Saturday, June 20, 2015

Do we still want to host the 2017 SEA Games?

It is best not to host the SEA Games if we embarrass ourselves by making a fuss over the outfits athletes wear.
IN 2017 Malaysia hosts the SEA Games. But will we disgrace ourselves?
No, not because we may not top the table of gold medals as Singapore almost did in the excellent games organised by the city-state that ended recently.
Rather it is by the potential controversy – perhaps even disturbance – over the attire athletes wear to compete in the sport they contest.
If this is going to happen, it is best that we do not host the Games. The authorities had better not blandly say this will not happen as they have not come out to say categorically that any contention against what gymnasts wear in their sport is unacceptable. On the contrary, a Minister of the Government has conceded to the recalcitrants by stating that a dress code will be issued on what should be worn.
Rest assured it is not likely that Malaysia will win any gold medals if its team played hockey wearing the flowing jubah, or competed in the swimming pool fully clothed – if they are allowed on the pitch and in the pool.
Malaysia’s most successful body-builder Sazali Samad has won the Mr Universe title 10 times in nothing more than a tanga, revealing his six-pack and muscles without – rightly – a squeak about the barely hidden parts of his anatomy.
Clearly he could not have become Mr Universe dressed in a loose Baju Melayu. But, of course, he is male.
When the athlete is female, it would seem, the only focus is on parts of her anatomy that arouse impure thoughts in the male mind which then has the audacity to pin the blame on the innocent woman. Men cannot control themselves, but get on a hypocritical higher plane to obscure their base instincts.
When the XVI Commonwealth Games were organised in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 – the first in Asia and the last in the last century – we did not have the kind of nonsense and stupidity that followed Farah Ann Abdul Hadi’s superb gold medal performance in gymnastics in Singapore.
We have slipped further backwards since the last century. It is, however, complacent to describe the judgmental and holier-than-thou attitude on Farah Ann’s leotard as just nonsensical and stupid.
That attitude, along with the machinery that has been dangerously allowed to ride roughshod over Malaysian lives, has become pervasive and highly invasive.
How I wish my fellow Muslims will stop playing God. They must understand they should never judge the faith of others, especially of other Muslims, which is Allah’s remit.
These invasive Muslims also advise – indeed ordain – that their co-religionists not mix, even laugh, with others, that they do not venture out or open up to protect the sanctity of their faith.
Not venturing out is a sign of meekness, of not having self-belief. In the outcome you are diminished. The Chinese, for example, will go anywhere, meet anyone, be in any social or cultural circumstance. Yet, when they go home they remain Chinese. I wish that all Malays and Muslims would have the same strength.
Faith is strong when it is deep and internalised, not when it is loudly and aggressively proclaimed, like whistling in the dark, by someone afraid and uncertain.
I do wish our leaders would engage our people in sensible ways, to tell them about the depth yet simplicity of Islam. I fear they have also become afraid.
The current political situation is not likely to give them any courage to check the dangerous extremist and violating phenomenon in the Malaysian body politic, and to lead without short-term calculation for survival.
The zero-sum open political warfare now taking place in our country is causing extensive damage to Malaysia, and so does neglecting to address extremist religious threats which will overturn all the progress this country has made.
More than the personal animosity in this conflict, there is a distrust of normal processes of the political and administrative system. This is a damning indictment of whoever may have caused that system to be so distrusted.
More than that, there is a cry for change outside of that system.
This can take many forms – at worst, violent revolution – but the upshot is that, if there was a replacement of the incumbent Prime Minister, his successor would be equally subject to the same kind of political insurrection. This prospect does not provide for political stability.
Others will follow. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
This is not about one-man, one-shot, one-time. It is about political change and political change management.
The spectacle we are witnessing must shame the Malays. It does me. How we run and now threaten to ruin the country. How we pay little attention to detail because we are king of the castle. How we are now about to bring the house down.
If the threats of exposing past and present misdeeds are true, the ske­letons falling out of the cupboard will bury Umno – and the Malays.
While not all will mourn this, let us not forget it is this Malay foundation that gave Malaysia its stability.
What is different from the days of Tun Razak and Tun Dr Ismail is that the honour and justice that characterised the Malay leadership of this country seem to have been lost.
I cannot look into the eyes of a prospective investor at a roadshow and say: You can be assured of Malaysia’s political stability. Not long ago, that was our country’s strongest point above everything else.
When that everything else is also under considerable strain, in a challenging global economy, in the currency and volatile capital flows, there is all the more reason to work together and negotiate our way out of these dangerous straits.
Otherwise we will arrive in 2017 in a worse state than we are in now.
[Tan Sri Munir Majid, chairman of Bank Muamalat and visiting senior fellow at LSE Ideas (Centre for International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy), is also chairman of CIMB Asean Research Institute.]



