Is Hishammuddin involving police in greater political harassment of PR leaders when he should be asking the police to single-mindedly fight crime to make Malaysia a safe country?

commentary: YB Kit, why don't you let Lim Junior fight his own battle, everytime he is in the shit hole, you come to save his skin... He is digging his own grave and your bigger conglomerate have to cover his ass everytime he knock his head... Because of him, PR is losing ground with the Malays, not just in Penang, but the whole country. He is not so good covering his true intention of being an ultra chauvinist against the bumi(s).  Don't blame others for your son own short coming....

by Lim Kit Siang

When DAP Penang State Assemblyman for Komtar, Ng Wei Aik, lodged a police report against the Second Finance Minister Datuk Husni Hanadzlah for uttering racially inflammatory remarks on Tuesday, there was an immediate response from the Federal CID director Datuk Seri Mohd Bakri Mohd Zinin who was in Penang at the time.

Bakri asked at a news conference: “Do you want the police to fight crime or investigate political matters?”

The answer is clear and unequivocal, the first task of the police is to fight crime and to ensure that Malaysians, investors and tourists feel safe from crime and are liberated from the fear of crime – two major failures of the Malaysian police in the past decade.

Despite the establishment of a Royal Police Commission and its recommendations in 2005 to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional world-class police service in Malaysia, crime index in the country has continued to mount until the sixth Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had to admit that it is one of the six priority challenges of his administration.

Despite all the publicity of KPI (key performance index) and NKRAs (National Key Result Areas) in fighting crime in the past year, the police has yet to break the back of the problem of high crime rate and prevalent fear of crime among Malaysians, tourists and investors – the very definition of an unsafe country!

Nobody will agree more with Bakri that the first task of the police is to fight crime and not to get involved in political matters – but this is something that the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Musa Hassan and the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein do not seem to grasp.

Otherwise, why is the Police harassing the Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng, two Penang Deputy Chief Ministers Mansor Othman and Professor P. Ramasamy, Penang Exco members including Abdul Malik Kassim and Chow Kon Yeow and Pakatan Rakyat national leaders like Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim – with the police lodging 11 of the 12 police reports against the PK leaders themselves?

Although the Inspector-General of Police has denied bias and claimed that the police have lodged reports against politicians from both sides of the political divide, Musa has not been able to cite the instances when the Police had lodged reports against the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers, Barisan Nasional Chief Ministers and Mentris Besar or taken action against them!

Can Musa provide the answers? Of course not, because this has never been done!

It is precisely because key national institutions, like the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, have allowed themselves to be used as catspaws in the Umno/Barisan Nasional political agenda and chessboards and failed in their primary duties (to fight crime for police and to combat corruption for MACC) that they have not been able to regain national and international confidence about their efficiency, competence, professionalism and integrity.

With the police recently lodging 11 reports against Pakatan Rakyat leaders, the Malaysian police must have set a record in the most number of “political” reports it had lodged in such a short span of time.

Why is this taking place under Hishammuddin as Home Minister?

Is Hishammuddin going to involve police in greater political harassment of Pakatan Rakyat leaders when he should be asking the police to single-mindedly fight crime to make Malaysia a safe country again for Malaysians, foreign investors and tourists?

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Ex-Sarawak CM says Kelantan has no right to oil royalty

By Leslie Lau

KUCHING, March 11 — Tun Abdul Rahman Yakub, who was Sarawak Chief Minister when the Petroleum Development Act (PDA) came into force in 1974, has thrown his weight behind the federal government’s contention that Kelantan has no right to oil found beyond its territorial waters.

He told The Malaysian Insider yesterday that unless Kelantan could prove that its territorial waters extended beyond the three nautical mile limit, it could not claim royalty payments for oil found offshore.

“Of course if oil is found within the three mile limit it belongs to the state. If it is found offshore then it belongs to the federal government,” the 82-year-old former Sarawak CM said in an interview here.

But he added that his view that Kelantan had no rights to oil found offshore “might be wrong.” “Tengku Razaleigh was one Umno member with knowledge of the economy. He ought to know what happened with Kelantan,” he said in reference to Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s continuing fight for Kelantan to be given oil royalty payments.

He said the legal position of the states in peninsular Malaysia was different from that of Sabah and Sarawak. Abdul Rahman said that Sarawak was entitled to oil royalties because Queen Elizabeth had declared in 1954 that the east Malaysian state’s territorial waters extended beyond the three-nautical-mile limit.

The British monarch’s declaration was used by his Sarawak administration to negotiate payments for the state, said Abdul Rahman. He did not, however, want to comment on why the federal government had paid royalties to the Terengganu government.

