bobjots : redux

A new video in the four main languages of Malaysians was launched by KeADILan highlighting points from the party's manifesto; A New Dawn for Malaysia :

The videos in Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil can be viewed here.

Being a resident in the Kelana Jaya constituency (although currently registered to vote in Petaling Jaya), I'm somewhat amazed to actually not hear this question being asked a lot around here .. at least not among the people that I've hung out with. But the question IS hanging in the air, especially with quite a number of younger, relatively unknown professionals slated by the various competing political parties, especially KeADILan in this coming 12th General Elections.

Those of us so-called sopo (social-political) bloghounds should definitely have seen, at the very least, the debates that's been happening at Haris Ibrahim's blog (see here, here and here) about who the KeADILan candidate for Kelana Jaya, Gwo-Burne Loh, actually is, apart from the obvious (ie. he took the Lingam videos). I've also seen some of the e-mails that have been sent direct to the party asking us the same question.

Apparently this video and song has been making its rounds during KeADILan campaigns in the Kinta Valley.

加價熱潮

曲：De Knight-Freedman
詞：許冠傑/黎彼得

你怕 我怕 個個怕
煙加 酒加 屋租加
巴士加 的士加
多士芝士乜都加
加 加 加 加 加

糖又加 鹽又加
成日咁加任佢話
其實無他 你住人屋宇下
佢梗收買路錢挪兩渣
買佢怕 買佢怕
要加就加 總之慣啦

The Committee of Indigenous & Bumiputera Affairs or Jawatankuasa Hal Ehwal Bumiputera Indigenous (HEBI), a committee under the auspices of the Council of Churches of Malaysia (CCM) just released this statement reiterating their right to use the national language for worship and liturgical purposes:

Kami, Ahli Jawatan Kuasa Hal Ehwal Bumiputra Indigenous (HEBI) satu komuniti bagi penganut agama kristian pribumi seMalaysia di bawah payung Council of Churches of Malaysia (CCM), ingin meluahkan isi hati kami mengenai larangan pihak kerajaan terhadap penggunaan beberapa istilah, baik secara lisan mahupun tulisan.

I'm currently down with flu like symptoms coupled by the occasional fever. I think its because I've been pulling a few all nighters over the last week or so and both my wife and eldest daughter have also been sick. Nonetheless, it does seem to be a good sort of sick :D

I've been working on a few campaign sites. If you folks reside in any one of these communities, you might wanna drop in, say hi and ask the candidate some questions :

• P107 Subang - Sivarasa Rasiah
  www.sivarasa4subang.com / www.sivarasa.org
• N37 Bukit Lanjan - Elizabeth Wong (still on it)
  www.elizabethwong.org
• P45 Bukit Mertajam - Chong Eng (front splash page only)
  www.chongeng.org

You might also want to check out Budu's campaign site. I didn't do it but I think its very well done :

• N32 Seri Setia - Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad
  www.niknazmi.com

I'll try to put up a list of bloggers who are currently contesting as candidates (as opposed to candidates who have only started blogging). One thing you'd notice is that while most non-BN candidates with websites would solicit participation from visitors (either through comments or forums), the opposite is true for a lot of BN candidates. I guess they just want you to vote them in, not ask difficult questions.

The current Opposition front have been warming the benches for way too long. We need some new and innovative ideas from the Opposition benches. I suggest we throw out the current Opposition and elect in a new Opposition.

So who do I think would make a good Opposition in the new Parliament? Barisan Nasional! Who Else?

The Barisan Rakyat is an ambitious civil society initiative to develop a bipartisan political manifesto for the nation and then seek the endorsement of the competing political parties in the nation (see Malaysiakini report for some context). Their seven point invitation to the political parties is as follows :

1. Stand forward and declare that you are part of the Barisan Rakyat.
2. Adopt the People’s Declaration as the cornerstone of your manifesto and campaign.
3. Work sincerely with all members of the Barisan Rakyat without any hidden agenda.
4. Put together a Common Manifesto of the Barisan Rakyat.
5. Design and use a standard banner that carries the logos of ALL Barisan Rakyat parties.
6. Leverage the economies of scale of using common poster and flyer designs.
7. Present a coherent and united People’s Front to the Rakyat and stoke their confidence and fervour.

With all the hubbub and busy-ness that comes with preparing for the General Elections (despite my main task for now requires me primarily to be sitting behind my laptop), it is easy to forget that the following week marks the entry into the third week of Lent. I took some time off to have a look at the Scripture readings from the Lectionary for the Third Sunday of Lent.

The Gospel reading is from John 4:5-42 and it recounts the occasion when Jesus and his disciples were passing through Samaria and Jesus asked for a drink of water from a Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well; aka the story of the Woman at the Well. There're a lot of lessons that can be picked up from this passage alone but what perhaps jumped out at me was the Samaritan woman's response when Jesus asked for water :

"You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?"

