Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- Can Gerakan rise from the ashes?
- MALAY ORIGINS: Evidence suggests otherwise
- India's 'Assange' crusades against corruption
- Should the King invoke Article 130?
| Can Gerakan rise from the ashes? Posted: 07 Nov 2012 02:53 PM PST Gerakan is placing all its hopes on the prime minister's projects for its survival. Humayun Kabir, FMT It seems that now Gerakan's only hope of a revival is by hitching its bandwagon to Najib Tun Razak's various 1Malaysia projects. The Gerakan leaders, at least those in Perak, are singing praises of Najib's projects and how it is going to help the party to rise from the ashes. In the 2008 general election, the party was almost annihilated. Gerakan won only two of the 12 parliamentary seats that it contested in 2008 and four state seats out of the 31 it contested. Gerakan national deputy president Chang Ko Youn told FMT that the party will see a brighter future and win more seats under Najib's various 1Malaysia projects and economic programmes. He said "under the 1Malaysia theme, Najib has brought a lot of changes and reforms that are effective, which is better than [under the administration of former premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi]". Chang, who is also Perak state chief, said: "We will be contesting in the three parliamentary seats of Taiping, Beruas and Teluk Intan and four state seats of Aulong, Kuala Sepetang [both in Taiping area], Jalong [in Sungai Siput] and Canning [in Ipoh] in the coming general election." "We have submitted our list of candidates to Najib and we are waiting for his approval," added Chang. Younger candidates Gerakan has bowed to the party's Youth wing's pressure of fielding younger candidates and has agreed to have 50% new faces. In Perak, according to party insiders, the three parliamentary seats and one state seat may be contested by party veterans while the remaining three state seats may see new faces. It will be the second attempt for Chang to contest in Beruas against incumbent DAP state chief Ngeh Khoo Ham while state vice chief Mah Siew Keong will once again challenge either incumbent DAP's M Manoharan or probably a new DAP candidate in Teluk Intan. Meanwhile, party Wanita chief Tan Lian Hoe, who is also deputy domestic trade and consumer minister, will stand for the first time in Taiping to challenge incumbent DAP strongman Nga Kor Ming.
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| MALAY ORIGINS: Evidence suggests otherwise Posted: 06 Nov 2012 04:50 PM PST
New evidence seems to suggest that Malays and Negritos both evolved together in Southeast Asia in prehistoric times. DATUK Dr Ananda Kumaraseri's comment piece, "Malaysia reflects its rich varied heritage" (NST, Nov 2), was a fair attempt at describing Malaysia's population and cultural variety, based on ancient history. (NST) - Unfortunately, his narration of the past was based on outdated theories and knowledge. There were no "waves" of migration into Southeast Asia, nor did Malays originate from Tibet or southern China, as he mentioned. Dr Ananda was reading knowledge of the 1930s, basically just archaeological knowledge. Lots of new evidence in archaeology and linguistics, as well as DNA studies, in Asia more recently have overturned the theories and views about Southeast Asia that originated from the 1930s. For a round-up of some of the new evidence, refer to the book Tamadun Alam Melayu (by M.A. Ishak 2009, published by Persatuan Sejarah Malaysia). The picture is now emerging that it was in Southeast Asia that man first began to differentiate and that the races began to emerge in Asia. This evolution apparently resulted in the emergence of a spectrum of peoples, from darker-skinned Negritos to lighter-skinned ones (Jakuns) and the still lighter-skinned "Malays". That is to say, the Malay population did not go through the process of being deutero Malays and then proto Malays, as is so commonly mentioned. What the new evidence seems to suggest is that Malays and Negritos both evolved together in Southeast Asia during prehistoric times. At that time, southern Southeast Asia was one large block of land which then broke up to form the Malay Archipelago following rises in sea levels three times from 14,000 to 8,000 years ago. (For a comprehensive account of the sea floods and its significance in the history of Southeast Asia, please refer to the book Eden in the East by Stephen Oppenheimer, 2001). Some of the people who arrived in Southeast Asia from Africa (about 60,000 to 80,000 years ago) did not stay in Southeast Asia long and moved on without going through the process of early differentiation in Southeast Asia. They became the aboriginal peoples of Papua New Guinea and Australia as we know them today. Some others continued moving northwards instead and they differentiated further and became Tibetans, Yuehs, Thais and others, and only much later did the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese emerge. In other words, human migration was from south to north, and not from north to south as suggested by the theories of the 1930s. Thus, the Chinese are, in fact, a distant sub-set of Southeast Asians, and not the other way round. The largest DNA studies conducted by scientists from 10 Asian countries, including Malaysia, China and Singapore, published their findings in December 2009. They concluded that migration of man in East Asia was from south to north. The 2009 findings reinforced findings from several earlier but much