The Voice of Student Dissent
It’s not that we have no alternative. Whose fault? BN never promote leaders with good integrity. What BN has is adulterer, murderer, corrupter, racist and all type of sins you name them BN has them. BN killed all alternatives.
Our Tun has in his 23 years created a batch of crooks that plunder Malaysia till today and will continue to do so for another 5 long years. Now, he has the cheek to say Malaysia has no alternative. Amazing what USD 44billions can do. if it still stands at 44 that is! He got what he wanted by arm-twisting Najib to second his fool of ason as Kedah MB, only right he’d be sing like a Canary!
He came from solid nonentity in Kedah, had to sell fritters to augment his mother income. His father was an Indian Muslim immigrant thus he was classified an Indian, when studying for his MBBS in Singapore! But he was lucky to be classified a Malay enabling him to be an UMNO!
But after being sacked by Tunku for his critical letter to the former, he was fortunate Najib’s father, who replaced Tunku after the bloody Sino – Malay bloody post Election riots, gave him a fresh lease as an UMNO again! So when TR died in 1975 he got to Deputy under THO!
In 1982, he became PM with the demise of THO! For the next 22 years of his tenure, he made manifold history among which was a Law to remove the Royals’ Immunity from Prosecution (ISA according to the late Sultan Johor)!
He has lived Putrajaya, in burgeoise splendour and granduer, amassed fortunes making the Forbes List in all putting the nine Sultans to shame! A classic rags to riches tale! Not for this avaricious opportunist!
Now he is giving Tuanku Abdul Halim another lesson in his life! His son who LOST the support of the UMNO Youth but was yet elected a Deputy Trade Minister is now the Kedah MB!
Najib arm-twisted for this? Anybody’s guess! `Melopong’ Kedah MB wannabes! What are Mukhriz Mahathir’s credentials exactly? Since Najib made this happen, `Oh, burung kenari, peet, peet, peet!…sing canary sing!’
More drivel from Dr M.
While saying this, he and his followers are sharpening their
political knives for the upcoming UMNO Baru General Assembly
Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar are dragging Malaysia back into the “dark era” of the Mahathir administration by clamping down on dissenters
Nothing became better than the manner in which Muhyiddin Yassin played out the waiting game.The Old Testament, which can be pessimistic about God’s mercy, notes that seven lean years are followed by seven fat ones. Nawaz Sharif doubled the Biblical average, and maintained his patience through the desert of exile, and the torture of standing by as the credibility of an usurper, Ex-PM Abdullah and Najib, peeled off in heavy layers.Muhyiddin did not panic, did not fuss and did not rush. When Najib sought to make a meaningless point by completing full term,Muhyiddin kept his cool and waited.Sharif’s confidence should be familiar to any student of elections: once people have lost trust in a government, they do not change their minds. A shrinking government never forsakes the desperate hope that some last-minute miracle will reverse anti-incumbency . Najib believed till the last minute that he would manage to cobble together a new coalition for another term,in UMNO preserves the hope of continuing beyond the next election. God reserves miracles for saints, not politicians. PAS Talibans will be kind towards Muhyiddin during UMNO polls;
The tough test of character comes in a waiting room. We are all heroes in a drawing room, stoking plans toward fantasy as far as the tensile strength of imagination will permit. While waiting, the lacklustre kill time and die of boredom . The ambitious dread the possibility that time will kill them before desire becomes reality.
Do you think March 2008 could have happened had the Malays remained the Malays of 1957? More importantly, do you think 5th May 2013 could have happened had not the seed of change been planted in 1946, 1959, 1969, 1990, 1999, and finally in March 2008?To you all Indians out there who fought for Hindraf & Waytha …. please look at your Indian political history, especially its MIC leaders. Many of them free-ride the poor naive Indians to get what they want for themselves only. Fighting for your own race is not the way. Indians should learn how to work … Read more
Some societies took thousands of years to change. Some took just a few hundred years. Nevertheless, whatever time it took, it still took time to see that change. And someone must always be the one to bell the cat.
We must also remember one thing. The non-Malays suddenly swung only in 2008. Before that the non-Malays were living in ignorance as well. The Malays have been swinging back and forth since before Merdeka. The Malays swung this way and then that way from time to time. However, each swing the Malays make, it is always larger than the last time.
