Today, we celebrate Malaysia Day!

Forty Eight years on, we still get to hear these memorable tunes commemorating the coming together as one nation.

Happy Hari Merdeka!

Today, we celebrate the 54th anniversary of our nation's independence. Let's join hands to help build this country a better and decent place to live in.

This is no Monday Humour

When I came across this photo in one of the blogs, I just can't help but feel sadden by the fact of how far gone we are where the image of our country is concerned. The semenanjung UMNO muslims and their associated NGOs can shout and cry over the 'Allah' issue, but the end result is we have ended up as a laughing stock in the world [sigh!!!]

Dominating role not healthy for a nation

Datuk Dr Agoes Salim is an an economist and first secretary-general of the National Unity Ministry. He is also former chairman of Bank Pertanian. He was on the public service secretariat of the National Operations Council following the riots and helped draw up both the Rukun Negara and the NEP.

I THINK we are farther apart now than we were in 1969.

But you have to remember that I grew up going to an English school, to a university where there were people of all races. At that time, although we did think in terms of race, it wasn’t in the way people do now. We felt that we were Malayans. We socialised much better than we do now.

Bahasa Malaysia can be a unifying factor. But it can be a factor separating people, too.

As Sukarno would say, “The important thing is the jiwa.”
You don’t have to have a common language, if you have the same jiwa (heart, spirit, passion, devotion). This is what we don’t have right now....

In 1956, the historical society of Universiti Malaya went to India.

There were lots of Indians in the group, but they didn’t think of themselves as Indians, they thought of themselves as Malayans.

That’s the jiwa.

But later on, because of certain reactions, suddenly people stayed away from this jiwa — they don’t feel as though they are fully Malaysian. They are made to feel that way.

When I was in the service, there were lots of non-Malays in the civil service, holding good positions.. But do you see them now? If you go to the universities, where are the non-Malay professors?

After 1969, suddenly there was this drive to make sure that all university vice-chancellors and faculty deans were Malay. So, in the end, we chased away all the best brains among the non-Malays.

When schools say you must start school with a doa (Muslim prayer recitation), you push away all the non-Muslims. When I was at school, we never had any prayers. Whatever we learnt in religious class was a separate thing.

I think it’s more important that we bring people together, rather than pushing religion so hard that it alienates other people. This is what’s happening. I can’t blame the Chinese and Indians; why should they go to a sekolah kebangsaan (national school), when they have to do all these things?

All the things are breaking down. Our school system is not as it used to be. We are producing supposedly so many students with so many As, but what do they know? Are we happy about it? The leaders seem to be happy about it.

We came up with the Rukun Negara because, after 1969, there was the feeling that the nation was breaking down. People had forgotten what it was all about. So, we thought we could bring people back together — unite them. That’s what the first part of the Rukun Negara is about: the objectives of the nation.

Unfortunately, we did practically nothing to promote an understanding of the Rukun Negara. And when schools make mistakes, nobody corrects them. That should have been the role of the Department of Information.

In the beginning, Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie did try to apply the test of whether something was in consonance with the Rukun Negara or not. But then, the government just forgot about this.

We are supposed to be a united nation, not only in terms of state, but also in terms of people: that they would all consider themselves as Malaysians, and that this was their country and their nation. We wanted all these people to share the wealth of the nation.

One of the things we thought contributed to ’69 was the economic disparities, joblessness.

The New Economic Policy was a policy for all Malaysians; not just for the Malays. But we wanted to restructure the economy so that the Malays would come out of the rural agriculture sector into the commercial sector.

We wanted Malay participation at all levels of economic activity. We wanted to uplift the Malays without reducing the position of the others.. — “eradicating poverty regardless of less”.

And this was supposed to be in a situation of growth. Not just sharing the existing cake, but the cake must grow, so that these people also have the opportunity to grow.

At the same time, we also hoped that the Malays would grow a little faster. So, they set this target of 30 per cent equity in 20 years. I was not much in favour of that because I didn’t think it was achievable. I felt that participation was more important than wealth.

We never thought that we would produce multi-billionaires. That was never the intention of the NEP. If some people can come up as everyone comes up, it’s okay. But it wasn’t supposed to be about some people getting contracts.

We did say that we should have Malay millionaires just as we should have Chinese and Indian millionaires, but not so much so that you don’t have to do anything.

You must differentiate between dominance and domination. As Tun Dr Ismail said, “We want to be dominant, but we don’t want to dominate.”
Dominant in the sense that we wanted the Malays to be everywhere; but not to dominate all the others.

But we seem to be dominating; and I don’t think that’s healthy for the nation. It’s not about taking your share and not caring about the rest.

Negara Ku

Which 'Tuhan' are we referring to in our national anthem?

Are we saying that the word 'Tuhan' is used in a very wide sense and it includes Allah and whatever god you believe in?

But some Muslims say that 'Allah' is their only god. So won't it be confusing for Muslims?

I wonder how many Muslims got confused by this.

How come nobody made a fuss about this?

And since Malaysia is a Muslim country, maybe we should consider changing the word 'Tuhan' to 'Allah'.

But then again, if we change it to 'Allah', then non-Muslims cannot sing 'Negaraku' anymore because the word is supposedly exclusive for Muslims only.

Pretty confusing, this 'Allah' and 'Tuhan' issue, eh?

Darn it! We made world news again!

