On the eve of Najib's take over

I am having a strange feeling on the eve of Najib's take over the country's premiership. Obviously given the option I would not choose him as my PM, but the feeling is that : I am powerless to change the situation. The ordinary Malaysian citizen have no business in the running of the country. Can you imagine, in the age that we see democracy in action in US, here in Malaysia we are still stuck in the age of pre-merdeka, so ancient and so out-of -place. I was just celebrating the triumph of the democracy of 8th of March and here come the guy who has been chosen by the selected few of UMNO, the racist party in the 21st century to take over the government of Malaysia tomorrow.

I want to quote US again, not that I don't see their hypocrisy, but they are one of the best example on this earth now. In US those who forgot to pay their taxes would be queried of their suitability of high office, those that joke unintentionally about race would be punished severely in an election and the examples are countless. But here in our country, a PM candidate can just SMS to a suspect of a murder case, telling him not to worry because he can talk to AG and he would be find. No mainstream media carried the news, nothing happened to this candidate, he just arrogantly brushed off the accusation. Here in Malaysia the entire governmental institutions are established to serve only one purpose, that is to prolong the incumbent political party's rule over the country.

I have a feeling that the country is going back to the 80s and 90s during Mahathir's rule where they always win, where ISA, OSA and police were used freely to crash oppositions. I think I will go back to hibernation, again.

I am getting very very pessimistic about the future of Malaysia. When I can see all the oppressive laws abolished? With Najib taking over as PM, I don't think my hope will ever be materialised. Things will just go back to status quo, that's it, end of our struggle. The fruits of the democracy planted last March will possibly crumbling down soon.

I hope I am wrong about my fear. But I can't help with this feeling, this new PM don't inspire but only despair. The political dust storm has finally arrived and I just found out that I could not find any shelter to hide from it...

Are we seeing a failed Malaysia?

The colonised have become the coloniser. Perhaps the true merdeka can only be attained when UMNO/MCA/MIC - the colonial relics are defeated thoroughly in the general election and race-based political parties banned forever.

But looking at the way it goes, it's very tough. They are exploiting all the branches of the government and media to cling on to power. Very tragic indeed. Race-based political parties are the cancer that is killing our country slowly, it gradually tearing apart our society and finally if we don't do anything, death will be upon us all soon. Let's be clear about this, you can’t have race-based political parties and promote Bangsa Malaysia at the same time. By focusing on racial interests, we perpetuate the racial divide and provide opportunities for racial chauvinists to exploit the situation. In the 21st-century Malaysia, politicians should compete on ideas and policies and not race.

by Azly Rahman, Mar 23, 09 12:55pm, MalaysiaKini

I was born in a British military hospital in Singapore and grew up in a Malay kampong in Johor Bahru. I’ve moved from one realm of cultural experience to another, living in one enclave to the next in the process of being schooled and becoming an educator.

I've finally ended up in a truly multi-cultural town a half-an-hour’s drive from New York City where I have lived for several years. Sometimes I wonder if all this make me a cultural construction of multi-ethnicity or a if I am still a Malay. Is the question of being Malay merely academic by now? I think I am still that. I still speak Malay fluently and write in Jawi quite beautifully, although my almost half of my life has been ‘schooled’ by American education, constantly exploring the ideas of America the pastoral – the hard core Jeffersonian ideal drawn from Humanism and the Enlightenment Period. At times too I would still plow through representative texts of ancient Malay philosophy and to situate the core ideas within newer perspectives I constantly acquire, so that as the poet WS Rendra would say, we will always “reconsider traditions”. Here in the US, I teach a course called ‘Cross-Cultural Perspectives’, trying to engage my students in the works of Edward Said (right), Clifford Geertz, Renato Rosaldo, and the like.

I find myself again having to interrogate my subjectivity and objectivity as a culturally-constructed being in my attempt to play the role of Socrates in dialectical conversations with students in our exploration of the multiple meaning of culture. Each semester is a learning experience, teaching me newer ideas of what culture, race, and ethnicity mean. Yearning to come home to the kampong where I grew up, I am still waiting for a time to share new ideas that will help Malaysian students transform realities by turning them into radical thinkers and social reconstructionists with deep interest in transcultural philosophies. We need such a revolution in thinking.In August, we will engage in yet another ritual of a nation perpetually in narration: the Merdeka celebrations. Consider the proclamation from the Rukunegara:

Our Nation, Malaysia is dedicated to: Achieving a greater unity for all her people; maintaining a democratic way of life; creating a just society in which the wealth of the nation shall be equitably distributed; ensuring a liberal approach to her rich and diverse cultural tradition, and building a progressive society which shall be oriented to modern science and technology. We, the people of Malaysia, pledge our united efforts to attain these ends, guided by these principles:

Belief in God
Loyalty to King and country
Upholding the constitution
Sovereignty of the law, and
Good behaviour and morality

These words, constructed and proclaimed in 1970, after the bloody riots of May 13, 1969, contain internal contradictions if we analyse it today. Country in deep distressIf the proclamation is our benchmark of Merdeka, we must ask these questions:

1) How have we fostered unity when our government promotes racism thorough racialised policies and by virtue of the fact that our politics survive on the institutionalisation of racism?

