Bersih 2.0: The truth that cannot be covered
Which is the truth? The government of Malaysia has his own stories. The people of Malaysia who took part in the Bersih 2.0 rally last Saturday (July 9, 2011) have their own stories as well. True, not true. True, not true?
If you are in doubt of Bersih 2.0, please check out their website at http://bersih.org.
I am not going to write a long post here. The video below speaks louder than any words on earth.
Please watch the video carefully until the end then tell me which is the truth. If you have the slightest conscience, I am sure you will cry. I cried after watching the video and there is nothing shameful to tell everyone that I cried.
Fortunately, the man in the video who collapsed into unconsciousness has survived. Another man named Baharuddin Ahmad who was at KLCC during the rally, however, collapsed and died after being suffocated by the tear gas which was fired directly at his group by the FRU. A man has sacrificed his life while battling against the brutality of police and the tyranny of his own government.
Whilst one man is down, many thousands will rise for him!
Bersih 2.0 Worldwide
I shed tears while watching this video. This is so damn touching.
Bersih 2.0: The ancient Chinese philosophy
Not long after Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak became our prime minister on April 3, 2009, he made a four-day official visit to China from June 2 to 5 the same year. During the visit, he mentioned his father’s special relationship with China. His father, Abdul Razak, was Malaysia’s 2nd prime minister and first established diplomatic relationship with China in 1974.
Recently, before the Bersih 2.0 rally, he and his son Nor Ashman took part in a radio interview on One FM Morning Kaki program. Ashman greeted in Mandarin and the Prime Minister greeted in Cantonese.
One can easily tell that our Prime Minister is trying to impress the Chinese Malaysians how he embraces China, her language and her culture. That’s a good gesture of course. Unfortunately, the Bersih 2.0 rally which took place in Kuala Lumpur yesterday (July 9, 2011) has discredited what he has been portraying thus far.
You see, the Chinese language is not something that can be learned in a few months’ time or a few visits to China. It certainly cannot be learned using Google Translate or any other language translator on the Internet.
If our Prime Minister had studied and understood the Chinese wisdom below, what happened yesterday would not have happened. Managing and ruling a country is not as simple as “早晨，大家好，我系Najib。” (Good morning, how is everyone? I am Najib).
Lastly, this applies to those MCA eunuchs as well. Being Chinese descendants and speaking Mandarin as your mother tongue means little or next to nothing in embracing the Chinese culture. Your mentality is only equivalent to that of the uneducated peasants in the society in ancient China.
不 尚 賢 ， 使 民 不 爭。
不 貴 難 得 之 貨 ， 使 民 不 為 盜 。
不 見 可 欲 ， 使 民 心 不 亂 。
是 以 聖 人 之 治 ，
虛 其 心 ，
實 其 腹 ，
弱 其 志 ，
強 其 骨 。
常 使 民 無 知 無 欲 。
使 夫 智 者 不 敢 為 也 。
為 無 為 ， 則 無 不 治 。
Bersih 2.0 – Love to my country
Today, July 9, 2011 is the day tens of thousands of Bersih 2.0 supporters marched in Kuala Lumpur peacefully for the good cause to seek electoral reform for a clean and fair election. There are plenty of information spreading on the Internet about Bersih 2.0 rally so I am not going to repeat everything here.
One thing for sure, this rally has changed my perception and the spirit of a true Malaysia, where all races – Malays, Indians and Chinese united under one cause despite of the unwarranted, tyrannical acts by the National Front government and the police. I have never felt more proud of being a Malaysian.
