Monday, November 30, 2009
Butterfly Story
One day, a small opening appeared in a cocoon. A man sat and watched for the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.
Then, it seems to stop making any progress.It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could not go any further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly: he took a pair of scissors and opened the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a withered body, it was tiny and shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would open, enlarge and expand, to be able to support the butterfly’s body, and become firm.
Neither happened!
In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a withered body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
What the man, in his kindness and his goodwill did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been. Never been able to fly.
I asked for Strength...
and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for Wisdom...
and God gave me problems to solve.
I asked for prosperity...
and God gave me a brain and brawn to work.
I asked for Courage...
and God gave me obstacles to overcome.
I asked for Love...
and God gave me troubled people to help.
I asked for Favors...
And God gave me Opportunities.
"I received nothing I wanted...
But I received everything I needed."
Then, it seems to stop making any progress.It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could not go any further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly: he took a pair of scissors and opened the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a withered body, it was tiny and shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would open, enlarge and expand, to be able to support the butterfly’s body, and become firm.
Neither happened!
In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a withered body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
What the man, in his kindness and his goodwill did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been. Never been able to fly.
I asked for Strength...
and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for Wisdom...
and God gave me problems to solve.
I asked for prosperity...
and God gave me a brain and brawn to work.
I asked for Courage...
and God gave me obstacles to overcome.
I asked for Love...
and God gave me troubled people to help.
I asked for Favors...
And God gave me Opportunities.
"I received nothing I wanted...
But I received everything I needed."
------------------
Moral of the Story
------------------
Live life without fear, confront all obstacles and know that you can overcome them.
Moral of the Story
------------------
Live life without fear, confront all obstacles and know that you can overcome them.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Graduation Gift
A young man was getting ready to graduate college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted.
As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful wrapped gift box.
Curious, but somewhat disappointed the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible. Angrily he raised his voice at his father and said, "With all your money you give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house, leaving the holy book.
Many years passed and the young man was very successful in busines.He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He hadnot seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care things.
When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart.
He began to search his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. As he read those words, a car key dropped from an envelope taped behind the Bible.
It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words...PAID IN FULL.
------------------
Moral of the Story
------------------
How many times do we miss God's blessings because they are not packaged as we expected?
As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful wrapped gift box.
Curious, but somewhat disappointed the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible. Angrily he raised his voice at his father and said, "With all your money you give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house, leaving the holy book.
Many years passed and the young man was very successful in busines.He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He hadnot seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care things.
When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart.
He began to search his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. As he read those words, a car key dropped from an envelope taped behind the Bible.
It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words...PAID IN FULL.
------------------
Moral of the Story
------------------
How many times do we miss God's blessings because they are not packaged as we expected?
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Blame the Chinese by Tulang Besi
An article by a true Malaysian. Bold to voice up. Bravo.
We Blame the Chinese for Everything that is Wrong with Us
Written by Abdul Rahman Abdul Talib
That’s right. The Chinese is the best excuse for average Malay to hide their failures and shortcomings. In fact, we do not have to think about success because should we fail in anything we can blame the Chinese.
For instance, we always see potential Malay businesses going belly up. We see soya sauce factory, shoe factory, linen factory, chili sauce factory owned by Malays having to be shut down. When asked the reason that is floated is that they are being sabotaged by Chinese suppliers who refuse to supply them the materials they need to continue production.
I recalled in the early days of Harakah, UMNO did everything to stop all printers in Kuala Lumpur not to print Harakah. UMNO’s hope is that when there is no printer willing to do so, then HArakah will have to shut down completely.
So, what the Harakah people did was they carried with them a stack of cash and went looking for printers who are willing to do it. And they found a printing company owned by a Chinaman somewhere in Kepong. His business was not doing that well apparently.
So, the Harakah people went to his office and put the stack of cash on his desk. And told the Chinese printer that if he prints copies of Harakah, and willing to face all obstacles, they will ensure that the Chinaman be paid in cash before the printing of every issue of HArakah.
The Chinaman who owned the printing shop immediately agreed and the rest is history. According to my Harakah sources, the Chinaman is now a millionaire and has sold the printing company to a Malay consortium. Apparently, Harakah rescued him from the brink of bankruptcy and in turn made him a millionaire.
So, my point being, even in the most dire and dangerous circumstance, there will be a Chinese supplier willing to supply anything we want. The case of Harakah proves that there is no such thing as a Chinese Supplier conspiracy to sabotage Malay businesses.
The Real Story Behind The Closing Down of Malay Businesses
These Malay businesses are always behind on their payments despite getting their line of credit extended frequently. Since Chinese suppliers are not Santa Clauses, they have a limit to how much credit they can give.
And MOST MALAY business do not understand the value of operating business with cash as opposed to credit. It’s different with Chinese businesses where they will make sure that they repay their debts fast before thinking of expanding or doing anything else.
So, when the Chinese suppliers refuse to supply the Malay unless they make some payments on their outstanding debt, the Malay businesses usually simply collapse like a deck of cards. Bear in mind that Malays who venture into small and medium businesses are mostly UMNO supporters or members because they get easy access to government loans and financial support.
With their UMNO tradition of blaming the Chinese for everything that is wrong with this country, they started spreading false rumors about Chinese suppliers sabotaging their businesses because they are Malays.
I know of a Malay lady somewhere in Teluk Intan who runs a clothing store and the store has been operating for the last 20 years. Every month she will come down to KL near Jalan Hang Tuah to get her supply of clothes and every time the suppliers there do not mind extending her a line of credit. Why? Because she is always prompt on her payments. That lady proves there is no malice in the hearts of Chinese suppliers.
Why would Chinese Suppliers Sabotage Their Clients?
Most Malays are simple minded. They believe this crap the moment they hear it. They forgot that is more Malays owns business, more Malays would need supplies from the Chinese suppliers. The more Malays going into business, the more business the Chinese suppliers will be.
In fact, if there is a lot of Malay businessmen, the Chinese supplier might even convert into Islam so that people will continue getting their supplies especially those who are supplying food products.
It doesn’t make sense. The Chinese in this country will not go anywhere. They are interested to make money, not because they want to be rich so much, but to send their children to get quality educations overseas and some retirement funds. I always wonder why many Chinese families that I know had amssed a lot of wealth during their working years, but they retire into a very average life. It turns out that most of their wealth had gone to sending their children to Australia, Britain, America for quality tertiary education.
UMNO is Using The Same Excuse Too
See, when UMNO fails, the first thing they do is to blame the Chinese. They say that the Chinese will take over the country. They say that the Chinese will destroy the DEB and the Malays. They say that PAS has been used by the Chinese.
Hasan Ali said that his support for SELCAT is part of his quest to defend the rights of the Malays because Teng Chang Kim is Chinese. He forgets that for the last 2 elections, the Malays in Kapar voted Teng Chang Kim overwhelmingly. Teng has one of the highest majority in the Selangor DUN because he gets votes not just from Chinese and Indians, but also Malays.
UMNO’s actions is tantamount to the long list of failed Malay businessmen who do not know how to control their business’s finances. So, in order to hide their failures, they blame the Chinese for everything.
In fact, they’re the biggest losers of them all and they will fail in whatever the do. We talk about Dr Mahathir bin Muhammad Iskandar Kutty, being the most successful UMNO Prime Minister. Maybe, it’s because Dr Mahathir is not a Malay?
Tulang Besi
We Blame the Chinese for Everything that is Wrong with Us
Written by Abdul Rahman Abdul Talib
That’s right. The Chinese is the best excuse for average Malay to hide their failures and shortcomings. In fact, we do not have to think about success because should we fail in anything we can blame the Chinese.
For instance, we always see potential Malay businesses going belly up. We see soya sauce factory, shoe factory, linen factory, chili sauce factory owned by Malays having to be shut down. When asked the reason that is floated is that they are being sabotaged by Chinese suppliers who refuse to supply them the materials they need to continue production.
I recalled in the early days of Harakah, UMNO did everything to stop all printers in Kuala Lumpur not to print Harakah. UMNO’s hope is that when there is no printer willing to do so, then HArakah will have to shut down completely.
So, what the Harakah people did was they carried with them a stack of cash and went looking for printers who are willing to do it. And they found a printing company owned by a Chinaman somewhere in Kepong. His business was not doing that well apparently.
So, the Harakah people went to his office and put the stack of cash on his desk. And told the Chinese printer that if he prints copies of Harakah, and willing to face all obstacles, they will ensure that the Chinaman be paid in cash before the printing of every issue of HArakah.
The Chinaman who owned the printing shop immediately agreed and the rest is history. According to my Harakah sources, the Chinaman is now a millionaire and has sold the printing company to a Malay consortium. Apparently, Harakah rescued him from the brink of bankruptcy and in turn made him a millionaire.
So, my point being, even in the most dire and dangerous circumstance, there will be a Chinese supplier willing to supply anything we want. The case of Harakah proves that there is no such thing as a Chinese Supplier conspiracy to sabotage Malay businesses.
The Real Story Behind The Closing Down of Malay Businesses
These Malay businesses are always behind on their payments despite getting their line of credit extended frequently. Since Chinese suppliers are not Santa Clauses, they have a limit to how much credit they can give.
And MOST MALAY business do not understand the value of operating business with cash as opposed to credit. It’s different with Chinese businesses where they will make sure that they repay their debts fast before thinking of expanding or doing anything else.
So, when the Chinese suppliers refuse to supply the Malay unless they make some payments on their outstanding debt, the Malay businesses usually simply collapse like a deck of cards. Bear in mind that Malays who venture into small and medium businesses are mostly UMNO supporters or members because they get easy access to government loans and financial support.
With their UMNO tradition of blaming the Chinese for everything that is wrong with this country, they started spreading false rumors about Chinese suppliers sabotaging their businesses because they are Malays.
I know of a Malay lady somewhere in Teluk Intan who runs a clothing store and the store has been operating for the last 20 years. Every month she will come down to KL near Jalan Hang Tuah to get her supply of clothes and every time the suppliers there do not mind extending her a line of credit. Why? Because she is always prompt on her payments. That lady proves there is no malice in the hearts of Chinese suppliers.
Why would Chinese Suppliers Sabotage Their Clients?
Most Malays are simple minded. They believe this crap the moment they hear it. They forgot that is more Malays owns business, more Malays would need supplies from the Chinese suppliers. The more Malays going into business, the more business the Chinese suppliers will be.
In fact, if there is a lot of Malay businessmen, the Chinese supplier might even convert into Islam so that people will continue getting their supplies especially those who are supplying food products.
It doesn’t make sense. The Chinese in this country will not go anywhere. They are interested to make money, not because they want to be rich so much, but to send their children to get quality educations overseas and some retirement funds. I always wonder why many Chinese families that I know had amssed a lot of wealth during their working years, but they retire into a very average life. It turns out that most of their wealth had gone to sending their children to Australia, Britain, America for quality tertiary education.
