Unemployed graduates: Who prospers? — Dr Lim Teck Ghee
Malaysian Insider, OCT 29 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 2010 Budget is called “1 Malaysia, Together we prosper”. Before the advent of the Prime Minister’s multi-million ringgit public relations sloganeering, his predecessor Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had already introduced the “Prosper” theme.
Abdullah in his Oct 30, 2005 budget speech announced “Prosper” or Projek Pembangunan Usahawan dalam Bidang Peruncitan to assist graduates venturing into business. Under Prosper, Perbadanan Usahawan Nasional Berhad (PUNB) would finance 200 graduates up to RM50,000 each; that easily amounts to RM10 million.
Prosper is an ongoing programme and this year, its attachment training will allow participants to intern in PUNB investee companies. The cost of ensuring this prosperity is, however, not open to public knowledge.
Nonetheless, the RM10 million allocated in Abdullah’s 2006 Budget is clearly a drop in the ocean compared to the RM700 million set aside in Najib’s March 10, 2009 mini budget. The latter’s stimulus package planned to create 163,000 training and job placement opportunities for retrenched workers and unemployed graduates.
Of this number, 50,000 will be absorbed into the civil service, adding to its already obese size and bloated payroll. It is important to note that under the RM191.5 billion 1 Malaysia Budget, 72.2 per cent is for operating expenditure, out of which RM42.2 billion is for emoluments. Furthermore next month, a “special financial contribution” (announced earlier) in the form of a year-end bonus totalling RM400 million will be paid to public sector employees from Grade 41 to Grade 54.
Khazanah — “treasuring” human capital
It is true that other parts of the world are similarly facing the problem of workers getting laid off and school leavers unable to find jobs due to the depressed global economy.
However the numbers in Malaysia are simply staggering. Based on estimates, about 60,000 graduates might find it difficult to seek employment at all times, said Najib when launching the Graduate Employability Management Scheme (GEMS) on March 13, 2009.
Unemployed graduates
Year Numbers affected
2001-2002 10,000 (incl. diploma holders)
2008-2009 163,000 (incl. retrenched workers)
GEMS is run by Khazanah Nasional Berhad under the aegis of the Finance Ministry. The precursor to GEMS is the Graduate Employability Enhancement (GREEN) programme, also tasked to Khazanah in co-operation with GLCs.
We can safely assume that a proportion of these targeted graduates have not been able to find work in the fields in which they hold the requisite paper qualification. Meanwhile the government continues to fail to address the longstanding lack of relevance of the courses taught in the public universities and the low standards of graduates produced.
Instead of getting it right from the get-go through structural reform of the higher education system (and better still the entire schooling system), our authorities are attempting to fix the shortcomings of graduates who flounder in the competitive marketplace by pouring money to correct their mis-education.
It is all the more worrying when Khazanah’s director of strategic human capital management Azman Mohd Hussein reveals that the unemployed graduates have to be given remedial and practical training for a whole year to improve their communication skills and increase their level of confidence.
And similar to the “Prosper” scenario, the public is not cognizant of Khazanah’s expenditure breakdown either.
Hitting rock bottom soon?
Something’s very wrong when the situation goes keeps getting from bad to worse with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Retraining for graduates and youth
Year Programme Estimated cost (RM)
2001 Graduate Training Scheme 150 million
2004-2005 Graduate Training Scheme 265.2 million
2006 Khazanah – GREEN unknown
2008 Najib stimulus package #1 600 million
2009 Najib stimulus package #2 700 million
2009 Khazanah – GEMS unknown
* The outline table above is incomplete as information is unavailable in the public domain.
As early as Sept 25, 2001, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, speaking from the Prime Minister’s Office, had unveiled an economic stimulus package which earmarked RM150 million for 10,000 degree and diploma holders. This allowed them to learn IT, brush up on Mathematics and English, in addition to providing RM500 monthly allowances on a temporary basis until end-2002.
“Temporary” appears to have been a misplaced optimism because the chronic problem has persisted for nearly a decade now. Between January 2004 and June 2005 alone, the government’s human resources development fund paid out RM265.2 million in training grants to individuals.
From November 2001 until mid-2006, the Graduate Training Scheme had retrained almost 22,000 unemployed graduates, then Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn disclosed in his paper “Developing human capital” delivered on Aug 21, 2006.
Nonetheless, on Dec 27, 2007 in a paper presented by the government-sponsored Institut Kefahaman Islam Malaysia, Ikim quoted a comment from the Human Resources Minister on the inadequate success rate of the retraining.
Ikim research officer Nor Hartini Saari said “roughly RM500 million” had been expended in retraining. “However, according to the minister, only 1,400 graduates have been employed after participating in the aforementioned training scheme.”
Two years down the road on Oct 20, 2009, Higher Education Minister Mohd Khaled Nordin still talked about RM48 million spent in university partnerships with corporations “in strategic sectors that could improve innovation-based industries and guarantee graduates of job opportunities”.
Unless our public coffers are replenished by King Midas, the government may soon go broke from the “guarantees”.
It is just not sustainable to have the next generation depend on the nanny state even after they have been provided with ample tertiary education opportunities, with generous financial assistance and babysitting after graduation, and eventually bailouts every step of the way.
Raiding the public treasury
Various ministries and entrepreneurial agencies have set up their own graduate retraining programme and this makes the tracking of fiscal allocations difficult.
For example, the RM7 billion stimulus package revealed by Najib on Nov 4, 2008 allocated RM300 million for a skills training programme fund (with focus on tourism and “business process outsourcing sectors” among others); RM200 million for programmes by private training institutions and RM100 million for youth programmes at various levels — we see here three intersecting areas.
Then there is “another RM70 million to facilitate employment of retrenched employees and graduates seeking jobs,” a special allocation approved by Cabinet as announced by Human Resources Minister S. Subramaniam on Jan 21, 2009 in Putrajaya.
The aforementioned RM70 million could well be a tranche from the RM600 million infusion for skills training under Najib’s RM7 billion package a year ago. Or then again, maybe not ... who knows. In any case, the RM600 million was augmented by another whopping RM700 million barely four months later under Najib’s second stimulus package.
When so many quarters are involved in the overlapping effort between government agencies, GLCs, and the private sector, only the “special committees” established to manage the funds know the full details.
Even the Auditor-General’s office probably does not have the complete picture of how much money is being poured into remedying incompetence in the public universities. And what the results have been. If it does, it would be very important for the public accounts committee to put this information out in the public domain.
It may be argued that the fact that these public funds seem to be going towards so many “facilitators” and “consultancy” companies shows a primarily liberal and laissez-faire approach used by the government to tackle the problem.
Also of some relief is that no monopoly seems to have appeared in cornering the market.
The crush of agencies, ministries and private agents seeking participation in this fast-growing industry of “enhancing graduate employability” should reassure us that there are droves of Malaysians who are driven by patriotism to help our hapless graduates. The unkind amongst us may suspect that making a quick buck — or rather making buckets of bucks — is more the real motivation.
No solution in sight
Considering that many of our young adults are no surer of securing jobs after graduation today than they were in 2001 and three prime ministers ago, the public and the current undergraduate population have a right to demand a full accounting of the huge sums of taxpayers’ money spent.
We also need to know the outcome of independent impact studies that can provide empirical data on how effective or ineffective this massive injection of public funds has been.
In the current parliamentary debate taking place on the “1 Malaysia, Together we prosper” Budget, there needs to be an explanation on where the total RM1.3 billion appropriated over the mere span of the recent year for training and retraining purposes went to. And who has prospered from the money. — Centre for Policy Initiatives
Friday, October 30, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Ku Li: Malaysia-The challenge of the present
Malaysia: The challenge of the present — Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah
Malaysian Insider, OCT 9 — I wish to thank the Perak Academy for giving me this privilege to address you at a time when the State of Perak is at its defining moment to claim its right to constitutional democracy. Malaysians who are committed to making constitutional democracy an indivisible part of our political culture are watching your unfinished journey.The Perak constitutional crisis tells us that democracy is not a ready-made formula or a predestined political system which will fall automatically out of a written constitution. It must be written in the hearts of citizens, promoted by their understanding of it, and safeguarded by their commitment to defend it. That is the forewarning provided by the Perak constitutional crisis. Our challenge is now the future of democracy in Malaysia.
Over the last decades we have seen a decline in public morality and democratic values. We have been sleepwalking through a general economic prosperity while our public and democratic values have declined. We have let the crass pursuit of the symbols of development blind us to real losses in the institutional foundations of our country.
Ethnic interest, corruption and money as a means of maintaining power make a very dangerous mix. This combination poses a threat more dangerous than any other form of subversion to our nation's cohesion.
Recent history, from Bosnia to Sri Lanka, are examples of what can happen if we politicise ethnicity above national cohesion. The more each ethnic group tries to maximise its own benefit, the wider we are separated, the greater is the tension. The question we all need to seriously ask as we contemplate the future of democracy in our country is whether there can be a future for democracy if we maintain the politicisation of ethnicity as we have done in the past.
