Gov't fallen asleep at the wheels

(from: Malaysiakini)
by Foong Wai Fong

Malaysia is a lucky country, we are very well-endowed with natural resources. From tin to oil, this nation has lived with abundance for over 50 years. As such, most Malaysians never have to worry about scarcity; both at the government level and at the individual level, and as a result, wastage has become one of the characteristics of our lifestyle.


MCPX
Residential and commercial enclaves in Malaysian cities and townships are built far apart. With political connections, approvals can be granted to develop a new settlement and a new road. Connectivity and efficiency were not in the planning considerations - after all, up till recently, private cars were the dominant mode of transport; it can take you anywhere and anytime you wish to go.

So today the dominant mode of transport of this nation of 27 million people is the private car. The first major goal of a young Malaysian who has just turned 18 is to get a driver’s licence, and later purchase a car.

The public transportation system was neglected and no serious attempts have been made to build an efficient, well-linked state-of-the-art public transportation system. In part, this is due to the fact that we have to make sure the sales of Proton is kept robust.

In addition, many of the public transport concessionaires were probably more interested to make purchases of a new fleet of vehicles than to work them efficiently. The deputy minister of finance revealed that the number of Malaysians using the public transportation system has dropped from 20-25% in 2004 to 16% today. In an era of cheap oil, this would probably be celebrated as a major sign of progress.

The nation also allows the private sector to build hundreds of kilometers of tolled highways. All these are to facilitate more cars, and therefore more oil consumption. Many of these highways are turning into ‘parking lots’ as traffic congestion becomes the norm rather than the exception.

Hence more cars and more highways did not make us more efficient - it did not shorten the time we take to get from point A to point B.

Not surprisingly, last week’s fuel hike has sent the nation into a fit of anger and uncertainty. The population is caught totally unprepared.

Shocked by the new reality, many are driven to protest against the government. Many questions were asked.

Why the sharp price hike? Why the huge jump in one move? Was the issue about Malaysians being addicted on subsidy? Or was it about Petronas, the national oil company that makes billions while the rakyat have no clue what happened to those funds in the last 30 years? Were Malaysians targeting their anger at a government long accused of gross mismanagement, wasteful spending; unprofessional handling of policy execution and corruption?

The answer is all of the above. Malaysians have had it too good for too long; we are one of those few countries in the world with the largest fuel subsidy.

We have palm oil, the green gold that is selling for over RM3,000 per ton, after that silvery stuff called tin were depleted from the ground. We have plenty of oil, and only recently we found out that these thick black stuff could run out in 20 years’ time. So now this blessed land is told that oil will be costly and one day when our own reserves run out, we may not even get supply even if we have money. For the first time, this country has to deal with doing the same, or even more, with less.

Why the government is at fault

This is not the best time to add more salt to the wound. But Malaysians must get change their mindset - the good times of cheap oil has ended. Oil is a finite resource, and the world will probably have enough oil to sustain the present rate of use for some 30-40 years; mind you, this calculation was made before India and China came on the scene.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) revealed that the cost of developing new oil fields has risen to over 110% and that the capital costs for refineries and petrochemical plants have risen by 76% since 2000. While supply is tight, the new middle-class from the emerging markets joined the rich world to have an automobile-centred lifestyle.

Oil depletion, the rise of fuel-hungry emerging markets and global warming are not new issues. They have hogged the headlines extensively in the last decade. Can we fault the government for our present woes? You bet.

The driver of the nation, the government, has fallen asleep at the wheels. The government had failed to sound the alarm nor has it prepared the people to adjust to the new realities of the world. Here are the reasons why the government policies have misguided Malaysians into believing that we could have a lifestyle built on cheap oil.

1. Each young Malaysian buy a Proton as soon as they can afford it. The finance companies dish out hundreds of millions to finance them, just to support the national car company.

2. In order to support Proton, there is no reason to really build an efficient public transport system. Indeed, everybody should have a car, a Proton preferred.

3. When Malaysians started to do well; they change to higher capacity cars. Few keep their cars for more than five years because there is a culture for the latest and flashiest. Hence the competition to have more APs, import licences for cars. The government is a happy player in this game as it collects millions in import taxes for cars.

How about green cars? What green cars? Carbon emission? What carbon emission? Only tree-hugging greenies talk about such vehicles. We have no crisis.

4. Then they started to construct hundreds of kilometers of highways; from North to South, East to West. With the toll roads; the cars become so congested; don’t complain, they say traffic jams are signs that Kuala Lumpur has become a world-class city.

5. Then they build housing and commercial zones far apart from each other. It is normal to travel an hour to work, and back. Malaysians have accepted it as a norm.

6. The buses don’t work, they are unreliable, and few care if they are on time. Then there is the scary news that the drivers are often on drugs and the risk of fatal accidents is high.

7. The government talks about building a public transportation system - talk, talk, and more talk. When asked why it takes so long, they tell you, this is easier said than done.

Thus, on June 4, the government finally announced that it was no longer tenable to keep supporting the oil subsidy, which has ballooned to over one-third of its operating budget; amounting to some RM56 billion in 2008, more than the allocation for development expenditure of RM40 billion.

If we don’t raise the prices today; the national budget will increase its deficit from 3% to 6% - the highest in Asia.

Learn from Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil

The pressure from high oil prices simply tells us that our car-centric lifestyle is simply not sustainable anymore. So if you have an infrastructure built around the private car, you would be ill-equipped to live in the world of expensive oil, not to mention 50 years later in the post-oil world.

The issue we have to face is really about adjusting or developing a new infrastructure for a less-oil dependent lifestyle. Subsidies are supposedly to be used only temporary to help develop a new sector or to provide a safety net for a particular sector in distress. If our lives were not so car-centric, we would have no problem with that.

An International Monetary Fund study of five emerging economies found that the richest 20% of households received on average 42% of the total fuel subsidies, the bottom 20% of households received less than 10%. So if we have a good system for all, subsidies should not be the central issue.

