Gong Xi Fa Cai

Hello my dear critters...

Just a quick Happy Chinese New Year greeting to all who celebrate the event and for those who don't... hope you get LOADS of angpows anyway! :-) Not that I am encouraging you to be materialistic or anything but hey... this is the ONLY time we are actually rewarded for being single... hahahahah

Also, a HUGE BIG THANK YOU to all of you who have contributed to this site in some way. We have already surpassed 5000 hits and for a website that started out as a class discussion in August 2007, I think we are doing pretty darn good and should give ourselves a pat on the back. But not to rest on our laurels and be lazy... of course... critters always have to ensure their critter brains are fully oiled and ready to run for any occasion.

To the newcomers and new people who recently were invited to this space, a hearty big welcome to you. Please do feel free to post your comments as well as upload new entries. As you can tell, there are those among you who are good at posting pictures so, this adds a nice visual dimension to our blogging world. Thank you Kenny and Cheryl specifically!

And finally, here are some links that were posted by some of you in another space which I think would be handy to archive here. So, for those of you who want to read the articles you didn't get to read the last time... here they are:

From Yee Von

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=863&Itemid=31Bersih 1

http://thecicak.com/?p=335Bersih 2


From Sharwin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bersih_rally

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_HINDRAF_rally

http://keadilantv.wordpress.com/category/latheefa-koya/


And last but certainly not least, from Amy

http://thedaneshproject.com/posts/hindraf-proud-day-for-malaysian-indians/

http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/content/view/1431/46/



Our next critical thinking discussion meeting will be happening soon, after CNY. Watch out for more info your emails. From now on, news about CT meetings will be sent to your directly via email just in case you don't check back here often enough. We will be having a very special guest to our next meeting and a great movie to boot.

Until then... take care, stay healthy and thank you for making my critter life all that more interesting for my having met all of you :-)

Paying for rain - Only in Malaysia *updated*

For all of you who don't know, we here in Selangor actually have to pay for the usage of rainwater. The local water authorities (LUAS) have issued a circular demanding that all water from the land (air permukaan) which includes rivers, lakes and ponds which originates from rain to be charged a tariff for its usage. The usage rates is RM0.01 per cubic metre.

So say if I were to install a rainwater collection tank on my roof, I'll be charged RM0.01 per cubic metre to use it. What nonsense!

Why on earth do we have to pay for something from nature? It is different from where the local water authorities set up a reservoir and provide a steady supply of water to our homes. In that case, we are paying for the convenience. However, here, we are being asked to pay for nothing in return.

But wouldn't that be nice for them? Just sitting there and waiting for the money to come in. Daylight robbery in it's truest sense.

So what next? Will they charge us for the air we breathe next? Say... RM0.01 per cubic metre as well?

The moment you think that you've seen all the atrocities in the world, they come up with something new and surprise you. What ingenuity!

We really live in Bolehland don't we.

"Semuanya OK!"

Source

The authorities have responded to this issue, citing that the reason for the charges are to "protect water sources".

Source

They are afraid that if we use TOO MUCH of water from natural sources, we'll interupt the hydrology cycle. What nonsense!

If they wanted to ensure that the cycle isn't interupted, they could have just monitored the usage and issue warnings IF the cycle is affected. This reason hardly justifies why we need to be charged at ALL for using these natural sources of water.

And besides, when we use these water, it goes down the drain... back into the river... so what's the problem? The only problem I see is the water authorities trying to 'songlap' our money

In times of desperation

According to our prime minister, in terms of overall competitiveness, our country is ranked 8th out of the 53 countries included in the research done by IMD, one of the world's reknown business schools.

Source

However, if you prowl around the internet, you'll notice that Malaysia is actually ranked 23 out of the 53 countries. In fact, the only reason why we're ranked 8th is because of the clause "of countries with a population of more than 20 million".

Now why don't we just say that in the category of countries WITH a population of 27 million people, we're NO.1!

Source

This reminds me of last year's THES university ratings when none of our universities were included in the top 200, we casually decided that the criteria used for evaluation does not suit us and so we pit ourselves against the system used in Turkey instead where we conveniently ranked 11th if I'm not mistaken.

