This is what I mean:

Take #1 — Rais Yatim’s urge for a “wider use of the National language in the private sector” to further dignify it.

The ministry — with the cooperation of Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) — would carry out continuous campaigns to “enculture Bahasa Malaysia usage” as well as make it an appealing language.

Don’t know bout you, but that sounds pretty communistic to me.

Among them was that the leaders should communicate well and more often in the national language, including at official meetings, while it was also suggested that forums and conventions held in the country not be conducted in English.

Right. And I’m assuming you want all expats working in Malaysia to sit for a 1 year course on BM as well.Oh. And while we’re at it, the rest of the world. Since, I don’t know, the private firms in Malaysia generally deal with international corporations?

Check out his verbal diarrhea here >>

Oh.. and watch him changing “mode” here :

Click here to view the embedded video.

Take #2 — #yorais, time to take your eyes (and mouth really) outta your ass and face the 21st century

He added that facilities like internet (Facebook, Twitter and… I don’t know, L-Band? -_- )could not be accepted wholly because it was a form of business introduced by the West and “Malaysians were just users.”

“They are just selling Facebook, Twitter, L-Band and various other services, even through space, as a product but we do not do such business. We accept all this in a state of cultural shock,” he said.

Perhaps it’s his old, ancient mouth speaking from where the sun don’t shine… so, I’m not even going to dignify this with a response.

Check out his verbal diarrhea here >>

Take #3 — Nazri Aziz says, “But THEY started it!” *points finger at The Herald*

“It’s not the fault of the government. Let it be known that it was Tan Sri Pakiam, not the government, who brought the matter to court,” Nazri stressed.

If there was to be any out-of-court settlement over the “Allah” row, Pakiam, as the official publisher of Herald — the Catholic Weekly, must make the first move, the government minister added.

“I got no choice as the minister in charge of law. Because of Tan Sri Pakiam, I must be the person to advise the government that we must use the courts-lah,” Nazri, who is also Padang Renggas MP said.

Honestly? What is this… kindergarten? Of course, he neglects to add that the Home Ministry banned it first.

Instead, he noted that the judge is not a Muslim, and had ruled over a matter that concerned the “akidah” (faith) of the Muslim community.

I thought neutrality is upheld in the judiciary. If the judge is not christian / catholic, and not Muslim, I’m assuming he/she makes the best decision for both parties from an on the fence perspective.

The Umno man said in the Borneo states the people had embraced the “1 Malaysia” concept a long time ago, unlike in the west where racial lines are still very apparent.

Dude. They’ve been using Allah for 300 years. So have we. So mengapa pula cari pasal skarang?

“I’m very liberal, I’m very confident, but if I try to explain to them… no way,” Nazri disclosed, referring to his contituents when asked how real the worry was that Christians would try and convert Muslims if the High Court ruling was upheld.

“Those people not in politics, they can say anything. But people like me, I depend on my voters,” the federal lawmaker said.

“I may look liberal but my constituents are not,” he added.

So… genius. You’re openly admitting that this public charade and cat-mouse-chase is all for… political gain?

“If everyone prays to Allah, they’ll all be Muslim. It’s a good ploy for Muslims to convert non-Muslims,” he quipped.

Pot calling kettle black. Your earlier fear was Christians would try to convert Muslims by calling God “Allah”.

Check out his verbal diarrhea here >>

This whole church / Allah / Internet nonsense is getting out of hand. So dudes in our Cabinet / Parliament, hear me out here.

Message to Malaysian Politicians:

Instead of bickering over all this shit and not respecting the court’s decision, why don’t you just do your job and govern our country right.

Instead of worrying about Bahasa Malaysia, whether we’re being “brainwashed” by Twitter and Facebook and fearing that the Christians are on the move to convert all Muslims by declaring that God and Allah are the same, allow me to suggest far more urgent things you should be dedicating your attention to:

• Investigating the MACC’s involvement in Teoh Beng Hock’s death.
• The whole Port Klang Free Zone joke
• The VK Lingam case.. and properly investigating it instead of sweeping it under the carpet
• The hilarity that was our stolen jet engines
• The brainwashing Biro Tata Negara nonsense
• The rape of the Penans
• and Khir Toyo’s misues of Selangor State funds (I mean, that huge ass mansion? Pfft, guys. Seriously, how stupid do you think Malaysians are?

(Taken, and slightly adapted from RibutKL)

Your thoughts?

….

Facebook guys, just in case the videos don’t load, you can read the full post here if anything is missing: http://www.xinch.com.my

“If there was no evidence, why is Anwar going up and down the court appealing and re-appealing for documents and DNA samples?” (Azlan Mohd Lazim as quoted by The Star 2009)

Someone tell me if this sounds as stupid to you as it does to me.

Dear Mr. Azlan Mohd Lazim,

You might not know this, but if you keep asking for something and your request is rejected multiple times (even though you’re requesting for something that’s rather crucial and is not supposed to be withheld) you would naturally automatically assume that

a) the person you’re requesting it from is being a bitch and doing this on purpose

b) it doesn’t exist in the first place

So, of course he keeps re-appealing! YOU guys say it exists but won’t give it to him, so he assumes either (a) or (b), but then you guys INSIST it exists again so obviously he will continue asking!

