“A matter of choice” / Updates / ‘kickdefella’ support

A fellow blogger has commented that he just started a new one called Cendana Blues~Addicted to Politics. His other blog is: Recovery From Drug Addiction (in Malaysia).

As he made some comments here, I decided to reciprocate.

Here’s my post:

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Hi Mat,

Saw your comments at my blog. Thought I’d put in a word or two.

In particular, you mentioned:

“Since politics is generally a dirty business, I’m gonna get dirty and be dirty too.”

Well, it doesn’t have to be dirty.

Those who stoop so low will always be caught – in Malaysia or elsewhere. Some may take longer – like Stalin, some quicker – like Bush. No one is an island.

Malaysia-in-progress: Another blogger arrested

Another blogger, Syed Azidi Syed Aziz has been arrested for sedition, as reported abt 15 mins ago by The Star.

According to The Star:

Weeks earlier, Syed Azidi had confessed that he feared he would be arrested because of his online appeal to fly the national flag upside down as a sign of protest towards certain Federal Government policies.

Question: How many blogs have this symbol?

Not going to speculate

If you can imagine, it’s worth a try – visualise yourself watching a particularly lousy B-movie: where the baddies keep coming, they’re disposed off quickly by the heroine, then you notice an anomaly – the bad guys look similiar. An epiphany: budget limitations results in recycling extras/baddies; hence, they’re the same guys/gals playing different characters.

Currently, that’s how it reads to me:

• Anwar: ‘We’re going to topple the government. No, wait – they left for Taiwan. Never mind, now we have 31 that crossed the aisle, update 1 2. I’m waiting for update 3.

• Raja Petra was visited by his family at “the police headquarters” and he is not on hunger strike, but his condition is not good (pls read link above). His treatment under ISA? ““He said he was never physically abused, but was mentally abused”.

• According to our Prime Minister, “The Internal Security Act (ISA) is good but its enforcement should be rational and fair“.

This is where I disagree.

Sir, all laws are justified – it is not for private citizens (like me) to claim any law I disagree with is not justified and, under protest, to defy it. That will be mayhem.

Malaysia-in-progress – 15th Sep 2008 / Monday

Today

• Law Minister of Malaysia just resigned over inappropriate use of ISA laws on Malaysian civilians.

UPDATE: Badawi has refused to accept Zaid Ibrahim’s resignation – 10.00pm today

• One of the detainees, Raja Petra Karmaruddin, is on a hunger strike. Due to his medical condition, this might be fatal. Haris Ibrahim, a blogger, is raising the issue and asking for assistance.
• Detainees, Teresa Kok and Raja Petra, and their lawyers have filed for habeas corpus.

My thoughts:

• For background info in my posts on ISA, please click tag (bottom of page): “Suppression under ISA“.

• Zaid Ibrahim, as Minister of Law, has taken a principled decision to leave our government. He should be applauded because that must have been agonising – can he make a difference whilst on the inside or should he leave to make a louder one-off protest – but then lose all internal decision-making influence within the Cabinet.
• Zaid’s resignation, and the whole saga of using ISA by our government, is gaining traction in international news. And that’s good because now our ministers will have to face the rest of the world and explain why, as politicians, the do NOT make decisions – except our Minister of Law.
• Final point: Was he not consulted? Why does he hold the portfolio? Does Badawi’s Cabinet even know what is Zaid Ibrahim’s role in the government?

A new template / What just happened?

As you can see, this is a new template. For several reasons:

1) It’s a cleaner look. No more clutter on the wings.

2) Better navigation. All links are now below. The top links – words between vertical bars – are the new pages. Also, the ‘Home’ which was duplicated in the prior theme is now removed. The landing page should be obvious, “Our Table?” … or not.

3) As requested, I’ve added info on my background = “Who and Why”.

4) This theme is from Derek Powazek, an ‘old’ web designer (in internet years). He writes for A List Apart, one of the oldest blogging sites around, and one of the first sites based entirely on CSS. Very nice site.

