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The wrath of a losing ‘winner’

Richard Loh
December 15, 2013

Malaysians should be very proud of their country, a nation where they are born into, raised and will die and buried here irrespective of what kind of government they have. But sadly many still could not differentiate between the country that they owned (belong to) and an elected government that are supposed to serve. The long serving one party (precisely 56 years) has gone overboard and arrogant to remind the rakyat that they must be grateful and be patriotic to the powers that be.

Most Malaysians are moving forward fast and are adapting well to the various changes that are ongoing together with the outside world but are pulled back or hindered by a restrictive government that are not willing to open up and face the present day reality. The results of the 12th and 13th General Elections have shown that most Malaysians wanted to move along with the rest of the world but post 308 and 505 gave you a more opaque and an intolerance government.

They are still using the old formula of divide and rule, enhancing their racism and religious intolerance including veiled threats which they thought can still work to their advantage and hold on to power. We wish them all the best except not to create chaos and ‘crushed bodies and lives lost’ to fulfill their wish of holding on to power.

Are Malaysians really that blind, dumb and deaf to fall yet again to all these antics? Yes, there are still 47% of the voters that believe in them. Continue reading “The wrath of a losing ‘winner’”

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‘Why I had to leave Malaysia’

Neal K| October 11, 2013
Free Malaysia Today

Malaysia Truly Asia…what about Malaysia being TRULY Malaysia first?COMMENT

“Lima tiga pound,” says the souvenir vendor in busy Oxford Street London. That many Malaysians throng to England’s capital.

The bargain hunters are mainly tourists travelling in groups or two in one holiday makers who’ve either just settled or visited their children studying here.

You can clearly tell them apart from the upper crusts…and the newly minted Malaysian elites who waltz into the city. The upper crusts, including seasoned business classes, will not be posing in front Selfridges or Harrods for ‘say cheese’ pictures. That’s reserved for the majority of the citizenry…as well as benefactors of ill-gotten wealth who simply cannot hide their simple natures, even in their posh new lifestyles.

Then there’s the section of Malaysians who have made Britain their adopted home. They watch. They feel. And they still talk about ‘back home’. Home is still Malaysia, even for those forced into giving up their citizenship.

Raven, in his 40’s now, came to England to study while in his 20’s, met a beautiful French lady and eventually married her in 1997. Thankfully, his wife Phillipa liked Malaysia and was agreeable to settling down in her husband’s birthplace. As the first born son with filial obligations Raven couldn’t be happier and he quickly got a lecturing job in KL. Continue reading “‘Why I had to leave Malaysia’”

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Saluting M’sia’s Mandelas

Dean Johns
Malaysiakini
Dec 14, 2013

In the wake of the death of the man who led South Africa to freedom from apartheid, many here have wondered whether there will ever be a Mandela-style leader to liberate Malaysia from the curse of Barisan Nasional.

Of course this robber-regime has already made a brazen bid to steal the spirit of Mandela for itself, with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak ludicrously claiming that his Umno party’s ‘struggle’ is similar to that of South Africa’s ANC.

A claim that was neatly rebutted by US President Barack Obama in his speech in celebration of the life of Nelson Mandela, in which his statement that “there are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people” was clearly directed at the Najibs of the world.

In any event, there was never much of a struggle to free Malaysia from colonial rule, except by socialists, trade unionists and communists.

And the Alliance that finally achieved Merdeka under the benevolent and broad-minded leadership of Tunku Abdul Rahman all too soon degenerated into the Umno-dominated Barisan Nasional that has ever since so disgracefully re-colonised the nation for its own and its cronies’ benefit.

So that just as Mandela’s dream of a resurgent South Africa has degenerated into the current reality of a sink-hole of gross inequality, rampant crime and corruption under the unlovely Jacob Zuma, so has Tunku Abdul Rahman’s idea and ideal of Malaysia descended into today’s Najib-style nightmare. Continue reading “Saluting M’sia’s Mandelas”

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DAP calls for genuine educational transformation to ensure “educational excellence for all students” and not just for 1.3% of the student population with over 51% failures

Both the current Education Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and his predecessor Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein must be held responsible for the decline and deterioration of educational standards in Malaysia in the past decade, as illustrated by the 2007 and 2011 TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and the 2009 and 2012 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).

This is because Hishammuddin was Education Minister from 2004 – 2009, and must be held solidly responsible for Malaysia’s poor performance in the 2007 TIMSS and 2009 PISA while Muhyiddin, who had taken over the Education Ministry in April 2009, must bear full responsibility for Malaysia’s educational performance in the 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA.

I have a vested interest in the performance of Malaysian students in international educational benchmarking, as I was responsible in getting Malaysia involved in the global educational assessments in the first place.

In 1996, I met the then Education Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Run Razak, and persuaded him that Malaysia should participate in TIMSS, as I had emailed the organisers of TIMSS, the Netherlands-based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), inquiring about Malaysia’s participation in TIMSS as Malaysia had not participated in the four-yearly TIMSS assessment for eight-grade (Form Two) students.

Najib agreed with me that Malaysia should participate in the international educational assessments so that we know where Malaysian students stand with their peers in other countries, resulting in Malaysia’s first participation in a global educational assessment in the 1999 TIMSS. Continue reading “DAP calls for genuine educational transformation to ensure “educational excellence for all students” and not just for 1.3% of the student population with over 51% failures”