Najib: 10-point solution subjected to state laws

Muslim group wants ban on open selling of pork in Penang - TMI

Tensions went up a notch in Penang today when a Muslim non-governmental organisation demanded that local authorities ban the open selling of pork in the state.

Solidarity and Charity Organisation (Isco) claimed that the selling of pork openly was a disregard to Muslim sensitivity in the state.

Its president, Abdul Rahman Makhtun, said in a letter to Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) president Datuk Patahiyah Ismail today that the council should be more aware of Muslim sensitivity as the animal was haram in Islam.

"Isco is worried that pork sellers are getting braver in selling the meat around George Town in places like Lebuh Chulia, Jalan Kuantan, Jalan C.Y. Choy and other locations.

"We ask MPPP to take action against the insensitive pork sellers by stopping or making the open selling of pork illegal. We also call for action against illegal hawkers and businesses," he said in the letter.

Copies of the letter were also sent to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng (pic), Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Mohd Rashid Hasnon and Penang Islamic Council (MAIPP) chairman Datuk Mohd Salleh Man.

The letters were delivered by Isco secretary Mohd Firdaus Humayoon to representatives from the respective offices on level three at Komtar today.

He was accompanied by, among others, Tanjung Umno Youth division vice-chief Mohd Yusmadi Mohd Yusof.

In an immediate response, Lim asked why the NGO and Umno were making this matter an issue now.

Lim, who was shown a copy of the letter by reporters at a function in Bayan Lepas, also said he was disappointed that Umno turned this into an issue and accused the party of provoking racial and religious sentiments.

"This is not new. This has been the practice since Barisan Nasional's days in government. Why did they not raise this during (former chief minister Tan Sri Dr Koh) Tsu Koon's time?

"Umno should learn from PAS. This is not an issue in Kelantan, which has more than 95% Muslims. Pork sellers there also hang up the meat in markets.

"You just cannot trust Umno or repeat the things it says. It will eat you up," he said, taking another swipe at the party.

Lim noted that the locations mentioned in Isco's letter were areas with a predominantly non-Muslim population, adding that the NGO and Umno were also not respecting the sensitivities of a multiracial society themselves.

On the NGO's suggestion that pork sellers be allowed to sell the meat in closed areas, he asked: "So we imprison them, build walls around them?"

He said those complaining about illegal hawkers should not discriminately find fault with pork sellers alone.

"If they talk about action against illegal hawkers, it must be action against all illegal hawkers.”

State Islamic Affairs, Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Committee chairman Datuk Abdul Malik Abul Kassim said he was aware of the complaint.

He said he would look into the matter.

The Penang government under Pakatan Rakyat has been criticised many times over the last few years for enforcement exercises against illegal hawkers in the state. The exercises have led to the state and its leaders, particularly Lim, being accused of selective enforcement against Malay hawkers.

Earlier this week, the state government was accused of this again, following an exercise organised by the southwest district office to demolish illegal structures in Teluk Bahang.

It was reported that a group of people tried to prevent the authorities from carrying out the action, and assistant district officer Abu Hassan Omar was assaulted in the process.

The police have since picked up and remanded seven people, including a local Perkasa leader, for investigation into the incident. – January 24, 2014.

Myanmar: Buddhists Kill at Least 48 Muslims

The UN has reported the storming of a village by a group of Buddhists in Myanmar at the beginning of this month which left at least 48 Muslims dead in its wake.

The international organization called for the Burmese government to open a swift and impartial investigation into the matter to determine those responsible for the killing. However, a presidential spokesman has denied these recent reports, and "strongly objects" to the UN's claims, saying their facts and figures are completely erroneous.

Kadir: PM has to change or he could be removed - Malaysiakini

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak needs to change  his ways and start doing the right things to ease the burden of the people, otherwise BN will risk losing the next general election, blogger Abdul Kadir Jasin said in his latest blogpost.

Kadir, who is now editor-in-chief of magazine publishing company Berita Publishing Sdn Bhd, listed out three scenarios for the future leadership of Najib, and said if he does not change, he risks being removed from his position, or BN risks losing the next general election if Najib continues with his ways.
                              
"One is for the PM to change and do the right thing to ease the hardship of the people. Two, for him to be removed if he does not change and three, he remains, nothing changes and the BN faces the risk of being thrown out at the next GE," Kadir wrote in his blog.

He also said that Najib should listen more to the "crying pain" of the people rather than listening to "market driven advisers", who Kadir said were "spooking" the PM with market rating downgrades.

51,000 uemployed bumiputera graduates

He said the government has done subsidy reductions in the past and the people have understood, but Kadir criticised the lumping together of all hikes at the end of 2013 and the beginning of this year when the rakyat needed money for their children’s schooling as “insensitive”.

He added that since Najib became prime minister, there has been a 30 percent jump in unemployed bumiputera graduates, which now stands at 51,000.

"So, should we not be worried?" he asked.

He said he was "disgusted" by the fact that almost half of the cabinet members were abroad during year end, at a time when floods were displacing thousands of Malaysians from their homes.

"I was told that those ministers who stayed back had to become caretakers to multiple portfolios. One had to be answerable to more than 10 ministries at a time. No wonder the Prime Minister's Office was so secretive about the PM's whereabouts," he said.

"Can they please not do this ever again? Or they just don't care," Kadir added.

Form 3 back to exam- based system this year?

 

Thousands of Form Three students nationwide,  the first batch of the Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah (Evaluation based on school work) (PBS) system implemented in 2011, are facing the prospect of their work in Form 1 and 2 being ignored as part of their final mark results.

Introduced by the Education Ministry, the system is supposed to reduce the reliance on examinations to determine the final results of the pupils like the Penilaian Menengah Rendah examination.

However, now it is understood that the Examinations Syndicate will rely solely on final examinations in October, to determine the results for this year.