The Barisan Nasional federal government recently took out full page advertisements in Malay weeklies listing eight questions and answers to rebut Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s argument that Kelantan and all other states are entitled to the 5 per cent oil royalty under the Petroleum Development Act 1974.

The federal government’s main argument is that oil and gas are extracted from waters that are beyond the three-nautical mile limit prescribed as territorial waters under Malaysia’s Emergency Ordinance (Essential Powers) No 7 1969.

The advertisement also explained that oil royalty payments for Sabah and Sarawak was due to agreements made prior to 1974 and through the Continental Shelf Act 1966.

However, Petronas had been paying Terengganu the 5 per cent oil royalty since offshore production began in 1978 but stopped after PAS captured the state in the 1999 general elections. It promised to resume twice-yearly direct payments from March 2009 after the earlier payments were converted to compassionate payments disbursed by federal agencies.

Oil was first discovered in the South China Sea off Terengganu in 1973, a year before Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein directed Tengku Razaleigh to form Petronas and become its founding chairman.

Petronas founder Tengku Razaleigh had recently rubbished the federal government’s explanation.

He said the advertisement failed to point out that almost all the oil found in Malaysia is located more than three nautical miles offshore, and Petronas has nevertheless been making oil payments to the states.

The Gua Musang Umno chief said that the implication of the argument is that Terengganu has no right to receive the cash payment which was reinstated early last year.

Abdul Rahman said yesterday that Sarawak had also wanted to sue the federal government for the right to its oil before the PDA was finally put into place.

“Around 1974, the federal government introduced a Bill in Parliament claiming that Sarawak oil belonged to the federal government.

“I then instructed the state Attorney-General to write to the federal Attorney-general to say that if the Bill was not withdrawn I would take the federal government to court.”

Abdul Rahman said he was immediately instructed by Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, who was then Prime Minister, to go to Kuala Lumpur.

“What’s all this about taking the federal government to court, he asked me. I told him that Sarawak oil belongs to Sarawak,” he said.

Tun Abdul Rahman said he obtained three legal opinions from the former AG of Australia, an expert in public international law from Cambridge University and a former High Court judge to back Sarawak’s claims.

The main argument put forward by the three legal experts was based on Queen Elizabeth’s declaration that Sarawak’s territorial waters included offshore and was not confined the three nautical mile limit.

“This discussion was between Tun Razak and myself. There was no one else present. He asked me what do we do now?

“I reminded him that in 1965 (when Tun Abdul Rahman was the federal land mines minister) I had advised the federal government to form a national oil company.

“He agreed and hence Petronas was later established.”

Abdul Rahman also claimed that he recommended to Razak that Tengku Razaleigh be appointed to run Petronas.

He said that he was informed by the prime minister that the federal government was not wealthy and could not afford a huge payout.

Abdul Rahman said then that he agreed to take a smaller payment with the understanding that the quantum should reviewed in future.

The final decision on the quantum of the royalty payments was decided at a meeting chaired by Tun Tan Siew Sin, who was Federal Finance Minister, and attended by the deputy chief minister of Sarawak Tan Sri Stephen Yong.

“Without consulting me he agreed to accept the five per cent royalty. What he ought to have done was to listen to the federal proposal and come back to me. But so we are bound.”

Abdul Rahman said that whatever was being argued by Tengku Razaleigh regarding Kelantan’s rights was a federal government problem and had nothing to do with Sarawak.

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Lipstick jihad

Dina Zaman writes so she can find answers. A lot of times, she doesn’t. When she has free time, she reads literary fiction or very trashy magazines. Her pet causes are Tony Leung, children’s rights advocacy and HIV/AIDS issues.

MARCH 10 — Reading “Let These Women Pray” made me wonder: has ‘Islamic feminism’ come to this?

I am not unsympathetic to these women’s demands for a bigger and more comfortable place to pray.

A Malaysian acquaintance, who is very familiar with the mosque mentioned in the article, conceded that the room was small and stuffy.

And neither do I agree to gender prejudices; to me, feminism is inclusive. Men and women are different physiologically and physically but it does not mean we have to separate ourselves.

We may have differences in many aspects, but they can actually make the world better, and it is time that we stop pitting ourselves against each other.

However, this is not a perfect world, and the reality is such that even among our Western counterparts, the gender war continues.

Still, while I sympathise with the American Muslim women’s desires for a better praying quarters — same sizes as the men’s, et al — I do not think that praying among men, or leading a mixed congregation to prayer, will actually make things better for Muslim women, or anyone for the matter.

I’m a pragmatist.  I would rather fight for issues which are important to Muslims and mankind, such as the issues of divorce, domestic violence, children’s rights, to name a few.