It is clear that in Malaysia, the worst affected lower and middle-income group must be provided with an efficient, accessible public transport system, which would enable them to go on with their lives; and the government diverts the whopping RM50 billion spent on blanket fuel subsidy to better education, healthcare, infrastructure and investment to help the citizens raise their income.

The government needs to, starting today, to be up-front with Malaysians about the challenges we have to face.

Urban planning and housing development should take all these into consideration - that feasibility studies on public transportation must be done before a new housing development project be approved. People will be willingly to change their lifestyle, especially if it is a more pleasant one, if the accompanying infrastructure is available and working.

There are ample models we can learnt from - in Asia alone, Singapore and Hong Kong’s network of subways, buses and feeder buses are among the best in the world. I don’t own a car in my 10 years in Shanghai; I traveled by subway and considered the car to be a burden. But before we can get to the railways and subways, all we need is to work on the connectivity and proper management of our buses.

If Curitiba in Brazil can become a world model in utilising rapid bus network as a preferred transport for the people, surely Malaysian can take a page from their experience. The government can, and must, lead in demonstrating that it could garner the right expertise and political will to make this happen quickly.

We have very little influence over oil prices in the international market. But the domestic environment which we live in is within our control.

In the long run, Malaysians will have to adjust to a less oil-dependent world, and this can only happen if the necessary infrastructure is in place to make it happen. We have less than a decade to make this change. We have already lost a lot of time. We must begin today.

Back in the Light

(source: www.newsweek.com)

Purged, jailed and humiliated in the late 1990s, Anwar Ibrahim has staged a remarkable comeback at the helm of an opposition insurgency.

Anwar Ibrahim takes six calls in quick succession on three different mobile phones. Five days after Malaysia's general election—in which his coalition shocked observers by winning several key states and almost ousting the long-ruling party—he has segued from surprise victor to tireless political operative, ironing out disagreements and building bridges within the still-fractious opposition. Inside his low-key suburban office, tucked several kilometers away from Parliament in leafy Kuala Lumpur, Anwar's sense of purpose—destiny, even—is palpable. "Just listen to what the others have to say. Listen," he tells one caller. "Stay calm, go home and have some dinner, some Panadol, whatever you need," he tells another, adding, "If there are still strong views and you can't solve it, let me handle [it]."

The performance is vintage Anwar: the great conciliator doing what he does best. Barely a decade ago, this was the man who was going to help Asia and the West see eye to eye and bridge the chasm between Islam and other faiths. As Finance minister and then deputy prime minister of Malaysia in the late 1990s, Anwar was heir apparent to the strongman Mahathir Mohammed. But it was always an odd pairing. Mahathir was an angry anti-colonialist, forever railing against the West; he denounced Western pressure for democracy and human rights as cultural imperialism, an affront to more authoritarian "Asian values," and fiercely resisted international attempts to dismantle Malaysia's cozy and corrupt business culture after the Asian financial crisis. Anwar, by contrast, was a proud universalist, a personally pious Muslim who was also a relentless modernizer and whose penchant for quoting Gandhi and declaring the necessity of democracy and economic openness won him international acclaim. In speeches filled with terms like "civil society" and "freedom," Anwar opposed the notion that Asians were somehow destined for repressive rule and sought to turn regional vehicles like ASEAN into forces to promote liberty and justice. This won him widespread adoration—he was named NEWSWEEK's Asian of the Year in 1998—and made him a darling of the Davos set.

But it also led to his downfall. By 1998, Mahathir had had enough of his high-flying deputy, and after Anwar publicly broke with his boss over the response to the Asian financial crisis (which Anwar hoped to use to impose fiscal discipline and dismantle Mahathir's crony system), he was sacked and then jailed on what were widely seen as trumped-up corruption and sodomy charges. "It was a terrible time," Anwar admits in a NEWSWEEK interview, but not one he is not eager to revisit. Asked about Mahathir, over whom he would appear to have scored a historic reversal of fortune, Anwar won't take the bait, dismissing his former patron as old, ill and "not an issue for me … In order to succeed, we have to look beyond him."

Under Malaysian law, Anwar is barred from holding office until April 15. Yet clearly the rising fortunes of his party make him once again a potential prime minister, though this time around his ambitions appear focused solely on Malaysia, not Asia and the world. Asked if he was poised once again to act as a bridge figure between East and West, Anwar embraced that "important role" as one he had been "playing for a long time," but then quickly gave it a distinctly local focus: reassuring both Malays and non-Malays and getting them to work together in his party.

Thanks to widespread disgust with the lackluster performance of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, the three-party opposition more than quadrupled its presence in Parliament (going from 20 to 82 seats out of 222), and it now controls five of Malaysia's 13 states. The greater import is clear: even some members of Abdullah's camp are now calling for his resignation, and "Anwar has returned as a major force," says Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asia expert at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.

But the opposition still has to parlay those results into effective control. For the moment, Abdullah remains in charge, if barely. Still, the election was a water- shed, the closest the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) has come to defeat since independence in 1957. The best Abdullah could say about the drubbing was to call it "democracy at work," and Mahathir, who retired in 2003, called it "shocking"—adding, suggestively, "The Japanese would have committed hara-kiri."

The vote also represented a major challenge to Malaysia's wide-ranging race-based affirmative-action program, which, under Mahathir gave the country's ethnic Malay majority broad preferences over the long-dominant Chinese community in business affairs. Even if the fragile center now holds in Kuala Lumpur, UMNO will soon face unprecedented threats from state governments now controlled by the opposition. Following a pattern discernible elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Anwar and his allies are staging an assault on the cronyism and patronage of old and pledging social justice, openness, transparency, and anticorruption measures.

The new movement is something of a sequel to the failed Reformasi drive of the late 1990s. Launched by Anwar after his ouster in late 1998, it aimed to ignite a "people power" uprising of the sort that had toppled Suharto in Indonesia. But Reformasi fizzled after Anwar's criminal conviction; he ultimately served six years in prison.

