Bah Humburg! Rude indeed! He MUST go!

Ah, yet another champion product of our famous Parliament.
They insulted women. They disgraced the Parliament. Now? They insulted the disabled. Insult?
In fact its too nice a word to use for this case.
If you did not read about the remarks made by a local MP, you can read it here.

Glenn Hoddle, the former England football coach was sacked for such similar remarks. And he was only a football coach. Here in Malaysia, nothing seems to be done to our Infamous Members of Parliament who go around making this disgraceful remarks. In fact, they are even cheered on by their own!
Now, I am blessed by god to have all my limbs functional. I do not take it lightly if I see able bodied people insulting our fellow disabled human beings (race, religion, nationality does not matter!!)
PERIOD! We have a fellow blogger KERP who had the misfortune of being chair bound. Yet, he is full of life, he respects others, unlike our MP in question.
So much so, that a fellow blogger is taking this remark one step further. Read ZORRO.

Shytes. If we do not have the dignity to defend our fellow Malaysians then what do we have?
Is this the message you want your children to hear? That its ok to insult the disabled?

I DEMAND THIS MP's TERMINATION!

Bangsa Malaysia forum goes to The Pearl of the Orient

Event : Malam Bangsa Malaysia

Date : 3rd November, 2007

Time : 8.00pm

Venue : Room A, Dewan Sri Pinang, Pulau Pinang.

There will be a charge of RM10 per person to cover rental and refreshment costs.

The event can only accommodate 200 people and attendance is by invitation.

The organising team has also put together a forum entitled ‘One People, One Nation’ which is open to all who are registered to attend the get-together later that night.

The forum is scheduled to start at 5pm. Registration will start at 4.30pm.

Speakers for the forum are :

1. Dato Lim Chong Keat (pending confirmation)

2. Khoo Kay Peng (independent political analyst)

3. Malik Imtiaz Sarwar

4. Haris Ibrahim

You can read about the KL Bangsa Malaysia get-together here and here.

What you need to do to get an invitation

Firstly, as places are limited, please be sure that you can attend before you ask for the invitation.

If you are very sure that you can make it, please send an e-mail to bangsamalaysiapenang@gmail.com

In your email, please provide the following details :

1. Name (as per IC) and IC number

2. Contact number

3. A little bit about yourself ( where you’re from, what you do ). Also tell us what your feelings are about the last fifty years of independance and what your hopes are for the coming fifty years. Also, share your thoughts on what you think needs to be done to make the aspiration of one people, one nation a reality in Malaysia.

All e-mails will be replied.

All particulars furnished will be treated with utmost confidence.

Meanwhile, please help to spread this event to bloggers, non-bloggers, students, uncles, aunties, activists, NGOs and any Malaysian!

During dinner we will screen the award-winning Fahmi Reza's Sepuluh Tahun Sebelum Merdeka. Fahmi has agreed to be at hand to interact with the participants.

thanks to Zorro for the above. . . . .

Walk for Justice Part 2

I guess the event name did not really do any justice to the on held earlier on September 26.
I got an insight into the game they call judiciary. Yes. And I don't mean the 8 minute video in question.
I have definitely seen the best from these guys and gals from the Bar, and yet it is one of their own which have brought disrepute to this noble group.
And interesting enough, the issue of networking was brought up. How does one in this profession really network with the Judiciary? The line must be so fine that even an ant would have trouble staying on the right!
The future is promising, we have been told. Indeed, there were many young aspiring lawyers present. But the real question remains.
Why is it that we Malaysians always wait for someone else to take the lead?
The persistent question heard from those who took the open discussion was, 'Where do we go from here? Will the Bar Council lead us? Can the Bar Council do this and that?'
FER FOOK'S SAKE (to borrow this from my good friend!) can we all just stand up and be counted? Enough already! They have robbed us of our equal rights! They have threatened that chaos will reign if we do not maintain status quo! They are considering charging the Bar Council Officers for the march! They are going to arrest the whistle blowers (if their terms are not met!)

