We have just finished a wonderful holiday in Malaysia. Except for a few things, like the toilets and the drivers, it was great. The people are friendly and helpful. The food is quite exciting and the country is spectacular.
There was one incident, which caused us no concern and no problem, but left us more than a little baffled. We were in the Chow Kit area buying some things to take home when we found some shirts with “BERSIH 2” on them. We asked the man what the word meant and he said “clean”.
So, we bought some. They were good quality and cheap. As we were leaving the stall area we were approached by a man who warned us not to wear the shirts or we would be in trouble with the police. We went back to our hotel thinking that we misheard the man at the stall who sold us the shirts and that bersih must be a very dirty word. So we asked the concierge and he told us it meant “clean”. So we were confused.
At dinner that night, we struck up a conversation with the people at the next table. We raised the matter with them. They told us the shirts represented a call to the people and Government for clean and fair elections. They also told us that people wearing the shirts are being locked up without trial for waging war against the King. They explained that the Government and some people were against free and fair elections.
Fair enough, it is not our country. What we still do not understand is why the King would be against free and fair elections because he is not elected. Our friends warned us that even talking about free and fair elections could land us in goal.
Perhaps the government could put signs at the airport warning travellers that bersih is a dirty word in Malaysia and that the King and Government are against free and fair elections. In this way, no one will make a mistake that could land them in trouble.
Doug and Helen White,
Flinders Park,
South Australia
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
We, the undersigned doctors, wish not to enter into the polemics of the Bersih 2.0 march on 9th July 2011 but would like to clarify the inconvenient truth.
We are outraged at the incidents, and the subsequent responses from the authorities, to the events where tear gas and chemical laced water were shot into the compounds of Tung Shin and Chinese Maternity Hospitals, two adjacent buildings along Jalan Pudu, Kuala Lumpur, with scant regard for the safety of patients, staff and the general public who were at the buildings that afternoon.
Hospitals are considered as safe sanctuaries for all, even during war times, but these consecrated places of refuge and protection were violated by the defence forces that afternoon. Police even entered the buildings in search of some of these peaceful marchers. What was most frightening and witnessed by many was the unprovoked violent assault within the hospital compounds and apprehension of several protesters who had merely run into the hospitals to seek shelter from the tear gas and the water cannons!
It is repulsive that the authorities entrusted with policing the nation and protecting the weak and needy, have shamelessly denied publicly, the occurrence of these incidents IN SPITE of countless photo/video and eye witness accounts of what was evident to all independent observers.
A few of the undersigned were actually visiting or working in the hospitals concerned at the time of the events and will gladly provide sworn affidavits, if required, as to veracity of the incidents
The Malaysian public expect holders of high public office to honour their positions accorded by the citizens, by discharging their duties with moral integrity, dignity and transparency.
Their failure to do so raises the public's doubts in their competence and credibility as much as it demeans those high offices.
Dr Ng Kwee Boon - Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist
Datin Dr Low Paik See - Consultant Paediatrician
Dato’ Dr Musa Mohd Nordin - Consultant Paediatrician & Neonatologist
Dr Mazeni Alwi - Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist
Dr David Quek - Consultant Cardiologist
Dr Sheikh Johari Bux - Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist
Dr Steve Wong - Consultant Plastic Surgeon
Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa - Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon
Dr Ng Swee Choon - Consultant Cardiologist
We are outraged at the incidents, and the subsequent responses from the authorities, to the events where tear gas and chemical laced water were shot into the compounds of Tung Shin and Chinese Maternity Hospitals, two adjacent buildings along Jalan Pudu, Kuala Lumpur, with scant regard for the safety of patients, staff and the general public who were at the buildings that afternoon.
Hospitals are considered as safe sanctuaries for all, even during war times, but these consecrated places of refuge and protection were violated by the defence forces that afternoon. Police even entered the buildings in search of some of these peaceful marchers. What was most frightening and witnessed by many was the unprovoked violent assault within the hospital compounds and apprehension of several protesters who had merely run into the hospitals to seek shelter from the tear gas and the water cannons!
It is repulsive that the authorities entrusted with policing the nation and protecting the weak and needy, have shamelessly denied publicly, the occurrence of these incidents IN SPITE of countless photo/video and eye witness accounts of what was evident to all independent observers.
A few of the undersigned were actually visiting or working in the hospitals concerned at the time of the events and will gladly provide sworn affidavits, if required, as to veracity of the incidents
The Malaysian public expect holders of high public office to honour their positions accorded by the citizens, by discharging their duties with moral integrity, dignity and transparency.
Their failure to do so raises the public's doubts in their competence and credibility as much as it demeans those high offices.
Dr Ng Kwee Boon - Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist
Datin Dr Low Paik See - Consultant Paediatrician
Dato’ Dr Musa Mohd Nordin - Consultant Paediatrician & Neonatologist
Dr Mazeni Alwi - Consultant Paediatric Cardiologist
Dr David Quek - Consultant Cardiologist
Dr Sheikh Johari Bux - Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist
Dr Steve Wong - Consultant Plastic Surgeon
Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa - Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon
Dr Ng Swee Choon - Consultant Cardiologist
Friday, July 8, 2011
Bersih 2.0
Below is Bersih 2.0's statement in full:
2pm, July 9, Stadium Merdeka: Malaysia's moment of truth
Malaysians from all walks of life have travelled a very long road to reach this defining point in our nation's history.
With less than 24 hours to our intended peaceful gathering, our resolve to walk the last, most difficult mile as one united people in pursuit of clean and fair elections and a better Malaysia for all is firmer than ever.
Our reason for gathering is pure and simple – to demand the electoral roll be cleaned, that the postal voting system be reformed, that indelible ink be used, a minimum 21 day campaign period be instated, free and fair access to media for all be provided, public institutions be strengthened, and for corruption as well as dirty politics to be stopped.
The authorities have put obstacle after obstacle where they only needed to provide sincere cooperation to win the trust and confidence of the people.
Having faced half hearted offers of stadiums, arrogance regarding meetings as well as denials of permits, arrests, detentions and so much more, we feel that we have done all that is humanly possible to demonstrate sincerity and good faith in dealing with the government – but we have only been met with reversed decisions and stone walls.
There are no walls however, that will arrest the advance of the cause of peace and justice. Come the 9th of July, we will uphold our constitutional right to converge peacefully on Stadium Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur.
No government agency has any right whatsoever to prevent Malaysians from exercising their freedom of movement and access to our capital city. No threat or intimidation can overturn this fundamental truth.
Malaysians have now seen for themselves the degree of paranoia and lack of principled leadership that seems to have gripped the government. It is thus all the more imperative that patriotic Malaysians rise now and take this stand together to save Malaysia from slipping further into this insane darkness.