Yet Malaysians' desire for change never died. Abdullah, handpicked by Mahathir on the assumption he'd be easy to control, actually took up the reform mantle himself at first, pledging sweeping change during the campaign of 2004. Abdullah vowed to promote moderate Islam to counter creeping fundamentalism, promised an anti-corruption campaign and suggested he might turn back Malaysia's race-based development policies. Voters responded well, especially when, in 2005, he began dismantling massive Mahathir-era infrastructure projects. But the electorate slowly soured on the new leader as scandal and indecisiveness hobbled his administration. "He did not deliver effectively, and Malaysians called him on it," says Welsh.

If anything, the opposition's triumph was even more significant than the raw numbers indicate. Anwar's People's Justice Party grabbed 31 seats—up from just one in 2004—and its victors included his wife and daughter. Opposition candidates dominated in peninsular Malaysia's west coast, seizing the key industrial states of Penang and Selangor. To reach voters, the opposition relied on bloggers, You-Tube and text messages sent to grass-roots organizers via cell phone: common tactics in places like Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea but new to Malaysia. Indeed, they took UMNO and its National Front coalition so much by surprise that the opposition nearly won the election outright. Anwar, for one, thinks it could have; during his NEWSWEEK interview, he hinted at fraud connected to the use of mail-in votes and the Election Commission's last-minute decision to scrap plans to stain the voters' fingers with indelible ink.

The electorate also broke with the race-based voting patterns of old. Malaysia's Chinese and Indian minorities, which make up a quarter and a tenth of the population, respectively, deserted government-allied ethnic parties in favor of Anwar's Justice candidates and those of center-left Democratic Action Party. The rebellion of ethnic Indians was particularly dramatic; many quit the pro-government Malaysian Indian Congress and the MIC's leader even lost his seat. "This is new territory" for the ruling party, says Garry Rodan, director of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia. "The [party's] longstanding emphasis on ethnic identity to mask socioeconomic inequalities traversing ethnic groups has much less currency now."

Anwar's coalition deftly managed this feat by playing on one issue that united Malaysians whatever their race, sex or station: dismay at rising prices that have lead to hoarding of some staples like cooking oil. Jeff Ooi, a blogger turned parliamentary candidate, traded on this anger, writing in February that "now that the cost of living has gone up, unhappiness is fermenting." By promising to raise the people's concerns in Parliament, Ooi won a seat in Penang with an impressive 16,000-ballot margin (out of 46,000).

Now the opposition must quickly transform its promises into a cohesive strategy for governing. Given internal divisions, that won't be easy; the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party wants to establish an Islamic state, while the secular, center-left Democratic Action Party wants to abolish pro-Malay preferences. These divisions kept the opposition from uniting during the last election, in 2004. But Anwar and his Justice Party are hoping to provide a bridge; in addition to controlling the most seats, his party sits between its partners on most issues. Anwar himself is working overtime to find common ground, using his charismatic magic on all parties. Before the election, he managed to persuade the three factions to divvy up constituencies so as to avoid splitting the vote, and ever since he's been working his cell phones relentlessly, jawboning allies into submission. Though he lacks a formal position, Anwar hopes to enter Parliament soon: he plans to ask an ally to resign once his legal ban lifts, and then to run for the seat in a by-election.

Any number of things could disrupt his grand plans. His Islamic allies could prove too uncompromising, or Malaysia's economy could deteriorate—something the newly empowered opposition might be blamed for. On the first trading day after the election, the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index fell by almost 10 percent, as investors dumped shares in companies with large government contracts.

Yet if he manages to hold on, Anwar's comeback will offer a powerful lesson on the dangers of complacency for long-ruling parties throughout Asia. The 4 million citizens of neighboring Singapore, for example, are already watching events closely, and comparing UMNO's fate to the city's own dominant political machine. Abdullah's shortcomings—scandals and political indecisiveness—have no obvious equivalents in Singapore. Yet UMNO's surprise setback "holds a lesson" for the city-state, one reader argued in a letter to The Straits Times last week. "Democracy's tool, the vote, is powerful and swift. A government chosen by its people must stay in touch with the ground. An incumbent who holds power for too long" could run into trouble fast if he becomes unresponsive, the writer warned.

That has been Anwar's point since the 1990s. With his nemesis, Mahathir, now reduced to carping from the sidelines, and the government coalition looking shakier than ever before, Anwar has again illustrated the fact that when fed-up citizens demand sweeping change, they can accomplish it. Anwar, of course, still has to turn promises into reality. But he's already made one thing very clear: if anyone can accomplish it, Anwar's the man.

Malaysia: Change is Long Overdue

by Farish A. Noor

For as long as they can remember, Malaysians have been told time and again that there can only be political stability in the country as long as the status quo is defended. This rather uninspiring message was, of course, delivered by none other than those who were already in power and who had every reason to wish to remain in power for as long as humanly possible. Since it became independent in 1957 Malaysia has been ruled by the same coterie of right-of-centre Conservative-nationalist parties led by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and its allies in the former Alliance coalition and now the National Front. For more than half a century Malaysians were told that this was the natural order of things and that to even entertain the idea of there being a different government was tantamount to political heresy of sorts.

Yet a quick survey of the political landscape of many a post-colonial nation-state today would show clearly that almost every post-colonial country in the world has experienced a change of government, and in many cases this transition has come about without leading to chaos and tumult in the streets. The nationalists of Algeria were eventually kicked out of office after it became patently clear that their brand of conservative nationalism served only to disguise what was really a corrupt mode of patronage politics. In India the Congress party that had for so long rested on its laurels and prided itself with the claim that it was the party that won India’s independence has been soundly beaten at both the national and state level; again for the same reason. Why even Indonesia that suffered under three decades of military rule has made the slow but sure transition to a fledgling democracy of sorts, and the mainstream media in Indonesia today remains the most open and courageous in all of Southeast Asia. So why not Malaysia?

The election results of March 2008 have shown the world that in Malaysia at least race and communal-based voting may soon become a thing of the past. This may have been a protest vote against the lackadaisical performance of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, but it did nonetheless send a very clear message to the government and all the parties in the country. It signalled that the Malaysian public was tired of empty promises and having sweet nothings whispered in their ears, while the government continues along its inebriated pace of mismanaging the country. It also reminded all politicians from all parties that the Malaysian voters will no longer vote along racial or religious-communitarian lines, and that henceforth they will vote for the best candidate who can do her or his job better than the other bloke.

