Are we in for another May 13?

I was furious and alarmed by the news that 3 churches were being fire-bombed over the Allah issue. I was not angry at the Muslims. No – I don’t believe that Muslims are behind the bombing.

There were a lot of hot air, a lot of rousing speeches surrounding the Allah banning issue – as if the whole Muslim world were mightily offended and up in arms against the recent court ruling that non-Muslim can use the word Allah. There were even threats of a massive demonstration, which the Prime Minister and the Home Minister deemed justifiable (see Malaysiakini).

But whatever happened to the demonstration? As reported in Malaysiakini - only a few dozen here and there participated in the demonstration. It was really pitifully small compared to a ceramah by Dato Sri Anwar Ibrahim. So where were the angry Muslims?

From the onset – the Allah issue was artificially drummed up. The Christian Church had used Allah for over 50 years in Malaysia. Has anybody heard of a single incident of a Muslim gotten confused, doped, cheated, confounded, mislead over its use? Were there any cases of police reports regarding this BEFORE the Home Ministry brought up the issue?

Apart from a handful of UMNO politicians and pro-Barisan Nasional NGO’s blowing a lot of hot air, PAS president Nik Aziz as well as many learned and revered Muslim authorities have already expressed their views that Allah should not be ban for non-Muslims.

It was completely obvious to me that right from the beginning there was never a religious or racial issue. I had thought that with PAS and Pakatan Rakyat standing firm on the side of reason nothing much would come of it.

The arson attacks on 3 Churches came as a complete surprise to me. I was terribly angry – not with the Muslims. I never believe that religious motives were behind this whole saga. My anger was towards Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the many politicians from Barisan Nasional for irresponsibly stirring up racial sentiments out of a non-issue.

The arson attacks are so out of proportion that one could not help but suspect some sinister agendas behind the scene. I don’t want to make any conjecture least I got hauled up with sedation charges. Is this going to lead to another May 13 or land Malaysia into military rule? I don’t’ believe so, although I don’t rule out that some really sick and really powerful people may be plotting something of such nature.

Put it this way. Malaysia is in deep problem right now. Our social, political, economic and judiciary systems have been in rapid decline. We simply could not afford a major disruption of such nature. I believe that the Christians and other non-Muslims have enough good sense that they will not react with violence. I believe that the Pakatan Rakyat state government and many good people in the police force are doing what they can to maintain peace. I believe there are enough good people with good judgments working hard to prevent more violence from happening.

This is a shameful day for Malaysia indeed. This incident is going to put Malaysia in the spotlight of the world media for the wrong reason. It makes a complete mockery of Najib’s 1Malaysia initiatives. It deals another blow to Najib, who is already suffering from major credibility problems.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Despite the constant drumming of politically motivate racial rhetoric; we have seen many voices of moderation at work as well. One lesson we can learn from this saga is that we don’t have racial problems as such. All racial tensions are stirred up intentionally to serve the interest of a few people in power.

This is a time of reflection and reconciliation. It is touching to see PAS and a few Muslim groups kick into action right away to raise fund to rebuild the churches that suffered damage from the attack. This is the most significant inter-faith cooperation that I witnessed in Malaysia. This is the type of spirit that we need to rebuild our beloved country from the ashes.

The 56 billion ringgit question

(Also posted in Malaysia-Today)

I am referring to the article in Malaysiakini: Pump price at 'market levels by August'.

First of all lets get some basic facts right.

Firstly Malaysia is a net exporter of crude oil. So the government did NOT subsidize our petrol. The RM56 billion ‘subsidy’ per year is the extra amount that the government would have earned if it had exported all of our oil production. There is no 'spiralling bill', the government did not lose any money because it is our own oil and we are not paying anybody for our oil supply.

Secondly – when the government scrapes the so called ‘subsidy’ that it did not pay any money for in the first place – it is forcing the rakyat to buy back our own resources at a much higher price. Each and every one of us will suffer because of this, especially the poor.

The hike in oil prices has not caused hardships to our government. On the contrary it has already earned record profits for Petronas. And now our government is going to squeeze even more profits by squeezing the rakyat. Put it bluntly, the Barisan Nasional government will get filthy rich form the blood money of the rakyat.

Now the 56 billion ringgit question. What will the Barisan Nasional government do with the RM56 billion windfall per year? We already suffered a price hike on our petrol almost a year back, and have we seen any accounting on what has been done with the extra money that the government collected? I remembered that there were some talks of using the money to improve our public transport system. But so far I have only heard about the ailing KTM, failing bus companies and government cutting subsidry to Rapid KL.

Don’t you feel suspicious of what is going to happen to this hefty sum of money? RM56 billion is a mind boggling sum of money, it is almost enough to build 5 Putrajaya according to the official figure. The last thing I want to see is for the money to end up in political machines and lining the pockets of politicians and their cronies. I hope our Pakatan Rakyat representatives will see to it that every sen of it is accounted for.