What a way to boost one's self image!

Here's to a better Malaysia

For a BetterMalaysia:

Please click here for full high resolution version.

'Bus-crash-no-more' online petition

Remember the Bukit Gantang bus crash August last year which claimed the lives of 22 people? Remember what a fuss it made? Authorities pointed their fingers at the bus companies and the bus companies pointed THEIR fingers at the dead bus driver who had two arrest warrants and 13 unpaid summons let alone a license.

The result? Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy announced the grounding of entire fleets of buses, Ops Bersih; where buses are flagged down and their drivers screened and the reminding of the bus companies to comply with the Safety, Health and Evironment code. Nothing more than short-term knee-jerk reactions to the issue.

Source

Obviously somewhere along the line, someone has been issuing and renewing the licenses of unfit bus drivers and approving the road-worthiness of unsafe buses. In fact, this MUST be SO rampant that bus companies are not even bothered to comply with these rules resulting in them allowing unfit drivers to drive the buses which are not road-worthy. In fact, during the ops Bersih, many drivers were found to be on drugs as this will help them stay awake as some of them are even asked to drive for prolonged periods of time.

Barely half a year from the Bukit Gantang incident, another high profile bus crash occured near Slim River; in which a Lee Nian Ning, a bright student with her entire future ahead of her; along with another two students lost their lives. According to the news, the driver lost control of the bus and slammed into the divider. The driver of the bus had 13 unpaid summonses against him. As usual, fingers were pointed and nothing was solved.

Source

So what happened to the initiative sparked by the Bukit Gantang incident? As the saying goes, Malaysia mudah lupa.

This petition is to request that the relevant authorities set up a committee consisting of road safety experts and representatives from relevant public bodies to conduct a thorough study to find effective solutions to ensure that mistakes like this do not occur again as many of our students take long bus rides back to their hometowns.

Although accidents are inevitable, eliminating the faulty buses and unfit drivers factor will drastically reduce them. Let's hope that something good will come out of this and that it STICKS this time.

Sign the petition

Can't stand it

i really cannot tahan when some ppl say genocide/ethnic cleansing is happening here. I wan to state my stand here clear. Genocide/ethnic cleansing is not happening here. i don't like the way you guys twist the definition of genocide to suit your cause and by saying "other's should look at it in an indian perspective."

go tell the people of the former Yugoslavia that what is happening here is genocide. you can also go tell the people of Darfur,Sudan or even Iraqi Kurds. Tell the Jews what happened to them in WW2 is similiar to what is happening to you right now. how can you similiarize your plight with what happened in the killing fields of Cambodia. In Rwanda, almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutus. they were slashed to death with machetes. a painful and cruel death. do you still think the same is happening to you?

if you think that twisting universal definitions to suit your cause is alright, then consider this. Two persons which i would call the former, A and the latter, B. A is a good citizen whereas B is a thief, rapist, murderer. One day, B stole from A and raped a family member of A. A was very bitter about it and set out to find B. He eventually found him and killed him. When he was brought to court he protested his innocence and said "B's time is up, he should die. i just did him a favour and took it away for him instead of waiting for the court."

the courts would still sentence A to go to prison bcoz a murder is still a murder no matter how u twist the definition. if i were to agree with you that genocide is happening in m'sia. then i would have to agree that A is innocent too.

Laughable

http://vive-infinitum.blogspot.com/2008/01/laughable.html

you guys should read..i had a good laugh and i believe some of you will too..

Talk at AWAM tonight

For those who are planning to go to Rustam Sani's talk, you have to read the following:

Political events in Malaysia during the last few years have convinced me that Malaysia is just a state without a nation – or, at least, a state with several competing nations.

Every institution in our society seems to be divided along communal – or is it national – lines. For example, in higher education we have what are virtually Malay public universities and what are virtually non-Malay private universities; so in virtually every other social institution – political parties, business houses, residential estates, etc.

These culturally insulated social institutions cover almost every aspect of our social life: communities, entertainment, language, culture, and religion. This social situation basically constitutes an inertia (or continuation) of the colonial situation.

