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What should we call Afizal?
Merdeka Day bash at Bukit Jalil Stadium
Dinesh Could Have Been My Son
Many reasons why it’s actually “Janji tak ditepati”

Posted: 27 Aug 2012 01:13 PM PDT

Are there any technicalities in the case of Afizal? In relation to sex with the minor, what should we call Afizal? Fool? Idol? Monster? Neighbour? Statutory Rapist? Stud? Rapist? Unlucky? Victim? When we look in the mirror, what do we see?

Rama Ramanathan

Several who read my last post have asked me to repeat the comment which was deleted. First, I must repeat that the administrator of the site has informed me that my comment was not deleted, and it was most likely lost due to an FB glitch. I must add that the administrator said some very kind words about my posts and my comments, for which I am grateful.

Second, I don't remember exactly what I had written.

Third, and more importantly, I think it was unwise of me to post the comment: I think I should have written it as another article. Here I will attempt to do so.

My comment was about our responses to Afizal, the national bowler who pleaded guilty to statutory rape, but was not jailed. The preceding sentence could be written in several ways. If I had written "pleaded guilty to rape" or "was not jailed for committing rape," some would accuse me of suggesting the bowler committed a violent crime.

According to some, the bowler committed statutory rape, not rape. They say he's not a rapist. They say if we must label him, we must call him a statutory rapist, not a rapist. They say that if we don't do as they say, we lack compassion. They are unimpressed by our arguments that statutory rape is classified as rape, so the offender is a rapist.

They say the two 'offences' (they are reluctant to use the word 'crime' for what the bowler did) are dissimilar, so we should distinguish between them.

They say rape involves violence and an unwilling party, whom they agree is "a victim."

They say statutory rape doesn't always involve a victim – they say it could be consenting sex. They recognize that by law a minor (under 16 years of age, not 18), by law, cannot give consent. But they argue that this is a technicality.

They bring us to the edge. They ask "what if she were 16 yrs plus 1 day old?" They ask "what if she were 16 yrs minus 1 day old?" They take it further. They ask "who, by looking, can accurately tell the age of a person?" They say it's not significant that there is a five year difference in age between the bowler and the minor (she was 13+, he was 18+).

[I'm ignoring those whose arguments are centred on the 18 year age which legally separates boys from men.]

They remind us that we ourselves routinely break laws – we beat the lights, cheat on taxes, exceed speed limits. They say that just as we give ourselves a break, we should give others a break. Especially in cases involving sex and minors.

They want us to look in the mirror and see just how grotesque we are for insisting upon respecting the technical definition of a minor: a "technicality," according to them.

We know there is some truth to what they say. I think back to an occasion when I was embarrassed to learn a girl whom I thought was an adult was only 14.

We know what cosmetics, clothes and conversation can do to mask age. We know young people who "experiment" and do the silliest things. We know the age of consent is not the same everywhere: marriage at 13 is permitted in some nations.

But we cringe at the word "technicality."

We cringe when "the compassionate" say we are appealing to a technicality when we suggest that the prosecutor was right to expect the court to send the bowler to prison. [Though we know Malaysian prisons are dangerous places, where the number of deaths in custody is extremely high.]

We cringe at the word "technicality" because we know it can be used to hound people.

We know, we are sure, that if Rafizi's release of National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) bank transactions is in breach of the BAFIA (Banking and Financial Institutions Act), the breach is a "technicality" and the AG should not prosecute Rafizi. After all, Rafizi was acting as a whistle blower – even though the Whistle Blower Act only allows Rafizi to report the information to the authorities, not to the public.

"The compassionate" know, and are sure, Afizal should be given the benefit of the doubt. After all, he admitted guilt (actually he changed his plea to guilty after the minor's father spoke during the first hearing). After all, it's possible that he didn't know the girl was a minor. After all, it's possible that she was the one who wanted it (she may even have written something to this effect). After all, many countries have created a special category of offences which they call "young people's offences." This is the world we live in.

What kind of world do we live in? Let me put it to you bluntly.

We live in a world in which many girls get to use make-up, go to spas, dress like adults, watch television and surf the web unsupervised, etc. before they reach the age of consent. We live in a world where males just want to have fun, and women think of men as playthings: remember Sex in the City?

We live in a world which pays more attention to image than to substance. We live in a world which looks for people to idolize – whether film stars, CEO's or athletes. We live in a world which focuses on individual rights, not the common good.

We live in a world which pretends that premarital sex is the norm. In all the ranting and raging, how much have you heard about refraining from sex before marriage? Are those who promote "no sex before marriage" just silly?

Many secretly approve what the bowler's girlfriend said: "if you're not involved, butt out." People don't think that what they do in private affects the fabric of the community.

Many think you can do anything and get away with it – all you need is a team of lawyers who can find "technicalities" to get you off the hook.

