The Biggest Danger for the World: Western Groupthink

May 18, 2012

By Kishore Mahbubani

As the world becomes inexorably smaller, denser, more interconnected and more complex, the biggest danger the world faces is western groupthink, which fails to spot the thousands of nuances that are vital to interpret international affairs. Crisis after crisis would be avoided if the west could learn to understand these nuances better.

Take, for example, the crisis the west worries about most: Iran. The western narrative is clear: the Israeli government may have no choice but to bomb Iran this year, as time is running out to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb. Yes, time is running out for the Israeli government. But the immediate threat in the minds of the Israeli government is not the Iranian bomb. It is the fear of Barack Obama’s re-election.

As Mr Obama whispered to Demetri Medvedev, he will have more freedom to launch bold initiatives in his second term. And this is the Israeli government’s nightmare: that Obama will push for a two-state solution (even though, incidentally, it would be in Israel’s long-term interests).

Yet western groupthink suggests that the west is honest and straightforward while Iran, as usual, has been lying and mendacious. In fact, the record is less clear cut. For reasons still unknown, the US government walked away from a deal it asked Brazil and Turkey to offer to Iran, which Iran had accepted. This is why Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, asked: “Can the west take yes for an answer?”

Equally importantly, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s strongman supreme leader, said: “the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin.” This is as strong a message as Iran’s leader can convey to the Iranian people. If Iran is bombed after denouncing nuclear weapons, it will produce a century or more of anger towards the west, just as the Anglo-American coup against Muhammad Mossadegh in 1953 produced half a century of distrust. In short, any bombing of Iran would be an unmitigated disaster for the west.

Now let’s take another crisis: North Korea. Yes, it was foolish and unnecessary for impoverished North Korea to launch a rocket. But did the North Korean regime have any agenda besides developing the capability to reach America with a ballistic missile? Was it pure coincidence that it was launched on the 100th anniversary of the birthday of Kim Il-Sung, the regime’s founder? Was regime legitimisation an equally important goal? And wait – something even more amazing happened in North Korea. Immediately after the rocket failed, the North Korean government admitted failure. Holy cow – the North Korean government admitted it was fallible. This is truly a big deal. North Korea has taken a huge leap towards becoming a “normal” country. Did anyone in the west notice this nuance? Alas, no one. The US government once again imposed more sanctions. Does isolating an isolated country really work?

To answer this question, let us look at a third country that is slowly but steadily walking away from a crisis: Myanmar. Here too, the dominant western narrative is clear: western sanctions finally forced open Myanmar. Sadly, the dominant western narrative is wrong. Western sanctions did not work. ASEAN engagement with Myanmar did.

The regional organisation forced Myanmar’s officials and leaders to attend thousands of meetings in ASEAN countries. These travels opened their eyes to how far Myanmar was falling behind: they realised it had to become a more “normal” country.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Najib Razak, was right in saying “that ASEAN has been instrumental in driving both economic growth and political development, and that there can be no clearer example than its relations with Myanmar. For many decades, Myanmar was on the receiving end of very public diplomatic scoldings, often backed up by sanctions… But ASEAN members took a more nuanced view, believing that constructive engagement and encouragement were just as effective, if not more, than sanctions and isolation in creating positive change.”

As usual, western media largely ignored this reality and gave all the credit to Hillary Clinton and David Cameron. A self-serving western narrative just cannot understand the complex new world that is emerging – and progressing, while the west languishes. Yet the era of western dominance is gone. Can the west begin to understand the new and more complex world order unfolding before our eyes day by day?

The writer is Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and author of ‘The New Asian Hemisphere. Source Financial Times A-List, 20 April 2012 (http://blogs.ft.com/the-a-list/#axzz1sXCDq56a)

ASEAN: Myanmar forges ahead with Democratic Reforms

May 18, 2012

by Datuk Dennis Ignatius*(05-07-12)@www.thestar.com.my

The thing about change is that once it takes hold, there is no stopping it. Myanmar is a good case in point.

NOT a day goes by without some foreign dignitary visiting, promising assistance and to ride shotgun on the reform process.

In recent weeks, Myanmar played host to the UN Secretary-General, the EU foreign policy chief and the Canadian, German and South Korean foreign ministers.

In just a few months, Myanmar has received more high-level visitors than some ASEAN countries have in a decade.

Sanctions are also being rapidly removed or suspended. An informal gathering of multilateral organisations and bilateral donor countries scheduled for mid-May is expected to result in billions of dollars of economic assistance.

Myanmar will almost certainly be a different country by the end of the decade.In this sense, the democracy dividend is already real and far too significant for the generals to ignore.

More than anything else, however, it is the palpable sense of excitement and optimism among the people themselves that is significant. The country is literally coming alive.

Yangon itself is no longer the sleepy backwater that it was just a few years ago. The streets are clogged with newly imported cars. Construction is booming and business is flourishing. Even the poorer areas on the far outskirts of the city, which I visited, are being impacted.

Of course, Myanmar remains one of the poorest countries in the region and has a long way to go but clearly the journey forward has already begun in earnest.

To be sure, there are lingering doubts about the commitment of the generals to the reform process and much remains to be done but an unstoppable momentum for change has been unleashed that itself is irreversible.

There might be hiccups and bumps along the way but clearly there is no going back.

The last time I saw such momentum for change was when I was assigned to China in the early 1980’s. And look at China today!

Being in Yangon during the run-up to the recent parliamentary by-elections was an education in itself. It was exciting to see Myanmar’s nascent democracy in action – election posters, campaign speeches, media coverage, the international press and many foreign observers.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League For Democracy (NLD) won 43 of the 44 seats it contested, surprising given concerns about voter intimidation, harassment and other irregularities.

Opposition leaders in many ASEAN countries must surely envy the NLD’s success rate.

Although the military remains deeply unpopular, there is little appetite for retribution. People just want to move on, excited about the prospects for change and the chance for a better life. It’s the Burmese way, I suppose.

The generals surely cannot have any illusions about how little support they have and how revered Suu Kyi still is despite all their efforts to isolate and marginalise her. They must know that in free and fair elections they would stand little chance.

All the more amazing then that they should continue to acquiesce to the reform process. That in itself says something about their commitment and perhaps, their confidence in managing change.

If the generals hold steady on the reform process, they would have proven themselves far wiser than military rulers elsewhere who have doggedly clung to power till they are forcibly evicted. Evolutionary change is always more pleasant than revolutionary change.

In President Thein Sein, the people, the opposition and the military also appear to have found a man whom they can trust to manage the transition and balance competing interests.

Foreign visitors who have met him have consistently come away impressed by his sincerity and commitment to reform and see him as genuinely determined to make peace with his country’s tribal minorities.

Crucially, even Suu Kyi has endorsed him saying he is someone she can work with. He might not be a paragon of democratic virtue but he might just be what is needed to move the country out of its dark past and into a brighter future. He will need time and much support to succeed.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, during his March visit to Myanmar, pledged our full support for the country’s process of democratisation and development.

Our experience as a developing country might be of some relevance. We can certainly help with capacity-building and training while expanding upon our already significant investments in that country.

More than anything else, however, we can make an immediate and meaningful contribution by reaching out to the estimated 80,000 Myanmar nationals who are now living in Malaysia as refugees. They have been abused, trafficked, whipped and shabbily treated for far too long. It’s time to right this wrong.

Instead of importing yet more foreign labour, we should immediately offer them temporary employment and legal protection. The remittances they send back will provide a much needed boost to Myanmar’s economy while meeting an urgent need here. Eventually, they will return home to a new and better nation.

Datuk Dennis Ignatius, a 36-year veteran of the Malaysian foreign service, has served in London, Beijing and Washington and was ambassador to Chile and Argentina and High Commissioner to Canada. He was twice Undersecretary for American Affairs. 

Reflections of a World long gone

May 17, 2012

By Karim Raslan (05-15-12)@www.thestar.com.my

Lawyer and diplomat PG Lim shows us she is very much the original lady activist through her colourful memoirs, Kaleidoscope.

