A small piece of History for our future generation.. Why Kota Gelanggi (lost city) touted as earliest civilization in Malay Peninsula news were banned as they were Buddhist.
The Johor find of 2005 which was quietly dropped was none other than Kota Gelanggi lost city reflecting Srivijaya and its Buddhist splendour. But they deliberately disregarded it because that would have sidelined Malacca Empire and Islam which was smaller and came some 500 years later. I met Dr Lee Kam Hing, a former History prof at MU in Singapore recently at a seminar.Dr Lee, who is now Star research director, told me he was trying his best to highlight Kota Gelanggi, but that the govt killed it off. This is clearly another case to cover up the real history of Malaya and fool the younger generations into believing that our history only began from Malacca 1400.. Not only that, they try to show Parameswara as Malay and Muslim, but actually he was Hindu! If one were to condemn these UMNO scumbags on how they distort history, it will never end......the condemnations will more than cover 10 PhD thesis!
A small piece of History for our future generation Hitler's public relations manager, Goebbels, once said, 'If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.'
Once again our government wiped out any references to a famous Melaka prince as being Hindu and belonging to the powerful Hindu empire Sri Vijaya.So all of a sudden our museums, school text-books etc. all refer to Parameswara as a Malay prince.
What race ruled or did not rule is besides the point. What is important is not butchering history to create your own truths. You cannot change your race even if you convert - Parameswara could have been responsible for Umno's proud heritage of ' Ketuanan Melayu '.
If this is what it is based on, there is no ' Ketuanan Melayu '. The lineage of Melaka Sultans are Indians, not Malays.
It is no secret that Parameswara was an Indian and a Hindu prince.
It is clear from records that Parameswara never converted to Islam. He was an Indian Hindu who fled Palembang in Sumatra to eventually found Melaka circa 1400 AD. It was Sri Maharaja who converted himself and the court of Melaka to Islam, and as a result took on the name of Sultan Muhammad Shah sometime after 1435...
The most famous of Indian Hindu Kings were Raja Chola and his son Rajendra Chola who invaded Southern Thailand, Kedah, Perak, Johor and Sumatra about 1000 AD. This is Raja-raja Chola - the Indian/Hindu kings and not Raja Chulan - a Malay king. But what is really sad is that our children are taught as though Malaysian history suddenly began in 1400 with an Islamic Melaka.
We are led to believe that the Indians and Chinese first arrived on the shores of Malaysia in about 1850 as desperate indentured labourers, farmers and miners . Nothing could be further from the truth.
The cultural influences of India in particular, and China, in South East Asia span over 2,000 years, starting with the arrival from India of the Brahmanical prince/scholar - Aji Saka in Java in AD78, through to Vietnam, Cambodia (Indo China), Thailand,Burma, Indonesia, Bali, Borneo, Brunei and beyond.
The findings at Bujang Valley speak of an ancient Indian/Hindu presence in Kedah. There were Chinese settlements in Pahang and Kelantan around the 13th-14th century and in 12th century in Singapore .
The early Brunei Sultanate had a Chinese Queen. One need not ponder at length the implications of Angkor Wat and Borobudur or that 40%-50% of Bahasa Malaysia comprises Sanskrit/Tamil words. To illustrate, some of these word are :
bumi = boomi
putra = putran
raja = rajah
desa = thesam
syakti = sakthi
kolam = kulam
bahaya = abahya
jaya = jeya
maha = maha
aneka = aneha
nadi = naadi
kedai = kadai
mahligai = maaligai
mantra = manthrum
tandas = sandas
(This list can go on)
An extremely important archeological find that pointed to one of the greatest empires in history - the Raja Chola empire that ruled from the Maldives through India , Sri Lanka and right down to South East Asia found deep in the jungles of Johor a few years ago and made headlines in the mainstream newspapers in 2005, suddenly disappeared from the news…..
The time has arrived for us to record our history as the facts tell us and not as we would like to wish it.
The truth will never hurt anyone. Lies, always will .
Regards,
LEE Ong Kim (Dr)
Associate Professor and Head
Policy and Leadership Studies
National Institute of Education
NIE2-03-54, 1 Nanyang Walk,
Singapore 637616
Tel: (65) 6790-3236 GMT+8h | Fax: (65) 6896-9151 |
Email:ongkim.lee@nie. edu.sg
Web: www.nie.edu. sg
An Institute of Nanyang Technological University
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
A Tale of Two Temples
by Farish A. Noor
Tuesday, 041207
Editor’s Note: Up to date this Hindu temple problems remain unresolved. Even the Mariamman hindu temple in Shah Alam that was said to be the spark for the 25th November 2007 HINDRAF Rally has refused to be granted land by even the new PKR Selangor government. UMNO, PKR, DAP and PAS has refused to grant land to all Hindu temples all in on go in the states they rule including Kedah, Penang and Selangor. Because they will lose Malay votes!