Each community underwent a separate history of absorption into the colonial system, lived under different social conditions and with different historical experiences. Even the history of the struggle of freeing each community from the colonial system (i.e. independence) took different paths, quite insulated from the paths experienced by other communities.

There was no Malaya before British rule (as there was no India before the British Raj or Indonesia before the Dutch East Indies). At the forefront of the struggle for independence (or more exactly for the creation of a nation) was Malay nationalism.

Around the late 1920s and early 1930s, Malays with rural peasant and emergent working class backgrounds began participating in independence movements – mainly because of their dissatisfaction with the incorporation of the Malay upper classes into the colonial system, to become mere apparatus of the British. Because of their social distance from the colonial state, these rakyat-based nationalists had opted for a “cultural” notion of their “Malay nation of intent” [Melayu Raya] – rather than a “statist” one [Malaya].

The Chinese, on the other hand, then still considered themselves as transient until around the 1940s – at best as “British subjects” in transit. Therefore, in the early stages of political consciousness in the 1930s, the Chinese were just beginning to learn how to articulate their political demands and to protest directly against the British colonial rulers – even raising matters through their representatives in legislative bodies such as the Durbars.

In this regard, the Malays who were represented by the upper (feudal) classes in those legislative bodies neither protested nor articulated political demands. They were still labouring under a gross misconception that the colonial government was really the government of the Malay sultans with the British acting as their advisers. Opposing colonial rule (i.e. demanding independence) was not part of their political agenda then.

Even the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) which was clearly anti-British in its posture, and with a well-organised fighting force, did not have a clear nationalistic program for Malaya – and appeared to be quite detached from the rakyat-based Malay nationalist movements, such as API, AWAS, PKMM and Hisbul Muslimin. One political weakness of the MCP was its social distance from the local peasant masses and from local issues – causing them to be deprived of indigenous mass support. This is in stark contrast to the populist Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI).

Putera-AMCJA

To my mind, the most successful Malay-Non-Malay political cooperation, indeed a manifestation of a “joint” nationalistic movement, was the Putera-AMCJA. There was even an attempt to pursue a nationalist project, and simultaneously resolve the communal question, in the form of The People’s Constitution (1947) in response to the Malayan Union Constitutional proposal introduced by the British. There was even a clear notion of the “nation of intent” and its cultural and other manifestations: We were all to be known as Melayu.

The Emergency of 1948 was implemented by the colonial government in order to nip in the bud this progress towards the realisation of such a notion of a ‘Malayan nation’ as formulated by the various ethnic groups – together. It is interesting to note that, under the Emergency, it was the progressive Malay political organisations with its strong peasant base – such as API, PKMM and Hisbul Muslimin – that were the first to be decreed illegal (even earlier than the MCP).

With the suppression of “the Malay left”, UMNO was sponsored by the British to be the preferred inheritor of an “independent” Malaya. The party’s cooperation with MCA (later to be joined by a “reformed” MIC) in the Alliance during the KL municipal elections was also in a way “sponsored” by the colonial government. It was these forces, together with other forces representing business and political interests in the other communities, that were sponsored to negotiate for independence – which came about in 1957.

From 'social contract' to NEP

The terms of this negotiated independence are now often described as “The Social Contract” – the Malay upper classes, which then constituted a weak bourgeoisie, were in the process of strengthening themselves and `sold’ their efforts to the Malay masses as a legitimate way of uplifting them (the Malays) and of correcting the injustices of (colonial) history.

The New Economic Policy (NEP) was simply an expression and manifestation of that ideology couched in economic terms, i.e. of increasing their share of equity and wealth of the nation. The language of proportion and percentages became the major language for the equation. The struggle for rights and justice along class lines could not possibly come to the fore as long as there were more compelling elements and divisions along which the injustice was perceived in society such as race, communities and religion.

In the Malaysian political system of today, such divisions are still being emphasised (and reemphasised) by keris-weilding UMNO politicians. But the sad thing is that the counter demands are also articulated by the ethnically-based “partners” of UMNO in the same “ethnic” language.

Since UMNO politicians are complaining that they have not achieved the quantum of percentages sought, MCA politician pointed out the areas in which Malay control is absolute such as in petroleum and telecommunication. And true to the style of the “social contract”, they were knocking hard on the door in order to obtain their share in those areas.