Since the beginning of Bersih 2.0, we have witnessed nothing but the utmost bravery and commitment to peace and justice demonstrated by ordinary Malaysians from every walk of life.
Inspired by this example, the Bersih 2.0 leadership reiterates our own unyielding commitment to our shared cause, and to being at Stadium Merdeka at 2pm tomorrow. We will meet at the carpark, and trust that the doors will be opened for us.
This is Malaysia's single most important defining moment in recent history, and we are fully confident that the rakyat will heed the call to safeguard the principles Malaysia was founded on and together ensure that we pass down to our children a nation that is just, democratic and united in love for one another.
2pm, July 9, Stadium Merdeka: Malaysia's moment of truth
Malaysians from all walks of life have travelled a very long road to reach this defining point in our nation's history.
With less than 24 hours to our intended peaceful gathering, our resolve to walk the last, most difficult mile as one united people in pursuit of clean and fair elections and a better Malaysia for all is firmer than ever.
Our reason for gathering is pure and simple – to demand the electoral roll be cleaned, that the postal voting system be reformed, that indelible ink be used, a minimum 21 day campaign period be instated, free and fair access to media for all be provided, public institutions be strengthened, and for corruption as well as dirty politics to be stopped.
The authorities have put obstacle after obstacle where they only needed to provide sincere cooperation to win the trust and confidence of the people.
Having faced half hearted offers of stadiums, arrogance regarding meetings as well as denials of permits, arrests, detentions and so much more, we feel that we have done all that is humanly possible to demonstrate sincerity and good faith in dealing with the government – but we have only been met with reversed decisions and stone walls.
There are no walls however, that will arrest the advance of the cause of peace and justice. Come the 9th of July, we will uphold our constitutional right to converge peacefully on Stadium Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur.
No government agency has any right whatsoever to prevent Malaysians from exercising their freedom of movement and access to our capital city. No threat or intimidation can overturn this fundamental truth.
Malaysians have now seen for themselves the degree of paranoia and lack of principled leadership that seems to have gripped the government. It is thus all the more imperative that patriotic Malaysians rise now and take this stand together to save Malaysia from slipping further into this insane darkness.
Since the beginning of Bersih 2.0, we have witnessed nothing but the utmost bravery and commitment to peace and justice demonstrated by ordinary Malaysians from every walk of life.
Inspired by this example, the Bersih 2.0 leadership reiterates our own unyielding commitment to our shared cause, and to being at Stadium Merdeka at 2pm tomorrow. We will meet at the carpark, and trust that the doors will be opened for us.
This is Malaysia's single most important defining moment in recent history, and we are fully confident that the rakyat will heed the call to safeguard the principles Malaysia was founded on and together ensure that we pass down to our children a nation that is just, democratic and united in love for one another.
Friday, July 1, 2011
To My Friends in Malaysia - John Malott
All Americans are happy this weekend, as we prepare to celebrate the 225th anniversary of our declaration of Independence from the Brits, the same people who colonized you!
(And to my British cousins, I would like to say that we are all so happy that we have been friends and allies these many years!! God Bless You -- and I also think that Kate and Pippi are really smashing !!)
This weekend I am thinking not just about July 4th, but also July 9th.
What do these two days have in common?
They are both about the rights that all people have.
Those rights come from God, not from governments. They do not come from a President or a Prime Minister. And they certainly do not come from whoever the power-inflated, pompous, self-important IGP happens to be this year.
It is not up to a government to tell us what we can think or write.
It is not up to an IGP to tell us whether we can assemble peaceably in common cause.
The American Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on July 4, 1776, 225 years ago, said:
"All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
"Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states."
Put into modern English,
"There comes a point when-
"We have had it.
"Maybe we were willing to suffer and be patient -- that is the way most of us are in the face of power -
"But that's it! No more! Enough is enough!
"We have had it with those who act like tyrants.
"We have had it with those people who think we work for them, and think we will do whatever they say --
"Who think we will suffer silently.
"So now we have decided --
"It's time for change.
"We are going to stand up for ourselves
"and for our freedom
''and for our rights.
"which God has given to us."
Happy 4th of July.
And Happy 9th of July to my Malaysian friends.
- John Malott is the former US ambassador to Malaysia and still maintains an avid interest in the region
(And to my British cousins, I would like to say that we are all so happy that we have been friends and allies these many years!! God Bless You -- and I also think that Kate and Pippi are really smashing !!)
This weekend I am thinking not just about July 4th, but also July 9th.
What do these two days have in common?
They are both about the rights that all people have.
Those rights come from God, not from governments. They do not come from a President or a Prime Minister. And they certainly do not come from whoever the power-inflated, pompous, self-important IGP happens to be this year.
It is not up to a government to tell us what we can think or write.
It is not up to an IGP to tell us whether we can assemble peaceably in common cause.
The American Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on July 4, 1776, 225 years ago, said:
"All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
"Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states."
Put into modern English,
"There comes a point when-
"We have had it.
"Maybe we were willing to suffer and be patient -- that is the way most of us are in the face of power -
"But that's it! No more! Enough is enough!
"We have had it with those who act like tyrants.
"We have had it with those people who think we work for them, and think we will do whatever they say --
"Who think we will suffer silently.
"So now we have decided --
"It's time for change.
"We are going to stand up for ourselves
"and for our freedom
''and for our rights.
"which God has given to us."
Happy 4th of July.
And Happy 9th of July to my Malaysian friends.
- John Malott is the former US ambassador to Malaysia and still maintains an avid interest in the region
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Governments should be afraid of their people!
”People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
Bersih: Umno on the run, it can no longer curtail the people
Written by Maclean Patrick, Malaysia Chronicle
A seemingly harmless rally, organised by an NGO and not affiliated to any political party is causing UMNO to flip over in a seizure.
The first Bersih rally was organised in 2007, and 50,000 people took to the streets in a march of solidarity to demand free and fair elections. It came months before the 12th General Election that saw the opposition achieve great gains, winning over 5states and denying the BN the key two-thirds majority in parliament.
It was a rude awakening for UMNO and BN.
It’s 2 years on and a new souped-up Bersih 2.0 is now fast approaching. This time, UMNO has thrown a fit of even bigger proportions and the Bersih rally is being used as a convenient scapegoat for anything that has gone wrong in Malaysia.
Those who prostitute their words
The recent Internet attacks by hacker group Anonymous was even linked, many say shamelessly, to the rally by none other than the Information, Communication and Culture minister, Rais Yatim.
It was Rais Yatim who a few days before, challenged the group head-on, seemingly confident of his ministry's ability to fend off any attacks to government websites. The attacks came but the best Rais could do was to turn off government servers at the hardware level.