Postscript: I awoke with a deep sense that this article will never satisfy me this side of heaven, for there is a tension between compassion and justice which will remain unresolved. The word which chokes in our throats is not "technicality;" it's "justice."

We choke because we know laws and justice this side of heaven are imperfect, but necessary: for evil must be restrained if we are to live in community. We choke because we know we are superficial if in all our thinking about Afizal and the minor we don't consider God, justice, laws, heaven, earth and hell. We choke because we know the very existence of laws implies a place of punishment for those who willfully disobey.

Also, we choke because we don't want to talk about chastity, the "elephant" that was in that hotel room together with Afizal and the minor, past midnight one day 3 years ago in Malacca. I end with a quote from C S Lewis (the man who wrote the Narnia chronicles):

"The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union.

The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating.

It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again."

C S Lewis, Mere Christianity

Merdeka Day bash at Bukit Jalil Stadium

Posted: 27 Aug 2012 12:56 PM PDT

A set-back for nation-building by 55 years when Malaysian public excluded from the 100,000-seat capacity stadium which is reserved for "BN invites" only

The Malaysiakini report last night stated that Kamaruddin, when asked why opposition parties were not included in the seating plan, said that "opposition party members could join the rest of the crowd outside the stadium".

Lim Kit Siang

Last night, in response to the Malaysiakini report "Bukit Jalil Merdeka Day bash for invites only", I penned five tweets, viz:

1. Scandalous! Outrageous! What Merdeka D bash is this? http://goo.gl/H1IpV Bukit Jalil Merdeka Day bash is invite only- Sara Ghazie(Mkini)

2. "Got like that one meh?" exclamation will be heard throughout country when Malaysians read "Bukit Jalil Merdeka Day bash is invite only"

3. No better proof of BN hijacking Merdeka Day celebrations - 1st BN election slogan of "Janji Ditepati" n now 100k Stadium largely BN invites

4. With MerdekaDay bash BtJalil Stadium hijacked by BN pumped up by rent-MerdekaDay-crowds, all pretence of 1Malaysia inclusive thrown 2winds

5. What irony 4Najib's 1Msia signature slogan! "Bukit Jalil Merdeka Day bash is invite only" has set back nation-building in Msia by 55 years!

This morning, the Minister for Information, Communications and Culture, Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim "clarified" that the official Merdeka Day celebration at Bukit Jallil Stadium on Friday is opened to the public, saying:

"The allegation made by certain people that the Merdeka 55 gathering at Bukit Jalil will be only for invitees is not true.

"It is deplorable for certain opposition leader to try to foil what is to be the rakyat's right to commemorate nation's 55th birthday."

Rais need not be so coy as he could name me as the one who had responded to the Malaysiakini report on the Malaysian twitterverse.

if I am wrong or mistaken, I am prepared to retract and apologise as I have no intention to spoil, foil or sabotage the Merdeka Day bash planned by the Barisan Nasional government at Bukit Jalil Stadium, although I strongly disagree with the manner in which the Barisan Nasional is hijacking the 55th Merdeka Day/49th Malaysia Day celebrations, causing even greater division and dissension among Malaysians instead of sparking a transcending sense of Malaysian one-ness rising above race, religion, region or political affiliation in keeping with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's 1Malaysia policy on both these national celebrations.

However, as a result of Rais' comments, I have revisited the Malaysiakini report last night as well as my five tweets to ascertain whether I have inadvertently made any mistakes or whether the Malaysiakini report had erred. But I have found neither.

There is no denial or retraction of the statement attributed to the Information, Communications and Culture Ministry secretary-general Kamaruddin Siaraf that members of the public could only witness the 55th Merdeka Day "bash" from four screens outside the Bukit Jalil stadium.

This has been further confirmed by the seating arrangement released by Kamaruddin yesterday where only VIPs, BN component party members, civil servants, schoolchildren and other specially-picked groups - including two minor BN-friendly political parties, Indian Progressive Front (IPF) and Malaysian Indian Muslim Congress (Kimma) – have been allocated seats in the 100,000-seat capacity stadium.

He said dismissively: "They can come on the 'tiket rakyat (people's ticket)' No problem."

After reviewing the Malaysiakini reports last night and Rais' comments today, I stand by my five tweets last night that the Merdeka Day bash at Bukit Jalil Stadium is scandalous, outrageous and a set-back for nation-building by 55 years when Malaysian public are excluded from the 100,000-seat capacity stadium which is reserved for "BN invites" only.

Clearly the Najib administration has never heard or understood the statement "The People Are the Boss" in a parliamentary democracy.

How much would the Merdeka Day bash at Bukit Jalil Stadium cost? Would Barisan Nasional pay for the bash from the BN coffers?

