Sunday, January 24, 2010

Malaysia Pertengahan: Utusan Threatened?

Utusan Malaysia must be feeling the heat. The UMNO owned paper has been at the forefront of extremist views in Malaysia, to stir communal sentiments and create the atmosphere of tension and intolerance in the country. While other mainstream newspapers are forced to be put on a tight leash, Utusan gets complete freedom to defame, outrage and promote its views on racial supremacy.

But our shifting the debate to "Middle Malaysia" must have spooked Utusan, to the extent that it feels sufficiently threatened to actually dedicate a column by 'Awang Selamat' to DAP, entitled "Melayu sokong DAP?" In the years past, we wouldn't have expected Utusan to have paid that much attention to DAP, so I must say we must be doing something right. ;-)
... Ada yang menyatakan Middle Malaysia mempunyai agenda rasis. Menurut satu tulisan: “Sekiranya diterjemahkan Middle Malaysia ke dalam bahasa Mandarin, ia membawa maksud tersirat ‘Malaysia untuk kaum Cina’. Ini boleh ditafsirkan kaum Cina mahu menjadi ‘tauke Malaysia’ kerana Chung adalah sinonim dengan ‘Penguasa Cina’ di Malaysia.”

Awang tidak pasti sejauh mana kebenarannya. Namun tanpa hujah seperti itu pun, Awang memang tidak mempercayai DAP. Jika DAP benar-benar menjadi parti untuk semua kaum, Awang tidak akan mempersoalkannya tetapi itu semua hanya pembohongan dan tipu daya. Banyak tindak tanduk parti itu membahayakan asas kenegaraan kita, ia umpama musuh dalam selimut.

Tindak-tanduk DAP menyerang secara konsisten agensi awam di bawah kepimpinan Melayu seperti Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (SPRM), Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM), Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya (SPR), Angkatan Tentera Malaysia (ATM), institusi perundangan Islam dan banyak lagi, menyerlahkan lagi belang parti itu.

Sikap keterlaluan DAP memanipulasi isu yang membakar sentimen bukan Melayu juga tidak boleh diterima. Lihat sahaja isu kematian Teoh Beng Hock, penggunaan kalimah Allah oleh pihak gereja Katholik dan kejadian gereja dibakar, amat tidak bertanggungjawab.

Pada Awang, DAP adalah parti paling ekstrem, yang berselindung di sebalik nama demokratik tetapi agendanya ultra Cina. Selagi parti itu tidak komited untuk menjunjung dan mempertahankan Perlembagaan negara, selagi itu Awang tidak akan terpengaruh biarpun pemimpinnya memetik ayat al-Quran dan hadis. Biarlah Melayu yang tidak sedar diri dan yang punya agenda peribadi dipergunakan oleh DAP. Awang bukan jenis itu.
Below are excerpts from a commentary written by our MP for Rasah as well as our DAPSY chief, Sdr Anthony Loke on "what is 'Middle Malaysia'?", but in Bahasa Malaysia. Read both articles to see who's the extremist in this country, DAP or UMNO/Utusan Malaysia.
...Namun, konteks yang ingin dipertengahkan oleh DAP melalui “Malaysia Pertengahan” adalah lebih luas daripada pengertian ciri-ciri pentadbiran ekonomi semata-mata. Kata kunci dalam konteks “Malaysia Pertengahan” ialah kesederhanaan. Dalam menangani sebarang isu dan dasar yang memberi impak kepada masyarakat umum, prinsip kesederhanaan perlu dititikberatkan. Dalam kata-kata Guan Eng, “Malaysia Pertengahan” mengutamakan “kerjasama daripada konflik”, konsultasi daripada konfrontasi” dan sebuah masyarakat yang inklusif bukannya eksklusif. Ini merupakan prinsip-prinsip utama dan pendekatan utama yang perlu dibawa oleh DAP dan Pakatan Rakyat. Sekiranya pendekatan dan prinsip ini dapat diterjemahkan dalam erti kata yang sebenarnya, tidak mustahil majoriti rakyat Malaysia akan menyokong agenda perubahan yang ingin dibawa oleh Pakatan Rakyat.

DAP sering dilabelkan oleh UMNO sebagai sebuah parti cauvinis yang ekstrem, sebuah parti orang Cina yang ingin menguasai segala-galanya di bumi Malaysia dan parti yang agendanya anti-Melayu dan anti-Islam. Sememangnya label-label ini menyebabkan ramai pengundi di kalangan masyarakat Melayu yang berwaspada terhadap DAP dan ramai yang menjauhinya selama ini. Walaupun DAP tidak pernah berfikiran sedemikian, namun ketiadaan peluang untuk DAP melaksanakan dasarnya selama ini tidak memungkinkan parti tersebut dapat mengubah persepsi negatif masyarakat Melayu terhadapnya. Kemunculan kerajaan negeri di bawah Pakatan Rakyat khususnya di Pulau Pinang membuka satu lembaran baru buat DAP.

