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Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
2010 international dispute over a love song?
As in the case of Pulau Batu Putih and Spratley Islands, the international community will have to settle this dispute in 2010.
Who owns Rasa Sayang eh?
The Indian claim:
The Chinese claim:
The Indonesian/Maluku claim:
The Indonesian claim again, (this is serious):
The 'Truly' Malaysian claim:
The Malay claim:
Three-nation claim:
The American claim: the decisive one.
Who owns Rasa Sayang eh?
The Indian claim:
The Chinese claim:
The Indonesian/Maluku claim:
The Indonesian claim again, (this is serious):
The 'Truly' Malaysian claim:
The Malay claim:
Three-nation claim:
The American claim: the decisive one.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) did not teach this!
Ramadan is a test for one's patience, perseverance for peace and not an occasion to parade one's arrogance and ignorance over the medium and message of Islam. I refer to Malaysia's "cow head" protest march over the relocation of a Hindu temple. Educate, not aggravate. Wage peace, not war. Help the Malaysian Indians, not further incite hate on them. Resolve this issue through peaceful means.
Cow-head politics: Fear not, those who misrepresents Islam
by Azly Rahman
In the name of Allah Most Gracious Most Compassionate
1. By Al-'Asr (the time).
2. Verily! Man is in loss,
3. Except those who believe (in Islâmic Monotheism) and do righteous good deeds, and recommend one another to the truth (i.e. order one another to perform all kinds of good deeds (Al-Ma'rûf)which Allâh has ordained, and abstain from all kinds of sins and evil deeds (Al-Munkar)which Allâh has forbidden), and recommend one another to patience (for the sufferings, harms, and injuries which one may encounter in Allâh's Cause during preaching His religion of Islâmic Monotheism or Jihâd, etc.).
-- Surah AlAsr (Time)
For Muslims (those who submit to the Will of Allah) and those who are embarking on a journey of peace, Ramadan is a time for deep reflection and contemplation on the sufferings of the self and of others. It is a month in which the oftentimes arrogant, boastful, aggressive self retreats to this Inner Cave and work hard towards cleansing the body, the mind, the spirit, and the soul. It is a long but reflective journey Muslims believe must be taken.
The incident of a group of 50 Malaysians carrying a severed cow head, marching to the Selangor State Government’s Office is an example of a misrepresentation of Ramadan. It is a dangerous act that disrespects the holy month. Muslims should be outraged at the gross misrepresentation of Islam. One must read The Sepoy Rebellion during British India in order to understand where this might lead us to, in the worst case scenario. One must also not forget Malaysia’s Kampong Medan incident a few years back in order to understand the anatomy and chemistry of hate.
The "cow-head march" incident is a mindless act and Malaysians are becoming weary of these stunts that seem strange and timely and seem to become more and more hideous as we see the intensification of campaigns to take over this or that government. The phrase “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is Great) is abused. The greatness of Allah lies not in allowing a group of people to humiliate the religion of others. Allah’s greatness lies in the guide given to us to respect the religion of others, and to understand what the universal message of Islam is. Everything is good in the hands of the author of things, everything degenerates in the hands of Man, said the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. In Islam, Evil is the work of Man, and Good comes from the Creator. Those who humiliate others are those who allow nafs amarrah (lowest/animalistic stage of the soul) to take charge of their actions.
Muslims should condemn the group of 50 and the authorities including the religious authorities should investigate if this is a seditious act against Islam.
I do hope that the protesters who abuse Ramadan ask themselves what is triggering their intent to march and what forces, if any, are behind their act. If necessary, the group can seek legal help in resolving this.
Non-Muslims need not fear the consequences of these antics or the action of the few who are misrepresenting Islam. You have the brotherhood and sisterhood of thinking and feeling Muslims who know what is acceptable and what is not in a multiracial society.
Cow-head politics: Fear not, those who misrepresents Islam
by Azly Rahman
In the name of Allah Most Gracious Most Compassionate
1. By Al-'Asr (the time).
2. Verily! Man is in loss,
3. Except those who believe (in Islâmic Monotheism) and do righteous good deeds, and recommend one another to the truth (i.e. order one another to perform all kinds of good deeds (Al-Ma'rûf)which Allâh has ordained, and abstain from all kinds of sins and evil deeds (Al-Munkar)which Allâh has forbidden), and recommend one another to patience (for the sufferings, harms, and injuries which one may encounter in Allâh's Cause during preaching His religion of Islâmic Monotheism or Jihâd, etc.).
-- Surah AlAsr (Time)
For Muslims (those who submit to the Will of Allah) and those who are embarking on a journey of peace, Ramadan is a time for deep reflection and contemplation on the sufferings of the self and of others. It is a month in which the oftentimes arrogant, boastful, aggressive self retreats to this Inner Cave and work hard towards cleansing the body, the mind, the spirit, and the soul. It is a long but reflective journey Muslims believe must be taken.
The incident of a group of 50 Malaysians carrying a severed cow head, marching to the Selangor State Government’s Office is an example of a misrepresentation of Ramadan. It is a dangerous act that disrespects the holy month. Muslims should be outraged at the gross misrepresentation of Islam. One must read The Sepoy Rebellion during British India in order to understand where this might lead us to, in the worst case scenario. One must also not forget Malaysia’s Kampong Medan incident a few years back in order to understand the anatomy and chemistry of hate.
The "cow-head march" incident is a mindless act and Malaysians are becoming weary of these stunts that seem strange and timely and seem to become more and more hideous as we see the intensification of campaigns to take over this or that government. The phrase “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is Great) is abused. The greatness of Allah lies not in allowing a group of people to humiliate the religion of others. Allah’s greatness lies in the guide given to us to respect the religion of others, and to understand what the universal message of Islam is. Everything is good in the hands of the author of things, everything degenerates in the hands of Man, said the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. In Islam, Evil is the work of Man, and Good comes from the Creator. Those who humiliate others are those who allow nafs amarrah (lowest/animalistic stage of the soul) to take charge of their actions.
Muslims should condemn the group of 50 and the authorities including the religious authorities should investigate if this is a seditious act against Islam.
I do hope that the protesters who abuse Ramadan ask themselves what is triggering their intent to march and what forces, if any, are behind their act. If necessary, the group can seek legal help in resolving this.
Non-Muslims need not fear the consequences of these antics or the action of the few who are misrepresenting Islam. You have the brotherhood and sisterhood of thinking and feeling Muslims who know what is acceptable and what is not in a multiracial society.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Republic of virtue 8/09
Utusan Melayu ... or Ugutan Melayu? PDF Print
Posted by admin
Friday, 07 August 2009 00:22
Image
Utusan Melayu is synonymous with Ketuanan Melayu, Tuntutan Melayu, Rasul Melayu, Kongres Melayu, Kesatuan Melayu, and other forms of glorified anomalies of the progressive Malay mind yearning to be free from the shackles of feudalism, superstition, and neo-feudalistic and urban-superstitious beliefs.
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/
What is the function of a newspaper in a multicultural society? Is it to expand the mind of readers or to instill fear of others --or even of oneself?
Utusan Melayu (I am still familiar with this name rather than Utusan Malaysia) or the Malay Messenger has some good stuff to contribute to society but generally its and mission and vision is to build soul cages of the Malays. The mind of the Malay is warped, distorted, and archived into a realm of fear of itself and of others. Through the Malay language it brings thinking into a tabloidic dimension and relegates politics into a subject of advancing the backwardness of ultra-communalism.
Utusan Melayu is synonymous with Ketuanan Melayu, Tuntutan Melayu, Rasul Melayu, Kongres Melayu, Kesatuan Melayu, and other forms of glorified anomalies of the progressive Malay mind yearning to be free from the shackles of feudalism, superstition, and neo-feudalistic and urban-superstitious beliefs.
Utusan Melayu claims to be "Penyebar Fikiran Rakyat". But does it expand the mind nor spread the message of peace of the Malays in relation to the much-needed marhaenism with other races?
By calling the Malays not to be "bachul" or "wimp" and to "bangkit" or to rise, the newspaper is showing its irrelevance and outdatedness of rhetoric. Tabloidic and tantric treatment of totalitarian thinking. The Malays are confused what these messages mean because they now have no reason to de-wimp themselves nor to rise. Against who? Are Malaysians not seeing the emergence, though with growing pains, of a two -party system that in which a multicultural coalition is gnawing the roots of ethnocentric-based political alliance that have survived on fear management?
Back to my confusion on the role of Utusan Melayu. On the idea of "kebaculan" and "kebangkitan" (wimpiness and wakefulness)
Perhaps there is a hidden message in all these. The call to de-wimp and rise is a call to arms against the few Malays in power that are using the media to create a false consciousness of who the real enemy is and what the real issue has been. Perhaps the call is to revolt against all forms of authoritarianism and totalitarianism that have made the Malays of these days carry an unpleasant name.
Perhaps the call is to rise against all kinds of organizations, paid or volunteer, that seems to advance the "rights of the Malays" and insist on keeping repressive intact to bludgeon others.
Is Utusan Melayu a threat to the advancement of the Malays? Is it still a popular tabloid that now uses threatening means to maintain readership? Or is it merely a continuation of a cultural transmission of fear and trembling, superstition and sensationalism, to get modern Malays to do shadowboxing/shadowpuppet play with bogeymen and bogeymen created from an old script of Ketuanan Melayu?
I do not know. But is it called Ugutan Melayu or Utusan Melayu?
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
Comments (16)Add Comment
...
written by Fart Fart Wah, August 07, 2009 00:32:16
I think this perbahasa will fit the staff of Utusan Melayu
" Anjing tiada bercawat ekor"
They seem to retrun like the dog to smell or stir the shit..
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 27
...
written by budakindia, August 07, 2009 00:41:45
Utusan Penyebar Fitnah Melampau! Hasil Ketuanan Melayu tajaan UMNO inc. smilies/grin.gif
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 43
...
written by 80srocker, August 07, 2009 01:14:13
Please bear with me while I sidetrack.
Years ago, there was a late night forum show on TV. The discussion on that night centered on the underground music scene in Malaysia. FYI: An "underground band" means it is not supported by any music label, although "underground" sounds scary, it doesn't have to do with satanism.
Anyway, the panelists consisted of a music promoter, a well-known local band member, and a journalist from Kutusan.
As throughout the program, the Kutusan scribe kept hammering negativity against underground music in the paper too. After a long, arduous pressing by the 2 music men the "journalist" finally cracked and admitted that he DIDN'T know what underground music really is!
These are the kind of dim-witted, uncouth, insensible animals that work in Kutusan.
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 32
...
written by Semut Jantan, August 07, 2009 02:24:13
Tongkat Melayu sounds better to me.
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 18
...
written by Cash Money, August 07, 2009 02:30:33
I do not know. But is it called Ugutan Melayu or Utusan Melayu?
----------------------------------------------
Utusan will call this 'positivism'if I may Dr Azly.
Thanks to Utusan it is very evident that consciousness of time and its relation to knowledge has created and is still creating the next generation of 'Melayu Bachul'.
Many Thanks to Mahathir Muhamad who is instrumental in keeping the saying'Katak Dibawa Tempurung' well and truly alive.
report abuse
disagree 3
agree 16
...
written by Semut Jantan, August 07, 2009 03:21:47
Between Utusan Melayu and Ugutan Melayu, I will go for --
"Hasutan Melayu".
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 24
...
written by 1eyecls, August 07, 2009 08:28:29
not only that you dun buy,you must not read too!
this utusan maksiat is UMNO magazine,not news,only cited racial hatred toward non-malays and non-muslims!
jahanamlah you Utusan Melayu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!
smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 20
...
written by ROBERTNGTG, August 07, 2009 08:57:38
What is the function of a newspaper in a multicultural society? Is it to expand the mind of readers or to instill fear of others --or even of oneself
IT IS TO PROJECT NAJIS AND HIS BUNCH AS ANGELS WHO ARE PURE, HOLY AND HONEST
AND TO MAKE ZOMBIES OF ALL THEIR READERS WHO WILL SUPPORT AMENO WITHOUT QUESTION OR THOUGHT AND WILLING TO DO ANYTHING AT THEIR COMMAND
report abuse
disagree 1
agree 7
...
written by hanisma, August 07, 2009 09:35:12
Sdr Azly,
Utusan Melayu = Ugutan Melayu,
Hasutan Melayu,
Bodohkan Melayu,
Khayalkan Melayu,
Membosankan Melayu yang berfikiran waras!
report abuse
disagree 1
agree 15
...
written by Fedup, August 07, 2009 09:42:09
UMNO hd no more cards to play xcept to use UM to spread lies after lies in order to get support frm malay villagers n Umnogoons. If the members in BN do not step up pressure against Umno, nobody will know the effect that will comes due to intense propaganda by UM.
What say u MCA n MIC n Gerakan n PPP,IPF. As for Sabah n Sarawak BN members, they r living happily.
report abuse
disagree 1
agree 5
...
written by budakindia, August 07, 2009 10:17:25
Ask utusan & uitm to play the racial issue! smilies/grin.gif
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 1
...
written by JohnQ, August 07, 2009 12:56:36
Knowing that they will lose in next GE, our fear is that they are cultivating events and excuses for imminent grass cutting gotong royong ! smilies/angry.gif smilies/angry.gif smilies/angry.gif
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 3
...
written by longjaafar, August 07, 2009 16:08:42
The sad part is when Muhyiddin defended Utusan by saying that they have a right to defend themselves when attacked. He did not say of course, who attacked Utusan and whether the article is seditious or not. So if the DPM himself condones such repulsive articles, then who can we turn to for some sanity?
report abuse
disagree 2
agree 6
...
written by Qcumber, August 07, 2009 22:50:57
Utusan Melayu is afraid of its own shadow. If they cannot control the Malay readers, they die. So they must publish something sensational.
A sign of inferiority complex. 52 years of Merdeka still cannot get the self condidence is a pity. That's where UMNO fails.
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 7
...
written by lvbala, August 11, 2009 20:31:24
It was not Utusan Malaysia for Malaysian but Utusan Melayu for the malays. They are making use of this to gain support and stay in bussines. Mau cari makan la tambi...
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 1
...
written by timberguy, August 13, 2009 05:17:35
Bakri.
Utusan Melayu in english mean Ultra Malay,No wonder Lee Kuan Yew close the news paper when he become Singapora PM.
Najib,Utusan really pun your One Malaysia slogan in the dust bin.What a pity.
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 4
Write comment
This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.
You must be logged in to a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.
Posted by admin
Friday, 07 August 2009 00:22
Image
Utusan Melayu is synonymous with Ketuanan Melayu, Tuntutan Melayu, Rasul Melayu, Kongres Melayu, Kesatuan Melayu, and other forms of glorified anomalies of the progressive Malay mind yearning to be free from the shackles of feudalism, superstition, and neo-feudalistic and urban-superstitious beliefs.
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/
What is the function of a newspaper in a multicultural society? Is it to expand the mind of readers or to instill fear of others --or even of oneself?
Utusan Melayu (I am still familiar with this name rather than Utusan Malaysia) or the Malay Messenger has some good stuff to contribute to society but generally its and mission and vision is to build soul cages of the Malays. The mind of the Malay is warped, distorted, and archived into a realm of fear of itself and of others. Through the Malay language it brings thinking into a tabloidic dimension and relegates politics into a subject of advancing the backwardness of ultra-communalism.
Utusan Melayu is synonymous with Ketuanan Melayu, Tuntutan Melayu, Rasul Melayu, Kongres Melayu, Kesatuan Melayu, and other forms of glorified anomalies of the progressive Malay mind yearning to be free from the shackles of feudalism, superstition, and neo-feudalistic and urban-superstitious beliefs.
Utusan Melayu claims to be "Penyebar Fikiran Rakyat". But does it expand the mind nor spread the message of peace of the Malays in relation to the much-needed marhaenism with other races?
By calling the Malays not to be "bachul" or "wimp" and to "bangkit" or to rise, the newspaper is showing its irrelevance and outdatedness of rhetoric. Tabloidic and tantric treatment of totalitarian thinking. The Malays are confused what these messages mean because they now have no reason to de-wimp themselves nor to rise. Against who? Are Malaysians not seeing the emergence, though with growing pains, of a two -party system that in which a multicultural coalition is gnawing the roots of ethnocentric-based political alliance that have survived on fear management?
Back to my confusion on the role of Utusan Melayu. On the idea of "kebaculan" and "kebangkitan" (wimpiness and wakefulness)
Perhaps there is a hidden message in all these. The call to de-wimp and rise is a call to arms against the few Malays in power that are using the media to create a false consciousness of who the real enemy is and what the real issue has been. Perhaps the call is to revolt against all forms of authoritarianism and totalitarianism that have made the Malays of these days carry an unpleasant name.
Perhaps the call is to rise against all kinds of organizations, paid or volunteer, that seems to advance the "rights of the Malays" and insist on keeping repressive intact to bludgeon others.
Is Utusan Melayu a threat to the advancement of the Malays? Is it still a popular tabloid that now uses threatening means to maintain readership? Or is it merely a continuation of a cultural transmission of fear and trembling, superstition and sensationalism, to get modern Malays to do shadowboxing/shadowpuppet play with bogeymen and bogeymen created from an old script of Ketuanan Melayu?
I do not know. But is it called Ugutan Melayu or Utusan Melayu?
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
Comments (16)Add Comment
...
written by Fart Fart Wah, August 07, 2009 00:32:16
I think this perbahasa will fit the staff of Utusan Melayu
" Anjing tiada bercawat ekor"
They seem to retrun like the dog to smell or stir the shit..
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 27
...
written by budakindia, August 07, 2009 00:41:45
Utusan Penyebar Fitnah Melampau! Hasil Ketuanan Melayu tajaan UMNO inc. smilies/grin.gif
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 43
...
written by 80srocker, August 07, 2009 01:14:13
Please bear with me while I sidetrack.
Years ago, there was a late night forum show on TV. The discussion on that night centered on the underground music scene in Malaysia. FYI: An "underground band" means it is not supported by any music label, although "underground" sounds scary, it doesn't have to do with satanism.
Anyway, the panelists consisted of a music promoter, a well-known local band member, and a journalist from Kutusan.
As throughout the program, the Kutusan scribe kept hammering negativity against underground music in the paper too. After a long, arduous pressing by the 2 music men the "journalist" finally cracked and admitted that he DIDN'T know what underground music really is!
These are the kind of dim-witted, uncouth, insensible animals that work in Kutusan.
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 32
...
written by Semut Jantan, August 07, 2009 02:24:13
Tongkat Melayu sounds better to me.
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 18
...
written by Cash Money, August 07, 2009 02:30:33
I do not know. But is it called Ugutan Melayu or Utusan Melayu?
