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Our political climate is rife with sexism

By Syerleena Abdul Rashid
Free Malaysia Today
October 4, 2014

COMMENT

Sexual jibes from close-minded individuals will not stop women from being heard in politics.

Interestingly, the media tends to work up a frenzy every time a Malay woman joins DAP. Most recently, Melati Rahim – a niqab donning activist, announced her membership and less than 24 hours later, the vicious attacks ensued with hell bent fervour.

Already she has been accused as being an apostate, a traitor and worse yet, a suggestion by an irresponsible blogger, that any woman joining DAP, for that matter, would be better off vacationing as prostitutes.

What warrants such extreme contempt and disapproval? Aren’t the scandal-tainted politicians who waste billions of public funds and attempt to destroy any notion of racial harmony in our country worse than all of us who join the opposition?

Being women, a minority in a male dominated setting, makes us easier targets for sexist remarks and revolting suggestions. We are often singled out and ridiculed for our political choices; as if we have committed terrible crimes against humanity. Continue reading “Our political climate is rife with sexism”

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Muhyiddin should initiate a review to end the policy of boycott of UM and UKM in the annual THE World University Rankings to demonstrate our seriousness in wanting to restore the international reputation and academic excellence of Malaysian universities

For the third day in succession, the Barisan Nasional owned/controlled mainstream mass media has maintained a blanket of silence on the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2014 in tandem with the Education Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Barisan Nasional leaders also going dumb on the latest world’s Top Universities Ranking because of the shame and disgrace of not a single Malaysian university able to crack a placing among the Top 400 Universities listing for the fifth consecutive year.

This is a most strange and abnormal international behaviour, for in the past three days in countries which realize the critical importance of education in determining the future of their economies, the THE World University Rankings 2014 released on Thursday had dominated the public domain and debates, with their mass media and public opinion leaders either celebrating the success of their universities or lamenting their setbacks in the latest THE Top 400 University rankings.

For instance, while the US and UK media reported on the continued dominance of their universities in the Top 400 Universities Ranking, they also warned that “Western leading universities risk declining, Asian institutes keep rising in new rankings”.

Similarly while Australian media take pride in not only having world-class universities but a world-class university system, they worry whether such world standards could be maintained with the full deregulation of tuition fees underway in its radical reform programme, as reflected in headlines like “Australian universities rise in world rankings but report questions proposed tertiary education reforms”. Continue reading “Muhyiddin should initiate a review to end the policy of boycott of UM and UKM in the annual THE World University Rankings to demonstrate our seriousness in wanting to restore the international reputation and academic excellence of Malaysian universities”

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Once we were glorious in sports, in life, now…

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
4 October 2014

The capitulation of the national sepak takraw team at the Asian Games in South Korea this week pretty much sums up sports and increasingly life in Malaysia.

Once, the sport brought us glory in regional competitions. But we have yet to win a gold medal in the home-grown game since it became a medal sport in the 1994 Asian Games.

And this week, we lost in the semi-finals to Thailand. Continue reading “Once we were glorious in sports, in life, now…”