her village is.

The meeting discussed the fall of the PR state government and the BN takeover of Perak, and its effects on Orang Asli issues. "For 51 years we have not been treated as citizens, but squatters. In our lands, no one lives there, according to the government," said Yok Pis Chenadang, a representative from Kampung Pos Bersih.

He was commenting on the fact that Orang Asli are typically seen as nomadic, even though they have been living there "from before the British".

He explained that while many want to plant commercial crops such as rubber and palm oil, they were prohibited from doing so as the land was officially owned by the state government.
"We are like people hung from the sky, not with our feet on the ground," Yok Pis added.

PR's policies
Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin's 10-month administration took proactive measures to address the welfare of Perak's indigenous peoples. In 2008, the now embattled menteri besar cancelled logging and plantation activities around Gopeng. The PR state government also announced the return of 900 acres of ancestral land to the Orang Asli of Mukim Teja and Bidor.
Perak's Orang Asli Taskforce Committee, set up in October 2008 under the PR administration, was also unprecedented.

The body, chaired by senior state exco Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham and including representatives from the Orang Asli community, was designed to get as many Orang Asli territories issued with permanent titles as possible. Geographical and historical surveys of the Orang Asli ancestral lands were carried out with the taskforce's assistance.

"Since independence, we have never felt like Malaysians. In the 10 months of the Pakatan Rakyat state government, we felt the promise of citizenship begin to be fulfilled," Tijah, who has been the taskforce's main liaison officer, said.

She revealed that the PR state government's overtures were the first time her community had been invited to discuss, negotiate, and air their grouses as equals. Asked to comment about the possibility of the BN changing its 51-year-old policy on the Orang Asli to adopt the PR's policies, Tijah said: "We will appreciate that."

However, Tijah said her community was not confident of that prospect. "We are not mocking, discounting, or threatening them. But we won't be surprised [if they stopped these policies]. Perak is now controlled by the 51-year-old government," she said of the BN takeover of the state.

There are approximately 48,000 Orang Asli in Perak, with 216 registered settlements. Land is the biggest issue affecting this community, as most depend on forest produce to make a living.

Wonder what is UMNO's stand on Hudud?

The article by Jacqueline of The Nut Graph is a very timely one on Hudud. Everyone is talking about Hudud especially now during the KT by - election and many seem to be questioning PAS' stand on Hudud especially by BN with an objective of creating fear among non-Muslim in rejecting Pakatan Rakyat. But for me why do we question muslim's right to support Hudud when it's very clear that Hudud is one of the important part of Islam. Every Muslim should and will support Hudud and yes this include Muslim of UMNO. So it's very hypocrite of UMNO in creating fear among non-Muslim through their running dog MCA when UMNO as a largest Malay Muslim party ought to also support Hudud (they should be supporting it otherwise how to categorise them as good Muslim??). The question one should ask is not really about who support Hudud and who are not. The question for me should be how and when. BN should put the matter to the test of a vote in Parliment. Let those who support Hudud vote yes and those who against it vote no. Because it's very clear, to implement Hudud, first we must amend certain clause in the Constitution. Only by this method we will know who really support Hudud and who don't. No point finger pointing at PAS when what we really want to know is whether UMNO is also supporting Hudud.

So read the article to find out what really is happening behind the Hudud issue.

Why just hudud?
16 Jan 09 : 8.00AM
By Jacqueline Ann Surin, The Nut Graph

IT is understandably very easy to demonise PAS for its Islamic state agenda. After all, the party leadership seems quite adept at declaring its intentions to implement some features of an Islamic state, such as hudud, at the most inopportune moments.

In a global climate of Islamophobia and because of Muslims acting out of a siege mentality, including in Malaysia, Islam's poster men and women are unfortunately irrational bigots. Or terrorists. Or barbaric and autocratic regimes such as the Taliban. Hence, PAS's recent repeat about implementing hudud in multiracial Malaysia can only further fuel some people's distrust of the world's second largest, and fastest-growing religion.

But it is way too easy to be blindsided by prejudices against Islam, and against a self-avowed Islamist party such as PAS. Hence, even more so, we should rigorously test the assumptions and query the public rhetoric surrounding PAS and the Islamic state it wants for Malaysia. This is the question we need to ask as Malaysians: Is PAS really the only political party that has an Islamic state agenda in Malaysia?