smaller studies, which also carried the same conclusions. But much later, migrations of man from north to south in East Asia (and Chinese historical accounts mentioned these events) did take place. These migrations brought Vietnamese, Thais, the people of Myanmar and others into Southeast Asia. These were thus back-migrations to the south, and these happened because of the pressure of the expanding Chinese population in the north. But Malays have always been in the southern part of Southeast Asia. There are no historical accounts, whether in China or wherever, of people who could be identified as Malays migrating south during historical times. Malays (or, any other present-day Southeast Asians) could not have migrated south from the north earlier, meaning during prehistoric times either, as DNA studies have shown human DNA in Southeast Asia is older than that in China (in other words, human movement could only have been northwards during prehistoric times), and DNA composition in China showed a heavy Southeast Asian content, meaning Southeast Asian origin. Over time, Malays having flourished as natives of Southeast Asia (alongside the Negritos) from the original migration from Africa and split following the break-up of their homeland -- the southern Southeast Asia land mass -- into the Malay Archipelago. This resulted in the Malays becoming the population of all the islands of the archipelago. Their land-and-sea environment then caused the ancient Malays to develop a maritime way of life and maritime skills. Eventually, the Malays sailed right into the Pacific Ocean populating all the islands there (where they are now known as Polynesians and Micronesians), and also to Madagascar across the Indian Ocean. Malay kinship across these two oceans has been indicated by DNA studies from the 1960s and even earlier linguistic studies. Their ancient presence in the archipelago led to the development of sub-identities like the Javanese, Bugis and others among the Malay ethnic group, also known as Malayo-Polynesian. It is wrong, therefore, to suggest that Javanese or Bugis, for instance, are immigrant people in Malaysia, as all these people are mere sub-ethnic groups of a larger ethnic family, all inheriting a single common and extensive ancient homeland. Thus, to get our prehistory and history right based on the new knowledge, Malays are the ancient ancestral people of southern Southeast Asia. They did not migrate from anywhere else in Asia. The whole archipelago that resulted from the break-up of the original land mass of southern Southeast Asia was their original homeland and they kept sailing to and fro within the archipelago, even until present days. The high cultural and linguistic diversity in the Malay Archipelago (despite being occupied by only one language family) is further proof of the Malays' ancient presence as linguistics theory suggests the more ancient a people are, the more they generate linguistic diversity. Linguistic diversity among Malays in the archipelago is, in fact, the highest in the whole of Asia, thus pointing to their very ancient presence. It is this ancient Malay population that is at the base of the country that we now call Malaysia. Dr Ananda was right in suggesting that Malaysia's past shaped the "thinking, attitudes, ethos and the nature and substance of its statecraft". Diversity is nothing new to the archipelago or to Malaysia, even before the arrivals of Chinese and Indians during very recent historical times. I look forward to the revision of our school history books to keep abreast of the new evidence. | ||
| India's 'Assange' crusades against corruption Posted: 04 Nov 2012 02:41 PM PST
Arvind Kejriwal has shaken the political establishment with a string of accusations against top leaders and businesses. Sudha G Tilak, Aljeeza In a country where accountability and transparency are often thought of as the first causalities of holding public office, Arvind Kejriwal, a mechanical engineer and former bureaucrat from Haryana, has blown the whistle on India's corrupt. In the last fortnight, he has released details and levelled charges four times against top Indian politicians and the country's biggest business conglomerate. "We want to turn the power structure upside-down and make the powerful accountable," Kejriwal, 44, a thin man with a moustache and piercing eyes, said. India's middle class population, which prefers to bemoan the state of chaos and corruption in the nation, have found in Kejriwal a person who is not afraid to bring forth allegations of fraud to the doorstep of India's leaders. It's been a long and busy day for Kejriwal following his string of revelations and corruption charges in the past fortnight on many of India's leading political and business figures. He disengages from throngs of his followers of the India Against Corruption (IAC), a people's organisation he founded in 2006 encouraging public engagement. "People of this country are fed up, and the conditions are right for a movement to set things right," he said in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera. Targeting the mighty Charging the country's most powerful with corruption, Kejriwal has discomforted the government. "They have found the ground beneath their feet shaken", he exclaimed. However, he is wary of the title India's Julian Assange, the founder of the whistle-blowing organisation WikiLeaks now wanted by the US government for making top secret government documents available to the public, which some have bestowed upon