As the Malaysian taxpayers will have to pay for the Merdeka Day bash at Bukit Jalil Stadium, how can the Malaysian public be treated as "outsiders", relegated to outside the stadium to watch from four screens? They might as well stay at home to watch the live telecast instead!

Dinesh Could Have Been My Son

Posted: 27 Aug 2012 12:51 PM PDT

First, they pull wool over our eyes where crime statistics are concerned. When we got around it, they then, decide to "reduce" these statistics by puffing out those whom they suspect. Is that the case? Suspect. Judge. Execute! No legal redress?

May Chee Chook Ying

I, too, have a son. If my son went out for supper and not come back, I would die. How can any of
this make sense? How do I go on living?

This is not just another death. It's not just another statistic. Someone got killed in cold-blood. And he was someone's son. He was engaged to be married. There's some girl out there, happily waiting for her Big Day. It's the day she has been waiting for, all her life. Then, she receives a call, telling her the love of her life was gunned down, just like that. Will it make any sense to her? What is she to think? Or feel?

I can't even begin to imagine what his loved ones are going through. Can you?

Now and then, in the most democratic country in the world, you hear of these extrajudicial killings. Wikipedia defines an extrajudicial killing as "the killing of a person by government authorities without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process. Extrajudicial punishments are by their nature, UNLAWFUL, since they bypass the due process of the legal jurisdiction in which they occur".

Is Malaysia the most democratic country in the world or a lawless jungle? Are our law enforcers so ill-trained that they cannot use due process to first apprehend, question and if necessary, throw the book at the suspects, etc? Or so cowardly that they had to shoot to kill? You had guns, guys, they didn't!

There are ways to subdue suspects, no? There are better ways to enforce the law, no? Must kill? NO! Another life lost is one, too many. These extrajudicial killings have got to stop! Period!

Our cops have to be better vetted, recruited and trained. We can't see a cop and fear for our lives, can we? Between robbers that rob and cops that kill, are we not sandwiched between the devil and the deep blue sea? I believe most of all would prefer to lose things than to be snuffed out, just like that!

You know what I'm thinking? All that's been happening lately? Our public institutions and powers-that-be lack COURAGE! It is so telling! Cops shoot to kill when they only suspect. Detractors to the powers-that-be are falsely accused of atrocities, left and right. Unfounded fears forced down our throats. An education and grading system that render the majority of our children incompetent globally. Mainstream media that lie, again and again. Decisions by the courts that are wanting. The list goes on.

Who is lacking courage, here in Malaysia? The majority? Or only those who want to hang onto something they don't deserve or are ill-equipped for? Some dopes here in Malaysia, talk so big and loud but all I see are fools preying on the fears and insecurities of another. You call yourself courageous? Look into the eyes of your kids and tell them, everything you did, you did it for the good of the nation. If you are that intelligent, how come our coffers are empty and we are borrowing so much? If you care so much for other Malaysians or even for just your own kind, how come the poor are getting poorer and you, richer and responsible for the massive capital flight out of the country?

We had rubber. We had tin. We, then turned to palm oil. We still have some oil. Everything we brought in or dug out turned to gold. We were so blessed. What happened? Some dopes gambled our fortune away. When they hit jackpot, they kept the winnings for themselves. When they lost and they lost, big time, they pulverized the country's coffers. Do we still want to be with them?

I don't know about you but I intend to live my life in the Light. I intend to seek the Truth. I don't intend to live with radioactive elements making their way into my body. I don't intend to have rogues gunning down my kids in broad daylight. I don't want to see my neighbour go naked, hungry and uneducated anymore.

But I can't do this alone. Please, help me.

Malaysians, please arise and demand change. Change for the better before it's too late. Do it for our precious children. We brought them into this world to give them life; to embrace life as they should with wander and in awe. If we stick to the status quo, what's there to look forward to?

Remember, #Dinesh could have been your son.

God bless.

Many reasons why it’s actually “Janji tak ditepati”

Posted: 25 Aug 2012 04:41 AM PDT

Daniel John Jambun

This year's slogan for the national day celebration, "Janji ditepati" has courted a lot of controversy not only because it violates the sanctity of the national celebration by converting it into a BN election campaign but also because it is so easy to argue with. It was a mistake on the part of BN to have chosen the slogan because the statement of the slogan itself invites criticisms and arguments. BN has forgotten that the national celebration is for all Malaysians regardless of party affiliation, so BN is really making an outrageous blunder, or showing plain arrogance, by making even the national celebration its own celebration.

By doing so, BN has alienated the rakyat who are in the opposition. Now there is no reason for the opposition to celebrate the national day together because it has become "BN's Day"! There is no reason for people in the opposition to be patriotic with the national day because to celebrate it means to support BN! BN has forgotten that its duty is to celebrate the national day on behalf of ALL the people. The national day belongs to the people NOT to BN! No wonder the number of flags being put up on shops, offices, houses and vehicles have suddenly dwindled to ALMOST ZERO compared to previous years. Now even the Jalur Gemilang has a strong tinge of BN's arrogance so much so that many people no longer feel any patriotic feeling when they see flapping in the wind.

