ARTICLE 1
PAS Candidates Must Take Bai’ah Oath – Wednesday, 22 February 2012 00:02
KUALA LUMPUR — PAS election candidates must pledge the ‘bai’ah (oath of allegiance) to the party which is higher than a loyalty pledge, said its president, Abdul Hadi Awang.
He said this would ensure that PAS candidates would not stray from the Islamic principles, ways and objectives.
“Anyone who goes against ‘bai’ah’ will be wretched in this world and hereafter,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
On claims that PAS has digressed from its struggle to set up an Islamic country by advocating a welfare state, he said, “PAS abides by its constitution by curbing anything that deviates from Islam.”
(Bernama)
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What implications does this have to the PAS Supporter’s Congress? Are the PAS Supporter’s Congress full and equal voting rights worthy yet? If PSC are equal in voting rights, will the non-Muslims in the PSC be affected by the Bai’ah Oath? See Hadi? A shade (quite light) of Asabiya. You never thought about the non-Muslim members (who many not even be equals in the PSC) and left them out in your statement. Or did the media portal omit?
On claims that PAS has digressed from its struggle to set up an Islamic country by advocating a welfare state, he said, “PAS abides by its constitution by curbing anything that deviates from Islam.”
Well many faiths deviate from perfecr Islam, many ethncities deviate from perfect Islam, will you curb many faiths and many ethnicities deviating from perfect Islam? The Quran said to ‘KNOW the different tribes’ not curb them, regardless of if they deviate from Islam. Perhaps Hadi has to mix around abit more, because this sort of insularism and inward communalism entirely disenfranchises all other races and faiths. As people age, the grow lazier and less alert, maybe a reminder, will Hadi consider the 13 point plan’s issues below :
Unmoderated Malaysian Comments and 13 Point Assimilation Plan
;and confirm the status of the PSC? Are the PSC full voting members and eligible for candidacy in PAS???
ARTICLE 2
Chua Shed Light On MCA’s Contributions To Chinese Community – Monday, 20 February 2012 00:09
PUTRAJAYA — MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek has enlightened the Chinese on MCA’s contributions to and concern for the community in his debate with DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, said Barisan Nasional (BN) secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor.
He said Dr Chua carried himself well at the debate and made convincing arguments on the role of the MCA and the BN on the development of the Chinese community without criticising or blaming the opposition.
“Feedback shows that the Chinese community suddenly woke up and realised that the MCA has done quite a lot for them and we have always been working together.
“Please remember that whatever decision we make is based on consensus; there is no bulling by any party, big or small,” he told reporters after presenting the 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) to about 1,600 people from the Putrajaya parliamentary constituency here yesterday.
On Saturday, Dr Chua and Guan Eng conducted a debate in Mandarin on the topic “Chinese at the Crossroads: Is the Two-Party System Becoming a Two-Race System?” at Berjaya Times Square.
Organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) and the MCA think-tank, Insap, the debate was moderated by Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall chief executive officer Tang Ah Chai.
It was broadcast in Mandarin on Astro AEC, with a simultaneous translation in Bahasa Malaysia on Astro Awani, and aired over the Star’s 988FM.
Tengku Adnan, who is also Umno secretary-general, said the support from the Chinese community is on the rise just like that of the Malays and Indians as the communities realise that only the BN can look after their welfare and prosperity.
Meanwhile, he said, seat-swapping among BN component parties for the next general election was discussed at the BN Supreme Council meeting, but no final decision was made.
He said the matter would be decided after Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin visit Johor, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Sabah and Sarawak.
Asked whether Umno has finalised its candidates and submitted the list to the prime minister, Tengku Adnan said, “It is confidential … be patient. I am not saying yes or no. Be patient.”
(Bernama)
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Any and all contributions cannot match :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy.
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. . . . amongst other things.
Keep those contributions for yourselves MCA, we need an end to APARTHEID,and would prefer an END TO APARTHEID above ALL contributions.
ARTICLE 3
Guan Eng’s Attempt To Save Self From Embarrassment – Tee Siew Kiong – Wednesday, 22 February 2012 00:15
Looking back at the debate on 18 February 2012, it becomes too obvious that not only did DAP Secretary General Lim Guan Eng avoid replying questions from MCA President Chua Soi Lek and from the audience on policies and administration of the country, the Penang Chief Minister now puts the blame on the organizers as allowing only MCA supporters to ask questions and DAP followers not given the chance to pose questions. In so doing, Guan Eng has lost the statesmanship of a debate.
Finding fault after the debate and not during
Being fault finding, Lim Guan Eng takes the audience to task after the debate session. This is unfair to the moderator Tan Ah Chai and the organizers. In fact, during the day long conference, in the day time sessions, several persons who posed questions were DAP supporters. Why didn’t Lim Guan Eng say this is unfair? Furthermore, the people who asked questions had to queue up, taking turns to direct their inquiries to the debaters within a limited time. MCA members are also the rakyat. They have the right to pose questions to Lim Guan Eng, who is the Chief Minister of Penang and a DAP echelon member.