This is not to say that as a result of our history and of colonial political economy, that we do not have serious imbalances in our economy that can cause ethnic tension. The economic division along ethnic lines, the income gaps, the lack of confidence in entrepreneurship, and an unequal sense of well-being and empowerment are partial consequences of our political and economic history. However, these problems, perceived or factual, cannot be solved by applying policies in a way that further ethnicises our political economy. I believe the causes and consequences of these economic imbalances must be addressed and legislation can and should be introduced to eliminate unfair trade
In 1971, when democracy was restored, there was an earnest search for a new political economy initiated by the then political leadership. This effort was encapsulated in the 2nd Malaysia Plan:
“National unity is the over-riding objective of the country. A stage has been reached in the nation's economic and social development where greater emphasis must be placed on social integration and more equitable distribution of income and opportunities for national unity.”
It went on to state: “The quest for national identity and unity is common to many countries, especially new and developing countries. This search for national identity and unity involves the whole range of economic, social and political activities, the formulation of educational policies designed to encourage common values and loyalties among all communities and in all regions; the cultivation of a sense of dedication to the nation through services of all kinds, the careful development of a national language and literature, of arts and music, the emergence of truly national symbols and institutions based on culture and tradition of society.”
The basic point is emphasised in the Rukun Negara: “... from these diverse elements of our population, we are dedicated to the achievement of a united nation in which loyalty and dedication to the nation shall over-ride all other loyalties.”
We were inspired by the conviction that out of our diversity we would have the flowering of the Malaysian genius.
The same political parties but a different leadership were in power then. Those that succeeded them, for whatever reasons, appear to have lost sight of this pledge to the peoples of Malaysia. Meaningful debate in political parties, Parliament, and the media shrank while the moral authority of the democratic process declined.
We saw reversals to democracy such as the widening of the Official Secrets Act and the Printing and Publications Act. The public values that underpin the rule of law were replaced by authoritarian rule by law. Democratic means of challenging this legislation were closed off as we began to lose the separation of powers, and we lost the freedom of the press envisaged in Article 10 of the Constitution. A free press and an independent judiciary are necessary elements of a healthy democracy. Power over the party, Parliament, the judiciary, the civil service, the financial institutions and the media became concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister.
We must be worried that a generation after these words were spoken in Parliament we have not put a stop to the politicisation of ethnicity. It is now an institutionalised part of our political culture, and there are those who think, contrary to the spirit of the Rukun Negara, that it should be permanent. We shall never attain true cohesion, our constitutional democracy shall not attain its full flower, and will continue to fail to attain our economic potential, so long as we cling to an ethnicised politics.
We need a new politics. We must stop the politicisation of ethnic differences that makes us forget our shared past, present and future. We need national unity based on a new politics. I do not mean unity under the dominance of one party or subservience to any group class or caste, but unity that each Malaysian can stand up and own, promote and defend. Our unity must be based on a national ethos strong and open enough to support unity and genuine democratic process. This can only be based on universal principles.
I am not proposing anything new. We need a rebirth of the ideals of the Rukun Negara. However at this stage in our history the very thing that stands in the way of that rebirth is our system of political parties. It is clear that our entire system of political parties has had its day. Weak and tainted leadership on all sides is but a symptom of a system-wide failure. The parties have become increasingly irrelevant to our young and vibrant population. Much as some of us would just like to forget about these tired parties and carry on with our lives, however, we cannot leave them to their own devices. We are in our present troubles because of a failure of our parties, and reform must begin with those parties.
Constitutional democracy relies on a healthy system of political parties alongside independent courts and free newspapers. We cannot build an advanced economy and a prosperous society on a swamp of morally and intellectually bankrupt political parties.
Our political parties will not reform of their own accord. The people must demand it. In the spirit of the Rukun Negara, we need a movement embraced by people at all levels and from every quarter of our rakyat, to establish a national consensus on how our political parties should conduct themselves from now on. That consensus should include the following:
1. All political parties are required to include in their constitutional objectives the equality of citizenship as provided for in the Federal Constitution.
2. An economic and political policy that political parties propagate must not discriminate against any citizen.
3. All parties shall include and uphold constitutional democracy and the separation of powers as a fundamental principle.
4. It shall be the duty of all political parties to adhere to the objectives of public service and refrain from involvement in business, and ensure the separation of business from political parties.
5. It shall be the duty of all political parties to ensure and respect the independence of the judiciary and the judicial process.
6. All parties shall ensure that the party election system will adhere to the highest standards of conduct, and also ensure that the elections are free of corrupt practices. Legislation should be considered to provide funding of political parties.
7. It shall be the duty of all parties to ensure that all political dialogues and statements will not create racial or religious animosity.
8. All parties undertake not to use racial and communal agitation as political policies.
9. To remove and eradicate all barriers that hinder national unity and Malaysian identity.
10. To uphold the federal and state constitutions and their democratic intent and spirit, the rule of law, and the fundamental liberties as enshrined in Part II of the Malaysian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah delivered this speech at the Perak Academy in Ipoh last Friday.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
US will still be No. 1
Why the US will still be No.1
by Tommy Koh, former Singapore's UN ambassador
Malaysian Insider, Wednesday October 07 2009
Malaysian Insider, Wednesday October 07 2009
OCT 7 — On Nov 9 1989, the world watched the fall of the Berlin Wall with amazement. The fall of the wall led, in turn, to the re-unification of Germany, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. After half a century, the Cold War had come to an end, and the bipolar world, with the United States and the Soviet Union as the two superpowers, was replaced by a unipolar world, with the US as the hegemon.
The unipolar world, however, was short-lived and has given way to a multipolar one with the US, Europe, Japan, China, India, Russia and Brazil as the major powers.
Until recently, no one doubted that the US was the world's sole superpower and the unquestioned leader of the world. A series of reverses and self-inflicted wounds have, however, caused thoughtful individuals, in Asia and elsewhere, to ask whether the US is a declining power. At a recent meeting in Japan, a respected Japanese public intellectual asked whether we were witnessing the end of Pax America and the beginning of Pax Sinica.
I would argue that such scepticism about the US is mistaken. In my view, the US will remain No. 1 in 2039, 30 years from now. My optimism is based upon the following reasons.
First, I believe that the US economy will bounce back from the current downturn and remain the most vibrant and competitive economy in the world in 2039.
The US economy was on the brink of disaster last year. Decisive action by two consecutive administrations as well as Congress saved the economy from collapse. It is in the American tradition to face up to problems, accept the painful medicine of reform and bounce back.
The US was prepared to allow two American icons, Lehman Brothers and General Motors, to fail. Post-crisis, I expect that Wall Street will be better regulated, that Detroit will produce more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly automobiles, that the US will become a world leader in clean and renewable energy technology and businesses, and the American people will spend less and save more.
Economic competitiveness in the 21st century will be increasingly driven by innovation, creativity, design, marketing, information technology and talent. These are areas in which the US excels. It is likely to continue to do so in 2039.
Second, the top American universities and research institutions are among the best in the world. They serve as magnets for some of the world's most talented students. This will likely remain so in 2039 and America will continue to benefit from a brain transfusion from the world to its top universities.
In the global war for talent, there is no country in the world that can compete with America. It has an unmatched ability to attract, retain and assimilate foreign talent. For example, over half of the tenured professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are foreign-born.
American universities are the best endowed and resourced in the world, with outstanding faculty and students and a culture of learning that balances freedom and discipline, encourages risk-taking and is tolerant of failure.
Competition between nations in the 21st century will depend more on brainpower and less on material factors of production. America will continue to win the global war for talent.
Third, America has the world's most attractive soft power. The young of the world listen to American music, watch American movies, wear American fashion
The election of Barack Obama, as the 44th president of the United States, has done more to restore the world's faith in American values and ideals than any amount of public diplomacy could have. His eloquence, his humble tone and inclusive attitude, his appeal to the Islamic ummah and his willingness to adopt fresh diplomatic approaches to seemingly intractable problems, have greatly strengthened the appeal of American soft power.
Fourth, America's hard power or military power is unmatched. Its defence budget is the largest in the world. Its military technology — on land, at sea, in the air, in space and in cyberspace — is probably a generation ahead of its nearest rivals. America continues to lead the world in research and development, and in revolution in military affairs. I expect the US will remain the world's No. 1 military power in 2039.
A country's total power can be either greater or less than the sum of its parts. In the case of the US, I would argue that it is greater than the sum of its parts. Why? Because the US, as a country, is blessed with the “X” factor.
It has an allure that adds to the sum of its military, economic, intellectual, diplomatic and cultural power. It has a youthful, optimistic and joyful attitude towards life that inspires admiration. For all these reasons — and in spite of its present travails and challenges — I believe that the sun is not setting on America. — The Straits Times
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Falling Standards, Malaysia’s Debilitating Competitiveness…
Falling Standards, Malaysia’s Debilitating Competitiveness…
Oxford University’s Said Business School recent survey of Global Broadband Quality has dealt yet another blow to Malaysia’s fledgling pursuits to be a world-beater come of age.