If this is not a sign of political maturity and responsibility, then this analyst doesn’t know what is. The Malaysian voters were literally warned by the ruling parties to vote for them, yet they defied the might of the government and were prepared to take the costs. Yet soon after the election results were known there were still voices among the ruling elite who had not yet adjusted to the realities on the ground. During a rather tiresome debate live on TV with a prominent has-been from the ruling UMNO party, I was struck by how outdated, disconnected and irrelevant his views and discourse were: Rambling on about the need to protect his own ethnic and religious community while slandering the politicians of the opposite camp, he merely reiterated every single cliché on race politics we had been fed for the past fifty years. If people like these are still adamant that there should be no change in Malaysia, then we all know that the time for change has already come.

The fact is that the changes we have seen in Malaysia over the past two decades are not unique to Malaysia and are in fact simply the signs of the times we live in. All over the developing world we have witnessed the creation of better-connected, better-informed and better-educated urban constituencies that are more plural, cosmopolitan, diverse, hybrid and politically literate and informed. It has to be remembered that the Iranian revolution that brought to an end the decades-long regime of the Shah of Iran took place in the most urbanised Muslim country in the world then, where more than half of Iran’s population were urban-based.

Likewise it was no surprise that the uprisings against Ferdinand Marcos and President Suharto began in the urban centres of the Philippines and Indonesia, as did the Thai ‘democratic revolt’ of 1973-76.

Now that it is increasingly clear that Malaysia may have a change of government sooner than many Malaysians themselves had expected, it is imperative that Malaysians accept and understand the need for change: Political change is as natural as breathing and sleeping, and is nothing more than a mere normative aspect of modern democratic political life. As was the case with the fall of the Congress party in India, those political parties that stay on too long in power can only grow weak, corrupt and inefficient as a result of the exposure to the luxuries and temptations of power for too long. To its credit, when the time for change eventually came, the leaders of the Congress accepted their defeat and took their bow in time to preserve what little remained of their dignity and standing. In time the party was allowed to heal itself and come back to power – once again via democratic means.

Other post-colonial societies like Malaysia should heed this lesson well and learn to accept the fact that calling themselves ‘democracies’ means having to be democracies and behave like democracies as well. The failure of the ruling National Front coalition at the 2008 elections speaks volumes about the degree of disconnect that has set into the upper ranks of the ruling parties, and underscored their irrelevance in the eyes of the Malaysian public themselves. For the UMNO-led ruling coalition to remain in denial and to deny the fact that the Malaysian political landscape has already shifted from underneath its feet would be to compound the problem faced by themselves and the country. For this reason alone, the responsibility now lies with the leaders of this enfeebled government to admit to their mistakes and pave the way for change, even if it means sacrificing their long-held position of power and dominance over the country. For the question remains: If and when change is long overdue and can no longer be resisted, would not the preservation of the status quo be the cause of tumult and chaos we have dreaded all along?

Malaysia’s Coming Elections: Between Change and Inertia

(source: othermalaysia.org)
by Farish A Noor

And so, with the dissolution of the Malaysian Parliament on Wednesday, Malaysia is heading to the elections once again. The precise date of the 12th General Elections of Malaysia is yet to be known, but it is clear that this will be one of the more hotly contested elections that Malaysia has witnessed.

Over the past two years alone a string of controversies have stirred the Malaysian public’s interest in the goings-on in the corridors of power in the country: The highly publicised case of the murder of a Mongolian model has dragged many a famous name (including that of politicians) into the limelight; the revelation of irregularities in the appointment of senior judges has brought the judiciary into close focus; the destruction of a number of Hindu temples has aroused the anger of many Malaysian Hindus; while the plethora of on-going marriage and divorce cases between Muslims and non-Muslims has added to the widening of the gulf between the religious and ethnic communities in the country.

What is more, the spate of public demonstrations – many of which took place in the capital Kuala Lumpur – would suggest that sections of the Malaysian public are more politically aware and politically literate than before. The BERSIH campaign calling for free and fair elections, for instance, was a movement that is rooted in Malaysia’s civil society and which cut across the racial, ethnic and religious divides which have always been the salient markers of the Malaysian political landscape. Conversely the demonstrations organised by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) would suggest that communitarian and sectarian political remains a defining factor of Malaysian politics until today.

All eyes will now be on the administration of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who faces the tough prospect of retaining the public’s support for a second term.

Badawi came to power following the resignation of former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad, who led – and in many ways transformed – Malaysia for more than two decades. In the immediate aftermath of Mahathir’s unannounced resignation that stunned the nation, Badawi was chosen as his successor. Yet when Badawi came to power with an enormous mandate in the elections of 2004 (with one of the highest approval ratings ever given to any Malaysian leader) he promised a wide range of reforms that included the promise of greater accountability, transparency and a thorough overhaul of some of the key institutions of government including the civil service, judiciary and police force.

Four years on, there seems to be the widespread perception that the Badawi administration has failed to deliver. Despite earlier promises that the long-standing cases of alleged corruption and nepotism between government and the corporate sector were to be resolved, no major cases have been dealt with until now. Instead the Malaysian public has been witness to a number of embarrassing revelations about the murky dealings within the governmental system instead.

Another area where Badawi seems weak is his stand on Islam, which was encapsulated in his vision of a modern, progressive, ‘Islam Hadari’. While admittedly Badawi has expressed the keen desire to see Islam understood and practiced in a universal, inclusive and tolerant manner, the realities on the ground would suggest that the religious authorities in the country have not taken heed of any of the universal principles he has espoused all along: The seizure of Bibles by Malaysian customs officers, the activities of the morality police that spy on the private lives of Malaysians, the banning of books that are deemed ‘a threat’ to Islam and Muslims, etc. have all prompted Malaysians to ask: ‘What sort of modern, progressive Islam is this?’

