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Call for an overall review of Federal-State relations in Malaysia to effect greater decentralisation and confer greater autonomy from Putrajaya to all state governments, not just Sarawak and Sabah

September 16, Malaysia Day, was marred by the Red Shirts Malay rally organised by UMNO, although it did not officially showed its hand at the time and which, among other things, desecrated the meaing and importance of Malaysia Day as the foremost national public holiday in the country.

Sarawak and Sabah cannot but feel slighted that on Malaysia Day, UMNO had chosen to devalue Malaysia Day by sponsoring a Red Shirts Malay rally in Kuala Lumpur which not only stole the national and international spotlight from the 52nd anniversary of Malaysia’s formation, the federation of Malaysia was at best a second-thought after the primacy of Ketuanan Melayu of UMNO leaders.

However, Malaysia Day this year was a bit different from Malaysia Day of the past five decades, primarily because it is beginning to sink in among the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and UMNO leaders and they owe their continued political rule of the country to the support and loyalty of the Members of Parliament in Sarawak and Sabah, as without the support of the 48 Barisan Nasional MPs in Sabah and Sarawak, Najib will not be Prime Minister of Malaysia today nor could UNMO continue as “Big Brother” in the Federal Government in Putrajaya.

With the approaching Sarawak State Government Elections in a matter of months and the 14th General Elections in the next 24 to 32 months, Sarawak and Sabah would expect a New Deal from Putrajaya to continue to be the fixed deposit states of the UMNO/BN coalition government in Putrajaya and this is the reason for all the talk about granting greater autonomy to Sarawak and Sabah in recent days. Continue reading “Call for an overall review of Federal-State relations in Malaysia to effect greater decentralisation and confer greater autonomy from Putrajaya to all state governments, not just Sarawak and Sabah”

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Malaysia does not want to be a battleground of “yellow T-shirts” versus “red T-shirts” as we want all Malaysians united behind the Malaysian Dream for an united, harmonious, democratic, just, prosperous and progressive nation

Last week, Malaysia saw a 4-hour Red Shirts Rally in Kuala Lumpur as a counter to a 34-hour Yellow T-Shirts Bersih 4 overnight rally on August 29/30.

There can be no greater differences between the Red Shirts Rally and the Yellow T-Shirts Rally.

Firstly, the Yellow T-Shirts Bersih 4 Rally transcended race and was participated by hundreds of thousands of Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region, gender, age or politics, who came together with one common national purpose – good governance and clean, free and fair elections.

Those who participated in the two-day Bersih 4 Rally never thought there could be any racial clash or confrontation, for that was furthest from their mind as they gathered not for or against any race but for the sake of a better Malaysia for all races.

The Bersih 4 participants were worried that there might be trouble, but not of any racial nature – for their only worry was that the Police might not be independent and professional enough and might wantonly and arbitrarily fire tear gas and shoot water cannons into a peaceful and defenceless crowds. That was why some of the Bersih 4 participants armed themselves with “goggles” and “smelling salts” not as weapons of offence but to protect themselves.

The Red Shirts Rally on the other invoked fear of racial incidents right from the beginning of the announcement of the event immediately after the Bersih 4 overnight rally, and for a fortnight, the country was inundated with highly-charged images of racial slurs, confrontation and even bloodbath, and the objective of the Red Shirts Rally veered from “Kebangkitan Maruah Melayu” to “counter Chinese Bersih 4”, “Teach Chinese DAP a lesson”, “Defend Najib Razak as Prime Minister” among others. Continue reading “Malaysia does not want to be a battleground of “yellow T-shirts” versus “red T-shirts” as we want all Malaysians united behind the Malaysian Dream for an united, harmonious, democratic, just, prosperous and progressive nation”