Friday, June 19, 2015

Breaking away from the federation can lead the country into chaos, and he is right.

Dr Mohd Asri is right. See what happens after Singapore splitted from Malaysia, we are now in such a terrible state e.g. earth quake, ship missing, plane missing, plane shot down, national airline is on the verge of closing shop, murder galore, corruption on the rise as never seen before, racial and religious bigotry on the rise, etc. Whose fault is it? UMNO, for telling Singapore to leave the federation and now we are paying the price for it.

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PETALING JAYA: Any state wishing to break away from the federation can only lead the country into chaos,  Perlis mufti Dr Mohd Asri Zainal Abidin said in a Facebook posting.

“Demands by any quarters to secede any state from Malaysia will have serious repercussions on our federation. It will lead to Malaysia’s collapse and also ruin the unity Muslims and non-Muslims in general enjoy,” he said on his DrMAZA.com Facebook page.

He also said any talk of secession was a big threat to the country’s stability and would jeopardise the nation’s history as well.

“This is the biggest threat to the stability of Malaysia. History will be erased and a country respected for its peace and development will be buried for good. May Allah save us all.”

This cautionary message comes hot on the heels of an ominous posting by Tunku Idris Iskandar of a screenshot of the Johor state’s agreement to become a part of the Federation of Tanah Melayu and its right to secede if the conditions stated in the agreement were violated.

The conditions included Islam as the official religion of the state; the land in Johor as being the absolute right of the Johor government; and most importantly, that the power of the Johor government lay in the hands of the Sultan.

The issue of secession has been a delicate one in the country with the government having made it seditious to demand for it and with several individuals already having been charged in court for allegedly pushing for Sabah’s secession.

The picture posted on June 15 by Tunku Idris, was not accompanied by any title or personal comment so it was unclear as to whom it was directed to or the purpose of it.

It was however posted after remarks by Minister of Tourism and Culture Nazri Aziz that the Tunku Mahkota of Johor not meddle in politics unless he was prepared to be “whacked”.

Nazri made this comment when Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim commented on Najib Razak’s decision to skip the Nothing2Hide public dialogue on June 5 by saying the prime minister had everything to hide.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Is this how Malaysia is going to compete in sports internationally?

Listed below are 36 sports and disciplines being featured in the current SEA Games. Basing on the 'aurat' issue, I don't believe that leaves much room for Malaysian Muslims to enjoy participating in full in all future events. Those marked with an asterisk (*) are those most likely to be out of bounds to Muslims, male and female alike, which will account for 17 of the sports or 47.2% of the overall games.
This is close to 50% of potential medals lost before the game even began. If such is the case, would it be any point to participate in future games?
However, I would like to stand corrected on the identification of the games for Muslims.
  • Diving (*)
  • Swimming (*)
  • Synchronised swimming (*)
  • Water polo (*)
  • Archery 
  • Athletics (*)
  • Badminton (*)
  • Basketball 
  • Billiards and snooker
  • Bowling 
  • Boxing (*)
  • Canoeing (*)
  • Cycling 
  • Equestrian 
  • Fencing 
  • Football 
  • Golf 
  • Gymnastics (*)
  • Field hockey (*)
  • Judo 
  • Netball 
  • Pencak silat 
  • Rowing (*)
  • Rugby sevens 
  • Sailing (*)
  • Sepak takraw 
  • Shooting 
  • Softball 
  • Squash (*)
  • Table tennis 
  • Taekwondo 
  • Tennis 
  • Triathlon (*)
  • Volleyball (*)
  • Waterskiing (*)
  • Wushu