But Badawi’s greatest challenge to date has been the pervading presence of his former mentor Tun Mahathir himself. More than the danger of increased communitarian and sectarian politics, more than the challenge of a resurgent Islamic party (PAS) waiting to regain control of the Muslim-majority states, more than the challenge posed by the new generation of politically-conscious urban civil society activists and dedicated professional classes; it is the dominating presence of Tun Mahathir that looms over the Badawi government at the moment.

When Badawi promised a new era of transparency and openness, many observers of Malaysian politics noted that this was a departure from the ways of the Mahathir administration. To some extent it has to be said that Malaysia’s civil society and media have indeed opened up, with issues being discussed in the public domain as never before. But this has also incurred a cost to the Badawi government, and it has irked those who were more comfortable with the ways of the Mahathir era when governance was strictly a top-down unilateral process with less public participation.

The down-sizing of several mammoth projects that were initiated during the Mahathir period, the revelation of corruption and abuse of power dating back to the 1980s, the attempt to introduce some degree of accountability to the workings of the police and security forces; etc have been seen as a means of overturning many of the developments made during Mahathir’s time. The former Prime Minister has further upped the stakes by publicly stating that Badawi was perhaps not the best man to replace him, and to suggest that Badawi may eventually be a ‘one-term’ Prime Minister.

This, then, is one of the core issues that is really being fought out in the coming elections of Malaysia. While the Badawi government is pressed to take on the opposition parties and to address a host of demands from a wide section of Malaysia’s now vocal civil society, the real – and perhaps only – threat to Badawi’s position in power comes from the old guard of the ruling elite and governmental system itself, who do not relish the prospect of real, long term institutional change, reform and modernisation. The 12th General Elections of Malaysia will therefore determine whether the reform process continues, or whether institutional inertia will win the day.

Indian Mutiny

(source: The Economist)

A hitherto quiescent minority loses faith in the social contract

SOME devotees had been fasting for weeks and shaved their heads. The most zealous pierced their cheeks with skewers or attached large wooden icons to their bodies with dozens of flesh-piercing hooks. On January 23rd tens of thousands of ethnic-Indian Malaysians gathered at the Batu Caves temple outside Kuala Lumpur to celebrate Thaipusam, one of Hinduism's biggest festivals. In past years more than a million have turned out. This year, although ministers and pro-government newspapers denied it, the crowd was much thinner. Many Malaysian Indians seemed to have answered a call for a boycott, amid rising anger at the way their minority—around 8% of the country's population—is treated by the government.

Three days earlier the prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, had sought to appease Hindu anger by promising that Thaipusam would henceforth be a public holiday in the capital of the Muslim-majority country. He announced this at a gathering of around 15,000 Malaysian Indians, hoping to show that he still retains their support, despite the emergence in the past year of a radical protest group called the Hindu Rights Action Force, or Hindraf.

Last November Indians gathering at the Batu Caves on the eve of a Hindraf street march were trapped when the temple's managers—said to be linked to the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), part of Mr Badawi's ruling coalition—locked the gates and called the police. In the disorder that followed, many were arrested. Even so, the next morning at least 10,000 took part in the Hindraf march, which the police broke up with tear-gas and baton charges.

In the 50 years of peninsular Malaysia's independence from Britain, the ethnic Indians have been more quiescent than the richer, better educated and more assertive ethnic Chinese, who make up about one-quarter of the population. Under an implicit “social contract”, the two minorities, mostly descended from migrant workers, were given citizenship in return for accepting that ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups, together known as bumiputras (sons of the soil), would enjoy privileged access to state jobs and education. All the races have done well from strong economic growth since independence. The Indians and Chinese suffer even lower poverty rates than the bumiputras. But whereas the majority population have, with official help, started catching up with the Chinese in the property and shares they own, the Indians still have few assets (see chart). Often they are stuck in rented homes and low-skilled urban jobs.



The Indians' sense of missing out on the good life has helped to feed their mood of grievance. But what has most fuelled their anger in the past few years is a feeling that “creeping Islamisation” threatens their religious freedom. The issue that triggered Hindraf's formation, according to N. Surendran, one of the group's leaders, was the demolition of a number of “unauthorised” Hindu temples by local governments, often by state workers who were Malays and thus Muslims. The big rally in November came a few weeks after a temple in Shah Alam, west of the capital, was demolished just before Divali, another important Hindu festival, despite the temple committee's pleas to delay its destruction for a few more days.

Many of the threatened temples were constructed by migrant workers in colonial times, without formal permission, on plantations or by roads and railways built by the migrants. Now this land is being redeveloped. Hence the drive to demolish them, says A. Vaithilingam of the Malaysia Hindu Sangam, the main association of temples. The authorities could try harder to resolve disputes, he says, but they are too anxious to please rich developers.

The heavy-handed response to Hindraf's protests has served to make things worse. Five Hindraf leaders have been detained without trial under a colonial-era security law, and were said to have gone on hunger strike late January. Hindraf denies the government's charge that it has links to Sri Lanka's rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

With an election expected shortly, Mr Badawi has sought to soothe ethnic Indian anger. Besides declaring Thaipusam a holiday he has promised a cabinet committee to look into poverty among all races. But he may also calculate that the unnecessarily harsh treatment of Hindraf will win his party votes among hardline Malays. If so, he risks helping the extremists on each side peddle the dangerous myth that there is a zero-sum game between the races—and that the way to win it is to take to the streets.

A Letter from a HINDRAF well-wisher

by Jane

My husband, kids and I were at the Subramaniam Temple , Port Kelang for Thaipusam (23.01.2008). As in previous years, we would have gone to Batu Caves , except this time around we decided to support the protest against The Batu Caves Temple Management by not patronizing their organization. The celebrations that was the grandest to date at Port Kelang deserves a whole piece of its' own.

What was really an incredible experience for my family and I, was something else that was happening at the temple grounds. To the right of the temple proper was a podium with banners of pictures of the HINDRAF leaders who were in ISA detention. The banners proclaimed in English "HINDRAF Peaceful Assembly Struggle" and "Release Our Leaders". Having seen quite a number of youths and elderly people with an orange T-Shirt and scarf emblazoned with 'Makkal Shakti (People's Power) on them at the celebrations.

