Nak jadi kah atau hanya mimpi dan retorik?

Saya baca ucapan TPM semalam:-

"... kita mesti mengubah cara UMNO menentukan pemimpin termasuklah sistem kuota. Kita perlu memberikan hak memilih ke tangan kumpulan yang lebih besar. Sekarang ini, sebagai contoh pemilih bagi perhimpunan Agung UMNO hanya di kalangan hampir 2,600 orang yang terdiri daripada perwakilan dari 191 bahagian.

Sudah tentu keputusan yang dibuat oleh perwakilan sejumlah itu tidak mencerminkan sepenuhnya hasrat lebih tiga juta ahli UMNO di peringkat akar umbi di seluruh negara. Pada hemat saya, telah tiba masanya untuk kita mengkaji semula perlembagaan UMNO daripada aspek ini agar proses pemilihan kepimpinan UMNO dapat disertai oleh lebih ramai ahli dari semua peringkat.

Inilah jalan yang akan dapat membendung masalah politik wang dan salah guna kuasa. Inilah juga jalan, jika kita ingin parti ini terus kekal kuat dengan sewajarnya mengembalikan semula mandat pemilih kepada akar umbi."

Teringat cadangan dari tahun lepas ... yang dah diilhamkan dari tahun 2000 lagi ...
http://kayown.blogspot.com/2008/04/cadangan-usul-umno-merubah-sistem.html

Nak jadi ka?

Perak Politics - New Sitcom

If it wasn’t so tragic I would be laughing my head off.

On one side you have people who had just completed a coup of getting someone to change their spots and come across suddenly being in the shoes of having their leopards changing their spots…

Actually I agree on ONE main principle, If you are elected under a label, if you wish to change, RESIGN. That goes for both sides. It’s a matter of honor, unfortunately something completely foreign to not only Malaysian politicians but all politicians as well.

But the sad thing about all of this is the state of Perak politics. Being a Perakian entitles me I guess to say a couple of words about this. Perak politician are among the most mediocre of all politicians in Malaysia. Let me back this up with some observations.

We have consistently got ourselves mediocre MB since the late 60s. The problem is the complete lack of talent among the resident ADUN and division heads. While you can see some of the other states having representation at the highest level of UMNO and the wings … Perak has precious few. One notable in the top 3 tier is a woman, Dato Seri Rafidah. The other ‘notable’ is also questionable to me … Nazri. Thanks for throwing up ... I threw up too

Why this dearth of talent? Is it because Perakians are themselves devoid of talent?
I’ve heard of many reasons.

Among the biggest is the suppression of those with talent and integrity. Mediocrity is looked upon as acceptable because it makes most of us not feel bad about ourselves. Tall weeds get cut down fast.

Another popular reasons is a lot of notable perakians tend to be in the educational field. Look it up. So they tend to be more idealistic and shy away from the sleaze of what passes as normal politics as usual.

Another reason put forward is that Perak politics is too much a politic of patronage. Thus you cannot be better than your patron. That puts a crimp on any up and coming.

I don’t know if this is the same everywhere else… I guess it is … because we also see this kind of crap in the US. Maybe Perak is like Chicago. Too sleazy. Guess who’s our Rod Blagojevich then? Sorry … whatever your guess is you’re wrong … it’s practically every single politician in Perak … Our very own Chicago…

But the thing is Chicago did produce one Barack Hussein Obama … Is there any hidden in Perak …?

Boycott

McDonalds looks lengang in the morning now. I guess the boycott is on now. Hardly any queue

Don't know about Starbucks ....

But this is an alternate for those who need some kind of Mc...

Sense of helplessness

As the days go by and we watch again and again the images of dead Palestinian children in rows of white shrouds, we ask (again), what can we do?

What else can we do beyond boycotting US products, as suggested by former Malaysian PM, Tun Dr. Mahathir? Would anyone notice? How can we do that? I am using Microsoft Word to do this. It’s a US product. Please help me find an alternative. Maybe try Open Office that even though it is also a US product, it’s free, thus not contributing to the US income.

