Why Health care fails to adopt technology... 5 Reasons.... by Dr Robert Pearl

Health care fails to adopt technology. Here are 5 reasons why.

ROBERT PEARL, MD | TECH
KevinMD, SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

Why do so many seemingly great technologies fail to penetrate the health care system?

I hope the following five answers shed some light on the realities of technology adoption in health care.

1. Many new technologies don’t address the real problem

Tech entrepreneurs often take a backward approach to invention. They start by discovering a nifty technology. Later, they figure out how people can use it.

This technique often teaches entrepreneurs a tough lesson: Technology is worth nothing if it doesn’t solve an important problem or improve lives.

Alan Cooper, considered by many to be the father of modern user experience design (UXD), said the ideal approach is “goal directed.”

Meaning, innovators should start with the goals of the end-user. The solutions come next. When the order is reversed, the results usually disappoint.

As an example, the health care world recently has become enthralled with wearable devices. Many of these devices help solve the problem of what gift to give a loved one during the holidays. But few of these devices solve major health problems.

These wristbands, sensors, headsets and even “smart clothes” can obtain and transmit huge amounts of data on anything from heart rhythms to blood pressure. But there’s little evidence those wearing them overcome abnormal heart rhythms or elevated blood pressures better than those who don’t.

Besides, physicians don’t want all that data anyway. They find it overwhelming, redundant and unlikely to make a clinical difference.

Physicians would love a tool that truly helps patients better manage their diet, exercise and stress levels. Many applications available today claim to modify behavior through alerts, reminders and real-time feedback, but few have demonstrated measurable success.

Entrepreneurs hoping to make a positive impact on our health should focus on helping patients avoid chronic diseases and manage health problems when they arise. And they would be wise to do this using technology that already exists while developing solutions that are easy to use and inexpensive to buy.

Apps using new, complex or expensive technologies will face an uphill battle for adoption.

2. No one wants to pay for new technologies

Creating an innovative tool or app that can help doctors and patients isn’t enough. These products must also be monetized.

In health care, that proves difficult.

Patients, physicians, hospitals and insurance companies long for the benefits and value of new technology. However, each thinks someone else should pay for it.

Further, entrepreneurs must understand the financial difficulties inherent in health care’s current fee-for-service payment model. Doctors and hospitals will be slow to embrace any technology that lowers costs or reduce patient visits. Why? Because today’s payment model financially rewards doctors and hospitals for the volume and cost of services they provide — not the quality of outcomes they achieve.

Until our payment model moves from fee-for-service to “pay-for-value,” some of the most effective technological solutions will be hard to sell.

3. Physicians are reluctant to show patients their medical information

Prior to the modern electronic health record (EHR), common wisdom was that doctors owned the medical information contained in a patient’s chart.

It made sense at the time. With only one copy of the medical record on hand, the safest place for it was the chart room located in the back of the doctor’s office.

Many doctors believed it was necessary to keep it out of the hands of patients, worrying the information could be harmful if read.

Much has changed in the era of information technology and consumerism. More and more, patients object to the paternalism of the past – asserting their right to access to their own health records.

But now there’s new medical record problem arising. As computers and keyboards replace charts and pens in exam rooms across the country, technology is now the physical barrier between patients and physicians.

But computers don’t have to create distance.

Some doctors are flipping their computers around and using the health data on screen to educate patients. This transparency ensures the information is accurate. It invites patients to participate more closely in their own treatment plans.

Still, today’s exam-room computers are clunky. Physicians would relish a more user-friendly tablet, capable of rapid data entry and mobility. And patients want access to their health data beyond the doctor’s office. Entrepreneurs who can address both of these needs will find an eager market.

4. Technology slows down many physicians

For the average physician, entering data into an EHR takes longer than keeping a paper record.

The problem isn’t just the time it takes to type but also the structured format of the data entry. It simply takes more time when the application prevents physicians from skipping steps or leaving out clinical details.

Frustrating as it may be for doctors, the added information reduces the risks of medical error, avoids redundant testing, and facilitates easier access to test results.  But the benefits to the patient are clear, even when the technology adds time for the physician.

Just think, an EHR can prompt surgeons to ask patients about drug allergies as part of their medical history. Using this information, an EHR app can trigger an alert should the doctor accidentally try to order an antibiotic the patient is allergic to.

Physicians like to assume they’d never make such a mistake. Science proves otherwise. Some estimate the rate of drug errors by doctors has jumped 50 percent in recent years. Another study found 1 in 5 medications used by seniors are prescribed inappropriately.

Entrepreneurs can help physicians reduce the time needed for data entry by developing software applications that include macros and smart lists. Apps with alerts can help reduce medical errors.

But, of course, getting doctors to embrace these more effective approaches will be the next big challenge.

5. Many physicians see technology as impersonal

Go ahead and ask a baby boomer physician, “What is personalized medical care?”

The doctor is likely to talk about the importance of the human touch or about how subjective the “art of medicine” is.

Yes, these are important factors in medicine. But providing personalized care in the future will require much more than that.

With the advent of gene sequencing and the exponential growth of medical information, physicians won’t be able to meet the unique medical requirements of individual patients without advanced IT systems.

As medical knowledge advances, the perceived rift between “high tech” and “high touch” is becoming a relic of the past.

Telling a patient he has cancer requires time, compassion and well-honed interpersonal skills. This is the traditional art of medicine. But figuring out the exact cancer treatment — given dozens of alternatives, the patient’s unique genetics and the many sub-types of each cancer – is more a matter of technology and science. Increasingly, treatment possibilities exceed the human mind.

In addition, when doctors lament modern medical practice becoming impersonal, they fail to understand how most people prefer to manage their lives.

In today’s era of consumerism, if you ask patients what they mean by personalized medical care, they’ll talk about being able to decide how, when and where they obtain information and treatment — just like they do when they travel or buy retail products and services.

Today’s busy people want to receive care through technologically enabled alternatives like video visits and secure email, rather than through the traditional office visit. And they’re frustrated by a health care system that refuses to accommodate them.

There’s a waiting market for entrepreneurs who can help people receive care virtually, without having to miss work or school — particularly if the solutions are less expensive.

To meet these preferences, entrepreneurs need to look further than at the hundreds of millions of smartphones resting in the hands or pockets of Americans today.

Overcoming these barriers

Across history, it often has been the next generation that figures out how best to use new technology. Health care may be no different.

But if hungry entrepreneurs don’t want to wait 10 or 15 years for the demographics to change, they would be smart to provide solutions that use currently available technology to solve patient’s problems in the simplest and least expensive ways.

Robert Pearl is a physician and CEO, The Permanente Medical Group. This article originally appeared on Forbes.com


http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/09/health-care-fails-adopt-technology-5-reasons.html

The Star: Moderates need to speak up more, says GMM.... by Hanis Zainal

Moderates need to speak up more, says GMM

by hanis zainal

The Star: Saturday August 23, 2014 

PETALING JAYA: Reasonable Malaysians need to shape public discourse on policies and issues, says Global Movement of Moderates (GMM) chief executive officer Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah.

He said moderates in Malaysia tended to be low-key and their views were often unaired in the public sphere.

“I urge the moderates to speak up more and reclaim the centre stage to shape public discourse on policies and issues,” he said.

Saifuddin stressed that in a democratic country, everyone deserved the chance to be heard, including the extremists in society, but the best way for moderates to be heard is to speak louder than the extremists.

“The only way to do it is by using the voices of the moderates to drown them out and by showing how things can be done in a moderate manner,” he added.

Saifuddin said the majority of Malaysians believed in moderation.

“Malaysians as a whole have been subscribing to the middle path by respecting and tolerating others. That is why we can claim that the big majority of Malaysians are moderates,” he said.

He said Malaysians from different religions coming together to offer prayers to the victims of the MH17 and MH370 tragedies showed that everyone could accept each other’s religious beliefs.

Saifuddin said the The Star’s campaign to encourage moderates to speak up had come at the right time.

“Unfortunately, there are one or two media (outlets) that give too much space for the extreme voices and too little for the moderates.

