Najib has appointed MIC president G Palanivel as a minister in the PM's department.
This has resulted in MIC jumping for joy while everyone else watches with cynical amusement.
I believe this appointment is to win support from the Indian community. This tactic would have worked in the 70s - during the days when people were simple-minded and easily manipulated.
Still, some Indians are angry over the poor treatment of the Parti Sosialis activists by the police (and by proxy the government). So Najib is trying to placate their misgivings by this appointment.
I'm sure there will be some dumbos out there who would fall for this trick.
But I think the majority of people (including the Indians) know exactly what BN stands for and have rejected it.
Showing posts with label MIC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MIC. Show all posts
Saturday, 30 July 2011
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Planet Of The Apes - Yet Another Sequel
Unfortunately, you can't walk out of the cinema or switch off the television. It's live.
According to Malaysiakini, they've got their tits in a twirl over Malay Mail's report of caste politics.
They can't do anything right.
They don't fight for even basic human rights.
Who cares what they do in their party polls?
According to Malaysiakini, they've got their tits in a twirl over Malay Mail's report of caste politics.
They can't do anything right.
They don't fight for even basic human rights.
Who cares what they do in their party polls?
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Samy's Last Term?
No kidding.
I love this part, "..if the Indian community in the country decided that they did not want him, he was prepared to go even now".
Samy boy. Which part of podah do you not understand?
You've been heckled, had eggs/tomatoes thrown in your general direction, had women yell at you, men show you the finger and heaps of Indian bloggers feverishly pecking at their keyboards in contempt for you.
Are you waiting for a sign from God himself?
I'd tell Samy to get lost now. Except I do want him to stand for election and lose his seat to the Opposition.
I love this part, "..if the Indian community in the country decided that they did not want him, he was prepared to go even now".
Samy boy. Which part of podah do you not understand?
You've been heckled, had eggs/tomatoes thrown in your general direction, had women yell at you, men show you the finger and heaps of Indian bloggers feverishly pecking at their keyboards in contempt for you.
Are you waiting for a sign from God himself?
I'd tell Samy to get lost now. Except I do want him to stand for election and lose his seat to the Opposition.
Monday, 3 December 2007
India's Role In Malaysia's Ethnic Crisis
There's quite a bit of history lessons in here that I never got from my textbooks when I was in school.
Bummer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OVERSEAS AND UNHAPPY - India needs to pay attention to the ethnic crisis in Malaysia
by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
The Telegraph (Calcutta, India)
Malaysia’s simmering ethnic crisis is something for the ministry of overseas Indian affairs to ponder on. Presumably, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman was bestowed on S. Samy Vellu, president since 1979 of the Malaysian Indian Congress and public works minister in the ruling coalition, because India approves of his work as representative of more than two million ethnic Indians. Since the man and his constituency are inseparable, convulsions in the latter that question his leadership oblige India to reassess its attitude towards the diaspora.
Initially, screaming headlines about Hindus on the march suggested hordes of ash-smeared trident-brandishing sadhus with matted locks rampaging to overwhelm Muslim Malaysia. In reality, thousands of impoverished Tamils carrying crudely drawn pictures of Gandhi sought only to hand over a petition to the British high commission in Kuala Lumpur about their plight since their ancestors were imported as indentured labour 150 years ago. It so happened that the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a new umbrella group of 30 organizations, mobilized Sunday’s protest when Tamils battled the riot police for six hours.
The confrontation was even farther removed in space than in time from Lee Kuan Yew’s claim in 1959, when Singapore was waiting to join Malaya, that India was to Malayan culture “what Greece and Rome are to Western culture”. Peninsular Malay was part first of the Srivijaya empire and then of Rajendra Chola’s overseas dominions. Even modern Islamic Malaysia borrows heavily from India. Terms like Bangsa Melayu (for the Malay nation) and bumiputera (Malay Muslims), the cherished determinant of political and economic privilege, expose Malaysia’s own unacknowledged linguistic bankruptcy.
Describing the Thirties excavations in Kedah, which confirmed that Bujang was a Srivijaya empire port — dating back to the 4th century — within easy sailing distance of India, Time magazine reported in 2000, “But an Indian Malaysian visiting the Bujang Valley might come away feeling demeaned rather than proud — and that would be no accident.” Anthony Spaeth, the writer, went on to say that “the official literature does its best to downplay, even denigrate, the Indian impact on the region”.
