“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”
“Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace,
for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man." “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
Through the Hindraf looking glass by Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
Sunday, May 27, 2012
They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer - and they don't want explanations that do not give them that. - Thomas Sowell (Dismantling America)
COMMENT Some
people, Indians mostly, ask me, why I bother writing about Hindraf? I
realise this question points more to a particular class mindset and
political alliance allegiance rather than to any genuine interest on the
part of the persons asking the question. Hindraf's latest strategic move to field candidates
in Pakatan Rakyat-controlled areas has resulted in the usual flame war
between Hindraf and Pakatan proxies with accusations of racism and
mandore-ism as a convenient stand in for any rational discussion and of
course that P Uthayakumar has been bought over by Umno. I'll leave the
rumour-mongering to the experts.
I make it a point to touch base
with my favourite status quo agitators via the Human Rights Party (HRP)
website, and I suggest that anyone interested in learning more about
the entity that supposedly speaks for ‘working class' Indians and the
issues they face should make it a point to look up this site to discover
for themselves how Hindraf and the HRP (at this point in time the two
are interchangeable) view the Malaysian political and social landscapes. There, I'm known as a "classical pseudo [multiracial] Indian" - I
assume the writer meant "classic" - "who will never be chief of Navy but
calls Hindraf racist".
The fact that I never once called Hindraf
racist, in fact I defended Hindraf against such allegations in every
one of my comment pieces, escaped the writer of the piece but seeing as
how the writer chose only to publish a snippet of my comment piece and a
paltry one Malaysiakini comment against the piece, is just
further evidence of how Hindraf intentionally builds rhetorical straw
men in lieu of any rational discussion. Many Pakatan supporters
are aghast that Uthayakumar and Hindraf are choosing to exercise their
democratic right by fielding candidates in the upcoming general election
or rather are aghast that Hindraf is fielding candidates against
Pakatan, which just goes to show you that for some Pakatan supporters
democracy is a one-way street, that street being the way to Putrajaya
and the banishment of Umno.
Meanwhile,
because of their lack of traction with Umno, Hindraf for whatever
reason is hoping that Pakatan-controlled areas would be more amenable to
their particular brand of politics.
This of course is amusing
because they have labelled Pakatan just as racist and vile as Umno-BN
but yet believe they stand a better chance of gaining some support from
whatever racial mix residing in those areas. And by advocating
that Indians abstain from voting ("it's an option") even if they
(Hindraf) lose, either Umno (with a proven record of systemic
discrimination) or Pakatan (which according to Hindraf is no better)
would win. So what exactly is the game plan here? A throwback to old racial formula
However
what is missing from the polemics from both sides is the
acknowledgement of the differing political ideologies underpinning this
political and racial feud. I would argue that Hindraf is a
throwback to the old racial formula that BN continues to perpetuate.
Although Hindraf/HRP and its adherents claim to speak for all
Malaysians, a cursory glance at their propaganda organs or
representatives tells another story.
And the story focuses on
the disenfranchisement of the Indian community mixed up with constant
polemical references to the "bi-racial (1Malaysia) Malay and Chinese",
"others" who perpetuate the systemic discrimination that Indians face in
Malaysia. Those of us who are critical of the movement are
labelled as "mandores" or "elites" (if Indians) who did nothing for the
community since independence or thereabouts, or just plain racists, for
non-Indians.
This kind of slagging off is common whenever any critical discussion of Hindraf occurs. The comments section in Malaysiakini
is filled with this kind of nonsense with the term "hero" used to
describe those that Hindraf supporters have decided "did nothing" for
the Indian community when an examination of a post-colonial, Indian
community reveals a complex narrative poisoned with systemic
discrimination but also a period of vibrant growth sustained mainly by
the efforts of the community itself.
These racial taunts or an
appeal to emotions coupled with Hindraf's own ‘demands' for the Indian
community and the response they hope to get (this last bit is the
important part of the equation), is a fairly common strain of minority
groupthink found across the world. Thomas Sowell* gives a
conservative perspective of the American experience in ‘Black Rednecks
and White Liberals', the passage which I reproduce here:
"The
general orientation of white liberals has been one of 'What can we do
for them?' What blacks can do for themselves has not only been of lesser
interest, much of what blacks have in fact already done for themselves
has been overshadowed by liberal attempts to get them special
dispensations - whether affirmative action, reparations for slavery, or
other race-based benefits - even when the net effect of these has been
much less than the effects of blacks' own self-advancement."
And
let's not forget that Hindraf claims to represent ‘working class'
Indians, which is not as convenient as it first seems. If the Malay
demographic is changing because of external influences, I assure you the
same is happening to the Indian/Hindu demographic. So while
Hindraf's agenda may not be racist but rather a restatement of a
political ideology (which failed us mainly because of the corruption of
Umno and its partners) we as a nation subscribed to pre-Pakatan, this
does not mean that the movement itself is free from racist members. You
want to see the worse of Malaysians, just read the flame wars concerning
Hindraf.
So while I dismiss Hindraf's claims of a class-based
approach to the ‘Indian issue' as disingenuous since nothing in their
rhetoric or deeds backs up this claim, I don't think anyone should
dismiss their race-based approach as racist simply because the general
orientation of oppositional politics has shifted from that of a
race-based approach to a supposed class-based ethos. So how does Pakatan deal with Hindraf?
Hindraf is getting nowhere with BN. The possible consequences of
blackmailing Pakatan could be either Hindraf does manage to get
representation in Parliament or deny Pakatan that chance, thereby
proving their political worth to BN. If the outcome is the former, how
does Hindraf intend to work with political parties which it has labelled
as racists? Depending on the outcome of the elections, in the
wet dreams of Hindraf supporters, they believe Hindraf in Parliament
could be kingmakers, but the reality is they would probably end up as
whipping boys.
The question is, if Hindraf manages to do for the
Indian community (and their best bet for the time being is the federal
reach of Umno) what MIC (and according to Hindraf, everyone else) has
failed to do, what then are the ramifications to the so-called
multiracial platform that Pakatan supporters subscribe to? Understand now, that Hindraf is speaking the same race-based language as
Umno. When Uthayakumar laments the fact that Pakatan won't give them
the seats they need even though it is less then MIC, it demonstrates
that for some, certainly for Hindraf, Pakatan is merely a stand-in for
BN. In other words for some, Pakatan speaks the same language as BN but
merely uses a different dialect.
And because the DAP has done
such a sterling job presenting itself as a multiracial party, you still
have large swathes of the non-Chinese voting population sceptical of the
inclusiveness of the DAP. Make no mistake, I think Pakatan and
its partners have been doing the best job that they can by pushing their
class-based agenda but at the end of the day all that effort has been
hampered by the malfeasances of the federal government and their own
internal bickering. And the lure of a race-based solutions to
problems is hypnotic. It makes everything easier when you can come up
with formulas that appeases various communities but would seem arbitrary
in any other context.
And for years this worked for us. For
years we got the government we deserved embroiled in our own petty
communal concerns and by the time we realised we deserved something
better, we were too deep in the rabbit hole of our own racial
preoccupations. So
how does Pakatan deal with Hindraf? The glib answer would be, hope they
aren't as influential as they seem to think they are amongst the voting
Indian population.
It's difficult to claim the moral high ground
when the reality is that nearly every issue be it education, the
economy or culture is still viewed through a racial/religious lens but
neatly camouflaged in the ‘new' multicultural/racial spin of Pakatan.
The only way to render any type of race-based philosophy obsolete is to
ensure that the class-based approach is not only done but seen to be
done and so far either because of lack of political will or being
sidetracked by the machinations of Umno or both, Pakatan has a lot more
to do in fulfilling this expectation.
*Anyone familiar with the
works of Sowell would be having a good chuckle seeing as how I'm quoting
him in a piece sympathetic to class-based solutions to problems.Malaysiakini
This may be the most important film in Middle East politics in the history of the region. Most of the rhetoric constructed against Israel speaking about "aggression" is made laughable the moment you see what they face in May and early June of 1967. This film spends enough time on the critical weeks before the war, from the time the Soviet Union (admitting in the film) tried to exploit the strife as an opportunity to showcase Soviet weapons and political support.
Once the Soviets started the ball rolling, the Arab leaders whipped the citizens in to blood-lust frenzy for war, while Israel literally tried everything to avoid war.Once the first air strike delivered Israel from this threat, never again could such a threat be taken as seriously,
The ‘Arab Spring’ shows that democratic process is useless without democratic culture. A
few weeks ago, amid the “Arab Spring” giddiness, a Shiite mosque opened
in Cairo. This was big news. Among Egypt’s 80 million people, there are
only a few thousand Shiites. It’s a 90 percent Sunni country, with even
Christians vastly outnumbering the Shia. So, in their euphoria over the
mosque’s inauguration, Shiite clerics heralded this Husseiniya (as
Shiite mosques are known) as a symbol of rapprochement. The mosque would
bridge the sectarian divide: a Shia center in this bustling Sunni city,
yet a house of worship, thus emphasizing what unites rather than
divides Muslims in one of Islam’s most important nations.