“We need to give more space for the moderate voices,” he said.

EIU: Malaysia's place in the world, 36th, not great but still livable...

Malaysia's place in the world, not great but still livable, let's stay that way and make our world better! But some detractors would say, 'who you are' determines whether it's really the better place to be born. 

 

Our 36th ranking is suspect, until and unless greater equity and equality of citizenship can exist within this nation without the constant rankling of apartheidist racists!

 

 

 

 

The Economist

Where is the best place to be born in the world today? In a light-hearted ranking that we compiled in 1988, America came top. In 2013, the Economist Intelligence Unit more earnestly calculated where would be best to be born. It ranked America 16th. http://econ.st/W3oKJw

Merdeka Woes: 57 years and still racially-straitjacketed and backward looking...

57 years old and still racially straitjacketed – Dr David Quek

Published: 3 September 2014

Our Malaysian polity at 57 years old is under serious threat. We are in deep troubles, and are seemingly still devolving and falling apart.
As we have all been discovering, of late, there has been a steady escalation of ethnic tensions, of human rights' violations and selective interpretation of the law (especially the Sedition Act) to systematically target opposition leaders as well as dissenting common citizens on very contentious and arbitrary, even petty, issues.
Nowhere in the world do we have so many misguided people using the idiotic recourse of making hundreds of "police reports" against one another, based on political and inane issues. Worse, our police selectively use these politically motivated and manoeuvred police reports to take selective actions against those they choose to believe as "threats" to society.

Worse too, that the police now feel they cannot ever be criticised by anyone, even when what they have been doing has been blatantly biased and plain wrong to most ordinary citizens. Are the police above the nation's laws? Are the police now the true powers running the country on diktats of their own, or the home minister? Are we in a police state or under an emergency or military rule? These perceptibly unjust actions of selective and disproportionate application of the law and justice or police action is creating unease and anger among reasonable citizens. They render our rule of law arguable and reek of sadly regressive and repressive overtones!
This is not what our citizens want or wish for. We do not respect, accept nor can we condone such an increasingly cynical administration that is running on unrestrained police actions, runaway hate-mongering bigots, political power-play and shenanigans run amok.
We appear to have law enforcers and deeply-ingrained bigots who are more interested in playing political games, cursing, catching and handcuffing white collar law-breakers, including utterers of unkind words, and irreverent social media rantings, silly "jolok mata" nudists, exhibitionists who dared judder some of our "holier-than-thou" sense of prickly morality and sensibilities!
Let's see, who had been harmed really? No one but themselves, unless of course we choose to think that these could corrupt and undermine our religiously weak-minded brethren! So it seems we'd rather catch these socially-inept misfits than the real criminals, robbers, snatch thieves, or corrupt officials!
These "laws" are now used arbitrarily and selectively to punish, prosecute, and persecute anyone who threatens or dares to criticise this devolving government and power brokers now under siege from their own self-destruct mindsets.
Sadly under the anemic and torpid leadership of our direction-less political masters, some ministers and wannabe politicians and extremists have been pushing the envelope of right-wing, race-baiting agendas, and spreading of ethno-religious hatred with escapable impunity.
This is indeed sad and unbecoming of a modern nation that is aspiring toward a fully developed status by 2020. We appear to have hopelessly stumbled into a stagnating and retrogressive ethnocentric apartheidism, after this long-suffering government found itself losing its power base following the last GE13.
Instead of searching for the root causes of its political weaknesses and shortcomings through an in-depth post-mortem, this minority government has instead embarked on a series of witch hunts to demonise long-suffering minorities and resurrect the archaic but extremely dangerous spectre of racial hatred and ethnic supremacy, now so passé in today's society of global multiculturalism.
We are now running on empty. We are moving backwards when all around us, every neighbouring developing nation has been pushing ahead post-haste to advance and progress, by harnessing the vibrant energies and rich diversities of all its citizens.
It appears that this dastardly cabal of kleptocrats is willing to do everything in their power to stay in control, at whatever costs. They are willing to test the limits of a new-found "banana-republic-style" autocracy by dragging down and bankrupting the entire nation, not just in terms of exhausting all our diminishing financial reserves, but also to shatter our already tattered institutions of governance and civil society.
Please, let's break out of this spiralling cycle of self-defeatism and authoritarianism where the rule of law is no longer respected by the powers that be, where favoured arrogant ministers and callous demagogues are tacitly allowed to spew hatred and racism, while dissenting others face concerted if not starkly different attacks on their personal and civil liberties!
Now we have ministers who think that modern liberal concepts are all but evil and that their own brand of demagoguery based on arbitrary dictatorship and religious extremism is superior!
I fear for Malaysia! We appear to be entering an extremely dangerous phase of our nationhood. We're facing a real risk of potential break-up of our Malaysian polity as a nation of disparate multi-diversity and enriching cultures.
Instead, we're finding faults and excuses to tear apart the fragile fabric of our long-honed multi-ethnic and religious-tolerant cohesiveness. We're drowning in the centrifugal vortices of Charybdis of provoked inter-ethnic hatred and eruptive mutual distrust!
We must stop this madness from spiralling out of control! We must not allow our nation to boil over, into an internecine fire storm of mutually-assured destruction, of them and us. We must resist using the power of dictatorship to kickstart racial and religious apartheid and extremism.
We must not become an irrational failing or failed state! Civil society must step up and be counted to condemn these dastardly acts of rising kleptarchy, autocracy and political supremacist mayhem!
We must reignite our Merdeka flame of unity amid our dispersing diversity and challenges, and work hard toward greater inter-ethnic as well as mutual multicultural acceptance and tolerance. – September 3, 2014.
* Dr David Quek is a consultant cardiologist and president of Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/57-years-old-and-still-racially-straitjacketed-dr-david-quek#sthash.iWrCqfNT.dpuf

57 years old and still racially straitjacketed – Dr David Quek

Published: 3 September 2014

Our Malaysian polity at 57 years old is under serious threat. We are in deep troubles, and are seemingly still devolving and falling apart.
As we have all been discovering, of late, there has been a steady escalation of ethnic tensions, of human rights' violations and selective interpretation of the law (especially the Sedition Act) to systematically target opposition leaders as well as dissenting common citizens on very contentious and arbitrary, even petty, issues.
Nowhere in the world do we have so many misguided people using the idiotic recourse of making hundreds of "police reports" against one another, based on political and inane issues. Worse, our police selectively use these politically motivated and manoeuvred police reports to take selective actions against those they choose to believe as "threats" to society.

