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Why is the Arab world so easily offended? Posted: 16 Sep 2012 03:39 PM PDT Fouad Ajami, The Washington Post   MODERNITY requires the willingness to be offended. And as anti-American violence across the Middle East and beyond shows, that willingness is something the Arab world, the heartland of Islam, still lacks. Time and again in recent years, as the outside world has battered the walls of Muslim lands and as Muslims have left their places of birth in search of greater opportunities in the Western world, modernity — with its sometimes distasteful but ultimately benign criticism of Islam — has sparked fatal protests. To understand why violence keeps erupting and to seek to prevent it, we must discern what fuels this sense of grievance. There is an Arab pain and a volatility in the face of judgment by outsiders that stem from a deep and enduring sense of humiliation. A vast chasm separates the poor standing of Arabs in the world today from their history of greatness. In this context, their injured pride is easy to understand. In the narrative of history transmitted to schoolchildren throughout the Arab world and reinforced by the media, religious scholars and laymen alike, Arabs were favored by divine providence. They had come out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, carrying Islam from Morocco to faraway Indonesia. In the process, they overran the Byzantine and Persian empires, then crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Iberia, and there they fashioned a brilliant civilization that stood as a rebuke to the intolerance of the European states to the north. Cordoba and Granada were adorned and exalted in the Arab imagination. Andalusia brought together all that the Arabs favored — poetry, glamorous courts, philosophers who debated the great issues of the day. If Islam's rise was spectacular, its fall was swift and unsparing. This is the world that the great historian Bernard Lewis explored in his 2002 book "What Went Wrong?" The blessing of God, seen at work in the ascent of the Muslims, now appeared to desert them. The ruling caliphate, with its base in Baghdad, was torn asunder by a Mongol invasion in the 13th century. Soldiers of fortune from the Turkic Steppes sacked cities and left a legacy of military seizures of power that is still the bane of the Arabs. Little remained of their philosophy and literature, and after the Ottoman Turks overran Arab countries to their south in the 16th century, the Arabs seemed to exit history; they were now subjects of others. The coming of the West to their world brought superior military, administrative and intellectual achievement into their midst — and the outsiders were unsparing in their judgments. They belittled the military prowess of the Arabs, and they were scandalized by the traditional treatment of women and the separation of the sexes that crippled Arab society. Even as Arabs insist that their defects were inflicted on them by outsiders, they know their weaknesses. Younger Arabs today can be brittle and proud about their culture, yet deeply ashamed of what they see around them. They know that more than 300 million Arabs have fallen to economic stagnation and cultural decline. They know that the standing of Arab states along the measures that matter — political freedom, status of women, economic growth — is low. In the privacy of their own language, in daily chatter on the street, on blogs and in the media, and in works of art and fiction, they probe endlessly what befell them. But woe to the outsider who ventures onto that explosive terrain. The assumption is that Westerners bear Arabs malice, that Western judgments are always slanted and cruel. In the past half-century, Arabs, as well as Muslims in non-Arab lands, have felt the threat of an encircling civilization they can neither master nor reject. Migrants have left the burning grounds of Karachi, Cairo and Casablanca but have taken the fire of their faith with them. "Dish cities" have sprouted in the Muslim diasporas of Western Europe and North America. You can live in Stockholm and be sustained by a diet of al-Jazeera television. We know the celebrated cases when modernity has agitated the pious. A little more than two decades ago, it was a writer of Muslim and Indian birth, Salman Rushdie, whose irreverent work of fiction, "The Satanic Verses," offended believers with its portrayal of Islam. That crisis began with book-burnings in Britain, later saw protests in Pakistan and culminated in Iran's ruling cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issuing a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death in 1989. The protesters were not necessarily critics of fiction; all it took to offend was that Islam, the prophet Muhammad and his wives had become a writer's material. The confrontation laid bare the unease of Islam in the modern world. The floodgates had opened. The clashes that followed defined the new terms of encounters between a politicized version of Islam — awakened to both power and vulnerability — and the West's culture of protecting and nurturing free speech. In 2004, a Moroccan Dutchman in his mid-20s, Mohammed Bouyeri, murdered filmmaker Theo van Goghon a busy Amsterdam street after van Gogh and a Somali-born politician made a short film about the abuse of women in Islamic culture. Shortly afterward, trouble came to Denmark when a newspaper there published a dozen cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad; in one he wears a bomb-shaped turban, and another shows him as an assassin. The newspaper's culture editor had thought the exercise would merely draw attention to the restrictions on cultural freedom in Europe — but perhaps that was naive. After all, Muslim activists are on the lookout for such material. And Arab governments are eager to defend Islam. The Egyptian ambassador to Denmark encouraged a radical preacher of Palestinian birth living in Denmark and a young Lebanese agitator to fan the flames of the controversy. But it was Syria that made the most of this opportunity. The regime asked the highest clerics to preach against the Danish government. The Danish embassies in Damascus and Beirut were sacked; there was a call to boycott Danish products. Denmark had been on the outer margins of Europe's Muslim diaspora. Now its peace and relative seclusion were punctured. The storm that erupted this past week at the gates of American diplomatic outposts across the Muslim world is a piece of this history. As usual, it was easily ignited. The offending work, a 14-minute film trailer posted on YouTube in July, is offensive indeed. Billed as a trailer for "The Innocence of Muslims," a longer movie to come, it is at once vulgar and laughable. Its primitiveness should have consigned it to oblivion. It was hard to track down the identities of those who made it. A Sam Bacile claimed authorship, said that he was an Israeli American and added that 100Jewish businessmen had backed the venture. This alone made it rankle even more — offending Muslims and implicating Jews at the same time. (In the meantime, no records could be found of Bacile, and the precise origins of the video remain murky.) It is never hard to assemble a crowd of young protesters in the teeming cities of the Muslim world. American embassies and consulates are magnets for the disgruntled. It is inside those fortresses, the gullible believe, that rulers are made and unmade. Yet these same diplomatic outposts dispense coveted visas and a way out to the possibilities of the Western world. The young men who turned up at the U.S. Embassies this week came out of this deadly mix of attraction to American power and resentment of it. The attack in Benghazi, Libya, that took the lives of four American diplomats, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, appeared to be premeditated and unconnected to the film protests. The ambivalence toward modernity that torments Muslims is unlikely to abate. The temptations of the West have alienated a younger generation from its elders. Men and women insist that they revere the faith as they seek to break out of its restrictions. Freedom of speech, granting license and protection to the irreverent, is cherished, protected and canonical in the Western tradition. Now Muslims who quarrel with offensive art are using their newfound freedoms to lash out against it. These cultural contradictions do not lend themselves to the touch of outsiders. President George W. Bush believed that America's proximity to Arab dictatorships had begotten us the jihadists' enmity. His military campaign in Iraq became an attempt to reform that country and beyond. But Arabs rejected his interventionism and dismissed his "freedom agenda" as a cover for an unpopular war and for domination. President Obama has taken a different approach. He was sure that his biography — the years he spent in Indonesia and his sympathy for the aspirations of Muslim lands — would help repair relations between America and the Islamic world. But he's been caught in the middle, conciliating the rulers while making grand promises to ordinary people. The revolt of the Iranian opposition in the summer of 2009 exposed the flaws of his approach. Then the Arab Spring played havoc with American policy. Since then, the Obama administration has not been able to decide whether it defends the status quo or the young people hell-bent on toppling the old order. Cultural freedom is never absolute, of course, and the Western tradition itself, from the Athenians to the present, struggles mightily with the line between freedom and order. In the Muslim world, that struggle is more fierce and lasting, and it will show itself in far more than burnt flags and overrun embassies.