Umno, too

When PAS vice-president Datuk Husam Musa declared in December 2008 that the party would have implemented hudud had the Pakatan Rakyat taken over government on 16 Sept 2008, he wasn't the only one supporting an Islamic penal code. He was speaking at an open debate with Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin. When prodded, Khairy himself seemed to indicate he would support an Islamic penal code if he became Umno Youth chief in the upcoming March 2009 party elections.

After publication of the report that described this incident, however, a YouTube video has been posted that challenges the description of what happened. Instead, what Khairy is clearly heard saying is, "Secara jelas, kita teruskan apa yang ada. Itu dasar kerajaan Barisan Nasional (BN)."
But what policy is this that Khairy stands by, and how much better is it, in the context of a secular democracy, compared with what PAS is projecting?

We need to remind ourselves that Umno, and the current policies being perpetuated by an Umno-led BN, has just as much of an Islamic state agenda as PAS does. For example, no less than former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad declared in September 2001 that "Malaysia is already an Islamic state". In July 2007, even prime-minister-in-waiting Datuk Seri Najib Razak declared that Malaysia was an Islamic state. "We have never been a secular state," he was widely reported to have said.

Alarmingly, right after this statement, the government, under Najib's helm because Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was on holiday in Australia, issued a media ban on all discussions about the matter. This is something I personally experienced as assistant news editor at theSun.

In Islam's name
In the run-up to the 8 March 2008 general election, one of the most effective pro-opposition SMSes that flew like pollen in the wind was this one that was attributed to blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin: "Umno is more Islamic & dangerous than PAS. Who breaks ur temples? Who put 5 in ISA? Who declare M'sia Islamic country? Who snatch dead bodies? Who kill in police custody? Who create bumiputra? Who break family using syariah law?...Who use khalwat to spy on people? Who implement Islamic policy in schools? It is BN. For 50 yrs they brainwashed us to think that they are moderate. They are the extremists."

To that list, I might add that it is also under the current administration that Muslims are denied the religious freedom to choose another faith. Under this same administration, the Catholic Herald and all other non-Muslim groups are banned from using the word "Allah".

Additionally, it was the BN government that, in late 2005, passed amendments to the Islamic Family Law that were not only grossly unjust to Muslim women but were also un-Islamic. And today, it is the BN government that is making it mandatory for Muslims to undergo flawed pre-marital HIV testing, which may even be extended to non-Muslims.

So, yes, PAS needs to be taken to task for not giving up its Islamic state agenda for a nation that was founded as a secular democracy. But, so should Umno, which, perhaps more cleverly, is less transparent about its attempts to infuse certain kinds of Islamic laws and teachings into public policy. And when these laws and teachings are contested, what's worse is that public discussion is curtailed through silencing and fear. Or sometimes, by telling concerned non-Muslims not to worry because it doesn't affect them. We should bear in mind that this is an oft-used argument both BN leaders and Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim are guilty of.

Umno may not be promoting hudud. For now. But more importantly, what is clear is that they haven't publicly opposed it, either. And, from the examples above, the Umno-led BN clearly has aspirations for an Islamic state of sorts. And I mean in a prejudiced way that perverts the more inclusive and just interpretations of all discourses "Islamic". Because I believe that Islam promotes justice, fairness and compassion as exhorted by notable Muslim organisations such as Sisters in Islam, and Muslim scholars such imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

Should PAS be questioned about its Islamic state agenda? Yes, I think it should. Should we also hold Umno accountable for its own Islamic agenda? Yes, again. If PAS's only outrageous statement was about implementing hudud law, Umno, by far, definitely has more to answer for in the name of Islam.

IT'S SOLUTION, STUPID

This is the way of an opposition. Solution, Solution and solution. If Pakatan Rakyat aspires to be in the majority, offers solution rather than just attack and attack. But strangely we have a government who is an opposition, BN cling on to the power by the help of unfair electoral system and bias media and who only knows to attack the opposition. So far Pakatan Rakyat manages to behave like a government in power. But the temptation to attack is so strong, PR should be mindful of that. Offer solution whenever possible and must try hard to educate voter on range of issues so that we will be wiser and let us choose and the decision will be ours.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich sent a rather scathing letter to Mike Duncan on Tuesday, accusing the RNC chairman of engaging in "a destructive distraction" by attempting to tie Barack Obama to Rod Blagojevich. In particular, Gingrich hit the RNC for putting out a web ad that made it seem as if the President-elect was hiding a nefarious chapter of his personal history with the embattled Illinois Governor.