Teachers and school administrators who attended a briefing by the syndicate recently revealed that this new development is bound to affect the policy introduced by Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

"Officers from the Education Syndicate have informed us that the Form One and Form Two reports by teachers will not be taken into consideration for Form Three.

"What is the use of teachers being asked to keep the evidence of the pupils (on their progress) for subjects like Bahasa Melayu, English, Maths, Science when in the end they would have to sit for an examination to determine their final results," the text message obtained by Malaysiakini read.

The matter was also confirmed by the anti-PBS system leader and the Suara Guru Masyarakat Malaysia working group chief, Mohd Noor Izzat Mohd Johari, who said he received similar information from teachers in Hulu Selangor.

"I received information that the examination system will be reimplemented for several subjects in October this year, based on what had been indicated by the examination syndicate. This is against the spirit of the PBS system that abolished the PMR examinations.

"I received information from a school administrator that the PBS evaluation done from 2011 to 2013 will not be used to determine the form three results. This means the PBS system employed from 2011 for pupils is a wasted effort."

'Stop system at once'

Noor Izzat expressed regret that the Education Ministry’s lack of commitment in taking action to resolve the problem, when it knew the system had its weaknesses, after promises to rectify them by April.

"I urge the PBS system be stopped immediately, and the ministry rectify it until it works or withdraw the PBS system once and for all," he said.

He and his group had earlier met Second Education Minister Idris Jusoh (centre in photo) last month to air their grouses over the system.

Noor Izzat said whatever that had been discussed with Idris seems to have fallen on deaf ears as seen by this recent development.

The issue PBS  also became a subject of debate among Umno delegates during the recent party AGM wanting the government to re-look into its implementation, and improve the system with  Muhyiddin giving the assurance that it would be improved by April.

Protest at ministry next month

Noor Izzat said a peaceful protest is planned for Feb 22, a result of teachers' dissatisfaction over  the PBS system and its various weaknesses.

"This is to pressure the ministry to either stop or abandon the PBS system. We also demand that the ministry apologise to teachers, parents and pupils for causing the hardship as a result of a weak policy," he said.

He said the infrastructure should already have been put in place before its implementation.

Previously, in the anti-PBS system facebook page teachers had complained of spending long hours just to key-in the data of its pupils because of poor servers.

This had forced them into keying in the data several times or usually staying up until early morning to have the information in place.

They also had groused about how taxing their work was as they had to also prepare lessons.

Malaysiakini is attempting to contact the Examination Syndicate for comments.

Najib: 'Allah' ban stands in states with such laws - Malaysiakini

 

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak today finally broke his silence on the 'Allah' controversy, saying the ban on non-Muslims from using the word will stand in states which have such provision under law.

Najib added that the 10-point solution which allowed bibles to use the word 'Allah' was also subjected to such enactments.

"The (Umno) supreme council takes note of the 10-point agreement agreed upon by the cabinet, but the 10-point agreement is subjected to federal and state laws.

"That means in states where there are such enactments, it means it (10-point solution) is subjected to the enactment at the state level.

"But there are no such enactments in Sabah and Sarawak, therefore they can continue as usual," he told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur after chairing the Umno supreme council meeting this evening.

He added that the Agong’s declaration that non-Muslims cannot use the word ‘Allah’ was done in his capacity as the Kedah sultan thus it was confined to Kedah which also has an enactment banning non-Muslims from using the word ‘Allah’.

As such, Najib said there was no need for any scare tactics on the matter.

“There is no need for any parties to intimidate other parties,” he said.

When asked if this meant that the state enactments superseded the 10-point solution, Najib replied: “It’s not supersede, in the 10-point agreement, there is formal recognition in one of the points that it must be based on federal and state laws.”

The point Najib referred to is found in point number 9, which states: “Beyond the Bible issue, the government wishes to reiterate its commitment to work with the Christian groups and all the different religious groups in order to address inter religious issues and work towards the fulfilment of all religious aspirations in accordance with the constitution, taking into account the other relevant laws of the country.”

Najib defends policies amid criticism

On a separate matter, Najib said the Umno supreme council also reiterated its support for the government’s economic policies as it was producing results, with a strong economic fundamental recognised internationally.

“If we look in terms of economic growth, inflation and the stock market, the economy is in a convincing state but we do not deny we are facing price hike problems and are working on it,” he said.

Najib said the cabinet committee chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is awaiting the results of a cabinet meeting on how to reduce the rakyat’s cost of living.

He added that the price hikes could also be due to supply chain problems where wholesalers have disproportionately increase their prices to retailers as well as the moonson season.

The statement comes following criticism from elder politicians such as former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and former finance minister Daim Zainuddin, who warned BN will lose power if the present policies which are causing price hikes continue.

Remove Ramanan, Palanivel told

As party men pressure for the MIC treasurer general's removal, Karpal Singh calls for his criminal prosecution. - FMT

PETALING JAYA: Still nursing near fatal wounds sustained in the recent party election, MIC president G Palanivel has suffered another blow with a court ruling that the man he recently appointed as his party’s treasurer general had committed fraud.

Some party leaders are pressuring for the removal of R Ramanan from his newly acquired position and prominent lawyer and politician Karpal Singh is calling for criminal proceedings against him.

The High Court yesterday ordered Ramanan to return RM5.5mil to renowned psychiatrist Dr M Mahadevan, ruling that he had fraudulently received the money.

DAP chairman Karpal Singh said today that the High Court should direct the public prosecutor to initiate criminal proceedings against Ramanan and the police should investigate him under Section 420 of the Penal Code. He pointed out that police reports had been lodged against the MIC treasurer general.

“I call upon the Judicial Commissioner to immediately do the needful in the public interest following the judge’s finding that Ramanan had misrepresented himself to psychiatrist Dr M Mahadevan,” Karpal said.

“The law is no respector of persons. No one, however high, can escape the long arm of the law in the event there is sufficient evidence for the institution of a criminal prosecution.

“The matter is a most serious one having regard to the large sum of money involved. That Ramanan is treasurer general of the MIC compounds the position.”