During the debate, Lim Guan Eng did not take questions directed to him by the crowd – giving answer that deflected from the questions. But he now accuses the people who posed questions as being all MCA members after the debate. This reduces the substance of a debate. What the audience wants to hear most is Lim Guan Eng providing a satisfactory and visionary answer to show the public the direction of Pakatan Rakyat and DAP.
Unfortunately, Guan Eng kept talking about the benefits to Penang people within a short time during his term, for example, giving RM100 to senior citizens. This can never fulfill the needs of people nor enhance the standard of living.
Lim Guan Eng dodges questions
Not only did Lim Guan Eng avoid replying the questions, he also ignored other issues, especially pertaining to Pakatan Rakyat’s political, economic and social plans for Malaysia. This is very disappointing. By failing to reply these basic questions, how may Malaysians believe that Pakatan Rakyat as a political coalition has the ability to govern the country.
Largely empty DAP seats before the debate
DAP’s focus tends to emphasize their party leader Lim Guan Eng. Most of the DAP members failed to be present in the forum sessions held from morning till pre-debate. Most of the reserved seats stood empty. Only when the debate was about to commence, only then were the the seats occupied. This proves that DAP supporters do not care for the rest of the DAP speakers at the forum, which include Dr Tan Sing Giaw, Chong Eng, Liew Chin Tong and Teoh Nie Ching.
Not only is such a circumstance unfair to the organizer, it is also a disservice to members of the public who were unable to enter the hall for the conference.
It is regrettable that in view of Guan Eng’s dodging of every question from the floor or from that of the MCA President, DAP has thence shifted blame to MCA to divert attention away and help their Secretary General escape the embarrassment of being unable to reply the questions.
TEE SIEW KIONG is MCA National Organising Secretary
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Never heard of those people. But DAP being not under BN which is all for apartheid policy and lapgogs, though DAP has been shifty about ending apartheid, is still better than MCA. Now once 3rd Forcers organise sufficiently to END APARTHEID, MCA will become entirely irrelevant and DAP will become the next MCA. Gentrification (acceptance of APARTHEID in Malaysia’s version), kills the purpose of political parties and DAP has regressed into a cult of personality party that does not speak clearly on APARTHEID.
ARTICLE 4
And thus democracy makes cowards of us all — Farish A. Noor
February 22, 2012
FEB 22 — The older I get, the grumpier and more cynical I become; and as I grow more cynical by the day, nothing gets my goat more than having to watch and read about the developments in Malaysia where the lowest common denominator rules the day.
On this occasion I find myself riled once again by the popular and populist demand for vernacular education, and to maintain a multi-track education system in the country. Again and again this issue bedevils our national politics, and again and again most, if not all, of the political parties in the country fall back to their safe positions while banking upon what they regard as their natural and safe political constituencies.
In this regard both the ruling coalition and the opposition coalition seem to be equally at fault: Neither side seems prepared to take the bull by the horns and do what seems simply necessary if we still going to entertain the notion that there is some form of nation-building at work in this country. Malaysia boasts of its uniqueness, but in this one regard it does seem to be unique indeed.
After more than half a century of independence we still cling on to the notion that an inclusive national narrative can come about through not one, but several vernacular education systems. Nowhere else in the world (or the developed world at least) can I think of an example of such an arrangement, where both the government and the opposition seem inclined to support the popular demand for vernacular-based education streaming.
Nowhere else in the world would a plural society be made all the more alienated from itself by allowing kids to study in the company of those who are more culturally and linguistically closer to them.
We lament, as we often do, the declining levels of inter-ethnic contact in the country; and we bemoan that the so-called ‘golden years’ of Malaysia in the 1950s and 1960s are long gone. And yet we maintain this inane belief that by segregating children from an early age along linguistic-cultural lines we can still forge a Malaysian nation, together. How? And upon what basis would that shared sense of national belonging be found?
We wonder how and why the religious functionaries in the country can make the pronouncements they do, but what do we expect if we allow a condition where children from the same linguistic-cultural background are kept in the company of people similar to them from primary to secondary education, and perhaps even beyond?
I have said the same thing so many times by now that I am only thankful that the internet does not incur the waste of ink and paper: Yet today, in Malaysia, it is conceivable that a child of a particular linguistic-cultural group grows up in the company of similar children up to the age of 18, without ever having to shake hands with someone of a different ethnic, linguistic or religious background. So much for diversity then – how on earth can we expect Malaysians to integrate if the educational system keeps them apart for so long?
And while on the subject of comparisons, can we imagine a similar situation in any developed country, like the UK, Germany or France? Where would France and Germany’s minorities be if they were segregated from childhood in Arabic or Turkish schools?
How could they hope to enter the mainstream of society that is still defined and shaped by the national language of those countries? On the contrary, while I was living in Germany I came across scores of German-Arab and Turks who wanted their kids to enter and succeed in the mainstream educational system, knowing that in that country that is the only path to higher education, and possible upward social mobility as well.
