If Christmas is too commercialized, here's your chance to do NOTHING about it:
Comments
Anonymous said…
Always operate in "black box" - even worst than an enterprise company - we also want to know who is the crony contractor? GLC? Or Umno link company?
Another sad day for all Malaysians, sorry for the taxpayers from other states because your tax money also being used for the project - which you maybe never ever has the chance to use it!
In Malaysia, anything above the million rinngit mark no need tender. Reminds me of crooked people build crooked bridge.
Problem with the ministers in this country - they are politicians first and ministers last. They need to spend more of their time politicking to stay in power and hence have less time for their jobs, which are the benefits accrued from their political standings.
So it matters not if their job efficiency sucks. As long as you have a strong political position, you have a good ministerial position. This is especially true for the non-Umno ministers.
These ministers also know that the real power in their ministry rest with their top civil servants who are invariably of a different race. So there is really little they can do to exercise their true authority. Ultimately smart thing to do is to "see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil".
Testimony to this state of affairs is the similarly dismal performance of the other ministries that have non-Umno ministers.
The prime minister without realising it, actually acknowledged this state of affairs when he warned the "Little Napoleons" civil servants but not the ministers, who should have been the first to be held responsible for any shortcomings.
Ripping off the people is a way of life the government in our country. It is also accepted as an unofficial government policy. In every project there is rip off. If we make further investigations we will find Umno hands all over the place, in every project.
The government is a cow to be milked by every Umno clown from the prime minister down to a branch leader. This is the unwritten policy of the NEP which will go on to 2020 and then to eternity. Keep on ripping off till there is nothing left in the kitty.
Malaysia and its ordinary people will suffer with this nonsense!
Anonymous said…
We have the tallest, longest, largest, greatest, grandest, biggest, everything; and now some record breaking events, falling, collapsing, cracking, bursting, break-downing incidents in new buildings. It is only the beginning.
Anonymous said…
It is a pity that after half a century of independence, we still frame our socio-economic and political questions and judgments in ethnic terms. There seems to be a competition to determine which is the most underprivileged ethnic group in order to justify government assistance.
Logically, the highly protected community will lose its competitive edge. It is surprising that our leaders do not seem to understand this and continue with their policies that keep adding new fields to extend the protection for the malays.
This suits the political leaders who think of only the next general election. The division of the electoral constituencies with the type of politics and parties in the fray suggest that they are a smart lot! It is just an art of clinging to power and enjoying all the perks that come along.
That the majority becomes weak and feels that they can't compete on equal terms, despite having the best educational institutions and opportunities for themselves, is just a natural result of our flawed policies.
To make it worse, we have a special meaning for 'meritocracy' in education which leads many to really believe that it is indeed through real meritocracy, that they are where they are.
The system that produced them has lowered the bar so much in order to make up the numbers that they cannot be compared to the quality of graduates of the past or to graduates from other countries today. No wonder they cannot get jobs.
They should not have been in universities and colleges in the first place. They would have been better off under vocational or apprenticeship programmes. The malay leadership of this country has failed them.
Yes, there are underprivileged groups but they span across all ethnic and religious lines. We can identify these groups by income and asset testing and they exist in every ethnic group - Malay, Indian, Chinese, etc.
The enemy is not the 'other' ethnic group. It is the glass ceiling that prevents the best and brightest in our communities from contributing to Malaysia in their chosen area of expertise. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, it is not malays competing with Indians or Chinese. It is Malaysia competing against the best and brightest from China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and the tigers of Europe.
Ultimately, what matters is that there are no glass ceilings for any individual who has the talent and ability to excel in the area of his or her choosing.
We need to frame our policies based on merit and need, and not ethnic lines. However, this will never happen until we move our political system away from parties drawn along the old ethnic and religious lines.
Anonymous said…
The reason for Umno's existence and success is all about racial politics: ketuanan melayu.
They have nothing to fight for except to get more and more for their race and religion; they are obsessed with dividing the cake in their favour (ten for me, one for you) instead of making the cake bigger.
They do not fight for the nation but their race and religion. All this has been cultivated and imbued into their culture since 1969.
They do not want to talk about corruption as they know many of their kind are corrupt to the core.