Former MIC Youth chief T Mohan asked Palanivel to take stern action against Ramanan, saying his appointment as treasurer general was proving to be a “real disaster” not only for the party president but also the MIC itself and the Indian community in general.

He said yesterday’s court ruling meant that Ramanan had committed criminal breach of trust.

“It will be a shame to the MIC if we let someone convicted of CBT to be the treasurer-general,” he told FMT.

“This person has the responsibility of handling party funds and properties. The treasurer general must be someone trustworthy, not someone convicted of CBT.

“I hope the president will sack him immediately.”

Former MIC central working committee member Madhu Marimuthu said that even before the court ruling, speculation had been rife that Ramanan was involved in a fraud case.

“The court’s decision has tarnished MIC’s reputation,” he said. “Now his credibility as treasurer general is at stake.”

‘Weakest point’

He said the onus was on the president, who made the appointment, to replace Ramanan immediately or risk losing credibility himself.

“MIC must be saved now from the weakest point in its history and its credibility must be restored immediately.”

D Tharma Kumaran, a member of the MIC Youth central working committee, has initiated a Facebook campaign to pressure Ramanan to step down honourably.

Other party sources said Palanivel’s failure to remove Ramanan would result in a group of leaders forming a movement to oust the president himself.

One source said the movement had already been formed, calling itself Gerakan Anti Palanivel (GAP), reminiscent of Gerakan Anti Samy Vellu, which pressured for the removal of Palanivel’s predecessor.

“When Samy Vellu was in power, Palanivel was behind the Gerakan Anti Samy Vellu,” he said. “Let him taste his own medicine now.

“Believe me, GAP has already started. It is just that certain leaders want to remain in the background for now.

“But after Ramanan’s case they feel they can come out in the open. They now have a reason to ask Palanivel to leave before his intended exit in 2016. They can push for this and let the president-in-waiting, Dr S Subramaniam, take over in the interim.”

Kg Chetti di ambang kepupusan?

Najib’s headache: Allah, kangkung or Dr M?

Najib is being attacked only because he is at his most vulnerable.
COMMENT

For Kedah Menteri Besar Mukhriz Mahathir to express an opinion about Najib Tun Razak and to act concerned for the hardship of the rakyat is quite unprecedented.

Perhaps Mukhriz should be given his own comedy show with his father former PM Mahathir Mohamad playing the part of the ventriloquist, and Mukhriz acting the part of the ventriloquist’s dummy, sitting on Mahathir’s lap. The “dialogue” between the two would be most entertaining.

During an interview with last Sunday’s edition of Berita Harian, Mukhriz warned that BN would be defeated in GE14 if it continued to be led by Najib. He blamed the rising cost of living on Najib’s unpopular decisions.

Mukhriz told Berita Harian, “Defeat is a real possibility if Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak continues with his present policy of correct but unpopular decisions, especially issues concerning the rising cost of living….If Putrajaya continues to ignore the rakyat’s grouses and complaints, Barisan Nasional will find the 14th general election a tough nut to crack.”

A few days later, before Najib had time to recover from being blamed for the state of the economy, Mukhriz launched another attack.

The pressure piled-on with Mukhriz saying without a hint of irony that corruption and wastage in government spending should be addressed.

He claimed that Najib had failed to strike a balance between taking popular measures and “doing the right thing”. He feared that Najib’s short-term approach would have long-term consequences.

Only the naïve would think that Mukhriz was acting off his own bat. It is obvious that when his own future was jeopardised, Mukhriz’s stand shifted.

For months, if not years, Mukhriz neglected the suffering of Malaysians but almost overnight Mukhriz demanded that steps be taken for urgent action and remedial measures to be engaged to sort out the economy.

Attacking Najib was an indirect way of saying that he was a better leader than Najib.

Does Mukhriz live in a cocoon? Was he unaware that the day before his Berita Harian interview pro-Umno-Baru champions had threatened to unleash violence onto the streets of Malaysia in a re-enactment of May 13?

Mukhriz did not question Najib for failing to censure the people who threatened the peace. He also failed to condemn the IGP who failed to arrest the people inciting violence and spreading fear.

Allegations have recently surfaced that back in 1969 Najib’s father Abdul Razak Hussein acted in collusion with Mahathir to remove Tunku Abdul Rahman from power. Ironically, Najib is today facing that grim reality of a repetition of this coup.

Mahathir’s SOP

It was not chance which led Mukhriz to forget his father’s role in fomenting dissent.

About seven weeks ago Mahathir turned on the Herald’s editor Father Lawrence Andrew for wanting to “hurt” Muslims. His father’s instigation has been used by extremists to whip up a frenzy of hate against Christians.

Mahathir’s standard operating procedure (SOP) is simple. First, he creates divisions in society with race and religion.

Then, he distracts them from important issues – like the GST and price hikes, and increasing energy bills.

Having paralysed people with fear Mahathir pretends to offer solutions. His son has been instructed to play the moderate role in what is seen as a highly volatile situation. Mukhriz’s concern about the rakyat is neither genuine nor sincere.

The whole carry-on by Mukhriz is a reflection of his father’s true character. Najib is being attacked only because he is at his most vulnerable. Najib’s kangkung faux pas gave Mukhriz the opening to make his “kill”.

Most people will know that Mukhriz is not capable of such protracted thinking. What goes around, comes around. The fate that awaits Najib is the one similar to the ignominious departure of his predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Like a pack of hyenas circling their injured prey and waiting to pounce are Mahathir and his men.

Mukhriz is very vocal against Najib for one simple reason. This is payback time for Najib who insulted Mahathir during the last Umno-Baru internal election.

The anger of the poor Malays and the Muslim population who have genuine concerns about feeding their families or paying for medical help when they are sick have struck fear into Mahathir.

The distractions created by the Allah issue and Najib’s kangkung faux pas will blow over and the rakyat will soon be forced to focus once again on the economy and rising cost of living.