----------------------------------------------
Utusan will call this 'positivism'if I may Dr Azly.
Thanks to Utusan it is very evident that consciousness of time and its relation to knowledge has created and is still creating the next generation of 'Melayu Bachul'.
Many Thanks to Mahathir Muhamad who is instrumental in keeping the saying'Katak Dibawa Tempurung' well and truly alive.
report abuse
disagree 3
agree 16
...
written by Semut Jantan, August 07, 2009 03:21:47
Between Utusan Melayu and Ugutan Melayu, I will go for --
"Hasutan Melayu".
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 24
...
written by 1eyecls, August 07, 2009 08:28:29
not only that you dun buy,you must not read too!
this utusan maksiat is UMNO magazine,not news,only cited racial hatred toward non-malays and non-muslims!
jahanamlah you Utusan Melayu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!
smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif smilies/cry.gif
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 20
...
written by ROBERTNGTG, August 07, 2009 08:57:38
What is the function of a newspaper in a multicultural society? Is it to expand the mind of readers or to instill fear of others --or even of oneself
IT IS TO PROJECT NAJIS AND HIS BUNCH AS ANGELS WHO ARE PURE, HOLY AND HONEST
AND TO MAKE ZOMBIES OF ALL THEIR READERS WHO WILL SUPPORT AMENO WITHOUT QUESTION OR THOUGHT AND WILLING TO DO ANYTHING AT THEIR COMMAND
report abuse
disagree 1
agree 7
...
written by hanisma, August 07, 2009 09:35:12
Sdr Azly,
Utusan Melayu = Ugutan Melayu,
Hasutan Melayu,
Bodohkan Melayu,
Khayalkan Melayu,
Membosankan Melayu yang berfikiran waras!
report abuse
disagree 1
agree 15
...
written by Fedup, August 07, 2009 09:42:09
UMNO hd no more cards to play xcept to use UM to spread lies after lies in order to get support frm malay villagers n Umnogoons. If the members in BN do not step up pressure against Umno, nobody will know the effect that will comes due to intense propaganda by UM.
What say u MCA n MIC n Gerakan n PPP,IPF. As for Sabah n Sarawak BN members, they r living happily.
report abuse
disagree 1
agree 5
...
written by budakindia, August 07, 2009 10:17:25
Ask utusan & uitm to play the racial issue! smilies/grin.gif
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 1
...
written by JohnQ, August 07, 2009 12:56:36
Knowing that they will lose in next GE, our fear is that they are cultivating events and excuses for imminent grass cutting gotong royong ! smilies/angry.gif smilies/angry.gif smilies/angry.gif
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 3
...
written by longjaafar, August 07, 2009 16:08:42
The sad part is when Muhyiddin defended Utusan by saying that they have a right to defend themselves when attacked. He did not say of course, who attacked Utusan and whether the article is seditious or not. So if the DPM himself condones such repulsive articles, then who can we turn to for some sanity?
report abuse
disagree 2
agree 6
...
written by Qcumber, August 07, 2009 22:50:57
Utusan Melayu is afraid of its own shadow. If they cannot control the Malay readers, they die. So they must publish something sensational.
A sign of inferiority complex. 52 years of Merdeka still cannot get the self condidence is a pity. That's where UMNO fails.
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 7
...
written by lvbala, August 11, 2009 20:31:24
It was not Utusan Malaysia for Malaysian but Utusan Melayu for the malays. They are making use of this to gain support and stay in bussines. Mau cari makan la tambi...
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 1
...
written by timberguy, August 13, 2009 05:17:35
Bakri.
Utusan Melayu in english mean Ultra Malay,No wonder Lee Kuan Yew close the news paper when he become Singapora PM.
Najib,Utusan really pun your One Malaysia slogan in the dust bin.What a pity.
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 4
Write comment
This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.
You must be logged in to a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.
Republic of virtue 8/09
Malay nationalism a historical accident? PDF Print
Posted by admin
Wednesday, 05 August 2009 01:43
Image
Even the word "National Front" (Barisan Nasional) is elusive. It is surviving as long as means to cling on to power – by all means necessary – becomes more efficient and sophisticated.
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/
What is a Malay? What is a Malaysian? What is a nationalist? What is a 'nation'?
How are we becoming "re-tribalised" in this world of increasing restlessness over a range of issues that are not being resolved by the current regime. These are burning questions as we become more mature in discussing race relations in Malaysia – 40 years after the May 13, 1969 incident.
Ernest Renan, Anthony Smith, Benedict Anderson, Harry Benda, and John Funston – major scholars of nationalism -- would agree that Umno does not have an ideology except to sustain its elusive political superiority via the production of post-industrial materials and human beings.
Elusive word
Even the word "National Front" (Barisan Nasional) is elusive. It is surviving as long as means to cling on to power – by all means necessary – becomes more efficient and sophisticated. Its survival lies in the way people are divided, conquered, and mutated into 'post-industrial tribes'; market-segmented-
differentiatedly-sophisticated enclaves that are produced out of the need for the free market economy to transform Malays and Malaysians into consumers of useless goods and ideology.
Post-industrial tribalism is a natural social reproduction of the power of the media to shape consciousness, and to create newer forms of consumerist human beings. Nationalism, including Malay nationalism of the Mahathirst era, is an artificial construct that needs the power of "othering" and "production of enemies" and "boogeymen and boogeywomen" for ideological sustainability.
But what is "nationalism" and does "Malay nationalism" actually exist in this century? Does the idea of 'natio' or "nation" or "a people" survives merely on linguistic, territorial, religious homogeneity when these are also subject to the sociological interrogations of subjectivity and relativity?
Nationalism is a psychological and cultural construct useful and effective when deployed under certain economic conditions. It is now ineffective as a tool of mass mobilisation when nations have gained "independence" from the colonisers and when the "enemy" is no longer visible. All that exist in this post-industrial, globalised, borderless, and mediated age of cybernetic capitalism is the idea of "post-industrial tribes" that live and thrive on chaos and complexity and on materials and goods produced by local and international capitalists.
Revise the old formula
We are in the 21st. century. One year from now, we will arrive at the year 2010. The non-Malays and non-bumiputeras have come a long way into being accepted as full-fledged Malaysians, by virtue of the ethics, rights and responsibilities of citizenship. They ought to be given equal opportunity in the name of social justice, racial tolerance and the alleviation of poverty.
Bright and hard-working Malaysians regardless of racial origin who now call themselves Malaysians must be given all the opportunities that have been given to Malays since 40 years back.
Islam and other religions require this form of social justice to be applied to the lives of human beings. Islam does not discriminate one on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, creed nor national origin. It is race-based politics, borne out of the elusiveness of nationalism, that creates post-industrial tribalistic leaders; leaders that will design post-industrial tribalistic policies. It is the philosophy of greed, facilitated by free enterprise runamuck that will evolvingly force leaders of each race to threaten each other over the control of the economic pie.
The claim of 'civilisational Islam' or "Islam Hadhari" must be backed with a philosophy of development that restructure society no longer on the basis of newer forms of post-industrial tribalism that accords the political elites with the best opportunity to amass more wealth, but to redesign the economic system based on an efficient and sound socialistic economic system. It might even require political will to curb human enthusiasm of acquiring more and more of the things they do not need. In short, it should curb temptations to out-consume each other in the name of greed.
To be civilised means to wake up to the possibilities of humanism and not plunge into a world of more sophisticated racism. The universal principle of humanism requires the privileged few to re-examine the policies of national development that prioritise the creation of more real estate projects than the construction of programmes that meet basic needs of all races and classes of peoples. To civilise a nation means to de-tribalise the citizens into a polity that will learn to share the wealth of this nation by accepting this land as the "earth of mankind" (bumi manusia) rather that a land belonging to this or that race.
In a multi-racial, multi-religious, country such as Malaysia, nationalism is a complex yet withering concept. In a globalised world of globally- and government-linked companies this concept of "fatherland" or "motherland" is a powerful weapon of the wealthy to mount arguments that hide the real intention of empire-building. The lifestyle of the country's rich and famous require nationalist sentiments to be played up so that the more the rights are "protected" the more the political-economically rich few will have their sustained control over the people, territories, natural resources and information.
This, I think is the picture of post-industrial tribalism we are seeing as a mutation of the development, appropriation and imitation of the Malay feudalistic mentality. The clear and present danger in our post-industrial tribalistic world lies in old formula we are wrongly using.
The essential question now is – as a 'Malaysian nation'/Bangsa Malaysia haven't we agreed upon a construction of a common history and a common destiny?
Or-- did we have a wrong version of Malaysian history funneled into us, through a historical error?
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
Comments (6)Add Comment
...
written by 80srocker, August 05, 2009 02:02:07
Well-said, Dr. Azly.
Sorry for stating the obvious. As soon as Malaysians unite under one race as Malaysians, UMNO, MCA, MIC will have NOTHING to go on with. These bastards are doing nothing but coordinately stirring up racial issues to keep their "Ketuanan"/"We fight for your rights" trash on non-stop repeat. And so long as they maintain this, they'll use ISA, Utusan, police, MACC, JAIS, flip-flopping of languages used in school, etc. to bully us!
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written by hamid, August 05, 2009 02:17:22
Melayu UMNO = Melayu Bodoh dan tak sedar diri!
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written by densemy, August 05, 2009 14:06:54
Accident my foot. The widespread insecurity of Malays generated from the way they are destabilised as children to frighten them into believing in god permeates the whole of Malay societya and is the reason for their nationalism
Why do you think they cling together so closely in their family units, their kampong units and finally their nationalistic units. Partly its out of fear, partly its to protect themselves from the evil infidels and partly its to bolster their egos which have been so damaged by their insecurity
Why do you think malays have to constantly dominate everyone... even their own kind? They dont have the intelligence on the whole to dominate intelligently (that's another by-product of Islam) so they do it through violence and oppression
Its all to do with their insecurity and the arrogant egos that they cultivate to cover their insecurity. Their pride and dignity is a cover as is their resorting to tradition ( either tribal or religious) to dictate every move they make. Simply they are afraid to be independent, they are afraid to be innovative, they are afraid to be adventurous, they are even afraid to think for themselves. They simply act the way they are told to act... and always have done
If you still doubt this theory then try to explain away the horrendously awful behaviour in the last week by malays against everybody... even their own race
Malays are not lazy, they simply dont know what to do next
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written by densemy, August 05, 2009 14:49:48
Its Malay insecurity that has them sucking up to aunty UMNO all the time..."Never mind Mohd. if you cant pass the exams aunty will push you over the line and before you know it you'll have a degree" "Never mind Abdul, we'll give you a nice little contract to do some overpaid work for us... dont worry about the fact that you havent a clue about what you are doing... employ some illiterate Indons and blame them if any one questions you". "Sorry Zai, we are keeping the big contracts for our cronies, but if you keep on sucking up to me i'll think about giving you a bigger contract next time"
End result... the insecure have now become parasites on UMNO.. Nobody ever thinks of quality or of standard or even worries about finishing the job... So long as you get paid
Insecurity is the reason that modern techniques are so rarely adopted in this country. Never mind we can fall back on tradition ... Islam makes you learn verbatim by constant repetition so if its good enough for Islam its good enough for the Malaysian school system. Islam does it, so, lets have a competition, lets have an exam, cos that will help us overcome our insecurities but showing everyone how good we are... trouble is for every winner there are 30 losers. And what do losers do?.. They become more insecure ... of course!
Insecurity is the explanation why so much of that which is produced by Malay is crap... whether it be PS crap or material crap from the factories. No body has the confidence to pursue quality or efficiency
Insecurity is the reason why Malays drive as badly as they do... To cover their insecurity their ego's expand ten-fold and they suddenly become experts on all aspects of driving and the rules of the road. The fact that they can hardly control their cars seems irrelevant so long as ego reigns
Insecurity is the reason nobody BUT nobody in authority will delegate any responsibility to their underlings. They are terrified their incompetence will be exposed.
Outcome... everything in Malaysia takes ten times longer than it should
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written by renoir, August 05, 2009 21:09:59
There're Malays and they're "Malays." No, the Malays I know don't seek to "constantly dominate everyone." And it's my privilege to know such intelligent Malays, though none of them are politicians. It's the mark of an educated person not to tar an entire group of people with the same brush.
Some I don't know personally have, through their writings or actions, proven to be admirable persons as well. Who can fault people like Syed Husin or, for that matter, the tens of thousands who marched from Sogo to present their anti-ISA petition? Those who'd never seen such people, listen to what they say, observe their behavior, will never know their warmth, their charms, their humanity. The train that brought many of them to Plaza Rakyat or Yaohan - since the stops at Masjid Jamek and Sogo were closed - were full of such fun-loving yet determined and highly principled Malays. One old man refused a seat offered by a young non-Malay woman: he was going to die soon, he said, so he preferred standing up. All around him laughed, as they scoffed at the authorities' efforts to stop the march. So what if they closed those stations? We can walk over there (from Plaza Rakyat) in a few minutes!!! On that day, such simple folks proved that they belonged to an Alpha race, a race that truly believe, when fighting for justice, in "biar tulang puteh jangan puteh mata."
Hats off to those folks.
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written by asguard, August 06, 2009 09:06:52
UMNO does not stands 1malaysia nor the real malaysian malaysia concept..what is only sees that provoke more racial slurs from time to time, make use of its faithful dogs...MACC, POLICE, JUDICIARY, OR ANY OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES to carry out its dirty work in order to shut out what it sees as threat its way or block it way!
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Posted by admin
Wednesday, 05 August 2009 01:43
Image
Even the word "National Front" (Barisan Nasional) is elusive. It is surviving as long as means to cling on to power – by all means necessary – becomes more efficient and sophisticated.
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/
What is a Malay? What is a Malaysian? What is a nationalist? What is a 'nation'?
How are we becoming "re-tribalised" in this world of increasing restlessness over a range of issues that are not being resolved by the current regime. These are burning questions as we become more mature in discussing race relations in Malaysia – 40 years after the May 13, 1969 incident.
Ernest Renan, Anthony Smith, Benedict Anderson, Harry Benda, and John Funston – major scholars of nationalism -- would agree that Umno does not have an ideology except to sustain its elusive political superiority via the production of post-industrial materials and human beings.
Elusive word
Even the word "National Front" (Barisan Nasional) is elusive. It is surviving as long as means to cling on to power – by all means necessary – becomes more efficient and sophisticated. Its survival lies in the way people are divided, conquered, and mutated into 'post-industrial tribes'; market-segmented-
differentiatedly-sophisticated enclaves that are produced out of the need for the free market economy to transform Malays and Malaysians into consumers of useless goods and ideology.
Post-industrial tribalism is a natural social reproduction of the power of the media to shape consciousness, and to create newer forms of consumerist human beings. Nationalism, including Malay nationalism of the Mahathirst era, is an artificial construct that needs the power of "othering" and "production of enemies" and "boogeymen and boogeywomen" for ideological sustainability.
But what is "nationalism" and does "Malay nationalism" actually exist in this century? Does the idea of 'natio' or "nation" or "a people" survives merely on linguistic, territorial, religious homogeneity when these are also subject to the sociological interrogations of subjectivity and relativity?
Nationalism is a psychological and cultural construct useful and effective when deployed under certain economic conditions. It is now ineffective as a tool of mass mobilisation when nations have gained "independence" from the colonisers and when the "enemy" is no longer visible. All that exist in this post-industrial, globalised, borderless, and mediated age of cybernetic capitalism is the idea of "post-industrial tribes" that live and thrive on chaos and complexity and on materials and goods produced by local and international capitalists.
Revise the old formula
We are in the 21st. century. One year from now, we will arrive at the year 2010. The non-Malays and non-bumiputeras have come a long way into being accepted as full-fledged Malaysians, by virtue of the ethics, rights and responsibilities of citizenship. They ought to be given equal opportunity in the name of social justice, racial tolerance and the alleviation of poverty.
Bright and hard-working Malaysians regardless of racial origin who now call themselves Malaysians must be given all the opportunities that have been given to Malays since 40 years back.
Islam and other religions require this form of social justice to be applied to the lives of human beings. Islam does not discriminate one on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, creed nor national origin. It is race-based politics, borne out of the elusiveness of nationalism, that creates post-industrial tribalistic leaders; leaders that will design post-industrial tribalistic policies. It is the philosophy of greed, facilitated by free enterprise runamuck that will evolvingly force leaders of each race to threaten each other over the control of the economic pie.
The claim of 'civilisational Islam' or "Islam Hadhari" must be backed with a philosophy of development that restructure society no longer on the basis of newer forms of post-industrial tribalism that accords the political elites with the best opportunity to amass more wealth, but to redesign the economic system based on an efficient and sound socialistic economic system. It might even require political will to curb human enthusiasm of acquiring more and more of the things they do not need. In short, it should curb temptations to out-consume each other in the name of greed.
To be civilised means to wake up to the possibilities of humanism and not plunge into a world of more sophisticated racism. The universal principle of humanism requires the privileged few to re-examine the policies of national development that prioritise the creation of more real estate projects than the construction of programmes that meet basic needs of all races and classes of peoples. To civilise a nation means to de-tribalise the citizens into a polity that will learn to share the wealth of this nation by accepting this land as the "earth of mankind" (bumi manusia) rather that a land belonging to this or that race.
In a multi-racial, multi-religious, country such as Malaysia, nationalism is a complex yet withering concept. In a globalised world of globally- and government-linked companies this concept of "fatherland" or "motherland" is a powerful weapon of the wealthy to mount arguments that hide the real intention of empire-building. The lifestyle of the country's rich and famous require nationalist sentiments to be played up so that the more the rights are "protected" the more the political-economically rich few will have their sustained control over the people, territories, natural resources and information.
This, I think is the picture of post-industrial tribalism we are seeing as a mutation of the development, appropriation and imitation of the Malay feudalistic mentality. The clear and present danger in our post-industrial tribalistic world lies in old formula we are wrongly using.
The essential question now is – as a 'Malaysian nation'/Bangsa Malaysia haven't we agreed upon a construction of a common history and a common destiny?
Or-- did we have a wrong version of Malaysian history funneled into us, through a historical error?
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
Comments (6)Add Comment
...
written by 80srocker, August 05, 2009 02:02:07
Well-said, Dr. Azly.