Parti KeADILan Rakyat has revealed their parliamentary candidate lineup for Peninsular Malaysia. I expect the lineup from Sabah and Sarawak to be revealed tomorrow.

Malaysiakini reveals some of the more interesting developments with the current lineup - Nurul Izzah vs Shahrizat Abdul Jalil in Lembah Pantai, Cikgu Bard vs SIL in Rembau, the political debut of VK Lingam's videographer, Gwo Burne Loh in Kelana Jaya, and the averting of the feared three corner fight in Bukit Bintang with the Malaysia Democratic Party's Secretary General, Wee Choo Keong, contesting on KeADILan's banner in Wangsa Maju.

The list of 66 seats (with 2 candidates yet to be confirmed) as per 7:51pm is as follows :

The Bible records the prophet, Micah, as saying :

He has shown all you people what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

TUHAN telah memberitahu kita apa yang baik. Perkara yang dituntut oleh TUHAN daripada kita adalah supaya kita berlaku adil, selalu mengamalkan kasih, dan dengan rendah hati hidup bersatu dengan Allah kita.

世人哪，耶和华已指示你何为善 。他向你所要的是甚麽呢？只要你行公义，好怜悯，存谦卑的心，与你的神同行 。

மனுஷனே, நன்மை இன்னதென்று அவர் உனக்கு அறிவித்திருக்கிறார்; நியாயஞ்செய்து, இரக்கத்தைச் சிநேகித்து, உன் தேவனுக்கு முன்பாக மனத்தாழ்மையாய் நடப்பதை அல்லாமல் வேறே என்னத்தைக் கர்த்தர் உன்னிடத்தில் கேட்கிறார்.

- Micah / Mikah / 弥迦书 / மீகா 6:8

Have Christians learned the costly lesson?
Josh Hong | Feb 22, 08 1:33pm

The politician who was recently quoted as saying that churches operating in shoplots now claims he was misquoted. I know of some folks who have left comments in his post but so far none has been published yet. I left a small little comment myself when the post first came up on Tuesday :

For a misquote, there seems to be quite a lot of details

On an unrelated note, a Chinese New Year open house was held on Monday evening by a seafood restaurant in Bandar Sunway. The guest of honour was the former Member of Parliament, Loh Seng Kok, and he was feted with a crowd of about 400 - 500 people; a lot of them normal residents of the community. Short speeches were given to thank Loh for his services rendered to the community over his first (and last) term as MP by community leaders and a petition was later distributed seeking his retention as the candidate for the coming General Elections in the same constituency.

Unconfirmed reports indicate Malaysiakini confirms that the Cili Api AKA Fong Po Kuan will be contesting the Batu Gajah parliamentary seat under the DAP ticket after all.

If its true, I guess that in this game of "chicken" somebody blinked too fast and got his bluff called.

Updated : 1502

Okay .. maybe not .. but this quote is timely ..

"Its too easy to criticize hope .. and in the end, cynicism is a lousy strategy"

.. Seth Godin

A funny take on the grievences of the Indian community ..

It takes a lot to be able to laugh at ourselves :D

This is probably one of the better news I've heard all week and I'm surprised Malaysiakini hasn't caught on to it yet. The Star reports that the DAP has agreed to withdraw its claim to candidacy for the P196 - Stampin parliamentary seat in favour of KeADILan. The latter will be fielding their Stampin divisional chairman, See Chee How. See is currently also KeADILan Sarawak's Legal Bureau Chairman and was the political secretary for two term Bandar Kuching MP, Sim Kwang Yang.

With only the less contentious seats of Sibu, Lanang and Miri left unresolved, the prospect looks clear for a consensus for the non BN parties in Sarawak to make a significant breach in the BN's perceived stronghold.

I was in Kuching last November and had the opportunity to meet up with KeADILan Sarawak State Liaison Chief, Dominique Ng and a few other community organisers and activists including those from the Sarawak National Party (SNAP) and the non-partisan Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (SADIA). I also had the honour of having lunch with the renowned human rights lawyer, Baru Bian, an Orang Ulu from the Bario Highlands.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia has just issued a General Elections Message. Unlike the shorter version entitled Vote Wisely, this document is meant to highlight the fact that Christians need to be discerning and to cast their vote responsibly for the candidates who share the concerns of the churches. In the cover letter attached with the message was a call to "join our hearts and pray for a peaceful and transparent election. At the end, may good political leaders be elected who will uphold the Federal Constitution and the rights of all citizens contained therein".

The full text of the General Elections Message is as follows :

The World Council of Churches, an umbrella body that promotes unity and dialogue among the various Christian traditions in the world, recently had a meeting of their central commitee in Geneva. Among some of the statements issued was this one which I found to be timely (kairotic?) for the Malaysian Christian community (HT: Sivin).

