Day: February 6, 2014

Mine! Mine! Umno Vice President and Minister for Rural and Regional Development Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal seems to make himself a bigger fool and is now digging a bigger hole for himself.

I feel enormous sadness that we have Cabinet Ministers who cannot be humble and admit that they have made mistakes.

Let me tell the UMNO Ministers that there is nothing wrong with them admitting that they have made mistakes, and that in this case, Apdal had wrongly accused DAP National Vice Chairman and MP for Seputeh Teresa Kok’s video “Onderful Malaysia CNY 2014” of lampooning the Malaysian security forces and the Lahad Datu intrusion tragedy.

After all, UMNO Ministers are mere mortals. Even Homer nods!

Apdal’s mistake is all the more understandable and excusable as he did not understand Mandarin or Cantonese, the languages used in the video dialogue, and he could only have heard a garbled, inaccurate, biased and tendentious version of the video from his colleagues in the Barisan Nasional, whether MCA, Gerakan or Liberal Democratic Party, who have political axes to grind. Continue reading “Mine! Mine! Shafie is now digging a bigger hole for himself!”

Will the forthcoming Kajang by-election in Selangor be the dirtiest or cleanest by-election in Malaysian history?

It has the capacity of being either depending on the role of the contending candidates, the two political coalitions of Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat, and the supervising bodies like the Election Commission, the police, etc.

The Kajang by-election promises to be a by-election of many surprises.

The very holding of the Kajang by-election is itself a surprise – the first surprise. Continue reading “Will Kajang by-election be the dirtiest or cleanest by-election in Malaysian history?”

by Jennifer Gomez and Shahirah Rashid
The Malaysian Insider
February 06, 2014

National schools are the breeding ground for racial polarisation and the education system is the root cause of the problem plaguing the country now, an interfaith forum was told yesterday.

Parents Action Group for Education (PAGE) chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim told an audience of about 65 at the interfaith forum titled “A dialogue for harmony”, that it was all about Malay supremacy in schools now.

PAGE was among 40 civil groups and non-governmental organisations at the forum in conjunction with World Interfaith Harmony Week, jointly organised by the Global Movement of Moderates and Promotion of Human Rights (Proham).

“The only solution is for the glory of national schools to be returned, which means we need more subjects in English in national schools, because right now, national schools are Malay schools and nothing more,” said Noor Azimah.

She said certain Muslim groups funded by Putrajaya were also the source of the problem.

Sisters in Islam executive director Ratna Osman also touched on the education system, saying her sons were told in school that they could not mix with non-Muslims.

“I was shocked when an ustazah told them they cannot be with non-Muslims because they are not like us, because we are supreme human beings.

“I am disgusted because that is not the kind of education which I received 30 years ago,” Ratna said. Continue reading “Interfaith forum blames education system, national schools for racial polarisation”