Cakap cakap...Melayu bukan UMNO. UMNO bukan Melayu.

We Malays must realize that there has to be an expiry date for blaming UMNO for the situation we find ourselves in now. It expires when we empower ourselves to separate UMNO from the Malays.  Amongst the Malays there is already widespread social discontent, political anger and public outrage at UMNO. Yet there is a   sense of fear and powerlessness to do anything against UMNO. This must be broken. We do not want to reach rock bottom before we start to rebuild our people up again. We need to start now.

Yes you can say that the fight has already started in 2008 when we voted in a credible opposition into parliament. But that is not enough. Some of you talk about your work on the Internet, Facebook and Twitter! But understand this….the Internet; Facebook and Twitter are just logistical support. In themselves they do nothing. The fight against UMNO must be started by the people. You click on to your PC to access these support but the fight can only begin when you physically move forward together with Pakatan Rakyat. Do not allow PDRM, the ISA and other acts of state terror intimidate you.

UMNO no longer has popular support amongst the Malays. UMNO leaders now buy loyalty from those within UMNO to keep them in power. Loyalty from the elites within UMNO, and from the components parties within Barisan Nasional. And these people need to be rewarded for their loyalty – corruption is the enabler of choice.

I am not disappointed with UMNO. I am disappointed with the people within UMNO. They no longer know what is right and what is wrong. I want these people to tell the Malay why they should vote for UMNO now – now that there is mutual hostility between the people within UMNO and many Malays.

We are fighting against an UMNO that is strong. With money and guns. Is all we can hope for is that Pakatan Rakyat will get its act together and UMNO will crumble from within?

Maybe so…but hope is not a strategy. We Malays must inform other Malays what UMNO has done to the Malays and we must do so unapologetically. UMNO is so focus on killing the messenger that in doing so they have lost control of the message that we are telling to our own people. The message is this.

The Malays are angry and primed for change. We are building our strength from this anger. And Anwar Ibrahim is the symbol of this anger. What we need now is that spark that will ignite this anger into a tidal surge that is irresistible and irreversible to overwhelm UMNO and all that chooses to stand with UMNO. If Memali had happened now, with the Internet at our disposal, that would have been the spark to ignite our anger for the Malays will never stand for our own government to kill other Malays. Never ever!

Can 50 years of UMNO rule disintegrate in a matter of days if not weeks? You see what has happened in Egypt and Tunisia and you can only say that it can!

Najib cannot understand that it is him that we want gone. Not Anwar. Anwar’s privileged and burden is to lead us. UMNO has tried to stripped Anwar and many Malays of almost everything that we hold dear – our pride, our dignity and our integrity -  but they know they have failed in this endeavour. UMNO’s fear of failure at the 13^th general election has already manifest as it did at Memali – eliminate all those that stands in the way of UMNO’s relentless advance towards power and wealth.

I say we stand and fight. In Memali the BN government sent in 200 armed Policemen to kill 14 Malays. Against Anwar if all UMNO can throw at him are pornographic tapes then I say, “Bring it on!”. We have many tales to tell of UMNO’s massive financial scandals running into the billions, audacious nepotism by Prime Ministers and Ministers, murders, corruption and greed on a scale bigger then Ben Hur! Then there is the abuse of the Malaysian Judiciary, the Election Commission, PDRM and any damm government apparatus at your disposal. And the sex…ahhh the sex. It starts with the Prime Minister, his wife, the DPM and enough Ministers and UMNO elites to ensure that each decade is represented in its totality….and that includes components parties within the Barsian Nasional. Bring it on!         

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination : J.K. ROWLING

J.K. ROWLING, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.



J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

Text as delivered follows.
Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

Petra and Kee Thuan Chye

There are times, when I am writing, that I have had to take five and go over what I have written and ask myself if what I write will be “acceptable” to those that read what I write. Once or twice I had even pulled out postings I had already made on my blog because I felt that it was too personal a matter to be put onto the public domain because once I do post anything onto steadyaku47 it signals my consent to have what I write open to debate. Harden as I am to what others do say about me and my blog I am still at times affected by what others say of my writings.

