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Saturday 24 March 2012

Orwellian

It was a good friend from Australia who pointed out this article in the Malaysian Insider: Facebook, Twitter foster national security threats, say police

You really should read the whole article, but I shall reproduce an excerpt here to give you a flavour of what is being preached to the masses:

Internal security and public order director Datuk Salleh Mat Rasid said the Internet posed a challenge to the police as it allowed people “to know what was going on in and outside the country”.

This would encourage those who have been “influenced by liberal thinking” to replicate locally what was happening in other countries, Utusan Malaysia quoted him as saying today.

This is positively Orwellian. You would think it is something new and original but George Orwell described it in his book 1984 very succinctly.

To summarise, it is the policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past.


The question is, why do people not grow alarmed at how blatantly those in power are trying to control us?

Here's why. Read this bit from the UK's Daily Mail about the Malaysian student in the Tottenham Riots.

And he was also critical of the police. ‘The police in Malaysia would have taken action sooner,’ he said.

‘Your police let it grow and grow until it was out of control. I don’t understand why people were allowed to run riot and rob in that way.

'Here in Malaysia the police can catch you and grab you if you do something wrong. But in Britain it seems that you cannot.’

Malaysia’s government is known for being authoritarian, but Mr Rossli said: ‘After this happened, people asked Ashraf why he went outside when there were riots and he replied, “Because in Malaysia we are always free to walk outside”.

'We have a tough government in Malaysia, but when something like this happens, they take action. They don’t let it get out of control. The streets are safe.’

You and I know that this is a load of hogwash. Pure rubbish. Unadulterated garbage. Utter crap. Pristine bullsh!t.

In Malaysia, we aren't always free to walk outside. We can get beaten quite severely by the police.

Ask peaceful candlelight vigil participants that have been rushed by the police and arrested.

Evidently, the police CAN catch and grab you even if you DON'T do anything wrong. The streets are NOT safe, thanks to the police.

And when an event like ABU (Anything But UMNO) takes place and gangsters try to wreak havoc and intimidate innocent civillians, the police are nowhere to be found. Ask anyone who has been for the ABU event in Klang.

But not everyone knows, because not everyone WANTS to know the sordid truth about the Malaysian government.

Ignorance isn't always bliss.

Certainly not when it becomes so easy to spot the government as a fascist regime.

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Malaysians Living Abroad Want a Say in Next Election

From the New York Times: Malaysians Living Abroad Want a Say in Next Election

KUALA LUMPUR — Nurul Syaheedah Jes Izman, 27, a graduate of New York University, lives in New Jersey and works on Wall Street as a financial analyst. Though she has spent her college years and all of her working life in the United States, she closely follows political developments in her native Malaysia, reading Malaysian news Web sites every day and talking with friends and family back home about the issues.

But under current law, Ms. Nurul Syaheedah will not be able to express her political preferences at the ballot box in the next Malaysian election, widely expected this year, unless she makes the 23-hour trip home. The only Malaysians living overseas who are allowed to vote by absentee ballot are government workers, military personnel and full-time students and their spouses.

“The right to vote is a basic right of all citizens,” Ms. Nurul Syaheedah said in an e-mail. “No one should be disenfranchised in this time and age, even from a different location overseas. We are all rightful stakeholders in our nation.”

With an estimated 700,000 of Malaysia’s 28 million citizens residing abroad, the Malaysian diaspora is spread far and wide, from neighboring Singapore to New Zealand and the United States, and their calls for a greater say in how their country is run are growing louder.

These appeals are being heard against the backdrop of a larger popular movement to make the process of choosing Malaysia’s leaders more fair and transparent. Last summer, thousands of people demonstrated in Kuala Lumpur for electoral changes that they argue would level the playing field for the political opposition to compete against the governing National Front coalition, dominated by the United Malays National Organization, which has been in power since independence in 1957.

In January, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur rejected an application by six Malaysians living in Britain for a review of the election laws. But the authorities have begun taking steps toward extending the vote to more overseas Malaysians. A parliamentary committee, set up after the protests last year to consider changes to the election process, has recommended that overseas voting be expanded and has been discussing options with the Election Commission. The panel is expected to present a report in early April.

But some expatriates are concerned that any changes will not come in time for the next election and that Malaysia will continue to bar some of its overseas citizens from voting — based, perhaps, on how long they have lived abroad, as some other countries do.