Oh and apparently Anwar’s lead counsel has pulled out due to health reasons. Mr. Azlan, I know you call it “stunts” but don’t you think as a lawyer, with the court and the prosecution withholding evidence, you would feel so stressed and worried and fed up that you would develop all these health problems (whether it’s high blood pressure or just the inability to sleep, eat and think) from the case and pull out too for your own sanity?

I know I would.

Sincerely,
Xinch

P.S. Read the article here.

Disclaimer: If you’re wondering, she is apolitical and just wants the best for Malaysians whether that comes in the form of BN or Pakatan Rakyat (it’s just that right now, she seems to think more equality will be achieved through Pakatan Rakyat and that the current federal government is playing an amazing PR game with the whole 1Malaysia crap and has perfect timing with news releases to mainstream media).

And by the way, this is just her opinion to why the man quoted sounds dumb and should rehearse his speeches for the media if he cannot say anything intelligently critical off-the-bat. By no means does she mean any offense. Again, just her opinion.

Also, just so you know, she has no idea if Anwar sodomized that dude or not. She just thinks that a smart man like Anwar wouldn’t make the same mistake twice (if he did sodomize the first guy) and that if he did, he would’ve done it out of the country with some random whore instead of doing it with another aide who happens to be chummy with Najib. I mean, the guy’s got to have some brains if he can rally support form urban, educated Malaysians and other large developed, first-world leaders).

One last disclaimer. The writer also thinks “like father, like son”. Perhaps Anwar supporters would think better and eventually sympathize with his son (I doubt it but it’s worth a shot hoping) if he sounded like less of an idiot in mainstream media.

Race: Time for a new beginning

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah
Aug 9, 09

The opportunity to study abroad is gift. I remember my days as a student in Belfast so long ago. Now as then, overseas study gives us the chance to be educated at some of the finest, best established institutions of higher learning anywhere, and to be exposed to the best that has been thought and done, and to measure ourselves against the highest standards. It is an opportunity to see the world.

Travel and living abroad takes us far away from home, but in doing so it also brings us closer to ourselves, and closer to home. Have you experienced this? Have you felt time and distance making you more conscious of how unique and precious the places, relationships, colours, smells and yes, tastes, of home are? Distance can help us see things more clearly. Home is such an immediate, dense and total experience that we often need to go away to see its contours. Home is such an emotional experience that we often understand it better in the coolness of distance. We sometimes need the elevation of distance to see the map of our own country.

I want to use this privileged distance that we now share, here in Melbourne, to speak frankly with you today about a matter that is usually so tightly wound up, so emotional, that at a national level we have not been able to have a rational discussion about it.

I want to invite you to look across this distance at the map of the life in common that we call our country. I want to look across the distance of fifty two years of independence, across changes over my own lifetime, to understand where we have come from as a nation and where we are going. My topic is race and racial consciousness in Malaysian life, and especially in our politics.

Race in the political life of Malaysia

Our social and political life is racialised to a degree seen in few other countries in the world. There are historical reasons for this. Malaysia was, at its birth, a country deeply divided along communal lines. We negotiated and attained independence with a power-sharing arrangement between the leaders of the three major racial communities as represented by the Alliance coalition. The agreement and cooperation of these leaders ensured peace and stability while we modernised our economy. The skill and integrity of these leaders, and their clear authority among their own communities was key to the success of this model, which is sometimes described by political scientists as consociational democracy.

This arrangement lasted only 12 years. After the traumatic riots of May 1969, we underwent a period of rule under the National Operations Council before Parliament was restored. The New Economic Policy was drafted and put into action. A new coalition, the Barisan Nasional, was put together to ensure that every community had a place at the table. Once more, the idea was to resolve conflict within a consociational power-sharing arrangement. Each community was to have a place at the table. Conflicts were to be solved between the leaders of these communities, behind closed doors. This arrangement was useful and effective for its time, but we have to wake up to the fact that it no longer works.

It is important to understand why:

It was never meant to be a permanent solution. Our method of racial power-sharing is primarily a system for resolving conflict in a deeply divided society. It was designed as an interim work-around, an early stage on the way to “a more perfect union” and not as the desired end-state. Over the years, however, we have put up barricades around our system as if it were a fore-ordained and permanent ideal. In doing so, we have turned a half-way house into our destination, as if we must forever remain a racially divided and racially governed society.

Instead, our ideal must be to become a free and united society in which individuals can express their ethnic and religious identities without being imprisoned in them. We must aim for a society in which public reasoning and not backroom dealing determines our collective decisions.

The power-sharing model that we started life with is an elite style of government justified by the virtue and competence of natural leaders of their communities. It needs special conditions. It does not work when political parties are led by the ignorant and the corrupt who have no standing in the communities they claim to represent.

It needs genuine agreement and cooperation between leaders who command support in their own communities and are universally respected. It will not work if the power-sharing coalition is overly dominated by one person and the others are there as token representatives. Our founding fathers negotiated, cooperated and shared responsibility as equals and as friends within a power-sharing framework. The communal interests they represented were articulated within the overarching vision of a united Malaysia.

