Day: February 6, 2015

Puisi ‘Air yang berkata’ di bawah ini ditulis khas oleh Sasterawan Negara A. Samad Said bersempena pelancaran Gabungan Impian Kelantan di Kota Bharu pada 31 Januari 2015.

Pak Samad berkongsi tarikh lahir dengan Bapa Kemerdekaan, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj pada 8 Februari.

Sebuah forum memperingati hari lahir Tunku serta meraikan hari lahir Pak Samad bertajuk “Mengenang Negarawan, Meraikan Sasterawan” akan dianjurkan oleh Roketkini pada:-

Tarikh: 7 Februari 2015 (Sabtu)
Masa: 2 petang
Tempat: Mandarin Court Hotel, Jalan Maharajalela, Kuala Lumpur.
Google Maps : http://goo.gl/TWTrlq

Semua dijemput hadir!

~~~~~ Continue reading ““Mengenang Negarawan, Meraikan Sasterawan””

It would appear that the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has also become victim of the Ismail Sabri virus as to make him say and do weird, outlandish or unacceptable things but putting up a pretence that what he is doing is the most normal, routine or ordinary thing.

Ismail made a rabidly racist call on Malay consumers to boycott Chines business and is trotting round the country basking as a hero as he felt vindicated not only by UMNO leaders lining up behind him with the placard “We Are All Ismail Sabri”, but by the Cabinet as well.

On Wednesday, the entire Cabinet succumbed to the Ismail Sabri virus when the Cabinet decided, as announced in a subsequent Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) statement, that Ismail’s call did not target Chinese traders alone but was aimed at all traders.

The PMO made a gem of a statement, which should framed for all posterity, stating: Continue reading “IGP Khalid should just call off his twitter directive on Monday to police officers to investigate Ismail Sabri for his racist call to Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses now that the Cabinet has massaged it into an inoffensive call to all traders and not directed at any race”

Dyana Sofya
Malay Mail Online
February 6, 2015

FEBRUARY 6 — Displaying form befitting a philistine Perkasa member rather than a Cabinet Minister, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s recent open call for Malays to band together to boycott Chinese businesses in order to punish them for causing price hikes is ridiculous, to say the least.

It is also apparent that the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister is detached from everyday Malaysian reality, because the last I checked, the rising prices at the local mamak I frequent for my curry fix on cheat days prove that inflation is not coincidental with race. Continue reading “On Jackie Chan and boycotting racism”

Three serious political disasters afflicted the Najib premiership in the past two months:

· * firstly the botch-up in all the three phases of response, relief and reconstruction of the disaster management plan and preparedness of the Federal Government in the Floods 2014, the worst floods catastrophe in living memory, as the damages in terms of 25 dead, a million flood victims with a quarter million in the various flood relief centres and billions of ringgit losses could have been minimised;

· * secondly, the shameful episode of the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi’s infamous letter to the US Federal Bureau of Investigationhs (FBI) vouching for the character of alleged gambling kingpin Paul Phua, standing trial in Las Vegas, Nevada for illegal gambling, in contradiction of previous earlier police report to FBI and even more serious, without the knowledge or approval of the Police, the Foreign Ministry or the Prime Minister, and being caught red-handed with lie after lie like the denials by previous Home Ministers that they had written similar letters and with the Cabinet kept completely in the dark and dare not do what is right on the matter; and

· *Thirdly, the craven and dishonest stand of the 35 Ministers in the Najib Cabinet 2015 on the racist call by the Minister for Agriculture and Agro-based Industry, Datuk Ismail Sabri, to Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses was not targeting Chinese traders alone, but aimed at all traders – which reminds one immediately of Hans Christian Andersens immortal tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Of the three political disasters afflicting Prime Minister Najib and his Cabinet, it is the third episode which is capable of bringing down the entire edifice of the Najib premiership down in ruins. Continue reading “Instead of rage and rant over the racism and hypocrisy of the Ismail Sabri episode, scorn and mockery will be more powerful weapons which can even bring down the entire edifice of Najib premiership”

The restoration of the 50-year suspension of local government elections is an important building block not only for democracy but also for plural nation-building in Malaysia.

It has nothing whatsoever with the 3Rs of race, religion or rulers, as some are trying to imply.

Like other countries, local government is concerned with the other 3Rs of “Rates, Roads and Rubbish” although the scope of local government responsibility has expanded by leaps and bounds worldwide, such as including community services like libraries and parks, tourism, urban renewal, community health services, accessible transport and pollution control.

Elected local government is to empower citizens with the democratic right to participate in the third tier of democratic governance to take ownership of the decision-making process about their immediate environs – serving as a training ground for citizens in the direct experience of democratic governance at the grassroots level.

The restoration of local government elections, or the third vote, has recently and suddenly become a subject of controversy, marked by many myths, misconceptions and downright lies. Let us deal with some of them. Continue reading “When did PAS Muktamar pass a resolution to oppose restoration of the third vote as since the seventies, PAS position in Parliament was to support restoration of local government elections?”