Finally, the government's position on the press explained in crystal clear clarity!
First of all I want to make a few declarations. I am a completely biased observer- I'm a bit of a wishy washy liberal when it comes to things like freedom of speech, and I look forward the day will be when the Straits Times publishes stuff that shows Gayle's level of insight.
I would also like to be prime minister one of these days. However I am completely useless at the whole business of electioneering. Like the only elections I've ever won were all walkovers. That was how I really got to be treasurer of the Salsa Society in Oxford and part of the disciplinary panel on the Corpus Christi JCR. I am known to many people who know me as an over-excitable and annoying personality. I managed to lose Agagooga's memory card with all his photos on it in a CPU in a Munich Internet Cafe. I have an embarrassing video of myself on Youtube dancing to a Gunther song. Worse, I can't speak any dialects. One of my baby cousins is also positively frightened of me.
So what political party still wants me as a political candidate again? I wish.
Having completely trashed my own potential political credibility as one would wipe a dishcloth on a Newton Hawker Centre table, let me now go on to my completely and utterly biased criticism of something that really ground my gears today.
By now I am sure you are all familiar with the rebuke of the famous blogger mrbrown.
However I want to point all of you to this passage from Mr Lee Boon Yang's press secretary
"mrbrown is entitled to his views. But opinions which are widely circulated in a regular column in a serious newspaper should meet higher standards. Instead of a diatribe mr brown should offer constructive criticism and alternatives. And he should come out from behind his pseudonym to defend his views openly.
It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues, or campaign for or against the Government. If a columnist presents himself as a non-political observer, while exploiting his access to the mass media to undermine the Government's standing with the electorate, then he is no longer a constructive critic, but a partisan player in politics."
How it is logical to offer "constructive criticism" and yet not at the same time "champion issues" or "campaign for or against the Government", hence undermining "the Government's standing with the electorate" completely escapes me.
Suppose I thought that preserving the now-demolished national library building, because of its historical value, was more important a priority than building a tunnel through it. That is constructive criticism. But my value system, and those who agree with me are at odds with the Government. By putting forth my views in the papers, I'm trying to persuade more people. In this way I'm undermining the Government's standing with the voters.
Similar logic just about applies to everything else.
Of course, unlike the prime minister, I did not get a double first in maths from Cambridge. Perhaps with his vast and undeniable intellegence, the prime minister can help clarify how the government's position is not an incoherent crock of garbage.
koh Jie Kai
I would also like to be prime minister one of these days. However I am completely useless at the whole business of electioneering. Like the only elections I've ever won were all walkovers. That was how I really got to be treasurer of the Salsa Society in Oxford and part of the disciplinary panel on the Corpus Christi JCR. I am known to many people who know me as an over-excitable and annoying personality. I managed to lose Agagooga's memory card with all his photos on it in a CPU in a Munich Internet Cafe. I have an embarrassing video of myself on Youtube dancing to a Gunther song. Worse, I can't speak any dialects. One of my baby cousins is also positively frightened of me.
So what political party still wants me as a political candidate again? I wish.
Having completely trashed my own potential political credibility as one would wipe a dishcloth on a Newton Hawker Centre table, let me now go on to my completely and utterly biased criticism of something that really ground my gears today.
By now I am sure you are all familiar with the rebuke of the famous blogger mrbrown.
However I want to point all of you to this passage from Mr Lee Boon Yang's press secretary
"mrbrown is entitled to his views. But opinions which are widely circulated in a regular column in a serious newspaper should meet higher standards. Instead of a diatribe mr brown should offer constructive criticism and alternatives. And he should come out from behind his pseudonym to defend his views openly.
It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues, or campaign for or against the Government. If a columnist presents himself as a non-political observer, while exploiting his access to the mass media to undermine the Government's standing with the electorate, then he is no longer a constructive critic, but a partisan player in politics."
How it is logical to offer "constructive criticism" and yet not at the same time "champion issues" or "campaign for or against the Government", hence undermining "the Government's standing with the electorate" completely escapes me.
Suppose I thought that preserving the now-demolished national library building, because of its historical value, was more important a priority than building a tunnel through it. That is constructive criticism. But my value system, and those who agree with me are at odds with the Government. By putting forth my views in the papers, I'm trying to persuade more people. In this way I'm undermining the Government's standing with the voters.
Similar logic just about applies to everything else.
