Day: April 27, 2015

by Bakri Musa
Malaysia’s Wasted Decade 2004-2014. The Toxic Triad of Abdullah, Najib and UMNO Leadership.#4
April 26, 2015

Long before the twin tragedies of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17 (shot down in eastern Ukraine in March 2014) and MH370 (disappeared literally from thin air over the South China Sea less than four months earlier), the company’s shares were already languishing at the bottom floor of the KLSE at around 22 sen. Yes, that is sen, as in cents, or pennies. Even bottom feeders were shunning MAS shares.

To think that less than two decades earlier the Mahathir Administration paid RM8.00 for those same shares! Factoring in for inflation and devaluation, it should be about RM32.00 in today’s devalued ringgit. If you add in the expected appreciation as per the KLSE Index, the shares should be trading at around RM100 today.

From RM100 to 22 sen! Formerly blue chip MAS now a penny stock! It would be cheaper to use MAS shares to wallpaper your bathroom; they are useless for toilet paper. Continue reading “Excerpt #4: The Future: From Blue Chip To Penny Stock”

by Bakri Musa
Malaysia’s Wasted Decade 2004-2014 Excerpt #3
April 19th, 2015

In an inaugural Millennium Essay for The New Straits Times (November 1999) I wrote, “The greatest threat to Malaysia’s social stability is not inter-racial confrontation rather intra-communal, specifically among Malays.” There are three potential fault lines along which Malays could fracture: religious, cultural, and socioeconomic. Conflict on any one is unlikely to trigger a severe crisis but a confluence of any two or all three could be cataclysmic.

Interracial conflict is bad, and Malaysians already had a taste of it many times. The May 13, 1969 incident was only the most bitter. Bad as it was, the intra-ethnic or intra-racial variety would be far worse. More Arabs had been killed by their fellow Arab brethrens than by the Israelis. The carnage of the 1956 Arab-Israeli War pales in comparison to the current intra-Arab strife in Syria. Continue reading “Excerpt #3: Intra Racial (Specifically Intra-Malay) Conflict The Greater Threat”

by Bakri Musa
Malaysia’s Wasted Decade 2004-2014. The Toxic Triad of Abdullah, Najib, and UMNO Leadership. #2
April 12th, 2015

Abdullah and Najib squandered Malaysia’s precious first decade into the new millennium. It was a wasted if not lost decade. It would be academic to judge who is worse, Abdullah or Najib. When both scored “Fs”, it matters less whether one is F minus and the other simply an F.

There is little prospect for change, at least until the next election due no later than mid 2018. Even if there were to be divine intervention, Najib’s deputy, Muhyiddin, is no better. Malaysia is doomed; it cannot escape its present sorry trajectory.

If nations do not progress, then ipso facto they regress. Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable, noted Martin Luther King. Continue reading “Excerpt #2 The Decay Long In The Making”

by Bakri Musa
Malaysia’s Wasted Decade 2004-2014. The Toxic Triad of Abdullah, Najib, and UMNO Leadership #1
April 5th, 2015

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad stunned his followers when he announced his resignation at his UMNO’s General Assembly in June 2002. He had been in office for over 22 years. The unexpected announcement triggered mass hysteria among his followers. Senior ministers and party leaders openly wept, and pandemonium broke out in the hall.

The scene resembled a chicken coop at dusk when the birds were settling down in their comfort zone when suddenly their head rooster flew the coop, or attempted to. The cacophony settled down and calm returned only after senior leaders cajoled Mahathir to delay his retirement until October 31st the following year, and he agreed.

That collective hysteria and mass crying were reflective of how dependent UMNO members were on Mahathir. He was their messiah, and now he was abandoning them. Continue reading “Excerpt #1: Chicken Coop At Dusk”

By Martin Jalleh

Syerleena Abdul Rashid
The Malaysian Insider
24 April 2015

I am a Muslim and a Malaysian who has no problem with other religions displaying their religious symbols. As a matter of fact, I have no problem sitting down and having a cup of coffee with my non-Muslim friends in a “kedai kopi Cina”, or having them eat in front of me during Ramadhan because my faith will not shatter into pieces, by the temptations of such petty things.

I know I am not the only one, and that there are countless other Malaysian Muslims who were repulsed by the idiocy displayed, in Taman Medan a few days ago. Malaysians aren’t stupid – even if the powers that be are adamant about keeping us dim-witted and daft.

We don’t need to be reminded of how gullible, some of our fellow Malaysians have become because of our inept system, favours the illogic and reward random acts of violence. Continue reading “Your faith may be weak, but mine isn’t”