Friday, February 1, 2008

Here's to a better Malaysia

For a BetterMalaysia:


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12 comments:

Mc Chaoz said...

This is a really good post.I have some opinion about this post and this article and another thing why there are very less people in thes blog I think we should continue this discussion it will help us alot in knowing the local issues.

Alex said...

Hey, CPL. Surprise, surprise. Where did you get this...um...flyer/article from? Nonetheless, it's not just about knowing the local issues. I would say that it's so that we can learn from what's happening now and then prevent the same things from happening again. Well, yes, I know that some of you will say that "Hey, these kind of stuffs had been happening for some time, but do you see people learning from it?". True, but I believe that one man makes a difference. At least we would be aware of the risks, and perhaps we could help out in whatever ways possible should things like this happen again.

ling said...

Yup, I agree with you alex, that one man can make the difference. I got this from www.polytikus.com and www.jelas.info which are two very good blogs to check out for unbiased views of current issues.

Gilgamesh said...

was just wonderin..
did anyone realise that between 1998 til like 2000 there was a sharp rise of crimes too?

i mean, i don't think anyone can blame badawi alone on this...

perhaps there's another rationale to it? like for instance, malaysia's economy (during 1998-2000)wasn't doing good.. so many ppl were retrenched and all..

my point is, there's always more than one view point to everything, and there's always more than 2 choices.. just 'cos badawi became the PM, it doesn't mean that it contributes to the rising crime stats..

or maybe some would think that a 'weak' leader is incapable of doing anything beneficial to the country, but then what are the other ministers there for? i bet they're so ignorant of crime issues, they don't even know what crime means! (ok, that was random..)

sorry if some of u disagree with me... just thought we should look at things differently..

ling said...

gilgamesh: we're not saying that it's entirely abdullah's fault (btw, badawi is his dad's name) but he has always promised us so many things each time big crimes happen. but it continues to happen.

there is definitely a huge problem with the execution then.

you have a good point there on malaysia's economy. let's be honest, we know that most of the people who commit crimes these days are foreigners (I have been robbed by two Indonesian before). even if I am wrong, my point is, the reason why these people commit crimes is because they have no other means or alternatives to a better living, considering that our government is not very refugee-friendly or foreigner-friendly. the move to limit the number of foreign workers in the country speaks a volume for what I'm trying to say here. there are loads and loads of refugees everyday waiting to be interviewed (to place them in another country where refugees are more welcomed) at the UNHCR. while these people wait for their turn to be interviewed, they stay in squatters or any other places. they can't work cos no one would recognise them or take them in. even if they do, their salary would not be enough for them.

and so what is the problem here? the problem is with the system and that it should change. you speak well of the economical difficulties we are facing, and yet we have a foreign affairs minister who suggested on international tv that poverty is eradicated in malaysia.

sorry i'm a bit sleepy right now, it's late, but when we speak of abdullah, we refer to his whole ruling coalition behind him. we are the ones who placed them there by our votes. the ministers who were supposed to ensure everything's going fine for us (economy, etc) are all in the same boat with abdullah.

your 1998-2000 stats is still applicable because after tun mahathir left office, most of the ministers under him are still around today.

let me digress a little.

actually, when crime rates accelerate, the police has to be blamed for the most part. but they are not efficient because most of the policemen these days do not uphold their job of protecting the citizens anymore. we are all so familiar with the stories of our police being corrupt. and this was what abdullah vowed to tackle (corruption per se) when he started his office. of course, you can say it's because their salary is really low but who's the one who decides how much their salary is? again, the system's faulty. if i'm not mistaken, in other countries like singapore, people fight to get into civil service because the pay is so high. but anyway. why would people nowadays dare to kidnap/rape/rob at hours we never thought they would, e.g. in the afternoon, etc? there was a story in china press about a girl who was kidnapped after she got down from the bus at the bus stop near her house. obviously it's because the police are not so much a fear factor anymore. when we see a police patrol car now, the first thing we're afraid of is not getting caught, but of losing some cash.

i'm not sure if you get my point, because i'm quite sleepy now actually, hence the messy gathering of thoughts.

p/s:while the police as a civil service should be a separate body from the executive, there continue to be no separation of powers the same way as our judiciary now.

Kenny Chan said...

The reason why Malaysia was hit so BADLY by the 1997 recession was because right BEFORE that, there was an economic boom. People were becoming millionaires overnight, share prices were soaring and people were investing like crazy.

That's why when we were hit, many people bankrupt overnight, many lost their jobs and many companies were forced to close down due to debt.

For those who wish to read more about the chronological events which led to the Asian Economic Crisis of 97-98 can refer here:

http://www.fas.org/man/crs/crs-asia2.htm

But in that event, it's only logical that the crime rates would increase. Prices were hugely inflated, our currency was weak, loan interest rates were high, employment was sparce... blaa blaa blaa...

But in THIS case, it's clearly a case of mismanagement. Look at it...

There's no recession, FDI in Asia is begining to boom again, people have more experience so they are more cautious now in investing, our currency is strengthening... blaa blaa blaa...

Money is certainly pouring into the country.

But is the money reaching the common people? I don't think so.

Prices of basic commodity are rising disproportionately to salary increase. Government servants (especially the police) and unskilled labour are still being paid peanuts (we have no minimum wage). So can you really blame them for taking bribes and being unmotivated to work?