WE are not a nation of writers. Malaysians aren’t great diarists or memoirists. Indeed, our collective Malaysian story – our national narrative – has tended to lose out in terms of subtlety, intimacy and diversity precisely because of this weakness. However, the lawyer and diplomat PG (Phaik Gan) Lim’s memoirs Kaleidoscope provides us with a superb addition to the dominant and at times tiresome, national narrative.

The book also reminds us that history is an accumulation of different stories, perspectives and experiences and that we are diminished as a people if we disregard the diversity at the very core of what it is to be Malaysian.

PG’s account is elegantly written, insightful and deeply felt. In Kaleidoscope, PG reveals a hitherto unknown talent as a story-teller as she weaves the great events of the 20th Century with her own personal triumphs and failures.

It’s also been an eye-opening read for someone such as myself, who’s known PG for nearly 30 years. The book has made me realise that she’s very much the original lady activist – a forerunner to Irene Fernandes, Zainah Anwar and even Teresa Kok – principled, unflinching and always, always on the side of the dispossessed and down-trodden.

Moreover, PG’s shift from activism and opposition politics to national service (she was to be an Ambassador for over nine years in New York, Vienna and Bruxelles) underlines both the high regard with which the establishment viewed her as well as the less divisive nature of politics back in the 60s and 70s.

Indeed PG (along with Tan Sri Dr Aishah Ghani) was one of only two women on the National Consultative Council which was set up by the National Operations Council in the wake of the May 13 riots and the suspension of the Malaysian Parliament.

Born in 1915 in London, the daughter of a prominent Penang-based lawyer, Lim Cheng Ean, and a British Guyana medical student, Rosaline Hoalim, PG grew up amidst great wealth and an enormously supportive family.

She studied at the famous Light Street Convent School before pursuing a law degree in Girton College, Cambridge, in the late 1930s.

PG was to be shaped by both her mother’s independent, strong-willed nature as well as her father’s well-known civic-mindedness (he served on the Straits Settlement Legislative Council alongside Tan Cheng Lok and H.H. Abdoolcader).

Indeed PG’s large posse of over-achieving and good-looking brothers and sisters have left an inedible stamp on Malaysian public life.

Entering legal practice after the Second World War, PG went on to carve a name for herself as a fearless lawyer and a champion for labour rights, at a time when plantation workers in particular were very poorly treated.

These earlier sections of the memoirs are the most illuminating and exciting. PG conjures up the rich, culturally intriguing milieu of Baba Nonya life in pre-War Penang, the uncertainty of the Japanese Occupation (not to mention the gutlessness and perfidy of the retreating British forces), as well as the exuberance of post-Independence life in Kuala Lumpur.

Along with the magisterial roll-out of history, PG also touches on her own personal disappointments. She’s unflinching in this regard as she recounts her two failed marriages: proof that successful women face multiple challenges.

PG never shied away from controversial or difficult cases, from Confrontation-era insurgents being threatened with the death penalty to trade unionists seeking better conditions for workers – there was no cause too big or too small for her.

Indeed, it’s interesting to compare the current trade union activism with the events of the 50s and 60s.

PG’s interests extended way beyond activism. She was a major stalwart of the Art’s Council which, in turn, became the nucleus of Malaysia’s National Art Gallery.

The book reflects her varied interests. She was a voracious reader, she fenced and punted in Cambridge, while also being an active supporter of the arts.

Kaleidoscope provides us with a view of a world that has long disappeared, of a Malaysia that was and could have been. It reminds us of a time when it was still possible to learn French and Latin in a Malaysian school. Of a time when Malaysia had a Labour Party and when the various races mingled without resentment or reserve.

This was a time when politicians behaved like gentlemen and honest debate was not seen as a form of treason.

Her life and writings are a firm rebuke to the gutter politics that Malaysian public life has descended to. As she writes at the conclusion of Kaleidoscope:

“I remember my father telling me, if you are right in the causes you champion, you should be fearless in pursuing them. I sometimes feel Malaysians are too timid to champion worthy causes. Technology now provides us all with greater opportunities to get our voices heard.”

PG Lim is a great Malaysian: bold, brilliant, principled and utterly human. Her story is an integral part of our national narrative. Read it.

DPM does a spin on Tunku Abdul Aziz’s Resignation

May 17, 2012

Syed Jaymal Zahiid@www.freemalaysiatoday.com

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim’s acrimonious exit from the DAP proved allegations that the predominantly Chinese opposition party is anti-Malay.

The hardliner UMNO leader said voters can judge for themselves if the allegation is true as the party would not tolerate dissent, especially from a Malay leader.

“DAP was never a Malay party and what happened showed that it would not tolerate dissent, especially if it is coming from the Malay leaders,” he told reporters after opening the Bumiputera Manufacturers and Service Industry Association meeting here.

Tunku Aziz, the DAP’s most senior Malay leader, quit the party on Monday after a fallout with Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng who called the latter’s criticism on poll reform group BERSIH3.0′s plan to hold the April 28 rally “embarrassing”.

The founding President of anti-graft movement Transparency International Malaysia said the rally was encouraging voters to break the law but maintained his endorsement for BERSIH’s demand for poll reform.

His senatorship was subsequently not renewed while he claimed his request to be brought before the party’s disciplinary committee was not entertained and this led to his resignation.

Lim later asked Tunku Aziz to reconsider and was said to have offered him a position in the party’s Penang-based think-tank with a RM50,000 stipend.

Arrogance

The former Bank Negara advisor, however, said he felt insulted by Lim’s “dangling” of the offer and called him “biadap” (uncouth).The DAP Secretary-General then said he would not trade barbs with Tunku Aziz and thanked him for his four-year services in the party.

Muhyiddin joined in the growing chorus of criticism against the DAP and called the party’s leaders hypocrites.

“What happened confirmed our belief that the party which calls itself democratic is not democratic at all.We can see Lim Guan Eng cannot tolerate dissent,” he said.

The Deputy Prime Minister added that Tunku Aziz’s description of Lim as arrogant after making the offer for his return was consistent with the feedback received on the Penang Chief Minister.

He said the former DAP Vice-Chairman was a highly principled man and the job offer reflected Lim’s disregard for Tunku Aziz’s qualities.“It shows how Lim, to have made such an offer, cares not about his qualities”.

Congrats to Malaysiakini

May 17, 2012

BERSIH3.0 Coverage : Congrats to Steven Gan, Prem Chandran, Fathi Omar and the Malaysiakini Team

Mkini is tops on BERSIH3.0 violence reports

by Koh Jun Lin

Malaysiakini produced the most number of reports among five major news sources on instances of violence during the BERSIH 3.0 rally, especially where the victims were journalists or protesters. It came a close second to Malay daily Utusan Malaysia on reporting violence targeting the Police, according to a two-day study by the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ).

The study looked at the number of news reports – excluding editorials and commentary – from Malaysiakini, theSun, The Star, New Straits Times and Utusan Malaysia, in the days immediately following the rally -  April 29 and 30.

The reports are then categorised based on whether it had mentioned journalists being attacked by the Police, protesters being  assaulted by the Police, journalists being roughed up by protesters, or Police being set upon  by protesters.

Reports saying people were injured without naming the perpetrator were excluded.It found that Malaysiakini had mentioned attacks on journalists and protesters by the police 17 times each, attacks on the police 12 times, and the one on TV al-Hijrah videographer Mohd Azri Mohd Salleh by protesters eight times.

Meanwhile, the broadsheet Utusan Malaysia had one article quoting Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng commenting on journalists being beaten by the Police, one mention of protesters being attacked by police, five for reporters attacked by protesters, and 14 mentions of police officers being attacked during the pro-electoral reform rally.

English daily theSun, which is not in circulation on weekends including the first day of the study, reported journalists being attacked by police five times, attacks on protesters twice, attacks on the police four times, and no reports of journalists being assualted by protesters.

The Star, also an English daily, had two reports in each category, except for assaults on the Police, which was mentioned four times.

Meanwhile, another English daily New Straits Times reported on protesters being attacked by the police and journalists being attacked by protesters twice each, had seven mentions of Police being a target for violence, and no reports on journalists being beaten up by the  Police.

The findings were presented by CIJ Media Monitor Ding Jo-Ann last night at the launch of the NGO’s annual Freedom of Expression in Malaysia 2011 report, although it is not a part of the report.