Sorry for stating the obvious. As soon as Malaysians unite under one race as Malaysians, UMNO, MCA, MIC will have NOTHING to go on with. These bastards are doing nothing but coordinately stirring up racial issues to keep their "Ketuanan"/"We fight for your rights" trash on non-stop repeat. And so long as they maintain this, they'll use ISA, Utusan, police, MACC, JAIS, flip-flopping of languages used in school, etc. to bully us!
report abuse
disagree 2
agree 28
...
written by hamid, August 05, 2009 02:17:22
Melayu UMNO = Melayu Bodoh dan tak sedar diri!
report abuse
disagree 1
agree 16
...
written by densemy, August 05, 2009 14:06:54
Accident my foot. The widespread insecurity of Malays generated from the way they are destabilised as children to frighten them into believing in god permeates the whole of Malay societya and is the reason for their nationalism
Why do you think they cling together so closely in their family units, their kampong units and finally their nationalistic units. Partly its out of fear, partly its to protect themselves from the evil infidels and partly its to bolster their egos which have been so damaged by their insecurity
Why do you think malays have to constantly dominate everyone... even their own kind? They dont have the intelligence on the whole to dominate intelligently (that's another by-product of Islam) so they do it through violence and oppression
Its all to do with their insecurity and the arrogant egos that they cultivate to cover their insecurity. Their pride and dignity is a cover as is their resorting to tradition ( either tribal or religious) to dictate every move they make. Simply they are afraid to be independent, they are afraid to be innovative, they are afraid to be adventurous, they are even afraid to think for themselves. They simply act the way they are told to act... and always have done
If you still doubt this theory then try to explain away the horrendously awful behaviour in the last week by malays against everybody... even their own race
Malays are not lazy, they simply dont know what to do next
report abuse
disagree 4
agree 5
...
written by densemy, August 05, 2009 14:49:48
Its Malay insecurity that has them sucking up to aunty UMNO all the time..."Never mind Mohd. if you cant pass the exams aunty will push you over the line and before you know it you'll have a degree" "Never mind Abdul, we'll give you a nice little contract to do some overpaid work for us... dont worry about the fact that you havent a clue about what you are doing... employ some illiterate Indons and blame them if any one questions you". "Sorry Zai, we are keeping the big contracts for our cronies, but if you keep on sucking up to me i'll think about giving you a bigger contract next time"
End result... the insecure have now become parasites on UMNO.. Nobody ever thinks of quality or of standard or even worries about finishing the job... So long as you get paid
Insecurity is the reason that modern techniques are so rarely adopted in this country. Never mind we can fall back on tradition ... Islam makes you learn verbatim by constant repetition so if its good enough for Islam its good enough for the Malaysian school system. Islam does it, so, lets have a competition, lets have an exam, cos that will help us overcome our insecurities but showing everyone how good we are... trouble is for every winner there are 30 losers. And what do losers do?.. They become more insecure ... of course!
Insecurity is the explanation why so much of that which is produced by Malay is crap... whether it be PS crap or material crap from the factories. No body has the confidence to pursue quality or efficiency
Insecurity is the reason why Malays drive as badly as they do... To cover their insecurity their ego's expand ten-fold and they suddenly become experts on all aspects of driving and the rules of the road. The fact that they can hardly control their cars seems irrelevant so long as ego reigns
Insecurity is the reason nobody BUT nobody in authority will delegate any responsibility to their underlings. They are terrified their incompetence will be exposed.
Outcome... everything in Malaysia takes ten times longer than it should
report abuse
disagree 3
agree 3
...
written by renoir, August 05, 2009 21:09:59
There're Malays and they're "Malays." No, the Malays I know don't seek to "constantly dominate everyone." And it's my privilege to know such intelligent Malays, though none of them are politicians. It's the mark of an educated person not to tar an entire group of people with the same brush.
Some I don't know personally have, through their writings or actions, proven to be admirable persons as well. Who can fault people like Syed Husin or, for that matter, the tens of thousands who marched from Sogo to present their anti-ISA petition? Those who'd never seen such people, listen to what they say, observe their behavior, will never know their warmth, their charms, their humanity. The train that brought many of them to Plaza Rakyat or Yaohan - since the stops at Masjid Jamek and Sogo were closed - were full of such fun-loving yet determined and highly principled Malays. One old man refused a seat offered by a young non-Malay woman: he was going to die soon, he said, so he preferred standing up. All around him laughed, as they scoffed at the authorities' efforts to stop the march. So what if they closed those stations? We can walk over there (from Plaza Rakyat) in a few minutes!!! On that day, such simple folks proved that they belonged to an Alpha race, a race that truly believe, when fighting for justice, in "biar tulang puteh jangan puteh mata."
Hats off to those folks.
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...
written by asguard, August 06, 2009 09:06:52
UMNO does not stands 1malaysia nor the real malaysian malaysia concept..what is only sees that provoke more racial slurs from time to time, make use of its faithful dogs...MACC, POLICE, JUDICIARY, OR ANY OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES to carry out its dirty work in order to shut out what it sees as threat its way or block it way!
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Republic of virtue 8/09
OneMalaysia -- a new meaning PDF Print
Posted by admin
Sunday, 02 August 2009 10:35
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2009/08/not-wall-street-rally.html
I grew up hearing slogans, as each regime passed power to its successor.
In the 1960s it was Bersatu teguh, bercerai roboh. In the 1970s it was Bersekutu bertambah mutu. In the 1980s we were serenaded for 22 years with Bersih, Cekap, Amanah.
There was a song Demi Negara that went along as soundtrack. Next came a new leader with Kepimpinan Melalui Teladan and Islam Hadhari. Now we have One (1) Malaysia.
Malaysians saw the chronology of sloganising as 'unity increases quality', 'clean, efficient, trustworthy', 'leadership via good example' and finally 'Malaysia as one'.
Nice slogans. We have created branding in governance. But if we are to lift the veil and look at what is behind these words, we will discover the complex interplay between political-economy and hidden agendas, between political bribery and hegemony, and between ethnocentrism and hedonistic capitalism.
Malaysians are not as excited as Americans when Barack Obama took control to create a 'One America, indivisible with liberty and justice for all'. Malaysians have a long way to go in terms of translating slogans into data-driven system of governing.
For Muslims, Malaysia in this age is like Mekkah circa the emergence of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) - hedonistic, tribalistic, with multiple demigods of materialism, contradictory and hypocritical.
Like Mekkah during the reign of Abu Sufyan, when power rested on the display of signs and symbols of wealth and little concern for the plight of the poor, Malaysia has evolved into a country in which the disparity between the rich and the poor has become too wide and that those in power use any means to ensure that divisions in society are maintained. Thus we have a country in which homes of the poor are bulldozed to build for yet another shopping mall.
While we hear the 'One Malaysia' slogan being trumpeted, we have also seen the evolution of structural violence in our economic, educational, cultural, and legal systems.
We have Acts that imprison the body, mind, and spirit of our citizens. Using the state ideological apparatuses, the powerful among us have used power not to liberate, but to cage the powerless.
Structural problems
But as in many a renewal processes, we must continue to work towards dismantling the very foundation of race-based politics; from the psychological to the ideological. The problem is not necessarily in the leadership that moves from one hegemonic phase to another; the problem is deeply structural.
The structure can no longer hold the weight of the masses that are demanding for justice to serve all and not to enrich the few. The violence that need to be eradicated is inherent in the system; a system that is build upon slogans and feel-good messages trumpeted across ages through the media controlled by those who own the means of intellectual, economic, and perhaps moral production.
I propose that the beginning of a successful goal of a 'One Malaysia' nation should begin with the dismantling of all race-based political parties. As long as we are organised along racial lines, we will continue to protect each others' interest using the idea of might is right.
Our institutions will continue to be built along these lines and our culture will continue to evolve in ways that will enable and disable each other. Our children will continue to learn about better ways not to tolerate each other and how to build walls and cages around us. We will, as citizens, continue to see race and ethnicity - rather than class or caste - as obstacles to progress.
I propose we pry through the slogans and make the government of the day accountable. If the regime says that is one that is 'clean, efficient, trustworthy', we must demand proof that it is so.
If the regime of Najib Abdul Razak wants to see a One Malaysia, we must demand that the One-ness of Malaysia be rebuilt on the foundation of politics, economics, culture, and education that will ensure that a humane system of regulative and distributive justice is installed, made transparent and always evolves to deal with the challenges of globalisation and multi-culturalism.
In One Malaysia we are seeing merely systemic change; a fine-tuning of a system that is breaking down. Those who created and run the machine are also breaking down and plagued with a political pathological condition that exacerbates the problem.
In One Malaysia, what we need is a truly revolutionary process of transformation that will bring back the dignity of the poor and the dispossessed of all ethnic groups, punish the robber barons, bring back freedom of inquiry in all our educational and cultural institutions, create a God-fearing law enforcement system.
Most importantly, it must create a cadre of leaders that will explore humane capitalism means rather than sloganise on human capitalism that create a newer form of indentured servitude.
In short we need to explore the primacy of 'spiritual capitalism' rather than continue to become capitalists evolving into merely spirits in a material world. Let us make our slogans meaningful. Like a living holy scripture.
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
Comments (8)Add Comment
...
written by NSTPravda, August 02, 2009 12:03:12
OneMalaysia -- a new meaning ia-lah:
OneParty - UMNO
OneSupremeLeader - C4 Najis
OneLaw for rakyats - NoLaw for UMNO cronies
OneLie - "I am not guilty of murder because I don't know her"
OneCockUp - "I swear on Qur'an I don't know her"
OneGiganticCockUp - "TBH decided to defy the Law of gravity"
OneReallyPissedOffNation
Semua-nya OK!
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written by taufan, August 02, 2009 14:01:54
The Government behaves like it's a big advertising company.
To sell...it keeps churning out slogans after slogans!
Sadly though, the product it sells are of no value.
The slogans are just what it is....mere slogans!
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written by Richfyf, August 02, 2009 20:05:16
I think Khir Toyo house is big enough for all the famalies in Kg Buah Pala to live happily ever after...
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written by rams609, August 02, 2009 22:43:19
Most importantly, it must create a cadre of leaders that will explore humane capitalism means rather than sloganise on human capitalism that create a newer form of indentured servitude.
Your guess is as good as mine. Not with the current set of leaders I am sure you'd agree. Like Indonesia during the "orde baru", they are so much into making it for themselves, it's gonna be even worse for our future generation.
I pity your kids and mine Dr.Azly.
I don't belong to any party because they are all the same.
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written by Sabahfan, August 02, 2009 22:47:42
BERSIH CEKAP DAN AMANAH... MAHAFIRAUN AND FAMILY TURNED OUT TO BE THE BEGINNING OF THE BIGGEST CORRUPTION IN MALAYSIAL....
LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE.... yes this one was successful.. how how how???
because as the UMNO leaders were corrupted , all their crony party such as MIC, MCA, gerakan etc also became corrupted.
ISLAM HADHARI... HA HA HA HA.... JAIS PLEASE GO AND RAID THE AMERICAN COUPLE WEARING A SARONG..... ha ha ha ha ha ha
ONE MALAYSIA? HAAA HA HA H ha ha ha
one wife?
one child?
one C4?
one altantuya?
one TBH?
one anjing kurap?
one big liar?
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written by rams609, August 02, 2009 22:55:06
It was not a concept in the beginning.
The PM of the day mentioned it in one of his maiden speeches and viola it became a slogan!
It carried very little weight as it's not thought of properly. How can you allow any Tom,Dick and Harry (or in this case any Ali, Kumar and Tong Seng) to interpret that 1 Malaysia as they like.
It lacked the big idea.
Flip the papers and look at the way everyone is seeing 1 Malaysia now. As long as there is this big numeral 1 with pictures in it, it's one Malaysia to them.
It's already August and 1Malaysia is just a flat line without substance.
What's the set vision and what are the real objectives?
Zip!
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written by Aria, August 03, 2009 20:36:52
Najib, you want one Malaysia, then treat everyone equally.
Why do the Indian and Chinese feel like they are 3rd class citizens?
Is the education system fair for all?
Is the job market fair for all?
Is the wealth of Malaysia distributed equally among the Malay, Chinese and Indian? Why only do BN and their cronies have riches beyond believe?
Najib, You answer these questions correctly you will get one Malaysia. That is if you honestly want one Malaysia.
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written by Mirage, August 03, 2009 23:16:53
!Malaysia = 1 person taking all the bribe
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Posted by admin
Sunday, 02 August 2009 10:35
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2009/08/not-wall-street-rally.html
I grew up hearing slogans, as each regime passed power to its successor.
In the 1960s it was Bersatu teguh, bercerai roboh. In the 1970s it was Bersekutu bertambah mutu. In the 1980s we were serenaded for 22 years with Bersih, Cekap, Amanah.
There was a song Demi Negara that went along as soundtrack. Next came a new leader with Kepimpinan Melalui Teladan and Islam Hadhari. Now we have One (1) Malaysia.
Malaysians saw the chronology of sloganising as 'unity increases quality', 'clean, efficient, trustworthy', 'leadership via good example' and finally 'Malaysia as one'.
Nice slogans. We have created branding in governance. But if we are to lift the veil and look at what is behind these words, we will discover the complex interplay between political-economy and hidden agendas, between political bribery and hegemony, and between ethnocentrism and hedonistic capitalism.
Malaysians are not as excited as Americans when Barack Obama took control to create a 'One America, indivisible with liberty and justice for all'. Malaysians have a long way to go in terms of translating slogans into data-driven system of governing.
For Muslims, Malaysia in this age is like Mekkah circa the emergence of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) - hedonistic, tribalistic, with multiple demigods of materialism, contradictory and hypocritical.
Like Mekkah during the reign of Abu Sufyan, when power rested on the display of signs and symbols of wealth and little concern for the plight of the poor, Malaysia has evolved into a country in which the disparity between the rich and the poor has become too wide and that those in power use any means to ensure that divisions in society are maintained. Thus we have a country in which homes of the poor are bulldozed to build for yet another shopping mall.
While we hear the 'One Malaysia' slogan being trumpeted, we have also seen the evolution of structural violence in our economic, educational, cultural, and legal systems.
We have Acts that imprison the body, mind, and spirit of our citizens. Using the state ideological apparatuses, the powerful among us have used power not to liberate, but to cage the powerless.
Structural problems
But as in many a renewal processes, we must continue to work towards dismantling the very foundation of race-based politics; from the psychological to the ideological. The problem is not necessarily in the leadership that moves from one hegemonic phase to another; the problem is deeply structural.
The structure can no longer hold the weight of the masses that are demanding for justice to serve all and not to enrich the few. The violence that need to be eradicated is inherent in the system; a system that is build upon slogans and feel-good messages trumpeted across ages through the media controlled by those who own the means of intellectual, economic, and perhaps moral production.
I propose that the beginning of a successful goal of a 'One Malaysia' nation should begin with the dismantling of all race-based political parties. As long as we are organised along racial lines, we will continue to protect each others' interest using the idea of might is right.
Our institutions will continue to be built along these lines and our culture will continue to evolve in ways that will enable and disable each other. Our children will continue to learn about better ways not to tolerate each other and how to build walls and cages around us. We will, as citizens, continue to see race and ethnicity - rather than class or caste - as obstacles to progress.
I propose we pry through the slogans and make the government of the day accountable. If the regime says that is one that is 'clean, efficient, trustworthy', we must demand proof that it is so.
If the regime of Najib Abdul Razak wants to see a One Malaysia, we must demand that the One-ness of Malaysia be rebuilt on the foundation of politics, economics, culture, and education that will ensure that a humane system of regulative and distributive justice is installed, made transparent and always evolves to deal with the challenges of globalisation and multi-culturalism.
In One Malaysia we are seeing merely systemic change; a fine-tuning of a system that is breaking down. Those who created and run the machine are also breaking down and plagued with a political pathological condition that exacerbates the problem.
In One Malaysia, what we need is a truly revolutionary process of transformation that will bring back the dignity of the poor and the dispossessed of all ethnic groups, punish the robber barons, bring back freedom of inquiry in all our educational and cultural institutions, create a God-fearing law enforcement system.
Most importantly, it must create a cadre of leaders that will explore humane capitalism means rather than sloganise on human capitalism that create a newer form of indentured servitude.
In short we need to explore the primacy of 'spiritual capitalism' rather than continue to become capitalists evolving into merely spirits in a material world. Let us make our slogans meaningful. Like a living holy scripture.
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
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...
written by NSTPravda, August 02, 2009 12:03:12
OneMalaysia -- a new meaning ia-lah:
OneParty - UMNO
OneSupremeLeader - C4 Najis
OneLaw for rakyats - NoLaw for UMNO cronies
OneLie - "I am not guilty of murder because I don't know her"
OneCockUp - "I swear on Qur'an I don't know her"
OneGiganticCockUp - "TBH decided to defy the Law of gravity"
OneReallyPissedOffNation
Semua-nya OK!
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written by taufan, August 02, 2009 14:01:54
The Government behaves like it's a big advertising company.
To sell...it keeps churning out slogans after slogans!
Sadly though, the product it sells are of no value.
The slogans are just what it is....mere slogans!
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written by Richfyf, August 02, 2009 20:05:16
I think Khir Toyo house is big enough for all the famalies in Kg Buah Pala to live happily ever after...
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written by rams609, August 02, 2009 22:43:19
Most importantly, it must create a cadre of leaders that will explore humane capitalism means rather than sloganise on human capitalism that create a newer form of indentured servitude.
Your guess is as good as mine. Not with the current set of leaders I am sure you'd agree. Like Indonesia during the "orde baru", they are so much into making it for themselves, it's gonna be even worse for our future generation.
I pity your kids and mine Dr.Azly.
I don't belong to any party because they are all the same.
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written by Sabahfan, August 02, 2009 22:47:42
BERSIH CEKAP DAN AMANAH... MAHAFIRAUN AND FAMILY TURNED OUT TO BE THE BEGINNING OF THE BIGGEST CORRUPTION IN MALAYSIAL....
LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE.... yes this one was successful.. how how how???
because as the UMNO leaders were corrupted , all their crony party such as MIC, MCA, gerakan etc also became corrupted.
ISLAM HADHARI... HA HA HA HA.... JAIS PLEASE GO AND RAID THE AMERICAN COUPLE WEARING A SARONG..... ha ha ha ha ha ha
ONE MALAYSIA? HAAA HA HA H ha ha ha
one wife?
one child?
one C4?
one altantuya?
one TBH?
one anjing kurap?
one big liar?
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written by rams609, August 02, 2009 22:55:06
It was not a concept in the beginning.
The PM of the day mentioned it in one of his maiden speeches and viola it became a slogan!
It carried very little weight as it's not thought of properly. How can you allow any Tom,Dick and Harry (or in this case any Ali, Kumar and Tong Seng) to interpret that 1 Malaysia as they like.
It lacked the big idea.
Flip the papers and look at the way everyone is seeing 1 Malaysia now. As long as there is this big numeral 1 with pictures in it, it's one Malaysia to them.
It's already August and 1Malaysia is just a flat line without substance.
What's the set vision and what are the real objectives?
Zip!
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written by Aria, August 03, 2009 20:36:52
Najib, you want one Malaysia, then treat everyone equally.