In the intervening years, as power came to be concentrated in the Executive, we preserved only the outward appearance of power-sharing. In reality we have had top-down rule and power has become increasingly unaccountable. Each of our political parties has also become more top-down, ruled by eternal incumbents who protect their position with elaborate restrictions on contests. Umno itself has become beholden to the Executive.

Our decades under highly-centralised government undermined our power-sharing formula, just as it undermined key institutions such as the judiciary, the police and the rule of law. Our major institutions have survived in appearance while their substance has eroded. Seen in this light, the election results of March 8, which saw the Barisan Nasional handed its worst defeat since 1969, was just the beginning of the collapse of a structure which has long been hollowed out.

The end of the old, but not quite the new

The racial power-sharing model now practiced by Barisan is broken. It takes more honesty than we are used to in public life to observe that this is not a temporary but a terminal crisis. An old order is ending. Our problem is that while this past winds down, smoothly or otherwise, the future is not yet here. We are caught in between. Despite our having become a more economically advanced society, with many opportunities for our citizens to express richly plural identities, our races have become increasingly polarised. Large numbers of our electorate still vote along ethnic and religious lines. Much of our political ground is still racially demarcated. Although we have made some progress towards truly multiracial politics, both the Government and the Opposition are largely mobilised along racial lines. It is not yet time to herald a new dawn. Instead, we are in a transition full of perils and possibilities.

You are this generation caught between. You are the generation of transition. You will play a key role in determining its outcome. However well a certain kind of politics of racial identity may have served to reduce conflict in the past, it has come to the end of its useful life. We need a new beginning to racial relations in Malaysia, and you must pioneer that beginning. We need to re-design race relations in Malaysia, and you must be the architects and builders of that design.

In coming to that new design I hope you take advantage of the perspective of distance that your overseas education has given you to not take as your starting point the tired answers that are passed on as conventional wisdom. You must reformulate the questions and come up with your own answers. When it is clear that one generation may have run out of steam, it is time to generate your own. Where do you begin? May I suggest some perspectives and principles. Whatever the answers we come up with, I think the following elements are important:

Begin with our common humanity. Respect our common humanity must override all lesser affiliations, including race. One of Islam’s most powerful contributions to human civilisation has been its insistence on the equality of all human beings. Islam tolerates no notions of racial superiority or inferiority. All human beings are equal before God. That same principle of equality is absolutely fundamental to democracy, and democracy is a foundational principle of our Constitution. Democracy is part of what makes us who we are as a nation. Even if we might still gravitate towards racial groupings, our allegiance to these groups must never overshadow our allegiance to the Constitution, and to the claims of equal dignity that it establishes firmly and permanently. Political parties based on race or religion must never be allowed to do or say anything contrary to justice and equality.

We must anchor ourselves in the Constitution and restore its primacy. This founding document of our country establishes definitively the equality of citizenship that is the bedrock of democracy. It gives us the framework of law and order within which we become a nation. It establishes the primacy of the rule of law, the sovereignty of Parliament, the independence of the judiciary and civil service and of our law enforcement agencies. These are the institutions which guarantee the freedom and sovereignty of the people.

We should acknowledge that while race is a category that unites people in common feeling, it can also divide, and divide disastrously. While it unites people who possess a set of social markers it often divides the same people from other communities. We should appreciate not just the fact that we are diverse but diverse in different ways. What I mean by this is that we are not diverse in the sense of being merely Malay, a Chinese, an Indian, a Kadazan, Iban and so forth. Each of us inhabits these particular identities in different ways. Each of us is not just a member of a race. There are other classifications which matter to us, such as location, class, social status, occupation, language, politics and others.

Is race the most important thing?

We would be terribly impoverished as persons if our identity was given ahead of time and once and for all merely by our membership of a fixed racial category. I would be a very dull person if you could tell who I was simply by looking up my race. We would never have unity if that is primarily how we regard one another. If you reflect on yourselves, you might find that all kinds of identity matter to you: that you are a graduate of such and such a university, that you speak these languages, support this football team, enjoy certain food or music, love to travel, can write computer code, have read such and such books, and have so-and-so as friends. Just reflect on how you identify yourselves in your facebook profiles. Is race the only thing you regard as important about yourselves? Is it the most important thing?

To expect our politics to be given by our race is to make cardboard images of ourselves, it is to retard our growth as individuals and hence as a society. Similarly to see no more of others than their race is to turn them into stereotypes and maintain a view of the world bordering on racist. I want to urge you, as the makers of the new social landscape we need in Malaysia, to reject taking race to be a unique and fixed categorisation, to reject race as a central category of social and political life.

Race is a constructed category, in the sense that people shape what they count as a “race” according to time, place and purpose. There is no unique and rigid concept of it the way there is a rigid concept of buoyancy, double-entry book-keeping, equilateral triangles and photosynthesis. I would be offended if you tried to measure and determine my racial identity, and it would tell me that there was something deeply wrong with your worldview. I am not Malay in the sense in which water is H2O.

