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Welcoming party is over for Zairil
BN’s denial syndrome not helping
Religious Pluralism: The Key to Overcoming Global Conflict and Achieving Peace

Posted: 16 Jan 2013 02:44 PM PST

DAP golden boy Zairil Khir Johari is learning that a famous family name can be a double-edged sword in the game of politics.

A well-known family name is great in politics but as Zairil and others before him have learnt, it can also backfire. Google Zairil's name and one will be bombarded by items questioning whether he is a real Malay or the real son of Khir. The Internet gossip about him has almost completely eclipsed his role as the Malay face of DAP.

Joceline Tan, The Star

ZAIRIL Khir Johari is not in a good place right now. He parachuted into DAP on the strength of a famous family name but the very same fame has now put him on the defensive.

The last few days have found Zairil having to explain his status as the son of the late Tan Sri Khir Johari. It was weird that he had to defend his status as the son of his father but that sort of thing does happen when one drives on the fast lane of the political highway.

He told a business publication recently: "People say crazy things about me but at the end of the day, I will prove myself."

His defenders have condemned accusations about his lineage as "gutter politics". They say it is petty, irrelevant and vicious.

What does his lineage have to do with his politics? they ask.

Quite a lot, actually. DAP leaders went to town with the news that Tan Sri Khir Johari's son had joined the party. It was the chance for them to thumb their nose at Umno.

Zairil was given the red carpet treatment and a "direct flight ticket" to the 28th floor of Komtar. He joined the party in September 2010 and was appointed political secretary to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng five months later.

"We appointed him not because of his race but because of his attributes and qualifications. He is also learned, especially in international relations and diplomacy. He just happens to be a Malay," Lim had said then.

However, not everyone was as bowled over as Lim.

"He was like the wind blowing in. The grassroots had never heard of him but the top decided he was a political advantage and suddenly he was up there," said a Penang DAP worker.

By the end of 2011, Zairil was Special Officer to the Chief Minister. Three months later, he was promoted to CEO of the state think-tank, the Penang Institute, overseeing experts who had decades of experience in their respective fields. Very few people in the party were happy for him because he was only 29 and a rookie politician with little to show in terms of contribution.

As one DAP veteran put it: "The best kind of curry puff, you have to make from scratch. But nowadays they buy the ready-made curry puff from the supermarket. You have to defrost it, it looks nice and puffs up when you cook it but the ingredients are not there and it doesn't taste right."

Most people would not have given a hoot as to whether Zairil was the biological son or otherwise of Khir, but DAP made such a song and dance about the Khir Johari name that the Umno bloggers hit back with a vengeance.

The end result is that truth and fiction have become all mixed up.

The botched DAP polls that saw Zairil go from a loser to a winner did him more harm than good. Very few people bought the story that it was a computing glitch and it was seen as yet another attempt to push the Chief Minister's golden boy up the political ladder.

The resentment has swelled on news that the party is looking for a safe seat for him in the general election. A few months ago, Zairil had to deny that he was being slated for the Sungai Pinang state seat. His name also popped up as the replacement for Bukit Bendera MP Liew Chin Tong who is reportedly hopping over to his home state Johor.

But the rumour mill now has him going to Pulau Tikus after assemblyman Koay Teng Hai was slapped with a six-month suspension earlier this week for not attending a crucial State Legislative Assembly sitting.

The speculation is that the party is using this as an excuse to ditch Koay and make the seat available for Zairil. Pulau Tikus, populated mainly by middle-class Chinese, is tailor-made for him because party people say that they cannot see Zairil dealing with a working-class populace. Their impression of him is that he mingles only with the big names.

Zairil is basically a rather shy and introverted personality. The most successful politicians are those who can strike up a conversation with anyone, friend or stranger, big name or small fry – Zairil has yet to master this.

He is not aggressive or pushy and his detractors admit that his fast-track path in the party is because the boss likes him.

They used to call him "teacher's pet" behind his back but now they call him "Tokong's boy".

During last month's DAP Congress in Penang, he stood out like a sore thumb among the traditional DAP grassroots. He was seen sitting apart from the rest, fiddling with his handphone and iPad.

The party's annual gathering was the golden opportunity to meet delegates from all over the country and he could have milked the occasion by moving around and introducing himself to the delegates, to mingle and make small talk.

The feel-good factor over Zairil has worn off.

The family name opened some very big doors for him but credibility is not ascribed, it has to be earned.

Gossip about him will continue and will only dissipate when he is able to show that the family name is secondary to what he can do on his own.

BN’s denial syndrome not helping

Posted: 16 Jan 2013 01:56 PM PST

The show of support at the Saturday rally is yet another clear indication that the rakyat wants a change and that too for the better.

Jeswan Kaur, FMT

The politicking post-Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat continues for the federal government which is bent on having the last laugh, that too at the expense of its nemesis, the opposition Pakatan Rakyat.

Last Saturday's gathering dubbed "the people's uprising" at Stadium Merdeka under the aegis of Pakatan, which saw a turnout of some 100,000 supporters, was all about demanding that the ruling Barisan Nasional government do the "right thing" which included reforming the electoral system, reviewing the Felda administration, equal treatment for Sabahans and Sarawakians and upgrading the use of the English language and preserving Bahasa Malaysia.

Yet, none of the above concerns affected the ruling government. With the 13th general election round the corner, BN continues to engage in money politics, working desperately to buy over the rakyat's votes in all ways conceivable.

BN has lambasted Pakatan for flouting stipulations under the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 which, among others, bars children from participating in rallies and demonstrations.