When the GST kicks in next year things will get much worse. Mahathir knows this and has instructed his son to act now.

Any delay may lead to public dissatisfaction and unrest. Mahathir’s living and recurring nightmare is the possibility that Pakatan Rakyat will finally occupy Putrajaya.

Mukhiz’s critique of Najib has little to do with your suffering, the future of the country or Najib’s failure to combat corruption.

This is Mukhriz making sure his father’s unfinished business is continued. Mahathir’s legacy has to flourish at any cost.

Najib, Umno Baru and Mukhriz are all part of the problem but the greater share of the problem lies with you!

If you had a hand in returning Umno Baru to power, especially if you were in the 47% portion of the rakyat who voted for Umno Baru; your reward has been that you will suffer the price hikes, alongside the people who voted for Pakatan.

Mariam Mokhtar is a FMT columnist.

‘Almost there!’: The end of democratic Constitutionalism in Malaysia?

Clive Kessler, The University of New South Wales, Sydney

Almost there!

Or so some may say.

One does well to be clear that, although he now serves as the current Agong, the recent royal declaration that “the name of Allah” is “exclusive” to Muslims was made by Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah in his capacity as the Sultan of Kedah, at his state-level royal birthday ceremonials.

Interestingly, it was Utusan Malaysia —— which broke this news and which can seldom be accused of underplaying things in this area of “official, national Malay interest” —— that chose to present it as an authoritative pronouncement by him as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah.

A royal declaration

One needs to remember that the Sultan of Kedah is just one of nine “traditional” Malay state rulers.

But he is no ordinary one, no “also-ran” royal. He is the first among equals and pre-eminent.

He is the most senior of the state rulers both in years and also in length of royal service in occupancy of the throne. He is, so far uniquely in modern Malaysian history, serving a second term as Agong, the first having come almost half a century ago in the early 1970s.

So his declaration was just one ruler’s affirmation. But a most significant one.

Just one ruler’s view, perhaps. But, not surprisingly, with his strategic acumen and sharp sense of timing, the Perkasa head Ibrahim Ali soon saw the opportunity, seized the moment, and stepped into the inviting gap.

It was now time, he immediately insisted, that all state rulers follow suit with the issuing of similar prohibitive, exclusionary declarations.

Once that begins to happen, once the royal snowball begins to roll, it is not hard to envisage the time, and soon, when, beyond staking their own separate claims, the royal heads of the Malay states will come together in the Council of Rulers to reach a consolidated common stance to the same effect, to be proclaimed by the Agong speaking as the Constitutional monarch —— as the personification of the Federal Constitution and of the principles of Malaysian Constitutionalism.

And with that, whatever its historical merits or accuracy, the royally affirmed position will become authoritatively implanted in national life —— in effect unappealable, undisturbable and irreversible.

And that will be that. It will stand, whatever its merits, because a combination of powerful forces will be determined that it must. That, once formally affirmed, it can never be put aside.

When that happens, the end of the journey will have been reached —— a journey that has been seriously and purposefully under way since the morrow of the 2008 national elections, GE12.

Then, when that happens, people, some people, will be happily able to say “Here at last! Destination reached.”

A journey begun

It is a journey that began in a time of uncertainty, even apprehension —— a largely unwarranted apprehension —— and an “existential” Malay political fearfulness.

The results of the 2008 election came as a shock to some. Certainly to Umno, and also to many whose political fates were tied to it.

Umno was not only dealt a severe setback, it had not taken simply a body blow. More, its political nerve “was shot”, its confidence in its own ability to rule, and maintain the terms of its own domination, was badly shaken.

As it faltered, others boldly stepped forward: most notably, the core of that network of pro-Malay pressure groups —— groups that seek to exercise a hard-line, adamant Malay “veto power” over national politics —— that are centred upon Perkasa.

The component organizations of this ramifying network —— some with apparently large memberships, but many with more “chiefs” than “Indians”, all shielding their meagre numbers behind grandiose titles and ornate display letterheads —— like to describe and portray themselves, misleadingly, not as outright and explicit political organizations but, more reassuringly, simply as NGOs. (NGOs are supposed to be “warm, fuzzy”, and unthreatening —— so who can decently be against them and what they wish to do? It’s a clever and disarming ploy, but, like all ploys, misleading.)

As this network of organizations began to take shape and be “bedded down”, something else also happened.

A parallel exercise in political buttressing and consolidation also began to take place, and be purposefully pursued, at the doctrinal or ideological level.

Attentive observers could see what was beginning to happen, and were disquieted.

A position was now beginning to be developed, and at that stage tacitly suggested more than openly promoted, that would only become fully explicit several years later, with the approach of the next national elections, GE13, in 2013.

Before then the radical new doctrine was promoted and projected almost subliminally. It was only those attentive observers who could see the different parts; who could “connect the dots”; and who could therefore discern, when still offered only in hazy outline at first, the overall shape of the new “ruling doctrine” that was being developed and brought together.

It was a doctrine that would only be made fully explicit, and promoted forthrightly, in the post-GE13 period when, unlike in 2008, Umno emerged once more as the dominant force in national politics, able to dictate terms (or so it seemed) to all other political parties, both on its own side of the political fence and also in the opposition.

The new doctrine

The new political doctrine that was assembled at that moment of what was seen by some as one of “Malay political crisis” —— where the entire “Malay stake in the nation” was suddenly seen to be, or so it was suggested, in jeopardy —— was based upon a very simple and economical exercise in “Constitutional expansionism”.

Expansionism, or “claim inflation” and interpretive “over-reach”, on two points, two key articles of the Federal Constitution.

First, it came to be suggested that Article 3, affirming the status of Islam as the “official religion”, meaning the symbolic and emblematic religion of the state, somehow entailed —— and had always been intended to imply —— that Islam was Constitutionally entitled and even destined to exercise a kind of “religious over-lordship” in Malaysian public, including religious, life, and for all of its citizens, non-Muslim and Muslim alike.