Race is merely one among many identities we take up in life. We may not have much choice over how others categorise us, but we certainly have a choice about the relative importance to place on our own and therefore on the others’ racial identity. We have a choice in how much weight we put on it, and in how high in our scheme of values we put it. The contrast I want to draw is between the view that makes race out to be a unique and fundamental category, and a view that sees race as one out of many kinds of identification we could prioritise.

If we see race as a watertight category, then you are either of race X or not, and everything else: your habits, thought-patterns, loyalties and politics must all follow from that. Then race becomes destiny. The politics of this kind of conception of race will always divide, and the ultimate solution to intra-racial problems it leads us to is, in the end, violence. It is easy to identify the practitioners of this kind of racial politics. They will rely on veiled threats of communal violence even as they take part in democratic politics.

However, if we understand that racial identity is just one of many identities we have to balance, then it becomes our duty as thinking persons to set relative priorities on all these identifications. We need to ask ourselves whether we want to draw our moral values and perspective from our common humanity or from our racial identity. As educated, reasoning people, we cannot but find our common humanity the more fundamental value. We cannot but find rationally chosen universal values more important than inherited tribal affiliations.

The ability to root ourselves in our common humanity first and foremost is the prerequisite for the development of a democratic society in which policies are decided by public reasoning rather than determined by violence and manipulation. This is because open public reasoning can only be carried out where there is equal respect for the dignity and rights of all citizens, and such respect must be firmly rooted in an understanding that despite sometimes clashing interests and identities, we are united by a more fundamental common identity: that of a shared humanity created by God. Our common humanity gives us moral obligations to one another, regardless of our lesser affiliations in a way that racial identity does not?

Time to embrace the diversity

We need to arrive at new ways of mediating conflicting claims between the races, new ways of bringing people to the table, of including everyone in the decisionmaking process.

These new ways must be based on more open conceptions of who we are. Malaysia’s major races have lived together not just for decades but for centuries. Their cultures have interacted for millenia. In that time there has been mutual influence, admixture and cross-pollination at a depth and on a scale that our politics, popular culture and educational curriculum has largely pretended does not exist.

In my own parliamentary constituency, jungle covered, far inland and one of the most remote in the peninsula (it used to be known as Ulu Kelantan and covered half the state, and when I started there I had to travel to it by boat), is a six hundred year old Chinese community, perhaps the oldest in the peninsula, living in peace with their Malay and Orang Asli neighbours. Why pretend that we do not owe so much to each other that we would not be ourselves without each other? At the level at which people actually live we are already inextricably linked to each other.

It is time to embrace this real diversity in our political and personal lives. Our racial identities are not silos in a cornfield, forever separate, encased in steel, but trees in our rainforest: standing distinct but inexplicable without each other and constantly co-evolving.

While giving room to whoever wants to organise and advocate political interests according to our ethnic and religious affinities, we must now, very firmly, assert that such affinities must always recognise the priority and primacy of our common citizenship, our equal dignity, and above all, our common humanity before each other and before God. First we are human beings who are open to one another.

My young friends, I am not recommending anything novel. These are cardinal principle of our Constitution and the faiths we profess, most especially of Islam, and of reason itself. Let us have the sense of perspective to see our ethnic identities against these cornerstone principles of religion and ethics, and let us now educate our young, apprentice our youth, and conduct ourselves according to these principles. And then let us have a new beginning for Malaysia.

***

The above speech was delivered at Melbourne University at an event organized by the Umno Club.

So when I read today that “many object to making English a must pass subject for SPM”, I thought, “Oh great, here we go again”.

Someone needs to buy a “Survey Basics for Dummies” book.

They say that most out of the measly 500 views they got object to it. But how many are “most”? And what in the world is 500 compared to the entire Malaysian population? Someone needs to teach them how to properly conduct a survey and report survey results. Either that, or the powers that be are bullshitting us and riling us up for another round of debates. After all, they’ve run out of things for us to debate in the media – Perak, teaching Science and Math in English, Altantunya…. etc

But, education is a sore spot for politics. As much as it sucks, the truth is that students are neglected most of the time by the politicians unless it involves officiating things with the media involved. Politicians typically try to appeal to voters – none of which are primary or secondary level students. Our Education Minister said that “he was also shocked to learn that national schools no longer taught English grammar”.

I take away two things from this. Firstly, our government is obviously not placing enough emphasis and importance on the monitoring of our school syllabi. Secondly, he either does not have any children, or if he does, they are probably educated overseas or in private institutions. All of our politicians should take a step back and take off their political-mind-game caps and just momentarily replace them with parent caps.

Learning English is not easy.

And I’m saying this from the perspective of someone who grew up in a primarily English-speaking environment and mingled among people who speak English as their first language. I can honestly tell you that aside from Mrs. Leong in Std 6, I learned nothing about the language during my 10 years of public schooling. I attribute my fluency wholly to my mother and Mrs. Brohier, my English tutor of many, many years. From them, I learned proper pronunciation, grammar, sentence structures, essay-writing and analytic writing, among others. That makes me one of the lucky few of my generation who can afford having a tutor in the first place and who are blessed enough to be born into a family who uses English daily. How many students are blessed enough for all that?