Group Anonymous did not have to do much, the deed was done when the administrators of the sites opted to turn off their servers - that was the best the Malaysian minister could do.
Perkasa and UMNO Youth are now organizing their own rallies on the same day as Bersih 2.0. Perkasa's main agenda is to go head to head to impede the Bersih rally. UMNO Youth’s rally is to march to maintain the current way of conducting elections.
Bersih wants fair and free elections. If UMNO Youth doesn't agree, then by extension, it must want unfair and non-free elections. Whereas, PERKASA is as usual just being a trouble-maker wanting some airtime.
And not to mention the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement that the Bersih rally is meant to topple the government.
Bersih unifies more than any slogan Najib can dream up
While UMNO propogates “Malay First, Others Second” , the Bersih rally is closer to the ideal of a united Malaysia than any slogan Prime Minister Najib Razak can dream up.
Nothing scares UMNO more than to know that the citizens of Malaysia have the will to determine for themselves a future that does not include UMNO in the picture.
UMNO fears Bersih because it knows, the rally will signal the demise of the BN. UMNO is afraid of a united Malaysia capable of thinking for itself.
UMNO knows, it can no longer curtail the will of the people any more. So UMNO has reduced itself to the politics of fear, threats and provocations.
In desperation, it is not far-fetched that UMNO may turn on its own people just to show its strength. This will be its greatest undoing. It was clear during the previous Bersih rally when water cannons and riot police stepped in to disperse the participants.
Citizens hold the cards, not UMNO-Perkasa
A rally like Bersih, when it can draw in the numbers, sends a message to all Malaysians that authority lies in the hands of the citizens and not in any political party. It is a show of solidarity that cuts across racial and religious and political lines.
This is why UMNO fears it so much. For decades, it has depended on racism and religious bigotry to set the races apart. Finally, when there is a force that gathers the people together again, it has no solutions. It is time the ruling elite in UMNO accept their fate, a fate that has long been coming and well deserved.
A rally like Bersih sets a precedence for all Malaysians to follow - that power and authority rests in the hands of the people.
The writing is on the wall and it reads,”People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
Bersih: Umno on the run, it can no longer curtail the people
Written by Maclean Patrick, Malaysia Chronicle
A seemingly harmless rally, organised by an NGO and not affiliated to any political party is causing UMNO to flip over in a seizure.
The first Bersih rally was organised in 2007, and 50,000 people took to the streets in a march of solidarity to demand free and fair elections. It came months before the 12th General Election that saw the opposition achieve great gains, winning over 5states and denying the BN the key two-thirds majority in parliament.
It was a rude awakening for UMNO and BN.
It’s 2 years on and a new souped-up Bersih 2.0 is now fast approaching. This time, UMNO has thrown a fit of even bigger proportions and the Bersih rally is being used as a convenient scapegoat for anything that has gone wrong in Malaysia.
Those who prostitute their words
The recent Internet attacks by hacker group Anonymous was even linked, many say shamelessly, to the rally by none other than the Information, Communication and Culture minister, Rais Yatim.
It was Rais Yatim who a few days before, challenged the group head-on, seemingly confident of his ministry's ability to fend off any attacks to government websites. The attacks came but the best Rais could do was to turn off government servers at the hardware level.
Group Anonymous did not have to do much, the deed was done when the administrators of the sites opted to turn off their servers - that was the best the Malaysian minister could do.
Perkasa and UMNO Youth are now organizing their own rallies on the same day as Bersih 2.0. Perkasa's main agenda is to go head to head to impede the Bersih rally. UMNO Youth’s rally is to march to maintain the current way of conducting elections.
Bersih wants fair and free elections. If UMNO Youth doesn't agree, then by extension, it must want unfair and non-free elections. Whereas, PERKASA is as usual just being a trouble-maker wanting some airtime.
And not to mention the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement that the Bersih rally is meant to topple the government.
Bersih unifies more than any slogan Najib can dream up
While UMNO propogates “Malay First, Others Second” , the Bersih rally is closer to the ideal of a united Malaysia than any slogan Prime Minister Najib Razak can dream up.
Nothing scares UMNO more than to know that the citizens of Malaysia have the will to determine for themselves a future that does not include UMNO in the picture.
UMNO fears Bersih because it knows, the rally will signal the demise of the BN. UMNO is afraid of a united Malaysia capable of thinking for itself.
UMNO knows, it can no longer curtail the will of the people any more. So UMNO has reduced itself to the politics of fear, threats and provocations.
In desperation, it is not far-fetched that UMNO may turn on its own people just to show its strength. This will be its greatest undoing. It was clear during the previous Bersih rally when water cannons and riot police stepped in to disperse the participants.
Citizens hold the cards, not UMNO-Perkasa
A rally like Bersih, when it can draw in the numbers, sends a message to all Malaysians that authority lies in the hands of the citizens and not in any political party. It is a show of solidarity that cuts across racial and religious and political lines.
This is why UMNO fears it so much. For decades, it has depended on racism and religious bigotry to set the races apart. Finally, when there is a force that gathers the people together again, it has no solutions. It is time the ruling elite in UMNO accept their fate, a fate that has long been coming and well deserved.
A rally like Bersih sets a precedence for all Malaysians to follow - that power and authority rests in the hands of the people.
The writing is on the wall and it reads,”People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
Friday, June 3, 2011
An excellent speech by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in UK
Thank you for inviting me to speak with you. I am truly honoured. I have played some small role in the life of this nation, but having been on the wrong side of one or two political fights with the powers that be, I am not as close to the young people of this country as I would hope to be.
History, and the 8 o’clock news, are written by the victors. In recent years the government’s monopoly of the media has been destroyed by the technology revolution.
You could say I was also a member of the UKEC. Well I was, except that belonged to the predecessor of the UKEC by more than fifty years, The Malayan Students Union of the UK and Eire. I led this organisation in 1958/59. I was then a student of Queen’s University at Belfast, in a rather cooler climate than Kota Bharu’s.
Your invitation to participate in the MSLS was prefaced by an essay which calls for an intellectually informed activism. I congratulate you on this. The Youth of today, you note, “will chart the future of Malaysia.” You say you “no longer want to be ignored and leave the future of our Malaysia at the hands of the current generation.” You “want to grab the bull by the horns... and have a say in where we go as a society and as a nation.”I feel the same, actually. A lot of Malaysians feel the same. They are tired of being ignored and talked down to by swaggering mediocrities.
You are right. The present generation in power has let Malaysia down.
But also you cite two things as testimony of the importance of youth and of student activism to this country, the election results of 2008 and “the Prime Minister’s acknowledgement of the role of youth in the development of the country.”