Worse too, that the police now feel they cannot ever be criticised by anyone, even when what they have been doing has been blatantly biased and plain wrong to most ordinary citizens. Are the police above the nation's laws? Are the police now the true powers running the country on diktats of their own, or the home minister? Are we in a police state or under an emergency or military rule? These perceptibly unjust actions of selective and disproportionate application of the law and justice or police action is creating unease and anger among reasonable citizens. They render our rule of law arguable and reek of sadly regressive and repressive overtones!
This is not what our citizens want or wish for. We do not respect, accept nor can we condone such an increasingly cynical administration that is running on unrestrained police actions, runaway hate-mongering bigots, political power-play and shenanigans run amok.
We appear to have law enforcers and deeply-ingrained bigots who are more interested in playing political games, cursing, catching and handcuffing white collar law-breakers, including utterers of unkind words, and irreverent social media rantings, silly "jolok mata" nudists, exhibitionists who dared judder some of our "holier-than-thou" sense of prickly morality and sensibilities!
Let's see, who had been harmed really? No one but themselves, unless of course we choose to think that these could corrupt and undermine our religiously weak-minded brethren! So it seems we'd rather catch these socially-inept misfits than the real criminals, robbers, snatch thieves, or corrupt officials!
These "laws" are now used arbitrarily and selectively to punish, prosecute, and persecute anyone who threatens or dares to criticise this devolving government and power brokers now under siege from their own self-destruct mindsets.
Sadly under the anemic and torpid leadership of our direction-less political masters, some ministers and wannabe politicians and extremists have been pushing the envelope of right-wing, race-baiting agendas, and spreading of ethno-religious hatred with escapable impunity.
This is indeed sad and unbecoming of a modern nation that is aspiring toward a fully developed status by 2020. We appear to have hopelessly stumbled into a stagnating and retrogressive ethnocentric apartheidism, after this long-suffering government found itself losing its power base following the last GE13.
Instead of searching for the root causes of its political weaknesses and shortcomings through an in-depth post-mortem, this minority government has instead embarked on a series of witch hunts to demonise long-suffering minorities and resurrect the archaic but extremely dangerous spectre of racial hatred and ethnic supremacy, now so passé in today's society of global multiculturalism.
We are now running on empty. We are moving backwards when all around us, every neighbouring developing nation has been pushing ahead post-haste to advance and progress, by harnessing the vibrant energies and rich diversities of all its citizens.
It appears that this dastardly cabal of kleptocrats is willing to do everything in their power to stay in control, at whatever costs. They are willing to test the limits of a new-found "banana-republic-style" autocracy by dragging down and bankrupting the entire nation, not just in terms of exhausting all our diminishing financial reserves, but also to shatter our already tattered institutions of governance and civil society.
Please, let's break out of this spiralling cycle of self-defeatism and authoritarianism where the rule of law is no longer respected by the powers that be, where favoured arrogant ministers and callous demagogues are tacitly allowed to spew hatred and racism, while dissenting others face concerted if not starkly different attacks on their personal and civil liberties!
Now we have ministers who think that modern liberal concepts are all but evil and that their own brand of demagoguery based on arbitrary dictatorship and religious extremism is superior!
I fear for Malaysia! We appear to be entering an extremely dangerous phase of our nationhood. We're facing a real risk of potential break-up of our Malaysian polity as a nation of disparate multi-diversity and enriching cultures.
Instead, we're finding faults and excuses to tear apart the fragile fabric of our long-honed multi-ethnic and religious-tolerant cohesiveness. We're drowning in the centrifugal vortices of Charybdis of provoked inter-ethnic hatred and eruptive mutual distrust!
We must stop this madness from spiralling out of control! We must not allow our nation to boil over, into an internecine fire storm of mutually-assured destruction, of them and us. We must resist using the power of dictatorship to kickstart racial and religious apartheid and extremism.
We must not become an irrational failing or failed state! Civil society must step up and be counted to condemn these dastardly acts of rising kleptarchy, autocracy and political supremacist mayhem!
We must reignite our Merdeka flame of unity amid our dispersing diversity and challenges, and work hard toward greater inter-ethnic as well as mutual multicultural acceptance and tolerance. – September 3, 2014.
* Dr David Quek is a consultant cardiologist and president of Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/57-years-old-and-still-racially-straitjacketed-dr-david-quek#sthash.iWrCqfNT.dpuf

 

 

 

57 years old and still racially straitjacketed – Dr David Quek

Published: 3 September 2014

Our Malaysian polity at 57 years old is under serious threat. We are in deep troubles, and are seemingly still devolving and falling apart.
As we have all been discovering, of late, there has been a steady escalation of ethnic tensions, of human rights' violations and selective interpretation of the law (especially the Sedition Act) to systematically target opposition leaders as well as dissenting common citizens on very contentious and arbitrary, even petty, issues.
Nowhere in the world do we have so many misguided people using the idiotic recourse of making hundreds of "police reports" against one another, based on political and inane issues. Worse, our police selectively use these politically motivated and manoeuvred police reports to take selective actions against those they choose to believe as "threats" to society.

Worse too, that the police now feel they cannot ever be criticised by anyone, even when what they have been doing has been blatantly biased and plain wrong to most ordinary citizens. Are the police above the nation's laws? Are the police now the true powers running the country on diktats of their own, or the home minister? Are we in a police state or under an emergency or military rule? These perceptibly unjust actions of selective and disproportionate application of the law and justice or police action is creating unease and anger among reasonable citizens. They render our rule of law arguable and reek of sadly regressive and repressive overtones!
This is not what our citizens want or wish for. We do not respect, accept nor can we condone such an increasingly cynical administration that is running on unrestrained police actions, runaway hate-mongering bigots, political power-play and shenanigans run amok.
We appear to have law enforcers and deeply-ingrained bigots who are more interested in playing political games, cursing, catching and handcuffing white collar law-breakers, including utterers of unkind words, and irreverent social media rantings, silly "jolok mata" nudists, exhibitionists who dared judder some of our "holier-than-thou" sense of prickly morality and sensibilities!
Let's see, who had been harmed really? No one but themselves, unless of course we choose to think that these could corrupt and undermine our religiously weak-minded brethren! So it seems we'd rather catch these socially-inept misfits than the real criminals, robbers, snatch thieves, or corrupt officials!
These "laws" are now used arbitrarily and selectively to punish, prosecute, and persecute anyone who threatens or dares to criticise this devolving government and power brokers now under siege from their own self-destruct mindsets.
Sadly under the anemic and torpid leadership of our direction-less political masters, some ministers and wannabe politicians and extremists have been pushing the envelope of right-wing, race-baiting agendas, and spreading of ethno-religious hatred with escapable impunity.
This is indeed sad and unbecoming of a modern nation that is aspiring toward a fully developed status by 2020. We appear to have hopelessly stumbled into a stagnating and retrogressive ethnocentric apartheidism, after this long-suffering government found itself losing its power base following the last GE13.
Instead of searching for the root causes of its political weaknesses and shortcomings through an in-depth post-mortem, this minority government has instead embarked on a series of witch hunts to demonise long-suffering minorities and resurrect the archaic but extremely dangerous spectre of racial hatred and ethnic supremacy, now so passé in today's society of global multiculturalism.
We are now running on empty. We are moving backwards when all around us, every neighbouring developing nation has been pushing ahead post-haste to advance and progress, by harnessing the vibrant energies and rich diversities of all its citizens.
It appears that this dastardly cabal of kleptocrats is willing to do everything in their power to stay in control, at whatever costs. They are willing to test the limits of a new-found "banana-republic-style" autocracy by dragging down and bankrupting the entire nation, not just in terms of exhausting all our diminishing financial reserves, but also to shatter our already tattered institutions of governance and civil society.
Please, let's break out of this spiralling cycle of self-defeatism and authoritarianism where the rule of law is no longer respected by the powers that be, where favoured arrogant ministers and callous demagogues are tacitly allowed to spew hatred and racism, while dissenting others face concerted if not starkly different attacks on their personal and civil liberties!
Now we have ministers who think that modern liberal concepts are all but evil and that their own brand of demagoguery based on arbitrary dictatorship and religious extremism is superior!
I fear for Malaysia! We appear to be entering an extremely dangerous phase of our nationhood. We're facing a real risk of potential break-up of our Malaysian polity as a nation of disparate multi-diversity and enriching cultures.
Instead, we're finding faults and excuses to tear apart the fragile fabric of our long-honed multi-ethnic and religious-tolerant cohesiveness. We're drowning in the centrifugal vortices of Charybdis of provoked inter-ethnic hatred and eruptive mutual distrust!
We must stop this madness from spiralling out of control! We must not allow our nation to boil over, into an internecine fire storm of mutually-assured destruction, of them and us. We must resist using the power of dictatorship to kickstart racial and religious apartheid and extremism.
We must not become an irrational failing or failed state! Civil society must step up and be counted to condemn these dastardly acts of rising kleptarchy, autocracy and political supremacist mayhem!
We must reignite our Merdeka flame of unity amid our dispersing diversity and challenges, and work hard toward greater inter-ethnic as well as mutual multicultural acceptance and tolerance. – September 3, 2014.
* Dr David Quek is a consultant cardiologist and president of Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/57-years-old-and-still-racially-straitjacketed-dr-david-quek#sthash.iWrCqfNT.dpuf

 

57 years old and still racially straitjacketed – Dr David Quek

The Malaysian Insider, Published: 3 September 2014

Our Malaysian polity at 57 years old is under serious threat. We are in deep troubles, and are seemingly still devolving and falling apart.