You can see the Malay swing in 1946. Then they swung back and took another swing in 1959. Then they swung back and took another swing in 1969. Then they swung back and took another swing in 1990. Then there was another swing in 1999 after swinging back in 1995 (and then swung back in 2004). In 2008, we saw another swing and a slight swing back this time around in 2013. Will the Malay ‘pattern’ prove true and will we see yet a bigger and maybe a ‘terminal swing’ (for Barisan Nasional, that is) in the 2018 general election?
That is all up to you. If you know how to handle the Malays you are going to see that. But how do you handle the Malays? I think I have written about that so many times in the past I really do not need to repeat myself.
You will never read from anywhere that brand Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King as racists.
Abraham Lincoln pawned his life to fight against the enslavement of the African Americans, Nelson Mandela traded decades of his freedom to free South Africa from the shackles of the Apartheid policy and Martin Luther King paid for his life for the equal rights of Americans. Their detractors could call them any vile names they wished but never as a racist.
Only in Malaysia, the very people who do not condone racism and voted against it are labeled as racists. Over the decades, Umnno, led by Dr. Mahathir and his armada of mass media had been accusing DAP with its vision of “Malaysian Malaysia” as a bigoted political party, hell-bent to destroy the Malay.
The rakyat particularly the IT savvy urban-dwellers who ironically voted for the multiracial parties from Pakatan Rakyat in GE13 were branded as racists because they rejected the race-based political system where every race fights endlessly to defend their respective rights.
To put things into perspective, could anyone imagine any American being branded as racist if they do not endorse Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization?
For a record, DAP has a total of 2 Malay lawmakers representing the party, (Malay from MCA = 0, Malay from MIC = 0). The number of Indian and Sikh representatives from DAP amounts to 14 at state level and 6 at parliament level (MIC state assemblymen = 6, members of parliament = 4).
Talk about DAP being a Chinese chauvinist party, their Indian and Sikh representation is 2 times of MIC!
As for PAS, the party even has a Chinese Muslim state assemblyman in Kelantan and fielded a Chinese Christian in Ayer Hitam. Not to mention PKR is very evenly represented by all ethnics including the Kadazan-Dusun ethnic from Sabah.
So the question is, exactly how many non-Malays represented Umno and Malays represented MCA and MIC? Your calculation is as good as mine – NONE.
Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi sees Petaling Jaya rally as “an act of provocatiom”.
The home minister’s and the police chief’s only concern is about suppressing people’s freedom by use of all the authority available to them. Sadly, neither the rising crime rate nor brutal death in police custody is of any priority to them.
Are they so in denial that they believe that they can get away with whatever they do indefinitely? The time will come for all of them to answer for their actions soon enough. That is the law of karma.
Really, a series of rallies around the country had been successfully organised without any trouble or violence. The main reason was that there were no police and FRUs present to ‘cause’ disturbances.
The participants even tolerated the massive traffic jams, no thanks to the absence of the traffic police officers.
The minority BN government is hurt by the massive show of support of the rakyat at these rallies. Now in desperation, the weak government is cracking down on the movement.
The letter written byMuhyiddin to Najib . What was there in the letter that will take such a drastic step of not nominating Najib as the next UMNO PresidentDoes it mean that there is zero tolerance in the party for “viewpoint plurality” (rather than for corruption)? Can the party simply not discuss its internal problems, and handle charges against its president leadership without exerting authoritarian measures? The answer is that the contents Muhyiddin ’s letter are indeed damning; and shows Najib and Rosmah in poor light. While the letter is damning enough, it also begs me to ask another question: Who is behind the leak of this internal letter? Is itFT MINISTERTENGKU ADNAN MANSOR TOLD NAJIB THAT WINNING THE UMNO POLLS AND FENDING OFF ANY CHALLENGE TO HIS POSITION ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN REFORMS Stone-age politics holds back 21st century Malaysia economy It is once again open season on PM Najib. He presides over the most corrupt BN government has seen, his inertia has infected policy with paralysis, he has no authority except to twitch as desired by puppeteer Tengku Adnan Mansor, he loves power too much to just …Read more
considering how much he benefits if Adnan Mansor, Hishamuddin are cut to size? There is more than a small reason to believe this theory.