No such thing. That idea was repudiated not only by the Umno’s Alliance Party counterparts in the pre-Independence negotiations, the MCA and MIC, but forthrightly by Umno itself, through Tun Razak’s explicit affirmation of the “secular” (his word!) nature of the new nation-to-be. And, no less strenuously, it was rejected by the “traditional Malay rulers”, who were determined to keep any mention of Islam entirely out of the Constitution, or failing that to an absolute minimum, as a way of protecting their own standing, and basis of social power, as the heads of Islam in their various states.

Yet, even further, for some, notably those of the Syarie Lawyers Association, Article 3 now also means, or is taken to mean, that Islamic law is entitled and even destined to be —— and had always been prospectively and legitimately —— the basis of the national legal system, holding ascendancy over the so-called “Common Law” tradition.

To help advance this claim, legal practitioners and commentators of that “shari’ah-minded” inclination invoke the famous case of Rahmah v. Laton of 1927, in which the relevant judge held that Islamic law was, or was part of, “the law of the land”, meaning an integral part of the nation’s complex and evolving common law tradition.

But they do so (as I have pointed out elsewhere) by adhering to and promoting a perverse reading of Justice Wilson’s judgment and of what it is intended to convey. They read Wilson’s words as a charter for Islamic legal expansionism, of “shari’ah ascendancy” within the nation’s legal traditions, institutions and life. For making the entire Malaysian legal system both “shari’ah compliant” and shari’ah based.

They cling to and rely upon an unsustainable reading of what that judgment means; one that, if they are sound readers and competent construers of legal decisions, they must know is simply wrong. But they have persisted with it all the same. Presumably because, whether their view is in itself right or wrong, it can be used as an effective weapon —— especially against people who do not see or understand what they are doing and who are hence unable to “call their number”, call them to account.

And second, it was similarly suggested in that moment of great Malay political anxiety and fearfulness, and with similarly extravagant expansionist intent, that Article 153, which made —— and had only ever been intended to make —— some quite specific and circumscribed provisions concerning the “special position of the Malays” in state employment and the like, carried within it —— and had always done, and, so some now claimed, had always been recognised as doing —— the seeds and the deeply embedded rationale or justification of the ambitious, and radically “revisionist”, doctrine of “Ketuanan Melayu”: of overall Malay political ascendancy in perpetuity over all the state’s other citizens, all other members of the nation.

Expansionism in action: strategic use of the new doctrine

These two, vastly “inflationary” new readings (of Articles 3 and 153) had not only to be devised. They had also to be subtly and quietly promoted, until they became —— if not yet the standard or general “default” positions for understanding these two articles —— then at least something which people had gradually become habituated to hearing. Habituated, that is to say —— even without accepting them as true —— at least to hearing them without shock, surprise or dismay. These improbable but disquieting new views had to be in some measure “normalized”, made unremarkable.

Once that had been achieved, the new weapon was ready for use. The radical new doctrine could be deployed with strategic purpose.

And it was.

Its champions soon began to suggest —— at first merely by implication and later explicitly, in a defiant challenge to any who might think otherwise —— that whoever refused to accept that Article 3 directly, and by formative intention, provided for Islamic religious ascendancy, even over-lordship, and shari’ah legal centrality and primacy was, for that reason, not just against “the new revisionist doctrine” and its proponents but against and in defiance of the Constitution itself. Whoever disagrees, it was implied and suggested, is in rebellion against the nation’s very foundations.

And they also similarly began to suggest that anybody who did not accept that Article 153 provides, and had always been intended to provide, the deeply and authentically embedded foundations for Ketuanan Melayu was similarly against the Constitution.

That is to say: the champions of the new revisionist doctrine now claimed, and were prepared to assert explicitly and defiantly, that to be against Islamic religious domination, a sharia’h-centred state and Ketuanan Melayu was not simply to misunderstand Articles 3 and 153 of the Constitution. It was to reject, to be at odds and even at war, with the Constitution itself.

More, since the Malay rulers had an acknowledged Constitutional role as the heads of the Islamic religion in their states and to protect Islam —— and since, at any time, one of their number has a similar role and obligation as Agong at the national level, as well as to safeguard Malay interests and the Malay “stake” in the country generally —— to oppose the new doctrine, with its extravagantly expansionist constructions of Article 3 and 153, was to be against not just the Constitution as a whole but, most reprehensibly, against the Malay rulers with their important Constitutional responsibilities, and against the position of the Malay rulers themselves, or the “royal institution” as some call it.

It was to be radically and grievously at odds with the Constitution and its foundations. It was to be “at war” against the Malay rulers and (as some now claimed, in a bizarre further elaboration of the new doctrine of “modern Malay monarchy”) against the supposedly uninterrupted “sovereignty” which the Malay rulers had exercised, unbroken throughout the colonial period, over national society from the time of the Malacca sultanate to the present.

Daulat and kedaulatan: An aside

An aside, but a crucially important one. The argument is too complex to put in detail here. But, in short, “daulat”, or royal sanctity —— as was enjoyed under the rubric of sakti by the pre-Islamic Hindu-Buddhist “god-kings” or dewa raja of Southeast Asia, and later by their Islamic successors —— is one thing, “sovereignty” in the modern technical, jurisprudential sense is another.

No end of confusion has arisen from the combination of two facts, or linguistic “elisions.”

First, the rendering of the sakti of the dewa raja, when the Malay rulers became Muslims and their states Islamic polities, with the derivatively Arabic term daulat.

And second, and perhaps even more fatefully and confusingly, the more recent choice of rendering the modern notion of “sovereignty” in Malay as —— or the practice of “glossing” it with —— the abstract noun kedaulatan, formed as a secondary derivative construction upon the term daulat.