UMNO is Using The Same Excuse Too
See, when UMNO fails, the first thing they do is to blame the Chinese. They say that the Chinese will take over the country. They say that the Chinese will destroy the DEB and the Malays. They say that PAS has been used by the Chinese.
Hasan Ali said that his support for SELCAT is part of his quest to defend the rights of the Malays because Teng Chang Kim is Chinese. He forgets that for the last 2 elections, the Malays in Kapar voted Teng Chang Kim overwhelmingly. Teng has one of the highest majority in the Selangor DUN because he gets votes not just from Chinese and Indians, but also Malays.
UMNO’s actions is tantamount to the long list of failed Malay businessmen who do not know how to control their business’s finances. So, in order to hide their failures, they blame the Chinese for everything.
In fact, they’re the biggest losers of them all and they will fail in whatever the do. We talk about Dr Mahathir bin Muhammad Iskandar Kutty, being the most successful UMNO Prime Minister. Maybe, it’s because Dr Mahathir is not a Malay?
Tulang Besi
The Story of Devmitra from Varanasi
Devmitra was a very venerated high priest of Varanasi which was then ruled by King Brahmadutta. He was highly revered by the king and the entire kingdom. And why not? He had a golden personality. He was very intelligent, had a vivid knowledge of scriptures and was very wise. At the same time he was very virtuous and righteous, and had a high moral conduct.
One day a strange question arose in Devmitra's mind: "What is the real reason behind all the love and veneration that is showered upon me by the king and everyone? Is it my wisdom and intellect, or my virtuousness and righteousness?" He could not decide for sure. The question bothered him for a long time and then he decided to find out in an unusual manner.
The next day while returning from the court he stopped by the state treasury. He deceptively picked up a gold coin, hid it in his bag and walked away. The state treasurer saw this and found it very strange. He took no action against him as he also held Devmitra in high regard. He thought that may be Devmitra was in some urgent need of money and would return the coin the next day.
On the second day Devmitra repeated this misdemeanour. The state treasurer noticed him again walking away with the coin. He felt very perturbed but again gave him a benefit of doubt and took no action against him.
On the third day after court, the head priest again came to the treasury. As he picked up a few gold coins in his hand, the treasurer caught his hand. He called out to the soldiers and commanded, "This man is a thief. Arrest him now and produce him in the court of justice tomorrow!"
The news of theft in the treasury and Devmitra's arrest spread like wild fire in the whole kingdom. Devmitra was treated like any other criminal and produced in Brahmadutta's court bare feet, shackled in chains. The king announced a very harsh punishment.
Devmitra then spoke in a very grave voice, "O king! I am no thief. I did this to find an answer to the question that was bothering me for long. I have understood that though my knowledge, wisdom and talents are valuable, if my conduct is not appropriate these capabilities cannot protect me. My civility and virtuousness are the main reasons I have earned so much respect. The moment I erred on those I became an object of punishment."
-------------------
Moral of the Story
-------------------
Greatness does not lie in riches, intellect or talent. It lies in honesty, civility and virtuousness. Learn to respect others by their Attitude and not by their Aptitude.
One day a strange question arose in Devmitra's mind: "What is the real reason behind all the love and veneration that is showered upon me by the king and everyone? Is it my wisdom and intellect, or my virtuousness and righteousness?" He could not decide for sure. The question bothered him for a long time and then he decided to find out in an unusual manner.
The next day while returning from the court he stopped by the state treasury. He deceptively picked up a gold coin, hid it in his bag and walked away. The state treasurer saw this and found it very strange. He took no action against him as he also held Devmitra in high regard. He thought that may be Devmitra was in some urgent need of money and would return the coin the next day.
On the second day Devmitra repeated this misdemeanour. The state treasurer noticed him again walking away with the coin. He felt very perturbed but again gave him a benefit of doubt and took no action against him.
On the third day after court, the head priest again came to the treasury. As he picked up a few gold coins in his hand, the treasurer caught his hand. He called out to the soldiers and commanded, "This man is a thief. Arrest him now and produce him in the court of justice tomorrow!"
The news of theft in the treasury and Devmitra's arrest spread like wild fire in the whole kingdom. Devmitra was treated like any other criminal and produced in Brahmadutta's court bare feet, shackled in chains. The king announced a very harsh punishment.
Devmitra then spoke in a very grave voice, "O king! I am no thief. I did this to find an answer to the question that was bothering me for long. I have understood that though my knowledge, wisdom and talents are valuable, if my conduct is not appropriate these capabilities cannot protect me. My civility and virtuousness are the main reasons I have earned so much respect. The moment I erred on those I became an object of punishment."
-------------------
Moral of the Story
-------------------
Greatness does not lie in riches, intellect or talent. It lies in honesty, civility and virtuousness. Learn to respect others by their Attitude and not by their Aptitude.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Service Tax on Credit Card - Good or Bad
Written by Dilemma
It was announce in the Budget 2010 that for every credit card we hold we will be charged a service tax. This is to help create a self control finance community. It is for the good of the budget and country.
To be fair, it is not a bad idea. But has the government really consider it in deeply.
If I am one of those who owed bank thousand of RM and paying the minimum amount monthly. Do you think when you impose a service tax, I will cancel my card and be more prudent in spending? How can I afford to pay back to the bank in the first place.
What really happens is the poor fellow struggling to pay the minimum payment now has to pay to the government a service tax. It is like "Add Fuel To The Fire" or "Add Salt to Wound", making it more worse.
And what about those who are good paymaster. They are prudent enough paying off their debt monthly, the service tax will just be an additional cost. Well, this guys can cancel their cards in order to save RM50 per cards. But if they want to have the convenience of being cashless they can choose to keep one card. But remember it will still be charge RM50.
Some may have just apply for one, some bank has condition. You must not cancel within certain period to enjoy annual fee waiver. Then this fellow is in dilemma - pay the government or the bank. I guess pay the lowest.
Well, perhaps our government want us to start use Debit card instead of Credit card. Debit card surely is good as if you do not have the money. You cannot spend.
But sometime you just need the Credit immediately. Example when your love ones are hospitalized into private hospital and does not have a health insurance. And you are not able to get relatives and friends to borrow you immediately. Credit card can gave an instant credit whereas Debit card limit to your accounts cash.
Next, when all Malaysian start cancelling their credit card, what will happens. The bank loses customers as it has less credit card holder except those poor paymaster. The merchant and consumer loses promotion or discount that come with credit cards. Less is spent, thus slow down economic recovery (maybe no so serious).
Last but not least, those credit card agent loses their job - what to push for new cards. I guess I do not get free gift that much often.
So is it Good or Bad imposing the Service Tax?
It was announce in the Budget 2010 that for every credit card we hold we will be charged a service tax. This is to help create a self control finance community. It is for the good of the budget and country.
To be fair, it is not a bad idea. But has the government really consider it in deeply.
If I am one of those who owed bank thousand of RM and paying the minimum amount monthly. Do you think when you impose a service tax, I will cancel my card and be more prudent in spending? How can I afford to pay back to the bank in the first place.
What really happens is the poor fellow struggling to pay the minimum payment now has to pay to the government a service tax. It is like "Add Fuel To The Fire" or "Add Salt to Wound", making it more worse.
And what about those who are good paymaster. They are prudent enough paying off their debt monthly, the service tax will just be an additional cost. Well, this guys can cancel their cards in order to save RM50 per cards. But if they want to have the convenience of being cashless they can choose to keep one card. But remember it will still be charge RM50.
Some may have just apply for one, some bank has condition. You must not cancel within certain period to enjoy annual fee waiver. Then this fellow is in dilemma - pay the government or the bank. I guess pay the lowest.
Well, perhaps our government want us to start use Debit card instead of Credit card. Debit card surely is good as if you do not have the money. You cannot spend.
But sometime you just need the Credit immediately. Example when your love ones are hospitalized into private hospital and does not have a health insurance. And you are not able to get relatives and friends to borrow you immediately. Credit card can gave an instant credit whereas Debit card limit to your accounts cash.
Next, when all Malaysian start cancelling their credit card, what will happens. The bank loses customers as it has less credit card holder except those poor paymaster. The merchant and consumer loses promotion or discount that come with credit cards. Less is spent, thus slow down economic recovery (maybe no so serious).
Last but not least, those credit card agent loses their job - what to push for new cards. I guess I do not get free gift that much often.
So is it Good or Bad imposing the Service Tax?
Giant Mona Liza - Sydney Australia
A Giant image of Mona Lisa on sidewalk in Sydney, Australia created using 3,604 coffee cups with different amounts of coffee and milk to give the portrait the proper shade and colors.
Photo of the masterpiece
Below Video - how they do it
Photo of the masterpiece
Below Video - how they do it
Take care of your parents
A story receive months ago through e-mail.
It is very touching, I post it to remind me about my parents.
A simple man tells how his booking an air ticket for his father, his first flight, brought emotions and made him realize that how much we all take for granted when it comes to our parents.
My parents left for our native place on Thursday and we went to the airport to see them off. In fact, my father had never travelled by air before, so I just took this opportunity to make him experience the same. In spite of being asked to book tickets by train, I got them tickets on Lufthansa.
The moment I handed over the tickets to him, he was surprised to see that I had booked them by air. The excitement was very apparent on his face, waiting for the time of travel. Just like a school boy, he was preparing himself on that day and we all went to the airport, right from using the trolley for his luggage, the baggage check-in and asking for window seat and waiting restlessly for the security check-in to happen.
He was thoroughly enjoying himself and I, too, was overcome with joy watching him experience all these things.
As they were about to go in for the security check-in, he walked up to me with tears in his eyes and thanked me. He became very emotional and it was not as if I had done something great but the fact that this meant a great deal to him.
When he said thanks, I told him there was no need to thank me.
But later, thinking about the entire incident, I looked back at my life. As a child how many dreams our parents have made come true. Without understanding the financial situation, we ask for football, dresses, toys, outings, etc. Irrespective of their affordability, they
have satisfied all our needs. Did we ever think about the sacrifices they had to make to accommodate many of our wishes?
Did we ever say thanks for all that they have done for us?
Same way, today when it comes to our children, we always think that we should put them in a good school . Regardless of the amount of donation, we will ensure that we will have to give the child the best, theme parks, toys, etc. But we tend to forget that our parents have sacrificed a lot for our sake to see us happy, so it is our responsibility to ensure that their dreams are realized and what they failed to see when they were young, it is our responsibility to ensure that they experience all those and their life is complete.
Many times, when my parents had asked me some questions, I have actually answered back without patience.. When my daughter asks me something, I have been very polite in answering. Now I realize how they would have felt at those moments.