Many of my friends speak good English and write decently, in fact. But not many of them are aware of what nouns, pronouns, adverbs, synonyms, antonyms or even homonyms are! I can’t really blame them since I have never heard them my entire 10 years in school! Without my mother and Mrs. Brohier, I would never have known about the intricacies of the English language either. What I learned in school consisted mainly of reading passages, how to answer comprehension questions, how to write essays of different formats, etc. etc. But nothing of the sheer basics of the language. So our government can spend the next few months (or years, who knows?) debating on whether or not to make passing English compulsory and do nothing meanwhile. Or, they can do something about the way English is taught while debating (if they really need to).

At the end of the day…

They can play mind games all they want and use education as a gambling point to gain more votes.

They can even rely on and applaud “Malay supremacist” views that say that giving English so much importance in Malaysian education makes us “victims of the English Language colonisation” or that our “national unity” will be affected.

But let’s be realistic here. Backward and narrow thinking does not take us anywhere. It does not take a rocket scientist to be aware of the fact that English is the dominant International language in just about any field there is, and its reach is truly global. Unless Malaysia is as self-sufficient as Japan, in order to become truly competitive, our people need a working knowledge of the English language. An almost 70% pass of English at SPM level is an appalling statistic – someone needs to teach the powers that be to be aware of the actual meaning behind that of that thrown-around statistic.

You often notice that our politicians make a large number of observations about many different topics on education that are basically the same thing – that the nation’s teaching staff is under-qualified. One of the reasons why education is a stagnant sector is because our government spends a disproportionate amount of time on politicking and making obvious and completely unhelpful “observations”.

But at the end of the day, what are they doing about it? How many more generations of students will continue to lose out on opportunities simply because our schools are not prepped enough to promote excellence?

He being current (not for much longer) Prime Minister, Badawi

The thing is… when Pakatan won, they won by the vote of the people – pure democracy. Barisan’s current “support” comes from “defected” politicians who are independents but “BN-friendly”.

How is that the same thing?

—–

“Our hearts go out to her. We understand her predicament. Her resignation is a good step forward as not all Malaysian could accept the issue.

“Now, it is better for PKR to accept her resignation, as it will stop all the harassment she is facing. We all hope the harassment will stop and all parties involved will give her space,” he said.

(The Star, 2009)

He, in this case, being Khir Toyo.

Just a question, dear sir – how do you know that:

1. Not all Malaysians can accept the issue? I mean, no one even knows what the photos are about and the question flying around now is “How bad are they, really?”.

[update: Further proof that the photos really aren't "that bad". Thanks to a certain someone, I just saw the photos and my God, she isn't even nude in 3 of them and in one, you cannot even conclude that it's a nudie because all you can see are the tops of her shoulders while she is sleeping on her side. The other "embarrassing photos" are upskirt-shots of her while she looks like she was sleeping - they weren't even tasteful and were taken by a low-res cell phone camera. Jeez. This is a gross invasion of her privacy, politician or not!]

2. How do you know that when PKR accepts her resignation, all the harassment will stop?

Most of all, I do feel that if the people of Selangor, or at least those in her Bukit Lanjan constituency, are accepting and sympathize with the incident (she is the victim after all), I personally do not see why not. Her private life has nothing to do with her career, and most definitely has nothing to do with the public eye. I’ve seen a banner up in BU by BU residents (I’m not sure if there are others) pledging their support for Elizabeth Wong. I don’t see why she cannot continue.

After all, this whole scandal is very obviously politically motivated… and if it isn’t, can BN really blame the people for believing so?

Two by-elections coming up and one of them caused by a bigamy charge.

The Perak uproar, with the Sultan involved no less (this makes me extremely grateful that Penang has no such monarchy system. I doubt many of us know who the Yand di Pertua Negeri is, even)!

BN suddenly claiming “democracy” when they actually have the same number of seats as PR does with “friendly” independents.

This reeks of corruption, gutter politics and slander.

—–

Who am I, really to be complaining about all this and what can I do? I am a concerned citizen, that’s what. We all have a part to play in all this and we should not be looking at this froma  detached point of view. Reality is that this is the situation our country is in now, and will possibly be in for the next few years. The use of the word “democracy” in our is alread treading a fine line. With recent events in Perak, I think we can safely assume that our voice, the PEOPLE’S voice, has been effectively thrown out the window in a power struggle.

I can only pray to God and ask Him to guide the hands of those who lead our country, our states, our constituencies. After all, I strongly believe that it is the good who prevail at the end of the day.

I would like to do a whole lot more, truly, I would. But for now, I can only pray, leave it all up to Him, and in the next general elections, take my vote in hopes that it does count.

What do you think?

You’ve got A saying “Scrap the vernacular school system!”

You’ve got B saying “Reinstate legal immunity for the royal family” (which was previously scrapped by Dr. M)

You’ve got C saying “My methods as MB were so effective rahrahrah”

You’ve got D contradicting himself from several months past.

Then you’ve got E, F, G, H, I saying “Stop open discussions about racial issues!” some even going as far to jail those who do.

But most of all, you’ve got, and I quote verbatim, J saying: “Truly Malaysian politics have not been decoupled from racial sentiments and loyalties. And it is going to remain so for as long as the different races prefer to be separated and divided, prefer to strongly uphold their languages, cultures and their historical origins and links. All that is said about reforms and liberalism is mere lip service.”

