Malaysia's fundamentalist opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia appears increasingly likely to win the country's next by-election in the first poll that might actually start to realign power, despairing United Malays National Organisation insiders say.
"UMNO may lose the seat and start the demise of the party," said a disillusioned party stalwart, although other observers point out that the ruling national coalition has a built-in edge from military and police voters.
The seat came open in the state of Negeri Sembilan with the sudden death of UMNO state lawmaker Azman Mohd Noor from blood poisoning in early September. Although it is a seat in a relatively obscure state legislature, if PAS takes it in the Oct. 11 by-election in what had been an UMNO stronghold, observers in Kuala Lumpur say, it will be a convincing demonstration that the fundamentalist Islamic party is breaking out of its rural stronghold on the eastern side of the country and that its power is growing.
UMNO is banking on the hope that of the 14,000 voters in the constituency, 5,700 are absentee postal voters, most of them soldiers and policemen, whose vote usually goes to the Barisan Nasional. The district is about 60 mi. south of the Kuala Lumpur conurbation.
The election comes at a time when Malaysia is suffering from a variety of economic, ethnic, religious and cultural strains that are being exacerbated by political maneuvering between the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition and the ruling Barisan Nasional. Annual gross domestic product fell a stunning 6.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009 as the world financial crisis disrupted Malaysia's export-oriented economy. GDP continued to fall by 3.9 percent in the second quarter, killing job growth despite a massive fiscal stimulus package and accommodative fiscal policy from Bank Negara, the country's central bank.
"They say it's turning around, but a lot of people are losing their jobs, this (Eid Ul Fitri, the end of the fasting month) people are not spending, many companies are opting for early retirement for their workers," said a Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer. "Hopefully (the fiscal package) does kick in soon, but I doubt it on the ground. It is going to hurt."
As part of that fiscal stimulus, development spending is expected to hit RM55 billion (US$15.8 billion) for all of 2009 and rise to RM58 billion for 2010. However, construction spending is a double-edged sword. Malaysia's construction companies are closely aligned to UMNO and increasingly jaded voters are concerned that the spoils will go to fat-cat cronies of the politicians.
Given these problems, PAS has emerged as a political powerhouse in urban areas as ethnic Malays have turned away from the scandal-ridden UMNO, attracted by PAS's stated clean-government aims despite its strict fundamentalist policies. The party has been feeling its oats around Kuala Lumpur, seeking to ban beer sales in Malay areas and, most recently, pushing authorities to seeking to force the sexy rock superstar Beyonce Knowles into modifying her often provocative dress in advance of an Oct. 25 concert. Beyonce cancelled a show in Malaysia two years ago because of the country's dress code.
Malaysia has been raising the hackles of human rights defenders, particularly with the scheduled whipping of part-time model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno which was ordered by a Kuantan religious court for the offense of drinking beer. Kartika is now awaiting the lash. The same shariah judge more recently also ordered an Indonesian male to be caned for the same offence.
At the same time, however, it's unsure just how much the fundamentalism carries over into the general population. The newspapers have continued to carry stories of late-night revels by urban Malay youth during the Ramadan fasting month, with as many as 200 young people drinking and dancing on tables in sexually revealing clothing at one event, although one observer says that by and large the country's Malay young are largely conservative. He also expects them to vote in great numbers in upcoming elections, with as many as 1 million youthful new voters registered.
These strains are playing themselves out in Negeri Sembilan. In seven of the eight by-elections since the 2008 general election, the party that previously held the seat reclaimed it. However, in Negeri Sembilan UMNO appears likely to shoot itself in the foot by nominating Mohd Isa Abdul Samad, a party division head, to take on the PAS candidate, who has yet to be named. Isa was suspended for three years from UMNO for vote-buying. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has taken to almost daily attacks on UMNO,criticized the decision to nominate Isa, calling attention to the recent loss of a Penang seat because the national coalition candidate had been disbarred. UMNO, Mahathir said, has "not learned from earlier blistering mistakes."
The 14,000-voter district is more than 20 percent ethnic Indian. It will be a test for Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to see if he has had any success in wooing Malaysia's Indians, who make up about 8 percent of the total population, back to the fold. They have been furious over Muslim protests that forced cancellation of the relocation of the 150-year-old Sri Mahamariamman Temple to a site more convenient to them after housing estates had overtaken the onetime rubber plantation in which it had been situated. The obstreperous Muslim protesters paraded a severed cow's head – an insult to Hindus, who venerate cattle -- to the local town hall and dumped it in the protest.
Indians are also turned off by the politics of the Malaysian Indian Congress, the third leg of the Barisan Nasional. The party's leader, S. Samy Vellu, is regarded as out of touch with his constituency and, with the rest of the party leadership, mired in corruption. Najib has endorsed the creation of a new party, Parti Makkal Sakti, and offered to attend the party's Oct. 10 launch -- the day before the by-election -- as guest of honor. The party is an offshoot of the Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf, whose leaders were jailed last year under the Internal Security Act after anti-government rallies that turned violent. Najib has also attended ceremonies in the magnificent Batu Cave just north of Kuala Lumpur which houses a Hindu temple.
The overtures to the new party appear to be part of an desperate attempt on the part of UMNO to search out new component ethnic parties to prop up the flailing Barisan Nasional, the national coalition that has ruled Malaysia since its inception. The collapse of the MIC was accompanied by the collapse of the once-powerful Malaysian Chinese Association as well, as well as smaller parties like the mostly Chinese Gerakan and the PPP
In particular, the MCA finds itself in the middle of what one observer described to Asia Sentinel as "a circus." Its leaders are beset with one of the biggest scandals in the country's scandal-scarred history, with cost overruns for the Port Klang infrastructure project zooming out of sight. The port development was awarded as a turnkey project without competitive bid to well-connected political cronies of both UMNO and the MCA. Project outlays, originally projected at RM1.95 billion, ballooned to RM3.52 billion, with interest accounting for another RM3.9 billion by 2012. The parties to the contract have fallen on each other, describing illicit payments and filing lawsuits. The squabble appears set to wreck what is left of the MCA, with Chua Soi Lek and Ong Tee Keat battling each other for the leadership although both have been tainted by allegations of corruption. That means the Chinese are largely fleeing the Barisan for other parties.
The question is whether the Pakatan Rakyat coalition headed by Anwar Ibrahim is going to reap the whirlwind. PAS has come to dominate the political discourse in a way unthought of prior to the opposition coalition's founding. Besides PAS, the coalition includes the Chinese chauvinist Democratic Action Party as well as Anwar's own Parti Keadilan Rakyat, made up mostly of young urban Malays. Given the ethnic and religious strains, keeping the cialition together has been a demanding job.
"The Chinese thought that if they split the Malays they could win and dominate. But in my estimation, they will be faced with a weak UMNO, an increasingly strong PAS, and a weak Keadilan," a source said. "The Chinese will vote DAP, meaning it will be a 100 percent Malay government with the Chinese on the outside, given the decimation of the MIC and the MCA."
