Malaysian Maverick

Mahathir Mohamad is a maverick indeed, just like the title of Barry Wein's book suggests, the book that was seized by the government reportedly to study the suitability of the books contents. The book in question is The Malaysian Maverick:Mahathir Mohamad in turbulent times. The controversial book claims that among other things, Mahathir worked with American government in allowing them to conduct training in Johore and burned billions of dollars during his tenure as Prime Minister.

My view on this is the same as the Maverick himself, release the book so that it can be made available to the public so that we, the public who worked our buts out earning money that the government conveniently tax us that the book claimed to be mismanaged, be the judge and not those officials in the Home Ministry as it's in the interest of the public too know what happened to their money. Withholding the book won't help, rather it will lead to speculation on the contents of the book by the netizens in the web as can be seen in many blog writings and social networking sites.

This speculation whether true or not can only be dispelled only by the contents of the book be made available and Mahathir himself must be made to answer those allegations, the final verdict will be decided by the public who will have the chance to hear from both sides, then and only then will the verdict by the public be fair and conclusive.

Not doing so will only do unjust for Mahthir's reputation as in Malaysia, rumours ruled the day as we can't trust the mainstream media as it's superbly bias nor that we can use our reasoning to arrive at the truth as that requires the excess to all information which in this case happens to be in the book. So making the book available for scrutiny will allow Mahathir to defend his reputation and if necessary take legal action against the author if the book is a bunch of lies written on a Pro-Western sentiments rather than undisputed facts and figures.

If proven to be accurate then an investigation should be done to find out where the billions went to and whether they're individuals that deserve to be punished because of involvement in the disappearance of billions. I'm not suggesting this for pure resentment rather the move will deter others in the future not to be involved in such scandalous projects that don't follow proper procedures or face the fury of the law.

Nonetheless no matter what the truth is, I still believe that it will not dent Mahathir's contribution towards this country from a backwater nation to a metropolitan, rather it will only serve us as a lesson on what the current lack of accountability and transparency can do to a nation, without knowing we are losing billions and helping US army whose immoral deed in the middle east means that we are a part of it's evil not to mention the risk it pose to our sovereignty as US military are known to be moles, informing to their government on possible weakness in the country they are operating in to take advantage of it to further the US interest. I'm not being anti-American here rather just spelling out the facts.

In conclusion it's high time the government adopts the policy of free information to the public as in the information age, the public must make informed decisions that requires free-flow of information so that they can reach to an informed decision on issues like politics, economics and so on. This will free us from and ignorant society that we are to an informed one that can act in accordance to their values and truth rather than simply accepting conventional wisdom disseminated by the government owned media that cannot hold water, making it tough for the people to make the correct informed decisions and necessary corrective actions as a society that is progressive is the society that embraces the truth and act accordingly no matter how painful it may be for them to do so in an effort to progress further and beyond.

The PAS Dilemma

I'm writing this a day after some 20 people protested in front of the Selangor PAS Headquarters demanding that PAS pull out from the state government in Selangor stating that PAS is better of on its own and that in Pakatan Rakyat PAS are being dominated by it's partners which are PKR and DAP. Of course PAS and Pakatan blamed UMNO for the incident claiming that the protest is the work of UMNO and not PAS which UMNO has denied. Whatever the truth is, with no doubt that PAS is indeed in a dilemma and needs to solve this dilemma quickly and properly.

The dilemma is obviously should the party stay on with Pakatan Rakyat or should they leave either being independent, join UMNO or be a party within BN like they did in the 70s. At stake here is the ideological struggle that PAS has been fighting since it's formation as a splinter party from UMNO, which is the Islamic state struggle, the main agenda of PAS. Let's consider the options here.

First is the stay with Pakatan option. This option is probably the most politically rewarding move on behalf of PAS as can be seen by the electoral gains the party made by capturing Kedah and for a while heading the executive branch of the Perak state government before it's collapse, not to mention an involvement in the running of Selangor and Penang state government.

This all will not be possible without the non-Malays vote that it received courtesy of it's coalition partners especially DAP( the capture of Kedah is a prime example as Mat Sabu stated that the lack of non-Malays vote is the only reason behind the party failure to capture the state all this years), the vote that remains elusive to the party due to the image by the non-Malays that Islamic state means the curtailing of their religious rights and lifestyles( the later is probably justified) unless PAS is prepared to follow a lenient Hudud law which might not be popular with some of the fundamentalists within the party establishment.

The second option is to leave Pakatan and join UMNO or BN, if done properly, this may be the most politically rewarding move by PAS,however there are inherent risks that history can show PAS if it decides to do so. One can remember what happened to PAS when it joined BN in the 70s, not only that they were ignored by UMNO and BN once UMNO and BN managed to undo the damage of the 1969 General Election when the won big in the 1974 General Election, the party was split into many waring factions when the party left the BN in eventually few years later and it took them years to recover, 14 years to be exact when with the now defunct Semangat 46 they took control of the Kelantan state government.

