Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- The banker and the politician
- Old Soldier takes the final bow
- PRU13 tanpa Anwar di barisan depan?
- Longing For A Free Mind (Part 11 of 14)
| Posted: 19 May 2011 04:21 PM PDT Both were accused of sexual assault – one by a hotel chambermaid, the other by his maid. The global finance boss was arrested on an Air France flight, minutes before it was to take-off. Strauss-Kahn who was accused of attempted rape has quit as head of the IMF. The IMF has been thrown into disarray but in a statement, Strauss-Kahn declared he would "devote all my strength, all my time, and all my energy to proving my innocence". Mariam Mokhtar, Free Malaysia Today What do a French banker and a Malaysian politician have in common? The brilliant economist, Dominique Strauss-Kahn assumed office as the tenth Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Nov 1, 2007. The 62-year-old Frenchman is also a lawyer and former Socialist finance minister. He graduated from Paris' top business and political schools with a law degree, and economics Phd. Strauss-Kahn is known to be the clear favourite to beat French President, Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidency in 2012. Privately, Strauss-Kahn feared he would be subjected to a smear campaign by the president and his Interior Minister. Rais Yatim, is Malaysia's Minister of Information, Communication and Culture. The 69-year-old is a lawyer by profession and obtained his PhD from King's College London. In 2007 Malaysia nominated Rais, who was then the Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage, to replace the outgoing Commonwealth secretary-general, Don McKinnon, whose term would have expired in March 2008. Rais was strongly tipped to be the first secretary-general from Asia and countries like Singapore, Brunei and New Zealand, supported Malaysia's bid. But hours after discussing the campaign strategy at a Cabinet meeting, Rais withdrew his candidacy. Both the Cabinet and government were shocked. The proper procedure, which is that the government would announce changes in the bid, had not been adhered to. So what do these two men, Strauss-Kahn and Rais, have in common? Both were accused of sexual assault – one by a hotel chambermaid, the other by his maid. The critical difference is in the way these two men handled the serious charges made against them. Different reactions The global finance boss was arrested on an Air France flight, minutes before it was to take-off. Strauss-Kahn who was accused of attempted rape has quit as head of the IMF. The IMF has been thrown into disarray but in a statement, Strauss-Kahn declared he would "devote all my strength, all my time, and all my energy to proving my innocence". Hours after resigning, Strauss-Kahn appealed the decision to remand him in custody as prosecutors were fearful that he would escape like the film director Roman Polanski, who fled to France in 1977 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. Nevertheless, Strauss-Kahn was prepared to be confined to his daughter's home in Manhattan and wear an electronic ankle tag so his movements could be monitored and he could not leave the city. Strauss-Kahn was also prepared to give up the protection against extradition given by France to its citizens: "I voluntarily waive all extradition proceeding of every kind and character". Back in 2007, was Rais' abrupt departure from the Commonwealth race because he had been allegedly accused of raping his Indonesian maid? The statement by Migrant Care, dated Aug 1, 2007, had called for a thorough investigation into the alleged rape. The incident happened in 2007. The victim, a maid from Indonesia, had worked for a "Malaysian senior minister" from "the ruling party" for eight years. It was after the disclosures by WikiLeaks and various bloggers, that the minister allegedly accused of rape has been identified as Rais. The maid subsequently released a statement denying the rape allegation. There has been speculation that she has been offered money or else been threatened. Rais too has denied the allegation and has sued a blogger for defamation over a posting about the rape allegation. However, four months after the Indonesian maid denied that she was raped by Rais, police appear to be harassing NGO Tenaganita for reproducing a media statement on the allegation. Latheefa Koya, the lawyer for Tenaganita's executive director, Irene Fernandez, wanted to know if the police had investigated the allegation, instead of focusing on the media statement. Latheefa said, "Have the police done the investigation to conclude that it is a 'defamation' as stated in their letter (to Irene)? Have they questioned Rais and Migrant Care? "If the investigation had been done, they should go after Migrant Care. Why question Irene?" According to sources, the Indonesian NGO, Migrant Care has not retracted or denied its original statement. Latheefa stressed that the police should not stop their investigation into the rape allegation just because the maid had denied it: "Because a victim is vulnerable and traumatised, it doesn't mean that you should stop the investigation if the victim keeps quiet or retracts the allegation".