Commenting on the findings, she said, “CIJ condemns all forms of violence by anyone against anyone. But I think when you report things in a certain way, you give legitimacy to ‘certain people’ being beaten up by ‘certain people’.”

CIJ does not usually include the online media in its studies, citing the lack of resources and because mainstream print media has a broader reach. However, Ding said it was not possible to do so for this study because of the short study period.

In Desperate Need for Competition

May 16, 2012

In Desperate Need For Competition: An Opinion

by etheorist (05-02-12) @http://epolicy.blogspot.com/

Modern economics introduces the idea of competition as a route to fairness, so long as the judgement of the masses is free and informed with no one dominating opinion. Likewise, the idea of the Olympics where, instead of fighting in battle fields, the energies of the young are pitted one against the other in fair and open competition – provided that no external unnatural artifacts or substances are used to provide unfair advantage. This ideal is extended to politics where the views of all are aired and heard and then a consensus is arrived at, hopefully in as amiable and acceptable a position as can be hoped for.

In reality, the tendency is for a few to dominate. Domination is the harsh reality. It is the ability to hold domination by a few in check that is the hallmark of a fair society. The obverse is domination by the majority which in itself is also a form of tyranny in itself. Universal fairness or consensus is therefore a special case which is hard to come by in reality.

In this imperfect world, how do we arrive at a second-best form of  fairness where the views of society is taken into consideration?

In economics, the common approach is to prevent the rise of a dominant economic force or monopoly and promoting competition or smaller harmless units. This anti-trust approach runs into problem when there are foreign monopolies which the domestic government cannot control, and where the local competitors are too small to have a fighting chance.

One response is to prevent the entry of foreign monopolies – but this has the problem of not being able to enjoy the fruit of foreign innovation. The theory of comparative advantages teaches that one should allow in foreign monopolies while trying to establish our own local monopolies which we can try to dominate in foreign markets. (This is interesting as the theory of international trade seems to run counter to the theory of perfect competition.)

It is in trying to dealing with the reality of monopolies or large economic forces that government has to regulate the market. The failure of the government to regulate when the market is allowed to compete freely among itself in the hope that the “invisible hand” will somehow takes care of everything has led to disastrous results in recent years in the global financial sector. (What the policymakers have failed to realise is that when the “invisible hand” works, it forces those who are incompetent to fail and this is not allowed for financial institutions because they hold in trust deposits of the public!)

In Malaysian economics, the attempt to destroy Chinese monopoly has not led to the break up of Chinese businesses into smaller units, but the creation of Bumiputra monopoly which unsurprisingly work in collusion. While the monopolies stay, the only transformation is the ownership.

The major problem with the political solution to an economic problem is that the solution concentrates on power – both political and economic. It is the abuse of political and economic power that leads to the corruption of the proper functioning of the national economy and society and the major victims in this game is the ordinary men and women for they have to be deprived of their basic means to survival and livelihood so that the elite can enjoy opulence in the midst of economic stagnation.

In other words, low interest rates, low currency, persistent inflation and the inability to create sufficient decent jobs for new highly trained job seekers. There is no proper investment in technology and productivity gains.

In Malaysian politics, the domination of one coalition (as well as one man in that party) is now being fought by one coalition opposition (which is being dominated by one man). What is interesting is that a supposedly racist coalition is being challenged by a supposedly socialist-justice-religious coalition.

The racist argument is now proven to be a convenient straw man for the elite to share and consolidate their grip on the economy. The general public has now become wiser after three decades of abuse. The socialist-justice-religious coalition jumps in to ride the current in the hope of taking over the power.

The call for clean elections is another way of expressing the feeling that change is imminent, “if only things are fair.” The attempt by the Opposition coalition (which is dominated by one person) to capitalise on that call by creating social disturbance is an indication of how healthy competition can quickly degenerate into a desperado act. Who ever says politicians are ethical people?

The current political problem is purely an economic problem which has its seed in a misguided policy of disenfranchising the whole working population by giving special privileges to one group (thus giving them the signal that they can take and do not have to work) and by telling the rest that they do not have to work so hard because not all that you work hard for will not be yours – in addition to the cut that the government (and civil servants) will take from you in the form of the income tax.

Malaysia has undergone the great economic experiment of how to destroy the incentives to investment and innovation while inculcating a national culture of grab and run away.

The Opposition idea of how to do the same things with “transparency and no corruption” is to work on the assumption that the current economic model with its domination by monopolies is still correct.

The old guards have all gone, the intermediate generation has gone off to other countries, and the only ones that are left are those who have decided to stay back and pick up the pieces from the economic debris. Malaysia needs new political and economic leaders to provide a new and clear vision of how to stay competitive in the new global economy.

The newly imposed minimum wage may be the best first step yet. It will have problems because it will make uncompetitive businesses unprofitable. It will also say that low skilled workers may not be the path to high income.

With an economy which the central bank and economic planners still think that low skilled labour intensive plantations and assembly lines is the mainstay, we may have a long and treacherous journey ahead. However it is, do not be fooled by the promises of desperate people.

Note:  Robert Frank, New York Times economics columnist and best-selling author of The Economic Naturalist, predicts that within the next century Darwin will unseat Smith as the intellectual founder of economics.

The reason, Frank argues, is that Darwin’s understanding of competition describes economic reality far more accurately than Smith’s. And the consequences of this fact are profound. Indeed, the failure to recognize that we live in Darwin’s world rather than Smith’s is putting us all at risk by preventing us from seeing that competition alone will not solve our problems.

Smith’s theory of the invisible hand, which says that competition channels self-interest for the common good, is probably the most widely cited argument today in favor of unbridled competition–and against regulation, taxation, and even government itself. But what if Smith’s idea was almost an exception to the general rule of competition?

That’s what Frank argues, resting his case on Darwin’s insight that individual and group interests often diverge sharply. Far from creating a perfect world, economic competition often leads to “arms races,” encouraging behaviors that not only cause enormous harm to the group but also provide no lasting advantages for individuals, since any gains tend to be relative and mutually offsetting.

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A Tribute to Milton Friedman

Peter Robinson On Milton Friedman

A Capital Thinker

Milton Friedman’s ideas about free markets changed minds, economies and nations.

by Peter Robinson

Milton Friedman was an unlikely candidate to become a great man. He was born in 1912 to obscurity and poverty, his parents Jewish immigrants from Central Europe. Only a couple of inches over 5 feet, he was physically unimpressive. He never accumulated great wealth or held elective office. His name never became a household word. Yet by the time of his death in November (2007) at 94, Friedman had transformed the world.

Ronald Reagan may have deployed the principles of free markets and individual responsibility in the realm of practical politics, just as William F. Buckley Jr. introduced them into public discourse. Yet Milton Friedman gave those principles clarity, definition and unassailable intellectual rigor. Without the decades of analysis that he had performed, the tax cuts, deregulation and limits on the money supply of the 1980s—policies that revived the economy and restored American morale—might have been swept away with the first change in political tides. Friedman showed why liberty still matters.

Today, China, India and countries in Eastern Europe have embraced Friedman’s principles—the Prime Minister of Estonia once remarked that Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom was one of the few economics books he had ever read—lifting several hundred million people out of poverty. His work led to so much good for so many.

How did Friedman achieve so much, producing critical breakthroughs in economics—empirical and theoretical demonstrations of the importance of money, a compelling theory of consumer savings, the concept of a “natural” rate of unemployment—then go on to achieve such extensive influence outside the academy?

I knew Friedman for 18 years. When, leaving my job as a White House speechwriter, I told President Reagan I would be moving to Stanford, he replied, “Get in touch with my friend Milton. He’ll keep you on the straight-and-narrow.” Now I find myself calling to mind three of Friedman’s attributes.

His capacity for work proved incredible. Although by the time I met him Friedman had had nothing to prove to anybody for decades, he remained as hard-working as an assistant professor struggling to attain tenure. He gave lectures, sat for interviews, wrote papers, and published often in the Wall Street Journal—and kept up that pace even after turning 90. Friedman’s last published work was an article in the Wall Street Journal the day after he died. He had adapted the article from a major academic paper on which he was working.

