THIS IS SHOCKING NEWS!!!

(KUANTAN, Friday) The Syariah Court today has today declared that the
late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong was a Muslim more than 10 years ago when he
passed away, in 2007. The Syariah Court also ruled that since no
non-Muslim is allowed to inherit any part of a Muslim's assets or
wealth, the inheritance of Lim's property by his non-Muslim children
are invalid and unlawful.

"Therefore, the assets should be immediately returned to Tan Sri
Lim's name, and then redistributed to his Muslim heirs (if any)
according to Syariah law. If he has no Muslim heir, then the assets
shall be given to the Islamic authorities and they can do whatever
they wish. The non-Muslim children are disinherited." The Syariah
Court ruled.

Dato' Zakaria Lim Abdullah, 35, the late Tan Sri Lim's only Muslim
child and the 20th of his 20 offsprings, is now poised to become the
Chairman of Genting Group, 1 of Southeast Asia's richest companies
worth RM2 trillion as at press time. (He would have inherited only
1/20 of Tan Sri Lim's assets if Tan Sri Lim was not declared a
Muslim.) However, he refused to confirm whether he would stop the
gambling business of Genting even though it is haram under Islamic
law.

"Are you saying that our Hadhari government should refuse to collect
taxes from gambling, alcohol, pork and other haram businesses?" Dato'
Zakaria replied, perhaps rhetorically.

Dato' Zakaria has also said that his shall honor his pledge to donate
1/10 of his newly inherited fortune to Jabatan Agama Islam Pahang and
UMNO in equal share if he won the case, made 3 days before the
Syariah Court decision.


"Business Reasons"

"My late father wanted to keep his conversion secret because he was a
gambling tycoon, and he did not want to jeopardize his gambling
empire or make his shareholders lose confidence in Genting," said
Dato' Zakaria during the hearing in Syariah Court. The Syariah Court
felt that "this is most likely true because of the huge business
implications. It is very normal for Chinese to do this. We can accept
that."

As to the testimonies of Tan Sri Lim's 19 other offsprings in the
Syariah Court, who unanimously disputed the alleged conversion, the
Syariah Court said, "Even though it is 19 to 1, but because the
non-Muslim witnesses refused to swear on the Qur'an before they
testified in court, we could not consider their testimonies. In any
event, even if they did swear on the Qur'an, the non-Muslims would
still carry less weight when compared to the testimony of 2 Muslim
men. It is not about the number, it is about quality of the
witnesses."

The other witness supporting Dato' Zakaria's claim to have witnessed
Tan Sri Lim's conversion is Ustaz Abdul Rahman Ganinah Abdullah, 23
year old. The Ustaz would have been only 13 year old at that time of
the conversion, but the Syariah Court said that,"Being a righteous,
God-fearing Muslim, we have no reason to suspect that the Ustaz told
any lie. In any event, he has reached the age of puberty at the time
(of the conversion) so he was qualified to witness the conversion."


"Answer To God" It Depends

The Syariah Court has also ruled that the overwhelming evidence of
Tan Sri Lim drinking alcohol, praying to pagan idols, celebrating
pagan religious festivals, eating pork and gambling in his own
Genting Casino and generally behaving like a non-Muslim all his life
until his death was irrelevant. "Once you have converted, you are a
Muslim till you die, no matter what you did before your death. You
will answer to God for all your sins."

However, on the same kind of "answer to God" argument made by the
non-Muslim children that:"By the same logic, the Deceased himself
should answer to God for concealing his alleged 'conversion' from his
family and resulting in him not being buried as a Muslim and his
assets distributed among his non-Muslim children; it's not up to the
Islamic Authority to insist on his assets being inherited under
Islamic law if he, KNOWING THAT HIS ASSETS WOULD BE DISTRIBUTED LIKE
AN INFIDEL (AND HE MIGHT BURN IN HELL), still didn't want to tell his
family to bury him as a Muslim and distribute his assets like a
Muslim."

The Syariah Court said "you cannot say he must answer to God for
everything. Sometimes he also has to answer to us, the Islamic
Authority and Syariah Court. If we say he has to answer to us, then
he has to. When it comes to God's law, logic has nothing to do with
it. Why is it so difficult to understand?"