Ironically, the Indian minority’s further marginalization coincided with the long tenure (1981-2003) of the former prime minister, the ethnic Indian medical doctor, Mahathir Mohamad. He also took Malaysia further along the road to Islamization. A kind of competitive Islam was at play under him with the fundamentalist Parti Islam SeMalaysia demanding Sharia law and Mahathir’s subsequently disgraced lieutenant, Anwar Ibrahim, peddling what he called Islamic values without “Arabisation”.
Lee says Chinese Malaysians (25 per cent) who have maintained an uneasy peace since the vicious Malay-Chinese riots of 1969, are being marginalized. But they at least have someone to speak up for them. They are also able to salt away their savings in Singapore where they often send their children for education and employment. Lacking any of these fall-back advantages, the much poorer Indians suffered in silence until Sunday’s upsurge. They did not protest even when six Indians were murdered and 42 others injured in March 2001 without the authorities bothering to investigate the attacks.
Nearly 85 per cent of Indian Malaysians are Tamil, and about 60 per cent of them are descended from plantation workers. Official statistics say Indians own 1.2 per cent of traded equity (40 per cent is held by the Chinese) though they constitute eight per cent of the population. About 5 per cent of civil servants are said to be Indian while 77 per cent are Malay. An Indian who wants to start a business must not only engage a bumiputera partner but also fork out the latter’s 30 per cent share of equity. The licence-permit raj has run amok with government sanction needed even to collect garbage. Lowest in the education and income rankings, Indians lead the list of suicides, drug offenders and jailed criminals. All the telltale signs of an underclass. While the state gives preferential treatment to bumiputeras, the MIC has done little to help Indians rise above their initially low socio-economic base.
Religious devotion often being the last refuge of those with little else to call their own, Indians set great store by their temples, which are now the targets of government demolition squads. Many are technically illegal structures because the authorities will not clear registration applications. The last straw was the eve-of-Diwali destruction of a 36-year-old temple in Shah Alam town which is projected as an “Islamic City”. Insult was piled on injury when, having announced that he would not keep the customary post-Eid open house as a mute mark of protest, Vellu hastily backtracked as soon as the prime minister frowned at him.
Emotions have been simmering since 2005 when the mullahs seized the body of a 36-year-old Tamil Hindu soldier and mountaineer, M. Moorthy, and buried it over the protests of his Hindu wife, claiming Moorthy had converted to Islam. A Sharia court upheld the mullahs, and when the widow appealed, a civil judge ruled that Article 121(1A) of Malaysia’s constitution made the Sharia court’s verdict final. Civil courts had no jurisdiction. Such restrictions and, even more, the manner in which rules are implemented, make a mockery of the constitution’s Article 3(1) that “other religions may be practised in peace and harmony”.
Last Sunday’s petition was signed by 1,00,000 Indians. The fact that it was provoked by a supposed conversion and a temple destruction and was sponsored by Hindraf prompted P. Ramasamy, a local academic, to say, “The character of struggle has changed. It has taken on a Hindu form — Hinduism versus Islam.” But that is a simplification. The protesters who were beaten up, arrested and charged with sedition were Indians. They were labelled Hindu because Tamil or Malayali Muslims (like Mahathir) go to extraordinary lengths to deny their Indian ancestry and wangle their way into the petted and pampered bumiputera preserve. In Singapore, too, Indian Muslims who speak Tamil at home or sport Gujarati names drape the headscarf called tudung on their wives and insist they are Malay. Malaysia’s Sikhs also distance themselves from the Indian definition which has become a metaphor for backwardness.
Branding Sunday’s demonstration Hindu automatically singles out the minority as the adversary in a country whose leaders stress their Islamic identity. The implication of a religious motivation also distracts attention from the more serious economic discrimination that lies at the heart of minority discontent. Acknowledging that “unhappiness with their status in society was a real issue” for the protesters, even The New Straits Times, voice of the Malay establishment, commented editorially, “The marginalisation of the Indian community, the neglect of their concerns and the alienation of their youth must be urgently addressed.”
Some have suggested that the illusory prospect of fat damages from Hindraf’s $4 trillion lawsuit against the British government may have tempted demonstrators. But the lawyers who lead Hindraf must know that their plaint is only a symbolic gesture like my Australian aboriginal friend Paul Coe landing in England and taking possession of it as terra nullius (nobody’s land) because that is what the British did in Australia. The more serious message is, as The New Straits Times wrote, that secular grievances must be addressed. Though plantation workers have demonstrated earlier against employers, never before have they so powerfully proclaimed their dissatisfaction with the government. In doing so, under Hindraf colours, they have also signified a loss of confidence in Vellu and the MIC. The worm has turned. There is a danger now of the government hitting back hard.
