NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
That’s the problem with some Malays when you take them out of the kampong and send them to school. They think that just because they went to school this means they have also received an education.
Do they know that going to school means just that; that you have gone to school? It does not mean you are educated. After all, you can take the Malay out of thekampong but you can’t always take the kampong out of the Malay.
And this is the problem with those Malays who are still sending me hate-mail and the Malays in Umno and the Malays in Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian as well as the Umno Bloggers. They are still talking about getting me. Well, stop talking and come get me. But first go get an education and stop embarrassing the entire Malay race with all this stupid talk.
And this includes the IGP and AG and Umno Ministers who are all singing the same stupid tune. They are all demonstrating that they know nothing about the law. And that is pathetic because they are supposed to be the lawmakers and enforcers and upholders of the law. Yet they are ignorant of the law.
What do they plan to get me on? Do they wish to slap me with a new ISA detention order? Detention without trial does not apply in the UK . Furthermore, whatever I wrote since February 2009 was written outside Malaysia .
And Malaysia does not have any jurisdiction on what I do outside the country. My host country would have to arrest and charge me in the event it feels I have committed a crime on its soil.
For example, in the UK , I can enter into a gay marriage (now, even in church) and, like Elton John, can receive a congratulatory message from the British Prime Minister. Malaysia can’t extradite me for sodomy since what I did I did in the UK and not in Malaysia -- where sodomy is a crime. So the crime must have been committed in Malaysia and must be a crime in both Malaysia and the UK -- dual criminality -- before Malaysia can extradite me.
Or do they wish to slap me with new charges? What new charges? A crime under the Official Secrets Act maybe on the PKFZ Cabinet Papers that I published? Sorry, in the UK they have the Freedom of Information Act. So it is not a crime to reveal information of wrongdoing by the government. In fact, it is the opposite. In the UK it is a crime to hide information of wrongdoing. So here in the UK I would be given an award, not an arrest warrant.
Maybe they want to re-charge me on the old charges that have been dropped (discharged not amounting to an acquittal)? Well, there were only two charges. One was for sedition and the other for criminal defamation.
The UK no longer has the Sedition Act. This law was abrogated on 1st January this year. So, under the dual criminality clause, they can’t extradite me for that charge. So that leaves only one charge left, the criminal defamation charge.
Okay, let’s talk about that one remaining charge then.
I am alleged to have defamed Rosmah Mansor. But Rosmah is not a government officer. She is only the one-time mistress of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, a home-wrecker who stole another woman’s husband. Just because she is Najib’s sex partner this does not make her a Malaysian government official. So the criminal defamation law does not apply to her. How, then, can I get charged for criminal defamation?
Would this mean if I were to defame half a dozen other women then I would face another six criminal defamation charges just because Najib also had sex with them and therefore they are now officially employed by the Malaysian government?
Bila kata Melayu bodoh, marah. Tapi kalau dah bodoh nak kata apa lagi?
Anyway, never mind. Come get me. Apply to extradite me. Then let’s see what the court has to say about that.
What crime did I commit under the criminal defamation charge? I signed a statutory declaration at the Kuala Lumpur High Court in front of a lawyer and the court registrar. Then the lawyer sent it to the prosecutors in the Altantuya murder trial.
In the UK that is not a crime. That is a duty. If you have information that a crime may have been committed -- even if you are not too sure but there may be a possibility -- then you must report it. And that is exactly what I did; I reported it.
And in the UK those who report a crime are given immunity and cannot be charged for the crime of reporting a crime. But this is what happened to me in Malaysia -- I was arrested and charged for reporting a crime.
This is what the British court said:
The utility of a properly managed system of informers is recognised throughout the common law world. As long as crimes are committed, informers have a role to play in their investigation and prosecution. They may either be professional informers, acting for self-serving purposes, or they may be ordinary citizens, motivated by public-spiritedness. Whatever their reason, it is in the public interest that nothing should be done which is likely to discourage persons of either class from coming forward (R v Rankine [1986] 1 QB 861 at 865).
You need more ‘enlightenment’? Then read the point below which explains the issue:-
A person who reports a crime cannot be charged, like what they did to me in Malaysia . This is something that the IGP and AG (or the Umno Bloggers, Ministers, etc.) do not seem to know. And that is why they need more education on how the law works.
And only after they have received this education should they attempt to extradite me. If not then even a non-lawyer like me is going to run rings around them. And that will buat Melayu lagi malu.
***
Please help to spread the message if you wish to see changes for a better Malaysia . Forward to everyone in your email contacts list, asking them to send out via their email list too, so that more people will come out to vote wisely in the 13th General Election for a better Malaysia for your children and their children too.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Faith Is Very Powerful
Faith is very powerful. It can make you believe even in the absence of evidence. It can also make you exterminate old men, women and children. That is how powerful faith can be.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Black is black. White is white. That’s what the practicalist would say, not that there is such a word as practicalist or one who is practical. But black can be white and white can be black, any sycophant would agree, just as long as it pleases the boss. And that is why many leaders like to surround themselves with sycophants who would readily tell you what you would like to hear rather than what you should be told.