Tanda Putera: Potrait of an apologist Posted: 16 Sep 2012 03:22 PM PDT Suaram adviser Kua Kia Soong rebuts criticisms levelled against him by Tanda Putera director Shuhaimi Baba. By Kua Kia Soong, FMT At the outset, let me clarify that I am certainly not the director of Tanda Putera's (TP) "most vocal critic". Until this controversy started, I had never heard of this maker of Pontianak movies. On the other hand, I am an ardent admirer of the late Yasmin Ahmad's classic Malaysian films through which Yasmin's truly multi-ethnic and prejudice-shattering humanity shines through. Still, I was ready to give this director of TP the benefit of the doubt by appealing to any fibre of intellectual honesty in her body when I wrote my reply (Tanda Putera: Deconstructing Prejudice) to her unwarranted attacks on my credibility in her interview with FMT. It appears my efforts have all been water off a duck's back. Hapless victim with a blame frame This controversy started I believe, when Lim Kit Siang rightly protested against images posted on TP's website and the outrageous allegations by some bloghead that the DAP leader had urinated against a flagpole at the time of the May 13 incident. Such a blatant untruth and serious warping of history was explained away without heartfelt apologies by the TP director and I believe the loathsome images and comments were only taken down four weeks later after Kit Siang had made a strong protest. We witness the same attempt by the TP director to blame others by claiming that "I did not refer to Kua when I pointed out that a writer published his work on May 13, 1969 but did not qualify he was not even in Malaysia during the incident. The credibility of that source is questionable." Did the director of TP feel that there had been grievous harm done to the reputation of both Kit Siang and myself when these supposed "errors" were discovered? Did she demand that FMT make a correction and would she have bothered to make a correction if I had not protested against her scurrilous attacks on me? Or are we considered mere collateral damage in her mission to beatify the Umno leaders? Who were the "hidden hands" behind May 13? The director of TP has clearly fallen in with the "official" version that the May 13 Incident was a "spontaneous outbreak" of violence between "the Malays" and "the Chinese" after "the Malays" were provoked by "the Chinese". In this official rendition, the victory parade by the opposition parties in 1969 is often compounded with an earlier demonstration by the Labour Party which had actually boycotted the 1969 general election because practically all their leaders had been incarcerated under the ISA. Were these parades so provocative that they were the trigger for the pogrom?  From the declassified documents at the British Archives, they were not. The British were more likely to be pro-Alliance rather than pro-Opposition since after all, the Alliance leaders were the local custodians of British interests in the Independence manoeuvres. But if the director of TP has credible local documents to the contrary, pray, produce them. Malaysians in recent years are only too well aware of the manner in which the far-right fascists have been quick to stage violent actions against such civil society initiatives as Suqiu in 2000, the racial violence at Kampung Medan in 2001, the Article 11 Coalition in 2006, the even more recent cow head protest and the other recent fascist actions against the Penang state government. Would the director of TP likewise conclude that these recent incidents by "the Malays" were similarly "justified" because they were provoked? The well-known poet and writer, Said Zahari wrote his poem "Hidden Hands" when May 13 broke out and he was under ISA detention in Singapore. He wasn't even in the country! Still, he knew enough of the class nature of the ruling coalition to write this poem that is now the "soundtrack" of May 13. To the evidence I produced of credible Malay intellectuals who did not find my book on May 13 "prejudiced against the Malays" as alleged in her interview with FMT, she says: "No point going behind names like Subky and your 'Malay colleagues'. They don't bring validation. " In fact, I only needed to point to one Malay intellectual to expose her own prejudices but I produced the highly respected (the late) Rustam Sani, Dr Syed Husin Ali, Dr Mohd Nasir Hashim, Dr Azmi Sharom and now, Said Zahari. By the way, the PAS leader, Subky Latiff is also a renowned Malay journalist and an academic whose work I cited from "Southeast Asian Affairs", a respectable academic journal of the Institute of Southeast Asian Affairs, Singapore. All of these citations she dismisses as "my Malay colleagues" who "don't bring validation". Apart from echoing the old trite official version of May 13 that has no credibility, she does not cite a single intellectual of note to back her official version. But apparently, the director of TP has another theory, namely, "What about the view that May 13 was a push for the Chinese radicals at that time to get rid of the Malays and take over power in Selangor because only one seat stood in the way? Was that a failed "coup detat"? Gerakan held on to that seat in favour of the Alliance." Is the director of TP serious in posing that it was "the Chinese radicals" who had started the violence and that they were ready to take on Umno and the police and the army to achieve their objectives? So where is the evidence to back up this theory? Declassify the Special Branch files on May 13 The only evidence we have is the fact that the violence started at the menteri besar's house. I based that on the declassified documents from the British Archives which happen to be the ONLY declassified documents available to researchers. The director of TP betrays her ignorance of public records when she says: "You blame the British for the things that didn't go your way, like this country not being a socialist country. But you stand by their records and declassified reports. I'm no stranger to the British public records library and I can say that British intelligence reports were known to also make mistakes. They are human. But some mistakes were not corrected and only done on hindsight." Bob Dylan has a line that says: "If you don't underestimate me, I won't underestimate you…"  A credible social scientist knows how to sieve information from public records regardless of whether they are Malaysian, British or American. I too read the rags of the ruling coalition but that does not mean than I am incapable of sieving the information I want. I would be only too happy to join the director of TP in calling for the immediate declassifying of the documents on May 13, especially the Malaysian Special Branch reports. If they show that the violence did not start at the menteri besar's residence but by "assorted bad elements" and "communists", I will be the first to retract my theory in the book. Ultimately, if we really want to create a society "at peace with itself", we need to set up a Truth & Reconciliation Commission entrusted to encourage all witnesses including the police, army, hospital and Red Cross staff and families of victims to come forward to tell their story. I made this abundantly clear in my article on "Deconstructing Prejudice". I do not see why a witness statement by my brother in law who was a professor at the university Hospital where some of the bodies were brought to should not be credible. Everyone who witnessed the violence and deaths during May 13 should be welcome to give us their narratives at a Truth & Reconciliation Commission hearing. It's class, stupid! The director of TP fails to see that my thesis in "May 13: Declassified Documents…" was essentially that the actions of the emergent Malay state capitalist class against the Malay aristocratic class at the time amounted to a coup detat. The historical personalities were significant in this analysis because of the class role they played.  It is clear the director of TP is unfamiliar with social scientific usage when she asks: "Kua labelled Tun Razak as an 'ambitious Malay capitalist'. Is it because of the colour of his skin…!" That label is her own coinage. My thesis in the book was that Tun Razak led the emergent Malay state capitalist class to power. They subsequently came to an accommodation with the local Chinese and Indian capitalists and they lived happily ever after with the formation of the Barisan Nasional. Unfortunately, this cosy story came to a sobering end in the general election of 2008 when the rakyat finally got wise to the "bumiputeraist" fairy tale as being the ideology spun by the Umnoputras after May 13. The director of TP may not know that class analysis in the academic corridors of our local universities uses similar designations. Social scientists are interested in ethnicity, not race which is Umno's strategy to divide Malaysians into "bumiputera" and "non-bumiputera". We can't really blame her since, as Roger Ebert, the film critic observes: "Class is often invisible in the movies, and usually not the subject of films." READ MORE HERE