A quote from a friend of mine from Hong Kong:
Democracy won’t come to you, is you go and get it. if you have chance just speak out loud, or shout from the rooftop. – Atropos
And from famous actor Clint Eastwood
Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands. – Clint Eastwood
What happened today on July 9, 2011 will be written in the history of Malaysia. This is the day when fellow Malaysians stood up bravely to defend their civil liberties which have long been disrespected by the ruling government since independence. I don’t want my children, when they grow up, ask me: “Dad, what had you done on July 9, 2011?” and I can’t answer them. So I decided to wear yellow (the signature color of Bersih) and walked in town to show support. Honestly, as a father of three and the breadwinner for my family, such decision was not without fear. Why fear you may ask? Perhaps Malaysia is the only region in the world where you can be arrested for merely wearing yellow. And being arrested is one thing, how you would be treated after arrest is another.
This morning, I wore a yellow T-shirt and moved around at certain parts of the town. In the afternoon, after meeting my client at his office, I walked from Hatten Square, crossed the main road, and walked length of Dataran Pahlawan in the same T-shirt.
Having been following up the rally happenings in Kuala Lumpur since morning, I thought I could at least feel a little of the Bersih atmosphere here in Melaka. Disappointedly, I only saw large crowds, mostly Chinese, hanging out at Hatten Square and Dataran Pahlawan happily as usual. Everyone seemed carefree and undisturbed by the fact that thousands of people were being treated inhumanly by the police just because they wanted to ask for a clean democracy for all Malaysians. I hardly spotted one that wore yellow. If you look at the photos taken during the Bersih rally, you can see most of the protestors are Malays, relatively few Chinese took part in the rally. I am not being racist here, my point is there are too many Chinese Malaysians who simply don’t give a damn to the wellbeing of the country. They don’t even care to vote. All they care about are how much money they can make and how well they can live. With such attitudes, no wonder the Chinese are being called “pendatang” or squatters in spite of the fact that they are born in Malaysia. I think these people really deserve such labeling.
Although what I did was insignificant and actually nothing compared to those who had risked being arrested, injured or even losing their life to join the Bersih 2.0 movement in Kuala Lumpur today, I am glad that I have made one tiny step to conquer my fear by wearing yellow and walking on busy road and in busy malls in the heart of Melaka, with the spirit of Bersih (Clean).
If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. – Dale Carnegie
马来西亚华裔是猪-没错！
Ibrahim Ali和他的同僚说Cina是猪，一点都没错，反而吾觉得妙极。
“猪相”：它们的吃”很省”(猪食)，它们老爱在一角落臭挤(猪圈)，它们永远看似很”满足”(猪样)，但“开心”是装/堆出来(猪也会涂口红)，它们甘受宰制(猪脑)，它们有发癫的时侯(猪嚎嚎大叫时)。它们爱窝裹斗，猪咬猪，自己打自己人。当狼来了，个个夹着尾巴鸟兽散。可怜一两只被牺牲在狼的血盆大口之下泪流满面，认命!
Nuclear power plant for Malaysia?
Two days ago, the Malaysian government announced that the country is considering to have nuclear power plant by 2021. This was certainly a good news, but after a while of mind mingling, I think the implementation could be a disaster!
The nuclear energy is the greenest energy currently available on Earth. James Lovelock, a scientist, environmentalist, futurologist and the father of Gaia Hypothesis wrote in his book: “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning”, that the nuclear energy is indeed greener than any other form of power generating plants including solar voltaic and wind energy farm. A 1GW wind farm requires 2 millions tons of concrete, enough to build 30,000 homes for 100,000 people. That quantity of concrete would release 1 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air.
The under-construction Bakun Dam, located in Sarawak on the Balui River, will be the tallest concrete-faced rockfill dam in the world and the largest dam in Asia outside of China. Its powerhouse with 8 penstocks to powertrains comprising 8 vertical shaft Francis turbines of 300MW each, 8 air-cooled generators of 360MVA each and 8 oil-immersed transformers (360MVA each) will generate about 2.4GW of electricity. The dam has 16.71 million cubic meters of filled volume. With catchment area of 14,750 km square, its gross storage capacity is 43,800 million cubic meters. How much concrete is required to build this dam? How much carbon dioxide will be released by the concrete? How much biodiversity would have perished under catchment area that large?
