No fresh start to 2012

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MUSINGS By MARINA MAHATHIR

The last year was one where there were particularly high levels of obliviousness. Why not, in 2012, for the sake of doing something different, have a campaign called “End Stupid Statements”.

IT’S 2012 and if the Mayans are to be believed, the world ends this year. For me, the world didn’t start well because we got up on New Year’s Day to dry pipes. No water in the toilets is not what you call a fresh start to the year.

Could someone make a resolution to replace the old pipes in Bangsar, please?

Otherwise, we Bangsarites will go on a shower strike and stink the place out until our demands are met.
And, yes, our smelly mob will assemble in the streets to protest.

For some other Malaysians, especially some students, the New Year certainly did not start well at all. It makes one sigh again with frustration.

Let us see this clearly; the only people capable of using force on others are the ones with the batons and guns.

Generally, those aren’t civilians, and especially not students.

If this is the way the year is going to start, then we have learnt nothing from 2011, nor will we do anything new in 2012.

We will continue to exhibit our fears by clamping down on those who think differently, or who are simply different.

We display our paranoia by immediately looking for who is behind those who think differently.

We cannot imagine that people can think for themselves, without someone telling them how and what to think and do.

It’s the ultimate indictment of our education system, that every single thing anyone does, especially if contrary to what the establishment wants, must be attributed to a sheeplike disposition to be led.

Well, surely, if those who are contrarian are doing it because they are sheep, then those who are conformists are also sheep.



After all, everyone went through the same school system, no?

The last year, for me, was one where there were particularly high levels of obliviousness among those who rule us.

Oblivious to what people really think and want being chief among them.

Whether it’s deliberate or not, I can’t tell, but somehow there’s mild comfort in believing that it’s just natural gormlessness, and not willful blindness.

I am hoping that this year will be a year of greater imagination.

It would be nice if our leaders suddenly had the imagination to trust their people to be able to think on their own.

And to trust that people thinking on their own is not necessarily a bad thing, nor necessarily a move that will backfire.

I’d also like our leaders to start believing that their people are generally good people, who get on with one another and simply want to live their lives as best as they can.

And they can do all that without any interference from those who think they are leading us.

I don’t need anyone to tell me how to get on with my neighbours; I already do.

I do need someone to tell off those people who keep telling me to constantly be suspicious of my neighbours, including when they are nice to me.

Apparently this is only because they want to dislodge me from my faith.

In that case, my being nice to them must be equally effective at dislodging them from their beliefs.

Why not then have “Be Nice to Your Neighbours” campaigns?

Indeed, why not in 2012, for the sake of doing something different, have a campaign called “End Stupid Statements”.

Every statement uttered by a public figure that simply does not stand up to scrutiny gets printed on a big banner and then symbolically thrown into a giant dustbin at Dataran Merdeka.

My first candidate: Jews and Christians Are Taking Over the Country! (My test for the credibility of that statement is to ask: what for?).

I’m sure it’ll be a full dustbin. But what am I saying?

We have an election to look forward to, which means there’ll be an endless supply of dumb utterances from all sides of the fence.

We should arm ourselves with deflectors to shield us from the inanities that are bound to rain upon our poor heads.

Or helmets at the very least, because it’s bound to injure our craniums. But let me remain optimistic.

The first person that says all Malaysians are equal under our Constitution gets my vote.

Or who says, men and women are equal, or who outlaws child marriage.

And I’ll even give some grudging respect to the first person who says: “I lied, I’m sorry, I’ll step down now.”

But I suppose that would be like expecting to see porcine flying objects. Life trundles on, folks.

Try and have a good year!

Malay psyches: race & social class in politics

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 Malay social class comes into play

CERITALAH By KARIM RASLAN

While race remains an issue in the Malaysian political discourse, the matter of social class is now becoming a key determining factor.

FOR the last 50 years, Malaysian politics has been defined by race. From the Malayan Union controversy of 1946 to the riots of 1969, Malay fears over non-Malay economic might have been at the heart of the Alliance’s (and later Barisan Nasional’s) electoral calculations.

But times have changed and while race continues to simmer, a new long-forgotten issue – social class – is fast becoming a key determining factor.

Moreover, the public is increasingly sceptical of those who promote Malay rights. They view such figures in much the same way as small-town Midwesterners look on the antics of K-Street lobbyists in Washington; and just as with Americans, there is mounting outrage with every successive incidence of establishment corruption and abuse of power.

In this respect, Malaysia is merely following global trends as demonstrators across the world – from New York and Madrid to Cairo and Damascus – take to the streets to express their frustration and alienation with prevailing economic policies.

