PART2 DATUK JOHARI ABDUL GHANI: SOCIAL MEDIA AND ELECTIONS A DEVELOPING STORY

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That’s a lesson political parties which preach secularism but practise communalism will have to learn quickly before 2014 closes in on them.The DAP has rubbished the efforts of its opponents to reignite the debate on the aims of PAS’ hudud law,

2013  election will be fought between “secular and radical fundamentalist   forces,  fear meanwhile is Muslim vote polarization that will work against it in the next general election. But the Muslim vote bogey is just that – a bogey. while deeply religious themselves, have moved beyond wanting to see religion used as a political tool.

Datuk Johari Abdul Ghani  said that Islam was being hijacked by some people in Pas who were trying to strip it of its spirituality.

“Anybody who is using religion to control you, they consider themselves a better Muslim, Christian, Jew than you are, so you have to follow,” Youssef said, adding that although members of the Muslim Brotherhood call themselves Islamists, he doesn’t know what that means.

“I don’t know what ‘Islamists’ is,” said Youssef, who is the host of a comedic show in Egypt called “El Bernameg” (“The Program.”) “I know one religion: Islam.”

PAS, which has changed its Islamic state struggle to that for the welfare state, is a party that is becoming more confused and is increasingly confusing its members and supporters, a political analyst said today.

“PAS is in this situation because it believes in the lies it created, the most obvious being that DAP is ready to accept the implementation of hudud in the country, although DAP had repeatedly rejected it,” Dr Ibrahim Ghafar said.

He told Bernama that those who repeated their lies would end up believing them as true.

Commenting on a statement by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak that PAS was naive in believing that DAP accepted the implementation of hudud, he said it was true that come election time PAS would play up the hudud issue for fear of losing the support of Malay voters.

Ibrahim said DAP would issue a statement at the same time saying that it strongly opposed implementation of the hudud because it did not want to lose its non-Muslim supporters.

“Actually, both parties are playing games and making this an issue for election. There is no mention of implementing the Hudud law in the opposition’s manifesto,” Ibrahim said.

He said this also applied to DAP’s readiness to use the moon symbol in the 13th general election, which the PAS leaders and supporters believed without thinking about the actual message being conveyed by DAP.

“The DAP’s message is easy…that PAS not only bows to the DAP in allowing the word Allah to be used in Malay language bibles but also in other matters,” he said.

He said DAP, which had already got PAS to change its struggle, also knew how to take advantage of PAS’s current confused state.

Because of this, he said, voters must be extra cautious in deciding which party to choose.

He said PAS could not be counted on to champion Islam and the interests of the Malays because currently there was no PAS leader capable of acting wisely on police issues for the Malays and Muslims.

Unlike in PAS there was calmness and intelligence in Umno and its component parties which were consistent with its struggles for national development and the people’s wellbeing, he added.

“We have less than seven years to work hard to achieve Vision 2020, to turn Malaysia into a high-income nation, and the Barisan Nasional government has already put the country on the right track.

“Let’s not gamble our fate in the disunited opposition coalition which has become more confused and is far from achieving anything,” said Ibrahim.

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 ONE WOULD IMAGINE THAT THERE IS NOTHING MORE REAL OR SOBERING THAN ELECTION RESULTS FOR NOTHING MAKES REALITY MORE NAKED THAN HARD COLD NUMBERS. AND YET, BECAUSE IT IS SO DIFFICULT TO DISAGGREGATE ELECTION RESULTS AND TEASE OUT DIFFERENT STRANDS OF INFLUENCES AT WORK, WHAT TENDS TO HAPPEN IS THAT THE RESULTS SERVE TO REINFORCE EXISTING POSITIONS RATHER THAN ACT AS A WAKE-UP CALL FOR THE PARTIES IN QUESTION. DAP SHOULD NOT CHEAT ON THE NON-MUSLIMS AGAINST ISLAMIC SYARIAH AND COMES CLEAN ON HUDUD LAW!