2) How have we maintained a democratic way of life, when our educational, political, and economic institutions do not promote democracy in fear that democratic and multi-cultural voices of conscience are going to dismantle race-based ideologies?

3) How are we to create a just society in which the wealth of the nation is equitably distributed, when the New Economic Policy itself was designed based on the premise that only one race need to be helped and forever helped, whereas at the onset of Independence poverty existed among Malaysians of all races?

4) How are we to promote a liberal approach to diverse culture and tradition when our education system is run by politicians who are championing Ketuanan Melayu alone and ensure that Malay hegemony rules in all levels and all spheres of education, from pre-school to graduate levels?

5) How are we to build a progressive society based on science and technology when our understanding of the role of science and society do not clearly reflect our fullest understanding of the issues of scientific knowledge, industrialisation and dependency?

Are we seeing a failed Malaysia?

Across the board, the country is in distress: education is in shambles, polarised, and politicised; the economy is in a constant dangerous flux; the judiciary is in deep crisis of confidence; public safety is a major concern due the declining confidence in the police; and politics remain ever divided along racial and religious lines.The ‘transition to power’ that we are seeing is an unwelcome testament to a country inching towards a quagmire.This is the Malaysian version of Dorian Gray, one that shows the image of a vibrant nation of progress and harmony, and racial tolerance and a robust economy, but is a deformed Malaysia that is merely a continuation of a feudal and colonial entity.

The colonised have become the coloniser. The state has become a totalitarian entity using the ideological state apparatuses to silence the voices of progressive change. The nationalists have nationalised the wealth of the nation for themselves and perhaps siphoned off the nation’s wealth internationally. This is the picture of a broken promise made by those who fought for Independence; the voices of the early radical and truly nationalistic Malays, Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans, Sikhs, etc. of the Merdeka movement.

It is this promise that, 50 year hence, has been broken by those who capitalise on the extreme ends of the politics of identity.How then must Malaysians celebrate the next Merdeka Day? By flying the Jalur Gemilang upside down? Or put justice in its place by engineering a multi-cultural jihad against all forms of excesses in the abuse of power? To de-toxify the nation and begin with Year Zero of our cultural revolution through the gentle enterprise called peace and multi-cultural education?Herein lies education as a solution. I believe we need a radical overhaul of everything, philosophically speaking. We have the structures in place but need to replace the human beings running the system. We have deeply racialised human beings running neutral machines.

We have ethnocentric leaders running humane systems. We have allowed imperfection and evolving fascism to run our system. We have placed capitalists of culture behind our wheels of industrial progress; people who have the dinosaur brain of ketuanan this or that.We have created these monsters and unleashed them to run our educational, political, economic, and cultural systems.

We have Frankenstein-ised our Merdeka.We need to re-educate ourselves by reinventing the human beings we will entrust to run our machines. We must abolish the system and create a new one.We must be aware that class in the broadest and most comprehensive sense of the word is what we are dealing with and through class and cultural analyses we can arrive at a different path to a newer Merdeka.

In this coming Merdeka, 40 years after May 13 1969, the rakyat armed with wisdom of a new era must speak softly but carry a big stick. Our struggle for a renewed Merdeka has only just begun. Malaysians have no choice. We are multi-culturalists now. We must abandon race-based politics.

Ketuanan Rakyat

I was at MBSA with Ashvin to listen to the Ketuanan Rakyat Pidato Kebangsaan by Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim. It was an important speech that outlines the principal underlying Pakatan Rakyat's Governing Philosophy. I think the time has come for the Government to be managed by political parties that are multiracial in nature. I think million of Malaysians would like to see that one day Malays, Chinese, Indian and other Minorities sitting together to make our country's policies. Currently, UMNO is the one who makes all the policies and its Central Committee is the de facto Malaysian Cabinet, even more powerful than the Cabinet itself.

My hope for the future:

- Constitution will be respected

- ISA, OSA, University Act, Printing Act will be abolished

- Parliment will again become a place where people's voices are debated and an oversight body for the government policies

- Local council election

That 's my hope for the future for now.

Change has come to Malaysia

Today is a very signigficant day as exactly one year ago I and million of Penangites help to deliver Penang to Pakatan Rakyat. I can still remember vividly my feeling and joy during that night in Penang. On that Saturday morning me, my mother and brother went to Hu Yew Seah to vote and all of us voted for DAP. After voted we all thought we have done our duty for this nation though in our heart we thought BN was going to 'sapu' all the seats again. And went back home thingking to have a good night sleep and the next morning go back to KL with Sharon and Hannah like nothing would ever happened. I even turned off the TV as we didn't want to watch BN celebrating again just like in every elections last time. But we were wrong, rumours kept coming in that PR has taken over penang and managed to denied BN's 2/3 majority, I could not sleep knowing that was the historic day for our nation just like when Gerakan toook over Penang in 1969. We waited for 30 years to see this happened again, I was so happy, perhaps happy is not the word to describe our feeling back then. It was like second coming of Jesus!

I am hopeful that YAB Lim Guan Eng will take us out of the economic wilderness simply because his is tough and determined. All the best to Penang State Government.

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)