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Malaysia has forgotten Tunku, and Tunku would not recognise Malaysia

By Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah

Tunku Abdul Rahman was the founder of Malaysia. That has been obscured by an intervening period in which his memory has been brushed out of our national consciousness.

He brought together a Malaysia that had come together “through our own free will and desire in the true spirit of brotherhood and love of freedom”, in a union arrived at “by mutual consent by debate and discussion…through friendly argument and compromise,” and “in the spirit of co-operation and concord.”

This was the basis for Malaysia he worked for and established, and that his life embodied. That basis has been replaced by something alien to it, his memory has been suppressed, and our history revised.

Part of the reason our collective memory of Tunku has faded, and that Tunku would not recognise today’s Malaysia, is that Tunku and his generation built institutions that empowered the people rather than cults of personality to concentrate power and wealth in themselves. They reached instinctively for democratic decision-making. The concepts and precepts of constitutional democracy were part of their natural vocabulary and instinctive reactions. They knew who the country belonged to, and that they lived to serve.

The day of Tunku’s funeral was not even declared a public holiday. It is no accident that the erasure of his memory has gone hand in hand with the erosion of our institutions. Tunku built up a system of good civil service in which ordinary citizens did not need to see so-and-so to get things done. This has been replaced by a domineering style of leadership in which what you get done depends on who you know. Of course the rich and powerful have better connections.
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What Chin Peng’s story can teach us

We need to explore the story behind the armed struggle to understand the ideology behind the movement. We might denounce the atrocities of the communist insurgents/Malayan co-freedom fighters, but we must also recognise the intellectual value and power of the Marxist critique of society as a legitimate, systematic, liberating, humanising and praxical (the translation of theory to practice) body of knowledge that has evolved into an organic discipline itself.

By Azly Rahman

The story of the Malayan nationalist leader Chin Peng’s request to come home interests me academically. I hope he will one day be given the chance to speak in Malaysia’s universities, sharing his story on Malaysia’s struggle against imperialism.
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Will History be kind to Najib?

By Hussein Hamid

Thirty years from now when Historians write about the 6th Prime Minister of Malaysia – what will they write about The Most Honourable Najib Tun Razak? Will they write of your contributions in making Malaysia a land of equality and opportunity for its entire people or will they write of your part in hastening the demise of UMNO? Will history tell of your time as Prime Minister as being a time of revival and the getting of wisdom for UMNO or will it tell of how UMNO under your watch managed to sink deeper into the abyss of corruption, greed and deception started by Mahathir? What will the historians write?

First they will write of the forced resignation of Abdullah Badawi half way into his second term as Prime Minister. They will comment on the part that Mahathir played in the removal of the very man that he himself appointed as his Deputy earlier. There will be mention of Mahathir’s former two Deputies, Musa and Anwar that was removed by Mahathir and Mahathir’s relentless pursuit of Anwar through a Judiciary that did his biddings. Those who read what is written can make their own judgement of the circumstances that led to these events. Those with hindsight of past events will make their own judgement of Mahathir tenure as Prime Minister. But that is another story to tell.
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Snap election end 2009/early 2010 with RAHMAN prophecy?

Will Datuk Seri Najib Razak call a snap general election at the end of next year or early 2010 to get a full mandate and legitimacy as the sixth Prime Minister and to put behind him all the many serious allegations now hounding and haunting him?

This is an option Najib will have to give serious consideration when he takes over as the sixth Prime Minister next March.

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi dissolved Parliament in March 2004 four months after taking over the premiership while Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad dissolved Parliament in March 1982 eight months after becoming the fourth Prime Minister, both scoring landslide victories in the “first flush” of a new Prime Minister with the 2004 general election victory the most unprecedented.

Will Najib take a leaf from Abdullah and Mahathir and plan for an early snap general election when he takes over as Prime Minister next March, whether end of next year or early 2010?

This is the first strategic decision Najib has to make as Prime Minister, whether to craft a national euphoria when he assumes the premiership and go for early polls whether end-2009 or early 2010 or complete the bulk of the 12th Parliamentary term to hold the 13th general election in 2011 or 2012.

Najib and his core advisers must now be weighing the pros and cons of having early snap polls.
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Beware! Cavemen Working!

by M. Bakri Musa

The arrest under the ISA of Raja Petra Kamaruddin, editor of the hugely popular Internet commentary portal Malaysia-Today, together with journalist Tan Hoon Cheng and MP Teresa Kok, as well as the “show cause” letter to three newspapers expose the caveman thinking and behavior of those we have entrusted to lead our nation.

To think that this repressive action is being taken during our holy month of Ramadan! So this is the essence of Abdullah Badawi’s much-hyped Islam Hadhari!

I join millions of other law-abiding Malaysians in condemning this latest Neanderthal action of the Abdullah Administration in its callous disregard for basic human rights and dignity. Unlike many however, I am not shocked by Abdullah’s latest act. On the contrary, it is so predictable. Raja Petra himself commented on his imminent arrest a few days earlier in his column, as well as in an interview with the BBC.

After all, the only tool a caveman has is his club, and the only skill he has learned is to swing it around wildly. When that does not work, the only choice in the caveman’s thinking is to get a bigger club and to swing it even more recklessly, even at the risk of destroying everything around him, including himself.

The government had earlier blocked Raja Petra’s website, but when that proved ineffective (as mirror sites popped up immediately everywhere) as well as embarrassing (as it showed the government’s impotence and stupidity), the caveman in Putrajaya dropped his club and grabbed an even bigger one and began swinging it clumsily around.

Rest assured that no matter how big the club or how hard the caveman swings it, this “new” strategy will not work either. We no longer live in caves and Malaysians – our leaders excepted – have long evolved from our Pithecanthropus phase. Continue reading “Beware! Cavemen Working!”