"The RNC should pull the ad down immediately," Gingrich writes.
I was saddened to learn that at a time of national trial, when a president-elect is preparing to take office in the midst of the worst financial crisis in over seventy years, that the Republican National Committee is engaged in the sort of negative, attack politics that the voters rejected in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles.

The recent web advertisement, "Questions Remain," is a destructive distraction. Clearly, we should insist that all taped communications regarding the Senate seat should be made public. However, that should be a matter of public policy, not an excuse for political attack.
In a time when America is facing real challenges, Republicans should be working to help the incoming President succeed in meeting them, regardless of his Party.

From now until the inaugural, Republicans should be offering to help the President-elect prepare to take office.

Furthermore, once President Obama takes office, Republicans should be eager to work with him when he is right, and, when he is wrong, offer a better solution, instead of just opposing him.

This is the only way the Republican Party will become known as the "better solutions" party, not just an opposition party. And this is the only way Republicans will ever regain the trust of the voters to return to the majority.

This ad is a terrible signal to be sending about both the goals of the Republican Party in the midst of the nation's troubled economic times and about whether we have actually learned anything from the defeats of 2006 and 2008.
There has been, it seems, two mindsets within the GOP as to how to revitalize the party in the wake of its '06 and '08 losses: seek political blood against Barack Obama whenever possible, or focus on reaching out to moderates and minorities. In addition to Gingrich, Sen. John McCain -- appearing on "This Week" Sunday -- offered a dig at the RNC for their obsession with Obama's (apparently limited or nonexistent) links to Blagojevich.
A Republican strategist, asked about the Gingrich letter, said he agreed with the former House Majority Leader. But, he added, "I think that Newt wants a change at the RNC, and it is an intervention in the RNC race."
(h/t Ben Smith)

When Depression Economics Prevails, Prudence is Folly

Depression Economics Returns
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NYT - 14 Nov 08

The economic news, in case you haven’t noticed, keeps getting worse. Bad as it is, however, I don’t expect another Great Depression. In fact, we probably won’t see the unemployment rate match its post-Depression peak of 10.7 percent, reached in 1982 (although I wish I was sure about that).

We are already, however, well into the realm of what I call depression economics. By that I mean a state of affairs like that of the 1930s in which the usual tools of economic policy — above all, the Federal Reserve’s ability to pump up the economy by cutting interest rates — have lost all traction. When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly.

To see what I’m talking about, consider the implications of the latest piece of terrible economic news: Thursday’s report on new claims for unemployment insurance, which have now passed the half-million mark. Bad as this report was, viewed in isolation it might not seem catastrophic. After all, it was in the same ballpark as numbers reached during the 2001 recession and the 1990-1991 recession, both of which ended up being relatively mild by historical standards (although in each case it took a long time before the job market recovered).

But on both of these earlier occasions the standard policy response to a weak economy — a cut in the federal funds rate, the interest rate most directly affected by Fed policy — was still available. Today, it isn’t: the effective federal funds rate (as opposed to the official target, which for technical reasons has become meaningless) has averaged less than 0.3 percent in recent days. Basically, there’s nothing left to cut.

And with no possibility of further interest rate cuts, there’s nothing to stop the economy’s downward momentum. Rising unemployment will lead to further cuts in consumer spending, which Best Buy warned this week has already suffered a “seismic” decline. Weak consumer spending will lead to cutbacks in business investment plans. And the weakening economy will lead to more job cuts, provoking a further cycle of contraction.

To pull us out of this downward spiral, the federal government will have to provide economic stimulus in the form of higher spending and greater aid to those in distress — and the stimulus plan won’t come soon enough or be strong enough unless politicians and economic officials are able to transcend several conventional prejudices.

One of these prejudices is the fear of red ink. In normal times, it’s good to worry about the budget deficit — and fiscal responsibility is a virtue we’ll need to relearn as soon as this crisis is past. When depression economics prevails, however, this virtue becomes a vice. F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget in 1937 almost destroyed the New Deal.

Another prejudice is the belief that policy should move cautiously. In normal times, this makes sense: you shouldn’t make big changes in policy until it’s clear they’re needed. Under current conditions, however, caution is risky, because big changes for the worse are already happening, and any delay in acting raises the chance of a deeper economic disaster. The policy response should be as well-crafted as possible, but time is of the essence.