Let us realize that old age is a second childhood and just as we take care of our children, the same attention and same care need to be given to our parents and elders. Rather than my dad saying thank you to me, I would want to say sorry for making him wait so long for this
small dream.. I do realize how much he has sacrificed for my sake and I will do my best to give the best possible attention to all their wishes. Just because they are old does not mean that they will have to give up everything and keep sacrificing for their grandchildren also.
They have wishes too.
Take care of your parents.
To every child who loves parents and want to love them more....
It's your attitude and not your aptitude that determines your altitude
It is very touching, I post it to remind me about my parents.
A simple man tells how his booking an air ticket for his father, his first flight, brought emotions and made him realize that how much we all take for granted when it comes to our parents.
My parents left for our native place on Thursday and we went to the airport to see them off. In fact, my father had never travelled by air before, so I just took this opportunity to make him experience the same. In spite of being asked to book tickets by train, I got them tickets on Lufthansa.
The moment I handed over the tickets to him, he was surprised to see that I had booked them by air. The excitement was very apparent on his face, waiting for the time of travel. Just like a school boy, he was preparing himself on that day and we all went to the airport, right from using the trolley for his luggage, the baggage check-in and asking for window seat and waiting restlessly for the security check-in to happen.
He was thoroughly enjoying himself and I, too, was overcome with joy watching him experience all these things.
As they were about to go in for the security check-in, he walked up to me with tears in his eyes and thanked me. He became very emotional and it was not as if I had done something great but the fact that this meant a great deal to him.
When he said thanks, I told him there was no need to thank me.
But later, thinking about the entire incident, I looked back at my life. As a child how many dreams our parents have made come true. Without understanding the financial situation, we ask for football, dresses, toys, outings, etc. Irrespective of their affordability, they
have satisfied all our needs. Did we ever think about the sacrifices they had to make to accommodate many of our wishes?
Did we ever say thanks for all that they have done for us?
Same way, today when it comes to our children, we always think that we should put them in a good school . Regardless of the amount of donation, we will ensure that we will have to give the child the best, theme parks, toys, etc. But we tend to forget that our parents have sacrificed a lot for our sake to see us happy, so it is our responsibility to ensure that their dreams are realized and what they failed to see when they were young, it is our responsibility to ensure that they experience all those and their life is complete.
Many times, when my parents had asked me some questions, I have actually answered back without patience.. When my daughter asks me something, I have been very polite in answering. Now I realize how they would have felt at those moments.
Let us realize that old age is a second childhood and just as we take care of our children, the same attention and same care need to be given to our parents and elders. Rather than my dad saying thank you to me, I would want to say sorry for making him wait so long for this
small dream.. I do realize how much he has sacrificed for my sake and I will do my best to give the best possible attention to all their wishes. Just because they are old does not mean that they will have to give up everything and keep sacrificing for their grandchildren also.
They have wishes too.
Take care of your parents.
To every child who loves parents and want to love them more....
It's your attitude and not your aptitude that determines your altitude
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Unity Forge in Single Stream School?
Written by M.H.Goh
Does unity really can be forge if we implement a single stream school, Sekolah Kebangsaan or 1Malaysia school called it whatever.
The answer to this question is
"Are we really sincere in forging unity?"
"Are we sincere in creating a single stream school?"
A letters reply by S.K.Wong in Malaysiakini towards Dr M's claim Chinese do not mix around has several very important points towards the answer.
Well, what I think the most important is quality of education (Read my earlier posting) . Beside BM and Islamic studies, I do not think Sekolah Kebangsaan can match those from Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan. Not the top creme la creme but the average students or the majority.
Beside as people like a product of KSBR and KBSM has stress that how discriminating and bais the Sekolah Kebangsaan has been promoting. It is not pure poor publicity but true facts.
Is the government doing it or just a faction of racist people doing? What has we done to them? Tan Hoon Cheng must be arrested under ISA for reporting someone said "Pendatang" yet Datuk Ahmad Ismail escaped with suspension. Later our Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar claimed it for her own safety. What a joke?
An article written by Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani titled "BTN taught me the Chinese are the Jews of Asia" and article by Dr Azly Rahman feature in CPIasia titled "Single stream schooling: The bad and ugly side" are they lies. I do not think so. Why our leaders just deny yet do not investigate it thoroughly? Either they ignorant, incompetent or are they actually collaborators.
What about the discrimination of non-Malay teacher? How many of them are in high post like Pengarah Jabatan, Headmaster etc? Perhaps only the Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan has non-Malay Headmaster. Are the non-Malay teacher really incompetent? And we have those racist teacher who look students through color of skin. What have we do to them? Good quality teachers with dedication and neutrality are key to national unity.
If truly we want to create a single stream school, I suggest the followings
Then we will have a truly 1Malaysia school - a representative of a multi-racial country.
Does unity really can be forge if we implement a single stream school, Sekolah Kebangsaan or 1Malaysia school called it whatever.
The answer to this question is
"Are we really sincere in forging unity?"
"Are we sincere in creating a single stream school?"
A letters reply by S.K.Wong in Malaysiakini towards Dr M's claim Chinese do not mix around has several very important points towards the answer.
- Non-Malays who study in Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan are not less patriotic then those from Sekolah Kebangsaan
- Sekolah Kebangsaan is not up to par compare Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan
- Discriminating policy by Government in Education, economy and other hinder unity
- Ideology of Malay Supremacy do not promote
- Everything that unIslamic are told to be shun, ban or look down by the Malay
- Our country political parties are based on race
Well, what I think the most important is quality of education (Read my earlier posting) . Beside BM and Islamic studies, I do not think Sekolah Kebangsaan can match those from Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan. Not the top creme la creme but the average students or the majority.
Beside as people like a product of KSBR and KBSM has stress that how discriminating and bais the Sekolah Kebangsaan has been promoting. It is not pure poor publicity but true facts.
- The best mark does not necessary guarantee in the best class but color of skin do.
- Use school to persuade students to join Islam
- Propaganda that non-Malay are pendatang though for generation you are born, live and die in Malaysia.
Is the government doing it or just a faction of racist people doing? What has we done to them? Tan Hoon Cheng must be arrested under ISA for reporting someone said "Pendatang" yet Datuk Ahmad Ismail escaped with suspension. Later our Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar claimed it for her own safety. What a joke?
An article written by Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani titled "BTN taught me the Chinese are the Jews of Asia" and article by Dr Azly Rahman feature in CPIasia titled "Single stream schooling: The bad and ugly side" are they lies. I do not think so. Why our leaders just deny yet do not investigate it thoroughly? Either they ignorant, incompetent or are they actually collaborators.
What about the discrimination of non-Malay teacher? How many of them are in high post like Pengarah Jabatan, Headmaster etc? Perhaps only the Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan has non-Malay Headmaster. Are the non-Malay teacher really incompetent? And we have those racist teacher who look students through color of skin. What have we do to them? Good quality teachers with dedication and neutrality are key to national unity.
If truly we want to create a single stream school, I suggest the followings
- Do not implement discriminating quota system - education should be based on merit. The best student should be in the best class regardless of skin color. Worst at the worst class. Those at the worst class must attend additional tuition class after school.
- Do the same merit rate to the Teachers irrespective of skin color in terms teaching quality and dedication.[
- Do not include Islamic study replace it with Culture and Moral Studies for all including Malay - let religion to be learnt at home or at mosque, instead learn about each other cultures and good moral value to forge harmony and unity.
- Establish Chinese, Tamil or other language as option language as official subject on par to Bahasa Malaysia and English just like what in Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan. Students can choose 3 language to learn. A Malay can learn Chinese, A Chinese can learn Tamil.
- Do not implement slanted propaganda such as Biro Tata Negara, but true harmony in mind program to really promote unity.
Then we will have a truly 1Malaysia school - a representative of a multi-racial country.
Don't make me laugh - Single Stream Schooling
Written by Product of the KBSR, KBSM
Single stream schooling...
We had that.
It was called the sekolah kebangsaan. "Nice" experience there, I learned all about how Malaysia politics and social engineering worked.
In primary school, I learned about the quota system, how the best marks did not mean you go to the best class, but it was dependent on your race. Learned all about Islam and had some nice teachers want me to join Islam. Learned to say "no" to everything Islam.
In secondary school, I learned that I am not a Malaysian whose family has been in the nation for generations, but I am some kind of "pendatang". Pendatangs are not welcomed, verbal abuse is "fun". New Indonesians immigrants however are welcomed. Also learned that school prizes in various subjects are awarded based not only on your marks in the subject but also how well you score in BM. Learned that non-malays could never beat a malay, because they always had one more subject than you.
So that is the KBSR/KBSM system. And you now know why non-malays have over 25 years withdrawn from our all inclusive sekolah kebangsaan. It is a tough ride. It turns flag waving Malaysian children into strangers.
But it wasn't all bad. I learn that I could be NEAR the top if I worked hard. My BM is good. I learned to look beyond Malaysia for my future. Some Malays are okay people. Just need to show them that most Chinese aren't rich, they won't believe you otherwise.
Related Post
Sekolah Kebangsaan - Failure or Not
Single stream schooling: The bad and ugly side
Single stream schooling...
We had that.
It was called the sekolah kebangsaan. "Nice" experience there, I learned all about how Malaysia politics and social engineering worked.
In primary school, I learned about the quota system, how the best marks did not mean you go to the best class, but it was dependent on your race. Learned all about Islam and had some nice teachers want me to join Islam. Learned to say "no" to everything Islam.
In secondary school, I learned that I am not a Malaysian whose family has been in the nation for generations, but I am some kind of "pendatang". Pendatangs are not welcomed, verbal abuse is "fun". New Indonesians immigrants however are welcomed. Also learned that school prizes in various subjects are awarded based not only on your marks in the subject but also how well you score in BM. Learned that non-malays could never beat a malay, because they always had one more subject than you.
So that is the KBSR/KBSM system. And you now know why non-malays have over 25 years withdrawn from our all inclusive sekolah kebangsaan. It is a tough ride. It turns flag waving Malaysian children into strangers.
But it wasn't all bad. I learn that I could be NEAR the top if I worked hard. My BM is good. I learned to look beyond Malaysia for my future. Some Malays are okay people. Just need to show them that most Chinese aren't rich, they won't believe you otherwise.
Related Post
Sekolah Kebangsaan - Failure or Not
Single stream schooling: The bad and ugly side
Frozen Niagara Fall
An e-mail receive with several photos of frozen Niagara Falls.
E-mail content
Well the second photo do not seems like a 100years ago but an analysis say it is may be in 1886. The others three looks real. The third photo was sure authentic it is from 1875 - Howard T. Pammett collection.
Upon detail researching no detail record that such an event in 1911. But in March 1848, there is such an event as report in Buffalo Express Newspaper where Niagara falls was completely frozen.
Source 1
Source 2
Source 3
E-mail content
Never thought the Niagara Falls were frozen almost one hundred years ago.