Why do the Indian and Chinese feel like they are 3rd class citizens?
Is the education system fair for all?
Is the job market fair for all?
Is the wealth of Malaysia distributed equally among the Malay, Chinese and Indian? Why only do BN and their cronies have riches beyond believe?
Najib, You answer these questions correctly you will get one Malaysia. That is if you honestly want one Malaysia.
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written by Mirage, August 03, 2009 23:16:53
!Malaysia = 1 person taking all the bribe
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Republic of virtue, 7/09
Must we (still) become a bio-tech nation? PDF Print
Posted by admin
Thursday, 30 July 2009 13:05
Image
Technology is artifact. Artifacts have creators. Creators are people. And people have politics. Where will technological determinism as ideology be if we could name the shadows on the wall of the cave?
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2009/07/malaysia-no-longer-tanah-melayu.html
Sometime ago, at the height of the Abdullah Administration's fascination with bio-technology, I wrote this piece below. Now the present government is renewing its interest in "bio-technologizing" Malaysia. Do we understand the philosophy of science and public policy, in an age of dependency and borrowing, appropriating, and imitating that displaces local culture and endangers the environment?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The brand name for the current administration, besides ‘Towering Malays’ is ‘Bio-Tech Malaysia
’. This is to give a brand new national-ideological identity to replace the previous regime’s economic branding in the name ‘Info Tech’ Malaysia, symbolically architectured in the landscape of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).
But are we generating public discourse on the issue of technology and social change, and inquire into the fundamental nature of technology as a shaper and reformer of social relations of production? Have we carefully analysed who the global owners of the means of developing, deploying, and domesticating technology are, and who benefits from the ‘glocalisation’ of high-tech, at the expense of those at the receiving end?
Do we understand the ‘scientistic’ or ‘pseudo-scientistic’ language of this new wave in economic development? What do these new names, for instance, of ‘designer-genes of agro-business’ crops mean to the farmer in Sik, Kedah or Tambun Tulang, Perlis? How do they participate in the dialogue that will impact their livelihood? Will they remain as vulnerable and as silent as they have been, since the times of the Malay feudal economic system hundreds of years before the advent of Bio-Tech Malaysia?
Are we not aware of the stories of how genetically-altered crops are a threat to the environment? Do we no study reports coming from the advanced nations concerning the ethics of bio-technology? Are members of the proposed International Advisory Panel wise enough to see into the Malaysian future? Can they predict what will happen when a nation embraces the ideology of technological determinism, such as in the case of large scale transformations in the past: agricultural economies of scale, industrialisation, high-tech informational industries, and now bio-technology?
Is there not at all a raging debate amongst the natives in Malaysia, among our esteemed professors in the academic circles, among public intellectuals, among leaders of grassroots movements, among advocates of participatory democracy, and progressive opinion leaders of the urgent need to debate on the topic: should we or should we not bio-technologise? What ever happened to our modernisation process? Whatever is happening to our understanding and remedies of digital divide? What are we trying to achieve with this new global-local-corporate venture called bio-tech?
We ought to, as a nation, be worried. We ought to have a national debate on ‘dependency’. We must explore what modern-day dependency means. We must have our politicians read Paul Baran, Immanuel Wallerstein, Johann Galtung, Andre Gunder Frank, Christopher Chase Dunn, or even Che Guevara and Paulo Freire in order to understand the structural violence we will continue to create in the name of economic development. But we must explore this question: what is technology and how does it change social relations of production?
"Our Frankenstein"
We need to clearly articulate our relationship with technology. Is technology under our control? Or are we in fact controlled by it? We need to learn how to situate technology with the life we ought to live. We need to understand the periods in our history in which we uncritically adopt technology, transfer expertise, accept foreign aid – all in the name of development and modernisation.
In the 1950s, we hailed the sewing machine as an invention of wonder, albeit its role in displacing the human person and its function as an instrument of mechanical production which then breeds among others, high fashion. We imported this technology.
In the 1960s we looked in awe as the Caterpillar machine bulldozed its way through our padi fields, at the height of the introduction of new grains such a padi Appollo (even this name is ideological and sounds fantastic) and at the height of technology transfer from the Robert McNamara’s World Bank. We imported this ideology.
In the 1970s, we transformed the national economies into large scale agricultural industries under the Felda scheme, in the overall scheme of developmentalist economy orchestrated by the World Bank.
In the 1980s, we set up Free Trade Zones and micro-chip assembling factories and invited the migration of predominantly young Malay girls, the Minah Karan to become the new indentured servants who were in mental servitute to the corporate greed of the local and international Info Tech manufacturing elite.
In the 1990s we designed a large scale real estate project, the MSC, and build the largest airport in Southeast Asia, so that the international corporate elites can easily land on our shores, make as much money as they can, and fly off to their paradise that are beyond the control of their own national governments.
Radical changes
We marvel at the power Artificial Intelligence has upon Human Reason and Aesthetic consciousness, albeit its historical development which can be traced back to the womb of the Pentagon. Excitedly, like a child given a new high-tech gadget, we institutionalise radical changes that transformed and continue to transform our lives through the MSC project. We invited the richest man in the world to advise us and to help make his corporation richer. We institutionalised this fantasy.
The computers at our desks, scientific calculators our kids in school play with - Pokemon, Giga Pets, MP3s, Playstation, GPS systems, the Internet - all these are among the spin-offs we get from the Pentagon. Recall that the computers we developed out of the Pentagon's need for Control Command Communication and Intelligence (C3I), and the Internet is developed out of DARPANET, a Defense Department project to link five computers so that they can be intelligent enough to guide missiles. But, we celebrate its ‘neutrality’.
We blindly adopt technology as the engine of growth and as agents of personal, social, and cognitive change, there is the strong tone of technological determinism and hypism which seem to be present and unanalysed. We call the leaders of our nation ‘captains of industry’.
We do not know how to explore the ideology of technological determinism. We simply let it colonise our thinking.
Technoloy is ideology
Jim Carrey, historian of technology, proposed that technology and ideology is one and one which goes beyond merely discourse. Technology shapes consciousness, directs human affairs, transform systems, displaces liberatory ideals, cancerise metaphysical space, rapes our will to become more cultural and communal, and places us on the pedestal of conspicuous consumption.
Virtual reality technologies locate us at the portal of virtual capitalism. Bio-technology is another phase in the march of technological fantasy - that the world will get better and better with these newer toys and games to play. The mutated genes gets into our agricultural environment possibly creating killer weeds, possibly carcinogenising the food we eat and possibly cancerising more and more cells with which we live.
When issues of technology, ideology, and fantasy - all these are taken together as critical analysis of what technology is there is a sense of hopelessness. Here is one example: Technology of arms production is techniques borne out of the quantification and systematisation of the human creativity gone berserk, devoid of moral conscience, let alone availed of a deep sense of reflectivity on the fate of generations ahead. How do ideas colonise us and how do our politicians continue to import and impose these ideas onto the people who are vulnerable to these social changes? The answer may lie in hegemony.
In between our natural self and the world we inhabit lies ‘spaces of knowledge and power, as Michel Foucault says. This space alienates human beings and create ‘habituses’ of people. We are moving into another phase of developmentalism: the Age of Bio-Tech Malaysia. But what is it all about and how do we test its long-term impact on society?
"Technological determinism"
American Historian David Nobel in America by Design wrote extensively on the role of these corporations and the kinds of research and development, which have characterised not only the way science developed but also how it has affected public policy.
David Nye's story of electrification of America is also a story of the Internet as it colonises public sphere and brings with it the ideology that “technology is neutral and devoid of human constitutive interests”. In essence, I propose that technological determinism is an ideology itself which masks the human actors, the corporations, and those involved in the production, reproduction, coding, signaling, symbolising - and mystifying the masses.
Only a radical critique of ideology, an Ideologiekritik as Jurgen Habermas says - a cognitive praxis which contains the analysing of knowledge claims vis-a-vis human constituted interest might be a starting point in looking at these claims; claims such as one made by Nicholas Negroponte or Digital Gurus who roam the earth in search of nations to digitise.
Are we imitating the Western mind? Are we becoming too logical, too rationalising, too relativising, and too scientistic to see the qualitative dimension of Nature from an eco-philosophical perspective? I suspect so - based on the educational system we have built for our nation and based on the nature of human capital revolution we have engineered with the help of outside colonisers. Or are we doomed to perpetually engineer and plan destruction so that the human ecosystem can continue to be infiltrated by genetically-modified crops that will mutate and carry consequences against what the natural world is designed to accommodate?
Technology is artifact. Artifacts have creators. Creators are people. And people have politics. Where will technological determinism as ideology be if we could name the shadows on the wall of the cave?
Let us gather our own homegrown intellectuals together with the leaders of our grassroots movement and enlightened and rakyat-friendly NGOs to debate on this issue, so that the new discourse on development will not be dominated by the members of the International Advisory Panel.
Let the rakyat speak. Let them speak, in their own language, of the meaning of appropriate technology and available resources that do not alienate them and create bigger spaces of knowledge and power between the have and the have-nots, between the powerful and the powerless.
We are fundamentally an organic nation - not a genetically-altered polity.
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
Comments (7)Add Comment
...
written by taufan, July 30, 2009 14:06:52
I fell into this trap in getting my child to take up biotech in University after being led to believe that there's a bright future in this field.
Thank god my child entered a US/Malaysia Twinning University and she have completed the Course in the States.
Having been 'let down' by the government with no clear direction or result, I got my child to remain in the US and get a job there instead. My child was 'blessed' and got a job just two weeks after graduating. Will this be the same in Malaysia?
The future would be for my child to move on anywhere else except Malaysia. I just have no faith in this country!
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written by densemy, July 30, 2009 14:39:19
Biotechnology is another government delusion, an attempt to leapfrog over a history of neglect. They think they can pour money into a fantasy and drag Malaysia into the 21st century
Malaysian agriculture at the kampong level is running at less than 1% efficiency and at the plantation and 'intensive' agriculture level at a not much higher level of performance. Modern technology, concern for the environment, agricultural ethics have been totally abandoned in the race for greed
Is it any wonder that Malaysia cannot even feed itself
What Malaysia needs is not biotechnology but education, hard work and basic principles
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written by tkahyap, July 30, 2009 14:52:54
as a graduate student, i would like to share my outlook on biotech in malaysia.
I am now in Singapore as a graduate student, and compared to when I was in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia as an undergraduate, I could see the vast difference in standards. Malaysian biotechnology is at least 20, if not 30 years behind the US. We are still talking about enzyme kinetics, and plant active ingredient extraction while those in the US are talking about remodelling entire genomes, drug designs etc. While there are some small efforts like cancer research in CARIF, we are too small to make an impact, and our universities are staffed by imcompetent professors who publish very little. An average professor in US have more than 100 publications, the best have >500 publications (of course, impact factor is also important). The average Malaysian professor publish in South East Asian journals which are almost never read, or publish in "internal" publications.
Lets talk about job prospects. Go to Jobstreet and search for jobs in Biotechnology and what you will find are mostly medical sales jobs. Research jobs, if any, are far and few in between. The Biovalley is a dismal failure. Now they are talking about creating a biovalley in Danga Bay, plant research centre in Perlis, Biotech park in Pahang.
Really, who is coming?? What is our competitive advantage?
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written by tkahyap, July 30, 2009 15:06:26
I agree with the essence of Dr Azmi's piece, that Biotechnology holds an allure because it is "cutting edge" and "cool". I too was seduced by its promises when I just finished high school. Biotechnology promises a lot of things - cure for cancer, food to feed the world, green energy etc.
But missing in the equation is our own resources. Our country is too small, too backwards to make an impact. Even scholarship to overseas university for biology PhDs are given based on race. (Skim latihan akademik bumiputra, JPA scholarships etc) I believe biotechnology will continue to shine, because it holds the key to understand ourselves and our world. But that impact will be made by countries far more advanced than ours. Should we try to build our infrastructure, human resources to prepare for the biotech future? No! Currently nearly all public universities offer biotech courses. 95% of students will end up in jobs that are unrelated at all to biotech. And in the foreseable future as well. With the current mess our country is in, we are merely compounding the problem with our obsession with biotech.
You might ask how our country is supposed to become an advanced nation. I don't have an answer. But we need to start to retake the country from the goons who gave us this mess!
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written by chiongguo, July 30, 2009 20:49:01
tkahyap I think you had failed to understand the underlying thesis of Dr.Azly's post. It is almost "shocking" to note that you had only chose and picked "key words" and took that as the thrust of the article.
Applied Biotechnology IS BASED ON A FAILED PARADIGM. The history of science with all its glitters and limelight had actually brought much harm to humanity. Businesses maximise profit and it doesn't care who will pay for the cost. Eventually all of us pay a heavy cost in terms of our health.
Today we are eating better, eating more and yet we suffer more in increase chronic diseases. Most of these started after the first world war and accelerated after the second world war. Our increase lifespan is an illusion. Vast number of us living the last 10 or 20 year of our life suffer greatly. Just as an example that came to mind. For a long while farmers were told that only 3 elements will make your crop grow well. So we have NPK technology. By tweaking N,P and K a farmer is able to produce wonderful crop - for a shortwhile. Then they found that the crops were not very healthy and pesticides were introduced. No one thought of why vegetables grown organically have less invasion of pests. The law of nature is inviolate. When there is disease and death in the plant kingdom insects are invited and they come to help nature. Vegetables looking beautifully green is mainly because of the large use of nitrogen such as urea or ammonia but the plant is actually dying and is very unhealthy. Insects will not come to invade a healthy plant until such time nature is ready. There is a time-table.
Finding that such plants were unhealthy after a shortwhile we are now to believe that the plants needed micro-nutrients. So micro-nutrients were added into the equation. So farmers were told that about 15 were necessary. Dr.Lai found that the depletion of selenium in the soil in a village in southern china caused large number of stomach cancers. In fact these micro nutrients were found to have so much benefit for the body. Any lack in any of them will result in major problems down the road.
Hydroponic was based on NPK and later 15 elements were added. But our blood has about 90 odd elements and all of the vital to the health of a person. We can consume tonnes of vegetables that had little or no micro-nutrients than we are setting ourselves up for major health problem.
Interestingly sea water and sea salt - those raw unrefined sea-salt has over 80 elements and all of them vital to our health.
The above presentation is to compare how traditional diet with food from traditional sources is a proven paradigm of health and well-being. Science with all its glitz and glitter standing next to organic/biodynamic farming look ugly indeed.
I am not writing from ignorance. My background is in science and I have seen how science with its supposed age of enlightenment had befooled all of us. But businessmen and politicians don't really care.
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written by NSTPravda, July 31, 2009 07:39:15
Technology is artifact. Artifacts have creators. Creators are people. And people have politics. Where will technological determinism as ideology be if we could name the shadows on the wall of the cave?
Wah! This is indeed a high faluting discourse lah. If politics is the artoffart, the artoffart requires goodfarters... what's that gotta to with the price of roti canai on the walls of our public toilets?
These are the eternal questions that us coffee shop philosuffers ponder when we don't think about crime, police brutality, hog level government corruption, murders, and other necessities of bolih good life.
Semua-nya OK!
Dollar Akbar!
smilies/smiley.gif smilies/wink.gif smilies/cheesy.gif smilies/grin.gif smilies/tongue.gif smilies/cool.gif
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written by Tlau, July 31, 2009 21:32:44
We have not even started with sustainable future and we jump start into biotech. That is the problem with our politicians. Professionals such as commenter chiongguo should be source for his good intelligence for this field. Projects as such should be given to the professionals and not politicians who are out only for personal agenda.
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Posted by admin
Thursday, 30 July 2009 13:05
Image
Technology is artifact. Artifacts have creators. Creators are people. And people have politics. Where will technological determinism as ideology be if we could name the shadows on the wall of the cave?
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2009/07/malaysia-no-longer-tanah-melayu.html
Sometime ago, at the height of the Abdullah Administration's fascination with bio-technology, I wrote this piece below. Now the present government is renewing its interest in "bio-technologizing" Malaysia. Do we understand the philosophy of science and public policy, in an age of dependency and borrowing, appropriating, and imitating that displaces local culture and endangers the environment?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The brand name for the current administration, besides ‘Towering Malays’ is ‘Bio-Tech Malaysia
’. This is to give a brand new national-ideological identity to replace the previous regime’s economic branding in the name ‘Info Tech’ Malaysia, symbolically architectured in the landscape of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).
But are we generating public discourse on the issue of technology and social change, and inquire into the fundamental nature of technology as a shaper and reformer of social relations of production? Have we carefully analysed who the global owners of the means of developing, deploying, and domesticating technology are, and who benefits from the ‘glocalisation’ of high-tech, at the expense of those at the receiving end?
Do we understand the ‘scientistic’ or ‘pseudo-scientistic’ language of this new wave in economic development? What do these new names, for instance, of ‘designer-genes of agro-business’ crops mean to the farmer in Sik, Kedah or Tambun Tulang, Perlis? How do they participate in the dialogue that will impact their livelihood? Will they remain as vulnerable and as silent as they have been, since the times of the Malay feudal economic system hundreds of years before the advent of Bio-Tech Malaysia?
Are we not aware of the stories of how genetically-altered crops are a threat to the environment? Do we no study reports coming from the advanced nations concerning the ethics of bio-technology? Are members of the proposed International Advisory Panel wise enough to see into the Malaysian future? Can they predict what will happen when a nation embraces the ideology of technological determinism, such as in the case of large scale transformations in the past: agricultural economies of scale, industrialisation, high-tech informational industries, and now bio-technology?
Is there not at all a raging debate amongst the natives in Malaysia, among our esteemed professors in the academic circles, among public intellectuals, among leaders of grassroots movements, among advocates of participatory democracy, and progressive opinion leaders of the urgent need to debate on the topic: should we or should we not bio-technologise? What ever happened to our modernisation process? Whatever is happening to our understanding and remedies of digital divide? What are we trying to achieve with this new global-local-corporate venture called bio-tech?
We ought to, as a nation, be worried. We ought to have a national debate on ‘dependency’. We must explore what modern-day dependency means. We must have our politicians read Paul Baran, Immanuel Wallerstein, Johann Galtung, Andre Gunder Frank, Christopher Chase Dunn, or even Che Guevara and Paulo Freire in order to understand the structural violence we will continue to create in the name of economic development. But we must explore this question: what is technology and how does it change social relations of production?
"Our Frankenstein"
We need to clearly articulate our relationship with technology. Is technology under our control? Or are we in fact controlled by it? We need to learn how to situate technology with the life we ought to live. We need to understand the periods in our history in which we uncritically adopt technology, transfer expertise, accept foreign aid – all in the name of development and modernisation.