To fight for space in a mosque?

I have prayed in a storeroom. I have prayed in a room which had a wooden effigy of Jesus Christ nailed to the wall.

I have prayed in former churches turned into mosques.

I have prayed in big and grand mosques, and I have prayed in small, rickety ones.

I have prayed in crowded mosques as well as near-empty ones.

I can pray anywhere.

And truth be told, I would rather pray in a space which is not populated by people, because I do not like crowds. So this gender bias in mosques is something I cannot understand.

If there is such a term as Islamic feminism, I would like to ask again, have we come to this?

Twice I have been invited to participate in a conference in Pakistan, to talk about… Muslim women’s rights and Islamic feminism.

I didn’t go both times because twice my hotels were bombed. But I remember pulling my hair out drafting the papers and presentations because the term ‘Islamic feminism’ seemed to be an oxymoron. Labels are not healthy.

What on earth is a Muslim feminist, I wondered. Is she:

(a) A Muslim woman in fatigues and a butch haircut with a machine gun;

(b) A woman clad all in black from head to toe toting a machine gun and strapped with bombs;

(c) A hijab-ed woman lecturing at a forum, all hail and brimstone;

(d) A Queen Rania type, all couture and with enough smarts to wipe out a nation;

(e) A very tiny Malay girl in a floral scarf who seems demure but has enough fire to whack MCPs in Parliament;

(f) A blonde-streaked female politician who attends boutique openings;

(g) A very fat woman in tribal clothes who’d sit on the heads of errant men. Perhaps not. Some men like rotund women sitting on them.

To be a woman these days, Muslim or not, is a challenge. For the modern, emancipated woman, she has to be a corporate raider/ wife/ girlfriend/ mother/ fashionista/ porn star/the dependable rock, everything.

It is not enough to be just a woman. For many single mothers, they have to act as ‘husbands’, ‘breadwinners’, ‘disciplinarians’.

We are circus acts who have to juggle many roles and are expected to entertain too. And we have very little support, because even our own families have expectations of us.

Hence, to fight to pray among men, should be the least of our worries.

We women need to put aside our prejudices towards our own gender, (no we are not kind even to ourselves), and work on what matters the most: family and children’s rights.

Fair pay and treatment at work. Dealing with domestic violence and sexual harassment. Communicating with our communities, our men and families. Righting the wrongs. The gender bias when executing punishments.

If I am allowed a wish list for International Women’s Day, I would like young people to have good role models, who engage with them.

I would like both men and women to work towards a common goal, instead of screaming gender bias at each other.

I would like more writers to write about issues which affect communities such as paedophilia for example, and get their readers to take action, instead of being armchair politicians.

I would like all men and women and their children to be treated fairly, especially those who come from marginalized communities, are poor, are migrants.

This may be an odd wishlist for IWD, but to be a woman, is to embrace all.

Here’s to Lipstick jihad!

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Are you more Islam than anyone

By AO Musa

If I have a choice I will choose the best. What is most painful is the way society treats you. I’ve gone through this and now my children are going through the same problem. This situation has never changed from the past 32 years and in fact is getting worse every day.  

I hope after you read this, you will better understand the feelings of a discriminated citizen. I’m proud of what I am and I prefer to be known as an Indian Muslim rather than change my race to Malay. This is my story ….

If you are an Indian in race and Islam in faith, then you will be automatically called a “convert”. That is what is planted in most of the Malays' brain in Malaysia, no matter whether adults or children. I don’t blame the children as they learned this from their parents.

For the past 32 years, I always get this from most of the Malays that I come across in my life. A Malayalee by race and Islam in faith has dragged me into this discriminated stance for as long as I can remember. “Saudara baru ke?” “Bila masuk Islam?” “Satu family ke masuk Islam?” is something that I am used to hearing. At first, I always took the trouble to explain to them that I’m Islam from the beginning and never converted.

However, at one point of time I started to question myself “am I surrounded by idiots or don’t I have any sign of Muslim in me?” At this point, I started to do my research about my own family background. I learned that my great grandfather on my mom's side was a dae’i migrated from Yemen to India somewhere in the 1800’s to start his life as a merchant and also to preach about Islam. Married to my great grandmother who is the daughter of one of the prominent Muslim leaders in the state of Kerala (but I’m not in any way associated with TDM!).

My grandfather was also one of the notable figures in Kerala who fought for the freedom of India as well as a highly respected religious teacher. It was told to me that when he passed away (3 days before I was born), the state of Kerala announced a public holiday as a sign of mourning and respect for his contributions to the country and the state.