Some analysts believe that the Malaysian governing coalition — which in 2008 suffered one of the greatest electoral setbacks in its history, with the opposition taking more than a third of the seats in Parliament — is unlikely, for political reasons, to extend the franchise to more overseas Malaysians in time for the next election.

Expatriates, these analysts say, could be seen as likely to support the opposition, since many are ethnic Chinese and Indians who went abroad, at least in part, out of exasperation with the government’s longstanding policies favoring Malays.

“The strong suspicion is that the vast majority of overseas Malaysians, who are ethnic Indians and ethnic Chinese, are somewhat frustrated with the affirmative action policies and have left Malaysia to seek better opportunities,” said John Lee, adjunct associate professor at the Center for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney. “This includes better opportunities for their children’s education, and also due to the fact that the best jobs in the public service and other selective sectors of the economy have affirmative action quotas in place.”

Wan Saiful Wan Jan, chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs in Kuala Lumpur, said that, based on his observations, Malaysians living overseas were “overwhelmingly critical of the governing coalition.”

“The government has a lot to lose,” he said. “Overseas voters can make a big difference if they have that opportunity to vote.”

Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, deputy chairman of the Election Commission, said the commission had recommended to the parliamentary panel that Malaysians living overseas be required to return at least once every five years to maintain their eligibility to vote. He said it would not be fair to extend the vote to citizens who return less frequently and do not follow developments in their constituencies.

Some expatriates are riled by the implication that if they stay away for long periods, they do not care about their country’s affairs. They say they want the chance to vote for leaders who will address the issues that prompted them to leave in the first place.

“Just because you are overseas doesn’t mean you don’t care and don’t know,” said Ong Suan Ee, a Malaysian who works as a senior research analyst at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

See-See Leong, a software designer who has lived in London for 17 years and was one of the six Malaysians involved in the case the High Court ruled on in January, said there was “no logic” to why only certain overseas Malaysians are allowed to vote.

“The Constitution gives you the right to vote, and therefore, so long as you are a Malaysian citizen, you should have the right to vote,” said Ms. Leong, 44, who is on the board of trustees of My Overseas Vote , an advocacy group established in London in 2010.

Among other changes, My Overseas Vote wants votes to be counted at Malaysian embassies, rather than mailed back to the country from overseas — a process that the election commission has recommended stay in place. The group said in a statement this week that voting by mail in Malaysia had “become synonymous with fraud and unfair balloting.”

The group also said that in the past, some overseas military personnel had had to fill out their ballots in front of their superiors.

Mr. Wan Ahmad of the Election Commission said he was aware that such allegations had been reported in the news media but said the commission had received no formal complaints and urged anyone with evidence of misconduct to come forward.

Some expatriates, including Hwa Shi-Hsia, 28, a biologist who lives in Singapore, are determined to vote even if the rules are not changed before the next election. Ms. Hwa, 28, plans to book a flight home as soon as the election is called. But she says this is a cost she should not be required to bear.

“The Philippines managed to arrange overseas voting for its citizens in Singapore,” she said. “I don’t see why we can’t.”

Sunday 18 March 2012

PAS And Foreign Policy

This is an excellent stand on foreign policy, especially regarding our anti-semitic stance.

KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 — PAS rejects Zionism but is prepared to co-operate with Jews, party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang has said.

“PAS rejects Zionism because it is a fanatical ideology of the [Jewish] race,” he was quoted as saying today by Bernama Online.

That reflects my views -- the Palestinians shouldn't have their rights violated by the Jews and vice versa.

However, individuals of Jewish origin should not be victims of hate-crime or unsportsman-like behaviour purely because of their nationality.

There have been instances where Israeli footballers have been booed on the field purely because of their nationality. How narrow-minded can Malaysians get?

This is the problem when people do things without thinking.

My passport does not allow me to go into Israel as Malaysia does not have diplomatic ties with Israel. This means Malaysians and Israelis do not do business.

This is very convenient for politicians. Bear in mind that Malaysian politicians have the tendency for being very hypocritical. The news from the grapevine is that most politicians have a bank account with Israeli banks.

Bear in mind that Washington-based watchdog group Global Financial Integrity said in a recent report that Malaysia lost $338 billion between 2000 and 2009 to illegal money outflows, ranking it fifth in the world.