I assumed the podium was a place about the ongoing protests of the Indian community in the country. Some were sleeping and others seated. Those seated were quite. They were neatly dressed but looked drained. But what was going on was something more significant, emotionally powerful and almost groundbreaking in Malaysian history. Some In front of the group were a few young men in the orange "Makkal Shakti' T-shirts selling car stickers and being spokespeople for what was going on. I could see everywhere the youths with Makkal Sakthi T-Shirts are serving foods, provide drinks, cleaning temple compound, controlling traffics and etc.



Looking at these people I felt a sudden sense of wanting to do something but not knowing exactly what. As we stood there near the podium we could hear people offering donations. These were politely refused by the young men. They said that they were protesting and praying and not for money. Wow! What a wonderful team with marvelous co-ordination and dedication.

It was from these men that we found out that the people on the podium were on a hunger strike. From the 20th of January 2008 which was 3 days ago. They would fast until the 25th. Some of them it seams had to take some water occasionally. Two of them had been admitted to hospital. We were informed that there was a doctor on standby to monitor the situation. We (my husband and I) froze completely when we were told that the fast was a peaceful protest against the detention of the HINDRAF leaders under ISA. I started crying first. I told my husband that suddenly I felt so helpless. It didn't take my husband's eyes long to fill up with tears.

My mind was filled with questions of who were these people who decided to leave their families and sacrifice their health to stage this fast. They looked like people that I see everyday. But they were special. These were people who had made a physical, mental and emotional commitment to a cause that me and my circle of friends just talk about. My colleagues and friends, we talk a great deal. We talk and discuss about the nuances and undercurrents of Malaysian politics and about the motivations of HINDRAF.

My husband and I realized that we would be going back to our home after a couple of hours. We would be going home to a good hot meal and shower and probably catch a nap before the evening was up. But the people at the podium would still be there: hungry and thirsty and worn out, for a cause.

As we introduced our son and daughter to one of the protesters, he hugged them and simply said "Hey, it's for you and your future we are doing this for." As we left, we thanked the protesters for what they were doing with a "Makkal Sakthi Spirit".

Hindraf takes cause to the UK

(source: Malaysiakini)
by K Kabilan

The Hindu Rights Action Force’s (Hindraf) international campaign for the release of its five leaders detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) continued to gain momentum with a successful peace protest held in London on Feb 1.

More than 200 people from all around the United Kingdom had gathered opposite the official residence of the British prime minister at No 10 Downing Street, holding placards showing support for Hindraf and its detained leaders.



Hindraf’s chairperson P Waythamoorthy, presently in exile in London, also participated in the gathering and delivered a speech outlining Hindraf’s struggle. The peace protest was organised by HindrafUK.


Organiser Rajah Thavalou said that the crowd was more than what he had expected.

"It was a successful event where we received a very good response from the international media," he told Malaysiakini.

Rajah added that a six-member delegation was allowed at the end of the protest to submit a petition to the UK government.



The group also submitted a similar petition for the president and prime minister of India, and chief ministers of Kerala and Tamil Nadu to the Indian High Commission in London.

He added that their demands included the immediate release of P Uthayakumar, M Manoharan, R Kenghadharan, V Ganabatirau and T Vasanthakumar who were detained on Dec 13, 2007 under the ISA for allegedly being a threat to national security.

Impose sanctions

The protesters also urged the UK and the Indian government to impose sanctions and embargoes against Malaysia.

"And especially in India, we want the Kerala state government to withdraw from participating in the proposed RM1.5 billion township project with the Malaysian government and companies," he added.

He said that the protesters also want the Malaysian government to grant equal rights to Indian Malaysians and to stop demolishing Hindu temples.

Previously, as part of Hindraf’s international campaign, the movement had organised similar peace protests in Canada and India.

When contacted, Waythamoorthy said that he was glad that the international Indian community was showing unity for the plight of their ‘brothers’ in Malaysia.



He also said that he was happy to hear both Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his deputy Najib Abdul Razak admitting that the Indian community had some legitimate grouses.

"But strangely the prime minister has incarcerated the five messengers of truth. It makes no sense when he acknowledges the veracity of the neglect of Indian Malaysians but he sees it fit to imprison the very five who conveyed this messages," he said.

Waythamoorthy added that if Abdullah was sincere in his intention to improve the social, economic, educational and cultural conditions of the Indian community, he should then immediately release the Hindraf leaders.

"Their continued detention will not assure the remaining Indians in Malaysia that the BN government is honest about addressing the grievances of the ethnic Indians when the proponents of the concern are continued to be unjustly and inhumanely detained," he added.

Motion in Scottish parliament

Waythamoorthy also said that as part of his international campaign to gain support for Hindraf, he has managed to enlist the assistance of a Scottish parliamentarian to lodge a motion in the Scottish parliament.

Following that, a motion was lodged at the Scottish parliament yesterday by the Conservative MP for Highlands and Islands Jamie McGrigor, asking the UK government to make representations to the Malaysian government to press for the early release of the Hindraf five.

The MP said that he was concerned that the five were arrested and detained without trial.

He further "notes that these arrests come on top of other actions taken by the Malaysian government to curtail the human rights of the minority Indian Hindu community in Malaysia including the freedom of religion".



Hindraf came under fire from the Malaysian government after it organised a massive rally in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 25, attracting some 30,000 ethnic Indians who protested against their sidelining as a result of state policies.

Following that, the government first attempted to curb Hindraf’s influence by charging its keys leaders with sedition and eventually detained five of them under the ISA.

Waythamoorthy managed to escape arrest by flying out to India first, and then to the UK, to garner international support for the movement.

Rising to challenges or denial?

(source: Malaysiakini)
by Lim Teck Ghee

The past year has been a tumultuous one for Malaysians. Despite the economy doing well with booming oil and gas revenues and soaring primary commodity export values, and the achievement of a milestone as the nation reached its 50 anniversary of attaining independence, the mood of the country has turned somber, and amongst some segments of the population, sour and negative.