All this concerns India, not because of M. Karunanidhi’s fulminations but because interest in overseas Indians must be even-handed. The diaspora does not begin and end with Silicon Valley millionaires. Nor should Vayalar Ravi’s only concern be V.S. Naipaul and Lakshmi Mittal whose pictures adorn his ministry’s website. Indians of another class are in much greater need of his attention.
Bummer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OVERSEAS AND UNHAPPY - India needs to pay attention to the ethnic crisis in Malaysia
by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
The Telegraph (Calcutta, India)
Malaysia’s simmering ethnic crisis is something for the ministry of overseas Indian affairs to ponder on. Presumably, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman was bestowed on S. Samy Vellu, president since 1979 of the Malaysian Indian Congress and public works minister in the ruling coalition, because India approves of his work as representative of more than two million ethnic Indians. Since the man and his constituency are inseparable, convulsions in the latter that question his leadership oblige India to reassess its attitude towards the diaspora.
Initially, screaming headlines about Hindus on the march suggested hordes of ash-smeared trident-brandishing sadhus with matted locks rampaging to overwhelm Muslim Malaysia. In reality, thousands of impoverished Tamils carrying crudely drawn pictures of Gandhi sought only to hand over a petition to the British high commission in Kuala Lumpur about their plight since their ancestors were imported as indentured labour 150 years ago. It so happened that the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a new umbrella group of 30 organizations, mobilized Sunday’s protest when Tamils battled the riot police for six hours.
The confrontation was even farther removed in space than in time from Lee Kuan Yew’s claim in 1959, when Singapore was waiting to join Malaya, that India was to Malayan culture “what Greece and Rome are to Western culture”. Peninsular Malay was part first of the Srivijaya empire and then of Rajendra Chola’s overseas dominions. Even modern Islamic Malaysia borrows heavily from India. Terms like Bangsa Melayu (for the Malay nation) and bumiputera (Malay Muslims), the cherished determinant of political and economic privilege, expose Malaysia’s own unacknowledged linguistic bankruptcy.
Describing the Thirties excavations in Kedah, which confirmed that Bujang was a Srivijaya empire port — dating back to the 4th century — within easy sailing distance of India, Time magazine reported in 2000, “But an Indian Malaysian visiting the Bujang Valley might come away feeling demeaned rather than proud — and that would be no accident.” Anthony Spaeth, the writer, went on to say that “the official literature does its best to downplay, even denigrate, the Indian impact on the region”.
Ironically, the Indian minority’s further marginalization coincided with the long tenure (1981-2003) of the former prime minister, the ethnic Indian medical doctor, Mahathir Mohamad. He also took Malaysia further along the road to Islamization. A kind of competitive Islam was at play under him with the fundamentalist Parti Islam SeMalaysia demanding Sharia law and Mahathir’s subsequently disgraced lieutenant, Anwar Ibrahim, peddling what he called Islamic values without “Arabisation”.
Lee says Chinese Malaysians (25 per cent) who have maintained an uneasy peace since the vicious Malay-Chinese riots of 1969, are being marginalized. But they at least have someone to speak up for them. They are also able to salt away their savings in Singapore where they often send their children for education and employment. Lacking any of these fall-back advantages, the much poorer Indians suffered in silence until Sunday’s upsurge. They did not protest even when six Indians were murdered and 42 others injured in March 2001 without the authorities bothering to investigate the attacks.
Nearly 85 per cent of Indian Malaysians are Tamil, and about 60 per cent of them are descended from plantation workers. Official statistics say Indians own 1.2 per cent of traded equity (40 per cent is held by the Chinese) though they constitute eight per cent of the population. About 5 per cent of civil servants are said to be Indian while 77 per cent are Malay. An Indian who wants to start a business must not only engage a bumiputera partner but also fork out the latter’s 30 per cent share of equity. The licence-permit raj has run amok with government sanction needed even to collect garbage. Lowest in the education and income rankings, Indians lead the list of suicides, drug offenders and jailed criminals. All the telltale signs of an underclass. While the state gives preferential treatment to bumiputeras, the MIC has done little to help Indians rise above their initially low socio-economic base.