Finally, in normal times modesty and prudence in policy goals are good things. Under current conditions, however, it’s much better to err on the side of doing too much than on the side of doing too little. The risk, if the stimulus plan turns out to be more than needed, is that the economy might overheat, leading to inflation — but the Federal Reserve can always head off that threat by raising interest rates. On the other hand, if the stimulus plan is too small there’s nothing the Fed can do to make up for the shortfall. So when depression economics prevails, prudence is folly.

What does all this say about economic policy in the near future? The Obama administration will almost certainly take office in the face of an economy looking even worse than it does now. Indeed, Goldman Sachs predicts that the unemployment rate, currently at 6.5 percent, will reach 8.5 percent by the end of next year.
All indications are that the new administration will offer a major stimulus package. My own back-of-the-envelope calculations say that the package should be huge, on the order of $600 billion.
So the question becomes, will the Obama people dare to propose something on that scale?
Let’s hope that the answer to that question is yes, that the new administration will indeed be that daring. For we’re now in a situation where it would be very dangerous to give in to conventional notions of prudence.

Obama wins

Obama has won the US presidency with 52% of the total popular votes and at least 349 electoral votes. America has become bluer than ever

Election result

At this point the result is just being tallied and the latest I read is Pennsylvania and Ohio (the must win states for Mccain) have already gone to Obama. So is very likely the result is going to be like this

Hey! I think I have this feeling as well

Ny TimesNovember 1, 2008
Obama Is Up, and Fans Fear That Jinxes It
By MICHAEL POWELL
In the den of his home in New Hope, Pa., a liberal Democrat sits tap-tapping at his computer.
Jon Downs works the electoral vote maps on Yahoo like a spiritualist shaking his Ouija board. He calibrates and recalibrates: Give Senator John McCain Ohio, Missouri, even Florida. But Virginia and Pennsylvania, those go to Senator Barack Obama. And Vermont, Democrats can count on Vermont, right?

Right.

Almost always, Mr. Downs, 53, ends with Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, ahead, which should please this confirmed liberal and profound Obama fan. But just as often he feels worried.

“Look, I have this sense of impending doom; we’ve had a couple of elections stolen already,” Mr. Downs said. “The only thing worse than losing is to think that you’re going to win and then lose.”
He considers that prospect and mutters, almost involuntarily, “Oh, God.”

To talk with left-leaning Democrats in New Hope, San Francisco or Miami Beach, to drill deep into their id, is to stand at the intersection of Liberal and High Anxiety.

Right now, more than a few are having a these-polls-are-too-good-to-be-true, we-still-could-lose-this-election moment. Their consuming and possibly over-caffeinated worry is that their prayers and nightly phone calls to undecided voters in Toledo, Ohio, notwithstanding, Mr. Obama might fall short on Election Day.

To walk on Broadway, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is to feel their pain. “Oh, God, I’m optimistic, but I can’t look at the polls,” said Patricia Kuhlman, 54, nervously tapping her Obama/Biden ’08 button. “I’m a PBS/NPR kind of person, and, O.K., I do look at some polls.”
Ms. Kuhlman shakes her head and says, “If he doesn’t get this, I’ll be crying so hard.”

A young woman, Shana Rosen, walks by. She is from Denver and said she had told her boyfriend that their love life was on hold while she sweated out Mr. Obama’s performance in Colorado. Ask Lucy Slurzberg, an Upper West Side psychotherapist, how many of her liberal patients speak of their electoral fears during their sessions, and she answers: “Oh, only about 90 percent of them.”
Certainly, national and swing state polls suggest that Democrats might allow themselves a deep breath or two. But liberals are not inclined to relax, given the circumstances of their last two defeats. Hanging chad, the Supreme Court decisions, and Florida and Ohio’s electoral problems: it is a lifetime of agita to staunch Democrats. The prospect of success now comes scented with dread.

Conservatives, it must be said, are not immune from the worry vapors. Therapists report that Republicans are hyperventilating too. “Wealthy Republicans are very anxious about taxes,” Jamie Wasserman, a psychotherapist with a practice on the Upper West Side and in Montclair, N.J., said of her patients. “They are not pretending to vote for the black man.”