Such stories were once the hallmark of the Arab Spring narrative.
“Democracy” was in the air. The corrupt, cancerous, pro-American
dictator was gone. With their yearning hearts now sated by freedom,
Egyptians would pull together, the light of liberty guiding them to
prosperity.
The stories are different now. The Husseiniya was shut down
last week. Yesterday’s euphoria is melting into today’s harsh reality.
In Cairo, home to the Muslim Brotherhood and the sharia jurists of
ancient Al-Azhar University, “democracy” has meant the rise of Sunni
supremacists. Turns out they don’t do bridge-building. Their tightening
grip has translated into brutalizing dhimmitude for Christians and
increasing intolerance of Shiism — which the Sunni leaders perceive less
as Islam than as apostasy, an offense that sharia counts as more
grievous than treason.
News of the mosque’s demise arrived shortly after a report entitled “Neocons vs. Islamophobes” by the leftist e-magazine Salon.
Foreign-policy correspondent Jordan Michael Smith was good enough to
appoint me leader of “what might be called the ‘to-hell-with-democracy’
strain of thought” in “the American conservative movement.” And if
anything needs an Arab Spring, it must be the American conservative
movement. We Islamophobes haven’t even had an election yet, much less
gotten one of those mellifluous sharia-constitutions the State
Department likes to write for its emerging “democracies,” and yet here I
am the leader! And a “relentless” leader, too — scalding the Muslim
Brotherhood on behalf of a cadre that allegedly includes such luminaries
as John Bolton, Michele Bachmann, and Frank Gaffney.
In our struggle “to
define the Republican response to the increased power of political
Islam,” we are said to be “vying” with “another faction among the
right-wing that is equally powerful . . . the neoconservatives.”
Counting among their number such heavyweights as GOP senators John
McCain and Lindsey Graham, they are portrayed as “rather admirably
insisting that the Muslim Brotherhood be given a chance.” After the
tumultuous Bush years, my friends Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, and
Bill Kristol must be having a good laugh: It may have taken a motley
crew of despicable Islamophobes, but the Left has suddenly decided that
neocons may not be the root of all evil after all.
For all its pretensions to sober analysis, the Salon
hit piece usefully demonstrates how nonsensical policy debates about
the Arab Spring have become. There is no common understanding of basic
terms. “Islamophobia” was coined by the Muslim Brotherhood and
seamlessly adopted by its Western confederates. Taken literally, the
word would mean “irrational fear of Islam” — and thus it would rarely
need to be spoken, Islamic supremacists having given us much to fear
quite rationally. But in common parlance, to sneer “Islamophobe” is like
what sneering “neocon” has hitherto been: lefty demagoguery — in this
case, the belittling of anyone who is critical of Islam and its sharia
framework, regardless of how colorable the critique.
Most people know an insult when they hear one. When it is rank
character assassination posing as argument, people of good will tune it
out. More consequential, though, is the degrading of the term
“democracy.” As applied to the “Islamophobes,” Mr. Smith’s invocation of
“democracy” — as in, to hell with it — is an outright perversion. Like
the giants of neoconservatism, critics of Islamic supremacism (what Salon
gently calls “political Islam”) are lovers of democracy. We believe the
world would be a better place if every country adopted it. We agree the
United States ought to be its promotional beacon. But that is mainly
because when we speak of “democracy,” we mean American democracy.
That is a culture of liberty so deeply rooted in the United States that
it predated by a couple of centuries the American Revolution, the U.S.
Constitution, and the first federal elections. National Review
Manji scorches fatwa council's anti-Bersih edict By Hazlan Zakaria
Controversial Uganda-born Canadian author Irshad Manji hit out at
certain muftis and clerics, including those in Malaysia's National Fatwa
Council, which she said are trying to impose their own mores and dogma
upon the populace. "Muftis, imams and clerics of various stripes
love to tell us what we are to believe; in the course of telling us
this, they also want us to adopt a particular identity.
"What
they will never tell us is that they expect us to adopt their
identity," said the 44-year-old New York University (NYU) professor in
an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. She was responding to a question on the recent National Fatwa Council
edict forbidding Muslims from taking part in certain demonstrations,
particularly targeting the Bersih 3.0 pro-electoral reform rally.
Manji argued that "good believers" cannot be expected to uncritically
submit to the religious scholars without question as the scholars
themselves too are humans and neither perfect nor divine as Allah is.
"Here's some breaking news for these muftis. You're not God. There is only one God and that job is not vacant. "Put all your fatwas out as you wish, but your fatwas do not hold
divine authority, and neither do you," said the successful author and
film-maker. Manji believes that the Quran - which she posits is
the only divine document and sole guiding light of the faith - instead
encourages Muslims not only to question but to seek out the truth on
their own and think for themselves.
Such, she claimed, was the
tradition prevalent in the heyday of Islamic civilisation until the
slide into our current situation where mullahs and ulamas claim to know
everything and dictate all to a public which is expected to obey without
question. 'They don't have humility'
"I think that if more and more Muslims understand that there is a
difference between the ulama and Allah - just as I realised at the age
of 14 that there is a difference between the madrasah and Allah - we
would be more willing to give ourselves the permission to do exactly
what the Quran asks of us, which is to think for ourselves in order to
deepen our faith and realise the humility that these fatwa-flinging
mullah clearly don't have," argued the feisty Islamic reformist. Earlier this month, the National Fatwa Council declared that it is haram
(not permissible) for Muslims to participate in any gathering or
demonstration that is unproductive and is against the law or causes
disturbances in the country.
Its chairperson Abdul Shukor Husin
said the council viewed seriously this issue as some Muslims had
previously resorted to rioting during street demonstrations. The council's decision, however, was met with stringent criticism from PAS spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, wholambasted that
the body for not looking at the issue clearly, while others quoted
influential Egyptian Islamic theologian Yusuf al Qaradawi, who maintains
that rallies or actions to fight against tyranny is encouraged in Islam.
Manji
is in Malaysia to launch the Malay translation of her latest book
‘Allah, Liberty & Love'. However, her events and several speaking
engagements had to becancelled because of "security concerns", protest notes and alleged "pressure" from the authorities.
PAS
- which ironically agree with Manji's criticism of the fatwa council on
Bersih 3.0 - and several conservative Muslim NGOs have spoken outagainst her presence in Malaysia, claiming that her very liberal stance on Islam is dangerous to the faith of local Muslims.
Her first book, the international bestseller ‘The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith' has been banned in Malaysia.
As evident in her books and an Emmy-nominated PBS film, ‘Faith Without Fear',
her work mostly challenges accepted notions in Islam, in the belief
that education and the freedom to think is paramount and not the
indoctrination, which she believes is commonly practised in most
religious teachings. Malaysiakini
An undignified exit for Tunku Aziz by Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one really inflexible point of honour. - George Bernard Shaw
COMMENT
The sad fact is that Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim's role in the DAP
was merely window-dressing to project the image of this so-called
‘chauvinistic Chinese party' as a multiracial forward-thinking party. His
dignified pose symbolically completed the racial holy trinity for a
political party so long demonised as ‘racist troublemakers' bent on
destroying the fragile social contract of Malaysia.
He
presented the image of the Malay as urbane and benign so unlike the
confrontational fear-mongering ruffians who have no problem displaying
their butts to make a point only they seem capable of understanding,
which seems to be the norm these days. A Malay willing to work with
other like-minded Malaysians towards a better tomorrow. Exactly which Malay demographic Tunku Aziz was supposed to represent or attract into the DAP fold was never determined. Even
amongst urban Malays, he seemed out of touch with their reality.
Rabble-rousing was never in the Tunku's repertoire, which is exactly
what most Malays (urban or rural) who gravitate to Pakatan Rakyat seem
to relate to.
Unlike say someone like former National Union of
Journalists president Hata Wahari who experienced the regime's wrath in
an up close and personal manner, the Tunku's appointment and presence
seemed like uncomfortable reminder of a bygone political era, steeped in
gentlemanly tradition (which was anything but) whose sole duty was to
comfort the non-Malays in DAP that theirs was a party truly reflective
of the diverse nature of Malaysia. Josh Hong's adroit piece in Malaysiakini on
the man is probably the best commentary so far, but for me at least,
there's plenty of blame to go around and nobody comes out of this
looking good.
Heaping scorn on Guan Eng
Much has been made of Tunku Aziz's old-school gentleman demeanour and
he has cultivated an air of weary detachment. His was not the
gutter-level skirmishes that the DAP and Pakatan were embroiled in but
rather his own personal crusade against the establishment was
characterised by the feint and parry engagements carried out mostly in
the propaganda organs of the state. The face of the adversary
which Pakatan and their supporters stared at was not the face that Tunku
Aziz beheld. Most often his utterances of his abhorrence of
governmental malfeasances come off sounding like an exasperated parent
irritated at a wayward child.