Looks as though the Powers that Be are currently having a bout of verbal diarrhoea.

In response to all that, I would like to say a few things.

1. Do E, F, G, H and I mean that as a citizen of Malaysia, I am unable to ask “What is Ketuanan Melayu and why is it so?”. I am unable to question and critically analyze the need for it? I am unable to grouse about the inequal treatment we receive in the eyes of the Government? A large number of our youth are educated individuals, equipped with the power of critical thinking. Is it so wrong for us to want to question the decisions made by our forefathers? If you still think that it’s wrong, operationally define Ketuanan Melayu for us then! Tell us exactly what it entails not just for the Malays in Malaysia but the other races as well! Does it include the true Bumiputeras/natives of our soil, does it include only pure Malays or does it include every Tom, Dick and Harry who are Muslim. There’s a stark difference. But I don’t only mean the questioning of special rights. I would also like to know if it means I am not allowed to question any moves/decisions made by the leaders of this country and just blindly obey/comply with them? This, questioning the very essence of racial sensitivities, is merely the tip of the iceberg here.

2. While using one system for all might be… idealistic in some ways, let’s face it. In secondary schools, Chinese and Tamil education systems still use BM as a medium of teaching. I have to agree wtih the few other politicians about this – it’s not just about the medium or teaching style, it’s about the values these schools impart on their students that happen to be, sadly, much stronger than those in government schools. It’s so obvious the stark difference in loyalty between my father, brother (who are Chung Ling alumnus) and my mother and I (who are SGGS and MGS alumnus respectively). They are not only insanely proud of their heritage, they are extremely loyal and grateful to their school. Most of all, they display and act on such feelings towards their school. We call it sheer patriotism.

3. Does J mean that it would be best if all races abandon their languages, cultures and historical origins and links? If that happens, does it mean that we’re all “Truly Malaysian”? Or does J mean minority races abandon all that to embrace and conform to the majority language, culture and origin? We can’t just throw away history like that (unlike what’s displayed in our country). We cannot just say “My grandfather was from China, I’m going to disown him…. or I won’t be “Truly Malaysian”!” or “I can’t celebrate Chinese New Year, wear a cheongsam, or speak in Hokkien/Cantonese/Mandarin, it would mean that I’m not “Truly Malaysian”!”. One would expect someone of his age to speak (or in this case, type) with more forethought than that.

At the end of the day, we’re still all Chinese, Malays, Indians, Seranis, and so on the same way the Americans are American-Caucasian, African Americans, American Chinese/Indian/Korean etc. Even within these categories we’re Hokkiens, Cantonese, Hakka, Tamil, Ceylonese and so on, so forth. Instead of racial polarization and stifling each independent race’s choice of schooling, we should strive to instill an understanding of different cultures, not “one culture/language/origin and links” for all! We are a multi-racial and multi-cultural lot. The way the world is going now, every country in the world has more than one language, culture and people of various origins and all these make us who we are. We should be taught to be proud of everything our forefathers have given us, and I don’t mean only since 1957. Our children should be taught the differences and similarities between each culture and how to bridge those gaps – not by making one superior to the other but by meeting each other halfway. I’m not saying that does not happen in society nowadays, it does. But does it happen enough? We will never be truly Malaysian or truly democratic if our leaders refuse to meet us halfway. Politics can be decoupled from racial sentiments and loyalties. Someone’s just got to make the first step. I’d like to think that’s what the Penang government is doing now.

Unfortunately for us Malaysians, a majority of our politicians fall in the second category.

To use some PSY311 Assessment and Profiling terms, one contributing factor to the success of your political career is the politician’s ‘face validity’. Basically, it means “does your politician look like he/she’s doing what he/she’s supposed to be doing?” But our politicians forget the importance of ‘content validity’ – whether they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

It’s sad to see that our politicians are ‘either or’. You’ve got hypocrites who make a fuss over the smallest of things just because they’re the opposition, not realizing that they’re going about obtaining face validity the wrong way.

The greatest example I can give you is the fact that some people in the ruling party seem to be making an unnecessary fuss over the fact that Penang road signs will now be multilingual – adding English, Arabic, Jawi, Tamil and Chinese to the already existing B.M. signs. I will not comment on this due to the sheer hypocrisy of it all, especially since several road signs in the capital of this country are translated to Arabic and Jawi. This is a perfect example of low face validity and even lower content validity.

And then, you have the overwhelming criticism by the Opposition (and I mean the state opposition) over Lim Guan Eng’s latest South Korean trip. Let’s not forget that highly controversial trip to Taiwan our MPs took to elude the Sept. 16 threat. I mean, really. Sheer hypocrisy. So there you have it – high face validity (I mean, as the opposition, they have to protest over everything right? *rolls eyes*), low content validity. Why low? Because next thing you know, Lim Guan Eng signs a MoU with a large SKorean firm for investment in Penang. Yes, so everyone questions if we need a golfcourse in Batu Kawan… but you’re missing the point. We need the investment especially since Penang has fallen out of the ruling party’s radar when it comes to funding. What’s more, there’s actually proof that his trip there has amounted to something. Unlike the ridiculous Taiwanese trip, or the one taken by the ex Selangor MB/Sel. State Development to the UK to look at kindergartens.