So perhaps you are a little way yet from thinking for yourselves. The first step in “grabbing the bull by the horns” is not to required the endorsement of the Prime Minister, or any Minister, for your activism.
Politicians are not your parents. They are your servants. You don’t need a government slogan coined by a foreign PR agency to wrap your project in. You just go ahead and do it.
When I was a student our newly formed country was already a leader in the postcolonial world. We were sought out as a leader in the Afro-Asian Conference which inaugurated the Non-Aligned Movement and the G-77. The Afro-Asian movement was led by such luminaries as Zhou En-lai, Nehru, Kwame Nkrumah, Soekarno. Malaysians were seen as moderate leaders capable of mediating between these more radical leaders and the West. We were known for our moderation, good sense and reliability.
We were a leader in the Islamic world as ourselves and as we were, without our leaders having to put up false displays of piety. His memory has been scrubbed out quite systematically from our national consciousness, so you might not know this or much else about him, but it was Tengku Abdul Rahman who established our leadership in the Islamic world by coming up with the idea of the OIC and making it happen.
Under his leadership Malaysia led the way in taking up the anti-apartheid cause in the Commonwealth and in the United Nations, resulting in South Africa’s expulsion from these bodies.
Here was a man at ease with himself, made it a policy goal that Malaysia be “a happy country”. He loved sport and encouraged sporting achievement among Malaysians. He was owner of many a fine race horse.
He called a press conference and had a beer with his stewards when his horse won at the Melbourne Cup. He had nothing to hide because his great integrity in service was clear to all. Now we have religious and moral hypocrites who cheat, lie and steal in office but never have a drink, who propagate an ideologically shackled education system for all Malaysians while they send their own kids to elite academies in the West.
Speaking of football. You’re too young to have experienced the Merdeka Cup, which Tunku started. We had a respectable side in the sixties and seventies. Teams from across Asia would come to play in Kuala Lumpur. Teams such as South Korea and Japan, whom we defeated routinely. We were one of the better sides in Asia. We won the Bronze medal at the Asian games in 1974 and qualified for the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Today our FIFA ranking is 157 out of 203 countries. That puts us in the lowest quartile, below Maldives (149), the smallest country in Asia, with just 400,000 people living about 1.5 metres above sea level who have to worry that their country may soon be swallowed up by climate change. Here in ASEAN we are behind Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, whom we used to dominate, and our one spot above basketball-playing Philippines.
The captain of our illustrious 1970’s side was Soh Chin Aun. Arumugam, Isa Bakar, Santokh Singh, James Wong and Mokhtar Dahari were heroes whose names rolled off the tongues of our schoolchildren as they copied them on the school field. It wasn’t about being the best in the world, but about being passionate and united and devoted to the game.
It was the same in Badminton, except at one time we were the best in the world. I remember Wong Peng Soon, the first Asian to win the All-England Championship, and then just dominated it throughout the 1950. Back home every kid who played badminton in every little kampong wanted to call himself Wong Peng Soon. There was no tinge of anybody identifying themselves exclusively as Chinese, Malays, Indian. Peng Soon was a Malaysian hero. Just like each of our football heroes. Now we do not have an iota of that feeling. Where has it all gone?
I don’t think it’s mere nostalgia that that makes us think there was a time when the sun shone more brightly upon Malaysia. I bring up sport because it has been a mirror of our more general performance as nation. When we were at ease with who we were and didn’t need slogans to do our best together, we did well. When race and money entered our game, we declined. The same applies to our political and economic life.
Soon after independence we were already a highly successful developing country. We had begun the infrastructure building and diversification of our economy that would be the foundation for further growth. We carried out an import-substitution programme that stimulated local productive capacity. From there we started an infrastructure buildup which enabled a diversification of the economy leading to rapid industrialisation. We carried out effective programmes to raise rural income and help with landless with programmes such as FELDA. Our achievements in achieving growth with equity were recognised around the world. We were ahead of Our peer group in economic development were South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, and we led the pack. I remember we used to send technical consultants to advise the South Koreans.
By the lates nineties, however, we had fallen far behind this group and were competing with Thailand and Indonesia. Today, according to the latest World Investment Report, FDI into Malaysia is at about a twenty year low. We are entering the peer group of Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines as an investment destination. Thailand, despite a month long siege of the capital, attracted more FDI than we did last year. Indonesia and Vietnam far outperform us, not as a statistical blip but consistently. Soon we shall have difficulty keeping up with The Philippines. This, I believe, is called relegation. If we take into account FDI outflow, the picture is even more interesting. Last year we received US$1.38 billion (RM4.40 billion) in investments but US$ 8.04 billion flowed out. We are the only country in Southeast Asia which has suffered nett FDI outflow. I am not against outward investment. It can be a good thing for the country. But an imbalance on this scale indicates capital flight, not mere investment overseas.
Without a doubt, Malaysia is slipping. Billions have been looted from this country, and billions more are being siphoned out as our entire political structure crumbles. Yet we are gathered here in comfort, in a country that still seems to ‘work.’ Most of the time. This is due less to good management than to the extraordinary wealth of this country. You were born into a country of immense resources both natural and cultural and social. We have been wearing down this advantage with mismanagement and corruption. With lies, tall tales and theft. We have a political class unwilling or unable to address the central issue of the day because they have grown fat and comfortable with a system built on lies and theft. It is easy to fall into the lull caused by the combination of whatever wealth has not been plundered and removed and political class that lives in a bubble of sycophancy.
I urge you not to fall into that complacency. It is time to wake up. That waking up can begin here, right here, at this conference. Not tomorrow or the day after but today. So let me, as I have the honour of opening this conference, suggest the following:
Overcome the urge to have our hopes for the future endorsed by the Prime Minister. He will have retired, and I’ll be long gone when your future arrives. The shape of your future is being determined now.
Resist the temptation to say “in line with” when we do something. Your projects, believe it or not, don’t have to be in line with any government campaign for them to be meaningful. You don’t need to polish anyone’s apple. Just get on with what you plan to do.
Do not put a lid on certain issues as “sensitive” because someone said they are. Or it is against the Social Contract. Or it is “politicisation”. You don’t need to have your conversation delimited by the hyper-sensitive among us. Sensitivity is often a club people use to hit each other with. Reasoned discussion of contentious issues builds understanding and trust. Test this idea.
It’s not “uber-liberal” to ask for an end to having politics, economic policy, education policy and everything and the kitchen sink determined by race. It’s called growing up. Go look up “liberal” in a dictionary.