What more do you want them to take away from you before you act?? Your kids? Your worldly possessions?? WHAT?? Do you want them to do a 'Myanmar'??

This country is ours. The Judiciary is ours. The Air, the land, and all within IS OURS! Let's reclaim it!

p.s on our way out, there were two sweet old ladies (in their sixties, I'm sure) which shared the lift with us. They took the bus. Two ladies who should be home tucking their grandchildren in to bed spent 2 and a half hours listening to the state of the judiciary. Two sweet old ladies could do that. And what about you?

NOVEMBER 10th. And yellow is the order for that day!

Blogging and the Younger generation of Malaysia

UPDATE: 23 October 2007
One of the comments posted under this subject was from the blogger claiming to be the student in question. She sent me an email explaining the circumstances and requesting privacy on the contents of her email. All of which, a responsible blogger will respect.
She also did mention and specifically noted that the issue has passed and she has learned a lot from the episode, for which she paid compliments to the school authorities and her parents on the handling of the matter. In her opinion, the press had blown the matter out of proportion, whether or not the press was tipped off by the parents of the accused student or not was not known.
The good thing, is we have a responsible 16 year old blogger who knows that to blog responsibly and to stand by one's writing is a good principle to start with. What others perceive you to be is entirely up to them. Life goes on, and for this girl, she has chalked up a star in the subject of life!

- - - - -
Having spent a good part of the evenings with David Sasaki, GVO Outreach in the past two days, I cannot help but notice this story carried in The Star today. The one phrase commonly heard in the past two days was 'Fear Factor'. In yesterday's forum, attended to by only one representative of the main stream media, Nanyang Siang Pau, was testament that there is a very real presence of fear. This despite having two other newspapers confirming their attendance. Fear of your boss calling you up and asking you to remove your story, or even edit the entire story to please the higher ups exists, make no mistake about this.
But today, in The Star, we have this. A typical Malaysian example of 'How to kill the messenger 101'. Instead of encouraging our next generation to speak up in cases of injustice, we ask them to keep quiet and raise the issue 'silently', or raise the issue quietly! Is there such a way? For far too long, we have been told to do it diplomatically, to approach the issue in a manner where we have a safety net, to safeguard the image of the teachers.

I say this, if indeed the students cheated, and the teacher condoned it knowingly or not, punish them. If this blogger was slanderous and posted the subject with ill intentions, by all means censor her. Did they even investigate the subject before hearing out the parents of the accused?
I wouldn't want to generalise on the protective parents syndrome for now, but if this young blogger is standing by her version of the story, I would like to hear it from her.

We must encourage our young to speak up when it matters! Ruffle the feathers if it needs to.
Our lawyers did that, and I think every Malaysian should too!

SMLee and his thoughts

Thanks to Wisan who highlighted the interview that SM Lee (if you do not know who he is, look south!) gave to Tom Plate of the UCLA Media Centre and Jeffrey Cole of the USC Annenberg School of New Media, we can tell that SM Lee is still very much in touch with Malaysia's day to day issues. Even Singapore has the time for New Media. Global Voices Online had a forum here in Malaysia recently which the Minister of Information of Malaysia declined invitation.
Need I say more about our Government and their take on New Media?

Here are transcripts of the interview (I chose to highlight his comments where Malaysia was concerned. For full text, read here.)

ON MALAYSIA

Lee: I don't know if you've caught up with this story. It's a bit of scandal going on. [Former Deputy Prime Minister] Anwar Ibrahim leaked a video, an old video, way back in 1980, of an Indian lawyer talking to a top judge about how he can arrange to get him promoted to be the "Number One" or whatever. I think it was an eight-minute video and Anwar has now put it on the Internet and it's on YouTube! So the Malaysian bar -- which have already been dismayed at the degradation of their judiciary and the corruption and judge-buying and case-buying -- they have demanded a royal commission to inquire into the facts.

So, the government, under pressure now, has appointed a committee of judges and one eminent person, to check on the authenticity of this tape. So that's bought them some time, but in the meantime, 2,000 lawyers, following what the Pakistani lawyers did, have marched on to the prime minister's office to deliver a petition to investigate this matter. Now, this would not have happened without the Internet and without YouTube. I mean it is so simple, you see.