I am not against raising the price of petrol. It is a matter of urgency that we cut our dependency on fossil fuels now as it is the main source of green house gas that is causing havoc in our weather patterns and ecosystems.

Even if global warming and destruction of our ecosystems is not your concern, you still have to consider the fact that crude oil price is not going to come down. Some analysts even projected that crude oil may reach USD 200 per barrel by 2012. Have you asked what is going to happen to our economy when our oil reserves run out in 5 years time?

Don’t you find it amazing that nobody is talking about these pressing issues now? This whole issue about oil subsidy is completely beside the point. The way it was phrased as if it was costing our government a hefty sum of money was completely misleading. The more pertinent point is really how we can best make use of the last of our rapidly depleting resource to safeguard our future. I have not seen any sensible policies regarding this from the Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat camps as yet. It is already sparking riots in many parts of the world, including our close neighbors, and yet nobody here seems to think that we have a problem.

I don’t think we can look towards our government for answers. Our so called ‘leaders’ are engrossed in fighting and bringing each other down, unscrupulously stirring up racial sentiments for their survivals. They never have the track records of putting the interest of the rakyat in the forefront anyway. The whole political scene is simply disgusting and depressing beyond words.

This is the time that ordinary people like you and I have to come forward and take charge. Count ourselves lucky that we have a 5 years grace period to get ready for the end of cheap oil. But we need to make sure that every ounce of our resources is used wisely for the survival of our future generations. That can only happen if we, the rakyat, unite as one single voice to demand for the right things to be done.

There are a lot we can do together, and we are not isolated either. There are already over a million environmental and social justice organizations around the world that we can work with right now. The fisrt step is to realize that we have a problem in hand. This is not just any ordinary problem. What we are facing is a problem of epic proportion that is going to require the cooperation of the whole world.

Outrage at Cheras Toll

I am referring to the continue saga regarding the barricade in Bandar Mahkota Cheras, as reported in Malaysiakini:

Barricade row: Answers next week

Before getting into the legalities of the issue, let’s investigate why Bandar Mahkota Cheras and surrounding residents are so pissed off by the barricade. It begun when Grand Saga, the Cheras-Kajang highway concessionaire, blocked off an access road two years ago to divert the traffic to the toll. As a result of the barricade the residents have to make a 6km detour – and on top of that they have to join the jam leading to the toll plaza and made to pay the RM 0.9 toll.

Lets do a simple calculation on how much the toll is costing the Bandar Mahkota residents. Assuming the current market rate of RM 0.6 per km for petrol, car maintenance and depreciation cost. Assuming that it takes 15 minutes to travel the 6km, and human resource cost is average RM 10 per hour.

Petrol and car maintenance:
6km X RM 0.60/km = RM 3.60
Human resource cost:
RM 10/hour X 0.25 hour = RM 2.50
Toll amount = RM 0.90

Total cost one way = RM 7.00
Total cost both ways = RM 14.00/day
Total cost/month (22days/month) = RM 308/month

Now you understand why Bandar Mahkota residents are so pissed off. Just because one private company willfully asserting its rights, it barricaded a fully functioning access road and make the residents suffer RM 7.00 direct and indirect cost for every 90 sen it collected. This whole thing is utterly ridiculous no matter from what angle I look at it.

The absurdity doesn’t end here. The legality of the barricade had been in dispute since day one. Refer to the following reports in Malaysiakini: Confirmed - residents can tear down concrete barrier.

The Hulu Langat land office did confirmed a few days ago that Grand Saga indeed had NO right to erect the barricade. So the Cheras residents took matters in their own hands and tore down the barricade. That provoked a violent reaction from Grand Saga. Read the follow up reports:

Grand Saga 'advised' to re-erect concrete barrier
Cheras residents in stand-off to protect toll-free road
Police fire tear gas at Cheras residents

So there was the rebuilding of the barricade, which the residents tore down immediately. Grand Saga responded by getting the Federal Reserve Unit involved. I read in utter disbelief that that over 200 FRU armed with tear gas and water canon were activated to protect the interest of one single private company against the residents of a whole township.

The legality of the barricade was in dispute in the first place. Under such circumstance how could the police take side? How could the police use extreme force - beating up and arresting MPs and residents, and fire tear gas and water cannon at them?

The whole happening was a complete outrage. It was a subversion of justice, not to mention a complete wastage of public resources. How could a private company wields such influence over the police? Who has the authority to order such a massive deployment of the police force?

These are things that got the rakyat so angry at the government that drove us to vote for the opposition. I thought the Barisan Nasional government would have learned something from the setback in recent election. But lo and behold, our Prime Minister was not even aware of this happening when asked about it yestarday!