Yet what it takes for this to happen in Malaysia is political courage and the will to put forward radical proposals that may not be popular, in fact downright unpopular. It takes a politician with guts to say that Malaysian kids ought to be able to meet, study, compete and succeed in a singular national educational system that mirrors the reality of Malaysia’s plural and complex society.
And it takes some courage to state that if any Malaysian parent wishes his or her child to study Mandarin or Tamil, he should be able to do so in the same singular national schooling system where these languages should also be taught as Malaysian languages — languages that have been spoken in the region for centuries.
But politicians tend to be timid in the face of democratic populism, and the will of the voter — no matter how uninstructed, how bigoted or biased — seems to hold sway over their own opinions. I have met politicians on both sides of the fence who have confided in me their fears and anxiety over where the nation-building process in Malaysia is heading, and who know that if this trend continues there will not be one Malaysia but several Malaysias, that live side by side but remain clueless about their neighbours. But these very same politicians seem captive to the ballot box and paralysed when it comes to doing what is necessary, albeit unpopular. They cannot speak out for fear of losing their so-called ‘natural vote bases’, that happen to be ethnic and linguistic vote bases, reflective of our fractured society. And so the charade continues, and we remain a nation that studies, and lives, apart.
Thus has Populist Democracy made cowards of us all?
* Dr Farish A. Noor is a senior fellow at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
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The real coward or dishonest spin doctor is Farish himself that refuses to face the below facts that have led to the symptoms Farish has complained about here, education, language and mainstream society, faith segregation :
1) Freedom from Apartheid/Fascism
2) Freedom from Religious-Persecution/Religious-Supremacy.
3) Equality for all ethnicities and faiths in all aspects of policy, Law and Constitution. . . . amongst other things.
Without the above in place that ENSURES EQUALITY, there will NEVER be integration as Farish ‘hopes’ in absence of the above 3 items. The symptoms as listed by Farish are stated in absentia of acknowledgment that APARTHEID in laws and constitution is causing all the malaise that Farish has listed. The pre 1969 born citizens and those infected by APARTHEID attitudes or acceptance or apartheid attitudes fuel the problems as mentioned. Were a general unknown unaffiliated person to state the above, there would be not issue, now being an academic Farish cannot be forgiven for such omissions and is in fact a propagandist of people who refuse to end apartheid. Again I say, will ALL people, ESPECIALLY academics who are honest (and not faux academic, faux cynical or faux high minded) END the apartheid as per the above 3 items?
Dishonest academia or cowed academia?
ARTICLE 5
Dr M calls all Malaysians ‘racists’ – by Clara Chooi UPDATED @ 03:55:56 PM 22-02-2012 – February 22, 2012
Dr Mahathir said those who accused him of racism were similarly guilty. — Picture by Jack Ooi
SHAH ALAM, Feb 22 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad labelled all Malaysians “racists” today when responding to accusations against Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders for playing the race card when lobbying for Malay and Chinese support.
The former prime minister shrugged off criticisms, pointing out that it was common for anyone to ignore the interests of others when trying to get their way.
“This country, everybody is racist. Now, everybody talks about his own interest, doesn’t care about other people’s interest.
“So let’s not hide and say we are not racist,” the straight-talking politician told a press conference today.
“All of them, the people who say I’m racist, they are racist because they say I’m racist,” he added, with a smile.
Dr Mahathir was responding to BN’s “doublespeak” regarding the outcome of support for PAS and DAP, following MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek’s debate with DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng last weekend.
Dr Chua had warned the Chinese community against supporting DAP, claiming a vote for the secular, majority Chinese party would only empower Islamist PAS.
Separately, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak suggested to a gathering of Islamic religious scholars the following day that a vote for PAS would empower DAP, which he implied would be disastrous for Muslims and Islam in Malaysia.
“Even if we vote for that faction, it is the one who sleeps in the same bed with them that will profit,” he said during his luncheon address at “Himpunan Ulama, Cendekiawan Islam dan Penulis Maya” here.
“The Chinese held a debate on ‘Chinese at the crossroads’. Muslims, too, are at a crossroads, more so since the general election is not far off. We must choose, and the one we choose must be able to guarantee the honour and purity Islam.”
Najib’s remarks were later criticised by opposition leaders, who said it showed the prime minister had turned his back on his 1 Malaysia unity pledge for race politics.
“Najib has definitely abandoned all pretences for reform or transformation. It’s back to the old realpolitik of race, religion and money,” PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli told The Malaysian Insider.
He said it was “amusing” that Barisan Nasional (BN) still resorted to old divide-and-rule tactics in an age where voters have greater access to information, and suggested that the ruling coalition was in “panic mode” as elections loom.
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“All of them, the people who say I’m racist, they are racist because they say I’m racist,” he added, with a smile.
Here’s Mahathir ‘strawmanning’ himself. Make your own conclusions as to what this means about the already pro-APARTHEID BN coalition . . .
malaysiandemocracy 