"New Conversion Policy" vs New Economic Policy

The case to declare one of the richest Chinese in the world (at his
death) as a Muslim was started 2 years ago (8 years after his death),
1 month after another non-Muslim Malaysian tycoon's Muslim son was
able to exclusively inherit his father's global business empire worth
RM80 billion at that time by proving in Syariah Court that his father
had "converted in secret," resulting in his mother and all 9 other
siblings losing the right to inherit any part of the tycoon's wealth,
leaving him the sole heir to the huge fortune.

There are currently at least 200 more cases of the same nature
pending before the Syariah Courts nationwide involving deceased
non-Muslims who were wealthy during their lifetime and left behind a
huge personal fortune. Rough estimate suggests that 50% of them were
started by 1 of the Muslim children of the deceased (99% of them
newly converted as Muslims), and the rest by the Islamic Authorities
seeking to disinherit all non-Muslim children.

If all of the cases succeed, it is estimated that the ratio of equity
held by Muslims in Malaysia would jump from the meagre 19% as at 1
January 2018 to 76%, a whopping 3-fold increase.

The Perak Mufti, who applauded the Syariah Court's ruling, said that
this wave of after-death declarations of conversions is the new
approach taken by the Islamic Authority to speed up the
Islamicization of Malaysia, butis also designed to achieve the
government's goal to redistribute wealth among the races which the
government could no longer do (and failed repeatedly to do) under the
now abolished National Economic Policy

"By creating real economic incentives for the dhimmis to become a
real citizen of the Islamic state, we expect more of them to embrace
the true path, and this will mean that we no longer have to rely on
the NEP to achieve such noble socio-economic goals of the government.
Besides, this is more effective because to take money away from
living people will create a lot of noise, but a dead person will not
make any noise, right?" He said.

However, it is not clear whether the non-Muslim children would still
be able to keep their inheritance if they convert to Islam
immediately. The Mufti of Perak, when consulted on this issue, said,

"If that could bring them to Islam, then it would be good, so the
Syariah Court should allow that. But then it might be unfair to those
children who converted into Islam earlier perhaps we can still allow
them to inherit only 30% of what an "early bird" Muslim heir would
have been able to get, to provide some "early bird bonus incentives"
for them to convert earlier. When we are dealing with Chinese, such
bonus incentives are very important, if you know what I mean. Anyway,
we'll think about this in the next National Fatwa Council meeting.
But rest assured that we shall continue to our struggle until the
Kingdom comes (literally)."

Chinese Beginning to Be Concerned

The Chinese community has now taken this matter very seriously and
are brainstorming on the options to overcome this problem. They have
also called for an end to the practice of declaring a person's status
as a Muslim after his or her death, a radical change from their usual
attitude to shy away from controversial political and religious
issues. Analysts believe that this is because this is threatening
their economic interests.

Supporters of the now semi-defunct Malaysian Chinese Association,
Gerakan and Malaysian Indian Congress, still part of the ruling
Barisan Nasional coalition, have called on the top BN leadership to
put forward a plan to resolve such controversial and provocative
religious issues once and for all and in a manner which is fair to
the non-Muslims. An MCA leader who declined to be named told our
reporter:

"We fear a backlash. Most NGO and opposition leaders have called on
the non-Muslims to boycott BN if no fair solution is put forward
before the upcoming general election. These issues have been around
since at least the Moorthy controversy in 2005 but still remained
unresolved. The are now affecting the basic security and fundamental
well-being of the non-Muslims."

This is a very serious issue for all non-muslim Malaysians to think
over since several recent cases have been unjust and unfair, and the
basic constitutional RIGHTS been taken away from them. It's no longer
a safe country to live.

The Malays & UMNO should read this!

By Hussein Hamid

With the Chinese it usually take about three generations for whatever money that has been made to be gone – wasted away. The Malays – just one generation!

Many Malays have allowed avarice and a liking of the good things in life to cloud their judgment in doing what is right.

I have met many Malays who, within less then one generation, came into richness way beyond their wildest dream. How do you adjust from driving a beat up old Mercedes to being able to get (not afford but able to get!) a Range Rover and the latest Mini Cooper –complete with a driver and machai riding shotgun with you everywhere you go? Then he have to take a crash course on how to play Golf - when before a game of Sepak Takraw would be his means of relaxation over the weekend! Five Star Hotels are now his play ground. Cigars, High Tea a bit of the hard stuff every night. …All par for the course for these so-called shakers and movers from UMNO. Their families are left at the starting point. No way can the wife or children adjust. Soon he starts with his late nights, outstation trips and even goes off to Perth for Golf – always with a sweet young thing in tow or stash away at some condominium in Bagsar or Damansara.