In the 1950s, we hailed the sewing machine as an invention of wonder, albeit its role in displacing the human person and its function as an instrument of mechanical production which then breeds among others, high fashion. We imported this technology.
In the 1960s we looked in awe as the Caterpillar machine bulldozed its way through our padi fields, at the height of the introduction of new grains such a padi Appollo (even this name is ideological and sounds fantastic) and at the height of technology transfer from the Robert McNamara’s World Bank. We imported this ideology.
In the 1970s, we transformed the national economies into large scale agricultural industries under the Felda scheme, in the overall scheme of developmentalist economy orchestrated by the World Bank.
In the 1980s, we set up Free Trade Zones and micro-chip assembling factories and invited the migration of predominantly young Malay girls, the Minah Karan to become the new indentured servants who were in mental servitute to the corporate greed of the local and international Info Tech manufacturing elite.
In the 1990s we designed a large scale real estate project, the MSC, and build the largest airport in Southeast Asia, so that the international corporate elites can easily land on our shores, make as much money as they can, and fly off to their paradise that are beyond the control of their own national governments.
Radical changes
We marvel at the power Artificial Intelligence has upon Human Reason and Aesthetic consciousness, albeit its historical development which can be traced back to the womb of the Pentagon. Excitedly, like a child given a new high-tech gadget, we institutionalise radical changes that transformed and continue to transform our lives through the MSC project. We invited the richest man in the world to advise us and to help make his corporation richer. We institutionalised this fantasy.
The computers at our desks, scientific calculators our kids in school play with - Pokemon, Giga Pets, MP3s, Playstation, GPS systems, the Internet - all these are among the spin-offs we get from the Pentagon. Recall that the computers we developed out of the Pentagon's need for Control Command Communication and Intelligence (C3I), and the Internet is developed out of DARPANET, a Defense Department project to link five computers so that they can be intelligent enough to guide missiles. But, we celebrate its ‘neutrality’.
We blindly adopt technology as the engine of growth and as agents of personal, social, and cognitive change, there is the strong tone of technological determinism and hypism which seem to be present and unanalysed. We call the leaders of our nation ‘captains of industry’.
We do not know how to explore the ideology of technological determinism. We simply let it colonise our thinking.
Technoloy is ideology
Jim Carrey, historian of technology, proposed that technology and ideology is one and one which goes beyond merely discourse. Technology shapes consciousness, directs human affairs, transform systems, displaces liberatory ideals, cancerise metaphysical space, rapes our will to become more cultural and communal, and places us on the pedestal of conspicuous consumption.
Virtual reality technologies locate us at the portal of virtual capitalism. Bio-technology is another phase in the march of technological fantasy - that the world will get better and better with these newer toys and games to play. The mutated genes gets into our agricultural environment possibly creating killer weeds, possibly carcinogenising the food we eat and possibly cancerising more and more cells with which we live.
When issues of technology, ideology, and fantasy - all these are taken together as critical analysis of what technology is there is a sense of hopelessness. Here is one example: Technology of arms production is techniques borne out of the quantification and systematisation of the human creativity gone berserk, devoid of moral conscience, let alone availed of a deep sense of reflectivity on the fate of generations ahead. How do ideas colonise us and how do our politicians continue to import and impose these ideas onto the people who are vulnerable to these social changes? The answer may lie in hegemony.
In between our natural self and the world we inhabit lies ‘spaces of knowledge and power, as Michel Foucault says. This space alienates human beings and create ‘habituses’ of people. We are moving into another phase of developmentalism: the Age of Bio-Tech Malaysia. But what is it all about and how do we test its long-term impact on society?
"Technological determinism"
American Historian David Nobel in America by Design wrote extensively on the role of these corporations and the kinds of research and development, which have characterised not only the way science developed but also how it has affected public policy.
David Nye's story of electrification of America is also a story of the Internet as it colonises public sphere and brings with it the ideology that “technology is neutral and devoid of human constitutive interests”. In essence, I propose that technological determinism is an ideology itself which masks the human actors, the corporations, and those involved in the production, reproduction, coding, signaling, symbolising - and mystifying the masses.
Only a radical critique of ideology, an Ideologiekritik as Jurgen Habermas says - a cognitive praxis which contains the analysing of knowledge claims vis-a-vis human constituted interest might be a starting point in looking at these claims; claims such as one made by Nicholas Negroponte or Digital Gurus who roam the earth in search of nations to digitise.
Are we imitating the Western mind? Are we becoming too logical, too rationalising, too relativising, and too scientistic to see the qualitative dimension of Nature from an eco-philosophical perspective? I suspect so - based on the educational system we have built for our nation and based on the nature of human capital revolution we have engineered with the help of outside colonisers. Or are we doomed to perpetually engineer and plan destruction so that the human ecosystem can continue to be infiltrated by genetically-modified crops that will mutate and carry consequences against what the natural world is designed to accommodate?
Technology is artifact. Artifacts have creators. Creators are people. And people have politics. Where will technological determinism as ideology be if we could name the shadows on the wall of the cave?
Let us gather our own homegrown intellectuals together with the leaders of our grassroots movement and enlightened and rakyat-friendly NGOs to debate on this issue, so that the new discourse on development will not be dominated by the members of the International Advisory Panel.
Let the rakyat speak. Let them speak, in their own language, of the meaning of appropriate technology and available resources that do not alienate them and create bigger spaces of knowledge and power between the have and the have-nots, between the powerful and the powerless.
We are fundamentally an organic nation - not a genetically-altered polity.
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
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written by taufan, July 30, 2009 14:06:52
I fell into this trap in getting my child to take up biotech in University after being led to believe that there's a bright future in this field.
Thank god my child entered a US/Malaysia Twinning University and she have completed the Course in the States.
Having been 'let down' by the government with no clear direction or result, I got my child to remain in the US and get a job there instead. My child was 'blessed' and got a job just two weeks after graduating. Will this be the same in Malaysia?
The future would be for my child to move on anywhere else except Malaysia. I just have no faith in this country!
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written by densemy, July 30, 2009 14:39:19
Biotechnology is another government delusion, an attempt to leapfrog over a history of neglect. They think they can pour money into a fantasy and drag Malaysia into the 21st century
Malaysian agriculture at the kampong level is running at less than 1% efficiency and at the plantation and 'intensive' agriculture level at a not much higher level of performance. Modern technology, concern for the environment, agricultural ethics have been totally abandoned in the race for greed
Is it any wonder that Malaysia cannot even feed itself
What Malaysia needs is not biotechnology but education, hard work and basic principles
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written by tkahyap, July 30, 2009 14:52:54
as a graduate student, i would like to share my outlook on biotech in malaysia.
I am now in Singapore as a graduate student, and compared to when I was in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia as an undergraduate, I could see the vast difference in standards. Malaysian biotechnology is at least 20, if not 30 years behind the US. We are still talking about enzyme kinetics, and plant active ingredient extraction while those in the US are talking about remodelling entire genomes, drug designs etc. While there are some small efforts like cancer research in CARIF, we are too small to make an impact, and our universities are staffed by imcompetent professors who publish very little. An average professor in US have more than 100 publications, the best have >500 publications (of course, impact factor is also important). The average Malaysian professor publish in South East Asian journals which are almost never read, or publish in "internal" publications.
Lets talk about job prospects. Go to Jobstreet and search for jobs in Biotechnology and what you will find are mostly medical sales jobs. Research jobs, if any, are far and few in between. The Biovalley is a dismal failure. Now they are talking about creating a biovalley in Danga Bay, plant research centre in Perlis, Biotech park in Pahang.
Really, who is coming?? What is our competitive advantage?
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written by tkahyap, July 30, 2009 15:06:26
I agree with the essence of Dr Azmi's piece, that Biotechnology holds an allure because it is "cutting edge" and "cool". I too was seduced by its promises when I just finished high school. Biotechnology promises a lot of things - cure for cancer, food to feed the world, green energy etc.
But missing in the equation is our own resources. Our country is too small, too backwards to make an impact. Even scholarship to overseas university for biology PhDs are given based on race. (Skim latihan akademik bumiputra, JPA scholarships etc) I believe biotechnology will continue to shine, because it holds the key to understand ourselves and our world. But that impact will be made by countries far more advanced than ours. Should we try to build our infrastructure, human resources to prepare for the biotech future? No! Currently nearly all public universities offer biotech courses. 95% of students will end up in jobs that are unrelated at all to biotech. And in the foreseable future as well. With the current mess our country is in, we are merely compounding the problem with our obsession with biotech.
You might ask how our country is supposed to become an advanced nation. I don't have an answer. But we need to start to retake the country from the goons who gave us this mess!
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written by chiongguo, July 30, 2009 20:49:01
tkahyap I think you had failed to understand the underlying thesis of Dr.Azly's post. It is almost "shocking" to note that you had only chose and picked "key words" and took that as the thrust of the article.
Applied Biotechnology IS BASED ON A FAILED PARADIGM. The history of science with all its glitters and limelight had actually brought much harm to humanity. Businesses maximise profit and it doesn't care who will pay for the cost. Eventually all of us pay a heavy cost in terms of our health.
Today we are eating better, eating more and yet we suffer more in increase chronic diseases. Most of these started after the first world war and accelerated after the second world war. Our increase lifespan is an illusion. Vast number of us living the last 10 or 20 year of our life suffer greatly. Just as an example that came to mind. For a long while farmers were told that only 3 elements will make your crop grow well. So we have NPK technology. By tweaking N,P and K a farmer is able to produce wonderful crop - for a shortwhile. Then they found that the crops were not very healthy and pesticides were introduced. No one thought of why vegetables grown organically have less invasion of pests. The law of nature is inviolate. When there is disease and death in the plant kingdom insects are invited and they come to help nature. Vegetables looking beautifully green is mainly because of the large use of nitrogen such as urea or ammonia but the plant is actually dying and is very unhealthy. Insects will not come to invade a healthy plant until such time nature is ready. There is a time-table.
Finding that such plants were unhealthy after a shortwhile we are now to believe that the plants needed micro-nutrients. So micro-nutrients were added into the equation. So farmers were told that about 15 were necessary. Dr.Lai found that the depletion of selenium in the soil in a village in southern china caused large number of stomach cancers. In fact these micro nutrients were found to have so much benefit for the body. Any lack in any of them will result in major problems down the road.
Hydroponic was based on NPK and later 15 elements were added. But our blood has about 90 odd elements and all of the vital to the health of a person. We can consume tonnes of vegetables that had little or no micro-nutrients than we are setting ourselves up for major health problem.
Interestingly sea water and sea salt - those raw unrefined sea-salt has over 80 elements and all of them vital to our health.
The above presentation is to compare how traditional diet with food from traditional sources is a proven paradigm of health and well-being. Science with all its glitz and glitter standing next to organic/biodynamic farming look ugly indeed.
I am not writing from ignorance. My background is in science and I have seen how science with its supposed age of enlightenment had befooled all of us. But businessmen and politicians don't really care.
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written by NSTPravda, July 31, 2009 07:39:15
Technology is artifact. Artifacts have creators. Creators are people. And people have politics. Where will technological determinism as ideology be if we could name the shadows on the wall of the cave?
Wah! This is indeed a high faluting discourse lah. If politics is the artoffart, the artoffart requires goodfarters... what's that gotta to with the price of roti canai on the walls of our public toilets?
These are the eternal questions that us coffee shop philosuffers ponder when we don't think about crime, police brutality, hog level government corruption, murders, and other necessities of bolih good life.
Semua-nya OK!
Dollar Akbar!
smilies/smiley.gif smilies/wink.gif smilies/cheesy.gif smilies/grin.gif smilies/tongue.gif smilies/cool.gif
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written by Tlau, July 31, 2009 21:32:44
We have not even started with sustainable future and we jump start into biotech. That is the problem with our politicians. Professionals such as commenter chiongguo should be source for his good intelligence for this field. Projects as such should be given to the professionals and not politicians who are out only for personal agenda.
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Republic of virtue, 7/09
Reliving the myth of the lazy native: the PPSMI issue and the denying of success to the poor PDF Print
Posted by admin
Sunday, 26 July 2009 10:58
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2008/12/malaysian-education-can-be-fixed.html
The refusal to teach Mathematics and Science in English is not just an ideological position but an idiotic one as well.
It is an attempt to self-fulfill a prophecy that the rural children especially the Malays, cannot be challenged and must continue to be given easy passes through social promotion.
The refusal to acknowledge that English is currently a language of scientific progress, more than Bahasa Melayu, is an example of the policymakers' and Malay language nationalist's hypocrisy in dealing with success.
Based on spurious research findings headed by a teacher training university, sanctioned by other public universities, the government has erred in its decision that will not only impact the future of Malaysian children in a continually globalised world where English is the lingua franca.
And this will open up avenues for the establishment of classes of schools, increasing the demand for the setting up of private schools that will emphasise the English language as a language of instruction and a rigorous curriculum that will prepare students for a competitive world.
The premise that Malay children cannot follow instructions in English and therefore not only standards should be lowered and subject matter made easier, but the teaching of Mathematics and Science itself must be reverted to the Malay Language points to this: that Malay children especially are presumed to be losers even before all avenues of success are provided.
Because in one study they voiced their concern over their inability to understand instructions, the future of a generation is sacrificed.
It is like saying that the more a child says that he/she does not like school, the less the teachers need to work to challenge them.
While children of the privileged in urban areas get first class education through private and international schools or even in high schools abroad and master the English Language (so that they can be given places and sponsorship in English-speaking universities abroad), children of the rural poor are left to become victims of policies dictated by research findings that hardy make sense in the realm of educational futurism.
Retired professors, poet laureates, die-hard Malay nationalists who themselves are well-educated in the English language having tasted the successes and given national accolades become incoherent and hypocritical spokespersons to a government policy that will make the myth of the last native a reality.
'Strategically denying success to the poor'
These individuals do not understand changing times; that English is no longer a language of the colonials.
The colonies revolted against the colonials through the natives' mastery of the English language.
These individuals who are against the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English are giving wrong advice to the nation; mastering English does not mean challenging whatever status Bahasa Melayu has been accorded to.
The government is strategically denying success to the poor of all races, with this language policy reversal.
We are creating a nation at risk; incompetent in the language that will give them the chance to pursue their studies in good universities in the English-speaking world.
There is a specific process one needs to follow in order to gain access to Western education; especially in the fields of Science and Mathematics.
Many of the critical subjects are taught in English.
The multitude of English proficiency tests is evidence that one must understand English for specific purposes (especially in the Mathematics and Sciences) right up to being able to write a Bachelors, Masters, or even Doctoral and Post-doctoral dissertations in the English language - all these are stages one has to go through.
Especially for entry into American colleges where English proficiencyis given through tests ranging from the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) to the challenging GRE (Graduate Record Examination), which require consistent polishing of skills not only in English as a language but English taught in the content areas.
The government has blundered big time, succumbing to irrational voices disguised as those who care about the rural poor who are slow to master Mathematics and Science concepts in English.
Who said kampong kids can't learn?
There are enough success stories of children of the poor of all races coming from the rural areas slogging and struggling hard to master any language and to any subject matter and triumph to become world-class surgeons, engineers, lawyers, academicians, diplomats, musicians, and even culinary experts.
Who said kampong kids cannot be challenged academically? There is enough evidence that if you provide them with dedicated teachers, a nurturing learning environment, a supporting home, and a challenging curriculum, and constant reminder of "yes you can" and "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" - kids will excel.
Down with those who are out to underestimate the ability of our children to succeed.
We must ignore bad advice and demand for success for all - urban and rural, Bumiputra or non-Bumiputra.
We must demand a radical restructuring of our schools so that the same standard and support is given to all schools and the commitment to a philosophy that however we want our own children to succeed, we want the children of others to achieve similarly as well.
Start early in teaching English. Put an end to any effort to make the myth of the lazy native a reality.
We must remove our glass coconut shell.
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
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written by red1, July 26, 2009 11:05:31
Imagine the country 20 years on, where we have a full generation of Malay officers, all struggling to compete against themselves in bahasa to come up in the govt service. Even after surviving the infighting, those who made it to the top will be running an administration that is easily defeated by the world that demands a more of English to survive.
The chinese will enjoy more up-stream market position because China will be the number one economy by then and knowing mandarin is apt. What govt policy in that future will Malaysia adopt to then reverse this backstepping policy of today?
More billions of taxpayers money i reckon. And not much of it when we are no longer competitive even compared to Thailand.
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written by lamakawan, July 26, 2009 11:41:53
Azly Rahman, I wish we have more people like you in Malaysia. This is what we mean by right thinking Malaysians. People who care for the future of the country. And not like the UMNO gangsters who rush for money and power for their own good.
THe gomen has certainly wasted a lot of the country's money by swithching back to teach science and maths in Malay. What is worse and more damaging is the fact that they are dragging the future children backwards. They do not care for the future of our children. They have their own children sent to study overseas even in primary schools abroad.
The future children will never be able to compete with their children that were sent abroad for education.
In a nutshell, when all children grow up and their children graduated from overseas, they will get their children to take over their positions in government. We can visualise they are creating a hierachy process of succession in the BN gomen.
Come election time, they will bribe you to vote for BN. And after election they will repeat the processes of robbing and plundering again.
Case are MAS Tajuddin scandal,
Najib scorpion submarine scandal,
Toyo disneyland tour scandal,
and on and on.....
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written by yellowwoman, July 26, 2009 11:42:11
The greatest irony, dear Dr Azly, is that the very people who claim to fight for the Malays' progress and wellbeing are the very people who are stifling their growth.
Who but the ruling Malays want the kampung children to be continuously backward and unable to compete anywhere outside their kampung? UMNO - The party for the Malays!!!! It is suicide and the rest of us know that only too well.
That is the irony. Now comes the saddest reality of all - that it is not only poor rural Malays who will be affected. It is ALL Malaysian children who will be dragged down by this idiotic policy and insecurity of one race. I don't blame the Malays if they choose to study in a language that will keep them backward, but i really pity the others who know and want to move forward but are bound by the chains of stupid education policies by the government of the day. (by that I mean UMNO because the other 12 component parties are impotent).
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written by NSTPravda, July 26, 2009 11:44:52
if we don't promote this line, then we have to answer intelligent and pesky questions from the Malay masses. That's too much work. keep them stupid, keep them weak and keep them forever addicted to UMNO's patronage, then we the elite can rule them forever. Just imagine them knowing and understanding how to count. Allah forbid!
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written by us marshall, July 26, 2009 11:55:17
what i dont get is when they say that the rural students cant catch up with the urban students. i dont get this logic.are the books,sylabus different from the rural schools and urban ones? NO!the other things that pisses me off is that they say that rural students cant catch up english like the urban students do. why the heck not? the english teachers in the rural school are trained as are the teachers in the urban schools. if the teachers are all qualified then there should be no problem for the kids in the rural schools to catch up.