Furthermore, lackadaisical attitude at the borders have allowed hordes and hordes of illegal immigrants to 'invade' our country and efforts to locate and deport them has been next to nothing these days.

When these illegals come here, they have essentially no rights. They are often exploited by their employers and are often not paid. So they resort to crime. To them, it's survival.

The pathetic effort put into eradicating the mat rempit menace doesn't help either. These poeple are not afraid of the police at all. In fact, the police are afraid of them. This makes them even more daring to commit crimes.

Corruption within the corridors of power also means that tycoons and kingpins are free to roam about - since everything can be settle with cash. Everything can be covered up, everything can just 'go away'. So why not? Illegal gambling parlours, hookers, loan sharking, contraband smuggling... it's all good money.

So to me, it's largely due to mismanagement aka Abdullah's screw up. Everything else, is a chain reaction from there.

Carmen N said...

Just a quick correction, it is not true that most of the crimes in our country are being committed by foreigners or immigrants. At a recent talk I attended, it was mentioned that 70% of the most common crimes in Malaysia are committed by Malaysians.

For more crime stats and links, please see:

http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:L8erLvm_wl0J:mpk.rmp.gov.my/jurnal/2005/riseofcrime.pdf+crime+statistics+%2B+malaysia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=my

AND

from Malaysiakini, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/76839

Some excerpts

There was a dramatic 13.4% increase in violent crimes last year, of which rape cases were up by about 30% and gang robbery by a whopping 160%.

According to the latest crime index released by the police today, the average increase in overall crime in 2007 was 7.1%, but the jump in serious crimes was much higher.

The highest spike involved the category of gang robbery involving weapons other than firearms - from 2,723 cases in 2006 to 7,076 in 2007 - or a jump of 159.5%.

These are the percentage increases for a selected breakdown of crimes in 2007:

Rape - 3,177 cases (+29.5%)

Outraging modesty - 2,320 (+12.4%)

Night-time home break-in - 24,440 (+21.7%)

Day break-in - 9,159 (+4.2%)

Motorcycle theft - 67,854 (+3.2%)

Car theft - 12,427 (+11.4%)

Snatch theft - 11,127 (+0.5%)

Other theft - 44,617 (+5.1%)

Rioting - 2,608 (+13.8)

Amidst the mostly grim statistics, there was however a significant reduction in the number of non-firearms robberies by single individuals.

The figure dropped by 2,226, or 11.4%, from 19,467 to 17,241 in 2007.

The statistics also show a reduction in murders, robberies involving individuals with firearms, and theft of heavy vehicles.

ling said...

hi miss, thanks for the reminder that i need to check my facts first. for this, i humbly apologise. but my point is, the gov has a responsibility in the condition of the economy, causing those who are richer, richer, and poorer, poorer (my personal observation).

ling said...

some afterthoughts: would this crime stats be only those who are arrested/reported? as far as i remember, when i was made the police report, i was not asked of what ethnicity/nationality is the person who robbed me. i also have other friends who did not report snatch theft cases which happened to them, because they think it's too "tiny".

Carmen N said...

Good point about the stats Pei Ling. Of course, you are right and the stats would be based on arrests and reports. Unreported crimes are most certainly not part of the stats.

But the thing I am most curious about is this: if we encounter a snatch thief, how in the world do we know he or she is an Indonesian or immigrant? After all, it is not like they would be talking to us in a foreign language and in my view, it is easy to mistake an Indonesian for a Malay and vice versa or an Indian for a Bangladeshi and vice versa.

I too have had my bag snatched but it was by a guy who wore a dark visor so I could not see his face. So, I could not make the determination whether he was an immigrant or not.

I guess my thinking is that it is best for us not to immediately blame it on immigrants because of the millions of immigrants who live here, most of them are honest and hardworking and do not commit crimes. Furthermore, by blaming the crimes on immigrants, I think it is far too easy to let ourselves and the govt off the hook.

After all, as you rightly pointed out, the govt should care and should be responsible for the disparity between rich and poor, which is a gap that is growing bigger and bigger every day.

If you want to know more about where Malaysia stands when it comes to the gap between the rich and the poor, you just have to google "Gini Coefficient", which is a way to calculate the gap between rich and poor and there is also a ranking that ranks countries globally. Needless to say, Malaysia does not do well in this area at all, even though we apparently have a very small percentage of hardcore poor.

ling said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ling said...

If you mean "blame" in the negative sense, I don't mean it at all in the negative sense. I just feel that the government bears a huge responsibility if the real stats prove that more immigrants commit crimes, because immigrants do not usually = poor. It's the way the system manages them and shapes our perception of them.

In 2002, New Zealand PM Helen Clark made an official apology to the Chinese community for past injustices NZ has caused them. The Chinese in NZ were the earliest migrants there. The point is she made the effort to reconcile that 'broken' relationship. And we need to do exactly that with the immigrants and not be suspicious with them all the time.

Sometimes crime does seem like their only or last resort.

I was sure the person who robbed me was an Indonesian because he spoke to me. Asked me to hand my backpack over to him or else he'll parang me. But he did not. And while I trust that God's hands were protecting me, I also believed that he (the robber) was a kind person. In fact, my wallet was found in a shop in Sentul and a good Samaritan returned it to me. I sincerely believed that this robber placed it in this shop because he trust that they would make a way to return it to me.

So yeah. We need a better Malaysia.