All this looks good on the surface. A Malay enjoying the good life because he is a loyal servant of UMNO. But his strength is because he is a ‘sahabat’ of Pak Lah. What happens when Najib took over? This Malays goes back to his beat up old Mercedes because his Range Rover and Mini Cooper were repossessed (they cost over $6000 per month on the never never – five years hire purchase arrangements!) Then he is again reduced to begging for scraps and running errands now for Najib’s sahabats. And this vicious circle continues to trap many Malays into a never-ending search for easy money and the good life - but without the ability to hang on to it.

What of UMNO’s leaders now ruling our country? What of them? I see spoilt brats brought up in luxury and the good life becoming spoilt Ministers lacking compassion and depth. Without the ability to emphasize or sympathize with those that they are lord over. And they take the role of being Lord literally. Look at Din – a classic nerd or geek in his young days. Now by a freak of birth and happy circumstance – he is a Minister. A Minister without ability and compassion – unable to understand that he is in Public Service – and his duty is to serve – not wave a Keris in the air or throw his weight around bullying people who cannot fight back. A sad excuse for a human being.

Najib and Rosmah have money. They now want power and more money – and they go about getting both unashamedly without reservations or respect for morals or decency. The public see these leaders as thieves and liars and this self fulfilling prophecy is further enhanced by their actions. We know what they do. Time cannot keep secrets. Time will tell us all what was done during the era of Mahathir, Abdullah and Najib.

How long will UMNO continue to curse the Malays with their way of doing things? Malays unable to cope with the massive influx of wealth, families’ wreck asunder, husbands taking mistresses and girlfriends? In the end this will spell the end of UMNO and also the end of many Malays unable to understand any other way of life then what they have been taught to do under UMNO.

The very rich in UMNO will have enough to last for two or three generations of their family. For 90% of UMNO the fall of UMNO will create much pain and sufferings. So wait for an orgy of money politics as UMNO rides into the sunset at the next General Elections. They will all try for that one big Negotiated Tender or Project that will hopefully keep them and their family going until UMNO makes a comeback. If UMNO does not then they go back to their beat up old Mercedes Benz and dream of their glory days when UMNO’s President was King. Let us hope that Anwar has seen enough of this while he was in UMNO to not repeat the same mistakes with Pakatan Rakyat. Or is that too much to hope for from Politicians?

Cry My Beloved Malay Soul

A B Sulaiman |

When Alan Paton wrote 'Cry The Beloved Country' he was lamenting over the inhumanity of man over man, of how the whites can devise, construct and implement race- and colour-based social and economic injustices over the blacks in apartheid-era South Africa.

The whole world had condemned this practice; we were among the loudest screaming against it.

South Africa has moved on since then, and today it is one shining example of an emancipated, open and progressive country, enjoying a respectable place in the community of nations. It has thrown apartheid into the bins of its history.

Here in Malaysia, yes we condemned apartheid, and quite rightly so. But in the same breath we were and are still its major proponent of our version of apartheid.

We do not call it apartheid; of course not. We call it instead 'Ketuanan Melayu' under the guise of 'championing Malay rights,' and implementing it under the New Economic Policy.. It's smart, right? In none of them does the word 'apartheid' appear!

Yes, we are smart. We do not blatantly call it apartheid, we merely perfected the process of social separation. First of all, we ensure the great majority of civil servants, the police, and the military are manned by Malays (the target benefactors). We give them good salaries, good perks and assured employment. We then devise rules and regulations, and even laws, to ensure the NEP's easy implementation.

We then brainwash our Malay brethren with the notion 'untuk agama, bangsa dan negara' that there is a higher ideal beyond performing a duty with professionalism and dedication, and that is doing things in the name of religion and race.

We devise rules and regulations, and even laws, to ensure the NEP's easy implementation.

Then we design and implement social and economic policies like channeling lucrative government contracts, separate education streams, housing rebates, banking and financial support, in favour of, you guessed it, the Elite Malays.

It does not stop there. We devise measures to prevent the people from raising too much objections to all these by introducing or continuing legislation and religiously implementing them.

The Sedition Act for example stops people from talking too much about language and religion. The Official Secrets Act prevents people from gaining access to government files.

Students and lecturers are not allowed to discuss and make public any subject that would appear to be critical to government (yes, government, not political) policies and philosophies.

All publications must, first of all, get operating licences. Newspapers must not only get a licence before publishing but it must be renewed every year.