Noting the numerous significant elections that have occurred recently or will be occurring this year, the statement emphasises that "attention should be paid to pre- and post-electoral mechanisms" so that "an election truly reflects the will of the people". Churches are called on "to be actively involved, where appropriate, in civil political engagement and education" and to do their part "to ensure fair, just and participatory democratic elections".

The full statement (with some personal notes and asides) is reproduced below :

Malaysiakini reports on Anwar Ibrahim's confidence in being able to deny the Barisan Nasional a 2/3 majority in the Federal Parliament. He states that Parti KeADILan Rakyat is aiming to capture up to 30 seats in the upcoming General Elections and with the cooperation of the other major non BN parties contesting the elections to collectively capture the 75 seats needed to deny a 2/3 majority.

I have some concerns about putting the target at merely denying 2/3 majority. Realistically speaking, a 2/3 majority in the Federal Parliament will generally still be less than effective in making any substantial systemic changes due to the unrecognisable mess that our constitutional system is right now although it would mean breaking an important psychological barrier for Malaysians. I do fear that it would unrealistically increase the expectations of Malaysians and provoke a backlash against progressive forces if the non BN parties are forced by circumstances to be unable to deliver.

A little bird informed me of an incident that happened in a particular church in Subang Jaya over the weekend. In response to the CFM's "Vote Wisely" campaign, a church elder apparently used the pulpit to remind the congregation that "the government has been good to us".

Hmm .. shouldn't this be considered undue influence? I know for a fact that even some anti-establishment leaning pastors would not abuse their pulpit for endorsing any political groups or movement. They might endorse certain Scriptural principles like peace, justice, mercy, et al, but they leave the processing of that and the conclusion to the individual conscience of their congregation.

That seems to be the question that I've heard some ask. I'll let the vice president of the party speak for himself :

Close at the heels of the public stand by the Christian Federation of Malaysia to encourage Christians to vote in candidates of integrity and honesty, a politician who professes the Christian faith attempting to win the parliamentary seat in the constituency where I stay is now telling us Christians that we need to get permits to hold worship services in shoplots.

I can understand the zoning issues here but I am not aware that shoplot owners who rent out their shoplots as residences are being asked to do the same. What about "temporary" cabin shelters that are set up in public parks for use by certain political parties as their branch offices - complete with concrete foundations, wire fencings and signboards with no local government licence numbers?

The application for permits and even the registering of religious bodies is a contentious constitutional issue with some legal and constitutional experts opining that by virtue of Article 11 of the Constitution, such bodies can exist by default without the need to register and/or ask permission from any authority.

Well .. yes and no. Religious freedom does feature in the CFM's Vote Wisely campaign (well it was mentioned once in the whole leaflet). In fact, I think it probably is one of the major motivators behind getting the broadbased support needed for CFM to actually endorse and back a campaign of this nature. Nonetheless, CFM was wise enough to include other issues for Christians to consider when casting their votes; ie. integrity, support for the freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, welfare for the poor, sick and disabled, economic policy, track record et al.

The temptation to just latch on to the religious freedom issue as if its the one defining factor in our evaluation as citizens is there, especially in light of the various incidences of the flagrant violation of the practice of minority faiths over the last decade or so. But I'd suggest that we not just stop there but look at issues wholistically.

As a member of an Opposition party, I am aware that many of us are pleased at the prospect of a swing to our favour due to protest votes. I am also aware that protest votes don't really last and unless the electorate is able to see that many of our problems (whether they're permanent or temporary in nature) are a result of a system subverted and slowly being modified beyond recognition, we may not really be contributing towards changing the system for the better. What used to be illegal (or at least deemed shameful and immoral) are slowly being given legitimacy. Somebody told me in jest, "it used to be under table money .. now they're doing it above the table".

Anyway, the full text of AP's story is here (as published by the International Herald Tribune) :

I just saw this curious entry in my referrer logs with the time stamp "Feb 18 2008 9:47:59 am" with Jaring as the referring IP and geo coded for Petaling Jaya:

http://10.251.25.23:15871/cgi-bin/blockOptions.cgi?ws-session=1157877691

A public forum will be held this evening to discuss the future of multiracial politics in Malaysia. Personally I think the Chinese translation is more descriptive. It reads "我国多元政治前途" which literally means "The Future Of The Politics of Plurality in Malaysia". I feel this resounds better for me at least on a personal level.

Details are as follows :

The amount of energy and resources poured into clamping down and the monitoring of dissent (ref: Rose Protest - Malaysiakini, BERSIH Rally - Aliran amongst others) would give us the impression that there is an excess of such policing resources to the extent that we can afford to utilise the taxpayers' money for such exercises. Unfortunately, if I were to believe PDRM's own statistics (from the Crime Index and their Annual Report), I am afraid the opposite is true.