him. "It's not about sensational exposures," he said. "The intent is to bring a radical change in politics and accountability." Kejriwal's accusations are based on government documents he says are proof of corruption, which he had obtained using the Right to Information Act, under which any citizen may compel the government to share information. On October 5, Kejriwal made a public accusation against Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress party president Sonia Gandhi. He claimed that Vadra had purchased property worth millions of dollars with "interest free unsecured free loan" by DLF, India's major construction company. DLF's market value dropped in a single day to the tune of $580m following the accusation. A week later Kejriwal pinpointed financial irregularities to the tune of Rs 71 lakh ($130,000) by the Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust, a non-governmental organisation for the disabled that is headed by federal minister Salman Khurshid and his wife Louise. He took to the streets with his followers saying the Khurshids had misappropriated funds allocated for the physically challenged to distribute tricycles and hearing aids for the needy across 17 districts of Uttar Pradesh. A Comptroller and Auditor General's Report (CAG) had earlier reported the irregularities too. Then, on October 17, Kejriwal targeted the opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He accused party president Nitin Gadkari of land grabbing by colluding with the ruling party in the western state of Maharashtra, and exploiting poor farmers to further his business interests in real estate. Pursuing the truth Despite strong denials from those who stand accused, Kejriwal's revelations have undoubtedly stirred the establishment.
Robert Vadra, Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law, has denied the charges brought against him; DLF has also denied offering favourable discounts for purchase of property. Gandhi, for her part, has remained silent on the matter, refraining from making any public statements. Kejriwal brushed aside the defences of Vadra and senior Congress leaders, saying their clarifications were "half-truths and lies".
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| Should the King invoke Article 130? Posted: 04 Nov 2012 06:20 AM PST   Hemananthani Sivanandam, The Sun Daily The contentious debate about whether Malaysia is a secular or Islamic state has been raging on both sides of the political divide. DAP chairman Karpal Singh recently proposed urging the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to invoke his powers under Article 130 of the Federal Constitution, to refer to the full bench of the Federal Court for an opinion as to whether Malaysia is a secular state or an Islamic state. He argued that in the 1988 case of Che Omar Che Soh vs Public Prosecutor, the Supreme Court headed by then lord president Tun Salleh Abbas had clearly stated that the law in the country was secular. However, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said in Parliament last month that Malaysia had never been endorsed or declared as a secular country. He said according to the nation's history, Malaysia was formed based on the Islamic government of the Malay Sultanate and the Malay rulers are the heads of religion in their respective states. While some believe it is best to put an end to the issue, others feel it is best to just move on and leave the sensitive subject unexplored. Views put forward include: Nazri Aziz Tun Salleh's (pronouncement) was obiter dicta (Latin for "something mentioned in passing) and it was not an issue put before the court to decide if the country is secular or Islamic. He mentioned only in passing that Malaysia has secular laws. It is up to the King now. Also, we don't have to be one or the other. We are unique and we have gone this far without any problem. Why do we have to follow one or the other? If we are not secular, must we be Islamic? No! Monash University political science lecturer Prof Dr James Chin Asking for a legal opinion by the King is frought with danger because the issue at stake is really not a constitutional issue, but a political question. The best place to settle the debate is on the floor of the Parliament which can amend the constitution to say either way. Karpal Singh If the government feels that it is obiter dicta, and not the rationale for the decision, then it should get the King to refer the issue to the Federal Court for its opinion. I don't think it was obiter dicta, because the court in deciding whether Islamic or secular laws applied in the country, declared it was secular laws … which means we are not an Islamic state. Even democracy is not mentioned in the constitution, but we should go on the overall manner in which it was drafted. Let the issue be decided once and for all by a full bench of the Federal Court. Political analyst Khoo Kay Peng Karpal's suggestion is apt as this issue has been politicised and has tremendous effect on the judiciary, administration and public policy. In the interest of the nation, I think the King should invoke his powers to settle the matter, as he is above politics. His role is also providing positive moderation of the country. Let the court decide and put an end to this instead of letting the politicians go around confusing the people.
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Nurul Izzah had also said, in her reply to the question, that she was "tied to the prevailing views" in the country.