Is BN so desperate or so frightened of losing the next general election that it is using everything and anything it can get its hands on, even the people's patriotic heritage to glorify itself? Or is it so overconfident or simply super-arrogant that it thinks that it will gain a lot of political mileage by making it a part of the BN propaganda? Apparently that is the case, and because of this the whole meaning of patriotism has been hijacked and damaged. From the BN's viewpoint patriotism means supporting the BN while from the viewpoint of the opposition patriotism means saving the nation from the abuses of the BN! So now it is meaningless for the BN to appeal to the people's sense of patriotism because when the Prime Minister or any top BN leader talks about patriotism they know it means only one thing, "Come and support the BN" and "Supporting the opposition means destroying the country." So, in a way, being patriotic in Malaysia nowadays is to come in cahoots with robbers!

But back to the problem of "Janji Ditepati." If we were to list and discuss all the issues which prove that this is not an honest statement, it would fill up several books. But here is a sampling of only a few cases.

One, the security for Sabah in Malaysia. When Sabah was considering whether to join the formation of Malaysia, the rational bandied about for doing so was the supposed threat from the Philippines which had been claiming Sabah and the threat by Sukarno's konfrontasi to "Ganyang Malaysia" before the cockerel crows on the dawn of September 16, 1963, that without Malaysia, Sabah would be invaded and colonized by Indonesia. But strangely history had shown that these threats didn't go far as proven by the fact that Brunei not only survived but prospered. And when we became part of the federation we didn't really get the security that we were promised. Very ironically it were the Filipinos and Indonesians who actually invaded Sabah, not as military forces, but as illegal immigrants, and all the security forces of Malaysia – the army, the border police, the immigration officials – couldn't or wouldn't stop them! Where was the promise to guarantee us security?

Two, the promise not to 'colonization' of Sabah. Donald Stephens biggest worry was that Sabah would escape from the clutches of British colonialization and fall into being a colony of Malaya. The Tunku then made a promise that Sabah and Sarawak would not become the 12th and 13^th states of Malaya. But this is what had happened. We are now unitary states instead of being independent, equal-partner nations in the federation as was originally understood. The promise not to colonize Sabah was flagrantly broken.

Three, there is no compliance by the federal government on the five constitutional documents and/or constitutional conventions (the Federal Constitution, the Malaysia Agreement, the 20 Points, the IGC Report, and the Batu Oath Stone) which formed the basis for Sabah & Sarawak's equal partnership as nations in Malaysia.

Four, why wasn't there a proper constitution drafted and passed? What we have is actually the constitution of the federation of Malaya amended to become what is now the "Federal Constitution" which is the real reason why it is not called the "Malaysian Constitution." When they came up with the decision to use the Malayan constitution as a basis for the constitution we have now, there was already a hidden agenda. We were played out from even before the start of Malaysia.

Five, the rights and autonomy for Sabah. The 20 Points has many points which promised certain rights and autonomy for Sabah. These have now been taken away, eroded or simply denied, often without any proper legal process. That is why we no longer have freedom not to have any official religion, right to arrange our own education system, to determine our own immigration rules and to retain the collection of our own taxes and use it in accordance to our own economic plans. The 20 Points in fact is a list of not only broken promises but a list of rights and autonomy which were then taken away unceremoniously.

Six, we were not consulted before the decision was made to expel Singapore from Malaysia. This means Malaya thought that the views of Sabah and Sarawak as components of the federation were immaterial and irrelevant in matters of such a critical and vital decision as expelling a partner. This was simple arrogance, a condescending attitude, taking us for granted because our leaders in Sabah were seen as people who could be forced to accept Malaya's decision. Only one leader, Donald Stephens, demanded for a review of the Malaysia Agreement and to silence him he was sent or "ice-boxed" to Australia as Malaysia's ambassador.

Seven, the Sabah Baru promise. When BN took over the state government in Sabah in 1994, there was a huge announcement of a promise to create "Sabah Baru" (a New Sabah) within 100 days. Now after 18 years we do have a 'new Sabah' – a Sabah depleted of its natural forests which had caused the death of ecosystems and many rivers, a Sabah mired in poverty and abject poverty with 40 percent of Malaysia's poor, a Sabah which is the poorest in Malaysia. BN had promised a dream but delivered a nightmare!

And the situation is not improving. In fact things are getting worse. The state continues to be flooded with illegal immigrants, and the solution is not forthcoming because the recently-announced RCI is not expected to solve it largely because it has no provision to penalize those culprits behind the problem, and that obviously it was announced only as an election ploy.

Janji ditepati? You be the judge.

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Selasa, 28 Ogos 2012

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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