Q: That's a changing world.

Lee: But at the same time, there is the problem of credibility. So, you have a website called Malaysiakini. That means "Malaysia Now" and it's got some very good articles in it and some of them are signed regularly by the same person. So when we get that, we read it and then we say, okay, circulate it. But you get a lot of rubbish, too, and you have got to filter it. It's a waste of time.

Lee: When [Malaysia] kicked us out [in 1965], the expectation was that we would fail and we will go back on their terms, not on the terms we agreed with them under the British. Our problems are not just between states, this is a problem between races and religions and civilizations. We are a standing indictment of all the things that they can be doing differently. They have got all the resources. If they would just educate the Chinese and Indians, use them and treat them as their citizens, they can equal us and even do better than us and we would be happy to rejoin them.

Lee: It will stay like that for as long as you keep on getting talented people into your country and staying on, but will you do that? I think yes for 10, 20 years, but 30, 40, 50 years, I'm not sure because other countries will become more attractive or as attractive. It is the extra inputs you get.

Let me explain how I see it. If Singapore depended on its own domestic talent, we wouldn't have made it, but we were the center for education in this region from British days and many came to be educated and many stayed behind. Our top layer was drawn from a larger base and in my first Cabinet of 10, there were only two of us who were born and bred in Singapore. The others came from Malaysia, China, Ceylon, from India and elsewhere. It's a talent pool that was drawn from a bigger region, and that's the secret of your success. You drew in first your talent from Europe because you offered them opportunities. In the last few decades, you've been drawing your talent from all over the world, including Asia. If you can continue to do that, you will continue to succeed.

Not only must you attract them, you must get them to stay.

Meanwhile, here is Maliks response to DMFAK and his praise of a 'Truely Independent Judiciary'.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

My last post was on Friday, October 12th 2007. It has been hardly a week, fact is, its only been four days, but what a difference it makes. What difference? Well, lets see, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
1. THE GOOD: One Malaysian launched into space, although the debate is still on whether he is a full fledged Astronaut. Space flight participant, yes, by America's and Russian standards. Malaysia? Angkasawan. All said, he is still the first Malaysian in space.
2. THE BAD: My heart and prayers goes out to the families of those who tragically died in the Tioman Ferry disaster. As usual, the authorities were quick to condemn. TV3 made claims that the Captain was the first to have bailed out. The lighting speed of our authorities to criticise and accuse was unleashed ! But what has the authorities been doing all this while? Wasn't their salaries increased recently for a job well done (supposedly)? The lackadaisical attitude of our authorities has reared its head again. Lets just hope that we are not going to spend millions to improve the maritime department!
3. THE UGLY: How else can you described this fella? Fete the orphans? Come on! Since when do we provide coverage to these people? We know he had an illegal building for a start. To allow him to carry on the building, whilst bulldozing others? For those who do not know the extent of illegal buildings and demolition of these buildings by the local council, let me remind you of this 'illegally built orang asli church' which was demolished. An 'illegal Hindu temple' that was demolished (amongst others) and also illegally built terrace extensions!Read Here, and here
May be we should accord this man more airtime so that he can guide all those in the poverty bracket how to make millions! My source tells me that as a Municipal councillor, you get stipends of RM500 per month, and all your expenses are taken cared off, via claims.
I guess, he must have claimed well, for this man was also not charged with 37 counts of corporate misdeed! Well, need I say more, THE UGLY definately!
If this is the way we honour somebody, Botak Chin should be made a TUN of the poor!

El-Aid...Selamat Hari Raya to all my friends!

The holy month of Ramadhan is drawing to a close, and with that my many Muslim friends will be celebrating it tomorrow. A perfect present came from one of our more famous blogging sisters,
do take time to savour this. Its not every day that your former Prime Minister takes his tijme to pen you a personal message, let alone from his recovery room.
Though we are still recovering from the horror of Nurin's death, some are taking time to heal and to make things better. I also know of those who wants to take it a little further.
God bless all of you.
Selamat Hari Raya Puasa.....