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Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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• MIC is doomed to destruction
• Singapore’s success should be a wake up call to Malaysia
• Add one more crime to disturbing statistics: Aliran office broken into
• Open letter to the Ministry of Education [via email]
• What's the difference between BN & George Soros?
• Defence Ministry Acquisition of Rapid Intervention Vehicles
• Kenyataan Mukhriz Sahkan Negara Hilang RM3.5 Bilion Setiap Tahun Kerana Agihan AP Yang Tidak Telus

MIC is doomed to destruction Posted: 16 Sep 2012 03:57 PM PDT Thuraisingham Shan If the current leaders who have not been elected to consolidate their positions, they should not be given the mandate to continue leading the Party.  The Party leadership which took over the MIC from our former leader, Datuk Seri Samy Vellu, has to immediately call for elections to consolidate their elected representation for the Indian community. For a start, the MIC Acting President should outline a strategy for the community with his elevation to the Ministerial position to consolidate the well-being of the Indian community.  It was months ago that he had been appointed, but is yet to have a proper blueprint for this downtrodden community. Salient guidelines drawn up by Private Sector Initiatives of the Indian ETP programme has been shot down by the leadership, with no rhyme or reason.  The Prime Minister's initiative to set up a cooperative has been raided by the political leaders of MIC. It had been a tradition that each of our previous MIC leaders had initiated a cooperative of their own:  albeit Tun Sambanthan initiated the National Land Finance Cooperative Society;  Tan Sri Manickavasagam pioneered the setting up of Koperasi Nesa, and Datuk Seri Samy Vellu founded Koperasi Pekerjajaya.  However, the current Acting President has taken refuge in the Prime Minister's initiated Koperasi, the so-called Koperasi Suria, which is functioning in contravention of the Cooperatives Act and its rules and regulations were also registered bypassing the salient requirements of the Act.  The two MIC leaders should keep away from this Prime Minister initiated venture for the community. It is an irony that the Special Indian Task Force initiating a forum of "Energising the Indian Cooperatives" seems to be a mundane affair with no firm, positive, follow-up action.  Much enthusiasm prevailed from the 300-odd representatives from the existing 72 Indian based cooperatives who were present at the forum. The MIC should react with much concern to the matters raised, where pertinent matters raised were to be acted upon, with a task force group to be set up for prompt  follow-up action.  Nonetheless, the forum can be equated to a "Verbal Diarrhoea" session, akin to  "A tale told by an idiot is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". The italicised caption of this article speaks well of the leadership of the community.  Various attempts to meet the leader had been thwarted with lame excuses and the finale was the rotten words of doom as per the caption. The Indian representation is doomed to anhilation, if drastic steps are not initiated immediately with a sense of urgency.  The misfits and the leaders who were rejected by the electorate should best step out of the foray immediately. It is a fervent hope that the Prime Minister would help alleviate the predicament of the Indian community's dissatisfaction with concerted new ideas to garner the support of the Indian community for the coming GE13, where the role of the Indian community is crucial.  Alternatively, the Prime Minister and PEMANDU should make public the Key Performance Index analysis of the Ministry for the Indian affairs.  The public are not even aware of the structure of the Ministry and it specifications for the Indian community, rather than the words of misery captioned by the above so-called leaders.

Singapore’s success should be a wake up call to Malaysia Posted: 16 Sep 2012 03:52 PM PDT Daniel John Jambun The latest report which says that Singapore is the wealthiest nation in the world by GDP per capita, beating out Norway, the U.S., Hong Kong and Switzerland, has further embarrassed our own country, Malaysia, which is Singapore's closest neighbour and economic rival. This report is especially painful for Malaysia because we know Singapore started off as an island of fishing villages with no natural resources. It survived and prospered as an entrepot (a trading post where merchandise can be imported and exported without paying import duties), and imported raw materials for its needs, industries and exported processed products to the world. It is still buying nearly everything from other countries, mainly Malaysia, including sand, water, oil, vegetable, fruits, to name just a few.   As of 8 August 2010, Singapore is the fastest growing economy in the world, with a growth rate of 17.9% for the first half of 2010. Malaysia on the other hand is struggling to achieve the official target of 4% to 5% growth for this year. A Reuters quarterly poll in July estimated Malaysia's GDP growth this year at 4.2 per cent. On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal report is replete with superlatives about Singapore economic performance, among which are as follows:    "Singapore's GDP per capita – at US$56,532 in 2010, measured by purchasing power parity – is the highest in the world, topping Norway (US$51, 226), the US (US$45, 511) and Hong Kong (US$45, 301). The report also predicts that Singapore will hold its place as the world's most affluent country in 2050…. Singapore will see a 67% increase in centimillionaires over the next four years – [centimillionaires are those]  with over US$100 million in disposable wealth…. Singapore has the highest percentage of millionaire households in the world, a title the city-state has held on to for two years running…."   Some of the factors contributing to Singapore's forecast performance are its 'human capital' – a skilled and educated labour force (which is likely to lead to better long-term prospects for a country's economic growth), the dynamic business environment (with legislation to match), openness to trade, capital mobility and foreign direct investment…. Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea are employing the same Singaporean strategies on Human Capital where the brightest and the brilliant are attracted from all over the world, universities rankings are among the top World 20.  Surely something must be really right, as these countries do not have Natural Resources. In our beloved Malaysia, everything is the opposite, our government legalised 1.6 million foreign unskilled labourers who are non-taxpayer 'Bumiputras' consuming all the benefits funded by us taxpayers; our universities rankings have slid from the World Top 100 to unbelievably low levels so much that we have difficulty in competing internationally. Our brightest and brilliant are forced to mass migrate to Singapore, Taiwan and overseas. This is very ironic because we have immense natural resources which were extracted for half a century but our country seems to be always in debt and short of funds. The vast revenues obtained from tin, rubber, timber and petroleum had not done much to secure our economic standing.   It is unbelievable that even Petronas, the supposedly superrich Malaysian corporation, is in danger of going bust. Surely something must be really wrong. A site, tranungkite.net writes that Petronas "has squandered its tremendous reserves for a number of projects it had no business to be involved in. It owns Putrajaya, the administrative capital that is a drain on the public purse. It owns Proton, the F-1 motor racing circuit in Sepang, and a slew of companies and products that is far removed from its main product: petroleum. The US$1 billion sponsorship costs for the F-1 championship in Sepang and the Sauber Petronas F-1 racing team appears to matter more than the future of its 70 IT specialists. It owns the Petronas twin towers, forced on it by the government so the Kuala Lumput City Centre (KLCC) would show the world how developed a country Malaysia is. Its considerable funds are used to cover government shortfalls and other financial needs. I suspect the Petronas management sees red ink dominating its balance sheets after its unrestrained financial profligacy." The latest glowing report on Singapore should serve as a warning May Day signal to Malaysia to revamp its system so that its public service is more transparent, honest, bribe-free, absolutely professional, and pro-growth in its approaches when dealing with investors and technocrats. In Singapore, the civil servants have very strict instructions to use all available government means to facilitate the license and permit applications by business people, and to assist them in all technical matters that arise. The civil servants are totally forbidden from accepting any gift of any kind, nor to accept dinner invitations from businessmen. Singapore has the high international reputation of being bribe-free and has a highly conducive business environment. On   the contrary, bribes in the form of money and dinner invitation are expected by Malaysian civil servants, and there is a strong culture of 'undertable', and even 'over the table', dealings to lubricate business with the government.   No wonder Sabah, with all its wealth of natural resources, had become Malaysia's poorest state. As if it is not enough that the state civil service is so corrupted, it also has to share its wealth with the BN-held states in the Peninsula.