As we have all been discovering, of late, there has been a steady escalation of ethnic tensions, of human rights' violations and selective interpretation of the law (especially the Sedition Act) to systematically target opposition leaders as well as dissenting common citizens on very contentious and arbitrary, even petty, issues.

Nowhere in the world do we have so many misguided people using the idiotic recourse of making hundreds of "police reports" against one another, based on political and inane issues. Worse, our police selectively use these politically motivated and manoeuvred police reports to take selective actions against those they choose to believe as "threats" to society.

Worse too, that the police now feel they cannot ever be criticised by anyone, even when what they have been doing has been blatantly biased and plain wrong to most ordinary citizens. Are the police above the nation's laws? Are the police now the true powers running the country on diktats of their own, or the home minister? Are we in a police state or under an emergency or military rule?

These perceptibly unjust actions of selective and disproportionate application of the law and justice or police action is creating unease and anger among reasonable citizens. They render our rule of law arguable and reek of sadly regressive and repressive overtones!

This is not what our citizens want or wish for. We do not respect, accept nor can we condone such an increasingly cynical administration that is running on unrestrained police actions, runaway hate-mongering bigots, political power-play and shenanigans run amok.

We appear to have law enforcers and deeply-ingrained bigots who are more interested in playing political games, cursing, catching and handcuffing white collar law-breakers, including utterers of unkind words, and irreverent social media rantings, silly "jolok mata" nudists, exhibitionists who dared judder some of our "holier-than-thou" sense of prickly morality and sensibilities!
Let's see, who had been harmed really? No one but themselves, unless of course we choose to think that these could corrupt and undermine our religiously weak-minded brethren! So it seems we'd rather catch these socially-inept misfits than the real criminals, robbers, snatch thieves, or corrupt officials!

These "laws" are now used arbitrarily and selectively to punish, prosecute, and persecute anyone who threatens or dares to criticise this devolving government and power brokers now under siege from their own self-destruct mindsets.

Sadly under the anemic and torpid leadership of our direction-less political masters, some ministers and wannabe politicians and extremists have been pushing the envelope of right-wing, race-baiting agendas, and spreading of ethno-religious hatred with escapable impunity.

This is indeed sad and unbecoming of a modern nation that is aspiring toward a fully developed status by 2020. We appear to have hopelessly stumbled into a stagnating and retrogressive ethnocentric apartheidism, after this long-suffering government found itself losing its power base following the last GE13.

Instead of searching for the root causes of its political weaknesses and shortcomings through an in-depth post-mortem, this minority government has instead embarked on a series of witch hunts to demonise long-suffering minorities and resurrect the archaic but extremely dangerous spectre of racial hatred and ethnic supremacy, now so passé in today's society of global multiculturalism.

We are now running on empty. We are moving backwards when all around us, every neighbouring developing nation has been pushing ahead post-haste to advance and progress, by harnessing the vibrant energies and rich diversities of all its citizens.

It appears that this dastardly cabal of kleptocrats is willing to do everything in their power to stay in control, at whatever costs. They are willing to test the limits of a new-found "banana-republic-style" autocracy by dragging down and bankrupting the entire nation, not just in terms of exhausting all our diminishing financial reserves, but also to shatter our already tattered institutions of governance and civil society.

Please, let's break out of this spiralling cycle of self-defeatism and authoritarianism where the rule of law is no longer respected by the powers that be, where favoured arrogant ministers and callous demagogues are tacitly allowed to spew hatred and racism, while dissenting others face concerted if not starkly different attacks on their personal and civil liberties!

Now we have ministers who think that modern liberal concepts are all but evil and that their own brand of demagoguery based on arbitrary dictatorship and religious extremism is superior!

I fear for Malaysia! We appear to be entering an extremely dangerous phase of our nationhood. We're facing a real risk of potential break-up of our Malaysian polity as a nation of disparate multi-diversity and enriching cultures.

Instead, we're finding faults and excuses to tear apart the fragile fabric of our long-honed multi-ethnic and religious-tolerant cohesiveness. We're drowning in the centrifugal vortices of Charybdis of provoked inter-ethnic hatred and eruptive mutual distrust!

We must stop this madness from spiralling out of control! We must not allow our nation to boil over, into an internecine fire storm of mutually-assured destruction, of them and us. We must resist using the power of dictatorship to kickstart racial and religious apartheid and extremism.

We must not become an irrational failing or failed state! Civil society must step up and be counted to condemn these dastardly acts of rising kleptarchy, autocracy and political supremacist mayhem!

We must reignite our Merdeka flame of unity amid our dispersing diversity and challenges, and work hard toward greater inter-ethnic as well as mutual multicultural acceptance and tolerance. – September 3, 2014.

* Dr David Quek is a consultant cardiologist and president of Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/57-years-old-and-still-racially-straitjacketed-dr-david-quek#sthash.iWrCqfNT.dpuf

57 years old and still racially straitjacketed – Dr David Quek

Published: 3 September 2014

Our Malaysian polity at 57 years old is under serious threat. We are in deep troubles, and are seemingly still devolving and falling apart.
As we have all been discovering, of late, there has been a steady escalation of ethnic tensions, of human rights' violations and selective interpretation of the law (especially the Sedition Act) to systematically target opposition leaders as well as dissenting common citizens on very contentious and arbitrary, even petty, issues.
Nowhere in the world do we have so many misguided people using the idiotic recourse of making hundreds of "police reports" against one another, based on political and inane issues. Worse, our police selectively use these politically motivated and manoeuvred police reports to take selective actions against those they choose to believe as "threats" to society.

Worse too, that the police now feel they cannot ever be criticised by anyone, even when what they have been doing has been blatantly biased and plain wrong to most ordinary citizens. Are the police above the nation's laws? Are the police now the true powers running the country on diktats of their own, or the home minister? Are we in a police state or under an emergency or military rule? These perceptibly unjust actions of selective and disproportionate application of the law and justice or police action is creating unease and anger among reasonable citizens. They render our rule of law arguable and reek of sadly regressive and repressive overtones!
This is not what our citizens want or wish for. We do not respect, accept nor can we condone such an increasingly cynical administration that is running on unrestrained police actions, runaway hate-mongering bigots, political power-play and shenanigans run amok.
We appear to have law enforcers and deeply-ingrained bigots who are more interested in playing political games, cursing, catching and handcuffing white collar law-breakers, including utterers of unkind words, and irreverent social media rantings, silly "jolok mata" nudists, exhibitionists who dared judder some of our "holier-than-thou" sense of prickly morality and sensibilities!
Let's see, who had been harmed really? No one but themselves, unless of course we choose to think that these could corrupt and undermine our religiously weak-minded brethren! So it seems we'd rather catch these socially-inept misfits than the real criminals, robbers, snatch thieves, or corrupt officials!
These "laws" are now used arbitrarily and selectively to punish, prosecute, and persecute anyone who threatens or dares to criticise this devolving government and power brokers now under siege from their own self-destruct mindsets.
Sadly under the anemic and torpid leadership of our direction-less political masters, some ministers and wannabe politicians and extremists have been pushing the envelope of right-wing, race-baiting agendas, and spreading of ethno-religious hatred with escapable impunity.
This is indeed sad and unbecoming of a modern nation that is aspiring toward a fully developed status by 2020. We appear to have hopelessly stumbled into a stagnating and retrogressive ethnocentric apartheidism, after this long-suffering government found itself losing its power base following the last GE13.
Instead of searching for the root causes of its political weaknesses and shortcomings through an in-depth post-mortem, this minority government has instead embarked on a series of witch hunts to demonise long-suffering minorities and resurrect the archaic but extremely dangerous spectre of racial hatred and ethnic supremacy, now so passé in today's society of global multiculturalism.
We are now running on empty. We are moving backwards when all around us, every neighbouring developing nation has been pushing ahead post-haste to advance and progress, by harnessing the vibrant energies and rich diversities of all its citizens.
It appears that this dastardly cabal of kleptocrats is willing to do everything in their power to stay in control, at whatever costs. They are willing to test the limits of a new-found "banana-republic-style" autocracy by dragging down and bankrupting the entire nation, not just in terms of exhausting all our diminishing financial reserves, but also to shatter our already tattered institutions of governance and civil society.
Please, let's break out of this spiralling cycle of self-defeatism and authoritarianism where the rule of law is no longer respected by the powers that be, where favoured arrogant ministers and callous demagogues are tacitly allowed to spew hatred and racism, while dissenting others face concerted if not starkly different attacks on their personal and civil liberties!
Now we have ministers who think that modern liberal concepts are all but evil and that their own brand of demagoguery based on arbitrary dictatorship and religious extremism is superior!
I fear for Malaysia! We appear to be entering an extremely dangerous phase of our nationhood. We're facing a real risk of potential break-up of our Malaysian polity as a nation of disparate multi-diversity and enriching cultures.
Instead, we're finding faults and excuses to tear apart the fragile fabric of our long-honed multi-ethnic and religious-tolerant cohesiveness. We're drowning in the centrifugal vortices of Charybdis of provoked inter-ethnic hatred and eruptive mutual distrust!
We must stop this madness from spiralling out of control! We must not allow our nation to boil over, into an internecine fire storm of mutually-assured destruction, of them and us. We must resist using the power of dictatorship to kickstart racial and religious apartheid and extremism.
We must not become an irrational failing or failed state! Civil society must step up and be counted to condemn these dastardly acts of rising kleptarchy, autocracy and political supremacist mayhem!
We must reignite our Merdeka flame of unity amid our dispersing diversity and challenges, and work hard toward greater inter-ethnic as well as mutual multicultural acceptance and tolerance. – September 3, 2014.
* Dr David Quek is a consultant cardiologist and president of Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/57-years-old-and-still-racially-straitjacketed-dr-david-quek#sthash.iWrCqfNT.dpuf

