Learn from Singapore to be truly Boleh.

Do you believe this, 20 years old buildings could be maintained in such a manner they look like newly built! Look at the landscapes, the green lung that ever surround the high-rise buildings, creating such a freshly and healthy environment which could only be a fancy for us, the Malaysians, we are staying in the congested, disorderly flats, more of sort of a slump for the illegal immigrants! In Penang, we can see more slumps of these kinds likened war torn buildings I had seen in the Country of Laos 15 years ago!

Why Singaporean can do this and Malaysian cannot?! Aren't we 'Boleh' in all fields, we could even send a Scientist to the Space (by taking a ride in other's rocket)that far, the good practices and good works undertaken just across the causeway could be shunned without the worth of even a side glance by our honourable 'Bolehish' officials? Are we now looking East, or West, or nowhere but into the toilet bowl?!

Wouldn't it enough shame when Singaporean had said, they are easily 20 years ahead of us when we consider ourselves advance, they are 20 years ahead of us, more advance! Though it sounded sarcastic, I personally was dumb in speech and my neck cringed like a snail, when agitated, shy away with the neck cringed! In bahasa Malaysia, this is a feel of 'malu'!

Seeing is believing, Singapore is indeed a spectacular well planned modern township qualifies to be a world class metropolitan country with only, in the recent decade, Dubai is the closest competitor which can match and even overtake Singapore in terms of township development! All these due to the infinity focus into the future by the leaders of these two Nations to propel their Countries to greater height, to rank themselves at the top of the world renowned list of glory - the most admirable cities to live in!

To the contrary, what have our leaders done for us and for the Country, other than their ever shriek out- 'Malaysia Boleh, Ketuanan Melayu Boleh'?! They are still behaving like the turtles tailing behind the rabbits, slow and clumsy and complacently lazy! How it would be nice if they can just practice with some self-constraint, abate on the arrogance of self-approbation, be subservient to learn from the more successful paradigm of good governance from the neighbour, who says Malaysia cannot become as advance as Singapore, or even more advance?!

Pessimistically, by looking at the bunch of leaders we have at helm the power that be, I am not that hopeful of to see any difference that may pull in the distance for our Country to match Singapore any nearer than the current exchange rate - 2.50 times higher than MR, given another 25 years, can our Country regain the position of being one time a taiko in this ASEAN region? Can our RM anything nearer to those days' currency exchange rate of equilibrium?! I doubt so, how about you guys?!

Apartment dwelling - A social problem....

Property management and maintenance for high-rise apartments in Penang have since been an irresolvable problem like nightmare haunting the Penangites for decades! This is mainly due to no better choice of buying landed properties with the hardly affordable escalating high costs and scarcity in supply, they have to endure the torture of living in such a sub-standard living environment!

With most high-rise buildings and apartments were built in shoddy materials and workmanship, which were made not to last for long term, as good only after the defects liability periods, after the developers had freed from any encumbrance and had their stakeholder funds cashed out from the bankers, which was the time the lifts were going to give trouble and breakdowns, the RC floors, ceilings were about to crack and invite leakage to visit the wet areas in the parcels! Even the longest lasting ones, such problems may have occurred at best after less than a handful of 5 years! Problems are not ending, remedy is continuing to be helpless, most property managing agents are unable to perform their duties professionally and diligently to meet the requirements of the so-called Councils of the Management Corporation duly appointed under the Strata Titles Act 318, which is the only bible in hands apart from the many Acts we do have in the books but lacked in operation! Why the deadlock of these chronic problems and how would they have been caused? Simply, based on my personal observation and judgment - there have been too many Acts (laws), too little professionalism to implement them effectively, is the main core of the problems!

Far back to 1997, when the then ADO of PTG Mr Wong Hin Fatt, the one officer who had been considered one of the most experienced and having long service in Land Office, I had been holding rounds of discussion with him concerning the issues of - the relevance in managing high-rise buildings, in relation to the common properties, pertaining to consents of by-laws - the Strata Titles Act 318, 1985, its efficiency and powers of implementation, and by whom?! How would PTG or the Land Administrator play their parts in co-ordination with the several Management Corporations then had been established and continue mushrooming?! What was the code and ethic or set of rules, guide lines delineated by the Authority to effectively help to implement the Strata Titles Acts as well as standing as the watchdog, by PTG, to govern and monitor the activities and performances of the numerous MCs having established, having entrusted with the public funds?!

No result of resolution from the unofficial meetings with Mr Wong thus far until he retired from office in year 2004! Problems remain problems and worsening! Almost 90% of the medium costs or LMCs are badly managed and faced with scores of maintenance problems, money not enough, by either short changed or being abused, some so-called professional property managers are also making use of the opportunity to spare benefits from the loopholes of Laws at the ignorance of the unprofessional Management Corporation Councils and at the expense of the residents, whom they have contributed in subsidizing the management funds for proper maintenance of the common properties covenanted in the S&P (House Rules and Regulations), the mutual obligation of the Management Corporation vs the residents (the parcel proprietors). Sadly, things are not done appropriately to the essence of law (Act 318)! With due respect to the Authority, though they are not solely to be blamed, the residents are also part of the roots of the bad causes, we being the apartment dwellers have our rights to appeal for the intervene of the CAT Government to buck up now and look into ways and means of curbing the problems, to address the grievances of the apartment public those days had been neglected or incapacitated, by the former defunct State Government!

I wish to share with the peers of apartment dwellers some of the findings I had two weeks ago, when I was in Singapore, I visited a housing estate which consists of clusters of high-rise apartments, which were said to be more than 20 years old at Chou Chu Kang area. The whole area was so well managed that you will never believe that the buildings were as old as more than two decades! The attachment picture is self-explanatory of its perfectness and the great difference of what Singaporean can do and what we Penangites couldn't do! I also visited the website of the Town Council for that particular area and do have some little inspiration to how we can possibly emulate from the evolutionary prototype of Singaporean ways of property management. It needs a text to ensemble fully the concept of effectiveness and my sole intention here is to serve this article as a clarion call to the apartment dwellers and the State Administration to take things serious, this is the time to buck up and to resolve problems which have been haunting the peoples of Penang for decades.

The nonchalant attitude of the State Government will not only cause the property values of all apartments to derogate, due to the deteriorating conditions of the building outlooks, it inevitably will cause Penang, the Pearl of the Orient, to pose a lousy image to the tourists that we are like a war torn city, with so many poorly maintained concrete forests, weather-worn buildings, dilapidated facades are all symbolic of a third world developing Country’s!

A Reply to those who call me racist.

Preface: Below is my reply to some of those readers of Dr Hsu, whom, they have more or less queried my peculiar character to be a 'patriotic' Chinaman.............

>>Last night, I brought my family to a show titled - 叶问 (Ipman) which is a movie which depicted a Chinese kungfu master who had gone through the Japanese occupation and carnage in China, for 8 years how the Chinese was tortured, down trodden and they turned to retaliate and fought back to defense their prides as the patriotic Chinamen, with the Chinese spirit until the surrender of Japan in year 1945-08-15, war ended!

I can see the same spirit here in the ideology of the Chinese Educationists, they hold on proud to their cultures, Chinese education is part of the great cultures, for thousands of years still in prevail, uprisen in the current trend to become one of the worldwide recognition in terms of its cultural value and usage by billions of population in the global village! It’s of proven value socio-economically, it’s not for me Frank alone who can propagate the ‘greatness’ of Chinese culture, for being a minute sand in the deep blue sea!

Many buddies out there may wish to tag me ‘chauvinist, racist or even unpatriotic’, even our beloved UMNO MPs whom they are the real racists would have wanted to chase me back to ‘tiongsan’ and fangs at me like I am a leftist, since communist is no longer relevant!….But, why I care, as Rhan has told off that Monsterboy, it’s not my problem, it’s yours myopia that you would have to look out to!

Who else in this Country of mine who befits to judge me unpatriotic when I do everything to prove my patriotism, I pay my taxes, I obey the laws here like any other law abiding citizens, I respect our National Language, I respect our King, Raja Nazrin is my idol, Raja Petra is even more iconic to me!…I portray as a civilized and an abiding citizen of Malaysia when working as an expatriate in foreign land, felt proud of being a Malaysian Chinese gaining more respects for the Nation when my foreign subordinates have such a high yield respect altogether admiring the demeanor as a helpful, knowledgeable and magnanimous Malaysian I was in their perception! Sorry if you consider me boasting but that was the fact, when I was in Vietnam!

Who else again in this Land got the right to question my right as a Malaysian with my birth certificate to prove my birthright as Anak Malaysia?! Probably our future PM was also born in the same Maternity Hospital but on a different bed! We are all the same, only those UMNO bigots who might have said - “Look, to be a Bangsa Malaysia, you must only speak one language, eat without babi or lard cooked rice or dishes, wear sarong and songkok, paint your yellow into brown, must always bow to us whenever see the crests or ‘paku’ and address us Tuan!”