P119 TITIWANGSA THE RED LINE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ISLAM ,DATUK JOHARI ABDUL GHANI AND POLITICAL ISLAM PAS PARACHUTED CANDIDATE AHMAD

How does a leader quell the everyday, inner conflicts caused by the heavy responsibility, the need for constant self-control and the inevitable crises – and still remain an effective leader? One could answer, “Not easily,” and be right.Voters must Knock PAS CANDIDATE AHMAD ZAMRI Out and make Pas a fringe party that they used to … Read more

To be tempted is normal. Whether you give in to that temptation or not is what determines your character!

Have you ever been tempted to do what you should rightfully be doing? Most probably not! For, the very definition of temptation is wishing to do that which you are not supposed to do! You are tempted to do the very things that you are warned against, eating what you are advised not to, and wondering about places that are declared danger zones! As old as Adam and Eve, temptation is what led the original First Couple to taste the fruit of that one forbidden tree, and commit the Original Sin that led to the Fall of Man! Temptation is very easy to give in to, and near impossible to resist.

The Devil outside may be easier to resist than the Devil within, which makes temptation a natural state of existence for us. Our natural urges are all set to be tempted and lead us astray. We give in to temptation when we rationalize the outcome and convince ourselves that we are doing the right thing by giving in. The body craves pleasure and so, all the wrong things; the mind, which knows better, tries to resist, but then rationalizes the craving and gives way. Curiosity is a huge factor in temptation. Curiosity, which is basically a function of the mind, is aroused by denial or unapproachability.

The mind kicks in and starts wondering about the denial, wishing to discover what would happen if we did exactly what we are warned not to do! When a man hears colleagues rib each other about extra-marital affairs, he starts wondering if he is missing out on something, an experience he may regret not having had? His curiosity and competitive spirit are aroused and he becomes a vulnerable candidate for infidelity. The mind plays tricks on us and we convince ourselves of the reasons we do certain things.

 NORMAN FERNANDEZ  IS NOT IN DANGER OF THE SACK, WHICH MAY WELL BE WHAT HE WANTS GIVEN HIS ROILING DISCONTENT AGAINST THE PARTY AND HIS PERCEPTION THAT DAP HAS LOST ITS WAY. AND RISK ITS FUTURE WITH PAS

Passion is the lever that helps lift the mundane to extraordinary, the mediocre to excellent.

you cannot help but be inspired.  No, I’m not talking as much about the records and milestones that are so much a part of the legend, as of his consistency, his dedication, his forbearance under pressure and his humility when on top. And more than anything else, his unwavering passion for his chosen game!

Passion is everything. You give that one emotion to anything and you are bound to excel. Passion helps you enjoy the journey as much as achieving the goal! Like Sachin, who plays the game for the love of it, not to chase numbers! Passion, a powerful, compelling emotion which implies investing more of yourself – body, mind and soul – into life, love, work and relationships, spells the difference between boredom and excitement, between mediocrity and excellence.

Certainly passion is never a prerequisite for anything, but the lack of this emotion renders everything mediocre — be it work, leisure, adventure or romance. People can and do lead entire lives without being passionate about anything, but in order to truly drink deeply of life, intensity is a must! When a 26-year-old software techie ended her life in Bangalore recently because she was “bored with life,” one wished she had looked within for a passion that would have given her life a new meaning!

How do you know what you are passionate about? Ask yourself and you will know!  Anything that you love doing or which makes you happy! The most successful people are those who are able to select careers matching their passion!

Indeed if you have not loved or even hated with passion, you have neither reached the heights, nor plumbed the depths of emotion! If you have not worked with passion, you have been unfair to yourself.

In an age of intense competition, everything gets reduced to numbers. Maybe things are easier to understand when they are presented as data that can be compared favourably or unfavourably to something else. So facts and records become far more important than the effort and passion that went into achieving them. Everyone wants to be a Sachin because they note the records he breaks to become a world figure; they do not want to emulate his passion and dedication!

Unfortunately, education too has been reduced to a game of numbers. At the end of school years, all you are worth is the score you achieved at the Board Exams! It doesn’t matter how passionate you were about your studies or how you gained mastery over an aspect that particularly intrigued you!

Consider Sufi music. It is the passion of the rendition that carries us along on a musical journey into a spiritual realm. The best poetry and songs are the result of intensely felt emotion. The level of passion is what differentiates a consistently powerful performance from a weak one.

