See, I got two pens in my pocket.
Woo hoo! Two pens … mine, all mine
Look ma, two pens!
Son, you don’t know what you’re missing (Mukhriz no pen)
Pen is good …
If you borrow my pen and don’t return it, I still got one more.
Yup, someone borrowed my other pen. Give it back!
To be on the safe side, I’m carrying three pens. You never know …
Make that four … 1, 2, 3, 4 pens …
Those who write history, those who record history
My eye – due to a past career and training in journalism – was struck by the sight of Tun’s two (even three) pens in his pocket.
Reporters have traditionally been armed with notebook and pen. Although if you must know, I’m not so much a pen person. I prefer pencils. Sometimes I carry in my rucksack a pencil box with half a dozen pencils, a sharpener and an eraser.
Someone asked me the other day whether I still saw myself as a journalist. I replied ‘No’.
I’ve left the newspaper profession a dozen years already. Today I’m an online chronicler, that’s all.
It’s like this. Quite simply – as history unfolds before us, I put my pen to paper observing the flow. I try to view events objectively and put it down for the record.
I’m compelled to do this because the 90 percent Chinese, blinded by their hatred and hubris, are just not able to see things as they really are. In the years to come, I’m sure that shall be able to say with certainty, “I told you so”.
Will the real Najib please stand up?
Tun is the history maker in Malaysia and of Malaysia. He is writing our country history even as we speak …
I appreciate the fact that Dr M writes a lot … the pens in his pocket are a telltale sign.
Through his voluminous writings, the Tun gives us ordinary rakyat a direct line to his thoughts. (One admirer of the ex-premier even compiled his 22 years’ worth of Umno keynote speeches in book form under the published title Pemikiran Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad.)
Najib Razak, on the other hand, appears not to personally write his own speeches or messages.
The stuff churned out by the PM’s overpaid speechwriters, especially the one(s) whose favourite word(s) is “tiang seri” and “tuntas”, does not engage us because it is mediated word, i.e. not coming directly from Najib’s own mind.
With Tun, what he says is what he thinks. With Najib, his personality is lost and buried under the too many layers of consultants blurring the PM’s public persona.
Dear Tun, please revisit the Malay dilemma
Tun has been asked many times by various people to revisit his Malay Dilemma.
I’m into my third reading of it actually.
The first I read was a copy I borrowed from the uni library when I was an undergrad. I’d thought then that Dr M’s most controversial piece of work was something outdated because eugenics – he complained that rural Malays used to marry their own first cousins – is passe. I was quite disinterested and The Malay Dilemma left no distinct impression on me.
My second time reading was a 2009 reprint of the Marshall Cavendish edition. In that round, my reaction was negative as Tun expressed what appeared to me to be overly harsh opinions of the Chinese race.
Now as I’m rereading The Malay Dilemma a third time, I approach its narrative as someone who has glimpsed the nature of the DAP beast. They’ve been in power in Penang and Selangor close to seven (6-and-¾) years … long enough for us to realise what kind of people they are.
Her Royal Roundness, Our FirstLady Speaker
Tun’s printed word in his 1970 book remains unchanged. It is my perspective as a reader that has shifted. Before 2008, the DAP had never tasted power. Hence we had no opportunity to appraise how they will fare when power is thrust into their hands.
Pasca-PRU12, apabila kaduk naik junjung, fuyoh.
The decaying of the Alliance-BN has been a slow and steady deterioration over six decades. By comparison, the decline and fall of the DAP has been a rocket ride – hurtling into the abyss, all in a mere seven short years.
3Gs + 1 – Gold, self-Glory, Gospel & GREEDY – are what characterize the evangelical party today
How long did it take the MCA to look this prosperous like the DAP Yang Berhormats below?
Before picking up Dilemma, I’d read the government White Paper, otherwise known as the Mageran report on the May 13 race riots. The feeling was a deja vu. The behaviour of opposition Chinese in that fatal month, as described by the 1969 report, is repeating itself here and now.
Spooky how the 1969 Chinese are facsimiled in the Chinese of our present day.
The Father Kit Siang & the Son Guan Eng
What Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad wrote in The Malay Dilemma
<QUOTE>
“The Malays were disenchanted because in their eyes, the Government continually favoured the Chinese and had failed to correct the real imbalance in the wealth and progress of the races. In airing their grievances they antagonized the non-Malays, especially the Chinese.