Asia Sentinel.com
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Najib finds new Indian allies, bypasses the MIC
The invitation card is glossy, in gold colour and of superior quality, in keeping with the VIP who is guest of honour at the Oct 10 launch of the new kid on the block — the Parti Makkal Sakti Malaysia.
The VIP will be Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who appears to be signalling that he is not going to solely depend on Barisan Nasional (BN) stalwart parties like the MIC and MCA to reach out to the non-Malay communities.
He will launch the new Indian-based party formed by former leaders of Hindraf at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park in Serdang next month in a strategy which bears similarities to his father Tun Razak Hussein's move in the 1970s to welcome more political parties into the establishment fold.
For this reason, it is significant that Najib is launching the party which received recognition from the Registrar of Societies in a “matter of weeks” on May 11.
His presence indicates that in the changed political landscape after March 8, 2008 which saw BN allies like the MIC, MCA, Gerakan and PPP fall like tenpins, Umno is finding and creating new allies.
Leaders of the new party have already pledged to campaign for BN in the upcoming Bagan Pinang by-election.
With MIC's and even the PPP's failure to reform and reinvent under Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu and Datuk M. Kayveas, Umno may well be searching for new partners. The Makkal Sakti party could well play such a role.
A lot is riding on the party formed by former Hindraf national co-coordinator R.S. Thanenthiran, 47, who is president.
The party has yet to make an impact but Thanenthiran said it has been working quietly to recruit over 50,000 members, getting the divisions established and setting up best practices.
“We made an impact at Kampung Buah Pala trying to save it from demolition. The Indian community knows about it,” he said.
He says Najib’s presence is an honour but claims that the party is independent and only wishes to serve the people.
“The Prime Minister is launching our party and we are honoured but it does not mean we have lost our independence,” Thanenthiran told The Malaysian Insider.
“We are working together with him as partners… we walk together for the benefit of the Indian community,” he said.
“It is true the BN did not do much for us in the past 52 years but the Pakatan Rakyat has done even less for us in the past two years,” he said.
“BN under Datuk Seri (Najib) is beginning to do for the Indians in major areas and we welcome it. We want to work with him to get a fair share of the nation's resources,” he said, giving reasons why Najib was invited to launch the party and open the annual general meeting.
“We invited Selangor Chief Minister (Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim) to open a culture night the same day but he declined,” Thanenthiran. “We tried… you can’t blame us.”
Najib’s decision to launch the Makkal Sakti party is a milestone in Indian politics in Malaysia.
It not only suggests the increasing irrelevance of the MIC, but also sidelines the many Indian-based NGOs that claim to be offshoots of the Hindraf movement, including the yet-to-be registered Human Rights Party headed by lawyer and Hindraf founder P. Uthayakumar.
Having the ear of the Prime Minister is a major boon for the Makkal Sakti Party which has asked Najib to act on three main areas of concern for the Indians.
These are turning all 543 Tamil schools into fully-aided schools, 10 per cent Indian recruitment in the civil service and at all levels and socio-economic help to uplift the Indian urban poor.
Thanenthiran said Najib told them to give him two years to act on these issues. “You all watch what I do,” Najib told them, according to Thanenthiran.
The MIC for them is already irrelevant.
“We won’t be here if the MIC had delivered,” said A. Waythamoorthy, the former Perak Hindraf co-ordinator who is deputy president.
“If they had delivered there would not have been a Makkal Sakti movement in the first place, no 2008 tsunami and we won’t form a new party,” he said.
The party would also actively campaign for the Barisan Nasional in the Oct 11 Bagan Pinang by-election because leaders feel it is a BN-ruled state and another PR or independent win would not make any difference for the Indians.
“In Bagan Pinang we want to show we can bring Indian voters for the Barisan… it is an acid test for us,” Thanenthiran said.
Malaysian Insider
The VIP will be Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who appears to be signalling that he is not going to solely depend on Barisan Nasional (BN) stalwart parties like the MIC and MCA to reach out to the non-Malay communities.
He will launch the new Indian-based party formed by former leaders of Hindraf at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park in Serdang next month in a strategy which bears similarities to his father Tun Razak Hussein's move in the 1970s to welcome more political parties into the establishment fold.
For this reason, it is significant that Najib is launching the party which received recognition from the Registrar of Societies in a “matter of weeks” on May 11.
His presence indicates that in the changed political landscape after March 8, 2008 which saw BN allies like the MIC, MCA, Gerakan and PPP fall like tenpins, Umno is finding and creating new allies.
Leaders of the new party have already pledged to campaign for BN in the upcoming Bagan Pinang by-election.
With MIC's and even the PPP's failure to reform and reinvent under Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu and Datuk M. Kayveas, Umno may well be searching for new partners. The Makkal Sakti party could well play such a role.
A lot is riding on the party formed by former Hindraf national co-coordinator R.S. Thanenthiran, 47, who is president.
The party has yet to make an impact but Thanenthiran said it has been working quietly to recruit over 50,000 members, getting the divisions established and setting up best practices.
“We made an impact at Kampung Buah Pala trying to save it from demolition. The Indian community knows about it,” he said.
He says Najib’s presence is an honour but claims that the party is independent and only wishes to serve the people.
“The Prime Minister is launching our party and we are honoured but it does not mean we have lost our independence,” Thanenthiran told The Malaysian Insider.
“We are working together with him as partners… we walk together for the benefit of the Indian community,” he said.
“It is true the BN did not do much for us in the past 52 years but the Pakatan Rakyat has done even less for us in the past two years,” he said.
“BN under Datuk Seri (Najib) is beginning to do for the Indians in major areas and we welcome it. We want to work with him to get a fair share of the nation's resources,” he said, giving reasons why Najib was invited to launch the party and open the annual general meeting.
“We invited Selangor Chief Minister (Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim) to open a culture night the same day but he declined,” Thanenthiran. “We tried… you can’t blame us.”
Najib’s decision to launch the Makkal Sakti party is a milestone in Indian politics in Malaysia.
It not only suggests the increasing irrelevance of the MIC, but also sidelines the many Indian-based NGOs that claim to be offshoots of the Hindraf movement, including the yet-to-be registered Human Rights Party headed by lawyer and Hindraf founder P. Uthayakumar.
Having the ear of the Prime Minister is a major boon for the Makkal Sakti Party which has asked Najib to act on three main areas of concern for the Indians.
These are turning all 543 Tamil schools into fully-aided schools, 10 per cent Indian recruitment in the civil service and at all levels and socio-economic help to uplift the Indian urban poor.
Thanenthiran said Najib told them to give him two years to act on these issues. “You all watch what I do,” Najib told them, according to Thanenthiran.
The MIC for them is already irrelevant.
“We won’t be here if the MIC had delivered,” said A. Waythamoorthy, the former Perak Hindraf co-ordinator who is deputy president.
“If they had delivered there would not have been a Makkal Sakti movement in the first place, no 2008 tsunami and we won’t form a new party,” he said.
The party would also actively campaign for the Barisan Nasional in the Oct 11 Bagan Pinang by-election because leaders feel it is a BN-ruled state and another PR or independent win would not make any difference for the Indians.
