Dear PM Abdullah Badawi, Please Dont Follow Musharraf

Dear Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi,

The day after the Hindraf rally, newspaper all over the world splashed pictures of a group of Malaysian 'demonstators' being sprayed with water by police. I read it with concern, that Malaysian authorities are coming down hard on innocent people whose only guilt was being Indian, walking in group and chanting words that might not be pleasant to our ears.

If these group only want to hand in their 'papers' to British High Commission, on a Sunday (which is a rest day), I dont see anything wrong with that, Prime Minister. In any democracy, freedom of speech, expression and gathering is a fundamental component to democracy itself. If your Government would not allow our people to exercise their rights, then the people would not have an avenue to voice their concern and highlight issues.
Worse still, you would silence them because they are not represented in Parliament. Democracy is about representation of majority, and if the minority is not represented, other avenues to voice their rights and needs must be established. In Western democracy, main media are normally free and fair, and these can be the venue for minorities.

Unfortunately, in Malaysia your ruling parties and cliques has a stranglehold on main media, with strict instruction only to disseminate 'propaganda' of the ruling parties and the government. Your government has also controlled entries into media industry my licensing and such draconian laws such as Publications Act, Sedition Act etc. These days savvy Malaysian turn to online media like Malaysiakini and Harakahdaily as well as enthusiastic bloggers instead of Government controlled media.

Prime Minister,
Hindraf maybe racist in its make up, and serves the interest of Hindus only. But you have to let them voice their concern and opinions.
Suing The Queen of England and The British Govt for neglecting the interest of Indians in Malaysia may not make sense, when the culprit who marginalise the Indians in Malaysia is the Malaysian Govt itself for the past 50 years, but we must let them if we want to boast the Malaysia is a free country.

There has been 2 huge gathering of people this month, and none of them was intended to be a demonstration. If your Government let them do what they want to do, ie let BERSIH hand in petition to Agong and Hindraf hand in their lawsuit to British High Commission, the current consternation would not have arise. Your ruling coalition would not be under siege.

Prime Minister,
Pervez Musharraf lose grip of Pakistan because he wanted a firm grip of Pakistan. Musharraf doesnt want to let Nawaz Sharif come back to Pakistan, then he sacked the top judges and thing started to slide from there.
Now Musharraf lost grip of Pakistan, all because he wanted to stay longer as President.

Prime Minister,
Its time to let go. Before thing slide to worse. You can see that Malaysian people take example from Pakistan, that if they organise properly and gather in huge numbers, the police would be overwhelmed.
And you would lose your credibility in the eyes of Malaysians.
Its better that you let go now before things get worse later.
If I were you, I would announce election day sooner rather than later. Let Malaysians concentrate their energy in election rather than gatherings and demonstrations.

Maybe it would be wise if your coalition would deliberately lose this election. I believe Malaysians would yearn for a change.

Yours Truly

Malaysia a Police State.

I read this report in Malaysiakini today that the Yellow shirt campaigners from BERSIH has been harrassed by police in KL, while they were distributing pamphlets.

This mere reaffirm the fact that Malaysia is police state, and dissent is not tolerated.

Is that politically expedient? I mean this doesnt give positive image to Govt of Abdullah Badawi. Then this report in www.m2day.org that there has been a police report against blogger Jeff Ooi.

Okay, okay you are free to make a police report against anyone on any matter. Malaysia is supposedly a FREE country. But tarnishing a country image?

If we are sooo concerned about our image, we must learn more how the world see us. And learn what would see us in bad light. An image of police brutality, anti riot police spraying water cannon on running civilian and authorities razing down people's homes is NOT positive at all.

Whatever the reason. Of course you have reasons that justify your actions.

Actually, if the police and Abdullah Badawi's Govt keep this up, sooner or later the rakyat would get fed up. By confronting the BERSIH and the Opposition, rounding them up and harrass them, the police is creating publicity and opening new avenues for BERSIH to complain further.
Sooner or later rakyat will support them.

BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL SIDE WITH THE OPPRESSED.

Sympathy would side with the poor, oppressed and the have not.

If I were Abdullah Badawi, I would do my best to scrap that law that make assembly without permit illegal. And stop police brutality and harrassment.

A Government Brought Down by BLoggers

A Government brought down by Bloggers.

This hasn’t happen yet, not anywhere in the world, yet.

Researching from recent history, a Government that is not popular, ie not supported by the people, would not last long.
With exceptions:
Burma – The ruling military junta has ruled Burma for over 50 years. Then again the Burmese are Buddhists, and Buddhists are generally peaceful people. They don’t normally fight back.
North Korea – Cant say anything much here can we? Even though the people were starved to death in the 90s, and made to work and behave like slaves and robots, still there is no popular uprising that managed to topple the Government.
Cambodia under Pol Pot – Over a million of their citizens killed and tortured, yet their Asean neighbours just look on and preaching non interference, until Vietnam had enough of it and run them over. Thanks Vietnam!
Zimbabwe – The process is long and systematic, Zimbabwe was a rich country run to the ground by a crazy despot called Robert Mugabe. Yet because of their same black skinned, their neighbours keep making excuses and this and that reason for not interfering. Pity the people of Zimbabwe, abandoned by their neighbours, oppressed by their dictator.

