— Justice Seeker
The Malaysian Insider
Jun 24, 2012
JUNE 24 — Who do we trust? I tell you who we should trust: Those who have a track record of telling the truth; those whose track record of performance can stand up to scrutiny.
Just think about all those people who you have trusted all through your life: your parents, siblings, classmates, colleagues, religious leaders, etc. Even when you did not agree with what they told you, you knew that it was probably for your benefit and, ultimately, truthful.
So we should use the same yardstick or gut feel to evaluate what Idris Jala is telling us about crime.
What is the track record of this man? He rode on the glory of the supposed turnaround of Malaysia Airlines, basking in the glory of accolades and reaping financial rewards for saving the airline.
Every publication talked up his “achievement” of turning around the national icon.
Now we are told that MAS was not really saved. There was huge cost-cutting, which hurt the brand immensely, but little was done to actually improve the airline structurally. Its business model was hopeless then and hopeless now.
I would suggest The Malaysian Insider actually do some old-fashioned probing on dodgy contracts given to spouses of union officials in the name of “industrial harmony”.
Or better yet, ask Ahmad Jauhari Yahya to come clean on what happened at MAS during the Jala’s reign.
Let us move on. Jala then became a member of Najib’s administration and czar of the so-called government transformation unit. Christians remember him very well.
In the run-up to the Sarawak elections, when the Najib administration was fearful of losing the Christian vote, Jala was tasked with the job of resolving many issues that were upsetting Christians, especially the seizure of Malay-language bibles.
He famously announced that the government had come up with a 10-point plan to resolve unhappiness felt by Christians. That plan was famously knocked back by Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and not much has happened since then. Even the Catholic Church’s right to use to word Allah has been swept under the carpet.
In recent days, Jala has been chastising the media for sensationalising the crime situation in the country, pointing to his crime statistics.
Should you trust what he says about crime? Does his track record hold up to any scrutiny? Just think about how many members of your family have been victims of crime over the past few months?
Do you trust them or do you trust Jala?
I am actually more concern with the crime of VOTE BUYING being done out of desperation by UMNO-BN..Handing out money left and right to get votes. – all these are direct charities – they don’t work to fix problems in the long run. They are necessary when things are too bad and when they are not, its lead to long term structural problem..
Why is the opposition NOT forcing the issue of making UMNO-BN guarantee that they won’t raise taxes direct or indirect after the GE with such handout of the monies?
///Jala has been chastising the media for sensationalising the crime situation in the country…///
Jala put the blame on the media just because the police failed to tackle crime.
Jala should not blame the media but the Home Ministry.
Concerning who to trust, I think all Malaysians do not and need not trust all politicians 100%.
We are now concern about the bigger picture…who to trust BN or PR with our 13th GE votes.
We cannot trust BN for sure,
Let PR prove they can be trusted governing the country for the first time.
A change of government is a must.
Keep trusting UMNO b to govern forever is the most stupid idea.
Change and trust our instincts is the best.
The UMNO b politicians are arrogant and greedy.
Lets make them be the Oppositions and trust PR can do a better job.
At the rate umno is declining it would really serve umno’s future better for the party to begin familiarising itself with the role of “his majesty’s loyal opposition” right now.
///”Don’t be upset over past decisions made by previous governments. We should move forward as long as we are on the right path,” says Chua. ///–Malaysiakini
CSL has adopted UMNO culture thinking that the moment he takes away the shoes that steps on others’ toes, all are forgotten and forgiven. Not so. UMNO has to await the chance to see if Pakatan Rakyat makes mistakes, and MCA would not be carried in the reformed UMNO which stands for Malaysians rather than Malays.
The fact that he chastised media for playing up “crime” shows the angle from which he is coming: the importance of perception than reality. But that’s what it is all today in politics – the importance of massaging voters’ perception in favour of one’s party against the other with voters being “consumers” in this consumer-orientated social media empowered age. In short political propaganda! Can one blame Idris? As Pemandu CEO whose work is to deliver his boss’s key government initiatives and targets on ‘transformation’ to convince electorate to win the GE – he is by nature of the job- made a BN/govt propagandist. Ask any propagandist anywhere – the tools of trade are as always (in the words of academic researcher Dr Ong Kian Ming), “pretentious words and slick presentations protestations of diligence and toil and selective representation of data obscure the true picture.”
However frankly, what else does one reasonably expect the Pemandu chief otherwise to do when reporting on progress of his boss’s transformation programme from the economy to cutting index crime? To tell the truth?