“In Bagan Pinang we want to show we can bring Indian voters for the Barisan… it is an acid test for us,” Thanenthiran said.
Malaysian Insider
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Indian dilemma and Hindraf
Many moons have passed since the Hindraf mass gathering in Kuala Lumpur in 2007 which led to a sea change in Indian voting pattern from predominantly Barisan Nasional to the opposition in 2008.
The increased perception among Indian voters of their economic marginalization helped to energize a political tsunami although it would be wrong to say that Hindraf created the tsunami.
The tsunami was actually created by Malaysians of all races - not just Indians - who sought change.
Much water has flowed under the bridge since then. Since their release from ISA, the five Hindraf leaders had a falling out and only two have remained to lay claim as inheritors of the Hindraf movement. They are the self-proclaimed Chairman, Waythamoorty and his brother Uthayakumar.
Two political offshoots of Hindraf have bloomed – the Malaysian Makkal Sakthi Party led by Hindraf’s ex-chief co-ordinator and the Human Rights Party led by Uthayakumar.
The MMSP appears to be a non-starter as widespread suspicion that the party made a deal with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to expedite its registration proved to be toxic.
For HRP, whose registration has not been approved, it is still early days yet but Uthayakumar’s leadership will assure that it and not MMSP will inherit the fame and reputation associated with Hindraf.
From ally to enemy
The intervening months after the 12th general election has seen more than just organizational changes and political offshoots from Hindraf, it has also seen a stark reversal of the movement’s relationship with Pakatan Rakyat. It is said that in politics there are no permanent friends or enemies but the breakdown of Hindraf’s relationship with PR has been particularly swift and complete. From a staunch ally it has turned into a fierce attacker of PR.
The root of the problem could be Uthayakumar’s genuine concern that PR has not done enough for Indians or his latent political ambition or both. But the fertile ground from which sprang the shoots of hostility is certainly Hindraf’s inability to widen its scope from a strictly mono-ethnic agenda to a more multi-racial one.
But charges that the young PR state governments had failed to look after Indians or had even marginalized them are unfair. The powers of state governments are extremely limited with all powers to form policies and almost all institutions for social advancement under Federal control. They do not even have any reasonable tax base and only have autonomy over land matters. The state governments certainly have no power to marginalize any race.
Despite this handicap, progress has been made in Indian representation in the state legislature and protection of minority rights to places of worship among other things.
But to Hindraf, PR can never do enough for Indians as their philosophy of special affirmative action for Indian is at odds with PR’s philosophy of uplifting the poor and marginalized of all races equally.
Fishing in the same pond
This dissatisfaction with PR led Uthayakumar to form his Human Rights Party to champion Indians as a supposedly “third force”. From the beginning it is clear that HRM will have a strictly mono-ethnic Indian agenda although its name does not reflect this.
Uthayakumar has no voice for the human rights of non-Indians like Teoh Beng Hock or any stateless persons of non-Indian origin.
Once the Hindraf based political party was launched, its alienation with PR was complete. It is clear that HRM has to fish for Indian votes in the same pond as PR, namely the anti-BN crowd. This competition for the same vote bank leads naturally to an acrimonious relationship fueled by a realization that Hindraf is losing its hold on the Indian community.
The final break came on the heels of the Kg. Buah Pala affair, which proved to be a godsend for Hindraf. Although there was nothing racial about a group of villagers fighting with a developer for the rights to stay on their traditional land, the whole affair was turned into an ugly racial issue by Hindraf.
It was portrayed as injustice inflicted on Indians by a Chinese-based DAP government although the Penang government was neither wholly DAP nor Chinese and the race of the villagers was irrelevant to the outcome.
The use of racial politics to gain votes by manipulating the ethnic emotion of the Indians is the same divide and rule tactic employed by BN. It can be effective but comes with disastrous side effects of creating a polarized society from which BN benefits.
Indian problem and solution
Hindraf’s response to the Indian problem lacks vision as a holistic long term solution is required, not piecemeal action demanded in an emotional way.
The key to bringing poor and marginalized Indians into the mainstream of development lies in uplifting all marginalized people by affirmative action based on need, not race.
Multi-racial politics to solve economic deprivation issues in a colour-blind way is the only viable solution as each race fighting for itself leads to the predictable outcome of the weakest race being marginalized as has been proven for the past 52 years of BN rule.
This can only be achieved through political change at the Federal level. As Umno’s political power hinges on leveraging a polarized society based on Malay supremacy this means its economic treatment of all races can never be equal.
Instead of helping PR effect a political change, Hindraf is now at odds with PR and attempts to draw away Indian votes will benefit BN.
Due to unfavourable demography, HRM can never expect to succeed as a third force based on Indian votes. At best it will just be a spoiler which benefits BN but more likely it is on the path to irrelevance.
The way forward is not more racial jingoism which leads directly to BN’s racial trap but multi-racial politics to blunt BN’s political stranglehold.
Unless Hindraf and HRM can drop its mono-ethnic politics and embrace multi-culturalism, it will become a footnote in history or an unintended ally of BN to help it maintain political power.
The increased perception among Indian voters of their economic marginalization helped to energize a political tsunami although it would be wrong to say that Hindraf created the tsunami.
The tsunami was actually created by Malaysians of all races - not just Indians - who sought change.
Much water has flowed under the bridge since then. Since their release from ISA, the five Hindraf leaders had a falling out and only two have remained to lay claim as inheritors of the Hindraf movement. They are the self-proclaimed Chairman, Waythamoorty and his brother Uthayakumar.
Two political offshoots of Hindraf have bloomed – the Malaysian Makkal Sakthi Party led by Hindraf’s ex-chief co-ordinator and the Human Rights Party led by Uthayakumar.
The MMSP appears to be a non-starter as widespread suspicion that the party made a deal with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to expedite its registration proved to be toxic.
For HRP, whose registration has not been approved, it is still early days yet but Uthayakumar’s leadership will assure that it and not MMSP will inherit the fame and reputation associated with Hindraf.
From ally to enemy
The intervening months after the 12th general election has seen more than just organizational changes and political offshoots from Hindraf, it has also seen a stark reversal of the movement’s relationship with Pakatan Rakyat. It is said that in politics there are no permanent friends or enemies but the breakdown of Hindraf’s relationship with PR has been particularly swift and complete. From a staunch ally it has turned into a fierce attacker of PR.
The root of the problem could be Uthayakumar’s genuine concern that PR has not done enough for Indians or his latent political ambition or both. But the fertile ground from which sprang the shoots of hostility is certainly Hindraf’s inability to widen its scope from a strictly mono-ethnic agenda to a more multi-racial one.
But charges that the young PR state governments had failed to look after Indians or had even marginalized them are unfair. The powers of state governments are extremely limited with all powers to form policies and almost all institutions for social advancement under Federal control. They do not even have any reasonable tax base and only have autonomy over land matters. The state governments certainly have no power to marginalize any race.
Despite this handicap, progress has been made in Indian representation in the state legislature and protection of minority rights to places of worship among other things.
But to Hindraf, PR can never do enough for Indians as their philosophy of special affirmative action for Indian is at odds with PR’s philosophy of uplifting the poor and marginalized of all races equally.