Still, it’s critical that we understand how and why this has happened because the forces at work are not one-off or temporary.

Instead, they are irreversible and overwhelming.

Technology is the key catalyst. By observing how the media has been buffeted by these changes, we can begin to learn in turn how “race” has slipped from the forefront of Malaysian political discourse.

So, let’s return to the years immediately after the 1969 riots. At that stage, news distribution was a highly-centralised business. The industry was top-down, capital-intensive and easily subject to political controls.

Printing presses, TV and radio stations were located in specific places and the channels linking them to audiences were similarly defined and determined.



This, along with a vast expansion of the government apparatus (from operational ministries to agencies and state-owned enterprises) allowed ideologues to set in motion a series of policies intended to unify and homogenise the Malay community.

In the process, a once-diverse and disparate Malay/Muslim world — don’t forget the Malays were a predominantly maritime and littoral people – was forcibly melded into one, with the aristocratic “bangsawan” ethos of Umno at its core.

Muslims of Indian, Javanese, Acehnese and Hadramauti origin were encouraged to do away with their specific cultural practices as Malay-ness, as defined by Kuala Lumpur-based ideologues, became paramount.

Geographical differences were likewise ironed out in order to present a united voice as Kedahans, Johoreans and Terengganu-ites became Malay first. In this push, however, the biggest losers were Malays from the two most developed states – Perak and Selangor – where a sense of local identity was totally eradicated.

The media was complicit in this agenda, strengthening the centre as a sense of local sentiment was denigrated as backward.

Of course, in East Malaysia, the process was all the more intense as pressure was brought to bear on Bajau, Orang Sungai and Melanau communities to become explicitly Malay – thus denying their distinctive local identities.

Similarly, the left-of-centre, socialist traditions exemplified by the late Burhanuddin Helmy were also swept aside and vilified. However (and ironically) Umno was never able to dislodge Kelantanese parochialism, permitting PAS a foothold that it exploited for its own Islamist ends.

Umno political strategists were only to realise much later that the disappearance of the “left” was to open up the ideological terrain for the Islamists – many of whom modelled themselves on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Indeed, the Islamists’ exclusion from the centres of power meant that they were able to focus on issues of social justice, benefiting in turn from the growing disgust with mainstream politics.

However, the IT explosion post-2000 has broken the establishment’s control over both the news and the media in general.

Indeed, the proliferation of voices unleashed by technology has been both deeply distressing and disorientating for those who believe in a monolithic Malay identity centred on the royal houses and the government-sanctioned Islamic beliefs and practices.

Many in the old elite (some of whom are actually quite young) remain Canute-like in their rejection of the new realities.

So where are we heading? First off, Malays as Muslims are still united by their faith. Nonetheless, many differences will continue to emerge as people explore intellectual and spiritual frontiers on their own.

Secondly, the keenest divide will be the differences between the haves and have-nots (determined, of course, by proximity to political power) within the Malay community as urban English-language speaking Malays continue to forge ahead, leaving their monolingual brothers and sisters in the lurch.

Furthermore, the increasing demographic dominance of the Malays – 50.1% of our total population of 27.5 million (more if we include the non-Malay bumiputra communities’ 11.8%) – means that the old anxieties of being overwhelmed by others no longer seem as dire.

This, therefore, is where the Malay community stands in 2012.

Politician, hero or zero? RPK hits back at critics!

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Anwar no more Raja Petra’s hero

Analysis By BARADAN KUPPUSAMY

Raja Petra Kamaruddin, in an interview with the media, gives his take on Pakatan Rakyat and its leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, a man he once admired and supported wholeheartedly.

BLOGGER-in-exile Raja Petra Kamaruddin has emerged to give an interview to several media representatives, during which he spoke on a wide range of topics covering the future of Pakatan Rakyat, its leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the prospects of the coalition in the next general election.

The interview appeared yesterday in The New Sunday Times, Berita Minggu, Mingguan Malaysia and online news website Malaysia Today.



His emergence at this crucial juncture is a boon to Barisan Nasional as it prepares for the hustings.

In a nutshell, what he spoke about can be summarised in his own words: “I can support the Opposition, without supporting Anwar.

“It is not a sin or crime if I don't support Anwar,” says the political pundit who is more popularly referred to as RPK.

That statement summed up his current position vis-a-vis politics and the big battle for power ahead.

He has lost confidence in Anwar as Pakatan leader.

He believes Pakatan cannot capture Putrajaya and he says the Opposition must look beyond to a time when it can exist and keep going without Anwar.

The key to politics today is to create a two-party system, to lay the foundation for it and not to capture power now.