“Since you talk so much about corruption, can I ask you as to where did the money come from for toppling Adullah Ahmad Badawithat brought you to power; Why were you silent when all this was happening without hindrance?”. Good questions indeed. Of course Adnan Mansor knew there was illegal money funding his party’s election in . What is Operation Adnan Mansor? How did this operation enable you buy over a majority delegates fo rthis ? Did you buy out the delegates vote, and their leaders?
Mahatma Gandhi, who took on the mighty British Empire and won had this to say, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”
Tun Daim Zainuddin has given his post-mortem findings of what went wrong with the Barisan Nasional (BN) campaign strategy that only netted the ruling coalition 133 federal seats in Election 2013, down seven from the 2008 polls.
He put it down to wrong strategy employed by coalition leader Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s advisers and party infighting.
“Really, you should ask BN. But in my opinion, it’s the wrong strategy. As I’ve said before, this is a parliamentary election, not a presidential election.
What Umno needs to do is to reign in its thugs and make sure they do not cause any problems. I am proud that we have a situation where people can come together peacefully to voice their views.
“The PM’s advisers should be sacked. If you associate a vote for BN as a vote for him, then BN’s poorer results reflect on him too,” Daim was quoted as saying in a transcript of his interview with local daily China Press, which was carried on veteran journalist Datuk Abdul Kadir Jasin’s blog today.
Daim also blamed BN’s failure to win a two-thirds majority on the misallocation of its resources in efforts to capture urban seats as well as Chinese-majority seats.
“If I know, then surely BN knows that the Chinese majority areas were gone. Why waste time and money? As a strategy, you should concentrate on those areas where you lost by slim majorities in 2008 and strengthen the seats you won in 2008. There was also the question of choice of candidates, and for example in Pandan, why be petty?
“Let’s recognise that nowhere in world is it easy to get a two-third majority. Urban voters everywhere in the world are anti-government. BN’s strength lies in the rural areas. Yet too much time and money were wasted in urban areas where the results were almost certain,” he said.
He also said he did not believe BN’s confidence of regaining its two-thirds supermajority. Strangely, state news agency Bernama reported Daim as saying on April 30 that he believed the BN was capable of winning two-thirds of the parliamentary seats in the general election.
According to Bernama, he said in the 2008 general election, BN faced problems of sabotage in the party, but this time around, the opposition was facing a similar problem when many thought they could win in a certain area, causing many to contest as independents.
The thing is, Daim campaigned for BN in this election, unlike the previous one. In fact, he expressed his confidence while going on the stump for Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Mansor in Putrajaya.
He got that wrong. But now he is trying to make up for it. So, maybe it is time we stop treating the former finance minister like he has something worth saying.
He isn’t an oracle. He is just a member of the establishment trying to ensure the status quo.
And now, like his former boss, he is quite happy to point out mistakes made by BN in Election 2013. A bit too late, don’t you think?
A democratic society may develop itself only by generating culture not as an abstract body of superior knowledge but as a complex dialogue that must never come to rest. In fact, democracy must become a lived philosophy, which it can only do by refusing absolute truth and its attached totalitarian regimes. The only hope of a democratic politics is to form citizens who articulate their own practical needs, freely and unencumbered by the pressures of simplistic and lazy metaphysical systems.
The political message of philosophy after the end of modernity is that there is nothing outside our human and natural community. Philosophers must understand problems as rooted in society. The danger is that philosophers become alienated from communities – as has happened to so many analytical philosophers. We therefore submit that philosophy must subordinate itself to the political demands of democracy.
Mahathir confuses ponderousness with deliberateness, equates yelling as emphasizing, and thinks that furrowing his forehead as being in profound thought. In the hands of Najib gifted actor, those could be great comedic acts. Alas, Najib is also far from being that.there was nothing in Najib’s new cabinet that was so urgent or important to justify that. As self-professed champions and defenders of transformation,
Mahathir’s remark that he still ‘remains active in politics’ to pursue his ‘dream to make Malaysia the greatest nation.’ Both the timing and the substance of these comments have predictably raised eye-brows. Why did Najib say what he did when there is a growing clamour within the Najib’s cabinet to project Najib as the party’s mascot for the UMNO elections? And why has the veteran Mahathir thrown his hat in the ring in all but the name when the cadres have in overwhelming numbers made known their preference Mahyuddin ?Against this background it made sense for Mahyuddin ? to not rule himself either in or out of the succession battle. To rule himself out would have meant reducing himself to playing a lame-duck role for the remaining term of the BN GOVERNMENT. And to rule himself in would have rubbed both the -for-PM and other wannabe prime ministerial candidates in his party
Democracy never arrives at a resting place – it is always under revision, refinement and revaluation
From a political point of view people still believe in nostalgic and dangerous ideas like “objectivity” “reality”, “truth” and “values” as a precondition for democracy. But believers in absolutes forget a crucial lesson borne out of the historic record namely, that the tide of secularisation is irreversible and remains inextricably bound-up in the human condition. This reality necessarily checks and harnesses the search for fanatical, absolute truth-claims that, we maintain, are contrary to the very nature of democracy.
