Thursday, December 31, 2009
Umno man says ‘Allah’ judgement will stir racial tension
By Syed Jaymal Zahiid - The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 31 — One of Umno’s known hawks, Pasir Salak MP Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman, lambasted the High Court judgement on the ‘Allah’ case today, saying that it would not solve anything but only ignite racial and religious tension.
A jubilant Father Lawrence holds up an Arabic version of the Holy Bible, said to contain the word Allah - Picture by Jack Ooi.
The High Court today lifted the home minister’s ban against the Catholic church from publishing the word “Allah” to refer to the Christian God in its weekly paper, Herald.
The landmark decision may be of joy for some 850,000 Catholics in the country but for Tajuddin, the suit itself, filed by Herald’s lawyers, is an act of provocation.
“What is their motive (for the suit) ? Why all of a sudden they want to use the word Allah when all this while they have been using the term God?
“This is definitely provocation, they are just using all this human rights, religious rights as excuses. This is sensitive to the Muslims and this will create racial and religious tension,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
The controversy over the word “Allah” has stirred huge debate among Christians and Muslims alike in Malaysia and attracted international attention as well.
The Home Minister, who controls giving the annual mandatory publishing permits in the country, had banned the church from using the word “Allah” outside the Muslim context.
But some have questioned if there can be a copyright over the word “Allah”, which Muslim representatives here say is a special word reserved to refer to the Muslim God, meaning “the one and only Almighty”.
The act of questioning the exclusivity of the word “Allah” for Muslims said Tajuddin is a clear indicator that “certain quarters” have become “bolder”.
“They have dared to do these things because the Muslims have been soft..but if you put some one in a corner, they will bounce back,” lamented the Pasir Salak MP.
“What the High Court thinks is right, may not necessarily be right outside (the court),” he added.
Meanwhile PAS vice-president Datuk Mahfuz Omar said Muslims must respect the decision of the High Court and remain calm.
“We must not be hasty and jump to conclusions. We should let the religious authorities to decide on its next course of action,” he said.
Asked if he agreed with the decision, Mahfuz ignored the question and reiterated that the country’s Muslims must respect the High Court decision and allow the religious authority to decide on its next course of action.
Though it is unclear if the Home Minister will seek to reverse the decision through the Appellate Court but he is likely to do so given the sensitivity of the issue.
Waytha Moorthy sues DAP’s DCM Penang, Ex Perak Exco, ASP Vasantha Kumar etc
HUMAN RIGHTS PARTY MALAYSIA
NO.6, Jalan Abdullah,
Off Jalan Bangsar,
59000 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Media Event (31/12/09)
Re : Hindraf Chairman P.Waytha Moorthy’s RM 100 Million Defamation Suit against DCM of Penang, immediate past Exco Member of Perak, police ASP in disguise as a “Hindraf leader” a DAP leader and six other local media companies.
Date: 31/12/09
Time: 11.30 a.m.
Venue: Kuala Lumpur High Court, Jalan Duta, Ground Floor
Thank you,
Yours faithfully,
______________
S.JAYATHAS
Information Chief
Indian victims never newsmakers of the year.
Malaysiakini top ten news. Indians have to die at police hands to make it. Race based news worthiness in Malaysia?
Newsportal for the “underdogs”?
It has not only been this year but for almost the last eight years or so that we taken note that the only time even critical Indian issues get to the top 10 even in Malaysiakini (Malayasikini 28/12/09), the News portal for the “underdogs”? is when they lose their life at the hands of the Malay-sian authorities. 
This year it was A. Kugan and that too it was the tail end at No.8 (Malaysiakini 28/12/09). We recallect that previously only S.Tharmarajen who also died in police custody and others who were killed in police custody made it to the top ten. Teoh Beng Hock was rightly made Malaysiakini’s news maker of 2009(Malaysiakini 30/12/09). But hundreds of other Indians also died very cruelly at the hands of the police but they don’t make it as the newsmaker of the year.
We must recognize however that during our most lean times Malaysiakini has given us the due coverage. We also appreciate their link to Top of blogs.
Most issues which concerns Indian victims however critical, unjust or unfair does not get the appropriate coverage for the only reason that the victims are Indians. 
The latest examples being the suicide of R. Seetha who committed suicide because her brother along with four other youths including a 17 year old juvenile were shot dead and killed in cold blooded murder by the police sharp shooters in their shoot to kill policy. 
The Kampong Buah Pala the last traditional Indian village in Penang destruction by Kapitan Lim Guan Eng and ably aided and abetted by his Indian Mandores. 
And the 100 over year old hindu crematorium at Ladang Batu Pekaka, Kuala Ketil being destroyed by PAS. Pray tell us of one Chinese, Muslim, Christian or Buddhist cemetery that gets destroyed like this in Malaysia or in fact in any other part of the world including Somalia or even Zimbabwe.