Is this not the basis of the story of the emperor and his clothes? The emperor paraded naked because no one dared tell him he was naked lest he take offence. And anyone who saw the emperor naked would be considered an idiot so better one pretends that one sees the emperor fully clothed than be called an idiot.
Humankind would believe what it has been taught to believe. Education is not always education in the true sense of the word. You may have been taught but this does not mean you have received an education. Even dogs can be taught to do tricks, or any circus animal for that matter. But just because an animal can respond to commands does this mean we now have an educated animal in our midst?
What is humankind if not but just another animal? But humankind has been blessed with a more developed brain although this does not always mean this brain is used to its maximum potential. Brains, just like artificial intelligence such as computers, too can be taught to think the way it is programmed. And the way it thinks would all depend on the programmer.
The religionists talk about man’s ultimate sins such as pride, arrogance, greed, lust, jealousy, and whatnot. The scriptures talk about the agreement struck between God and Satan where God allowed Satan to prove that mankind is weak and susceptible to these sins, the most deadly of all being the sin of pride and arrogance, which was the failing of Satan himself.
And the religionist is the greatest programmer of all. The religionist does not teach us how to think. The religionist teaches us what to believe. And logic and belief are not compatible. You either believe or you do not. And anything other than belief, logic included, is unbelief.
On the one hand we are taught that God made humankind more superior to other animals because of our more powerful brain. But in that same breath we are taught that our thinking power should be limited and not extended to matters of religion. Religion does not require thinking. Religion requires belief. So logic has to be kept out of religion. And the absence of logic is explained by one word, faith.
What is faith? Faith is the belief in the unexplained. Where no explanation is possible then that it is categorised as faith. Faith, in short, is the belief in anything where proof is not forthcoming.
Humankind lives in two worlds. In one world evidence is required. The absence of evidence would mean a total rejection would be in order. Then there is the parallel world that humankind lives in. This parallel world is called the world of faith. And in the world of faith no evidence is required. It is a world that survives on sheer belief.
How do we reconcile these two parallel worlds that we live in? We can’t. One world is based on tangibles. The other world is based on the unproven. But most times we allow both worlds to overlap and function as one. We can no longer separate tangible from faith. And that is when impose our beliefs on others and take faith as fact, which all humankind must subject itself to.
Since the beginning of time, long before even Islam or any of the Religions of the Book, humankind has been imposing its faith on others. It is what they believe even in the absence of evidence. And this belief must also be the belief of others. And those who reject this belief must suffer death because by rejecting this belief they have forfeited their right to live.
This, the religionist would argue, is what God decided. But who amongst us has ever had an audience with God to confirm this? Can anyone come forward to declare that he or she has personally met God and this is what God commanded?
Not one of the seven billion or so members of the human race still walking the face of this earth can lay claim to ever meeting God and that this is what God had commanded. How do we know, therefore, that this is true? We have to believe this is so because this belief is based on faith, not on eyewitness accounts.
It is not that there is no evidence. There is. There were, in fact, even some witnesses. Of course, none of these witnesses are still alive today. All died thousands of years ago. What we have today is hearsay and stories passed down mostly by word of mouth through the ages. This is the evidence that we possess, or rather the faith in that there were people a long time ago who did have this evidence but which is no longer available.
But there was not just one witness. There were many witnesses. And all these witnesses contradict one another. So which evidence do we accept as true and which do we reject as false? Ah, this depends on your programmer, the religionists. They tell you which evidence is true and which is false.
But how do they know? They don’t. They just have faith. And they program you to also share their faith. And your beliefs are based on this. The religionists are virtuous people who would not lie. They are here to save you, to lead you through the right path. They are people of God. They would do no wrong.
Almost two thousand years ago, humankind was told that God had decreed the true faith. And God decreed that all those who did not believe this must be put to death. And over hundreds of years millions were killed because they refused to believe what Rome had decreed you should believe. Finally all the unbelievers were exterminated leaving only the believers alive to walk the face of this earth.
Slightly over 1,000 years later these true believers were declared as unbelievers and England exterminated all those who did not switch over to the true church, the Church of England. An ethnic cleansing that dwarfed even what happened in Bosnia and Iraq swept England and the land was cleansed of unbelievers. Today those of the Roman faith may still not sit on the Throne of England or become its Prime Minister.
This, we are told, is God’s command. But not one who put the unbelievers to the sword ever met God or met someone who had met God. Yet they decided who lives and who dies in the name of God.
Faith is very powerful. It can make you believe even in the absence of evidence. It can also make you exterminate old men, women and children. That is how powerful faith can be.
It took six days for God to create the universe and mother earth, say the scriptures. And on the seventh day God rested. And on the seventh day when God rested humankind created religion and murdered fellow humankind in the name of God. And when humankind demanded evidence the religionists came out with the word called faith. And the religionists told humankind that God commanded we must all have faith or else be killed.
Faith is a dangerous thing. Faith is sometimes another word for pride and arrogance. Is this maybe what Satan and God agreed? Make humankind believe that only his faith is right and all others wrong so that the killing spree can commence?