While meandering about in downtown Saigon recently I chanced upon the Sri Mariaman temple close to Ben Thanh market. It was an interesting visit to say the least, for the riotous colour of the temple were matched by the riotous conjunction of many faiths that had come together in that singular enclosed and sacred space.
The reasons for this are obvious to those familiar with Vietnam’s recent history: In 1975 when Saigon finally fell to the triumphant North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong, practically all the foreigners and migrant residents had made a bee line for the dock. The temples, churches and mosques of Saigon – thenafter renamed Ho Chi Minh city – were left vacant and the devotees wondered if they would be allowed to remain standing at all after their departure. At the height of the Cold War the Vietnamese Communists were seen as a rather uncompromising, tiresomely dogmatic, no-fun bloodthirsty lot and many had assumed that the religious texts would be recycled as toilet paper (as the Khmer Rouge treated the Bibles and Qurans that fell into their hands later) and that the sacred sites would be desacralised in the most outlandish manner.
But what followed next was a surprise to many: They, the dreaded Commies, not only allowed the religious buildings to remain, but they also made use of them in a host of imaginative ways. Many of the churches and mosques were restored and preserved, and some were turned into schools or clinics. Not a stone was touched, save by the restorer’s paint brush.
Today the Sri Mariaman temple in central Saigon has once again become a religious site for many, but ironically most of the devotees happen to be Buddhists and Taoists, not Hindu – for there are scarcely a dozen Hindus left in the city. So I sat and watched as mothers and aunts, grannies and grand-kids perambulated around the precinct of the temple, offering their prayers and sending up their hopes and wishes to the Gods of the Himalayas on a cloud of incense smoke. The Hindu priests are still there, though one wonders what they make of it all, with Buddhists and Taoists coming to offer prayers and light joss-sticks before the many avatars of Lakshmi, Durga, Kali and Krishna. If human beings have proven their intolerance time and again, at least the Gods seem more kindly and benevolent to entertain the vainest of wishes even from strangers.
100_2052Hop of the next cheapo flight and find yourself here in multi-culti Malaysia, just in time to see the bulldozers smash through another Sri Mariaman temple in Selangor. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA It was a double blow to me to return to KL in transit to hear the news that not one, but two, Hindu temples had just been flattened on the same day by our endearing developers in the vicinity of Shah Alam. Even less heart-warming were the accounts of the devotees of the temple who were manhandled and forcibly marched out before the hammers came down, some at gun point. If nefarious Commie Vietnam can protect their temples, why can’t we ‘plural, multicultural, multiflavoured’ Malaysians extend the same comfort and protection to our fellow Malaysians too?
Of course there will be the nay-sayers who will point me to the legal fine print and remind me of the legally dubious status of some of these temples. Then there will be those who will insist that this is an Indian-Hindu issue which I should not stick my nose in (even though the issue is a 100_2080Malaysian one as these are Malaysian temples being destroyed on Malaysian territory and Malaysians are affected). Then there will be the gung-ho testosterone-driven macho types who will yelp and whinge about Malay identity being the paramount defining factor that defines what being Malaysian is, etc. etc.
But prattle and legalese notwithstanding, the bottom line is this: These happen to be Malaysian temples built on Malaysian soil with Malaysian devotees and the Malaysian government is presiding over their systematic and calculated destruction, one by one. One shudders at the thought of the long-term global repercussions of this campaign, for already recorded footage of these temple demolitions are being transmitted to websites all over the globe and the issue taken up by Hindu conservatives in India.image
Nor are the parallels being drawn an attractive one: If the Taliban could have leveled the Bamiyan OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA statues of Buddha with a flick of the trigger-finger (to be followed by the mass slaughter of goats and cows all over the benighted land, which did not make it to the headlines); then what is happening in our plural wonderland called Malaysia? How are we to hold our heads up high and invite the world to visit our wonderfully diverse and colourful country when the very same landscape is being flattened in a rather indecorous way at the same time? Taliban, Wot? Here? Blimey!