Make
no mistake, I think it was a provocative and honourable move on Tunku
Aziz's part to become the very public Malay face of the DAP even if it
was just a symbolic gesture, but the way how he chose to depart from the
DAP makes a mockery of his protestations of honour and dignity. DAP on the other hand is nicely building a track record of public
relations ineptitude and perhaps more distressing (if you are a Pakatan
supporter committed to the ideals DAP claims to represent), a record of
being uncharitable towards dissent from within their own ranks. I
have no problem with Tunku Aziz's stand on the Bersih 3.0 rally. In
fact I know may people who agree with him. I welcome a plurality of
views within a political party or political alliance.
Although I
think that the Tunku's reasoning for objecting to the rally on the
grounds that the Bersih steering committee rejected the government's
offer of holding it at Stadium Merdeka and his views towards street
protests in general are faulty, I don't think (like some Pakatan
representatives and supporters) this is anything that warrants any kind
of censure. As you can tell, I am not a firm believer in toeing the
party line all the time.
However, following the dictates of your
conscience does not mean playing into the hands (willingly or
unwillingly) of those who only harbour malice towards the political
party you have pledge your loyalty to. The honourable, nay
dignified, avenue of expression of his dissent would be the party's own
propaganda organs or failing which the "alternative media", all the
while maintaining a dignified silence when it came to the mainstream
media. This way even though the mainstream media would have
picked up the story, the Tunku's silence (in the manner in which he
chooses to engage with the media) would have been a clear sign of where
his loyalties lay.
Instead by waging his war in the mainstream
press, by announcing his departure from the DAP on ntv7 for instance,
what Tunku Aziz has done is to ensure that whatever dignified exit he
claims to want is mired in the gutter politics and shadow-play drama
which characterises the Malaysian political landscape. By heaping scorn on DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, the tone of which is reminiscent of that emanating from Utusan Malaysia
and its ilk, one can only surmise that Tunku Aziz for whatever reason
is engaging in mischief-making for reasons I'll leave to the conspiracy
theorists to articulate.
DAP fails to play card right
Of course, all this could have been avoided if the DAP played their
cards right. Why they seem so eager to supply their enemies with
ammunition is something which has always amused me. From the
start, they should have just accepted and politely disagreed with Tunku
Aziz's stand on Bersih 3.0. They should have made it clear, especially
when it comes to highly-charged issues such as these, that there is room
for party members to express their dissent.
Understand now, the
avenues these dissenters choose to express their views in is extremely
important and what separates an honourable individual and a suspect one,
is how much thought they have put into how and when they choose to
express their dissent. If the first thing you do is run to the
propaganda organs of your party's rivals, then I question the motives of
your dissent. And even after having announced his resignation
from the party in a rather uncouth manner, the DAP continued to douse
the media bonfire with gasoline by making this rather ridiculous offer
of a think-tank job to Tunku Aziz.
To me, the offer would only
be insulting (in this context) if the person being offered the job had a
principled leg to stand but as is, the offer comes of as politically
naïve or downright repellent, even more so, when the political secretary
to Lim, Zairil Mohd Khir protests that the offer had been
"misconstrued". If the tables were turned and it was Umno doing the
"offering", nobody would give them the benefit of the doubt.
If as Zairil seems to think that Tunku Aziz was a "public intellectual" with a
valuable "global network", then perhaps he should have been handled in a
different way. Perhaps the powers-that-be at the DAP should have made
it clear they welcomed his input even though they sometimes disagreed
with it and his position as senator would be renewed.
If his
position within the party was untenable because of certain of his
ideological stances, offering him a position in a so-called think-tank
most probably aligned with the DAP reeks of the kind of political
back-scratching that Umno is very famous for. In my experience, if a man
is determined to fall on his sword, it is best to stay out of the way
of the blood spatter. The moral of the story here is that the
DAP should apply a little more common sense when dealing with dissent
from within their ranks and they should be thankful of the extreme
partisan nature of this conflict because if voters were not as polarised
as they are now and had a little objectivity to spare, some of the
actions of the DAP would not stand up to scrutiny.
As for Tunku
Abdul Aziz, he doesn't get to play the ‘honourable exit' card. His
actions in the past few days have effectively destroyed whatever bit of
myth-making was due his way.
Henceforth, what will be
disseminated by the bigots who despise DAP is the narrative of how
another Malay intellectual was ejected from the party which does not
tolerate dissent. On the other hand, supporters of DAP will always be
wary of Trojan horses within the Malay ranks of the party. And the show
goes on. Malaysiakini
Lord Ashdown, a former special forces commando, tells the story of the 'Cockleshell Heroes', who led one of the most daring and audacious commando raids of World War II. In 1942, Britain was struggling to fight back against Nazi Germany. Lacking the resources for a second front, Churchill encouraged innovative and daring new methods of combat. Enter stage left, Blondie Hasler.
With a unit of twelve Royal Marine commandos, Major Blondie Hasler believed his 'cockleshell' canoe could be effectively used in clandestine attacks on the enemy. Their brief was to navigate the most heavily defended estuary in Europe, to dodge searchlights, machine-gun posts and armed river-patrol craft 70 miles downriver, and then to blow up enemy shipping in Bordeaux harbour. Lord Ashdown recreates parts of the raid and explains how this experience was used in preparing for one of the greatest land invasions in history, D-day.
Penan incest' claim triggers anger at tabloid by Keruah Usit
ANTIDOTE Metro Ahad, a tabloid
newspaper linked to Umno through Media Prima, has raised angry calls for
a boycott, following a disturbing May 13 story alleging that unnamed
Sarawakian Penans practise incest.
In a reportheadlined Abang Kahwin Adik Sendiri
(Brother is married to his own sister), reporter Hadzlan Hassan claimed
that ‘investigations and research by the newspaper found that around 15
families in the (Ulu Baram) area live in a nomadic fashion although a
longhouse has been provided for them, and have married blood relatives,
in fact 10 couples married their own flesh and blood’.
There are several jarring details in Metro's
succinct report. Despite splashing a large photo across its homepage
with a caption "My mother is my wife, my father is my husband", it
failed to set out the name of the village or its exact location.
The
dateline reads ‘Ulu Baram’, but a photo caption mentions that the
village lies in ‘Tinja’ (presumably Tinjar, since Hadzlan filed several
other stories from the area).
The report published a photo of a
young couple with their faces digitally disguised. The caption suggests
that the couple had claimed they were married, but their faces look as
if they are related. No details were provided.
The fundamentals
of journalism were disregarded: there was no attempt to record names and
ages of couples said to be living in incest, and no explanation of Metro's source for its 'estimate' of 15 involved families.It
provided no documentation of genealogy, no interviews with the chief of
the village, academics or government officials. There was no mention of
the reporter making a police report, although incest is a crime.
Community
NGO organiser Muhim Urip has been working closely with the Penan for 15
years. He says incest has never been part of Penan culture. He was
contemptuous of Hadzlan's assertion that ‘in the local community’,
incest is ‘common’ because those ‘living in small groups as nomads had
little choice in life partners’. "That's ridiculous. Incest is
not 'common' in any nomadic hunter-gatherer community, whether in
Sarawak or worldwide," Muhim said.
"Penans marry between nomadic
groups, and often uproot themselves to live with their spouses in new
villages or in new nomadic groups.”Hadzlan has not yet replied to requests for comments. The remainder of Metro's coverage of the Penan of Baram amounted to powder puff pieces on government pledges to the Penan.
There
was effusive praise for premier Najib Abdul Razak's promise to upgrade
the decrepit Lapok Road to allow travel from Miri to parts of Baram (a
promise still unmet a year after last April's state election campaign),
and the prospects of a Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia windfall.
Another article mentions rumours that the Penan could make outsiders "disappear" in theforests. These outsiders, it said, included timber workers who made unwelcome approaches to Penan women.
This is an unrecognisable racial profile: the Penan are among the most shy, peaceful and gentle people in the country. Such
stories have certainly given greater weight to these rumours, than to
the official government report that uncovered widespread rape and sexual
abuse of Penan girls and women by loggers. The official report,
and subsequently the Penan Support Group report, exposed an atmosphere
of lawlessness: powerful timber companies are being supported and
protected by the state. Some loggers feel they can get away with rape - and they do.
Other questionable claims
Metro also suggested that incestuous marriages are one reason the Penan find it difficult to obtain a Mykad and other documentation. Another
reason, it claimed, was that ‘Indonesian Penans’ have infiltrated the
state, so the National Registration Department (NRD) is wary of
registering thousands of Penans without a Mykad. But most Penan
settlements that were established even before the formation of Malaysia
find it difficult to obtain the document.
Reports
by the Human Rights Commission state that the lack of the Mykad is
caused by poverty and unequal access to NRD staff, and is an affront to
the human rights of the Penan to obtain access to education and
healthcare.
Social media reactions in Sarawak to the incest allegations included a flurry of hundreds of angry comments condemning Metro's "racism".
Its coverage of the Penan has now stirred up another controversy, following inaccurate reporting by the Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia and the New Straits Times on the Bersih 3.0 rally on April 28.
The Metro headline
on the Penan, similar to those of its stable-mates on Bersih, may be
aimed at papering over cracks in Umno's preparations for the looming
13th general election. Umno's Sarawak BN partners are in real
danger of losing the Baram parliamentary seat, the largest in the
country, thanks to the hugely unpopular Baram Dam and allegations of
graft against the incumbent Jacob Dungau Sagan, which he has denied. International
media attention has highlighted the disastrous effects of logging and
plantations on the Penan, one of the most deprived ethnic groups in the
country. Pro-government news stories, conversely, give the impression
that the Penan are given sterling treatment, but are somehow manipulated
by outsiders.
Metro's stories on the Penan appear to have
crossed a line, and have upset Sarawakians of all races. The mainstream
media's clumsy attempts at propaganda may now make BN's hold on the
Baram parliamentary seat even more tenuous. Malaysiakini
The Spirit of Geert Wilders - A foreword to Wilders’ Marked for Death By Mark Steyn
When I was asked to write a foreword to Geert Wilders’ new book,
my first reaction, to be honest, was to pass. Mr. Wilders lives under
24/7 armed guard because significant numbers of motivated people wish to
kill him, and it seemed to me, as someone who’s attracted more than
enough homicidal attention over the years, that sharing space in these
pages was likely to lead to an uptick in my own death threats. Who needs
it? Why not just plead too crowded a schedule and suggest the author
try elsewhere? I would imagine Geert Wilders gets quite a lot of this.
And then I took a stroll in the woods, and felt vaguely ashamed at
the ease with which I was willing to hand a small victory to his
enemies. After I saw off the Islamic enforcers in my own country, their
frontman crowed to The Canadian Arab News that, even though the
Canadian Islamic Congress had struck out in three different
jurisdictions in their attempt to criminalize my writing about Islam,
the lawsuits had cost my magazine (he boasted) two million bucks, and
thereby “attained our strategic objective — to increase the cost of
publishing anti-Islamic material.” In the Netherlands, Mr. Wilders’
foes, whether murderous jihadists or the multicultural establishment,
share the same “strategic objective” — to increase the cost of
associating with him beyond that which most people are willing to bear.
It is not easy to be Geert Wilders. He has spent almost a decade in a
strange, claustrophobic, transient, and tenuous existence little
different from kidnap victims or, in his words, a political prisoner. He
is under round-the-clock guard because of explicit threats to murder
him by Muslim extremists.
Advertisement
Yet he’s the one who gets put on trial for incitement.
In 21st-century Amsterdam, you’re free to smoke marijuana and pick
out a half-naked sex partner from the front window of her shop.
And, although Mr. Wilders was eventually acquitted by his kangaroo
court, the determination to place him beyond the pale is unceasing: “The
far-right anti-immigration party of Geert Wilders” (The Financial Times) . . . “Far-right leader Geert Wilders” (The Guardian) . . . “Extreme right anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders” (Agence France-Presse) is “at the fringes of mainstream politics” (Time) . . .
Mr.
Wilders is so far out on the far-right extreme fringe that his party is
the third biggest in parliament. Indeed, the present Dutch government
governs only through the support of Wilders’ Party for Freedom. So he’s
“extreme” and “far-right” and out on the “fringe,” but the seven parties
that got far fewer votes than him are “mainstream”? That right there is
a lot of what’s wrong with European political discourse and its media
coverage: Maybe he only seems so “extreme” and “far-right” because they’re the ones out on the fringe.
And so a Dutch parliamentarian lands at Heathrow to fulfill a public
appearance and is immediately deported by the government of a nation
that was once the crucible of liberty. The British Home Office banned
Mr. Wilders as a threat to “public security” — not because he was
threatening any member of the public, but because prominent Muslims were
threatening him: The Labour-party peer Lord Ahmed pledged to bring a
10,000-strong mob to lay siege to the House of Lords if Wilders went
ahead with his speaking engagement there.
Yet it’s not enough to denormalize the man himself, you also have to
make an example of those who decide to find out what he’s like for
themselves. The South Australian senator Cory Bernardi met Mr. Wilders
on a trip to the Netherlands and came home to headlines like “Senator
Under Fire For Ties To Wilders” (The Sydney Morning Herald) and “Calls For Cory Bernardi’s Scalp Over Geert Wilders” (The Australian).
Members not only of the opposing party but even of his own called for
Senator Bernardi to be fired from his post as parliamentary secretary to
the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. And why stop there? A
government spokesman “declined to say if he believed Mr Abbott should
have Senator Bernardi expelled from the Liberal Party.” If only Bernardi
had shot the breeze with more respectable figures — Hugo Chávez, say,
or a spokesperson for Hamas. I’m pleased to report that, while sharing a
platform with me in Adelaide some months later, Bernardi declared that,
as a freeborn citizen, he wasn’t going to be told who he’s allowed to
meet with.
The deceivers, the believers and the faithful by Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
Sunday, May 13, 2012
But still I have to say, you play with matches you get burned - Vincent Vega (Pulp Fiction)
COMMENT
The most interesting twist so far of this post-Bersih 3.0 ongoing tale
is the subversion of Umno's continued use of Islam as a fear mongering
tool to divide Malaysians. Except now, their own weapon is being
used against them, with PAS coming out as the moderate Islamic party
powered by populist (Muslim and non-Muslim) appeal. Every time the
propaganda organs of Umno spew their particular brand of Islam, PAS has
to say or do very little except wait for the kudos from the expected
section of an extremely partisan public.
In
the old days, Umno played the bait-and-switch game, on the one hand,
demonising PAS as an Islamic mullah inspired religious entity hell bent
on turning Malaysia into some sort of greater Caliphate and in the
other, carrying out its own Arabisation/Islamisation programme that
effectively decimated all levels of the government, education and social
services, turning them into ‘Malay/Muslim' entities which were merely
reflections of Umno hegemony. PAS in those days were
Quran-thumping firebrand preachers disinterested in the
multicultural/religious nature of Malaysian society insofar as it
conflicted with their own interpretations of the holy text.
Those
were the days when they, unfettered by the so-called moderate (and
politically savvy) ‘Erdogans' and when they were not playing into Umno's
hand by graciously shooting themselves in the foot, their hidden more
benign interactions with non-Muslims (in Kelantan for instance) was
buried deep in whispered anecdotal evidence because of the subservience
of a mainstream press and the lack of any sustained form of information
dissemination - no Internet folks.
Moderate face of Islam
With the emergence of PKR, Anwar Ibrahim's ‘third way' and the rise of
the alternative online media, a few kinks had to be ironed out before
any form of mutually beneficial opposition pact could be conceived. The
results of pre-2008 general elections demonstrated this was a far
trickier proposition for Pakatan Rakyat, hampered by the feel-good
atmosphere of a post-Mahathir retirement and the slumber years of the
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi regime. Just as the DAP had to shed it
‘chauvinistic' image, PAS had to shed its fundamentalist reputation in
favour of a more inclusiveness ‘secular' perspective.
The main
criticism coming from Umno and its component party mouthpieces is the
tenuous ties that bind Pakatan, the consequence of which make them
‘unsuitable' to run the country. It must drive MCA crazy that the
more they sound the ‘Islamic' peril cry against the DAP, the more it
seems to make those Chinese - who have made the pragmatic decision to
back the opposition - to support Pakatan even more and label the MCA as a
bigoted chauvinistic party intent on dividing Malaysians along
racial/religious lines. And let's not forget the head scratching which is going in Umno. Every time Utusan Malaysia attempts to slanderously question PAS' Islamic credentials, the results have been counter productive.
The run-up to PAS' internal elections was a badly managed psych war by Utusan on
behalf of Umno which resulted in the emergence of the so-called
Erdogans as custodians for the time being of PAS. This no doubt warmed
the hearts of Pakatan supporters hoping for a moderate face of Islam and
had the hawks in Umno screeching in dismay.
What Umno's
incompetence has managed to achieve is that any rational discussion on
the role of Islam in this country's future has been distorted by
partisan rhetoric and the regime's own history of religious malfeasance's. But more importantly for Pakatan supporters and
non-partisan skeptics, it has become impossible to rationally discuss
PAS' commitment to the inclusive more secular ethos of Pakatan.
Big Bad Extremist Muslim wolf
So far Pakatan has managed to do extremely well in allowing Umno to
play the Big Bad Extremist Muslim wolf, all the while putting PAS' own
Islamic preoccupations in the back-burner. In situations where a
unified Pakatan response has been warranted against perceived Islamic
‘interference', the response has been muted. In communities where PAS
has had some influence, there have always been some simmering tensions.
The
banning of the sale of alcohol for instance started of as a PAS misstep
and then turned into a ‘Umno said, PAS said' debacle. The fact that
this was resolved by Pakatan is a hopeful sign that contentious issues
can be worked out amicably, but there are long-term questions that have
to be asked. And let's not forget the issue of caning for those
unlucky Muslims consuming alcohol which has never been satisfactorily
addressed by PAS. The issue of marginalised groups such as the LGBT
(lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community or the ‘cultural
distortion' of Orang Asli communities for instance has been sidelined
for the ‘greater good' of claiming Putrajaya.
I've said this
before and I'll say it again, it looks as if we are heading into
"separate but equal" territory which should play well for most Pakatan
supporters, but is detrimental to a truly Malaysian identity. Furthermore,
the National Fatwa Council's edict on demonstrations is rather strange
considering the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Tahrir Square
rallies which the Brotherhood claimed was mandated by God.
Of
course, Hosni Mubarak's state-sanctioned imams always made
pronouncements that favoured his ‘ruling party', so perhaps there is
some commonality between Egypt and Malaysia, after all. Saudi Arabia's
response to the Arab Spring was a crackdown on dissidents (mostly in
their words, "extremist provocateurs") and grant generous "windfalls" to
the public totalling billions of dollars. And so far the going
has been good for Pakatan. Where once PAS Youth were a feared bunch
perceived as destabilising the social multicultural/religious fabric of
Malaysian society with their protest against anything deemed unIslamic,
now its Amal security unit lads are looked upon as heroes fulfilling the
role of maintaining the peace in large demonstrations or
public-speaking events, a role the police seem to have abdicated. I
have many PAS friends, who believe in the democratic process but who
believe that the ‘Islamic struggle' has been sidelined. They fear
speaking up since they would be labeled as Umno stooges.
Understand now that I disagree with the aims of these PAS friends of
mine, but my point here is that what Umno has done is merely create an
atmosphere where the more fundamentalist impulses of PAS is submerged by
the feel-good rhetoric of Pakatan.
Revival of the ISA
When former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad called for people to
give a large mandate to PM Najib Razak so the dreaded ISA would be
revived so that communists would not be allowed to return to the country
and (this is the hilarious part) "a religious extremist party" would be
halted.
Question: Would the ISA be used to ban Ibrahim Ali or is he not considered a religious extremist?
With
the likes of Perkasa and Pekida running about "defending Islam" without
any sanctions from the government, PAS is coming out smelling like
roses, all the while nobody questioning their commitment to Islam or how
they will navigate the tumultuous waters of a post-Umno era. In other
words, nobody is really interested in discovering if the thorns in these
roses has been clipped. The
sight of Tok Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat (pictured in a yellow shirt)
‘disagreeing' with the National Fatwa Council is further evidence that
the religious psych war carried out by Umno is having contrary results.
Nobody
remembers the more ‘dodgy' religious edicts that have come from PAS.
The benign visage of Tok Guru has become the symbol of a kinder gentler
PAS and Pakatan supporters continuously bombarded by the malfeasances of
Umno and the religious bigotry that the regime perpetuates through its
outsourced thugs are more than willing to conveniently forget that at
the end of the day, PAS - a religious party - is the backbone of
Pakatan.
This should not be construed as a fear-mongering
comment piece on PAS (indeed in many of my articles, I have been rather
sympathetic to this particular political party) but rather a reminder
that we should not be lulled into forgetting that Islam, and who ever
controls it in Malaysia, will have a profound effect on how we evolve as
a society.
If we don't learn how to ask the difficult questions
now, don't be surprised when we get the simple answers regardless of who
we vote for. Or as Tariq Ramadan reminds us, "If there is a smoke,
there is a fire, the saying goes. That is quite true, but one should
find what the fire is, and who lit it." Malaysiakini.
In May 1967, in brazen violation of previous truce agreements, Egypt ordered U.N. peacekeepers out of the Sinai, marched 120,000 troops to the Israeli border, blockaded Eilat (Israel’s southern outlet to the world’s oceans), abruptly signed a military pact with Jordan, and, together with Syria, pledged war for the final destruction of Israel.
May ’67 was Israel’s most fearful, desperate month. The country was surrounded and alone. Previous great-power guarantees proved worthless. A plan to test the blockade with a Western flotilla failed for lack of participants.
Time was running out. Forced to protect against invasion by mass mobilization — and with a military consisting overwhelmingly of civilian reservists — life ground to a halt. The country was dying.On June 5, Israel launched a preemptive strike on the Egyptian air force, then proceeded to lightning victories on three fronts. The Six-Day War is legend, but less remembered is that on June 1, the nationalist opposition (Menachem Begin’s Likud precursor) was for the first time ever brought into the government, creating an emergency national-unity coalition.
Everyone understood why.
You do not undertake a supremely risky preemptive war without the full participation of a broad coalition representing a national consensus. Forty-five years later, in the middle of the night of May 7–8, 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shocked his country by bringing the main opposition party, Kadima, into a national-unity government — shocking because just hours earlier, the Knesset was expediting a bill to call early elections in September. Why did the high-flying Netanyahu call off elections he was sure to win?
Because for Israelis today, it is May ’67. The dread is not quite as acute: The mood is not despair, just foreboding. Time is running out, but not quite as fast. War is not four days away, but it looms. Israelis today face the greatest threat to their existence — apocalyptic mullahs publicly pledged to Israel’s annihilation acquiring nuclear weapons — since May ’67.
The world is again telling Israelis to do nothing as it looks for a way out. But if such a way is not found — as in ’67 — Israelis know they will once again have to defend themselves, by themselves.
Such a fateful decision demands a national consensus. By creating the largest coalition in nearly three decades, Netanyahu is establishing the political premise for a preemptive strike, should it come to that. The new government commands an astonishing 94 Knesset seats out of 120, described by one Israeli columnist as a “hundred tons of solid concrete.”
Forty-five years later, in the middle of the night of May 7–8, 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shocked his country by bringing the main opposition party, Kadima, into a national-unity government — shocking because just hours earlier, the Knesset was expediting a bill to call early elections in September.
Why did the high-flying Netanyahu call off elections he was sure to win? Because for Israelis today, it is May ’67. The dread is not quite as acute: The mood is not despair, just foreboding. Time is running out, but not quite as fast. War is not four days away, but it looms. Israelis today face the greatest threat to their existence — apocalyptic mullahs publicly pledged to Israel’s annihilation acquiring nuclear weapons — since May ’67.
The world is again telling Israelis to do nothing as it looks for a way out. But if such a way is not found — as in ’67 — Israelis know they will once again have to defend themselves, by themselves.
Such a fateful decision demands a national consensus. By creating the largest coalition in nearly three decades, Netanyahu is establishing the political premise for a preemptive strike, should it come to that. The new government commands an astonishing 94 Knesset seats out of 120, described by one Israeli columnist as a “hundred tons of solid concrete.”Continue here to Page 2 of the National ReviewNext
Racial unity: True Malaysian lies by Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform,
are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life. - John Stuart Mill
COMMENT In her ‘Ikim Views' piece 'Impact of racial unity'(The Star,
April 17) senior researcher Enizahura Adbul Aziz rather disingenuously
poses the question, "If others can appreciate what the country has
achieved so far in managing our racial and cultural diversity, why can't
we?" The answer to this question is simple and I suspect
Enizahura knows this. We can't appreciate what the country has done in
terms of managing its racial and cultural diversity because we know the
truth. The whole article is a rather limp apologia for the
existing ‘power-sharing formula' of the Umno regime which has failed
this country but more importantly its citizens.
Even though
Enizahura conveniently (and mistakenly, in my opinion) hangs her
justification for the BN post-Merdeka ‘power sharing' ideology on that
old Mill's (John Stuart) hook of plurality being an impediment to truly
"free democratic institutions"*, what I find troubling
is the writer's total silence of the Umno reality which makes a mockery
of those democratic ideals like "ensuring the creation and continuation
of a government system that is legitimate, effective and representative
of the various segments that exist in society" that Enizahura gives
prominence to in lieu of those ideals like "observing one's rights and
freedom" which the Umno regime daily seems to want to curtail.
I
would argue that Umno has made it impossible for "a government system
that is legitimate and representative of the various segments that exist
in society" with it decades-long gerrymandering,
constitutionally-created Malays, it's unjust detention laws aimed at
political opponents, its propaganda organs masquerading as ‘free media'
and its use of Islam to silence any form of dissent.
Paying lip service to multiculturalism
Enizahura informs readers that in a plural society it is impossible to
embrace all "democratic ideals" and I agree with this, but the problem
here is that the Umno regime has never even attempted to embrace basic
democratic ideals, and of course for a long time this suited the
majority of Malaysians who voted them in choosing racial lines instead
of ideological ones. I have no idea (although I suspect this has
more to do with Malay ethnocentrism and cultural distortion) why
Enizahura does not mention the peninsular Orang Asli in her "mélange of
various races" that make up Malaysia but right off the bat, she gets it
wrong by attempting to suggest that post-70s initiatives to foster
racial unity, like the Rukunegara for instance, are examples where the
‘government' has chosen to face the racial problems of this country head
on.
Of course, what she forgets to mention is that many of those
attempts to foster ‘unity' is a direct reaction to May 1969 and the
mendacious manner in which the government (read: Umno) has chosen to
address these issue is really an attempt to perpetuate Malay hegemony
all the while paying lip service to the spirit of multiculturalism. The writer reminds us that the problem with racial unity lies in the
lack of sincerity among parties vying for power (something which I agree
with) but she fails to address the post-69 ‘unity' efforts by BN which
has morphed into systemic state-sanctioned racism.
Is Enizahura
forgetting government-initiatives like ‘Operasi Isi Penuh' which changed
the racial demographic of government departments - be it civil or
military - destroying any sense of community between the various ethnic
groups serving in government?
Or
perhaps more damaging to the indigenous and non-Umno ‘Malay' community
initiatives such as' Project M' in Sabah (paging Anwar Ibrahim), which
has spread and has evolved and continues to play a vital role in Umno
survival in the current political climate.
The forgotten race
A good start in ensuring that the historical or traditional communities
are represented is by making sure that there are no more stateless
Indians, Chinese or Orang Asli.
Enizahura makes a general
statement about the dangers of playing the race card but the clear and
present danger comes from Umno itself with charlatans, such as the two
Alis (Ibrahim and Hasan) and that loathsome Ridhuan Tee Abdullah, acting
as Umno proxies using Islam and race as weapons against any form of
political and social cohesiveness that Umno claims it wants to
perpetuate. Of course, the ‘opposition' plays the race card as well and I have written
about the shortsightedness of such a game but the reality is that Umno
with the complicity of MCA and MIC have done far more damage when
playing the race card than any other political party in this country. Enizahura heads into extremely frightening terrain when she muses "to
materialise the idea of racial unity, the jigsaw puzzle that appears in
our minds is how to turn numerous racial groups into one common entity
or identity".
Everyone should have a problem with this. We don't
have to look far to see how this kind preoccupation has taken shape in
Malaysia with non-Malays/Muslims suddenly finding themselves at the
mercy of the syariah courts because of the way that Islam in practiced
in this country with regard to conversion.
Forget
about the constitutionally-created Malay for a moment and look at
plight of the Orang Asli and their ‘assimilation' into Malay culture not
to mention the ‘Malay race'. My advice to non-Malays is that if you are
ever feeling really depressed about the state of the country and the
‘oppression' you face, read about the system in place governing the
Orang Asli to get a little perspective.
The goal of the state in
a multiracial country is not to forge one common entity or identity,
the state should leave that to its citizens to discover naturally
without hampering the process by using religious and racial policies
that favours one group over the others.
The goal of the state is
to ensure that there is no disparity of treatment among the various
ethnic groups in the country. In so doing, the state is laying the
groundwork for a common entity or identity.
Sweet gift to world democracy
And
if the writer really believes that democracy is more than just the
ballot box (again something I agree with) and rather about the
expression of diverse views, then she or the organisation she represents
should speak out in clear unequivocal terms whenever Islam is used to
silence dissent. We need to speak out whenever legitimate forms
of expressions are bullied into silence even though we may disagree with
those views. We must ensure that the state protects the expression of
those diverse views.
In other words, if it is true as de facto law
minister Nazri Abdul Aziz claims that the political discourse has
"changed" then the state should not sanction those views it deems
"sensitive" or "seditious" if it allows the likes of Perkasa and Pekida
to run riot. Again it all comes back to the disparity of
treatment between the various ethnic groups. The way forward is not to
obsess over our differences either by admiring it or fearing it, but
rather to ensure that the state treats us regardless of our diversity as
equals.
The writer ends with "Hopefully by doing so, we as a
united nation, can prove John Stuart Mill wrong. Now, that would
certainly be our sweet gift to world democracy". I would argue
that the people of Malaysia by voting across racial lines to spite Umno
policies proves this well enough, but I doubt this is a "sweet gift" to
world democracy but rather a bittersweet contribution in the ongoing war
between tyranny and freedom.
* "Free
institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different
nationalities. Among a people without fellowship-feeling, especially if
they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion
necessary to the making of representative government cannot exist." -
John Stuart Mill (Considerations on Representative Governments). Malaysiakini
Xenophon should reject New Straits Times apology by Bob Teoh
Saturday, May 05, 2012
COMMENT There are rare instances when an apology should not be accepted. The New Shit oops Straits Times’ (NST) public apology to Australian independent senator Nicholas Xenophon is one such occasion.
Adding insult to his injury, a similar article appeared in the Malay language daily, Utusan Malaysia, quoting the same doctored speech from Xenophon (right), describing him as an anti-Islam politician as well as a staunch supporter of same-sex marriage. Utusan has yet to apologise. Both papers are owned by Umno, the main party in the ruling coalition.
NST did not apologise at the earliest opportunity. It only did so after it was hauled up by Australia’s High Commissioner to Malaysia yesterday. In the context of the Asian culture of shame, it becomes extremely difficult to accept an apology when one becomes an object of ‘biadap’ (barbaric, uncivilised) and ‘hina’ (scurrilous) attacks unless it is accompanied by genuine remorse. There was none forthcoming from NST.
More than that, the attack on the senator is nothing short of criminal defamation.
NST fails to meet the ingredients of a genuine apology. It is insincere and failed to understand the gravity of its transgressions nor showed appropriate remorse. Instead, NST is seeking to deceive its readers that it was a “gross error.” In truth, it was never an error. NST went out of it s way to vilify the visiting senator by barbaric means.
NST acknowledged its article contained, amongst others, the following statement:
1. In a speech made in the Australian Parliament on 17.11.2009, Mr Xenophon was critical of Islam and came out openly in support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issue.
2. Mr Xenophon is reported to have said in his speech that “What we are seeing is a worldwide pattern of abuse and criminality. On the body of evidence, this is not happening by accident; it is happening by design. Islam is not a religious organisation. It is a criminal organisation that hides behind its so-called religious beliefs.”
3. Mr Xenophon therefore questioned whether Islam deserved any support.
We hereby confirm that we have made a grave error in publishing the statements in the article. We accept that in his speech in the Australian Parliament referred to in the article, Mr Xenophon did not use the word “Islam” and neither did he assert that Islam is not a religious organisation but a criminal organisation hiding behind its religious belief.
Speech criticising Scientology
What NST did not admit was that Xenophon had made a speech criticising Scientology, but references to that belief was diabolically replaced by NST with the word “Islam”. This puts the senator’s life at risk from extremist elements as he was visiting Malaysia.
Both NST and Utusan are guilty of incendiary hate speech by using the race and religion card. They should not be allowed to get away with an empty apology for their irresponsible and highly dangerous act. Xenophon should reject the apology and sue. It is Umno which should apologise to both the senator and the papers’ readers for the deception and gross indecency. Malaysiakini
Don't piss in my ear and tell me it's raining by Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood it is hard to shake hands with her. - Oscar Wilde
COMMENT Abdar Rahman Koya's 'In defence of storming the barricades at Dataran'is nothing more than a bellicose, pro-Anwar Ibrahim polemic that should be rejected by all right-thinking Malaysians interested in non-violent protests, which at this moment is a possible avenue for constructive change in Malaysia. Abdar Rahman laments the fact that the cause of electoral reform has been sidelined by the violence on April 28, but yet chooses to glorify those who partook in it and mock those who were there for a peaceful non-violent protest and their anger at those (whoever they are and for whatever reason) who may have provoked that violence by storming the barricade.
He assumes these ‘law-abiding citizens' have not asked those important questions that he thinks relevant such as ‘which law' and ‘whose courts' forgetting the fact that there were many protesters who were repeat offenders of previous Bersih marches who obviously disregarded ‘unjust laws' imposed by an ‘unjust regime' to attend those marches. What Abdar Rahman does not seem to consider is whoever broke through those barricades did not consider the more important compact between the general public and the Bersih steering committee for a peaceful non-violent protest.
They (and him) did not consider the various other interest groups who were there like the Himpunan Hijau movement and various other NGOs which signed up for a non-violent protest and who agreed with the parameters the Bersih steering committee agreed to. In other words, what was more important than the state laws were those ‘laws' that these various interests groups and the general public made between themselves - ‘laws' which those (for whatever reasons) who broke through the barriers had no respect for. This to me is the more egregious offence.
Our answer to the Rio carnival
The writer's sycophantic colours are on proud display when he mocks those who he thinks have "an inborn allergy" to opposition parties like PAS and PKR forgetting (again) that Malaysians are voting across racial and religious lines and some of them (indeed) a good portion were probably marching but who did so under non-partisan banners, much like how PSM's S Arutchelvam and PKR's R Sivarasa reminded those before them that this was a Bersih non-partisan march.
They did this because they want electoral reforms as a safeguard against any political party subverting the will of the rakyat. And no, being peaceful does not mean abiding to unfair laws. It means abiding to the will of the majority who were there to protest in a peaceful manner those unjust laws that subjugate us. Bersih was indeed our answer to the Rio carnival. It was our carnival of people of different races and creeds marching together under a common banner for the betterment of all, instead of slavish devotees to political parties which make compromises on our behalf which usually benefits only them.
It was a multiracial, multireligious street party which is what this type of regime fears the most. They fear people of all races and religions coming under a common cause, even worse a non-partisan cause of their own free will. Folks who were outshouting those who screamed ‘reformasi', and I know for a fact there were many PKR supporters who did this, did so to remind their fellow protesters that this was bigger than the mere political parties that claim to represent us.
We were not forgetting anything but disregarding our political allegiances for a moment by advocating something which were bigger than our petty political party concerns.
