Malaysians, what do we want?

For several of my previous posts, I’ve fallen into a habit of emphasising letters written to Malaysiakini because they are well thought out and makes a point. So, here we go again.

A well-written letter at Malaysiakini by Keith Leong, ‘Reject Sectarian Violence‘, has made several points which all of us can be proud of.

The most important is in the middle where Keith says:

What is necessary for the creation of a just and unified Malaysia is a citizenry that is active, virtuous and conscious of both their rights and responsibilities.

So, as a duty and responsibility, I will take up the challenge of UMNO Youth Secretary Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan, when he said on 8 Sep 2008 (The Star), there was ‘deafening silence‘ on the inappropriate actions by Anwar to become our next Prime Minister. Abdul Rahman also asked:

“Where are the voices of NGOs, Bar Council and bloggers who had voiced loudly the need to protect the rights of people?

My posts on the irresponsible words and actions of Anwar Ibrahim are here, here and here (chronologically). More importantly, I have also questioned our current Prime Minister here and our former Prime Minister here.

Dear Prime Minister: Whose truth? Whose facts?

(in support of A Joint Merdeka Day Message – available here)

On Wednesday, 3rd Sep 2008, our PM Abdullah Badawi said that we should ‘uphold truth without fear‘. Yet, I don’t think he understands the point.

It’s not the principle of telling the truth that Malaysians fear. So what if they did tell the truth? Will the relevant authorities act on principle? The last I heard, they are corrupt. Is that wrong? I also believe that they are quite incompetent. Is that also wrong? Finally, the banning of an entire website for comments relating to one post at Malaysia Today goes against the very grain of fairness and reason. Am I wrong to say this?

Anwar and his drama

The last time I checked, there were 26 million of us in Malaysia. However, Anwar thinks winning Permatang Pauh with an electorate of about 60,000 will make him the next Prime Minister of Malaysia. Anwar claimed, as reported by Al Jazeera yesterday:

Clearly the prime minister has lost the mandate of the country.

He needs to learn how to count.

In our general election last March, BN had more than 50% of the votes. Badawi is President of UMNO, and with UMNO forming the largest party in our coalition government (BN), Abdullah Badawi is the Prime Minister. We inherited our electoral system, called ‘first past the post‘, from the Brits when we got our independence in 1957 and I believe a local reporter, Jacqueline Ann Surin, did a pretty decent job explaining how it works. Obviously, Anwar did not read it.