Hmm…could faith then actually be a creation of Satan, a secret weapon meant to mislead humankind? I sometimes wonder.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Black is black. White is white. That’s what the practicalist would say, not that there is such a word as practicalist or one who is practical. But black can be white and white can be black, any sycophant would agree, just as long as it pleases the boss. And that is why many leaders like to surround themselves with sycophants who would readily tell you what you would like to hear rather than what you should be told.
Is this not the basis of the story of the emperor and his clothes? The emperor paraded naked because no one dared tell him he was naked lest he take offence. And anyone who saw the emperor naked would be considered an idiot so better one pretends that one sees the emperor fully clothed than be called an idiot.
Humankind would believe what it has been taught to believe. Education is not always education in the true sense of the word. You may have been taught but this does not mean you have received an education. Even dogs can be taught to do tricks, or any circus animal for that matter. But just because an animal can respond to commands does this mean we now have an educated animal in our midst?
What is humankind if not but just another animal? But humankind has been blessed with a more developed brain although this does not always mean this brain is used to its maximum potential. Brains, just like artificial intelligence such as computers, too can be taught to think the way it is programmed. And the way it thinks would all depend on the programmer.
The religionists talk about man’s ultimate sins such as pride, arrogance, greed, lust, jealousy, and whatnot. The scriptures talk about the agreement struck between God and Satan where God allowed Satan to prove that mankind is weak and susceptible to these sins, the most deadly of all being the sin of pride and arrogance, which was the failing of Satan himself.
And the religionist is the greatest programmer of all. The religionist does not teach us how to think. The religionist teaches us what to believe. And logic and belief are not compatible. You either believe or you do not. And anything other than belief, logic included, is unbelief.
On the one hand we are taught that God made humankind more superior to other animals because of our more powerful brain. But in that same breath we are taught that our thinking power should be limited and not extended to matters of religion. Religion does not require thinking. Religion requires belief. So logic has to be kept out of religion. And the absence of logic is explained by one word, faith.
What is faith? Faith is the belief in the unexplained. Where no explanation is possible then that it is categorised as faith. Faith, in short, is the belief in anything where proof is not forthcoming.
Humankind lives in two worlds. In one world evidence is required. The absence of evidence would mean a total rejection would be in order. Then there is the parallel world that humankind lives in. This parallel world is called the world of faith. And in the world of faith no evidence is required. It is a world that survives on sheer belief.
How do we reconcile these two parallel worlds that we live in? We can’t. One world is based on tangibles. The other world is based on the unproven. But most times we allow both worlds to overlap and function as one. We can no longer separate tangible from faith. And that is when impose our beliefs on others and take faith as fact, which all humankind must subject itself to.
Since the beginning of time, long before even Islam or any of the Religions of the Book, humankind has been imposing its faith on others. It is what they believe even in the absence of evidence. And this belief must also be the belief of others. And those who reject this belief must suffer death because by rejecting this belief they have forfeited their right to live.
This, the religionist would argue, is what God decided. But who amongst us has ever had an audience with God to confirm this? Can anyone come forward to declare that he or she has personally met God and this is what God commanded?
Not one of the seven billion or so members of the human race still walking the face of this earth can lay claim to ever meeting God and that this is what God had commanded. How do we know, therefore, that this is true? We have to believe this is so because this belief is based on faith, not on eyewitness accounts.
It is not that there is no evidence. There is. There were, in fact, even some witnesses. Of course, none of these witnesses are still alive today. All died thousands of years ago. What we have today is hearsay and stories passed down mostly by word of mouth through the ages. This is the evidence that we possess, or rather the faith in that there were people a long time ago who did have this evidence but which is no longer available.
But there was not just one witness. There were many witnesses. And all these witnesses contradict one another. So which evidence do we accept as true and which do we reject as false? Ah, this depends on your programmer, the religionists. They tell you which evidence is true and which is false.
But how do they know? They don’t. They just have faith. And they program you to also share their faith. And your beliefs are based on this. The religionists are virtuous people who would not lie. They are here to save you, to lead you through the right path. They are people of God. They would do no wrong.
Almost two thousand years ago, humankind was told that God had decreed the true faith. And God decreed that all those who did not believe this must be put to death. And over hundreds of years millions were killed because they refused to believe what Rome had decreed you should believe. Finally all the unbelievers were exterminated leaving only the believers alive to walk the face of this earth.
Slightly over 1,000 years later these true believers were declared as unbelievers and England exterminated all those who did not switch over to the true church, the Church of England. An ethnic cleansing that dwarfed even what happened in Bosnia and Iraq swept England and the land was cleansed of unbelievers. Today those of the Roman faith may still not sit on the Throne of England or become its Prime Minister.
This, we are told, is God’s command. But not one who put the unbelievers to the sword ever met God or met someone who had met God. Yet they decided who lives and who dies in the name of God.
Faith is very powerful. It can make you believe even in the absence of evidence. It can also make you exterminate old men, women and children. That is how powerful faith can be.
It took six days for God to create the universe and mother earth, say the scriptures. And on the seventh day God rested. And on the seventh day when God rested humankind created religion and murdered fellow humankind in the name of God. And when humankind demanded evidence the religionists came out with the word called faith. And the religionists told humankind that God commanded we must all have faith or else be killed.