But these three events would not qualify as the top ten stories even in “our” Malaysiakini because the victims are the poor and working class Indians.
Thus the present critical state of affairs concerning the Indians in Malaysia.
If even our Malaysiakini can do this to the Indians what more the mainstream print and electronic media.
The press deem these Indian stories not press worthy meaning it does not appeal to the majoritarian Malay natives and the Chinese who make up about 92% of the population.
The Indians who make up a mere 8% however critical their problems are do not qualify to be the top ten or even most other news on a day to day basis. Simply because they are Indians Thus the critical Indian problems getting worst by the day as it does not get the appropriate attention.
This is where the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the western world differs in that they do not use race as the yardstick for press worthiness but in fact even bend backwards to cover the weak minorities because the rich and powerful majority will be taken care of somehow.
In the aforesaid case where 5 Indians were shot dead by the police Malaysiakini covered their story only after a victim’s sister committed suicide after also giving her four children paraquat but who survived. But a Chinese national who was detained for eight days at a police lock instantly gets Malaysiakini coverage because it is newsworthy”.
Malaysia today is another classical example. RPK would cover just about any other issue expect when the victims are Indians. Go through his site and see for yourself if he excludes critical Indian issue.
Needless to mention UMNOs’, NST, Utusan, Berita Harian and the Star, Sun Malay Mail etc.
We have asked many many reporters including the many Indian reporters after a lengthy explanation as to why they sideline and side-step reporting even on the critical Indian problems. They all have no answer and remain mum. This is what we have for freedom of the press in Malaysia and reporting going by “news worthiness”.
S.JAYATHAS
HRP Information Cheif
Who do you think is “Indian of the year 2007-2009″ ?
Survey from:-
http://www.indianmalaysian.com/sound/modules.php?name=Surveys&pollID=8
|
|
2.93% (83)
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Malaysia no longer “Tanah Melayu”,we're all citizens of Bumi Malaysia now. Notes dedicated to Teo Beng Hock
The idea of “Tanah Melayu” must be reflected upon — of its relevancy and whether it is a kind of ideological thinking that will help develop a culture of peace or help nurture inter-racial hatred.
A REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE
Because we have agreed to become a country rooted in a social contract that ought to give equality, equity, and equal opportunity to all who have given up their natural rights in exchange for “citizenship” and the rights of the State to tax them (with or without representation), we must recognize that Malaysia is for Malaysians. 1Malaysia concept must abolish all forms of discrimination and institionalize good diversity and affirmative action policies.
This will be the most humane perspective we ought to work towards in holding. What is needed is a system of check and balance that will ensure that each generation of Malaysians will progress without the trappings of mistrust, hatred, and institutionalized racism.
But first, we must all fight for the installation of this reality. Political will that will move this agenda of ethical liberalism must be harnessed and be made the driving force for social, cultural, educational, and psychological change.
The idea of “Tanah Melayu” must be reflected upon — of its relevancy and whether it is a kind of ideological thinking that will help develop a culture of peace or help nurture inter-racial hatred.
Communal politics is an old school thinking that cannot survive the wave of cosmopolitanism; just like the any idea that could not survive the inevitability of historical change propelled by changes in material condition and consciousness.
In Malaysia, the days of communal politics are numbered, however well it is packaged and propagandized. Multiculturalism, and in fact radical multiculturalism, or better still radical marhaenism is the next wave. Institutions that promote racism must be deconstructed and abolished; institutions that are funded by the ruling regime to ensure the hegemony of this or that race. Dismantle them before they become yet another layer of complexity in our consciousness; a layer that hides the structural violence inherent in a system of racism and false consciousness called “nationalistic history”.
The only permanent thing is change, as the Chinese philosopher and mystic Lao Tzu said. Man has no nature, what he has is history, said the Spanish philosopher Ortega Gasset.
And there will be beauty in this change if we know how to destroy the beast within.
I am reproducing an essay I wrote sometime ago on "New Bumiputeraism”
--
Time for new ‘bumiputera-ism’
… kini kita cuma tinggal kuasa
yang akan menentukan bangsa
hasil mengalir, ke tangan yang lain
pribumi merintih sendiri…
My loose translation of this 1980s propaganda song by the Biro Tata Negara reads:
“… political power is what we are only left with
one that will determine the fate of our nation
wealth of this nation flows into the hands of others
sons and daughters of the soil suffer in solace..."
I do not think we have a clear understanding of what the lyrics means. I doubt if the songwriter even understand what a ‘people's history of Malaya’ means.
History is a complex syntagmatic pattern of interplay between technology, ideology, culture, inscription and institutionalisation not easily reduced to simplistic lyrics as such sung to the tune of pre-war German-nationalistic-sounding compositions.
History is about the complex evolution of the ruling class who owns the technologies of control. As Marx would say, at every epoch it is the history of those who own the means of production that will be written and rewritten. The winners write history, the losers write poetry or study anthropology.