What an ideal situation it is to have no political or economic ties with Israel, because no one from Malaysia is going to have access to Israeli banks and check where the money goes or comes from.

All the politicians do is pretend to show some concern and install some retarded scanners to detect bank notes at airports and border crossings!!! For real?!

At the end of the day, who is the fool?

The average Malaysian, of course, because he's fixated on chasing his tail, squabbling about affirmative action policies -- instead of looking at the real issue at hand.

Wednesday 14 March 2012

"Sacrifice", My A$$!!

She has been guilty of graft, corruption and nepotism.

The reason she had to leave is because it became public knowledge and people were harping about it.

UMNO didn't want to be associated with the stink she left behind. So they asked her to leave. Pergi main jauh-jauh.

It was done to appease the voting public.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why it is a "sacrifice".

Because there was a RM2.2 billion Kinrara-Damansara Expressway concession awarded to a crony who helped topple the state of Perak and return into UMNO hands. That is a bigger sum than what Shahrizat is accused of helping herself to, and yet no one's head rolled over it.

Frankly, the cattle, condos and cars are all .... chicken feed in comparison to what goes on in UMNO.

At the end of the day, all of them are guilty of one thing or another, but one lamb needs to be sacrificed to silence the baying of the wolves.

Hence, the word, "sacrifice".

Sunday 11 March 2012

"Political Muscle"


My first reaction was: What is Najib smoking?

Consequently, I wondered: Could I have some too?

But then I thought for a bit more. And I suspect this means they have devised an underhand method to win the next general elections.

That's not good news.

Thursday 8 March 2012

Translating The Gobbledegook

Razak Baginda may have motive to kill Altantuya but...

... the answer hangs in the air. Or in a 70-page judgment.

Most people don't believe he did it anyway.

They tend to believe someone else was responsible.

After all, you don't summon military commandos to resolve a civil matter of blackmail and stalking. You call in the police.

Of course, you certainly don't erase or confiscate all immigration records of her entering or leaving the country. Not when there are photographic evidences documented all over.

You don't get rid of the nuisance by blowing her up with government-owned C4 explosives. You file a police report or maybe even press charges in court.

Which is why most people tend to look in the direction of the defence minister at that time.

But hey, I'm not saying anything. No more than the 70-page judgment.

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Glass Houses And Stones

No doubt the Daily Mail is just a rag.

And they love sensational news and quotes from anyone who's willing to offer any.

But in the case of Ashraf Rossli's parents, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.


‘The system in Britain makes people lazy. In Malaysia, if you want to earn money, you have to work. And if you want to earn more money, you have to study hard.

‘In Britain, people who work pay tax and it goes to people who do no work. I don’t understand that.’

You don't understand that?

Like it never happens in Malaysia where one race gets the benefits without putting in the effort?

Do we not have our own brand of thugs on bikes called Mat Rempits? Have we no UMNOputras who plunder our riches -- timber, oil & gas -- and sell us off to Australian rare earth companies in exchange for huge sums of money?

And if we had to get personal, did their son really deserve the scholarship to study in the UK, to begin with? Was it based on merit or skin colour?

I don't believe in Britain's system of giving away handouts and benefits. But I don't believe in Malaysia's institutionalised racism either.

Thursday 1 March 2012

Lite Break

1. One midnight, Najib had a tiff with Rosmah. Annoyed, he set off alone for supper. On the way, he bumped into a robber.

"Give me all your money!!" the robber demanded.

Najib was very angry, "How dare you? I am the honourable Prime Minister!"

The robber said, "Well, then ... return all my money."

************

2. One fine day, Najib, Muhyiddin and some MPs were on the way to a meeting when they all got into an accident and were rushed to the hospital.

The reporters were waiting at the hospital waiting room, when the doctor came out and shook his head, "We have done our best to rescue the PM but ..."

The reporters asked, "How about Muhyiddin?"

The doctor replied quietly, "We were unable to rescue him either ..."

"Then who have you saved?" the reporters wanted to know.

The doctor exclaimed, "Malaysia!!!!"

************

3. Samy Vellu visited the psychiatric hospital. All the patients cheered and clapped for him but there was one patient who ignored Samy.

Samy: Why does he not welcome me?

Doctor: He is now normal and waiting to be discharged today.