Faith is a dangerous thing. Faith is sometimes another word for pride and arrogance. Is this maybe what Satan and God agreed? Make humankind believe that only his faith is right and all others wrong so that the killing spree can commence?
Hmm…could faith then actually be a creation of Satan, a secret weapon meant to mislead humankind? I sometimes wonder.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah: We were once ‘Malaysians’
The following keynote speech was given by Gua Musang (Kelantan) Parliamentarian and former Malaysian Finance Minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah at the 4th Annual Malaysian Student Leaders Summit (MSLS) on July 30, 2010.
I have played some small role in the life of this nation, but having been on the wrong side of one or two political fights with the powers-that-be, I am not as close to the young people of this country as I would hope to be.
History and the 8 o’clock news are written by the victors. In recent years, the government’s monopoly of the media has been destroyed by the technology revolution.
You could say I was also a member of the United Kingdom and Eire Council for Malaysian Students (UKEC). Well I was, except that I belonged to the predecessor of the UKEC, by more than 50 years, the Malayan Students Union of the UK and Eire. I led this organisation in 1958/59.
asli forum tengku razaleigh economy 150109 02I was then a student of Queen’s University at Belfast, as well as at Lincoln’s Inn. In a rather cooler climate than Kota Bharu’s, we campaigned for decolonisation. We demonstrated in Trafalgar Square and even in Paris. We made posters and participated in British elections.
Your invitation to participate in the MSLS was prefaced by an essay that calls for an intellectually informed activism. I congratulate you on this. The youth of today, you note, “will chart the future of Malaysia.” You say you “no longer want to be ignored and leave the future of our Malaysia at the hands of the current generation.” You “want to grab the bull by the horns… and have a say in where we go as a society and as a nation.”
I feel the same, actually. A lot of Malaysians feel the same. They are tired of being ignored and talked down to. You are right. The present generation in power has let Malaysia down. But also you cite two things as testimony of the importance of youth and of student activism to this country, the election results of 2008 and “the prime minister’s acknowledgement of the role of youth in the development of the country.”
So perhaps you are a little way yet from thinking for yourselves. The first step in “grabbing the bull by the horns” is not to require the endorsement of the prime minister, or any minister, for your activism. Politicians are not your parents. They are your servants. You don’t need a government slogan coined by a foreign PR agency to wrap your project in. You just go ahead and do it.
When I was a student, our newly independent country was already a leader in the post-colonial world. We were sought out as a leader in the Afro-Asian Conference that inaugurated the Non-Aligned Movement and the G-77.
The Afro-Asian movement was led by such luminaries as Zhou En Lai, Nehru, Kwame Nkrumah and Soekarno. Malaysians were seen as moderate leaders capable of mediating between the more radical leaders and the West. We were known for our moderation, good sense and reliability.
We were a leader in the Islamic world, as ourselves and as we were, without our leaders having to put up false displays of piety. His memory has been scrubbed out quite systematically from our national consciousness, so you might not know this or much else about him, but it was Tunku Abdul Rahman who established our leadership in the Islamic world by coming up with the idea of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference) and making it happen.
tunku abdul rahmanUnder his leadership, Malaysia led the way in taking up the anti-apartheid cause in the Commonwealth and in the United Nations, resulting in South Africa’s expulsion from these bodies.
Tunku Abdul Rahman: His great integrity in service was clear to all
Here was a man at ease with himself, made it a policy goal that Malaysia be “a happy country”. He loved sport and encouraged sporting achievement among Malaysians. He was owner of many a fine race horses. He called a press conference with his stewards when his horse won at the Melbourne Cup.
He had nothing to hide because his great integrity in service was clear to all. Now we have religious and moral hypocrites who cheat, lie and steal in office, who propagate an ideology that shackled the education system for all Malaysians, while they send their own kids to elite academies in the West.
Days when we were on top
Speaking of football – you’re too young to have experienced the Merdeka Cup in the 60s and 70s. Teams from across Asia would come to play in Kuala Lumpur: teams such as South Korea and Japan, whom we defeated routinely.
We were one of the better sides in Asia. We won the bronze medal at the Asian Games in 1974 and qualified for the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Today our FIFA ranking is 157 out of 203 countries.
That puts us in the lowest quartile, below Maldives (149), the smallest country in Asia, with just 400,000 people living about 1.5 metres above sea level who have to worry that their country may soon be swallowed up by climate change. Here in Asean we are behind Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, whom we used to dominate, and now only one spot above basketball-playing Philippines.
The captain of our illustrious 1970′s side was Soh Chin Aun and we had R Arumugam, Isa Bakar, Santokh Singh, James Wong and Mokhtar Dahari. They were heroes whose names rolled off the tongues of our schoolchildren as they copied them on the school field. It wasn’t about being the best in the world, but about being passionate and united and devoted to the game.
It was the same in badminton, except at one time we were the best in the world. I remember Wong Peng Soon, the first Asian to win the All-England Championship, and then just dominated it throughout the 1950. Back home every kid who played badminton in every little kampung wanted to call himself Wong Peng Soon.
There was no tinge of anybody identifying themselves exclusively as Chinese, Malays or Indian. Peng Soon was a Malayan hero. Just like each of our football heroes. Now we do not have an iota of that feeling. Where has it all gone?