Anonymous said…
If we read the Malaysia Federal Constitution of 1957, we will not find the word "bumiputera" - hence some would say the origin of the word is grounded in the political agenda of some politicians to discriminate against citizens not of malay ethnicity.
In short there is no constitutional legitimacy in the use of the term "bumiputera" except for its purpose which is to discriminate for the sake of discriminating.
Some fifty years after independence from the British, the demographic profile of its population has changed. Most of the Chinese/Indians today are no longer foreign born, and through the principle of "jus soli" (Latin meaning "right of the soil") are citizens by birth.
The word "bumiputera" (Sanskrit meaning "son of the soil") which came into popular use after the riots of 1969, is a convenient term not grounded in the science of anthropology but in the politics of race - in other words its use is a convenient invention by malay politicians and malay leaders to justify the policies of Umno which dominated the ruling alliance, which came to be known as the New Economic Policy (NEP).
It could have been called "The Great Affirmative Action Policy" but the architects of the NEP are visionary leaders whose motives go beyond affirmative action.
It is not a coincidence that post-1969 saw the rise of business oriented leaders in Umno and the political demise of the malay school teachers whose hold over power in the party suffered a setback. The labeling is important as events many years later are to demonstrate to us that more is envisaged rather than just affirmative action.
Let there only be one class or let Malaysia be a nation of the "classless". Malaysians do not need a caste system like we find in India.
Enough is enough. The word "bumiputera" creates a class of Malaysians based not on ethnicity but on some dubious criteria with religion factored into it.
It is conceptualized for the convenience of policy makers who rode on the wave of malay nationalism unleashed after May 13, 1969 to maintain their position of power and influence.
The faster we do away with the word "bumiputera" the better it will be. The use of the term "bumiputera" post-1969, I submit, has less to do with affirmative actions but more to do with politicians who see in it the opportunity to maintain their hold over power.
It is time power be handed over to a fresh breed of Malaysians who think less in terms of Malay, Indian and Chinese or "bumiputera" and "non-bumiputera" but more in terms of Malaysians of different ethnic descent.
But let us not lose our perspective. The United States has been independent for more than 200 years but is still today struggling with racism. Malaysia is still politically a toddler learning to walk. Success is about what happens when we fall rather than in the walking.
Anonymous said…
PAS can push the Islam country concept in Taliban Afghanistan or similar……….so my suggestion is PAS should move there and contest in the next elections there, and see if they can form the next government.
Or they can come having lived a life and dressed up and acting just likes all those guys who hijacked those planes on 9/11. It is best they go to Afghanistan as recommended.
In a country like Malaysia, religion should remain that the domain of the individual and not the community at large. Of course it can also extend itself to all those subscribing to that religion and willingly allow themselves to be subject to that community's way of life religious or otherwise.
But not for one moment should anyone try to enforce his or her believes on to another. Neither should anyone of a majority religion think that those of not their ilk live so at their pleasure.
Anonymous said…
In very recent times, the starting date for the study of Malaysia history in the schools has been conveniently fixed around 1400 CE. It probably coincides with the founding of the Sultanate of Malacca by Parameswara.
Today, Malaysia school children only learn a little bit about the early Proto malays and then are conveniently taken on a historical quantum leap to the founding of Malacca.
Early Indian works speak of a fantastically wealthy place called Savarnadvipa, which meant "land of gold". This mystical place was said to lie far away, and legend holds that this was probably the most valid reason why the first Indians ventured across the Bay of Bengal and arrived in Kedah around 100 BC.
Apart from trade, the early Indians brought a pervasive culture, with Hinduism and Buddhism sweeping through the Indo-Chinese and malay archipelago lands bringing temples and Indian cultural traditions. The local chiefs began to refer to themselves as "rajahs" and also integrated what they considered the best of Indian governmental traditions with the existing structure.
I learnt Malaysia history in the 1950s and taught it in the 1960s and 1970s in secondary schools. All the history textbooks at the time had the early Indian connection specifically mentioned in them. Teachers of that period taught about the early Indianised kingdoms of Langkasuka, Srivijaya and Majapahit that existed from as early as 100 CE.
Anyone can see that Parameswara, the founder of Malacca, has a clearly give away name that points to the Indian/Hindu influence. No one can deny this, and all our children need to know about this. They have the fundamental right to learn about this aspect of our history too.