Once again, Malaysia made it to the world news but for the wrong reasons and with the world media showing pictures of Malay Muslims demonstrating outside mosques and a burned out church, the perception that Malaysia has become another terrorist hotbed will soon become entrenched, and what's more, we can even kiss foreign investments bye bye. Islam has always been regarded as a forward thinking religion (I was told that it was written that one day, man would land on the moon and we did), but the people who demonstrated and fire-bombed the churches, gave the impression that Malay Muslims are backward thinkers, living in the 7th century. What happened to UMNO's preaching to the world that Malay Muslims practise moderate Islam?

Read BBC and Asian Sentinel.

Looks like UMNO is in for a long haul carrying out damage control over the incidents.

RM12.5b, flushed down the toilet bowl.

Malaysia have always been littered with financial scandals since the late 70s and the PKFZ is the latest to haunt the nation again that all is not well with the country. We are not talking about a RM12.50 loss but a mind-boggling [the last time this word was used was in the BMF scandal] RM12.5b, our money - gone, finished, never to be seen again. Instead of taking responsibility for the mess, the UMNO government has gone into the scapegoating act. In other countries, the entire cabinet would have resigned and those responsible, if you are in Japan, would have committed 'hara kiri' or 'sepuku'. But why wouldn't our people resign? Your guess is as good as mine. After the BMF case, we thought UMNO would have learnt a lesson and such a fiasco would not happen again. Regretfully it did, quadruple the amount to boot. So now the money is gone, who is going to be accountable for the mess? By convention, it is the prime minister. But will he do it by resigning followed by the entire cabinet? Will a GE be called to elect in a new government?

How could anyone be so INCOMPETENT and how can a government be so NEGLIGENT? If it had not been for Malaysia-Today disclosing the cabinet papers, we would still be pointed the wrong direction. But now we know. What strikes me as most intriguing is that the papers were signed by the same Nor Mohamed Yackob, who in 1993 headed the FOREX trading operations in Bank Negara and incurred billions in hugh forex losses. Eventually, we saw the resignation of the Governor of Bank Negara, Datuk Jaffar Hussein. For his incompetency he was rewarded to be Minister II in the Finance Ministry. How could a person of such calibre signed such important papers?

So, the damage is done, where do we go from here? How much longer are we going to look for scapegoats? Will the government freeze the PKFZ project with immediate effect or cut their losses now by abandoning it altogether? I remember the one thing I said when PETRONAS was legislated to save BMF in 1983, it was "good money going after bad". Are we doing the same thing now to the PKFZ? Will the government deem it fit to bring the two previous transport ministers to book? How much can be recovered from the RM12.5b? Do you think Jala Idris/Koh Tsu Koon's KPI will help to prevent such incidents the future?

Finally, where are those MACC fellas when you need them the most??? For an estate worth RM24m owned by a former MB, little or nothing was done. For a scandal such as the PKFZ, feet dragging seemed to be the order of the day. But over an anonymous email, they were quick to jump in to question every tom, dick and harry in the opposition; and for RM2,400, a life was lost.

For more Malaysian scandals, read here.

Negara Ku [My Country]

The last time I sang the "Negara Ku" was during the last school assembly of the year in 1965 when I was in Form 5. After that I went on to sit for the Senior Cambridge exam and then left school. It was during my school going years that so much pride was felt whenever the song was sung, and I always felt that we could do no wrong as a nation because my classmates came from all races and religions. The only race we often talked about was the human race. Since then, I have never sung the song, not because I didn't want to but because there was no inspiration to.

However, September 16 2009 changed everything. To celebrate Malaysia Day, many bloggers have taken the liberty to include in their blogs video clips of "Negara Ku". Such camaraderie made me feel good to be a Malaysian again.

So let's hear our Negara Ku again.

The Launching of the Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia initiative

Blogger and lawyer, Haris Ibrahim, wrote in his blog, "The People's Parlament" :

On Wednesday, 16th September, 2009, Hari Malaysia, my friends and I who have been working on the Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia initiative will launch the same.

At the Rumah Anak Bangsa Malaysia, No.66, Lorong Setiabistari 1, Bukit Damansara.

Don’t know where that is?

No problem.

The map is HERE.

We’ll share with you what took us almost two months to put together : the Anak Bangsa Malaysia Charter.

We’ll launch our website.

And we’ll share with you our plans to take the message of One People, One Nation far and wide.

We’d like to see you at the launch.

If you’re joining us, please note that registration of attendees starts at 6pm.

The launch presentation is slotted to take off at 6.30pm, followed with a press conference and thereafter the sharing of a simple buka puasa meal with all those present.

We’re catering food.

Not a whole lot of food because, quite honestly, we haven’t got much money.

Truth is I’m hoping that we won’t have enough food for all of you who turn up, because that might mean we underestimated the numbers who care.

Should that happen, I’m banking on the love, tenderness and respect that I am certain you will all bring to the Rumah more than making up for any lack of food.

SABM T-shirts and badges and buttons will be on sale so don’t forget to bring your money which, I will shamelessly tell you, we need to push our programs forward.

Please treat this post as a personal invitation from my friends and I to you.

Happy Malaysia Day!!!!

Today is Malaysia Day. From the north of Perlis to the south of Johore, and to the east of Sarawak and Sabah, we stand together as one nation. We are anak bangsa Malaysia. Let's stand and sing our national anthem, Negara Ku.

A glimpse into the future of a united nation.