Of course, unlike the prime minister, I did not get a double first in maths from Cambridge. Perhaps with his vast and undeniable intellegence, the prime minister can help clarify how the government's position is not an incoherent crock of garbage.
koh Jie Kai
posted by Koh at 7/03/2006 10:03:00 pm
2 Comments:
http://nofearsingapore.blogspot.com
Let us Heed the message, Not shoot the messenger
Dear friends,
I read with interest Ms Bhavani’s retort to mrbrown’s column (Distorting the truth, mr brown ? 3 Jul 06).
What is particularly informative was her assertion that journalists (especially in Singapore), should not “champion issues, or campaign FOR or AGAINST the Government”.
Is this is a new dictum, I wonder, as there were many articles by our journalists in the past which appeared an “awful lot” like campaigning for the Government, but I do not recall anyone getting their knuckles rapped for that.
Seriously, is a journalist expected to be just a “human” tape-recorder recording verbatim the minutes of a board meeting like a company secretary? Anything more could be misconstrued as campaigning for or against an issue.
Let us be reasonable. People (journalist included) will have opinions and these are the sum-aggregates of different sub-cultures that make up Singapore. No one person or organization knows all the answers and feedback of all forms (especially those that seem unpalatable) help us, as a nation, to steer the right course, away from potential calamities.
Let us heed the message, NOT shoot the messenger!
Dr. Huang Shoou Chyuan
The above was sent to TODAY forum page and is also found in my blog
List of racial discriminations in Malaysia, practiced by government as well as government agencies. This list is an open secret. Best verified by government itself because it got the statistics.
This list is not in the order of importance, that means the first one on the list is not the most important and the last one on the list does not mean least important.
This list is a common knowledge to a lot of Malaysians, especially those non-malays (Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans, Orang Asli, Tamils, etc) who were being racially discriminated.
Figures in this list are estimates only and please take it as a guide only. Government of Malaysia has the most correct figures. Is government of Malaysia too ashamed to publish their racist acts by publishing racial statistics?
This list cover a period of about 49 years since independence (1957).
List of racial discriminations (Malaysia):
(1) Out of all the 5 major banks, only one bank is multi-racial, the rest are controlled by malays
(2) 99% of Petronas directors are malays
(3) 3% of Petronas employees are Chinese
(4) 99% of 2000 Petronas gasoline stations are owned by malays
(5) 100% all contractors working under Petronas projects must be bumis status
(6) 0% of non-malay staffs is legally required in malay companies. But there must be 30% malay staffs in Chinese companies
(7) 5% of all new intake for government army, nurses, polices, is non-malays
(8) 2% is the present Chinese staff in Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), drop from 40% in 1960
(9) 2% is the percentage of non-malay government servants in Putrajaya. But malays make up 98%
(10) 7% is the percentage of Chinese government servants in the whole government (in 2004), drop from 30% in 1960
(11) 95% of government contracts are given to malays
(12) 100% all business licensees are controlled by malay government e.g. Approved permits, Taxi permits, etc
(13) 80% of the Chinese rice millers in Kedah had to be sold to malay controlled Bernas in 1980s. Otherwise, life is make difficult for Chinese rice millers
(14) 100 big companies set up, owned and managed by Chinese Malaysians were taken over by government, and later managed by malays since 1970s e.g. MISC, UMBC, UTC, etc
(15) At least 10 Chinese owned bus companies (throughout Malaysia, throughout 40 years) had to be sold to MARA or other malay transport companies due to rejection by malay authority to Chinese application for bus routes and rejection for their application for new buses
(16) 2 Chinese taxi drivers were barred from driving in Johor Larkin bus station. There are about 30 taxi drivers and 3 are Chinese in October 2004. Spoiling taxi club properties was the reason given
(17) 0 non-malays are allowed to get shop lots in the new Muar bus station (November 2004)
(18) 8000 billion ringgit is the total amount the government channeled to malay pockets through ASB, ASN, MARA, privatisation of government agencies, Tabung Haji etc, through NEP over 34 years period
(19) 48 Chinese primary schools closed down since 1968 - 2000
(20) 144 Indian primary schools closed down since 1968 - 2000
(21) 2637 malay primary schools built since 1968 - 2000
(22) 2.5% is government budget for Chinese primary schools. Indian schools got only 1%, malay schools got 96.5%
(23) While a Chinese parent with RM1000 salary (monthly) cannot get school-text-book-loan, a malay parent with RM2000 salary is eligible
(24) 10 all public universities vice chancellors are malays