Please resist the temptation to say Salam 1 Malaysia, or Salam Vision 2020 or Salam Malaysia Boleh, or anything like that. Not even when you are reading the news. It’s embarrassing. I think it’s OK to say plain old salam the way the Holy Prophet did, wishing peace unto all humanity. You say you want to “promote intellectual discourse.” I take that to mean you want to have reasonable, thought-through and critical discussions, and slogans are the enemy of thought. Banish them.
Don’t let the politicians you have invited here talk down to you. Don’t let them tell you how bright and “exuberant” you are, that you are the future of the nation, etc. If you close your eyes and flow with their flattery you have safely joined the caravan, a caravan taking the nation down a sink hole. If they tell you the future is in your hands kindly request that they hand that future over first. Ask them how come the youngest member of our cabinet is 45 and is full of discredited hacks? Our Merdeka cabinet had an average age below thirty. You’re not the first generation to be bright. Mine wasn’t too stupid. But you could be the first generation of students and young graduates in fifty years to push this nation through a major transformation. And it is a transformation we need desperately.
You will be told that much is expected of you, much has been given to you, and so forth. This is all true. Actually much has also been stolen from you. Over the last twenty five years, much of the immense wealth generated by our productive people and our vast resources has been looted. This was supposed to have been your patrimony. The uncomplicated sense of belonging fully, wholeheartedly, unreservedly, to this country, in all it diversity, that has been taken from you...
Our sense of ourselves as Malaysians, a free and united people, has been replaced by a tale of racial strife and resentment that continues to haunt us. The thing is, this tale is false.
The most precious thing you have been deprived of has been your history. Someone of my generation finds it hard to describe what must seem like a completely different country to you now. Malaysia was not born in strife but in unity. Our independence was achieved through a demonstration of unity by the people in supporting a multiracial government led by Tengku Abdul Rahman. That show of unity, demonstrated first through the municipal elections of 1952 and then through the Alliance’s landslide victory in the elections of 1955, showed that the people of Malaya were united in wanting their freedom.
We surprised the British, who thought we could not do this.
Today we are no longer as united as we were then. We are also less free. I don’t think this is a coincidence. It takes free people to have the psychological strength to overcome the confines of a racialised worldview. It takes free people to overcome those politicians bent on hanging on to power gained by racialising every feature of our life including our football teams.
Hence while you are at this conference, let me argue, that as an absolute minimum, we should call for the repeal of unjust and much abused Acts which are reversals of freedoms that we won at Merdeka.
I ask you in joining me in calling for the repeal of the ISA and the OSA. These draconian laws have been used, more often than not, as political tools rather than instruments of national security. They create a climate of fear. These days there is a trend among right wing nationalist groups to identify the ISA with the defence of Malay rights. This is a self-inflicted insult on Malay rights. As if our Constitutional protections needed draconian laws to enforce them. I wish they were as zealous in defending our right not to be robbed by a corrupt ruling elite. We don’t seem to be applying the law of the land there, let alone the ISA.
I ask you to join me in calling for the repeal of the Printing and Publications Act, and above all, the Universities and Colleges Act. I don’t see how you can pursue your student activism with such freedom and support in the UK and Eire while forgetting that your brethren at home are deprived of their basic rights of association and expression by the UCA. The UCA has done immense harm in dumbing down our universities.
We must have freedom as guaranteed under our Constitution... Freedom to assemble, associate, speak, write, move. This is basic. Even on matters of race and even on religious matters we should be able to speak freely, and we shall educate each other.
It is time to realise the dream of Dato’ Onn and the spirit of the Alliance, of Tunku Abdul Rahman. That dream was one of unity and a single Malaysian people. They went as far as they could with it in their time. Instead of taking on the torch we have reversed course. The next step for us as a country is to move beyond the infancy of race-based parties to a non-racial party system. Our race-based party system is the key political reason why we are a sick country, declining before our own eyes, with money fleeing and people telling their children not to come home after their studies.
So let us try to take 1 Malaysia seriously. Millions have been spent putting up billboards and adding the term to every conceivable thing. We even have cuti-cuti 1 Malaysia. Can’t take a normal holiday anymore.
This is all fine. Now let us see if it means anything. Let us see the Government of the day lead by example. 1 Malaysia is empty because it is propagated by a Government that promotes the racially-based party system that is the chief cause of our inability to grow up in our race relations. Our inability to grow up in our race relations is the chief reason why investors, and we ourselves, no longer have confidence in our economy. The reasons why we are behind Maldives in football, and behind the Philippines in FDI, are linked.
So let us take 1 Malaysia seriously, and convert Barisan Nasional into a party open to all citizens. Let it be a multiracial party open to direct membership. PR will be forced to do the same or be left behind the times. Then we shall have the vehicles for a two party, non-race-based system.
If Umno, MIC or MCA are afraid of losing supporters, let them get their members to join this new multiracial party. PR should do the same. Nobody need feel left out. Umno members can join en masse. The Hainanese Kopitiam Association can join whichever party they want, or both parties en masse if they like. We can maintain our cherished civil associations, however we choose to associate. But we drop all communalism when we compete for the ballot. When our candidates stand for Elections, let them ever after stand only as Malaysians, better or worse.
-- The world is a dangerous place not because of people who do evil, but because of good people who look on and do nothing about it. -- Albert Einstein
History, and the 8 o’clock news, are written by the victors. In recent years the government’s monopoly of the media has been destroyed by the technology revolution.
You could say I was also a member of the UKEC. Well I was, except that belonged to the predecessor of the UKEC by more than fifty years, The Malayan Students Union of the UK and Eire. I led this organisation in 1958/59. I was then a student of Queen’s University at Belfast, in a rather cooler climate than Kota Bharu’s.
Your invitation to participate in the MSLS was prefaced by an essay which calls for an intellectually informed activism. I congratulate you on this. The Youth of today, you note, “will chart the future of Malaysia.” You say you “no longer want to be ignored and leave the future of our Malaysia at the hands of the current generation.” You “want to grab the bull by the horns... and have a say in where we go as a society and as a nation.”I feel the same, actually. A lot of Malaysians feel the same. They are tired of being ignored and talked down to by swaggering mediocrities.
You are right. The present generation in power has let Malaysia down.
But also you cite two things as testimony of the importance of youth and of student activism to this country, the election results of 2008 and “the Prime Minister’s acknowledgement of the role of youth in the development of the country.”
So perhaps you are a little way yet from thinking for yourselves. The first step in “grabbing the bull by the horns” is not to required the endorsement of the Prime Minister, or any Minister, for your activism.
Politicians are not your parents. They are your servants. You don’t need a government slogan coined by a foreign PR agency to wrap your project in. You just go ahead and do it.
