Day: February 8, 2014

Overnight, Malaysians are asking whether the law of the jungle have replaced the rule of law in the country on our way to a fully developed nation status in six years’ time in 2020.

This follows the shocking statement by the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi who dismissed calls to investigate the organisers of Thursday’s chicken slaughter protest against DAP MP Teresa Kok, and who dismissed the RM1,200 reward offered by the self-styled “Council of Islamic NGOs” who slaps Teresa saying “there is nothing to investigate as it is not a threat”.

He said: “Why do we need to investigate that?

“Slapping is not a threat. If they say murder, then it is a threat.”

Is Zahid seriously suggesting that it is perfectly lawful and permissible to organise public demonstrations to offer RM1,200 to anyone to slap the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister or the Home Minister?

Is the Home Minister advocating the law of the jungle instead of the rule of law? Then we are not heading towards a fully developed nation in 2020 but down the abyss to a failed state by the end of the decade!
Continue reading “Is Zahid seriously suggesting that it is perfectly lawful and permissible to organise public demonstrations to offer RM1,200 to anyone to slap the PM, DPM or Home Minister?”

Koon Yew Yin
8th February 2014

When Theresa Kok’s video clip for the Chinese New Year first appeared, I saw it as a cleverly done piece of political satire. It was funny, original and thought provoking. I thought the references to various personalities and public issues of concern captured some of our recent political controversies in a refreshingly irreverent and comical way. The clip brought back to me memories of that hugely popular and successful British television series, “Yes Minister” which first ran in the 1980’s and has been recently revived.

At the same time that I appreciated the black humour and wit in the “ONEderful Malaysia!” video, I was concerned that it would be viewed the opposite way by the Government and UMNO’s political supporters and would become ammunition for them to hit back not only against her, but also the DAP and the opposition parties as a whole.

Clearly the video was intended to draw attention to issues of public concern. It was also meant to draw attention to Theresa Kok as a politician and to enhance her public image. But what if the Government or its supporters twisted it around and concocted elements of racial or religious discord to smear the DAP and Pakatan coalition? I was especially concerned that the targeting of the video to a Chinese audience and timed for the Chinese New Year period was strategically unwise and could backfire.

My worse fears have now proven correct. Continue reading “Advice to All Politicians: Keep Calm, Cool and Collected”

Today is the 111th birth anniversary of Bapa Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Sadly, there is nothing much to celebrate to mark the greater realization of Tunku’s Malaysia Dream – to make Malaysia a haven of peace, harmony and happiness – as 44 years after Tunku stepped down as the founding Prime Minister of Malaysia, the country has never been more polarized racially and religiously as today.

Nobody can now claim that Malaysia is a haven of peace, harmony and happiness?

In fact, Malaysia suffered the ignominy ten days ago when a Pakistani website gloated go that “Malaysia no longer land of peace and tolerance” after the latest outrages against racial and religious harmony in Malaysia – the Molotov cocktail attack on a church in Penang a day after the provocative banner, “Allah is Great. Jesus is the son of Allah” was hung outside five churches in Penang without the knowledge of church authorities and the vandalism of eight gravestones in a Christian cemetery in Kuantan.

Two days ago, some 30 members of six NGOs styling themselves the Council of Islamic NGOs staged a protest in Kuala Lumpur and conducted a pagan ritual where they slaughtered chicken and smeared their blood on a banner featuring Pakatan Rakyat leaders and offered RM1,200 to anyone who would slap DAP woman MP for Seputeh Teresa Kok and provide photographic evidence of their action.

Their actions were not only anti-women but anti-Islam as it is totally against Islam as the religion of peace and compassion. Continue reading “Call on IGP to form a special team to investigate the incessant incitement of racial and religious hatred, conflict and tension to create another May 13 riots in the past few months and to nip the nefarious and treacherous plot in the bud”

Tunku Abidin Muhriz
The Malay Mail Online
February 7, 2014

FEB 7 — Normally, I return to Negri Sembilan on Fridays, but sometimes I will stay in Kuala Lumpur and perform my prayers at the mosque named after the second of the Rightly Guided Caliphs in Damansara Heights, where there are familiar faces from the homes and offices nearby. On occasions, I go to the National Mosque (where the Heroes’ Mausoleum is located) or the Federal Territory Mosque.

Many mosques in our country and the world have been memorable, but if I had to choose my top three (apart from the Masjid Al-Haram in Makkah and the Masjid Al-Nabawi in Madinah which I went to during umrah in 1997), they would be Masjid Tengku Tengah Zaharah near Kuala Terengganu, the Gallipolli Mosque outside Sydney and the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, each for different reasons. Special mention must be made of the Mezquita in Cordoba and the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul: both former places of worship embody more history and culture than most cities on the planet. Perhaps more tangibly through buildings such as these, rather than through books and lectures, does the historical diversity and complexity in Muslim civilisations really impress.

Still, within the small geographical area of the Luak Tanah Mengandung around Seri Menanti in Negri Sembilan, each prayer experience is different. Even though the Friday khutbah might be standardised statewide, as a worshipper your thoughts are affected by the location, decor and assiduousness of upkeep of the mosque, the melodies used by the bilals and imams in their recitations, and interactions with others in the congregation. Continue reading “Seeking thought and civilisation”

Zurairi AR
The Malay Mail Online
February 7, 2014

FEB 7 — As it is often with the government, the left hand rarely — if ever — knows what the right hand is doing.

How else do you explain that in the same week Prime Minister Najib Razak urged Malaysians to listen to the “voice of reason”, another government agency urged Muslims to do exactly the opposite?

In its Friday sermon last week — which came barely a day after the prime minister’s Chinese New Year address — the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) had brazenly singled out Christians and Jews as the so-called “enemies of Islam.”

I say “brazen” because the sermon-writer in Jakim finally found the guts either by purpose or by mistake, to finally name the usually unnamed “enemies.” Continue reading “When places of worship are turned into hatred factories”

Azly Rahman
Malaysiakini
Feb 7, 2014

Blatant racism, religious bigotry, school culture degenerating, public display of hatred, urging this or that kind of jihad at times for reasons unknown, the vigilantes taking over when law and order seem to be at a critical breaking point, mass feeding of the public with stories that hath no educational value and even devoid of moral sensitivity, frequent public protests plagued with character assassinations rather that the focusing on issues to be collectively addressed as a nation, parang-wielding robberies in broad daylight on an almost weekly basis, rising number of cases of children missing, political moves crafted and executed in desperation that weaken due process in democratic culture sorely in need of sane progression, politicians producing statements in arrogance on pressing devoid of intellectual depths, the intensification of effort by fascist groups to incite violence progressively in hope that the bloody riots of May 13, 1969 is to be re-enacted on a larger scale perhaps.

The media as a technology of consciousness shaper both at the level of Grand and Subaltern Narratives have been successful in playing the role of creator of peace and destroyer of it, as if there is no difference between good and evil in the way we use the materials to build this nation. Continue reading “Needed – Kajang Declaration on Sanity”