Is this the way I can only prove my patriotism to the Country, or rather it’s only a paranoia stemmed from an evil megalomaniac mindsets that ever have persisted, caused to be the so-called ’supremacy’ cerebral thinking, an idiocy of the highest order?! I will say NO, I do not address to ‘Tuan’ to anybody else except voluntarily to those I respect from my heart, those who are benevolent to the peoples, not the present malevolent depots! RPK is one of such virtue, and to none other than my King!

I am a Chinese, typically racist and imperishable unless my Chinese blood is all being siphoned and transfused with the gene of pig, I will then still be racist, I will still call myself pig, for having the gene of pig! Is this my fault, or the great Creator’s fault?!…

That’s what in Malaysia, an irrevocable fact prevails, we are multi-ethnics and we are multiculturalism, respect begets more respects, agree to disagree, tolerance is all we need to ensure we stay all in together in this gifted Land peacefully and in unique harmony! Forget about assimilation or apartheid, it won’t work!

If the most fiendish and barbaric Japanese those days couldn’t conquer and annihilate our forefathers, no one in this planet can ever think of depriving our rights to live as a Chinese, to believe as Chinese, be it we are Vietnam Chinese, Indon Chinese, Malaysian Chinese or Thai Chinese……! So, Chinese treasure Chinese cultures, Chinese education, Chinese religion etc down the list, what’s wrong with us?! - Have they not enshrined in the Fed Constitutions as well??!

For those who wish to be subservient and give up their Chinese dignities, you are most welcome as it’s your exclusive rights but don’t ever behave like that Monsterboy, challenge the Chinese for a duel, thinking that we are soft, we are cowards and only you are strong but you are very wrong! Have you ever heard of an adage - ‘Even the worms will turn, the rabbits can bite’! Watch out your language, should you still need an iota of respect from me!

The plight of Malaysian Chinese Education.

When politics get into roiling with education, that’s to say that the racist power that be, the wily kris brandisher Hishamuddin is on the verge of wining with his ‘divide and rule’ repertoire, a salvo which he plunged into the Chinese community and blasted all the remnant unity that had remained, into fragments! Sadly, amongst the diverse mentalities that all those even the so-called Chinese community leaders have got such a wide split and fission, though in the round table conference, discordant ideas prevail and irresolvable! This exactly is what happening now, in the ballyhoo of debating whether English should be continued to be used as the teaching media for Mathematics and Science in the vernacular schools! Some propounded that it’s a wise move of the Ministry, some opposed to the contrary, the DJZ (Chinese educationists) in particular, has shown its stance that they will not budge and insisted that in primary school level, Mathematics and Science subjects should be taught in the mother-tongue language – Mandarin, a media which will ensure the kids, prior to enroll into the schools, have fluent with the spoken mother-tongue language which will cut any barrier in terms of understanding the subjects taught with the language they have already familiar, this is a powerful argument!

Without derogating the importance of English as an important universally recognized and widely used language in the social economical environment, DJZ has proposed that English should be taught as a subject with enhanced teaching methodology ensure to equip the naïve students with proper proficiency in English, when promoted to Secondary level, they will have no problem to the paradigm shift of learning Mathematics and Science subjects in English, meaning, Mathematics and Science should only be taught in English at the Secondary School level. This defer tactics is somewhat considered, as according to the educationists, will allow sufficient time for the Ministry to prepare for standard software and sourcing of competent teachers, well versed in English, to conduct a much more professional and quality nurturing process to build up meritorious students whom, they are able to adapt into the system and learn proper English with reasonably high standard! This is again another convincing argument taking into consideration the present much have been adulterated type of English, which is casting an image that Malaysian English is peculiar of local accent and native slang!

Be it one has indulged in either Chinese or English educated, we are all Chinese! The only difference is our mindset mentalities and the experience in lives we have gone through. When the chips are running low, we are faced with the politicians with racist agenda, we must be vigilant enough to learn to endure with each other, to agree to disagree and find a pivotal point of balance between the splits! For the facts of life in the Country is, the more splintered we are, the more vulnerable we are to be incarcerated in the evil plot of the racists, UMNO in particular! They are the politicians whom they learned from their forefather British mentor to harp on the archaic policies - to divide and rule! The minority could easily be suppressed and controlled which is the belief which also concurred to Mao Tze-tung’s ideology, UMNO have learned it, practicing it!

Critics have they spoken! The concerns of the old doyen Chinese educationists, their reputation has been smeared so thick blue and had been tagged ‘chauvinist’, stubborn and recalcitrant, by the racist politicians who are no better than the real chauvinists themselves! They are so-called the parish pump politicians, much more parochial in mindsets and bigoted! Despite all plights, the old doyens are in defense of the cultures of the old grandfathers, which they have believes and loves as though which are heir looms as precious as the Chinese blood! They have had their points to be steadfast and behave intransigent for as long as survival is concerned! They are protecting it, the Chinese education, as if they are protecting their own lives in perpetual to their next & next future generations, and this is enshrined in the Fed Constitutions! Their struggle is not baseless, for they have seen the needs of the same creed and that results have been proven, the education system they are professing works and worked out many umpteen meritocrats, whom today benefit! With the globalize trend, China has become one of the economic giant in the planet, Chinese language to become influential as the world’s second language is something near to be seen and looming!

They too see the advantage for Malaysian children, we have English educated Chinese and if both could be entwined into a fabric of better resilience and value, why should it be destroyed by the autarchic power that be, which ultimately will foredoom our children into isolation and get lost in the turbulent red ocean competition! Aren’t we talking about the blue ocean ideology and concept nowadays amongst the global citizenry?!

Many English educated Malaysian Chinese may have a misconception and ill-perception over the Chinese educated brethren, hereof I apologize if my use of ‘bananaman’ was felt to be insulting and offensive; I have no whatsoever intention to be biased and I respect those with their choice of rights to education, the important thing is, be whatever differences we have in religion and education and even lifestyle, we are all homogeneous, we are all flown with Chinese blood. Do you and our Malay brethrens agree, assimilation of different genes into unification of character or demeanor is totally out of issue and granted impossible! Apartheid is out of place in this globe, more so in Malaysia, a pluralistic and multi-ethnics society!

Respect begets more respects, we must admit the fact that we are multi-racial and multiculturalism in reality and in decree, to live in harmony we ought to encompass and embrace all differences, tolerance is the key word!

The issue of unity via education sounds noble but it’s a sheer political histrionic, more so it’s a tool tainted with ‘Mahathirism’ venom! Think sensibly, who was the culprit he intended to synchronize us with one single language when he and the cohorts were sending their children to Japan, Germany and London to be ‘Westernized’ and ‘Europeanized’ and study multi-lingual languages? After the standard of English was found to be deteriorating, whereby it was their plan initially as an creation of ‘mediocracy policy’ and more mediocrity would enhance their supremacy which, they in their whims and fancies, is an elixir to their power grips, in perpetuity - he/they are now strident-cry, English is as important as was his PM post! What a freak!

We should not engage amongst ourselves unduly in all these rant and rave and befallen into the political conspiracy of kill in carnage by using the Chinese chopper, the yielder will be UMNO! When UMNO successfully politicize the issue for the ulterior motive to regain the defected dissidents into fold, that is the time we will lose bad in chips!…What benefit we will then afford to have for our/your children, by and large, the next generation in succession?!

A Passion - that's not asking too much!

A passionate plea for help PDF Print E-mail
Posted by admin
Sunday, 14 December 2008 12:01

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It has been narrated that the Prophet said: charity is not about giving away what you don’t need but what you treasure. And I leave it to you to decide if you want to give away what you don’t need or what you treasure in the spirit of the true teachings of Prophet Muhammad.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Last night, I had dinner with some friends at the Italian restaurant in Centerpoint. When it came time to pay the bill the three of us fought for the honour. We almost became un-friends because of the ‘argument’ as to who should be allowed to pay for dinner. But when we summoned the headwaiter over, he shook his head and informed us that the bill had already been settled. And he pointed to a smiling family sitting inside the restaurant.

It is ever so often that I never get to pay for my meals. And I am not even taking into consideration the free meals the Malaysian government serves me in the Sungai Buloh Prison and the Kamunting Detention Centre. Total strangers just pick up my bills and after splurging myself silly I walk out of the place with my money still intact in my pocket. And many a time my hosts end up being guests of these strangers as well.

I have to admit that it is most touching and sometimes I find it difficult to smile. It is hard to appear cheerful when one is holding back the emotion of happiness to the point of tears. I suspect many a well-meaning stranger probably went away with the impression that I am not really that friendly after all, seeing that I appeared unhappy at their kind gesture. I certainly cannot cry in public. This will destroy the macho image that I am trying to portray. But even men cry when touched in the heart and I have so many times been touched in the heart by people who I have never met and who hug me and want to belanja me a meal.