Back to the lyrics. After more than 50 years of independence, who is suffering in Malaysia? Who has become wealthy? Who has evolved into robber barons?
Language of power and ideology is at play in those lyrics. The definition of ‘bumiputera’ is at play. It has become a problematic word in this age of deconstructionism; an age wherein as the poet WB Yeats said, “the centre cannot hold”.
Rock musicians will recall the Scorpions’ famous song ‘Winds of Change’ to serenade the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the breakdown of the Soviet Empire. We have to face the ‘wrath’ of the word.
Process of rebirth
There is an old Malay practice in Johor of renaming a child ‘Buang’ if his given name does not ‘suit’ him. My grand-uncle who passed away in the early 1970s had ‘Buang’ as a name. His old name did not suit him. He was often sick when he was a child ‘carrying’ his old name. Buang means ‘discard’. I would call it with a more noble word ‘reconceptualisation’, so that we may now talk about the ‘reconceptualisation of bumiputera-ism’.
Several semesters ago, when I was lecturing an undergraduate class in African philosophy, using Chinhua Achebe's novel ‘Things Fall Apart’, I began to understand how similar my grand-uncle's predicament is with that of the main character , Okonkwo, of that great African novel. ‘The Lion King’ explained the concept even better.
The name ‘bumiputera’ has to undergo ‘reconceptualisation’. The Indonesians had their process of ‘Buang-isation’ perhaps as Bung Karno (Soekarno) had envisioned. It has to undergo ‘rebirth’ or karma, as the Hindus would say.
We indulge in this ritual called ‘election’, another problematic word, commissioned to be executed ‘fairly’. When we are done with the general election, when we have shaken up the illusionary foundation of race that define ‘bumiputera-ism’, when we have begun to realise that it id the unseen hands of local and international corporate-crony-crypto-conspicuous-consuming capitalist class that is corrupting our material, emotional, ideological and spiritual landscape, we will start our post-mortem session on this process of ‘Buang-isation’ or ‘reconceptualisation’ of this idea of ‘bumiputera-ism’.
But the present regime cannot perform this process of Malaysian ‘divining’ and ‘discarding’. It cannot conduct this ‘Buang-isation’ ceremony because it no longer possess a good spiritual core. Its "vegetative soul", as the Islamic philosopher Professor Syed Naguib Alatas would call it, is too calloused with the carcinogens of corruption that its "rational soul" is forever lost and transported into the yuga (spiritual age) of this materially corrupt world - the kali yuga.
The ceremony must be performed by a group of philosopher-rulers whose idealism lies in the establishment of a 'republic of virtue'; one that drives its economic foundation from the accumulation of ‘spiritual and metaphysical’ rather than the material capital. ‘Das Kapital’ of the spiritual accumulation of wealth will be the product of this divination. Georg Hegel would agree with this idea of spiritual revolution. It cannot be performed by investment bankers-cum-politicians.
Names connote and denote something. Words, Pinker or Lacan or any of the bio-semioticians/linguistic anthropologists would say, carry metaphors and manifestations of history, material, power, knowledge and ideology. Worse still these words become institutions and become institutionalised into architectures of power and control.
Writers such as Lewis Mumford and Jacques Ellul have analysed this phenomena of architectures of power as these structure relate to the nature of Man within the context of the language in which he/she is situated.
‘Bumiputera’ is one such word. A problematic word. A word that assumes race and religion as one. To say that a Malay is generally a Muslim and hence a 'bumiputera' and therefore have special rights and privileges is an imprecise way of explaining a concept. It is an old-school approach to defining that word.
We must find ways to enrich the concept better so that it will become inclusive. Who toils for the soil? Labour, more than language, seems to be more a more linguistically just way to look at the definition of bumiputera and how we will go about the ‘Buangi-sation’ process.
We need a premise for this process though. Let’s begin with this phrase: “We hold these truths to be self-evident and Divine-ly sanctioned that All Malaysians are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator the inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, happiness, justice and social equality… and we shall resoundingly declare that from now on we will be constructed as equal and be called ‘the new bumiputera’...
Sounds like a Rousseauin, Lockean, and Jeffersonian ideal locked in one, with a Malaysian ethos as its foundation. Sounds like what the Quran, Bible, Bhagavad Gita, Sutras, Puranas, Tao Te' Chng , Granth Sahib and Tibetan Book of the Dead would advocate.
That can be our premise for this radical change. Now the second stage of the ‘Buang-isation’ process can begin.
Critique the ideology
We must do something different to ourselves if we are to move to the next level of evolution as Malaysians.
Let us reconstruct the old concept of ‘bumiputera’ so that we will have a better foundation in preparation for a redefinition in the Federal Constituition - so that the constitution can now protect all rather that the few. Isn't democracy for the powerful few only good for plutocracy?