Add one more crime to disturbing statistics: Aliran office broken into Posted: 15 Sep 2012 02:53 PM PDT At around 9.00am on Tuesday, 11 September 2012, we discovered that the Aliran office had been broken into. The perpetrators had gained entry from the back portion of the building through the window by removing the grille. P Ramakrishnan, Aliran executive committee Instead of deploying thousands of police personnel as was done during the Bersih 3.0 rally or any opposition-centred activities, these personnel should be out in the streets ensuring our safety and security. – Photograph: Dr Dzul's blog They unlocked the wooden door from within the ground floor and proceeded to the first floor. They prised open the secured wooden door upstairs and entered the first floor. The building wasn't ransacked;, nothing was strewn on the floor. They did a very neat job. According to the carpenter who came later to repair and fix the damage, these culprits had to be professionals because they did not cause severe damage to gain entry. He also revealed that his boss' house was broken into two months ago. He lost three laptops and cash. The loss that we discovered was amazing and somewhat startling. The notebook belonging to the current president of Aliran (Francis Loh) was stolen. The computer set and the printer belonging to the immediate past president (P Ramakrishnan) were stolen. The computer set used by the treasurer (Anil Netto) was also stolen. All these are old computers. But strangely two other computers used by the clerk were left behind! There was also RM26.90 in one of the drawers but this was not touched. We made a police report and were told to go back and wait for one Sergeant Karim who would investigate and take a statement from us. Sergeant Karim came sometime later informing us that he was at the Jelutong Secondary School immediately behind the Aliran office investigating another break-in there. We were informed that burglars had carted away computer equipment (laptop, projector) and cash from the school. The police dusted the Aliran office for finger prints without success, took pictures of the break in and took our statement. They were of the opinion that the burglars could have gone to the school after the Aliran break-in. Cash-strapped as we are, we feel the financial strain arising from the loss of our computers. But we are no stranger to this situation. We have always been struggling on a shoe-string budget. The struggle will continue. Much has been said about the reduction in crime rates to assure the populace that the security situation in the country is improving. Statistics are trotted out to convince Malaysians that the improving crime situation is no idle talk. But Malaysians remain cynical and unconvinced. They hear of so many crimes taking place in their neighbourhood which go unreported. There are Malaysians who are reluctant to make police reports on the perceived premise that nothing is done or can be done to bring the culprits to book. They rationalise that it is a waste of time reporting. But it is a fact, it seems, crimes take place on a daily basis across the country. People no longer feel safe. The fear is always present that they may be robbed or accosted or assaulted.. They feel intimidated. This is the reality. Malaysians argue that the police go after the opposition with a determined purpose for any infringement of the law, however remote or mild, but this vigorous pursuit is lacking when ordinary Malaysians are victims of crimes. They contend that instead of deploying thousands of police personnel as was done during the Bersih 3.0 rally or any opposition centred activities, these personnel should be out in the streets ensuring our safety and security.

Open letter to the Ministry of Education [via email] Posted: 13 Sep 2012 03:58 PM PDT For the attention of Tan Sri Dato' Hj Muhyiddin Hj Mohd Yassin. Re: MOE support/endorsement of 'LGBT' guidelines MCLM strongly objects to the Ministry of Education's support and endorsement of guidelines purportedly designed to enable schools and parents to identify behaviour allegedly associated with the 'LGBT' community. We are appalled by this decision because the MOE has arbitrarily taken upon itself a task and/or responsibility that is not mandated by law. Your ministry's primary and only purpose is to provide academic opportunities and infrastructure at all levels of the social strata for every Malaysian citizen. The MOE's vision and mission states: Vision: Excellent schools producing distinguished generations Mission: Developing the potential of individuals through quality education Objectives: • To produce loyal and united Malaysians • To produce individuals who are devout, honourable, knowledgeable, competent and contented • To provide manpower for the development needs of the nation • To provide educational opportunities to all Malaysians We do not see a pre-qualification on acceptable behaviour of students inserted in this statement. In fact, we would go so far as to say that it is exemplary because it does not contain any specific reference to gender, race or religion but rather, focuses on creating a united Malaysia. Actions like this endorsement of the LGBT guidelines go against the admirable spirit of your Ministry's vison and mission statement because it engenders discrimination within our schools. Your deputy, Dr. Mohd Puad Zarkashi, did not make it clear what steps the MOE took to verify the accuracy of these guidelines as well as the credentials of those who formulated them. However, even a layman can see that every single point is spurious and without merit. They merely serve to legitimise prejudice and bigotry in our society. The mental and emotional damage it will certainly cause to our children is incalculable. A person's time in school is already fraught with identity crises and peer pressure. Being labelled as LGBT will  compound this situation as it will exacerbate sexual confusion, self-doubt and fear. By endorsing these guidelines, the Ministry is presenting bigots in schools with more ammunition to disenfranchise and terrorise those students who do not conform. Tan Sri Muhyiddin, we urge you to rescind your Ministry's endorsement of these guidelines for the sake of our youth who are the future of our nation. MCLM believes that the right to choose one's own journey to fulfillment in life is a personal choice, just as one is legally allowed to vote a representative into parliament without interference by the state. Malaysia will only excel to higher aspirations and achievements if its citizens truly believe in their hearts that they belong, without fear or favor. For that to happen, everyone matters.   Sharifuddin Abdul Latiff MCLM President

What's the difference between BN & George Soros? Posted: 11 Sep 2012 10:36 AM PDT Dr Kua Kia Soong, SUARAM Adviser In the BN Government's on-going witch hunt against SUARAM to try to discredit us for pursuing the suspected corruption scandal over the Scorpene deal in the Paris court, they now try to suggest that there is a problem with us having received funds from George Soros' Open Society Institute. The Domestic Trade Minister wants Bank Negara to investigate if there is "money laundering" involved. In so doing, the Minister has unwittingly put Bank Negara in an embarrassing position. George Soros is well known as a currency speculator, philanthropist and promoter of open society. What is baffling is the BN Government's problem with Soros. From the BN Government's propaganda, there seem to be two problems: (i) He is a currency speculator (ii) He is Jewish.   The Jewish Question The fact that being ethnically Jewish (rather than being a Zionist) can be the basis for derision and condemnation in Malaysia (especially in the UMNO press) is evidence of the racist nature of the governing regime. This speaks volumes about UMNO's capacity for providing a non-racist path to progress in Malaysia. SUARAM certainly does not have a problem with Soros' ethnicity.   Who is NOT a Currency Speculator? Soros has a reputation as a smart currency speculator. But he has made his millions through his own means and devices. On the other hand, our own Bank Negara under Dr Mahathir's watch speculated in the international currency markets from 1992-94 using the rakyat's money and incurred losses cited as ranging from RM10-30 billion! It has been claimed that the maximum exposure of Malaysian taxpayers' money in the forex market during that irresponsible fling was as much as RM270 billion. (Malaysian Business, April 1994) It was the biggest disaster ever for Bank Negara which had to be bailed out by the Finance Ministry in 1994 but the biggest heads have yet to roll! It was after this fiasco and one of Dr Mahathir's most humiliating performances that he, in a pique of rage, called Soros a "moron". When the 1997 Asian financial crisis struck, Soros was again blamed. However, Mahathir eventually had to eat humble pie at a press conference with Soros on 15 December 2006 at which he accepted that Soros had not been responsible for the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Thus, after the 1992-94 forex scandal one would have thought that the BN government would think twice about denouncing currency speculators!   SUARAM's Principled Stand on Justice, Democracy & Human Rights Through the 23 years of SUARAM's existence, we have never compromised our principled stand on freedom, justice, democracy and human rights. We have never been beholden to any funders, whether foreign or local, as our anti-imperialist stand and actions in the Anti-War Coalition testify.   Malaysia sliding down the slippery road to banana republicanism From the Domestic Trade & Consumerism Minister's irresponsible statements about charging our company while CCM is still investigating the case and this latest gaffe involving Soros, the BN Government appears to be shooting itself in the foot. On the one hand, the Prime Minister is trying so hard to present himself as a reformer by promising more democracy, the rule of law and human rights in the run-up to the 13th general election; On the other, his minister continues to violate all these principles of good governance in his haste to try to discredit SUARAM. This seems to be the Prime Minister's dilemma. His words do not seem to match the BN Government's actions and with every gaffe by blundering ministers, we seem to be sliding down the slippery road to banana republicanism.