“The Chinese demands increased as Government concessions whetted their appetite. At first, Chinese moderates thought that the demands of the chauvinists were useful to keep the Malays in check, but soon the moderates became the victims of their own strategy.
“To retain their influence, they had to fall in line with the chauvinists. Needless to say, this antagonized and revived the distrust of more and more Malays. The cleavage between Malays and non-Malays was thus being continually and inexorably deepened.” (page 24)
… “soon the moderates became the victims of their own strategy [and to] retain their influence, they had to fall in line with the chauvinists” – this was Tun’s description of the MCA in 1969.
It is a valid description of the MCA today and how the BN Chinese party has been falling in line with the DAP.
Ada apa ‘Ubah’?
How Tun described race relations in 1969:
• “… in their own [Malay and Chinese] world, their values are not merely different but are often conflicting. If it is accepted that there never was true racial harmony, then it is easier to trace the relationship between the Malays and the non-Malays through history …” (p.14)
• “Large sections of the Malays in the countryside hardly met the Chinese at all, and the same could be said of the Chinese in the larger towns and the tin mines.” (p.15)
[2014: The same could be said of large sections of the Malays in the Terengganu countryside even today, the Melayu pekat state from which Isma president Abdullah Zaik hails.]
• “From that time on [1946, Malayan Union] Sino-Malay attitudes became national politics …” (p.17)
• “Only during the period immediately preceding Independence was there some semblance of harmony between the races in Malaya. Prior to that, what has often been carelessly referred to as racial harmony was in fact a negative quantity – the absence of open conflict.” (p.18)
• “Umno came into being because of the Malay fear of losing out to the Chinese. The honeymoon period immediately before and after Independence lessened this fear, but it was never really absent. For so long as the Chinese, or at least the fairly numerous adherents of the Malaysian Chinese Association, cooperated, this fear remain subdued. But the gradual divergence of the leaders from the stated policies of Umno, and the continuous and more forthright demands of the Chinese within and outside the MCA, soon awakened the old fears. Umno leaders chose to appease the Chinese, depending partly on the power of patronage and the usual docility of the Malays to keep party followers in line. But the decision to disregard the mild criticisms and the failure to appreciate the steady defection of supporters soon had its effect. Umno weakened, until by the time of 1969 elections, its strength had so eroded that it had to rely on promises of huge discriminatory Government spending in order to gain support in some stubborn areas.” (p.20)
• “One would have thought that the more intelligent members of the Government would have recognized the signs. The Sino-Malay riots in Bukit Mertajam in 1964 and the Hartal Riots in Penang in 1968 were plainly indicative of the trend. But the Government was apparently oblivious to what went on around it. Secure in its absolute majority in Parliament, it was openly contemptuous of criticism. Policies were made which completely ignored public opinion.” (p.21)
[2014: Does the Najib administration sound a lot like the Tunku’s Alliance administration, eh?]
• “… the Government started off on the wrong premise. It is believed that there had been racial harmony in the past and that the Sino-Malay cooperation to achieve Independence was an example of racial harmony. It is believed that the Chinese were only interested in business and the acquisition of wealth, and the Malays wished to become Government servants. These ridiculous assumptions led to policies that undermined whatever superficial understanding there was between the Malays and non-Malays. On top of this the Government, glorifying in its massive strength became contemptuous of criticism directed at it either by the opposition or its own supporters. The gulf between the Government and the people widened so that the Government was no longer able to feel the pulse of the people or interpret it correctly. It was therefore unable to appreciate the radical change in the thinking of the people from the time of the Independence and as the 1969 elections approached.” (p.26)
<UNQUOTE>
Source: The Reluctant Politician; publisher: ISEAS Singapore, 2007
What Tun Dr Ismail, the late Deputy Prime Minister, had said:
[The Sedition Act was also in part to protect the weaknesses of the MCA from attack by the DAP]
• “Thus in the 1969 elections the sensitive issues of National Language and Special Rights handicapped the Alliance generally and caused the bloodshed of May 13th. We therefore enshrined the issues in the Constitution as subjects that cannot be raised in any form by the Opposition. Thus the weakness of our partners is protected. In future the MIC and the MCA cannot turn to Umno and say they face difficulties with these issues because from now on they will not be troubled by such issues. In future we require an agreement on the implementation of policy and less time should be spent explaining to each other the issues already accepted as part of the Alliance policy. In the future we should concentrate on the proper implementation of the National Language and the protection of the Special Rights of the Malays and defend the citizenship of the non-Malays.