To my mind, communalism in the national question will remain as long as Malaysia is a state constituted by a multiple of nations competing for supremacy of percentages in almost all areas of our social life. This battle of percentages will continue as long as anything and everything in our social and national life is divided along identifiable ethnic lines – Chinese banks, Malay universities, etc. Only when this “formation” breaks down will the calculation of percentages become mathematically impossible and empirically unnecessary.

Among certain groups, the struggle against the so-called Malay-dominated hegemony is to demand the restoration of the colonial structure, characterised by what I would call a situation of social and cultural laissez faire: each group with different historical experiences existing separately and quite insulated from other groups. To me this is not going to solve our current problem – indeed it could even exacerbate ethnic polarisation.

To my mind, Malaysia needs to become a “real nation”. In a true nation, the battle for supremacy through percentages of control by ethnic groups does not arise whatsoever. Justice should have been fought only for one legitimate reason – to eradicate injustices imposed by the class structure.

Towards a social nation

I have written elsewhere (Ke Mana Nasionalisme Melayu (2005)) that after independence, Malay nationalism (at least the progressive strand of it) should have been retooled to become a movement for a Malayan or a Malaysian nationalism – just as what Putera-AMCJA tried to do in 1947, before it was suppressed and broken up.

Malay nationalism, after all, is a “failed nationalism”: it failed to create a Malay nation, and should have been retooled in a new way to cope with a new (or changed) historical reality. Some of you must be thinking that my suggestion should not be taken seriously, that I must be crazy to even have this idea in this age of globali-sation.

The truth of the matter is that I believe that the notion of a nation has not in any way become obsolete. In fact, the world of today and, I believe, in the future too, will remain a world of nations and nation-states. Otherwise, even to organise the football World Cup tournament would have been unthinkable.

For those who think that nationalism is a retrograde idea, let me remind them that such a belief was shared even by “progressive” thinkers such as Marx and Engel. It was their conservative contemporary, Lord Acton (who wrote about it in 1862) who opposed the idea of nationalism. Indeed Marx and Engel were generally sympathetic to the nationalistic aspirations of oppressed peoples and recognised that nations were necessary and desirable and had certain essential functions to perform.

The nation is not only the bearer of culture, but it is a unifying influence around which the efforts of men and women may suitably crystallise for the benefit of their individual and collective development. When Marx and Engels wrote of the “withering away of the state”, what they had in mind was the state as coercive mechanism, the organ of a dominating class. The nation, in their view, should survive as the unit around which would be built the international society of the future.Merdeka!

Taken from Aliran, Oct 2006

Also check out Mr Rustam's biodata and link to his very impressive blog. Just look through some of his writings please at http://www.suara-rustam.blogspot.com/

Rustam A. Sani has been described as “arguably Malaysia’s leading public intellectual” (Jomo, 2001:9)*. He is an academician, a newspaper columnist and a poet, besides being involved in a multitude of political, social and literary activities.

As an academician and scholar he has served at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Malaya and ISIS Malaysia. His anthology of poems – Riak-riak Kecil (1977) – was published by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. In 1988/89 he was awarded the prestigious ‘Hadiah Sastera Negara’ (National Literary Award) in the category of essays and literary criticism.

Rustam obtained his first degree from Universiti Malaya, and later furthered his studies at the University of Reading, University of Kent at Canterbury (both in UK) and Yale University (US).
He is a prolific writer, both in Bahasa Malaysia and English, covering a wide range of areas that include politics, social issues, history, culture, statistics and literature. Besides, he has produced translation of literary and non-literary works (from English to Bahasa Malaysia and vice versa).

what is right and what is wrong?

http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/content/view/997/46/

read the whole of this article and understand it. raja petra stated what i have always held close to me which is "do not impose your values on me". i quote him "So right is wrong and wrong is right depending on who you are, where you were born, and when you were born. Your values are your values and it does not mean that they are right values. It just means that they are your perception of what are right values. So keep your values to yourself."

Hey.
I thought you guys might want to read this.
And Happy 2008!

http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=305400