Of course on the upside there's the possibility of being in the ruling government which will lead to more rewards in the form of monetary reward for PAS MPs and state assemblymens, more federal allocation to PAS ruled states and so on, political reward such as ministerial posts for PAS top leadership and PAS can probably control a few national or state agencies like Felda when Asri Muda was the Minister of Land in the 70s.

So despite the risks, there are rewards but either way PAS will play second fiddle to UMNO, just like in the 70s, toe the line or leave BN as UMNO will not bow down to any other positions but as the political masters and to please the other BN partners, like MCA who's oppose to the Islamic state concept, in BN PAS can forget about its main political agenda of turning Malaysia into an Islamic state.

Finally there's the least politically rewarding option of becoming independent. Well PAS will lose the non-Malays vote and that might cause them the state of Kedah, not to mention losing a chance of being part of the Selangor and Penang state government, of course they can keep their option open by opting to work with either Pakatan or BN and leaving at their wimps and fancies while gaining either the rewards from Pakatan or BN along the way.

Certainly a viable way to move forward while keeping their Islamic state agenda struggle, however this can only be done when either coalition is desperately in need of PAS like BN in 1972 and Pakatan now as without the need there's no reason for Pakatan nor BN to except a party that is not committed to the respective coalition cause not to mention PAS will also get less of the rewards if either coalition governs the country or state as their lack of commitment may cause a feeling of distrust by the coalition thus strategic posts might not be awarded to PAS because of that.

Now the PAS leadership must do some deep soul-searching to find which path they want to take and neither path is filled with roses rather there're filled with sacrifices and compromise(thorns to be a little bit symbolic), and the decision that they arrived at will have profound impact on the Malaysia political landscape and the Malaysian people at large so it's understandable that the writer is keeping an eye(without blinking so to speak) on this national and public interest decision as there's to much at stake for all parties not to ignore the final outcome of the climatic moment that begun with the historical March 8 2008 General Election( mother of all elections).

When Everything is Political

Malaysia must surely be one of the most political country in the world as everything is constrained by politics from language to location of temples and so on. It's tough the be a progressive nation when we are inhibited to make the most effective decision for the progress of the nation due to political reasons,thus the political decisions that sometimes are not for the benefit of the nation at large are being adopted due to the importance place on political decisions.

We can see from the recent controversy surrounding the National Civics Bureau(BiroTatanegara) where the Selangor state government banned it's employees and students in state-owned learning institutions from attending this course due to reported racial and political propaganda that the course is propagating. The question is why the government is spending more than 60 million for such programme? Well the answer seemed obvious, for political reasons of course.

By instilling racism(Malay nationalism),UMNO will benefit politically eventhough what the country needs right now is not citizens who identify themselves strongly by race, rather we need citizens who identify themselves being Malaysians first rather than their respective race. So again political interest seems to be place of higher importance than national interest. I believe than the course should be revamp to instill the feeling of patriotism, tolerance and national understanding rather than racist garbage.

Then there's the royalty claim by the Kelantan state government. Again the political interest of the federal government takes precedence when it refused to give the royalty, rather the government will give Wang Ehsan and channelled the rest to federal projects there. This so called projects beneficiary will not be the average Kelantanese,rather UMNO Kelantan cronies will benefit and we all know what the Wang Ehsan did to the Terengganu state government ruled by PAS, it ended it's rein and it's wise for Kelantan to learn from history and not make the same mistake.

So as we can see, the Wang Ehsan and federal projects there will benefit UMNO rather than the Kelantanese people at large, so again political interest was placed higher than the interest of the Kelantanese people.

Finally,even the event where DAP leaders stepped on the picture of the frogs of Perak(Jamaludin and Osman) while missing Hee(another frog), was politicised by certain quarters with a racial element added. What matters here is that these people betrayed the trust of the Perak voters, all of them, they betrayed Malay voters,Chinese voters, Indian voters,Perak voters,so there's no need to politicised or racialised the poster stepping event as I as a Malay will personally would like to join in irrespective of whose face in the poster I stepped as I believe their action is regressive towards the state of democracy in this country and I'm for progress of our democracy not the other way around.

In conclusion, Malaysians must always demand that the interest of the nation at large be placed of higher importance than any other interest so that the nation can progress and Malaysian,all Malaysians can benefit together irrespective of race,religion,class or political beliefs so that the progress achieved is holistic and sustainable and not the overnight progress that we achieved in the 90s which left out some quarters and was destroyed(some of it) overnight due to the economic and social instability due to the Asian Financial Crisis and the sacking and jailing of Anwar Ibrahim which cause massive street protest and eventual political instability. It's time for us to enjoy development without sacrificing the future generation by ensuring a holistic and sustainable progress and rejecting the pursuit of political interest by the government.