Why don't our children learn about these early Indian connections today? It needs mention here that this early Indian connection has nothing to do with the much later cheap Indian "coolie" labour influx that the British brought over to man the railways and plantations of Malaysia from the late 19th century onwards.
The malay language as we know it today is already fully impregnated and enriched with many foreign words. This is good. Malay therefore has been a bahasa rojak from early times itself.
Rojak itself (and also cendul) is a Malaysia food developed by an Indian Malayalee Muslim community known as the Malabaris who hailed from Kerala. They were also referred to as kakas. We now wrongly credit the Penang mamaks for this great food.
The very word "Melayu" itself is most probably of Indian origin from the words "Malai Ur", which means land of mountains in Tamil. Singapur, Nagapur and Indrapur are very common Indian names that have similar backgrounds.
The early Indians were probably inspired by the main mountain range that looks like a backbone for the malay peninsula and thus named it Malaiur. The word "Malai" is undoubtedly Indian in origin as is the case with the word Himalayas and we all know where it is situated.
Many malay words, from describing malay royalty (Seri, Raja, Maha, etc) and common everyday terms (suami, kerana, dunia, cuma, bakti), all have Indian connections. The undeniable Indian connection in the word Indonesia is also reflected in the name itself.
The Indian factor that influences even the prevailing malay culture in terms of music, food, dress and certain other everyday practices like betel chewing and bersanding is another thing over which a loud hush prevails. Why?
Such knowledge of the roots of this great country, be they Indian, Chinese, Arab or whatever, can indeed very strongly facilitate the ongoing efforts of the government to make our children think of themselves as Bangsa Malaysia more readily and more easily.
Anonymous said…
If ever I would want to produce a movie of the old China dynasty era, Koh Tsu Koon and Ong Ka Ting would make perfect casting as the eunuchs of the emperor.
Just look at their faces and mannerisms in real life and you'd know they are perfect for these roles in reel life.
This is not a false perception as many posters here have similar perception of these people.
Other than carrying the balls of the power bearers and keeping mum on issues affecting the Chinese community, these seemingly emasculated people are always seen having a gayest time showing their faces in the papers.
The voters just have to waken up for the next elections. Enough of Eunuchs!
Anonymous said…
Creating national unity is one thing and creating a national identity (the next step) is yet another. However, they both require a unifying element - a sense of equality (of having an equal stake, shared values, of belonging, etc) among the parties involved.
If you cannot have racial equality, an ethnic group's allegiance is almost always to its tribe/group, its family, against a common threat and lastly to country - in that order.
The solution to integration is to create the basis for national unity - conferring with all ethnic groups, ensuring equality in all aspects, respecting each group position that true nationality confers and then proceed to the subsequent steps in addressing the economic imbalances that some one talks about.
In Malaysia, BN politicians are notorious for never acknowledging the racial issue since this will require a compromise on their position.
Hence, rather than face the problem head on, they look to symbolisms as an indication of solidarity - speaking the same language, sign post in bahasa, military conscription, flag flying, buying Protons etc, in the hopeless expectation that somehow, national solidarity will emerge.
Vast sums of public funds are being wasted on these futile endeavours when it is already a foregone conclusion that failure (national solidarity) is guaranteed at the outset.
This is akin to building a house on a swamp without first draining it, a guaranteed failure. So they plod on year after year, one failed enterprise after another looking for the alchemist's dream.
Hey, wait a minute. Each of these failed enterprises is an opportunity to make money - national service requires uniform supplies, gasoline supplies, food tenders, cooking supplies, cafeteria tenders etc, so it is actually profitable to engage in this 'integrasi nasional' business!
The great irony is that way back during my school days, we never felt our racial differences to the extent that I see it now. We played, laughed and intermingled with visits to each other's homes as a matter of course. All this when Bahasa Melayu was not even a factor.
No, I am not mocking you, only the BN system.
Anonymous said…
Corruption to the Malaysia country is just like tumor to our body. Let tumor to become cancer the body will die. Let corruption to grow to be irreversible the country will collapse.
So to control and minimize - corruption should deserve highest priority. Of course there are still many more issues to tackle.
I just could not imagine what will happen to the country if Pak Lah is slowly compromising himself with those corrupted people around him.
