Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Malaysia cannot send its forces to Lebanon.

Malaysia lost its opportunity to send its
soldiers under the U.N banner to Lebanon long before
the present crisis.From the moment the state of Israel
came to being, Malaysia has not recogised Israel and
do not have any diplomatic relations with the
country.Malaysia has predicated its foreign policy in
sympathy with the Palestine cause and that the common
thread was religion.Otherwise how could you explain
Malaysia's non-recognition of the state of
Israel?Israel has not offended nor threatened the
security of our country and yet we seem to regard
Israel as our enemy.
Israel has every right to reject Malaysia's
participation to send its forces to Lebanon for the
simple reason Malaysia cannot expect to be neutral in
case of any conflict because of its stance towards
IsraelWithout a doubt, Malaysia would
be on the side of the Hizbullah irrespective of who
was at fault.In the present conflict of Israel and
Hizbullah, Malaysia has levelled its criticism at
Israel without rebuking Hizbullah for the kidnapping
and killing of Israel's soldier in Israel'
territory.This alone has cast serious doubts on
Malaysia to be a country that can exert its authority
in Lebanon with fairness.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Petronas Hidden Agenda

Petronas is currenetly riding on a wave of
unprecedented financial success not of its making but
by a stroke of good fortune that seem to bless all oil
producing country.The profits generated from this
corporation which belongs to the govt of Malaysia and
by extension belongs to its citizen.
Since its inception it has not been transparent
in its financial reports and its actual financial
profile is only privy to a few top govt leaders.As a
citizen, may we ask the govt why are they perpetuating
such secrecy in their financial and managerial
performance.The govt is merely a custodian of our
nations resources and every citizen is surely entitled
to gauge and evaluate the performance of an entity
that generate so much wealth for the nation.
When an entity remains a recluse and its
financial record is hidden from public view, the only
conclusion we can surmise is that it has a hidden
agenda. And what may that secret hidden agenda be?
Petronas is first and foremost guilty of
discriminatory practice in its distribution of the
nation's wealth.100% of all petrol station are given
to malays to operate.Petronas offshore contracts are
selectively phased to bumiputra company with strong
political connections.Petronas employs 20,000 personel
and non-malays constitute only 1% of its
workforce.Even its Petronas university is not exempted
from discrimination with hardly a 10% non malay
enrolment being given places.
What about govt bailouts?The bailouts of Bank
Bumiputra,Bank Rakyat,BMF,and the Mahathir's son
Perkapalan sold to MISC and a host of others were all
malay business interests that were rescued with
Petronas funds.
All the above reasons clearly provides us with a
clear notion why the govt wish to keep Petronas record
a secret.It would have a hard time explaining to its
citizens why Petronas policies was so discriminatory
and skewed towards only one community.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Muslims do not have a choice in Malaysia.

I wish to refer to Raja Saeed's letter, 'choice
to leave yours.'
Either the writer is an Indonesian muslim or he
is totally ignorant of the prevailing Syariah Laws in
Malaysia.The constituition of malaysia explicitely
states that all malays are muslims and it is
impossible for any malay to renounce Islam and convert
to another religion.In other words,malays are born
muslims and die as muslims.No matter what the Koran
says that Islam do not practice compulsion, this does
not apply here in Malaysia.Simply put, the malays just
have no choice.They have to accept their chosen faith
by birth and apothasy is a luxury they dont enjoy.
However, if the writer is an Indonesian the
situation is different.There, inter-marriage between
christians and muslims are quite common and there is
no compulsion that each have to convert to the
other.Yes, here in Indonesia we have a choice and that
is the main difference in the way Islam is practice in
the two countries