I thank you, all you Malaysians who walked up to me to shake my hands, asked for my autograph, requested my permission to take a photograph with me, and much more. I know it is not me per se that you idolise -- because I certainly do not want to be idolised (it is un-Islamic to say the least) -- but that you feel you are contributing to the cause of making this a better Malaysia. And that is all that I am seeking, not to be put on a pedestal and hero-worshipped.

But, today, I am going to ask you to support me on a personal mission, which I am adopting as my latest cause.

There are many out there who have contributed to the cause of making this a better Malaysia. Many are faceless and nameless Malaysians who work quietly and aggressively behind the scenes in the effort to bring changes to Malaysia. One such family is, today, in need of help themselves.

This particular family is now going through their own crisis. Nevertheless, in spite of their predicament, they are still very much in the thick and thin of the struggle. But health problems, and financial problems brought on by their medical predicament, have brought hard times upon them. And it is time that fellow Malaysians rally to their side and assist in any small way that we can to help this family out of their predicament.

The mother of this family has been diagnosed with third-level cancer of the colon and rectum while, simultaneously, the father of the family has suffered a severe heart attack. But they do not have the financial means to seek proper medical treatment and we all know how much this can cost in this country. The total medical cost will be in excess of RM100,000 and, even then, the doctors do not guarantee anything because their cases are quite advanced and the doctors can only hope for the best and leave the rest to prayer.

The family borrowed heavily from friends and relatives for the mother’s operation in September 2008 (around the time I was detained under the Internal Security Act) and now she is surviving with a colostomy bag. But she is not out of the woods yet. She still has cancer. And over the next six months until April 2009 she will have to undergo 12 sessions of chemotherapy followed by five sessions of radiotherapy. The total cost will come to RM86,000.00.

The father of the house, who suffered the heart attack, has undergone an angiogram because, at that point of time, his heart was still very weak and the doctors felt he would not be strong enough to survive surgery. Furthermore, he needed about RM30,000.00 for the Angioplasty, Stent, bye-pass, etc., and he did not have the money for it.

In total, the family will need RM116,000.00 for their medical costs and there is no way they can manage this on their own. I appeal, therefore, to all Malaysians to come forward and help this activist family who did so much and worked very hard these last couple of years to contribute to a better Malaysia. They have done their bit for this country. It is now time we did our bit for them.

I am not asking you to break the bank or to go into debt. Do what you can within your means. The amount you give is not the issue. It is the thought that counts. Just give what you can afford and no need to do more than that. Let it be the cost of a glass of beer or a packet of cigarettes or whatever. So drink one glass less this week or smoke one packet less -- it may be good for you anyway -- and send the money to the family instead.

To Muslims, I have this to say. It has been narrated that the Prophet said: charity is not about giving away what you don’t need but what you treasure. And I leave it to you to decide if you want to give away what you don’t need or what you treasure in the spirit of the true teachings of Prophet Muhammad. Maybe the ‘no pain, no gain’ slogan most aptly describes what the Prophet meant. So, can we, as Muslims, ‘give till it hurts’?

Muslims have just celebrated the Festival of the Sacrifice (Hari Raya Korban) while the Christians will soon be celebrating Christmas. When better than now to live the spirit of Korban and Christmas in the real sense of the word? Let us demonstrate what stuff Malaysians are made of by raising this money in the soonest possible time. I shall later publish copies of the bank statement to show the amount of money that has come in plus copies of the hospital bills to show how the money was spent. It shall all be transparent and above board.

To those who desire to contribute to this cause of mine, the bank account of their son, KEVIN A/L MICHAL JOSEPH, is 1124-4704-3083 (Maybank).

My candid appeal:-

Hi Buddies,

Pete seldom asked for anything, he only gives! Even when he was forced to lodge in the Kemunting boot-camp, that's when he supposed to have needed some financial aid for Madame Marina to travel around hunting for supports and expended for the legal fees, he did not do so and bit on the bullet himself! He is now appealing on behalf of the traumatic Michal Joseph family and can we just selfishly say resort to only prayers without being practical to contribute at least two bit of help in monetary form of supports when it's direly needed?! I will do my part tomorrow to transfer my bit to the abovementioned account number and hopefully, all buddies who read my blog will also do your bit and such will be a good deed we ought to do, for the sake of RPK's philanthropic compassion and the needy Michal Joseph's family! God bless those who help others!

ISA is like Viper's Venom to the civilians!

PUTRAJAYA: The Internal Security Act will not be repealed or reviewed soon.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said the act had always been used in a just, fair and ethical matter.

"It has never been abused or used for politics," he said in reply to People's Progressive Party president Datuk M. Kayveas' threat to take the party out of Barisan Nasional if the ISA was not amended or repealed by the next general election.

Syed Hamid said the law had proven very effective in ensuring public order and national security.

"Malaysians sometimes don't know how lucky we are in that we have not experienced what is happening in Mumbai and Bangkok now."
He said that when he became home minister, there were 75 people under detention. but this had fallen to 48 people.

"If we find that the detainees have been rehabilitated, or no longer pose any harm, of course, they will be released."

He warned Kayveas not to resort to threats but to adhere to the BN team spirit.

Syed Hamid was speaking to reporters after receiving Singapore Law Minister K. Shanmugam at his office here yesterday.

He said Shanmugam shared the view that preventive detention laws were still needed.

"We both know that we are not out to silent detractors or the opposition. But they must not advocate conflict among the public, or raise sensitive issues."


A candid reply to the Home Minister:-

Look at that, how uncouth is the pea head Minister Syed Hamid uttered like a frothing mouth hyena! "It has never been abused or used for politics," he said. He does not befit to compare himself with the Indian Minister who had at least the courage to resign immediately when failed to prevent the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, whereas our big mouthed Botak Minister, the useless mule still talked so great about his lack of wisdom and unjustifiable use of ISA against the innocent journalist, Teressa Kok and our populist Hero RPK!

Malaysia is no better judicial-worthy than Thailand and now we can see, the yellow army of Bangkok has won their battle against the unwanted Government in the law suit, justice has been prevailed in the Thai judiciary system untainted and beyond the powers of the legislative branch! Over here, our judiciary system has been made only a political tool and at best having the power of a jury, in the British system, can simply be bought to vote for a prescribed verdict, pro UMNO! Wouldn't it shameful for the idiotic Botak Minister to compare his tiny fish ball with the big apple of Thailand?!

If only having harsh laws that is the reason which can save our Nation from the unwelcome terrorists or undesired elements, how about drugs trafficking? Has it been totally deterred and there is no one single case of international drug trafficking been arrested in our domain? The fact is, the notorious syndicate will still risk their ways through be it here any harsh law or not, only when they find it they can outsmart our authority, they will do it and they will dare the harsh law knowing that they still have the plentiful of tars(money) to help them plug the loopholes of local made laws! Imagine that corruptions are so rampant and well-known even by the mafia or the drugs syndicate - In Bolehland, with money will travel, semuanya Boleh!

There are more other reasons that our Nation is temporarily saved from the unwanted Mumbai carnage tragedy, amongst others, a friendly State perhaps in the eyes of those lunatic fringe! Those are the peoples so much being obsessed and religiously miscarried and they have become insane and do you Botak Minister think that they will be scared of any law, when they are already the outlaws, and that the so-called draconian laws which mostly used to suppress and subjugate the unarmed civilians, will serve any purpose on them? If they could dare the super powers like the Americans and the nuclear powers like Indian Government, what is ISA to them, merely it's effective to scare off the peaceful and unarmed civilized populace, which is only trifling toy to the embolden extremists and terrorists!

It seems that Botak Syed Hamid is still lack of an iota of remorse in admitting his stupidity and continues to challenge the patience of the dissidents to the mal-administration with its draconian laws, soon enough he will realize, latest until next GE, when Umno has been changed and he will be the first one who will regret, he will be put in the lab like a guinea pig to test on how bitter and cruel the ISA akin to viper's venom when used on him!

Go to Hell, Devil !

I found this article (below captioned) written by one of the alien Somali which solely speaks of his opinion, whereby I rather concur with him, so do many other fellow Malaysians too, I believe. As an alien, he must be very observant and had gone through studies of this kind of tyrannical character such like Dr Mahathir's. His comment is laudatory for he almost speaks on our behalf based on his stand as a Muslim! Judging from the view points of Muslim, more others will find it non-racial and a fair piece of discourse which tends to hit the hearts of inert which had been so much intoxicated with enmity, and all the gullible minds have fully been charmed and obsessed by the foul mouth racist politicians, with Dr Mahathir being the witchcraft doctor! I personally contempt this vindictive old man as much as the Somali writer contempted him!