While Malaysia aspires to and continues to talk about our cyberspace prowess and ICT leadership, this does not appear to have been translated into reality.
Indeed, despite loud proclamations about our multimedia super corridors and our multi-billion ringgit initiatives at creating more content and first world infrastructure for web-based applications to bring us smack into the ICT-enabled global stage, Malaysia has done far worse than expected, emerging 48th out of 66 countries surveyed.
And to think that we jumpstarted our ICT ingress as far back as in 1996, when the world’s internet age was just being born… What happened in between now appears inconsequential. We appear not to have advanced as much as we could have done. If only we had had that little extra edge, that little more drive, perhaps a greater determination to excel and to exceed!
Except that most of us are oblivious as to where we truly stand. We appear to have been locked within a time capsule of our own self-congratulatory image that everything is hunky-dory and well, acceptably 'perfect'!
We seem to think that we just need to dream, to start something and all would have been well. But we appear to have forgotten to work towards real gains… We just marked time, or so it seems!
We appear to have taken small baby steps of tokenism as if these would be sufficient in this dog-eat-dog competitive world. Clearly, this is not enough!
Instead, the harsh reality is one of decrepit decay, which many of us are beginning to suspect and dread with some blush, some despair even. Where have we gone wrong? Why is this happening? Aren't we Malaysians supposed to be world-beaters who 'can' or "Boleh"?
Well, apparently this has now been glaringly exposed when more independent surveys show us for what we are, warts and all. We should not kid ourselves any longer. We often pride ourselves far and above the underdeveloped basket cases of failed nations—we brandish a façade of a somewhat confident middle income Asian tiger, well on our way to a fully developed status. Wawasan 2020 and all that! But, as a young child would ask, “are we there yet?”
This broadband ‘laggedness’ exposes and demolishes the much vaunted efficiency and productivity beliefs that are so ingrained in our parochial psyche, especially those within the establishment.
Importantly, it sadly reflects the common practices and administration of our bloated and often reality-disconnected civil service, right up to our senior managers, directors and policy makers.
So much so that the administration’s own self-importance and its narrowly circumscribed remits allow policy makers and shapers, the warm glow of self-satisfied feel-good complacency—well-meaning, but sadly uninsightful and cocooned in a mediocre mindset...
While it cannot be denied that we have had some excellent and highly-capable administrators, there are probably many others who do not come up to scratch. Worse, many of the better officers are weighed down by inept and underachieving subordinates whose levels of competence are sadly, just not good enough! Perhaps there have been other considerations, other administrative or political wastage and leakages…
This broadband quality survey should be seen in the context with other similar surveys, which had earlier put our tertiary educational facilities and universities right through the middling rungs of world academia, where we seemed to have slid further down the slope of prestige and standards.
Time and again, we have with disbelief and child-like tantrums, scrambled for some vindication, some rationale as to why we have faired so passably below par!
But wait, the bad news is not over yet. The most recently released (UN Development Programme) Human Development Report 2008 has ambiguously placed us as the 66th nation in livability, out of 182 nations. We are informed that we did third best within ASEAN after Singapore (23th) and Brunei (30th). Other Asian countries ranked as having “very high human development” are Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.
Malaysia is ranked as a “high human development” nation, lumped together with other nations such as Romania, Costa Rica, Mexico, Cuba, Hungary, Bahrain, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. This dubious rank is 3 rungs down from last year’s 2007 report, when we were in 63rd position—yet another drop from our middling position—not much to crow or gloat about.
Malaysia’s life expectancy was estimated at 74.1 years, compared with Japan’s 82.7 years. Our literacy rate was 91.2%, compared with Indonesia’s 92%, and Georgia at 100%. Our GDP per capita was US$13,518 (RM46,495), comparable to Botswana’s US$13,604 but way below the highest, i.e. Liechtenstein’s US$85,382. Singapore’s life expectancy was estimated at 80.2 years, its literacy rate was 94.4 per cent and GDP per capita was US$49,704.
But such modest rankings of indices and so-so perceptions from outside bodies and authorities are not benign. They hurt. Because, they form the bases from which ultimate decision makers rely on, to decide who they can trust to work with, which nation to invest in, or where to usefully establish more productive enterprises with the best returns and with the best potential for reciprocal interchangeable benefits, i.e. win-win experiences for all parties.
Malaysia is sadly but surely losing that competitive edge. We may already have lost all that attractive package, which has endeared the world to our carefully constructed cultural diversity, our ‘veneered’ unity, our possibly skin-deep charm even.
Sadly, once again we have to rework our image, dented as it continues to be by our own lackadaisical approach to nation building. Like encrusted barnacles on a sunken Titanic, we have allowed entrenched racism, partisan politics and lacklustre administration to corrode the very foundations of our beloved nation.
We have allowed corrupt practices, patronage rent-seeking politically-connected business practices, slanted laws, misguided policing and expedient judiciary, to fester like termites gnawing and eating into the very innards of our society and nation, so much so that we have become emaciated from within, with less and less ‘glow’ to show for it!
We have inadvertently suppressed our better instincts, our collective innovativeness, by imposing artificial armour-glass ceilings. We have allowed our homegrown talents, our creative ideas to fritter, indeed to fly away, despite our occasional head-start—we just could not sustain our momentum of excellence. We have acknowledged that we seem to possess third world mentality when it comes to maintenance or even achievement!
We allow petty insular considerations to cloud our preference for the best, accepting in its stead, pedestrian or second-rate choices which ultimately lead to less than stellar outcomes, sacrificing excellence at the altar of timorous ethnocentric prejudice.
We chauvinistically accept the fallacy of the Peter Principle where we continue to promote poorer less-qualified candidates to all levels of management and administration, which clearly showcase their ceiling-limited capacity and thus their truncated heights of self-actualisation and personal achievement.
Shortsighted venal interests and political expediencies seem to soar way above all other interests! It is said that Malaysians now place “race, religion and nation” in that sad order of importance.
It is time to recognize that these entrenched outlooks are not simply protecting our narrowly circumscribed political turf (UMNO/BN), our ethnic supremacy (Malays), or our arrogant supercilious pride (Chinese).
We cannot simply latch on to craftily reworded jingoistic unity of purpose, “1 Malaysia” notwithstanding. We have to learn to live it and truly accept one another: all our strengths and weaknesses, and harness our collective wisdom and vigor. Mere tolerance and token lip service is no longer enough.
Our debilitating conflict-ridden core values must be seen for what they really are; they must be laid to rest as mindfully as we can. They are certainly not benign and have now come home to roost. Our divided nationhood is as glaringly disruptive as it continues to cast its ominous fractured shadows.
Sustained ineptness and unlearned mistakes will be punished more and more with our globally connected world. Our ICT-empowered and enlightened global audience, including our more and more vocal and freshly enfranchised citizens, will ensure that this will no longer be acceptable or tolerated. There may be no second chance!
Wake up Malaysians, before we languish further and fall into the ranks of failed nations!
Also Published in malaysiakini (7 Oct 2009) as "No second chance as standards fall."
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Oxford Global Broadband Quality Study shows Malaysia Lagging far behind leaders--48th place!
Oxford Global Broadband Quality Study Shows Progress, Highlights Broadband Quality Gap
While Malaysia aspires to and continues to talk about our cyberspace prowess and leadership, this does not appear to have been translated into reality.
Indeed despite loud proclamations about our multimedia super corridors and our initiatives at creating more content and first-world infrastructure for web-based applications to bring us smack into the ICT-enabled global stage, Malaysia has done far worse than expected.
This broadband laggedness exposes and fritters away the much vaunted efficiency and productivity beliefs that are so ingrained in our parochial psyche, especially those within the establishment.
This must now be compared with the other surveys which put our universities right through the mediocre rungs of world academia, where we seemed to have slid further down the slope of prestige and standards.
Wake up Malaysians, before we truly become another basket case of failed nations!
Full paper on Oxford Broadband Quality Survey
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
CRANKY OLD MAN: a poem left behind...
CRANKY OLD MAN
When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in country NSW, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meagre possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.
One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and appearing in mags for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.
And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the Internet.
Cranky Old Man
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What do you see, nurses? . . . . .
What do you see?
What are you thinking .. . . . .
when you're looking at me?
A cranky old man, . . . . . .
not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .... . . . . . . .
with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food .. . .. . . . .
and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . . . . ..
'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . . . . .
the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . . . . . .
A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not .. . . . . . . . . . .
lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . . . .
The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking? . . . . . .
Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse . . . . . .
you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am . . . . . . .
As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, . . . . . .
as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten ... . . . . . .
with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .. . . . . . . .
who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen . . . . .
with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . . . .. ..... .
a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . . ... . .
my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows .... . . . . .
that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now . . . . . ... . . . .