When I was a student our newly formed country was already a leader in the postcolonial world. We were sought out as a leader in the Afro-Asian Conference which inaugurated the Non-Aligned Movement and the G-77. The Afro-Asian movement was led by such luminaries as Zhou En-lai, Nehru, Kwame Nkrumah, Soekarno. Malaysians were seen as moderate leaders capable of mediating between these more radical leaders and the West. We were known for our moderation, good sense and reliability.
We were a leader in the Islamic world as ourselves and as we were, without our leaders having to put up false displays of piety. His memory has been scrubbed out quite systematically from our national consciousness, so you might not know this or much else about him, but it was Tengku Abdul Rahman who established our leadership in the Islamic world by coming up with the idea of the OIC and making it happen.
Under his leadership Malaysia led the way in taking up the anti-apartheid cause in the Commonwealth and in the United Nations, resulting in South Africa’s expulsion from these bodies.
Here was a man at ease with himself, made it a policy goal that Malaysia be “a happy country”. He loved sport and encouraged sporting achievement among Malaysians. He was owner of many a fine race horse.
He called a press conference and had a beer with his stewards when his horse won at the Melbourne Cup. He had nothing to hide because his great integrity in service was clear to all. Now we have religious and moral hypocrites who cheat, lie and steal in office but never have a drink, who propagate an ideologically shackled education system for all Malaysians while they send their own kids to elite academies in the West.
Speaking of football. You’re too young to have experienced the Merdeka Cup, which Tunku started. We had a respectable side in the sixties and seventies. Teams from across Asia would come to play in Kuala Lumpur. Teams such as South Korea and Japan, whom we defeated routinely. We were one of the better sides in Asia. We won the Bronze medal at the Asian games in 1974 and qualified for the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Today our FIFA ranking is 157 out of 203 countries. That puts us in the lowest quartile, below Maldives (149), the smallest country in Asia, with just 400,000 people living about 1.5 metres above sea level who have to worry that their country may soon be swallowed up by climate change. Here in ASEAN we are behind Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, whom we used to dominate, and our one spot above basketball-playing Philippines.
The captain of our illustrious 1970’s side was Soh Chin Aun. Arumugam, Isa Bakar, Santokh Singh, James Wong and Mokhtar Dahari were heroes whose names rolled off the tongues of our schoolchildren as they copied them on the school field. It wasn’t about being the best in the world, but about being passionate and united and devoted to the game.
It was the same in Badminton, except at one time we were the best in the world. I remember Wong Peng Soon, the first Asian to win the All-England Championship, and then just dominated it throughout the 1950. Back home every kid who played badminton in every little kampong wanted to call himself Wong Peng Soon. There was no tinge of anybody identifying themselves exclusively as Chinese, Malays, Indian. Peng Soon was a Malaysian hero. Just like each of our football heroes. Now we do not have an iota of that feeling. Where has it all gone?
I don’t think it’s mere nostalgia that that makes us think there was a time when the sun shone more brightly upon Malaysia. I bring up sport because it has been a mirror of our more general performance as nation. When we were at ease with who we were and didn’t need slogans to do our best together, we did well. When race and money entered our game, we declined. The same applies to our political and economic life.
Soon after independence we were already a highly successful developing country. We had begun the infrastructure building and diversification of our economy that would be the foundation for further growth. We carried out an import-substitution programme that stimulated local productive capacity. From there we started an infrastructure buildup which enabled a diversification of the economy leading to rapid industrialisation. We carried out effective programmes to raise rural income and help with landless with programmes such as FELDA. Our achievements in achieving growth with equity were recognised around the world. We were ahead of Our peer group in economic development were South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, and we led the pack. I remember we used to send technical consultants to advise the South Koreans.
By the lates nineties, however, we had fallen far behind this group and were competing with Thailand and Indonesia. Today, according to the latest World Investment Report, FDI into Malaysia is at about a twenty year low. We are entering the peer group of Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines as an investment destination. Thailand, despite a month long siege of the capital, attracted more FDI than we did last year. Indonesia and Vietnam far outperform us, not as a statistical blip but consistently. Soon we shall have difficulty keeping up with The Philippines. This, I believe, is called relegation. If we take into account FDI outflow, the picture is even more interesting. Last year we received US$1.38 billion (RM4.40 billion) in investments but US$ 8.04 billion flowed out. We are the only country in Southeast Asia which has suffered nett FDI outflow. I am not against outward investment. It can be a good thing for the country. But an imbalance on this scale indicates capital flight, not mere investment overseas.
Without a doubt, Malaysia is slipping. Billions have been looted from this country, and billions more are being siphoned out as our entire political structure crumbles. Yet we are gathered here in comfort, in a country that still seems to ‘work.’ Most of the time. This is due less to good management than to the extraordinary wealth of this country. You were born into a country of immense resources both natural and cultural and social. We have been wearing down this advantage with mismanagement and corruption. With lies, tall tales and theft. We have a political class unwilling or unable to address the central issue of the day because they have grown fat and comfortable with a system built on lies and theft. It is easy to fall into the lull caused by the combination of whatever wealth has not been plundered and removed and political class that lives in a bubble of sycophancy.
I urge you not to fall into that complacency. It is time to wake up. That waking up can begin here, right here, at this conference. Not tomorrow or the day after but today. So let me, as I have the honour of opening this conference, suggest the following:
Overcome the urge to have our hopes for the future endorsed by the Prime Minister. He will have retired, and I’ll be long gone when your future arrives. The shape of your future is being determined now.
Resist the temptation to say “in line with” when we do something. Your projects, believe it or not, don’t have to be in line with any government campaign for them to be meaningful. You don’t need to polish anyone’s apple. Just get on with what you plan to do.
Do not put a lid on certain issues as “sensitive” because someone said they are. Or it is against the Social Contract. Or it is “politicisation”. You don’t need to have your conversation delimited by the hyper-sensitive among us. Sensitivity is often a club people use to hit each other with. Reasoned discussion of contentious issues builds understanding and trust. Test this idea.
It’s not “uber-liberal” to ask for an end to having politics, economic policy, education policy and everything and the kitchen sink determined by race. It’s called growing up. Go look up “liberal” in a dictionary.
Please resist the temptation to say Salam 1 Malaysia, or Salam Vision 2020 or Salam Malaysia Boleh, or anything like that. Not even when you are reading the news. It’s embarrassing. I think it’s OK to say plain old salam the way the Holy Prophet did, wishing peace unto all humanity. You say you want to “promote intellectual discourse.” I take that to mean you want to have reasonable, thought-through and critical discussions, and slogans are the enemy of thought. Banish them.
