Category: Idiot Overlords

Hudud Laws

A feud: Nik Aziz wants to implement Hudud (حدود) Laws in Kelantan. Anwar Ibrahim expresses his personal support while Karpal Singh will die before he sees that happen.

Me? I think everyone is just making a whole lot of noise for no good reason. Chillax!

Personally, I think that it is silly to jump at the Hudud bogeyman. Malaysia is unique in that it already has two sets of laws in the country – regular laws derived from the Common Law system, and Syariah Laws that are derived from the Islamic system.

And there is one provision in our Constitution that I have faith in – Article 4(1):

This Constitution is the supreme law of the Federation and any law passed after Merdeka Day which is inconsistent with this Constitution shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.

That alone, helps me sleep better at night, knowing that whatever form of Hudud Law that Nik Aziz wants to implement in Kelantan, would need to be in-line with the Constitution. Otherwise, it’s essentially null and void.

So, as a reasonable person and soon-to-be law student, I will wait till the details are worked out before worrying about it too much.

PS: If they chop off the hands of pick-pockets, I wonder what they’d do to those who rob the nation…

Informant Taxis

WTF??I recently read in an article that, “In a bid to battle graft, taxi drivers are being asked to be informers for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.”

Hahahahaha! ROFLOL!

I wonder when did someone from the government last take a taxi ride incognito. Whenever I take a taxi in Malaysia, I am immediately told that, “tak pakai meter” or “sebut harga”

That’s the funny part of things. Taxi drivers are part of the systemic corruption in our country by refusing to charge according to the meter or quoting direct prices for transporting someone from point A to point B. They are part of the problem, not the solution.

It’s kind of sad that our government now has to rely on people like these to become informants. While I can understand that informants are usually miscreants who are part of the corrupting system but this is just funny.

I would rely more on technology and stick CCTV cameras and microphones inside every taxi that are then stored within the vehicle and sent back for analysis periodically. This would also double as a security system for the drivers themselves.

Then again, what can I expect from the MACC?

Hell Freezeth Over?

Has hell frozen over? I think not yet.

While I will give our dearest PM the benefit of the doubt, I’ve been Malaysian long enough to be utterly skeptical at his announcements on the eve of Malaysia Day speech:

Rakyat Malaysia yang dikasihi sekalian,

23. Sepertimana yang saya janjikan dalam ucapan sulung saya semasa mula-mula mengambil alih jawatan Perdana Menteri pada 3 April 2009, bahawa Akta Keselamatan Dalam Negeri 1960 (yakni ISA) akan dikaji secara komprehensif. Sehubungan dengan itu, suka saya mengumumkan pada malam yang bersejarah ini, bahawa Akta Keselamatan Dalam Negeri 1960 (yakni ISA) akan dimansuhkan terus.

Yippee! The Internal Security Act is going to be repealed!

24. Untuk mencegah perbuatan subversif, keganasan terancang dan perbuatan jenayah bagi memelihara ketenteraman dan keselamatan awam, dua undang-undang baru yang sesuai akan digubal di bawah semangat serta payung Perkara 149 Perlembagaan Persekutuan. Pokoknya, akta-akta ini nanti bermatlamat untuk memelihara keamanan, kesejahteraan, kesentosaan serta kerukunan hidup rakyat dan negara.

New public safety laws will be enacted – WTF?

25. Di atas segalanya, Kerajaan akan tetap memastikan hak asasi mereka yang terbabit terpelihara. Apa-apa undang-undang yang diperbuat akan mengambil kira hak dan kebebasan asasi berlandaskan Perlembagaan Persekutuan. Undang-undang baru ini akan memperuntukkan tempoh tahanan oleh polis yang secara substansialnya lebih pendek daripada apa yang ada sekarang dan apa-apa tahanan lanjut hanya boleh dibuat dengan perintah mahkamah kecuali undang-undang berkaitan keganasan, masih dikekalkan bawah kuasa Menteri.

Our subservient courts will be brought in to white-wash things?

26. Di sudut lain, kerajaan juga memberi komitmen bahawa mana-mana individu tidak akan ditahan semata-mata hanya kerana ideologi politik. Umumnya pula, kuasa untuk melanjutkan penahanan akan beralih daripada badan eksekutif kepada badan kehakiman kecualilah undang-undang berkaitan keganasan itu tadi.

No more political persecution?

27. Dalam konteks ini juga, selain memansuhkan Akta Keselamatan Dalam Negeri 1960, Kerajaan juga akan memansuhkan Akta Buang Negeri 1959 di samping mengkaji semula beberapa undang-undang lain bagi memastikan ia memenuhi kehendak semasa. Sehubungan dengan itu lagi, kita tidak akan teragak-agak untuk meminda atau memansuhkan undang-undang yang tidak lagi relevan.

Wow, more restrictive laws are going to be either repealed or amended.

28. Kajian semula komprehensif ini akan melibatkan Akta Kediaman Terhad 1933 dan Akta Mesin Cetak dan Penerbitan 1984 di mana prinsip pembaharuan tahunan akan dihapuskan dan digantikan dengan pengeluaran lesen sehingga dibatalkan. Kerajaan juga akan mengkaji semula seksyen 27 Akta Polis 1967 dengan mengambil kira peruntukan Perkara 10 Perlembagaan Persekutuan tentang kebebasan berhimpun dengan prinsip menentang sekeras-kerasnya demonstrasi jalanan. Namun, kebenaran berhimpun diberi selaras dengan kaedah-kaedah yang akan ditetapkan kelak disamping mengambilkira norma-norma di peringkat antarabangsa.