Capital flight troubling
I don’t think it’s mere nostalgia that makes us think there was a time when the sun shone more brightly upon Malaysia. I bring up sport because it has been a mirror of our more general performance as a nation.
When we were at ease with who we were and didn’t need slogans to do our best together, we did well. When race and money entered our game, we declined. The same applies to our political and economic life.
Soon after independence, we were already a highly successful developing country. We had begun the infrastructure building and diversification of our economy that would be the foundation for further growth. We carried out an import-substitution programme that stimulated local productive capacity.
From there, we started an infrastructure build-up that enabled a diversification of the economy leading to rapid industrialisation. We carried out effective programmes to raise rural income and help the landless with programmes such as Felda.
Our achievements in achieving growth with equity were recognised around the world. Our peer group in economic development were South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, and we led the pack. I remember we used to send technical consultants to advise the South Koreans.
Bmalaysia stock exchange market klse 141008 05y the late 90s, however, we had fallen far behind this group and were competing with Thailand and Indonesia. Today, according to the latest World Investment Report, FDI into Malaysia is at a 20-year low.
We are entering the peer group of Cambodia, Burma and the Philippines as an investment destination. Thailand, despite a month-long siege of the capital, attracted more FDI than we did last year. Indonesia and Vietnam far outperform us, not as a statistical blip but consistently. Soon we shall have difficulty keeping up with the Philippines.
This, I believe, is called relegation. If we take into account FDI outflow, the picture is even more depressing. Last year, we received US$1.38 billion in investments but US$8.04 billion flowed out. We are the only country in Southeast Asia that has suffered net FDI outflow.
I am not against outward investment. It can be a good thing for the country. But an imbalance on this scale indicates capital flight, not mere investment overseas.
Time to wake up
Without a doubt, Malaysia is slipping. Billions have been looted from this country, and billions more are being siphoned out as our entire political structure crumbles. Yet we are gathered here in comfort, in a country that still seems to ‘work’ – most of the time. This is due less to good management than to the extraordinary wealth of this country.
You were born into a country of immense resources, both natural, cultural and social. We have been wearing down this advantage with mismanagement and corruption. With lies, tall tales and theft. We have a political class unwilling or unable to address the central issue of the day because they have grown fat and comfortable with a system built on lies and theft.
It is time to wake up. That waking up can begin here, right here, at this conference. Not tomorrow or the day after but today. So let me, as I have the honour of opening this conference, suggest the following:
1) Overcome the urge to have our hopes for the future endorsed by the prime minister. He will have retired, and I’ll be long gone, when your future arrives. The shape of your future is being determined now.
2) Resist the temptation to say “in line with” when we do something. Your projects, believe it or not, don’t have to be in line with any government campaign for them to be meaningful. You don’t need to polish anyone’s apple. Just get on with what you plan to do.
3) Do not put a lid on certain issues as ‘sensitive’ just because someone said they are. Or it is against the ‘social contract’. Or it is ‘politicisation’.
You don’t need to have your conversation delimited by the hyper-sensitive among us. Sensitivity is often a club people use to hit each other with.Reasoned discussion of contentious issues builds understanding and trust. Stress test your ideas.
4) It’s not ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ to ask for an end to having politics, economic policy, education policy and everything and the kitchen sink determined by race. It’s called growing up.
5) Don’t let the politicians you have invited here talk down to you.
Don’t let them
Don’t let them tell you how bright and ‘exuberant’ you are, that you are the future of the nation, etc. If you close your eyes and flow with their flattery, you have safely joined the caravan, a caravan taking the nation down a sink hole.
If they tell you the future is in your hands, kindly request that they hand that future over first. Ask them how come the youngest member of our cabinet is 45? Our Merdeka cabinet had an average age below 30.
You’re not the first generation to be bright. Mine wasn’t too stupid. But you could be the first generation of students and young graduates in 50 years to push this nation through a major transformation. And it is a transformation we need desperately.
You will be told that much is expected of you, much has been given to you and so forth. This is all true. Actually much has also been stolen from you. Over the last twenty five years, much of the immense wealth generated by our productive people and our vast resources has been looted. This was supposed to have been your patrimony.
The uncomplicated sense of belonging fully, wholeheartedly, unreservedly, to this country, in all its diversity, that has been taken from you. Our sense of ourselves as Malaysians, a free and united people, has been replaced by a tale of racial strife and resentment that continues to haunt us. The thing is, this tale is false.
Reclaim your history
The most precious thing you have been deprived of has been your history. Someone of my generation finds it hard to describe what must seem like a completely different country to you now. Malaysia was not born in strife but in unity. Our independence was achieved through a demonstration of unity by the people in supporting a multiracial government led by Tunku Abdul Rahman.
That show of unity, demonstrated first through the municipal elections of 1952 and then through the Alliance’s landslide victory in the elections of 1955, showed that the people of Malaya were united in wanting their freedom. We surprised the British, who thought we could not do this.
Today we are no longer as united as we were then. We are also less free. I don’t think this is a coincidence. It takes free people to have the psychological strength to overcome the confines of a racialised worldview. It takes free people to overcome those politicians bent on hanging on to power gained by racialising every feature of our life including our football teams.