With over 100,000 police personnel in the public payroll, the Barisan Nasional controlled administration has chosen to assign no more than 7% of the total personnel towards actual crime prevention and investigation. On the contrary, more than 33% of the total personnel are assigned to internal security and public safety outfits like the Federal Reserve Unit and the General Operations Force. Even the Special Branch has the privilege of having almost as many personnel as those assigned towards crime investigation!

This is the second set of readings, prayers, and actions prepared for meditations in the season of Lent by Bread for the World, a Christian NGO that seeks justice for the world's hungry people by lobbying national decision makers. They publish this as a table tent (like those promotional cards on restaurant tables) which can be downloaded for free from their website.

Second Week In Lent (February 17 - 23)
Jesus Is Visited By Nicodemus

• Scripture Reading

  » Genesis 12:1-4a » Psalm 121

  » Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 » Matthew 3:1-17

  I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where
      will my help come?
  My help comes from the Lord, who made
      heaven and earth.
  (Psalm 121:1-2, NRSV)

  [Jesus said,] "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
  (John 3:17, NRSV)

I just found out that not only was Tian Chua arrested yesterday (see Malaysiakini report) but a friend of mine, Ginie Lim, was also arrested for taking photographs of the investigating officer, Inspector Hidayak who ordered several police officers using force to carry away Tian Chua into the police lockup. The police claimed that she was obstructing the duties of the police.

This morning, both Tian Chua and Ginie together with the other detainee who was arrested with Tian, Jalauddin Abdul Manap, were slapped with a three day remand order. How the heck this could be justified in Ginie's case defies me!

Ariff Abdul has an appeal request on his blog that we can all join in to pressure for the immediate charging or the release of the three detainees.

I can understand if the average ground ranking police officer has no choice but to take orders from their superiors. But their superiors should be aware of both the spirit and the letter of the law and not allow themselves to be made lackeys of politicians who are intent on staying in power, no matter what the cost!

This is clearly a case of 知法犯法 (breaking the law despite knowing the law!)

.. by chemically laced water fired from high pressure water cannons with a cocktail of tear gas. Apparently up to 200 people have been arrested (source: Malaysiakini) including 20 children (source: Campaign of Roses). Reuters and BBC also has more coverage on this incident.

Maybe some background on today's outrage is called for. On November 25, 2007 tens of thousands of Malaysians of Indian descent took to the streets to protest decades of discriminatory policies that have left the community among one of the poorest in the country. The catalyst that led to this was a series of demolishments of Hindu temples over a period of more than a year. The protests was met by a severe crackdown on the streets with police violence and 5 leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force or HINDRAF, the movement that organised the protests, were arrested under admnistrative detention using the Internal Security Act 1960.

With the date of the General Elections finally announced (see Malaysiakini for more news), the various political parties are mobilising their campaign machinery to convince voters that they ought to be given the mandate to administer the nation on our behalf for the next five years. The Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM); an umbrella body encompassing the Roman Catholic Church, the Council of Churches of Malaysia and the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship; has launched a non partisan campaign to increase the awareness of Malaysian Christians on their obligation to vote and the implications of their voting.

1. To pray for an election campaign that is clean, fair and that does not heighten ethnic and religious tensions.
2. To encourage all eligible Christian voters to exercise their right to vote.
3. To disseminate widely the Vote Wisely leaflet to all church members, and to have it reproduced in Sunday Bulletins and Church Newsletters.

I think we've all seen it .. the gratuitious propaganda that's been aired on TV with the tagline Berlainan Parti - Satu Identiti (Different Parties - One Identity). The message is simple and possibly effective, especially for people whose main source of information are the state-abused media (RTM, Bernama) and the Barisan Nasional proxy owned media (Media Prima outlets, the mainstream newspapers) - that the parties opposing the Barisan Nasional are street thugs (which I guess includes the Bar Council since they are also prominently figured in the clip).

I reckon two can play at the same game, and I didn't even need to splice unrelated video clips together or superimpose any heads ;)

And yes, this is no parody - its an opinion and a genuine fear. Look at the "weapon" the dude on the ground is carrying. Its a printed leaflet. Now tell me, which conscientious regime would have anything to fear from the printed word?!

It's official. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has flipped again and announced the dissolution of Parliament (source: Malaysiakini) ahead of General Elections just one day after denying that the deed will be done today.

Thanks for doing it right in the middle of Chinese New Year. I guess some are hoping to catch 30% of the population unprepared. So much for the absolute confidence in electoral support for the Barisan Nasional and the brave chest beating about not being afraid of Anwar Ibrahim contesting the elections (he is legally barred from contesting until April this year).