Incidentally, I had a personal approach with our Venerable Tuanku Abdul Rahman, two months or so before his demise. My very close Chowkon Vitton (a high ranking Siamese Monk) from Bangkok popped in to me one day asking to bring him to our then retired (forced to) Tuanku in his residence at Jln. Air Rajah, Penang! I was puzzled to have come across such mission as Tuanku was our Bapa Malaysia having such a godly position my humble status then as a youngish adolescence made me feel so inferior to have been able to seek for such an approach and appointment! Somehow, I did it and I brought along two of my buddies together with Chowkon, simply bulldozed ourselves to the sentry post of Tuanku's residence, with God's willing, we were allowed in to meet our dearest Tuanku!

The moment I met our most benign Tuanku, I still remember, he was saddled in a wheel chair, in a state of feckless and feeble clearly spoke of his senility. He was then taken care of by his loyal servant, a tout and mighty Chinese, also his bodyguard cum driver who behaved like Tuanku's godson. So loyal that he did not leave Tuanku to take care of him like his real father! I felt very touched amid empathy to see my most respected Honorable Tuanku's loneliness and feebly outlook, though, he still forced himself to stand up from his wheel chair! I offered my helping hand to bolster Tuanku up from the wheel chair and found that he was so weak and flabby in muscle, the luster of the past, when he stood up high and hailed - 'Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka' had all lost but still clear in my memory and perception! A Hero in the twilight of his life, had been tortured mentally and leading such a lonely and miserable life, I deeply felt and cried in my heart, it's not fair for Him!.............

When after seated in the couch, I noticed Tuanku had a problem with his retina and hearing system running without any hearing aid, invited Chowkon to sit next to Tuanku with us opposite facing Tuanku and Chowkon both engaged in conversation. Tuanku spoke of his past assistance to the Siamese Temples (Wats) and Chowkon expressed gratitude and appreciations claiming that, the King Monk of Thailand sent him here to pray for blessings to our highly respected Tuanku (in Thailand) for his kindness and ever unforgettable contributions that he had granted to the development of Siamese Buddhism, thanksgivings and blessings of longevity from the King Monk of Thailand and all the followers were showered and flourished upon Tuanku! Tuanku with his palms closed in a posture of meditation received all the blessings and mantra which Chowkon chanted for more than 15 minutes!.........

Unexpectedly, all caught in the puzzle and shock of our lives, immediately after Chowkon had blessed, Tuanku spontaneously uttered a request to Chowkon - "Please pray for me, pray for my victory over Dr Mahathir"! So puzzling that I remembered, Tuanku was then engaged with DAP and S-46 oppositions to endeavor toppling Mahathir and he was being used by the oppositions as a statue to lure for votes!..........

Whilst mission accomplished, Tuanku bid us farewell, when we just stepped out from the threshold of Tuanku's mansion, I noticed a white Honda Accord and few guys went in to pick up the wheel chair with Tuanku sitting in it, they mobilized Tuanku as if they were shifting the statue from one place to another to attend the rally, known to be held in Perlis on that very day! ....A stream of furore tugged my heart string and there and then in my heart I cursed and condemned the cruelty and ruthlessness of the egocentric politicians, what the fuck, instead of paying homage to our Honorable Bapa Malaysia, they used him as a tool!....

That was the vendetta, deepened in Tuanku for decade years even when he's in his twilight years, he could not let go and subconsciously, he still wished to take vengeance against Dr Mahathir of plotting threw him out, of toppling him and confiscating all his, Tuanku's graciousness and glory that He had hard earned for Himself, for the whole Nation!...

To recall oneself - Mahathir had once threatened to withdraw the moniker of "Bapa Malaysia" from the Honorable Tuanku, though was Mahathir's egocentric and out of his demented demeanor, had also received the many gullible Umno Malays to voice out their consents! It was so uncouth and cringe-worthy, lunatic in the form of utterly despicable an act the so-called - unabashed 'Father of Modernization' had cheekily suggested!

Today, the vendetta has crept in to haunt Dr Mahathir, if Pak Lah were to remember history, he would have proposed to strip his 'Father of Modernization' and in lieu of it, bestowed upon him - 'Father of all Evils', surely all patriotic citizens will find it relevant and much appropriate to epitome all these misdeeds, the foul mouth racist, Dr Mahathir has been portraying himself to be well qualified for!.....................Go to hell, Devil!

*************************************************************************************************



I'm a Somali living in Malaysia who follows the local scene here very much. I would have to admit that Tun Dr M's greatest disadvantage is his pure, unadulterated hatred for anyone who disagrees with him.

Never have I seen a human being whose sole motivation, drive and engine is pure hatred. Just visit his blog which is read by friends and foes, locals and foreigners and I must tell you it epitomizes him in every way.

Since he started it after complaining of UMNO media strangulation, did you see an article that he has written concerning the poor, the needy, the widows, the orphans, the handicapped, the downtrodden, the wayfarers, compassion, empathy, sharing, sacrifice, charity, morality, accountability, God's fear and Judgment, forgiveness, patience (etc)?.....the answer is No!

Always it is about some people, blaming others, calling them names, dishing out unvanished, pure hatred. Blaming others for this and that and exonerating himself from all blame? Surely, at this age? You can't build a society and a nation through hate, vengeance, intense anger and mean spirit. You would have to remind the people the higher
purpose of life for them to get motivated and work harder for the less fortunate and for themselves.

Finger pointing, blaming others, planting defeatist culture in the Malays, reducing them to mad people (we are sensitive, we will run amok society that makes even foreigners despise the Malays) will not help this society and nation!

My people (the Somalis) suffered from cruel leadership and when the hatred became too much, we turned to each other and till today, we are the only nation with no Central govt. The Malays share with us almost every trait, very feudal, manipulated easily, territorial, misuse of Islam for expediency, rigid explanation of Islam and too much interest in outward Islam than inward Islam that strengthens the hearts, our only difference is that the Malays have the Chinese and the Indians around that make them watch out for the "enemies.".......

For us, we didn't have that and that's why we turned to each other. If God has loved the Malays and Malaysia, it is because He brought other people here. If some Malays regret the presence of the Chinese and Indians, ask us the Somalis and you will know what it means to be an incestuous (homogeneous) society and you will praise the Almighty day in day out. If it was possible, I would have shipped the Chinese and Indians to Somalia to create diversity in my nation but it is wishful thinking..................

The other person who makes me cringe in shame is one Curry [Khairy] Jamaluddin. Never have I seen a more uncouth, uncultured, degenerate, pugnacious, ill, nefarious and utterly infantile being than this young man. I have a big heart who tries to understand everyone and put itself in their place, but I don't think my heart can accommodate one Curry Jamaluddin. He is a primate and deserves the worst treatment (though I hate it because we are Muslims and human beings) but honestly he is too much.

-Abubakar on October 25, 2008 at 5:43 pm

"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated" - Mahatma Gandhi

The Thai's Uprising.

Thai anti-govt protesters besiege state buildings
Thousands of Thai protesters surrounded parliament Monday and besieged other state buildings in what they said would be their final battle in a six-month street campaign against the government.

Demonstrators began leaving Government House -- the prime minister's cabinet offices which they have occupied since late August -- and marched towards parliament a few blocks away in Bangkok's historic district.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said about 18,000 protesters from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) had taken to the streets and managed to block all three roads leading to parliament.

A joint parliament session of elected MPs and senators was postponed as lawmakers could not access the building, house speaker Chai Chidchob said, calling for calm.

"I promise that there will be no violence today, not a single drop of blood drop will be seen," he said on parliament radio. "I ask for all sides to stop the movement now. If you love the king, please return home."

The PAD began their protests on May 25, and aim to bring down the government elected in December, accusing it of being a corrupt proxy of exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a September 2006 coup.

A sea of protesters dressed in yellow shirts and headbands which symbolise loyalty to the monarchy marched through the government district Monday, many waving national flags and portraits of deeply-revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Black-clad volunteer PAD security guards wielding homemade batons protected the crowd.

One group of protesters moved from parliament to the finance ministry, while another group broke down a blockade on a road in front of the Bangkok Metropolitan Police headquarters, Thai television showed.

Officials have said about 2,000 police armed with shields are on duty to try to prevent a repeat of bloody street battles outside parliament on October 7 that left two protesters dead and nearly 500 people injured.

Pibhop Dhongchai, one of the PAD leaders, proclaimed the postponement of the parliament session a victory for their movement, and vowed to push on.

"Now the protesters are at the finance ministry to say the government has spent the people's money for their own interests," he said. A police officer at the ministry said about 300 PAD protesters had turned up.

Government spokesman Nattawut Saikuar said on Sunday that about 2,000 soldiers were on stand-by but vowed authorities would not use force.

PAD co-founder Sondhi Limthongkul told AFP earlier that they could call on the crowds to besiege other locations including the stock exchange in their self-proclaimed "final battle" against the government.

The PAD occupied Government House after massive rallies in late August, and called for their supporters to march on Monday to avenge the death of one of their supporters in a grenade attack at the protest site last week.

PAD leaders accuse the government of being behind that attack, which also injured 29 protesters, as well as a similar explosion that killed one more protesters and injured seven on Saturday.