Solidarity

How many of us ponder this? Its key word, SOLID.defined by dict.die as Union or consolidation of Interest and responsibility; fellowship; community.

Dr Chee Soo Juan, of the Singapore Democratic Party, stood in solidarity with the monks from Myanmar in his homestate. He was later arrested. Now, I am sure there are laws in Singapore which he has broken, for example, staging a protest, and collecting signatures for his protest of the Junta in the way they cracked down on the monks, but to arrest him because he stood his ground and supported the pro democracy protest by the monks? I salute this man for he also shared some very important values with his children (Chee's children also helped collected signatures). Thats in Singapore.

Back home, the march from Palace of Justice to Prime Minister Badawi's office went on smoothly. Come November 10th there is a call to gather and support a move to hand over a petition, yet again to His Majesty the King. But how many Malaysians who gripe and whine will stand in solidarity with the rest of us who has decide to stand up and be counted?
If its anything to show, the willingness of Malaysians who signed up for the People's Parliament petition, indicates that the 'fear factor' may be subsiding. If that is the case, I do hope to see more of you at the Dataran.
Remember SOLID is the key word in SOLIDARITY.

The Malaysian Bar Council walked their talk. Will you lend your support?

85 people signed up this morning. Are you going to claim back your Judiciary?

UPDATE: 7th October 2007. Talk about divine intervention. Before I could even raise the topic of online petition for this save the judiciary campaign to the Priest in my church, he highlighted the importance of having faith in one's actions. He cited the example of lawyers who marched in order to hand over e memorandum to the Prime Minister. He cited the march by the monks in Myanmar, on the belief (the Monks) they had in their own faith which empowered themselves to take up against the oppression and injustice by the Junta. We are blessed in Malaysia that our lawyers were not treated the same way like their counterparts did in Pakistan. We must not give an inch to corruption and injustice. Truth and the right thing MUST prevail. Surely, His Majesty the Agung must know that his rakyat needs his intervention! These people cared enough to sign up for the petition. All they had to know that there must be solidarity when injustice is outplayed.
- - - - - - - - -
I was overwhelmed by the support and the show of unity by the Malaysian Bar council yesterday. The mainstream media were told to downplay this march. And for those who have no access to the internet will not know the response as well as the support the MBC received!
After doing my rounds, blog to blog, I am more than convinced that we want change.
Heck, I will even go as far as to demand it. But to do that we have to remember our boundaries.
I did receive a number of emails in support of the memorandum by the Bar, for which I am greatful of your support, but what about the rest of you?

You see. When I started this blog, it set out for one purpose, since then, I have had to give it a somewhat change of direction. My mum gave me advise to stop blogging 'against' the authority.
What she does not know, is that I am blogging in support of the authority. They promised us a lot, and I am merely helping highlight their shortfall (if at all they read my blog!), I don't see myself as anti Government, or for that matter, anti Malaysia. I love this country of ours, I don't necessarily love our government, but I do support them when they do the right things. The 3 man independent inquiry panel set up is one of them. Its a step towards the right direction.

So what can you and I do in the meantime? Let's analyse yesterdays march shall we?
1. They identified themselves (We are the Malaysian Bar)
2. They were responsible (no provocation and no irresponsible banners!)
3. They did not hide behind the veil of anonymity

So I am urging you, to ask yourself this very question. Why are you then hiding?
Come out and show your support, and put your foot down. Tell our servants (aren't they Government servants, and the Government, elected by the people?) that we have had enough of their dancing around. Read this petition which is very real, and very telling of the state of one of Malaysia's problems.
Malaysia today had a great response to their request (anonymity was guaranteed)
People's Parliament has no intentions to hide anymore. They are very real. They are very sure that they have your support. Its time to show up, and speak up.
If you agree and want to do your part, just email savethejudiciary@gmail.com along with your name and IC number. This petition will go to the Agung. We'll be sure he knows that the rakyat has spoken!