Fishing in the same pond
This dissatisfaction with PR led Uthayakumar to form his Human Rights Party to champion Indians as a supposedly “third force”. From the beginning it is clear that HRM will have a strictly mono-ethnic Indian agenda although its name does not reflect this.
Uthayakumar has no voice for the human rights of non-Indians like Teoh Beng Hock or any stateless persons of non-Indian origin.
Once the Hindraf based political party was launched, its alienation with PR was complete. It is clear that HRM has to fish for Indian votes in the same pond as PR, namely the anti-BN crowd. This competition for the same vote bank leads naturally to an acrimonious relationship fueled by a realization that Hindraf is losing its hold on the Indian community.
The final break came on the heels of the Kg. Buah Pala affair, which proved to be a godsend for Hindraf. Although there was nothing racial about a group of villagers fighting with a developer for the rights to stay on their traditional land, the whole affair was turned into an ugly racial issue by Hindraf.
It was portrayed as injustice inflicted on Indians by a Chinese-based DAP government although the Penang government was neither wholly DAP nor Chinese and the race of the villagers was irrelevant to the outcome.
The use of racial politics to gain votes by manipulating the ethnic emotion of the Indians is the same divide and rule tactic employed by BN. It can be effective but comes with disastrous side effects of creating a polarized society from which BN benefits.
Indian problem and solution
Hindraf’s response to the Indian problem lacks vision as a holistic long term solution is required, not piecemeal action demanded in an emotional way.
The key to bringing poor and marginalized Indians into the mainstream of development lies in uplifting all marginalized people by affirmative action based on need, not race.
Multi-racial politics to solve economic deprivation issues in a colour-blind way is the only viable solution as each race fighting for itself leads to the predictable outcome of the weakest race being marginalized as has been proven for the past 52 years of BN rule.
This can only be achieved through political change at the Federal level. As Umno’s political power hinges on leveraging a polarized society based on Malay supremacy this means its economic treatment of all races can never be equal.
Instead of helping PR effect a political change, Hindraf is now at odds with PR and attempts to draw away Indian votes will benefit BN.
Due to unfavourable demography, HRM can never expect to succeed as a third force based on Indian votes. At best it will just be a spoiler which benefits BN but more likely it is on the path to irrelevance.
The way forward is not more racial jingoism which leads directly to BN’s racial trap but multi-racial politics to blunt BN’s political stranglehold.
Unless Hindraf and HRM can drop its mono-ethnic politics and embrace multi-culturalism, it will become a footnote in history or an unintended ally of BN to help it maintain political power.
BN partners should never fear ‘big brother’ Umno
OPINION In a recent interview with Malaysiakini, suspended Deputy MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek brought up an interesting point – how he will handle Umno if he were the leader of the MCA.
“There is more than one way to skin a cat. Similarly, there is more than one way for MCA to deal with Umno”, Chua said philosophically.
According to him, MCA president Ong Tee Keat prefers a more confrontational approach when dealing with Umno, the ‘big brother’ of Barisan Nasional.
Chua stressed his emphasis was towards garnering support for BN because that is the common platform which MCA candidates stand on during elections.
For the coalition to thrive, MCA must then forge strong ties within the BN coalition, including Umno, said Chua.
By now, most of us know what is going on in the MCA.
Sex scandal difficult to erase
The ‘Triple 10’ (10am on the 10th day of the 10th month) extraordinary general meeting will be a ‘winner takes all’ battle for either Ong or Chua. Both had declared that it would be the end of their political career should they not survive the vote.
It has been speculated that Chua is unhappy at being sidelined by the party while Ong must have felt it improper to put up a person tainted by immoral behaviour for public office.
Indeed, Chua’s ‘porn star’ tag is something that is unlikely to go away, ever.
People still remember DP Vijandran’s sex videos even when the incident happened some 20 years ago. And Malaysians will not forget Bill Clinton’s indiscretion with Monica Lewinsky even though that has nothing to do with us. But Chua did better than Clinton. He was brave enough to own up immediately while Clinton lied through his teeth until he was cornered.
But what Chua brought up - the way to handle Umno - is a subject worth a further look at.
Looking at the current crop of presidents of BN component parties, I can safely conclude that MIC supremo Samy Vellu and MCA president Ong Tee Keat would be able to stand as tall as and be at par with Najib Abdul Razak, the prime minister and Umno president. I’m afraid I cannot say that of Gerakan’s Dr Koh Tsu Koon though. (Pity Dr Lim Keng Yaik is no longer at Gerakan's helm. I doubt anyone in Umno had dared to bully Keng Yaik in the past.)
Why? Samy was already a senior Cabinet member when Najib was just a ‘baby minister’. Say what you like about Samy. He has the guts to stand up to Umno, ‘big brother’ or not! Najib would have a lot of quiet respect for the veteran MIC president too.
Ong Tee Keat’s no-nonsense approach is one that would stand out in his dealings with other BN partners, Umno included.
Chua is probably right. There are many ways to build a relationship with Umno leaders. How he is different from Ong here is that the MCA president is considered a very tough nut to crack and is unlikely to budge once he has made up his mind on something.
It is perhaps true what Chua said about him being gung-ho in his language with Umno leaders. Then, it could also be true that Ong knows too well how Umno will treat him if he is seen as a weak, vulnerable personality. So he has to be tough and act tough, even with ‘big brother’ Umno.
When MCA was bullied
Let me relate two incidents which reached my ears over how Umno had treated its Number Two partner, the MCA in years gone by. They could be true or unreal but I have no reason to think that they were made-up stories.
Many years ago, I was quite friendly with a deputy Umno minister. The good man had since passed on.
He was a confidante of then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. And we all know how revered (and feared) Mahathir was when he was in office.
In one of our night caps in his house many years ago, my friend talked about how MCA could easily be bullied by Umno.
“Whenever we wanted to call up MCA leaders, they would come crawling to us at any time,” he had sniggered, as if to indicate how subservient the MCA leaders were. Well, we know who the
MCA president was at that time.
Then recently, I heard this story about the Team A-Team B tussle in the MCA in the early 2000’s.
Towards reaching a resolution in 2003, Dr Mahathir called Dr Ling Liong Sik and Lim Ah Lek into his office.
With the two men in front of him, Mahathir just pointed at them and asked that both of them stepped down as MCA president and deputy president. The story went that Ling and Lim just nodded.
Then Mahathir asked whom they wanted as their replacements. Ling said “Ong Ka Ting” and Lim mentioned “Chan Kong Choy”.
So Ka Ting and Kong Choy as the new president and deputy president it will be.
Next, Mahathir called Ka Ting and Kong Choy to his office. Pointing at Ong, he said “you will be the new MCA president”. At Chan, he ordered, “you will be the new deputy president”.
When this was related to me, I was not totally surprised. This was how powerful Mahathir and Umno were. They could easily made mincemeat of MCA.
It might not have happened exactly the way it was related, but I believe it was along similar fashion.