|
| Old Soldier takes the final bow Posted: 19 May 2011 09:45 AM PDT By Maxwell Coopers, Free Malaysia Today Old soldiers never die. They just fade away. – General Douglas MacArthur before the US House of Congress. Like an old soldier who knew nothing but political combat all his life, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew announced that he was quitting the Cabinet led by his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Expectedly, news of the abrupt departure of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew – labelled as always by his abbreviated initials of LKY – and his one-time anointed heir Goh Chok Tong who himself, too, was Prime Minister between 1990 until 2004, rattled the tiny city-state. "I just cannot believe, cannot believe it," one respondent told the city-state's Channel News Asia television station in the aftermath of the May 7 general election. For the weary-hearted, the news was greeted with a mixture of ambivalence, apprehension and, in some quarters, relief. Relief, because it was increasingly evident that Singaporeans are tiring of Kuan Yew; they even showed their displeasure when he said that residents in Aljunied Group Representation Council (GRC) would "repent" if they voted for the opposition Workers' Party (WP). But there is no denying the greatness of one of the world's best-known statesmen. Able administrator Former Malaysian prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad once described him as "a remarkable intellectual and politician" and LKY never failed to live up to that billing. In a book written by noted Singaporean writer, Cherian George, Kuan Yew reportedly was making decisions even in the dying minutes of his administration in 1990 before handing over the reins to Goh. According to sources, Lee's penchant for horticulture explains why Singapore emerged as the world's first Garden City. Yet for those who have known LKY – the martinet who suffers no fools and who sometimes exhibits an acerbic temper – his departure brings an end to an era where his dominant personality had towered over everything that is now Singapore. But that is not to say that LKY is immensely popular. A better description would be to say that he is respected, because he has ably administered a tiny city-state bereft of natural resources and took it to the frontiers of global commerce and international esteem. LKY's many clashes with his political rivals – the many defamation suits he brought against them, notably that of Malaysian-born JB Jeyaretnam – have perhaps etched him in history as one of the most formidable political opponents anybody in living memory can attest to. New dawn The Singapore public will not forget the invective LKY hurled at Jeyaretnam in a March 1986 parliamentary debate on the judiciary when he called the latter a "skunk". There were also the many scrapes he got himself into with the international press such as the "Far Eastern Economic Review". Many have come out bruised, slapped with suits that ran into tens of thousands of dollars. Yet, all said and done, nobody can fault LKY for bringing political and social stability to his nation albeit at the expense of human rights.
|
| PRU13 tanpa Anwar di barisan depan? Posted: 18 May 2011 06:16 PM PDT Kini, tarikh PRU13 banyak bergantung dengan kes Anwar. Sasaran rebutan pengaruh pula tertumpu di kalangan pengundi Melayu (dan juga masyarakat India yang mungkin mengalami peralihan undi). Apakah keputusan kes liwat II ini mampu menarik sokongan orang Melayu kepada Umno-BN, atau isu videa seks menyebabkan sekurang-kurangnya mereka keliru dan curiga dengan Anwar dan Pakatan Rakyat (khususnya PAS)? Ahmad Lutfi Othman, Harakahdaily Tidak sukar untuk meneka apa nasib yang bakal menimpa Anwar Ibrahim apabila Ketua Pembangkang itu dikehendaki oleh Mahkamah Tinggi Kuala Lumpur Isnin lalu untuk membela diri. Masa depan beliau dijangka lebih kelam jika kita meneliti hujah-hujah Hakim Zabidin Mohamad Diah. Sejak pilihan raya umum 1999, Anwar merupakan aktor paling penting dan begitu menonjol, yang mendominasi hampir semua isu-isu politik sepanjang 12 tahun lalu. Dalam PRU12, Anwar berpeluang menjelajah ke seluruh negara berkempen dan bersama-sama menyusun strategi buat parti-parti pembangkang, juga membangkitkan isu-isu yang menarik perhatian rakyat.