The second attribute: utter intellectual honesty. Milton Friedman was no respecter of persons. If you had a good idea, it made no difference if you were a mere undergraduate. Friedman would take your idea, discuss it with you, embellish it, and make you feel you had taught something to him. But if you had a bad idea, it made no difference if you were president of the United States. In advising Richard Nixon, Friedman proved particularly merciless. “I don’t give a good goddamn what Milton Friedman says,” Nixon once famously barked to John Ehrlichman. “He’s not running for re-election.”

Friedman rejected jargon, imprecision or obfuscation of any kind, refusing to hedge or qualify his views. Interviewing Friedman a couple of years ago, I pressed him on his support for Bush’s tax cuts, noting that the administration’s rationale—that the tax cuts would stimulate the economy—sounded suspiciously Keynesian. Friedman agreed, roundly rejecting the administration’s position. But as for himself, “I . . . favor . . . any tax cut, under any circumstances, in any form whatsoever.” Clear enough?

The final attribute is the one on which I find myself lingering now that Friedman is gone: his relationship with his wife of 68 years, Rose. Throughout his career, Friedman often pointed out, he never published any work that Rose hadn’t read, marked up and improved.

Rose was his best friend—and sharpest critic. She kept him grounded. The last time I saw them together, I called Friedman the most important economist of the 20th century.

Rose nodded, enjoying the compliment. But when Friedman himself looked her way, she rolled her eyes. Friedman threw back his head and laughed. The great man loved his wife.

PETER ROBINSON, MBA ’90, is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 1983 to 1988, he was special assistant and speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan.

Listen UP,Dr Zahid Hamidi: France is not Malaysia

May 16, 2012

www.malaysiakini.com

Lawyer Joseph Brehem, who is currently in France pursuing the inquiry into the Malaysian purchase of French submarines, rebutted Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s statement that the French courts have no jurisdiction over Malaysians.

“French courts have jurisdiction on anyone, being French or not, as soon as they are involved in a matter the courts are inquiring on. To say otherwise is either misleading or erroneous,” Brehem (right in photo) said in a statement issued by Suaram today.

Suaram, the local human rights NGO, has filed a civil suit with the French courts to look into the government’s purchase of the submarines.

Yesterday Ahmad Zahid insisted that the French courts have no jurisdiction to summon Malaysians to testify in the ongoing inquiry.

Warrant of Arrest

“Who are they to issue a warrant of arrest? We are not subjected to French laws,” he said.

He was responding to an earlier statement by Brehem that an international arrest warrant can be issued by a French judge if a witness refuses to assist in an inquiry following the issuance of a subpoena.

“If the witness refuses to abide by the subpoena, the court can issue a notice mandat d’amener, compelling the witness to appear before it. If the witness (still) fails to oblige, a warrant of arrest may be issued.

“The warrant of arrest is applicable within the French territory, and may be internationalised if the judge deems it necessary,” said Brehem.

Ahmad Zahid is named in the list of seven witnesses proposed by Suaram, which was accepted by French investigating judge Roger Le Loire.

However, this does not mean that all seven witnesses, including Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his associate Abdul Razak Baginda, will be subpoenaed by the inquiry. The French judge is currently in the process of issuing subpoenas.

Let the Revolution in College Education Begin

May 16, 2012

NY Times: Come The Revolution (05-15-12)

by Thomas L. Friedman

Andrew Ng is an associate professor of computer science at Stanford, and he has a rather charming way of explaining how the new interactive online education company that he cofounded, Coursera, hopes to revolutionize higher education by allowing students from all over the world to not only hear his lectures, but to do homework assignments, be graded, receive a certificate for completing the course and use that to get a better job or gain admission to a better school.

“I normally teach 400 students,” Ng explained, but last semester he taught 100,000 in an online course on machine learning. “To reach that many students before,” he said, “I would have had to teach my normal Stanford class for 250 years.”

Welcome to the college education revolution. Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately necessary. The costs of getting a college degree have been rising faster than those of health care, so the need to provide low-cost, quality higher education is more acute than ever.

At the same time, in a knowledge economy, getting a higher-education degree is more vital than ever. And thanks to the spread of high-speed wireless technology, high-speed Internet, smartphones, Facebook, the cloud and tablet computers, the world has gone from connected to hyperconnected in just seven years. Finally, a generation that has grown up on these technologies is increasingly comfortable learning and interacting with professors through online platforms.

The combination of all these factors gave birth to Coursera.org, which launched on April 18, with the backing of Silicon Valley venture funds, as my colleague John Markoff first reported.

Private companies, like Phoenix, have been offering online degrees for a fee for years. And schools like M.I.T. and Stanford have been offering lectures for free online. Coursera is the next step: building an interactive platform that will allow the best schools in the world to not only offer a wide range of free course lectures online, but also a system of testing, grading, student-to-student help and awarding certificates of completion of a course for under $100. (Sounds like a good deal. Tuition at the real-life Stanford is over $40,000 a year.) Coursera is starting with 40 courses online — from computing to the humanities — offered by professors from Stanford, Princeton, Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania.

“The universities produce and own the content, and we are the platform that hosts and streams it,” explained Daphne Koller, a Stanford computer science professor who founded Coursera with Ng after seeing tens of thousands of students following their free Stanford lectures online. “We will also be working with employers to connect students — only with their consent — with job opportunities that are appropriate to their newly acquired skills.

So, for instance, a biomedical company looking for someone with programming and computational biology skills might ask us for students who did well in our courses on cloud computing and genomics. It is great for employers and employees — and it enables someone with a less traditional education to get the credentials to open up these opportunities.”

M.I.T., Harvard and private companies, like Udacity, are creating similar platforms. In five years this will be a huge industry. While the lectures are in English, students have been forming study groups in their own countries to help one another. The biggest enrollments are from the United States, Britain, Russia, India and Brazil. “One Iranian student e-mailed to say he found a way to download the class videos and was burning them onto CDs and circulating them,” Ng said last Thursday. “We just broke a million enrollments.”

To make learning easier, Coursera chops up its lectures into short segments and offers online quizzes, which can be auto-graded, to cover each new idea. It operates on the honor system but is building tools to reduce cheating.

In each course, students post questions in an online forum for all to see and then vote questions and answers up and down. “So the most helpful questions bubble to the top and the bad ones get voted down,” Ng said. “With 100,000 students, you can log every single question. It is a huge data mine.” Also, if a student has a question about that day’s lecture and it’s morning in Cairo but 3 a.m. at Stanford, no problem. “There is always someone up somewhere to answer your question” after you post it, he said. The median response time is 22 minutes.

These top-quality learning platforms could enable budget-strained community colleges in America to “flip” their classrooms. That is, download the world’s best lecturers on any subject and let their own professors concentrate on working face-to-face with students. Says Koller: “It will allow people who lack access to world-class learning — because of financial, geographic or time constraints — to have an opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families.”

When you consider how many problems around the world are attributable to the lack of education, that is very good news. Let the revolution begin.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on May 16, 2012, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Come the Revolution.

Point of No Return for Tunku Aziz

May 16, 2012

Analysis
By Joceline Tan

Tunku Aziz Ibrahim’s live TV resignation’ from the DAP will damage the party’s image among thinking Malays.

THE persecution of Tunku Aziz Ibrahim has begun in earnest on the Internet. The former DAP vice-chairman was hailed as a hero by Pakatan Rakyat supporters when he joined DAP in 2008. Today the same people are vilifying him on pro-Pakatan news portals, criticising his decision and calling him all sorts of names.

Politics is a cruel game but the anonymity afforded by the Internet makes ordinary people even more cruel and ruthless than politicians. The irony of it all is that some of the kindest comments made to Tunku Aziz have actually come from people within the DAP.

A top-ranking leader from Penang not Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng texed him minutes after his “live TV resignation” to commiserate and to wish him all the best.

Some of the DAP politicians who have seen him up close say that he is a principled man, he speaks like a gentleman and carries himself with dignity. They do not share his views on BERSIH but they respect him and are sad to see him go this way.

