Friday, June 27, 2008

Malaysia Today (posted Dec 28, 2007)

Wah it's been more than a month since my last post. Haven't written anything since Ching Wei and Chow Pin got married early November. And many things have happened during the last 6 weeks - in my life, in Malaysia and most recently in Pakistan (Benazir Bhutto's assassination).

I shall summarise the part on Malaysia, as many of you would know as much as or perhaps more than me:

1) Two major rallies - Bersih for electoral reforms (coincided with Ching Wei's wedding lunch) and Hindraf to express the discontent of ethnic Indians - took place in the land where the people were SUPPOSED to live in racial and religious harmony. But are we really? The Election Commission was SUPPOSED to be politically neutral. Are they really? The Anti Corruption Agency was also SUPPOSED to weed corruption in the government. But did they really hunt down the biggest culprits?


2) The PM declaring that he does not like to be challenged, he has BIG EARS and he would not hesitate to use the Internal Security Act (ISA) as the LAST RESORT (Well he did)


3) UMNO MPs making statements to score political points but defeated their purposes by exposing the PM, his government and Politburo for what they REALLY ARE and also contradicting the SUPPOSED moderateness of Islam Hadhari.


4) The Politburo head ALLEGED that Hindraf was linked to terrorists (without proof) and got them detained under ISA. 31 PEOPLE were charged with TRYING to murder ONE Politburo officer. Several people from the Bersih rally and Bar Council were arrested as well. All in the name of (Barisan) NASIONAL SECURITY.


5) The deputy Internal Security Minister threatened the Catholic weekly The Herald with permit withdrawal for using the ARABIAN term for God (claimed to be reserved for the usage of Muslims only) in its Bahasa Malaysia section.


6) My friend Kenny and I shared the 1-year subscription fee of RM150 for Malaysiakini.com. Kenny thinks it's his best investment in 2007. I just think that I'm reading REAL news, finally...

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