|
| Longing For A Free Mind (Part 11 of 14) Posted: 18 May 2011 09:42 AM PDT "Here's a few hundred dollars for the children's school books and uniforms!" How sweet! With such a noble niat (intention), how could it be a corrupt act! By M. Bakri Musa [Presented at the Fifth Annual Alif Ba Ta Conference at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, organized by UMNO Club of New York-New Jersey, January 29, 2011.] Q&A: Change, Corruption, and Talent Recruitment
A1: I understand and share your frustration. What will it take for our country to change for the better? I am certain that a few weeks ago the average Tunisians felt the same way as you do now; likewise the Egyptians, until just a few days ago. So do not despair, change will come. My hope is that when it arrives, we will be spared the fate now endured by the Tunisians and Egyptians. Until then we must register at every opportunity and in every way our distaste and disapproval of the current state of affairs. We have representatives from the embassy and the Ministry of Higher Education here. They will hear what we have to say. I do not know what the trigger or tipping point will be for Malaysia. In Tunisia it was a hawker who burned himself, fed up with the highhanded ways of the authorities. In Malaysia I thought it was Anwar's black eye; then there was Hindraf's rally. Perhaps it would take a combination of all three, salacious sex, senseless violence involving the police, and corruption at the very highest level to trigger a tipping point. For all I know such a scandal has already occurred. However, a scandal will not become one until it is exposed. It may not even be a scandal but something relatively minor as the graduate who burned himself in Tunisia. The point is that the tinder is accumulating and the air is dry. It would not take much to ignite it and then a conflagration would result. How long will Malays continue to believe the canard fed to us, that all our problems are due to the colonialists, the West, and the pendatangs? Sooner or later we will discover that we have been led by the same UMNO for over half a century and we have not changed. When that moment of realization arrives, that will be the tipping point. Q2: Why is it so difficult to eradicate corruption from our public life? Q2: Corruption is evil; I know of no culture that regards it as a virtue. So when it is rampant, we must consider that society at large views such acts as other than corruption. As such they become accepted as the norm, or even praiseworthy. That is the condition in Malaysia today. Corruption is pervasive horizontally as well as vertically. By horizontal I mean it pervades not just the kerani (petty clerks) in the Customs Department but also the Police, Roads and other departments. By vertical I mean from the lowest kerani to the highest government officials. Some will be offended by what I just said. Consider this. The King or the sultans do not pay any income tax or any tax for that matter even when they import their private Lomborghinis and thoroughbred horses. As for Najib, you can form your own judgment. When junior officers see these gross lapses of ethical judgment in their superiors, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those conducts are acceptable. In America, what is plainly corruption (and the associated influence peddling) is now made legal by labeling it as "lobbying." Presumably when everything is done in the open, with official receipts, fancy "consultant" documents, and high priced lobbyists involved, the activity becomes legitimate. Never mind that the corrupting influence is still there and the corrosion of values continues. Malaysians, especially Malays, do not have comparable intellectual sophistry to similarly camouflage acts of corruption. So we resort to what is familiar and acceptable to if not valued by us. In visiting the villages, I am stunned that those folks do not consider the gifts of money and sarong pelakat from politicians as corrupt acts or attempts to buy votes. Rather, those villagers consider them as rezki, bounty from Allah. Allah has softened the hearts of the donors (aka corrupt politicians) to be generous on me and gave me the cheap sarong. Alham dulillah! (Praise be to Allah!) To purify the "gift" and make it acceptable to Allah, the donor would kindly add, "Here's a few hundred dollars for the children's school books and uniforms!" How sweet! With such a noble niat (intention), how could it be a corrupt act! Once that is accepted it is but a smooth glide to more expensive gifts, like an all-expense paid trip to Mecca. How could you refuse such a gift, an invitation to Paradise! From there it is but a short step to luxury condos in Port Dickson, beautiful companies included. Another twist would be to utter pseudo-religious incarnations like "Kerana Allah!" (In the name of God!) during the transfer of cash-filled envelopes. The understanding is that should you fail to deliver your end of the bargain you would face the wrath of Allah. Such degradation of our great faith! It is this religious and cultural "purifications" of acts that otherwise would be viewed as corruption plain and simple that make them particularly difficult to eradicate. To combat