And so I read with fascination Petra’s exchange with Kee Thuan Chye in MT this morning:

“From: Fugitive Blogger


To: Kee Thuan Chye


Date: Tuesday, April 26, 2011, 12:50 PM



I'm not going to bother to 'win anyone back'. I am not trying to win a popularity contest. I am not running for office or contesting the elections. If they are unhappy with me that’s their problem, not mine. 

What, these people are paying for my food or what? I'm employed by them that I must take orders from them or what? No one owns me. I do what I want. They don't like it, tough. 

Do I sound arrogant? I hope so. Arrogant is my middle name. Kamunting can tell you that. Sungai Buloh Prison can tell you that. Bukit Aman can tell you that. They hate my guts and that makes my day”.

    

Petra, is it necessary to be abusive in your reply to KTC? We know that there are times when you do need to be arrogant. Times when you need to act tough. I do not see a need for you to be either when you are in conversation with people who are our brothers. As I see you, I too see KCT as my Brother–in– Arms against Barisdan Nasional, against UMNO. Chill Bro, chill....    

The King

cakap cakap...of Petra and Chua Jui Meng

UMNO goons are doing their job well. This evening I read about Petra’s tirade against Chua Jui Meng (CJM) in Malaysia Today. It would not do anybody any good to upset this Petra guy…but first thing first.

What do I know about CJM? Rich family with a golf course or something to do with a golf course in Johore. I know about the Golf Course because I had something to do with “helping” a Korean company secure the contract to build the first Club House way way back….even though the Korean company was not the lowest bidder. But that is another story…I digress.   

Now why would CJM alleged that Petra has been bought? In public too? As KJ said of Perkasa does CJM have a “death wish?” Aiyah Chua not too clever of you to do so.

But more worrying to me will be the fall out from this skirmish. Does CJM or Petra need to open another front in our battle against BN? I presume that CJM, Petra and me are together in this battle against BN? Yes or no?

Whatever the consequences of these two going at each other UFC style, as I have said earlier, what is given is that the UMNO goons are doing their job well. Aisehman as if we do not have enough things to do.......

STRENGTH FROM ANGER

Build strength around our Anger!

Everyday, without fail, I am continuously astounded by the unending attacks on Anwar Ibrahim by this Barisan Nasional government. When enough space has been taken up by Barisan Nasional media about DSAI they are not beyond going to defile the dead. Teoh Beng Huat is dug up to be branded as corrupt. Because after DSAI they really are bankrupt of individuals to go after from within Pakatan Rakyat.  

The MACC is lauded as the paragon of anti corruption when it arrested more 60 custom officers.

During the operation, a joint effort between local law enforcement agencies, the authorities seized gold bars, bags of cash containing up to RM600,000, luxury watches and expensive cars.

Those arrested included a state Customs director who was reported to have millions of ringgit in several bank accounts.


Ahmad Sarbaini was among those detained on April 1 by MACC over allegations of graft involving billions. Investigators estimated that about RM10 billion had been smuggled out or remitted overseas.

Did it ever occur to this Barisan Nasional government to be embarrassed that 60 of THEIR custom officers were arrested? That there were no check and balances in place that could prevent a State Custom Director from amassing millions of ringgits in their bank accounts? And not to mention the gold bars, bags of cash, luxury watches and expensive cars seized! What would MACC uncover if they went after UMNO? Bags of cash, gold bars, luxury watches and expensive cars too? The mind boggles when we recall this Mat Taib aka the then Menteri Besar of Selangor was forced to resign over the RM3,8 million he tried to bring into Australia in 1997. That was ten years ago – at today’s value that would be closer to RM7 million ringgit! Imagine Mat Taib walking around with RM$7 million into Australia! If that was what he brought to Australia just think how much he must have in Selanagor!  

This is the same Barisan Nasional government that holds effective executive control over our government and all the government apparatus that does its bidding without question – the Judiciary, PDRM, the various government departments….a never ending source of weapons used against its own Rakyat. A weapon used to bludgeon Kugan and many others to death while under PDRM custody.

This is the same Barisan Nasional government that controls all the Televisions stations, all the Media that matters in Malaysia through its draconian licensing of same – the same Barisan Nasional government that holds a scimitar over any head that brooks any dissent to its rule through the indiscriminate use of the ISA to further it already choking hold over its own people and the same Barisan Nasional government which has a corrupt, greedy and totally abusive UMNO as its leader of choice!  

