Mind your language !

Strip Titles From Artistes Who Belittle Malay Language

I Sound Stupid If I Speak Malay, and If bikin filem Mencemarkan Budaya Lets Make More Films ...

That was what actress Sharifah Amani Al Yahya said when receiving the best actress award at the 19th Malaysian Film Festival recently.

Strip Titles From Artistes Who Belittle Malay Language - Pemanis

KANGAR, Aug 16 (Bernama) - Artistes who show disrespect for local culture and the Malay language should not be selected for awards, said the Perlis Malay Association (Pemanis).

Its president Mohd Zain Hamzah said the awards should only be accorded to artistes who helped promote local culture and the Malay language.

He criticised the decision by up-and-coming actress Sharifah Amani Al Yahya to speak in English when receiving the best actress award at the 19th Malaysian Film Festival recently.

The artiste also drew rebuke from Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim who described her attitude as bringing disrepute to the Malay language and culture.

Mohd Zain called on the ministry as the joint organiser of the event to strip the title from the actress as a lesson to others.

He chided Sharifah Amani for giving an excuse that she was not proficient in Malay, arguing that foreigners could speak the language fluently after staying in the country for several years.

-- BERNAMA

Kontroversi Gubra diangkat filem terbaik Malaysia

An Islamic view of the controversal issue raised by Faisal Tehrani in Harakah daily.

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Ada yang lihat surat kerajaan tawar jual pasir kepada Singapura

BEKAS Perdana Menteri, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad mendedahkan ada pihak yang telah melihat surat tawaran dari kerajaan Malaysia untuk menjual pasir kepada Singapura dan membuka ruang udara Malaysia kepada tentera udara republik yang didakwa oleh sesetengah pihak sebagai amat berbahaya itu.

"Keluarkan surat tawaran itu. Ada pada kerajaan, 'Malaysia's proposal to Singapore'. Ada. Ada orang yang dah tengok, kerana mesyuarat antara Malaysia dan Singapura itu dihadiri oleh banyak orang dan mereka kata ada surat itu. Kalau tidak takkanlah mereka nak buat tawaran," kata beliau dalam sidang akhbar selepas majlis 'Jasa Mu Di Kenang' anjuran Pemuda Umno Bahagian Petaling Jaya Utara sempena mesyuarat perwakilannya, 12 Ogos lalu.

Beliau meminta kerajaan pimpinan Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi supaya mengemukakan surat itu dan jangan bersembunyi di sebalik Akta Rahsia Rasmi (OSA).

Jangan sembunyi belakang OSA

"Tunjuklah surat itu. Jangan bersembunyi di belakang OSA (Akta Rahsia Rasmi). Ini bila tanya, oh, tunjuk bukti, tunjuk bukti. Kalau kita nak tunjuk bukti kata, oh itu OSA, Official Secret Act. Kalau sembunyi belakang OSA, banyak perkara yang salah boleh dilakukan."

Apabila ditanya wartawan adakah beliau yakin surat tawaran itu wujud, Dr Mahathir menjawab: "Ada, ada. Mesti ada. Jangan kata tak ada. Bagaimana Singapura tahu? Bagaimana kita tahu? Ada tawaran. Kalau tak ada hitam putih, takkan cakap mulut saja."

Malah, Dr Mahathir menegaskan beliau sanggup bersumpah mengikut kaedah Islam, dengan melafazkan Wallahi, Wabillahi, Watallahi, di mana-mana masjid mengenai apa yang dibangkitkannya itu, dengan syarat pihak kerajaan pun bersedia untuk bersumpah sama.


Beliau juga berkata, beliau bimbang apabila melihat kerajaan dalam keadaan takut.

"Apa yang mereka takut. Inilah yang membimbangkan saya ... Saya rasa mereka cuba menyembunyikan sesuatu, sebab itulah mereka tidak membenarkan orang ramai mendengar (penjelasan beliau)," katanya merujuk kepada kerajaan Abdullah yang didakwanya "menyalahgunakan kuasa".

Bukti kukuh

Dalam sidang akhbar itu, Dr Mahathir juga menunjukkan surat dari kerajaan Singapura yang menjadi bukti Malaysia boleh membina Jambatan Indah menggantikan Tembok Johor tanpa sebarang masalah.

Beliau mengemukakan surat yang dihantar kepadanya ketika beliau hampir bersara oleh dua bekas Perdana Menteri Singapura, Lee Kuan Yew dan Goh Chok Tong.

"Ini semua surat dari Singapura yang menunjukkan republik itu tidak mengenakan sebarang syarat kepada kerajaan Malaysia terhadap pembinaan Jambatan Indah.

"Mula-mula nak bina secara pakej tetapi tidak jadi kerana tidak dapat persetujuan dari republik itu. Jadi Jambatan Bengkok boleh dibina tanpa pakej.