Just because the Malay rulers of the past had daulat (or an aura of cultural authority grounded in supernatural, cosmic forces), and though they continued to enjoy a measure of mystical and social and political “prestige” under British colonial rule, does not mean that they continued to exercise effective “sovereignty” in the modern sense.

Clearly they did not.

The sovereign power lay with the state, with the colonial regime and state structure, and with those in decisive control of it.

The daulat of the Malay rulers may have survived the colonial interlude. But not their kedaulatan, their overall effective political sovereignty —— or whatever formal, technical sovereignty that they had previously managed to exercise.

To confuse the two is to create uncertainty and invite chaos. But, for some, doing so is not just a “fudge” but a politically useful, a very serviceable, fudge.

The new ‘expansionism’ and ‘The Social Contract’

An important part of the story how this new Constitutional revisionism was advanced, “bedded down” and “normalized” has to do with the powerfully promoted notion of “the Malaysian Social Contract.”

Much has been said on this subject, and needs no repeating here.

Only two points need be made.

First, while the idea of “the social contract” here in Malaysia goes back to the landmark address given in Singapore by Abdullah Ahmad in 1986, it took a while to mature and take hold.

It was only in the Badawi years and after, as efforts to promote the idea of Ketuanan Melayu became more assertive (and also problematic, notably with the florid symbolic unsheathing and brandishing of the Malay keris at Umno Youth Assemblies), that the idea of the “social contract” and debate over it became central in Malaysian political life.

The matter became central because of the ideas of Ketuanan Melayu and the “social contract” were twins, born together in that same Singapore address by Abdullah Ahmad. They go and will always be yoked together because the idea of the “social contract” is an artful device for suggesting that the principle or doctrine of Ketuanan Melayu is, and has always been, integral to the Malaysian state and Malaysian public life; that it was a part, even a key part, of the pre-Independence “Merdeka negotiations and agreements” that became embedded in the Federal Constitution.

And, taking grip slowly after its original enunciation in 1986, it was really only in the immediate wake of GE12 in 2008 that a serious reconsideration of the idea of Ketuanan Melayu, and debate about it, began to take shape —— and was then abruptly terminated, under official government pressure following a Bar Council forum, when a number of the new, outspokenly pro-Malay pressure groups objected to the discussion and in effect forced the hand of the Umno-led government to close down any further public consideration.

It is from that time, and not before, that warnings about discussing the “social contract” and authoritative advice about its undisputable and “untouchable” nature, from the government and even the Council of Rulers, became a major feature of Malaysian public life.

The second point is this. Nobody sits down and at the time decides or even suggests, “Let us agree to create and then live by a binding national social contract.”

The view, or judgement, that one has been solemnly agreed to and formed is something that is always decided in retrospect. Anybody with the most elementary familiarity with the work of Hobbes and Locke, which established “social contract theory” in modern political philosophy (not that many people in Malaysia understand what all this is about, even though they are happy to pontificate endlessly on questions of “the social contract”), knows this.

We need to be clear. People everywhere have a need to consider the nature of the political community that they live in and its foundations. As they do, people sit down and subsequently wonder whether, or argue that, such a social contract has been, or must have been, agreed to; and they eventually conclude that —— even if none was agreed, or though there is no way now of knowing for certain that one ever was —— it may still be useful to look at things as if such a social contract had been negotiated. It is a retrospective process. It is how, in the present, the continuing existence of “political society” is explained.

(A small aside: The origins of most modern national political communities and the brokering of their foundational “social contracts”, whether historical or merely notional or imputed, lie shrouded in the mists of remote antiquity. But not those of Malaysia. They took place in a finite recent period between 1955 and 1957, with some supplementary work between 1961 and 1963, and are now made accessible in a substantial archive of historical documents and memoirs and through the scholarly monographs that analyse them. Yet strangely, when the moment came to develop a public notion of “the Malaysian social contract”, those who addressed the task chose to do so not on the basis of those documents and analyses —— or of the historical memory of still living actors and participants in the process —— but altogether independent of them, indifferent to and in defiant disregard of what they might reveal.)

What is clear in the Malaysian case is that there was no agreement to anything like Ketuanan Melayu as any part of the “Merdeka negotiations and agreements” that were to become embodied in the Federal Constitution.

On the contrary.

Those discussions and agreements were about drawing up a Constitution for a nation that was in-the-making and yet to come fully into being. The Federal Constitution was to be the basis for such a nation. It was to be framed as the primary and explicit means, the enabling device, whereby it might come into being; to support its emergence and consolidation, social and political.

And that nation-in-the-making, it was clearly resolved, was to be one grounded neither in Ketuanan Melayu, pure and simple ethnic ascendancy or “ethnocracy”, nor in any Islamically “sacralized” version of the same thing, an Islamic-Malay polity.

The Federal Constitution was, instead, to be the foundation expressly of and for a modern, progressive, democratic, ethnically complex, religiously plural, secular society and nation —— one in which all components might have the right to adhere to and retain their ancestral ways in their own separate lives and social “life-space” yet a society, a national society, that was to be based upon the principles and processes of inter-communal and inter-religious conciliation and rapprochement: upon an acceptance yet management of differences in public life; upon their combination and convergence, where possible, and, where not, their moderation, overcoming and transcendence, not their accentuation, in the political sphere.

Yet Abdullah Ahmad and those who take his lead were radical revisionists, not upholders and expounders of the original “Merdeka Agreements” or national “contract”.

Their wish is to set aside all that history, the real history of the nation and its origins, and instead, by a conscious act of modern revisionist political “myth-making”, to retrofit the idea of Ketuanan Melayu —— via the notion of the “social contract” (or their own strangely fabricated notion of it) —— into the very processes and discussions and history through which the Constitution, as the foundation of Malaysian national life, was produced.

These basic facts are clear, and should be well-known to and understood by any serious student or scholar of the Malaysian Constitution and its historical foundations.

It is a great pity that they are not much spoken of publicly these days, admitted, or taught to students in schools and universities. But that is another matter .. ..