I read from various sources about people’s objections (including politicians’) of this nuclear energy project. This should not be a political issue and never be one. This should be an environmental, safety and social-economic issues at top.
TNB, the sole electricity distributor/supplier in Malaysia is not the sole energy producer. TNB buys, under contract, energy from many other producers. Unfair advantages, unscrupulous practice and increasing fuel cost in the produce-supply chain have contributed to rising energy cost, leading Malaysians to cry foul. The substandard service provided by TNB worsens the situation. As a corporation with revenue of MYR25.75 billion and net income of MYR2.6 billion as of fiscal year 2008, TNB is cutting more corners to reduce its operating costs and to maximize its profit with unhealthy practices, e.g. bi-monthly meter reading practice has stirred uproars in recent week. Being greenest, nuclear energy is more profitable than any other energy production. Could this help to reduce electricity cost for Malaysians considering the unhealthy practices and unfair advantages TNB has in its glossary bag?
I am not going to write more about TNB’s malpractice and sluggish substandard service. Ask any Malaysians, they will be able to tell you stories whole day and night. Instead, I am going to write more about safety.
The next question: Is it really safe to have nuclear power plant in Malaysia? This question does not imply that nuclear power plant is not safe. Rather, the human factors in managing and operating the nuclear power plant.
Alongside the nuclear physics in the power plant is the safety critical computer system, which includes both hardware and software, that is used to control and monitor the nuclear power plant. This safety critical system is the most crucial part and the entire operation of a nuclear power plant heavily relies on it.
Safety critical system is a computer (including software), electronic or electromechanical system whose failure may be a catastrophe, causing injury or death to human beings. This safety critical system comprises high integrity software. The safety critical system, both hardware and software, will likely be integrated and maintained by foreign contractors.
Nuclear power plant software are developed using Ada and/or SPARK programming language. SPARK is a subset of Ada. In the mid 1990s, UTM (University Technology Malaysia) KL campus was teaching Ada in CASE (Center for Advanced Software Engineering). At that time, CASE was a collaboration between UTM and Thomson CSF under special arrangement between the government of France and Malaysia. The Ada course was not long lived. Two years later, it was replaced by Java due to ignorance and market driven trends. Java is not a suitable candidate for high integrity, safety critical, real-time and distributed application development. Today, none of the universities in Malaysia is teaching Ada. According to my hitherto knowledge, apparently none of the Malaysia academies have submitted any high integrity and safety critical system related papers in international conferences and scientific journals.
It does not only require software engineers with Ada or SPARK knowledge. In safety critical software engineering, the individual developers, the entire team and organization are required to go through rigorous software development and safety critical validation processes. It takes years to achieve Carnegie-Mellon’s SEI (Software Engineering Institute) CMM (Capability Maturity Model) Level 5. Safety critical system development requires utterly strong discipline and engineering ethics in every requirement, design, development, testing and maintenance process and every process needs to be validated. Other than software process, there are many other non-software related risk assessments to comply.
Malaysia lacks qualified software engineers of such competency to develop and to maintain high integrity software system. It is costly to maintain such system by contract. The maintenance will increase the cost of energy production and hence will be borne by consumers.
The safety critical system of a nuclear power plant must be thoroughly tested with proven track records. With the loosey-goosey attitude of many Malaysians, will they have capability to manage the system and safety critical issues? Will they be effective to respond to emergencies, for example, system shutdown or nuclear melt down?
The disposal of nuclear waste poses another safety issue. If the engine of a RMAF (Royal Malaysia Air Force) fighter jet could go missing and be exported, can you imagine the potential hazard of missing nuclear waste?
Objection should be rational, not emotional. It is imbecilic to politicize the objection without scrutinizing facts. I, in my book, embrace nuclear energy for it is the greenest energy. On the contrary, I do not have any confidence in the management of safety related issues in Malaysia.
Fierce battle at Hulu Selangor by-election?
