Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- Stop Defining and Redefining Malaysia
- The Ministerial Comedy of Errors
- Adding New Meaning to Daylight Robbery
| Stop Defining and Redefining Malaysia Posted: 08 Nov 2011 10:21 PM PST
Malaysia has been and continues to be, many things to many people. It has been and continues to be the meeting point of cultures so diverse, each with its own subcultures, vernacular, traditions and values, that the only real thing we can truly claim to have in common is the home we share-Malaysia, and our love for her. Then, how do you define Malaysia? Terms like cultural melting pot, harmonious blend, microcosm of Asia, model moderate nation, progressive Muslim country are often used in describing Malaysia, thrown liberally in text books, magazines and travel documentaries. But what is Malaysia, really? If you speak to a young twenty something Chinese educated, Taiwan graduated Malaysian who speaks Mandarin as his first language how was his weekend, he will tell you of his favourite ku luk yok haunt, how he and his buddies sang the latest SHE songs in Neway last weekend after a gambling spree in Genting where he won an Angry Bird doll as a consolation prize in a mini I Want to be Model contest. If you ask an Indian lad the same question, he will tell you how he and his friends hung out at KLCC to watch Enthiran for the seventeeth time, had the best curry chicken at PJ State, a night out at Chakravati's before attending his cousin's wedding at 3.31am with his folks in a temple somewhere in Sungai Petani. Ask the same question to a Malay girl the same thing, she would probably have been hung out with her friends at KLCC, where SLAM did a special reunion meet the fans session, then watched Bini-Biniku Gangster in the cinema next to where Enthiran was screening and headed to Neway to sing some Korean numbers, next to the room where the Chinese dude from earlier was trying his best to sound like Jay Chou, followed by dinner at Chinoz. Ask a Malaysian businessman where to get your agreements notarized and he will point you to a commercial three story building, where on another floor above it, a Christian prayer group meets every Sunday and one floor below it, lonely salarymen come in to get their weekly 'happy ending' massages.The shop next door manages to squeeze in a barber, CD rentals and a small cofeeshop all in one, all patronized by different groups of Malaysians. At the end of the block you'll see a surau, and under a tree outside the surau, a Chinese prayer tablet with Indian incense burning. Ask a different Malaysian, you get a different set of shops, hobbies, hangouts, activities. These shops, hobbies, hangouts and activities sometimes intersect and we often cheer at these points of meeting, shouting '1Malaysia!' before going back to eating our mundane meals and back to loving or hating Ambiga Sreenivasan. But therein lies the beauty of this country. For a country of 26 million, you can have so many ways to experience the same thing. You can wake up one morning and decide to have nasi lemak for breakfast, tose for lunch and koay teow for dinner all within walking distance of your house. You can have your car washed by an Indian car wash, polished in a Chinese wax service and serviced in a Malay abang's workshop. We've come a long way in understanding each other. We've come beyond learning each other's languages and customs, to accepting each other's way of life, to be able to laugh at our peculiarities and even make movies and songs about it. Malaysia went quite well, without any real 'definition' till someone decided to make Malaysia 'more Malaysia'. When you try to define the quite undefinable- that's where things go wrong. Especially when you do so vaguely, leaving much to the abstract imagination. Once upon a time, Malaysia was enamoured with the Boleh spirit. We built our own cars (some say ill advisedly), built the tallest towers in the world, tallest flagpole in the world, the longest roti canai, popiah, teh tarik (we were actually the only country in the running for the last three). Not content with breaking some previously un-thought of Guinness World Records, we went on to create our own book, the Malaysia Book of Records and went on to fill it with even more Boleh achievements. The Boleh spirit did wonders to the imagination and soon we had a new capital city, new duty free towns, new super corridors and even a Boleh Computer Operating System used widely by about 15 people. But hey, Malaysia was defined, and that's all that mattered right? Not quite. The next PM decided that the earlier definition was a bit too abstract, so he decided on Islamizing the whole thing and declared a little while after saying he was PM for every Malaysian, a civilizational form of Islam called Hadhari, which in one swoop, managed to imply both that earlier forms of Islam was not really civilized, and had every major local dictionary manufacturer rushing to get the proper academic definition of Hadhari, which is of course only obtainable in the Ivory Tower of Academia, the Jabatan Perdana Menteri. Overnight, we had everything from Hadhari handphones to Hadhari watches to even a Hadhari car. To match this new definition, all government departments started Arabicizing their logos much to the annoyance of old people who had to turn their heads sideways to figure out first if it was Arabic (which mostly it wasn't), then if it was English or BM,then finally, what the heck the words were actually saying. We had TV programs and radio programs explaining what Hadhari was, and PAS had a field day breaking it up to make their new war cry – 'Islam Hadhari, ada had, ada hari..' Just as we were all trying to find our way under the Hadhari sun, a new PM emerges and styled the new Malaysian definition- 1Malaysia. This one caught on even faster, as there was no need to Arabicize anything! You could have everything from 1Bank, 1Aircond, 1Chicken Rice Stall, 1Mamak Shop. Soon people started adding '1' to everything it's a m1racle Malays1a 1s st1ll called Malays1a. Oh wait.. Read more at: http://emmanuelj.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/stop-defining-and-redefining-malaysia/ |