This Barisan Nasional government angers me and I am sure it angers you all too.

We must build our strength from this anger!

No I am not talking about the anger that makes us pick up a stone and throw it at the target of your anger. Not the anger that makes you want to lash out at Barisan Nasional at every opportunity you have. Nor the anger that makes you want to go out now and demonstrate against the ISA. Nor my friends am I talking about the anger that is fed and is immediately quelled and satisfied.

No I want you to hold on to this anger you have with Barisan Nasional. This anger at Barisan Nasional must be starved. Do not feed it. Every day, in every way let it grow inside you as it is growing inside me.

We have a right to this anger and do not let any one tell you otherwise. Our anger at Barisan Nasional must be one third used to make preparations for the coming 13^th General Elections. One third used now to spread our anger to others who we need to bring onto our side against Barisan Nasional. But always leave one third of this anger starved so that come the 13^th General Election we will still have that anger burning inside us to ensure that the final surge to rid ourself of Barisan Nasional is done with the vigour and strength that will claim victory for Pakatan Rakyat.

We must feed this anger everyday. When people are angry they will bring about change. And change is what we want at the 13^th General Election.     

IN THIS FIGHT WITH BARISAN NASIONAL

ANGER IS GOOD FOR YOU.

And Barisan Nasional should worry about our anger because anger is one letter from danger to them! Malaysia needs our anger now because this evil that is Barisan Nasional has been allowed to exisits long enough.

But we must know how to be angry. At the core of our anger must be Barisan Nasional and what Barisan Nasional represent for our people for our country. Barisan Nasional represent corruption, greed and arrogance. Barisan Nasional represents the breakdown of our solidarity as a people that once used to live in harmony and decency. Barisan Nasional represents all that we abhor and detests…and we must use our anger to rid ourselves of Barsian Nasional. You are one. With me we are two…who else are with me?     

The Ugly Malaysian: Uniformed Malays...a reminder.

LKY...Words of truth

Lest you Forget...ISA detainess

Izzy and Sofie

The latest on Terrina and Emmett:

Terrina:  "How does it feel - getting called to the 

dinner table and just sitting down having everything 

cooked and ready for you??"

Emmett: "How does it feel having a roof over your head?"

Terrina: " ... touche."

and they lived happily ever after!

QUESTIONING ARMS SPENDING IN MALAYSIA 

From Altantuya to Zikorsky

By Kua Kia Soong

EXCERPT

What RM1b Can Buy

Most of us do not realize the proportion of the country’s wealth being spent on arms, the commissions being paid for arms and in many cases, questionable purchases of such arms. Compare that with the gross shortage of schools and hospitals, public transport and other social services that so many Malaysians face and the obscenity of it all can be clearly seen.

For example, RM1 billion worth of arms is equivalent to building at least 100 hospitals or 1000 new schools or 10,000 new houses. Do you know that since Independence in 1957 – after more than 50 years – there has not been a single new Chinese or Tamil primary school built? In fact we had more Chinese and Tamil primary schools then (1,350 and 880 respectively) compared to the present (1285 and 550 schools respectively). And the population at Independence was only half what it is today!

But in one weekend alone in April 2010, the BN Government could justify spending RM10 billion on arms at the Kuala Lumpur Defence Fair. With that money, we could have built 1000 hospitals or 10,000 schools or 100,000 houses! The Tenth Malaysia Plan (2011-15) has allocated RM23 billion for defence and security.

Malaysia’s Recent Splurge on Arms

In Malaysia, although the last war against Indonesian “Confrontation” was over more than forty years ago, the BN Government has still made available ample funds for the Defence Minister to purchase state-of-the-art defence equipment all these years. “Military modernization” has become a new catch-word for the Defence Ministry in Malaysia to justify defence budgets out of all proportion to the national budget. At the same time, the military-industrial complexes of the West have convinced their own governments that one way to keep their economies buoyant is to sell more weapons abroad, especially to Second and Third World countries where the flashpoints tend to occur.

Up to now, there has been a lack of public outcry over the size of the defence budget in Malaysia. And while the alternative front, Pakatan Rakyat never fails to expose corruption and non-transparency in arms purchases, their alternative defence policy is not evident.