Religious devotion often being the last refuge of those with little else to call their own, Indians set great store by their temples, which are now the targets of government demolition squads. Many are technically illegal structures because the authorities will not clear registration applications. The last straw was the eve-of-Diwali destruction of a 36-year-old temple in Shah Alam town which is projected as an “Islamic City”. Insult was piled on injury when, having announced that he would not keep the customary post-Eid open house as a mute mark of protest, Vellu hastily backtracked as soon as the prime minister frowned at him.
Emotions have been simmering since 2005 when the mullahs seized the body of a 36-year-old Tamil Hindu soldier and mountaineer, M. Moorthy, and buried it over the protests of his Hindu wife, claiming Moorthy had converted to Islam. A Sharia court upheld the mullahs, and when the widow appealed, a civil judge ruled that Article 121(1A) of Malaysia’s constitution made the Sharia court’s verdict final. Civil courts had no jurisdiction. Such restrictions and, even more, the manner in which rules are implemented, make a mockery of the constitution’s Article 3(1) that “other religions may be practised in peace and harmony”.
Last Sunday’s petition was signed by 1,00,000 Indians. The fact that it was provoked by a supposed conversion and a temple destruction and was sponsored by Hindraf prompted P. Ramasamy, a local academic, to say, “The character of struggle has changed. It has taken on a Hindu form — Hinduism versus Islam.” But that is a simplification. The protesters who were beaten up, arrested and charged with sedition were Indians. They were labelled Hindu because Tamil or Malayali Muslims (like Mahathir) go to extraordinary lengths to deny their Indian ancestry and wangle their way into the petted and pampered bumiputera preserve. In Singapore, too, Indian Muslims who speak Tamil at home or sport Gujarati names drape the headscarf called tudung on their wives and insist they are Malay. Malaysia’s Sikhs also distance themselves from the Indian definition which has become a metaphor for backwardness.
Branding Sunday’s demonstration Hindu automatically singles out the minority as the adversary in a country whose leaders stress their Islamic identity. The implication of a religious motivation also distracts attention from the more serious economic discrimination that lies at the heart of minority discontent. Acknowledging that “unhappiness with their status in society was a real issue” for the protesters, even The New Straits Times, voice of the Malay establishment, commented editorially, “The marginalisation of the Indian community, the neglect of their concerns and the alienation of their youth must be urgently addressed.”
Some have suggested that the illusory prospect of fat damages from Hindraf’s $4 trillion lawsuit against the British government may have tempted demonstrators. But the lawyers who lead Hindraf must know that their plaint is only a symbolic gesture like my Australian aboriginal friend Paul Coe landing in England and taking possession of it as terra nullius (nobody’s land) because that is what the British did in Australia. The more serious message is, as The New Straits Times wrote, that secular grievances must be addressed. Though plantation workers have demonstrated earlier against employers, never before have they so powerfully proclaimed their dissatisfaction with the government. In doing so, under Hindraf colours, they have also signified a loss of confidence in Vellu and the MIC. The worm has turned. There is a danger now of the government hitting back hard.
All this concerns India, not because of M. Karunanidhi’s fulminations but because interest in overseas Indians must be even-handed. The diaspora does not begin and end with Silicon Valley millionaires. Nor should Vayalar Ravi’s only concern be V.S. Naipaul and Lakshmi Mittal whose pictures adorn his ministry’s website. Indians of another class are in much greater need of his attention.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Government Doing Its "Best" For Indians
My parents still insist on buying the New Straits Times.
They enjoy the comics and conscientiously pore through the obituaries, looking for anyone newly deceased that they might recognise. Funerals make good reunions too, you know.
Of course, the NST also comes in handy for wrapping up garbage.
But this morning, I just happened to glance through the headlines which proudly announced, "Government doing its best for Indians, says PM".
It didn't escape my attention that they got a couple of "Indians" (Malaysians of South Asian origin) to write the article so it appears all politically correct.
The blabbering article goes on to say how outraged the PM is.
Some excerpts:
“Tell me, do you believe there is ethnic cleansing in Malaysia? Is there ethnic cleansing, tell me? If this happened, I will resign,” Abdullah said.
Before you put in the letter, Sir, care to explain why the issue on Kg Medan has been kept under wraps? How did the riot break out, how many died, what actually happened?
Because if you keep me in the dark, I sure as hell am prepared to believe the worst.
“Tell me, you are an Indian and so are you (referring to Indian reporters), have we been doing it for the past 50 years, have we done this?”he asked.
