Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Hasan Ali Is Pakatan's Ibrahim Ali
A morning session with The Oracle of Syed Putera
The Illogicality Of It All
FBC Media Scandal – Growing Questions For CNN’s John Defterios

Posted: 05 Aug 2011 09:44 PM PDT

Malaysia is plagued by the 'Ali Problem'. We have Ali Baba businessmen - Umno Malays who help Chinese cronies to get rich. Then there are followers of Ali, the Shi-ites being arrested for spreading Islam and Ibrahim Ali, Dr Mahathir's spanner-in-the-works to undermine Najib and bring him down.

Now, we have Hasan Ali (regarded by many as Umno's Trojan Horse in Pakatan, the man who is rooting for the Umno-PAS 'Malay unity' talk) whose role in the JAIS raid of DUMC could be the undoing of PAS. Upon closer analysis, one wonders of the possibility of it being an Umno conspiracy to get PAS to do something stupid that will hurt Pakatan. A case of history being repeated?

Down Memory Lane

After the 1999 general election, the then Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad declared that since Malaysia was already an Islamic country, PAS was not needed. He argued that Umno was then the largest Islamic party in the world. PAS, he claimed, was then only a quarter or less the size of Umno in terms of membership. With that, the one-upmanship tussle between PAS and UMNO began.

From thence, Dr Mahathir goaded PAS by saying that the Islamic party promised all sorts of things before the elections, but now that they were running two states, Kelantan and Terengganu, they still had not delivered on their promises. He questioned, "Where is the promise of Islamic laws?"

PAS fell into the trap. Without the consensus of its other three coalition partners in Barisan Alternatif (PKN, DAP and PRM), PAS unilaterally announced that the Terengganu state government was going to introduce Islamic laws in the state. Following that, PAS launched its Islamic State Document (ISD) and introduced Islamic laws in the Terengganu State Assembly and that was the beginning of the end for the opposition coalition.

Subsequently, DAP distanced itself from the ISD by leaving the opposition coalition and embarking on a 'No to Islamic State' campaign. That had a devastating effect on the 2004 General Elections. PAS paid a very high price for that move.

Then, PAS was under pressure. They had been called 'liars' and were accused of cheating the voters by not delivering its election promise. If they had not done what they did then, the rural electorate would have swallowed the Umno propaganda hook, line and sinker and all would have been lost. So it tried to deliver what it had been mandated to do by the voters who voted for it. And PAS did just that. It fulfilled its election promise.

Fortunately for us, since the 2004 general election, when PAS lost Terengganu, almost lost Kelantan, and saw its 27 Parliament seats reduced to just nine, PAS has stopped talking about the ISD. DAP knows this. To PAS, ISD is an embarrassing mistake that is history. Unfortunately, some resurrect this ISD to stigmatize the head of what could be the most successful and powerful opposition party.

Since PAS is gaining ground not just among Malays, but non-Malays as well, a spanner has to be thrown into the works - this time under the guise of the JAIS raid of DUMC. If history is repeated and they naively react to the church in an unfavourable manner, for sure they would suffer backlash from the voters in the next GE.

The Hasan Ali Factor

In September 2009, Hassan Ali plunged the Pakatan Rakyat into controversy with Muslim voters by unilaterally calling for a ban on beer sales.

Then he stepped on the toes of his colleagues in the Selangor state executive council by deliberately taking aim at non-Malay colleagues such as Ronnie Liu and Teng Chang Khim. According to party insiders, he has been intentionally spinning issues he has against them with a Chinese versus Malay-dominance twist.

Posted: 05 Aug 2011 11:00 AM PDT

It seems now, whatever Tun Daim says is carefully analyzed. And Tun Daim is a dangerous seer. In 2008, he predicted the loss of BN in 5 states. The UMNO generals were up in arms. They vilified him, describing him with all sorts of disrespectful terms. Daim is a pensioner. Daim is out of touch. Daim is irrelevant. When the results came, what Daim predicted was generally true.

So how does Daim see the future? According to the Oracle, it's a grim future for UMNO and BN. the country has no leadership. Announcements were made continuously without understanding what were said. The PM reads the budget in parliament but when it comes to Q&A, Nor Yaakob does the answering. Some people prepare the text and PM who has no time to understand the context, will just read it.

The Oracle related the many occasions when Tun Daim answered he doesn't understand what the New Economic Model or the various economic initiatives are all about. He only understands basic business models- 2+ 2= 4. Now if a wily business man like Daim doesn't understand Najibnomics, what chance do common folks have?

Civil servants complained to Daim about having to implement policies which they have no part in giving inputs. Our economic models are prepared by consultants under the commissar-ship of people like Omar Ong or Idris Jala.

The PM's rating says the Oracle has been sliding precipitously since the Bersih Rally. He handled that one badly. The NGO was already declared an illegal one, yet he allowed them to have an audience with the Agong. The man who was instrumental in brokering Ambiga's audience with the Agong was Pak Lah, the former PM. When asked the PM said Pak Lah wanted to help out, but that kind of help hastens his plummeting rating. The Malays have a saying for this- sokong membawa rebah.