Sacrifices conveniently forgotten

The king of all of the suppressive and oppressive laws is the Internal Security Act, when a citizen can be put under detention without the benefit of any charge!

All said and done, we sacrificed the rule of law in favour of rule by private individuals. To show that we are really smart, we pooh pooh the loyalty and patriotism of the non-Malay segment of the population.

We call them pendatang or immigrants bearing the stigma that they are social discards from their forefathers' country of origin, similar to rogues, rascals, refugees, mercenaries and scoundrels. We just ignore their proven talent and ability in wealth creation and economic productivity, as well as to their demonstrated loyalty and patriotism.

Many of such pendatangs have made ultimate sacrifices, as military personnel defending the country and its security, risking and losing their lives, during the Emergency, the Indonesian Confrontation, and as policemen while policing the social environment.

They have contributed and are continuing to, in sports and the arts. Their record as loyal and patriotic Malaysians is quite impeccable. But we do not really care.

The perplexing thing is that despite these attributes and positive records of the non-Malays, we are still going about championing and implement apartheid principles - aggressively pursuing the Malay agenda. Is this fair especially to the East Malaysians who joined us to become the single nation of Malaysia?



In this new year, perhaps we can do with a little reflection: why are we doing all this?

We do this apparently to recover our lost soul. We perceived that we have been victims of colonization when the Portuguese, Dutch and British colonizers all but butchered the Malay entity, psychology and culture. In the process we perceived that we have lost our Malay identity.

With independence, we thought we could recapture the lost glory of Malay suzerainty by becoming masters of all facets of a nation, especially its commerce, and economy. We found out that the Chinese community had beaten us to it, in every way.


We felt the Chinese had capitalised on our weakness and captured the economic initiatives (and wealth) as well as the social characteristics of the country. We lost 'face'.

Now we want to regain the mertabat or dignity and pride of the Malay race!

Yes, we feel that we have to recover our soul and it is here that we are reminded of Paton's book title, but in this case suitably paraphrased to – "Cry My Beloved Malay soul."

Our Malay soul needs to cry for doing the right thing for the wrong reason, or the wrong thing for the right reason; even for the wrong thing for the wrong reason, but not for the right thing for the right reason.

To start with, colonization is really not an excuse for our psychological malaise and ineptitude.

Colonization has been a feature of human history and felt all over the world. There are very few countries that have not been colonized in the world, where western powers took advantage of the situations then.

It is thus a neutral concept in human social and economic development. It is certainly not an impediment to social or economic progress as we want to portray it. We should dump this notion that we hold so dear into the bins of history.


Rethinking our way of thinking

Just look at the records. The Koreans were once colonised by the Japanese, but today Korea is an industrial power house. Singapore was once colonized by the British and was indeed a part of us, and today we see this tiny country being a solid financial, trading and industrial entity.

Most pointedly of all, the US was once a British colony and today it is the mightiest nation in the world.



Our second grouse - that the Chinese have cornered every of the economic sector of the country also needs re-looking into, on two counts.

First, the Chinese did not become successful based on any conscious and concerted economic programme to economically marginalise us Malays.

We did this self-inflicted wound ourselves. As proof, we have to note that most of the Chinese came to our shores with only their feet, hands, guts and brains and perhaps a bundle of clothes, nothing more.

They become successful for their hard work, both physically and mentally and for the sacrifices they were prepared to make and had undertaken. They were successful for having the mental fortitude to seek opportunities, grab those that come along and worked extra hard to realize the potentials of these opportunities.

Secondly, we have been given a chance to be equal with them, both under numerous 'special privileges' enshrined in the Constitution, as well as under its NEP implementation programe.

The special privileges have always been in the constitution while the latter began in 1970. In short, we have been given the chance - the opportunity - many times over, to better our Malay polity.

Whereas the Chinese had to struggle just to find and identify the opportunities, in our case they were handed to us on a silver platter!

Thus far we have failed to capitalize adequately on them. It is rather shameful that we are missing out on these chances specially created for us in the first place.

Either way, the root cause of our weaknesses and the strength of the Chinese lies in two words - positive thinking. Our thinking is mired with so many dos and don'ts, so many musts and musn'ts, so many cans and cannots, may and may nots, plenty enough to created and internalize doubts and fears in our minds.

So much so that we have doubts over what we can and what we can't do, what is allowed and what is not. We spend a lifetime looking for these highly complex cans and cannots, musts and must nots, that we have hardly any mental energy left to develop and garner our self-confidence to get on and face the realities of life.