Feel safer with Ong's approach
But to be fair to Mahathir, he was probably fed-up of the long-running tussle in the MCA then and had wanted to close the chapter quickly.
Umno had changed its leadership since then. So have many of the BN component parties. I suppose different leaders have their own ways of doing things. But I have to say, “just don’t bully your smaller ‘siblings’".
Leaders of the smaller BN component parties, including those from Sabah and Sarawak, should just respect but never fear Umno or their leaders. Umno will not dare act as the ‘big brother’ if they know that others are not easily cowed by them.
And honestly, between Ong Tee Keat and Chua Soi Lek, I think I will feel safer with Ong’s no-nonsense approach with Umno if I were a MCA member.
But then I’m not. So if there are MCA leaders or members who choose to remain subservient to Umno, I say ‘good luck’ to them. Perhaps I should add ‘good riddance’ too!
(This article was first published in The Borneo Post and is reproduced here with permission. The writer has reworked some paragraphs as updates. -Paul Sir)
“There is more than one way to skin a cat. Similarly, there is more than one way for MCA to deal with Umno”, Chua said philosophically.
According to him, MCA president Ong Tee Keat prefers a more confrontational approach when dealing with Umno, the ‘big brother’ of Barisan Nasional.
Chua stressed his emphasis was towards garnering support for BN because that is the common platform which MCA candidates stand on during elections.
For the coalition to thrive, MCA must then forge strong ties within the BN coalition, including Umno, said Chua.
By now, most of us know what is going on in the MCA.
Sex scandal difficult to erase
The ‘Triple 10’ (10am on the 10th day of the 10th month) extraordinary general meeting will be a ‘winner takes all’ battle for either Ong or Chua. Both had declared that it would be the end of their political career should they not survive the vote.
It has been speculated that Chua is unhappy at being sidelined by the party while Ong must have felt it improper to put up a person tainted by immoral behaviour for public office.
Indeed, Chua’s ‘porn star’ tag is something that is unlikely to go away, ever.
People still remember DP Vijandran’s sex videos even when the incident happened some 20 years ago. And Malaysians will not forget Bill Clinton’s indiscretion with Monica Lewinsky even though that has nothing to do with us. But Chua did better than Clinton. He was brave enough to own up immediately while Clinton lied through his teeth until he was cornered.
But what Chua brought up - the way to handle Umno - is a subject worth a further look at.
Looking at the current crop of presidents of BN component parties, I can safely conclude that MIC supremo Samy Vellu and MCA president Ong Tee Keat would be able to stand as tall as and be at par with Najib Abdul Razak, the prime minister and Umno president. I’m afraid I cannot say that of Gerakan’s Dr Koh Tsu Koon though. (Pity Dr Lim Keng Yaik is no longer at Gerakan's helm. I doubt anyone in Umno had dared to bully Keng Yaik in the past.)
Why? Samy was already a senior Cabinet member when Najib was just a ‘baby minister’. Say what you like about Samy. He has the guts to stand up to Umno, ‘big brother’ or not! Najib would have a lot of quiet respect for the veteran MIC president too.
Ong Tee Keat’s no-nonsense approach is one that would stand out in his dealings with other BN partners, Umno included.
Chua is probably right. There are many ways to build a relationship with Umno leaders. How he is different from Ong here is that the MCA president is considered a very tough nut to crack and is unlikely to budge once he has made up his mind on something.
It is perhaps true what Chua said about him being gung-ho in his language with Umno leaders. Then, it could also be true that Ong knows too well how Umno will treat him if he is seen as a weak, vulnerable personality. So he has to be tough and act tough, even with ‘big brother’ Umno.
When MCA was bullied
Let me relate two incidents which reached my ears over how Umno had treated its Number Two partner, the MCA in years gone by. They could be true or unreal but I have no reason to think that they were made-up stories.
Many years ago, I was quite friendly with a deputy Umno minister. The good man had since passed on.
He was a confidante of then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. And we all know how revered (and feared) Mahathir was when he was in office.
In one of our night caps in his house many years ago, my friend talked about how MCA could easily be bullied by Umno.
“Whenever we wanted to call up MCA leaders, they would come crawling to us at any time,” he had sniggered, as if to indicate how subservient the MCA leaders were. Well, we know who the
MCA president was at that time.
Then recently, I heard this story about the Team A-Team B tussle in the MCA in the early 2000’s.
Towards reaching a resolution in 2003, Dr Mahathir called Dr Ling Liong Sik and Lim Ah Lek into his office.
With the two men in front of him, Mahathir just pointed at them and asked that both of them stepped down as MCA president and deputy president. The story went that Ling and Lim just nodded.
Then Mahathir asked whom they wanted as their replacements. Ling said “Ong Ka Ting” and Lim mentioned “Chan Kong Choy”.
So Ka Ting and Kong Choy as the new president and deputy president it will be.
Next, Mahathir called Ka Ting and Kong Choy to his office. Pointing at Ong, he said “you will be the new MCA president”. At Chan, he ordered, “you will be the new deputy president”.
When this was related to me, I was not totally surprised. This was how powerful Mahathir and Umno were. They could easily made mincemeat of MCA.
It might not have happened exactly the way it was related, but I believe it was along similar fashion.
Feel safer with Ong's approach
But to be fair to Mahathir, he was probably fed-up of the long-running tussle in the MCA then and had wanted to close the chapter quickly.
Umno had changed its leadership since then. So have many of the BN component parties. I suppose different leaders have their own ways of doing things. But I have to say, “just don’t bully your smaller ‘siblings’".
Leaders of the smaller BN component parties, including those from Sabah and Sarawak, should just respect but never fear Umno or their leaders. Umno will not dare act as the ‘big brother’ if they know that others are not easily cowed by them.
And honestly, between Ong Tee Keat and Chua Soi Lek, I think I will feel safer with Ong’s no-nonsense approach with Umno if I were a MCA member.
But then I’m not. So if there are MCA leaders or members who choose to remain subservient to Umno, I say ‘good luck’ to them. Perhaps I should add ‘good riddance’ too!
(This article was first published in The Borneo Post and is reproduced here with permission. The writer has reworked some paragraphs as updates. -Paul Sir)
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Bakun Dam, bigger scandal then PKFZ
Nearly 50 years after independence for Sarawak, we see a comparison with the ‘Highland Clearances’ in Scotland during the 18th century when the highlanders were driven off their lands for capitalistic sheep farming.
The English did it with brutality and thoroughness through “butcher” Lord Cumberland and even obliterated the ‘wild’ Celtic mode of life. What we have seen in Sarawak recently has the same capitalist logic, namely, to drive the indigenous peoples out of their native customary lands so that these lands can be exploited for their commercial value and the indigenous people can be “freed” to become wage labourers.
Thus, even though the accursed Bakun dam had been suspended in 1997 due to the financial crisis, the government still went ahead to displace 10,000 indigenous peoples to the Sungai Asap resettlement camp in 1998.Well, there is a reason for this - the contract for the Sungai Asap camp had already been given out to a multinational company.
After all, the whole Bakun area, which is the size of the island of Singapore and home to the indigenous peoples, had already been thoroughly logged... All this happened while Dr Mahathir Mahathir was the prime minister.