I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . .
And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . . . . . . . . ..
My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . . ... . . .
With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons .. . . . .
have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me . . . ... . . .
to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, . . ... . . . ..
Babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . . . .
My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me . . . . . . ... .
My wife is now dead.
I look at the future ... . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . . . . . .
young of their own.
And I think of the years . . .. . ... . .
And the love that I've known.
I'm now an old man . . . . . . . . .
and nature is cruel.
It's jest to make old age . . . . . . .
look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. . . . ... . . . . .
grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone .. . . . . .. .
where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . . . ..
A young man still dwells,
And now and again . . . .. . . .
my battered heart swells
I remember the joys . .. . . ... . . . . .. .
I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . .. . . . . . . . .
life over again.
I think of the years,
all too few . . . . . .
too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . . . . . .
that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . . . .
open and see.
Not a cranky old man .
Look closer . . . . see . . . . . .... .
ME!!
When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in country NSW, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meagre possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.
One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and appearing in mags for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.
And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the Internet.
Cranky Old Man
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What do you see, nurses? . . . . .
What do you see?
What are you thinking .. . . . .
when you're looking at me?
A cranky old man, . . . . . .
not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .... . . . . . . .
with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food .. . .. . . . .
and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . . . . ..
'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . . . . .
the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . . . . . .
A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not .. . . . . . . . . . .
lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . . . .
The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking? . . . . . .
Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse . . . . . .
you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am . . . . . . .
As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, . . . . . .
as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten ... . . . . . .
with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .. . . . . . . .
who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen . . . . .
with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . . . .. ..... .
a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . . ... . .
my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows .... . . . . .
that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now . . . . . ... . . . .
I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . .
And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . . . . . . . . ..
My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . . ... . . .
With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons .. . . . .
have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me . . . ... . . .
to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, . . ... . . . ..
Babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . . . .
My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me . . . . . . ... .
My wife is now dead.
I look at the future ... . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . . . . . .
young of their own.
And I think of the years . . .. . ... . .
And the love that I've known.
I'm now an old man . . . . . . . . .
and nature is cruel.
It's jest to make old age . . . . . . .
look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. . . . ... . . . . .
grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone .. . . . . .. .
where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . . . ..
A young man still dwells,
And now and again . . . .. . . .
my battered heart swells
I remember the joys . .. . . ... . . . . .. .
I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . .. . . . . . . . .
life over again.
I think of the years,
all too few . . . . . .
too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . . . . . .
that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . . . .
open and see.
Not a cranky old man .
Look closer . . . . see . . . . . .... .
ME!!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
IPPNW Response to the US Decision on Missile Defenses in Eastern Europe
IPPNW Response to the US Decision on Missile Defenses in Eastern Europe
President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel US missile defense deployments in the Czech Republic and Poland ends a controversial and wasteful program that never should have been started in the first place. As a remnant of the Reagan-era ballistic missile defense scheme that came to be known as Star Wars, the proposed array of radars and interceptors was technically unsound, had become an obstacle to negotiations on strategic arms reductions with Russia, and was an unfortunate symbol of a domineering attitude in foreign affairs that President Obama had pledged to correct. On all three counts, he has done the right thing.
IPPNW has long opposed the concept of a Star Wars-type missile shield as an inherently flawed technology that would merely provoke the development of larger and more dangerous nuclear arsenals, and as a cynical diversion from good faith diplomatic efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. It was President Reagan’s stubborn insistence on pursuing the original Strategic Defense Initiative, in fact, that resulted in the failure of the Reykjavik summit in 1986, after he and President Gorbachev had agreed in principle to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely.
We welcome the immediate positive response from President Medvedev, and see this bold decision as paving the way for the denuclearization of NATO (and, eventually, all of Europe), and for even deeper strategic reductions by the US and Russia than those already proposed for the new START agreement.
---
John Loretz
Program Director
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
66-70 Union Square, Suite 204
Somerville, MA 02143
Tel: +617 440 1733
Fax: 617-440-1734
IPPNW Peace and Health Blog:
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
Monday, August 31, 2009
52 years on, and still Mistrust and Communalism reigns...
This year, I greeted Merdeka amidst deep feelings of disquiet and uneasy anguish. It has become a recurrent theme of my melancholy.
31st August has come around again -- Hari Kemerdekaan, Independence Day.
Before I go on, I want to state that I am not politically-affiliated and do not belong to any political party. I consider myself a liberal Malaysian, and have always been advocating a kindlier, more sensible, more cohesive, more efficient and less corrupt Malaysia. I am passionately inclined to supporting a radical yet peaceful change for a better Malaysia.
I begin this way, knowing that in Malaysia these days, everyone is now a potentially vocal commentator with no holds barred to their freedom to express themselves!
Still, I continue to hope that more common sense and reason will prevail. I am an unabashed believer in more constructive if idealistic rational discourse and less rhetoric.
I was born two years before the Malayan liberation, too young to understand the significance of what 'Merdeka' meant. But later, my late father (one who was ever so apolitical) would remind me that it was one of those life-defining moments of epiphany, with the nationwide rousing shouts of pride of "Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka!..."
Now 52 years on, this shibboleth appears somewhat hollow, too meaningless, too unfelt. Was it truly freedom to decide our own fate, our own lives, our destinies? Have we really been liberated?
Or has this been replaced with an even more destructive social disintegration, political uncertainty and perhaps a growing sense of hopelessness? I wonder.
But as Malaysians, we seem to have forgotten that we did have some success, as many people around the world would gladly attest. We were among the better, more stable newly independent states, which had progressed with a decent clip of development, fairly good administration, a workable semblance of political freedom and democracy. But perhaps only just, as dictated by the reality of the times, then...
I am not sure if our history could have been much different given the circumstances, the ethnic composition, the political awareness, the communal tensions, the talents and the leaders that we have had. But then again, I am not sure if we had learnt anything at all from our unique history.
To be sure, we will all have our own passionate beliefs that our past leaders had led us down the garden path of corrupt destruction and wasted opportunities. As a whole, this would be a true reflection for many of us.
Many have lamented the fact that the mainstream establishment had been guilty of glossing over the splintering jaggedness of our incompatible perhaps ineradicable differences. Deep-seated communal bigotry and irrational ethno-religious bullheadedness continue to jar our carefully crafted Vision 2020, and the more recent if much maligned facade of 1 Malaysia.
Sadly, these tensions just refuse to go away, only to be stoked incessantly by morally-bankrupt politicians...
We clearly could not all have hoped to be taking the singular path of breakaway Singapore in 1965... Like it or not, Singapore's political reality, resource-poor island status, and their ethnic composition then, made it a particular experience at nation building, which perhaps could only have happened once in a rare while, much like the serendipitous bountiful arrows of earth's evolution, and our magnificent diversity, to paraphrase the late paleo-zoologist Professor Stephen Jay Gould.
With our greater numbers and more diverse peoples, it was unlikely that Malaysia would have achieved that identical status that is Singapore today. Yes, it is true that Singapore's economic strides: GDP growth, living standards and appreciating dollar, appear to have left us quite far behind...
Yet again perhaps, (and with due apologies to my Singaporean friends!) many Malaysians would baulk at that idea of becoming another successful if somewhat soulless and straitjacketed nation, across the Causeway -- that "little red dot", bright and lustrous as it sometimes seems...
But, it is good to imagine what might have been, if we had chosen paths of greater ethnic, religious tolerance and acceptance, 'real' unity and accommodation, greater efficiency, lesser corruptibility, less political manipulation and even less seething if undisguised polarisation.
It is increasingly difficult to be jubilant, enthusiastic, yes, even nationalistically proud when we celebrate our National Day, our independence from our long history of colonial past. 52 years now from whence we were cobbled together, in a mishmash political entity called Persekutuan Tanah Melayu and then later in 1963, Malaysia.
From colonial expediencies where the colonial masters commanded all the "divide and rule" puissance, to deviously subdue local inhabitants, e.g. Malays, Ibans, Kadazans; indenture Indians into planting and then tapping the sprawling rubber plantations, and crudely importing chain gangs of Chinese coolies to mine tin and other minerals, we were expected to arrive at a semblance of an amalgamated whole. Perhaps, this was a tall order, too tall to succeed...
Despite more than half a century of this social experiment and so-called nation-building, it appears that socio-ethno-religious fracture lines have never been truly mended, much less fused. Latterly, this frangible social contract seems to have been sundered further apart with vengeance!
Political meekness and tongue-tied obeisance on the part of the secondary parties within Barisan National, were punished by increasingly loud and resurgent anti-establishment voices, which crescendoed in the March 8 electoral gains by oppositionists.
Yet, instead of greater democratic space and hoped for change, this last year and a half, have been fraught with political uncertainties, ridiculously crude and partisan chicanery, and a rising tempo of communal and religious tensions! Every day seems consumed in politicking and more politicking!