Let's refer to this case as the 'can't don't and won't syndrome'. The Chinese by the way are not encumbered by such syndromes. What appears to have happened is that this syndrome has affected our mental ability to conceptualise. We see things on the straight and narrow. We accept wisdoms handed down to us by our elders as the gospel truth.


Blinded by sentiment

We do not see that things can be seen and interpreted in many alternative ways. We feel we have the monopoly on truth; we therefore think that we are right all the time and other people are wrong all the time. Witness the way we see religion for example.

We think that we as Muslims are right and other people who profess other religions are wrong, all the time.

We need to cry for thinking that we can and have doctored the way the people think and do things. We have been intimidating the people with what they can read or write or think and do.

We seem to be saying "you can think anything, do anything, write anything so long as it does not criticise or condemn the government".

Soul-searching and resuscitating is not or should not be about pointing accusing fingers at some bogeys. That would be a most negative thing to do. It would be better for us to be open-minded and be able to identify our own strengths and weaknesses.

We improve upon our strengths and dump our weaknesses. Mainly we must be able to develop the awareness that we have both the strengths and weaknesses in the first place.

To illustrate, the NEP has proved many times over as a failed strategy for our socio-economic advancement. Let us be aware of this in the first place and move on seeking other ways with better chances of success.

How about secularizing the Malay mind? It might make for a good start for we can see many of the don'ts, can'ts, musn'ts dissipating into the wind.

In the meantime, here we are in the early days of a new year. We should begin by realising that whatever 'smart' moves we had undertaken all this while have not really been that smart after all..

The joke is on us. Everybody says so – the liberated Malays, the non-Malays, our neighbors and the rest of the international community. Only those of us basking in our closed mind and benefiting from the profits of the status quo say it's alright.

Happy New Year all the same and here's hoping this year we can get a good perspective as to what propagating a good mertabat really means. It's long overdue.

In the meantime, cry my beloved Malay soul.

Made in Malaysia

The following are true stories:

A Malaysian politician had heart surgery in Singapore.
The operation was successful. During his recuperation, the politician wanted
to thank his three skilful doctors, including an anaesthesiologist.

He said: "Thanks to Singaporean doctors..."
"I'm sorry, sir. I'm from Malaysia," interrupted one doctor.
"Me too."
"Me as well."


When a Malaysian company wanted to develop a new township abroad, it
entrusted the project to a Singapore multinational company.

The first time when they met, the Singapore company sent a team of seven
people, including the chief executive officer, chief architect and chief financial officer.
The meeting went smoothly. They relaxed and chatted.
The Malaysian company's director said: "Durians from my hometown Kuala
Pilah, Seremban taste the best. I'll treat you all next time when you come."


"Really? What area in Kuala Pilah? I'm from Kuala Pilah, too!" said the
Singapore company's chief executive officer.

Next, one by one, the other six from the Singapore team revealed their
identities.
"I'm from Malacca."
"I'm from Kuala Kangsar, Perak."
"I grew up in Segamat."
"My hometown is..."
And all of them were actually "made in Malaysia".

There are countless similar stories around us.

And there is always another story behind each story.
Some were rejected by domestic universities while some were rejected by the
government scholarship.
They couldn't get it even with 10 As while others got only 10 Bs. As leaving
might be better than staying, they just went to a different world after crossing the Causeway.

There is a deep feeling for every story.

According to Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) statistics, about 785,000
Malaysians are currently working abroad and 44 per cent of them are working in Singapore while the rest are
working in other countries, including Hong Kong, China, Australia, Britain and the United States.

And two-thirds of them are professionals.

At the same time, most of the two million guest workers in Malaysia are from
Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, India and Vietnam.

They are engaged in work which does not require a high educational
background but just a little bit of brains. Low skill, low knowledge and, of course, low wages.

Malaysia has become a country that exports brains while importing labourers,
resulting in a serious deficit in the knowledge trade.

The government started to lure our talent abroad in 2000 by offering a
variety of incentives, including tax concessions and other conditions.

It has been nearly 10 years but only 770 people responded, with an average
of 80 talents returning a year.
The 770 are just a small number of the total number of people working
abroad.

However, many of this small group of people still choose to leave again.

While many young people are not able to realise their dreams here and thus,
they are packing and preparing to pursue their dreams in unfamiliar countries.

And they said that Malaysia wants to become a high-income country.