My great grandfather on my father's side migrated to Malaya from India also somewhere in the 1800’s to become a religious teacher in Rawang. Rawang used to be a plantation area and the majority of the population there were Indians. There were a number of Malay communities but further down towards Serendah to Tanjong Malim. He was invited by the Indian Muslim community who migrated earlier since there were not many religious teachers around to educate their children. I was told that during this time, the Islamic knowledge among the Malays was very poor. Mixing religion and culture is something that blended into their daily life.

The point is, I couldn’t find the point when my ancestors converted to Islam. As far as I ccould track, all of them were Muslims. This makes sense since Islam was brought to India by Malik Bin Dinar somewhere in 625 AD. The first mosque built in India was in Kodungallur, Kerala in 629 AD which was about 22km from where my ancestors came from. There are high chances that they converted to Islam during the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime (571 – 632 AD).

Islam came to Malaya somewhere in the 12th-13th century. The Terengganu Stone Monument was found at Kuala Berang, Terengganu where the first Malay state to receive Islam in 1303, Sultan Megat Iskandar Shah, known as Parameswara prior to his conversion, is the first Sultan of Melaka. He converted to Islam after marrying a princess from Pasai, of present day Indonesia. The conversion of the Sultanate of Malacca by Rowther and Marakkar traders from Tamil Nadu into Islam is the milestone of Islamification of Malay people in Malaya or Tanah Melayu (fact from Wikipedia).

So, the Indian Muslims converted to Islam 700 years before the Malays even heard about Islam. History tells us that Islam is brought to Malaya by Indians, Arabs and Chinese and yet we are the ones called converts. Yes, we are converts and in fact all of us are converts. However, Malays should not forget that the Indians are 700 years senior than them in Islam.

Who is the “convert” now? Are you still telling me that you are more Islam than anyone else???

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When ‘Allah’ was not the only word banned

By Debra Chong

KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 — Allah is not the only word banned by the Home Ministry from use by non-Muslims.

The Malaysian Insider recently obtained a copy of two letters sent out in 1986 by the  ministry through its publishing division and addressed to the Council of Churches Malaysia (CCM).

It lays down a laundry list of words the federal government claimed — and still claims — are sensitive to Muslims who make up the biggest group in multi-religious Malaysia.

The first letter was dated April 1, 1986 and was undersigned by one Tengku Ali Tengku Chik on behalf of the secretary-general of the home ministry, better known by its initials in Bahasa Malaysia, KDN (Kementerian Dalam Negeri).

Tengku Ali wrote: “I am instructed to inform that this Ministry is concerned with the use of Islamic phrases in the translated Bible (Bahasa Malaysia) in which use of those words could confuse followers of the two religions. For example, ‘Tuhan’ is translated as ‘Allah’ in which the term has been used in the religion of Islam and have always been mentioned in the religion of Christianity as ‘God’ or ‘Tuhan’ only.

“Therefore, the Ministry requests your cooperation to refrain from using those words considered sensitive. As a guide, a copy of Appendix A is attached with suggested phrases for your use when translating into Bahasa Malaysia. Other terms, if any, will be told later,” he added.

“For your information, recently the Ministry had similarly chided a publication in Sabah, that is ‘Catholic Sabah’ to stop from using those confusing words when making translations,” he highlighted.

The appendix listed 16 words that were considered “sensitive to Muslims” and came out with their replacement without apparently consulting the CCM beforehand. They are:

• “Al-Kitab” to be replaced with “Baibel (Bible)”.
• “Allah” to be replaced with “Tuhan (God)”.
• “Firman” to be replaced with “Berkata (Say)”.
• “Rasul” to be replaced with “Utusan (Massanger – sic)”.
• “Syariat” to be replaced with “Ajaran”.
• “Iman” to be replaced with “Percaya (believe)”.
• “Kaabah” with no suggested replacement.
• “Ibadah” to be replaced with “Amalan (worship)”.
• “Injil” to be replaced with “Baibel/ Bible”
• “Wahyu” to be replaced with “Revelasi”.
• “Nabi” to be replaced with “Propet”.
• “Syukur” to be replaced with “Terima kasih”.
• “Zikir” to be replaced with “Mengingatkan/ Menyebut”.
• “Solat” to be replaced with “Sembahyang”.
• “Doa” to be replaced with “Memohon”.

The ministry’s instructions do not stop there. In a separate column, it also notes the whys behind the ban.

“Maksud Al-Kitab ialah Al-Quran. Oleh itu istilah nama ini tidak boleh digunakan (The meaning of Al-Kitab is Al-Quran. Therefore the term cannot be used.)

“Firman ialah kata-kata mulia khusus bagi Allah sahaja (Firman is a specific noble word for Allah only).