Thus, what is the purpose of this entire splurge on arms by the BN Government? Does it make sense in the light of the regional status quo and the state of our economic development? How is Malaysia’s defence budget being spent? Malaysia already has eight US-made F/A-18D jet fighters. Six Russian MiG-29s have been retired but another 10 aircraft will continue to be maintained by Aerospace Technology System in Malaysia for several years. Malaysia is seeking enough fighters for one to two squadrons. As well as the Russian Sukhoi Su-30s, other fighters Malaysia is considering include the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin F-16 and Saab Gripen.

The Defence Ministry also wants to replace its 20 Sikorsky S-61 Nuri helicopters, the first of which it received in 1968. The Eurocopter EC725 was chosen in 2007 after the government had evaluated the Agusta Westland AW101, Mil Mi-17 and Sikorsky S-92. However, the deal was called off after criticism from opposition political parties.

A Futile and Wasteful Arms Race in ASEAN

The arms race among the Southeast Asian countries seems the most pointless after all the talk at conferences on ASEAN integration. Even so, each country’s attempt to be ahead in the race is self-defeating. For example, does Malaysia’s acquisition of 18 Su-30MKM planes change the balance of power in the immediate region? This is doubtful since Thailand operates 57 F-16A/Bs & has 6 Gripens on order while Singapore has even more jet fighters including F-16C/Ds, F5s and F-15SGs on order.

China’s increased regional power has also given its Southeast Asian neighbours such as Malaysia an excuse to step up their own defence purchases even though our leaders keep stressing they do not see China as a threat in the region. Figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show that Southeast Asia’s top five arms importers – Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma and Singapore – spent more than US$8 billion on weapons between 1992 and 1996.

In 1997, Malaysia was described as one of “East Asia’s Big Eight” countries devoting “lavish resources” to develop its military industries. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said that these countries – China, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia – were enhancing their capabilities in military organization, arms purchases, and military industrialization.

Malaysia’s rivalry with Singapore springs not from ideological differences but from the latter’s forced separation from the Malaysian federation in 1965, after a crisis emanating from the racial politics of their ruling classes. From this rivalry we can see how the ensuing arms race has burdened the peoples in the two countries with billions in arms spending.

The Non-Aligned Movement was founded upon the principles of peace, neutrality and impartiality to the Superpowers. A genuine non-aligned policy can therefore go a long way toward ridding us of the need to procure expensive arms.

Malaysia’s Military-Industrial Complex

Many are not aware of the rapid growth of Malaysia’s domestic military-industrial complex. The top brass of the military guard their power and privilege and this is nourished by easy access to the defence budget and the simple justification of “national security”. Today we have seen the growth of such a complex in many countries, including Malaysia. An offshoot of the arms purchases is the race to develop domestic defence equipment industries in each of the S.E. Asian countries. In 1993, aerospace became a new strategic sub-sector of Malaysia’s manufacturing sector. This sector is both capital intensive and involves high technology.

With the burgeoning of a domestic military economy, we see class interest developing between the ruling elite and the top brass of the military. As it happens, there is now an extensive military automotive complex in the Prime Minister, Najib’s electoral constituency of Pekan with its layers of contractors, sub-contractors, servicemen and other gainfully employed.

We also find many retired generals and other officers of the armed forces in the directorships of many if not most of these local aerospace companies. This brings into focus questionable practices in the Malaysian civil and military services when we see top military and civil servants retiring into directorships of utility and arms companies.

Most military contracts come with purchase agreements involving local spin-offs. For example, Malaysia’s Airod has an agreement for aircraft maintenance with the US Lockheed Corporation and is trying to gain a foothold in the regional aircraft upgrading market, estimated to be worth $1 billion yearly. British Aerospace’ sale of 28 Hawk ground attack aircraft to Malaysia in the early 1990s came with an offset package including the manufacture of air-frame components, cannon, ammunition and tyres in Malaysia. These products would not only be fitted to the Hawks sold to the RMAF but could also be exported to other countries using the same aircraft.

Bumiputera companies have made a mark in the local aerospace industry and the Directory of Malaysian Defence Industry Companies 2000 published by the Malaysian Industries Defence Council already listed 18 aerospace companies. Thus while most businesses are subject to market forces, defence enjoys a great deal of “featherbedding” – contracts are awarded without competition and the sector has its own government blessed “aerospace” industrial policy.