This person's mother had a cousin living in Niagara Falls that year. She told the family that she and her neighbours woke up in the night feeling something was wrong. It took a while but they finally realized that it was the lack of noise.
They had all become so used to the roar of the falls that the silence was unusual enough to alert their senses. Of course at that time nearly all the houses were near the falls.
They had all become so used to the roar of the falls that the silence was unusual enough to alert their senses. Of course at that time nearly all the houses were near the falls.
Amazing pictures !!! Almost 100 years old.
Can you imagine walking on Niagara falls ???
1911 Photos of Niagara Falls ...
Well the second photo do not seems like a 100years ago but an analysis say it is may be in 1886. The others three looks real. The third photo was sure authentic it is from 1875 - Howard T. Pammett collection.
Upon detail researching no detail record that such an event in 1911. But in March 1848, there is such an event as report in Buffalo Express Newspaper where Niagara falls was completely frozen.
Source 1
Source 2
Source 3
Seetha’s death reveals hidden injury of the underclass - Article by C.T.Wong
An article at CPIAsia on recent suicide of Seetha. C.T. Wong points out that her dead are outcry of the forgotten underclass.
Bullets can kill criminals but not the social conditions that create shame and violence. The psychological scars of shame derive from racial discrimination and ultimately, it is socioeconomic equity that will reduce this shame and hence the violence.
Suicide, of whatever cause, is always tragic. The iconic self-burning to death of the Buddhist monk was meant to turn the world’s attention on war-torn Vietnam. It was a cry of pain, a cry for help and a cry of protest.
In common with the monk’s suicide, housewife R. Seetha’s death was foremost a cry of pain, although it touchingly telegraphed to the world her community’s cry for help.
The pain within her was so unbearable that she wanted an end – to the pain of being human, the pain of being born an Indian in Malaysia. Thus her suicide at age 33 was an unintentional cry of protest. To see her tragic death as a cry for help instead as a legal or moral wrong, we need to understand the deeper underlying causes.
Before going into arguments of causal attribution, let’s first examine the moral condemnation directed at Seetha for giving paraquat to her children to drink.
Homicide-and-then-suicide cases are very rare. The homicidal aspect tends to overshadow the underlying causes of hopelessness in suicide.
In fact, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, “…Studies have shown that the perpetrators have profiles that resemble individuals who commit suicide rather than those who commit homicide – the role of untreated depression in their stories is often lost in the news account.”
Moral condemnation serves only to distance ourselves from suicide victims. It does not help to prevent future suicides because any simplistic moral categorization of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ does not tell us much about the profound pain of their despair.
Mother wished to pre-empt cruelty
We do not know exactly what was going on in Seetha’s mind before she took that final, fatal step.
James Gilligan, an American psychiatrist, wrote about the tragic violence in his own family history. He had a relative who was a violent rancher that repeatedly hit his son. The rancher’s wife was believed to have fed their son a piece of poisoned pie. Gilligan argued that the mother was very possibly trying to prevent any further cruelty inflicted on the child. This was the tragedy of violence.
A central issue of the Seetha controversy is how we attribute causes.
The death of her brother Surendran in an alleged police shootout was reported to have led to Seetha’s depression and subsequent suicide attempt (Malaysiakini, Nov 15, 2009).
It is untrue that the shootout had nothing to do with Seetha’s death because all these events, like falling dominoes, happened in close proximity – the nearer the events in time, the higher the correlation or causation. Also, human beings do not exist in a vacuum but in relationships through a web of interconnectedness.
Two persons in the same family facing a traumatic event may react differently because they each have differing interpretations of that same episode.
So it is not true either that her brother’s killing at the hands of the police is the direct cause of Seetha’s death. (Police fearing bad publicity had apparently forced Seetha to sign a declaration stating that her suicide attempt had nothing to do with Surendran’s demise, their father claimed.)
Evidence-based psychological perspective
Understanding the complexity of human behaviour, in particular abnormal or maladaptive responses in causal terms, is an enormous challenge. Hence, risk factors as variables correlated with abnormal outcomes are often used by psychology researchers. It is however important to note that correlation is not causation.
The causes underlying suicide and suicide attempts are many and complex. The factors that place individuals at risk mutually interact with each other and can be classified as follows: psychiatric disorders, demographics (age, sex, social-economic status, employment status, occupation and marital status) and personality (impulsivity).
We do not know the exact causes of Seetha committing suicide but a single precipitating event alone does not explain the whys nor do the underlying social conditions alone. Chronic and triggering risk factors both need to be taken into account.
For example, there is the perpetuating risk factor like being born into a racial group subjected to discrimination, the predisposing risk factor of suffering from depression, the contributory factor of easy access of poisons, the acute risk factor of hopelessness and entrapment and the “precipitating or triggering stimuli of any real or anticipated event causing or threatening shame, guilt, despair, humiliation, unacceptable loss of face or status.” (adapted from source: American Association of Suicidology).
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, basing on psychological autopsy studies done in various countries over almost 50 years, there is a consistent pattern where “90 % of people who die by suicide are suffering from one or more psychiatric disorders.” These include “major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, alcohol or substance abuse, schizophrenia and personality disorder.”
Of all the psychiatric disorders, depression is the most important in suicide.
Cycle of hopelessness
Most depressed people do not commit suicide. However, most people who attempt or complete suicide were depressed. Depression as a psychiatric or psychological illness plays a major role in suicidal behaviour. It also has a social basis.
Unfortunately, they are often not diagnosed or treated either for lack of knowledge or resources to cope with psychiatric illnesses. The better-off can get immediate and long-term help.
However, as the poor have difficulty in making ends meet, any mental illnesses or developmental disabilities occurring in the family would impose an immense financial and psychological burden on them. And so the illness spirals downward.
The plight of the Native Americans shows the relationship between suicide and the destructive forces of prejudice and discrimination.
The American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology (vol. 38, 2007) revealed that “…After generations of displacement, forced assimilation, poverty and neglect, many American Indians are trapped in a cycle of hopelessness that often leads to substance abuse, violence and in many cases suicide. The suicide rate for American Indians is two and a half times higher than the national average…”
The chronic socioeconomic deprivation of the Indian community has been well articulated in the article ‘Sad road to Seetha’s suicide’ by Helen Ang (Malaysiakini, Nov 18, 2009). It depicts how a community has been broken up since the 1980s when the plantations were fragmented and workers evicted, with the effect that the young generation was displaced to urban settlements and creating slums.
Social support, social reform
Deprivation has not only a material but a psychological dimension as well.
Breaking up a community humiliates and shames its members. This institutionalized coercion also deprives the socially dispossessed of their dignity, self-respect and ethnic pride as a minority.
This is the hidden injury of the underclass. When we look deep into the Indian problem, we find that it is a question of human desire to seek dignity. When we look deep into the human problem, we meet the Indian problem. Suffering is suffering is suffering; it doesn’t really matter what you label it.
To understand and to intervene in suicide, we need to know the underlying causes and the precipitating causes.
If we attribute the causes to only within Seetha, we are just blaming the victim. If it is all her fault, then there is no necessity to identify the causes of suicide or to prevent future occurrences. However, if we attribute causes existing external to her, then there is the necessity of providing social support, of advocating social reforms.
Bullets can kill criminals or even the innocents but not the social conditions that create shame and violence. Racial discrimination inflicts deep psychological scars of shaming upon the psyche of the discriminated. Ultimately, it is socioeconomic equity, not structural violence or coercion, that will reduce shame and hence violence.
Psycho-socio education on suicide and suicide intervention is important for the public so that those in need are not socially isolated, especially when mental illness still remains a stigma.
Also of critical importance is keeping intact and functional the spiritual and cultural traditions of the ethnic minorities. It is these traditions that provide effective coping mechanisms for maintaining the dignity and self-respect of the group.
And it is these mechanisms that can help in healing the scourge of racial discrimination when a small community is broken by big government and big business.
Related Links
Suicide - Why involved children?
Shootout aftermath: Grief-stricken woman and her kids in suicide bid
Five killed in shootout with cops
Bullets can kill criminals but not the social conditions that create shame and violence. The psychological scars of shame derive from racial discrimination and ultimately, it is socioeconomic equity that will reduce this shame and hence the violence.
Suicide, of whatever cause, is always tragic. The iconic self-burning to death of the Buddhist monk was meant to turn the world’s attention on war-torn Vietnam. It was a cry of pain, a cry for help and a cry of protest.
In common with the monk’s suicide, housewife R. Seetha’s death was foremost a cry of pain, although it touchingly telegraphed to the world her community’s cry for help.
The pain within her was so unbearable that she wanted an end – to the pain of being human, the pain of being born an Indian in Malaysia. Thus her suicide at age 33 was an unintentional cry of protest. To see her tragic death as a cry for help instead as a legal or moral wrong, we need to understand the deeper underlying causes.
Before going into arguments of causal attribution, let’s first examine the moral condemnation directed at Seetha for giving paraquat to her children to drink.
Homicide-and-then-suicide cases are very rare. The homicidal aspect tends to overshadow the underlying causes of hopelessness in suicide.
In fact, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, “…Studies have shown that the perpetrators have profiles that resemble individuals who commit suicide rather than those who commit homicide – the role of untreated depression in their stories is often lost in the news account.”
Moral condemnation serves only to distance ourselves from suicide victims. It does not help to prevent future suicides because any simplistic moral categorization of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ does not tell us much about the profound pain of their despair.
Mother wished to pre-empt cruelty
We do not know exactly what was going on in Seetha’s mind before she took that final, fatal step.
James Gilligan, an American psychiatrist, wrote about the tragic violence in his own family history. He had a relative who was a violent rancher that repeatedly hit his son. The rancher’s wife was believed to have fed their son a piece of poisoned pie. Gilligan argued that the mother was very possibly trying to prevent any further cruelty inflicted on the child. This was the tragedy of violence.
A central issue of the Seetha controversy is how we attribute causes.
The death of her brother Surendran in an alleged police shootout was reported to have led to Seetha’s depression and subsequent suicide attempt (Malaysiakini, Nov 15, 2009).
It is untrue that the shootout had nothing to do with Seetha’s death because all these events, like falling dominoes, happened in close proximity – the nearer the events in time, the higher the correlation or causation. Also, human beings do not exist in a vacuum but in relationships through a web of interconnectedness.
Two persons in the same family facing a traumatic event may react differently because they each have differing interpretations of that same episode.
So it is not true either that her brother’s killing at the hands of the police is the direct cause of Seetha’s death. (Police fearing bad publicity had apparently forced Seetha to sign a declaration stating that her suicide attempt had nothing to do with Surendran’s demise, their father claimed.)
