Month: September 2009

Yesterday morning, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Deputy Chief Commissioner Datuk Abu Kassim Mohammad was the special guest of the Star online live chat.

During Abu Kassim online chat, the newspaper carried an online opinion poll which produced the following results at 12.30 noon before it was taken off line:

1. How would rate the MACC’s performance so far in fighting corruption? (image)
Good – 3%
Fair – 0%
Poor – 98%

2. Should MACC only ‘interview’ suspects during office hours? (image)
Yes – 79%
No – 6%
Depends on the situation – 15%

3. How would rate the MACC’s handling of Teoh Beng Hock’s case? (image)
Good – 0%
Fair – 4% Continue reading “First five months of Najib’s “1Malaysia. People First. Performance Now” slogan ends with MACC and Malaysian Police neck-to-neck as to which key national institution has lower public confidence and esteem”

By Augustine Anthony

I remember watching a movie sometime ago in which two friends were engaged in a conversation of a peculiar topic. The woman comes from an ideal family as opposed to the man who is from a family that has gone through indescribable hardship.

In the conversation the woman poses a question to the man,

The woman: If a wolf enters a house of a farmer and takes the farmer’s child away into the woods and eats up the child, do you think the wolf is bad?

The man: The answer depends on the question asked. Since the question is about the character of the wolf, you need to be a wolf yourself to get the right answer.

Perhaps in law one will call this a subjective test rather than an objective test as absolute certainty in human affairs is an unreliable guide thus a dangerous master.
Continue reading “Politicians are rats from gutter. And people?”

Utterly incredible!

Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein as Home Minister has done the equivalent of wielding the keris at the Umno Youth General Assembly for three consecutive years as Umno Youth leader which had been accepted by Barisan Nasional leaders as a major factor in the political tsunami of the March 8 general election last year!

It would appear that Hishammuddin is determined to make another unforgettable contribution which would ensure that the uncompleted political changes in the political tsunami of the March 8 general last year could be fully accomplished in the next general elections.

Yesterday, Hishammuddin usurped the roles of the Attorney-General and the police to defend and justify last Friday’s cow-head demonstration in Shah Alam, totally insensitive to the insult and profanity of such an act of sacrilege to Hindus in the country.
Continue reading “Hishammuddin’s defence and justification of cowhead demonstration equivalent to his insensitivity in wielding the keris at Umno Youth General Assembly”

By Hussein Hamid

Mahathir unveiled the Vision of 2020 plan for Malaysia in 1991. Malaysia was to become an industrialized nation and be considered a high-income economy. Najib refined (that is double speak to mean ‘no can do lah’) that vision: “It is clear that our Vision 2020 objective has to be refined to remain viable,” Najib said. “Being richer alone does not define a developed nation. There are important social and quality-of-life measurements that must be factored in when considering our objectives and successes.” Malaysia needs to “redefine and recalibrate” how and when it will achieve Vision 2020, Najib told reporters after the speech. That doesn’t necessarily mean a change in the timeline, he said.

I would have agreed with him in principal had he not put in the “that does not necessarily mean a change in the timeline” proviso. I am no economist but let us just use common sense to look at realities.

Let us look at the differences between salaries earned, the cost of a vehicle and a house between 1973 and 2009.

	YEAR		increase
	1973	2009
1.3 liter Japanese Car	7,000	60,000	8.5
Double Story House	45,000	300,000	6.6
Engineer Salary	1,000	2,000	2

Continue reading “Vision 2020…not bloody likely!”

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Said Ahmad Hamdan has shown himself to be completely callous and heartless over the mysterious death of Teoh Beng Hock who went to the 14th floor MACC headquarters on July 16 to co-operate with its investigations but ended up as a corpse on the fifth floor.

Ahmad Said told Sin Chew that he had been informed that there had been ten cases of people investigated by Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) who threw themselves off from high-rise buildings since the establishment of ICAC and there was nothing he could do if people investigated cannot withstand the pressure.

The implication of Ahmad Said’s statement is crystal clear – he is blaming Teoh’s death on suicide for being unable to withstand the pressure of investigation by the MACC, seeking justification in the alleged ten cases in Hong Kong of people “throwing themselves off high-rise buildings” following ICAC investigations.