The government has denied any involvement, and Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat -- Thaksin's brother-in-law -- has vowed an investigation into the violence, although no arrests have been made so far.

Somchai is currently in Peru for a conference, but one of his deputy prime ministers called an urgent cabinet meeting Monday to discuss the protests.

Three small blasts also hit near PAD leader Sondhi's Bangkok offices early Monday, causing minor damage but no injuries.

Thaksin fled the country in August this year but a power battle is raging between those who support the former leader and the old power elite in the military, palace and bureaucracy who want to purge Thailand of his influence.

Why Stoop so low?

Nine held for attending illegal assembly

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 24 — Police detained nine men, including several Pas leaders, following a gathering which was described as an illegal assembly at the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) Square in Pandan Indah, Ampang, near here last night.

Among those detained were Pas vice-president Mohamad Sabu, Pas Youth chief Salahuddin Ayub, Federal Territory Pas Youth head Kamarulzaman Mohammad, Selangor Pas Youth information head Mohd Sani Hamzan and several other supporters.

Seven of them were detained while gathering at the square and were taken to the Pandan Indah police station for questioning. Mohamad Sabu and Salahuddin were detained when they went to the police station to discuss the detention of the seven men.

Ampang Jaya police chief ACP Abd Jalil Hassan said the police had to detain the men as they refused to disperse.

"We will take their statements before releasing them after an investigation. We had earlier reminded them against holding the illegal assembly but this was ignored," he told reporters at the Pandan Indah Police Station after midnight last night.

He said about 300 police personnel including the Federal Reserve Unit were deployed to maintain security at the gathering attended by about 150 supporters.

The gathering at the MPAJ Square began about 9pm. It was organised by the Movement for the Abolition of ISA (GMI). Parti Keadilan Rakyat advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was scheduled to open the gathering but he failed to turn up. — Bernama

Footnote Comment

Why make ourselves low class?!
written by Candidmen, November 24, 2008
The OCPD of Bukit Mertajam had yesterday in a dialogue with us appealed to the community leaders that the social security works, crime prevention is not only the works of the police force, the residents must collaborate by setting up more RA, Rukun Tertangga, Rela etc., joint-patrol the area and wipe out undesired elements to prevent alleged crimes. The reason - the Police force is very much short-handed! And, I have had heard of this appeal for more than half a dozen times.

Ironically, Ampang Jaya chief is proving the OCPD wrong, that, they have redundant of man power by sending 300 police personnel to standby watch the merely 150 odds of protestants of ISA! Is this somekind of privilege that they were giving to the VIPs, or, it was the special attention, given that those 150 odds were highly dangerous warlords, more dangerous than the street snatch thieves, the 30 over mobs that assaulted the poor Detective until he admitted ICU, the break-in house robbers, the gang rapers, the gun hitmen whom several lives had lost to them, and the many you can name!

Perhaps the Police can instead blame, these are the people who caused redundant works for the police force and neglecting others is the fault of these people! These are the people who caused undue insecurity and social costs?! As a law abiding citizen, I for one will protest - "'Then why not permit was issued to allow a legal gathering therefore not so many of the redundant uniformed personnel would have needed, not so much of the resources would be wasted on the 'illegal' gathering"! The police can then enjoy better efficiency and even can afford to allow the staff to have enjoyed some more leisure times with their families! The are also human, not robot! After all, the vigils or whatever past gatherings had been proven peaceful and led by leaders of integrity who were capable of nurturing discipline and order! They are all self-constraint people and they are merely brave citizens whom they feel they are obligated to walk their rights as the civic conscious civics and they are no terrorists!

The Police or rather the Government have been over-reacting on such people's project, which is only fair to be encouraged so as to portray to the world that we are truly a democratic Nation! Why stoop as low and proving ourselves to be no better than the abysmal and contemptible Junta?! It makes us low-class!

The D-Day will come!

D-Day will come our way!
November 18, 2008

I just wonder why, what had happened to our Nation? Like it is sicked and getting more and more sickening! A supposed to be peaceful candlelite vigil which held on Saturday night (15/11/08), in Penang, could also turn rile and invited almost a platoon of riot police to attend to it! Protecting the safety of a passel of mere hundred odds peace lovers ?!

What about the more serious crimes, the felonies that had recently occurred in Penang which involved several lives lost to the brutal criminals with the perpetrators still on the run?! Have they attended to all those they have unsettled? The Police now has redundant manpower save from the usual complaint of being short handed by the Police chief?!

It turned out otherwise, that night, the emcee of the ceremony to express the wills of the law abiding citizens, to urge for the repeal of ISA, was arrested immediately on the disperse of the crowd! Miss Khoo who was the emcee was the poor victim she had been tugged in to the police station for questioning! Being a gentle lady, though brave to stand out to the high handed authority, in the public, still she was caught unaware with puzzle and shock that’s the normal reaction of a fair-minded person who thought who had not done anything disorder! What’s wrong with her when she merely went along with a group of harmless and educated people whom they left behind their children at homes, sacrificed their family days, for just one purpose, they were there at the vigil to express their sense of civic consciousness, to attend a noble cause which they thought were obligated to help making the society a more secured, more peaceful and fearless place to live. Ironically, the Police was proving to them that staying back at home would be most peaceful!

I had attended twice the candlelite vigils at the same place except to have skipped the last one on that very night due to contingency matter. The previous ones were quite successful and peaceful even though during each and every occasions, there were always two handful of police officers staying on guard. They were rather friendly all the while but beyond any expectation, they would have turned wild that very Saturday night and pounced on the poor and petite Paula Khoo and ‘invited’ her to the police den for harassment! It’s clear to every mind that it was an action directed following the villainous police action taken against the same candlelite vigil with the same purpose in PJ ! Our Nation seems like has fallen into the hands of the Nazis Gestapo! I feel regret for such uncalled for actions from the police and express sympathy to Paula Khoo she had unfortunate enough to bear the brunt!

Whilst the police can break our bone, they cannot break our soul and by continue to suppress our will, our burning desires to fight for fair justice and the abolition of the draconian ISA, the despotic Government will have to be made to pay for the price of the consequence!

Come on comrades! Let’s fight on, keep the fire burning until it erupts as the lava, come next general election, the burning lava will run over the racist and totalitarian Government led by UMNO, will make them disappear and extinct like the dinosaurs! We have to prove to them, not unassailable is UMNO’s bastion of corruption and hegemony; invincible is our will and peoples’ power!

A new dawn will take its course! D-Day will worth all our struggles and sacrifices! Though we can’t do as much as Raja Petra, we must also do the least to supplement his efforts for he is doing all the good deeds not only for him, but for the majority of us! Can we just afford to let him stand alone and fight as a lone ranger?!

Definitely not, if you ask me!

The Anwar Dilemma.

Anwar Ibrahim: A power game plan that fell apart
Written by Kazi Mahmood
Sunday, 16 November 2008

The main plan of the opposition was to get the MP's from Sabah to jump ship and form a new national government with the PR, thus toppling the BN and elect Anwar Ibrahim as Prime Minister.

The political storm that hit Malaysia on March 2008 is not over and there are signs of a massive cyclone gathering on the horizons. Will Anwar Ibrahim make it or break this time? His strategy, from the start, was to depend on the states of Sabah and Sarawak where the wind of change is still filled with uncertainty.

Anwar Ibrahim is at the center of the current political storm that is hitting Malaysia. He is working day and night to get the majority that is needed to topple the Barisan National (BN) regime but so far, he managed to grab non-Parliamentarians who fell off the ranks within the BN and the United Malays National Organization (Umno) and this is not sufficient for his strategy to be implemented.

It is now obvious that Sabah was the core of the Anwar Ibrahim strategy to run down the BN government by September 16th 2008, six months after the devastating electoral set back suffered by the BN against the loose coalition headed by Anwar Ibrahim. The strategy fell apart after it was clear that Sabah MP's were not willing to be pawns in the power game plan laid by the astute opposition leader.

Wooing the Sabahans with promises of a better economic deal and more power to the locals in the running of the state did not led the political class to bite the bait. Instead, many of the potential MP's targeted by the Party Keadilaan Rakyat (PKR) became vociferous opponents of the Anwar Ibrahim;s plan to topple the BN.

Opposition websites and newspapers were filled with stories of dejection, poverty and abuse of power or of resources in the states of Sabah and Sarawak. The aim was to create a sensation of despair within the BN and among the people of the states. This was expected to force the people of these states to think of alternatives rather than to keep fulfilling their allegiance to the BN.

Cracking Sabah alone could be damaging to the BN government. When the SAPP decided to quit the BN and join the opposition, hopes were high in the opposition ranks that there will be more MP's from the state of Sabah who would join the SAPP in the opposition, thus fulfilling Anwar's ambition.

While the BN were feeling the heat of the opposition campaign to dislodge it from power after more than 50 years of rule, the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) were also taken by a storm that shocked the supporters of the PKR and of the Democratic Action Party (DAP). The Party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) was being courted by the Umno and offers were being made to create a new 'Islamic' alliance in the country to prevent the loss of Malay-Muslim political power.