The rally organiser has now come under police scrutiny for breaking three conditions under the Act, that is, no child participation, breaching the maximum 30,000 crowd capacity allowed at Dataran Merdeka and displaying inciting banners.

In fact, the BN government has been very sly on this issue, using the Jan 12 rally to its advantage by giving out a false message via its tightly-controlled mainstream media that Pakatan had the police to be thankful for a peaceful gathering.

As for the massive show of support, the police obviously under "orders from the higher ups" toned down the 100,000 number to a mere 45,000.

BN's denial syndrome not helping

Either BN is in denial or the coalition is afraid to contemplate its future in the face of the coming general election. Had the ruling government been trusting and comfortable in its own skin, there would have been no reason for it to downplay the huge turnout nor would there have been the need to give unnecessary credit to the police.

The Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat gathering was a peaceful affair. Why? Was it because the police had post-Bersih become "competent"?

Or was it because this time around Prime Minister and BN chief Najib Tun Razak had given no orders for the police to act aggressively against last Saturday rally's protesters?

The truth is the Jan 12 rally was seen as an excellent opportunity by BN to condemn its nemesis and earn the rakyat's much-needed empathy and support.

This time around the ruling government did not think it necessary to instigate the people through chaos and that too at the expense of the opposition because Bersih 2.0 on July 9, 2011 and Bersih 3.0 on April 28, 2012 had done the trick for BN.

Posted: 16 Jan 2013 10:17 AM PST

Those who assert that their religious faith is the only one that paves the way to God contribute to human suffering and conflict.

Ramesh Rao, Patheos Hindu

The only way we can reduce human conflict is to understand the human quest for liberation, knowledge, and finding the answers to the fundamental questions that have troubled us—Who are we? Why are we here? Where do we go from here?—is to acknowledge that we can access answers to these questions using a variety of means, under the guidance of a variety of spiritual and religious leaders, and as adherents to any of the world's faith groups.

The other facet of this argument is that those who claim God for themselves, or assert that their religious faith is the only one that paves the way to God contribute to human suffering and conflict by denying others the right to follow their own spiritual instincts, their God-given freedom to probe the universe as they wish. They do so by imposing hierarchies that categorize people as infidels or believers, saved or lost, devil worshipers or God-followers, and heathens or religious people. These exclusivist and monopolistic claims to God then pave the way to predatory proselytism, and the denial of agency to others—the "adhikara" (authority or ownership) and "ishta" (desired, liked)—guiding principles that shape the Hindu pursuit of transcending the mundane.

This argument is not new. In fact, I wrote a short piece for United Press International's "religion and spirituality forum" in 2006, which I think can describe why religious pluralism is essential to mitigating conflict in the world. Before we get there, we have to clarify what pluralism means. Swami Vivekananda said, "We not only tolerate, but we Hindus accept every religion, praying in the mosque of the Mohammedans, worshipping the fire of the Zoroastrians, and kneeling before the Cross of Christians, knowing that all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realize the infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of them marking a stage of progress" (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, pp. 331-32). Vivekananda was stating something a hundred years before what Professor Diana Eck of Harvard and the Pluralism Project callnecessary conditions for the practice of and belief in pluralism. Pluralism, for her, has to be "the energetic engagement with diversity . . . , the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference . . . , the encounter of commitments . . ." arrived at through dialogue. In 2006 we had a visitor at Longwood University where I teach. He was a holocaust survivor. Jay Ipson, President and Executive Director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum, came to talk to our students about love, hate, and bigotry. He began by asking the luncheon audience what it was that made Germans hate the Jews. One person said that maybe Germans learned it at home; another said that the media played a role; and yet another offered the hypothesis that maybe they learned it at school. I suggested that it was religion that was at the bottom of that hatred. He nodded his head, looked around, and asked us to consider that fact.

In the audience were a Presbyterian minister, a Catholic priest, and Christians of other denominations. People uncomfortably shifted in their chairs, and one person said that religions don't teach hate but people misuse religion. Is that true, Ipson asked, and he himself seemed to indicate that it might be so. Some others pointed out that there is much in religious literature that is problematic, if not hateful.

Ipson's story of survival in a Lithuanian Jewish ghetto, and of escape with his father and mother from the ghetto, while the rest of his family was sent to the concentration camps and to their deaths, made us all acknowledge the real import of religious discrimination. Ipson still retains a strong German/European accent but has a fine command of American colloquial English. His talk was precise, and he avoided the politically correct clichés that many modern speakers use to soften the horrors of the past, and the vulgarities of the present.

The holocaust survivor's story is important not only in the context of continuing anti-Semitism but it can also provide the context for pluralism, the lessons we can learn from Hinduism, and the concerns of Hindus, Native Americans, and others about the effects of predatory proselytism—aggressive and manipulative efforts at converting others through force, fraud, seduction, and lies.

At the end of his presentation, Ipson asked the audience what they felt were the answers to reducing conflict and hate. There were the usual suggestions of education, interfaith dialogue, acceptance, and so on. I raised my hand. Once again, there was some uncomfortable shifting in the chairs. I was, after all, the first one in the audience to say that some people learn hate from religion, and Ipson had acknowledged that. He also found that I was the one person in the audience who knew the group, other than the Nazis, who had mandated the wearing of a piece of colored cloth to identify the "other": these were the Taliban, who in Afghanistan had mandated that Hindus wear yellow-colored clothing to identify themselves as Hindus.

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Khamis, 17 Januari 2013

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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