And what follows from that

From those clear, basic facts something very important follows.

It is this.

You can argue that the Federal Constitution, as the product of the pre-Merdeka discussions and negotiations, is in effect a “national social contract.”

But if you do so, you cannot have Ketuanan Melayu. That idea was no part of the deal, of that foundational Constitutional charter of national life.

It is not part of those ideas, that process, that history.

Or, on the other hand, you can say that you want to have and uphold Ketuanan Melayu.

If people want to do so, that is their choice.

But it is one that has its price, one that comes with a cost.

You can make that choice, affirm that position, but you cannot argue for it on the basis, and with the authority, of the Federal Constitution and those who were its authors.

If you want to have Ketuanan Melayu, you must say —— and say openly and honestly —— that you are against the Federal Constitution, that you consider it a mistake, and that you wish to dismantle and replace it, “root and “branch”, with something else.

The “social contract” or Ketuanan Melayu: you can have one or the other. But not both.

Yet Abdullah Ahmad wants to have his cake and eat it too. More, he has persuaded many Malaysians, including most of those who are in a position to “call the shots” and set the terms of debate nationally on this question, that, with him, they can.

Even so, one or the other but not both: that is the only conclusion that is historically sustainable and reasonably supportable.

Yet recognition of the necessity of that choice goes against what has now become or is rapidly becoming the current orthodoxy, the “default position”.

It is directly contrary to the view that was identified and typified above as the radical revisionist view.

That new view asserts, or tries to, that Article 3 provides for Islamic religious supremacy and over-lordship and for the continuing and irresistible Islamization of the legal system; that Article 153 provides for, and carries deeply embedded within its words from the outset in 1957, the principle of Ketuanan Melayu, or categorical Malay political ascendancy and domination in perpetuity; and that to even question this radical view of the Constitution is to reject the Constitution and to be antagonistically at odds with, even in a state of insurrection or derhaka against, the “traditional” Malay rulers, the nation’s “Malay monarchical principle”, its central “royal institution.”

Well, if that new doctrine, which many these days claim to be the only acceptable view of the Constitution, is so historically dubious, flawed, counter-factual and unwarranted —— such a travesty of the real history of “the Merdeka process” —— how, we must ask, did it come about? How did it gain credibility, acceptability and even its current dominance?

How did it take hold?

A ‘purloined’ Constitutionalism

One can conclude only one thing.

That the Federal Constitution and the key ideas of Malaysian democratic constitutionalism have been “hijacked.”

That there has been, and it has suffered from, what we may call a process of Constitutional “grand larceny”, of illicit appropriation for improper purposes. A process whereby Malaysian citizens, at the mass or “wholesale” level, have been deprived of the Constitutional basis of their “personhood”, or core identity, as citizens of a modern democratic nation.

That is to say, something quite antithetical to the historic understanding of the Federal Constitution and contrary to the agreements that were reached between those who made the Federal Constitution possible, as a living and growing “national social contract”, has been substituted for it —— and is now being promoted and falsely justified in the name of a “purloined” constitutionalism.

Malaysia’s original, founding Constitution is now being dismantled, and its core democratic principles set aside, not by any coalition of avowed, explicit critics but by those who, so to speak, have seized the “title deeds” to the Federal Constitution and who now like to parade in the purloined mantle of its august and majestic authority.

This has been the work and achievement, as I and most of us can only view it from the sidelines —— I do not know what role the Malay rulers and their advisers may have played in this, and I have no interest in groundless, unscholarly speculation —— of those whom we may term the new Malay “political royalists”: the royalist theoreticians and ideologues, the rhetorically agile doctrinal innovators and quasi-jurisprudential proponents, of a post-modern yet still traditionalistic “Malay state”, supported in their cause by the local champions, in local political and cultural terms, of an Islamo-Malay political system.

Of course, it is an achievement of which they are presumably proud and one which they are determined to defend —— since they sincerely believe both that they are right and also in the ultimate justice of the national cause, and especially their own version of it.

But it is an achievement that has done, and threatens to go on doing, grave damage to the foundations and fabric of the Malaysian nation as we have known it for over half a century.

More, it is one whose continuing and unrelenting pursuit threatens to make this nation’s future uncertain, bleak, and painful.

Or, one could alternatively say —— using the three main words that Hobbes bequeathed to us to describe what we, and any nation, are left with if we or they are so foolish as to throw away the basis of the social contract that we really do have —— “nasty, brutish and short.”

That is not a pretty prospect as Malaysia heads, beyond GE14, to its chosen encounter with destiny, as a nation aspiring to functional and successful modernity, in 2020.

* Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at The University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Assembly law gives ‘life’ to rally rights, court told

V. Anbalagan, TMI

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad hari ini menegaskan kalimah Allah hanya eksklusif kepada umat Islam dan percubaan pihak tertentu untuk memperkenalkan penggunaannya di semenanjung dalam Bible berbahasa Melayu adalah bagi memuaskan agenda tersendiri.

Bekas perdana menteri itu berkata sehari selepas Ketua Pemuda Umno Khairy Jamaluddin mengatakan semalam Kabinet kekal dengan penyelesaian 10 perkara, perkataan Arab tersebut tidak pernah digunakan oleh penganut Kristian sebelum kedatangan Islam 1,400 tahun dahulu.

“Ia tidak pernah digunakan dalam Bible, tidak kira dalam bahasa apa sekali pun,” katanya pada sidang media selepas menyampaikan ucapan di Pusat Islam, Kuala Lumpur hari ini.

Dr Mahathir berkata, kalimah Allah juga digunakan oleh sesetengah pihak untuk mengkristiankan umat Islam.

“Saya berpandangan kalimah Allah adalah hak orang Islam, tidak bukan Islam,” katanya.

Beliau berkata, semasa menjadi perdana menteri dahulu, beliau menyelesaikan kes tersebut tanpa sebarang konflik.

“Dulu kita dapat selesaikan, tiada masalah. Jadi mengapa sekarang?” katanya.

