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Through my aging eyes – a gift from Rocket

By Dr Edwin Bosi, DAP ADUN for Kepayan

Samparita is famous for a wrong reason. The village is home to a teenage girl Norikoh Saliwa who was brutally murdered and dumped on the side of a road in Kota Marudu on 25th November 2012. How could I forget as her date of death is my date of birth? Norikoh who was only sweet sixteen was in town in search of a part time job in a furniture store. A Pakistani man is now charged with her murder and will soon know his fate when the case is up for mention in the High Court.

This is a high profile case because it involves a local girl and a foreigner. As DAP Secretary, I took the time to visit her parents and family at Kg Samparita to listen to their story (not just from the media), and also to convey our condolence and to hand over a little donation. Norikoh’s parents are down to earth simple folks, with a very simple house with basic necessity. She on the other hand had high hope to address this issue. She ventured and pursued her study in Kota Kinabalu and had a bright future for herself and to uplift her family from their present situation. Then the tragic accident happened and now we can only hope for justice to come her way. This is one murder case that must see the light of justice.

When DAP Malaysia mooted the program called “Impian Malaysia” and later extended to “Impian Sarawak” and “Impian Sabah”, I was a little taken aback when it was revealed that the first program of impian Sabah would be in Kg. Samparita Laut. The word “Samparita” rang a bell and that brought me back to the time my team and I visited Norikoh’s parents. When I got hold of the local newspaper upon returning from KL, I saw and read that her case will be up for mention in a few weeks time.
Continue reading “Through my aging eyes – a gift from Rocket”

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BN/Umno government secret funding of Perkasa the most abominable government con-job in nation’s 56-year history

Two months ago, former Cabinet Minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim urged the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to dissociate himself from the extremist, racist and Malay supremacist group Perkasa because of its “toxic ideas” and “warmongering”, warning that Europe made the same mistake in the Nazi era which had taken a world war to correct.

Zaid had blogged:

“Even if Perkasa has a prominent patron, the organisation should not be allowed to run amok. Its very existence is an embarrassment to the country, especially to the Malays. The issues this group champions are just plain ridiculous, and there is nothing in Perkasa’s struggle that merits serious consideration. It has continued to cause consternation and fear among both Malaysians and also potential investors, and the Prime Minister should categorically denounce Perkasa and its allies for its disruptive politics and warmongering. After all, there will be no General Election until 2017-2018.

“The Government cannot maintain a cavalier attitude towards Perkasa, hoping that its toxic ideas will disappear and have no effect. Europe made the same mistake in the Nazi era and it took a World War to correct it.”

But truth is stranger than fiction. Who would have imagined that in actual fact, while Najib was strutting the international stage to launch his “Global Movement of Moderates” and present himself as a model for moderates in the world to emulate, his government was funding Perkasa to carry out its extremist, intolerant, racist, religious and seditious campaign including attacking Najib’s own signature policy of moderate and inclusive 1Malaysia.

The Umno/Barisan Nasional government secret funding of Perkasa in the past four years must rank as the most abominable government con-job in the nation’s 56-year history which stinks to high heavens and must be condemned and deplored by all decent, reasonable and patriotic Malaysians.

I have ten questions for Najib, the Ministers and leaders of Umno/Barisan Nasional with regard to this “most abominable government con-job in the nation’s 56-year history”, viz: Continue reading “BN/Umno government secret funding of Perkasa the most abominable government con-job in nation’s 56-year history”

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Umno’s caveman politics

– Sakmongkol AK47
The Malaysian Insider
December 30, 2013

The donkeys in Umno are coming out braying. Here and there, they were elected as leaders. The most fundamental building block of excellence – demanding and insisting upon excellence, is totally absent from Umno’s selection criteria.

And so, Umno Malays have a voracious appetite for dullards and dolts as leaders. Despite that, its paramount leader still talks senselessly about transformation. Does that drop from the sky or what?

In that sense, Malays have not progressed at all – in the olden days, the musclemen and strongmen get to become leaders. These people get to lay first claim on sources of wealth, land, women, other people’s wives and so forth. Today, in the 21st century, Umno want Malays to stay mute as democratic rights get assaulted because they are done in the name and on behalf of Malays.

All right-thinking Malays must resist this and reject Umno-style rule, because it will eventually lead to acquiescence and acceptance of intrusion into our lives. One day, it will be all right if the Umno overlord comes into our house, sleep with our daughters and even wives, and we are asked to tolerate that kind of repression because it’s done by one of us anyway.

The Malay family will be told to accept that cruelty and abuse, because it is done by another Malay. That is how Umno define government as. Continue reading “Umno’s caveman politics”

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Let parents have bigger say in tweaking our half-century old education policy

— BH Toh
The Malay Mail Online
December 29, 2013

DEC 29 — More than fifty years ago, Malaya achieved independence through cooperation among the various races. Native Malays formed the biggest ethnic group. Besides many other smaller indigenous groups, the Chinese and Indians were the second and third largest racial group at time.

Given the highly complex and diverse racial mix with each group speaking mainly their own respective mother tongues without a common language, our leaders at that time must have, after careful and cautious considerations, prudently decided that it is best to accommodate the mother-tongue language demands of the larger racial groups. Chinese and Indian vernacular schools were allowed to continue alongside mainstream schools that were mostly English medium ones legacy of the British era.

Eventually, all those English medium schools became Sekolah Kebangsaan, using our National Language as the main medium of instruction. While these vernacular schools struggled along at times, they managed to survive and some are actually doing quite well today in terms of enrolment. Continue reading “Let parents have bigger say in tweaking our half-century old education policy”

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Ini Kali Lah! Press for Freedom!

By Kee Thuan Chye
news.malaysia.msn.com
28.12.2013

The public forum ‘Bebaskan Media/Free the Media’, organised by Gerakan Media Marah (Geramm) and held in Kuala Lumpur last Friday, packed a full house and signified something positive – the coming together of journalists to speak up for media freedom. What is now needed from this talk is an action plan.

It seems to me that the crux of any action to be taken would be to fight for the repeal of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA). And the time to take action would be now, amidst the white heat generated by the Home Ministry’s suspension of the news weekly The Heat, under the provisions of that Act.

This suspension is, however, done without good reason, and has thus provided journalists with a just cause. For The Heat has indeed broken no laws to deserve such punishment. And as such, journalists must show up the ministry’s whimsical use of power and expose the insidious implications of the PPPA, and strive once and for all to break the Government’s tyranny over the media.

To do so, however, they must be united. And the fight must involve journalists from the print media as well as they are the ones directly affected by the PPPA. Not only that, these journalists should hail from publications of all the main language streams.

Unfortunately, their presence was sorely missed at Friday’s forum. Of the six speakers, none was a print journalist. Three of them came from the online media, which is not subservient to the PPPA. In fact, the online media is free from censorship, thanks to a promise made by the Government years ago that it would not censor the Internet. Continue reading “Ini Kali Lah! Press for Freedom!”