And in this case, Lim Guan Eng – high face validity, high content validity.

Then suddenly, you have some parties coming out to say “PENANG IS DIRTY! BAD FOR TOURISM!” Well, well, well, my dear tourism minister. I’ve lived in Penang all my life and it has been steadily getting worse and worse. The state Penang is in right now when it comes to the lack of cleanliness, doesn’t happen overnight and it sure as hell doesn’t happen in 8 months. The accumulation of dirt in Penang started long before DAP took over. So to be passing judgment now and say that “I don’t know if Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng is aware of it. He seems busy travelling to and fro Kuala Lumpur and Penang since he has two jobs, as an MP and an assemblyman,”? Not smart. Anyone who lives in Penang or has been to Penang in the past few years can testify to that. Medium face validity, absolutely no content validity.

High face validity and low content validity has also been evident in the MCA. Recently the new Wanita MCA chief made a comment that the Selangor MB should have looked into the appointment of non-Bumis to fill the Selangor State Dev. GM post instead of limiting it to Bumis only. Practice, what you preach. MCA is, at the end of the day, a part of BN. I don’t see you preaching the choir to your BN counterparts and I haven’t heard any preaching or advocating of the rights of non-Bumis while Selangor was under BN for all those years? You’ve never questioned the appointment of Bumiputera GMs, why start now?

However, the last thing I am, is biased towards the Pakatan Rakyat crowd. Their recent stunt staging a walkout in the middle of in Parliament? Low face validity and no content validity. What’s your point? What is the point of us electing you as our representatives when you cannot even be bothered to sit through one sitting? You’re not doing your job. Complain as much as you want about the ruling party, this is outrageous. It’s something teenagers do while mommy/daddy’s nagging. Don’t you know? Tantrums get you nowhere. You want to lead this country? Act like leaders first and not sore losers.

While both parties suck when it comes to content validity, I have to say – it is most unfortunate that the ruling party has not learned much from the recent general elections. Going around criticizing the Opposition’s every move is not going to make us vote for you next time. It’s going to make us realize how sore you guys are. Unfortunately for them, Penang seems to be thriving under DAP and while Selangor’s development has not been immediate, its future seems to be looking pretty bright.

Who cares if Anwar succeeds as the PM. Who cares who leads UMNO youth or Wanita MCA. Who cares what language the roadsigns are in? The world is sliding into an economy crisis and the sooner they focus on what’s important to bolster our economy, the better.

And they wonder why the citizens have suddenly decided to give the Opposition parties a fighting chance.

“Instead of blocking access to offensive websites, the Cabinet wants authorities to investigate and act quickly against the owners of these sites,” ( Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor, 2008)

Wow! Our government really is against Internet censorship, as promised. They’ve unblocked Malaysia Today!

But, it seems as if they’re not above shutting netizens up via brandishing the ISA threat. After all, RPK has once more been detained by the ISA.

They really shouldn’t say that they do not want to censor Internet content, therefore should withdraw the ban but later arrest RPK for speaking his mind. So once more, the ISA threat materializes. I guess they’ve decided that merely banning the site is not enough since mirror sites and different hostings are possible. So, they’ve gone and nipped it right at the bud. Now, we’ve got a different threat on our hands. After all,

“there (are) other “harsher” laws in the country, under which authorities could take action against the owners of blogs and websites, instead of blocking it.” (Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor, 2008)

Datuk Arif Shah Omar Shah

If you don’t know who he is, he’s the UMNO-glorified politician who ran against Anwar Ibrahim in the recent Permatang Pauh by-elections. Everyone harped on and on about the fact that he’s a Chinese-and-Hokkien-speaking Malay politician who was schooled in a Chinese-medium school in some godforsaken place in Perak. While newspapers and mainstream media repeatedly stressed on Anwar’s looming sodomy charges, few speculated this UMNO man’s background. Of course, there was that little bit of controversy on his credentials… but really. In Malaysia, supposed and unfounded sodomy deserves more coverage than a politician who imagined his education in two nonexistent universities and even went to the extent of FAKING several websites in order to support his allegations. No… proven plagiarism and lying is really minor compared to unfounded cases of sodomy.

In the US, where it’s heating up between the republicans and the Democrats, much dirt has been unearthed about the Republican latest VP canditate – Sarah Palin. Her personal life, murky as hell, has been splashed all over the internet and various mainstream sources – THIS, is politicking.

While, of course, Pakatan Rakyat went on and on and on about how BN is corupt, racist and filled with cronyism and how our leaders are not… well, leaders. BN’s main bullet into the Pakatan Rakyat armor was Anwar’s sodomy allegations! What does unfounded, unproven sodomy have ANYTHING to do with running a country?! And they (read: BN) said that, “the people are tired of the politicking”. Well, that’s true. We, the people, ARE tired of politicking. We’re tired of YOUR politicking and by God, we’re tired of YOU.