Yes - who is a ‘bumiputera’? After more than 50 years this term should have evolved and changed. The base and superstructure, the ideology and material foundation, and the body and spirit of this nation-state called Malaysia have changed.
The old definition has run its course. It is fine to see this as the right time to change. We must remember that words get refined and redefined in the course of history. Ask any linguist in any Malaysian university.
Words like democracy, freedom, justice and equality get reconceptualised after every social revolution. Words like Malays, Indians, Chinese, East and West Malaysians used as classification systems are good during the colonial period and in the early years of independence. They have lost their connotative and denotative power as pass the 50th year of independence.
Language is reality - words become flesh, inscriptions become institutions.
Redefine what ‘bumiputera’ means, so that we will not be forced to sing more propaganda songs.
After more than 50 years of Merdeka, aren't we all bumiputera now?
PAS, PKR and UMNO destroys hindu cemetery in Kedah. DAP won’t disturb Chinese cemetery in Penang.
In fact the DAP has bent backwards to protect the Chinese graves that even went beyond the Chinese cemetery boundaries and spilling onto the adjoining land (refer The Star 23/12/09 at page N16 below). But when it was the Indian Village Kg. Buah Pala this very same DAP destroyed the last traditional Indian village in Penang in October 2009 while PAS last week destroyed the local 100 over year old hindu cemetery, the last piece of history and heritage of the Indian plantation workers of Ladang Pekaka, Kuala Ketil, Kedah. And PKR destroyed the Ampang Hindu temple in early 2009. UMNO has a record of destroying one hindu temple in every week during the terror reign of former Selangor Menteri Besar Khir Toyo (reply by Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid to ADUN for Kota Alam Shah, Maoharan Malayalam at the Selangor State Assembly early this year). And all these atrocities by UMNO, PKR, PAS and DAP done with impunity.
This is the UMNO, PKR, PAS and DAP rulers set of justice when it comes to the Indians and Hindus in Malaysia. Why the double standards?
The bottom line is the Chinese and the Malays both have the economic and political clout which the Indians don’t. So the Indians are both the soft targets and easy prey to be bullied and to be pushed about and around by both UMNO and also PKR, DAP and PAS. This is the race based political reality in UMNOs’ Malaysia vis a vis PKR DAP and PAS.
P. Uthayakumar.
29/12/09
PAS, PKR and UMNO destroys hindu cemetery in Kedah. DAP won’t disturb Chinese cemetery in Penang
In fact the DAP has bent backwards to protect the Chinese graves that even went beyond the Chinese cemetery boundaries and spilling onto the adjoining land (refer The Star 23/12/09 at page N16 below). But when it was the Indian Village Kg. Buah Pala this very same DAP destroyed the last traditional Indian village in Penang in October 2009 while PAS last week destroyed the local 100 over year old hindu cemetery, the last piece of history and heritage of the Indian plantation workers of Ladang Pekaka, Kuala Ketil, Kedah. And PKR destroyed the Ampang Hindu temple in early 2009. UMNO has a record of destroying one hindu temple in every week during the terror reign of former Selangor Menteri Besar Khir Toyo (reply by Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid to ADUN for Kota Alam Shah, Maoharan Malayalam at the Selangor State Assembly early this year). And all these atrocities by UMNO, PKR, PAS and DAP done with impunity.
This is the UMNO, PKR, PAS and DAP rulers set of justice when it comes to the Indians and Hindus in Malaysia. Why the double standards?
The bottom line is the Chinese and the Malays both have the economic and political clout which the Indians don’t. So the Indians are both the soft targets and easy prey to be bullied and to be pushed about and around by both UMNO and also PKR, DAP and PAS. This is the race based political reality in UMNOs’ Malaysia vis a vis PKR DAP and PAS.
P. Uthayakumar.
29/12/09
MRSM BAGI KESEMUA 817 PELAJAR SEKOLAH TAMIL 7A BAGI KEMASUKAN TINGKATAN SATU 2010 (Letter to PM and Education Minister) .
HUMAN RIGHTS PARTY MALAYSIA
NO.6, Jalan Abdullah, Off Jalan Bangsar, 59000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: 03-2282 5241 Fax: 03-2282 5245 Website: www.humanrightspartymalaysia.com
Your Reference :
In Reply : HRP/ DEC/ 09
Date : 29/12/2009
YAB. Dato Seri Najib Razak
Perdana Menteri Malaysia
Blok Utama Bangunan Perdana Putra,
Pusat Pentadbiran Kerajaan Persekutuan, Fax: 03-88883444
62502 Putrajaya E-Mail : najib@pmo.gov.my.
Y.B Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin
Menteri Pelajaran,
Pejabat Menteri Pelajaran,
Aras 10, Block E8,
Complex Kerajaan Parcal E, Fax: 03-8889 5846
62604 Putrajaya. E- Mail: khairulam@moe.gov.my
MRSM BAGI KESEMUA 817 PELAJAR SEKOLAH TAMIL 7A BAGI KEMASUKAN TINGKATAN SATU 2010 .