Increasingly, many observers are becoming pessimistic at the prospect for future peaceful development and steady progress if current trends in the country continue. This picture of a country racked in anxiety and dissatisfaction on many aspects of nationhood that neighboring countries feel at greater ease with - or take for granted - runs counter to the official depiction of a harmonious and unified multi-ethnic and multi-religious country that the government and its supporters are keen to convey to Malaysians and the rest of the world.

What has gone wrong during the past year, and where is the responsibility for the fault lines that have widened on key aspects of the country’s fragile social cohesion? On the religious front, concerns over an increasingly assertive and illiberal Islamic state system intruding into the religious rights and freedom of other faiths have been steadily increasing amongst non-Muslims.

In late 2005, the public’s attention had been riveted on the case of mountaineering hero, Moorthy, a Hindu who was converted to Islam literally on his death bed and - against the wishes of his family - was buried as a Muslim. The Lina Joy case saw an attempt by an ordinary citizen wishing to exercise her right to conversion from Islam to Christianity reflected in the removal of her Islamic religious affiliation in her identity card finally rejected by the country’s highest court of appeal.

The handling of both cases by the authorities only served to aggravate already mistrustful relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, especially Hindus and Christians. It also seemed to mark a decisive encroachment by Muslim zealots on the secular character of the country’s constitution and signaled the increasing willingness of Umno, the ruling party, abetted by its supporters in key institutions such as the judiciary and bureaucracy, to use the religious card to ensure continuing political support from the Malay/Muslim population.

On the racial front, it is not surprising that the most significant event of the year was sparked by the rising sense of religious (and racial) marginalisation and discrimination felt by some segments of the population. What is perhaps surprising is that this particular event took so long to materialise.


Communities displaced

Amongst the various minority ethnic and religious groups in the country, no other community (apart from perhaps the Orang Asli and other smaller non-Bumiputra indigenous minorities) feels a greater sense of being neglected and left behind in the country’s progress than the Indians. Despite the one-sidedness of the official statistical system in focusing on bumiputera poverty and bumiputera lack of participation in the modern sectors of the economy, there is sufficient quantitative and qualitative evidence to show that poor Indians (and possibly those from the middle-class too) are falling back in key aspects of economic and social life.

A recent report to the Government containing proposals for the Ninth Malaysia Plan had identified the plight of low income Indians as one of the main issues that needed urgent attention by the authorities.

In analysing the lack of effectiveness of government measures and earlier plans to address the socio-economic problems of the Indian community, it is noted that these problems are rooted in the displacement of the community from the plantation economy. These plantation communities, scattered all over the country, earned low wages (although above the official poverty line), lived in poor conditions without adequate facilities, experienced low levels of health care and had their children educated in poorly equipped Tamil primary schools.

Government rural development programmess in the 70s and 80s never reached them or provided assistance to small token numbers. Though the government regularly promised that specific strategies would be adopted to improve the livelihood and quality of life of the plantation population, little was done to improve their lot.

Despite the country recording impressive economic growth in the last four decades, the largely Indian plantation communities were not only left behind but had become victims to the overall national development. Over 300,000 Indian poor had been displaced after the plantations that traditionally provided them modest livelihoods were acquired for property and township development or changed hands in other ways in the last two decades.

When evicted from the plantations, these workers not only lost their jobs; they also lost housing, basic amenities, socio-cultural facilities and their community support system built up over a long period of time. Another significant blow was the loss of access to plots of vegetable farming and cattle grazing land allotted by the companies to workers to cultivate and supplement their modest incomes.

Unprecedented public rally

It was not unexpected therefore that these people would face difficulties and hardship in negotiating the transition from the plantations to urban living. The displaced plantation communities, with few skills and little savings, have swelled the ranks of urban squatter settlements and the urban poor.

Most of these communities have began and ended in lower rung jobs, competing with foreign migrant workers for meager incomes. Despite the very large number of Indians involved in this involuntary stream of migration and full awareness by the authorities of the traumatic impact of their displacement – it has been known for some time that suicide rates are the highest amongst Indians and that many Indian youths have turned to gangsterism - little has been provided by government in terms of concrete assistance in the same way that the Malay poor has been targeted.

The combination of socio-economic exclusion and deprivation together with repeated disrespect of Hindu religious rights by state authorities in demolishing Hindu temples and shrines (many of these temples and shrines were set up during pre-independence days on private plantation lands which had since been transferred to state ownership) has become a powerful rallying point for Indian activists who have lost faith with the MIC.

Banding themselves in an organisation called Hindraf this - until recently virtually unknown - organisation appears to have precipitated a chain of events that has had the greatest political impact during the year.

Despite Hindraf cranking up the pressure internationally, the authorities continued to pay it little attention. This failure to appreciate the gravity of the situation and the deep sense of discrimination and marginalisation amongst poor Indians quickly changed when Hindraf called for their rally in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 25.

The dramatic police crackdown on the Hindraf rally - and its aftermath in the use of the draconian Internal Security Act to imprison the five leaders of the movement indefinitely without due process - is now part of the political lore of the country. I

Its ripple effects, however, are already visible and are likely to continue for some time. In particular, the ability of the movement to bring together as many as 40,000 supporters (thousands more from other states and outside Kuala Lumpur were prevented by police road blocks from reaching the rally) in defiance of a legal order is unprecedented in the recent history of the country.

Government lambasted

The official view continues to be of a small group of political malcontents and mischief-makers using race and religion to whip up popular sentiment for issues and causes that have little or no basis in reality.

This, however, is being contradicted by the extensive damage control campaign that the government and its supporters have mounted since the rally.

Although the Barisan Nasional has attempted to provide the impression of a closing of ranks on the prime minister’s decision to crack down on Hindraf and his warning on the use of state force and power against dissenters, there is a considerable body of opinion within the ruling party itself that the government has over-reacted.

Prominent Umno backbencher and Kota Baru Member of Parliament Zaid Ibrahim – who also runs one of the biggest legal firms in the country – has argued that demonstrations should not be treated as a challenge or threat.