Sunday, June 14, 2015

A letter from an angry Malaysian to the British strippers of Mt Kinabalu

Many Malaysians were outraged when pictures emerged showing a number of foreign tourists allegedly stripping and urinating on Mount Kinabalu.
The fact that the alleged perpetrators have shown no remorse and instead, have taunted and insulted the locals and their culture on their social media pages, has angered Malaysians even further.
Travel blog Monkeetime founder Emil Kaminski, who claims to be one of the nudists in the infamous photographs, said on his Facebook page:
“It is not based in logic, but superstition. I utterly do not care for superstition. If local religion prohibits certain actions, then local believers of that religion should not engage in it, but they cannot expect everyone to obey their archaic and idiotic rules.”
Following that, Facebook user Melanie Lim posted an open letter to the Mount Kinabalu nudists on June 8 – and it is brilliant.
Read it here:
Dear Emil, Monkeetime, and the rest,

I haven’t been this angry in a long time. In fact, I doubt I have ever been this angry. I was raised to respect people as equals, and I am doing my best to keep that in mind. I am truly, however, disappointed and ashamed to have to call you as such. Please know that there is nothing more I would like to do than cuss you out, but I am a better person – not better than you, but better than that.
I cannot understand and I cannot even begin to fathom how utterly and completely selfish you must be. It is not a joke. It is not even remotely funny. People have lost families and loved ones because of the earthquake. If you did or did not cause it is not the point. If the mountain has spirits or not is not the point.
The point is you.
The point is your disrespect, and your continual disrespect of Malaysia. You have not insulted just the locals of Borneo – you have insulted Malaysia. Every. Single One of us who call it home, whether we live here or overseas.

The point is your insolence for who we are. This is not your home. This is not your country. You are but a visitor, with no right to do what you did. Our culture makes us who we are; who are you to question it, let alone defile it?
The point is your ignorance of the current situation. People have lost lives. People have lost family and loved ones. People have lost their homes. People are suffering. And you don’t care. Don’t tell me otherwise, because it’s evident in the way you speak.
The point is your inability to take responsibility for what you have done. I don’t mean the earthquake – I mean the incivility you have displayed by taking those pictures. You would not go to France and draw on the Mona Lisa. You would not go to England and vandalise the Buckingham Palace. You would not go to Egypt and take a dump on the pyramids. And yet, you have taken nude pictures on sacred land. It’s the same thing; you have come into our land and blatantly, and without any sign of remorse, desecrated something that is special to us.
Own up. Take responsibility. Apologize. These are basic manners ingrained into me since I was a child. I don’t know what background you’ve had, nor how you were raised. I only know the bare basics of how to behave. You have taken those pictures. You have shown nothing but a complete and utter effrontery for us as a country. You have damaged the sacredness of our mountain, and then you have the sheer audacity to insult us and our culture after that.
I am angry, but I am also disgusted. I am disgusted by your hard heart – your lack of empathy towards those who are suffering. I am disgusted that you have such a small mind and such a shallow appreciation for different cultures that you can’t understand what you have done wrong. I am disgusted that you cannot and will not take responsibility for what you have done. I am disgusted by your continual insulting of our culture and our people.
You alone know why you did such horrible acts, and you alone know why you have shown such disrespect towards us as a nation. All I know is that I truly and honestly pity you, because only someone with absolutely no moral standards would ever do something like this. What truly horrible lives you must live and have lived to have turned out this way.
I can only hope that, one day, you find your way back to humanity.
Sincerely,
A Malaysian.

They can't be serious !?!? Increase toll rates?

Whoever intends to keep this government for another term, must be really out of his mind. Following on the heels of the recent implementation of the GST and petrol increase, now there are plans to increase the toll rates. Although it has yet to be approved but the simple idea of bringing it up in the form of a proposal is bad enough to show how callous this government can be. Najib could have just simply thrown the proposal out of the window and be done with it.  

They are simply inviting us to vote them out come GE14.  It cannot be any clearer than that.