Satu contoh yang baik ialah pendekatan yang diambil dalam menangani isu agama. Umum diketahui bahawa pendirian DAP yang tidak bersetuju dengan penubuhan Negara Islam dalam konteks Malaysia. Ia juga merupakan senjata yang sering digunakan oleh BN untuk melaga-lagakan hubungan DAP dengan PAS selama ini. Namun, ia sama sekali tidak bermakna bahawa DAP menentang agama Islam. Malah DAP telah secara terbuka menyatakan komitmennya mendukung status Islam sebagai agama rasmi persekutuan seperti yang termaktub dalam Perlembagaan Persekutuan. Pendirian ini jelas dinyatakan dalam Dokumen Dasar Bersama Pakatan Rakyat yang dipersetujui bersama pada bulan Disember lepas. Komitmen ini bukan sahaja dinyatakan di atas kertas namun telah dimanifestasikan dalam pentadbiran kerajaan negeri yang dipimpin sendiri oleh Lim Guan Eng.

Kerajaan Negeri Pulau Pinang telah menggandakan peruntukan tahunan untuk tujuan agama Islam sehingga RM24.3 juta untuk tahun 2010 berbanding RM12.5 juta pada tahun 2008 di bawah kerajaan terdahulu yang dipimpin BN. Bukankah ini bukti kukuh bahawa kedudukan agama Islam bukan sahaja tidak tergugat malah didukung dan diperkukuhkan oleh sebuah kerajaan yang diterajui oleh DAP? Bukan sahaja peruntukan ditambah, malah Guan Eng memberi sokongan padu untuk menubuhkan sebuah Majlis Syura yang mengumpulkan sekumpulan pakar agama Islam untuk menasihati Kerajaan Negeri Pulau Pinang dalam hal-ehwal agama Islam. Pada masa yang sama, perkembangan agama-agama lain tidak disekat dan dimudahcarakan seperti bantuan kewangan kepada tokong, kuil dan gereja. Permohonan tanah untuk pembinaan tempat beribadat pula diluluskan tanpa banyak karenah birokrasi. Ini tidak sama sekali mengugat kedudukan Islam sebagai agama rasmi di negara kita. Inilah pendekatan “Malaysia Pertengahan” untuk mewujudkan sebuah masyarakat pelbagai agama yang harmoni.
I suppose in the eyes of extremists, everyone else who believes in the Middle way are "extreme" in their views.

11 comments:

Shawn Tan said...

I think that Malaysia Pertengahan is incorrect. I think that it should read Malaysia Tengah. The former implies temporal middle while the latter implies spatial middle. From the article, it seems to imply the latter.

Anonymous said...

What is DAP's strategy to keep readers of Utusan informed? I'm sure they still have plenty of subscribers and those who are sitting on fences with their beliefs will eventually be converted to think that all that is written is true. I'm suspecting that most of these people will not be accessing news online! I do hope you guys put on a good show in the states you govern. Everyone is looking at how well Pakatan can govern.

Anonymous said...

What piss me off the most about Awang is that HE USES religion in the name of his/their own agenda. How true is my statement is for Allah to decide, but Awang knows very well what he is doing. Salam.

Anonymous said...

It is high time that the malays
junk out the old baggage and embrace this new middle malaysia for a brighter future.

Elsewhere my comments would read as
follows-
Public Policies Framework
-------------------------

The gomen of the day can make one policy today and
have it thrown in the dustbin in the next few years.
Tahe sologans that are produced precedes the policies
that the gomen want to introduce. The gomen with all
the competent civil servants behind it can make good
public policies. The problem is this : the policy
must be popular with the masses.


Policy on PPSMI
---------------

The gomen was on the right track to introduce 'pelaran sains
dan matematik ' in English. But our 'clever ' professors
and pecinta bahasa have other ideas. They went so far as
to demonstrate against the good policy.


What did the opposition PR do?

Pas and PKR supported it because the demonstration worked
against the gomen. Tukar tiub happily condemned the
PPSMI. Tuan Guru Nik Aziz also joined in the affray.
DAP seemed silent but nevertheless in the spirit of PR
supported the opposition to the PPSMI.

The gomen of the day surrendered to the demands of the
pecinta bahasa and professors kangkung that supported the
idea.