• “These three issues should be the basis of frank and sincere discussion among the three partners of the Alliance in order that we can achieve a respectable victory in the next general elections. But if we fall back on the old ways and speak without candour and sincerity and ‘sweep the problems under the carpet’ I think the Alliance will lose even more seats in the next general elections. If we do not achieve such an understanding then we may as well dissolve the marriage rather than continue with a relationship where we are all shy to live and afraid to die.” (p.237)
Hidup segan, mati tak mahu – itulah MCA.
Above we have the perspectives of a prime minister and a deputy prime minister who lived through May 1969.
No more Malay-majority seats for MCA, please!
To secure the political future of the BN, the question of the Malay-majority seats lost by the MCA in the last general election has to be settled.
It is true that 90 percent of the Chinese voters rejected the ruling party – see table below.
Analysis at https://dahalmi.wordpress.com
As to how Dah Ikhwan @ dahalmi.wordpress got his figures, you can counter-check for yourself using the regression mathematical formula, found at http://www.alcula.com/calculators/statistics/linear-regression/
Just fill in the data – in this case the independent (x) and dependent (y) variables are:
x – percentage of Chinese registered voters in each seat
y – percentage of votes won by PR in each seat
Kuala Lumpur has a high percentage of Chinese voters so you can test it out. Data from the 11 KL parliamentary seats yields the line graph below, showing the correlation, i.e. the more Chinese voters in each seat, the more votes given to the opposition.
“If you click on ‘correlation coefficient’, it’ll tell you how strong the relationship is between the two variables. In this case, it is 0.988 which is very strong and indicates this is a very good model for explaining the results for KL. Do the same for Penang island …” – blogger Oik
Only 10.8 percent of the Chinese on average across the peninsula voted for BN in the last general election.
There’s no way that BN will be able to recover Chinese support, especially when MCA is playing to the DAP tune and the MCA media going uber evangelista screaming at the “racists”, “extremists”, “religious bigots” and castigating (potential) Bible burners.
MCA is a lost cause
MCA deputy president Wee Ka Siong today said, “Our target is the political enemy, and not within Barisan. We need to understand how Umno and MCA work together and to remember that we are in the same boat”.
Wee is responding to Umno supreme council member Puad Zarkashi who proposed that Malay-majority seats should not be contested by MCA and Gerakan in GE14.
He is being disingenuous as we hardly ever see the MCA fighting the DAP. Instead they are in concert, such as when both parties lodged police reports against the Isma president. As well in other matters, the MCA and the DAP have been taking a common stand of late.
More obviously, the MCA behaves as if its political enemy is Umno. MCA does not pull in the same direction as the rest of BN but is instead working against BN interests.
Former three-term MCA Subang Jaya Adun, Lee Hwa Beng previously revealed, “Umno is the real MCA opponent”.
MCA’s Gunting Dalam Lipatan stabbing BN in the back
Umno is playing the hand from its deck of cards that the Malays, as inheritors of land Tanah Melayu, are dealt with.
DAP is playing poker and bluffing. The party acts like it’s got jokers in the pack. Truth is it doesn’t. The Chinese are plain delusional to believe that the DAP somehow have an ace up its sleeve. Nyet.
The Malays, in reaction to the DAP mencarut, provokasi, penghinaan, fitnah, putar-belit dan tipu bohong, will just dig in their heels and revert this country to becoming Tanah Melayu once again.
Tun says “Malaysia is Tanah Melayu”
Malaysia is built on the Persekutuan Tanah Melayu 1957 and Persekutuan Tanah Melayu 1948. The “Special Position” was already protected by both the earlier constitutions.
Look at it as Malaysia is a continuation of Tanah Melayu 1957 which was a continuation of Tanah Melayu 1948 which was a continuation of the Negeri-Negeri Melayu.
Thanks largely to Umno’s good graces, two million Chinese received citizenship between 1952 and 1960 at a time when the total population was only seven million. However what we have today is a Chinese population parroting the DAP’s version of history.