Evidence-based psychological perspective
Understanding the complexity of human behaviour, in particular abnormal or maladaptive responses in causal terms, is an enormous challenge. Hence, risk factors as variables correlated with abnormal outcomes are often used by psychology researchers. It is however important to note that correlation is not causation.
The causes underlying suicide and suicide attempts are many and complex. The factors that place individuals at risk mutually interact with each other and can be classified as follows: psychiatric disorders, demographics (age, sex, social-economic status, employment status, occupation and marital status) and personality (impulsivity).
We do not know the exact causes of Seetha committing suicide but a single precipitating event alone does not explain the whys nor do the underlying social conditions alone. Chronic and triggering risk factors both need to be taken into account.
For example, there is the perpetuating risk factor like being born into a racial group subjected to discrimination, the predisposing risk factor of suffering from depression, the contributory factor of easy access of poisons, the acute risk factor of hopelessness and entrapment and the “precipitating or triggering stimuli of any real or anticipated event causing or threatening shame, guilt, despair, humiliation, unacceptable loss of face or status.” (adapted from source: American Association of Suicidology).
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, basing on psychological autopsy studies done in various countries over almost 50 years, there is a consistent pattern where “90 % of people who die by suicide are suffering from one or more psychiatric disorders.” These include “major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, alcohol or substance abuse, schizophrenia and personality disorder.”
Of all the psychiatric disorders, depression is the most important in suicide.
Cycle of hopelessness
Most depressed people do not commit suicide. However, most people who attempt or complete suicide were depressed. Depression as a psychiatric or psychological illness plays a major role in suicidal behaviour. It also has a social basis.
Unfortunately, they are often not diagnosed or treated either for lack of knowledge or resources to cope with psychiatric illnesses. The better-off can get immediate and long-term help.
However, as the poor have difficulty in making ends meet, any mental illnesses or developmental disabilities occurring in the family would impose an immense financial and psychological burden on them. And so the illness spirals downward.
The plight of the Native Americans shows the relationship between suicide and the destructive forces of prejudice and discrimination.
The American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology (vol. 38, 2007) revealed that “…After generations of displacement, forced assimilation, poverty and neglect, many American Indians are trapped in a cycle of hopelessness that often leads to substance abuse, violence and in many cases suicide. The suicide rate for American Indians is two and a half times higher than the national average…”
The chronic socioeconomic deprivation of the Indian community has been well articulated in the article ‘Sad road to Seetha’s suicide’ by Helen Ang (Malaysiakini, Nov 18, 2009). It depicts how a community has been broken up since the 1980s when the plantations were fragmented and workers evicted, with the effect that the young generation was displaced to urban settlements and creating slums.
Social support, social reform
Deprivation has not only a material but a psychological dimension as well.
Breaking up a community humiliates and shames its members. This institutionalized coercion also deprives the socially dispossessed of their dignity, self-respect and ethnic pride as a minority.
This is the hidden injury of the underclass. When we look deep into the Indian problem, we find that it is a question of human desire to seek dignity. When we look deep into the human problem, we meet the Indian problem. Suffering is suffering is suffering; it doesn’t really matter what you label it.
To understand and to intervene in suicide, we need to know the underlying causes and the precipitating causes.
If we attribute the causes to only within Seetha, we are just blaming the victim. If it is all her fault, then there is no necessity to identify the causes of suicide or to prevent future occurrences. However, if we attribute causes existing external to her, then there is the necessity of providing social support, of advocating social reforms.
Bullets can kill criminals or even the innocents but not the social conditions that create shame and violence. Racial discrimination inflicts deep psychological scars of shaming upon the psyche of the discriminated. Ultimately, it is socioeconomic equity, not structural violence or coercion, that will reduce shame and hence violence.
Psycho-socio education on suicide and suicide intervention is important for the public so that those in need are not socially isolated, especially when mental illness still remains a stigma.
Also of critical importance is keeping intact and functional the spiritual and cultural traditions of the ethnic minorities. It is these traditions that provide effective coping mechanisms for maintaining the dignity and self-respect of the group.
And it is these mechanisms that can help in healing the scourge of racial discrimination when a small community is broken by big government and big business.
Related Links
Suicide - Why involved children?
Shootout aftermath: Grief-stricken woman and her kids in suicide bid
Five killed in shootout with cops
Wooden Coffin
Long ago, there is a farmer. He is very old, so old that he couldn't work the fields anymore. So he would spend the day just sitting on the porch all day.
His son, still working the farm, would look up from time to time and see his father sitting there.
"This old man is of no use any more," the son thought to himself, "he doesn't do anything! Only eat and sleep"
One day the son got so frustrated of this, that he decided to built a wooden coffin, dragged it over to the porch, and told his father to get in
Without saying anything, the father climbed inside.
After closing the lid, the son dragged the coffin to the edge of the farm where there was a high cliff.
As he approached the drop, he heard a light tapping on the lid from inside the coffin. He opened it up.
Still lying there peacefully, the father looked up at his son. "I know you are going to throw me over the cliff, but before you do, may I suggest something?"
"What is it?" replied the son.
"Throw me over the cliff, if you like," said the father, "but save this good wooden coffin. Your children might need to use it."
------------------
Moral of the Story
------------------
Parents always think for well being of their child. But do the child think for their parents
Loves your parents
His son, still working the farm, would look up from time to time and see his father sitting there.
"This old man is of no use any more," the son thought to himself, "he doesn't do anything! Only eat and sleep"
One day the son got so frustrated of this, that he decided to built a wooden coffin, dragged it over to the porch, and told his father to get in
Without saying anything, the father climbed inside.
After closing the lid, the son dragged the coffin to the edge of the farm where there was a high cliff.
As he approached the drop, he heard a light tapping on the lid from inside the coffin. He opened it up.
Still lying there peacefully, the father looked up at his son. "I know you are going to throw me over the cliff, but before you do, may I suggest something?"
"What is it?" replied the son.
"Throw me over the cliff, if you like," said the father, "but save this good wooden coffin. Your children might need to use it."
------------------
Moral of the Story
------------------
Parents always think for well being of their child. But do the child think for their parents
Loves your parents
BTN Ban for Selangor
Shocking news to here that the banning of Biro Tata Negara (BTN). It suppose to be a national program to promote unity, patriotisme, good values. Is it really so slanted as news report?
Selangor government bans civil servants, students and workers from Biro Tatanegara courses
By EDWARD RAJENDRA
SHAH ALAM: The Pakatan Rakyat-led Selangor government has ordered that its civil servants, students in state-owned universities, and workers with the state subsidiaries be banned from attending nation-building programmes approved out by the National Civics Bureau or Biro Tatanegara.
State exco chairman for Education and Higher Education Dr Halimah Ali said the order that took effect immediately.
“We will issue a written letter to all, to comply with the order,” she said at the state weekly exco press conference on Wednesday.
She claimed that those who attended the five-day training courses revealed that Barisan Nasional was using such activities to indoctrinate the younger generation aged between 23 and 30 with ideas that could create racial uneasiness. Read More
Single stream schooling: The bad and ugly side by Dr Azly Rahman
An interesting article by Dr Azly Rahman feature in CPIasia
A very important point is Government policy on championing Malays dominance hinder single stream school.
‘Ideas move nations but indoctrinations remove intelligence’.
According to government figures, only 7 percent of students in national schools are non-Malays. Parents fear sending their children from their past experience of the government indoctrinating young minds in the guise of an educational setting. Inciting racial sentiments in the classroom and boot camps (BTN, National Service, 1Malaysia) is in fact a big business nowadays.
Language issues come to mind as we speak about identity formation, befitting the notion of “language as culture,” and “culture as the habits we acquire and the tools we use in a house we inhabit in order to create our realties.”
This notion of language runs deeper than merely the need to ‘teach language’ in schools; it is to preserve and transmit culture for the continuing survival of the essential values of the peoples of the same language.
Language, perceived from the social/linguistic anthropological point of view then becomes a political subject and a matter of concern. With this also comes the idea of education that is described by an American educationist Lawrence Cremin as – a “deliberate process of transmitting knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values”.
As society progresses, tensions arise between the new and the old. In the case of Malaysia, the new consciousness signified by the idea of multiculturalism is seemingly in conflict with the idea that ethnocentrism still needs to be championed.
Ironically the current Minster of Education [Editor’s note: This article was written when Hishamuddin Hussein held the post] is also the Chief of the Umno Youth which brings us to the question of value neutrality in policy-making. Can one separate the institution, the individual, and the ideology?
The Minister of Higher Education too is appointed based on his loyalty to the ideology of Malay dominance.
Unless radical changes are made to the governance of the country – and this will also mean a dramatic shift in policies relating to race relations, education, and cultural identity – we will still live with the reality of schooling in Malaysia as being “separate and unequal”.
The task of bringing about an educational ideology that will pave the way for racial integration and genuine intercultural understanding continues to be daunting. The more the demands for racial equality and equal opportunity are made, the more the resistance to these will surface and the more violence – structural, symbolic, or real – may be the outcome.
The fear is that Malaysia will see the Balkanization of its people in the emergence of ‘postmodern tribes’ that will fight for their own rights in an environment that may not be resolvable through dialogue. Education for multiculturalism could offer some hope for reconciliation.
Not given the right info
In an article first published in my blog ‘A Republic of Virtue’ in Malaysia Today (April 24, 2008) titled ‘Thumbs up or thumbs down for Biro Tata Negara?’, I argued for the need to look into the philosophy of the bureau and the dangers of indoctrination.
Flaws in the arguments of the BTN supporters concern the nature of history and the structure of propaganda and mass indoctrination disguised as ‘patriotism’.
I agree we must give credit to those, like BTN, working hard to improve the mental wellness of Malays. This is important. This is a noble act. The question is: in doing so, do we want to plant the seeds of cooperation and trust or racial discrimination and deep hatred? Herein lies the difference between indoctrination and education.
Over decades, many millions of Malays and non-Malays have not been getting the right information on our nation’s history, political-economy, and race relations. History that is being shoved to us or filter-funneled down the labyrinth of our consciousness is one that is already packaged, biased, and propagandized by our historians that became text-books writers.
History need not be ‘Malay-centric’. Special rights for all Malaysians should be the goal of distributive and regulative justice of this nation, not the “special rights of a few Malays”.
History must be presented as the history of the marginalized, the oppressed, and the dispossessed – of all races.
We toil for this nation, as the humanist Paramoedya Ananta Toer would say, by virtue of our existence as “anak semua bangsa ... di bumi manusia”. Malaysia is a land of immigrants. No one particular race should stake claim to Malaysia. That is an idea from the old school of thought, fast being abandoned.
Each citizen is born, bred, and brought to school to become a good law-abiding and productive Malaysian citizen is accorded the fullest rights and privileges and will carry his/her responsibility as a good citizen. That is what “surrendering one’s natural rights to the State” means. One must read Rousseau, Locke, Voltaire, and Jefferson to understand this philosophy. A bad government will not honour this.