Selangor DAP leader Datuk Teng Chang Khim tweeted to critics of Tunku Aziz to “be passionate but do not get fever”. What he meant was that they should not go overboard in their zeal to condemn the man. Teng, who is also the state assembly speaker, was quite appalled at the name-calling that he saw on an established news portal and told a friend that, “I despise those who condemn him (Tunku Aziz) this way.”

Party adviser Lim Kit Siang, who often comes across as incapable of emotion, actually tweeted that he was “heartbroken” and thanked Tunku Aziz for his time in DAP.

Tunku Aziz caused ripples when he joined DAP but his shock exit is making waves although not everyone in the party is surprised. Very few people in DAP could visualise him continuing in the party after the very public fallout with their powerful secretary-general.

Guan Eng does not like to be contradicted and those who take him on find themselves isolated and struggle to survive in the party.But the question being asked is: What will be the impact of his resignation on the DAP? The folk in DAP are confident that it will have little consequence on their traditional Chinese base. The present political mood for the party is strong enough for it to weather the impact.

Their concern is the impact among the Malays, especially the thinking Malays. Many Malays were incredulous that someone of Tunku Aziz’s stature would join a party which had championed Chinese education and opposed the NEP – issues that struck at the core of Malay nationalist interests.This same group of Malays are probably telling each other now that they knew it would be a short-lived love affair.

The resignation will hurt DAP and its Pakatan partners where it matters most – the Malay fence-sitters, the group that will decide who forms the government after the next general election.

Tunku Aziz is merely going the way of other independent personalities like Dr Kua Kia Soong and Dr Lee Ban Chen who had joined DAP with rose-tinted glasses, found that they could not fit in with the yes-man culture and quit.

Guan Eng was reported in Roketkini, the party’s Malay mouthpiece, as saying that he wants to persuade Tunku Aziz to rethink his quit decision and stay on as Vice-Chairman of the party. It is rather too late in the day. Tunku Aziz’s dismay with Guan Eng was not just solely about being publicly rebuked over the BERSIH matter.

He had seen Guan Eng in action at meetings, the way he treated senior figures in the party like Karpal Singh and how thin-skinned he is about opposition to his decisions. It is a side of Guan Eng that people outside do not see and let’s just say that Tunku Aziz has been less than impressed by what he has seen.

If Guan Eng was sincere, he would have endeavoured to meet the older man much earlier. Instead, he sent his henchman Zairil Khir Johari to offer Tunku Aziz a position in the Penang Institute think-tank that comes with a stipend of RM50,000 a year plus travel perks.

It was the ultimate insult to Tunku Aziz who had thought to himself: “Is that how they rate me?” Tunku Aziz is an old-world gentleman who is often rather understated in his words and action.

The fact that he chose to announce his resignation on a live TV talk-show showed he had reached a point of no return with the DAP. The Tunku has crossed the Rubicon or to quote the man himself: “It’s sayonara forever.”

 

Tunku Aziz: You Got Out the Kitchen to escape the Heat

May 16, 2012

www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT by Terence Netto: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” This remark attributed to US president Harry Truman is famously evocative of the pressures a politician must face if his or her mettle is to be deemed strong enough to withstand the rigours of such a life.

By those standards Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim (right), the DAP Vice-Chairperson who resigned his post on Monday over issues stemming from his criticism of the BERSIH3.0 protest, has been found wanting.

His decision to quit the party, after a brief four years as a member and coming as it does in the immediate prelude to a general election, will cause a minor dent in the DAP’s public image but would provide its adversaries with an expedient weapon with which to beat it.

This weapon will not be as potent as the one the resignation of Lee Lam Thye from the DAP in October 1990 gave the party’s adversaries on the eve of another general election at that time.

Then the MP for Kuala Lumpur Bandar (now Bukit Bintang), Lee’s leaving the DAP was widely seen by the public as a reflection of the brusque ethos of a party considered inhospitable to politicians of his rounded edges and benign image.

By 1990, Lee was a longstanding and popular MP whose non-confrontational approach was seen as attractive enough to draw Malay support to him individually, if not his party. That approach was seen as the antithesis of secretary-general Lim Kit Siang’s which was considered far too aggressive to win for the DAP broad support across the divides in a racially stratified country.

So when Lee quit the DAP in an tearful announcement that was given front-page play in the BN-controlled mainstream media (this was in the days well before the inception of the Internet), there was no way discerning members of the public could appraise the real motives behind the very public saga of his resignation.

Those motives have not worn well in the intervening years; in fact, it is Kit Siang’s image over time that has gained rather than Lam Thye’s by reason of the former’s adhesion to the ideal of a durable and principled opposition, an ideal now poised on the verge of national vindication by an awakened electorate.

This is a reversal of what obtained in the public arena at the time of Lam Thye’s quitting of the DAP more than two decades ago.

Then Lee (right) was seen as a victim who could no longer take his unjust deserts in the party and Kit Siang as seen as an ogre bent on autocratic control, intolerant of internal dissent and alternative styles in opposing the BN.

There was no way in 1990 to see if there were gaps between reality and appearance, and so a public pummeled by BN propaganda had to be satisfied with what the media-fed images of the internecine feuding in the DAP and what it had wrought in respect of its latest casualty.

Fortunately, this is not now the case with the resignation of Tunku Abdul Aziz from the DAP. The more open, Internet-fed, political atmosphere that obtains these days makes it easier to assess his actions and his motives.

The rise of Tunku Aziz

Tunku Aziz came to public prominence in the interregnum between Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s announcement of his intention to retire as Prime Minister in June 2002 and successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s assumption of the office 16 months later.

During that period, Tunku Aziz was not infrequently in the news as head of the Malaysian chapter of Transparency International (TI-M), an NGO focused on promoting greater accountability and transparency in the public and private sectors, particularly in procurement procedures.

He used his role as TI-M head to expatiate on the dire need for a corruption-free civil service which gave his emergence in the public arena as an anti-corruption crusader and the early emanations of the themes of an Abdullah premiership – it signaled it would be against graft – a nice symmetry.

Not surprisingly, he was named in December 2003 to the Royal Commission on the management and conduct of the Police force, the first and most striking anti-corruption measure taken by the newly-installed Abdullah administration.

The commission was composed of public figures of vaunted credibility but when nothing was done about the report it published after a 15-month gestation, Tunku Aziz did not suffer any dent to his credibility though he was the source of a story during the period of the commission’s sitting that one Police Officer had accumulated assets worth RM27 million, a vignette that reinforced widespread public perception of the force as graft-ridden.

Tunku Aziz’s public stature continued to rise despite the mothballing of the royal commission’s report; the anti-corruption currents loosed in the public arena were strong enough to propel the career of this crusader against graft to heights that transcended domestic, politically-driven, constraints.

He was appointed a special advisor to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan on transparency and public accountability for a year from early 2006.

Not since famed lawyer R Ramani was president of the UN Security Council for a year in the 1960s had a Malaysian been raised to such prominence by the august international body.

After he returned from the UN, Tunku Aziz continued to use public forums and newspaper columns in Malaysia not only to inveigh against corruption but also to hold forth on the state of the national polity. In July 2008, he uncharacteristically departed from the non-partisan stance he tended to take on public affairs by telling Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim to submit his DNA sample to the Police for testing in regard to the second case of sodomy that was being preferred against him.

It was a strange call, coming from a man who had sat on a commission that inquired into turpitude in the police force, a panel whose recommendations were stiff-armed by a cabal of senior officers determined to show that bureaucratic will can override political fiat.

Lone ranger stance on BERSIH Rally

Shortly after his egregious call to Anwar to submit his DNA sample, Tunku Aziz plunged into the partisan political fray by joining the DAP.

The party welcomed him with glee as evidence that it could draw to its ranks prominent Malays, though Tunku Aziz was far too anglophile a personality to be a magnet for Malays to join the DAP. He would later admit that he had failed in the goal of getting more Malays to join the party.

Soon an appointment to the Senate from Penang came, a role which afforded him additional prominence for his broadsides on graft in the public sphere.

However, his blithe indifference to subterranean realities, exhibited in his call to Anwar (right) to submit his DNA sample, soon got him on the controversial side of things when he criticised electoral reform advocacy group, BERSIH for wanting to stage its protest at the Dataran Merdeka.