Let us hope Pak Lah has the courage to carry on the battle against corruption, and has the wisdom to take some drastic actions at the right timing on all the other major issues.
GLCs and NEP are becoming the means for some Umno politicians who are corrupted to gain power as well as to gather wealth for themselves. This is causing tremendous damage to the Malaysia economic.
More and more businessmen irrespective of race are working together with these corrupted Umno politicians to gather their own wealth. Most of these businessmen are equally greedy and corrupted, of course, there are some who are forced to do so for their own business survival.
The implementation of another well-intended policy on Malaysia incorporated, for the public and private sectors to work together for the good of the country, has also been abused by the same group.
Pah Lak must have the wisdom, strategy and courage to use the power of people to help him to bring the change, otherwise 2007 year will be worse and the future of Malaysia will be full of uncertainty.
If another leader who although are stronger but corrupted, to take over as prime minister - God saves Malaysia!
Comments
Another sad day for all Malaysians, sorry for the taxpayers from other states because your tax money also being used for the project - which you maybe never ever has the chance to use it!
In Malaysia, anything above the million rinngit mark no need tender. Reminds me of crooked people build crooked bridge.
Problem with the ministers in this country - they are politicians first and ministers last. They need to spend more of their time politicking to stay in power and hence have less time for their jobs, which are the benefits accrued from their political standings.
So it matters not if their job efficiency sucks. As long as you have a strong political position, you have a good ministerial position. This is especially true for the non-Umno ministers.
These ministers also know that the real power in their ministry rest with their top civil servants who are invariably of a different race. So there is really little they can do to exercise their true authority. Ultimately smart thing to do is to "see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil".
Testimony to this state of affairs is the similarly dismal performance of the other ministries that have non-Umno ministers.
The prime minister without realising it, actually acknowledged this state of affairs when he warned the "Little Napoleons" civil servants but not the ministers, who should have been the first to be held responsible for any shortcomings.
Ripping off the people is a way of life the government in our country. It is also accepted as an unofficial government policy. In every project there is rip off. If we make further investigations we will find Umno hands all over the place, in every project.
The government is a cow to be milked by every Umno clown from the prime minister down to a branch leader. This is the unwritten policy of the NEP which will go on to 2020 and then to eternity. Keep on ripping off till there is nothing left in the kitty.
Malaysia and its ordinary people will suffer with this nonsense!
Logically, the highly protected community will lose its competitive edge. It is surprising that our leaders do not seem to understand this and continue with their policies that keep adding new fields to extend the protection for the malays.
This suits the political leaders who think of only the next general election. The division of the electoral constituencies with the type of politics and parties in the fray suggest that they are a smart lot! It is just an art of clinging to power and enjoying all the perks that come along.
That the majority becomes weak and feels that they can't compete on equal terms, despite having the best educational institutions and opportunities for themselves, is just a natural result of our flawed policies.
To make it worse, we have a special meaning for 'meritocracy' in education which leads many to really believe that it is indeed through real meritocracy, that they are where they are.
The system that produced them has lowered the bar so much in order to make up the numbers that they cannot be compared to the quality of graduates of the past or to graduates from other countries today. No wonder they cannot get jobs.
They should not have been in universities and colleges in the first place. They would have been better off under vocational or apprenticeship programmes. The malay leadership of this country has failed them.
Yes, there are underprivileged groups but they span across all ethnic and religious lines. We can identify these groups by income and asset testing and they exist in every ethnic group - Malay, Indian, Chinese, etc.
The enemy is not the 'other' ethnic group. It is the glass ceiling that prevents the best and brightest in our communities from contributing to Malaysia in their chosen area of expertise. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, it is not malays competing with Indians or Chinese. It is Malaysia competing against the best and brightest from China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and the tigers of Europe.
Ultimately, what matters is that there are no glass ceilings for any individual who has the talent and ability to excel in the area of his or her choosing.
We need to frame our policies based on merit and need, and not ethnic lines. However, this will never happen until we move our political system away from parties drawn along the old ethnic and religious lines.
They have nothing to fight for except to get more and more for their race and religion; they are obsessed with dividing the cake in their favour (ten for me, one for you) instead of making the cake bigger.