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written by renoir, July 26, 2009 12:14:09
There's a strong case for use of mother-tongue for all subjects in primary schools, but English could be emphasized at the secondary level. As most people know by now, a stumbling block is the lack of teachers proficient in the English language, and this problem should be first solved at the primary school level before throwing our children into the arms of those whose mastery of the much-vaunted "lingua franca" remains suspect. Further, we can concurrently re-establish English-medium schools as another choice for Malaysians. Another measure is to provide easy access to good English books, which means anything from reducing taxes to having them printed by local publishers. Finally, try to entice retired English teachers and academicians to teach at our schools and colleges by paying them attractive wages. With proper vision and sufficient determination, we might be able regain our former position as one of the best English-speaking countries in the world.
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written by gorshan, July 26, 2009 12:15:47
tabik Tuan Azly Rahman. anytime we the non Malay are allowed to chose who to be our PM, you will be my first choice. i feel sad for all my fellow Malay brother citizen who will remain laggard in the private sector due to the non-requirement of English language mastery in schools by the govt.
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written by sltemp, July 26, 2009 12:19:32
What Dr Azly has written is right on the nail. Students in rural areas who only depend on government schools and teachers will be forced backwards in their development. Students in urban areas can always go for tuition or private schools to get ahead in English.
Many urban families nowadays, whether Malay, Chinese or Indian, speak English besides their own mother-tongues and have less difficulty to be proficient in English. Not so the kampung Malays who solely depend on teachers to teach them and have no access to English tuition.
So the void between the have and have-nots become bigger. Instead of equal opportunities for everyone to excel, the government has chosen to dumb-down everyone. One whole generation will be condemned to mediocrity. Can Malaysia even survive the next generation?
In the past Malays could speak English as well as any other race. Our dear Tunku Abdul Rahman and other Malays at that time would not have been able negotiated with the British for independence otherwise. Even our Constitution was first written in English.
The government has decided to lower the standard to the lowest common denominator. Instead of setting the bar high to inspire achievers, the government has lowered it so low that there is no real use for school examinations. Instead of training bright young minds, we will have simpletons to carry the torch for the future of the country. Tell me who is not afraid of this bleak scenario?
In life we always try to set the bar higher to gauge our achievements and abilities. Everyone tries to run faster, swim faster, jump further, jump higher, etc. This is how we progress forward. But in Malaysia, the government has this radical thinking to regress backwards. Do they know something that everyone else don't?
In the end who suffers the most? Not the Chinese or Indians in urban areas but the Malays themselves. So to spite the face, they have chosen to cut off the nose!
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written by KKchan, July 26, 2009 12:22:59
UMNO and by extension, BN is doing this for its own survival. The Malays and the non-Malay Bumis are generally Malay speaking and they form the majority. In politics, if you control the majority you control the country. Unless the target group wakes up and demand to be free from UMNO's grip, we will get more of the same and the country suffers.
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written by Huador, July 26, 2009 12:26:33
The more buffaloes in the Kampung, the easier for the crooks to rape the country. Period.
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written by miwaki, July 26, 2009 12:49:40
Ini semua mamad Kutty puya pasai,because of his whim and fancy,English was replaced by BM as the medium of instruction in all secondary schools during the 70s.
Now,he wants Math and Science to be taught in English,not knowing that it is necessary to teach all subjects in English,not Math and science only.
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written by Ranulaw, July 26, 2009 12:50:51
NSTPravda made a good point.
It's all politics. Much easier to mislead the uneducated & ignorant than the intelligent & knowledgeable ones. Therefore create more of the former & use "fear" tactics to make them follow.
Any knowledgeable person will tell u that learning English is not unpatriotic but beneficial to one's future. How can learning something extra ever be a disadvantage?
We may not know African but I certainly don't think knowing it will be to our disadvantage although it may not be a big advantage.
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written by yy88, July 26, 2009 12:58:48
The nationalistic Malays want Maths and Science to be taught in B.M because they wanted an easy way out as learning English for them is too difficult. They are ashamed to admit they can't comprehend the 'colonial language'.
It is not the rural Malay student who can't grasp the language, it is the parents' refusal and the teachers incompetence that make English so phobia. Looking at the current level of English competencies in our tertiary institutions, the professors would be learning the command of English from the students 10 years down the line.
Malay parents in Singapore communicate with their children in English at home and Malays students were top in their PLSE exams in some years. The difference is that they do not feel mentally handicap in their learning capability as compared to others.
The reverse in this policy is the educational 'deja vu' of the economic "NEP". The BN felt that the Malays were weak and needed a handicapped privilege. After 50 years, the rural Malays were still at where they started and yet to catch up. The crutches mentality provide them the excuses for not able to catch up with the others. Do we want the same disaster to befell our children as the NEP failure.
BN wanted the rural Malays to be deprived of their avenues of seeking information and knowledge so that they can be easily conned to vote for them. They wanted the rural Malays to stay backwards,uninformed to preserve their votes for them so that they can continue to milk them off the malays' rights and entitlements. The reverse policy is more for UMNO's survival than for the good of our future generation.
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written by sydput, July 26, 2009 12:59:47
I was passing an indonesian primary school pupil in KL and even they speak english.
Reason why mahathir u-turn his malay policy is because of china and india.
We should be like switzerland and belgium, where the school gets to teach in the language the community chooses. But whether they are french speaking, german speaking, italian or romanian, they can all converse in english.
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written by Loh, July 26, 2009 15:15:57
PPSMI as initiated by Mahathir had the primary intention of emasculating the teaching of mother tongues in the vernacular schools. That is confirmed by his hostility against the non-Malays and hence their languages, as evidenced by his writing at his blog, reproduced hereunder.
There it no necessity to require primary schools students to learn mathematics and science in English, because they would not be able to benefit from the latest discoveries in science and mathematics. It makes sense to use English as medium of instruction starting from high schools.
The current government has decided to reverse PPSMI partly to satisfy people who made use of Malay language for political gains; that included Mahathir who utilises double standards. He started quota system in UMNO party election when he was in control, and he argued against it when AAB was.
///15. Tidak seperti di negara-negara yang membenar hanya bahasa kebangsaan mereka sahaja untuk semua sekolah nasional, orang Melayu bersetuju bahasa Cina dan Tamil dijadikan bahasa pengantar di sekolah bantuan Kerajaan. Bahasa Kebangsaan (Bahasa Melayu) tidak menjadi bahasa kebangsaan seperti di negara-negara jiran dan di Eropah, Australia dan Amerika.///-- Mahathir
The declaration of Human rights in the 20th century by the United Nations Human Rights convention provides for the parents the right to choose for their children to study mother tongues. Malaysians’ forefathers of the different communities had the foresight which the United Nations found it proper to support. Malaysians should be proud that the education system since the British colonial days has capitalised its strength in diversity.
Mahathir has recently defended the use of English. It seems a different logic works here when immigrants’ language are involved. He still respects his colonial master, the British. How low can a racial mercenary go, in terms of making seditious remarks?
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written by Loh, July 26, 2009 15:27:36
For more comments on Mahathir's "kaki Dalam Kasut", please read comments under Azly Rahman's article Malaysia no longer a Tanah Melayu at
http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/24615/84/
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written by harryo, July 26, 2009 16:01:56
Can't understand maths and science when taught in English but can follow a step by step method to download pornographic materials from internet. Refer to recent news reports. How about that?
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written by InEffective, July 26, 2009 18:58:02
generation of victims, courtesy of our racist nationalist politicians.(don't be a victim)imagine how much more self-capable, self-reliant in learning, any student would be when he is able to learn in english regardless of his language of origin.
(and you won't be dependent or at the mercy of cunning politicians bent on leveraging race or religion for their self-gains)
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written by rams609, July 26, 2009 19:57:57
Densemy,
Why is that almost all your comments have to belittle my religion of Islam?
Have you (or any of your close siblings) ever been raped or sodomized by one of us that you've got to flaunt your displeasure towards it?
Dr. Azly was talking about us poor Malays being poor in English, that was it; wasn't it little devil?
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written by Eskay Lim, July 26, 2009 20:13:16
Sure, make the Kampung folks disadvantaged through the English language deficiency and they will toe the line and support Umno for another 50 years.
Whereas children of Umnoputras receive English education overseas will return to become leaders in Umno while the kampng people will forever be supporters.
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written by Sutha, July 26, 2009 21:26:24
Instead of finding ways to get the rural kids overcome their difficulties, if at all there was real difficulties in learning English and using English for the learning Mathematics and Science, the governemt had effectively penalised the urban ones for a better future.
If getting suitably qualified teachers for PPSMI is a problem, then train enough of them! Is it dificult to get committed teachers to attend such trainings on a regular basis? Non committed teachers should be placed in cold storage and there are plenty of graduates willing to do a better job. After all, teaching is a profession not just any job.
The least the government could do is have English medium schools for those who seriously want and leave the Malay medium scholld who think they are nationalistic people. In 10 years, the nationalists could see the market demand and who actually excel. Fools got to learn the hard way.
But Umno politicians would never agree to having the English medium. They are the real hindrance and obstacle to national progress because they like to keep the citizens under them like slaves and will never do anything good for the people's future. Objective: SELF-SURVIVAL and LIVE AT THE EXPENSES OF OTHERS.
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written by truthbespoken, July 26, 2009 22:27:23
Dr Azly,
It is crystal clear to all that UMNO is sacrificing the future of young Malaysians especially the rural ones for their continued political survival! Worse that their insincere actions are supported by some of these Malay retired professors, poet laureates, die-hard Malay chauvinists who are actually narrow-minded and short-sighted elements!
May UMNO and this group of nuts be damned forever for restricting the opportunity for young Malaysians to learn and gain knowledge at a faster pace! Given any opportunity, sensible Malaysians must, repeat MUST, mercilessly kick UMNO and these nuts out of the way for the long term good of all!
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written by Chrisho, July 26, 2009 23:03:05
Dear Dr Azly,
your article is spot on and so are the comments, very valid, true and passionate. It seems that you will have a big majority of Malaysians supporting the cause that maths and science should be taught in English, no doubt.
To my logical thinking there must be a more valid reason on why the government have made up their mind to go bahasa on maths and science.These reasons i am sure are more in depth, maybe this will stop the brain drain down the road, keep the 'Katak under the Tempurang forever' Keep our future Malaysian students from going oversea and thus keeping the fees and what not from going abroad, more new university and institute of higher learning to be build in Malaysia thus becoming a regional education hub. To me the decision of the Malaysian Government must be money and economic related, pure and simple. There is no other valid reasons beside what is already outlined by you and other comments. Correct me if i am wrong in pursuing these string of thoughts and argument.
Chrisho
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written by rams609, July 27, 2009 00:21:08
Super Admin,
Appreciate your editing of the unsubstantiated and uncalled for points in one of the comments above.
I'd go for an unbiased and balanced view had the person stayed focus on the subject discussed.
Let MT be a free forum for all. Free of hatred and prejudiced minds like the one above.
Thank you.
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written by yellowkingdom, July 27, 2009 01:45:14
We have a smart-aleck Education Minister, who said, "How could anyone learn English if grammar is not taught at schools?" (where has he been all this while is anyone's guess)
Yet, he now claims that we can master English by "fine-tuning the methodology". Back-tracking on "English must be made a compulsory pass for SPM" to expecting our children to master the English language when they enter tertiary and learn Science and Maths in English. DUH....???
The next Education Minister will remark upon taking office of his predecessor, "How can anyone learn Science and Maths in Bahasa and then be expected to switch to English at the flip of a coin?" This will then reflect the intelligence of our politicians as they struggle for one-up-manship.
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written by educationist, July 27, 2009 05:51:48
Ah! I'm interested in the analogy of the glass coconut shell! what's the difference with the ordinary one?
Another masterpiece by Dr Azly that puts the PPSMI in the correct perspective!
But sadly those 'idiots' that decided on the policy reversal are found at the highest level of PKR & PAS as well.
If the PKR & PAS have not joined in the opposition to the PPSMI there may have been hope.
And so we cannot even hope for change, hope that the next general elections will bring a new set of leaders with the right perspectives to the issue.
Well, life must go on!
So the disadvantaged, those without a good command of English will be our local mahasiswa/wi & continue to join the burgeoning bureucracy .
The rest, while the sky's the limit!
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written by Pakyeh, July 27, 2009 13:51:25
I disagree with you Dr Azly.
Uderstanding of whatever subject is alway better with the mother tongue.Mathematical and scientific terms/vocabulary need not be changed.You can maintain the English words or Malaysianise or Indonesianise it...reform becomes reformasi.
Islam for example is better taught in the mother tongue than in Arab. When taught in Arab the Malays become stupid and unable to understand the message. As such many Malay are led blindly by Ulamas who teach Malays to read the Quran in Arab without understanding the message at all. This form of Ulama type of education is called de-education or "making one more stupid."
Similarly English cannot be used to master Mathematics and Science if the language is hardly spoken and understood.
Besides Russians,Japanese,Koreans and Chinese do not use English for their Maths and Science, and yet they are at par to the English.
Your belief in English as the proper method to understand Math and Science is just a myth and is unscientific.
The haqiqah my brother ! Learn the haqiqah ! Then you will not go wrong!
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written by Nick V, July 27, 2009 22:13:27
Dear Azly,
I'm of the opinion that the real reason the UMNO-BN regime has chosen to digress back to Science and Maths in BM is because it serves as a double-edged sword.
The first and perhaps the main reason is, for a dated racial political party to continue surviving, they have to continue to retard the very people they claim to be fighting for so that the people will continue to stay completely dependent on them and will continue to vote for them because they need them. Unfortunately the people from the heartlands of Malaysia do not realize that the only thing that the corrupted BN government has done is stolen from their pockets to enrich a few racist elitist and worst, stolen knowledge from them so that their children will never have the keys to the world arena.
Now, the second reason? ... There's none!
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written by kzai, July 28, 2009 05:51:18
PPSMI not good for rural kids
By CLARA CHOOI in The Star on Sunday July 19, 2009
source: http://thestar. com.my/education /story.asp? file=/2009/ 7/19/education/ 4343590&sec=education
THE issue on the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English (better known by its Malay acronym PPSMI) is indeed a sore topic amongst the teachers and students of rural schools.
To them, the matter is like trying to get a right-handed person to write with his left hand and then telling him to switch back to the right just when he was getting used to the change.
Although most are relieved that the Education Ministry had decided to reverse the teaching of Maths and Science back to Bahasa Malaysia, they are also upset that the PPSMI experiment had even been introduced in the first place.
During Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi’s visit to rural schools in the town of Lenggong, Perak, on Thursday, StarEducation had the occasion to interview several students and teachers and it was proven that it had been an uphill struggle for them since the policy was put in place in 2003.
One teacher who refused to be named said that in rural areas like Lenggong, exposure to the use of English language as the daily lingua franca was close to nil.
Dr Mohd Puad talking to SJK (T) Ladang Kota Lima pupils during his visit to Lenggong.
“Our students often converse to one another in the language that they are used to. English, to them, is just a subject they need to pass in the examinations.
“Unlike schoolchildren in the city, our students don’t often come into contact with the English-speaking community. Many are the children of farmers, estate workers or small-time businessmen who do not understand much English themselves.
“Bahasa Malaysia, on the other hand, is accepted as the common language between all the races so they are used to learning their subjects using it,” he said.
Hence when PPSMI was introduced in 2003, both students and teachers alike were left in a lurch, he said.
“The students were worried and so were we. Maths teacher Abdul Rahman Sidek (pic) of SMK Dato’ Ahmad, Lenggong, said that despite the training course he had to undergo, it was still difficult for him to make the switch.
“I was trained to teach and learn the subject in Bahasa Malaysia. So were my students...
... Fifteen-year- old Siti Basyira Farhana said that the switch had affected her grades tremendously.
“I scored 5As in my UPSR. When I was in Form One, however, I had to learn the two subjects in English, I only managed 2As.
“It was a great blow to me but I knew I had already tried my best,” she said.
Muhamad Afiq Mohd Azni, 14, said that although he managed well enough, he still preferred to learn Maths and Science in Bahasa Malaysia.
“I am aware that when I go to college later, I will probably have to learn my subjects in English.
“But for now, if given the choice, I find it easier to understand my subjects in Bahasa Malaysia. I am more used to it,” he said.
His Chinese and Indian schoolmates too agree that they would prefer to learn their subjects in either their mother tongues or Bahasa Malaysia.
M. Saraswathy, 14, and R. Mogilah, 15, said both their grades had dropped when they had to learn in English.
“I used to get about 70 out of a 100 for my Maths exams. When the switch was made, I began getting about 40 or 50 only,” said Saraswathy.
Form Two students Low Suet Yi and Low Suet Yee, both 14, said they would prefer learning the subjects in Chinese or Bahasa Malaysia because they didn’t understand English.
For Goh Kin Chye, headmistress of SJK (C) Yeong Hwa, Lenggong, introducing PPSMI was like jumping the gun.
“The main thing is, the standard of English must first be improved in schools.
She added that although SJK (C) Yeong Hwa was a vernacular school, her students’ grades in the English Language as a subject was not that bad.
“On average, they scored about 60%. It was not that fantastic but it was not that poor either.
“However, learning Maths and Science in English was not easy for them. Luckily, they were allowed to choose to learn the subjects in Chinese,” she said.
She agreed with the government’s decision to reverse the PPSMI policy, saying more needed to be done to improve the quality of the English Language in schools.
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Posted by admin
Sunday, 26 July 2009 10:58
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2008/12/malaysian-education-can-be-fixed.html
The refusal to teach Mathematics and Science in English is not just an ideological position but an idiotic one as well.
It is an attempt to self-fulfill a prophecy that the rural children especially the Malays, cannot be challenged and must continue to be given easy passes through social promotion.
The refusal to acknowledge that English is currently a language of scientific progress, more than Bahasa Melayu, is an example of the policymakers' and Malay language nationalist's hypocrisy in dealing with success.
Based on spurious research findings headed by a teacher training university, sanctioned by other public universities, the government has erred in its decision that will not only impact the future of Malaysian children in a continually globalised world where English is the lingua franca.
And this will open up avenues for the establishment of classes of schools, increasing the demand for the setting up of private schools that will emphasise the English language as a language of instruction and a rigorous curriculum that will prepare students for a competitive world.
The premise that Malay children cannot follow instructions in English and therefore not only standards should be lowered and subject matter made easier, but the teaching of Mathematics and Science itself must be reverted to the Malay Language points to this: that Malay children especially are presumed to be losers even before all avenues of success are provided.
Because in one study they voiced their concern over their inability to understand instructions, the future of a generation is sacrificed.
It is like saying that the more a child says that he/she does not like school, the less the teachers need to work to challenge them.