The history of civilizations provides enough examples of devastation and genocide as a consequence of violent claims to the right of this or that land based upon some idea of ‘imagined communities.’
Back to BTN.
BTN brainwashing students
Courses devoid of critical treatment and sensibility, and ones that retard student thinking such as ‘Kenegaraan’ in our universities, are designed to tell our mind to live in an imagined past.
BTN is playing this dangerous game of blind nationalism, still passing down packaged information that do not take into consideration the complexities of globalization and the promise of multiculturalism. We need to offer courses such as ‘Multiethnic Malaysia’ that will have students aspire to think like multiculturalists and help this nation evolve better.
The ministries of education and higher education combined have hundreds of experts – many overseas trained and have tasted the ‘spirit of multiculturalism’ and the “beauty of intellectual freedom” in their classrooms abroad – who ought to have engineered a paradigm shift to help dismantle indoctrination agencies such as Biro Tata Negara.
One-dimensional thinking prevails: the thinking that does not allow diversity of ideas and failed to develop cross-cultural perspectives. Ideas move nations but indoctrinations remove intelligence. Political masters, however corrupt to the core they are, dictate the work of our academicians.
Whoever writes history and turns that into, say BTN propaganda controls the future (or at least they think they do). We must question what is taught during the sessions or during any history lesson.
The BTN as an indoctrinating institution was conceived by ‘intellectuals’ who themselves are trapped in their own cocoon or glass coconut shell of wrongly-defined Malay-ness and in a paradigm that teaches a poor understanding of Malaysian history. These intellectuals are running around in our public universities promoting a more sophisticated and pseudo-intellectual version of racism.
Inciting racial sentiments in classroom and boot camps is big business nowadays – profits made in the name of patriotism. But who’s monitoring the trainers?
What Malay students are taught
The mission statement of BTN reads: “Wawasan: Menjadi sebuah organisasi awam yang unggul dalam memupuk semangat patriotisme serta menjadikan rakyat setia kepada Kerajaan.” (Vision: To become the preeminent public organization that will foster the patriotic spirit as well as [train] citizens to be loyal to the Government.)
My response is based on my personal experience in undergoing the indoctrination programme in the mid-1980s. Over the decades, perhaps millions of Malay students like me were taught the dangerous propaganda song, ‘Warisan’.
One verse concerns the power of the Malays:
Kini kita cuma tinggal kuasa
yang akan menentukan bangsa
Other lyrics include:
Hasil mengalir, ke tangan yang lain
pribumi merintih sendiri
My loose translation:
Political power is what we are only left with
one that will determine the fate of our nation
Wealth of this nation flows into the hands of others
sons and daughters of the soil suffer in solitude
This song composed by BTN is one based on racist intents. The training programmes that encapsulate the theme of this song are meant to instill fear in the Malays, not of others but of themselves, and to project hatred onto other ethnic groups without realising who the enemies of the Malays really are.
Warisan
Anak kecil main api
Terbakar hatinya yang sepi
Airmata darah bercampur keringat
Bumi dipijak milik orang
Nenek moyang kaya raya
Tergadai seluruh harta benda
Akibat sengketa sesamalah kita
Cita lenyap di arus zaman
Indahnya bumi kita ini
Warisan berkurun lamanya
Hasil mengalir ke tangan yang lain
Pribumi merintih sendiri
Masa depan sungguh kelam
Kan lenyap peristiwa semalam
Tertutuplah hati terkunci mati
Maruah peribadi dah hilang
Kini kita cuma tinggal kuasa
Yang akan menentukan bangsa
Bersatulah hati bersama berbakti
Pulih kembali harga diri
Kita sudah tiada masa
Majulah dengan maha perkasa
Janganlah terlalai teruskan usaha
Melayu kan gagah di Nusantara (3x)
______________________________
Azly Rahman is a fellow with the Centre for Policy Initiatives. The above article is condensed from an introduction penned by Dr Azly for the chapter ‘Education, Culture and Identity’ in the recently launched book ‘Multiethnic Malaysia – Past, Present and Future’, and from his own essay in the volume on the work of Biro Tata Negara.
Related Post
Sekolah Kebangsaan - Failure or Not
A very important point is Government policy on championing Malays dominance hinder single stream school.
| Single stream schooling: The bad and ugly side |
| WRITTEN BY DR AZLY RAHMAN |
| THURSDAY, 05 NOVEMBER 2009 11:53 |
‘Ideas move nations but indoctrinations remove intelligence’.
According to government figures, only 7 percent of students in national schools are non-Malays. Parents fear sending their children from their past experience of the government indoctrinating young minds in the guise of an educational setting. Inciting racial sentiments in the classroom and boot camps (BTN, National Service, 1Malaysia) is in fact a big business nowadays.
Language issues come to mind as we speak about identity formation, befitting the notion of “language as culture,” and “culture as the habits we acquire and the tools we use in a house we inhabit in order to create our realties.” This notion of language runs deeper than merely the need to ‘teach language’ in schools; it is to preserve and transmit culture for the continuing survival of the essential values of the peoples of the same language.
Language, perceived from the social/linguistic anthropological point of view then becomes a political subject and a matter of concern. With this also comes the idea of education that is described by an American educationist Lawrence Cremin as – a “deliberate process of transmitting knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values”.
As society progresses, tensions arise between the new and the old. In the case of Malaysia, the new consciousness signified by the idea of multiculturalism is seemingly in conflict with the idea that ethnocentrism still needs to be championed.
Ironically the current Minster of Education [Editor’s note: This article was written when Hishamuddin Hussein held the post] is also the Chief of the Umno Youth which brings us to the question of value neutrality in policy-making. Can one separate the institution, the individual, and the ideology?
The Minister of Higher Education too is appointed based on his loyalty to the ideology of Malay dominance.
Unless radical changes are made to the governance of the country – and this will also mean a dramatic shift in policies relating to race relations, education, and cultural identity – we will still live with the reality of schooling in Malaysia as being “separate and unequal”.
The task of bringing about an educational ideology that will pave the way for racial integration and genuine intercultural understanding continues to be daunting. The more the demands for racial equality and equal opportunity are made, the more the resistance to these will surface and the more violence – structural, symbolic, or real – may be the outcome.
The fear is that Malaysia will see the Balkanization of its people in the emergence of ‘postmodern tribes’ that will fight for their own rights in an environment that may not be resolvable through dialogue. Education for multiculturalism could offer some hope for reconciliation.
Not given the right info
In an article first published in my blog ‘A Republic of Virtue’ in Malaysia Today (April 24, 2008) titled ‘Thumbs up or thumbs down for Biro Tata Negara?’, I argued for the need to look into the philosophy of the bureau and the dangers of indoctrination.
Flaws in the arguments of the BTN supporters concern the nature of history and the structure of propaganda and mass indoctrination disguised as ‘patriotism’.
I agree we must give credit to those, like BTN, working hard to improve the mental wellness of Malays. This is important. This is a noble act. The question is: in doing so, do we want to plant the seeds of cooperation and trust or racial discrimination and deep hatred? Herein lies the difference between indoctrination and education.
Over decades, many millions of Malays and non-Malays have not been getting the right information on our nation’s history, political-economy, and race relations. History that is being shoved to us or filter-funneled down the labyrinth of our consciousness is one that is already packaged, biased, and propagandized by our historians that became text-books writers.
History need not be ‘Malay-centric’. Special rights for all Malaysians should be the goal of distributive and regulative justice of this nation, not the “special rights of a few Malays”.
History must be presented as the history of the marginalized, the oppressed, and the dispossessed – of all races.
We toil for this nation, as the humanist Paramoedya Ananta Toer would say, by virtue of our existence as “anak semua bangsa ... di bumi manusia”. Malaysia is a land of immigrants. No one particular race should stake claim to Malaysia. That is an idea from the old school of thought, fast being abandoned.
Each citizen is born, bred, and brought to school to become a good law-abiding and productive Malaysian citizen is accorded the fullest rights and privileges and will carry his/her responsibility as a good citizen. That is what “surrendering one’s natural rights to the State” means. One must read Rousseau, Locke, Voltaire, and Jefferson to understand this philosophy. A bad government will not honour this.
The history of civilizations provides enough examples of devastation and genocide as a consequence of violent claims to the right of this or that land based upon some idea of ‘imagined communities.’
Back to BTN.
BTN brainwashing students
Courses devoid of critical treatment and sensibility, and ones that retard student thinking such as ‘Kenegaraan’ in our universities, are designed to tell our mind to live in an imagined past. BTN is playing this dangerous game of blind nationalism, still passing down packaged information that do not take into consideration the complexities of globalization and the promise of multiculturalism. We need to offer courses such as ‘Multiethnic Malaysia’ that will have students aspire to think like multiculturalists and help this nation evolve better.
The ministries of education and higher education combined have hundreds of experts – many overseas trained and have tasted the ‘spirit of multiculturalism’ and the “beauty of intellectual freedom” in their classrooms abroad – who ought to have engineered a paradigm shift to help dismantle indoctrination agencies such as Biro Tata Negara.
One-dimensional thinking prevails: the thinking that does not allow diversity of ideas and failed to develop cross-cultural perspectives. Ideas move nations but indoctrinations remove intelligence. Political masters, however corrupt to the core they are, dictate the work of our academicians.
Whoever writes history and turns that into, say BTN propaganda controls the future (or at least they think they do). We must question what is taught during the sessions or during any history lesson.
The BTN as an indoctrinating institution was conceived by ‘intellectuals’ who themselves are trapped in their own cocoon or glass coconut shell of wrongly-defined Malay-ness and in a paradigm that teaches a poor understanding of Malaysian history. These intellectuals are running around in our public universities promoting a more sophisticated and pseudo-intellectual version of racism.
Inciting racial sentiments in classroom and boot camps is big business nowadays – profits made in the name of patriotism. But who’s monitoring the trainers?
What Malay students are taught
The mission statement of BTN reads: “Wawasan: Menjadi sebuah organisasi awam yang unggul dalam memupuk semangat patriotisme serta menjadikan rakyat setia kepada Kerajaan.” (Vision: To become the preeminent public organization that will foster the patriotic spirit as well as [train] citizens to be loyal to the Government.)
My response is based on my personal experience in undergoing the indoctrination programme in the mid-1980s. Over the decades, perhaps millions of Malay students like me were taught the dangerous propaganda song, ‘Warisan’.
One verse concerns the power of the Malays:
Kini kita cuma tinggal kuasa
yang akan menentukan bangsa
Other lyrics include:
Hasil mengalir, ke tangan yang lain
pribumi merintih sendiri
My loose translation:
Political power is what we are only left with
one that will determine the fate of our nation
Wealth of this nation flows into the hands of others
sons and daughters of the soil suffer in solitude
This song composed by BTN is one based on racist intents. The training programmes that encapsulate the theme of this song are meant to instill fear in the Malays, not of others but of themselves, and to project hatred onto other ethnic groups without realising who the enemies of the Malays really are.