There is great social schism in our rakyat, mounting mistrust, and a seemingly unbridgeable chasm of non-accommodation on both sides. Anything espoused by either side is quickly dismissed as inherently self-serving, misleading, wrong, devious or inept.
Oppositionists have been labeled as disloyal crypto-racists, anti-royalty, and even more viciously anti-Malay, which must be furthest from reality. Unfortunately, events of late have made this feeling even more entrenched: selective prosecution/persecution of oppositionist supporters, peace or anti-ISA demonstrators including candle-light vigil participants; Machiavellian takeover of the Perak state government; custodial deaths and torture (with the latest Teoh Beng Hock's 'falling death' from the 14th floor of the MACC building); perceived and blatantly biased actions and arrogance of our much maligned Police force; widespread misgivings on the impartiality of our judiciary, etc.
In short, to many of the growing throngs of anti-establishment Malaysians, the current government cannot be trusted, period. And all its civic institutions appear rotten to the core... There's widespread anger, indeed even rousing hatred which fuels its own vicious cycle of anarchic anomie.
The rise of the blogosphere and alternative media though the world wide web, has opened up and exposed that untameable genie in the bottle, never again to be contained. While, this ungovernable cyberspace has fostered unimaginable information traffic, and unlocked many secrets, exposes, and countless exchanges for the better, there is another sinister side which has emerged.
This unleashed genie of free expression too is fraught with disturbing inexactitudes, irrational bigotry and unrestrained viciousness of its own. Personally declared but intolerant righteousness have been spewed behind the facade of perceived anonymity of the Internet. Can anyone believe anything at all in the web? Certainly not everything, but the dilemma is knowing which is which.
Belligerent ad hominem attacks have become the preferred mode of communication for greater share of internet audiences. From rambling disorganised blogs/commentaries to incoherently twittering 'haikus', rantings and ravings have replaced civic discourse or rational dialogue.
Rumours and innuendoes have been elevated to become unchallengeable "facts", aggravated by the overzealously self-censoring main stream media, whose alienating voices are diminishingly soft and perceptibly untrustworthy...
There appears to be very little patience for compromise, for sensible meeting of minds... How do we build a republic of virtue, if we cannot at least try to work together and are almost always bogged down in the quagmire of seething hatred and mutually destructive distrust?
Although some may disagree with the middle ground of academic Azly Rahman ( in Dream of a Sincere Merdeka), I think he represents that enlightened Malaysian intellectual who espouses more dialogue no matter how trenchant the tone: "We spend too much time politicising everything and less time educating. If all that energy is used to design a better system of participatory democracy and philanthropy, and to reach out to other ethnic groups to collaborate in solving the issue of poverty, we, as Malaysians, will become a miracle nation."
I think many alter Malaysians are now so intoxicated by their own anger, hatred and righteousness that many are no longer listening, except to their own voices and other like-minded echoes they surround themselves with. We are no longer thinking about how some of these seemingly implacable problems can be resolved. We just want to see instant results, provoke instant reactions, we behave as if the politics of the land is a playground for the brave and loud. But, what about how to run, really run a government of our choice, of virtue?
An online editor has confided apologetically that: "many commentators basically rant and rave at any one who seems to be in authority... I do wonder if there is a place for genuine discourse. But I guess we live in a country where quite a lot is broken."
Conversely, pro-government politicians, administrators (police, judiciary, MACC, civil servants) and supporters are now all increasingly tainted with that huge tar brush as corrupt, venial, mercenary, totally reliant on political patronage, rent-seekers, and ineffective, without exception -- which again cannot be all the incontrovertible truth.
But the innocents are increasingly marginalised and are being pushed to smaller and smaller corners of despair, which may explain their entrenched attitudes towards some sort of subliminal retaliation. Anger and hatred breeds both ways, it is often forgotten...
Worse than that, we appear to be spiralling down that abyss of ever more provocative racist and religious extremism: the latest being that unforgivably brutish "cow head" protest against the building of a Hindu temple in Shah Alam. After initial outrage, this unspeakable bigotry seems to have receded into receiving no more than knuckle-rapping warnings and an inexplicable deafening silence from that raft of usually "legalistic" UMNO leaders.
Yet on the other side, can we not see that some Muslims and Malays fueled by politically-motivated siege behaviour, may have been 'engineered' and have banded together to fight back, to loudly proclaim their growing sense of 'loss', their perceived grievances? Never the twain shall meet, it seems...
Thus, can anyone be faulted for this sense of national despair, of hopelessness, of more of the same or worse?
But this disturbing sense of intellectual anarchy in our newfangled 'democratic' space keeps growing--our politics get murkier and murkier, with widespread and humongous allegations of bribery, corruption, counter charges of corruption; whispered vote buying of millions to reported billions of Ringgit of corporate mismanagement; shameless personal enrichment and rent-seeking cronyistic patronage and handouts; counter claims of inept, uncaring constantly politicking oppositionist state governments!
Every action appears to have been challenged by more reactions. We have now accumulated mountain piles of legal challenges and counter-challenges that appear to be the only by-product of our hard-fought democratic space.
Countless police reports, counter-reports, statutory declarations, counter-declarations, whether true or false, pointless point-scoring judicial challenges/reviews, spiralling defamation suits (100 to 500 million Ringgit! Is any Malaysian really worth that much?), accusations and counter-accusations now dot our political landscape and news, almost on a daily basis!
We are effectively stalling and stumbling at the starting block, as impasse spasms continue to paralyse our development and progress...
We trust no one, we blame and censure everyone, we continue to let our unleashed rage, our gut-instinctual righteousness, and our unyielding partisanship create this overpowering dark cloud atmosphere of gridlock and paralysis!
There appears to be no hope, the divide seems unbridgeable, the Malaysian schism further separates... So there appears to be one law for supporters and another for the others. So frustrating, so provocative, so hate-fulfilling...
A beleaguered government sensing their dismal disarray into possible irrelevance, corrals upon itself a "fight or flight" mentality, its back against the wall. It necessarily wants to fight back, and it does so with a vehemence that should surprise no one!
There appears to be no willingness to compromise, this is one fight to the 'death' so to speak! Winner takes all! But is this necessarily so?
Can we find a middle ground? Or is the only other way, a revolutionary disassembling, discharge or destruction of the other? Must this confrontational stance rise and rise to that unthinkable crescendo of social dehiscence, which can only threaten to destroy all of us, everyone of us, self-proclaimed 'true' Malaysian patriots?
We could tone down our justifiable outrage, our unforgiving tantrums, our frenzied rantings, because this would help make our arguments a tad more tolerable, even if less exciting to read. True dialogue rather than talking heatedly over each others' heads would be far more productive.
We must learn to think aloud and listen to ourselves, especially if we wish to impart and share our strongest views about others. Even if we believe that by doing so, we can hopefully help create a small glimmer of hope, to help bring about 'change' for the better.
This is not to say that we are climbing down from our precarious perch of righteousness or moral might. This is also not my 'apologist stance on behalf of the establishment'. It is a genuine call for more common sense, and less rhetoric, less posturing. Our strength of conviction will be that levelheaded perspicacity and moral persuasion that serve as the hallmark of modern democratic action.
Perhaps, I am naive, but I sense and fear the growing demise of our social respect for each other to the point of contempt and constant belittling of one another. Once we start thinking of those who disagree with us as less than human, we are really stepping down the slippery slope of dangerous no return.
We must therefore, learn to avoid these sparks of deadly rhetoric which can precipitate ethnic-religious tragedies such as has been experienced in the not too distant past, in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
I know we all think we are contributing to this concept of change which we must begin with each and every one person in Malaysia. I believe this too, passionately, but I too must be aware of the prevailing realities and maintain a step-back patience.
Sometimes, the loudest most strident voice is not necessarily that most listened to; some people would be very quick to switch off immediately, and we would not be listened to at all, except from the already converted. The more serious consequences would be the possible repercussions of retaliatory anger, hatred, vengeance...
We can all help to lessen the tenor and the tempo of recriminations and deep-seated anger and try and temper down the growing ill will that is brewing and boiling over in our blogosphere and possibly also in our civil society!
We stand ready to lose and exclude another huge segment of our society, who are our fellow citizens too, albeit on the other side of the fence. Worse, we may be kindling something more unthinkable, more sinister and terrible! I do hope I am wrong and will be proven so!
Let's help reduce the political tension, while continuing to push our agenda with less animosity but with greater moral suasion!
God help us! Have a thoughtful Merdeka!
This article has been published in The Malaysian Insider, 06 September 2009
Also in Malaysian Mirror, 06 September 2009
Appears as a brief letter in malaysiakini Sinister side of the web, 08.09.09
--------------oooooooo00000000ooooooooo-------------------
31st August has come around again -- Hari Kemerdekaan, Independence Day.
Before I go on, I want to state that I am not politically-affiliated and do not belong to any political party. I consider myself a liberal Malaysian, and have always been advocating a kindlier, more sensible, more cohesive, more efficient and less corrupt Malaysia. I am passionately inclined to supporting a radical yet peaceful change for a better Malaysia.