I, sometimes, find it interesting to follow politics in Malaysia. Although it is more fatuous, it has gotten the charm to fluctuate one’s emotion. I too find it mind boggling as it provides a detailed dissection of people’s (including politicians’) mentality and maturity as well.
The candidate from Pakatan Rakyat or People’s Coalition is Zaid Ibrahim, a well known household name to every Malaysians. He quit Barisan Nasional or National Coalition and later joined PKR because he found BN’s doings are against his principle. A man of principle, he is.
What is the reason for PKR to field Zaid in this by-election? Zaid is an intellectual man. He will be best known and accepted in a city constituency where more working professionals or literates can easily understand his capabilities and visions. I have no intention to scorn the intelligence or intellectual level of the people of Hulu Selangor. There may be many professionals working in the city are from Hulu Selangor.
Is Zaid Ibrahim a sure win by PR? Or is PR desperate to find a good candidate from its arsenal, looking at the number of PR’s members turned “Froggies”?
I hope democracy will prevail this Sunday.
The Cancer of Malaysia – Part 1
March 2008, the opposition parties or denominated the People’s Coalition (or Pakatan Rakyat or PR for short), received an unexpected landslide victory in the 12th General Election (GE12). PR had successfully secured 5 northern states in peninsular Malaysia. Since then, Malaysians have started to witness their own very beloved country becoming the showcase of betrayals, mockeries and remonstrations.
Before our former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad stepped down, he made a radical change to our education – the use of English language to teach math and science subjects in all primary and secondary schools. His change was immediately welcome by many Malaysians, I was for one of them. This, of course, was disagreed by many other parties who champion pro-ethnic education. Dong Jiao Zhong (the association of Chinese vernacular school boards and teachers) is one of them to loudly protest.
Before we get deeper into education, it is worthwhile to mention a few racial and religious pandemonium which happened recently. One most recent uproar is the protest of the ruling of court over the use of the word “Allah” in a Catholic newspapers, Herald. Churches were bombed and torched by some unscrupulous citizens. Before this, a group of Muslim protesters trampled a severed cow head to protest the building of Hindu temple near their residences. You can find many reports on disheartening eruptions of racial and religious matters besides politics on the Internet so I am not writing the entire length and breadth but to mention one or two as examples.
Malaysia advertises herself as a beautiful country with multi races living together in harmony and tolerance. Where is the noble tolerance between different races and religions? What is contributing to this separation of ethnicity and religion?
Let us ask ourselves a very simple question: What has happened to Malaysia? This simple question has no easy answer. The answer is multifold and viciously lurking and recycling in every layers of Malaysian society.
If you ask me what my answer is, I think the best analogy to describe this is cancer! Yes, multi-stream education in Malaysia is like cancer, slowly suffocating and envenoming the pure untouched minds, silently consuming ethnic unity in Malaysia.
Before I go further, I would like to boldly correct a common mistake and suggest a term to address Chinese descendants or Malaysia-born Chinese as “ orang Cina” or “Cina” for short. In my opinion, only the native inhabitant of China can be entitled as “Chinese”. Like Peranakan, “Cina” will be the proper localized term to classify our ethnicity. While for Malaysia Indian, I would address them as “orang India” or “India” and Malays as “orang Melayu” or “Melayu”. To be fair.
As a Cina myself who has received 6 years of primary Cina education, I generalized the grass root Cina community as conservative and hardworking with narrow and superficial thinking and vision. Close minded, emotional and shallow. I personally have experienced these many years ago during school days.
I was a town boy and lived among grass root Cina. I had never communicated with a Melayu or India until I was in secondary school. I would see some Melayu ladies passing by my house every morning and evening.
In primary school, I was among the 100% Cina students except a few Melayu teachers and staffs. My limited exposure to other races did not come to the end when I went to secondary school. All students coming from Cina primary school would be put together in “Remove” class, 100% Cina with no India at all. I only began to have Melayu classmates during Form 1 and I could tell you, they were fun to call them friends compared to other Cina peers. This racial mixture had to come to the end when I entered Form 4. I was in Science 1 class and there was not a single Melayu classmate, only 1 India. In Form 6, again I was in Science 1 doing double math, my classmates were 100% Cina.