Bar Council: Malaysia Must Not Become an Authoritarian State

Our Malaysian polity at 57 years old is under threat! We're in deep sh*t! And we're seemingly devolving!

As we have all been discovering, of late, there has been a steady escalation of human rights' violations and selective interpretation of the law (esp the new Sedition ACT) to apparently target oppositionists as well as common citizens on very contentious and arbitrary even petty issues.

No where in the world do we have so many misguided people using the idiotic recourse of making hundreds of 'police reports' against one another, based on political and inane issues! Worse, police selectively use these politically motivated and manoeuvred police reports to take selective actions against only those they choose to believe as 'threats' to civil society! Worse too that the police now feels that it cannot ever  be criticised by anyone! Is the police running the country on diktats? Are we in a police state or under an emergency or military rule?

These perceptibly 'unjust' actions of selective and disproportionate justice or police action is creating unease and anger amongst reasonable citizens. They also render our rule of law arguable and sadly regressive and repressive! This is not what our citizens want or wish for, we do not respect and cannot condone such an increasingly cynical administration that is running on uncontrolled police actions, runaway hate-mongering bigots, political power-play and shenanigans run amok...

Sadly under the anemic and torpid leadership of our silent/absent PM, fascist ministers and wannabe politicians and extremists have been pushing the envelope of right-wing, race-baiting agendas, and spreading of ethno-religious hatred with impunity.

This is indeed sad and unbecoming of a modern nation that is aspiring toward fully developed status by 2020. We appear to have stumbled into a stagnating and retrogressive ethnocentric apartheidism, after this long-suffering government found itself losing its power base following GE13.

Instead of searching for the root causes of its political weakness, by carrying out in-depth post-mortem introspection, this lost minority government has instead embarked on a witch-hunt to demonise long-suffering minorities and resurrect the archaic but extremely dangerous spectre of racial hatred and ethnic supremacism, now so passé in today's modern society.

We are now running on empty, backwards when all around us, every neighbouring developing nation has been pushing ahead post-haste to advance and progress, by harnessing the vibrant energies and rich diversities of all its citizens!

Please, let's break out of this spiralling cycle of self-defeatism and authoritarianism where the rule of law is no longer respected by the powers that be, where favoured arrogant minsters and callous demagogues are tacitly allowed to spew their hatred and extremist racism, while others face concerted if starkly different attacks!

These 'laws' are now used arbitrarily and selectively to punish, prosecute, and persecute anyone who threatens or or dares to criticise this devolving government and power brokers now under siege from its own self-destruct mindsets. It appears that this dastardly cabal of kleptocrats are willing to test the limits of a new-found "banana-republic-style" autocracy by dragging down and bankrupting the entire nation, not just in terms of exhausting all our diminishing financial reserves, but also our tattered institutions of governance and civil society.

I fear Malaysia is entering a dangerous phase of our nationhood, we're facing a distinct if real risk of a potential break-up of immense consequences!

We must stop this madness from spiralling out of control! We must not allow our nation boil over, into a dictatorship of irrational failing state! Civil society must step up and be counted to condemn these dastardly acts of rising autocracy and political supremacist mayhem!

PRESS RELEASE

Malaysia Must Not Become an Authoritarian State

The Malaysian Bar is heavily critical of the recent spate of arrests under the Societies Act 1966 and prosecutions under the Sedition Act 1948 and Penal Code.  The raft of arrests and prosecutions of individuals lately shows that we are undergoing an intense period of oppression against citizenry and regression in the rule of law marked by the aggressive curtailment of rights and fundamental liberties under our Federal Constitution.

These individuals are being charged for allegedly criticising or insulting political parties and critiquing or making comments, albeit adverse ones, with respect to court judgments.  These are clearly not offences that are envisaged by, and that are within the ambit of, either the Sedition Act 1948 or the Penal Code.

In order for legal decisions to stand the test of time, they must survive the test of public scrutiny.  Only then can they be seen as sound judgments that will serve to govern our conduct and direct our actions.  In no way should criticism of court decisions, or how they came to be made, be viewed as seditious by virtue of being an affront to the administration of justice.  

The Malaysian Bar is particularly appalled with the charges that have been brought today against Associate Professor Azmi Sharom of Universiti Malaya.  His comments about the Perak constitutional crisis of 2009 are wholly within the purview of academic freedom and public discourse.   This cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, constitute sedition. 

Likewise, we reiterate that questioning the exercise of discretion should not be seen as being disrespectful to those to whom that discretion has been given, but a legitimate examination of the proper exercise of that discretion as permitted by law.

Secondly, our Federal Constitution gives to the state government jurisdiction over the administration of local government, which conceivably includes the creation of volunteer groups to assist with local administration.  The members of the Pasukan Petugas Sukarela (“PPS”) are volunteers recruited from the community by the state government.  Any question over the legality of such groups should be settled by way of federal-state government discussion, and not by the arrest and detention, and the threat of arrest and detention, of members of such volunteer groups. 

 

Even if there is a dispute as to the legitimacy of the PPS, whether under the Societies Act 1966 or otherwise, there appeared to be no imminent threat to national security, public safety or order that necessitated the police and Federal Reserve Unit to descend upon them in the manner that they did.  The arrest of members of the PPS immediately after their participation, at the invitation of the Penang State Government, in the Merdeka Day parade in Penang was therefore an unnecessary, unreasonable and disproportionate use of police powers and discretion.  

Power and discretion are conferred by legislation on the premise or presumption that they are to be exercised properly based on intelligence and common sense.  It appears that neither of these criteria was present.  It gives rise to the impression that the police are arbitrarily exercising their powers merely because they believe they can do so with impunity.  This is an abuse of power and process.

In that light, the threat by the Inspector General of Police to investigate and possibly to charge people who criticise or allegedly disrespect him on Twitter is seen as an intimidation of members of the public, and is another example of a wholly inappropriate response.  

The Prime Minister once famously declared that the days of “government knows best” are over.  Yet the actions by the authorities in recent days to detain, arrest and/or prosecute individuals who have been perceived to have challenged or questioned the authorities, deny the very humility that that declaration presupposes.