Single Schools System and the BM
--------------------------------

The sekolah wawasan system which is a precursor to the sss
does not attract much attention from the people.

In fact DS Najib made a special additional allocation for the Chinese
Schools.

DS Najib went so far to advise parents to send children to
chinese schools .

And this was followed by DS Nazri a few weeks later urging people
to learn mandarin . In other words parents are encouraged to
send their children to chinese schools.

Pecinta Bahasa and gang want BM to be the language in the school
system. They maintained that if the Japanese can , BM also bolih!
This is a fallacy because the Japanese is derived from the Chinese
and they have a few thousand years of history and have a large folowing.
And interestingly chinese and japanese students are trying to speak
in English though they have not had the benefit of a romanised alphabet
as the bahasa malaysia


In BM there are many words which are not precise. In BM a teenager,
or a young lady who is not married is called is called 'anak dara'
[literal transalation -virgin] . What if the young lady is unmarried
but no longer a virgin? It would appear that other than anak dara
, there is no other word for the girl . Intrestingly Dewan bahasa has
another word for spinster - 'anak dara tua' or 'andartu' . How
quaint?

Maybe the Pecinta Bahasa should not have used Japanese as an example.

What if they take the maori language as an example. Do we need to
waste a great deal of time promoting such a language to the
world? After all we are 'serumpun' . Are we not polynesians?

Probably not,

[end of part 1]

Anonymous said...

part 2
------

Look at our politicians- they do not go around in kereta lembus
-our ancestors preferred wheels!

With what do our politicians and pecinta bahasa go around ?
Porsches, mercs, bms ?

There is adequate reason to pursue the english language as our
business and learning language!


DBP IN The 1960's
-----------------

Throughout the 1960's Dewan Bahasa had a monthly publication [
I believed it was called 'Mustika' ] which played an important
role in my thinking.

The main theme of the magazine was 'revolusi mental' and I have
not seen it bandied about in the last 10 years either in Utusan or
the blogs! It is important because the authors would always challenge
the readers to prepare themselves for the bigger challenge in life
for the future of malaysia. I was a great follower of the Mustika
and the principles enunciated by the editors then.

Learning English As A 'Revolusi Mental'
=======================================

In one Susan Loones blog , I was a directed to a story about life
in Kuala Lumpur in the 1800's [ I think]. The story revolved around a
chinese father who had decided to send his son to study in a school
in Penang. In those days they were no schools teaching English
in KL. The interesting part of the story is the reason why the father
wanted the son to study English , It appeared that the father wanted
the son to embrace english culture when he studied in English.
In my schoold days we learnt a lot about english literature,
stories by cv durrel and lots of european history. We were not
ignorant about the advent of christianity to asia and other parts of
the world. We were also taught to glorify english poets-the greats
and I believed those education do changed our personna.


I wrote earlier about being

Anonymous said...

part 3
-------

chinese. I used the word chingkiness
not in a derogatory way. Being chingky has many good qualities=
respecting elders, being polite to everyone but at the same time
have a dark side to it. It is written in the blogs [sloone et al]
that DAP and MCA are associated with the TAIKO MENTALITY [ big
brother thingy] . Corruption, prostitution and gangsterism is
part of chinese of life. I have stayed in various parts of
kuala lumpur and I believed the triads are still strong and now
they have become legal by being involved in the politics of government.

Only recently MCA did kick kicked a senior member based on his connexion
with the underworld.

There are a lot of malayness that we need to junk out. In general
malays are poor communicators whether in malay or english. Most
malays find it hard to raise their voice because of upbringing
In this dog eat dog world a malay must be able to call a spade
a spade. A malay tan sri chairman is useless because of this
politeness thingy. As an illustration look at a board meeting
involving a disciplinary case involving members of a profession.

There would almost all dato/ tan sri members comprising malays
chinese and indians. The case involved x [a chinese] for a breach
conduct on say 4 counts , say charge A,B,c and D. The discussion was
ongoing in a few meetings. In one fine meeting a member [ a chinaman Dato]
became a champion for x. He produced a proposed release for x on charges B,C and D,


There are many malay dato [ all silent], all [except one ] of the chinese and
indian [also silent] on the typed proposal unasked by x or the Board.
The Malays seemed to be the polite type -not wanting the other side
to loose face, the indian [ a typical fence sitter] and only one honest
'goody two shoes' [happened to be chinese and also my ex boss] who
query the proponent of the release letter.

So much for ketuanan melayu and the wasted effort of the sultans of the
various negeris giving datoship to the 'good for nothing '[no moral
members.