Don’t let the politicians you have invited here talk down to you. Don’t let them tell you how bright and “exuberant” you are, that you are the future of the nation, etc. If you close your eyes and flow with their flattery you have safely joined the caravan, a caravan taking the nation down a sink hole. If they tell you the future is in your hands kindly request that they hand that future over first. Ask them how come the youngest member of our cabinet is 45 and is full of discredited hacks? Our Merdeka cabinet had an average age below thirty. You’re not the first generation to be bright. Mine wasn’t too stupid. But you could be the first generation of students and young graduates in fifty years to push this nation through a major transformation. And it is a transformation we need desperately.
You will be told that much is expected of you, much has been given to you, and so forth. This is all true. Actually much has also been stolen from you. Over the last twenty five years, much of the immense wealth generated by our productive people and our vast resources has been looted. This was supposed to have been your patrimony. The uncomplicated sense of belonging fully, wholeheartedly, unreservedly, to this country, in all it diversity, that has been taken from you...
Our sense of ourselves as Malaysians, a free and united people, has been replaced by a tale of racial strife and resentment that continues to haunt us. The thing is, this tale is false.
The most precious thing you have been deprived of has been your history. Someone of my generation finds it hard to describe what must seem like a completely different country to you now. Malaysia was not born in strife but in unity. Our independence was achieved through a demonstration of unity by the people in supporting a multiracial government led by Tengku Abdul Rahman. That show of unity, demonstrated first through the municipal elections of 1952 and then through the Alliance’s landslide victory in the elections of 1955, showed that the people of Malaya were united in wanting their freedom.
We surprised the British, who thought we could not do this.
Today we are no longer as united as we were then. We are also less free. I don’t think this is a coincidence. It takes free people to have the psychological strength to overcome the confines of a racialised worldview. It takes free people to overcome those politicians bent on hanging on to power gained by racialising every feature of our life including our football teams.
Hence while you are at this conference, let me argue, that as an absolute minimum, we should call for the repeal of unjust and much abused Acts which are reversals of freedoms that we won at Merdeka.
I ask you in joining me in calling for the repeal of the ISA and the OSA. These draconian laws have been used, more often than not, as political tools rather than instruments of national security. They create a climate of fear. These days there is a trend among right wing nationalist groups to identify the ISA with the defence of Malay rights. This is a self-inflicted insult on Malay rights. As if our Constitutional protections needed draconian laws to enforce them. I wish they were as zealous in defending our right not to be robbed by a corrupt ruling elite. We don’t seem to be applying the law of the land there, let alone the ISA.
I ask you to join me in calling for the repeal of the Printing and Publications Act, and above all, the Universities and Colleges Act. I don’t see how you can pursue your student activism with such freedom and support in the UK and Eire while forgetting that your brethren at home are deprived of their basic rights of association and expression by the UCA. The UCA has done immense harm in dumbing down our universities.
We must have freedom as guaranteed under our Constitution... Freedom to assemble, associate, speak, write, move. This is basic. Even on matters of race and even on religious matters we should be able to speak freely, and we shall educate each other.
It is time to realise the dream of Dato’ Onn and the spirit of the Alliance, of Tunku Abdul Rahman. That dream was one of unity and a single Malaysian people. They went as far as they could with it in their time. Instead of taking on the torch we have reversed course. The next step for us as a country is to move beyond the infancy of race-based parties to a non-racial party system. Our race-based party system is the key political reason why we are a sick country, declining before our own eyes, with money fleeing and people telling their children not to come home after their studies.
So let us try to take 1 Malaysia seriously. Millions have been spent putting up billboards and adding the term to every conceivable thing. We even have cuti-cuti 1 Malaysia. Can’t take a normal holiday anymore.
This is all fine. Now let us see if it means anything. Let us see the Government of the day lead by example. 1 Malaysia is empty because it is propagated by a Government that promotes the racially-based party system that is the chief cause of our inability to grow up in our race relations. Our inability to grow up in our race relations is the chief reason why investors, and we ourselves, no longer have confidence in our economy. The reasons why we are behind Maldives in football, and behind the Philippines in FDI, are linked.
So let us take 1 Malaysia seriously, and convert Barisan Nasional into a party open to all citizens. Let it be a multiracial party open to direct membership. PR will be forced to do the same or be left behind the times. Then we shall have the vehicles for a two party, non-race-based system.
If Umno, MIC or MCA are afraid of losing supporters, let them get their members to join this new multiracial party. PR should do the same. Nobody need feel left out. Umno members can join en masse. The Hainanese Kopitiam Association can join whichever party they want, or both parties en masse if they like. We can maintain our cherished civil associations, however we choose to associate. But we drop all communalism when we compete for the ballot. When our candidates stand for Elections, let them ever after stand only as Malaysians, better or worse.
-- The world is a dangerous place not because of people who do evil, but because of good people who look on and do nothing about it. -- Albert Einstein
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Christian Leaders Led to Their Slaughter
Bishop Paul Tan says he is displeased and disgusted with the outcome of the meeting between PM and Christian leaders over the Utusan row. He calls the entire episode an Umno orchestration.
KUALA LUMPUR: Without mincing his words, a Catholic bishop criticised his fellow Christian leaders for allowing themselves to be used by the government to “please the other side”.
Instead of telling Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak the truth, Bishop Paul Tan of the Malacca-Johor diocese said the Christian leaders had become like “sheep being led to their slaughter.”
Commenting on the news reports on the meeting between Najib and the Christian leaders, led by the Malaysian Christian Federation (MCF) chairman Bishop Ng Moon Hing yesterday, Tan told FMT that he was extremely disappointed with the outcome.
“I was not at the meeting, so I don’t know what transpired and whether the newspapers reported the entire discussion. But if the news reports are true, then I am displeased and disgusted,” he said.
The luncheon meeting was held amid the raging controversy surrounding a Utusan Malaysia report which alleged that a Christian coup was in the making, with Christian leaders and DAP colluding to undermine the position of Islam.
‘Umno agenda to rake in votes’
Tan, 71, pointed out that since Utusan was owned by Umno, the daily would not have published the report without an endorsement from the party led by Najib.
The bishop also claimed that it was part of an Umno agenda to rake in Muslim votes in the coming general election.
“Utusan’s Christian bashing, the big feature on the Pembela demonstration at the Putrajaya mosque about the 10-point plan and now the so-called conspiracy are purely an Umno agenda prior to our general election which is imminent.
“This agenda is to unite the Malays and for Umno to be seen as the bigger and better champion of Islam than PAS whose main claim to fame is that it is an Islamic party,” he said.
“Therefore, the Christian bashing, exaggerations and fiction demonising us are for a purpose: to enhance the siege mentality of the Malays and make them cleave to Umno to ‘protect’ Islam,” he added.