Indeed the demand democracy places on us is therefore a commitment to maximising critical, open dialogue whilst maintaining a minimal peaceable solidarity among different social and political actors. We thus submit the need to dispense with arrogant notions of truth opting instead for more temperate and humble philosophical programmes, ones that, for example help nurture a larger more volatile discourse of human flourishing.
It is worth briefly examining the logic that appeals to claims that are absolute and beyond the reach of history. From the birth of religion and early philosophy the ever-changing natural world was interpreted as threatening, chaotic and unpredictable. This further resulted in a neurosis, which was only cured, it was thought, when the threatening material world of change was a result of a more fundamental unchanging, immaterial idea, or a God.
By appealing to absolute moral foundations, or a God, or Truth, any disagreement could be resolved so long as everyone agreed with the final appeal pronounced by the ruling class. And if there was disagreement, the rulers in power, like political or religious authorities, could be justified in exacting violence against a dissenter.
Pragmatic and hermeneutical approach
The danger in this metaphysical universe was that only the King or Pope (or the philosopher-king) could discern what the true will of God (or Reason) was on earth without question or criticism. In this way, an eternal, unchecked idea was given moral justification beyond the reach of democratic discourse. Consequently, unjust political regimes could get away with implementing their power in the name of the Almighty or an idea.
It is little wonder that one minor tradition in Greek philosophy, the Platonic legacy, was quickly adapted into the Greek and later Roman Empire, as Peter Sloterdijk has recently argued. This legacy could then easily be transferred into the hegemony of Christianity in the form of the Roman Catholic Empire, which neutralised many other divergent Christian, religious, pagan and philosophical traditions in order to alight as an absolute authority both religious and political. This set the stage for the spread of the Islamic Empire in the 7th century.
By contrast, we submit that history and not religion (or unchecked Reason) must be taken seriously as opposed to idealising absolutes, which, in political theologies, only serve as flimsy veils behind which violent and inflexible premises invariably lurk. It is difficult not to interpret mainstream religious ideology and its historical reality as employing appeals to almighty God as a means to dominate the cultural, political, moral and even economic discourse.
By contrast, when, for example, Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government excluding all others, what he meant was that you cannot find a better system if you take history seriously. This is a pragmatic and hermeneutical approach, which entails a modest style committed to an experimentation and perpetual improvement on inevitable shortcomings.
There is no harm in giving in to desire once in a while, but are you fooling yourself by demanding ‘wants’ as ‘needs’ you are entitled to? Realpolitik will push one malaysia into a new social contract. This will not be achieved by moral lectures to politicians. Rather, a new equilibrium will evolve that enables business to be done honestly in many more areas, while devising alternative ways for politicians to still make big money. This equilibrium cannot be created by any one party or power centre. It will evolve government by government and state by state, just as the old contract did. It is neither a good omen nor a good start for Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s post-13 GE Cabinet. Already Najib’s new Cabinet labours under a cloud of legitimacy for the simple reason that Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Prime Ministership is under a cloud of legitimacy – not only because Najib and Barisan Nasional got 47% popular vote as compared to Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Rakyat’s 51% popular vote, but also because the 13GE was the most unfair and dirtiest general elections in the nation’s history. If the 13th GE had been clean, free and fair, with a level playing field for both coalitions,Stone-age politics holds back 21st century Malaysia economy It is once again open season on PM Najib. He presides over the most corrupt BN government has seen, his inertia has infected policy with paralysis, he has no authority except to twitch as desired by puppeteer Tengku Adnan Mansor, he loves power too much to just …Read more