I begin this way, knowing that in Malaysia these days, everyone is now a potentially vocal commentator with no holds barred to their freedom to express themselves!
Still, I continue to hope that more common sense and reason will prevail. I am an unabashed believer in more constructive if idealistic rational discourse and less rhetoric.
I was born two years before the Malayan liberation, too young to understand the significance of what 'Merdeka' meant. But later, my late father (one who was ever so apolitical) would remind me that it was one of those life-defining moments of epiphany, with the nationwide rousing shouts of pride of "Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka!..."
Now 52 years on, this shibboleth appears somewhat hollow, too meaningless, too unfelt. Was it truly freedom to decide our own fate, our own lives, our destinies? Have we really been liberated?
Or has this been replaced with an even more destructive social disintegration, political uncertainty and perhaps a growing sense of hopelessness? I wonder.
But as Malaysians, we seem to have forgotten that we did have some success, as many people around the world would gladly attest. We were among the better, more stable newly independent states, which had progressed with a decent clip of development, fairly good administration, a workable semblance of political freedom and democracy. But perhaps only just, as dictated by the reality of the times, then...
I am not sure if our history could have been much different given the circumstances, the ethnic composition, the political awareness, the communal tensions, the talents and the leaders that we have had. But then again, I am not sure if we had learnt anything at all from our unique history.
To be sure, we will all have our own passionate beliefs that our past leaders had led us down the garden path of corrupt destruction and wasted opportunities. As a whole, this would be a true reflection for many of us.
Many have lamented the fact that the mainstream establishment had been guilty of glossing over the splintering jaggedness of our incompatible perhaps ineradicable differences. Deep-seated communal bigotry and irrational ethno-religious bullheadedness continue to jar our carefully crafted Vision 2020, and the more recent if much maligned facade of 1 Malaysia.
Sadly, these tensions just refuse to go away, only to be stoked incessantly by morally-bankrupt politicians...
We clearly could not all have hoped to be taking the singular path of breakaway Singapore in 1965... Like it or not, Singapore's political reality, resource-poor island status, and their ethnic composition then, made it a particular experience at nation building, which perhaps could only have happened once in a rare while, much like the serendipitous bountiful arrows of earth's evolution, and our magnificent diversity, to paraphrase the late paleo-zoologist Professor Stephen Jay Gould.
With our greater numbers and more diverse peoples, it was unlikely that Malaysia would have achieved that identical status that is Singapore today. Yes, it is true that Singapore's economic strides: GDP growth, living standards and appreciating dollar, appear to have left us quite far behind...
Yet again perhaps, (and with due apologies to my Singaporean friends!) many Malaysians would baulk at that idea of becoming another successful if somewhat soulless and straitjacketed nation, across the Causeway -- that "little red dot", bright and lustrous as it sometimes seems...
But, it is good to imagine what might have been, if we had chosen paths of greater ethnic, religious tolerance and acceptance, 'real' unity and accommodation, greater efficiency, lesser corruptibility, less political manipulation and even less seething if undisguised polarisation.
It is increasingly difficult to be jubilant, enthusiastic, yes, even nationalistically proud when we celebrate our National Day, our independence from our long history of colonial past. 52 years now from whence we were cobbled together, in a mishmash political entity called Persekutuan Tanah Melayu and then later in 1963, Malaysia.
From colonial expediencies where the colonial masters commanded all the "divide and rule" puissance, to deviously subdue local inhabitants, e.g. Malays, Ibans, Kadazans; indenture Indians into planting and then tapping the sprawling rubber plantations, and crudely importing chain gangs of Chinese coolies to mine tin and other minerals, we were expected to arrive at a semblance of an amalgamated whole. Perhaps, this was a tall order, too tall to succeed...
Despite more than half a century of this social experiment and so-called nation-building, it appears that socio-ethno-religious fracture lines have never been truly mended, much less fused. Latterly, this frangible social contract seems to have been sundered further apart with vengeance!
Political meekness and tongue-tied obeisance on the part of the secondary parties within Barisan National, were punished by increasingly loud and resurgent anti-establishment voices, which crescendoed in the March 8 electoral gains by oppositionists.
Yet, instead of greater democratic space and hoped for change, this last year and a half, have been fraught with political uncertainties, ridiculously crude and partisan chicanery, and a rising tempo of communal and religious tensions! Every day seems consumed in politicking and more politicking!
There is great social schism in our rakyat, mounting mistrust, and a seemingly unbridgeable chasm of non-accommodation on both sides. Anything espoused by either side is quickly dismissed as inherently self-serving, misleading, wrong, devious or inept.
Oppositionists have been labeled as disloyal crypto-racists, anti-royalty, and even more viciously anti-Malay, which must be furthest from reality. Unfortunately, events of late have made this feeling even more entrenched: selective prosecution/persecution of oppositionist supporters, peace or anti-ISA demonstrators including candle-light vigil participants; Machiavellian takeover of the Perak state government; custodial deaths and torture (with the latest Teoh Beng Hock's 'falling death' from the 14th floor of the MACC building); perceived and blatantly biased actions and arrogance of our much maligned Police force; widespread misgivings on the impartiality of our judiciary, etc.
In short, to many of the growing throngs of anti-establishment Malaysians, the current government cannot be trusted, period. And all its civic institutions appear rotten to the core... There's widespread anger, indeed even rousing hatred which fuels its own vicious cycle of anarchic anomie.
The rise of the blogosphere and alternative media though the world wide web, has opened up and exposed that untameable genie in the bottle, never again to be contained. While, this ungovernable cyberspace has fostered unimaginable information traffic, and unlocked many secrets, exposes, and countless exchanges for the better, there is another sinister side which has emerged.
This unleashed genie of free expression too is fraught with disturbing inexactitudes, irrational bigotry and unrestrained viciousness of its own. Personally declared but intolerant righteousness have been spewed behind the facade of perceived anonymity of the Internet. Can anyone believe anything at all in the web? Certainly not everything, but the dilemma is knowing which is which.
Belligerent ad hominem attacks have become the preferred mode of communication for greater share of internet audiences. From rambling disorganised blogs/commentaries to incoherently twittering 'haikus', rantings and ravings have replaced civic discourse or rational dialogue.
Rumours and innuendoes have been elevated to become unchallengeable "facts", aggravated by the overzealously self-censoring main stream media, whose alienating voices are diminishingly soft and perceptibly untrustworthy...
There appears to be very little patience for compromise, for sensible meeting of minds... How do we build a republic of virtue, if we cannot at least try to work together and are almost always bogged down in the quagmire of seething hatred and mutually destructive distrust?
Although some may disagree with the middle ground of academic Azly Rahman ( in Dream of a Sincere Merdeka), I think he represents that enlightened Malaysian intellectual who espouses more dialogue no matter how trenchant the tone: "We spend too much time politicising everything and less time educating. If all that energy is used to design a better system of participatory democracy and philanthropy, and to reach out to other ethnic groups to collaborate in solving the issue of poverty, we, as Malaysians, will become a miracle nation."
I think many alter Malaysians are now so intoxicated by their own anger, hatred and righteousness that many are no longer listening, except to their own voices and other like-minded echoes they surround themselves with. We are no longer thinking about how some of these seemingly implacable problems can be resolved. We just want to see instant results, provoke instant reactions, we behave as if the politics of the land is a playground for the brave and loud. But, what about how to run, really run a government of our choice, of virtue?
An online editor has confided apologetically that: "many commentators basically rant and rave at any one who seems to be in authority... I do wonder if there is a place for genuine discourse. But I guess we live in a country where quite a lot is broken."
Conversely, pro-government politicians, administrators (police, judiciary, MACC, civil servants) and supporters are now all increasingly tainted with that huge tar brush as corrupt, venial, mercenary, totally reliant on political patronage, rent-seekers, and ineffective, without exception -- which again cannot be all the incontrovertible truth.
But the innocents are increasingly marginalised and are being pushed to smaller and smaller corners of despair, which may explain their entrenched attitudes towards some sort of subliminal retaliation. Anger and hatred breeds both ways, it is often forgotten...
Worse than that, we appear to be spiralling down that abyss of ever more provocative racist and religious extremism: the latest being that unforgivably brutish "cow head" protest against the building of a Hindu temple in Shah Alam. After initial outrage, this unspeakable bigotry seems to have receded into receiving no more than knuckle-rapping warnings and an inexplicable deafening silence from that raft of usually "legalistic" UMNO leaders.
Yet on the other side, can we not see that some Muslims and Malays fueled by politically-motivated siege behaviour, may have been 'engineered' and have banded together to fight back, to loudly proclaim their growing sense of 'loss', their perceived grievances? Never the twain shall meet, it seems...
Thus, can anyone be faulted for this sense of national despair, of hopelessness, of more of the same or worse?