The significance of this domestic military-industrial complex to the composition of the ruling class, class relations, a right-wing tendency, patronage, employment and the outcome of elections cannot be underestimated.

Arms for Aid Scandal, 1994

The “Arms for Trade” scandal, involving the funding of the Pergau hydroelectric dam in Malaysia, revolved around the linking of arms sales (worth RM5 billion) to British overseas aid, in the form of Aid-and-Trade Provision (ATP) funding. The linkage came to light when a senior civil servant in the British Overseas Development Administration (ODA), Sir Tim Lankester, objected to the funding of the un-economical and environmentally damaging dam in 1991 but his objections were over-ruled by the then Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd.

It was stated British government policy that there could be no such linkage. This government policy was based on the 1966 Overseas Aid Act. Allegations of corruption were levelled at the Malaysian government, specifically in the Sunday Times. It provoked a backlash by Mahathir’s government which announced a ‘Buy British Last’ policy in 1994. Soon after, the editor of the Sunday Times at the time, Andrew Neil lost his job as editor because of the political impact of the investigations of Pergau.

While the mainstream press in Malaysia published hardly anything on the “Arms for Aid” scandal which had erupted in Britain in 1994, the British press had a field day which subsequently led to Mahathir’s second trade boycott against Britain. These revelations in the British press on the scandal are published in this book for the first time in Malaysia.

The Murder of Altantuya and the Scorpene Deal

It took the brutal murder of a Mongolian national, Altantuya Shaaribuu in 2006 to shock the nation and for questions surrounding the purchase of two Scorpene submarines to be asked in this country and in France. Altantuya, a Mongolian translator was shot in the head on October 19, 2006, and then blown up with C4 explosives which are available only from Malaysia’s military.

According to testimony in the trial, Altantuya accompanied her then-lover 

Abdul Razak Baginda to Paris at a time when Malaysia’s Defence Ministry was negotiating through a Kuala Lumpur-based company, Perimekar Sdn Bhd, to buy two Scorpene submarines and a used Agosta submarine produced by the French government under a French-Spanish joint venture, Armaris. Perimekar at the time was owned by a company called Ombak Laut, which was wholly owned by Abdul Razak. The contract was not competitive.

The Malaysian Ministry of Defence paid 1 billion euros (RM 4.5 billion) to Amaris for the three submarines, for which Perimekar received a payment of 114 million euros (RM510 million). The total cost of the submarines purchase after including infrastructure, maintenance, weapons, etc. has risen beyond RM7 billion. The Deputy Defence Minister Zainal Abdidin Zin told the Dewan Rakyat, Malaysia’s parliament, that the money was paid to Perimekar for “coordination and support services” although the fee amounted to a whopping 11 percent of the sales price for the submarines.

Altantuya, by her own admission in the last letter she wrote before her murder, said she had been blackmailing Abdul Razak, pressuring him for US$500,000. She did not say how she was blackmailing him, leaving open lots of questions. While two former bodyguards of the then Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister were subsequently found guilty of her grisly murder, it raised suspicion of official cover up since their motives were never divulged to the public nor probed in court. Altantuya had had a relationship with Abdul Razak Baginda, a defence analyst from the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre think-tank, with ties to Najib Razak. She had worked as Abdul Razak’s translator on a deal to purchase Scorpene submarines from France. Chapter three looks at the murder of Altantuya and its link with the purchase of the Scorpene submarines.

An Integrated and Accountable Military?

Experts say that Malaysia’s air force suffers from too many aircraft types and aircraft that fail to keep up with recent purchases by its neighbours. Chapter 4 chronicles an exhaustive record of negligence, non-accountability and non-integration in the Malaysian defence sector through the years. The recent case of the missing jet engines was by no means exceptional when seen in the light of these scandals, viz. the 12 Eurocopter helicopters costing RM2.3 billion; the 27 offshore vessels ultimately to cost RM24 billion to be built by PSC-Naval Dockyard; the operational problems faced by the newly acquired Hawk fighters in 1996; the missing Skyhawks in the 1980s.