He further argued that although he did not agree fully with Hindraf’s demands, the government had indeed failed to address issues such as the series of religion-related controversies involving converts, demolition of temples and the perceived Islamisation policy.

A leader of another component party of the BN was even more forthright. In his scathing public statement entitled ‘Discrimination from Womb to Tomb’ S Paranjothy – the Gerakan Youth deputy chief - criticised the government for its policies towards the Indian community.

Pointing out that Indians form the most neglected group in economic terms, he lambasted the Government for treating them ‘as fourth-class citizens’ and pointedly stated that ‘where the Indians predominate over their fellow Malaysians is mostly in prison, violent crimes, gangsterism, suicide and social ills [as] government policies have failed to improve (their situation)’.

It may be too early to gauge but one of the most important outcomes of the Hindraf incident to date is the way it has opened the public space to close examination of the ideology of Malay dominance (Ketuanan Melayu) and its equivalent Islam-dominant ideology in the religious sphere, and the impact of these divisive policies on the rights of minorities.

Already, Indian NGO groups in a rare meeting with the prime minister following the detention of Hindraf leaders have requested the government to establish a Department of Non-Muslim Affairs that can take up the religious grievances of non-Muslims and help them overcome the obstacles they face from a Malay/Muslim dominant polity and bureaucracy that appears unable or unwilling to exercise fairness in protecting the basic religious and civic rights of the non-Muslim minorities.

What is clear – even if the Hindraf rally had not taken place - is that present mechanisms for non-Muslim concerns and grievances are totally inadequate. After initially indicating that the government would consider the establishment of the department as part of the civil service machinery, the prime minister has since back-tracked and argued that the existing BN structure is adequate in dealing with the religious and socio-cultural concerns of non-Muslims.

The larger ripple effects of the Hindraf protest campaign will probably not be discernible until the results of the country’s elections – expected as early as March 2008 - are tallied and its impact on Indian and other voters in the country assessed.

The political ramifications of the BN losing the Indian vote in the coming elections are not likely to be calamitous in view of the BN’s stranglehold on most Malay majority areas and the nature of rural-urban weighting in the national electoral system which guarantees a disproportionate importance to rural voters compared with their urban counterpart.

At the same time, the opposition parties are well aware that although there is no single parliamentary or state assembly constituency where the Indian voters constitute the majority of the electorate, they know that Indian voters represent over 10 percent of the electorate in 62 Parliamentary constituencies and 138 state assembly constituencies and they will play an important factor in determining the electoral outcome in these areas.

According to DAP’s Lim Kit Siang, the Indian voters will be the ‘kingmakers’ in 28 Parliamentary and 78 state assembly seats in Peninsular Malaysia since they constitute more than 15 percent of the electorate. They can exercise a decisive influence as to who wins or loses in these constituencies.

Royalty speaks up

During 2007, too, support for more openness in the political system and for the authorities to pay greater heed to the many contentious issues of good governance came from an unlikely source - the Malay rulers.

The lead in the emergence of a more engaged monarchy in the affairs of the nation can be attributed to Sultan Azlan Shah, the Sultan of Perak and his son, Raja Nazrin Shah, the Raja Muda.

Sultan Azlan Shah called for major reforms to the judiciary in view of reports of disturbing events touching on the integrity of its members. This call for reform from a Ruler, who had spent a great deal of his life in pivotal positions in the Malaysian judiciary and was in a unique position to assess its qualities and shortcomings, has undoubtedly been a major factor in the government finally giving in to the public outcry for a royal commission to investigate the Lingam Tape incident.

The Raja Muda has been even more forthright than his father in sharing his views with the public on a wide range of contentious and sensitive subjects, including racial polarisation, religious tolerance, corruption, good governance, the independence of the judiciary and the need for the government to deal with problems through dialogue and negotiation with key stakeholders such as enlightened social movements.

The simmering sense of public outrage during the year - cutting across ethnic and class lines – in fact had culminated just a few days before the Hindraf rally in the largest anti-government protest in more than a decade.

An estimated 20,000-30,000 marchers converged in a march in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 10 to deliver a memorandum petition to the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong on urgent reforms needed to the country’s electoral system to ensure that it did not continue to be unfairly tilted in favor of the ruling party.

The ability of the predominantly civil society organisers to mobilise so many protestors indicates a growing body of citizenry concerned about the integrity and fairness of the electoral process and willing to take to the streets to stand up for their basic rights of assembly and expression.

Challenging the status quo

It could be that the BN leadership may simply ignore the various statements of concern from individual Rulers and members of the royalty on the way the country is being run and their publicly articulated guidance on the need for higher standards of governance and greater tolerance for dissent.

Also, the split within BN ranks may well be contained, given the enormous resources of the ruling party and its tremendous capacity to coopt or coerce dissenting elements into staying passive or compliant within the fold of the system.

The losses that may eventuate from the Hindraf-inspired dissent may also prove to be smaller than expected or even illusionary during the coming elections as the BN’s and Umno’s spin machinery (the latter is especially adept at playing on Malay and non-Malay fears of political instability through the use of the official mass media) goes into overdrive.

Certainly, no astute political observer in the country expects the BN to lose its power and control over the country even if the opposition parties can put up a much better showing than during the last elections.

However, what appears different this time from earlier occasions may be the rise of a formidable body of political and civil society activists no longer isolated by their lack of access to the mainstream media and its under-reporting - or politically-biased reporting - of issues of vital public importance.

Making full use of the Internet surge and the channel of phone text messages to get alternative news and views across, these activists and citizen journalists are adding their voice where it matters and challenging the status quo on an entire spectrum of subjects that resonate with the larger population – bread and butter issues, traffic jams, corruption, abuse of power, and other aspects of daily life and governance.

These dissident voices may be ignored in the short run but it would be a foolish or shortsighted government that fails to recognise the growing public restiveness on the imperfections of the BN system of government and the culture of opportunism, greed and self-aggrandisement that it has spawned in its half-century of rule, and on the need for wide-ranging reforms if the country is to move ahead.