Defence Ministry Acquisition of Rapid Intervention Vehicles Posted: 11 Sep 2012 10:28 AM PDT The reprimand by the Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail on the acquisition of Rapid Intervention Vehicles (RIVs) at exhorbitant prices highlights the malaise in the Ministry of Defence procurement exercises Tony Pua On Saturday 8 September 2012, the Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail asked that "nobody should take advantage of the situation for personal gains when acquiring equipment for the Special Forces," adding that recently four Rapid Intervention Vehicles (RIV) were purchased for RM2.76mil or RM690,000 each by the Ministry of Defence. Sultan Ibrahim then displayed one of the RIV vehicles and another personal vehicle that he purchased for RM150,000.   "Which of these will be your choice? I do not understand why government purchases involve exorbitant charges that do not make sense," Sultan Ibrahim, who is also a Colonel in the Special Forces, was reported to have said.   The above acquisition follows a series of controversial procurement of defence vehicles by the Ministry of Defence that have raised major question marks over whether the tax payers are getting value for their money.   In 2008 the Ministry of Defence has acquired 12 Eurocopter Cougar EC725 for RM2.3 billion or RM193 million each despite the same model helicopter being acquired for only RM82.8 million each by the Brazillian government. The Ministry had attempted to justify their higher purchase price to the Parliamentary Accounts Committee on the basis that there were "customisations" on the vehicle to meet the needs of the local air force.   Last year, the Ministry also awarded a RM6 billion contract to Boustead Naval Shipyard to build 6 offshore patrol vessels and a RM7.55 billion contract to purchase 257 units of 8x8 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) from DRB Hicom Bhd.   The RM6 billion contract was subsequently inflated to a RM9 billion contract and the Minister of Defence, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi had justified the both the acquisition and the increase in price on the fact that Malaysians are acquiring the state of the art "littoral combatant ships" (LCS).   It was subsequently exposed that the Ministry of Defence had merely "renamed" the German-made "Gowind Class" naval vessels into "LCS", which is the name for the more technologically advanced ships built for the United States. We can only interpret that the "renaming" of the ships is done to mislead the public into believing that we were indeed acquiring the best-in-class ships with the RM9 billion contract.   Similarly, it was exposed that while we are buying 257 APCs from DRB-Hicom for RM7.55 billion, DRB-Hicom is acquiring the 257 APCs from Turkish defence contractor for RM1.7 billion. While DRB-Hicom will still need to install certain optional equipment, such as the turret guns and software systems onto the APCs, it is beyond reasonable believe that such additional "customisations" will cause the bill to be inflated from RM1.7 billion to RM7.55 billion; or from only an average of RM6.6 million to RM29.4 million for each vehicle.   When the above controversies were exposed, I was accused by the Minister of Defence as a foreign spy seeking to expose national defence secrets and criticised as being ill-informed with regards to defence technology.   However, when the critique comes from the Sultan of Johor, the Minister has no choice but to concede an investigation into the glaring financial irregularity. Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi had responded yesterday that "the Defence Ministry takes note of the comment positively. [He] will look into the difference in prices between the RIV awarded by Sultan Ibrahim priced at RM150,000 compared with the RM690,000 sold by the supplier."   We call upon all of the above deals to be investigated and scrutinised not the Ministry of Defence itself, but by an independent Parliamentary Oversight Committee. Malaysians have no faith that the Ministry will be able to conduct an investigation that is fair and above board.   In the light of procurement transparency promoted by the Government Transformation Programme, it is critical that the Ministry of Defence supports the set up of the Oversight Committee to prove that all is above board. After all, if all the above transactions are of value for money to the Government, then surely there is nothing to hide from this independent panel.