Now now. Putting random reporters on the spot, are we? What was their response anyway? The report was strangely mum on that.
Abdullah also slammed Hindraf’s charge that “government backed armed Islamic extremists” had destroyed a temple in Klang.
“There is no such thing. This a lie conjured by certain groups to create hatred among the Indians for the government.”
You mean, the temple in Klang still stands?? Bugger me, it must be David Copperfield messing with my eyes again.
“They have done their part and supported the government. They are strong supporters of the Barisan Nasional and they surely do so because they believe we are fair to all.”
Don't deign to speak on my behalf, Sir, with your patronizing shit! Most of the politicians in your party are imbeciles who misbehave on a regular basis and have no reason to gain respect from the citizens of this great nation.
It is because of your incompetent leadership and apathetic attitude to the plight of Indians that has sparked this very uprise among the Indians.
Heck, it's not like I'm a great fan of HINDRAF.
In fact, I did mention that their manner of describing situations is over the top and they don't mind contradicting themselves.
In politically-incorrect terms, they're drama-mamas. (I don't reckon they have any right to sue my ass for calling them that as their references to the UMNO government hasn't been all that sweet and polite either).
But HINDRAF is the only organisation in Malaysia that has brought out the plight of marginalised Indians in Malaysia. For once, someone has to address the issue of body-snatching Hindu heros and giving them Muslim burials.
And someone had to highlight the insensitive demolition of Hindu temples.
However, at the risk of royally pissing off hardcore HINDRAFs, those demolished temples had no legal papers backing them up. I have a friend (an investigative reporter) who disclosed some interesting bits of information with me:
1) While HINDRAF was loudly protesting the demolishing of temples, there was said to be temple mismanagement within its committee itself. Allegedly, the government (on certain occasions) reimbursed the temple and gave ample time for relocation but no action was taken on the part of the temple committee.
2) HINDRAF lawyers didn't even know who the developers of the land where the temples were located were. If I were handling a case, you can betcha ass I'd have negotiated with all parties prior to any demolition squad making their presence there.
You see, I'm not completely against the temples being demolished. I'm more annoyed at the way the priests were manhandled, their statues were thrown about and trampled. And I'm not even Hindu.
Now these are sacred images for the Hindus. You can't irreverently fling them about any more than you can a Koran. It's just not right.
You can't fire tear-gas indiscriminately or douse them liberally with chemical-laced water, to the extent of causing death from asthma, beatings and resulting in other skin problems.
You can't deny them of ICs and birth certificates, consequently denying them a place in school because of no identification of citizenship.
You can't arrest them, throw them in jail and beat them till they die from the injuries.
You can't snatch their bodies and give them Muslim burials (because of a vague rumour of conversion) without the consent of the widow and without allowing her to pay her last respects.
You can't fire shots indiscriminately and kill an innocent pregnant woman and her baby just because you think the kidnapped child of a prominent politician is inside AND THEN go on to claim self-defense when there was obviously no one else in possession of firearms.
But because the Indians are a small minority, you can get away with kicking them. They are not economically strong, so they become a punching bag and no one really cares.
So no, the government is NOT doing its best for the Malaysians of South Asian origin. Because if it was, I'd hate to know what its worst is.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
MIC Offers Advice
Nothing could possibly be more amusing than the notion of MIC trying to resolve issues pertaining to Indians in Malaysia.
As lap dogs of UMNO, they are only there to appease the public demand for racial representation.
As lap dogs of UMNO, they are only there to appease the public demand for racial representation.
MIC: Ignore calls to attend rally
KUALA LUMPUR: The Indian community has been advised to ignore calls by certain groups urging them to attend a rally at the British High Commission this Sunday to protest against the demolition of an Indian temple in Klang.
MIC secretary-general Datuk S. Veerasingam said the party had informed its members not to attend the gathering. He claimed the event was being held for the benefit of the Opposition.
”There are SMSes calling participants to go against the authorities. Such matters will create a tense situation and innocent people will get caught while the perpetrators will walk free,” he added.
Veerasingam said the MIC would discuss what action to take against its members who attend the gathering. He added that several social activists had acted irresponsibly by inciting the Indian community to hate the Government.
“These people are not assisting the Government in solving problems affecting the Indian community. We have no problem with social activists. But this past week, the community has been confused by the actions of this group, including four lawyers, which we believe will only help the Opposition,” said Veerasingam at the Parliament lobby yesterday.
He added that problems could be settled through proper channels in the coalition government.
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