Kami rujuk kepada perkara yang tersebut di atas dan ingin membawa kepada perhatian pihak YAB/YB yang seramai 817 pelajar Sekolah Tamil dari seluruh negara telah mendapat keputusan cemerlang 7A dalam peperiksaan Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) dan kejayaan mereka ini telah menjadi tajuk utama dalam akhbar- akhbar Malaysia Nanban, Tamil Nesan dan Makkal Osai pada 20/11/2009 dan seterusnya selama berhari-hari selepas daripada itu.
Menurut laporan akhbar Utusan Malaysia pada 29/11/09 di muka surat 8 dan akhbar New Straits Times di muka surat 20 bertajuk ‘Mara College letters out next month’, kami ingin membawa kepada perhatian pihak YAB/YB bahawa sehingga kini tidak ada seorang pun penuntut dari kalangan 817 penuntut sekolah Tamil tersebut yang telah menerima surat tawaran penerimaan ke Maktab Rendah Sains Mara (MRSM).
Kami ingin memaklumkan kepada pihak YAB/YB bahawa kesemua 817 pelajar sekolah Tamil tersebut telah tidak mendapat sebarang pengiktirafan yang sewajarnya sebagaimana yang diberikan kepada pelajar- pelajar Melayu Islam yang lain berdasarkan Sistem Pendidikan Kebangsaan di bawah Polisi Satu Malaysia yang menjadi asas kepada Pembangunan Malaysia.
Pelajar sekolah Kebangsaan hanya boleh mendapat maksima 5A. Tetapi ke manakah 817 pelajar sekolah Tamil ini yang mendapat keputusan cemerlang 7A ini harus pergi sekiranya mereka tidak diberi peluang ini dalam menguatkan dan mengukuhkan lagi kepintaran mereka dan seterusnya pembangunan negara.
Ekoran daripada ini, kami ingin menyarankan bahawa kesemua 817 pelajar sekolah Tamil yang mendapat 7A ini dan juga kesemua murid – murid dari masyarakat India dari Sekolah Kebangsaan yang mendapt 5A harus diberi peluang dan diterima masuk ke dalam 12,440 tempat (BH 21/11/09 page 7) di 42 Maktab Rendah Sains Mara (MRSM) yang berasrama penuh (NST 5/4/08 mukasurat 7) dan sekolah berasrama penuh bagi kemasukan ke Tingkatan Satu pada sesi persekolahan tahun 2010. Dengan kemasukan 817 pelajar sekolah Tamil ini ke dalam MRSM dan juga di sekolah – sekolah berasrama penuh ini ianya akan membuktikan keikhlasan dasar Satu Malaysia yang diwar-warkan oleh Perdana Menteri Dato Seri Najib Razak.
Kami juga memohon yang apabila mereka diterima masuk kelak, mereka harus diberi jaminan Kerajaan berkenaan kebebasan beragama mereka dimana mereka tidak harus disuruh atau dipaksa memakai tudung, menghadiri kelas agama Islam; menganuti ugama Islam dan mengambil bahagian dalam hal- hal yang berkaitan dengan agama lain selain daripada agama mereka sendiri seperti yang termaktub dalam Artikel 11 (Kebebasan berugama) dan dibaca bersama dengan Article 12 Perlembagaan Persekutuan yang memperuntukkan “ No person shall be required to receive instruction in or to take part in any ceremony or act of worship of a religion other than his own”.
Dalam keadaan ini kami juga meminta Kerajaan agar membina satu MRSM Tamil sebagaimana MRSM PDRM untuk anak- anak Polis, MRSM ATM untuk anak- anak Tentera dan MRSM FELDA untuk anak- anak peneroka Felda.. MRSM Tamil ini juga akan membantu memberi ransangan, semangat dan motivasi kepada 817 pelajar yang mendapat 7A dan juga lain – lain 110,000 pelajar dari 523 Sekolah Tamil di seluruh negara dan juga pelajar lain dari kalangan masyarakat India dari sekolah – sekolah Kebangsaan untuk terus cemerlang dalam pelajaran mereka dan seterusnya menyalurkan kepintaran mereka untuk mengukuhkan lagi pembangunan sejagat negara Malaysia khususnya dari segi intelektual.
Jawapan dan tindakan segera pihak YAB/YB dalam perkara ini disanjung tinggi.
Sekian,
Terima Kasih,
Yang Benar,
____________________
P.Uthayakumar
Setiausaha Agong (penaja)
Guan Eng photo protest man knifed
BUTTERWORTH: A legal firm runner was attacked by a group of men and he claimed the attack could be linked to his action of setting alight a poster of Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng during a Penang Barisan Nasional Youth demonstration on Nov 30.