After more than 20 years, I can still remember an experience during my upper 6. Our teachers always advised and encouraged us to speak English in school and of course I was the only “stupid” Cina student to comply. As the result, one of my female classmate called me “Banana Man” （a racial discrimination term used by Cina to call other Cina who does not speak Cina, it is like banana, yellow (Chinese skin) on the outside, white (English) on the inside) and together with other classmates as well as our peers from other classes to desist from speaking to me. How shallow she and the others could be? This is the malignant product of multi-stream education. These shallow and superficial minds are poisoned and shaped by the monotonous environment.
About 5 years ago, my wife and I were to decide which school we should send our children to. Being a Cina educated who did not have confidence in Cina vernacular education and my wife received her education from national school, we decided to send our children to national school based on a few observations.
I was back to my former secondary school and coaching karate there. In my class, I had both Cina and Melayu students. And the Cina students were from both Cina and national school. I observed them for very long time and these were what I concluded:
- the Cina students coming from national school are more willing to interact with their Melayu peers.
- the Cina students coming from national school are more communicable and possess good interpersonal skill far better than those coming from Cina stream.
- the Cina school educated students demonstrate self centered attitude.
- the Cina school educated students shun themselves away from dialog.
- the Cina students from national school are more active and socializing.
As a software engineer, I have not used Mandarin to communicate despite the fact that many years ago I had collaborated with software developers and engineers from China and Taiwan. Based on personal experience and observation, we decided not to send our children to Cina-stream school.
But to be fair, ethnic and religious demarcation happens in national school. This Chinese New Year, my wife prepared some cookies for our eldest son to bring to school and to share with his classmates. None of his Melayu friends ate or touched the cookies. It is pathetic to see how religion separates Malaysian children at such a young age!
Multi-stream education is the separatist which divides the ethnicity at the very young age. Children are separated by ethnic idealism in the name of education. And Malaysia is the only country in the world which practices multi-stream education.
Next, we should look at treacherous political influence and the historical mistakes in multi-stream education.
Politics and Religion
Religion is a fraternity of politics which is engineered by politicians to control people’s behaviors and minds. — Adrian Hoe 2010.
This is why “Religion” has initial “R” which comes after “P”.
Strikeout the word “Bumiputera” for unity
The Najib’s new administration has just merely passed the first 100 day and he has already shown his dedication to unite the people of Malaysia. New economic policies such as the 30% compulsory “Bumiputera” stakes in IPO (Initial Public Offerings) has been abolished. This is going to stimulate, for sure, more foreign investments into the country. Good for economic growth.
As far as “Unity” or “One Malaysia” is concerned, the word “Bumiputera”, should be strikeout and will never exist in the dictionary of the Malay language. Literally translated, it means prince of the land. The ethnics Chinese and Indians, although they are the lawful citizens of Malaysia, they are not the prince of the land.
Let all be referred to as “Rakyat Malaysia” (Malaysia citizens). For example, there should never be “Bumiputera” and “Non-Bumiputera” pricing in housing properties sales. But when election comes, they call all “Rakyat Malaysia” to vote.
How can the country unite whilst the people are divided into “Bumiputera” and “Non-Bumiputera”? I wish Mr. Najib, the new prime minister, will critically consider to abolish the word “Bumiputera” if he is really serious about uniting the people of Malaysia.
Ahmad is Buiputera Rakyat Malaysia. Sivakumar is non-Bumiputera Rakyat Malaysia. I am non-Bumiputera Rakyat Malaysia.
So why divide citizens of Malaysia into Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera?
Public transport fares going to increase
The 3:30PM quick news on NTV7 had reported that all public transport (including buses, taxis and school buses) fares are going to be increased by coming August 1. If my memory serves me correctly, the inter-state bus fares were increased by 30% last month.