However part of the deal is that when your passion has spent itself, you withdraw and look for something else to invest your intensity in. And that is what Sachin promises to the obsessive mathematical minds, which also obsess about his retirement! When his passion is spent and he is “not in a frame of mind to contribute to nation,” is when he intends to retire, he announced!

What are the issues that will really matter when we near the end of life?

The untimely death of a colleague, someone with whom you interacted, exchanged pleasantries and indulged in some healthy competition, is bound to leave you regretful and reflective on the uncertainty of life. And when the one who passes on had known the end was near, you wonder what went through the person’s mind in the days and weeks before the end.

Those who have reported near-death experiences, have talked of experiencing a vivid rendering of their entire lives played out like a movie, the light they see at the end of the tunnel and of love and acceptance. While doctors have dismissed these as delusions, what science has failed to dismiss is identical surges seen in brain activity of terminally-ill patients moments before death, which seems to provide evidence of the near-death experiences.

However, even if we were to allow the scientists their skepticism, it does seem plausible that when life nears end, we would most likely take stock of the way we lived and the impact we made, if any. Did we make the most of the gift of life that was given to us? Did we achieve whatever we came here to achieve? Do we have any major regrets? Are we leaving behind unfinished tasks? And yes — did we make a difference?

Think of the panicky feel as a holiday nears end. Did we make the most of the days? You try to pack in as much as you can in the last few hours and promise yourself better organization next time! Only now, as life is ending, there is no next chance – at least none that you can be assured of.

One of the most meaningful thoughts on this issue I have come across is that of leading world motivational trainer, Brendon Burchard’s, “At the end of our lives, we all ask, ‘Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?’” In his book, The Millionnaire Messenger, Burchard goes on to say, “At the end of your life you will want to know if you really lived your life fully – your life, too, not the hopes and dreams of your parents or teachers or peers or spouse…. ”

Christopher Hitchens, English-American journalist who died of cancer in December 2011, wrote in Vanity Fair, “It does concentrate the mind, of course, to realise that your life is more rationed than you thought it was…one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings….”

Let us reflect on the things that one would want to be assured of before hitting the bucket. Surely you would like to know that you drank deep of life’s nectar and lived a full life with all your senses alive to the beauty and possibilities offered! That you dreamt big, fought for your dreams and achieved the potential you were endowed with. This would answer the first question Burchard poses – Did you live?

Love, they say is what makes the world go round. We enter life to learn all about love; love is not just a balm for the soul but also helps us onwards in our spiritual journey. So what lessons in loving did you learn? Did you love deeply enough, and were you loved back intensely in return? Did you, at least once in your life, experience an intense love, that blocks out all reason? Consider this — nobody who is dying has ever regretted giving lesser time to work, though many have regretted giving lesser time to love and family! Were you able to give love and loved ones your all – be it a parent, sibling, spouse, lover or child? So, Did you love?

And lastly, nobody wants to feel insignificant. We all have our own place and importance in the Universe. So never doubt that your existence serves a certain purpose and you are important in your own way. Did you take your role seriously enough and try and make a dent in the Universe, as Steve Jobs put it? Did you take risks and follow your heart when it dictated things that reason raised eyebrows at? Did you touch lives and make a difference? In effect – Did you matter?

As Ian Fleming put it, “You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face.”  We do not know whether we prepared for our birth. But surely we can start preparing ourselves with answers for life’s posers as death stares us in the face?

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GE13 WATCH SELANGOR BN’s Shah Alam parliamentary candidate Zulkifli Noordin believes that he is now “reborn”, having chosen to join BN after leaving the opposition in 2010.

“This is ‘marupiravi’ (Tamil for rebirth) for me,” he told a crowd of watchful MIC members during a small ceramah in Shah Alam yesterday.

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Clik here to view.Zulkifli, who gained notoriety after he was caught on video insulting Hindus – an incident he claims was filmed 10 years ago – appears to have armed himself with a handful of Tamil words to show he is capable of bonding with the Indian electorate, who make up 14 percent of the 100,076 voters in Shah Alam.