S. Krishnan, 47, received 16 stitches on his right thigh at the Seberang Jaya Hospital but was not warded. He also sustained bruises on the neck, back and hips.
Krishnan, whose nickname is Mak Mandin Kumar, said he was on his motorcycle and heading home in Taman Mak Mandin after dinner at 10pm on Sunday when the attack took place.
In pain: Krishnan relating the incident to Chua (right) and Sum at the Seberang Jaya Hospital on SundayHe said he had sought refuge at a petrol station in Jalan Permatang Pauh, about 1km from his home, when he realised that he was being tailed by a group of men on motorcycles.
“I left the petrol station 10 minutes later when I thought the coast was clear,” he added. Krishnan said he was, however, cornered by eight men on four motorcycles at a remote spot at the Mak Mandin light industrial area.
He said six of them, including two armed with kitchen knives, attacked him while the other two stood as lookouts.
Speaking to reporters at his home yesterday, Krishnan said several of the men shouted “Cut off his legs!” in Tamil.
He said he called his friends after the assailants fled and they took him to the hospital where Bagan MCA division Youth Chief David Chua and the division’s vice-chairman, Sum Yoo Keong, visited him.
Chua said he visited Krishnan as they were involved in helping residents of Rumah Hijau in Mak Mandin, who are facing eviction.
Krishan had lodged a report at the Mak Mandin police station on Sunday night.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
A response to Ridhuan Tee: All Malaysians have special rights
Sometime ago I wrote this piece below which I think is relevant to as a response to Dr. Ridhuan Tee Abdullah's insistence that the "Malay-Muslim" group has a natural dominance over others.
A REPUBLIC OF VIRTUE
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/
As a Malaysian who believes in a social contract based on the notion that ‘all Malaysians are created equal’, I do not understand the ‘royal statement’.
If it comes from the Biro Tatanegara (BTN), I can understand the confusion. But this is from a royal house.
This statement was valid 50 years ago, before Independence. This is an outdated statement that is not appreciated by the children of those who have laboured for this nation.
I believe we should look forward to institutionalising ‘special rights for all Malaysians’. The word ‘special’ is in itself special. Culturally it can either denote an enabling condition or a disabling one.
In the study of religion, one is bestowed a special place for living life well or for doing good deeds. In educational studies, ‘special education’ caters for the needs of those with a disabling physical, emotional or cognitive condition.
In all these, ‘special rights’ are accorded based on merit. One works hard to get special offers and into special places.
In the doctrine of the ‘divine rights of kings’, one's special right is the birthright. Louis XVI of revolutionary France, Shah Jehan of Taj Mahal fame, Emperor Hirohito of Japan, Shah Reza Pahlavi of Revolutionary Iran, King Bumiphol Adulyadev, and the sultans of Melaka were ‘special people’ who designed institutions that installed individuals based on rights sanctioned through a ‘mandate of heaven’.
Such people use specialised language to differentiate who is special and who is not. Court language is archaic, terse, meant to instill fear and to institutionalise special-ness.
The language of the street or market is fluid, accommodating, meant to instill open-ness and institutionalise creativity at its best and further development of the ‘underclass’ at its worst.
This continuum of language, power, and ideology is characteristic of histories of nations. In Malay history, istana language is enshrined in the hikayat and in Tun Seri Lanang's Sejarah Melayu. Street language used in Malay folklore and in bawdy poems, pantun and stories of Sang Kancil.
Class consciousness, many a sociologist would say, dictates the special-ness of people across time and space. Historical-materialism necessitates the development of the specialised use and abuse of language. One can do a lot of things with words. Words can be deployed to create a sustainable and profitable master-slave relationship.
A better argument
Let us elevate the argument so that we will have a better view of what race, ethnicity, nationalism and cosmopolitanism means.
I propose we review what “special rights of the Malays" mean in light of 50 years of Independence and post-March 8, 2008.
I agree we must give credit to those working hard to "improve the psychological well-being of the Malays" and for that matter for any race to improve its mental wellness. This is important. This is a noble act.
The question is: in doing so, do we want to plant the seeds of cooperation and trust - or racial discrimination and deep hatred? Herein lies the difference between indoctrination and education.
These days, the idea of Ketuanan Melayu is going bankrupt, sinking with the bahtera merdeka. It works only for Malay robber barons who wish to plunder the nation by silencing the masses and using the ideological state apparatuses at their disposal.
In the case of the BTN it is the work of controlling the minds of the youth. Its work should not be allowed any more in our educational institutions. It is time our universities especially are spared counter-educational activities, especially when they yearn to be free of the shackles of domination.
Over decades, many millions of Malays and non-Malays have not been getting the right information on our nation's history, political-economy, and race relations. History that is being shoved into us or filter-funnelled down the labyrinth of our consciousness is one that is already packaged, biased, and propagandised by historians who became text-books writers.