While children of the privileged in urban areas get first class education through private and international schools or even in high schools abroad and master the English Language (so that they can be given places and sponsorship in English-speaking universities abroad), children of the rural poor are left to become victims of policies dictated by research findings that hardy make sense in the realm of educational futurism.
Retired professors, poet laureates, die-hard Malay nationalists who themselves are well-educated in the English language having tasted the successes and given national accolades become incoherent and hypocritical spokespersons to a government policy that will make the myth of the last native a reality.
'Strategically denying success to the poor'
These individuals do not understand changing times; that English is no longer a language of the colonials.
The colonies revolted against the colonials through the natives' mastery of the English language.
These individuals who are against the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English are giving wrong advice to the nation; mastering English does not mean challenging whatever status Bahasa Melayu has been accorded to.
The government is strategically denying success to the poor of all races, with this language policy reversal.
We are creating a nation at risk; incompetent in the language that will give them the chance to pursue their studies in good universities in the English-speaking world.
There is a specific process one needs to follow in order to gain access to Western education; especially in the fields of Science and Mathematics.
Many of the critical subjects are taught in English.
The multitude of English proficiency tests is evidence that one must understand English for specific purposes (especially in the Mathematics and Sciences) right up to being able to write a Bachelors, Masters, or even Doctoral and Post-doctoral dissertations in the English language - all these are stages one has to go through.
Especially for entry into American colleges where English proficiencyis given through tests ranging from the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) to the challenging GRE (Graduate Record Examination), which require consistent polishing of skills not only in English as a language but English taught in the content areas.
The government has blundered big time, succumbing to irrational voices disguised as those who care about the rural poor who are slow to master Mathematics and Science concepts in English.
Who said kampong kids can't learn?
There are enough success stories of children of the poor of all races coming from the rural areas slogging and struggling hard to master any language and to any subject matter and triumph to become world-class surgeons, engineers, lawyers, academicians, diplomats, musicians, and even culinary experts.
Who said kampong kids cannot be challenged academically? There is enough evidence that if you provide them with dedicated teachers, a nurturing learning environment, a supporting home, and a challenging curriculum, and constant reminder of "yes you can" and "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" - kids will excel.
Down with those who are out to underestimate the ability of our children to succeed.
We must ignore bad advice and demand for success for all - urban and rural, Bumiputra or non-Bumiputra.
We must demand a radical restructuring of our schools so that the same standard and support is given to all schools and the commitment to a philosophy that however we want our own children to succeed, we want the children of others to achieve similarly as well.
Start early in teaching English. Put an end to any effort to make the myth of the lazy native a reality.
We must remove our glass coconut shell.
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
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written by red1, July 26, 2009 11:05:31
Imagine the country 20 years on, where we have a full generation of Malay officers, all struggling to compete against themselves in bahasa to come up in the govt service. Even after surviving the infighting, those who made it to the top will be running an administration that is easily defeated by the world that demands a more of English to survive.
The chinese will enjoy more up-stream market position because China will be the number one economy by then and knowing mandarin is apt. What govt policy in that future will Malaysia adopt to then reverse this backstepping policy of today?
More billions of taxpayers money i reckon. And not much of it when we are no longer competitive even compared to Thailand.
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written by lamakawan, July 26, 2009 11:41:53
Azly Rahman, I wish we have more people like you in Malaysia. This is what we mean by right thinking Malaysians. People who care for the future of the country. And not like the UMNO gangsters who rush for money and power for their own good.
THe gomen has certainly wasted a lot of the country's money by swithching back to teach science and maths in Malay. What is worse and more damaging is the fact that they are dragging the future children backwards. They do not care for the future of our children. They have their own children sent to study overseas even in primary schools abroad.
The future children will never be able to compete with their children that were sent abroad for education.
In a nutshell, when all children grow up and their children graduated from overseas, they will get their children to take over their positions in government. We can visualise they are creating a hierachy process of succession in the BN gomen.
Come election time, they will bribe you to vote for BN. And after election they will repeat the processes of robbing and plundering again.
Case are MAS Tajuddin scandal,
Najib scorpion submarine scandal,
Toyo disneyland tour scandal,
and on and on.....
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written by yellowwoman, July 26, 2009 11:42:11
The greatest irony, dear Dr Azly, is that the very people who claim to fight for the Malays' progress and wellbeing are the very people who are stifling their growth.
Who but the ruling Malays want the kampung children to be continuously backward and unable to compete anywhere outside their kampung? UMNO - The party for the Malays!!!! It is suicide and the rest of us know that only too well.
That is the irony. Now comes the saddest reality of all - that it is not only poor rural Malays who will be affected. It is ALL Malaysian children who will be dragged down by this idiotic policy and insecurity of one race. I don't blame the Malays if they choose to study in a language that will keep them backward, but i really pity the others who know and want to move forward but are bound by the chains of stupid education policies by the government of the day. (by that I mean UMNO because the other 12 component parties are impotent).
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written by NSTPravda, July 26, 2009 11:44:52
if we don't promote this line, then we have to answer intelligent and pesky questions from the Malay masses. That's too much work. keep them stupid, keep them weak and keep them forever addicted to UMNO's patronage, then we the elite can rule them forever. Just imagine them knowing and understanding how to count. Allah forbid!
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written by us marshall, July 26, 2009 11:55:17
what i dont get is when they say that the rural students cant catch up with the urban students. i dont get this logic.are the books,sylabus different from the rural schools and urban ones? NO!the other things that pisses me off is that they say that rural students cant catch up english like the urban students do. why the heck not? the english teachers in the rural school are trained as are the teachers in the urban schools. if the teachers are all qualified then there should be no problem for the kids in the rural schools to catch up.
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written by renoir, July 26, 2009 12:14:09
There's a strong case for use of mother-tongue for all subjects in primary schools, but English could be emphasized at the secondary level. As most people know by now, a stumbling block is the lack of teachers proficient in the English language, and this problem should be first solved at the primary school level before throwing our children into the arms of those whose mastery of the much-vaunted "lingua franca" remains suspect. Further, we can concurrently re-establish English-medium schools as another choice for Malaysians. Another measure is to provide easy access to good English books, which means anything from reducing taxes to having them printed by local publishers. Finally, try to entice retired English teachers and academicians to teach at our schools and colleges by paying them attractive wages. With proper vision and sufficient determination, we might be able regain our former position as one of the best English-speaking countries in the world.
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written by gorshan, July 26, 2009 12:15:47
tabik Tuan Azly Rahman. anytime we the non Malay are allowed to chose who to be our PM, you will be my first choice. i feel sad for all my fellow Malay brother citizen who will remain laggard in the private sector due to the non-requirement of English language mastery in schools by the govt.
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written by sltemp, July 26, 2009 12:19:32
What Dr Azly has written is right on the nail. Students in rural areas who only depend on government schools and teachers will be forced backwards in their development. Students in urban areas can always go for tuition or private schools to get ahead in English.
Many urban families nowadays, whether Malay, Chinese or Indian, speak English besides their own mother-tongues and have less difficulty to be proficient in English. Not so the kampung Malays who solely depend on teachers to teach them and have no access to English tuition.
So the void between the have and have-nots become bigger. Instead of equal opportunities for everyone to excel, the government has chosen to dumb-down everyone. One whole generation will be condemned to mediocrity. Can Malaysia even survive the next generation?
In the past Malays could speak English as well as any other race. Our dear Tunku Abdul Rahman and other Malays at that time would not have been able negotiated with the British for independence otherwise. Even our Constitution was first written in English.
The government has decided to lower the standard to the lowest common denominator. Instead of setting the bar high to inspire achievers, the government has lowered it so low that there is no real use for school examinations. Instead of training bright young minds, we will have simpletons to carry the torch for the future of the country. Tell me who is not afraid of this bleak scenario?
In life we always try to set the bar higher to gauge our achievements and abilities. Everyone tries to run faster, swim faster, jump further, jump higher, etc. This is how we progress forward. But in Malaysia, the government has this radical thinking to regress backwards. Do they know something that everyone else don't?
In the end who suffers the most? Not the Chinese or Indians in urban areas but the Malays themselves. So to spite the face, they have chosen to cut off the nose!
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written by KKchan, July 26, 2009 12:22:59
UMNO and by extension, BN is doing this for its own survival. The Malays and the non-Malay Bumis are generally Malay speaking and they form the majority. In politics, if you control the majority you control the country. Unless the target group wakes up and demand to be free from UMNO's grip, we will get more of the same and the country suffers.
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written by Huador, July 26, 2009 12:26:33
The more buffaloes in the Kampung, the easier for the crooks to rape the country. Period.
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written by miwaki, July 26, 2009 12:49:40
Ini semua mamad Kutty puya pasai,because of his whim and fancy,English was replaced by BM as the medium of instruction in all secondary schools during the 70s.
Now,he wants Math and Science to be taught in English,not knowing that it is necessary to teach all subjects in English,not Math and science only.
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written by Ranulaw, July 26, 2009 12:50:51
NSTPravda made a good point.
It's all politics. Much easier to mislead the uneducated & ignorant than the intelligent & knowledgeable ones. Therefore create more of the former & use "fear" tactics to make them follow.
Any knowledgeable person will tell u that learning English is not unpatriotic but beneficial to one's future. How can learning something extra ever be a disadvantage?
We may not know African but I certainly don't think knowing it will be to our disadvantage although it may not be a big advantage.
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written by yy88, July 26, 2009 12:58:48
The nationalistic Malays want Maths and Science to be taught in B.M because they wanted an easy way out as learning English for them is too difficult. They are ashamed to admit they can't comprehend the 'colonial language'.
It is not the rural Malay student who can't grasp the language, it is the parents' refusal and the teachers incompetence that make English so phobia. Looking at the current level of English competencies in our tertiary institutions, the professors would be learning the command of English from the students 10 years down the line.
Malay parents in Singapore communicate with their children in English at home and Malays students were top in their PLSE exams in some years. The difference is that they do not feel mentally handicap in their learning capability as compared to others.
The reverse in this policy is the educational 'deja vu' of the economic "NEP". The BN felt that the Malays were weak and needed a handicapped privilege. After 50 years, the rural Malays were still at where they started and yet to catch up. The crutches mentality provide them the excuses for not able to catch up with the others. Do we want the same disaster to befell our children as the NEP failure.
BN wanted the rural Malays to be deprived of their avenues of seeking information and knowledge so that they can be easily conned to vote for them. They wanted the rural Malays to stay backwards,uninformed to preserve their votes for them so that they can continue to milk them off the malays' rights and entitlements. The reverse policy is more for UMNO's survival than for the good of our future generation.
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written by sydput, July 26, 2009 12:59:47
I was passing an indonesian primary school pupil in KL and even they speak english.
Reason why mahathir u-turn his malay policy is because of china and india.
We should be like switzerland and belgium, where the school gets to teach in the language the community chooses. But whether they are french speaking, german speaking, italian or romanian, they can all converse in english.
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written by Loh, July 26, 2009 15:15:57
PPSMI as initiated by Mahathir had the primary intention of emasculating the teaching of mother tongues in the vernacular schools. That is confirmed by his hostility against the non-Malays and hence their languages, as evidenced by his writing at his blog, reproduced hereunder.
There it no necessity to require primary schools students to learn mathematics and science in English, because they would not be able to benefit from the latest discoveries in science and mathematics. It makes sense to use English as medium of instruction starting from high schools.
The current government has decided to reverse PPSMI partly to satisfy people who made use of Malay language for political gains; that included Mahathir who utilises double standards. He started quota system in UMNO party election when he was in control, and he argued against it when AAB was.
///15. Tidak seperti di negara-negara yang membenar hanya bahasa kebangsaan mereka sahaja untuk semua sekolah nasional, orang Melayu bersetuju bahasa Cina dan Tamil dijadikan bahasa pengantar di sekolah bantuan Kerajaan. Bahasa Kebangsaan (Bahasa Melayu) tidak menjadi bahasa kebangsaan seperti di negara-negara jiran dan di Eropah, Australia dan Amerika.///-- Mahathir
The declaration of Human rights in the 20th century by the United Nations Human Rights convention provides for the parents the right to choose for their children to study mother tongues. Malaysians’ forefathers of the different communities had the foresight which the United Nations found it proper to support. Malaysians should be proud that the education system since the British colonial days has capitalised its strength in diversity.
Mahathir has recently defended the use of English. It seems a different logic works here when immigrants’ language are involved. He still respects his colonial master, the British. How low can a racial mercenary go, in terms of making seditious remarks?
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written by Loh, July 26, 2009 15:27:36
For more comments on Mahathir's "kaki Dalam Kasut", please read comments under Azly Rahman's article Malaysia no longer a Tanah Melayu at
http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/24615/84/
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written by harryo, July 26, 2009 16:01:56
Can't understand maths and science when taught in English but can follow a step by step method to download pornographic materials from internet. Refer to recent news reports. How about that?
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written by InEffective, July 26, 2009 18:58:02
generation of victims, courtesy of our racist nationalist politicians.(don't be a victim)imagine how much more self-capable, self-reliant in learning, any student would be when he is able to learn in english regardless of his language of origin.
(and you won't be dependent or at the mercy of cunning politicians bent on leveraging race or religion for their self-gains)
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written by rams609, July 26, 2009 19:57:57
Densemy,
Why is that almost all your comments have to belittle my religion of Islam?
Have you (or any of your close siblings) ever been raped or sodomized by one of us that you've got to flaunt your displeasure towards it?
Dr. Azly was talking about us poor Malays being poor in English, that was it; wasn't it little devil?
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written by Eskay Lim, July 26, 2009 20:13:16
Sure, make the Kampung folks disadvantaged through the English language deficiency and they will toe the line and support Umno for another 50 years.
Whereas children of Umnoputras receive English education overseas will return to become leaders in Umno while the kampng people will forever be supporters.
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written by Sutha, July 26, 2009 21:26:24
Instead of finding ways to get the rural kids overcome their difficulties, if at all there was real difficulties in learning English and using English for the learning Mathematics and Science, the governemt had effectively penalised the urban ones for a better future.
If getting suitably qualified teachers for PPSMI is a problem, then train enough of them! Is it dificult to get committed teachers to attend such trainings on a regular basis? Non committed teachers should be placed in cold storage and there are plenty of graduates willing to do a better job. After all, teaching is a profession not just any job.
The least the government could do is have English medium schools for those who seriously want and leave the Malay medium scholld who think they are nationalistic people. In 10 years, the nationalists could see the market demand and who actually excel. Fools got to learn the hard way.
But Umno politicians would never agree to having the English medium. They are the real hindrance and obstacle to national progress because they like to keep the citizens under them like slaves and will never do anything good for the people's future. Objective: SELF-SURVIVAL and LIVE AT THE EXPENSES OF OTHERS.
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written by truthbespoken, July 26, 2009 22:27:23
Dr Azly,
It is crystal clear to all that UMNO is sacrificing the future of young Malaysians especially the rural ones for their continued political survival! Worse that their insincere actions are supported by some of these Malay retired professors, poet laureates, die-hard Malay chauvinists who are actually narrow-minded and short-sighted elements!
May UMNO and this group of nuts be damned forever for restricting the opportunity for young Malaysians to learn and gain knowledge at a faster pace! Given any opportunity, sensible Malaysians must, repeat MUST, mercilessly kick UMNO and these nuts out of the way for the long term good of all!
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written by Chrisho, July 26, 2009 23:03:05
Dear Dr Azly,
your article is spot on and so are the comments, very valid, true and passionate. It seems that you will have a big majority of Malaysians supporting the cause that maths and science should be taught in English, no doubt.
To my logical thinking there must be a more valid reason on why the government have made up their mind to go bahasa on maths and science.These reasons i am sure are more in depth, maybe this will stop the brain drain down the road, keep the 'Katak under the Tempurang forever' Keep our future Malaysian students from going oversea and thus keeping the fees and what not from going abroad, more new university and institute of higher learning to be build in Malaysia thus becoming a regional education hub. To me the decision of the Malaysian Government must be money and economic related, pure and simple. There is no other valid reasons beside what is already outlined by you and other comments. Correct me if i am wrong in pursuing these string of thoughts and argument.
Chrisho
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written by rams609, July 27, 2009 00:21:08
Super Admin,
Appreciate your editing of the unsubstantiated and uncalled for points in one of the comments above.
I'd go for an unbiased and balanced view had the person stayed focus on the subject discussed.
Let MT be a free forum for all. Free of hatred and prejudiced minds like the one above.
Thank you.
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written by yellowkingdom, July 27, 2009 01:45:14
We have a smart-aleck Education Minister, who said, "How could anyone learn English if grammar is not taught at schools?" (where has he been all this while is anyone's guess)
Yet, he now claims that we can master English by "fine-tuning the methodology". Back-tracking on "English must be made a compulsory pass for SPM" to expecting our children to master the English language when they enter tertiary and learn Science and Maths in English. DUH....???
The next Education Minister will remark upon taking office of his predecessor, "How can anyone learn Science and Maths in Bahasa and then be expected to switch to English at the flip of a coin?" This will then reflect the intelligence of our politicians as they struggle for one-up-manship.
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written by educationist, July 27, 2009 05:51:48
Ah! I'm interested in the analogy of the glass coconut shell! what's the difference with the ordinary one?
Another masterpiece by Dr Azly that puts the PPSMI in the correct perspective!
But sadly those 'idiots' that decided on the policy reversal are found at the highest level of PKR & PAS as well.
If the PKR & PAS have not joined in the opposition to the PPSMI there may have been hope.
And so we cannot even hope for change, hope that the next general elections will bring a new set of leaders with the right perspectives to the issue.
Well, life must go on!
So the disadvantaged, those without a good command of English will be our local mahasiswa/wi & continue to join the burgeoning bureucracy .
The rest, while the sky's the limit!
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written by Pakyeh, July 27, 2009 13:51:25
I disagree with you Dr Azly.
Uderstanding of whatever subject is alway better with the mother tongue.Mathematical and scientific terms/vocabulary need not be changed.You can maintain the English words or Malaysianise or Indonesianise it...reform becomes reformasi.
Islam for example is better taught in the mother tongue than in Arab. When taught in Arab the Malays become stupid and unable to understand the message. As such many Malay are led blindly by Ulamas who teach Malays to read the Quran in Arab without understanding the message at all. This form of Ulama type of education is called de-education or "making one more stupid."
Similarly English cannot be used to master Mathematics and Science if the language is hardly spoken and understood.
Besides Russians,Japanese,Koreans and Chinese do not use English for their Maths and Science, and yet they are at par to the English.
Your belief in English as the proper method to understand Math and Science is just a myth and is unscientific.
The haqiqah my brother ! Learn the haqiqah ! Then you will not go wrong!