Non-partisan protest
Abdar Rahman's dig at blogger Marina Mahathir's admiration for Bersih co-coordinator S Ambiga's ability to pull in the crowd by reminding her of the numbers Anwar managed to bring during his post-Umno exile is cute but rather misleading. I was one of the so-called 100.000 who were there in 1998 and I was there (in a symbolic gesture to my PAS comrades) with a mostly Malay crowd who were there looking for their next messiah.
Since then Anwar's fortunes have shifted because of individuals like Ambiga and a changing political and social landscape cognisant that multiracialism is the best antidote to Umno's racist venom. Of course, there was a strong anti-BN vibe on April 28 but for the most part most people had no problem compartmentalising their political affiliations and the aims of this non-partisan protest.
And the truth is we did not go there to intentionally break the law. And the most important thing to remember is that breaking the law does not mean engaging in violence. We can break the law, and indeed most of have, but we do this by non-violent means. And what disgust me about Abdar Rahman's piece are these words: "The barricades blocking our march into Dataran Merdeka are the clearest and most tangible symbol of the government's animosity to the ordinary public."
No. Every day we are greeted by the government's tangible animosity towards ordinary citizens by the racist propaganda Umno members their outsourced thugs and their propaganda organs spew and the unjust manner in which laws are imposed on different ethnic groups. I despise Utusan Malaysia for instance and if there was a peaceful protest against this ‘newspaper' I would never advocate storming this Umno mouthpiece or harming its personnel even though they provoke ‘us' every single day.
For the moment, leave the storming of barricades to Umno, like when Umno Youth (supported rather quietly by BN Youth) stormed the Asia Hotel when the East Timor meeting was going on. Or how about former Anwar stalwart Zulkifli Noordin (with the help of the police) storming the Bar Council interfaith meeting.
Emotional blackmail
We storm the barricades, then what? What does this show except that peaceful demonstrations will always be hijacked by those who think they know better than the majority who were there.
What does this achieve but play into the lies of the Umno regime? What of the citizens who were there, satisfied to protest and later vent their anger in the voting booth? What of the children who could have been hurt because some people have no idea that there are various kinds of tyranny that should be dealt with in different ways depending on the situation? And let's not forget that sooner or later, confrontations like these will turn into racial ones with Umno coming down on minority groups for the sole purpose of destabilising the opposition.
If you want to play Tahrir Square heroes, have the decency to inform people that this was the objective of the protest. Have the courage of your convictions and allow others to demonstrate the same commitment by giving them the choice to attend these violent confrontational protests. Don't hijack a cause and then claim the moral high ground by equating what is happening in Malaysia with the sectarian conflict in Egypt or the CIA/MI6-muddled Iranian revolution.
Gandhi's salt marchers stood by peacefully as they were thrashed by the British-sponsored local battalions. Rosa Parks did not hold up a bus to get in but rather planted her ass on the seat and refused to move. And when Umno decides to erect a real wall as opposed to the metaphoric ones separating citizens, I'll be there helping to tear it down as I do the metaphoric ones by attending these non-violent meet-ups. Don't piss in my ear and tell me it's raining.
I suspect the Umno regime using agent provocateurs were behind the violence but if Anwar or anyone associated with PKR gave the orders to storm the barricade, it just shows how desperate they are for political mileage at the expense of a worthy cause that most people attended bona fide. I reject them as I do the excessive police violence inflicted on them... on you who would have been proud to participate in the storming. But don't you dare try to emotionally blackmail those who disagree with those people who stormed the barricade by alluding to historical events that you misapply to the Malaysian context.
Don't you dare mock those people who attended in goodwill, most probably taking their first tentative steps into publically objecting to this regime in a non-violent manner.
Don't you dare mock the feel-good carnival atmosphere of a multiracial moment in Malaysian history of undeserving of recognition because it falls short of your ‘revolución' pose. Malaysiakini
French prosecutors: Najib sought US$1bil for Perimekar by Aidila Razak
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Wow, our Prime Minister. So Guys, change your lifestyle! Ha, ha, ha %#@$#%#@%^$#@@!!!! French public prosecutors probing shoddy deals in French-Malaysian arms deals found evidence that then-defence minister Najib Abdul Razak had sought US$1 billion (RM3 billion) for local company Perimekar from French shipmaker DCN's subsidiary DCNI. According to prosecution papers revealed by NGO Suaram today, a fax shows that Najib had asked for the amount for Perimekar as a condition for a meeting with him on July 14, 2001.
The fax,dated June 1, 2001 was from Francois Dupont, the Malaysian representative for private company Thales Asia International, to one D Arnaud. The document, one of 153 shown to Suaram, was seized by French police from the office of Henri Gide, an officer with Thales. However, no copy of the fax was provided to media at the press conference today as Suaram said it is not allowed to take the documents out of France.
Instead, the NGO, which is pursuing a civil complaint against state-owned DCN for allegedly paying 114 million euros in defence kickbacks to Perimekar, provided media with notes from its French interpreter. According to the notes, Dupont had in the fax detailed out the chronology of visits and future actions during a visit to Malaysia, including details of “negotiation meetings with the Ministry of Defence and the management members of Perimekar”.
“(In the negotiations) two contract proposals would be mentioned (from DCNI to Perimekar as well as between Perimekar and the Malaysian government). “(Dupont) finally indicated a meeting with Datuk Seri Najib in France on July 14, 2001 with the condition that DCNI offers a maximum sum of US$1 billion for Perimekar’s stay (in France),” it reads. Malaysia purchased two Scorpene class submarines in 2002.
Perimekar is owned by Najib’s associate Abdul Razak Baginda, who was acquitted on a charge of abetting in the murder of Mongolian translator Altantuuyaa Shariibuu, without his defence being called. Razak Baginda’s company paid 360,000 euro. According to Suaram, another document obtained by the prosecutors revealed that Terasasi Sdn Bhd, a company owned by Abdul Razak and his father, was also linked to the scandal. Suaram's interpreter noted that prosecutors had on Aug 22, 2011, obtained an invoice faxed to Terasasi Sdn Bhd on Sept 19, 2004, to the then-chief executive officer of Thales, Bernard Baiocco, for the purpose of “success fees”.
The invoice states that 359,450 euros (RM1.43 million) was to be paid into a bank in Petaling Jaya, while a handwritten note on the fax reads: “Razak demande si ce SF peut etre pris en compte assez vite. Le Support Fee suit avec un rapport (Razak is asking whether the SF can be paid into the account quite urgently. The support fee follows with a report.)” However, Suaram director Cynthia Gabriel said the prosecutors were still trying to determine whether the ‘Razak’ stated in the note refers to Najib or Abdul Razak.
‘The Great Malaysian Robbery’. Referring to the case as “the Great Malaysian Robbery”, Gabriel said the prosecutors also found “a slew of companies” had been formed to muddy the money trail. “More retro-commissions have surfaced, allowing the misuse of bodies such as a pilgrimage fund (Lembaga Tabung Haji) and the military pension fund (Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera). “The Malaysian and French people have clearly been misled, cheated and robbed of their monies through blatant corruption and mismanagement of funds in the name of national safety and security,” Gabriel (right) said.
As such, Suaram demanded that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission open investigation papers on these new revelations and for the Malaysian government to cooperate with the French inquiry. It also demands that the Defence Ministry lists out to Parliament the companies involved in the procurement process involving DCN and the commissions paid.Malaysiakini.
PDRM - the armed division of Umno by Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
"I hate victims who respect their executioners" - Jean-Paul Sartre
"Policemen so cherish their status as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status." - David Mamet
COMMENT The ghosts of A Kugan, Aminulrasyid Amzah, Teoh Beng Hock and a host of others (whose names go unmentioned) watch silently as Prime Minister Najib Razak proclaims the police the victimsof the state sanctioned violence that they (the police) perpetrated on the Bersih 3.0 marchers on April 28. But in a sense he is right. The police are victims. They are as much victims of the Umno regime as any other citizen of Malaysia.
I realise at this emotional post-Bersih 3.0 moment, nobody is interested in any kind of discussion about the police other than how they are the armed division of Umno, but I would like to address certain issues regarding the violence that occurred during the April 28 protest. This should not be read as some sort of apologia for the actions of the PDRM (Royal Malaysian Police) but rather my (hopefully) informed opinion on what has been troubling many men and women who have served, and who currently serve, in the various security apparatus of this country.
As a matter of public record, I would like to state that in my opinion any police officer who can be identified as abusing any marchers should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. They are a disgrace to the uniform, the public and finally the Agong. On Sunday night (the day after Bersih 3.0), I received a call from an old senior police officer I knew from my Sarawak days. "What the hell, Thaya, did you see the baby faces on parade there? What the hell were they (the government) thinking?"
We got into a long conversation and indeed I had the same conversation with many other retired and serving members of the various security forces in the country. What amazed me the most of the police presence last Saturday was how young most of them looked. Many of my friends speculated that they looked fresh out of whatever passes for training these days. Seeing the violence they committed in the various videos circulating on the Internet, it reminded me of schoolboys engaging in fist fights. There was no sense of any higher authority in command merely random violence targeted at anyone unlucky enough to get in their way.