He is not shy to discuss the controversial video whenever he takes the stage, using it as “evidence” of the “indoctrination of hate” by PAS and Pakatan Rakyat, on which he is now blaming his racist indiscretion.

“This is what they preach. They teach Malays to hate Chinese and Indians, and vice versa.

“And they even pit Malays to hate each other. For them, anyone who is not with them is an enemy,” he told some 300 Shah Alam MIC members.

He uses “amma, appa” (mother, father) liberally in addressing the crowd during his spiel, and has an offbeat analogy to describe the role of Indians in Malaysia’s nation building.

“Malaysia is like ‘sireh’ (betel leaf). The betel leaves are the Malays, the betel nut (pinang) are the Chinese, while the Indians are the ‘kapur’ (Malay for limestone paste).

“The portion for ‘soonambu’ (Tamil for limestone paste) might be small but it’s very important for the betel,” he said.

Zul to save Shah Alam from sin

BN chief Najib Abdul Razak’s choice of Zulkifli as the candidate in the Selangor capital has raised eyebrows as his vitriolic remarks in the video had hardly dissipated when the announcement was made.

And despite his reputation as a hardliner and a firebrand in the Malay supremacist group Perkasa, he has rather mellowed down during his campaigning.

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Clik here to view.He hardly appears in solo programmes, preferring in his packed daily schedule to tag along BN’s state seat candidates Mohd Yusof Din for Kota Anggerik and Ahmad Nawawi Zin for Batu Tiga under Shah Alam.

Their strategy is to appear together for small ceramah to target audiences, whether Malays, Chinese or Indians, and usually involve other members of the BN component parties in the constituencies.

When asked about his chances of unseating PAS’ incumbent Khalid Samad, Zulkifli remained confident and bullish.

“If people are not happy or not satisfied with me, I ask them to tell me face to face when we go for ceramah. We’ll explain to them.

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Clik here to view.“I think the people here are well informed enough. They are intelligent and they would want to choose someone of their own standing.

“They don’t want us to insult their intelligence, they already know which side is full of lies,” he said of his opponent.

Asked about his plans if he elected, he said he would like to restore the “morality” of the city.

“Shah Alam has always been a place free of immoral activities. But once the opposition took over, all sorts of activities began taking place here.

“I will restore that morality here,” he said, while claiming that there are not many telling issues in this constituency because a majority of the voters come from middle class and upper middle class groups.

MIC shaken and stirred

Zulkifli’s candidacy has however undeniably caused a stir in MIC’s ranks in Shah Alam.

Shah Alam MIC’s vice-chairperson C Supayah and 104 other members quit the party in protest over his candidacy last week, and Supayah said he would ask his followers to throw their weight behind the opposition.

“As far as Shah Alam is concerned, I will be telling everyone not to vote for Zulkifli Noordin,” he told Malaysiakini yesterday when contacted.

He also said that resentment over Zulkifli’s candidacy is running deep among the Indian community, though many may not express it outright.

“The kind of support I have received for my actions (resignation) is so overwhelming that even I did not expect it,” he added.

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Clik here to view.But the bigger risk for BN is the spillover effect of the Perkasa veep’s candidacy to the neighbouring Kota Raja parliamentary seat, contested by MIC’s S Murugesan (left), with a huge 29 percent Indian voter population.

Some MIC party workers in Kota Raja told Malaysiakini that Zulkifli’s candidacy is a real concern, and that any possible presence by him in any of MIC’s events there would only complicate things further.

However, Shah Alam MIC chief KS Suppiah has been making a passionate case for the community to “accept” Zulkifli as he is Najib’s personal choice.

“We (Indians) never had a prime minister who would give us whatever we wanted.

“(But) I spoke to him the other day, and within 20 minutes, he approved allocations for a temple and to upgrade a school here,” he said at the same ceramah yesterday.

“Can anyone insult Hinduism just like that? Plus, forgiveness is a human quality. Even opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim once threatened to close down temples.

“But we forgave him, so it’s only fair we forgive Zulkifli, too,” he said, urging his members not to vote with their emotions.

“‘Mannipom marappom’ (forgive and forget),” Zulkifli told the crowd, again trying to impress with his newfound knowledge of Tamil.

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