Here are examples of Government brought down free media. The lesson here is to take control of the media, newspaper, television, radio, anything.

Spain, before 2004 Madrid train bombing was in the midst of election. Jose Maria Aznar was popular; his party was leading the opinion polls by a huge margin. Zapatero didn’t get much chance.
Then came the Madrid train bombing.
Zapatero won the Spanish election of 2004 by a landslide. What happen was that Aznar lied to the people that the train bombing was the work of ETA when it was AlQaeda linked.
What is the difference between us in Malaysia and Spain? Media in Spain is free. Ours in Malaysia is controlled by the ruling party. UMNO control some (Media Prima), MCA, MIC and Gerakan control others, ie Chinese, Tamil and English language papers. Is it the same in Sabah and Sarawak?

Look at Pakistan now. Eight years ago, Musharraf took power in Pakistan in a military coup, with the promise of cleaning up the systemic corruption and dismantling the ruling clique. Eight years on, he still clinging to power, so the people had enough. Look what happen today, Musharraf had a run in with the judiciary and the people took to the street demanding that he step down and hold free election. How many has the Pakistani military arrested in the past month? Just a few days ago Musharraf is saying he will step down in a month. (To get things in order and hold elections I suppose)

Fiji Military took over the Government in a coup d etat in December 2006, also with the promise of creating a free and fair system and getting rid of corrupt old men enriching themselves and impoverishing the country. One year on the job still not done and the military actions is more brutal towards its critics.

True that Malaysians had enough of the current Government but the Opposition has no history of ruling the country. So the majority of people would keep on voting the incumbent, especially with the political tactics of BN. Race and ethnicity would still be used as a tool.

The night before the BERSIH rally I was talking to a Malaysian on holiday here.

Life is difficult for average Malaysians, he said. The current monthly wage for factory worker is still around RM600 a month. Cost of living in cities is high. Most people couldn’t make end meet, let alone saving for their future. Inflation is high, every day food prices has risen sharply. Now the Govt is talking about removing the fuel subsidy. This was reported in Malaysiakini and m2day.org just before the BERSIH rally.

For our average Malaysian workers, life is already difficult; they are working 50-60 hours a week yet could hardly make RM1000 a month even with lots of overtime. Their jobs are taken over by foreign workers who are made to work like slaves of a pittance.

For a country that sent a man to space we have people living in tents because their houses were razed by authorities. Whwere would you see these kind of reports? Malaysiakini and Malaysia-today of course. Not in the Govt muzzled media!


The big winners in the past economic expansions since 1970’s have always been the ruling elites, sharing with well connected businesspeople. The ruling UMNO, by virtue of their political power, hand out contracts and licenses to their coterie of well connected businesspeople (Chinese, Indians and Malays) who in turn would give kickbacks to their political masters. The cost of public works skyrocket, unnecessary and white elephant projects were built thus burdening the average Malaysians with more costs for generations in the future.

See this new book by a former aide to Mahathir Mohamad and Tun Abdul Razak, which basically exposed how things were done. Please read the full story here.

Don’t you think you have enough of these gerrymandering, corrupt practices and robbing the general public to enrich the connected elites?

BERSIH has sent a Memo to Agong, and that is a start.

As Ustaz Hasrizal says in www.saifulislam.com article entry #1000 that we all have responsibility, not just amal maaruf but nahi munkar as well.

The Road to Dictatorship - Malaysia

The writing is on the walls...

First, the concentration of power to one group of people, first UMNO/BN and then the Prime Minister's family.

Then the concentration of wealth and hence power to the powerful and rich, notably UMNO/Barisan cliques.

There has been a series of stupid, discriminating and 'kuku besi' style laws that increase the hold of the powerful over the masses.

And dissent and debate is discouraged and punishable by law.

And now people are not allowed to walk from Dataran Merdeka to Istana Negara to present their signatures to the King.

WELCOME TO MALAYSIA - YOU ARE ENTERING A COUNTRY THAT IS MOVING TOWARDS DICTATORSHIP.

There are examples from around the world, which I am sure that the 'power that be' are quick to learn.

Fiji, Pakistan, Iraq during Saddam, Algeria, Tunisia...

Today, Saturday 10th November could be the day that changed the written history of our country.

BERSIH wants to hold a rally to present petition to the King, but Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi wants none of it.

What would happen? After all, the police has started mounting roadblocks around KL as reported by Malaysiakini.

Let say that today BERSIH would managed to garner 100,000 people to converge in Dataran Merdeka, let say they all somehow managed to slip pass police roadblock and turn up at Dataran Merdeka.
Would the police and FRU come on hard on their own people?

Let say they do, and a few people lost their lives in the process...
Story from Myanmar is just fresh in our memories just a months ago.

Let say the police changed their stance and join the people instead, march along with the people and present the petition to the King.
Which I secretly hope they would.
That remind me of Georgia less than a year ago.