History need not be Malay-centric. Special rights for all Malaysians should be the goal of distributive and regulative justice of this nation, not the "special rights of a few Malays". History must be presented as the history of the marginalisd, the oppressed and the dispossessed of all races.
We toil for this nation, as the humanist Paramoedya Ananta Toer would say, by virtue of our existence as anak semua bangsa ... di bumi manusia. Malaysia is a land of immigrants.
In this regard we can learn from the former British colony called America. Whatever its shortcomings, it is a land of immigrants and is still evolving. A black man or a woman can become president. This is what America conceives itself to be and this is what Malaysian can learn from. Can a non-Malay become prime minster if he/she is the most ethical of all politicians in the country?
No one particular race should stake a claim to Malaysia. That is an idea from the old school of thought, fast being abandoned. Each citizen is born, bred, and brought to school to become a good law-abiding and productive Malaysian citizen, is accorded the fullest rights and privileges and will carry his/her responsibility as a good citizen.
That is what ‘surrendering one's natural rights to the state’ means. One must read Rousseau, Locke, Voltaire, and Jefferson to understand this philosophy. A bad government will not honour this - and will fall, or will sink like the bahtera merdeka.
The history of civilisations provides enough examples of devastation and genocide as a consequence of violent claims to the right of this or that land based upon some idea of ‘imagined communities’. We must teach our children to make a history of peace among nations. This must be made into a new school of thought: of ‘new bumiputeraism’ that encompasses all and does not alienate any. Life is too short for each generation to fight over greed.
The eleventh hour of human existence and our emergence in this world has brought about destruction as a consequence of our inability to mediate differences based on race, colour, creed, class and national origin. Each ethnic group thinks that it is more socially-dominant than the other. Each does not know the basis of its ‘self’. Each fails to realise its DNA-make up or gene map.
Life is an existential state of beingness, so must history be conceived as such. Nationalism can evolve into a dangerous concept - that was what happened to Europe at the brink of the two World Wars. It happened in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and in Indonesia when Suharto fell.
I argue that we must evolve in the historical presence of historical constructions. The past and the future is in the present. Let us not argue any more over this or those rights. Let us instead treat each other right.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Dr M wrong on choice between Indian and Muslim - Malaysiakini
Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's advice to Malaysia's Indian Muslims to choose between their Muslim and their Indian identities puts one in mind of a resonant episode in the immediate prelude to the partition of India in mid-1947.
A delegation of Indian Muslims, contemplating abandoning their homes in India for the new entity called Pakistan, went to see Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the highest ranked Muslim in the Congress Party and a strong foe of partition.
Islamic scholar Azad, who was born in Mecca, was renowned for the battles he had waged for communal unity in India, for its freedom from Britain, and for secularism.
His visitors were in no doubt about where Azad stood on the matter of partition: he was unalterably opposed and an arch critic of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, head of the Muslim League and fervent proponent of separation.
The delegation just wanted to see for themselves if Azad would waver from his resolute anti-partition stance at a perilous time.
June 1947 comprised an exaggerated moment in Indian history. It is just such moments of extremity that best reveal the essence of things. And Azad demonstrated the seer-like qualities of his stature as a leader when he posed this question to the delegation: “Where will you go should you discover that Pakistan is not your home?”
Of course, none of his visitors could countenance the notion that their anticipated new abode could turn out to be forbidding.
Many of those who went to see Azad settled in the Sind region of newly-formed Pakistan, of which Karachi is the metropolis.
Fast forward 40 years to the late 1980s: The city becomes a maelstrom of communal violence between the muhajirs (Indian Muslims from India who moved to Sind and west Punjab after partition) and the indigenes.
The bursts of violence were frequent, horrific and sustained, and were caused by muhajir resentment at being marginalised by the indigenes of Sind.
Two decades before the muhajir-inspired convulsions in the Sind of the late 1980s and after, the world had already witnessed the animosity between Muslim Bengalis and the Punjabi Muslim-dominated Pakistan army that led to the war of secession in East Pakistan, which then became Bangladesh.
A notable feature of this war in 1971 was that here the muhajirs (Bihar Muslims who had immigrated at the time of partition to East Bengal/East Pakistan) backed the elitist Punjabi soldiers of the Pakistani army in the battle against indigenous Bengali Muslims.
From not only these facets of subcontinent history but from several others the world over in the last century, particularly if you take the flux and flow of sectarian allegiances in Lebanon, it is not hard to conclude that parochially-constituted identities provide no lasting solder by which to glue a national identity.
One can be both Indian and Muslim
Mahathir's positing of a dichotomy – either you are Indian or you are Muslim (and therefore Malay) – to Muslim Indians in Malaysia has been proven by recent history to be a delusive conceit.