The PAS was not in agreement with Anwar's original plans for take over. The leaders of the Islamic party certainly knew how the former jail bird planned to arrest power from Abdullah Ahmad Badawi but the glitches that existed in the plan put them off. The fact that most of the MP's willing to jump ship from the BN to join the PR were non-Muslims would have created a situation of great unrest in the country among Malays-Muslims. The Muslims would not want a regime headed by a Malay but run by non-Muslims in general. The number of MP's of Islamic faith within the PR became an important question that Anwar could not tackle.

The September 16 date clashed with dates that are important in the Islamic calender, such as the Nuzul Quraan. The Muslims in Semenanjung Malaysia felt Anwar was being 'sarcastic' and were showing 'disrespect' to the Muslims by repeatedly calling for a change of regime in Malaysia on that fatal day for the opposition grouping. The PKR failed to rally the majority of MP's to take power based on the predictions and the landmark date set by Anwar Ibrahim himself.

The month of Ramadan in Malaysia is not the same as those in Afghanistan or Iraq and Somalia where war is still ravaging the countries and disturbing the fasting month of the Muslims. It is a peaceful, joyful and enriching month with prayers and recitations across the Muslim community in Malaysia. Setting the target date to take power by overthrowing the ruling regime – a Malay regime by all means – was a mistake by Anwar.

He gave more importance to the date when Sabah and Sarawak effectively joined Malaya to form Malaysia and in the process offended many Muslims who would have otherwise supported his plans to throw Umno out of power. The date could have differed from the September 16th date says critics of Anwar Ibrahim who added that it might have been different had Anwar waited patiently for his time to make a breakthrough.

Most of the observers met by WorldFutures said Anwar has a huge problem that is going to haunt him. He fails to realize that he has to be patient and to work out better strategies before he aims for the Prime Ministerial post. He seems in a hurry in preventing Najib Tun Razak from taking power and fails to understand that he may get better allies within the Umno itself if he has the right political strategy and policies. They cite the PAS which made breakthroughs with Umno leaders on several issues since the parties where Muslims are majority has understood that in the end, they may need each other to salvage what is left of 'Ketuanan Melayu' or Malay political power in Malaysia.

In the meantime, Anwar annouced on his blog that his party made breakthroughs in Sabah where some 12,000 grass root members and supporters of the BN were joining the PKR. This indeed consolidates the PKR in Sabah but it does not deal an immediate blow to the BN since no MP's are leaving their places in the government to join the BN.

Anwar has the charisma and the capacity to bring the supporters of the BN to rally in his favor but has lost the charm and the power to break down the MP's – those he needs to take power in the short run and prevent Najib Razak from becoming PM.

It is undoubted that he will be able to drag more grass root support for the PKR but in the mean time he cannot afford to sit back and watch Najib rise to the occasion as Prime Minister. While the entire nation is feeling that Umno is heading for a slow but sure death, there are reasons to believe that such an institution can still defeat its own ogres and rise as the phoenix from its own ashes.

Efforts within the Umno and outside the party, made to salvage the Umno ideology, cannot be ignored. The party members appeared to have withstood the challenges posed by the September 16th deadline and has re-aligned behind the future PM, Najib Razak. The immediate effect of the announcement of the resignation of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in March next year is the rallying of the party grass roots, leaders and members to the folds.

It must also be said the Umno garnered enough Malay votes in the March 2008 elections while in the Permatang Pauh defeat against Anwar despite the trashing it received, it garnered sufficient Malay votes to indicate that it has not lost all the support.

Permatang Pauh also indicated that the other race based parties in the BN were 'passe' and has to adopt new policies and strategies before they face any elections in the future. The rejection of the BN so far is still focused on the shift of non-Malay voters to the opposition camp, a situation that can be healed if the Umno applies the right policies and strategies, WorldFutures was told.

Nevertheless, pressure is mounting on the Umno to prove that it can seal the various races into a nation and failing to do so will impede its chances of a quick recovery in the next general elections (GE). With these elements in his favor, Anwar Ibrahim should be able to cause more damages to the Umno and the BN in a future GE but it is not certain whether the Umno will tumble and fall this time around. It is also not certain whether the PAS will continue to play second fiddle to the PKR in the future as the party is facing internal pressure to advance further in its agenda of becoming a national party rather than remain a 'Malay' belt party. The PAS has a great need to win more Parliamentary seats in order to influence the course of the nation's future. Winning 20 seats will not help it contain the largely non-Muslim supporters and their agendas for a more secular Malaysia to emerge after the downfall of the BN.

With Sabah now calm and the possibility of a massive cross-over dimmed, the Anwar Ibrahim plan to seize power must now focus on the Umno and its supporters and MP's. Why? The Umno remains the largest political organization in the country. The attempts at chipping away the BN with the wooing of non-Muslim parties to leave the coalition having failed, the Umno is the most attractive and lucrative target for Anwar Ibrahim and the PKR. And that would include, though with limited chances, a return of Anwar Ibrahim to the Umno!

Comments (2)

A new dawn will come!
written by Candidmen, November 16, 2008

Well said Kazi, you spoke of the general perceptions people have over DSAI. He had made a move of blunder to announce his plan of besieging Umno too early and too rashly before he garnered enough supports and laid his route to sure victory! Instead of his 916 proclamation of change realized into a death knell for Umno, he triggered the alarm bell for Umno to regroup and rallied their defected members into fold, though it's not overwhelming, it has caused those hanging in the balance to have hold sway and stayed put to graze the last stack of hay spared for their votes in the Umno divisional election! To a certain extent, it did help to dilute the Malay supports to PKR with Umno consolidating its members!

With Najib looming to take over from AAB as the PM, he managed to pre-empt the powers to thickly veil all his scandals connecting to the Altantuya murder, by releasing Razak Baginda has effectively graved all the evidence which could possibly be unraveled in the court if RB was dragged to face the dock! Now that Najib is safe, DSAI is in the limbo of planning out his next move amid his mind boggling sodomy II trailing his back harassing his already perturbed mind! He needs two brains to conceive plans of effective to curb problems both of party level (PR consensus of ideology) and also on a personal level, how to lighten his shoulder with the heavy baggage which contains all the law suits!

As time flies, the Anwar syndrome has begun to dim and the co-operation amongst the PR coalition seems to be sliding and gradually falling apart which needs immediate mending of DSAI despite his charisma is leaking through the seam! The rakyat after failed to see the realization of cash cheque dated 916, have also fallen into the doldrums and many have lost hopes believing that Anwar can do wonders within the near future before Najib swamps in to pin him 6 feet beneath the mire! Most have been anguished enough of pondering and run out of steam, though not giving up, we can merely pray for Anwar, pray for ourselves the change that we are yearning with the morale in a funk, mostly but not all!

We will continue to fight, with RPK is out and Datuk Zaid Ibrahim joins the rank, we will continue to slug it out! We all understand - Rome was not built overnight and it was built! So does a new Malaysia, it will be built for sure!

New strategy
written by observers, November 16, 2008

I believe the PR need a new strategy, a new ideology. I remember reading what Khairy said on the PR and Anwar. He said the reform cannot rest on the shoulders of only one person and in the PR it is on the shoulders of many people but it is Anwar who is seen as the reform leader. His failure to make 916 happen brings his star further down and it affects the PR, the PKR and the reform movement.

I bet the Umno has a better strategy in place now and that things will move differently soon if the PR continues to have differences that seem 'unbearable'.

Many of the PR supporters too are one sided, stubborn and seem to have an outright anti-Muslim agenda. This too must change if the PR want support from all and sundry in Malaysia! Perhaps worldfutures should inquire among the Muslims about this 'anti-Muslim' thing that may destroy the PR after all!

Pete the Hero and Mdm Marina the Heroine

Dear Pete and Madame Marina,

I take off my hat and salute YOU both with the highest honor and my full respects! You are our Hero and Heroine I bow with gratitude whole heartedly on your sacrifices and the whole heart of oak you have had contributed for the future and hopes of all of us, the true Malaysians! God will always bless you and your family for doing such a benevolent good deed!

Puan Marina has set a good paradigm of virtue being the Woman behind the Great Man and you have gone through very tough time during the 56 days Pete suffered incarceration! I respect you like I respect Puan Azizzah and I despise Rosmah and even that Jean behind the useless mule! You are a role model for all our wives who used to be timid and shun us from getting involved with all these good cause we are fighting for not only the families but the next generations! Our so-called sacrifice compared to you both are trifling and I feel shameful in front of YOU both! More so I feel shameful on behalf of those who didn't even dare to voice out and attend the vigils that had been held during the period when Pete and Puan endured in great sufferings!.............

God Bless great humankind like YOU both and good fate will shower upon YOU! We will still stay together to slug it out despite the road ahead is tough!