They do not fight for the nation but their race and religion. All this has been cultivated and imbued into their culture since 1969.
They do not want to talk about corruption as they know many of their kind are corrupt to the core.
In short there is no constitutional legitimacy in the use of the term "bumiputera" except for its purpose which is to discriminate for the sake of discriminating.
Some fifty years after independence from the British, the demographic profile of its population has changed. Most of the Chinese/Indians today are no longer foreign born, and through the principle of "jus soli" (Latin meaning "right of the soil") are citizens by birth.
The word "bumiputera" (Sanskrit meaning "son of the soil") which came into popular use after the riots of 1969, is a convenient term not grounded in the science of anthropology but in the politics of race - in other words its use is a convenient invention by malay politicians and malay leaders to justify the policies of Umno which dominated the ruling alliance, which came to be known as the New Economic Policy (NEP).
It could have been called "The Great Affirmative Action Policy" but the architects of the NEP are visionary leaders whose motives go beyond affirmative action.
It is not a coincidence that post-1969 saw the rise of business oriented leaders in Umno and the political demise of the malay school teachers whose hold over power in the party suffered a setback. The labeling is important as events many years later are to demonstrate to us that more is envisaged rather than just affirmative action.
Let there only be one class or let Malaysia be a nation of the "classless". Malaysians do not need a caste system like we find in India.
Enough is enough. The word "bumiputera" creates a class of Malaysians based not on ethnicity but on some dubious criteria with religion factored into it.
It is conceptualized for the convenience of policy makers who rode on the wave of malay nationalism unleashed after May 13, 1969 to maintain their position of power and influence.
The faster we do away with the word "bumiputera" the better it will be. The use of the term "bumiputera" post-1969, I submit, has less to do with affirmative actions but more to do with politicians who see in it the opportunity to maintain their hold over power.
It is time power be handed over to a fresh breed of Malaysians who think less in terms of Malay, Indian and Chinese or "bumiputera" and "non-bumiputera" but more in terms of Malaysians of different ethnic descent.
But let us not lose our perspective. The United States has been independent for more than 200 years but is still today struggling with racism. Malaysia is still politically a toddler learning to walk. Success is about what happens when we fall rather than in the walking.
Or they can come having lived a life and dressed up and acting just likes all those guys who hijacked those planes on 9/11. It is best they go to Afghanistan as recommended.
In a country like Malaysia, religion should remain that the domain of the individual and not the community at large. Of course it can also extend itself to all those subscribing to that religion and willingly allow themselves to be subject to that community's way of life religious or otherwise.
But not for one moment should anyone try to enforce his or her believes on to another. Neither should anyone of a majority religion think that those of not their ilk live so at their pleasure.
Today, Malaysia school children only learn a little bit about the early Proto malays and then are conveniently taken on a historical quantum leap to the founding of Malacca.
Early Indian works speak of a fantastically wealthy place called Savarnadvipa, which meant "land of gold". This mystical place was said to lie far away, and legend holds that this was probably the most valid reason why the first Indians ventured across the Bay of Bengal and arrived in Kedah around 100 BC.
Apart from trade, the early Indians brought a pervasive culture, with Hinduism and Buddhism sweeping through the Indo-Chinese and malay archipelago lands bringing temples and Indian cultural traditions. The local chiefs began to refer to themselves as "rajahs" and also integrated what they considered the best of Indian governmental traditions with the existing structure.
I learnt Malaysia history in the 1950s and taught it in the 1960s and 1970s in secondary schools. All the history textbooks at the time had the early Indian connection specifically mentioned in them. Teachers of that period taught about the early Indianised kingdoms of Langkasuka, Srivijaya and Majapahit that existed from as early as 100 CE.
Anyone can see that Parameswara, the founder of Malacca, has a clearly give away name that points to the Indian/Hindu influence. No one can deny this, and all our children need to know about this. They have the fundamental right to learn about this aspect of our history too.
Why don't our children learn about these early Indian connections today? It needs mention here that this early Indian connection has nothing to do with the much later cheap Indian "coolie" labour influx that the British brought over to man the railways and plantations of Malaysia from the late 19th century onwards.
The malay language as we know it today is already fully impregnated and enriched with many foreign words. This is good. Malay therefore has been a bahasa rojak from early times itself.