| The Ministerial Comedy of Errors Posted: 08 Nov 2011 10:18 PM PST Politics has always been a topic of conversation in your average coffee shop, and even more so after the 2008 General Elections. As of late, the centre of attention would definitely be on the part of government expenditure. We need not write more comedy material, as our Ministers invariably oblige by providing us gems when questioned inside and outside Parliament, by Members of Parliament and reporters alike. I have compared our ministerial question-time to the play entitled "Comedy of Errors" by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote of two brothers who were identical twins, and mistaken as one another by their friends. They went round and round in circles and no one quite knew what was going on, least of all themselves. In many ways, we can draw parallels to our Ministers who try taking us on a ride, but end up thoroughly befuddling themselves. I would like to draw on three examples to illustrate my point. Coal Power Plant Let's take the case of the coal-fire power plant contract which was awarded in June 2011 from the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water to Tanjung Bin Power, a subsidiary of Malakoff Bhd to commence operations in 2016. There was only one other company called for the closed tender, which was Jimah Energy Ventures Sdn Bhd. When Tony Pua stood up and asked as to why there was no open tender, Peter Chin replied that it was because time is of the essence. So then because we needed it quickly, there was no need for an open and competitive quote? Let us look at the contract. What are the Power Purchase Agreement, and the expected tariffs which would be sold back to Tenaga Nasional? The Minister replies that the terms will be finalised at the end of the year although the agreement has been signed. So, the Minister reasons that political expediency justifies sacrificing of common sense? MRT The Kuala Lumpur Mass Rapid Transit is the biggest project in our nation's history at RM43 billion. Although the Prime Minister happily announced that the projects would be awarded by open tender, the project was immediately given to a Gamuda-MMC joint venture, both with are Government Linked Companies (GLCs). Najib was reported on the Malaysian Insider on October 26 to have said that the Economic Transformation Plan (ETP) would practice public tenders. However, when confronted with the MRT tender by reporters, he said sheepishly, "There are some contracts that you just cannot tender out." At this juncture, one would cue the sound of a collective slapping of foreheads across the nation. Our Prime Minister has blatantly contradicted himself without even giving a reason as to why. Will this project exceed the amount budgeted? You bet. Even Idris Jala himself was proud to say so. Defence spending Tony Pua has clearly been busy doing his homework when he came across a Ministry of Defence requisition for AV8 Aviation Ground Support Vehicles (AGSVs), which are basically armoured people carriers. The contract size was RM7.55 billion for 257 units which translates to RM29.4 million per unit. Hardly petty cash. Who was awarded the supply contract? Deftech Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of DRB-Hicom. How many AGSVs has Deftech manufactured before the contract was awarded? Zero. Was there an open tender? No. The news then came out that Deftech proceeded to purchase RM1.7 billion worth of product from a Turkish company called FNSS Defence Systems. What did they purchase? AGSVs. How many units did they purchase? 257 units. Does this sound familiar to you?  Can the Minister explain the discrepancy between the RM7.55 billion price tag the rakyat is paying for and the RM1.7 billion purchase price? The Defence Minister, Zahid Hamidi made no attempt answered the question and proceeded to accuse the federal opposition for threatening the security of the country by trying to block necessary military purchases. I'll let you make up your own minds. |
| Adding New Meaning to Daylight Robbery Posted: 08 Nov 2011 09:02 PM PST According to Wikipedia: It is estimated that yearly, over 1.5 trillion dollars are spent on military expenditures worldwide (2.7% of World GDP). This represents a decline from 1990 when military expenditures made up 4% of world GDP. Part of this goes to the procurement of military hardware and services from the military industry. The combined arms sales of the top 100 largest arms producing companies amounted to an estimated $315 billion in 2006. In 2004 over $30 billion were spent in the international arms trade (a figure that excludes domestic sales of arms). Today, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress today of a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Malaysia for 20 AIM-9X-2 SIDEWINDER Block II All-Up-Round Missiles and associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support for an estimated cost of $52 million. According to the press release issued by DSCA HERE (inaccessible in Malaysia but has been re-posted HERE), the Government of Malaysia has requested a possible sale of:
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