Dr Mahathir berkata, pihak berkuasa mesti memastikan Bible dalam bahasa Melayu hanya terhadap digunakan di Sabah dan Sarawak supaya tidak terlepas kepada umat Islam di Malaysia.

Assembly law gives ‘life’ to rally rights, court told

Malay Mail 
by IDA LIM

PUTRAJAYA, Jan 23 — Putrajaya’s controversial assembly law does not violate an individual’s constitutional right to rally but helps facilitate it instead, a government lawyer told the Court of Appeal today.

DPP Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin defended Section 9 of the Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA) 2012 — which stipulates a 10-day notice as requirement to hold a gathering — saying the court must refer to Parliament’s intention when it passed the law.

“Actually Section 9 memberi nafas (gives life) to Article 10 (of the Federal Constitution), facilitating peaceful assemblies that are carried out,” he told a three-man panel here.

The lawyer also showed the court an extract of the Hansard, which records Parliament proceedings.

PKR state lawmaker Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad is seeking a declaration that the two clauses under the Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA) — sections 9(1) and 9(5) — are unconstitutional.

Referring to the Hansard, Wan Shaharuddin also said the 10-day notice by rally organisers would enable the police to ensure “public order” and “public tranquillity”.

Under the PAA’s Section 9, the police would have time to collect feedback from the public on their views, which Wan Shaharuddin said was fairer than the police’s previous practice of consulting its Special Branch division before deciding on issuing permits for rallies.

Previously, rally organisers had to obtain police permits as required under Section 27 of the Police Act 1967, but now they are only required to inform the police 10 days ahead of the gathering and comply with any conditions imposed by the police.

When commenting on whether the 10-day notice requirement was a “reasonable” and “proportionate” restriction, the lawyer argued that the assembly rights of Nik Nazmi in this case has to be balanced against the rights of “the majority”.

One of the judges, Datuk Hamid Sultan Abu Backer, interjected and said that the issue at hand was not the “fundamental value” of citizens being allowed to assemble.

Hamid also pointed out the Federal Constitution’s status as the country’s supreme law, saying “Constitution comes before the Hansard”.

Earlier, when arguing that the clauses were unconstitutional, Nik Nazmi’s lawyer N. Surendran acknowledged that Article 10 states that “restrictions” may be placed on assembly rights in the interest of public order and security.

But Surendran argued that the PAA’s Section 9 blocked spontaneous assemblies and was “unreasonable”, saying: “The effect of it is no longer restriction but total prohibition.”

Claiming that Section 9 “impaired” the constitutional right to freely assemble, Surendran also complained that it “criminalised” peaceful gatherings even though Article 10 did not specify that criminal punishment can be meted out to impose restrictions.>

The three-man panel headed by Datuk Mohamad Arif Md Yusof said that both sides must hand in their additional written submissions by February 10, while their decision will be delivered on February 14.

After failing last November to get the Shah Alam High Court to quash a charge against him based on these PAA clauses, Nik Nazmi’s trial at the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court will start on February 17.

Nik Nazmi had also failed to get the Shah Alam High Court to declare the PAA’s sections 9(1) and 9(5) as unconstitutional on the grounds that the 10-day notice requirement would prohibit the holding of spontaneous assemblies when the need arises.

In her judgment last year, High Court judge Noor Azian Shaari said the two clauses of the PAA, which were the basis for Nik Nazmi’s charge, were “not unreasonable” and did not go against the Federal Constitution’s Article 10 as they were well within the ambit of upholding national security.

On May 17 last year, Nik Nazmi, who was then-PKR communications director, was charged in the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court for allegedly failing to give the police sufficient notice before organising the Black 505 rally at the Kelana Jaya stadium on May 8.

The rally was held to protest the allegedly widespread electoral fraud during the 13th General Election on May 5 last year, where the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition retained power, albeit with a diminished parliamentary majority and less than half the popular vote.

Nik Nazmi, who is also a deputy Speaker of the Selangor state assembly, could be fined up to RM10,000 if convicted, and faces the possibility of being disqualified from public office.

Under the Federal Constitution, an elected representative is disqualified from office if fined more than RM2,000 or jailed for a term exceeding one year.

BR1M 3.0 Payment In Mid-February

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 24 (Bernama) -- The 1Malaysia People's Aid (BR1M) 3.0 will be distributed to 7.9 million eligible Malaysians in the middle of February.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the distribution of BR1M 3.0 would lighten the burden of the people who are facing rising prices of goods at the moment.

"The Umno Supreme Council (MT) was told that BR1M 3.0 payment would be done in two weeks time, that is in mid-February, to relieve the people of the problem of price hikes," he said after chairing the MT meeting here today.

When tabling the 2014 Budget last year, Najib, who is also Finance Minister, said the government had allocated RM4.6 billion for BR1M 3.0.

This year, the aid will be raised from RM500 to RM650 for each household with monthly income of RM3,000 and below, while unmarried individuals aged 21 years and above with monthly income of not more than RM2,000 would have their assistance raised from RM250 to RM300.

For the first time, BR1M 3.0 will be extended to households with monthly income of between RM3,000 to RM4,000 with aid amounting to RM450.

Najib said it could not be denied that the people were hit by the rising prices of goods and that the government was committed to combat the matter through various programmes and measures which were being taken.

He said Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin would be chairing a meeting of the Special Committee on Rising Cost of Living which was awaiting the results of a special laboratory study.

"Besides that, we are also seeing problems in the supply chain whereby wholesalers are raising prices to retailers unreasonably.

"We also took note of the monsoon season which caused the prices of goods to go up and we will take measures to contain the matter," he said.

Najib said the Umno Supreme Council also gave its undivided support to all government policies and measures taken to ease the people's burden as the nation's economy was still strong.

"From the aspects of investment, economic growth and inflation, the stock exchange is still in a healthy position and our economic strenght is still recognised both locally and abroad," he said.