Maybe that will help in curtailing the USD3 billion that the US sends DIRECT to Israel and the multitude of billions that it spends buying off Arab Saudi, Egypt, UAE, Kuwait to lie quietly and let Israel run wild. You think that would do it… hmmpf … then you must be less of a skeptic that I am.

What else can we do? Do we get into a chemistry lab and start building bombs and throw them at the nearest US embassy or any business that have the name American? Would that help the children of Gaza? You think? I don’t think so, because in my books two wrongs definitely don’t make a right. I will be committing a sin by killing innocent non-combatants in ‘war’. I do think that Al Qaeda have completely got it wrong by 9/11.

What else can we do? Donate to the funds that assist in humanitarian aids? That would assuage our guilt of letting this happen. Maybe some percentage of that assistance does get to the Palestinians. I do hope no one skim off the top of these aids. May Allah curse them if they do that. But with the blockade, can they get it through.

I guess this sense of helplessness comes from the fact that whatever we do may not make a difference. Evil will triumph as it has for these many years, at least 61 years for the Palestinians. We still buy American goods, still use Google and still watch American programs on TV. We are not prepared to suffer discomfort or inconvenience.

In the end our prayers to Allah to help the Palestinians, to strengthen the Muslim ummah so that it can fight this is the best possible way, to strengthen ourselves so that we are willing to experience discomfort a little bit so that we can make a dent, no matter how big, in the US economy, for Allah to make the people who actually make decisions in the US to see the light, for Allah to punish those that perpetrated these injustice.

In the end as in the beginning, there is only Allah that we can rest all our hopes and prayers.

BTW, I’m switching to Open Office. And this ... probably will be last blog on www.blogger.com until I can figure out where to send this.

Well they completely don't get it ....

I was laughing my head off at the barber yesterday while reading this at The Star. Got a few raised eyebrows from the other patrons. Shared the article with another guy sitting next to me, and he laughed as well. Well shows me that that I am not the only one that found this funny.

I’ll reproduce this just in case the link gets deleted after 7 days.

“Sunday November 9, 2008
Don’t get carried away with Obama, says Annuar

KOTA BARU: Kelantan Umno liaison chairman Tan Sri Annuar Musa has urged Malaysians not to get carried away with Barrack Obama, as “we have our own leaders to admire and our issues to resolve”.

“I see people wearing Obama T-shirts. While it is good, let us not get carried away with what happened in other nations.

“I also prefer if people could wear T-shirts bearing Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, soon to be our next Prime Minister and Umno president,” he said at the opening of the Ketereh Umno division delegates meeting yesterday.

Annuar, who was returned unopposed as the division head, said Najib had displayed traits of nationalism of Umno founder Tun Onn Jaafar and the long-term foresight of his late father, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein.”

C’mon, go ahead … laugh your head off. I did … just barely managed to put my head back on after that serious laugh.

Oh puhleeez, it’s not just because I am one of those possibly tagged as “carried away by Obama”, which I may be, that I found that statement funny. But it just points out the fact that Annuar completely lost the point, as he often does. It’s one of those statements that imply if we have more interest in politics of other countries we cease to be patriotic. This is one of those self-righteous crap often yelled at us that really throws us off the local politicos.

To most I’ve talked to, what fascinates us about this year’s Presidential race is due to a couple of possibilities.

Maybe the fact that the United States actually chose whomever they want as President irrespective of “the colour if his skin, but the content of his character” (to paraphrase Martin Luther King). Maybe to some the ‘novelty’ of actually selecting the leader of your country as opposed to someone some party selects as the one to be your leader, is much more attractive and therefore attracts more attention. Maybe due to the fact that the person in question did not have to resort to making money on commissions and kickbacks from contracts to build his ‘war chest’ to campaign for this position, but just from getting ordinary people to believe in him (ultimately to be proven rightly or otherwise). Maybe its due to the fact that what impressed them in the fact that in making this choice, they actually felt good about making that choice, as opposed to making a choice simply because we need to punish the one in power like what we did in March 2008. Maybe it’s due to the fact that banal “support at all cost”, stupid statements are ridiculed over there as opposed to being carried on Page 1 in most mainstreams down here.