On a personal note, he believes the Sodomy II trial was fair compared with the first sodomy trial in the late 90s and that Anwar is a victim of a honey trap in the latest tribulations.

Raja Petra is certainly no ordinary blogger.

He was the first man in the country to combine digital technology with a flair for writing and place it at the disposal of the man he admired and supported wholeheartedly Anwar.

He kept the Anwarites' flame alive through the dark years of Anwar's sacking by then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the reformasi struggle and Anwar's imprisonment, with his Free Anwar website.



After Anwar's 2004 release, Raja Petra set up the Malaysia Today website which, with his talent for story-telling, turned into the foremost political news blog.

He “escaped” from the country and ended up as an exile in Britain following several warrants for his arrest.

In addition, several people have also obtained bankruptcy petitions against him.

In Britain, he set up the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) with lawyer Haris Ibrahim and they proffered several independent candidates, i.e. lawyer Malik Imtiaz but their scheme did not take off because of criticisms from Pakatan leaders and supporters.

The Opposition saw the third force, as MCLM wanted to be, as a trojan horse of Barisan.

His Malaysia Today website is not as widely read as it was before but Raja Petra, as an activist and commentator on political development, remains influential as this wide-ranging interview suggests.

His take on Anwar remains his most important contribution to contemporary politics, as he was such an ardent supporter previously.

He says if Pakatan does not capture Putrajaya, and he gives reasons why it can't do it, Anwar would slide into irrelevance and eventually into oblivion.

The struggle has always been to bring change and not to free Anwar as in Nelson Mandela's case, to fight and bring down apartheid and not to seek his release.

While Raja Petra is by no means a supporter of Barisan, he reserves his harshest criticism to Anwar's failure to lead Pakatan.

He faults Anwar's leadership shortcomings.

He says Anwar is a great speaker at ceramah but he is not an administrator and points to the many times Anwar has gone overseas since he was appointed economic adviser to the Selangor government three years ago.

“Shouldn't you be staying home, running the state? Running the party? Running the coalition?” he said.

He also urges Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to take the “bull by the horns” in introducing reforms and not just scratch the surface or indulge in cosmetic changes.

“Najib must be prepared not only to take a knife but a chainsaw and cut whatever he needs to cut.”

Being who he is, supporters of Pakatan would be unhappy with Raja Petra's criticisms of the coalition.

The three parties of the coalition seem to be fighting each other for the spoils of victory in the next general election, he says.

It is a coup for the Government to get no less than Raja Petra himself to line up against Pakatan and its leader Anwar.

His influence on Pakatan supporters was seen in the 2008 general election.

He was out campaigning, asking voters to vote for change.

This time, he is asking voters to not to vote blindly for any “donkey or monkey” but to pick candidates, from either side who would truly serve the rakyat.

In justifying his criticism of Pakatan, he says he is not supporting Barisan and he is not saying Barisan is the best government.

RPK hits back at critics

PETALING JAYA: Controversial blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin has hit back at critics who accused him of selling out to Barisan Nasional.

In his latest post on his website, he said he had expected the barrage of criticisms after he slammed Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in an interview to selected mainstream media and an online portal.

Raja Petra spoke on a variety of issues including Anwar's possible irrelevance, his sodomy trial and the Selangor government.

Raja Petra dismissed criticisms by commentators in various online portals, saying that what they said did not matter to him.

“The more important issue is: Which category are you in? Are you amongst the less than four million Malaysians who voted the Opposition in the last general election? Or are you amongst the more than 11 million eligible voters who did not vote Opposition, did not vote at all, or did not even register to vote?

“Yes, I value your comments, but only if you fall in the first category. If not, then your comments are of no significance,” he added.

Raja Petra stunned many when he questioned whether Anwar was the best candidate to lead the country, saying he “wasn't impressed” with the latter's performance in Selangor.

Meanwhile, PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution accused Raja Petra of being a “hired Umno blogger” and part of a larger plot to smear Anwar's name ahead of the latter's sodomy trial verdict on Jan 9.

He told an online news portal that Umno and Barisan were determined to see Anwar jailed, adding that the attacks against Anwar were meant to deflect attention from the Government's alleged financial scandals.

Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim's political secretary Faekah Husin said the state was willing to pay Raja Petra's transportation costs from overseas to return to Malaysia and shed light on his bribery claims.

She claimed many were of the view that Raja Petra was desperate to return home, hence the attacks on Anwar.

PKR vice-president N. Surendran said Raja Petra's comments were “unfair, untrue, unsupported by any believable evidence and plainly libellous”.