‘Malaysia layak digelar sebagai negara Islam – Tun Mahathir‘ (Utusan, 17 June 2014)
Our country’s future direction
Tun has declared that Malaysia qualifies to be called Negara Islam. Isma also says the same thing.
Recently on Tuesday, Tun and Isma shared the same public stage in what could have been the first time. It was a significant visual signal.
It is true that the Umno president Najib is in command of the loyalty of his party leaders due to the patronage he is able to dispense, and he does throw money around (e.g. the multi-billion ringgit consultancy bill).
But how do the Umno grassroots and Malay ground feel? Do more of them share Isma’s aspirations than they do Najib’s transformasi vision?
Helen Ang 
Ms H. All doctors carry at least one pen and a note book for follow-up. The fear engendered to those who did not perform gave rise to the believe that TDM was authoritarian !
A man asked Prophet Muhammad what was the mark whereby he might gauge the reality of his own faith. Muhammad said, “If you derive pleasure from the good which you have done and you are grieved for the evil which you have committed, then you possess true faith.” The man asked: “In what does a fault really consist?” Prophet Muhammad answered: “When an action pricks at your conscience, abandon it.”
All actions are judged by the motives prompting them. So we should guard the integrity of our conscience.
Abdullah, syabas !
Abdullah, and as we slowly move along day by day, who is a better fellow, the good Dr or the big bad lawyer ? The beauty of this comparison is now for all to see !
Tuan, siapakah doktor buruk giler itu yang di fahamkan?
The authoritative Dr. Mahathir and President Susilo Bambang have condemned the cruel authoritarianism of the ISIS forces.
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/time-for-all-to-condemn-islamic-state-for-their-violence
And Dr. Mahathir has also called on Islamic thinkers to unite intellectually to free society from the foulness of dictatorship.
http://english.astroawani.com/news/show/islamic-scholars-thinkers-must-unite-free-themselves-dictatorship-dr-m-48222
“‘Wee is responding to Umno supreme council member Puad Zarkashi who proposed that Malay-majority seats should not be contested by MCA and Gerakan in GE14.””
At this point in time this statement is fair game.
But the same can also be said the other way around.
In the current situation ppl Khairi, Nazri, Azlina Hishamuddin and gang cannot be given the privilegee to able to be sitting in their kampung and becoming MP.
Do any of them have the balls to be a MP candidate for one the bigger towns.
Ok if asking them to become a MP for one of the bigger towns is asking to much then how bout a MP in Kedah or Trengganu?
You think they dare.
Jaguh Kampung dont work nowdays.
Beastof burden,
Finally those who’s who in UMNO beginning to accept the reality that others have been seeing for years. That it does not serve UMNO or BN or anyone by UMNO patronising MCA or rather providing lifeline to dying MCA.
Which is why the call for UMNO to contests in Malay areas instead of allowing a number of Malay seats contested by MCA was published front paged in Utusan yesterday. It is a paradigm shift, a signal to MCA that it must be willing to lock horn with DAP in Bagan, Petaling Jaya Utara, Ipoh Barat among others.
I expect UMNO to contest in Kulim. For decades, it loans Kulim seat to MCA only to be “rewarded” by MCA members voting for DAP in areas like Gelang Patah.
The era of subsidizing useless party like MCA is over. UMNO should care not if MCA loses. after all, it still rules the land without Chinese support.
Sorry, it does not work that way in politics. Hisham maybe a big name but i don’t want him to represent my area because he’s not from here. I want my “jaguh kampung” who knows the local situation, our geography, demographics, history and economy and can put that knowledge to work for us. For that reason I would not vote for Wan Azizah if I were in Kajang.
Jaguh Kampung dont work nowdays by winning battles but losing the war.
“”’Sorry, it does not work that way in politics.””’
So how does politics work, are there any blueprints to this?
So a few sacrificial individuals are permitted even if its from your own team.
If LTH Datuk Azeez can go Kedah and win a parlimentary seat, how is it possible. Bukan semua orang suka dia, look like indian can speak fluent tamil too.
So orang Kedah or Baling buta and bodoh ke they do not know how politics work.