The questions Malaysians want answered are: Is the Malaysia government buying the BEST aircraft in terms of value for money? Was there a feasibility study conducted to compare prices and functionality of these copters? In the first place, why was there an issue with the proposed purchase that necessitated the PAC to conduct an investigation?

Wastage and Tragedies

Besides having to pay for the exorbitant military budget through the years, the human casualties and the loss of these very expensive aircraft is not acceptable. Apart from the tragic loss of lives of our servicemen and women, one wonders if we have been short changed by the arms suppliers or if there has been compromises on the price, quality of the equipment or even if we have adequately trained personnel to fly these ultra modern, high-tech jet fighters. And of course, the quality of management and system of accountability have been called into question often enough in the armed forces.

From 1968 to 1997, the crashes of Sikorsky Nuri helicopters had claimed 73 lives in all.

The Defence Minister, Datuk Syed Hamid Albar who was in the United States at the time, said there was no plan to retire the Nuris; instead, the remaining Sikorsky 61A-4 Nuris would be upgraded to extend their life span. They had been in service for 22 to 30 years up until 1997.

From 1970 to 1995, there were four De Havilland Caribou aircraft crashes killing at least 17 servicemen. Then there was the crash of the Super Puma helicopter in January 1994 in which four crew members lost their lives. The Super Puma was on its way to fetch then Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and his delegation in Kangar when it crashed.

It was the 15th crash involving aircraft of the Royal Malaysian Air Force since 1990 – five involved the Pilatus PC-7 basic training aircraft; four were A-4PTM Skyhawk fighter bombers. The other incidents included the Alouette III helicopter, the Cessna 402 aircraft, a Nuri helicopter and Hercules C-130 transport aircraft. It was remarked that we have lost more aircraft and pilots through accidents than through war combat.

A Military Dominated by One Ethnic Group

Despite Najib’s “1Malaysia” policy, the Malaysian military remains dominated by one ethnic group. Although there are some ethnic Indians and Chinese in the Malaysian Armed Forces, the top brass are exclusively Malay. The Royal Malay Regiment, the premier corps in the Infantry, remains exclusively Malay.

Two years after the May 13 Incident, in 1971 non-Malays constituted about 50 per cent of army officers; sixteen out of every hundred soldiers were non-Malays; the Malay and non-Malay officers’ ratio in the RMN was 50-50 while in the Air Force, more than half the officers were non-Malays; non-Malays formed 25 per cent of the navy’s other ranks while in the air force, it was 40 per cent.

By 1981, the Malay composition in the armed forces had reached more than 75% for officers and 85% for the rank and file. However, in 1993, the number of non-Malay officers in the 90,000-strong army had dipped below 15 per cent. For the other ranks, non-Malays constituted about nine per cent. The situation was even worse in the police force. It was estimated that in 1993, Chinese comprised only five per cent of the 76,000-strong force.

In 2002, then Chief of Defence Forces, General Tan Sri Mohamed Zahidi Zainuddin revealed that non-Malays made up less than 10% of the armed forces, which had about 110,000 personnel. (36) Today, it is safe to estimate the percentage of Malays in the armed forces to be more than 90%. As in the other sectors of Malaysian society, this domination of the military and the police by one ethnic group does not serve the interest of multi-culturalism in the Malaysian nation we want to build.

Checking BN’s Defence Spending

There is no doubt that ever since the Malaysian peoples’ “political tsunami” of 8 March 2008, the Barisan Nasional Government has been forced to be more circumspect about authorizing any big defence procurements for fear of losing electoral support. For instance, the BN government was forced to stall the planned purchase of the Eurocopter EC 725 helicopters. Nevertheless, this has not stopped the same BN government from allocating a record RM23 billion, or 10% of the total development allocation under the Tenth Malaysia Plan for defence & security.

It is clear that the BN Government could get away with such huge defence budgets during the last few decades because of the erosion of these safeguards in our democratic system, viz. dominance of the executive over parliament; loss of public accountability; absence of Freedom of Information legislation; inadequate separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary; poor safeguards for civil rights.

However, it is important that while Pakatan Rakyat highlights the corruption involved in arms procurements by the BN, they also present their alternative defence policy to the rakyat at the next general elections.