Cheers and toast to Pete for retrieving your freedom!

The road ahead is still tough !

Our Hero RPK had gone through tough time. He was arrested on the 12th September, 2008, which I marked in my diary and in this blog as a black Friday. The black Friday was also a day when the so-called holy prayers were conducted in the mosques and wicked devils were fangs to tug RPK with shackles into incarceration! More so ridiculous and ironical was during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims were supposed to exult over the auspicious holy month with good mood and sense of compassionate humanity, such evil plot could be allowed to take place in the guise of piety to Islam! As serious as blas-phemous to God's preaching, and if those vile and arrogant politicians are not to be blamed and reprimanded, it will be truly a laughing stock to the commoners whom they have different belief in preaching! Scoffed at are those who distorted the true Islamic value and have gall to claim to be pious Muslims, and not Islam the religion!

Who is the real insult to Islam? The one who is being pious enough to narrate the essence of Islamic preachings, or, the one who is always capitalizing on Islamic tenets, politicize and skew implementing to provoke fears amongst the public?! Being the laymen and atheist, we need not have to be baptized, our common sense will lead us not to believe that Islam is such a grisly religion as if a belief of terrorism which is under the ugly depict of the lunatic fringe and the stuck-up mediocre Ministers, with that Botak Syed Hamid top the list! A disgrace to the Nation!

The bare bone accusation that RPK was insulting Islam with his writings without going through proper verification and attestation of the religious preachers, by mere instinct and personal dislike feeling that some crooks had been insulted, and blamed others of insulting Islam, abuse in the name of Allah, are those of inflicting the most sinful and insults of highest order to the Prophet, to Islam!

Welcome back the Hero - RPK !

Raja Petra, surrounded by his wife and supporters, is all smiles after his release from detention. — Picture by Choo Choy May

The Malaysian Obama is freed and the fight is still on!

Raja Petra freed

SHAH ALAM, Nov 7 — The High Court today ordered that Raja Petra Kamarudin, editor of the popular news portal Malaysia Today, be released from detention after ruling that his arrest for allegedly causing racial tensions was unlawful.

High Court Justice Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad ruled that the Home Minister acted outside his powers in having Raja Petra arrested on Sept 12, said the blogger’s lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar.

He quoted the judge as saying the grounds given for Raja Petra's detention were insufficient and that his arrest under the Internal Security Act was unlawful.

The ISA allows the government to detain anyone for an initial two-year period without charges, and to extend the detention indefinitely.

Raja Petra, who was accused of threatening public security and causing racial tension by publishing writings that ridiculed Islam, will be taken to court later today to be formally set free.

Malik said the order was a "historic ruling”.

It's not the first time that a court has ordered the release of ISA detainees, and the ruling also does not prevent the government from re-arresting him under the ISA. The government can also appeal the ruling.

Raja Petra, 58, has increasingly infuriated authorities by publishing numerous claims about alleged wrongdoing by government leaders on his highly popular site, Malaysia Today. The government has denounced most of Raja Petra's allegations as lies.

He is also on trial in a separate case, having been accused of sedition by implying that Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was involved in the murder of a Mongolian woman. Raja Petra denies the allegation. If convicted, he faces up to three years in jail.

The detention came at a time when the government's popularity hit at an all-time low and is riven with factional fighting and faces the threat of being ousted by the opposition.

The ISA is a holdover from British colonial days, when it was used against communist insurgents. Independent Malaysia's post-colonial government has kept it in the statute books and has used it sparingly against political dissidents, ignoring calls from opposition groups and others to disband the law.

Raja Petra's arrest triggered widespread protests by civil society groups, lawyers and other online commentators.

Some of Malaysia's most popular blogs offer strong anti-government commentaries and present themselves as a substitute for mainstream media, which are controlled by political parties or closely linked to them. The government estimates there are more than 700 Malaysians who blog on social and political issues.

Meanwhile, Raja Petra’s wife, Mable or Marina Lee, described as “fantastic” the High Court decision to free her husband from detention under the Internal Security Act.

“I don't know what to say...it is a fantastic breakthrough that happened today,” she told reporters after the decision.

Marina, who wore a red T-shirt with the words “I Am With RPK”, was elated that the decision was what she had expected. — Agencies

Social Contract or Racial Contract?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

My sedition trial will resume on 10th November 2008 after a three week postponement. Thus far six prosecution witnesses have testified and it appears like the prosecution has 10-13 more witnesses lined up.

Basically, the government is of the view that my article, “Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell”, is seditious. And to ensure that I am duly punished, other than facing trial, I am also under Internal Security Act detention. This means, even if the court acquits me, I shall still not be free. It is like taking double insurance. Either way you are covered.

I suppose sedition is the natural thing to charge me with. Moses was charged with sedition that he had to flee Egypt. Jesus was charged with sedition and the Christians believe he was executed because of that. Muhammad too was charged with sedition and the Muslims believe that God commanded him to flee Mecca lest he get murdered that same evening.

I am not trying to compare myself to the three main prophets of the Abrahamic religions. What I am trying to say is that if even the three most important prophets of the Jews, Christians and Muslim are not spared the allegation of sedition, then who am I to escape?

On 7th November, the court will decide if my ISA detention is legal. I could say that my freedom is now in the hands of the judge and may he rule wisely. And of course, to me, “wisely” would mean to free me – whereas that may not quite be the government’s view of “wise”.

Something significant of late was the Rulers’ statement on Article 153 and the “Social Contract”. We could say that this was historic as the Rulers have never thus far made such statements. Could this be said as something timely or something the Rulers should not have done? I really don’t know.

The Pakatan Rakyat Kedah state government’s ruling of imposing a 50% Bumiputra quota on houses in the state does not help either. Why 50%? Why even 30%? Should in the first place there even be a quota?

If you have not done so this you should read Zaid Ibrahim’s book “In Good Faith”, Zaid has addressed this matter of Article 153 and the “Social Contract” with great clarity.

What the Kedah state government has done is unconstitutional. Article 8 and Article 153 of the Constitution do not allow this. You just can’t dictate how people run their businesses.

Those who support the imposition of quotas argue that there exists a “Social Contract” that allows them to do so. But while they mention this “Social Contract”, they fail to mention the terms of this “contract”, what it says, and who is bound by it.

In short, if I am not a party to that contract can I be bound by it? The contract was entered into by the Malays and the then immigrant Indians and Chinese; of course it is not really a written contract as much as a verbal contract and we all know that a verbal contract is not worth the paper it is written on.

Nevertheless, should Malaysian-born Indians and Chinese who have never even visited India and China be made to abide to a verbal “contract” made by their immigrant parents and/or grandparents? How long will this “contract” run? Will Indians and Chinese 1000 years from now still be made to abide to a “contract” made in 1957?

There should be a cut-off date. There must come a point of time when all Malaysians are regarded as equal. How can an Indonesian who migrated to this country a few years ago be regarded as Bumiputra when Chinese and Indians who come to this country in the 1400s are still second class citizens?

Yes, Article 153 accords Malays certain rights and privileges. But that same Article, and Article 8, do not allow imposing of quotas and permits which deny Indians and Chinese their rights in favour of the Malays. This, many people do not seem to understand.

We also seem to have forgotten that the New Economic Policy is a two-pronged attack. Other than reducing the gap between the different races it is also about reducing the gap between the rich and the poor. And this would mean regardless of race.

When we talk about the Malay farmers and fisherman. We do not seem to realize that there are Chinese farmers and fishermen as well. Poverty does not recognize race.

It is time that the “Social Contract” be reviewed. A new “Social Contract” must be drawn up that looks into the SOCIAL structure and not RACIAL structure that the present “Social Contract” addresses. Only then can it be called a “Social Contract”. If not, then let us call it what it really is, a “Racial Contract”.

The poverty level also needs to be reviewed. The new “hardcore” poverty level should be RM1200. Anyone earning below RM1200 per month should be considered poor. That would mean a high percentage of Malaysians. Then the NEW “Social Contract” should address the needs of those who live below the NEW poverty level of RM1200.

And the NEW “Social Contract” should no longer be a verbal contract but chiseled in stone. And it should be a contract to take care of Malays, Indians, Chinese, Portuguese, Ibans, Dayaks, etc. As long as you are poor, meaning earning below RM1200 then you are taken care of. That should be Malaysia’s NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT.

Before I sign off, I would like to apologise for the quality of my articles. It is not so convenient to type from where I currently live so I need to just get my points across without much focus on the presentation. I hope this will not be for long and that I may soon be back with you. Anyway I was told that Malaysia Today is under control and in good hands. Till we speak again.

The old devil is marching with the junior to haunt the rakyat again!

Zaid: Mahathir is back in power with Najib
Consultant Editor

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov. 6 — Former de facto Law Minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim says Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s impending rise to become Umno president and Prime Minister marks the return of “Mahathirism”.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, he said, will become Malaysia’s “de facto PM”, standing behind Najib.