Indeed, the protestors themselves seemed more organised, especially when they were shielding those unlucky police personnel who for whatever reason "accidently" rammed into them from the anger of the crowds.
Siege mentality
Having been on the other side of protest marches gives one a particular perspective when it comes to situations like this. All military personnel receive some kind of public order training, or at least they did in my time, so I have some vague familiarity with what these men were going through. A long time ago, I too at various times in my career either stood guard or was giving the orders. The fear in their eyes was evident and so was the anger.
Wherever I went I made it a point to keep an eye on our boys in blue and sometimes even interacted with them. On numerous occasions, I realised that they had been standing still or milling about in the hot sun staring at the procession around them without having anything to drink. One of my biggest expenses last Saturday was buying drinks for them, which they at first refused but gratefully accepted after I spoke to their commanding officer. I was extremely happy seeing that other Bersih protestors doing the same thing at various points across the city.
Understandably those I engaged with in conversation were rather tight-lipped about what they thought of this whole affair, but something deep inside me knew there was trouble brewing. "You know how it is now. The rot started post-69 or thereabouts," an old army comrade reminded me. "It infected all the services." I want readers to think about how police officers or any other security personnel are infected with the Umno garbage of race and religion.
Remember how non-Malays are accused of being unpatriotic because they choose not to serve in the security apparatus of this country even though institutional racism is an open secret, much like it is in the civil service. I have no idea if there is a police equivalent of a Ridhuan Tee Abdullah teaching at whatever police training schools in operation now, but it doesn't take a genius to understand that these impressionable young minds who are supposed to be taught to serve and protect all citizens of the country are infected with that peculiar brand of Umno bigotry that excludes everyone even other Malays and Muslims if they don't subscribe to the party's ideology.
Add to this, the ranting of the two Alis (Ibrahim and Hasan) published in the racist propaganda organs of the state (which is probably the only news outlets they are exposed to) and what you get is a siege mentality acerbated by the fact that there is already an invisible line that separates security and civilian citizens. When you are constantly indoctrinated with hate, sooner or later seeing the ‘other' as not human and not fellow citizens but rather just another threat to ‘national security' or to racial hegemony becomes part of who you are.
Imagine standing in the hot sun looking at people having fun, marching and enjoying themselves - crowds which consist of rebellious Malays and non-Malays who would wish to usurp your rightful place in the destiny of Malaysia. Agent provocateurs
And if you think this indoctrination only affects the Malays, a former Malay Army major related to me that in a recent conversation, two Chinese and an Indian junior officers told her that Bersih was anti-government and anti-national (whatever that meant). Since she was attending, she didn't take too well to her patriotism being questioned. And let's not forget that some protestors went out of their way to taunt the police. All that pent-up rage from both sides needed an outlet, but the difference is the police are supposed to maintain their calm in stressful situations.
Understand now that I am not claiming all the police out there are like this or that the protestors were spoiling for a fight. Anyone who was there will tell you that the vast majority of protestors were law-abiding and peaceful participants in this process, but what they were up against was a police force poisoned by years of Umno interference. It would not surprise me if they were agent provocateurs who were amongst the peaceful protestors. The so-called SOP (standard operating procedure) of retrieving recording devices from well, everyone, is evidence that the practitioners of the dark arts were out in full force.
But I also (and this where I will earn the scorn of Pakatan Rakyat supporters and maybe even Bersih supporters) would not be surprised if there were those within Pakatan who thought it would be a good symbolic gesture to reclaim Dataran Merdeka or at least make a go of it. And anyone who has attended any of these demonstrations will tell there are always people who are there just for the sake of engaging in mindless violence for the sheer hell of it and were waiting for an opportunity to explode.
So there were all these elements for a perfect storm. Now of course the mainstream news organs beholden to their political masters will tell you it's all the fault of S Ambiga and Anwar Ibrahim and indeed we should all accept that in this struggle with this particular regime, scenes like this are bound to occur whenever mass protests are organised, but at the end of the day it is needed simply because if we are ever to get our police force back, to elevate them from their Umno victimhood, we need to constantly remind the regime that we are not afraid.
An old police friend asked me the other night, who I thought started the trouble. I said what I always say. In Umno I trust. Malaysiakini.
Bar Council: Police brutality worsens in Bersih 3.0 by Nigel Aw
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
The Malaysian Bar Council in its interim report today said police brutality against protesters during Bersih 3.0 last Saturday had worsened despite several police shortcomings that were highlighted during the last Bersih rally. “Of all the problems that were highlighted last year, as far as the use of force is concerned, this year it has magnified.
“So far as police brutality goes, we have observed more police brutality (this time), so far as indiscriminate and arbitrary use of water cannon and tear gas, our observers saw far more (instances),” said Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee (right).
The interim report is a preliminary compilation of reports from 78 of the council’s volunteer observers positioned at six locations on the ground during Bersih 3.0 on April 28.
Among the observations made by the Bar Council were:
Rally was peaceful until around 3pm when police fired teargas and water cannon.
Use of force by police without any obvious provocation or cause, was far worse, indiscriminate, disproportionate and excessive
Police brutality was more widespread.
There was concerted effort by police to prevent and stop any recording of their conduct.
Police fired tear gas directly at the crowd in a way to box in participants rather than to disperse.
There was retaliatory behaviour exhibited by rally participants against police wrongful use of force.
Police were observed taunting and mocking the crowd.
Police responded, stooped when participants threw items at them.
Police personnel failed to display identification numbers on uniform.
Lessons not learnt
The police, Lim said, had failed to learn from the past lessons despite having acknowledged that during the last Bersih, on which Suhakam’s inquiry is still in progress. “It is incomprehnsible, if not a reflection of sheer incompetence or arrogance of the police force that it has not learnt from its past mistakes in the management of assemblies of people exercising their constitutional rights,” he said.
Even though protesters had breached the barricade at Dataran Merdeka, Lim said police had responded with disproportionate force that went against international standards.
This includes the five stages in the use of force as recommended by Suhakam: it begins with verbal persuasion, followed by unarmed physical force, force using non-lethal weapons, force using impact weapons and deadly force.
Observers from the Bar Council too were harassed on top of journalists and members of the public being roughed up. “It was unfortunate that the police refused to give us recognition as official monitors (during the rally this time),” said Lim.
The interim report was released in response to what Lim said was the absence of debate on the police use of force in terms of acceptable international standards.
Adding on, Bar Council deputy president Christopher Leong said the police action of confiscating recordings from the media was inconsistent with police assertion that it had done no wrong and had nothing to hide.
Leong, who stood some 200 metres away from the barricade and was tear-gassed twice, said the police had failed to strike a balance between national security and human rights.
“What will be the worst consequence if the crowd breaks through the police barrier? The consequence will be about 100,000 people gathering on Dataran Merdeka and sitting there for another hour. “It is not like they were trying to storm a sensitive government facility or a military installation, so where is the balance?” he asked. Malaysiakini.
"What
they will never tell us is that they expect us to adopt their
identity," said the 44-year-old New York University (NYU) professor in
an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. She was responding to a question on the recent National Fatwa Council
edict forbidding Muslims from taking part in certain demonstrations,
particularly targeting the Bersih 3.0 pro-electoral reform rally.
Manji
is in Malaysia to launch the Malay translation of her latest book
‘Allah, Liberty & Love'. However, her events and several speaking
engagements had to be 
In a 
There
was effusive praise for premier Najib Abdul Razak's promise to upgrade
the decrepit Lapok Road to allow travel from Miri to parts of Baram (a
promise still unmet a year after last April's state election campaign),
and the prospects of a Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia windfall. 
Reports
by the Human Rights Commission state that the lack of the Mykad is
caused by poverty and unequal access to NRD staff, and is an affront to
the human rights of the Penan to obtain access to education and
healthcare.
I
would argue that Umno has made it impossible for "a government system
that is legitimate and representative of the various segments that exist
in society" with it decades-long gerrymandering,
constitutionally-created Malays, it's unjust detention laws aimed at
political opponents, its propaganda organs masquerading as ‘free media'
and its use of Islam to silence any form of dissent.
Or
perhaps more damaging to the indigenous and non-Umno ‘Malay' community
initiatives such as' Project M' in Sabah (paging Anwar Ibrahim), which
has spread and has evolved and continues to play a vital role in Umno
survival in the current political climate.
Forget
about the constitutionally-created Malay for a moment and look at
plight of the Orang Asli and their ‘assimilation' into Malay culture not
to mention the ‘Malay race'. My advice to non-Malays is that if you are
ever feeling really depressed about the state of the country and the
‘oppression' you face, read about the system in place governing the
Orang Asli to get a little perspective.
“So far as police brutality goes, we have observed more police brutality (this time), so far as indiscriminate and arbitrary use of water cannon and tear gas, our observers saw far more (instances),” said Bar Council president Lim Chee Wee (right).
Even though protesters had breached the barricade at Dataran Merdeka, Lim said police had responded with disproportionate force that went against international standards.
