Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
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| Lahad Datu: Is there a solution? Posted: 05 Mar 2013 01:26 PM PST
By bringing the battles right to the heart of our towns, they have nothing to lose; but not us, our terrified civilians will become refugees and our developments devastated. Vidal Yuden Weil, FMT This is a requested sequel to my previous article titled "To whom does Sabah belong?" which attracted a high number of responses and shares in cyber space and triggering a unique volume of debate among netizens. In the current piece, I will unmask the mindset of most Malaysian commentators before imparting more of my findings about the Lahad Datu debacle. Firstly: To the families of policemen who died in the line of duty, my condolences here are as heartfelt and deep as those of mine for the families of innocent citizens who died in police custody including those inside motor vehicles as a result of police shootings. Secondly: To the families of deceased Tausug warriors who had to assert their right to sovereignty with their lives, my profoundest sympathy that it has to come to such a stage as a result of the failings of my government and possibly that of yours as well. I condemn my government for our casualties and I leave it to you to rebuke yours if yours so deserve it. By and large, not all homo sapiens are born intelligent, and the high tendency of them ending up as nincompoops rests on how he or she is brought up at home and of course that also includes the way they are educated. Many countries in the world control the thinking of their citizens; for example, I was reliably told only a few weeks ago that the National University of Singapore does not have the subject called "Jurisprudence" for their law students; if this is true, my personal opinion is that it must have been deliberately done to prevent them from becoming lawyers who can think better. On the other hand, Malaysians are indoctrinated from a young age with politically convenient half-truths which are spiced up with fabricated history about events that are authored by so-called historians who were never there in the first place; such brainwashing was authorised by an irresponsible government with a vicious tenacity to keep the citizens daft and executed right from primary schools up to tertiary levels. For instance, all Malaysians read from government authorised history books believing that Sabah and Sarawak are of the same status with the remaining 11 states in West Malaysia – they are wrong! Tunku Abdul Rahman uttered the following historical statements: "The granting of self-government too would enable Sabah to stand on its own feet as equal with Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore." (Sabah Times, Jesselton, Aug 30, 1963.) Serial racists As a result of the miserable education system, many Malaysians grew up to become full-blown serial racists and religious bigots who not only think that they are superior to other people, but also are unable to respond out of the box because they were only taught "what to think" instead of "how to think" for themselves; and worst, many Malaysians are not even aware of their own pathetic predicament much like when a shrink asks a mental patient "are you mad?" and the lunatic will always answer in the negative. Like an orphaned lamb which grew up with a pack of wolf pups, the former mistakenly thought that it is strong and formidable like the latter when it was actually physically and psychologically compromised; such is my description of the general Malaysian public today. It is not entirely the fault of Malaysians when many of them cannot understand basic, decent, and logical elucidation because the education system that churned them out is wanting; but if they continue to elect a bunch of clowns that is corrupted to the core to run the government which only knows how to fiddle with propaganda and figures to look good, the worst will get even worse. While Malaysians per se are somewhat reasonable, many could not accept fact and truth particularly when they think their interests are in jeopardy; in short, they are unable to behave impartial. For introducing the naked truth about the sovereignty of the Philippines over Sabah, a layman wrote that there is a difference between stealing something movable and stealing land – how much more preposterous can Malaysians be? Netizens can find all the ridiculous arguments by Malaysians in the comments section of my immediate previous article in FMT; while not all Malaysians are warped in their thinking, I am sad to say more than 90% of the Malaysian comments therein are such. Now back to the Lahad Datu skirmishes. I still maintain that the whole episode is a sandiwara with pre-planned collateral damages thrown in. Is Najib Tun Razak planning to declare emergency, suspend the Federal Constitution, and impose martial law to delay elections which the Barisan Nasional will lose? Will this incident make the BN look more like a hero when our troops finally sweep in? With the large number of soldiers from Peninsular Malaysia being deployed to Sabah at this time, how many tens of thousands more additional postal votes are we talking about now to bolster the chances of the BN in Sabah? What about the feelings of the 900,000 Tausug people in Sabah, how will it affect their votes? Alternatively, has the parade now got out of control with the Sulu warriors no longer following the script? Ridiculous suggestion It was recorded that the Tausug people of Sulu were never colonised by any foreign powers; their warriors are war-hardened and fear nothing. A few decades ago, they were funded by Libya to fight the government of the Philippines. Was our government the one that trained, armed, and gave them safe haven? Was the same also true of the Acheh rebels in Indonesia and the Pattani separatists in Thailand? I am unable to gauge the capabilities of our present troops to dislodge the so-called intruders, but I do worry for them and the civilians; the Tausug people never surrender and they never forgive. If their warriors are here to die fighting, they will be dead sure that many of our soldiers and civilians will follow them. Let me now assume for a moment that the whole thing is not a conspiracy and the Malaysian government does not know how to solve it peacefully and diplomatically; should it not resign en bloc and let the people choose a new government to deal with it? The BN government does not have the authority from the rakyat to risk the lives of our