“Rasul ialah nama panggilan kepada Utusan Allah yang disebut dalan Quran. Nama Jesus Kristas tidak disebut di dalam Al-Quran (Rasul is a name for Allah’s Messenger as mentioned in the Quran. The name Jesus Christ is not mentioned in the Quran).

“Syariat dikhaskan kepada Ugama Allah sahaja (Syariat is specially for the religion of Allah only).

“Injil yang sah sudah tidak ada masa ini (A legitimate Injil no longer exists).

The ministry noted there were no replacement words for “wahyu” and stated that only the word “revelasi” could be used.

The curt tone adopted in the letter appeared to suggest a superiority complex towards the practitioners of religions other than Islam, in particular, Christians who are considered by Muslims elsewhere in the world as fellow Children of the Book with a  shared history.

The home ministry letter also claimed that the “Injil” no longer exists because the Muslim understanding of it is limited to the Old Testament; for Christians, the focus of their religion is in the teachings of Jesus Christ which forms the New Testament

The apparent arrogance was summed up in the afterword to the appendix, which ironically is sub-headlined “Panduan Umum” or general guide.

“Bible ditulis dalam Bahasa Inggeris (dan Bahasa Latin Romawi). Bahasa rasmi Agama Kristian ialah Bahasa Inggeris (dan Bahasa Latin Romawi). Jadi ‘Bible’ hendaklah ditulis dan disebarkan dalam Bahasa Inggeris (atau Latin). Jangan gunakan sedikitpun Bahasa Arab dalam Bible kerana Bahasa Arab adalah bahasa rasmi Agama Islam. Menggunakan Bahasa Arab

dalam ‘Bible’ boleh mengelirukan dan mempengaruhi orang Islam kepada Agama Kristian. [Bible is written in the English language (and in Roman Latin). The official language for the Christian religion is English (or Roman Latin). So ‘Bible’ must be written and disseminated in English (or Latin). Do not use even a little bit of Arabic in the Bible because Arabic is the official language of the religion of Islam. Using Arabic in the Bible can confuse and influence Muslims to Christian religion.]”

In that brief paragraph, the home ministry also explained the real reason why words of an Arabic origin are “exclusive” to Islam.

It also appeared to have seen fit to decide, on behalf of both Muslims and Christians, how they should each practice their respective religions although the Federal Constitution states the Malay monarchs hold sway over Islamic practices in their own states.

The Federal Constitution also states Malaysians who are not Muslim are free to practise their own faith, which most would sensibly understand that their religions are not subject to Islamic interpretations.

Eight months later, the ministry sent out another letter, this time addressed to Christian publications.

This time, it was undersigned by one Hassan Jantan on behalf of the ministry’s secretary-general. A copy of the letter was also forwarded to the police Special Branch director at Bukit Aman.

Dated December 5, 1986, the letter refers to a “confusion” that has happened within the community over the use of “Islamic words” used in the Bahasa Malaysia edition of Christian publications.

The letter then states the federal government had decided to allow Christian publications to use 12 words — from the original list of 18 banned words — on the condition that the books or pamphlets to be distributed or sold carry the word “For Christians” on the front cover.

The 12 Arabic-origin words allowed for use are: “Al-Kitab, Firman, Rasul, Syariat, Iman, Ibadah, Injil, Wahyu, Nabi, Syukur, Zikir, Doa”.

The ministry remained unconverted on four other words: “Kaabah”, “Batitullah”, “Solat” and “Allah”.

This time, the ministry did not give a point-by-point explanation on why certain words could now be used.

Instead, the letter said the federal government had relaxed its stand “only to preserve public peace and avoid misunderstanding between Muslims and Christians”.

At the same time, it reminded the Christian publications that the state Islamic councils had the power to decide on all Islamic affairs in their respective states, which is redundant because that fact is already laid down in the Federal Constitution and the Christian publications had no tried to impose their views or rules of their beliefs on anyone who was not a Christian, let alone a Muslim.

The ongoing dispute pitting Muslims and Christians has been raging these past 20 years behind closed doors without the public being any wiser until the churches, seeing no other avenue to have their case heard by a neutral panel was forced to take it up with the court.

It has been reported that the National Fatwa Council, which oversees the practice of Islam throughout the country but has no authority over the practice of other religions, had suddenly in 1982 declared certain words, including “Allah” as exclusive to the religion of Islam.

But “Allah” is the only word the Christian churches are seeking to use. They have not laid any claims on “Baitullah”, “solat”, or “Kaabah”, church officials say.

They argued that then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Cabinet issued an order which has effectively curtailed the freedom of non-Muslims in the practice of their religions.

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