Tricia Yeoh

Chronology of events, quickly: (more to come later… let my boiling blood simmer a little… )

1. At the Melaka Customs Office, illegal timber is seized.
2. Jasin MP asks for the Customs officer to "close one eye" because he is helping the rakyat, or actually a Bumiputera company that is in trouble.
3. Lim Kit Siang, opposition leader, calls for a motion to investigate this suspicious incident.
4. Shahrir of the Back Bencher's Club does not reject the motion and resigns.
5. The whip accepts his resignation.
6. Back Bencher's Club wants their old chairman back, and arrange a meeting to re-elect Shahrir.
7. Prime Minister Pak Lah says "Toe the Line" people! Rules are rules. You MPs are not allowed to support any motion made by the Opposition. Shahrir stays out of the Malaysian BBC. 
8. Lim Kit Siang tries to table the motion again, this time in its proper form, doing it within the House itself – but is rejected. (The previous motion was conducted outside the House, and therefore not considered to be the right procedure.)
9. Binyu Sof Enterprise is the company involved in bringing in illegal timber. the Malacca-based company this year alone breached the law 14 times by bringing in sawn timber exceeding the 60-square-inch cross-section area limit permitted by the Malaysian Timber Council.
10. This Jasin MP admits that this company is the forwarding agency for this seized consignent of illegal timber.
11. He also says that "MPs are allowed to do business!"

Now, you tell me, who is walking the talk? Certainly not our leadership. What is the real meaning of transparency and an open government? Transparent enough to show that there's dirty business to be had, and yet nothing is done about it. Great interpretation of words….

Once again I say, the government is in dire need of language education. Give them some dictionaries and encyclopaedias within the House of Parliament.

Voltaire said, I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.

It disturbs me deeply to know that in two recent cases, this principle has been gravely undermined. How can we disguise ourselves as countries that are sincere in wanting an open and transparent government? I just shake my head at the sheer preposterous magnitude of recent events.

Case 1: The forced resignation of Back-Bencher's Club chairman, Shahrir.

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang tabled a motion in Parliament calling for a news report alleging that an unnamed MP had interfered with the work of the Malacca Customs Department to be referred to the Parliament Rights and Privileges Committee. In other words, he was highlighting a boo-boo, and was responding to the Prime Minister's call for an honest & trustworthy government. 

Backbencher's Club leader Shahrir chose not to reject the motion, and instead walked out & resigned consequently. Now this is the important part: Rules are rules. BN Members of Parliament are banned from supporting any motions tabled by the opposition. Is this not plain ridiculous? IF someone speaks forth the noble & plain truth, why can this not be supported? This ban casts a dark blanket over anything at all that the oppositionists speak up for. This essentially means that the mouths of any opposition are zipped up for good. That ears of the rest are plugged tightly even before anything is mentioned at all. 

"What it all boils down to, my friend…" is that the only reason anyone other than the main government exists in the House of Parliament is for a puppet show-and-tell. What's the point of having them there if their views and opinions are never going to be taken seriously? Where is the balance in the check-and-balance?

Case 2: The Arrest of James Gomez Down South

 I've written about it below, but this is a saddening blow to the fight for honour and truth. The principles of speaking up, defending the needy and poor are noble, Biblical (and Quranic as well I'm sure) causes that he, along with other Worker's Party candidates, campaigned long and hard for. If the man was speaking untruths about the country or its administration, then by all means reprimand the man. But if statements from anyone's mouths, whether they are in the PAP or SDP or WP, are truths, then boy will I stand up for them through and through. 

Show me what it is to stand up for what is true, just and honourable…

Because I can't see it, for the smog that layers my vision thinly…. and then some. 

One day after he failed to win in his constituency in the Singapore 6th May elections, James Gomez has been arrested by the authorities. The report can be viewed here. 

He was arrested for threatening the country's election officials. If found guilty of criminal intimidation, he could be put into jail for a total of seven years.
I have nothing to express but absolute disgust. Give a dog a bad name and hang him, so the old saying goes. In another version, it's give a dog a bad name, sue him, bankrupt him, squeeze him till he's dry and never allow him to return to the political scene. Ever. Khattam-shud.

Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. James Gomez's name will go down in history now, joining ranks with the likes of the Chee's and Jeya's. Only time will tell if this was a wise move by the government or not. Cyber-waves are more powerful than you think. What's that, now? 

Cyber-waves are powerful.  

Personal encounters with Orang Asli can reveal more than any article can tell you. 

Nenek Sipiu, formerly from Bukit Lanjan, says that it is extremely difficult to live in the homes currently being provided by the government. True, the government does provide shelter and water and a minimal allowance, but the allowance is insufficient to sustain their large families. The men find it difficult to get gainful employment in the city areas, having experience in much more communal, traditional planting jobs. When they cannot pay the water bills in time, water gets cut off immediately. Much more sensible is it for them to relocate to tinier and more obscure areas, set away from mainstream society. There, ground is fertile for plantation, water is freely available from surrounding rivers, odd jobs are easily found at nearby outskirt towns.

More recently, an article confirmed for the first time that Orang Asli do not have customary land rights. They only own the property on top of the land. What use is that? Ridiculous, aint it, that the Orang Asli (heck, the term itself means original people!!), the first natives of our land, do not own the very ground they live upon. There are close to 150,000 Orang Asli occupying 138,862 hectare of land in Peninsular Malaysia. Are we not as bad as the Australians who denied their Aborigines land rights? And the final insult, are they not the real Bumiputera? (princes of the earth) *cough*

See the full article that confirms no Orang Asli land rights here. 

Perhaps some people are in dire need of lessons. The Oxford Press could sponsor the Parliament a couple of hundred dictionaries and encyclopaedias. (note: while they're doing that, sponsor double the amount for us over in Malaysia..)

Then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said about his country: Singapore wants to be an Open Society in a Connected World.

Today, "they have made it illegal to campaign via blogging and text messaging during the elections", as stated in his interview with Malaysiakini here by Tan Wah Piow, Singaporean who is a leading human rights lawyer in London. Apparently being an open society does not equate being able to use the Internet freely. With policemen on the watch on computers, one wonders what kind of open connectivity he meant.