Conclusion
----------

It is important that malays especially embrace the english language
and live with the 21 st century in mind and leave the old cultural
shackles behind them!

notoktok

Anonymous said...

It pains my eyes to read such a long Malay article...

It would be much better if you could highlight the key sentences next time.


thank you

Anonymous said...

The translation is patently wrong yet you made no mention of effort to correct it. Do not overestimate the intellect of the Utusan readers.

Anonymous said...

唉..........
看了光明日报曾小姐对未来丈夫的那份期望......
令到我深受感怀。
使得谁对爱情不曾向往过?
现在是新人,
难免万千宠爱在一身,那又有何出奇。
恭喜他们俩为新婚在即。
不过在于女人的立场,
我劝她都是做个真正内外大方的女人好些,
她要面对的路还长呢...
有哪一个男人不会对怀里抱着的新欢说他是不认真的?
看开点。
这句话我也曾经对人家未来夫君的前人说过。
不能容忍就求退次,这是命;也是佛教里头所说的前因后果。
;)
帝君之命的人不会一生中只有一个女人,
也不会只有两个出现。
他生命中的女人只有一个用处,
成就他的未来。
我不认识她,
报上也很少提及曾小姐的资料,
不过我可以肯定的就是,
她=不但止学历高,同时会在资源上对她的丈夫有所帮助,对吗?
增小姐说他是因为被某套戏主角的话感动了所以公开求婚,
:D
我也曾同样为那套戏的那句对白感动痛哭。
因为那段对白教会我不但只要珍惜曾深爱过,同时也要学会成全。
也曾经有一位,劝说我,
路已经走远了,是对是错没有定义,问心无愧就好了。
别人愧对你,就只有你一人去承担罢了。
若是你行走了错了一步,将会是你愧对无数的人。
所以:D如果可以的话,
我希望曾小姐无论将来会变得如何也会和我一样选择一条“不愧对无数人的路”来走。

秀俐

Anonymous said...

hello there,

If “middle Malaysia” is all about moderation, how does PR plan to head a government with all its component parties being extremists in its own way?

As of now, I didn’t notice any positive responses from other PR leaders except perhaps, applauding the concept but failing to describe it in a concrete way.

I have doubt about ur claim that "..we must be doing something right.." What I see is the concept is introduced merely to take advantage of the Herald issue. At a time like this, we should be looking for the majority's interest and I don't feel DAP is doing so. How can you claim that DAP is righteous in its fight for the rakyat when, what you do is just to fuel more confusion with the concept 'middle malaysia."

thank you

Zainol Razali said...

Saya telah menghantar komen berikut di blog A. Kadir Jasin sebab beliau mengulas pasal 'Middle Malaysia' lewat-lewat ini.




Perampok 1:15 pm

Saya nak jawab soalan awak kenapa 'Middle Malaysia' itu diketengahkan oleh DAP dan bukan oleh PR.

Ini mudah saja.

Setiap parti di Pakatan Rakyat mempunyai kebebasan mengemukakan strategi yang dapat membawa ke depan prinsip-prinsip asas Pakatan Rakyat.

MIsalnya, PAS mengemukakan strategi 'PAS For All'. Masa PAS kemukakan strategi ni, kena kamu tidak soal? Kenapa tak tanya 'Eh, kenapa PAS buat strategi ni bukan Pakatan Rakyat'?

Kenapa bila DAP buat 'Middle Malaysia' kamu soal pulak?

Hah. Ini menunjukkan kamu ini hidup dalam ketakutan yang telah ditiupkan ke dalam kamu oleh puak-puak pro-nasionalis Melayu, seperti UMNO.

Pakatan Rakyat tu mempunyai polisi bebas dan demokratik.

Itulah sebabnya PAS boleh buat 'PAS For All' dan DAP boleh buat 'Middle Malaysia' kerana semua strategi ini selari dan sehala dengan prinsip-prinsip dasar yang telah dipersetujui oleh Pakatan Rakyat apabila mereka di bentuk dan diiktiraf dalam Konvensyen mereka bulan December 2009.

Dari apa yang saya lihat, UMNO-BN sudah takut dengan strategi 'Middle Malaysia' kerana ia mampu mendapat sokongan daripada Melayu sederhana/atas pagar yang mahukan negara yang aman, damai dan bukan ekstrem. Itulah sebabnya Utusan Malaysia melalut habis mengutuk 'Middle Malaysia' (rujuk tulisan Awang Selamat baru-baru ini). Sebab UMNO secara senyap-senyap dah takut.

Inilah hakikatnya.