Hence while you are at this conference, let me argue, that as an absolute minimum, we should call for the repeal of unjust and much abused Acts of Parliament which are reversals of freedoms that we won at Merdeka.
I ask you in joining me in calling for the repeal of the ISA (Internal Security Act) and the OSA (Official Secrets Act). These draconian laws have been used, more often than not, as political tools rather than instruments of national security. They create a climate of fear.
I ask you to join me in calling for the repeal of the Printing and Publications Act, and above all, the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA). I don’t see how you can pursue your student activism with such freedom and support in the UK and Eire while forgetting that your brethren at home are deprived of their basic rights of association and expression by the UUCA. The UUCA has done immense harm in dumbing down our universities.
We must have freedom as guaranteed under our constitution. Freedom to assemble, associate, speak, write, move. This is basic. Even on matters of race and even on religious matters we should be able to speak freely, and we shall educate each other.
Make BN multiracial
It is time to realise the dream of Hussein Onn and the spirit of the Alliance and of Tunku Abdul Rahman. That dream was one of unity and a single Malaysian people. They went as far as they could with it in their time. Instead of taking on the torch, we have reversed course. The next step for us as a country is to move beyond the infancy of race-based parties to a non-racial party system.
Our race-based party system is the key political reason why we are a sick country, declining before our own eyes, with money fleeing and people telling their children not to come home after their studies.
So let us try to take 1Malaysia seriously. Millions have been spent putting up billboards and adding the term to every conceivable thing. We even have ‘Cuti-cuti 1Malaysia’. Can’t take a normal holiday anymore. This is all fine.
Now let us see if it means anything. Let us see the government of the day lead by example. 1Malaysia is empty because it is propagated by a government supported by a racially-based party system that is the chief cause of our inability to grow up in our race relations.
Our inability to grow up in our race relations is the chief reason why investors, and we ourselves, no longer have confidence in our economy. The reasons why we are behind Maldives in football, and behind the Philippines in FDI, are linked.
So let us take 1Malaysia seriously, and convert Barisan Nasional into a party open to all citizens. Let it be a multiracial party open to direct membership. Pakatan Rakyat will be forced to do the same or be left behind the times. Then we shall have the vehicles for a two party, non-race-based system.
If UMNO, MIC or MCA are afraid of losing supporters, let them get their members to join this new multiracial party. Pakatan Rakyat should do the same. Nobody need feel left out. UMNO members can join en masse. The Hainanese Kopitiam Owners’ Association can join whichever party they want, or both parties en masse if they like.
We can maintain our cherished civil associations, however we choose to associate. But we drop all communalism when we compete for the ballot. When our candidates stand for elections, let them ever after stand only as Malaysians, for better or worse.
http://www.malaysiakini.tv/video/19793/we-were-once-malaysians.html
I have played some small role in the life of this nation, but having been on the wrong side of one or two political fights with the powers-that-be, I am not as close to the young people of this country as I would hope to be.
History and the 8 o’clock news are written by the victors. In recent years, the government’s monopoly of the media has been destroyed by the technology revolution.
You could say I was also a member of the United Kingdom and Eire Council for Malaysian Students (UKEC). Well I was, except that I belonged to the predecessor of the UKEC, by more than 50 years, the Malayan Students Union of the UK and Eire. I led this organisation in 1958/59.
asli forum tengku razaleigh economy 150109 02I was then a student of Queen’s University at Belfast, as well as at Lincoln’s Inn. In a rather cooler climate than Kota Bharu’s, we campaigned for decolonisation. We demonstrated in Trafalgar Square and even in Paris. We made posters and participated in British elections.
Your invitation to participate in the MSLS was prefaced by an essay that calls for an intellectually informed activism. I congratulate you on this. The youth of today, you note, “will chart the future of Malaysia.” You say you “no longer want to be ignored and leave the future of our Malaysia at the hands of the current generation.” You “want to grab the bull by the horns… and have a say in where we go as a society and as a nation.”
I feel the same, actually. A lot of Malaysians feel the same. They are tired of being ignored and talked down to. You are right. The present generation in power has let Malaysia down. But also you cite two things as testimony of the importance of youth and of student activism to this country, the election results of 2008 and “the prime minister’s acknowledgement of the role of youth in the development of the country.”
So perhaps you are a little way yet from thinking for yourselves. The first step in “grabbing the bull by the horns” is not to require the endorsement of the prime minister, or any minister, for your activism. Politicians are not your parents. They are your servants. You don’t need a government slogan coined by a foreign PR agency to wrap your project in. You just go ahead and do it.
When I was a student, our newly independent country was already a leader in the post-colonial world. We were sought out as a leader in the Afro-Asian Conference that inaugurated the Non-Aligned Movement and the G-77.
The Afro-Asian movement was led by such luminaries as Zhou En Lai, Nehru, Kwame Nkrumah and Soekarno. Malaysians were seen as moderate leaders capable of mediating between the more radical leaders and the West. We were known for our moderation, good sense and reliability.