Publicly chastised by the party, Tunku Aziz remained unfazed by the controversy generated by his lone ranger stance on the BERSIH protest.

He went on to criticise BERSIH for allegedly pretending to be free of responsibility for the violence that marred the tail end of their April 28 protest.

His term as senator was allowed to lapse and the DAP disciplinary board shaped to take action against him for bringing the party into public disrepute. But before action could be taken, Tunku Aziz rendered the issue moot yesterday by quitting the party.

“Me thinks the lady doth protest too much,” a character in a Shakespeare play remarks about another person’s affectations about her virtue. The remark (with alterations for gender) could be applied to Tunku Aziz in his attempt to take a principled stance on matters where one party makes a pretense of adhering to principle merely to bamboozle its antagonist into submission.

In other words, the rules that apply to fault-fixing in cases involving graft are not easily transposable to the political arena. A temperament that cares little for these nuances would necessarily be discomfited by the heat of the partisan fray.

It’s time for UMNO-BN to listen to the Rakyat (People)

May 15, 2012

by Jeswan Kaur@www.freemalaysiatoday.com

“In some South Pacific cultures, a speaker holds a conch shell as a symbol of temporary position of authority. Leaders must understand who holds the conch – that is, who should be listened to and when”. – writer Max De Pree

There is a reason why human beings have been blessed with two ears and one mouth – so that we listen better and speak only when need be. However, looking at the chaotic political scenario of this country, the opposite seems to be in motion.

From Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to his team of Ministers, none is listening to the rakyat. These politicians seem to have made up their minds who they will lend a listening ear to. Joining them is former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad who, for reasons best known to him, has never learned the virtue and value of being a “good listener”, both back when he lorded 22 years over the nation and now when as a “retiree”.

In Mahathir’s case, less than a week ago he accused the events of April 28 as attempts to discredit the ruling government under the Barisan Nasional flagship. April 28 was when BERSIH 3.0 came to be. Like the rest of the BN “loud hailers”, Mahathir’s take on the rally has ended up as myopic. He has blamed the opposition of trying to tarnish the good name of the BN government because the former is not confident of winning the 13th general election.

Who better than Mahathir to admit the hanky-panky that BN undertakes each time faced with an election? But then, the good doctor being the typical politician that he is, has decided to do his bit to discredit BERSIH 3.0. In Mahathir’s words: “….so they want to topple the government through the demonstration and Nik Aziz Nik Mat (PAS spiritual leader) said it is permissible to bring down the government in this manner [demonstration].

“They want to make Malaysia like Egypt, Tunisia, which were brought down through riots and now Syria… when the government does not fall, [they] can appeal to the foreign power to help and bring it down, even if it means using fire-power.The people must think and should not allow this thing to happen by giving a big win to the BN in the next general election.”

Does Mahathir honestly believe the people are out to topple the BN government under Najib’s leadership? The protest was all about seeking positive changes to the electoral system of this country. How on earth did Dr Mahathir jump to the conclusion that BERSIH3.0 was about turning Malaysia into Tunisia or Egypt?

Start listening, BN

Enough lies have been spread to malign the efforts to seek electoral reforms. The crux of the matter was simple – for the government to not indulge in “unhealthy” practices to win the country’s elections.

But instead the BN government revealed its true colour. Bad enough that listening to the rakyat has never been of any interest to it, the government decided to “play by its rules” – its Parliamentary Select Committee a mere whitewash, failing to resolve key issues pertaining to electoral reforms as demanded by BERSIH.

Can Najib help enlighten us as to whatever happened to his promise that the government could only work best if it listened to the people? Why then such propaganda work to portray BERSIH 3.0 and its key players as going against the establishment? The move to denounce the rally by roping in the National Fatwa Council is a step backward.

Instead of politicising the council which, in turn, politicises Islam, the nation’s dominant religion, BN has to muster the courage to engage in a series of introspection and retrospection and learn from its mistakes. Sadly, the UMNO soul-searching post-2008 that Najib talked about has not helped one bit. Like its major “shareholder” UMNO, BN too has become stagnant, unable to move in the “right” direction.

Had BN been centred on reality and actuality, BERSIH 3.0 could have been avoided. Instead, it has always been the ruling coalition’s arrogance that has made life difficult for the rakyat.

Take cognisance post-April 28

BERSIH 3.0 came and went but that does not negate the fact that the people are no longer in the mood to tolerate corruption of any kind. No more sweet talks or handouts to conceal the truth. The rakyat knows it all too well already.

To continue to fool the people is an old trick that BN can no longer play. The setting up of the independent advisory panel to investigate allegations of police brutality is yet another “trick of the trade” the rakyat have become familiar with. Only time will reveal whether it is yet another gimmick to fool the rakyat in view of the impending general election or is well-intended.

But then why the panel when the country has its own human rights commission, Suhakam? Does the BN administration worry that the commission will do a good job at unearthing the truth, hence the hastily-created panel?Najib has said the panel would comprise “credible, experienced and respectable” individuals. Does Suhakam lack such “credentials”?

In any case, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s remark that the panel was set up to uphold the rights and freedom of Malaysians is an insult to Malaysians.Had the rights and freedom of the rakyat been BN’s concern, the police brutality on April 28 would never dare happen.

And were the rights and freedom of Malaysians indeed been the government’s concern, the rakyat, especially the non-Malays, would have never have been treated as persona non grata.

DAP is big enough for Tunku Aziz to remain as National Vice-Chair

May 15, 2012

by Lim Guan Eng
DAP Secretary-General

When announcing his resignation from DAP, Senator Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim cited “irreconcilable differences” with the party leadership in dissenting with DAP’s official position to support Bersih 3.0 to conduct a peaceful sit-in protest in Dataran Merdeka to press for clean, free and fair elections.

DAP is big enough for Tunku Abdul Aziz to remain as National Vice-Chair and accomodate his” irreconciliable differences” with the DAP on Bersih’s quest to conduct a sit-in protest in Dataran Merdeka to press for clean elections

Malaysiakini reported Tunku Abdul Aziz as saying his open disagreement with DAP made Tunku himself choose not to be re-nominated as a senator for Penang when his term expired on 30 May 2012, and stated that he was not sacked from his Dewan Negara’s post by DAP.

Tunku Aziz had also suggested to the party leadership that DAP should subject him to the “same disciplinary procedure as any other party member” for his dissent. As disciplinary action from DAP was not forthcoming he had decided to resign from the DAP to avoid further embarrassment.

I would like to express my sadness at Tunku’s announcement. DAP believes in freedom of speech and that every member and leader has a right to differ. I don’t agree that any disciplinary action should be taken against Tunku for differing with the party on Bersih’s right to do the sit-in protest in Dataran Merdeka.

Indeed there was general unhappiness at all levels in the party that he openly went against the party official position on BERSIH before the rally on 28 April and also after. However, just as Tunku has the right to openly voice his dissent, the party’s right to state its position on such a fundamental policy position as BERSIH must also be respected. The party did not punish Tunku for voicing his dissent openly nor at any stage asked him to leave or resign.

I feel sad about Tunku wanting to leave the party because of differences over BERSIH. After all Tunku had joined DAP because DAP offered a platform to promote integrity and fight corruption.

DAP’s performance in government after winning power in Penang in 2008 has been walking the talk in promoting integrity and fighting corruption. Penang Pakatan Rakyat has taken the lead with open competitive tenders, open disclosure of government contracts and public declaration of assets by leaders.

Not only Transparency International and the Auditor-General Report praised Penang’s financial performance, even former MCA President Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik praised Penang for performing well and been clean from corruption.

Despite Tunku open dissent, the DAP leadership does not want him to leave the party but remain as DAP Vice-Chair. I  hope we can resolve whatever differences within the party in the spirit of comradeship.I will contact Tunku to see him to discuss with him and hope he can change his mind about leaving the party.

Tun Dr. Ling: Two-Party System can work in Malaysia

May 15, 2012

by Kong See Hoh
newsdesk@thesundaily.com

FORMER MCA President Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik says the two-party system can work in Malaysia, but it depends on the quality of the Opposition.