Warisan
Anak kecil main api
Terbakar hatinya yang sepi
Airmata darah bercampur keringat
Bumi dipijak milik orang
Nenek moyang kaya raya
Tergadai seluruh harta benda
Akibat sengketa sesamalah kita
Cita lenyap di arus zaman
Indahnya bumi kita ini
Warisan berkurun lamanya
Hasil mengalir ke tangan yang lain
Pribumi merintih sendiri
Masa depan sungguh kelam
Kan lenyap peristiwa semalam
Tertutuplah hati terkunci mati
Maruah peribadi dah hilang
Kini kita cuma tinggal kuasa
Yang akan menentukan bangsa
Bersatulah hati bersama berbakti
Pulih kembali harga diri
Kita sudah tiada masa
Majulah dengan maha perkasa
Janganlah terlalai teruskan usaha
Melayu kan gagah di Nusantara (3x)
______________________________
Azly Rahman is a fellow with the Centre for Policy Initiatives. The above article is condensed from an introduction penned by Dr Azly for the chapter ‘Education, Culture and Identity’ in the recently launched book ‘Multiethnic Malaysia – Past, Present and Future’, and from his own essay in the volume on the work of Biro Tata Negara.
Related Post
Sekolah Kebangsaan - Failure or Not
Brain Drain
An very interesting article by Mr Koon Yew YIn that published in CPIasia
The Great Malaysian Brain Drain
WRITTEN BY KOON YEW YIN
Personal Note:
Readers may be interested to know that I have four children all of whom are accomplished in their respective fields. Three of them are part of the brain drain and have elected to settle down abroad; only one is back in Malaysia.
My son who has double degrees in civil engineering and chartered accountancy is an investor in Canada. He could be here to create hundreds of jobs to enrich Malaysia but he has been so disgusted with our policies and their implementation that he has chosen not to return.
I am sure that there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of similar young Malaysians that our country has lost, no thanks to our short-sighted education and NEP policies. And yet the Government is so keen to attract foreign investors. Where is the logic and rationality?
The Great Malaysian Brain Drain
WRITTEN BY KOON YEW YIN
There is a boy, I know who scored 10 A1s. His mother is a primary school teacher and Andrew has two younger brothers. His father, a civil servant, had already passed on by the time the son sat SPM in 2006.
Armed with his excellent result, Andrew applied for a scholarship to study mechanical engineering. The government rejected his application. Petronas rejected his application too. Can you imagine how disappointed and frustrated he was?
As soon as I learned of Andrew's difficulty, I offered him financial assistance to do accountancy in Utar. He has been scoring top marks in every exam to earn a scholarship from the university. Although Andrew is now exempted from paying fees, I still bank him RM400 a month to cover cost of living.
I have given assistance and allowances to more than 40 poor students to study in Utar in Kampar, Perak. Andrew is typical of their calibre; he prefers to get what is his due on merit, and his university has deservingly waived his fees.
On my part, I expect nothing from those that I've supported except for them in future to help young people in similar circumstances, and to hope that they will all stay back in Malaysia so that they can lend their talents to building up our nation.&
Asean (mainly M'sian!) Scholarships: Our brains, their gain
There are others that have deeper pockets who have extended a helping hand to our youngsters. One of them offers the cost of school and exam fees, hostel accommodation, RM5,800 a year for expenses, RM1,200 settling-in allowance, and transport/air ticket. Furthermore, the recipient is not bonded. Or in other words, the giver asks for nothing back.
I'm talking about the pre-university Asean scholarship extended to Malaysians by 'the little red dot' Singapore.
Of course, Singapore is not doing it for purely altruistic reasons. The country is giving these much coveted Asean scholarships to build up her national bank of talent. Some Malaysians accuse them of 'poaching' the creme de la creme of our youngsters. I don’t look at it as poaching. Their far-sighted government is doing it in their national interest.
And why not? Singapore can afford it. It has three times our GDP per capita. On another comparative note, the GDP per capita of Taiwan and South Korea are 2.5 times and double ours respectively. Before the NEP's introduction in 1970, the four countries were at parity.
The big question is why are we surrendering our assets which Malaysian parents have nurtured but the state neglected?
Tens of thousands of young Malaysians have left our shores on the Asean scholarship. I am not sure if Singapore is willing to give out the figure. But I am pretty sure the Malaysian authorities do not give two hoots about this, whatever number they may have arrive at. If they do, there seems to be no policy change to stem the outflow.
Malaysia is optimistically indifferent to the continuous brain drain, little caring that it is detrimental to our aspiration of becoming a developed country (I hate to say this) like Singapore.
Behaving like a failed state
Consider this startling statistic: There are more Sierra Leonean doctors working in hospitals in the city of Chicago than in their own homeland. More Malawian nurses in Manchester than in Malawi. Africa's most significant export to Europe and the United States is trained professionals, not petroleum, gold and diamond.
The educated African migration is definitely retarding the progress of every country in Africa. Today, one in three African university graduates, and 50,000 doctoral holders now live and work outside Africa. Sixty-four percent of Nigerians in the USA has one or more university degrees.
If we carry out a study, we are likely to find a very large number of non-Malay graduates emigrating to Singapore, Australia and other countries that is proportionately similar to the African exodus. However the compulsion is different, seeing as how some African countries are war-torn and famished which is certainly not the case with Malaysia.
The push factors for our own brain drain lie in NEP policy and this needs to be addressed with urgency.
State Ideology: Be grateful you're Malaysian
Try putting yourself in the shoes of an 18-year-old. This young Malaysian born in 1991 is told that Umno was very generous in granting citizenship to his non-Malay forefathers in 1957. Thus as a descendant of an immigrant community – one should be forever grateful and respect the 'social contract'.
Gratitude is demanded by the state while little is reciprocated. Under the NEP – and some say this policy represents the de facto social contract – every single Vice Chancellor of every single Malaysian public university is Malay.
Promotion prospects for non-Malay lecturers to full professorship or head of department are very dim, hence we have the dichotomy of non-Malays predominant in private colleges while correspondingly, the academic staff of public institutions proliferate with Malays.
The civil service is staffed predominantly by Malays too, and overwhelmingly in the top echelons. The government-linked corporations have been turned into a single race monopoly. Hence is it any surprise that almost all the scholarships offered by government and GLCs seem to be reserved for Malays?
Youngsters from the minority communities see that Malays are the chosen ones regardless of their scholastic achievement and financial position. Some are offered to do a Master even though they did not even apply (but the quota is there to be filled, so these disinterested Malays are approached).
Our lesson today is ...
How the government apparatus conducts itself and the consequences of its policy implementation will upset an individual's innate sense of justice.
The government pays about RM1.8 billion in annual salaries to teachers. A child is taught moral studies in class but he learns in life that adults condone and conspire to immorality by perpetuating the unfairness and injustice which impacts on Malaysia's young.
On the other hand, the favoured group is given more than their just desserts without either merit or need. When one is bred to think that privilege is only his rightful entitlement, we would not expect this young person to pay back to society in return.
Our Malaysian education system has been flip-flopped, pushed and pulled this way and that until standards dropped to alarming levels. The passing mark for subjects in public exams have fallen notoriously low while the increasing number of distinctions have risen fatuously high with SPM students notching 14As, 17As and 21As.
With top scorers aplenty, there will not be enough scholarships to go around now that the Education Ministry has decided to put a cap on the SPM, limiting takers to 10 subjects.
The human factor
It's unrealistic that the education system can be effectively overhauled. Even tweaking one aspect of it, such as the language switch for Math and English, created havoc.
It's not that our educational framework is so bad as after all, a lot of study and planning did go into it. It's only when the politicians dictate from on high and overrule the better judgment of the educationists – Dr Mahathir Mohamad being case in point – that we slide deeper into the doldrums.
The politicization of education and the hijacking of the country’s educational agenda has clearly cost us heavily in terms of policy flip flops and plummeting standards, and the loss of a good part of our young and talented human resources.
Matters become worse when Little Napoleons too take it upon themselves to interfere with teachers. For instance, the serial number assigned candidates when they sit public exams. Why is a student's race encoded in the number? What does his ethnicity have to do with his answer script?
There is further suspicion that the stacks of SPM papers are not distributed to examiners entirely at random (meaning ideally examiners should be blind to which exam centres the scripts they're marking have originated from).
A longstanding complaint from lecturers is that they are pressured to pass undergrads who are not up to the mark, and having to put up with mediocre ones who believe they are 'A' material after being spoilt in mono-racial schools.
Letting teachers do their job properly and allowing them to grade their students honestly would arrest the steep erosion of standards. And unless we are willing to be honest brokers in seeking a compromise and adjustment, the renewed demonizing of vernacular schools is merely mischievous. Either accept their existence or integrate the various types of schools.
But are UiTM and its many branch campuses throughout the length and breadth of the country, Mara Junior Science Colleges and the residential schools willing to open their doors to all on the basis of meritocracy if Chinese, Tamil, and not forgetting religious schools, were abolished? Not open to a token few non-Bumiputera but genuinely open up and with the admission numbers posted in a transparent manner.
Finally, there are teachers genuinely passionate about their profession. There are promising teachers fresh out of training college who are creative and capable of inspiring their students. It's not only Form 5 students who have been demoralized. Teachers are human capital that we seem to have overlooked in the present controversy.
Conclusion: Ensuring fairness for the future well-being of our young
A segment of Johoreans cross the Causeway daily to attend school in Singapore. Many continue their tertiary education in Singapore which has among the top universities in the world. Eventually, they work in Singapore and benefit Singapore.
Ask around among your friends and see who hasn't got a child or a sibling who is now living abroad as a permanent resident.
I can't really blame them for packing up and packing it in, can you? It's simply critical at this juncture that we don't let our kids lose hope and throw in the towel. The system might be slower to reform but mindsets at least can be changed easier.
It starts with the teachers, the educationists and the people running the education departments and implementing the policies. Please help Malaysian youngsters realise their full potential. Just try a little fairness first.
Armed with his excellent result, Andrew applied for a scholarship to study mechanical engineering. The government rejected his application. Petronas rejected his application too. Can you imagine how disappointed and frustrated he was?
As soon as I learned of Andrew's difficulty, I offered him financial assistance to do accountancy in Utar. He has been scoring top marks in every exam to earn a scholarship from the university. Although Andrew is now exempted from paying fees, I still bank him RM400 a month to cover cost of living.
I have given assistance and allowances to more than 40 poor students to study in Utar in Kampar, Perak. Andrew is typical of their calibre; he prefers to get what is his due on merit, and his university has deservingly waived his fees.