He said the fall of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is a result of Dr Mahathir prevailing.

Zaid, who resigned recently from Abdullah's Cabinet in protest against the use of the Internal Security Act, said he did not expect Najib to continue Abdullah's reform agenda once he takes over.

"Legal and constitutional reforms make you less powerful, more accountable and less able to use the privileges of power.

"Why would someone trained and schooled by Dr Mahathir introduce reforms. Have you heard Najib speak of reforms?” he told The Malaysian Insider.

Zaid said he expects Najib's administration to be more authoritarian with more controls and restrictions compared to that of Abdullah's.

Abdullah, he said, believed in reforms, but "he did not have the stomach" to push through the changes needed.

During the interview he also responded to allegations made against him by Dr Mahathir on the latter's blog recently.

In his chedet.com blog, Dr Mahathir accused Zaid of being in Perth, Australia during the March general election, and for helping the Pas candidate win the Kota Baru constituency against the Barisan Nasional.

Dr Mahathir also criticised Zaid's move as minister to have the government institute ex-gratia payments to the judges who were sacked as a result of the 1988 judicial crisis.

Said Zaid in response: "He says I helped the Pas candidate, but the fact is Pas was going to win no matter what because of the anti-BN mood.

"He has conveniently forgotten that he actively asked the people to vote against BN to teach Abdullah a lesson."

Zaid added that Dr Mahathir would never be able to accept why ex-gratia payments were made to the judges because it reflects badly on his legacy as Prime Minister.

He said Dr Mahathir would never understand the need for reforms because, to him, "more authoritarianism is better”.

The former minister said Malaysia's political and economic uncertainties today is a result of Dr Mahathir.

He also blamed Dr Mahathir for Umno's unpopularity and lack of proper leadership.

"The truth is we have had no proper election since 1987," he said in reference to the year in which Dr Mahathir defeated Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah by a wafer-thin majority to retain the Umno presidency.

Soon after that election, Umno was declared illegal in a court case which led eventually to the 1988 judicial crisis and the sacking of judges involved in the case.

Under Dr Mahathir, the Societies Act was also subsequently amended disallowing judicial review of any political party decision.

"After the Societies Act was amended the president of Umno could do anything.

"You have destroyed the fabric of our lives as a democracy. Have you not done enough?''

Zaid said Malaysia faced an uncertain and more authoritarian future when Najib takes over.

"You had 23 years of Dr Mahathir, so let's say Najib lasts for 10 years as PM with Mahathir behind him. That means a total of 33 years under Dr Mahathir."

*Mahathirism = authoritarianism, freedom and democracy abolitionism, corruptionism, cronyism, and you name it, all those philistinism!

America Rejoins the World

UN: Hope that America Rejoins the World
The World Reacts
By Barbara Crossette

Jubilation should be the order of the day at the United Nations when an American who is also a son of Kenya and a child of Indonesia is elected president of the most powerful country in a world in need of healing. But while there is quiet joy and relief at the victory of Barack Obama, there is also a strong undercurrent of caution. Is the end of an unfriendly Republican era enough in itself to bring the United States back? Or have the Democrats, the heirs of the UN's founders, drifted too far from internationalism?

Much has been written in recent years about America "rejoining the world." Nowhere more than at the UN have Washington's bullying tactics and stunted, provincial vision of global challenges cast such a pall over international cooperation. Here, the United States is close-up and personal. After the naming in Washington of a new secretary of state, the appointment most eagerly awaited at the UN is that of the next American ambassador.

Peter Maurer, Switzerland's ambassador to the UN, says that what he hears among his diplomatic colleagues is a plea for trust to be restored between the US and the UN. There are the wounds of the Iraq war, and there is skepticism about the motives of Washington when politicians talk about UN reform. "The new administration will find a kind of window of opportunity because there is enormous goodwill around the UN to see and to hear some new voices" Maurer said. But the UN as well as the US will have to work on closing the rift, he added.

The world of the United Nations is divided into two distinct camps. The people of the headquarters Secretariat and the various agencies are recruited or appointed international civil servants who are expected to leave their nationalities behind and work for a global constituency. Many of them fail to meet that test, but that's another story. Separate from them are the diplomats who represent the 192 member nations. Their missions are in essence embassies to the UN and their views, at least formally, would reflect those of their governments.

To the foreign diplomats based in New York, perhaps surprisingly, the ambassadors sent to the UN by the Bush administration have generally been respected and liked, from John Negroponte and John Danforth to Zalmay Khalilzad, the first Muslim to represent the US in New York. John Bolton was the exception, but his period as ambassador was relatively brief and he was regarded as competent even by some who found him undiplomatically abrasive and driven blindly by his distrust of internationalism and rigid defense of American sovereignty.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN under secretary general for communications who now publishes a gossipy newsletter, unforum.com, describes the mood in the Secretariat this week as "caught between hope and apprehension." He says that the organization remembers the Clinton years, when the White House backed away from some important international commitments and crudely dumped a secretary general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, out of what appeared to be domestic political skittishness.

Middle Easterners (Sanbar is from Lebanon) also see no real possibility of change in regional policy in the Mideast, he said. Not long ago, before the election, a Brazilian diplomat remarked that there is concern about the Democrats' aversion to free trade. A lot of Indians liked the Republicans because they gave New Delhi a nuclear supply deal that may have killed the nonproliferation treaty.

Maurer, an expert in international law, said that a hoped-for thaw in US-UN relations would need to translate into action. "We all know what some of the concrete issues are, where many delegations would hope that a new administration would eventually set some priorities," he said. "This goes from climate change to engagement on a balanced nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, policy. It goes to a new engagement for multilateral human rights, approaches which we certainly missed. New ideas, new approaches might be extremely welcome."

A list of international agreements rebuffed by the US awaits the Obama-Biden administration, beginning with the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty against nuclear weapons development, which the Clinton Administration shrank from sending to a hostile Congress. Also under Clinton, the US signed but never ratified the 1998 treaty creating the International Criminal Court, the first permanent tribunal designed to deal with perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 2001, the Bush administration rescinded even the US signature and set out to undermine the court. Now, without standing in the court, Washington is in the awkward position of wanting the president of Sudan to be tried there for the horrors of Darfur.

The United States also opted out of joining the Human Rights Council, created in 2006 to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission. An early decision will have to be made on whether to vie for a seat in the new year.

On climate change, the US has not joined the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for reducing greenhouse gases in industrialized countries. The agreement, due to expire in 2012, is scheduled to be renegotiated next year at a global conference in Copenhagen. Strong leadership and active American participation will be needed to draw in major developing nations that have so far refused to be bound by internationally agreed limits.

The UN seems to have been a bone thrown by Washington to the ideological right. After the Security Council refused to endorse the American invasion of Iraq, Republicans excoriated the UN and Secretary General Kofi Annan for his opposition to the war and on whom, with more than a hint of revenge, they tried to pin responsibility for corruption in the Iraqi "oil for food" program a few years later. That the secretary general had no authority over the Security Council and that almost all the corruption turned out to have been found in corporations operating outside the formal system, whose rules Council members failed to enforce, were conveniently overlooked.

Sanbar says that the current secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, whom the US (and particularly Bolton) propelled into office in 2007, may be wondering what will happen when and if he seeks a second five-year term. He will have to open channels to the Democrats.

The UN Population Fund may have the most to gain in the short term from the Democratic victory. Since 2002, the Bush administration has barred American contributions to the fund, known as UNFPA, on specious claims that it was involved in programs in China that included forced abortions--claims the State Department argued were not true. The cumulative loss to UNFPA neared $300 million this year, at a time when maternal mortality remains high and family planning programs, in great demand in poor nations, are falling well behind funding campaigns for fighting HIV-AIDS.

In the Senate, Obama and Joe Biden have been supportive of programs for women--Biden co-authored the Violence Against Women legislation--and the ban on UNFPA is expected to be lifted early, along with what is known as the "global gag rule" introduced at a population conference in Mexico City in the Reagan administration that prevents US aid to any organization worldwide that condones abortion.

With the new administration, the broader American opposition to social programs in the UN system may end or be greatly diminished. The US has been in league with the Vatican and conservative Islamic countries on women's reproductive rights. It has failed to ratify the 1979 Convention on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (along with nations such as North Korea and Iran) and is only one of two countries (Somalia is the other) not to have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Maurer said diplomats who watched the presidential debates this year with great interest noticed that the UN did not figure in the candidates' foreign policy messages. Ignoring the UN has become bipartisan. Reluctance to make commitments "went far beyond the President Bush administration," he said. "There has to be something in the American political fabric which produces these opinions."

Advances in universal human rights, international criminal law and accountability in the UN system all depend on American involvement, Maurer said. "There is no doubt that if you want to have functioning multilateralism you have to have the United States engaged and on board. If this is not happening, you are immediately in the vicious circle because then the results of negotiations will always be weaker if the US is not pushing within the institution, at the table."