Hey IASA, check out what your Malaysian Chapter is doing!

Obi and I were wondering what our esteemed IASA chapter is doing in Malaysia (IASA-M), so we decided to visit their website. However their address is not obvious, so google it was.

IASAM - an acronym that stands for "I almost scullfarked a moose"

Suffice to say, I was surprised at what IASA-M meant. Kids these days ... So for the benefit of the sensitive readers, here is the direct link to IASA-M.

http://www.iasahome.org/web/malaysia

Hopefully this would increase their PageRank to avoid further embarrassment.

yk

Rukun Negara - have you read it? really?

This is the Rukun Negara which was drummed into our little skulls when we were young:

• BELIEF IN GOD
• LOYALTY TO KING AND COUNTRY
• UPHOLDING THE CONSTITUTION
• RULE OF LAW
• GOOD BEHAVIOUR AND MORALITY

Of course, when I first knew about it, it was in Malay, and I never really found out what the long and grand words like 'kesusilaan', 'keluruhan' and 'kedaulatan' (with regards to undangs) really meant. Even if I did, would you expect an 7 year old to differentiate between the Constitution and the Rule of Law?

However it was only recently that I found out that there was more to this story than these bullet points. The 'Rukun Negara' that we have learnt aren't actually the real principles (rukuns). They are merely tactical means to fulfill a grander plan; and the real National Principles are as follows:

Our nation, Malaysia, being dedicated :

• to achieving a greater unity of all her peoples;
• to maintaining a democratic way of life;
• to creating a just society in which the wealth of the nation shall be equitably shared;
• to ensuring a liberal approach to her rich and diverse cultural traditions;
• to building a progressive society which shall be oriented to modern science and technology;

I really like, and can related to these original Rukuns; Unity, Democracy, a Just society, Equitable Shared Wealth, Liberal, Celebrating the diverse Cultures and Traditions, Progressive Society, and orientation towards Science and Tech! Who cannot like that?

This was written in 1970, just after the May13th disaster. It was intended to correct the path of our Nations growth. And yet, after almost 40 years on, we can see how the real Rukun Negara has been "forgotten", and this is clear with the "progress" of our country and society.

We see families split because of religulous body snatchers, money politics, judicial crisis, abuse of the NEP to cronies, fanaticism, restriction of traditions, regressive societies and a poorly implemented science roadmap.

I think its time we really understand the original principles of Rukun Negara, rather than the abstract version which we have all grown to ignore.

Please re-read your Rukun Negara, and help make Malaysia a better place.


yk
===

The Malay version:

BAHAWASANYA NEGARA KITA MALAYSIA mendukung cita-cita hendak :

• mencapai perpaduan yang lebih erat di kalangan seluruh masyarakatnya ;
• memelihara satu cara hidup demokratik ;
• mencipta satu masyarakat adil di mana kemakmuran Negara akan dapat dinikmati bersama secara adil dan saksama ;
• menjamin satu cara liberal terhadap tradisi-tradisi kebudayaannya yang kaya dan berbagai corak ; dan
• membina satu masyarakat progresif yang akan menggunakan sains dan teknologi moden.

MAKA KAMI, rakyat Malaysia, berikrar akan menumpukan seluruh tenaga dan usaha kami untuk mencapai cita-cita tersebut berdasarkan atas prinsip-prinsip yang berikut :

• KEPERCAYAAN KEPADA TUHAN
• KESETIAAN KEPADA RAJA DAN NEGARA
• KELUHURAN PERLEMBAGAAN
• KEDAULATAN UNDANG-UNDANG
• KESOPANAN DAN KESUSILAAN

Woah, buddy!

Check out these figures:

That looks like a series of numbers growing exponentially and spiralling out of control. I wonder what the deficits figures are?

yk.

A new day.

Its now 3am, and time to sleep. Been following the results of the Malaysian Elections via the super-fast malaysiakini site, probably because the majority of normal browsers would have been denied access to the website, because the DNS entries for malaysiakini.com pointed back to localhost at 127.0.0.1.

A usable address for malaysiakini is http://122.0.17.30/index.php

In the meantime, the results have been surprising. Lets just hope that this 'mandate' as small as it may be, would not be squandered like it was 4 years ago.

This is the first elections I have felt so interested in, and I haven't felt so Malaysian before. Its all good!


Congrats, elected members, but remember that the public WILL chose from now on.

yk.

Malaysian Elections

Today is Election day for Malaysia, and the news is certainly interesting. National TV is broadcasting like nothing has changed since 2004, while alternative news sites like malaysiakini is showing sweeping changes. The biggest of course is about Penang, where the current Opposition has taken control of the state govt. We dont see any updates of this big news in the mainstream news.

Anyway, the disparity is quite interesting, and I just hope its not a repeat of this guy:



yk.

[Update: 11pm. Looks like malaysiakini is down. 'wget http://malaysiakini.com/index.php' gives nothing.]

[Update:11:15pm. Thats strange. I do a ping www.malaysiakini.com, and I get localhost! 127.0.0.1 Anybody else getting the same thing?]

[Update: 11:40pm, Thanks to the power of google/whois, malaysiakini is available here via static IP: http://122.0.17.30/index.php ]

[Update: 11:45pm, Mel has some interesting info on the downtime. "Breaking News - Malaysiakini DNS Suspended!"]

Things that make me go *sigh* for Malaysia.

Reading the papers nowadays is depressing at worst or sadly humourous at best. It takes alot of effort to see that anything good can come out of it all.

The first of course was the case of the MP who asked Customs to 'Close one Eye' on his alleged illegal imports of timber. That alone was a huge farce, but the complications related to that event in the towing the party line of the Backbenchers club ,and the subsequent resignation of the president showed that the wrong person suffered. Subsequently the One-eyed MP goes on with business as usual, committing other wrongs while going off scot free.

Then the Article 11 issues, where good intentions of debating pertinent issues in a civilised manner was disrupted by unruly people. Instead of arresting the rioters, the organisors were persecuted. And the subsequent gag order in the pretense of maintain blah blah stability was issued. Again, the wrong persons became the victims.

Next up, the asli report on corporate equity distribution. Whether or not the model proposed is right, does not deserve the damning accusation that the report is 'rubbish'. The document seems well researched with facts to balance, and it is open for all to review. Versus the 'closed document', it doesnt seem 'rubbish' to me. Because of this report which was published 8 months ago (Feb '06) asli was politically pressured to retract the figures, now the good Dr. has to resign. Again, the wrong person was persecuted for no apparent wrong doing.

The new thing is the case of the Fraudulent APs where it is alleged that a Senator's son was selling fraud APs. The Senator has the gall to state in newspapers that his son was stupid, and should have been more discrete in the fraud. Perhaps his quotes was out of context, but it sure doesn't sound like this Senator wholeheartedly disproves of his son's act!

Its darn frustrating that people like these are running our country.

Things do make things right again:

1. Transparency. Opaque procedures like APs and Govt docs should be documented and published.
2. Zero tolerance for corruption. MPs and Senators should resign (and not their critics) if they find themselves in controversy
   
3. Knowlege-based workforce. Studies like asli should be encouraged and not persecuted.
   
4. Multi-culturalism and Understanding. More dialogues should be held instead of gagged.
   

And then we have the haze, but that, we can't do much about.


yk.