On my part, I expect nothing from those that I've supported except for them in future to help young people in similar circumstances, and to hope that they will all stay back in Malaysia so that they can lend their talents to building up our nation.&
Asean (mainly M'sian!) Scholarships: Our brains, their gain
There are others that have deeper pockets who have extended a helping hand to our youngsters. One of them offers the cost of school and exam fees, hostel accommodation, RM5,800 a year for expenses, RM1,200 settling-in allowance, and transport/air ticket. Furthermore, the recipient is not bonded. Or in other words, the giver asks for nothing back.
I'm talking about the pre-university Asean scholarship extended to Malaysians by 'the little red dot' Singapore.
Of course, Singapore is not doing it for purely altruistic reasons. The country is giving these much coveted Asean scholarships to build up her national bank of talent. Some Malaysians accuse them of 'poaching' the creme de la creme of our youngsters. I don’t look at it as poaching. Their far-sighted government is doing it in their national interest.
And why not? Singapore can afford it. It has three times our GDP per capita. On another comparative note, the GDP per capita of Taiwan and South Korea are 2.5 times and double ours respectively. Before the NEP's introduction in 1970, the four countries were at parity.
The big question is why are we surrendering our assets which Malaysian parents have nurtured but the state neglected?
Tens of thousands of young Malaysians have left our shores on the Asean scholarship. I am not sure if Singapore is willing to give out the figure. But I am pretty sure the Malaysian authorities do not give two hoots about this, whatever number they may have arrive at. If they do, there seems to be no policy change to stem the outflow.
Malaysia is optimistically indifferent to the continuous brain drain, little caring that it is detrimental to our aspiration of becoming a developed country (I hate to say this) like Singapore.
Behaving like a failed state
Consider this startling statistic: There are more Sierra Leonean doctors working in hospitals in the city of Chicago than in their own homeland. More Malawian nurses in Manchester than in Malawi. Africa's most significant export to Europe and the United States is trained professionals, not petroleum, gold and diamond.
The educated African migration is definitely retarding the progress of every country in Africa. Today, one in three African university graduates, and 50,000 doctoral holders now live and work outside Africa. Sixty-four percent of Nigerians in the USA has one or more university degrees.
If we carry out a study, we are likely to find a very large number of non-Malay graduates emigrating to Singapore, Australia and other countries that is proportionately similar to the African exodus. However the compulsion is different, seeing as how some African countries are war-torn and famished which is certainly not the case with Malaysia.
The push factors for our own brain drain lie in NEP policy and this needs to be addressed with urgency.
State Ideology: Be grateful you're Malaysian
Try putting yourself in the shoes of an 18-year-old. This young Malaysian born in 1991 is told that Umno was very generous in granting citizenship to his non-Malay forefathers in 1957. Thus as a descendant of an immigrant community – one should be forever grateful and respect the 'social contract'.
Gratitude is demanded by the state while little is reciprocated. Under the NEP – and some say this policy represents the de facto social contract – every single Vice Chancellor of every single Malaysian public university is Malay.
Promotion prospects for non-Malay lecturers to full professorship or head of department are very dim, hence we have the dichotomy of non-Malays predominant in private colleges while correspondingly, the academic staff of public institutions proliferate with Malays.
The civil service is staffed predominantly by Malays too, and overwhelmingly in the top echelons. The government-linked corporations have been turned into a single race monopoly. Hence is it any surprise that almost all the scholarships offered by government and GLCs seem to be reserved for Malays?
Youngsters from the minority communities see that Malays are the chosen ones regardless of their scholastic achievement and financial position. Some are offered to do a Master even though they did not even apply (but the quota is there to be filled, so these disinterested Malays are approached).
Our lesson today is ...
How the government apparatus conducts itself and the consequences of its policy implementation will upset an individual's innate sense of justice.
The government pays about RM1.8 billion in annual salaries to teachers. A child is taught moral studies in class but he learns in life that adults condone and conspire to immorality by perpetuating the unfairness and injustice which impacts on Malaysia's young.
On the other hand, the favoured group is given more than their just desserts without either merit or need. When one is bred to think that privilege is only his rightful entitlement, we would not expect this young person to pay back to society in return.
Our Malaysian education system has been flip-flopped, pushed and pulled this way and that until standards dropped to alarming levels. The passing mark for subjects in public exams have fallen notoriously low while the increasing number of distinctions have risen fatuously high with SPM students notching 14As, 17As and 21As.
With top scorers aplenty, there will not be enough scholarships to go around now that the Education Ministry has decided to put a cap on the SPM, limiting takers to 10 subjects.
The human factor
It's unrealistic that the education system can be effectively overhauled. Even tweaking one aspect of it, such as the language switch for Math and English, created havoc.
It's not that our educational framework is so bad as after all, a lot of study and planning did go into it. It's only when the politicians dictate from on high and overrule the better judgment of the educationists – Dr Mahathir Mohamad being case in point – that we slide deeper into the doldrums.
The politicization of education and the hijacking of the country’s educational agenda has clearly cost us heavily in terms of policy flip flops and plummeting standards, and the loss of a good part of our young and talented human resources.
Matters become worse when Little Napoleons too take it upon themselves to interfere with teachers. For instance, the serial number assigned candidates when they sit public exams. Why is a student's race encoded in the number? What does his ethnicity have to do with his answer script?
There is further suspicion that the stacks of SPM papers are not distributed to examiners entirely at random (meaning ideally examiners should be blind to which exam centres the scripts they're marking have originated from).
A longstanding complaint from lecturers is that they are pressured to pass undergrads who are not up to the mark, and having to put up with mediocre ones who believe they are 'A' material after being spoilt in mono-racial schools.
Letting teachers do their job properly and allowing them to grade their students honestly would arrest the steep erosion of standards. And unless we are willing to be honest brokers in seeking a compromise and adjustment, the renewed demonizing of vernacular schools is merely mischievous. Either accept their existence or integrate the various types of schools.
But are UiTM and its many branch campuses throughout the length and breadth of the country, Mara Junior Science Colleges and the residential schools willing to open their doors to all on the basis of meritocracy if Chinese, Tamil, and not forgetting religious schools, were abolished? Not open to a token few non-Bumiputera but genuinely open up and with the admission numbers posted in a transparent manner.
Finally, there are teachers genuinely passionate about their profession. There are promising teachers fresh out of training college who are creative and capable of inspiring their students. It's not only Form 5 students who have been demoralized. Teachers are human capital that we seem to have overlooked in the present controversy.
Conclusion: Ensuring fairness for the future well-being of our young
A segment of Johoreans cross the Causeway daily to attend school in Singapore. Many continue their tertiary education in Singapore which has among the top universities in the world. Eventually, they work in Singapore and benefit Singapore.
Ask around among your friends and see who hasn't got a child or a sibling who is now living abroad as a permanent resident.
I can't really blame them for packing up and packing it in, can you? It's simply critical at this juncture that we don't let our kids lose hope and throw in the towel. The system might be slower to reform but mindsets at least can be changed easier.
It starts with the teachers, the educationists and the people running the education departments and implementing the policies. Please help Malaysian youngsters realise their full potential. Just try a little fairness first.
Personal Note:
Readers may be interested to know that I have four children all of whom are accomplished in their respective fields. Three of them are part of the brain drain and have elected to settle down abroad; only one is back in Malaysia.
My son who has double degrees in civil engineering and chartered accountancy is an investor in Canada. He could be here to create hundreds of jobs to enrich Malaysia but he has been so disgusted with our policies and their implementation that he has chosen not to return.
I am sure that there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of similar young Malaysians that our country has lost, no thanks to our short-sighted education and NEP policies. And yet the Government is so keen to attract foreign investors. Where is the logic and rationality?
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Namewee - TNB Video
Well, do not really agree with his style but he has his points.
He is bold enough to make such a video and post it.
He is bold enough to make such a video and post it.
Namewee raps TNB over outages, insists on apology
By IZATUN SHARI
KUALA LUMPUR: Rapper Wee Meng Chee, better known as Namewee, is adamant that Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) apologises to consumers for frequent power outages.
“TNB must come out and say sorry to Malaysians. TNB is not going to improve. There’ll always be breakdowns. There’ll always be shutdowns and they’ll never inform us,” claimed the controversial rapper yesterday,
Wee gained notoriety in 2007 for his rap song, Negarakuku.
Wee said punishing him would not change things when it came to TNB’s services.
He was reacting to a statement by Information, Communications, Cul ture and Arts Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim that the Govern ment would examine the lyrics and content of Wee’s rap music video which poked fun at TNB. Read More
Life Explained by an MBA Graduate
Not long ago, there a boat docked in a tiny Mexican fishing village.
A tourist complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their fish and asked
how long it took him to catch them.
"Not very long." they answered in unison.
"Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the tourist.
The fishermen explained that their small catches were sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families.
"But what do you do with the rest of your time?" asked again by the tourist.
"We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children, and take siestas with our wives. In the evenings, we go into the village to see our friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. We have a full life." asked one of the fisherman.
The tourist interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat."
"And after that?" asked the fat fisherman.
"With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one
and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant." explained the tourist.
"You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles , or even New York City !" said tourist
"From there you can direct your huge new enterprise." added the tourist.
"How long would that take?" asked the skinny fisherman.
"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years." replied the tourist.
"And after that?" asked the fat fisherman.
"Afterwards? Well my friend, that's when it gets really interesting, " answered the tourist, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!"
"Millions? Really? And after that?" asked the fishermen.
"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends." said the tourist.
“That’s what we are doing now” Replied the fishermen
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Moral of Story
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Know what are you target in life. You may already achieve it yet not realizing it.
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Quote on Wealth
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Wealth after all is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much and wants more - Charles Caleb Colton
Life is Coffee, not the cup
A group of alumni, all highly established in their respective careers, got together for a visit with their old university professor. The conversation soon turned to complaints about the endless stress of work and life in general. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went into the kitchen and soon returned with a large pot of coffee and an eclectic assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal - some plain, some expensive, some quite exquisite. Quietly he told them to help themselves to some fresh coffee.
When each of his former students had a cup of coffee in hand, the old professor quietly cleared his throat and began to patiently address the small gathering.
"You may have noticed that all of the nicer looking cups were taken up first, leaving behind the plainer and cheaper ones. While it is only natural for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is actually the source of much of your stress-related problems."
He continued, "Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In fact, the cup merely disguises or dresses up what we drink. What each of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you instinctively went for the best cups. Then you began eyeing each other's cups."
"Life is coffee. Jobs, money, and position in society are merely cups. They are just tools to shape and contain. Life, and the type of cup we have does not truly define nor change the quality of the Life we live. Often, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee that God has provided us. God brews the coffee, but he does not supply the cups. Enjoy your coffee!"
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Moral of the Story
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The happiest people don't have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.
Live simple. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God. And remember - the richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.
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