Rojak itself (and also cendul) is a Malaysia food developed by an Indian Malayalee Muslim community known as the Malabaris who hailed from Kerala. They were also referred to as kakas. We now wrongly credit the Penang mamaks for this great food.
The very word "Melayu" itself is most probably of Indian origin from the words "Malai Ur", which means land of mountains in Tamil. Singapur, Nagapur and Indrapur are very common Indian names that have similar backgrounds.
The early Indians were probably inspired by the main mountain range that looks like a backbone for the malay peninsula and thus named it Malaiur. The word "Malai" is undoubtedly Indian in origin as is the case with the word Himalayas and we all know where it is situated.
Many malay words, from describing malay royalty (Seri, Raja, Maha, etc) and common everyday terms (suami, kerana, dunia, cuma, bakti), all have Indian connections. The undeniable Indian connection in the word Indonesia is also reflected in the name itself.
The Indian factor that influences even the prevailing malay culture in terms of music, food, dress and certain other everyday practices like betel chewing and bersanding is another thing over which a loud hush prevails. Why?
Such knowledge of the roots of this great country, be they Indian, Chinese, Arab or whatever, can indeed very strongly facilitate the ongoing efforts of the government to make our children think of themselves as Bangsa Malaysia more readily and more easily.
Just look at their faces and mannerisms in real life and you'd know they are perfect for these roles in reel life.
This is not a false perception as many posters here have similar perception of these people.
Other than carrying the balls of the power bearers and keeping mum on issues affecting the Chinese community, these seemingly emasculated people are always seen having a gayest time showing their faces in the papers.
The voters just have to waken up for the next elections. Enough of Eunuchs!
If you cannot have racial equality, an ethnic group's allegiance is almost always to its tribe/group, its family, against a common threat and lastly to country - in that order.
The solution to integration is to create the basis for national unity - conferring with all ethnic groups, ensuring equality in all aspects, respecting each group position that true nationality confers and then proceed to the subsequent steps in addressing the economic imbalances that some one talks about.
In Malaysia, BN politicians are notorious for never acknowledging the racial issue since this will require a compromise on their position.
Hence, rather than face the problem head on, they look to symbolisms as an indication of solidarity - speaking the same language, sign post in bahasa, military conscription, flag flying, buying Protons etc, in the hopeless expectation that somehow, national solidarity will emerge.
Vast sums of public funds are being wasted on these futile endeavours when it is already a foregone conclusion that failure (national solidarity) is guaranteed at the outset.
This is akin to building a house on a swamp without first draining it, a guaranteed failure. So they plod on year after year, one failed enterprise after another looking for the alchemist's dream.
Hey, wait a minute. Each of these failed enterprises is an opportunity to make money - national service requires uniform supplies, gasoline supplies, food tenders, cooking supplies, cafeteria tenders etc, so it is actually profitable to engage in this 'integrasi nasional' business!
The great irony is that way back during my school days, we never felt our racial differences to the extent that I see it now. We played, laughed and intermingled with visits to each other's homes as a matter of course. All this when Bahasa Melayu was not even a factor.
No, I am not mocking you, only the BN system.
So to control and minimize - corruption should deserve highest priority. Of course there are still many more issues to tackle.
I just could not imagine what will happen to the country if Pak Lah is slowly compromising himself with those corrupted people around him.
Let us hope Pak Lah has the courage to carry on the battle against corruption, and has the wisdom to take some drastic actions at the right timing on all the other major issues.
GLCs and NEP are becoming the means for some Umno politicians who are corrupted to gain power as well as to gather wealth for themselves. This is causing tremendous damage to the Malaysia economic.
More and more businessmen irrespective of race are working together with these corrupted Umno politicians to gather their own wealth. Most of these businessmen are equally greedy and corrupted, of course, there are some who are forced to do so for their own business survival.
The implementation of another well-intended policy on Malaysia incorporated, for the public and private sectors to work together for the good of the country, has also been abused by the same group.
Pah Lak must have the wisdom, strategy and courage to use the power of people to help him to bring the change, otherwise 2007 year will be worse and the future of Malaysia will be full of uncertainty.
If another leader who although are stronger but corrupted, to take over as prime minister - God saves Malaysia!