"Singapura tidak kata kalau mahu bina jambatan ada syarat itu, ada syarat ini. Tetapi kita sendiri yang tawarkan pasir dan ruang udara kepada negara itu.

"Kita telahpun mulakan pembinaan jambatan tetapi berhenti kononnya takut tindakan undang-undang dari Singapura tetapi Peguam Negara kata, kalau ada kes undang-undang bawa ke mahkamah.

Menyerah awal

"Belum apa-apa, kita telah menyerah. Kalau diteruskan pembinaan jambatan tidak ada masalah seperti sekarang ini.

"Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak dan (Datuk Seri) Syed Hamid Albar kata kita tidak tertakluk kepada Singapura untuk bina jambatan.

"Tetapi akhirnya membatalkan atas alasan takut tindakan undang-undang dari Singapura. Ini semua tidak betul," tegas beliau..

Dr Mahathir berkata, beliau menunjukkan surat yang membuktikan bahawa pendedahannya mengenai pembatalan jambatan bengkok adalah berpunca dari Malaysia dan bukannya Singapura kerana kerajaan tidak mendedahkan kandungan surat tersebut kepada rakyat sehingga mengakibatkan mereka tidak tahu keadaan sebenar.

"Kerajaan tidak menjawab soalan saya. Apa yang mereka dedahkan ialah surat saya yang telah lama disiarkan di Singapura," katanya lagi.

Mengenai dakwaan kerajaan bahawa pembinaan jambatan bengkok itu dihentikan kerana rakyat Johor tidak mahu, Dr Mahathir menegaskan, jawapan itu tidak betul sama sekali.
-Harakah Daily(more)

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Malaysia's distant 2020 vision

By Ioannis Gatsiounis
Asia Times Online

The bell tolls in Malaysia in 2020, the deadline the United Malays National Organization-led government has given itself to deliver the Southeast Asian country from developing- to developed-world status.

Former authoritarian leader Mahathir Mohamad launched the ambitious campaign in 1991, which aimed broadly to create a progressive scientific society and position Malaysia as a regional hub for leading innovative technology companies. The stepping stone of that plan was the establishment of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), unveiled in 1996 as Malaysia's answer to Silicon Valley, which includes a 728-hectare futuristic "intelligent garden" city known as Cyberjaya. The government project is expected eventually to cost US$5.3 billion and usher Malaysia into the information age.

Malaysia was arguably in a better position to take the leap than most developing countries. After years of rapid manufacturing-led growth, its infrastructure was nearly world-class. Regionally, the levels of the country's gross domestic product and education were higher than most of its neighbors'. Oil and gas production was providing handsome revenues that could be used to spark technology-oriented spending.

To Mahathir, the MSC and Cyberjaya, which in Malay translates to "cyber success", seemed a visionary, win-win proposition.

Nowadays, nothing informs Malaysia's sense of success or failure more than the fate of its high-tech sector. Yet it's becoming increasingly clear that the country's so-called 2020 vision is fast falling out of focus. Malaysia now lags behind both China's and India's science and technology sectors, and regional rivals Singapore and Thailand now attract more foreign direct investment. Even Malaysia's political leaders have at times lamented the country's "first-class infrastructure, but third-class mentality".

Nor has private-sector innovation taken off to the degree first envisaged by government policymakers. To the contrary, the glaring lack of home-grown technology firms means that holders of information and technology degrees currently make up about 20% of Malaysia's unemployed university graduates, who apparently lack the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global technology marketplace.

When the government has tried to fill the private-sector gap, it has often missed the mark. The government's pet Information Communication Technology projects, including the Smart School Project, the Worldwide Manufacturing Web and Borderless Marketing Flagships, have all flopped because of mismanagement, overspending and poor execution, critics say. There are recent reports claiming that as many as 90% of state-led ICT startups have gone belly-up, according to Technopreneur Association of Malaysia president Farith Rithaudeen.

That poor record has been a drag on the entire science and technology sector, souring private-sector sentiment and drying up the venture-capital funding for other so-called technopreneurial pursuits, including the startup ICT ventures that should be leading the country up the value-added information-technology ladder. (more)

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What they have to say about Mahathir

Incredulous. Strange. Blackmail. Unrealistic. Inappropriate.

Ravi Nambiar and Siti Nurbaiyah Nadzmi
New Straits Times

Any of these words would have summed up what ministers and politicians felt about Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s offer to end his tirade against the current government if it agrees to build a bridge to Singapore. Below is what they have to say.

* Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that going ahead with the plan to build a half-bridge would invite problems for the country.

"The Cabinet has decided that we will not go ahead with the construction of the bridge. Not because we simply want to cancel it, but because the problems are complicated.

"Going ahead with the construction of the bridge would be going against international law and would also contravene the water agreement with Singapore."