Wasn’t he a liability to the BN government then?I was part of the fact-finding mission to Sungai Asap in 1999 and even then we could see the destruction of so many unique indigenous communities and their cultures, including the Ukit tribe.There was only one word to describe what had been done to these indigenous peoples and their centuries-old cultures... wicked!
Banned from my own countryAs a result of my concern for the indigenous peoples and the natural resources of Sarawak, I was told at Kuching airport in August 2007 that I could not enter Sarawak. So much for 1Malaysia! So much for national integration! So much for nearly 50 years of independence! I was not even welcome in my own country.
But the contracts for the resettlement scheme and the logging are chicken feed compared to the mega-bucks to be reaped from the mega-dams. Even before the Bakun dam ever got started, Malaysian taxpayers had to compensate dam builder Ekran Bhd and the other “stakeholders” close to RM1 billion in 1997.
How much does it cost to pay our ‘mata-mata’ (police) to investigate the alleged scandalous rape of our Penan women? The contracts from building the Bakun dam and the undersea cable run in excess of RM20 billion.
Malaysian taxpayers won’t know the final cost until they are told the cost overruns when the projects have been completed. But if the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal is anything to go by, the leaks and non-accountability all along the line will result in Malaysian taxpayers paying billions for the same kind of daylight robbery.
In the early 90s, when the government was trying to assure us that there would be no irresponsible logging in Sarawak, I pointed out in Parliament that if the government could not monitor the Bukit Sungai Putih permanent forest and wildlife reserve just 10 minutes from Kuala Lumpur, how did they expect us to believe they could monitor the forests in Bakun?
Likewise today, if the government cannot monitor a project in Port Klang just half an hour from Kuala Lumpur, how can they assure us that they can monitor a project deep in upriver Sarawak and through 650km of the South China Sea?
How can we be assured that we will get to the bottom of politically-linked scandals when the Sarawak police tell us they don’t have the resources to investigate the rape of Penan women and girls?
How can we be assured that the Sarawak state government cares about its indigenous peoples and its natural resources when NGO activists are banned from entering Sarawak to investigate a part of their own country? It makes no economic senseIn 1980, the Bakun dam was proposed with a power generating capacity of 2,400MW even though the projected energy needs for the whole of Sarawak was only 200MW for 1990.The project was thus coupled with the proposal to build the world’s longest (650km) undersea cable to transmit electricity to the peninsula.
An aluminum smelter at Sarawak’s coastal town of Bintulu was also proposed to take up the surplus energy. In 1986, the project was abandoned because of the economic recession although the then PM Mahathir announced just before the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that this was “proof of Malaysia’s commitment to the environment”.
So what happened to that commitment, Mahathir? In 1993, with the upturn in the Malaysian economy, the government once again announced the revival of the Bakun dam project. To cushion the expected protests, then Energy Minister S Samy Vellu gave Parliament a poetic description of a “series of cascading dams” and not one large dam as had been originally proposed.
Before long, it was announced that the Bakun dam would be a massive 205-metre high concrete face rockfill dam - one of the highest dams of its kind in the world - and it would flood an area the size of Singapore island.
The undersea cable was again part of the project. There was also a plan for an aluminum plant, a pulp and paper plant, the world’s biggest steel plant and a high-tension and high-voltage wire industry.
Have feasibility studies been done to see if there will be adequate local, regional and international demand for all these products? Six years later, after the economy was battered by the Asian Financial Crisis, the government again announced that the project would be resumed albeit on a smaller scale of 500MW capacity.
Before long in 2001, the 2,400MW scale was once again proposed although the submarine cable had been shelved. Today we read reports about the government and companies still contemplating this hare-brained undersea scheme which is now estimated to cost a whopping RM21 billion!
More mega-dams to be built
The recent announcement that the Sarawak government intends to build two more mega-dams in Sarawak apart from the ill-fated Bakun dam is cause for grave concern.Malaysian taxpayers, Malaysian forests and Malaysian indigenous peoples will again be the main victims of this misconceived plan.
We have been told that some 1,000 more indigenous peoples will have to be displaced from their ancestral lands to make way for these two dams.
Apart from the human cost, ultimately it will be the Malaysian consumers who pay for this expensive figment of Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud’s wild imagination. Indeed, enough taxpayers’ money has been wasted - Sarawak Hidro has already spent some RM1.5 billion on the Bakun dam project.
Right now, the country is being fed conflicting reports about energy demand.
There is supposed to be a 43 percent oversupply of electricity capacity in peninsula Malaysia. Experienced Bakun dam watchers will tell you such conflicting and mutually contradictory assertions have been used by the dam proponents to justify every flip flop of this misconceived project.
Apart from the economic cost and the wastage, how are investors supposed to plan for the long-term and medium term? What is the long-term plan for Bakun? Can Bakun compete with the rest of the world or for that matter, Indonesia? The suggestion for aluminum smelters to take up the bulk of Bakun electricity have been mentioned ever since the conception of the Bakun dam project because they are such a voracious consumer of energy.
Even so, has there ever been any proper assessment of the market viability of such a project with the cheaper operating costs in China? Does it matter that the co-owner of one of the smelters is none other than Cahaya Mata Sarawak (CMS) Bhd Group, a conglomerate controlled by Taib’s family business interest?
Sarawak’s tin-pot government
Clearly, Bakun energy and Sarawak’s tin-pot governance do not give confidence to investors. First it was Alcoa, and then Rio Tinto - both giant mining multinationals - had expressed second thoughts about investing in Sarawak.Concerned NGOs have all along called for the abandonment of this monstrous Bakun dam project because it is economically ill-conceived, socially disruptive and environmentally disastrous.
The environmental destruction is evident many miles downstream since the whole Bakun area has been logged by those who have already been paid by Sarawak Hidro. The social atrophy among the 10,000 displaced indigenous peoples at Sungai Asap resettlement scheme remains the wicked testimony of the Mahathir/Taib era.
The empty promises and damned lives of the displaced peoples as forewarned by NGOs in 1999 have now been borne out.The economic viability of the Bakun dam project has been in doubt from the beginning and the announcement to build two more dams merely reflects a cavalier disregard for the indigenous peoples, more desecration of Sarawak’s natural resources and a blatant affront to sustainable development.
When will Malaysians ever learn?
Dr KUA KIA SOONG is director of Suaram. He was member of parliament for Petaling Jaya from 1990 to 1995.
Posted by Abun Sui Anyit
Are we one screwed up nation?
Aliran president writes Malaysia is perceived to be one screwed up nation. There is no doubt about it. It is difficult to fathom what is our priority and what we should be concerned about. Should our priority be safeguarding secrets or exposing corruption?
We are taken aback by the NST report on Sept 19 – 'Probe into expose of port govt secrets' – that investigations are underway to determine who was responsible for leaking the cabinet papers on the PKFZ that were posted on the Malaysia Today website.
The information contained in the 18-page document that was made available by this website for the benefit of the public could potentially implicate the cabinet and put the blame squarely on ministers and prime ministers.
