From Around The Blogs: The Week Of Feb 22, 2010

By Joe Fernandez

From around the Blogs

M’sians from local poverty to poverty abroad
Push pull factors are at work in drawing M'sians to leave in droves for "greener pastures" abroad. The push factors have been well articulated. It's the pull factors that should worry us more because it's mostly the scam element at work. Many M'sians are lured by tales that the streets abroad are paved with gold. This is similar to the tales that people smugglers & human traffickers use to lure thousands of unsuspecting Indonesians, Filipinos, Bangladeshis & others to M'sia to work. Their nightmare begins the moment they land in this country & realise that they are being underpaid & overworked. Soon, there's no escape for them because from the little that they get, they can't set aside enough to return home. This is what happened to some Indian waiters at Devi's Corner in Bangsar. To their horror, they discovered that they were earning more in India compared to KL. This is in purchasing power parity terms. Most ex-M'sians merely move from local poverty to poverty abroad & are stranded.

God does not exist in the conventional sense
If there is a God, how can there be more than one? If there is more than one God, it doesn't make sense at all. Also, it must be noted that when Islam as well as the other Abrahamic religions – Judaism & Christianity -- talk about God, they are not talking about a person like us with two hands & two legs. Love, for eg, is considered an attribute of God. Hence, Love is God. Similarly, Mercy is an attribute of God. So, Mercy is God. The list goes on & on to total 1,000 known attributes of God including Allah which means the Most Prominent. By this line of thinking, other religions can be excused if they are led to think that the Abrahamic religions don't believe that a God exists in the conventional sense. In a way, it is true. But again, that's not true if it can be seen rationally that a God cannot really exist in the sense that most primitive people believe i.e. someone like us with two hands & two legs, probably an old man with long white hair, & long beard in flowing white robes.

Why suffer these clowns?
The problem with Perkasa begins with Ibrahim Ali and when you have this person together with Mahathir, then we know that we have arrived at the new headquarters for the Nazi Party and the Apartheid Party combined. Ibrahim Ali is a shrill-voiced, loud-mouthed ultra racist with a very strong sense of proprietorship and entitlement. Ibrahim Ali is a sure way to destroy any organisation. The alternative media should ignore these two fools. They will not be able to make a difference for the better with their self-serving crap. The mainstream media, especially the Malay, thrives on what organisations like Perkasa spew out on a regular basis. If we ignore them and look back ten years hence on what they are saying today, we will realise that these are not only pathological liars but congenital ones too. Mahathir established himself during his 22 years in power by being a pathological and congenital liar. Now, the disease has spread to Ibrahim Ali and those at Perkasa. Why suffer these clowns?

Sabah IC the only way to weed out illegal immigrants
Some progress will be made on this issue once the opposition comes to power in Sabah & Sapp (Sabah Progressive Party) implements its idea of the Sabah state gov't issuing a Sabah identity card. Anyone who does not have the Sabah IC won't be able to work with the state gov't, have any dealings with it or be able to school in Sabah. The high tech Sabah IC is one way of identifying and weeding out the illegal immigrants who have MyKads and are on the electoral rolls. Sabahans know who are Malaysians & who aren't. It seems that only the Federal Gov't, the National Registration Dept, the Police, Umno, the Immigration Dept & the Statistics Dept have a problem differentiating between Malaysians and non-Malaysians in Sabah. Illegal immigrants in Sabah are being listed as Malays by the NRD and the other Federal Gov't departments. So, from a few hundred Malays in Sabah in 1970, today there are thousands of so-called Malays in Sabah. Just look at the latest statistics from the Stats Dept.

Indians not employed at PM’s Department
There should be a law against anyone even mentioning the sick idea of ketuanan Melayu which is in the same league as Nazism, the apartheid philosophy and KuKluxKanism. This is an idea used by a tiny minority, often not even Malays, to lord it over the majority in perpetuity so that they can have a licence to raid the public treasury of the people's sweat and get away Scott-free. Mahathir is the Godfather of ketuanan Melayuism. He systematically marginalised the Indian community from the mainstream and denied them their place in the sun. The Indians were easier targets to pick on since they were a labouring class with very few capitalists unlike the Chinese who can always bribe the system to do their bidding. Even then, Mahathir has marginalised the ordinary Chinese too and, as a result, there are very few Chinese in Gov't service today and even fewer Indians. At the Prime Minister's Dept in Putra Jaya, one can't find even one Indian, not even as an office boy or toilet cleaner.

Issues for the forthcoming S'wak state elections
Non-compliance of the 1963 M’sia Agreement by the Federal Gov't; the failure of the M'sian Federation in Sabah & S'wak as evident from the backwardness of these two states vis a vis B'nei & S'pore; massive theft of native land by the BN S'wak state gov't on behalf of their cronies; grinding poverty even after 50 years of M'sia; illiteracy; poor educational performance; appalling public healthcare facilities evident from the high mortality rates; statelessness; lack of M'sian personal documents depriving thousands of S'wakians of a chance to study, vote, work, open bank accounts, do business, or travel outside the state & country, among others; 350, 000 illegal immigrants in S'wak; 300,000 foreigners legally employed under cheap labour policies depriving locals of a chance to work for a living wage; the refusal of the Federal Gov't to pull out from the Sabah, S'wak oil & gas industry & leave it to the respective state gov'ts so that the people can directly benefit in terms of employment opportunities and business contracts; the dependency syndrome creating a culture of corruption & moral depravity to the extent that an elite minority can raid the public treasury of the people's sweat; gerrymandering of electoral boundaries and the imposition of local proxies, stooges and traitors denying the people the democratic right to form a gov't of their choice; while Taib has been steadily getting richer over the years, the people have been getting poorer by the day. Taib should be ashamed of himself and commit hara-kiri.

Cops side Umno and the rich
The cops have a habit of beating people dead either on behalf of Umno or the rich. There was a burglary case during Chinese New Year several years ago involving the safe deposit boxes at a Maybank branch in Pudu, KL. The safe deposit boxes were sited above a monsoon drain running underneath. So, the burglars were able to tunnel in & make off with RM 4 million worth of valuables, all insured. An air-conditioning mechanic was pulled in as a suspect & beaten to death by the police while in their custody. This case is similar to that of Kugan who was suspected to be a luxury car thief. Is a human life worth less than that of a stupid car, no matter how expensive? Why don't the police beat to death all those politicians who are raiding the public treasury of the people's sweat & salting away millions abroad? Why not beat Taib Mahmud of S’wak to death? He has been getting richer & richer over the years while the people have been getting poorer, as stated by Kuching MP Chong in malaysiakini.