According to Tan, the chronology of events had lent credence to the claim that the entire episode smacked of orchestration for the election.
“Utusan publishes what it does, Pembela and Perkasa lodge police reports premised on fiction, but not one police report from our Christian leaders and so the police investigate the fiction published by Utusan. The police can only investigate based on a police report, not on newspaper cuttings.
“Nothing for a while from the home minister and Najib only asks for calm. Then Najib meets first with Muslims groups to calm them and states that Umno will always defend Islam, the Federal Constitution etc. The media were called and featured the meeting,” he said.
“Surely by then, our Christian leaders would have known that this issue was clearly manipulated and that the media would be present and regardless of what our leaders said (at the meeting), it would end up on the same trajectory: Islam safeguarded and the Christians agree to this.
“Why did the Christian leaders walk into that clear booby trap? Why didn’t they have a clear statement printed out for the press, saying what they wanted the meeting to be and what their own demands were, regardless of Najib’s spin,” he added.
Double standard
Tan, who is also the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Malaysia, said the government always practised double standard – one set of rules for Malay/Muslims, and another for the rest.
Responding to a question, the hard-hitting Jesuit-trained prelate, who once served in Rome, also dismissed Najib’s 1Malaysia concept as nothing more than deceit.
“All that has happened shows that the 1Malaysia concept is a bluff. We played the usual and now the worse – racial and religious bigotry,” he said.
Asked if he agreed with Utusan only being slapped with a reprimand letter, when other publications in the past, such as the Sarawak Tribune, were dealt a lethal blow, Tan said the Umno paper should not be spared the rod.
“Action should be taken against Utusan and the two ministers who supported it in the same way they suspended in the beginning our Catholic ‘Herald’ just for using the word ‘Allah’ which, in fact, is not the property of Islam.
“I am absolutely surprised that the Christian leaders who were there to see our PM appeared all of a sudden tame and conciliatory and did not demand justice be done, i.e., in the same way, the government dealt with the other non-Malay/Muslim papers. Then again, perhaps, the press did not publish everything (on the meeting),” he added.
Sarawak Tribune was forced to cease operations in 2006, when the government clamped down on the daily for publishing offensive caricatures of Prophet Muhammad.
In a related development, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said there was “some basis” to the Utusan report.
Speaking to the press, he said this was in view of new evidence provided in a police report lodged in Penang today.
Furthermore, he added, Utusan’s editor-in-chief Aziz Ishak’s explanation to the home ministry was similar to the contents of the police report.
KUALA LUMPUR: Without mincing his words, a Catholic bishop criticised his fellow Christian leaders for allowing themselves to be used by the government to “please the other side”.
Instead of telling Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak the truth, Bishop Paul Tan of the Malacca-Johor diocese said the Christian leaders had become like “sheep being led to their slaughter.”
Commenting on the news reports on the meeting between Najib and the Christian leaders, led by the Malaysian Christian Federation (MCF) chairman Bishop Ng Moon Hing yesterday, Tan told FMT that he was extremely disappointed with the outcome.
“I was not at the meeting, so I don’t know what transpired and whether the newspapers reported the entire discussion. But if the news reports are true, then I am displeased and disgusted,” he said.
The luncheon meeting was held amid the raging controversy surrounding a Utusan Malaysia report which alleged that a Christian coup was in the making, with Christian leaders and DAP colluding to undermine the position of Islam.
‘Umno agenda to rake in votes’
Tan, 71, pointed out that since Utusan was owned by Umno, the daily would not have published the report without an endorsement from the party led by Najib.
The bishop also claimed that it was part of an Umno agenda to rake in Muslim votes in the coming general election.
“Utusan’s Christian bashing, the big feature on the Pembela demonstration at the Putrajaya mosque about the 10-point plan and now the so-called conspiracy are purely an Umno agenda prior to our general election which is imminent.
“This agenda is to unite the Malays and for Umno to be seen as the bigger and better champion of Islam than PAS whose main claim to fame is that it is an Islamic party,” he said.
“Therefore, the Christian bashing, exaggerations and fiction demonising us are for a purpose: to enhance the siege mentality of the Malays and make them cleave to Umno to ‘protect’ Islam,” he added.
According to Tan, the chronology of events had lent credence to the claim that the entire episode smacked of orchestration for the election.
“Utusan publishes what it does, Pembela and Perkasa lodge police reports premised on fiction, but not one police report from our Christian leaders and so the police investigate the fiction published by Utusan. The police can only investigate based on a police report, not on newspaper cuttings.
“Nothing for a while from the home minister and Najib only asks for calm. Then Najib meets first with Muslims groups to calm them and states that Umno will always defend Islam, the Federal Constitution etc. The media were called and featured the meeting,” he said.
“Surely by then, our Christian leaders would have known that this issue was clearly manipulated and that the media would be present and regardless of what our leaders said (at the meeting), it would end up on the same trajectory: Islam safeguarded and the Christians agree to this.
“Why did the Christian leaders walk into that clear booby trap? Why didn’t they have a clear statement printed out for the press, saying what they wanted the meeting to be and what their own demands were, regardless of Najib’s spin,” he added.
Double standard
Tan, who is also the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Malaysia, said the government always practised double standard – one set of rules for Malay/Muslims, and another for the rest.
Responding to a question, the hard-hitting Jesuit-trained prelate, who once served in Rome, also dismissed Najib’s 1Malaysia concept as nothing more than deceit.
“All that has happened shows that the 1Malaysia concept is a bluff. We played the usual and now the worse – racial and religious bigotry,” he said.
Asked if he agreed with Utusan only being slapped with a reprimand letter, when other publications in the past, such as the Sarawak Tribune, were dealt a lethal blow, Tan said the Umno paper should not be spared the rod.
“Action should be taken against Utusan and the two ministers who supported it in the same way they suspended in the beginning our Catholic ‘Herald’ just for using the word ‘Allah’ which, in fact, is not the property of Islam.
“I am absolutely surprised that the Christian leaders who were there to see our PM appeared all of a sudden tame and conciliatory and did not demand justice be done, i.e., in the same way, the government dealt with the other non-Malay/Muslim papers. Then again, perhaps, the press did not publish everything (on the meeting),” he added.
Sarawak Tribune was forced to cease operations in 2006, when the government clamped down on the daily for publishing offensive caricatures of Prophet Muhammad.
In a related development, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said there was “some basis” to the Utusan report.
Speaking to the press, he said this was in view of new evidence provided in a police report lodged in Penang today.
Furthermore, he added, Utusan’s editor-in-chief Aziz Ishak’s explanation to the home ministry was similar to the contents of the police report.
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