This information throws light on why the cost escalated and how the project was grossly inflated. The Port Klang Free Zone project has squandered billions of ringgit of public money and has seemingly received the blessings of people who have been entrusted to be guardians of our finance. People who were expected to be accountable, transparent and responsible have failed us miserably.
It is these failings that they want to keep hidden by going after those who had a hand in revealing their complicity in this sordid affair.
They are not interested in investigating the element of corruption that is raised in this expose but they are only intent on punishing those responsible for leaking the corruption involved in the PKFZ project.
Is this why the OSA was legislated - to protect the corrupt and the guilty?
Shouldn’t the investigation focus on the incriminating contents of the document and bring to book all those who are guilty of corruption?
But the police and the Attorney-General are allegedly directing their energy elsewhere to nail those who had the audacity to expose this corruption.
Shouldn’t what was exposed be of interest to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission? Wouldn’t this be of vital importance in their investigation?
But let it be known that history has shown that the messenger may be stopped but the message can never be suppressed.
P Ramakrishnan
President
Aliran
We are taken aback by the NST report on Sept 19 – 'Probe into expose of port govt secrets' – that investigations are underway to determine who was responsible for leaking the cabinet papers on the PKFZ that were posted on the Malaysia Today website.
The information contained in the 18-page document that was made available by this website for the benefit of the public could potentially implicate the cabinet and put the blame squarely on ministers and prime ministers.
This information throws light on why the cost escalated and how the project was grossly inflated. The Port Klang Free Zone project has squandered billions of ringgit of public money and has seemingly received the blessings of people who have been entrusted to be guardians of our finance. People who were expected to be accountable, transparent and responsible have failed us miserably.
It is these failings that they want to keep hidden by going after those who had a hand in revealing their complicity in this sordid affair.
They are not interested in investigating the element of corruption that is raised in this expose but they are only intent on punishing those responsible for leaking the corruption involved in the PKFZ project.
Is this why the OSA was legislated - to protect the corrupt and the guilty?
Shouldn’t the investigation focus on the incriminating contents of the document and bring to book all those who are guilty of corruption?
But the police and the Attorney-General are allegedly directing their energy elsewhere to nail those who had the audacity to expose this corruption.
Shouldn’t what was exposed be of interest to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission? Wouldn’t this be of vital importance in their investigation?
But let it be known that history has shown that the messenger may be stopped but the message can never be suppressed.
P Ramakrishnan
President
Aliran
If the shoe fits ...
‘In my day…’ says the old-timer. This is the preface to yet another harangue about a world that was better, kinder, wiser, juster, healthier, smarter etc. Nobody bothers to listen to him
But if the current Deputy Minister of Education says more or less the same, they do listen!
‘Schools are no good nowadays’, the old-timer insisted. ‘The kids don’t learn anything – spend too much time playing computers – always off on sports events – holiday for this holiday for that -- can’t even read and write properly...’
Bingo! said the Minister. Some 85,000 Malaysian children in Form I are ‘functionally illiterate’, which means ‘cant read and write properly.’
School teachers didn’t need an Old-timer or a Minister to tell them that, of course. Every year the system shunts youngsters from one primary grade up into the next, regardless of what they know, or don’t know. That’s called automatic promotion, and it works for the broad average but – surprise! surprise! – not every child is ‘average’.
Focus on personal attention
The slow learner falls between the cracks of this educational conveyor belt. If he’s still in school by Grade 6 he is bored, possibly naughty, and definitely not able to read and write properly. But he will be automatically moved up to Form I, and there he is, no asset to his school or the system. Long-suffering teachers have to deal with him as best they can.
The Minister has now directed that ‘good and experienced teachers’ be assigned to the lower Primary grades, and that more personal attention be given to the slower students ‘to monitor both their behavioural and academic development’. (Right: a 1930's photo of a primary school class in rural Sarawak)
A good point. A student who can’t keep up with his class is likely to get bored, and start playing up. If his parents let him, he stops going to school – or he hangs around town all morning while his parents think he’s in school. So now the ministry will have to come up with another strategy, this time to deal with ‘dropoutism’ (no, I didn’t invent this word!).
The plan to have better teachers in the lower primary grades is a good one. But even the best teachers can only work with the ‘human material’ in their hands, especially if the classes are large. Children’s intellectual capacities range from the genius level to the sub-normal; they cannot all be taught in the same way and at the same speed.
Quite recently, double-promotion (that’s definitely one from the Old-timer’s arsenal!) has been tentatively re-introduced for exceptionally bright children. How long will it take till some of their less gifted friends will be officially allowed to repeat a grade if necessary?
There should be an informal ‘minimum achievement’ test at the end of each primary year. Students who fail this will simply repeat the same grade.
Repetition must be treated as a straightforward administrative matter. Teachers and classmates raise no fuss, nobody says: ‘Shame on you, Jimmy!’ No tearful mummies and enraged papas turn up at the school, sobbing for mercy or threatening revenge.
At a rough guess, I’d say about 3 – 5 % of children would have to repeat a grade at least once in their primary career. Go ask the primary teachers, they can tell you! A really slow learner might need several repeats. He could be 15 of 16 by the time he completes primary school, but he would have acquired the basic education and literacy he’ll need to cope with life. One less ‘unemployed school leaver’ roaming the streets!
Every Malaysian child is entitled to free education, every Malaysian child has a place in a school. Unfortunately, the implementation of this laudable education-for-all policy is based on one faulty assumption: that all children are the same.
If anybody out there really believes this, let’s extend the principle to something simple like school shoes.
Feet and heads not the same
The Ministry of Education decrees that all boys and girls in Primary School wear dark blue tunics, shirts or pants, white blouses or shirts, and white canvas shoes. As of tomorrow morning, let the authorities also decree that in Primary 1 this uniform must be worn with a pair of shoes Size 1.
In Primary 2, all have to wear shoes Size 2.
In Primary 3, all have to wear shoes Size 3.
In Primary 4, all have to wear shoes Size 4.
In Primary 5 -- aw stop already, this is nonsense! How could all children wear the same size shoes? Some have big feet, some have small feet. In one class, the height difference between the shortest and the tallest child might be four inches. How could they all have the same feet?
My point exactly. Just as children’s body size comes in a very wide range, so do their teeth, and their earlobes, and their hair, and their intellectual capacities.
I am convinced that modifying automatic promotion to permit both double-promotions at one end, and retention in the same grade at the other, will improve the standard of Primary 6 leavers. It’ll be considerably more economical than shunting barely-literate students into Form I and then providing special remedial classes for them. A 7-year-old will take repeating a grade fairly easily; a 14-year old will resent being put into the ‘dumb class’ and react accordingly.
Their feet are not the same, neither are their heads, but both have to be taken care of.
None of this impressed the Old-timer, by the way. ‘In my day, we walked five miles to school, barefoot…’
Heidi Munan
But if the current Deputy Minister of Education says more or less the same, they do listen!
‘Schools are no good nowadays’, the old-timer insisted. ‘The kids don’t learn anything – spend too much time playing computers – always off on sports events – holiday for this holiday for that -- can’t even read and write properly...’