But this disturbing sense of intellectual anarchy in our newfangled 'democratic' space keeps growing--our politics get murkier and murkier, with widespread and humongous allegations of bribery, corruption, counter charges of corruption; whispered vote buying of millions to reported billions of Ringgit of corporate mismanagement; shameless personal enrichment and rent-seeking cronyistic patronage and handouts; counter claims of inept, uncaring constantly politicking oppositionist state governments!
Every action appears to have been challenged by more reactions. We have now accumulated mountain piles of legal challenges and counter-challenges that appear to be the only by-product of our hard-fought democratic space.
Countless police reports, counter-reports, statutory declarations, counter-declarations, whether true or false, pointless point-scoring judicial challenges/reviews, spiralling defamation suits (100 to 500 million Ringgit! Is any Malaysian really worth that much?), accusations and counter-accusations now dot our political landscape and news, almost on a daily basis!
We are effectively stalling and stumbling at the starting block, as impasse spasms continue to paralyse our development and progress...
We trust no one, we blame and censure everyone, we continue to let our unleashed rage, our gut-instinctual righteousness, and our unyielding partisanship create this overpowering dark cloud atmosphere of gridlock and paralysis!
There appears to be no hope, the divide seems unbridgeable, the Malaysian schism further separates... So there appears to be one law for supporters and another for the others. So frustrating, so provocative, so hate-fulfilling...
A beleaguered government sensing their dismal disarray into possible irrelevance, corrals upon itself a "fight or flight" mentality, its back against the wall. It necessarily wants to fight back, and it does so with a vehemence that should surprise no one!
There appears to be no willingness to compromise, this is one fight to the 'death' so to speak! Winner takes all! But is this necessarily so?
Can we find a middle ground? Or is the only other way, a revolutionary disassembling, discharge or destruction of the other? Must this confrontational stance rise and rise to that unthinkable crescendo of social dehiscence, which can only threaten to destroy all of us, everyone of us, self-proclaimed 'true' Malaysian patriots?
We could tone down our justifiable outrage, our unforgiving tantrums, our frenzied rantings, because this would help make our arguments a tad more tolerable, even if less exciting to read. True dialogue rather than talking heatedly over each others' heads would be far more productive.
We must learn to think aloud and listen to ourselves, especially if we wish to impart and share our strongest views about others. Even if we believe that by doing so, we can hopefully help create a small glimmer of hope, to help bring about 'change' for the better.
This is not to say that we are climbing down from our precarious perch of righteousness or moral might. This is also not my 'apologist stance on behalf of the establishment'. It is a genuine call for more common sense, and less rhetoric, less posturing. Our strength of conviction will be that levelheaded perspicacity and moral persuasion that serve as the hallmark of modern democratic action.
Perhaps, I am naive, but I sense and fear the growing demise of our social respect for each other to the point of contempt and constant belittling of one another. Once we start thinking of those who disagree with us as less than human, we are really stepping down the slippery slope of dangerous no return.
We must therefore, learn to avoid these sparks of deadly rhetoric which can precipitate ethnic-religious tragedies such as has been experienced in the not too distant past, in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
I know we all think we are contributing to this concept of change which we must begin with each and every one person in Malaysia. I believe this too, passionately, but I too must be aware of the prevailing realities and maintain a step-back patience.
Sometimes, the loudest most strident voice is not necessarily that most listened to; some people would be very quick to switch off immediately, and we would not be listened to at all, except from the already converted. The more serious consequences would be the possible repercussions of retaliatory anger, hatred, vengeance...
We can all help to lessen the tenor and the tempo of recriminations and deep-seated anger and try and temper down the growing ill will that is brewing and boiling over in our blogosphere and possibly also in our civil society!
We stand ready to lose and exclude another huge segment of our society, who are our fellow citizens too, albeit on the other side of the fence. Worse, we may be kindling something more unthinkable, more sinister and terrible! I do hope I am wrong and will be proven so!
Let's help reduce the political tension, while continuing to push our agenda with less animosity but with greater moral suasion!
God help us! Have a thoughtful Merdeka!
This article has been published in The Malaysian Insider, 06 September 2009
Also in Malaysian Mirror, 06 September 2009
Appears as a brief letter in malaysiakini Sinister side of the web, 08.09.09
--------------oooooooo00000000ooooooooo-------------------
Monday, July 27, 2009
Yasmin Ahmad, A Truer Malaysian Patriot...
Saturday 25 July 2009, 11.25pm. Yasmin Ahmad has died. Massive stroke. Brain haemorrhage. Abrupt. Mal apropos. Lethal.
Like many Malaysians, I am shocked and I mourn the untimely loss of filmmaker and creative director, Yasmin Ahmad.
Simply put, I mindfully ask why we are yet again losing so many great people, so young, so needlessly, so unforeseen—illustrious souls claimed too prematurely by the grim reaper, the proverbial 'thief in the night'.
I have never met Yasmin Ahmad. Yet, I feel a kindred spirit with this fellow Johorean, perhaps the quintessential Malaysian filmmaker within my generation.
Like many wishful and wistful Malaysians nowadays, we all continue to yearn for a lost time and era, where our ethnic diversity was our amalgamated strength and our unique sense of pride.
Yasmin, I believe, is a truer Malaysian than most of us dare to profess. She was more daring than most, to flesh out a more creative version of what it means to be a citizen of this blessed land, which we call Malaysia.
She dared to explore the darker expressions of racial bigotry within our society, which of late has been sundering our communities, in staggered if with unchecked certainty. Interracial relations have always been touchy nearly taboo subjects, which many Malaysians are at pains to sweep under the carpet of self-censored political correctness.
Publicly, we are at pains to project in most instances a tightly controlled sensitivity, and tongue-biting reservedness, which borders on impenetrable aloofness, but loudly declared if perfunctory camaraderie. However, over time, these less than robust facades get sandpapered away to expose the superficiality and the unburnished colder emotions—of barely submerged antagonism and crude stereotypic dehumanising racial slurs.
During political rhetoric and partisan outbursts, the uglier face of racism surfaces, latterly more often than not. Unleashed anger, hurt-pride, mob-instinct, explode more readily with utterances of irrational bigotry—which create vortices of vicious cycles of indignant recriminations, of plangent hurtful sectarian bombast...
Yet, in subtle contradistinction to these stereotypes, in many Petronas-funded commercials, Yasmin was able to inject a heady stream of poignancy and comic relief which showcase our unique connectedness, our inexplicable destiny, rather than spotlight our skin-deep dissimilarities. In other short films, she was able to finesse uncommonly discussed issues, considered by many to be too raw or too crude to be aired—“The Funeral” was one case in point.
Yet she was able to evoke bittersweet emotions which knew no racial or religious bounds, but which continues to showcase our human foibles and our oft-forgotten sensibilities, in a comically tender fashion, which warms the heart.
She married a Chinese (Tan Yew Leong), to wit, as if to announce to the world that she believed her destiny was meant to be—a Malaysian who was bold enough to live and practice without the oppressive constricts of social religious mores, racial taboos or unspoken frowns of politically-incorrect dissuasions...
Better than that she dared project those hypersensitive touchstones which help us all to question our irrational if misguided 'monkeys off our backs' which tether our better gentler spirit to our uglier crasser emotionalism. For many of us, this emotional stunting remains that deeply entrenched molten lava of illogical ethnocentric superciliousness, our ingrained if misguided belief in our own ethnic supremacy. "Aren't all of us racist in our own hearts?"
Yet, many of us are schizophrenic when it comes to being labelled Malaysians. While we may all look quite different, Malays, Chinese, Indians, Dusun-Kadazans, Ibans, etc., we have whenever we are in any international forum or discourse, declared our proud Malaysian origins. We sense ourselves as different, yet similar and unique in an inexplicable way, in spoken Manglish, "-lah"-accentuated speech patterns, so ingrained in our acculturated mindset that only a Malaysian can understand.
Like so well illustrated by another iconic Malaysian artist, Lat, our Malaysianness must stand us apart, if only because only we can fully appreciate the colourful nuances, the comical stereotypes which enhances rather than demeans our differences. Our uncouthness, our jagged crudities, our slapstick teeth-sucking, nose-sniffing mannerisms, our oddly juxtaposed spoken words are but cultural pearls which only our Malaysianness can decipher and find chuckling meaning and furtive humour...
Indeed, while we had been colonized serially for centuries, Malaysia had been blessed by her fecund land: first from our sequential abundance of natural resources—from tin and rubber, then palm oil, then crude oil and latterly expanding into small medium industries, led particularly by our insightful foray into the then explosive electronics industry.
But perhaps most importantly of all, I strongly believe that Malaysia benefited singularly from her peoples: our unique blend of multi-ethnicity, so jingoistically announced to the world as "Malaysia, truly Asia." It was this sensitive portrayal of the eclectic Malaysian and his/her interracial tensions that marked the genius in Yasmin Ahmad.