Kenyataan Mukhriz Sahkan Negara Hilang RM3.5 Bilion Setiap Tahun Kerana Agihan AP Yang Tidak Telus Posted: 11 Sep 2012 10:21 AM PDT Jika jumlah AP yang dikeluarkan mencecah 70,000 setiap tahun seperti yang dianggarkan, negara dan rakyat kehilangan hasil sekitar RM3 bilion hingga RM3.5 bilion setiap tahun kerana kementerian yang turut diketuai Datuk Mukhriz kini hanya mengenakan caj RM10,000 sahaja setiap AP apabila ia diagihkan kepada pihak-pihak tertentu tanpa melalui proses tender terbuka.  Rafizi Ramli,YB Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad Saya mengalu-alukan maklumbalas pertama Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir terhadap isu penurunan harga kereta memandangkan beliau adalah antara orang penting yang bertanggungjawab menggubal dasar automotif negara, atas kapasiti beliau sebagai Timbalan Menteri Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri (MITI). Saya sertakan laporan BERNAMA bertarikh 7 September 2012 mengenai kenyataan yang dibuat beliau semasa merasmikan Persidangan Perwakilan Wanita Umno Bahagian Jerlun: Mukhriz: 'BN tidak berani buat janji kosong' 7 September 2012 JERLUN - Barisan Nasional (BN) tidak akan membuat janji yang tidak mampu ditunaikan oleh parti, kata Timbalan Pengerusi Badan Perhubungan Umno Kedah Datuk Mukhriz Tun Mahathir.     Beliau berkata semua yang tertulis di dalam manifesto pilihan raya BN akan dianggap sebagai janji kepada rakyat dan semua itu perlu ditepati untuk memberi kesenangan kepada rakyat.     Mukhriz yang juga Timbalan Menteri Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri berkata BN tidak akan berani untuk membuat sebarang janji yang ia tahu tidak akan mampu dilaksanakan.     "Lainlah dengan pembangkang. Mereka kata manifesto yang dibuat itu bukannya janji sebaliknya hanya cadangan, sebab itu mereka tidak serius dalam menunaikan semua yang ditulis dalam manifesto pilihan raya yang lepas.     "Apabila mereka sendiri dah kata macam tu, apa kita nak harapkan lagi daripada mereka," katanya kepada pemberita selepas merasmikan Persidangan Perwakilan Pergerakan Wanita Umno Bahagian Jerlun di Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Permatang Bonglai di sini hari ini.   Beliau berkata janji menurunkan harga kereta yang dibuat oleh Pengarah Strategi Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Mohd Rafizi Ramli sekiranya pembangkang berjaya mentadbir Putrajaya pada pilihan raya umum ke-13 akan datang adalah bersifat populis.     Katanya strategi pembangkang ialah menggunakan isu-isu yang bersifat populis seperti hendak hapuskan pinjaman Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional (PTPTN), hapuskan tol dan turunkan harga kereta.     "Mereka tidak jelaskan dari mana datangnya duit malah ada pemimpin PKR mengatakan untuk mengumpul dana kerajaan, mereka akan jual AP (permit import) kereta menggunakan kaedah opsyen.     "Seperti kita tahu, kalau guna kaedah itu, orang yang menawarkan harga tertinggilah yang akan menang. Jadi daripada anggaran kami setiap AP akan berharga RM50,000 hingga RM60,000. Kalau itu dilakukan, bagaimana nak turunkan harga kereta? Itu baru AP, belum kira lagi harga kereta tersebut," katanya.     Mukhriz berkata pembangkang hanya pandai membuat cadangan tetapi tidak memikirkan bagaimana hendak menjayakan cadangan tersebut termasuk dari mana hendak dapatkan punca pendapatan untuk menampung semua itu.     "Silap-silap kita (negara) akan menjadi muflis," katanya. Kenyataan Datuk Mukhriz yang mengesahkan anggaran kementerian beliau bahawa permit import (AP) akan menarik bidaan setinggi RM60,000 setiap satu jika dikendalikan secara telus melalui tender terbuka mempunyai kesan yang besar kepada kewangan negara. Jika jumlah AP yang dikeluarkan mencecah 70,000 setiap tahun seperti yang dianggarkan, negara dan rakyat kehilangan hasil sekitar RM3 bilion hingga RM3.5 bilion setiap tahun kerana kementerian yang turut diketuai Datuk Mukhriz kini hanya mengenakan caj RM10,000 sahaja setiap AP apabila ia diagihkan kepada pihak-pihak tertentu tanpa melalui proses tender terbuka. Bagi setiap AP, negara dan rakyat rugi sehingga RM50,000 dan jumlah itu masuk poket pihak berkepentingan yang mengaut untung besar akibat dasar tidak telus Umno/Barisan Nasional. Jumlah RM3 bilion hingga RM3.5 bilion ini adalah lebih tinggi berbanding anggaran yang dibuat KEADILAN dalam menentukan sumber kewangan untuk menampung dasar menurunkan harga kereta melalui pemotongan cukai eksais secara berperingkat. Ia juga membuktikan kemampuan kewangan kerajaan untuk melaksanakan dasar ini, jika Umno/Barisan Nasional benar-benar serius mendengar desakan rakyat. Kenyataan Datuk Mukhriz juga menggambarkan beliau masih belum faham mekanisme yang boleh digunapakai untuk menurunkan harga kereta kerana terlalu terbawa-bawa dengan pandangan yang berpihak kepada tauke kaya dan pengedar kereta yang membuat untung berlebihan dari sistem AP sedia ada. Rungutan beliau, kononnya harga AP yang tinggi jika dilelong secara terbuka akan menyebabkan harga kereta bertambah tinggi membayangkan beliau mahu mempertahankan kadar keuntungan berlipat kali ganda yang kini dinikmati pihak-pihak berkepentingan ini. Menurut perkiraan beliau, bila kadar keuntungan ini dipertahankan, sebarang peningkatan kos kepada pengedar kereta akibat harga AP yang lebih tinggi perlu ditanggung oleh rakyat. KEADILAN mengesyorkan supaya pengedar-pengedar berkepentingan ini bersaing sesama mereka dengan mengurangkan kadar keuntungan demi mendapatkan pelanggan. Apabila harga AP meningkat dan harga kereta mula turun, mereka tidak ada pilihan melainkan mengurangkan kadar keuntungan yang tidak berpatutan yang mereka nikmati selama ini. Demi menerangkan lagi mekanisme ini kepada Datuk Mukhriz, KEADILAN ingin menjemput Datuk Mukhriz untuk turut sama hadir ke Forum #turunhargakereta yang diadakan pada hari Khamis ini (13 September 2012) jam 8 malam di Dewan Perhimpunan Cina Kuala Lumpur & Selangor yang bakal menemukan YB Tony Pua, YB Dr Dzulkifly Ahmad, Saudara Wan Saiful Wan Jan, Saudara Rafizi Ramli dan YB Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad. Jika beliau benar-benar berjiwa besar demi kepentingan rakyat, kami yakin Datuk Mukhriz akan sudi singgah bersama-sama dengan rakyat berbincang kaedah terbaik untuk menurunkan harga kereta, terutamanya apabila beliau sendiri sudah mengesahkan bahawa kerajaan mempunyai dana yang mencukupi untuk melaksanakannnya.

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• The Havoc Education Reform Inflicts: Education Blueprint 2013-2025
• PR leaders sign Kuching Declaration
• UMNO and the Malay Mental Serfdom
• Maddening Malaysian Maths
• There may be no anti-Islamic movie at all
• Kelantan's Green Revolution: the march to Putrajaya
• New wine, old wineskin

The Havoc Education Reform Inflicts: Education Blueprint 2013-2025 Posted: 16 Sep 2012 03:11 PM PDT In this five-part commentary I will critique the latest reform effort contained in Preliminary Report: Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 released on September 11, 2012. The first three essays will address the Blueprint's findings and recommendations; the fourth, its omissions, and the last, the flaws in the process with this particular reform effort. The Blueprint clearly identifies the main problems and challenges at both the system and individual levels, but fails to analyze why or how they came about and why they have been let to fester. Consequently the recommendations are based more on conjecture rather than solid data; more towards generalities and the stating of goals rather than on specifics and how to achieve those goals. On the positive side, the goals and milestones (at least some of them) are clearly stated in quantifiable terms, so we would know whether they have been achieved going forward. Despite extensive public participation and the inclusion of many luminaries (including foreign ones) on the panel, the report has many glaring omissions. It fails to address the particular challenges facing Islamic and rural national schools. This is surprising considering that the constituents in both streams are Malays, a politically powerful group. Even more pertinent, those schools regularly perform at the bottom quartile; they drag down the whole system. Improving them would go a long way in enhancing the entire system. Yet another omission is the failure to analyze and thus learn from earlier reform efforts. This Blueprint does not live up to Najib Razak's assertion of being "bold, comprehensive and transparent." Transparent perhaps, but not bold or comprehensive! That is not surprising as the panel is dominated by civil servants. They have been part of the problem for so long that it would be too much to expect them now to magically be part of the solution. Predictability of Education Reform It is a particularly Malaysian obsession to reform its educational policy with the political season. Every new minister feels compelled to do it, as if to demonstrate his political manhood. Now it is Muhyiddin's turn. Five years ago under Hishamuddin there was Langkah Langkah Ke Arah Cemerlangan (Steps Towards Excellence). Five years before that under Musa Mohamad was Pembangunan Pendidikan 2001-2010: Rancangan Bersepadu Penjana Cemerlangan Pendidikan (Education Development 2010-2011. Plan for Unity Through Educational Excellence). Notice the long pretentious titles and frequent use of the word "excellence." In the meantime generations of young Malaysians, especially Malays, continue to pay the price for the follies of previous reforms, in particular the one in the 1970s that did away with English schools. Someone finally wizened up and brought back the teaching of English, albeit only in science and mathematics. Then just as we were adjusting to and recovering from that reversal, a new leader who thought himself smarter changed back the system! This latest reform released on September 11, 2012, will prove to be the 9-11 of Malaysian education. The destruction may not be as dramatic visually and physically as the other 9-11, but the wreckage will be real and massive, with the havoc remaining long after to haunt current and future generations. The damage will be extensive, cumulative, and compounding. As in the past, this time we are again being promised that this storm of a reform will wash away the thick polluted haze that has been hovering over our schools. Yes, the air will be clearer and fresher after a storm, and the birds will sing. Meanwhile however, we have to deal with ripped roofs, flood debris, and destructive landslides. In compiling this Blueprint the government has commendably sought wide public participation and at great expense. The public in turn responded massively and enthusiastically, reflecting the angst over our education system. The panel however, did not sufficiently discern the difference between quantity and quality, and duly gave equal time to the bombasts as well as the wise. READ MORE HERE