All is not well with our country. The majority of the Chinese are not going to vote BN. Moving from one Chinese based party (MCA) to another (DAP) presents no mental hurdle for the Chinese. They are businesslike in their decisions.

One, the Chinese are aware that Chinese interests are better looked after by a more aggressive political party. Two, stepping out from UMNO's shadow offers some satisfaction for the Chinese because doing so, remits a form of punishment to their cocky big brother. The Chinese have long wanted to teach MCA a lesson. MCA will not be able to stop this rising disenchantment. Most important of all, the general economic independence of the Chinese gives them the luxury of choice. They can choose and UMNO and BN don't appear on their radar screen.

READ MORE HERE

The Illogicality Of It All

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 08:38 PM PDT

In 1986, the government ban on the use by non-Muslims of the word "Allah", and three others — "solat", "Kaabah" and "Baitullah". By 2009, the High Court allowed the church to use the word, but an appeal from the Home Ministry has left the decision hanging. Post "Allah" controversy, a few churches and a Catholic school were torched and threatened in January last year.

This would have been a non-issue from the start had mutual respect and tolerance been practised. Despite the delicate situation, a few leaders continued to fan the flames of fear raging then. Subsequently, an inter-faith dialogue was held but the status quo remains.

In March '11, the Home Ministry seized 35,100 Malay-language bibles which were released just ahead of the Sarawak state election in April. However, copies in Peninsular Malaysia had to be chopped and marked with a cross and the words "Christian publication".

Then in May, Penangites were stunned when a meeting between the Penang Chief Minister and Christian leaders was turned into a flaming controversy with ridiculous claims that the participants discussed making Christianity the official religion. Thereafter, Utusan Malaysia went to town. They front-paged two blogs making such a claim. (Read my blog post Truth Please, NOT Distortions of Reality!) Now the whole issue is in the back burner while another highly illogical controversy broke forth.

Last month, the PM went to the Vatican to establish diplomatic ties. On his return, the PM said the Barisan Nasional (BN) government would work with Christians who wished to uphold world peace and harmony as it was committed to the "global movement of moderates". At Kompleks Bunga Raya, he said, "We wish to tell our friends, the Malaysian Christians . . . if they respect us, we will also respect them," he told some 200 BN supporters here.

When you don't practise the 1Malaysia policy, talk is cheap.

A few days earlier, Media Prima Bhd was forced to axe a controversial series of Ramadan commercials on its 8TV channel after scathing public criticism and claims that the advertisements were racist and highly insulting in nature. The advertisements depicted a Chinese girl eating greeding and dressed inappropriately in front of Muslims during Ramadan.

Guess who owns Media Prima, which in turn owns 8TV, and other channels like TV3 and TV9?What did they hope to achieve with those advertisements?

Two days ago, during an NGO Harapan Komuniti dinner in appreciation for its volunteers, leaders, supporters and members of the community who have benefited from its work, twenty odd police officers barged into the premises of Dream Centre. They disrupted the dinner and started taking videos and photographs and took down details of the Muslim guests. The dinner was non-religious in nature but held to celebrate the work of non-profit organisation Harapan Komuniti in helping women, children, HIV/AIDS sufferers and victims of natural disasters.

Apparently, the official 'intruders' came without a warrant on a complaint made by somebody but did not explain what it was. No arrest was made but they seized the function's programme sheets and questioned the dinner organisers and guests. The raid was linked to attempts to preach to Malay Muslims about Christianity.

Public outrage followed. Politicians then played the blame game while Council of Churches Malaysia (CCM) secretary-general Rev Hermen Shastri hit out at Selangor's Islamic religious authorities for "storming" a Petaling Jaya church last night on flimsy grounds.

The raid was linked to attempts to preach to Malay Muslims about Christianity. Apparently, they on the pretext of a complaint made by someone but did not explain what it was.

1. Is it justified for Jais to conduct its investigations without first checking with the church leaders and worse still, to enter the religious places of other communities and conduct their investigations?

2. Where is respect for the activities and premises of those from other faiths?

3. Isn't the month of Ramadhan supposed to be a month of tolerance? In the Qur'an, Muslims are commanded to fast so that they may "learn self-restraint".

Posted: 04 Aug 2011 05:04 PM PDT

However, unlike the BBC and CNBC, who have both launched investigations and suspended FBC Media programmes, CNN has leapt to a fairly arrogant and unquestioning defence of its Business Presenter, who for years has combined that role with a senior position and substantial shareholding in the crooked PR/ Production company.

The problem is that John Defterios's programme guests were sometimes his own PR clients. They had paid millions of dollars to his company in return for positive publicity and platforms in the global news media. Indeed FBC boasted in its promotional material that it was the only PR firm who could uniquely "guarantee" access to "blue chip", " editorial shows" on stations such as CNN, CNBC and the BBC. Anyone in the business knows that such guarantees could only be illegal.

READ MORE HERE

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Sabtu, 6 Ogos 2011

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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