She had variously been branded an ethnic traitor and frequently labelled as controversial, when all she ever did was to dare to expose the fallacies and the down-to-earth idiocies of racial/religious stereotyping and bigotry.
It appears that the Malay heartland was less impressed with Yasmin's talent and derring-do than other non-Malays, who have always embraced her more readily, sensing her passionate understanding and connectedness. Perhaps not wearing her religion on her sleeves, and having married a non-Malay spouse, might have helped shaped her sense of greater ethnic openness and tolerance.
But there was more than met the creative eye of Yasmin Ahmad. I believe Yasmin was a truer patriot, more in deeds and soul-searching honesty than most. She had that extra touch of creativity and sensitivity which transcended ethnic considerations and concentrated on what truly matters, the human spirit and experience, that singular penetrating understanding of interpersonal relationships, in the unique inescapable setting of multiracial Malaysia...
“Sepet” was perhaps Yasmin's best-known work, which won her acclaim and controversial notoriety. A thinly disguised critique of interracial love and emotional relationships heavily tinged with exploits of ethnic bigotry, touched many tender raw spots which were previously considered taboo in Malaysia.
"Sepet" released in 2004, won Malaysian Film Festival Best Film Award (2005), including too several international awards, viz. the Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2005, the Grand Prix Award at the 2005 Creteil International Women’s Film Festival.
Since her first movie, “Rabun” in 2003, other films followed: “Sepet” (2004), “Gubra” (2006), “Mukhsin” (2006), “Muallaf” (2008) and Talentime (2009).
Such were her magic touches that almost every film made by Yasmin had won some prize or other in the international film scene, marking her as an extraordinary filmmaker whose eye for social analyses had come of age, in an era where serious quality was often trumped for trendiness and kitsch.
In fact her style and talent so captivated Singapore's Prime Minister, that he'd invited Yasmin Ahmad to direct a film for launch at the Youth Olympics in 2010 in Singapore. Alas, this project is now in limbo...
We'd probably lost forever, the opportunity to see yet another work of a genius, of a truly international class film master...
Sleep well, Yasmin. Your films, your influence, your touch, your Malaysianness will yet outlive your short sojourn on earth. May your unswerving efforts and boldness to deconstruct ethnic taboos, religious boundaries and racial bigotry help realise a better, more united Malaysia.
Rest in Peace.
Al-Fatihah.
Like many Malaysians, I am shocked and I mourn the untimely loss of filmmaker and creative director, Yasmin Ahmad.Simply put, I mindfully ask why we are yet again losing so many great people, so young, so needlessly, so unforeseen—illustrious souls claimed too prematurely by the grim reaper, the proverbial 'thief in the night'.
I have never met Yasmin Ahmad. Yet, I feel a kindred spirit with this fellow Johorean, perhaps the quintessential Malaysian filmmaker within my generation.
Like many wishful and wistful Malaysians nowadays, we all continue to yearn for a lost time and era, where our ethnic diversity was our amalgamated strength and our unique sense of pride.
Yasmin, I believe, is a truer Malaysian than most of us dare to profess. She was more daring than most, to flesh out a more creative version of what it means to be a citizen of this blessed land, which we call Malaysia.
She dared to explore the darker expressions of racial bigotry within our society, which of late has been sundering our communities, in staggered if with unchecked certainty. Interracial relations have always been touchy nearly taboo subjects, which many Malaysians are at pains to sweep under the carpet of self-censored political correctness.
Publicly, we are at pains to project in most instances a tightly controlled sensitivity, and tongue-biting reservedness, which borders on impenetrable aloofness, but loudly declared if perfunctory camaraderie. However, over time, these less than robust facades get sandpapered away to expose the superficiality and the unburnished colder emotions—of barely submerged antagonism and crude stereotypic dehumanising racial slurs.
During political rhetoric and partisan outbursts, the uglier face of racism surfaces, latterly more often than not. Unleashed anger, hurt-pride, mob-instinct, explode more readily with utterances of irrational bigotry—which create vortices of vicious cycles of indignant recriminations, of plangent hurtful sectarian bombast...
Yet, in subtle contradistinction to these stereotypes, in many Petronas-funded commercials, Yasmin was able to inject a heady stream of poignancy and comic relief which showcase our unique connectedness, our inexplicable destiny, rather than spotlight our skin-deep dissimilarities. In other short films, she was able to finesse uncommonly discussed issues, considered by many to be too raw or too crude to be aired—“The Funeral” was one case in point.
Yet she was able to evoke bittersweet emotions which knew no racial or religious bounds, but which continues to showcase our human foibles and our oft-forgotten sensibilities, in a comically tender fashion, which warms the heart.
She married a Chinese (Tan Yew Leong), to wit, as if to announce to the world that she believed her destiny was meant to be—a Malaysian who was bold enough to live and practice without the oppressive constricts of social religious mores, racial taboos or unspoken frowns of politically-incorrect dissuasions...
Better than that she dared project those hypersensitive touchstones which help us all to question our irrational if misguided 'monkeys off our backs' which tether our better gentler spirit to our uglier crasser emotionalism. For many of us, this emotional stunting remains that deeply entrenched molten lava of illogical ethnocentric superciliousness, our ingrained if misguided belief in our own ethnic supremacy. "Aren't all of us racist in our own hearts?"
Yet, many of us are schizophrenic when it comes to being labelled Malaysians. While we may all look quite different, Malays, Chinese, Indians, Dusun-Kadazans, Ibans, etc., we have whenever we are in any international forum or discourse, declared our proud Malaysian origins. We sense ourselves as different, yet similar and unique in an inexplicable way, in spoken Manglish, "-lah"-accentuated speech patterns, so ingrained in our acculturated mindset that only a Malaysian can understand.
Like so well illustrated by another iconic Malaysian artist, Lat, our Malaysianness must stand us apart, if only because only we can fully appreciate the colourful nuances, the comical stereotypes which enhances rather than demeans our differences. Our uncouthness, our jagged crudities, our slapstick teeth-sucking, nose-sniffing mannerisms, our oddly juxtaposed spoken words are but cultural pearls which only our Malaysianness can decipher and find chuckling meaning and furtive humour...
Indeed, while we had been colonized serially for centuries, Malaysia had been blessed by her fecund land: first from our sequential abundance of natural resources—from tin and rubber, then palm oil, then crude oil and latterly expanding into small medium industries, led particularly by our insightful foray into the then explosive electronics industry.
But perhaps most importantly of all, I strongly believe that Malaysia benefited singularly from her peoples: our unique blend of multi-ethnicity, so jingoistically announced to the world as "Malaysia, truly Asia." It was this sensitive portrayal of the eclectic Malaysian and his/her interracial tensions that marked the genius in Yasmin Ahmad.
She had variously been branded an ethnic traitor and frequently labelled as controversial, when all she ever did was to dare to expose the fallacies and the down-to-earth idiocies of racial/religious stereotyping and bigotry.
It appears that the Malay heartland was less impressed with Yasmin's talent and derring-do than other non-Malays, who have always embraced her more readily, sensing her passionate understanding and connectedness. Perhaps not wearing her religion on her sleeves, and having married a non-Malay spouse, might have helped shaped her sense of greater ethnic openness and tolerance.
But there was more than met the creative eye of Yasmin Ahmad. I believe Yasmin was a truer patriot, more in deeds and soul-searching honesty than most. She had that extra touch of creativity and sensitivity which transcended ethnic considerations and concentrated on what truly matters, the human spirit and experience, that singular penetrating understanding of interpersonal relationships, in the unique inescapable setting of multiracial Malaysia... “Sepet” was perhaps Yasmin's best-known work, which won her acclaim and controversial notoriety. A thinly disguised critique of interracial love and emotional relationships heavily tinged with exploits of ethnic bigotry, touched many tender raw spots which were previously considered taboo in Malaysia.
"Sepet" released in 2004, won Malaysian Film Festival Best Film Award (2005), including too several international awards, viz. the Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2005, the Grand Prix Award at the 2005 Creteil International Women’s Film Festival.
Since her first movie, “Rabun” in 2003, other films followed: “Sepet” (2004), “Gubra” (2006), “Mukhsin” (2006), “Muallaf” (2008) and Talentime (2009).
Such were her magic touches that almost every film made by Yasmin had won some prize or other in the international film scene, marking her as an extraordinary filmmaker whose eye for social analyses had come of age, in an era where serious quality was often trumped for trendiness and kitsch.
In fact her style and talent so captivated Singapore's Prime Minister, that he'd invited Yasmin Ahmad to direct a film for launch at the Youth Olympics in 2010 in Singapore. Alas, this project is now in limbo...
We'd probably lost forever, the opportunity to see yet another work of a genius, of a truly international class film master...
Sleep well, Yasmin. Your films, your influence, your touch, your Malaysianness will yet outlive your short sojourn on earth. May your unswerving efforts and boldness to deconstruct ethnic taboos, religious boundaries and racial bigotry help realise a better, more united Malaysia.
Rest in Peace.
Al-Fatihah.
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