We were a leader in the Islamic world, as ourselves and as we were, without our leaders having to put up false displays of piety. His memory has been scrubbed out quite systematically from our national consciousness, so you might not know this or much else about him, but it was Tunku Abdul Rahman who established our leadership in the Islamic world by coming up with the idea of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference) and making it happen.
tunku abdul rahmanUnder his leadership, Malaysia led the way in taking up the anti-apartheid cause in the Commonwealth and in the United Nations, resulting in South Africa’s expulsion from these bodies.
Tunku Abdul Rahman: His great integrity in service was clear to all
Here was a man at ease with himself, made it a policy goal that Malaysia be “a happy country”. He loved sport and encouraged sporting achievement among Malaysians. He was owner of many a fine race horses. He called a press conference with his stewards when his horse won at the Melbourne Cup.
He had nothing to hide because his great integrity in service was clear to all. Now we have religious and moral hypocrites who cheat, lie and steal in office, who propagate an ideology that shackled the education system for all Malaysians, while they send their own kids to elite academies in the West.
Days when we were on top
Speaking of football – you’re too young to have experienced the Merdeka Cup in the 60s and 70s. Teams from across Asia would come to play in Kuala Lumpur: teams such as South Korea and Japan, whom we defeated routinely.
We were one of the better sides in Asia. We won the bronze medal at the Asian Games in 1974 and qualified for the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Today our FIFA ranking is 157 out of 203 countries.
That puts us in the lowest quartile, below Maldives (149), the smallest country in Asia, with just 400,000 people living about 1.5 metres above sea level who have to worry that their country may soon be swallowed up by climate change. Here in Asean we are behind Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, whom we used to dominate, and now only one spot above basketball-playing Philippines.
The captain of our illustrious 1970′s side was Soh Chin Aun and we had R Arumugam, Isa Bakar, Santokh Singh, James Wong and Mokhtar Dahari. They were heroes whose names rolled off the tongues of our schoolchildren as they copied them on the school field. It wasn’t about being the best in the world, but about being passionate and united and devoted to the game.
It was the same in badminton, except at one time we were the best in the world. I remember Wong Peng Soon, the first Asian to win the All-England Championship, and then just dominated it throughout the 1950. Back home every kid who played badminton in every little kampung wanted to call himself Wong Peng Soon.
There was no tinge of anybody identifying themselves exclusively as Chinese, Malays or Indian. Peng Soon was a Malayan hero. Just like each of our football heroes. Now we do not have an iota of that feeling. Where has it all gone?
Capital flight troubling
I don’t think it’s mere nostalgia that makes us think there was a time when the sun shone more brightly upon Malaysia. I bring up sport because it has been a mirror of our more general performance as a nation.
When we were at ease with who we were and didn’t need slogans to do our best together, we did well. When race and money entered our game, we declined. The same applies to our political and economic life.
Soon after independence, we were already a highly successful developing country. We had begun the infrastructure building and diversification of our economy that would be the foundation for further growth. We carried out an import-substitution programme that stimulated local productive capacity.
From there, we started an infrastructure build-up that enabled a diversification of the economy leading to rapid industrialisation. We carried out effective programmes to raise rural income and help the landless with programmes such as Felda.
Our achievements in achieving growth with equity were recognised around the world. Our peer group in economic development were South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, and we led the pack. I remember we used to send technical consultants to advise the South Koreans.
Bmalaysia stock exchange market klse 141008 05y the late 90s, however, we had fallen far behind this group and were competing with Thailand and Indonesia. Today, according to the latest World Investment Report, FDI into Malaysia is at a 20-year low.
We are entering the peer group of Cambodia, Burma and the Philippines as an investment destination. Thailand, despite a month-long siege of the capital, attracted more FDI than we did last year. Indonesia and Vietnam far outperform us, not as a statistical blip but consistently. Soon we shall have difficulty keeping up with the Philippines.
This, I believe, is called relegation. If we take into account FDI outflow, the picture is even more depressing. Last year, we received US$1.38 billion in investments but US$8.04 billion flowed out. We are the only country in Southeast Asia that has suffered net FDI outflow.
I am not against outward investment. It can be a good thing for the country. But an imbalance on this scale indicates capital flight, not mere investment overseas.
Time to wake up
Without a doubt, Malaysia is slipping. Billions have been looted from this country, and billions more are being siphoned out as our entire political structure crumbles. Yet we are gathered here in comfort, in a country that still seems to ‘work’ – most of the time. This is due less to good management than to the extraordinary wealth of this country.
You were born into a country of immense resources, both natural, cultural and social. We have been wearing down this advantage with mismanagement and corruption. With lies, tall tales and theft. We have a political class unwilling or unable to address the central issue of the day because they have grown fat and comfortable with a system built on lies and theft.
It is time to wake up. That waking up can begin here, right here, at this conference. Not tomorrow or the day after but today. So let me, as I have the honour of opening this conference, suggest the following:
1) Overcome the urge to have our hopes for the future endorsed by the prime minister. He will have retired, and I’ll be long gone, when your future arrives. The shape of your future is being determined now.
2) Resist the temptation to say “in line with” when we do something. Your projects, believe it or not, don’t have to be in line with any government campaign for them to be meaningful. You don’t need to polish anyone’s apple. Just get on with what you plan to do.