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written by Nick V, July 27, 2009 22:13:27
Dear Azly,
I'm of the opinion that the real reason the UMNO-BN regime has chosen to digress back to Science and Maths in BM is because it serves as a double-edged sword.
The first and perhaps the main reason is, for a dated racial political party to continue surviving, they have to continue to retard the very people they claim to be fighting for so that the people will continue to stay completely dependent on them and will continue to vote for them because they need them. Unfortunately the people from the heartlands of Malaysia do not realize that the only thing that the corrupted BN government has done is stolen from their pockets to enrich a few racist elitist and worst, stolen knowledge from them so that their children will never have the keys to the world arena.
Now, the second reason? ... There's none!
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written by kzai, July 28, 2009 05:51:18
PPSMI not good for rural kids
By CLARA CHOOI in The Star on Sunday July 19, 2009
source: http://thestar. com.my/education /story.asp? file=/2009/ 7/19/education/ 4343590&sec=education
THE issue on the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English (better known by its Malay acronym PPSMI) is indeed a sore topic amongst the teachers and students of rural schools.
To them, the matter is like trying to get a right-handed person to write with his left hand and then telling him to switch back to the right just when he was getting used to the change.
Although most are relieved that the Education Ministry had decided to reverse the teaching of Maths and Science back to Bahasa Malaysia, they are also upset that the PPSMI experiment had even been introduced in the first place.
During Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi’s visit to rural schools in the town of Lenggong, Perak, on Thursday, StarEducation had the occasion to interview several students and teachers and it was proven that it had been an uphill struggle for them since the policy was put in place in 2003.
One teacher who refused to be named said that in rural areas like Lenggong, exposure to the use of English language as the daily lingua franca was close to nil.
Dr Mohd Puad talking to SJK (T) Ladang Kota Lima pupils during his visit to Lenggong.
“Our students often converse to one another in the language that they are used to. English, to them, is just a subject they need to pass in the examinations.
“Unlike schoolchildren in the city, our students don’t often come into contact with the English-speaking community. Many are the children of farmers, estate workers or small-time businessmen who do not understand much English themselves.
“Bahasa Malaysia, on the other hand, is accepted as the common language between all the races so they are used to learning their subjects using it,” he said.
Hence when PPSMI was introduced in 2003, both students and teachers alike were left in a lurch, he said.
“The students were worried and so were we. Maths teacher Abdul Rahman Sidek (pic) of SMK Dato’ Ahmad, Lenggong, said that despite the training course he had to undergo, it was still difficult for him to make the switch.
“I was trained to teach and learn the subject in Bahasa Malaysia. So were my students...
... Fifteen-year- old Siti Basyira Farhana said that the switch had affected her grades tremendously.
“I scored 5As in my UPSR. When I was in Form One, however, I had to learn the two subjects in English, I only managed 2As.
“It was a great blow to me but I knew I had already tried my best,” she said.
Muhamad Afiq Mohd Azni, 14, said that although he managed well enough, he still preferred to learn Maths and Science in Bahasa Malaysia.
“I am aware that when I go to college later, I will probably have to learn my subjects in English.
“But for now, if given the choice, I find it easier to understand my subjects in Bahasa Malaysia. I am more used to it,” he said.
His Chinese and Indian schoolmates too agree that they would prefer to learn their subjects in either their mother tongues or Bahasa Malaysia.
M. Saraswathy, 14, and R. Mogilah, 15, said both their grades had dropped when they had to learn in English.
“I used to get about 70 out of a 100 for my Maths exams. When the switch was made, I began getting about 40 or 50 only,” said Saraswathy.
Form Two students Low Suet Yi and Low Suet Yee, both 14, said they would prefer learning the subjects in Chinese or Bahasa Malaysia because they didn’t understand English.
For Goh Kin Chye, headmistress of SJK (C) Yeong Hwa, Lenggong, introducing PPSMI was like jumping the gun.
“The main thing is, the standard of English must first be improved in schools.
She added that although SJK (C) Yeong Hwa was a vernacular school, her students’ grades in the English Language as a subject was not that bad.
“On average, they scored about 60%. It was not that fantastic but it was not that poor either.
“However, learning Maths and Science in English was not easy for them. Luckily, they were allowed to choose to learn the subjects in Chinese,” she said.
She agreed with the government’s decision to reverse the PPSMI policy, saying more needed to be done to improve the quality of the English Language in schools.
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Republic of virtue, 7/09
I.S.A. -- The Institutionalization of Senility and Amnesia? PDF Print
Posted by admin
Thursday, 23 July 2009 12:19
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/
Melayu mudah lupa (Malays are prone to forgetfulness)
-- a popular modern Malay saying
"Work with me… not for me." - Former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled for 22 years, once spoke about the nine challenges called ‘The Way Forward-Vision’, said to be a culmination of his work throughout his tenure.
The document charted the challenges the nation must confront in order for it to develop on par with the advanced nations.
These challenges are summarised as follows:
1. Establishing a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common and shared destiny
2. Creating a psychologically liberated, secure, and developed Malaysian society with faith and confidence in itself, justifiably proud of what it is, of what it has accomplished, robust enough to face all manner of adversity
3. Fostering and developing a mature democratic society, practising a form of mature consensual, community-oriented Malaysian democracy that can be a model for many developing countries
4. Establishing a fully moral and ethical society whose citizens are strong in religious and spiritual values and with the highest ethical standards
5. Establishing a mature, liberal and tolerant society in which Malaysians of all colours and creed are free to practise and profess their customs, cultures and religious beliefs and yet feeling that they belong to one nation
6. Establishing a scientific and progressive society, a society that is innovative and forward-looking, one that is not only a consumer of technology but also a contributor to the scientific and technological civilisation of the future
7. Establishing a fully caring society and caring culture, a social system in which society will come before the self, in which welfare of the people will revolve not around the state or the individual but around a strong and resilient family system
8. Ensuring an economically just society… in which there is a fair and equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation, in which there is full partnership in economic progress
9. Establishing a prosperous society with an economy that is fully competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient
With the Internal Security Act (ISA), how do we then meet these challenges? How is it an antithesis to what a civil society means? Do we still deserve the ISA?
Snapshot of protests
We are on the threshold of 2009. We have created a larger middle class, educated and imbued not only the taste of progressive Western secularist ideals synthesised with deep cultural and/or religious values still preserved, but also a better understanding of the principles of human rights. We know that Malaysia ratified the 1946 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We know that these involve the rights to the freedom of speech and assembly.
Our nation no longer deserves the ISA or any other intolerable Acts that kill the creativity and imagination of its nation. The ISA is an ideological state apparatus must go if we are to move forward as a nation that is known for it wisdom, intelligence, tolerance, and commitment to social justice - one that takes care of the needs of the poor of all races, without fear or favour.
The ISA which provides for detention without trial for up to two years at a time is anathema to the idea of a civil society. If we charge the detainees in court, we could learn a lot more about the meaning of ‘national security’. It is not merely about maintaining public order but about trying to understand why citizens are publicly acting in manner deemed ‘disorderly’. The history of the use of the ISA is tied to the history of the ruling class and how those who own the means of production own the means of silencing progressive voices of change.
Let us look at some snapshots of the protest movements in our history:
Why did Raja Haji the legendary Bugis warrior mount a revolt against the Dutch, ending in his martyrdom atop a hill in Malacca? Why did Mat Kilau, the legendary warrior from Pekan Pahang act up against the British ending in his mysterious self-imposed exile and death by natural cause at the age of 122? Why did the Malay Nationalist Party, a continuation of Kesatuan Rakyat Indonesia Semenajung and an early radical Malay party in the late 1940s act up, only to be met with witch-hunts by the returning British?
Why did those fighting for Independence in the 1950s under the banner of Saberkas act up against the dying colonial British Empire, paving the way for the creation of what is now knows as United Malay National Organisation? Why did those truly multiracial group of social activists act up by organising the hartal against the British in the early 1960s only to be met with heavy- handed reaction? Why did those calling themselves the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army revolt against the powers-that-be, end their persecution by the British that returned to power when the Allied Powers crushed the Axis Powers?
Why did the Malaysian intellectuals and social activists speak out over almost 20 years of the Kondrietiff cycle, beginning from May 13, 1969 to October 1989, to this moment in time to be met with the American McCarthy Era-type of response form the present government?
The answer lies in economics. Human existence, motivation, the rise and fall of nations has been attributed to economics. One's existence is defined by the material condition one is in or born into.
Question of power
Deeper than simple economics lies the question of power and the powerless, and the politics of under- representation. The Americans revolted against the British in the late 1770s under the banner ‘no taxation without representation’, symbolically registering their protest with the Boston Tea Party.
Essentially they revolted against intolerable laws set forth by the British - the 1765 Quartering Act and Stamp Act of 1765, Townshend Act 1967 and Coercive Acts 1774.
In our case, the answer lies in the ideology of Malaysia-style Oriental Despotism. The complex, dynamic, systematic, contradictory, sustaining, and consensual politics of the political-economy of a dependent communal-based capitalist state has made it possible for the use of the ISA to be rationalised and legitimised by arguments that touch merely on the symptoms of the breakdown of public order, rather that the root cause of the order in which the public need to be organised.
Had there been a sound developmentalist agenda from the onset of Independence - an agenda that retards the evolution of a corrupt corporate capitalist pluralist neo-feudalistic neo-colonialist capitalist state - we would have avoided or abandoned the use of the ISA and seen the evolution of a truly civil society that practises politics of inclusion.
To put it in simple words: we have made the wrong historical turn. We have to come back to where we began - back to the drawing board. This is the challenge - how do we undo hyper-modernisation and the politics of mistrust?
We are actually doomed as a nation. We need to get out of this quagmire if we are to save ourselves from total destruction in an age wherein the centre cannot hold, as the poet WB Yeats wrote.
How are we doomed? Why have we come to a point in which the ultimate keris - the ISA - is used to silence the voices asking the government to look into the plight of the oppressed and the desolate? Why is the voice of reason cast aside and force used instead? What might the consequence of this in an age of globalised, high speed, split-second information flow, consumption, and instantaneous revolution?
How do we evolve - or rise form the ashes of destruction brought about by internal contradictions that we have failed to resolve?
This nation needs to conduct soul-searching. Urgently.
And the ISA is an anti-Islamic act, nor is it sanctioned by any religion. Let us be clear on this notion of peace and justice. There are no communists amongst us; only neo-colonialists holding on to their ideological state apparatuses. A just government will need no I.S.A.
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
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...
written by Wisdom above, July 23, 2009 12:33:25
The preamble of ISA Law is meant only to be used against TERRORIST only.
It was relevant only in the 1950s and early 1960. Since the Communist Party of Malaya have surrendered, ISA has become obsolete .
But it is now used against Color Blind Malaysian CIVILIAN who spoke the only possible TRUTHs.
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written by budakindia, July 23, 2009 17:30:53
Well the government can also throw someone that they don't like out from the windows and call for a useless commission on how the procedures and an inquest that will confirm his death!
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written by cheekhiaw, July 23, 2009 21:33:26
ISA = Idiots' Security Act
Only idiots think it is relevant for some time for some people but not for some others at some other time.
xxx
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written by Aria, July 24, 2009 20:10:53
BN is really desperate to cling onto power. Rakyat of Malaysia must be careful not to get caught by ISA. Spread the word around and make sure nobody votes for BN come next elections.
ISA is not lawful.
ISA is not democratic.
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Posted by admin
Thursday, 23 July 2009 12:19
Azly Rahman
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/
Melayu mudah lupa (Malays are prone to forgetfulness)
-- a popular modern Malay saying
"Work with me… not for me." - Former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled for 22 years, once spoke about the nine challenges called ‘The Way Forward-Vision’, said to be a culmination of his work throughout his tenure.
The document charted the challenges the nation must confront in order for it to develop on par with the advanced nations.
These challenges are summarised as follows:
1. Establishing a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common and shared destiny
2. Creating a psychologically liberated, secure, and developed Malaysian society with faith and confidence in itself, justifiably proud of what it is, of what it has accomplished, robust enough to face all manner of adversity
3. Fostering and developing a mature democratic society, practising a form of mature consensual, community-oriented Malaysian democracy that can be a model for many developing countries
4. Establishing a fully moral and ethical society whose citizens are strong in religious and spiritual values and with the highest ethical standards
5. Establishing a mature, liberal and tolerant society in which Malaysians of all colours and creed are free to practise and profess their customs, cultures and religious beliefs and yet feeling that they belong to one nation
6. Establishing a scientific and progressive society, a society that is innovative and forward-looking, one that is not only a consumer of technology but also a contributor to the scientific and technological civilisation of the future
7. Establishing a fully caring society and caring culture, a social system in which society will come before the self, in which welfare of the people will revolve not around the state or the individual but around a strong and resilient family system
8. Ensuring an economically just society… in which there is a fair and equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation, in which there is full partnership in economic progress
9. Establishing a prosperous society with an economy that is fully competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient
With the Internal Security Act (ISA), how do we then meet these challenges? How is it an antithesis to what a civil society means? Do we still deserve the ISA?
Snapshot of protests
We are on the threshold of 2009. We have created a larger middle class, educated and imbued not only the taste of progressive Western secularist ideals synthesised with deep cultural and/or religious values still preserved, but also a better understanding of the principles of human rights. We know that Malaysia ratified the 1946 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We know that these involve the rights to the freedom of speech and assembly.
Our nation no longer deserves the ISA or any other intolerable Acts that kill the creativity and imagination of its nation. The ISA is an ideological state apparatus must go if we are to move forward as a nation that is known for it wisdom, intelligence, tolerance, and commitment to social justice - one that takes care of the needs of the poor of all races, without fear or favour.
The ISA which provides for detention without trial for up to two years at a time is anathema to the idea of a civil society. If we charge the detainees in court, we could learn a lot more about the meaning of ‘national security’. It is not merely about maintaining public order but about trying to understand why citizens are publicly acting in manner deemed ‘disorderly’. The history of the use of the ISA is tied to the history of the ruling class and how those who own the means of production own the means of silencing progressive voices of change.
Let us look at some snapshots of the protest movements in our history:
Why did Raja Haji the legendary Bugis warrior mount a revolt against the Dutch, ending in his martyrdom atop a hill in Malacca? Why did Mat Kilau, the legendary warrior from Pekan Pahang act up against the British ending in his mysterious self-imposed exile and death by natural cause at the age of 122? Why did the Malay Nationalist Party, a continuation of Kesatuan Rakyat Indonesia Semenajung and an early radical Malay party in the late 1940s act up, only to be met with witch-hunts by the returning British?
Why did those fighting for Independence in the 1950s under the banner of Saberkas act up against the dying colonial British Empire, paving the way for the creation of what is now knows as United Malay National Organisation? Why did those truly multiracial group of social activists act up by organising the hartal against the British in the early 1960s only to be met with heavy- handed reaction? Why did those calling themselves the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army revolt against the powers-that-be, end their persecution by the British that returned to power when the Allied Powers crushed the Axis Powers?
Why did the Malaysian intellectuals and social activists speak out over almost 20 years of the Kondrietiff cycle, beginning from May 13, 1969 to October 1989, to this moment in time to be met with the American McCarthy Era-type of response form the present government?
The answer lies in economics. Human existence, motivation, the rise and fall of nations has been attributed to economics. One's existence is defined by the material condition one is in or born into.
Question of power
Deeper than simple economics lies the question of power and the powerless, and the politics of under- representation. The Americans revolted against the British in the late 1770s under the banner ‘no taxation without representation’, symbolically registering their protest with the Boston Tea Party.
Essentially they revolted against intolerable laws set forth by the British - the 1765 Quartering Act and Stamp Act of 1765, Townshend Act 1967 and Coercive Acts 1774.
In our case, the answer lies in the ideology of Malaysia-style Oriental Despotism. The complex, dynamic, systematic, contradictory, sustaining, and consensual politics of the political-economy of a dependent communal-based capitalist state has made it possible for the use of the ISA to be rationalised and legitimised by arguments that touch merely on the symptoms of the breakdown of public order, rather that the root cause of the order in which the public need to be organised.
Had there been a sound developmentalist agenda from the onset of Independence - an agenda that retards the evolution of a corrupt corporate capitalist pluralist neo-feudalistic neo-colonialist capitalist state - we would have avoided or abandoned the use of the ISA and seen the evolution of a truly civil society that practises politics of inclusion.
To put it in simple words: we have made the wrong historical turn. We have to come back to where we began - back to the drawing board. This is the challenge - how do we undo hyper-modernisation and the politics of mistrust?
We are actually doomed as a nation. We need to get out of this quagmire if we are to save ourselves from total destruction in an age wherein the centre cannot hold, as the poet WB Yeats wrote.
How are we doomed? Why have we come to a point in which the ultimate keris - the ISA - is used to silence the voices asking the government to look into the plight of the oppressed and the desolate? Why is the voice of reason cast aside and force used instead? What might the consequence of this in an age of globalised, high speed, split-second information flow, consumption, and instantaneous revolution?
How do we evolve - or rise form the ashes of destruction brought about by internal contradictions that we have failed to resolve?
This nation needs to conduct soul-searching. Urgently.
And the ISA is an anti-Islamic act, nor is it sanctioned by any religion. Let us be clear on this notion of peace and justice. There are no communists amongst us; only neo-colonialists holding on to their ideological state apparatuses. A just government will need no I.S.A.
OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- ABOLISH THE ISA -- NOW!
Comments (5)Add Comment
...
written by Wisdom above, July 23, 2009 12:33:25
The preamble of ISA Law is meant only to be used against TERRORIST only.
It was relevant only in the 1950s and early 1960. Since the Communist Party of Malaya have surrendered, ISA has become obsolete .
But it is now used against Color Blind Malaysian CIVILIAN who spoke the only possible TRUTHs.
report abuse
disagree 0
agree 18
..., Lowly rated comment [Show]
...
written by budakindia, July 23, 2009 17:30:53
Well the government can also throw someone that they don't like out from the windows and call for a useless commission on how the procedures and an inquest that will confirm his death!
report abuse
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agree 5
...
written by cheekhiaw, July 23, 2009 21:33:26
ISA = Idiots' Security Act
Only idiots think it is relevant for some time for some people but not for some others at some other time.
xxx
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written by Aria, July 24, 2009 20:10:53
BN is really desperate to cling onto power. Rakyat of Malaysia must be careful not to get caught by ISA. Spread the word around and make sure nobody votes for BN come next elections.
ISA is not lawful.
ISA is not democratic.
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Lecture: Edward Said
Lecture: Noam Chomsky
Lecture: Jacques Derrida
Lecture: Jean Paul Sartre
Movie: 1984
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Poems: Rumi
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Dailogue on Religion: Huston Smith
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The Bhagavad Gita
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Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh)