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Jemputan debat isu rasuah kepada Pemuda UMNO masih tidak
terjawab
KUALA Lumpur: Jemputan Timbalan Ketua Pemuda keADILan,
YB Saudara Saifuddin Nasution Ismail kepada Pemuda UMNO
untuk duduk semeja berbincang mengenai gejala rasuah masih
belum dijawab sehingga kini.
Jemputan itu dipanjangkan kepada Ketua Pergerakan Pemuda
UMNO, Datuk Hishamuddin Tun Hussein, pemimpin-pemimpin
Pergerakan itu serta bekas ketuanya Datuk Zahid Hamidi.
Ia berikutan pendedahan yang dibuat oleh YB Saudara Saifuddin
bahawa Pergerakan Pemuda UMNO sendiri merancang untuk
mendedahkan penyelewengan dan amalan rasuah di kalangan
Menteri UMNO dalam perhimpunan parti itu dalam tahun 1997.
Sudah seminggu berlalu sejak jemputan itu diumumkan, namun
sehingga kini pemimpin Pemuda UMNO masih menikus dan
membisu mengenai perkara ini.
Setiap kali ia dibawa oleh wartawan, Datuk Zahid dan Datuk
Hishamuddin tidak menjawab pertanyaan mereka, sepatutnya
mengalihkan perhatian kepada perkara lain.
Sumber pemuda-keadilan.org memberitahu pemimpin Pemuda
keADILan sedar perkara ini akan meletakkan pemimpin Pemuda
UMNO dalam keadaan serba salah kerana mereka tidak akan
berani tampil berdebat.
"Mereka tahu kita ada bukti dan tembelang UMNO akan
diketahui rakyat, tetapi kalau mereka terus berdiam kredibiliti
mereka juga terjejas kerana digelar pengecut," kata beliau.
Sejak kebelakangan ini, gerakkerja Pemuda keADILan yang
terus mengasak Pemuda UMNO menunjukkan kelemahan
kepimpinan sayap kanan parti perkauman itu.
Ulas seorang petugas keADILan, Puteri UMNO jauh tampak lagi
tegas dan berkesan jika dibandingkan dengan Pemuda UMNO.
" Nampaknya Pemuda UMNO terpaksa terus bersembunyi di
belakang Puteri UMNO seperti di Indera Kayangan," usik beliau
lagi.
Kempen propaganda kerajaan yang bercelaru bukti 'double
standard'
KUALA Lumpur: Jurucakap Sekretariat Pemuda di sini membidas
kempen propaganda kerajaan yang berterusan di saluran TV
yang dibayar dengan duit rakyat.
Lebih teruk lagi, kata beliau, kempen itu bercelaru dan jelas
menunjukkan sikap 'double standard' kerajaan yang cuba
menipu rakyat.
Beliau merujuk kepada dua program yang jelas membuktikan
kerajaan Barisan Nasional tidak mempunyai pendirian, tetapi
hanya berhasrat memanipulasi rakyat untuk terus berkuasa.
Program yang dimaksudkan adalah klip 90 saat yang
ditayangkan baru-baru ini untuk memburuk-burukkan imej
Barisan Alternatif, dan program Worldview yang ditayangkan di
RTM 2 yang mengagung-agungkan Revolusi Islam Iran.
Kedua-dua program itu, kata jurucakap Sekretariat Pemuda
keADILan lagi, jelas mempunyai motif yang bertentangan di
antara satu sama lain.
"Klip 90 saat cuba menakut-nakutkan pengundi bukan Islam
dengan menggambarkan Barisan Alternatif seolah-olah Taleban,
sementara program Worldview itu pula seolah-olah cuba
menyokong dakwaan Perdana Menteri bahawa negara Malaysia
adalah negara Islam kerana ia menyokong Revolusi Islam," kata
beliau.
Beliau menyeru rakyat agar memboikot penyalahgunaan wang
rakyat untuk kempen propaganda parti-parti Barisan Nasional itu
dengan menghantar bantahan sama ada melalui surat, e-mel
ataupun menyatakan bantahan di laman Kementerian
Penerangan.
Beliau juga berharap agar pengundi bukan Melayu tidak
termakan dengan kempen propaganda Barisan Nasional itu.
Tuduhan penyokong PAS menyerang polis: "Kemukakan bukti
dahulu" - YB Ustaz Nasharudin Mat Isa
KUALA Lumpur: Setiausaha Agung PAS YB Ustaz Nasharuddin
Mat Isa menyeru agar pihak berkuasa mengemukakan bukti
terlebih dahulu sebelum melemparkan tuduhan liar
memburuk-burukkan penyokong PAS.
Beliau berkata demikian ketika mengulas dakwaan-dakwaan
yang dibuat oleh pihak polis dan Timbalan Perdana Menteri
menuduh orang ramai yang menghadiri satu ceramah di Kuala
Ketil baru-baru ini merancang terlebih dahulu menyerang pihak
polis.
Dalam kejadian itu, lebih 30 orang ramai ditahan termasuk dua
wanita. Dua orang daripada mereka masih ditahan reman
sehingga kini.
Pihak polis turut mendakwa kononnya orang ramai yang hadir
dalam satu ceramah yang diadakan di dalam kawasan Markas
PAS itu turut membakar sebuah trak polis.
Dakwaan ini ditolak dan dipersoalkan oleh penduduk tempatan,
memandangkan trak itu berada di bawah kawalan polis. Lebih
dari itu, ia berada di belakang barisan polis yang bertindak
memukul orang ramai dan menembak gas pemedih mata.
"Bagaimana kita boleh bakar trak mereka kalau kita sendiri
dikepung dengan pasukan polis dan gas pemedih mata?" tanya
seorang penduduk yang ditemui.
Sementara itu, YB Ustaz Nasharuddin dilaporkan berkata
bahawa selagi tiada bukti dikemukakan, dakwaan itu hanyalah
tuduhan liar semata-mata.
Ceramah Anugerah Nobel Anwar Ibrahim akan mula dianjurkan
SEREMBAN: pemuda-keadilan.org dimaklumkan Pemuda
keADILan Negeri Sembilan akan mula menganjurkan ceramah
khas mengenai pencalonan Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim bagi
Anugerah Keamanan Nobel selepas musim percutian perayaan
Tahun Baru Cina.
Menurut sumber Pergerakan Pemuda keADILan Negeri
Sembilan, selain ceramah untuk menerangkan serba-sedikit
makna dan penghormatan kepada rakyat Malaysia berikutan
pencalonan tersebut, slot itu akan turut digunakan untuk
menayangkan beberapa klip mengenai Dato' Seri Anwar kepada
orang ramai.
Beliau berkata, perancangan sudahpun dibuat untuk
menganjurkan ceramah-ceramah seperti itu.
Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim dipercayai rakyat Malaysia yang
pertama menerima pencalonan bagi anugerah berprestij dunia itu.
Ia dipercayai untuk menghargai perjuangan beliau mewujudkan
sebuah masyarakat madani (civil society) di Malaysia
berpaksikan asas keadilan dan nilai demokrasi sejagat.
Sementara itu, jurucakap Sekretariat Pemuda Pusat menjelaskan
bahawa kempen sokongan pencalonan DSAI bagi anugerah itu
berjalan lancar. Kempen di laman web Pemuda itu turut
mendapat sokongan dari rakyat bukan Malaysia, kata beliau lagi.
Beliau juga menyeru ahli keADILan dan pendokong BA agar
mencetak lebih banyak poster dan risalah mengenai pencalonan
DSAI itu untuk diedarkan ke seluruh negara.
"Rakyat perlu terus diingatkan akan perjuangan Dato' Seri
Anwar dan maknanya kepada seluruh rakyat," kata beliau.
Lee Kuan Yew and Race - Part I
by Michael D. Barr
Deptartment of History, University of Queensland
Journal of Contemporary Asia v29, n2 (1999)
*The author wishes to thank Dr Martin Stuart-Fox. Professor
Robert Cribb and Far James Minchin for their advice and
assistance.
"Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital,
each in the same condition and needing a blood transfusion. The
first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few
hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a
transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian,
was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in
development."
Lee Kuan Yew at the University of Singapore 27 December
1967, as reported by Chandra Musaffar in his letter to the author.
14 August, 1996.
Racism is rarely far from the surface of Asian societies, and this is
especially true of those multiracial societies that feel the need to
promote racial tolerance as part of official ideology. Yet even in
these cases, promoting racial tolerance does not necessarily
imply the promotion of racial indifference. Singapore's
multiracialism, for instance, encourages a high consciousness of
one's race even as it insists on tolerance. Further, it has been
considered by many as a covert form of discrimination in favour of
the majority Chinese and against the minorities, especially the
Malays. This article is an attempt to advance our understanding
of Singapore's idiosyncratic version of multiracialism by casting
new light on the thinking of its primary architect, Senior Minister
Lee Kuan Yew.
Despite official denials there can be little doubt that there is an
unofficial pro-Chinese bias in Singapore, and that in spite of the
structures of "meritocracy" and sometimes because of them, the
Malay minority in particular has suffered structural discrimination.
Even a cursory survey of recent history confirms this impression.
For two decades after separation from Malaysia in 1965, for
instance, the Singapore government had an unofficial policy of
excluding Malays from the Singapore Armed Forces and the
police force because of concerns about their loyalty. Not only did
this practice deny Malays a traditional source of employment, but
it made other employers reluctant to hire them because they
were, technically, still eligible to be called up.
At the same time, the government exaggerated, possibly
unintentionally, the structural impediments to Malays' educational
advancement. At the time of separation from Malaysia, Malay
students in Singapore had already been disadvantaged
inadvertently because they were streamed through
Malay-language schools which were staffed by under-qualified
teachers, and which used substandard Malay-language text
books.
These schools had very high attrition and failure rates from the
beginning, but after separation even the successful students
faced unique linguistic and academic hurdles in their pursuit of
higher education. After separation, not only did the Malays find
that their language had little economic value, but they discovered
that their schools had not prepared them for tertiary education in
the new Singapore. The first problem was that unlike
Chinese-educated Chinese attending Nanyang University, and
English-speaking Chinese, Indians and Eurasians attending the
University of Singapore, the Malays had no tertiary institutions in
which they did not face a language barrier. In fact Malay
students' command of English was so poor that they alone were
required to take an oral examination as part of their entry
requirements to university. Furthe r, as part of the push for
national and economic survival in newly-independent Singapore,
university scholarships were restricted to those students pursuing
technical and science disciplines, and the inadequately staffed
and poorly resourced Malay-stream schools had left their students
singularly ill-equipped to qualify or compete for these
scholarships.
The Malay's problem was compounded by their continuing
socio-economic marginalisation,
and by the near-universal perception that their underachievement
reflected their racial and cultural defects: that they had grown up
in the "soft," lethargic Malay Culture which did not encourage
studiousness, enterprise or hard work. Between their educational
and employment disadvantages, and the psychological impact of
being told that their problems were the result of their ethnic
culture, it is not surprising that Malays are still at an economic
disadvantage today.
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the saga of Singapore's
Malays, however, is not the actual discrimination, but the fact
that Singapore's multiracial meritocracy has provided the rationale
for its justification, and that this rationale has been effective to
the point that even Malay teachers have come to accept this
"cultural deficit" explanation of Malay underachievement. The
perception of the cultural deficiency of the Malays is, to some
extent, a continuation of the prejudices fostered by the British
colonial authorities who regarded the Malays as slow and lazy
because they preferred their agrarian kampong lifestyle to
working in tin mines for money.
This interpretation, however, ignores the role of former Prime
Minister Lee Kuan Yew in moulding the ideological and social
perceptions of Singaporeans. Although no nation's history can
ever be reduced to the story of one man, Lee Kuan Yew had
such a paramount role in making modem Singapore that an
understanding of that society cannot be complete without an
attempt at understanding Lee himself. The remainder of this
article is devoted to contributing to our understanding of Lee's
views on race.
.. part II tomorrow