Continue reading “The 42 MACC Panel members should meet in emergency session on whether Ahmad Said is fit and competent to continue as MACC Chief Commissioner or they should call for his dismissal”

Live updates @limkitsiang

01:45 PM
Perak State Assembly 2nd Sept at Hotel Heritage adjourned sine dine

01:44 PM
Adun Sungai debated. Motion amended 2include demand 4immediate release of 7 arrested n t contract for IGP Musa Hassan should not be renewed

01:41 PM
Emergency motion 2 condemn police highandedness hotly debated. Among speakers ADUN lubok merbau, pokok assam, teja, hutan melintang, canning

12:59 PM
One of the 7 arrested K Ananthan DAP Chairman Lok Lim Garden suffers ashmatic attack. Being sent to Ipoh GH

12:31 PM
Assembly adopted report of Public Accounts Committee. Now debating report of Privileges Committee.
Continue reading “Perak State Assembly”

In his first National Day message, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak called on Malaysians to “repair the bridges and tear down the divisive walls” that exist among the races.

Najib blamed “opportunistic people” who had exploited the friction among the people to cause the bridges, which were painstakingly built by the nation’s founding fathers, to become shaky.

Najib has hit the crisis of nation-building in Malaysia on the head, except that he is still in denial as to the “opportunists” who have been most guilty of undermining nation-building efforts – when the culprits are to be found within the Barisan Nasional and not outside.

For instance, will Umno leaders particularly Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Umno President Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin be prepared to respond to Najib’s National Day call and apologise for erecting divisive walls and damaging bridges resulting in greater national divisions and heightened racial and religious polarization after the March 8 general elections last year and in particular in the five months of Najib premiership with its 1Malaysia slogan?
Continue reading “He looks like KPI Minister, sounds like KPI Minister but is he KPI Minister?”

By Cheong Suk-Wai | Singapore Straits Times

AUG 29 – In early May 1969, Australian anthropologist Clive Kessler rode his motorcycle through Kelantan hamlets for 30km to the nearest telephone box. He then called his parents in Sydney and told them: “You’re going to hear about trouble in a few parts of Malaysia in the next few days, but not where I am.”

Sure enough, Malaysia’s bloodiest civil strife erupted. Dr Kessler, who was then there to observe Islamist politics, had predicted it in an article he wrote to the press and in an interview he gave the Times of London in April 1969.

Now 67, the emeritus professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney has been a Malaysia watcher for more than 40 years and published prodigiously on it, including two books.

He had taught at the London School of Economics (LSE) and then Columbia University in New York city from the late 1960s till 1980. In that time, he worked closely with such lions in his field as LSE’s Maurice Freedman and Raymond Firth as well as Princeton’s Clifford Geertz.

He got in touch with me initially about my published review of his compatriot Anthony Milner’s book, The Malays. In the review, I had wrongly attributed to Dr Kessler the view that if the Malay cannot make something of himself, he will try to bend others to his will. Dr Kessler was gracious about my unwitting error and we got to talking about Malaysia in Subang Jaya, Selangor, at the tail end of his two-month sojourn there recently.
Continue reading “Bumpy stretch ahead for Malaysia”

By Hussein Hamid

You will never know what it is like to be discriminated against because you are rich or poor or because of your colour, race or religion until you have experience it your self. I was in London in the 60’s and London then still had pockets of areas where you would be treated differently because you are Asian. You will be waiting to be served at these places and you will be ignored until the ‘white’ have been served first. You would go look at a flat that you saw advertised in the local papers and be told that “it is taken”. Invariably we Asians found ourselves living in houses where there were other Asian tenants.

We Asian in turn used to mock the blacks and called them “Gagak” or crows and the whites we sometimes called them “Babi”. In one memorable episode me and some friends were on the London bus and we were referring to the gentleman in a bowler hat sitting behind us as “Babi this and Babi that”…Then as his stop came he stood up behind us with his briefcase and umbrella and politely told us “ Tolong beri laluan ini Babi nak jalan”. He must have been one of those colonial masters that came to administer Malaysia.

My unpleasant experiences in London with discrimination, however slight, made me realize that it was unpleasant to be discriminated against – for any reason. Coming back to KL around the early 70’s brought me head on with the ‘bumiputra’ and NEP situation that gave so much hope and expectations of good things to come for us Malays, regardless of our standing in life. My memories of these times are a bit hazy but one experience can capture the essence of those times. At the apex of my time doing “Project Acquisition” I had two penthouses costing me RM30 thousand a month, two Generals and back up staff under my payroll. Continue reading “Tolerance..”