Azeez is not the example you want to use. He does go to back to his contituency more than LKS goes to Johor. I hear he’s accessible to his contituents, so they are ok with him.
I don’t know about a blueprint but as a voter, wouldn’t you be looking for someone who would make your area a better place? And don’t you think that someone from your area, who has family ties and roots in your area would do a better job of looking after your interests than an outsider?
DSN perlu bersyukur masih ada golongan pemimpin veteran yang masih ada untuk tegur menegur apa yg baik dan apa yang tak elok. Kita tengok LKS, tanpa arah tuju asyik nak Ubah entah apa, nak ikut cara Obama ke cara Hitler ke cara Moa atau ikut kepala otak mereka ke?
Kasi kepala otak pengikut dia melelong sampai nama Tuhan pun depa nah ubah, ikut Munshi Abdullah pulak!
Singapore mock riot a “meaningful collaboration”.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/riot-exercise-with/1468980.html
You really have to admire the Singaporean government.
‘… “soon the moderates became the victims of their own strategy [and to] retain their influence, they had to fall in line with the chauvinists”
How true. TDM’s observation is correct even today and is not limited to MCA alone.
It’s shocking to me that friends and family whom I thought were mature, wise and fair-minded moderates turned out to be chauvinists at heart. To fall prey to one’s own folly is forgivable but to sacrifice your principles to consequently adopt the resulting abomination, is inexcusable.
Jaguhkampong still works from what you observe our forms of electroll roll varies from one to the other constituency further that the pattern of voting the urban the semi urban and the rural areas totally different that’s why there are cases the more urban accusing the rural people stupid can’t imagine why.
To say winning the battle and lost the war i.e the ubah dan ini kali lah to quote was a fail move by the opposition and then came the tsunami cina and it’s bygone. Though malaysian politics and it’s politicians were oppressive somehow like a tyrant, look at kajang move real giler fuyo to suit their own lust for power.
“soon the moderates became the victims of their own strategy [and to] retain their influence, they had to fall in line with the chauvinists” …But let’s leave that for another day because today my “favourite” Uncle is happy and celebrating. And you can actually feel the love reaching out through his words.
http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2014/11/14/let-the-amicable-resolution-to-the-selangor-issue-of-the-seizure-of-malay-language-bibles-and-malaysias-assumption-of-asean-chair-usher-in-a-virtuous-cycle-of-moderation-and-establish-malaysi/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+limkitsiang%2Frss+%28Lim+Kit+Siang%29
But wait, we can’t be too happy. We need to be happy with caution – “…there is urgent need for Malaysians to avoid narrow communalism which could go against the spirit of a Malaysian community, …to give national substance and relevance to his Global Movement of Moderates (GMM) initiative.”
http://politikputramerdeka.blogspot.com/2014/11/umno-bila-nak-buang-pudin-trojan-ni.html
Not gonna happen. I don’t think he’s even going to be pressured to resign. There’s a whole bunch of liberals at the top level of Umno.
Btw, I like some of the urban dictionary’s definition for liberals, which I think describes this man and his GMM friends so accurately – Liberals are persons so open minded that their brains have fallen out; those who have abandoned logic and reason, and rely on ‘warm fuzzys’ as a sound basis for the making of decisions.
re: “‘warm fuzzys’ as a sound basis”
How to define Anak Bangsa Malaysia? Not by nationality parameters such as competency in the national language, knowledge of the country’s history, constitution, etc.
SABM is the Nasi Lemak index. The louder you express your love for Nasi Lemak, the more iconically “Malaysian” you project yourself to be.
Anak Bangsa Malaysia is that feeling in the heart, see http://harismibrahim.wordpress.com/2007/08/30/the-mind-and-heart-of-anak-bangsa-malaysia/
‘SABM is the Nasi Lemak index. The louder you express your love for Nasi Lemak, the more iconically “Malaysian” you project yourself to be.’
Bulls eye!
‘The Father Kit Siang & the Son Guan Eng’
Uncanny. Can’t wait to see how the grandson Lim would turn out to be. With a mother like betty si botak, I bet he would outdo his father in every way!
‘Do more of them share Isma’s aspirations than they do Najib’s transformasi vision?’
The fact that UMNO is struggling, trying hard to move away from the right, answers it all. I mean how many UMNO ministers had zumba themselves to public mockery like KJ does?