5) I don’t normally use RED as the contrast colour, but in this case it sure works.

On Malaysia’s lack of integrity: Badawi really screwed it up over the weekend. It appears the POLICE decides who to detain? What about the A-G? What about the Cabinet? I’m not quite sure if the police force has the authority. I have not read the legislation, but delegating to the police is the lowest I have heard.

More importantly, amongst other absurd developments, ministers are now not making decisions on ISA matters because, get this, ‘we are politicians‘.

3 Malaysians arrested under ISA on 12th Sep 2008

Yesterday, Friday, 12th Sep 2008, my government arrested the following individuals under the Internal Security Act (see also AP-GoogleNews):

1) Raja Petra Kamarudin, editor of Malaysia Today.

2) TAN Hoon Cheng, reporter at Sin Chew Daily

3) Teresa KOK, DAP and Seputeh Member of Parliament

Local politicians, civic organisations and international press:

• Bar Council of Malaysia released a statement.
• Anwar Ibrahim released a statement and Lim Kit Siang / DAP’s statement.
• List of international websites reporting the detention under ISA (via Google News).
• See Al-Jazeera’s article on the use of Internal Security Act in Malaysia
• updated: 14th Sep 2008 – Activists slam Malaysia over crackdown on dissent (Huffingtonpost)

All these started from a by-election in Permatang Pauh, Penang (see my first post) and here (Economist).

Whilst most Malaysians look forward to the weekend, three of my fellow countrymen, are stuck behind walls – calling them ‘prisoners of conscience’ is not half of it.

What is Democracy? Who cares – I want my Judiciary!

(This post is going to require a cuppa or two for a slow read, and please remember at least one person is held under ISA because we’re not quite sure what’s going on in Malaysia at the moment.)

First, pls see my post on ‘Malaysians still blinking like Magoo‘. Note near the end I mentioned how ‘democracy’ is misused.

Second, I read an article by Irene Fernandez, whom I blogged on, here: “Malaysia – 10th Sep for Irene Fernandez“. Today, she posted an article at Malaysiakini: “Is 50 years enough“, as a reply to Dr Denison Jayasooria, Executive Director of MIC’s Social Strategic Foundation, where at the end she says:

Is it morally wrong to move forward the process so that we practice genuine democracy, we fight corrupton and instill good governance, we protect the rights of the people, we ensure our resources and our land is protected not just for ourselves but for our children and we free our women, children and ourselves from the violence of the state institutions? Is this transformation immoral?

Her argument is simply that we’ve screwed up for 50 years and we need to, morality requires us to, fix the crappy state of affairs in Malaysia.

I do not disagree with her.

But here’s the problem. Is democracy about good governance? Is democracy about protecting our resources and our land? More to the point, read what she said earlier in the article:

20 years on – Malaysians still blinking like Magoo

I know I said I’m going quiet.

But this is where we are today – 20 years after the dismissal of our Lord President Tun Salleh Abbas and 2 other Supreme Court judges (Tan Sri Wan Suleiman and Datuk George Seah).

A report was released 2 weeks ago, ‘Review of the 1998 Judicial Crisis in Malaysia (26 July 2008)‘ and 20 years on, Malaysians are still like blinking Magoo, the famously nearsighted character who always admonished himself, “Oh Magoo, you’ve done it again!”. Sound familiar?

Oh Malaysia, you’ve done it again – Raja Petra of Malaysia Today was detained today under ISA (Malaysiakini).

There are many who see the event in 1988 as a political cause celebre – the famous Karpal Singh asking Mahathir to apologise, a blogger believing Mahathir has every right to condemn the report, and Malaysia’s Bar Council members posing for photos and getting authographs on the report.

Is that it? Politicians writing letters, Bar Council Presidents (current and former) taking photographs and others issuing statements? Let’s not pass the buck so much anymore, and raise the bar a little this time – let’s understand what happened in 1988 and repercussions it has on Malaysia today, 20 years later.