And in Ohio, evangelical radio stations feature pastors praying for God to help voters ignore these “awful” polls and vote his will.

Many liberal Democrats watch MSNBC, but some say it sounds too much like comfort food. CNN serves its election coverage with a stiff little chaser of doubt for Democrats, and many liberals say CNN and NPR are their regular evening companions. If they really want to rub the sore tooth of worry, they dial over to the “Obama’s radical friend Bill Ayers” channel, otherwise known as Fox News.

“Mostly I flip between CNN and MSNBC, but I go to Fox if I want to get enraged,” Mr. Downs said.
Richard Schrader, a senior staff member for a national environmental organization, lives in Amherst, Mass., where politics start liberal and traipse left. He is fairly liberal, but his neighbors worry that he does not worry nearly enough. “They wake up, drink that pot of coffee and hit the polling Web sites,” Mr. Schrader said. “Too much good news has to be a lie.”

Recently he sat down with a friend who was sweating about Minnesota.
“Minnesota?” Mr. Schrader told his friend. “What, are you kidding me? Obama’s up 14 points there.”
The friend shook his head sadly. Take off seven points for hidden racial animus. Subtract another five for polling error. It is down to two points, and that is within the margin of error in sampling, and that could mean Mr. Obama might be behind.
“It was perversely impressive,” Mr. Schrader said.

Another friend worries that every undecided voter will break for Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee. Mr. Schrader said, “I told him: ‘O.K., that will be the first time that has ever happened in American history, but sure.’ ”

Pre-election rituals are much the same, from Oberlin, Ohio, to San Francisco. Many liberals describe waking up in the predawn, padding to the kitchen, firing up the coffeemaker and logging on before the children wake up. Lisa Serizawa, 44, of San Francisco leaps from site to site, from national newspapers to one in Ohio to another in Pennsylvania, then a blur of CNN, polling sites, and whatever.

“I just want reassurance; or is it a heads-up?” Ms. Serizawa said. “I’m cautiously, cautiously optimistic. Though I worry: Am I going to be hurt again?”
Liberals are found in almost every corner of the United States, as are their conservative counterparts. But the tribe’s denser concentrations are along the ideological Interstate that runs from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, to the Adams Morgan section of Washington, to Montclair, to Park Slope in Brooklyn, to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, to Cambridge, Mass., Burlington, Vt., and Ann Arbor, Mich., and so on until it reaches the Pacific.

And from those redoubts, how can one gauge what is going on in the fairly broad expanses of this nation that are not 94.3 percent liberal Democrat? Unfamiliarity spikes the anxiety.
“We live in a bubble,” Ms. Serizawa said. “I drove to Monterey recently, and I saw my first McCain placard ever.”

Some East Coast liberals deal with the uncertainty by volunteering to call undecided voters, in hopes that a half-hour talk with a voter in Missouri will stop the mind from yapping.
“It makes them less worried to phone the middle of the country,” said Ms. Wasserman, the psychotherapist. “Those who are anxious are becoming more so; some spend an entire session going on about what they heard on CNN.”

Still, it is not as though election is a psychiatric condition. Recent years have offered a bad run for many Democrats. The United States is fighting wars on two fronts. The global economy has pitched into recession, and many say the economic elevator has yet to reach the basement.

For many liberals, the chance to elect Mr. Obama, who would be the nation’s first black president, gives the United States a second chance to walk across the stage of world history. (Which also makes the possibility of his loss unspeakably more depressing; given his present lead in every poll, many liberals fear that race will explain any defeat.)

“The last two elections have been so disappointing, so disturbing,” said Paula Guarnaccia, an assistant dean at the University of Vermont. “The idea that we could now elect this impressive man as president, I guess it heightens the anxiety.”

And yet, sometimes, a poll, or five, can tease out a smile.
Ellen Beth Bellet, a tax lawyer in Miami and an ardent liberal, confesses to being electorally obsessed. (She recently vacationed with a friend who threatened to machine gun the hotel television if Ms. Bellet did not shut off CNN.)

But of late a curious calm has descended. “I wrote an e-mail to a friend and said, ‘I’m afraid to put this in writing, but I’m really excited about the way this is going,’ ” Ms. Bellet said.
Within minutes, the phone rang; her friend was very worried about Mr. Obama’s prospects.

“Don’t say that!” the friend said. “No, no, no. What were you thinking? We can’t go there yet!”