The Malaysian Bar calls upon the authorities to cease acting in a repressive and oppressive manner.  These recent events have made a mockery of the 57 years of independence that we have just celebrated.  Malaysia must not become an authoritarian state. 

Christopher Leong

President

Malaysian Bar

2 September 2014

http://www.malaysianbar.org.my/press_statements/press_release_%7C_malaysia_must_not_become_an_authoritarian_state.html

Raising a family of true Malaysians – by Prof Dr. Mohamad Tajuddin Mohamad Rasdi

Raising a family of true Malaysians

– Prof Dr. Mohamad Tajuddin Mohamad Rasdi
The Malaysian Insider
27 August 2014

In many senses, it seems funny that Malaysians, particularly the Malays, find great difficulty in the idea of a united, harmonious and happy Malaysia. I am a Malay. All my Malay friends at UTM and other universities and all my relatives and that of my wife are… racist. If I were to invite all of them to a marriage ceremony, the number would easily reach 3,000. Based on a simple sampling of 5% of this population that I engage in socialising, I have established that they know nothing about the idea of “Malaysia”. All they know is the condition of “we just have to tolerate those immigrants and make sure they don’t make us like Singapore” mind set. 

I have always thought that some of my friends and relatives whom I respect as very pious Muslims would be different, but they too turn out to be racist when political issues are discussed. It came as a shock to me. I thought that Islam would be one of the answers to eliminate racism, but apparently, the “Malay-view” interpretation of Islam always take precedence. Islam is NOT the problem but its racist interpretation is. I know this for a fact because of my vast reading of Islam, thousands of hadiths and many versions of Qur’anic Tafsir.

In this Merdeka celebration, the “idea” of Malaysia seems only in a dream or in a Petronas or a DiGi commercial. The idea of Malaysia does not exist in our schools, in our public universities, at our housing and our cities. But I still remain optimistic. Why? Because my family is NOT racist. My wife who is a retired teacher is not racist. My 28-year-old lecturer daughter educated at IIUM is not racist. My 26-year-old journalist daughter educated at TAR College and Taylors University is not racist. My 23-year-old son in his third year at UCSI University is not racist. My 20-year-old SEGi University daughter is not racist. And my 18-year-old Inti University son is also not racist. How did I manage to form my own small country of “Malaysia”? There are a few simple strategies that I had developed. I will save the most important one for last.

One of the simple strategies I used was the choice of schools for my children. All of my children had gone through SOME years at a public school. When we could afford it, I sent my eldest daughter and second child for two years to an all-Malay private religious school so that they could immerse themselves in some Islamic culture. However, I was most careful to take them out after two years and put them back in the public school because I did not want them to grow up without having any Chinese or Indian friends. 

All my daughters’ friends who had gone through 11 years of “Islamic” education are racists. When my daughters were put in a “special Arabic” class in a public school which was a poor excuse to put all the best Malay students in one or two classes and given the best attention, I wrote to the school, much to the dismay of my wife, to take them out and put them back into a multi-racial class. I did not want my children to grow up knowing Islam as being synonymous with racism and bigotry.

For my three other children, I was able to send all of them for two or three years at private international schools, but following the national curriculum. If I had more money, I would have insisted on an international curriculum. But sending them to private schools was already a strain on our two salaries. We were both extremely happy to see the three of them playing, gossiping, going to McDonald’s and movies with Chinese and Indian friends without any shred of racist thoughts. 

My two sons are not as intellectually-developed as my three daughters and the private schools did not have the best teaching staff. I even had to take my sons out for 2 months to coach them personally before their SPM. But we were both happy that our children were free from the racist and bullying issues of public school life. My children would sometimes spend the night at their non-Muslim friends’ and we always welcome their friends at ours. I made sure that our children grew up in a well-balanced society and not stuck in a Malay or Malay-Muslim centred social prison.

When the time came for my eldest to choose a college or university, I had already decided as a grand strategy for creating a new Malaysian citizenry that none of them would ever step foot in a public university like UTM, UKM, UM UPM, USM and worst of all… UiTM. Let me explain why. Firstly, I would like to go on record as saying that our public universities have the best trained academic staff to turn our children into architects, engineers and doctors, regardless of race. That Chinese students dominate the honour lists is testament to the non-racist policies of public universities in terms of academic teaching and instruction. 

But the racist attitudes of the Malay lecturers, professors and administrators are a different story altogether. I have 28 years of seminars, administrative meetings and socialising with academics and administrators as well as private conversations with graduating non-Malay students to testify to this fact. The university culture of students choosing group work members of the same ethnic background still persists and this was one of the things that I had wished to avoid.

However, at the public universities, I was not as concerned about racism as I was about the freedom of my children to be exposed to political consciousness. What I mean by political consciousness is not about joining DAP or PAS or Umno, but a keen awareness of the social and political issues of the day and the freedom to contribute towards solving these issues through organising clubs, societies, meets and even dialogues with political leaders of all parties. At the time my daughter was 18, I had already had 20 years of experience in the university and I knew for a fact that my children would never have the opportunities to grow politically like I had at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA. 

In my assessment, our public university students from undergraduates to PhD graduates are politically “dumb”. Not because they are stupid or slow thinking, but because of the academic culture that thrives on praising the “political masters”. I, in my classrooms always remind the students that Umno and BN are NOT the “political masters” of this country and that PAS or DAP are NOT “political masters” in their respective states. They are all our “political representatives”. The real political masters are you graduates in the classrooms that are over 21 years of age. I always tell the students to “take back” their country from those who seek to milk its wealth selfishly. In private conversations, it seems mine is the only class that seeks to inspire the students to be true democratic Malaysians at our faculty in UTM. You do not ever get that kind of talk from the vice chancellor, dean or head of department.

It was then to my wife’s dismay and surprise that I suggested my eldest daughter go to TAR College. My plan was to send my children to private universities and colleges away from public universities. But my eldest wanted to go to the International Islamic University. Why? Well… her boyfriend was there. If it were before 1997, I would have said okay, but the Anwar-saga left me dangling in the shredded faith of a true Malaysia by a political party that I had voted for twice before that and from a prime minister that I had once had the privilege of meeting with other student leaders in his hotel room in Chicago. But I reasoned that IIUM still had a strong Islamic spirit from its international staff that would be void of a racist flavour. And so I said yes, and so she went through an education that still had a pure spirit of non-racist Islam for 5 years. However, her political consciousness suffered because IIUM was becoming a political prison. Fortunately, I was able to light this fire of consciousness through my many discussions with her about the social and political events after 1997.

My second child had no problems accepting my idea of TAR College. Although she had enough subject distinctions to attend public universities, she did not like the Malay dress code imposed there and I supported her simply because of my political strategy. Between the two of us, we outvoted my wife. After her diploma, she spent a year at SEGi University but changed to Taylors University with a MARA partial loan. In all this time, I monitored closely all her assignments and smiled inwardly as they took on a more critical discourse of local social and political events that would have been a taboo subject matter at any local university. 

I noted also that Taylors University had invited Nurul Izzah Anwar for a talk a month after inviting Mahathir for a special speech. In a public university, the likes of Lim Kit Siang, Anwar Ibrahim and Mohamad Sabu would never grace the podium of a lecture hall but at Taylors perhaps they still could. If I were a rich man, I would spend every cent on educating my children overseas so that they could bloom into a whole human being conscious of social, spiritual and political issues and with the inspiration to change the world. You can’t do that at local universities, and I suspect eventually at the private universities also.

It was thus that my wife finally accepted my grand strategy of developing our children at the private universities. As a Muslim mother, my wife was very concerned that our children would grow up “wrong” Islamically because her definition of Islam was restricted to tudungs or head covers and prayers. However, after listening to religious scholars and leaders spouting racist statements and tudung-ed individuals with vileness in their hearts against other religions and races, she began to accept that though our children were not too ritualistically Islamic with the tudung and prayers, they were good-hearted individuals without a shred of racism in their hearts. 