3) Do not put a lid on certain issues as ‘sensitive’ just because someone said they are. Or it is against the ‘social contract’. Or it is ‘politicisation’.
You don’t need to have your conversation delimited by the hyper-sensitive among us. Sensitivity is often a club people use to hit each other with.Reasoned discussion of contentious issues builds understanding and trust. Stress test your ideas.
4) It’s not ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ to ask for an end to having politics, economic policy, education policy and everything and the kitchen sink determined by race. It’s called growing up.
5) Don’t let the politicians you have invited here talk down to you.
Don’t let them
Don’t let them tell you how bright and ‘exuberant’ you are, that you are the future of the nation, etc. If you close your eyes and flow with their flattery, you have safely joined the caravan, a caravan taking the nation down a sink hole.
If they tell you the future is in your hands, kindly request that they hand that future over first. Ask them how come the youngest member of our cabinet is 45? Our Merdeka cabinet had an average age below 30.
You’re not the first generation to be bright. Mine wasn’t too stupid. But you could be the first generation of students and young graduates in 50 years to push this nation through a major transformation. And it is a transformation we need desperately.
You will be told that much is expected of you, much has been given to you and so forth. This is all true. Actually much has also been stolen from you. Over the last twenty five years, much of the immense wealth generated by our productive people and our vast resources has been looted. This was supposed to have been your patrimony.
The uncomplicated sense of belonging fully, wholeheartedly, unreservedly, to this country, in all its diversity, that has been taken from you. Our sense of ourselves as Malaysians, a free and united people, has been replaced by a tale of racial strife and resentment that continues to haunt us. The thing is, this tale is false.
Reclaim your history
The most precious thing you have been deprived of has been your history. Someone of my generation finds it hard to describe what must seem like a completely different country to you now. Malaysia was not born in strife but in unity. Our independence was achieved through a demonstration of unity by the people in supporting a multiracial government led by Tunku Abdul Rahman.
That show of unity, demonstrated first through the municipal elections of 1952 and then through the Alliance’s landslide victory in the elections of 1955, showed that the people of Malaya were united in wanting their freedom. We surprised the British, who thought we could not do this.
Today we are no longer as united as we were then. We are also less free. I don’t think this is a coincidence. It takes free people to have the psychological strength to overcome the confines of a racialised worldview. It takes free people to overcome those politicians bent on hanging on to power gained by racialising every feature of our life including our football teams.
Hence while you are at this conference, let me argue, that as an absolute minimum, we should call for the repeal of unjust and much abused Acts of Parliament which are reversals of freedoms that we won at Merdeka.
I ask you in joining me in calling for the repeal of the ISA (Internal Security Act) and the OSA (Official Secrets Act). These draconian laws have been used, more often than not, as political tools rather than instruments of national security. They create a climate of fear.
I ask you to join me in calling for the repeal of the Printing and Publications Act, and above all, the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA). I don’t see how you can pursue your student activism with such freedom and support in the UK and Eire while forgetting that your brethren at home are deprived of their basic rights of association and expression by the UUCA. The UUCA has done immense harm in dumbing down our universities.
We must have freedom as guaranteed under our constitution. Freedom to assemble, associate, speak, write, move. This is basic. Even on matters of race and even on religious matters we should be able to speak freely, and we shall educate each other.
Make BN multiracial
It is time to realise the dream of Hussein Onn and the spirit of the Alliance and of Tunku Abdul Rahman. That dream was one of unity and a single Malaysian people. They went as far as they could with it in their time. Instead of taking on the torch, we have reversed course. The next step for us as a country is to move beyond the infancy of race-based parties to a non-racial party system.
Our race-based party system is the key political reason why we are a sick country, declining before our own eyes, with money fleeing and people telling their children not to come home after their studies.
So let us try to take 1Malaysia seriously. Millions have been spent putting up billboards and adding the term to every conceivable thing. We even have ‘Cuti-cuti 1Malaysia’. Can’t take a normal holiday anymore. This is all fine.
Now let us see if it means anything. Let us see the government of the day lead by example. 1Malaysia is empty because it is propagated by a government supported by a racially-based party system that is the chief cause of our inability to grow up in our race relations.
Our inability to grow up in our race relations is the chief reason why investors, and we ourselves, no longer have confidence in our economy. The reasons why we are behind Maldives in football, and behind the Philippines in FDI, are linked.
So let us take 1Malaysia seriously, and convert Barisan Nasional into a party open to all citizens. Let it be a multiracial party open to direct membership. Pakatan Rakyat will be forced to do the same or be left behind the times. Then we shall have the vehicles for a two party, non-race-based system.
If UMNO, MIC or MCA are afraid of losing supporters, let them get their members to join this new multiracial party. Pakatan Rakyat should do the same. Nobody need feel left out. UMNO members can join en masse. The Hainanese Kopitiam Owners’ Association can join whichever party they want, or both parties en masse if they like.
We can maintain our cherished civil associations, however we choose to associate. But we drop all communalism when we compete for the ballot. When our candidates stand for elections, let them ever after stand only as Malaysians, for better or worse.
http://www.malaysiakini.tv/video/19793/we-were-once-malaysians.html
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Lost City of "KOTA GELANGGI" in Malay Peninsula
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
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
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.
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