The tragedy of course is that the deliberate reconstruction of Malaysia’s urban landscape is being done in broad daylight under the flag of a nebulous formulae of ‘moderate Islam’ that is said by some hopefuls to be the last chance to save the pluralist spirit of the country. However one finds it hard to accept such talk of mutual love and inter-communal cuddlyness when the bulldozers parked outside don’t look all that cuddly. Nor do the cops with their tear gas canisters and batons. Or the Orcish horde of construction (or should we say destruction) workers with mallets and hammers slung precariously over their shoulders, ready to rock and roll. Looking back at the fate of the two Sri Mariaman temples, the question remains: Who were the ones who protected the rights of the religious minorities better? The Godless Commies or the faithful Malaysians? These are the times when I am not proud to admit that I am a Malaysian, I have to say.
Tuesday, 041207
Editor’s Note: Up to date this Hindu temple problems remain unresolved. Even the Mariamman hindu temple in Shah Alam that was said to be the spark for the 25th November 2007 HINDRAF Rally has refused to be granted land by even the new PKR Selangor government. UMNO, PKR, DAP and PAS has refused to grant land to all Hindu temples all in on go in the states they rule including Kedah, Penang and Selangor. Because they will lose Malay votes!
While meandering about in downtown Saigon recently I chanced upon the Sri Mariaman temple close to Ben Thanh market. It was an interesting visit to say the least, for the riotous colour of the temple were matched by the riotous conjunction of many faiths that had come together in that singular enclosed and sacred space.
The reasons for this are obvious to those familiar with Vietnam’s recent history: In 1975 when Saigon finally fell to the triumphant North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong, practically all the foreigners and migrant residents had made a bee line for the dock. The temples, churches and mosques of Saigon – thenafter renamed Ho Chi Minh city – were left vacant and the devotees wondered if they would be allowed to remain standing at all after their departure. At the height of the Cold War the Vietnamese Communists were seen as a rather uncompromising, tiresomely dogmatic, no-fun bloodthirsty lot and many had assumed that the religious texts would be recycled as toilet paper (as the Khmer Rouge treated the Bibles and Qurans that fell into their hands later) and that the sacred sites would be desacralised in the most outlandish manner.
But what followed next was a surprise to many: They, the dreaded Commies, not only allowed the religious buildings to remain, but they also made use of them in a host of imaginative ways. Many of the churches and mosques were restored and preserved, and some were turned into schools or clinics. Not a stone was touched, save by the restorer’s paint brush.
Today the Sri Mariaman temple in central Saigon has once again become a religious site for many, but ironically most of the devotees happen to be Buddhists and Taoists, not Hindu – for there are scarcely a dozen Hindus left in the city. So I sat and watched as mothers and aunts, grannies and grand-kids perambulated around the precinct of the temple, offering their prayers and sending up their hopes and wishes to the Gods of the Himalayas on a cloud of incense smoke. The Hindu priests are still there, though one wonders what they make of it all, with Buddhists and Taoists coming to offer prayers and light joss-sticks before the many avatars of Lakshmi, Durga, Kali and Krishna. If human beings have proven their intolerance time and again, at least the Gods seem more kindly and benevolent to entertain the vainest of wishes even from strangers.
100_2052Hop of the next cheapo flight and find yourself here in multi-culti Malaysia, just in time to see the bulldozers smash through another Sri Mariaman temple in Selangor. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA It was a double blow to me to return to KL in transit to hear the news that not one, but two, Hindu temples had just been flattened on the same day by our endearing developers in the vicinity of Shah Alam. Even less heart-warming were the accounts of the devotees of the temple who were manhandled and forcibly marched out before the hammers came down, some at gun point. If nefarious Commie Vietnam can protect their temples, why can’t we ‘plural, multicultural, multiflavoured’ Malaysians extend the same comfort and protection to our fellow Malaysians too?
Of course there will be the nay-sayers who will point me to the legal fine print and remind me of the legally dubious status of some of these temples. Then there will be those who will insist that this is an Indian-Hindu issue which I should not stick my nose in (even though the issue is a 100_2080Malaysian one as these are Malaysian temples being destroyed on Malaysian territory and Malaysians are affected). Then there will be the gung-ho testosterone-driven macho types who will yelp and whinge about Malay identity being the paramount defining factor that defines what being Malaysian is, etc. etc.
But prattle and legalese notwithstanding, the bottom line is this: These happen to be Malaysian temples built on Malaysian soil with Malaysian devotees and the Malaysian government is presiding over their systematic and calculated destruction, one by one. One shudders at the thought of the long-term global repercussions of this campaign, for already recorded footage of these temple demolitions are being transmitted to websites all over the globe and the issue taken up by Hindu conservatives in India.image
Nor are the parallels being drawn an attractive one: If the Taliban could have leveled the Bamiyan OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA statues of Buddha with a flick of the trigger-finger (to be followed by the mass slaughter of goats and cows all over the benighted land, which did not make it to the headlines); then what is happening in our plural wonderland called Malaysia? How are we to hold our heads up high and invite the world to visit our wonderfully diverse and colourful country when the very same landscape is being flattened in a rather indecorous way at the same time? Taliban, Wot? Here? Blimey!