This proved beyond a doubt that the religious curriculum of our country, not through the fault of Islam per se, is the most important contributor to the sustaining of racism in this country. Thus, if our children had had a “proper” religious education, they would eventually turn up racist also. I had the fortune of being transferred to a national-type Chinese school in Taiping where I chose to stop learning Islam from Form 2 onwards even though the Chinese head teacher wanted to hire a single ustaz to teach me alone. I was, therefore never indoctrinated, and being in USA for graduate and post-graduate schools, I was further away from a Malay-centric Islamic university education.

Amidst all these strategies of choosing schools and universities, I would constantly engage my children in private conversations on the simple values of human survival and what they mean for being a Malaysian. Firstly, the Prophet Muhmmad taught a non-racist Islam and that all other religions like Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism are God’s guidance to mankind to rise above petty ethno-centric concerns to rise higher than the angels in human kindness that is a key to a peaceful existence. 

When you stand in front of God on judgement day, you stand alone with your deeds and values, not your race or social status. Secondly, motivation gurus and western spiritualists teach us that our differences in race and religions are our strengths and not a cause for conflict. No man can live alone and so likewise no race or society can exist. A simple example would be a husband and wife. Two completely different individuals with completely two different physiological and psychological make-up have to live together to raise five to ten other individuals with different ideas and emotions. 

If we can accept our spouse and children’s different views and concerns, why can’t we accept other races and religious concerns? Thirdly, although man can determine many things in life, there are four things that he cannot: his time of death, a natural disaster and his fate in heaven or hell. Do not judge poorly or look down on others, for it may be the grace of God that they may be favoured more. Finally, in a democracy, you control the destiny of your children and never let any politician tell you otherwise.

 

In closing, I have written this anecdotal piece to politely tell Malaysians that we have serious problems in our school values and in the way our universities produce the next generation of professional Malaysians. If things do not change politically, I told my children that I will leave them with one house each, one car each and a RM20,000 start-up capital so that they can start saving to be able to educate their children in private schools with international curriculum and finally send all of them off overseas. 

This is the only way that they will be free from a Malay-centric Islam and a university system that thrives on producing a professional slave labour force dancing to every racist beat choreographed by irresponsible political leaders that have defiled our Parliament.

Only then can our sons and daughters return to rebuild and reignite the dreams of Datuk Seri Onn bin Jaafar and our politician forefathers of a united, harmonious and intelligent society deep in spiritual consciousness. Happy Merdeka! – August 27, 2014.

Understanding Wahhabism & ISIS -- dystopic history of Saudi's control over 'Islam'.... by Alastair Crooke

You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia

Alastair Crooke  Fmr. MI-6 agent; Author, 'Resistance: The Essence of Islamic Revolution'

Huffpost: Posted: 08/27/2014 11:56 am EDT Updated: 08/28/2014 3:59 pm EDT

BEIRUT -- The dramatic arrival of Da'ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed -- and horrified -- by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia's ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, "Don't the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?"

It appears -- even now -- that Saudi Arabia's ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite "fire" with Sunni "fire"; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da'ish's strict Salafist ideology.

Other Saudis are more fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabist Ikhwan (Disclaimer: this Ikhwan has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan -- please note, all further references hereafter are to the Wahhabist Ikhwan, and not to the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan), but which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s.

Many Saudis are deeply disturbed by the radical doctrines of Da'ish (ISIS) -- and are beginning to question some aspects of Saudi Arabia's direction and discourse.

THE SAUDI DUALITY
Saudi Arabia's internal discord and tensions over ISIS can only be understood by grasping the inherent (and persisting) duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom's doctrinal makeup and its historical origins.

One dominant strand to the Saudi identity pertains directly to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism), and the use to which his radical, exclusionist puritanism was put by Ibn Saud. (The latter was then no more than a minor leader -- amongst many -- of continually sparring and raiding Bedouin tribes in the baking and desperately poor deserts of the Nejd.)

The second strand to this perplexing duality, relates precisely to King Abd-al Aziz's subsequent shift towards statehood in the 1920s: his curbing of Ikhwani violence (in order to have diplomatic standing as a nation-state with Britain and America); his institutionalization of the original Wahhabist impulse -- and the subsequent seizing of the opportunely surging petrodollar spigot in the 1970s, to channel the volatile Ikhwani current away from home towards export -- by diffusing a cultural revolution, rather than violent revolution throughout the Muslim world.

But this "cultural revolution" was no docile reformism. It was a revolution based on Abd al-Wahhab's Jacobin-like hatred for the putrescence and deviationism that he perceived all about him -- hence his call to purge Islam of all its heresies and idolatries.

MUSLIM IMPOSTORS
The American author and journalist, Steven Coll, has written how this austere and censorious disciple of the 14th century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, Abd al-Wahhab, despised "the decorous, arty, tobacco smoking, hashish imbibing, drum pounding Egyptian and Ottoman nobility who travelled across Arabia to pray at Mecca."

In Abd al-Wahhab's view, these were not Muslims; they were imposters masquerading as Muslims. Nor, indeed, did he find the behavior of local Bedouin Arabs much better. They aggravated Abd al-Wahhab by their honoring of saints, by their erecting of tombstones, and their "superstition" (e.g. revering graves or places that were deemed particularly imbued with the divine).

All this behavior, Abd al-Wahhab denounced as bida -- forbidden by God.

Like Taymiyyah before him, Abd al-Wahhab believed that the period of the Prophet Muhammad's stay in Medina was the ideal of Muslim society (the "best of times"), to which all Muslims should aspire to emulate (this, essentially, is Salafism).

Taymiyyah had declared war on Shi'ism, Sufism and Greek philosophy. He spoke out, too against visiting the grave of the prophet and the celebration of his birthday, declaring that all such behavior represented mere imitation of the Christian worship of Jesus as God (i.e. idolatry). Abd al-Wahhab assimilated all this earlier teaching, stating that "any doubt or hesitation" on the part of a believer in respect to his or her acknowledging this particular interpretation of Islam should "deprive a man of immunity of his property and his life."

One of the main tenets of Abd al-Wahhab's doctrine has become the key idea of takfir. Under the takfiri doctrine, Abd al-Wahhab and his followers could deem fellow Muslims infidels should they engage in activities that in any way could be said to encroach on the sovereignty of the absolute Authority (that is, the King). Abd al-Wahhab denounced all Muslims who honored the dead, saints, or angels. He held that such sentiments detracted from the complete subservience one must feel towards God, and only God. Wahhabi Islam thus bans any prayer to saints and dead loved ones, pilgrimages to tombs and special mosques, religious festivals celebrating saints, the honoring of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's birthday, and even prohibits the use of gravestones when burying the dead.

"Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated, he wrote. "

Abd al-Wahhab demanded conformity -- a conformity that was to be demonstrated in physical and tangible ways. He argued that all Muslims must individually pledge their allegiance to a single Muslim leader (a Caliph, if there were one). Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated, he wrote. The list of apostates meriting death included the Shiite, Sufis and other Muslim denominations, whom Abd al-Wahhab did not consider to be Muslim at all.

There is nothing here that separates Wahhabism from ISIS. The rift would emerge only later: from the subsequent institutionalization of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab's doctrine of "One Ruler, One Authority, One Mosque" -- these three pillars being taken respectively to refer to the Saudi king, the absolute authority of official Wahhabism, and its control of "the word" (i.e. the mosque).

It is this rift -- the ISIS denial of these three pillars on which the whole of Sunni authority presently rests -- makes ISIS, which in all other respects conforms to Wahhabism, a deep threat to Saudi Arabia.

BRIEF HISTORY 1741- 1818

Abd al-Wahhab's advocacy of these ultra radical views inevitably led to his expulsion from his own town -- and in 1741, after some wanderings, he found refuge under the protection of Ibn Saud and his tribe. What Ibn Saud perceived in Abd al-Wahhab's novel teaching was the means to overturn Arab tradition and convention. It was a path to seizing power.

"Their strategy -- like that of ISIS today -- was to bring the peoples whom they conquered into submission. They aimed to instill fear."