Despite not having led MCA’s charge in the 2008 polls, Ling in an interview with Sin Chew Daily published today, said the system has been proven viable in other democracies, and as such there is no reason why it cannot be practised in Malaysia.

Ling said: “But it (the implementation of a two-party system) will have to depend on the quality of the opposition. If they (the opposition) are terrible (lousy), a two-party system cannot be effectively implemented. If they are very good … such as in Penang, (it can be done).

“In fact the DAP has done rather well, if not for the squabble between party leaders Karpal Singh and Deputy Chief Minister II Dr P Ramasamy.”

Asked for his take on Barisan Nasional’s (BN) political fortunes in the next general election, Ling, who has kept a low profile after stepping down as party chief nine years ago, did not mince his words when he said BN will not be able to recapture Selangor.

He said apart from PKR leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Pakatan Rakyat leaders such as Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng have built themselves a good image for staying clear of corruption and not having abused their power.

“Generally speaking, the Chinese are not good towards BN, but they have no choice in Perak. BN may receive less support in Johor but not to the point of losing the state.The next general election will be very tough for Barisan, (but) I believe it still can win, because the government has been spending money non-stop under different names, which has not happened before.”

Punters have been speculating on the date of the next polls, with the latest being in September, but to Ling, “the debate on the best time to call for election is one for which there is no answer.”

“What you believe is the opportune time may turn out to be otherwise. Therefore, the chances of the 13th general election being held in June are not high.To put it more correctly, Barisan is not very sure whether it can win in the next election. Some say it (the election) will be held in June, I don’t know whether it (BN) dares to go ahead, (as) there are still a lot of crises (issues) which are yet to be resolved”.

In London: Najib’s Speech interrupted by BERSIH Chants

May 15, 2012

www.malaysiakini.com

Prime Minister Najib in London (May 14, 2012)

 

Najib’s Speech interrupted  by BERSIH Chants

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s speech to overseas Malaysians at a get-together in London last night was interrupted by repeated chants of “Bersih! Bersih!” from the floor.

The chanting started when Najib took to the stage, and it continued when he began his speech. According to a footage uploaded on Internet, after some 25 seconds into his speech, Najib was clearly annoyed by the chanting; he raised his right hand and told the protesters to stop it.

“Can you please stop it? Can you stop it, please?” he said, to some inaudible reply from the floor. “I know, I know, but can you stop it? You can meet with me later, okay? Please, can you stop it?” Najib tried to defuse the anger.

“I want to vote…Why you don’t allow me to vote…,” a participant shouted as the chanting continued.

“No, no, no, okay… alright, alright, you… no, no, you wait for me,” Najib responded. “You have to respect… (inaudible),” the man replied.

Fortunately the chanting died down soon after that and Najib was able to continue his speech.

The event dubbed ‘An Evening with the Prime Minister’ was organised by the Malaysian High Commission at the prestigious 02 Arena in the UK capital, which can accommodate about 2,000 people.

According to Malaysia’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Zakaria Sulong, the event was to enable Malaysians in London to interact in an informal manner with the Prime Minister.

The O2 Arena is well-known for the staging of pop concerts and prestigious events. The building which features most uniquely on the European city’s skyline is one among the many venues chosen for the 2012 London Olympics. It was also on the itinerary for the late pop legend Michael Jackson’s final tour which never happened.

The PM’s gathering raises the question whether the lavish event was funded by public funds.

Harakah Daily on Tunku Aziz’s resignation from DAP

May 15, 2012

Harakah Daily on Tunku Aziz’s resignation from DAP

Harakah Daily–On Tunku Aziz’s Resignation from DAP

“Just saw recorded (video of) Tunku’s TV interview as I was taking a flight. Heart-broken @ ending of Tunku’s stint in DAP. TQ  for  efforts 4 yrs n best wishes”.–Lim Kit Siang on Twitter

May 14–DAP Vice Chairman Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim, given a prime time slot on UMNO-controlled television channel NTV7, tonight announced his resignation from his party post and membership, saying he would notify the leadership.

In an hour long interview aired by the station, Aziz, whose remarks criticising the BERSIH 3.0 rally of April 28 brought out into the open his differences with party leadership, called on the public to support the Barisan Nasional government’s ‘transformation’ programme.

“The government is listening. Although I belong to the Opposition party, I can see the merit of what they are doing. Give them a chance to show that what they are doing is for the benefit of all,” said the 78-year old, whose senatorship was not renewed by the Penang state government following his remarks deriding peaceful protesters in Kuala Lumpur.

Suggestive questioning, NTV7 style

In the hour long programme in which a pair of hosts threw suggestive questions on him, Aziz took pains to stress that he was not against electoral reforms coalition BERSIH 3.0′s demands, but was only against its decision to defy the Police’s warning against participating in a sit-in at Dataran Merdeka.

Last month, having denied entry to the historic public square, some 200,000 people gathered for the BERSIH 3.0 rally in several parts of the capital, calling for urgent electoral reforms be carried out before the next general election.

Aziz repeated the now familiar argument in the mainstream media accusing BERSIH leadership as serving a political agenda, saying it was “unfortunate” that the popular NGO was seen supporting Opposition politicians.

On Malaysian Bar Council

Turning to the Bar Council which has recently come under attack from BN leaders and top police brass over its stand last week condemning the police for the way it treated protesters last month, Aziz chided it for being “more concerned with politics”.

“The Bar until recently had a commanding influence and seen as fighters for justice and equity. But recently, for several years, it has been seen as being more concerned with politics,” he said, agreeing with criticisms by UMNO leaders against the Bar’s unanimous resolution last Friday.

Many times during the interview Aziz described himself as “naive” and “stupid” for his decision to join politics. Recalling the decision to join DAP in 2008, Aziz said he was obliging veteran politician Lim Kit Siang, whom he described as “the one man I trust”, who offered him a platform in the party.

In the interview, Aziz however disputed suggestions that DAP was a Chinese-based party, saying the party’s meetings were conducted in the national language, something he said was proof that it was “trying to change”.

‘I didn’t join PR’

Before ending his interview with an announcement that he would tender his resignation, Aziz claimed that he chose to stay on in the party for fear of “letting my friend down if I withdraw”, adding that his role as Vice Chairman was “somewhat circumscribed in that you are not totally free”.

Asked why he had not joined PKR instead, Aziz argued he did not know its de-facto leader Anwar Ibrahim as much as he knew Lim (kit siang). According to Aziz, he had only joined DAP and not Pakatan Rakyat. “I didn’t join PR, I joined DAP. Don’t expect my views to coincide with theirs 100 per cent.”

Aziz, however ,refused to be drawn in by the tv host’s allegation that Anwar had a “questionable image and reputation”, saying DAP’s agreement to appoint Anwar as a Prime Minister in the event PR governs at the Federal level could have been “for the sake of the coalition’s unity”. “Anwar seems to be the person best suited,” he added.

‘PAS no pushover’

He brushed aside allegations that DAP had been able to put pressure on fellow coalition partner PAS, stressing that the Islamic party was “no pushover”.

“You can’t subordinate PAS. They have their own ideas and strengths,” he said, adding that differences among PR partners were usual and expected.

Aziz, however, made clear his support to the BN government, saying it had done a “reasonable job”, although he quickly added: “But they could have done better”.

Praise for Najib’s ETP Agenda: Moving in the Right Direction

He said the BN government was moving in the “right direction” in the much-trumpeted ‘transformation’ agenda of Prime Minister Najib Razak. “They are on the right track. I have absolute confidence,” declared Aziz, repeating a familiar argument by BN leaders that governing a multiracial country like Malaysia is a “monumental task” – something which Aziz said the PR coalition had “no experience” in.

Tunku Aziz Quits DAP

May 14, 2012

Breaking News by Malaysiakini

Tunku Aziz Quits DAP

Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim, the most senior Malay leader in DAP, has tendered his resignation from his Vice-chairperson’s post as well as his party membership.

His decision to quit the party, which was announced tonight, comes as a major blow to the DAP as it gears up for the general election which some believe could be held as early as next month.

He, however, will not join another political party, quashing rumours that he may defect to UMNO. “I’m not a frog,” he insisted.