The new fares will certainly burden a large group of citizens who rely on public transports as their locomotion. The increase of school bus fares will also stretch more burdens to households who depend on school bus service to send their children to and from school.
While the Najib’s administration has implemented some new economic measures to stimulate economic growth and unity, is this increment of public transport fares to balance up his check book?
Betrayal – when the Phoenix becomes fowl
The people of Perak have been betrayed by the Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Coalition) elected representatives who switched camp recently. It is really sickening for the attitude of Malaysia politicians and it looks very much like a bunch of uneducated and unethical ass-holes (in both camps) fuck up the feelings of the people. And they severely go against the will of the people who entrusted them with majority in last year March election.
It takes years of hard work for the People’s Coalition to win majority seats in a few states in northern peninsular. Sparrow became Phoenix by the power of people. It then betrays her own people and opts to be fowl.
Let us together despise them, spit on them.
PS: It is the fault of PKR for accepting the crossover from the other camp. They destroyed what they have sowed. Who is to be blamed?
自私自利的马来西亚华人
读了“916变天不成，安华应该交带！”之后，我写了“完成大事，要有耐心”（我也把它登在我的博客里，见：小不忍则乱大谋）来回应这妇人之见，希望大家能忍耐一下，继续齐心协力支持安华斗争到底。可是还有些持“妇人之见”人仕继续讽刺安华、要安华解释等等的来信。
看了之后，本人极度感慨马来西亚华人这种自私自利的态度。人家做得好，一声感谢都没有，要是有吗就随便说声”好！“。人家要是做不到吗，就踩到底，要人家解释等等荒唐之说。读了“安华好心没好报”和“应该体谅行动者”，我略有同感：安华欠了你吗？
好些马来西亚华人多是自私自利、怕事、不团结、自扫门前雪。举一项列子，一些华人看到他人被打劫，就快快躲起来，眼不见为净。有些还告诉子女亲人不要多管他人“闲事”惹麻烦。反观马来友族，要是一人被抢劫，整个kampung的人就会出来捉人。难怪会让他人看扁我们华人说我们是“寄居者”！
变天是一件国家大事，不是小孩子玩泥沙。变天如棋，安华正小心翼翼下这盘棋，一步错，全盘皆落索。安华一定要依照宪政程序一步一步来。要是安华直接觐见国家元首，肯定被对方咬定安华没照宪政程序，反被对方问为何安华不先在国会讨论，那时就连国家元首也帮不了安华。
安华除了依照宪政程序之外，他也正在打心理牌，让现今政府丑态百出，同时也试探国际社会对他的支持。安华比任何一位在朝或在野政客有更多的国际人脉网络，如果由他出任首相，肯定很多外资蜂涌来马。
变天这件事已经引起国际社会的关注。要是当今政府胆敢以内安法令捉安华，西方国家，由其是国际人权委员会肯定会大肆谴责当今政府并向其施加压力。
请大家先搞清楚才做指责。要是不知道宪政或法律程序，那请不要胡乱指责安华，于事无补，反而弄巧反拙。这样会让他人更瞧不起我们华人！
这种态度要是不改，不管有位多么好的首相，我们华人在马来西亚不会有什么好日子过。
Shield of virtue, sword of truth
A noble knight, armed with the shield of virtue and the sword of truth, on his way to a kingdom barred by forest of thorn. May the shield of virtue protect him from harm. May the sword of truth fly swift and right to the heart of evil. The evil dies and the good prevails.
小不忍则乱大谋
至“当今大马”、回－－“916变天不成，安华应该做交待！”
老谋深算的安华自有他的策划。916过了两天还没“变天”，其中自有原因。安华要的是和平方式接任，也盼给阿都拉一个下台阶。觐见国家元首是最后一步。安华要接任之余，也避免树立敌人，乃大将风范。
大家既然支持安华，就应该对安华有信心。做大事，要有耐心。我们也不想有个粗心、鲁莽行事的首相，对吗？
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