Bingo! said the Minister. Some 85,000 Malaysian children in Form I are ‘functionally illiterate’, which means ‘cant read and write properly.’
School teachers didn’t need an Old-timer or a Minister to tell them that, of course. Every year the system shunts youngsters from one primary grade up into the next, regardless of what they know, or don’t know. That’s called automatic promotion, and it works for the broad average but – surprise! surprise! – not every child is ‘average’.
Focus on personal attention
The slow learner falls between the cracks of this educational conveyor belt. If he’s still in school by Grade 6 he is bored, possibly naughty, and definitely not able to read and write properly. But he will be automatically moved up to Form I, and there he is, no asset to his school or the system. Long-suffering teachers have to deal with him as best they can.
The Minister has now directed that ‘good and experienced teachers’ be assigned to the lower Primary grades, and that more personal attention be given to the slower students ‘to monitor both their behavioural and academic development’. (Right: a 1930's photo of a primary school class in rural Sarawak)
A good point. A student who can’t keep up with his class is likely to get bored, and start playing up. If his parents let him, he stops going to school – or he hangs around town all morning while his parents think he’s in school. So now the ministry will have to come up with another strategy, this time to deal with ‘dropoutism’ (no, I didn’t invent this word!).
The plan to have better teachers in the lower primary grades is a good one. But even the best teachers can only work with the ‘human material’ in their hands, especially if the classes are large. Children’s intellectual capacities range from the genius level to the sub-normal; they cannot all be taught in the same way and at the same speed.
Quite recently, double-promotion (that’s definitely one from the Old-timer’s arsenal!) has been tentatively re-introduced for exceptionally bright children. How long will it take till some of their less gifted friends will be officially allowed to repeat a grade if necessary?
There should be an informal ‘minimum achievement’ test at the end of each primary year. Students who fail this will simply repeat the same grade.
Repetition must be treated as a straightforward administrative matter. Teachers and classmates raise no fuss, nobody says: ‘Shame on you, Jimmy!’ No tearful mummies and enraged papas turn up at the school, sobbing for mercy or threatening revenge.
At a rough guess, I’d say about 3 – 5 % of children would have to repeat a grade at least once in their primary career. Go ask the primary teachers, they can tell you! A really slow learner might need several repeats. He could be 15 of 16 by the time he completes primary school, but he would have acquired the basic education and literacy he’ll need to cope with life. One less ‘unemployed school leaver’ roaming the streets!
Every Malaysian child is entitled to free education, every Malaysian child has a place in a school. Unfortunately, the implementation of this laudable education-for-all policy is based on one faulty assumption: that all children are the same.
If anybody out there really believes this, let’s extend the principle to something simple like school shoes.
Feet and heads not the same
The Ministry of Education decrees that all boys and girls in Primary School wear dark blue tunics, shirts or pants, white blouses or shirts, and white canvas shoes. As of tomorrow morning, let the authorities also decree that in Primary 1 this uniform must be worn with a pair of shoes Size 1.
In Primary 2, all have to wear shoes Size 2.
In Primary 3, all have to wear shoes Size 3.
In Primary 4, all have to wear shoes Size 4.
In Primary 5 -- aw stop already, this is nonsense! How could all children wear the same size shoes? Some have big feet, some have small feet. In one class, the height difference between the shortest and the tallest child might be four inches. How could they all have the same feet?
My point exactly. Just as children’s body size comes in a very wide range, so do their teeth, and their earlobes, and their hair, and their intellectual capacities.
I am convinced that modifying automatic promotion to permit both double-promotions at one end, and retention in the same grade at the other, will improve the standard of Primary 6 leavers. It’ll be considerably more economical than shunting barely-literate students into Form I and then providing special remedial classes for them. A 7-year-old will take repeating a grade fairly easily; a 14-year old will resent being put into the ‘dumb class’ and react accordingly.
Their feet are not the same, neither are their heads, but both have to be taken care of.
None of this impressed the Old-timer, by the way. ‘In my day, we walked five miles to school, barefoot…’
Heidi Munan
Is Samy really ready to leave the MIC?
Amid a barrage of calls to step down, including an unmistakable hint from Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, MIC president Samy Vellu said he is ready to go “even tomorrow” so long as his deputy is prepared to take over the reins.
“I have no problem. It is not like I want to hold on to this post forever. But there are many things that need to be resolved,” he told the local media.
“I am ready to let go. Monday or even tomorrow if Palanivel feels that he is ready to take over the party leadership. I am ready to pass the leadership to him.
“I will meet him to discuss this.. I will ask if he is ready to take over as president. And if he is, I will hand it over to him.”
Samy, who by now holds the trophy as the longest-serving party leader in the local political scene, was referring to his anointed successor G Palanivel who recently upset the odds by beating two other candidates for the No 2 post.
Despite winning the most votes, Palanivel is seen by members as a leader without his own personality, who will help Samy to remain in the MIC hot-seat.
The former Works Minister became party acting president in 1979 before being elected as MIC chief in 1981.
He was re-elected for his 11th consecutive term in April and has publicly assured that he will step down in 2012, when his term ends.
Not soon enough
But 2012 is not soon enough – not only for his detractors within MIC – but also for the Barisan Nasional coalition of which it is a member.
But 2012 is not soon enough – not only for his detractors within MIC – but also for the Barisan Nasional coalition of which it is a member.
Fractious infighting at the MIC led to a disastrous outing at the 2008 general election, contributing to the BN’s overall depressed performance.
The party only managed to retain three parliamentary seats, with Samy even losing at his long-held bastion.
Unsurprisingly, he was punished by the previous prime minister and BN head Abdullah Badawi, who did not hesitate to drop him from the cabinet.
Now, with the MIC even more split after Palanivel pipped popular contender S Subramaniam for the deputy presidency, Najib – the current BN chief – is getting worried.
Subramaniam is mulling his future and may even leave the MIC for the opposition, possibly taking some 300,000 supporters with him.
"At that time, he told me that he could not step down and if he did, then it would destablise the party. But that was before the party election,” said Najib, referring to a June meeting with Samy."But now after the election, I will discuss with him again but this should not be seen as BN's interference in the internal affairs of the MIC.”
Winning back the Indian community
Former vice-president S Sothinathan, who also contested against Palanivel for the No. 2 post earlier this month, agrees that the BN can only win back the Indian community if the succession issue at the MIC is resolved to the satisfaction of the public.
Former vice-president S Sothinathan, who also contested against Palanivel for the No. 2 post earlier this month, agrees that the BN can only win back the Indian community if the succession issue at the MIC is resolved to the satisfaction of the public.
“It is a good idea for the prime minister to address the issue as he has to look at the perception of the public,” he said.
Meanwhile, Samy and his supporters have hit back at the calls for him to step down, saying that the MIC must be left to decide its destiny.
Said Samy: “I don’t want to say anything about it. I want to let the issue die down”.
Said Cameron Highlands MP SK Devamany: "I support my president and he will lead the party for as long as MIC members want him to lead."
Malaysian Mirror
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