Whatever the reason, the biggest mistake UMNO is making is belittling the ‘interest’. In not recognising what is good in a successful campaign, it closes its eyes to what is needed by the citizen of a State. It shuts out what people are really hungry for. Basically, they simply are asking for a chance to make a difference in their lives. Something unfortunately the present leadership (if you can call it that) completely do not understand.

Yes We Can ... Boleh

President-elect Barack Hussein Obama ended his victory speech yesterday with this paragraph:

"This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we cant, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

“Yes We Can.”

The chant ringing from Grant Park, Chicago yesterday and at all of President-elect Obama’s rallies reminded all and sundry that faith in our own abilities to effect changes actually does bring change that we need.

It is kind of telling that self-confidence is not necessarily always misplaced as often told by those whose lives are spent being cynic and sceptics. I am not a complete optimistic person but sometimes I realised the lack of optimism is the one thing that most of time causes us to fail even before we start.

This picture in the New Straits Times struck me today,
Yes we can was rather interestingly translated as simply Boleh.

I guess then what our former PM, Tun Dr Mahathir was telling us is to have confidence in our abilities to make changes and do what needs to be done. All these years of the opposition making fun of ‘bolehland’ is probably simply a way of sapping our hope and our confidence to make a difference, to make the change that we need to make in our lives, our race and our nation.

We have been told that we cannot make these changes on the status quo, but one of the many things that the Mahathir era has told us, the status quo keeps changing as suited the times. I am not saying everything that was done in those 22 years was right but a large percentage was right for this country at that point in time.

Now is the time to make changes. We can’t allow for things to go the same way ever again. Not if care for our children. If we ever have any doubts, just keep whispering, Yes we can … or better still “memang BOLEH”. After all we had that earlier ... much earlier.

Terkenang Raya dulu-dulu

Salam all, after the various sandiwara murah and the 'make you throw up' news and snippets it would be nice to look forward to Raya. This year spending it in Kuala Kangsar is definitely something to look forward to.

It's always a special moment to spend Raya balik kampung. Somehow Raya in KL doesn't feel like Raya all that much. The atmosphere is too sterile. Pergi Masjid pun sebab besar sangat (Shah Alam), I end up catching only a few faces yang selalu jumpa masa tarawikh or those 'kampung-less" crowd or yang kampung dia kat KL (... "hang beranak kat Chow Kit ka" is my usual comment). But as the years go by, the usual faces yang kita selalu nampak kat masjid kampung pun dah makin tak ada. Yang pergi dulu dah tak nampak ... (kalau nampak haru jugak). Member-member yang kalah dengan bini pasal nak raya kat kampung pun tak nampak, come to think of it, ada le dekat bertahun-tahun tak nampak batang hidung depa.

Being melancholy ni macam teringat cerita Abdulla Rafi berHari Raya (karya Abang Mamat Khalid). Rasa macam Abdulla Rafi bila dah tua pulak.

Beraya lepas ke kubur pun dah start to run out of houses nak visit. Dulu kalau balik kubur dengan Tok, ada route compulsory yang kena lalu. Kena pergi rumah kawan2 Tok, adik beradik MakTok, great grand auntie dsb. Bila dah ramai tak ada ... lepas balik kubur ada drop by 3 rumah dah sampai rumah balik.

This might sound cruel, but one of the things I do not miss is budak sekolah Talang datang beraya. Dulu sebab Ayah jadi cikgu kat sana (yang agak popular jugak, if I do say so myself), tak berenti renti budak datang sampai rasa macam kita ni kena ikat kat sinki basuh pinggan. My brother pulak kerja jaga duit raya ... used to be 20sen dah 50 sen by end of 1982 (last raya sebelum belah ke Melbourne). He was good at jaga duit raya ... ingat muka sapa yang datang dua kali.

I have to apologise again to my brother (every Raya ... part ini jadi wajib), for completely finishing his stock of bunga api in 1982 yang dia simpan sebab sayang nak main. Just imagine how I completely finished it playing with my friends from Kulim sebab boring maut malam tu sebelum balik maktab. Nak make it up susah dah sikit sebab takut masuk lokap beli bunga api.

But nothing stays the same ... As it should not anyway. But sometimes ... I just wish a little bit of good old days remains. Maybe it's time to make this memorable for the kids so that they can remember 'their' good old days.