Ibn Saud's clan, seizing on Abd al-Wahhab's doctrine, now could do what they always did, which was raiding neighboring villages and robbing them of their possessions. Only now they were doing it not within the ambit of Arab tradition, but rather under the banner of jihad. Ibn Saud and Abd al-Wahhab also reintroduced the idea of martyrdom in the name of jihad, as it granted those martyred immediate entry into paradise.

In the beginning, they conquered a few local communities and imposed their rule over them. (The conquered inhabitants were given a limited choice: conversion to Wahhabism or death.) By 1790, the Alliance controlled most of the Arabian Peninsula and repeatedly raided Medina, Syria and Iraq.

Their strategy -- like that of ISIS today -- was to bring the peoples whom they conquered into submission. They aimed to instill fear. In 1801, the Allies attacked the Holy City of Karbala in Iraq. They massacred thousands of Shiites, including women and children. Many Shiite shrines were destroyed, including the shrine of Imam Hussein, the murdered grandson of Prophet Muhammad.

A British official, Lieutenant Francis Warden, observing the situation at the time, wrote: "They pillaged the whole of it [Karbala], and plundered the Tomb of Hussein... slaying in the course of the day, with circumstances of peculiar cruelty, above five thousand of the inhabitants ..."

Osman Ibn Bishr Najdi, the historian of the first Saudi state, wrote that Ibn Saud committed a massacre in Karbala in 1801. He proudly documented that massacre saying, "we took Karbala and slaughtered and took its people (as slaves), then praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and we do not apologize for that and say: 'And to the unbelievers: the same treatment.'"

In 1803, Abdul Aziz then entered the Holy City of Mecca, which surrendered under the impact of terror and panic (the same fate was to befall Medina, too). Abd al-Wahhab's followers demolished historical monuments and all the tombs and shrines in their midst. By the end, they had destroyed centuries of Islamic architecture near the Grand Mosque.

But in November of 1803, a Shiite assassin killed King Abdul Aziz (taking revenge for the massacre at Karbala). His son, Saud bin Abd al Aziz, succeeded him and continued the conquest of Arabia. Ottoman rulers, however, could no longer just sit back and watch as their empire was devoured piece by piece. In 1812, the Ottoman army, composed of Egyptians, pushed the Alliance out from Medina, Jeddah and Mecca. In 1814, Saud bin Abd al Aziz died of fever. His unfortunate son Abdullah bin Saud, however, was taken by the Ottomans to Istanbul, where he was gruesomely executed (a visitor to Istanbul reported seeing him having been humiliated in the streets of Istanbul for three days, then hanged and beheaded, his severed head fired from a canon, and his heart cut out and impaled on his body).

In 1815, Wahhabi forces were crushed by the Egyptians (acting on the Ottoman's behalf) in a decisive battle. In 1818, the Ottomans captured and destroyed the Wahhabi capital of Dariyah. The first Saudi state was no more. The few remaining Wahhabis withdrew into the desert to regroup, and there they remained, quiescent for most of the 19th century.

HISTORY RETURNS WITH ISIS

It is not hard to understand how the founding of the Islamic State by ISIS in contemporary Iraq might resonate amongst those who recall this history. Indeed, the ethos of 18th century Wahhabism did not just wither in Nejd, but it roared back into life when the Ottoman Empire collapsed amongst the chaos of World War I.

The Al Saud -- in this 20th century renaissance -- were led by the laconic and politically astute Abd-al Aziz, who, on uniting the fractious Bedouin tribes, launched the Saudi "Ikhwan" in the spirit of Abd-al Wahhab's and Ibn Saud's earlier fighting proselytisers.

The Ikhwan was a reincarnation of the early, fierce, semi-independent vanguard movement of committed armed Wahhabist "moralists" who almost had succeeded in seizing Arabia by the early 1800s. In the same manner as earlier, the Ikhwan again succeeded in capturing Mecca, Medina and Jeddah between 1914 and 1926. Abd-al Aziz, however, began to feel his wider interests to be threatened by the revolutionary "Jacobinism" exhibited by the Ikhwan. The Ikhwan revolted -- leading to a civil war that lasted until the 1930s, when the King had them put down: he machine-gunned them.

For this king, (Abd-al Aziz), the simple verities of previous decades were eroding. Oil was being discovered in the peninsular. Britain and America were courting Abd-al Aziz, but still were inclined to support Sharif Husain as the only legitimate ruler of Arabia. The Saudis needed to develop a more sophisticated diplomatic posture.

So Wahhabism was forcefully changed from a movement of revolutionary jihad and theological takfiri purification, to a movement of conservative social, political, theological, and religious da'wa (Islamic call) and to justifying the institution that upholds loyalty to the royal Saudi family and the King's absolute power.

OIL WEALTH SPREAD WAHHABISM

With the advent of the oil bonanza -- as the French scholar, Giles Kepel writes, Saudi goals were to "reach out and spread Wahhabism across the Muslim world ... to "Wahhabise" Islam, thereby reducing the "multitude of voices within the religion" to a "single creed" -- a movement which would transcend national divisions. Billions of dollars were -- and continue to be -- invested in this manifestation of soft power.

It was this heady mix of billion dollar soft power projection -- and the Saudi willingness to manage Sunni Islam both to further America's interests, as it concomitantly embedded Wahhabism educationally, socially and culturally throughout the lands of Islam -- that brought into being a western policy dependency on Saudi Arabia, a dependency that has endured since Abd-al Aziz's meeting with Roosevelt on a U.S. warship (returning the president from the Yalta Conference) until today.

Westerners looked at the Kingdom and their gaze was taken by the wealth; by the apparent modernization; by the professed leadership of the Islamic world. They chose to presume that the Kingdom was bending to the imperatives of modern life -- and that the management of Sunni Islam would bend the Kingdom, too, to modern life.

"On the one hand, ISIS is deeply Wahhabist. On the other hand, it is ultra radical in a different way. It could be seen essentially as a corrective movement to contemporary Wahhabism."

But the Saudi Ikhwan approach to Islam did not die in the 1930s. It retreated, but it maintained its hold over parts of the system -- hence the duality that we observe today in the Saudi attitude towards ISIS.

On the one hand, ISIS is deeply Wahhabist. On the other hand, it is ultra radical in a different way. It could be seen essentially as a corrective movement to contemporary Wahhabism.

ISIS is a "post-Medina" movement: it looks to the actions of the first two Caliphs, rather than the Prophet Muhammad himself, as a source of emulation, and it forcefully denies the Saudis' claim of authority to rule.

As the Saudi monarchy blossomed in the oil age into an ever more inflated institution, the appeal of the Ikhwan message gained ground (despite King Faisal's modernization campaign). The "Ikhwan approach" enjoyed -- and still enjoys -- the support of many prominent men and women and sheikhs. In a sense, Osama bin Laden was precisely the representative of a late flowering of this Ikhwani approach.

Today, ISIS' undermining of the legitimacy of the King's legitimacy is not seen to be problematic, but rather a return to the true origins of the Saudi-Wahhab project.

In the collaborative management of the region by the Saudis and the West in pursuit of the many western projects (countering socialism, Ba'athism, Nasserism, Soviet and Iranian influence), western politicians have highlighted their chosen reading of Saudi Arabia (wealth, modernization and influence), but they chose to ignore the Wahhabist impulse.

After all, the more radical Islamist movements were perceived by Western intelligence services as being more effective in toppling the USSR in Afghanistan -- and in combatting out-of-favor Middle Eastern leaders and states.

Why should we be surprised then, that from Prince Bandar's Saudi-Western mandate to manage the insurgency in Syria against President Assad should have emerged a neo-Ikhwan type of violent, fear-inducing vanguard movement: ISIS? And why should we be surprised -- knowing a little about Wahhabism -- that "moderate" insurgents in Syria would become rarer than a mythical unicorn? Why should we have imagined that radical Wahhabism would create moderates? Or why could we imagine that a doctrine of "One leader, One authority, One mosque: submit to it, or be killed" could ever ultimately lead to moderation or tolerance?

Or, perhaps, we never imagined.