It may be the duty and point of professional integrity of a academic researcher like javascript:jQuery(‘#commentform’).submit();Ong Kian Ming to separate wheat of truth from the chaff of falsehood but its not a politician or for that matter a political propagandist’s job to do that. Its funny – almost naïve- the question is raised : who do you trust in crime? Of course our own felt experience from what we read or hear from sources we don’t think would have a motive to spin anything other than the unvarnished truth. The situation in country has reached stage where the BN is hunkering under a pervasive trust deficit amongst large swathes of people. Even if it tells the truth people will be skeptical! Which could be why “308” political tsunami happened and next GE delayed thus far. Idris’s role as Pemandu chief is to rebuild this trust as best as he could, which makes him a BN propagandist but so what? It is his job! Propaganda (Art of skewing the truth) to politics is like a beating heart to life itself. It is practiced everywhere in so called matured democracies let alone in Boleh land where, according to Dina Zaman in earlier blog topic Interfaith Dialogue, “the culture of thinking and reading critically is largely absent from the Malaysian psyche”! Besides a lot of problems ranging to economic stagnation to crime stem from fundamental policies of UMNO that even the PM cannot so easily reverse, let alone Idris.
Many factors bear on rising crime (both reality & perception): increase in population, rural – urban drift, rising costs of living/inflationary pressures vis-avis growing divide between haves and haves not, influx of foreigners and pervasive corruption etc that stem from structural and policy issues – not just how efficient or inefficient our police task force. Though opposition/detractors will attack the govt responsible for law enforcement, pointing to the gap between its high faluting transformation aspirations (eg NKAs) and real situation at ground level, the BN will of course try spin it the other way to say that concrete progress has been made. I guess all is fair and war (in politics and propaganda) but the truth is nothing much ( besides playing statistics) can be done to remedy/reverse crime situation unless the BN and principally UMNO’s fundamental policies (including patronage and ethnic policies underpinning crime or other areas eg education or economic perforance) are changed – which of course they are not prepared to change, which neither PM nor Idris with the best of intentions could on their own alone have the power to change.
What miracle did Idris Jala do at MAS ? Did he simply transfer the aircraft assets to Penerbangan Malaysia so that the assets and liabilities are transferred to this unit of MoF ? Was any lease payment agreed during the period where the assets were under Penerbangan ownership ? No. MAS somehow got to operate the assets for free, and Idris could then claim to have turned MAS around. The person who knows all about this scam is Tengku Azmil, the first CEO of Penerbangan who went on to the CEO of MAS and now executive director of Khazanah. Of course his lips are sealed as he is still in government service.
Reminds me of the many so-called restructurings where the new CEO writes off more than was necessary, and then could claim to have turned the companies around in such a short timeframe.
Idris Jala – just a snake oil seller.
What can we say about him? 30 pieces of silver. That’s the price for betraying the rakyat. What happened to judas by the way?
They say Idris Jala is very God-fearing and worships diligently every week. He prays very hard for ‘Transformation’ and hopes his prayers will be answered somehow and soon. He is fast running out of ideas and only miracles can save him and us.
If Idris the Jala is the economic miracle HE claims to be, why aren’t the europeans requesting HIS help not lend him to solve the eurozone crisis?
The main thrust of Economist’s article “Cockeyed optimists” is fear of crime (public perception) has no exact co-relation with actual crime itself whether on rise or down (reality). When crime was going down (during Blair’s administration) Brits actually feared more; however when it is not going down – in fact its up a little (as between 2002 and 2010) – yet people in UK are now clamer and fear less (with the proportion who feel unsafe dropping from 36% to 27%). Its opposite compared to here. For public perception (anxieties) are influenced by myraid of other factors – press reports, “concern over rapid social change, immigration, deteriorating values, fraying communities” (per the Economist). If what Economist says is true, it may well boil down to credibility of and social trust for the govt. Blair had lost credibility in endorsing Bush’s assertion that Saddam had WMD to justify invading Iraq. Maybe its same here: BN govt has lost the social trust of many.
Whatever statistics the Pemandu chief churns out benefit of doubt is withheld than given because of apparently the trust deficit for what the govt here says. Whilst its true that public perception may vary from reality, it is felt exeprience of many here that the perception of rising crime is a reality (and not just a bias view arising from lack of trust for the govt.) Reports of crime incidences are not just from media (printed or online); they’re from personal experience, anecdotal experience, listening to what friends and relatives say who have no reason to say these happened when they did not. How could Idris’s statistics be relied upon when he’s by nature of job has to defend Najib’s NKRAs, the security agencies that give the statistics to him have an interest to down play them to preserve their own image/professionalism, and many of us as victims of crime don’t even bother to report them to police as we don’t think anything stolen can be recovered by the police?
The crime rate is dropping? this is bull shit! My car was just been stolen last sunday near a busy area in Bukit Tinggi, Klang. We have made a police report. I don’t think my car can be recovered. I personally feel that our country is not safe anymore. what is happening? The thieves or robbers are very bold now.. they are like above the law. I think this is the ‘good’ example shown by our leaders and many cases happened unsolved like TBH case etc. The person who had committed crime will be freed and we the normal rakyat will have to pray that the robbers do not target us! We need a safe country and I believe we can if our leaders do not focus on to polictisise each and every issues, just do the right thing and not things that only benefit own cronies’ pockets.