I’d rather that this man who’s supposedly accused of sodomy for the second time (read: no such thing as a coincidence) lead my state, my country rather than this Arif fella over there who’s a total flake. I wouldn’t make such allegations without having at least some proof.

He claimed to have studied in two institutions – Graber International and Edison University of Technology.

Even Jeff Ooi said to Google both. While you’ll find that Graber does not exist at all (we tried every available spelling alternative), hey! Edison does!… But wait… It’s EDISION lah, not Edison – journalists today don’t know how to spell.

Bloggers like Margee discovered this so called EDISION University of Technology and blogged about the fact that it’s domain is Malaysian-registered with a Streamyx IP address despite the fact that this University is supposedly located in the British Virgin Islands. Nonetheless, the very curious housemate and I decided to investigate a little further.

1. BLATANT PLAGIARISM

Example 1
The only program with active links is the Management Program (which I’m supposing is the one Datuk Arif Shah claimed to be pursuing lah). So we clicked on the information page about the Doctorate Program and found it a little dodgy (link here) and ended up Googling some of the text. Lo and behold – an exact replica of a similar Doctorate program in this place in India called EXCEL INSTITUTE (link here).

Example 2
The Welcome Message in the “About EUT” section is blatantly plagiarized from the Honolulu University website.

2. FRAUD

In the “About EUT” section of the website, there is a disclaimer dissociating the university from the current Malaysian controversies. So it gets a certificate from the State of Delaware saying that, “EUT is a legally established identity and has recently obtained its not for profit organization status from the State of Delaware, USA for the scientific and educational purpose” (EUT, 2008). It even lets you view a copy of their certificate! Looks pretty genuine, you think? Perhaps. But look closely – it was prepared by this… “Delaware of Business Incorporators”. So I Googled this and tell me if it looks dodgy or not (link here). Even more dodgy than that is the fact that the document they apparently scanned looks a tad forged. Tilt the screen of your monitor a little and you can see some parts of the letter looking like it was a cut and paste job! But, I a mere Psychology student wouldn’t know that now, would I?

3. More fraud

In order to maximize the credibility of the University website, it’s claimed to be recognized by the International Management Association, UK. A quick check revealed that a Penang-based webdesign company called Websmith ATP. WOW. They must be really huge to be designing websites for associations and corporations as such. You know what’s even more impressive? This same company designed a website for another institute called the Washington Technology Institute. Cool, huh?

]

You know the other link between these two websites? They’re both linked on the EUT website and EUT claims to be conducting research WTI! Cool, innit. So we checked out the WTI website and lo and behold. It’s really not much different from the EUT website since it’s more or less plagiarized. Mission and Vision from the Thomas Edision University of Technology, program description from the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) and Godknowswhatelse.

You know the best part about all these websites?

IMA UK

WTI, Nevada

EUT

They all have the same contact address which, if you Google, is the contact address for hundreds of other businesses! So is EUT’s Vanterpool Plaza address and WTI’s Hong Kong address.

Dodgy, no?

I try my best to be as onthefence as possible when it comes to politics. But this is really too much to take. So what if he claims to have aborted his doctorate because it’s not accredited. He still was educated in an imagined university (Graber Institute) and all these websites have ties back to Penang (with WHOIS information to the same address listed under WebsmithATP in Bukit Mertajam).

That aside, so you harp on and on about no sex and sensationalism in Malaysian mainstream media (which is controlled by the Federal government, FYI). This whole Anwar sodomy debacle has made sex and sensationalism near-daily headlines of every major newspaper in the country up till the by-elections. Hypocrites.

No sen-fucking-sationalism, my ass. You looking for something to sensationalize? Sensationalize this!

This man is still an MP, still in UMNO and is probably one of the MPs backing Ahmad Ismail in Penang (that moron who called us Chinese “pendatang” and unworthy of equal rights).

It is this sort of backward thinking that stops us from growing as a nation. THIS sort of deceit. You don’t see politicians making comments as such in the US or in the UK where there are tons of immigrants who happen to be citizens. Yes, there is a “White” Caucasian majority but this year the US has an African American Presidential candidate! True, it took them donkey years to get to this stage but really, we’re no longer living in the same world it was a century ago.

So don’t do anything to Ahmad Ismail. Just say sorry, and hey, it’s okay, I said sorry. Haven’t you heard?

Sorry no cure.

Do something. Kick him out. SHOW us that such words and racial politics are not condoned by you! Afterall, action speaks much MUCH louder than words. But you can’t do that now, can you? The BN has long used the racial card to divide us by race. We’re categorized by our race! They say give the Malays superiority, no other race is as superior. They say we help the Chinese too and give some Chinese schools some money. They say the Indians are important to us too, they give Tamil schools money. Then they suddenly remember the East Malaysians and go over to clear their rainforests and give them money. But at the end of the day, all of us, despite our race, should unite against this. Stop letting them pit the bumis against the nonbumis! This is ridiculous, afterall, it’s a lose-lose battle. The only winners are those up there – the cronies. So really, what’s the point?

Let’s just say I’m really fed up with the political situation in my country. I love Malaysia. But because of this shit, I cannot wait to get out of here and try my luck elsewhere. Nowhere’s perfect, but it might be a tad better than this bullshit.