The Attorney-General in his advice to the Government had noted that Singapore’s approval would have to be sought before water pipes on the Causeway are removed. Therefore, any move by Malaysia to unilaterally remove the pipes while constructing a new bridge would be illegal.

Commenting on Dr Mahathir’s statement that he was prepared to swear by the Quran to prove that Malaysia offered to sell sand to Singapore, Najib said the former prime minister should furnish such proof if he had any.

"We have to look at the proof first. If Tun Dr Mahathir is afraid to provide such proof out of fear of the OSA (Official Secrets Act), he could submit it to the Government."

Dr Mahathir, in his speech at the Petaling Jaya Utara Umno divisional meeting, had claimed that he had proof of Malaysia’s offer to sell sand to the island republic.

Najib said despite whatever claim made by Dr Mahathir, the Government was still firm on its stand that the offer was made by Singapore.

"The sale of sand did not materialise. This is purely academic. The Government had decided not to sell the sand nor give the rights over air space."

* Umno supreme council member Datuk Mohd Ali Rustam said that it was inappropriate for Dr Mahathir to issue any ultimatum. "The Government has made a decision on the bridge and explained the rationale time and time again. Malaysia will not gain anything if the bridge is built," he said.

The Malacca Chief Minister said that the Government had spent too much time answering all the allegations hurled against it by the former prime minister.

* Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Mahdzir Khalid described Dr Mahathir’s quid pro quo as unfair. "The Cabinet, the highest decision-making body of the Government has decided against it and the decision has been accepted by the people. It is unfair for Dr Mahathir to demand that the Government rescind that decision ...The decision to abort building the bridge was based on facts and adequate information," he said.

* Pahang Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob said that Dr Mahathir was asking for the impossible to be done. He noted that the Cabinet had already made a decision to abort the bridge plan after lengthy discussions. Quoting a Malay proverb, he said expecting the Government to reverse the decision would be like menunggu kucing bertanduk (waiting for a cat to grow horns).

* Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik (right) had only one question when asked to comment on Dr Mahathir’s offer for a truce. "How can we change our decision just to suit one man’s demand?" The veteran minister said that the Government had made a firm decision on the bridge and he did not think that it was likely to be reversed.

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Anwar bin Ibrahim's political rollercoaster

When Deputy Prime Minister Anwar bin Ibrahim launched Malaysia's national voluntary service nine years ago, he told Time Asia's Hong Kong bureau chief, John Colmey, that with Yayasan Salam Malaysia-the Malaysian Peace Foundation-he was paying back with a compliment a Peace Corps teacher he knew more than 30 years ago.

"Some people have strong reservations about my reference to the Peace Corps," Anwar said, "But it is our desire to know that a country that has benefited from the rest of the world can give something back." Within its first month, Yayasan Salam Malaysia had 1,300 applicants: doctors, students and lawyers who wanted to help under-served communities in Asian countries-and a retiring president of the U.N. General Assembly who volunteered as the foundation's chair.

The tribute was to Ray Gieri, a math teacher long ago at Malay College, a prestigious boarding school for Malay boys near Penang where Anwar studied in the 1960s. It turns out that Ray Gieri taught in the science stream and Anwar studied in the arts stream. But from a distance, the young Malaysian saw a teacher who took the trouble to learn his language, an outsider who volunteered for the field trips and learned about Malaysia, too. Anwar got the concept. The foundation was one of Anwar's many bold acts as deputy minister, a popular and controversial leader many believed would become the next prime minister.

That would make this a story about a naive and curious young American whose embrace of local culture impressed one promising student who would establish his own nation's cross-cultural volunteer service. And Gieri would then be invited to Kuala Lumpur as a guest of the next prime minister.

However, five years after creating Malaysia's version of the Peace Corps, Anwar sat in solitary confinement in a Kuala Lumpur prison, writing an essay on the flawed religious doctrine of Osama bin Laden and the jihadists who murdered more than 3,000 innocent people in the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania farm field. The essay was Anwar's immediate response-a Moslem writing from the jail of a largely Moslem country-in sympathetic reaction to our 9/11 tragedy. In his essay, which Time published 28 days after the terrorist attacks, Anwar warned that the United States should not soften its push for democratic principles and the protection of human rights or "the U.S. will inadvertently strengthen dictatorial regimes, thus replicating past associations with Marcos, Suharto and the Shah of Iran." Anwar was serving the fourth of six years of a sentence following his 1998 conviction on charges of sodomy and corruption. Not quite Dr. King's Letter From a Birmingham Jail, but close.