(25) 5% - the government universities lecturers of non-malay origins had been reduced from about 70% in 1965 to only 5% in 2004
(26) Only 5% is given to non-malays for government scholarships over 40 years
(27) 0 Chinese or Indians were sent to Japan and Korea under "Look East Policy"
(28) 128 STPM Chinese top students could not get into the course that they aspired e.g. Medicine (in 2004)
(29) 10% place for non-bumi students for MARA science schools beginning from year 2003, but only 7% are filled. Before that it was 100% malays
(30) 50 cases whereby Chinese and Indian Malaysians, are beaten up in the National Service program in 2003
(31) 25% is Malaysian Chinese population in 2004, drop from 45% in 1957
(32) 7% is the present Malaysian Indians population (2004), a drop from 12% in 1957
(33) 2 million Chinese Malaysians had emigrated to overseas since 40 years ago
(34) 0.5 million Indian Malaysians had emigrated to overseas
(35) 3 million Indonesians had migrated into Malaysia and became Malaysian citizens with bumis status
(36) 600000 are the Chinese and Indian Malaysians with red IC and were rejected repeatedly when applying for citizenship for 40 years. Perhaps 60% of them had already passed away due to old age. This shows racism of how easily Indonesians got their citizenships compare with the Chinese and Indians
(37) 5% - 15% discount for a malay to buy a house, regardless whether the malay is poor or rich
(38) 2% is what Chinese new villages get compare with 98% of what malay villages got for rural development budget
(39) 50 road names (at least) had been changed from Chinese names to other names
(40) 1 Dewan Gan Boon Leong (in Malacca) was altered to other name (e.g. Dewan Serbaguna or sort) when it was being officially used for a few days. Government try to shun Chinese names. This racism happened in around year 2000 or sort
(41) 0 churches/temples were built for each housing estate. But every housing estate got at least one mosque/surau built
(42) 3000 mosques/surau were built in all housing estates throughout Malaysia since 1970. No churches, no temples are required to be built in housing estates
(43) 1 Catholic church in Shah Alam took 20 years to apply to be constructed. But told by malay authority that it must look like a factory and not look like a church. Still not yet approved in 2004
(44) 1 publishing of Bible in Iban language banned (in 2002)
(45) 0 of the government TV stations (RTM1, RTM2, TV3) are directors of non-malay origins
(46) 30 government produced TV dramas and films always showed that the bad guys had Chinese face, and the good guys had malay face. You can check it out since 1970s. Recent years, this tendency becomes less
(47) 10 times, at least, malays (especially Umno) had threatened to massacre the Chinese Malaysians using May 13 since 1969
(48) 20 constituencies won by DAP would not get funds from the government to develop. Or these Chinese majority constituencies would be the last to be developed
(49) 100 constituencies (parliaments and states) had been racistly re-delineated so Chinese voters were diluted that Chinese candidates, particularly DAP candidates lost in election since 1970s
(50) Only 3 out of 12 human rights items are ratified by Malaysia government since 1960
(51) 0 - elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (UN Human Rights) is not ratified by Malaysia government since 1960s
(52) 20 reported cases whereby malay ambulance attendances treated Chinese patients inhumanely, and malay government hospital staffs purposely delay attending to Chinese patients in 2003. Unreported cases may be 200
(53) 50 cases each year whereby Chinese, especially Chinese youths being beaten up by malay youths in public places. We may check at police reports provided the police took the report, otherwise there will be no record
(54) 20 cases every year whereby Chinese drivers who accidentally knocked down malays were seriously assaulted or killed by malays
(55) 12% is what ASB/ASN got per annum while banks fixed deposit is only about 3.5% per annum
There are hundreds more racial discriminations in Malaysia to add to this list of "colossal" racism. It is hope that the victims of racism will write in to expose racism.
Malaysia government should publish statistics showing how much malays had benefited from the "special rights" of malays and at the same time tell the statistics of how much other minority races are being discriminated.
Hence, the responsibility lies in the Malaysia government itself to publish unadulterated statistics of racial discrimination.
If the Malaysia government hides the statistics above, then there must be some evil doings, immoral doings, shameful doings and sinful doings, like the Nazi, going on onto the non-malays of Malaysia.
Civilized nation, unlike evil Nazi, must publish statistics to show its treatment on its minority races. This is what Malaysia must publish……….
We are asking for the publication of the statistics showing how "implementation of special rights of malays" had inflicted colossal racial discrimination onto non-malays.
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