The tragedy of course is that the deliberate reconstruction of Malaysia’s urban landscape is being done in broad daylight under the flag of a nebulous formulae of ‘moderate Islam’ that is said by some hopefuls to be the last chance to save the pluralist spirit of the country. However one finds it hard to accept such talk of mutual love and inter-communal cuddlyness when the bulldozers parked outside don’t look all that cuddly. Nor do the cops with their tear gas canisters and batons. Or the Orcish horde of construction (or should we say destruction) workers with mallets and hammers slung precariously over their shoulders, ready to rock and roll. Looking back at the fate of the two Sri Mariaman temples, the question remains: Who were the ones who protected the rights of the religious minorities better? The Godless Commies or the faithful Malaysians? These are the times when I am not proud to admit that I am a Malaysian, I have to say.
MAS Cabin Crew Walk In Interview
Join Our Award Winning Cabin Staff Walk-In Interviews to be held at MAS Academy, Kelana Jaya
Posted in Hear it from Us, on Friday, July 23, 2010
Tags: Interview, Career, Cabin Crew
Courtesy : The Living MH Blog Team
Hello everyone,
Once again, we are recruiting new Malaysia Airlines Cabin Crew and this time it will be held at MAS Academy in Kelana Jaya.
To all interested, please keep yourselves available on Saturday, 31 July and Sunday, 01 August 2010. Should you need more information about what is asked during the interview session, do click on these links and read the comments...
My Dream to be a MAS Cabin Crew
The ABC of What You Need To Know about our Cabin Crew Graduates Programme
Cabin Crew Graduation Day 2009
Cabin Crew Graduation Ceremony
Passion. From a cabin crew to a pilot.
We wish you good luck and bring with you that CHARMING SMILE and RADIATE YOUR INNER PASSION!
Posted in Hear it from Us, on Friday, July 23, 2010
Tags: Interview, Career, Cabin Crew
Courtesy : The Living MH Blog Team
Hello everyone,
Once again, we are recruiting new Malaysia Airlines Cabin Crew and this time it will be held at MAS Academy in Kelana Jaya.
To all interested, please keep yourselves available on Saturday, 31 July and Sunday, 01 August 2010. Should you need more information about what is asked during the interview session, do click on these links and read the comments...
My Dream to be a MAS Cabin Crew
The ABC of What You Need To Know about our Cabin Crew Graduates Programme
Cabin Crew Graduation Day 2009
Cabin Crew Graduation Ceremony
Passion. From a cabin crew to a pilot.
We wish you good luck and bring with you that CHARMING SMILE and RADIATE YOUR INNER PASSION!
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Pilot Appointments - Singapore Airlines
CADET PILOT
REQUIREMENTS
- Singapore Citizen, Singapore Permanent Resident or Malaysian Citizen
- GCE ‘A’ level, Polytechnic Diploma or Degree. In addition, you must have obtained a minimum of 5 Credits in the GCE ‘O’ level or its equivalent. These must include English, Mathematics and a Science subject, preferably Physics, taken at one sitting
- At least 1.65 m in height
- Myopia of not more than 500 degrees and astigmatism of not more than 125 degrees, fully correctable with optical aids. Visual acuity of at least 6/60, correctable to 6/6. For candidates who have undergone corrective eye surgery (e.g. Lasik), the pre-surgical visual acuity should also meet the above requirements
- Medically fit
TRAINING
Successful candidates will spend 15 to 17 months on training to acquire an Airline Transport Pilot’s License (ATPL) with Instrument Rating (IR) at Pilot Training Schools in Singapore and overseas. Full board and lodging will be provided. Upon obtaining the flying license, you will undergo further training for 1 to 2 years to become a First Officer.
REMUNERATIONS AND SERVICE BENEFITS
A monthly allowance will be provided during training. On appointment as a First Officer, you will be paid a basic salary and various allowances. Benefits include medical and dental treatment, and discounted travel.
BOND
Successful candidates will be required to serve the employer company for the duration of the training and for a period of 7 years from the date of appointment as First Officer.
EMPLOYMENT
Successful candidates will be offered employment with one of the companies in the SIA Group:
- Singapore Airlines
- SilkAir
APPLICATION
Please submit an online application under the “Cadet Pilots (Singapore)” position at the following website:
www.singaporeair.com/careers
Select PILOT APPOINTMENT > CADET PILOT
We thank all applicants for their applications and regret that only short-listed candidates will be notified.
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