Anwar's troubles began when, as Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's heir apparent, he turned confrontational on economic and political issues. Mahathir, who had ruled Malaysia for more than 20 years, sacked Anwar and kicked him out of the ruling party. Days later, before a crowd estimated at more than 80,000, Anwar called for Mahathir's resignation. Late that night uniformed and masked Special Branch agents broke into Anwar's Kuala Lumpur home and took him to Bukit Aman police station, along with more than a dozen others of the ruling party's youth wing. Anwar was beaten during his interrogation, convicted and sent to prison. Amnesty International called foul. The Philippine's Cory Aquino called his wife, Azizah, with expressions of concern. Vice President Al Gore called his arrest a travesty of justice. He landed on Time Asia's cover with the headline "Malaysia without Anwar." And thousands of Malaysians demonstrated for his release. Seven years later, their Supreme Court reversed Anwar's earlier convictions and Mahathir's successor ordered his release. Anwar left Malaysia. Last year he lectured at Oxford's St. Anthony's College, this year at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington. He's banned from Malaysian politics until 2008 and banned from his nation's college campuses. "They are very careful with me," he says with laughter.

His smile framed by a goatee, Anwar bin Ibrahim is dressed in a gray suit, tie and brown wing-tipped shoes, ever the respected economist and intellectual; a spokesman for moderate Moslems in southeast Asia and a political leader separated from his national politics. At 58 years of age, he sits in a small office at the basement level of a large Georgetown University building dedicated to teaching and research about the rest of the world. His desktop is nearly empty and a wall of bookshelves is all but barren: one row of English texts including the Modern Islamic World and the Oxford History of Islam, a row of Arabic texts and two unopened boxes of Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates. His window looks out on rows of aging gray stone markers of the Jesuits who founded the school.

What kind of a country is Malaysia? A country well on the road to a strong economy, Anwar says proudly, where many religions coexist with a moderate Moslem majority. "A peaceful country," he says, one that has in recent times achieved tolerance in its diversity. The government? "It has the facade of a democratic country, soft authoritarianism with no separation of powers, no true elections, a country where you don't have them because there is no free press-only the state media-and a country where you don't get killed or disappeared for your views but you get assaulted and imprisoned.

"My cell was about half the size of this room," he says.

His career has been spent at the junction of his nation's politics and its predominant religion, and his thinking has evolved over the years. In the ferment of the University of Malaya during the Vietnam War, Anwar founded and led the Malaysian Moslem Youth Movement. He was considered a radical. Later, he shocked his supporters by joining the United Malaysian National Organization and receiving the patronage of the prime minister. The youthful Anwar ran a series of ministries-culture, youth and sports, agriculture, education-and then finance, where he served for five years. He earned credit for adopting the International Monetary Fund's free-market remedies during the Asian financial crisis and the enmity of Mahathir, who disagreed with those remedies. Anwar adds, too, that he refused to approve 2 billion ringgits to rescue Mahathir's son's failing enterprise. After five years as deputy, he was out of government and in prison.

During Anwar's time as minister of education, Karim Raslan, the lawyer, writer and voice of a younger Malaysian generation wrote, "Meeting the man in person, I was struck … by his personal charm and attractiveness. It is the charm of a reflective man, thoughtful and reticent but winning nonetheless." But like others, Raslan came away wondering just what Anwar stood for. An associate editor of the New Straits Times told Raslan that Anwar was "a representation of his generation, a hologram, if you like, of his generation and all of their aspirations. He is still in the process of growing and developing."
At our recent Georgetown interview, Anwar acknowledged, "They do call me a chameleon."

"I remember him as a great young orator," recalls Gieri, who left Malaysia in 1966 to become a U.N. statistician in New York and retired in 2000 as chief executive officer of the U.N.'s Joint Staff Pension Fund. "Some say he was very strong-willed, very religious," Gieri says. "Some say that he went with the more radical groups." Gieri has returned to Malaysia severeal times in recent years but has not seen Anwar since their days at Malay College. When he attended the weddings of children of former teaching colleagues, Gieri called on Anwar's wife, Azizah, a member of parliament who led the Free Anwar Movement, to offer moral support.

Anwar was a rising star in Asian politics even as a student at Malay College. His parents were active in politics, his wife- an ophthalmologist-sits in parliament and one of their six children now attends Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies.

Anwar now consults for the World Bank and retains considerable international respect. There is at least one published suggestion that he could be a possible successor to Kofi Annan as secretary general. Others say that is not likely to happen. His future in Malaysian politics is unpredictable. Thousands went to the streets to protest-several hundred were arrested for a brief period-following Anwar's arrest and during his trials; many believe the charges were manufactured for political revenge. During his six years in prison, the nation was divided over his fate and his future. He occasionally returns home to meet friends and supporters in the villages of Malaysia, he says. He is free to travel in his homeland, and was recently in Sarawak. Whether he can recapture enough support is problematic, because Mahathir's party continues to dominate the landscape. After a decade away from the voters, his return to Malaysia's rough and tumble national politics is described as an uphill battle, but it would not be surprising for the mercurial Anwar bin Ibrahim to succeed.
(Source:Anwar Ibrahim.com)

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