Stopping the Arms Race in ASEAN

Disarmament must ultimately be inclusive of all the nations within ASEAN. The peoples in ASEAN deserve a better quality of life compared to the status quo which is committed to an irrational arms race among the ASEAN countries themselves and deprives their peoples of valuable resources for social development. The financial crisis toward the end of the 1990s gave us a vision of a region without an arms race. It was not because the political leaders had come to their senses – simply that countries in the region could no longer afford expensive military equipment. Indonesia announced in 1998 that it would cut military spending by up to US$20 billion.

An obligatory ASEAN register of conventional arms is a good first step toward increased transparency in exposing the armaments of each ASEAN country. However, the register needs to be expanded to ensure that each country provides greater detail about their arms procurements and these have to be cross-checked with other sources. Beyond imports and exports, the Register should include each country’s capabilities, inventories and production levels.

Minimising the defence budget in Malaysia and throughout ASEAN can free more valuable resources into urgently needed social services and socially useful production. Wasting money on arms prevents it from being spent on health, education, clean water or other public services. It also distorts the economy and diverts resources, such as skilled labour and R&D away from alternative economic activity.

Reforms and a Culture of Peace

Working towards an end to war involves putting an end to the culture of war. It involves finding ways to resolve conflicts through changing our own attitudes and behaviour. Leaders have the responsibility to initiate that fundamental change and involving everyone in that peace-building process. It involves overcoming the fears, prejudices and other contradictions that give rise to misunderstanding, violence and conflict. It involves  re-ordering our financial priorities away from wasteful and destructive arms to the social well-being of all our peoples.

Facilitating greater democracy in our society also creates a culture of peace since the more that citizens have the opportunity to participate in the running of their society and the freedom to express their aspirations and criticisms, the less likely are they to take up arms to overthrow the government.

To achieve a culture of peace would require a profound reformation but reform we must. Cooperating in shared goals and nurturing positive interdependence can help to build this culture of peace. A culture of peace should be our nation’s vision. It is a vision that is only attainable in a society that respects human dignity, social justice, democracy and human rights. It is an environment that can settle conflict and differences through dialogue and democracy and not through threats and repression.

Social change will only happen when the people are mobilised in a movement for peace. Only such a movement and consciousness can divert the billions spent on unnecessary and wasteful armaments to peaceful and socially useful production. Thus we also need the participation of an active labour movement pledged to promote socially useful, alternative production rather than armaments manufacture.

An Alternative Defence Policy

Our wholesome economic development will require the drastic slashing of the defence budget and the conversion of our military production to civilian economy or at least to purely defensive rather than offensive purposes. Such a defensive policy is eminently preferable. In the event of aggression by an outside force, having decentralised, dispersed people’s militia forces in small units armed with precision-guided, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles would be the way to wage a protracted people’s war against the aggressor. As has been proven by people’s wars in history, eg. the Vietnam war, such a defensive strategy will render useless all the tactical weapons of the aggressor, including nuclear warheads. Most importantly, such weapons of self-defence will be many times cheaper than the offensive high tech jet fighters, tanks, submarines and other vessels in the arms race we cannot hope to win anyway.

Our economic priorities need to be diverted away from military production and toward production for human needs, and public expenditure diverted to more and better social services. It is possible to retool defence-oriented establishments for alternative socially useful production without loss of jobs. As armaments production becomes more and more capital-intensive, producing socially useful goods can create more jobs than producing military goods. While civilian manufacturing industry is starved of investment, military production appropriates significant amounts of the nation’s capital, technology and skill.

In the same way that the production of energy-saving material and equipment (eg.insulation) and demand management is preferable to energy-creating expenditure (eg. dams and power stations), socially useful production to replace military production would require a mind set change and re-ordering of priorities in our society. This is the essence of sustainable living and the promotion of peace in our country, our region and throughout the world…

WITH THANKS TO DR KUA KIA SOONG

Dr Kua Kia Soong is director of Malaysia’s human rights organization, SUARAM. He was Principal of the community-funded New Era College (2000-08); Opposition Member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya (1990-95); Director of Huazi Research Centre (1985-90); Political Detainee under the ISA (1987-89); Academic Director to the Malaysian Chinese schools (1983-85) and Lecturer in Sociology at the National University of Singapore (1978-79). He studied for his BA Econ (1975), MA Econ (1976) and PhD in Sociology (1981) at Manchester University, UK.