Maulana Azad espoused a composite view of national identity to partition-leaning Muslims of the Indian subcontinent six decades ago: He held you could be Indian and Muslim at the same time, in contradistinction to the great Indian poet Mohamed Iqbal, who in a famous disquisition in 1930 argued that the Muslim identity would fade in an independent India. Hence a separate homeland for Muslim Indians was imperative.
Admittedly, it is a long way from Maulana Azad to Gerald Manley Hopkins, a 19th century English poet, of special resonance in these ecologically fraught times.
Hopkins loved nature in which he saw a “dappled” and “pied” quality of contrasting elements forming the same pattern which he tried to reproduce in his poems.
“Glory to God for dappled things,” he rhapsodised in one of his best poems, a cosmic plea for seeing things as nature would have us - as “both/and” and not as “either/or”.
Muslim Indians in Malaysia can be Malaysian, Muslim and Indian at the same time, a triple and sustainable (nice ecologically friendly word that!) identity that betters Azad, and tributes Hopkins.
A delegation of Indian Muslims, contemplating abandoning their homes in India for the new entity called Pakistan, went to see Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the highest ranked Muslim in the Congress Party and a strong foe of partition.
Islamic scholar Azad, who was born in Mecca, was renowned for the battles he had waged for communal unity in India, for its freedom from Britain, and for secularism.
His visitors were in no doubt about where Azad stood on the matter of partition: he was unalterably opposed and an arch critic of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, head of the Muslim League and fervent proponent of separation.
The delegation just wanted to see for themselves if Azad would waver from his resolute anti-partition stance at a perilous time.
June 1947 comprised an exaggerated moment in Indian history. It is just such moments of extremity that best reveal the essence of things. And Azad demonstrated the seer-like qualities of his stature as a leader when he posed this question to the delegation: “Where will you go should you discover that Pakistan is not your home?”
Of course, none of his visitors could countenance the notion that their anticipated new abode could turn out to be forbidding.
Many of those who went to see Azad settled in the Sind region of newly-formed Pakistan, of which Karachi is the metropolis.
Fast forward 40 years to the late 1980s: The city becomes a maelstrom of communal violence between the muhajirs (Indian Muslims from India who moved to Sind and west Punjab after partition) and the indigenes.
The bursts of violence were frequent, horrific and sustained, and were caused by muhajir resentment at being marginalised by the indigenes of Sind.
Two decades before the muhajir-inspired convulsions in the Sind of the late 1980s and after, the world had already witnessed the animosity between Muslim Bengalis and the Punjabi Muslim-dominated Pakistan army that led to the war of secession in East Pakistan, which then became Bangladesh.
A notable feature of this war in 1971 was that here the muhajirs (Bihar Muslims who had immigrated at the time of partition to East Bengal/East Pakistan) backed the elitist Punjabi soldiers of the Pakistani army in the battle against indigenous Bengali Muslims.
From not only these facets of subcontinent history but from several others the world over in the last century, particularly if you take the flux and flow of sectarian allegiances in Lebanon, it is not hard to conclude that parochially-constituted identities provide no lasting solder by which to glue a national identity.
One can be both Indian and Muslim
Mahathir's positing of a dichotomy – either you are Indian or you are Muslim (and therefore Malay) – to Muslim Indians in Malaysia has been proven by recent history to be a delusive conceit.
Maulana Azad espoused a composite view of national identity to partition-leaning Muslims of the Indian subcontinent six decades ago: He held you could be Indian and Muslim at the same time, in contradistinction to the great Indian poet Mohamed Iqbal, who in a famous disquisition in 1930 argued that the Muslim identity would fade in an independent India. Hence a separate homeland for Muslim Indians was imperative.
Admittedly, it is a long way from Maulana Azad to Gerald Manley Hopkins, a 19th century English poet, of special resonance in these ecologically fraught times.
Hopkins loved nature in which he saw a “dappled” and “pied” quality of contrasting elements forming the same pattern which he tried to reproduce in his poems.
“Glory to God for dappled things,” he rhapsodised in one of his best poems, a cosmic plea for seeing things as nature would have us - as “both/and” and not as “either/or”.
Muslim Indians in Malaysia can be Malaysian, Muslim and Indian at the same time, a triple and sustainable (nice ecologically friendly word that!) identity that betters Azad, and tributes Hopkins.
Wayang kulit RM 7.93 Million & peanuts Tekun loans for Indians
As opposed to the RM 191.5 Billion 2010 national budget and the millions and billions dished out to the malay muslims under UMNOs’ racist, religious extremist and supremacist policies. (refer UM 15/12/09 at page 6)
P.Uthayakumar
HRP Secretary General
UMNO excluded Indians from 90% of businesses
So the Indians end up largely in the restaurant and saree shop business (refer UM 15/12/09 at page 6). UMNO has rejected business licenses and loans to hundreds of thousands of Indians in pursuit of their racist, religious extremist and supremacist policies.
S.JAYATHAS
HRP Information Chief
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