In tendering his resignation, Tunku Abdul Aziz acknowledged that by exercising his right of dissent, he has gone against the party’s position on BERSIH 3.0 – where some 200,000 took to the streets last month in demanding for free and fair elections, resulting in clashes between the protesters and the Police.

He said due to his open disagreement with the party, he had chosen not to be re-nominated as a senator for Penang, indicating that he was not sacked from his Dewan Negara’s post by DAP when news broke that his term ending May 30 was not renewed.

“I felt that my position was no longer tenable and that I would no longer be able to serve Penang and my party,” the one-term senator told Malaysiakini.

According to Tunku Abdul Aziz, he had suggested to DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, who is also Penang Chief Minister, that the party should subject him to the “same disciplinary procedure as any other party member” over his action.

“Unfortunately, up to now, that was not forthcoming. In order not to prolong the matter and avoid further embarrassment, I have decided to relinquish my post of DAP Vice-chairperson and tender my resignation as a party member with immediate effect.”

‘I had to draw the line’

Tunku Abdul Aziz stressed that he expressed his views on BERSIH3.0 out of “personal conscience” and it was done based on his “sincere belief that our country will always take precedence over sectarian interest”.

“I had to draw the line and I chose to affirm my right of dissent when as a legislator in the Senate, I felt defying the law was unacceptable.”

He said he had always advocated the need for free and fair elections, and that he had been consistent and unwavering on the matter.

“Throughout my career as a professional manager and a civil society advocate, I stood for respect for the Rule of Law, good governance and proper public conduct,” said Tunku Abdul Aziz, who is the founder of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M).

“I criticised the organisers of BERSIH3.0 when they refused to accept Merdeka Stadium as the alternative site after the Mayor of Kuala Lumpur, with the authority of our courts, declared that Dataran Merdeka was out of bounds and violators of the court order would be breaking the law.

“The right to assemble was granted, and I was convinced then as I am now that if Merdeka Stadium was accepted as the venue for the sit-down rally, the ugly scenes we witnessed on April 28, 2012 would not have occurred and our country would have been spared of yet another trauma after BERSIH 2.0 in July last year.”

Fitting end to short political career

Abdul Aziz joined DAP in August 2008 – five months after political tsunami which saw the Pakatan Rakyat opposition making significant gains at the last general election, winning five states including Selangor and Penang.

A year later, he was appointed senator representing Penang, giving him the distinction of being the first DAP senator.

A distant member of the Kedah royal family, Abdul Aziz began his career in the police force before joining Guthrie Corporation and later served as an adviser for Bank Negara. He was instrumental in setting up TI-M, an NGO dedicated to fighting corruption.

Abdul Aziz described his resignation today as a fitting end to his brief foray into politics, which lasted no more than four years.

“In traveling throughout the length and breadth of our country over the last few years, I have met and interacted with a lot of Malaysians from all walks life and learned much, which I now can put to good use for the next phase of my life,” he told Malaysiakini.

“After a brief period of rest and reflection, I shall return to civil society advocacy and public service. I stand ready to serve our country to the best of my ability.”

Tunku Aziz and the Dewan Negara

May 14, 2012

Josh Hong (05-11-12)@www.malaysiakini.com

That Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim’s senatorship will not be renewed came as no surprise to me. In all probability, the Tunku has been persuaded by the DAP leadership to step down in order to lance the boil over his recent remarks over the BERSIH 3.0 massive protest, which clearly raised more than eyebrows.

But the Tunku’s stance against street protest is nothing new. If anything, it is only in line with his political thinking over the years.Coming from a prominent background (distantly related to the Kedah royalty) and having been very much a part of Malaysia’s high society (with distinguished services at Guthrie Corporation, Sime Darby and Bank Negara in the past), the Tunku is most unlikely to become a so-called anti-establishment politician.

This, together with his relatively liberal and diverse family roots, decidedly ruled out the possibility of his joining either PAS or Parti Keadilan Rakyat, which at one time was popularly perceived as made up of a bunch of rabble-rousers and law-breakers.But the Tunku (right in photo) truly made his mark as a respected public figure with his anti-corruption efforts while helming the Malaysian chapter of Transparency International.

In his role as a corruption watchdog, the Tunku fearlessly spoke out against the opaque processes and corrupt practices of both the Mahathir Mohamad and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi administrations, albeit always stopping short of calling for a change of government.

It was also completely characteristic of his mainstream political ideology, i.e. reform from within the system, that the Tunku had rarely commented critically on controversial legislations such as the Internal Security Act (ISA), the Sedition Act and the Printing Presses and Publications Act, although he should have known the continued existence of these laws had severely impeded any genuine effort to weed out corruption.

Not to mention the daily street protests at the height of Reformasi, at which he no doubt looked askance, and I personally know of several social activists who dismissed the Tunku for his elitism and disapproval of any attempt to rage against the state machine.

In an interview with The Nut Graph, the Tunku related how his father was a stickler for rules who would not tolerate it if his son cycled home without a lamp. This anecdote illustrates his father’s fastidious adherence to the rule of law that certainly has had a powerful impact on the Tunku’s future political understanding.

But the Tunku did (and still does) harbour political ambitions, perhaps not aspiring to be a government minister of sorts but at least to be able to effect policy changes to some extent. UMNO, that is universally known to be corrupt to the core, was out of the question, leaving the DAP the only viable option.

Indeed, it would take an enormous amount of courage for someone with dignity and prestige as the Tunku to join UMNO of the present days. In some ways, the DAP’s ideology matches that of the Tunku. When the left-wing forces were boycotting what they saw as sham elections in the 1960s, the DAP filled the vacuum by contesting in most of the winnable seats and becoming the largest opposition party in parliament, a position that it went on to hold for the next three decades.

Again, the party’s faith in what the leftists and socialists would describe as capitalist parliamentary democracy reflected that of the Tunku’s.

A scrupulously principled man

It was beyond doubt that the DAP needed him – a towering and respected Malay – to counter claims that the party is anti-Malay. Unfortunately, the scrupulously principled man is unsuited for a country in which rules are bent and laws enacted to serve the purposes and benefits of the ruling coalition.

Meanwhile, the political developments over the past 15 years has triggered a sea-change in the Chinese-based DAP.Having gone through the baptism of fire (i.e teargas and water cannons) on the streets together with PAS and PKR and – most importantly – with national power no longer an ultimate pipe dream but actually within reach, the party is ready to opt for what social activist Hishammuddin Rais calls Pilihan Jalan Raya, meaning one should be ready to take to the streets if all other avenues to free and fair elections are blocked.

This seismic change in the DAP has now put the Tunku at odds with his party over the BERSIH 3.0 rally. He had hoped to use the DAP platform to articulate his thoughts and influence policy directions as a senator, but his view on peaceful street protest only shows that he is far behind the party’s leadership and rank and file.

Needless to say, for a national leader to come out with a statement that contradicts glaringly the collective decision of Pakatan Rakyat is creating unnecessary but potentially damaging ripple effects within the Opposition front. One also has reasons to believe the DAP must have come under tremendous pressure to do something about the Tunku, given the resolute decisions of the other coalition partners to sack Zulkifli Noordin and Hasan Ali.

Judging from the Tunku’s track record, I am not prepared to rush to the conclusion that he is just another Trojan Horse. Most likely, the Tunku not only appears to be out of step with his party but also out of touch with public sentiments.

Lest we forget, Dewan Negara, unlike Dewan Rakyat, is an unelected chamber, and its members are no more than political appointees who are expected to toe the party line. In view of this, while discontinuing the Tunku’s senatorship may seem arbitrary, it can hardly be said that it is tantamount to denying him of his freedom of speech.

After all, the Tunku can remain a DAP member and continue to speak out without fear and favour, although it will certainly make his position as a vice-chairperson quite untenable. But this episode – along with issues of other senators whose appointment now hangs in the balance – also exposes the democratic deficits of the upper chamber as a whole.

It would have made it a daunting task for the DAP to withdraw the Tunku’s senatorship had he been elected in the first place, for he would then be able to cite popular mandate as his defence. Hence, while it is high time that both the Government and the Opposition consider having an elected Dewan Negara, political calculations, however, determine that this will not happen for years to come.