PR leaders sign Kuching Declaration Posted: 16 Sep 2012 02:02 PM PDT The de facto leader of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR)  Anwar Ibrahim signed on behalf of his party, while Lim Kit Siang, DAP National adviser signed on behalf of DAP and  Haji Abdul Hadi Awang, PAS President signed on behalf of PAS. Also affixing their signatures on the declaration were also state leaders.  Sarawak PKR Chief Baru Bian signed on behalf of PKR, while Wong Ho Leng, Sarawak DAP Chairman signed on behalf of DAP and Haji Adam Ahid, PAS Commissioner on behalf of his party. The Declaration reads: "Lest we forget, and lest all the peoples of our great Nation of Malaysia forget, we the undersigned do once again firmly, resolutely and unequivocally pledge and promise before the whole Nation of Malaysia as our witness, on this historically day the 16th of September, 2012, in the City of Kuching, and on behalf of our respective parties and Pakatan Rakyat will honour all its pledges and promises to the peoples of Malaysia. "We will honourably execute all the policies set forth in the Buku Jingga so that Malaysia will once again be a great Nation, her peoples prosperous, her future secure and peaceful, and her name celebrated by all the nations of the world. "We will honour the spirit of the Malaysia Agreement of 1963 which our founding fathers put their hands to, and as a sign of our deep commitment to the peoples of Sarawak and Sabah, consistent with democratic principles and justice for all Malaysians, in particular: READ MORE HERE

UMNO and the Malay Mental Serfdom Posted: 16 Sep 2012 01:53 PM PDT I am most baffled when he says or suggests that UMNO has an ideology. Since when does UMNO has an ideology consisting of beliefs and basic driving force? What ideology? Since the time when I was still in UMNO until now, we have been taught that UMNO hasn't got an ideology. It has always claimed it's pragmatic although the word actually means anything goes. No sir, UMNO hasn't got any ideology.   Everyone sees a position in UMNO as a means to make more money. That is why Najib has so much difficulty in weaning off incumbents from their current seats. Unless of course he pays them off and that is what he is doing. He's giving so many people golden handshakes.  When he says DAP will dominate, he must be off his rockers. But then he is talking to a pliant and nodding crowd whose minds are conditioned by TV3 and Utusex Malaysia. The argument that DAP will dominate is incredible as well as devious.  He was speaking at the Mesyuarat Perwakilan UMNO Bahagian- the local Perhimpunan Agung. It was the same when he spoke to the rented crowd at stadium Bukit Jalil a few months ago. But when he retires to the sleeping quarters, he can't sleep because he's getting nightmares. He's thinking, can UMNO even reach the 100 seat mark?  Well, I know more about him that the average reader.  We have explained why DAP will become a formidable party because of the disciplined and quality leadership and clarity of its cause. Seat wise, DAP cant form a government without PAS and PKR because it's contesting not more that 52 seats or even less. Unless of course the Malays in PKR and PAS are of the same mediocre standard as UMNO leaders, then only, Malays are disadvantaged. Malay survival is at risk if they continue the corrupt and self-interested UMNO.  Even Kit Siang and Guan Eng acknowledged the political reality of this country. The majority of the population is Malay and to suggest that anyone other than a Malay can be PM and TPM at this juncture of our history, is devilishly disingenuous. Bu then, UMNO is the devil we know.  The reason why DAP is assailed is because the party has become the party of choice by the majority of the Chinese, Indians and to small extent, Malays. Malays now prefer PKR and PAS.  When he asked the pliant crowd are you ready for elections- they will answer yes of course. We have been waiting for the money! Where the mo?  Do Malays depend on UMNO? That is what UMNO wants us to believe and that it's why it's only strategy is to keep Malays on economic leash by giving handouts and free things. It's also Najib's only strategy. Talking about ETP and NKRA, KPI must exert some tremendous mental stain on him. Poor fellow.  That only thing they have withheld from Malays- effective economic freedom free from regulations, licenses that favor the rich, quotas that are robbed by the rich and powerful etc.  That is absolute lie. Malays do not depend on UMNO for their survival. Malays have got a choice if they want to maintain that emotional security- support PAS or PKR. Do we see Malays suffer in Selangor, Kelantan, Penang and Kedah where UMNO is not in power? No? Then Malays do not depend on UMNO for their survival. They prosper under good governance, sincere and dedicated administrations.  When UMNO leaders proclaim that our security is at risk that reflects more of their incompetence. The Home Minister shows his complete incompetence by allowing vigilantes to roam the street and create havoc. Hishammuddin should resign from his post as Home Minister if he's not bright enough. READ MORE HERE

Maddening Malaysian Maths Posted: 16 Sep 2012 01:34 PM PDT Leaving aside the complete unreliability of frogs, for simplicity sake let us still view that 20 of Sabah's 25 federal seats are held by BN. In neighbouring Sarawak, with peh-mo in almost total control, the BN holds 29 of its 31 federal seats. If BN retains the East Malaysian status quo after the next election, then Najib would not be wrong in claiming Sabah and Sarawak are BN's fixed deposits. But will BN? 222 - 56 East Malaysian seats = 166 peninsula federal seats Immediately post GE-12, BN held 140 to Pakatan's 82 (whence AI had laughingly claimed he could obtain an additional deformed 30 MPs by 916 to give a Pakatan 112 majority versus BN's 110 wakakaka). Thus, out of BN's 140, there were only (140 - 49 East Malaysian BN federal seats =) 91 federal seats in Peninsula. Recall, immediately post GE-12, Pakatan had 75 peninsula federal seats, providing us with a OK Corral-like stand-off in Peninsula of 91 BN seats versus 75 Pakatan seats, a mere majority of 16. Thus, assuming voters continue to vote Pakatan in those same 75 federal constituencies in Peninsula,  the coalition only requires victory in another 9 seats to put BN gasping for breath in Peninsula like an ikan kembong landed on hot burning beach sands. And in Peninsula, such a victory is very doable with doom and gloom already forecast for BN in the peninsula states of Johor, NS and Malacca, and which may explain UMNO becoming more and more feral (thuggish), with the UMNO Home Minister even talking like a petulant immature boy. Mind though, BN (UMNO) may claw a couple back in Kedah because of one screwed-up bloke there who prefers UMNO to Pakatan's DAP and who has not cooperated well as a Pakatan leader should. Assuming optimistically for an instant, Pakatan in GE-13 wins 84 federal seats in Peninsula to BN's 82 (and IMHO, it's quite likely to be more than just 84 wakakaka) it needs another 28 seats in East Malaysia to form the new Malaysian government. Of that required 28 East Malaysian seats, the DAP has won and thus is fairly well entrenched in 3. Will Pakatan be able to win another 25? Alas, PAS has been obdurately selfish in Labuan, knowing full well it can't win in that constituency yet insisting it wants to stand its candidate there again. In GE-12, its candidate came last in a 3-corner fight and lost his deposit wakakaka. READ MORE HERE

