Day: May 6, 2010

DAP fully supports the PAS proposal for a suit to be filed against the Federal Government for ceding away the oil-rich offshore Blocks L and M in South China Sea to protect the rights of future generations of Sarawakians, Sabahans and Malaysians.

Kelantan state councillor Husam Musa yesterday proposed a legal suit against the federal government for ceding away the oil-rich maritime boundary areas to Brunei.

DAP endorses Husam’s demands and calls on the Prime Minister to issue a White Paper pertaining to all the following issues:

• Reveal to the public all communiques between Putrajaya, Brunei, Sabah, Sarawak and national oil company Petronas pursuant to the ceding of the boundary areas.

• Report all decisions made by the cabinet about the matter.

• Convene a royal commission of inquiry to investigate the issue. Continue reading “DAP fully supports PAS proposal for a suit to be filed against the federal government for ceding away the oil-rich offshore Blocks L and M in South China Sea”

By M. Bakri Musa

Chapter 2: Why Some Societies Progress, Others Regress

“Progressive” Versus “Static” Cultures

In 1999, Harvard’s Academy for International and Area Studies convened a symposium whose proceedings were published in the book, Culture Matters. As expected, the contributors are committed believers of the creed that cultural factors shape economic and political development. The natural corollary would be how can we ameliorate or negate factors in the culture that are obstacles to progress and encourage those that facilitate it.

Societies can be divided into those that have “progressive culture,” that is, a value system that promotes development within that society, and “static culture,” which of course favors the status quo, and thus lack of progress.

Time orientation, with the emphasis on the future rather than the present or the past, is one trait of a progressive society. This future must not be too far ahead as in the hereafter (the preoccupation of medieval Christians and present-day fundamentalist Muslims), rather for the immediate future of the present life. Continue reading “Malaysia in the Era of Globalization #13”

The Cabinet yesterday belatedly expressed its distress and condolences to the family of Aminulrasyid Amzah, 14, who was killed by trigger-happy police about 100 metres from his Shah Alam house in the early hours (2 am) of Monday, April 26, 2010 when trying to flee home driving his sister’s car.

The first question that comes to mind for Malaysians is why the Cabinet did not express its distress and condolences at last Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, which met more than 48 hours after the fatal shooting and killing of Aminulrasyid.

Is it because the Cabinet had relied on the first public account of the heinous police killing by the Selangor police chief Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar who said Aminulrasyid was shot dead “while reversing his car in an attempt to run over several policemen”, describing the Form III student as a “criminal”? Continue reading “Will IGP and Selangor CPO apologise for starting the trial by media and defaming Aminulrasyid and Azamuddin and their families when the two boys were called “criminals”?”

By KJ John | Malaysiakini

In Chinese culture, it is said that ‘the fish rots from the head’. Is the 5,000-year-old cultural saying wrong? If not, what is it that makes institutions become corrupt over time?

What has made civilisations themselves corrupt, leading to their extinction, such as that of Babylonia or Egypt? What has made the Christian culture and beliefs of the founding fathers of America become so corrupt that, today, secularism and liberalism drives much of the US agenda?

What will ensure that Malaysia, a nation only 53 years old, does not become corrupt like some noble civilisations of old?

Last week, I reflected on the question of whose authority we live under, on earth? I argued that we need to be accountable to both God and Man; to give each what the other does not deny.
Continue reading “The IGP should resign”