The Malaysian Insider

MARCH 20 — As Zaidel Baharuddin’s The Malaysian Insider article ‘Pakatan Rakyat to Pakatan Riot’ explains, there remain unresolved doubts about how PR parties can work together to lead the country.

Surely they cannot be given the reins to rule? Or can they?

I have been a long-time sceptic of PR. But having laboured long and hard over how they might share power, I am now warming up to them.

MARCH 13 — In 1970, Bumiputras held 1.5 per cent of the country’s wealth. Today they hold 19 per cent, out of which 16 per cent is held by trust institutions and funds.

This means that over the life of the NEP, despite everything, individual Bumiputra wealth has grown from 1.5 to 3 per cent.

Hardly anything to be proud of. And what has been the costs of this meagre achievement?

FEB 26 — Today, some village bomohs (save for the super-bomohs to the VIPs!) are just about able to eke out a living. But in the yester-centuries of ignorance, superstition, illiteracy, and limited medical practitioners, bomohs thrived. Spirits needed to be exorcised. For small ailments, the bomoh was fine. But for truly serious illnesses, the intervention was at best, neutral in effect. For patients suffering heart disease or cancer, it provided false hope.

The bomoh plied his spurious trade because it was a good living for him, and he was ignorant of religion, science and medicine. The villagers took to his methods because of their own ignorance, superstitions, and for want of a better choice. Thankfully today, most people know that cancer or heart disease isn’t about exorcising a spirit. So the market for bomohs has shrunk.

FEB 21 – With the ever-increasing profile of racially divisive rhetoric spun to purportedly protect the interest of Malays, shouldn’t the alternative point of view be made equally forcefully, by way of an effective and organised Malay counter-movement?

Although right-wing Malay NGOs would like you to believe that Malays are united behind the notion of Ketuanan Melayu, there are actually a very large number of us who view this ideology as being immoral and unIslamic, and therefore unacceptable.

We also believe that it actually serves to weaken our community because it prevents many from developing a sense of personal accountability, it impedes the development of the capacity for critical and informed analysis, and it promotes short cuts and patronage.

FEB 11 — Yesterday, Malaysia Today published an article stating that RPK’s lawyers met his son, Raja Azman at Sungai Buloh Hospital. They confirmed that his son, who is currently in remand, had slashed his wrist and swallowed a razor blade. Raja Azman broke down and cried saying that he could no longer stand the physical and mental torture that he was subjected to in jail, and that he wanted ‘out’. And the only way out to him is to end his life.

RPK’s fugitive status arose out of him not making himself available to attend trials relating to charges for criminal defamation and sedition, and the prosecution’s appeal against his ISA release. Having languished in detention twice under wildly draconian and discretionary laws, in both cases subjected to police custody in solitary confinement in locations unknown and in cells no larger than the size of my toilet, never seeing the light of day for days on end, and never knowing where he is, would you not share his sense of impending rough justice, and be tempted to do the same thing, were you to have been in his shoes?

His real major ‘crime’ was to suggest in a Statutory Declaration published in the Internet that there were others involved in the murder of Altantuuya. But in his writings, RPK claims that it was not him that leaked this SD. In fact, his lawyers had handed over the SD to the prosecution team in person and in strict confidence with the hope of convincing them to expand their investigations. However the SD had been leaked by a blogger who disliked RPK, as a result of which RPK was charged for criminal defamation.