troops, innocent civilians, and foreigners included. There is another ridiculous suggestion a few days ago: when the nation was peaceful, non-Malays were sidelined or capped with a glass ceiling for promotion and rank in the police and armed forces; all of a sudden in war, Kadir Jasin said that non-Malays should now die for the country…! What kind of logic is that…? If the Lahad Datu fiasco is real by any imagination, the federation has failed us disastrously; our comfort was all along artificial and looking back, the discredited formation of Malaysia in 1963 is now ludicrously confirmed as not only hugely insignificant but a complete flop and fatally flawed. Malaya is enslaving Sabah and its politicians, who are not troubled by conscience, are subjugating us with foreign nationals by issuing citizenships to them and plundering our rich natural resources. Our presence as the poorest of the poor in Malaysia is a clear indication that Sabah's economy is not only on the retreat, but heading for world-record collapse at a speed few of us can comprehend. Malaya's ambition is boundless; it seizes every opportunity meant for Sabah and what did our impoverished people get – terror in the end. Just look at our infrastructure: a few new roads, a few magnificent government buildings, expensive homes for the elite; but our people are still as poor as ever on a colossal scale working day and night for a pittance. Compared with colonialism, this is much more oppressive and widespread than anything our former British colonial government was ever accused of. Why must our government run on bribery and by notoriously corrupt pariah politicians while the police force on brutality? There is a real sense of anxiety among a lot of Sabah people that citizens do not have any real protection that we should have; fundamentally, we are now under siege, not only from Sulu gunmen but from Malaya. Why can we not have our own final say on our rights? Why must the people of Malaya insist on how we should live our lives? We are not a colony of anyone! The people of Sabah are astonishing human beings with a limitless capacity for self-sacrifice; but today, I say: enough is enough. All Malaya politicians are hypocritical and disgraceful – well below the standards expected of decent leaders; the greatest justice for Sabah will triumph on the historic day all the Malaya-based political parties and their local running dogs are humiliatingly voted out by bold Sabahans in the 13th general election, effectively ending their dangerous and hate-driven abusive meddling in the affairs of Sabah, making us physically and financially ill.
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| Posted: 05 Mar 2013 01:22 PM PST
Malaysians, regardless of colour and creed, love Malaysia. This is home and on its walls, are etched the memories of our lives and that of our loved ones. RK Anand, FMT The soldiers huddled in the trenches as the mortar shells exploded all around them, uprooting trees and sending chunks of earth into the air, which fell back to the ground like droplets of rain. In one trench, three frightened men embraced each other, wondering if this heralded the end. Then came the order to advance, the three were stunned. It was suicidal. Seconds later, an argument erupted. Wong and Muthu wanted Abu to make the first dash, hoping that it would distract the enemy troops, giving them a better chance of making it to the next trench alive. When Abu insisted that all three move together, Wong and Muthu argued that since he was a Bumiputera, he was entitled to the lion's share of the action compared to the other two. Macabre humour aside. What transpired in Lahad Datu is not an item for burlesque. The bloodbath has claimed the lives of numerous brave men who heeded the call to defend the nation against armed intruders. Husbands and fathers perished, their valour must be honoured. But amid the lethal exchange, several questions arose as to whether the confrontation is part of a script and if so, who authored it? Were lives pawned in a political chess game? With the election so close and with the stakes so high, some felt that certain quarters with vested interests would consider all to be fair in love and war. Conspiracy theories aside. What is also disheartening is that even during the height of conflict, the national disease, to quote the description of a learned friend, poured forth from the pen of a seasoned newsman. He lamented about how the Malays and Bumiputeras had sacrificed their lives to protect Malaysia and suggested that more Chinese and Indians be recruited to die for 1Malaysia as well. His unsound wisdom once again proved that the greater threat to this country is not external but internal. It is not bullets but bigots that threaten to riddle this nation with holes. Before putting forth this question, the seasoned newsman should have also pondered on the reason behind these ingrates' reluctance to make a beeline to join the police and armed forces to defend their motherland. It is after all a promising career, where promotions are based on merit and not race or religion. And which other profession provides the satisfaction of clobbering and gassing fellow citizens who make absurd demands like clean and fair elections, beating detainees to death for investigation purposes and conducting summary executions of suspected criminals. Upon retirement, these ex-servicemen could also join the exclusive club which specialises in posterior warfare outside the residences of "pendatang" women. Just because we are not treated as equals when alive, it does not mean that we should miss the chance of being treated as equals in death. There are no quotas when it comes to bullets. Malaysians, regardless of colour and creed, love Malaysia. This is home and on its walls, are etched the memories of our lives and that of our loved ones. But some are adamant on driving home the message that the non-Malays are tenants, to whom the landlord has been gracious enough to rent rooms. Their economic, sporting, social and political contributions are immaterial. To some, these people are mere squatters and in the event of the slightest transgression, must be reminded of their precarious position with the calls of "Balik India" and "Balik Cina". Even the prime minister, whose clarion call is 1Malaysia, remains silent when movements like Perkasa and those suffering from an identity crisis like Ridhuan Tee Abdullah bombard his citizens with racist salvos and threats to torch bibles.
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