There may be no anti-Islamic movie at all Posted: 15 Sep 2012 03:47 PM PDT Cindy Lee Garcia tells the website that she was hired last summer for a small part in a movie she was told would be called "Desert Warriors," about life in Egypt 2,000 years ago (Islam is about 1,400 years old). She told Gawker "It wasn't based on anything to do with religion, it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn't anything about Muhammed or Muslims or anything and that, according to Gawker, "In the script and during the shooting, nothing indicated the controversial nature of the final product. Muhammed wasn't even called Muhammed; he was "Master George," Garcia said. The words Muhammed were dubbed over in post-production, as were essentially all other offensive references to Islam and Muhammed. Garcia said that there was a man who identified as "Bacile" on set, but that he was Egyptian and frequently spoke Arabic. The online 14-minute clip of a purportedly anti-Islamic movie that sparked protests at the US embassy in Cairo and and the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya is now looking like it could have been ginned up by someone sitting a basement with cheap dubbing software. Full credit goes to Sarah Abdurrahman at On the Media and Rosie Grey at Buzzfed who appear to be the first to highlight (there may be others, but they're the ones who caught my eye) the fact that almost every instance of language referring to Islam or Muhammad in the film has been dubbed in. That is, mouths are mouthing but the words you're hearing don't match. There have already been a bunch of lies associated with the alleged film. A man named "Sam Bacile" was identified as being the writer and producer. He claimed to be an Israeli citizen. The Israelis say they have no record of him. He claimed to have spent $5 million on the movie. The clip online doesn't look like even $100,000 was spent. There is no record of a "Sam Bacile" living in California, and his strange insistence on the fact that he was Jewish and that he had exclusively Jewish funders for his film in an interview with the Associated Press now looks like something of a red flag. The one verifiable person involved in this strange tale so far is Steve Klein, an evangelical Christian and anti-Islamic activist with ties to militia groups and a Coptic Christian satellite TV station based in California. Klein told Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic earlier today that he was a consultant on the film, that "Sam Bacile," was a pseudonym, that the person behind the name probably isn't Jewish, and he didn't know the real name of the man. He doesn't know the name of someone he worked on a movie with? Yet another strange, credulity-stretching claim.  Now comes the part with the compelling case of no movie at all. READ MORE HERE

Kelantan's Green Revolution: the march to Putrajaya Posted: 13 Sep 2012 07:43 PM PDT SEE MORE PICTURES HERE

New wine, old wineskin Posted: 13 Sep 2012 05:06 PM PDT This lack of knowledge is of concern naturally because we are talking about a public servant with a great deal of power (he can shoot us with his pistol after all), and it is important that he understands that the limits on his power does not depend simply on whatever Standard Operating Procedure he may have but also our rights as citizens. However, knowledge can be gained. Police officers do take courses and some of these courses will have components of Constitutional Law in them. I have taught a diploma course on Constitutional Law and the officers in my class appeared to have grasped the concept. Knowledge, therefore, is not really the issue here; it is the corresponding attitude towards that knowledge which truly matters. In the past few weeks there have been many incidents that illustrate the paradox that occurs when one pays lip service to a principle without truly understanding its importance and ideals. The Peaceful Assembly Act was supposed to be a law that would allow a more liberal approach to public gatherings, but instead we see it being used to actually hinder such gatherings. The Janji Demokrasi gathering was deemed illegal before it occurred because proper procedures for asking permission was not followed as demanded by the Act. Investigations on organisers and participants of Janji Demokrasi are also currently being conducted, again under the auspices of the Act. A green rally in Pahang is being investigated because a person who is deemed underage by the Act was suspected of taking part. All this fuss over what were peaceful gatherings. I have said before that there was little wrong with the previous laws (the Police Act) regarding public gatherings. The Police Act gave a lot of discretion to the police to allow or not allow public gatherings, this is true; however if there was a proper understanding and appreciation of the Constitution, the police should, by and large, allow any public gathering as long as it is not dangerous or violent in nature. The problem with the Police Act was one of attitude and not the law per se. This same attitude persists and it can be seen in the implementation of the new Peaceful Assembly Act. What is needed in the country therefore is not even more, so called liberal laws, but a true appreciation and respect for the human rights of the people of this nation. The police have to understand that their role is not simply about enforcing the law for whatever government is in power. Their role is to enforce the law in the spirit of the Constitution and the freedoms that it guarantees for everybody. READ MORE HERE

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Paderi Sabah ingatkan Putrajaya tentang Batu Sumpah Peringatan Keningau pada 16 September Posted: 16 Sep 2012 02:00 PM PDT Bishop Datuk Cornelius Piong (gambar) berkata, 49 tahun yang lalu, kerajaan persekutuan Malaya telah berjanji untuk maju bersama-sama dan melindungi hak asasi manusia, dengan menubuhkan negara yang dikenali sebagai Malaysia bersama Sarawak dan Singapura. Antara tiga janji adalah untuk memastikan hak orang Sabah akan bebas menganut apa juga agama, tanah adat akan terus dijaga dan kerajaan persekutuan akan menghormati adat budaya Sabah. "Adakah janji-janji ini dihormati dan ditunaikan?" beliau bertanya dalam ucapannya yang dicetak semalam di akhbar terbaru Herald, akhbar Katholik di Sabah. "Perjanjian itu telah diukir di Batu Sumpah Peringatan yang masih ada di Keningau," kata bishop yang menjaga diocese (daerah Katholik) Keningau. Beliau berkata batu peringatan itu masih berada di depan pusat pentadbiran daerah di Keningau. Gereja Katholik lantang bersuara dalam ketidakadilan sosial terutamanya selepas pilihan raya umum 2008 dan kes dimana hak untuk menggunakan nama "Allah" dihalang oleh menteri dalam negeri dan menggunakan akta keselamatan dalam negeri jika mengimpot Injil dengan perkataan tersebut. Gereja bagaimanapun memenangi kes tersebut di mahkamah tinggi, tetapi masih ditangguh kerana kementerian dalam negeri membawa kes tersebut ke mahkamah rayuan dan kes tertangguh selama dua tahun. Sabah, bersama Sarawak mempunyai penduduk Kristian yang besar, kira-kira 10 peratus dari jumlah penduduk negara. Keningau merupakan salah satu daerah yang mempunyai penduduk Kristian yang ramai — 117,000 orang dari 419,000 orang atau 28 peratus dari jumlah penduduk daerah — menurut statistik dari gereja Katholik. Dua negeri Malaysia Timur itu juga antara tiga negeri paling miskin di Malaysia, dengan Sabah berjumlah 19.7 peratus — yang tertinggi dalam negara, dan Sarawak di tempat ketiga dengan 5.3 peratus — mengikut statistik rasmi laporan pendapatan dalam negara 2009. Parti pembangkang kini menggunakan isu-isu tempatan di dua negeri yang digelar sebagai "simpanan tetap" Barisan Nasional, selain isu rasuah yang berleluasa, kekurangan infrastruktur asas dan melanggar perjanjian perlembagaan 20 perkara di Sabah dan 18 di Sarawak selama berdekad. Piong, bishop pertama dari kaum asal, mahu warga Katholik untuk mengingati hak mereka dalam perlembagaan. "Dalam kita meraikan Hari Malaysia, marilah kita memperkuatkan perpaduan kita dan ketaatan kepada Tuhan dalam kehidupan seharian. "Tanpa Tuhan, kita tidak akan mendapat kemajuan yang adil kepada semua orang," katanya, sambil memetik ayat itu dari kitab Injil. Dalam pilihan raya umum yang lalu, BN cuma memenangi 85 kerusi manakala pembangkang memenangi 80 kerusi di Semenanjung Malaysia. Sabah, Sarawak dan wilayah persekutuan Labuan menyelamatkan BN apabila memenangi 55 kerusi berbanding dua kepada pembangkang. Bagaimanapun, kekuatan pembangkang di Malaysia Timur bertambah dengan beberapa ahli veteran BN melompat parti ke PR dalam pilihan raya yang akan berlangsung selewat-lewatnya April, yang akan menyaksikan pertandingan tersengit dalam sejarah negara.

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