Hallelujah! Potential freedom to assemble – Bersih 3.0 FTW!

Misunderstanding Brain Drain

Our government does not understand brain drain in Malaysia. This is evidenced by our dearest PM’s latest remarks during the launching of Perdana University – Perdana University is a joint effort with the Johns Hopkins University and the Royal College of Surgeons – a graduate school of medicine.

He is quoted as saying that, “I hope the chance to study the best medical curriculum in the world will encourage more of our country’s top graduates to stay at home.”

????

While I do agree that the chance of studying with top medical expertise from Johns Hopkins might encourage more people to sign up for Perdana University, it has nothing to do with them choosing to leave the country after graduation.

If anything, this might actually precipitate a larger out-flow of brains as once these people are Johns Hopkins trained, they could feasibly move onto greener pastures abroad. The reason for this is simple.

Malaysians are leaving the country by the droves, not because of a lack of educational opportunities, but by the institutionalised problems in the country that stifle the best and brightest while rewarding mediocrity. We can see this all the time in the country.

And it makes perfect sense, in Malaysia.

So, while I congratulate our country for doing a ‘joint effort’ (whatever that means) with one of the best medical schools in the world, I pray that it won’t end up like MUST, which had something going with MIT (remember them?).

History is not Zombies

“All this has happened before and all this will happen again.” – BSG.

Today, our ex-former PM, the dear old Tun Dr M, was quoted in TheStar as saying that, “History cannot be reviewed as we cannot change what had happened. It is better to tell the truth about the nation’s past.” He was commenting on a recent statement by Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Khaled Nordin that the history syllabus for schools would be revised following new findings of the nation’s past.

When I read it, I almost puked.

This is the problem with our present education system. We tell our kids that there is only one version of our history and that they need to accept it on faith. As a result, we breed a whole generation of zombies that suffer more glitches than Dead Island.

My dearest Tun, you’re sorely mistaken. What we need is to bring up a generation of thinkers. In order to do this, we must push our kids to think for themselves and constantly challenge accepted norms. This is the only way that they can learn to ‘draw their own conclusions’.

As for history, there is always more than one version of it. History is all a matter of perspective. One man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist. That is why it is dubbed “his-story” as the tale depends on the point-of-view. This is more than true with our Malaysian history – viewed through a multitude of different coloured lenses.

I learned this important lesson while I was an undergraduate studying Malaysian Studies at a local university under DokMat. The very first lecture that DokMat had was to tell us that we should forget everything we’d learned in SPM history is it was wrong and he proceeded to re-write Malaysian history from the beginning.

I loved his classes. I hope that he is still doing this with his students today – mindfuck!

He provoked us to think and question what we have previously learned and not to just accept things as we were told. The only way to understand history is to question it. History, when taught in this manner, becomes a logical narrative and comes to life on its own accord.

My dearest Tun, this is the kind of history that we want our kids to learn – the kind that is filled with real people, real feelings, real motivations and dreams, taking real action with real consequences. History is multi-faceted and is not just a random sequence of events, dates and actors.

Learning history is about understanding all sides of the story so that we can learn the lessons of the past. We need to figure out how we got here today from where we once were. Otherwise, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes in the future.

I support reviewing our history syllabus to question the past, not to brainwash the young, to survive the future.

PS: I dare say that it was DokMat who awoke my socio-political consciousness and love for the nation. Without him, Malaysia would not make any logical sense at all.

Voter Registration Forms

Another process that is not well thought through from our government. While I laud the Elections Commission from making the voter registration forms readily available online, it is not as easy as it seems because – they provided three types of forms instead of one, with no instructions on which one to use.

The appropriate form needs to be downloaded, completed and submitted to the EC directly or to an assistant registrar like me. However, I am confused as I do not know whether I am allowed to collect all forms or just the ones I am normally allowed to use. I did not even know that there were different forms available.

To make it easy, anyone who wants to submit their forms to me should use the “NW” form available from the EC.

As for me, I wonder if I should write a programme to automatically extract the data from MyKAD and fill in the forms directly. This will allow me to keep digital copies of the forms and what nots. Just something to think about.

Also, if you can fill it up and email me the high-resolution scanned copies, I would be able to submit it directly to the EC on your behalf. I visit their offices quite regularly.

Multi-lingual R&D Talent

Reading a recent article from the BBC, what struck me was our government’s myopic and stubborn blindness at the biggest crisis that our country faces – brain drain.

In the article, a representative from Cyberview says that, “Our advantage is that our multilingual skills, and the talent we have here, is more globally accepted because of our multicultural mix.”

This is totally fine except that the problem we face is that, “Analysts say many companies end up doing their research and development overseas, partly because they cannot find the right talent.”

The high-technology companies in Malaysia are having difficulty finding the right kind of talent for research work and we’re harping the fact that we’ve got multi-lingual and multi-cultural advantages.

Which got me thinking – what has multi-lingual or multi-cultural stuff got to do with research and development skills and talent? Our government does not even understand the question, much less the answer.

This is totally sad.