this we need help from our ulamas and religious leaders. Unfortunately they too have all been co-opted by the state and been similarly infected with this evil virus. We do have exceptions of course, like the former Mufti of Perlis, Dr. Asri Zainul. There is another aspect to corruption, at least the variety plaguing the public sector. This is more pernicious because it reflects an underlying racist mindset and thus more difficult to eradicate. Most public officials are Malays. To them, the victims of corruption are mostly non-Malays, specifically rich Chinese businessmen and women. Thus they are fair game. After all they are not exactly humans like us, or if they are, they are not on the same par with us. To a senior custom official, his extorting a few thousand ringgit from a Chinese importer for understating the value of an imported machinery means he (the official) is ripping the Chinese entrepreneur. The Chinaman is rich anyway and thus could spare a few cash for an underpaid civil servant and a member of the Ketuanan Melayu clan to boot. At least that is the rationalization. It does not occur to the official that the victim of his corrupt act is not the businessman but the government, the official's employer. The money he pocketed belongs to the government, or more accurately, the rakyat (citizens). Thus instead of going into his pocket that money could have been more usefully used to buy school books for some poor rural students who may well be the official's nieces and nephews once or twice removed. What emboldens the public servant to perpetuate his corrupt ways is seeing the same pattern but on a much grander scale perpetrated by his higher ups, including cabinet ministers. He sees bloated government contracts awarded to cronies and family members of ministers or even sultans on "direct negotiations basis." Even if there were to be open tenders, those were meant merely for public displays. An example would the current court case involving an abandoned hospital project in Shah Alam where the prime contractor is a company whose principal is the sister of the Sultan of Selangor. She was brazen enough or too greedy not to be satisfied with her share of the "commission" from her "sub-contractor." She demanded further "cut" as work progressed. All these details would not have surfaced except for the subsequent lawsuits. Then there was a minister, a vociferous spokesperson for transparency and efficient governance who awarded "AP permits" to import cars to her close family members, like her son-in-law. Of course she would claim that it was all based on "merit." With such rampant and glaring examples at the top, we should not be surprised with the pervasiveness of petty corruption. Q3: Can you comment on the Talent Corporation tasked with recruiting talented Malaysians now abroad? A3: Earlier you heard Shamsul Qamar's [a representative from the Ministry of Higher Education on a State Department-sponsored study tour of America] sharing a comment from an Indian official also on the same tour. Asked why India, a Third World country, is now a global leader in IT he replied, "It is because India does not have a Ministry of IT!" That was said in jest, nonetheless there is profound truth in that statement. If we want to entice talented Malaysians to return home, get rid of the GLC Talent Corporation. That company is nothing more than a scheme to provide employment opportunities for retired civil servants and for them to go on all-expense paid trips abroad on "recruiting" sprees. In one of my books I gave the exercise of cleaning up the public beaches. If the government were to do give out tenders and pick the most competitive bidder, the winner would be out on the beach the very next day with his own truck to pick the garbage. However, if the government were to set up a Department of Beach Cleanliness instead, the first six months would be consumed with endless meetings for budget allocation, status (timescale or super-scale) of its director as well as his parking and housing privileges. Then there will be tenders for the purchase of trucks and the inevitable interference from local UMNO operatives seeking their cut in the deal. Perhaps a year and several million ringgit later would the first garbage be picked up! The best way to get talented Malaysians to return would first be to stop them from leaving. Plug the leakage! Treat those currently at home well. Take our scientists and medical specialists at our universities. You could not easily raise their salaries as those History and Malay Studies professors too would demand equal treatment. To overcome that, keep the salaries the same and instead grant those scientists generous research grants and other privileges like attending scientific meetings abroad. I would also reward them by appointing them to be directors of the various GLCs. That would be a neat way to augment their pay. Do that and the good news will quickly spread abroad, enticing those currently abroad to consider returning home. That would be more effective than any sweet sales job by the civil servants of the Talent Corporation. Next: Part 12 of 14: Q& A (Cont'd): Pakatan, UMNO, and Mahathir |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan