The Monarch Has No Power to Sack Any Member of The Cabinet Exco

By NH Chan

The reality is neither the King nor the Sultan has any power to sack the Prime Minister/Menteri Besar or the other cabinet ministers/executive councillors

I have divided this primer to a monarch’s powers in two sections.

Section One deals with the appointment of the Prime Minister/Menteri Besar and other Cabinet Ministers/Executive Councillors by a constitutional monarch.

Section Two will deal with the constitutional monarch’s power to dismiss the Prime Minister/Menteri Besar or other Ministers/Executive Councillors.

Apco and Najib: Beneath the PR veil

By Tian Chua

Today, Barisan Nasional parliamentarians will be gearing up to crucify Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim (Right) for his comments on Apco. The MPs might think that they are doing the BN government a favour by defending Najib and his high-flying consultancy company.

In the minds of most BN lawmakers, defending the government is equivalent of defending the country. By the same logic, people who criticise the government are simply traitors to Malaysia.

From national outcast to toast of London

By Mariam Mokhtar

ANWAR has charisma, but Nizar oozes sincerity. That was the verdict of a core of devoted followers after three successive days of lectures in London.

They were captivated by the oratory skills and engaging manner of Perak’s ousted mentri besar. He possesses indomitable spirit. He seems passionate in his political convictions. And he is not weighted down by personal baggage. Many opined that he is a future prime minister of Malaysia.

Nizar Jamaluddin’s talk at Imperial College, “The Challenges of Islam and Democracy in Malaysia”, was an impromptu event attended by 100 people, mostly Malaysians studying or working in England. They weren’t all Ipohites or Perakians; some were lured by curiosity.

Why M’sians should be fans of ‘Red Shirts’

By Keruah Usit

“We have no excuse for our present state of economic and social stagnation. It is because we have allowed [...] our institutional and political framework to be eroded, that all our advantages are not better realised,” Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said on March 23.

Razaleigh’s words of reason come from a lone voice in Umno’s wilderness. His reflections are invariably drowned out by more strident howls on the servile Utusan Melayu and RTM. Yet they ring true.

Malaysia has fallen behind neighbours Thailand and Indonesia in our share of foreign direct investment, the standards of our universities, press freedom and, as Razaleigh pointed out, the quality of our thoughts, words and deeds.

Are You Happy?

By Bunga Pakma

At last, a cool morning in the Klang Valley. Sure, we live right under the equator, and the tropics are supposed to be hot, but the past few weeks have unpleasantly scorching to a degree I can’t remember feeling before. That’s what you get when you cut the trees down. Global warming may complete the work and leave Malaysia a waste of bare clay and sand. Then we can have camels, which may please somebody. Fortunately, a huge thunderstorm broke last evening. What a show it was, too!

In less than a week comes April 1^st and the Feast of Fools. Thursday is not my slot on HU, yet I had hoped to write something silly in anticipation. Like the rainstorm after excessive heat, a burst of craziness brings relief after a spell of unremitting heavy seriousness.

Go dark for an hour to-night!

By Sim Kwang Yang

Dear all out there,

Let’s join the whole world and observe the World Earth Hour to-night by switching off all our lights in the house between 8.30 and 9.30 to-day.

The spectre of global warming is now threatening human kind.  We are Anak Sarawak, Bangsa Malaysia, but we are also citizens of the global village.  Pollution and Carbon emission know no national border, so we have to do our bit in our daily life to live a greener existence.  We must learn to reuse, reduce, and recycle.

Unfortunately, environment destruction on a massive scale is occurring in our backyard in the form of indiscriminate logging all over Sarawak.  Forests are heat pumps of the Earth, absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and releasing life-supporting oxygen back to mankind.  

Casting the internet wider in Sarawak

By Pak Bui

Our Hornbill Unleashed communal blog is a year old today, and has seen more than half a million hits. What can we contribute?

The internet has been a revolution in the spread of information. Indeed, the internet has contributed to revolutions in political life too. Two decades of the worldwide web have transformed the way we view politics and society.

A recent example can be found in Iran. After contentious election results were released last June, protestors used the internet to channel information to supporters, telling fellow Iranians where rallies were to be held. Later, images of dissidents being beaten and shot were transmitted to people around the world using Twitter and YouTube.

Malaysia’s invisible identity crisis

By Keruah Usit

One of Philip’s happiest days last year was when he finally received his identity card (IC). He had applied three times over the space of nine years, and had received a reply only to his last attempt. Altogether, he made six long, and expensive, trips from his remote home village to the nearest district office.

The Sarawak Gazette records that Philip’s Orang Ulu ancestors had settled in a valley in Sarawak for over a century. His parents showed me their marriage certificate provided by local village elders, dated before the formation of Malaysia. But they could not obtain a birth certificate when Philip was born.

Philip’s concern is not for himself, given that he is already 43, and a life-long farmer. He is not likely to follow the growing exodus of young people from his village seeking work in the towns, in factories in Johor or Kuala Lumpur, or on offshore oil rigs in Sarawak and further afield.

Of sodomy, caning and potato chips

By Art Harun

Snacking on the difference in attitudes and competencies between the English Court of Appeal and the Malaysian Court of Appeal.

Some months ago, my learned friends, Fahri Azzat and Amer Hamzah appeared in the Court of Appeal to argue an appeal. They were representing a man who was found guilty of sodomising a boy. He was sentenced to 60 years of imprisonment and 22 strokes of caning although he maintained that the sodomy acts were consensual.

During the appeal, the two lawyers brought up constitutional issues which have never ever been brought up before. As these issues were never brought up before, it follows that there has never been any judicial pronouncement on those constitutional issues. Those issues are:

Orang Asli community: Genocide in Malaysia?

“Orang Asli: Genocide in Malaysia?

This letter was written to malaysiakini to raise awareness of the plight of Orang Asli, and the brutal treatment they receive from the federal government.

 

The horrific treatment of the Orang Asli is mirrored in the treatment of the indigenous peoples of Sabah and Sarawak. We should all improve our awareness of the evils of racism and corruption.

At the heart of the issue, the Orang Asli and other Malaysians are all simply people, simply human beings.”

By HU Editor

Look who maligned our rulers?

By Jiwi Kathaiah @ MalaysiaKini

Seventeen years ago in 1993, Umno, the promoter and defender of the institution of Malay rulers, savaged the sultans when it decided to strip them of their immunity by way of amending the Federal Constitution.

Umno leaders led by their then president and premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad justified the move on the grounds that “the amendments were necessary to protect the rulers and preserve the institution of the rulers as constitutional monarchs.”

The Real People Claim Their Own

By Bunga Pakma

Three cheers for the Orang Asli! Thursday morning I read Malaysiakini’s account of their protest in Putrajaya with admiration and delight. The Orang Asli have for too long been the most neglected peoples on the Peninsula, but now they have let us all know they are really here.

Of course, not a word of it got into the Desperate Straits Times.

It took major guts—and I’m talking about moral and intellectual courage as well as simple will—for those 2,000 to conceive, organize and carry out that trip to Malaysia’s faux-Versailles. Although by nature all human beings are prone to aggression, the various Orang Asli peoples have never relished confrontation. Throughout their history they have underplayed competition and cultivated harmony and cooperation among themselves. If you live in the forest, a fondness for discord is distinctly maladaptive for survival. The Law of the Jungle, as the novelist Paul Theroux says, is helping one another.

Orang Asli, Orang Asal, and Orang Atasan

By Pak Bui

“Orang Asli” is a loose description for the indigenous peoples – the earliest dwellers – of the peninsula.

Most of the 18 groups making up the Orang Asli live on rural lands, on the fringes of forests, or less commonly, in deep forest.

They number only 147,000. They have been swamped by 26 million other Malaysians – all ‘immigrants’ or ‘pendatang’, people who arrived later on these shores.

The peaceful march on Putrajaya of 2,000 Orang Asli, bearing banners, traditional headgear and costumes, and a petition containing 9,071 signatures, was a remarkable event. The March 17 protest signaled great individual courage on the part of each participant. It also demanded highly co-ordinated marshalling, including 40 buses ferrying marchers from seven states to the capital.

There were no stirring speeches in the vein of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’, delivered at the historic anti-racism march in Washington in 1963.

Sarawakians terrified by street crimes

By Rosita Maja

Last week, March 11, on the streets of Kuching, three schoolgirls were attacked and stabbed, leaving one dead and two seriously injured.

It is indeed horrifying that these grievous crimes of stabbing and murder can happen on the street in a town, in broad daylight.

We can clearly recall that last year, incidents of rape of school girls on the street also aroused great fear and anxiety among the people.

It seems to indicate that offenders are breaking the law at will, and committing crimes without giving a damn about the existence of the police force in our country. Street crimes are happening as if law and order does not exist in Malaysia.

What is at the root of the problem? Is it that people do not fear the police here? Or can it be because people do not sense the presence of police around them?

Was Anwar’s sacking from cabinet lawful?

By NH Chan

11 years ago, the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim was sacked from the cabinet. An incisive look at the Federal Court decision that the sacking was lawful and why it was correct in law.

On Tuesday March 9, 2010 the Sun reports:

Federal Court: Anwar’s sacking from cabinet lawful

Putrajaya: The sacking of Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim as deputy prime minister and finance minister 11 years ago was lawful, the Federal Court ruled yesterday.

Court of Appeal President Tan Sri Alauddin Mohd Sheriff and Federal Court judges Datuk Wira Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusof and Datul Abdull Hamid Embong unanimously dismissed Anwar’s final appeal for a declaration that his dismissal from his cabinet posts in September 2, 1998 was unconstitutional.

Legalised paedophilia: Malaysian child marriages

By Mariam Mokhtar

WHEN I was ten, I struggled with hard maths. To a Kelantanese girl of similar age today, arithmetic will be the least of her problems.

Females in Kelantan are already hard-pressed by the lack of educational and job opportunities. Now there is another problem to add to the list. Girls are prevented from having a proper childhood and will instead, be married-off.

Last week, we read about the marriage of two 10 year-old girls to 40 year-old men. This is commonplace in sub-Saharan Africa or Afghanistan. Sadly, these occurred in Kelantan, which incidentally has the nation’s highest rate of incest and HIV/AIDS cases.

Why the political tsunami never reached Sarawak

By Keruah Usit @ MalaysiaKini

Malaysians recognise that Sabah and Sarawak now hold the position of kingmakers in national politics. In the wake of the political tsunami of March 8, Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) are now finely balanced in the peninsula, even if both Umno and PKR are still struggling to make sense of the debris left behind.

Yet this deluge of political awakening and intrigue seems to have missed most parts of Sarawak altogether. A vast chasm still exists, in income, education and internet access, between Sarawak’s 40% urban and 60% rural people.

According to 2005 figures from the Chief Minister’s Department and the Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission, only 9.6% of Sarawakians own personal computers, compared to 49.3% in Kuala Lumpur and 19.6% nationwide.

Warrior spirit may save the Iban soul

By Bunga Pakma

What is Dayak culture? A week ago I was reading the stories of the Native American writer Sherman Alexie and marvelling at the faith and tenacity with which (as we say) “Red”  Indians have held on to the essentials of their identity as a people. As I read, I could not help comparing Indians to Dayaks, and wondering what features of way of life and character Dayaks have maintained, practiced and preserved from their distant past.

And, indeed, I wondered what form these traditions now take. Culture stands still as little as anything else in human life. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said “One cannot step into the same river twice.” All things are in flux. Even rivers change their courses, but so slowly in terms of human time we can speak of a river’s identity through many ages. A people’s culture thus resembles a river.

JUMPING FROGS

By Maximus Kho

There appeared to be something akin to “a gauntlet thrown” for a reply to the articles on jumping politicians herein and how to in fact stem the tide.

If I may, I would like to  just take a moment to pause and state, in response, a truism.

The truism is “Qui tacet consentiret”: the maxim of the law is “Silence gives consent”. If therefore you wish to construe what my silence betokened, you must construe that I consented.

Briefly, one shouldn’t be too bothered if one doesn’t elicit the required response, as silence is a response in itself.

Should Sarawakian Dayaks follow Hindraf’s lead?

By Pak Bui

Hindraf, or the Hindu Rights Action Force, has left a huge impact on national politics since its inception, and failed attempt at registration, three years ago. Hindraf’s courageous, and seminal, public demonstration on November 25, 2007, opened the doors for many other rallies to follow, including 1BlackMalaysia.

The street protest by more than 5,000 protestors catalysed the sluggish process of political awakening of Malaysian Indian and other voters. Hindraf’s “direct action” tactics then played a significant role in the surprising results of the 12^th General Election four months later, handing the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) a humiliating defeat.

Many open-minded Malaysians were impressed by the daring Hindraf rally. Of course, at least an equal number of conservative Malaysians were incensed by the public show of dissent and defiance, leading them to spout stupid remarks like “street protests interfere with traffic and my shopping”.

Can Sarawak voters avoid a plague of frogs?

By Apang

Ever since my last article in HU  on candidates driven by ideology and principle, there has been some feedback. I was hoping there would be an article to counter what I had written, or to contribute towards the debate, but none has appeared.

Even so, because of the upcoming Sarawak State Election, I would like to explore this issue as much as possible, instead of waiting for “others” to write on the matter.

There are a few obvious questions I am raising in this exploratory piece and they include:

-        How can anyone ever know a candidate will turn into a frog?

Heart of the matter, anyone?

By Sim Kwang Yang

Writing is a lonely business. You bang on the computer keyboard and imagine an audience to whom you are trying to communicate your ideas. With my problematic mind, I also ponder, as I write, what communication means.

Writing can also be a painful process, if one is serious about it. There is always that deadline, by which I mean the approaching date when you feel pretty dead if you have not found anything to write about. It is a little like feeling pregnant without a foetus inside.

There is joy sometimes, like beating a deadline. Then, it feels like emptying your bowel after having suffered from chronic constipation for a week. The trouble with that is that the mental constipation would soon start again.

Again, you search desperately for a topic to write about. Such is the untold misery of a writer who has to contribute a column every week.

Rosmah: Will she? Won’t she?

By Mariam Mokhtar

THE Penan girls who were raped can be considered collateral damage for the Sarawak government and its state-sanctioned timber companies. The illegitimate children and the exploited Penan community are mere side-effects in the push for progress.

It is no longer about the Penan girls and the timber workers who raped them. Actually, it is about the rape of our system of administration of justice.

Recently, three Sarawak women activists handed a petition to the prime minister’s wife in an attempt to engage her support in bringing justice to the Penans.

This unprecedented action of approaching Rosmah Mansor during a state banquet will undoubtedly raise questions of breaches of security during these official functions. Might heads roll because of an unguarded moment by protection officers, when three ‘concerned individuals’ successfully presented a letter and a sheaf of documents to Rosmah?

Wrath of coconuts, oil palm

By Sim Kwang Yang

By and large, many upright citizens of Malaysia would eye migrant workers with disdain at best, and with suspicion, fear, and vigilance at worst.

Somehow, this motley assembly of foreigners stand out among us like a sore thumb, forming an underclass apart, necessary, and yet menacing somehow. The immediate instinct of the body politics is to reject them, like a human body would reject an alien cell. Yet, in the final analysis, decision makers have to make this concession that foreign workers are indeed needed, and so they go about the business of how best to live with this massive presence of an alien workforce.

The business of government – at least to those who hold the reign of power – is to control things and people. So far, government control of foreign workers have been nothing but messy. Many departments and agencies have been roped in, and even silly RELA members have jumped on the wagon, sometimes with disastrous results.

Women’s Day centenary helps us reflect

By Rosita Maja

International Women’s Day began in 1910 in Copenhagen, Denmark with the aim to build support for voting rights for women worldwide.

International Women’s Day this year marks its first one hundred years. The International theme for this Centenary celebration is “Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all.”

The International Women’s day is a reminder of the need for togetherness, for men and women to work alongside one another, in order to build a better life for everybody.

There is a direct relationship between peace, justice and respect for human rights. As long as women are denied basic human rights anywhere in the world, there can be no justice and no peace.

Recognition of women’s equal rights, therefore, is an essential requirement for the creation of strong, sustainable and stable societies.

Demon in the soul

By Sim Kwang Yang

A FRIEND confessed to me over a cup of Chinese tea that his bouts of depression were returning with a vengeance. I was alarmed. It did sound like a cry for help, or for attention at least.

My 51-year-old friend should know. He has just recovered somewhat from an acute attack not long ago, after some medical treatment. But he did not like all those drugs that were prescribed, and now his depression has come back to haunt his nights and days.

He hinted darkly at some childhood experience as the root cause of his inner turmoil. I suggested psychiatric treatment. Perhaps some Malaysians doctors steeped in Western theory of psychiatry can help ease his sufferings, though I have not the faintest idea where such a doctor can be found. He did mumble something about hypnotism as a therapeutic tool.

Proud Sarawak natives will defend their identity

By Bunga Pakma

You have heard, Reader, I am sure, of occasions when it has rained frogs. I mean that literally.  Every now and again, a rainstorm passes over some part of the world, and frogs fall out of it.

It sure has been raining frogs here.  One wonders what power of suction whisked them up and off from their ponds and then dumped them on the roadside.  If Aesop were still around, I’m sure he’d be glad to favour us with a fable about our ranapluent climate, but you’ll have to make do with my own.

Another popular myth describes a frog in a container of cool water. The water is heated ever so slowly; the frog does not sense the rise in temperature and boils to death without moving.  Fables don’t have to have a moral, so I won’t give one. I do think though that as frogs can’t survive without water—they live in it—politicians have to live in an electorate.  They can take the hint, and that’s all I’m going to say.

Must logging companies support rape, lies and bigamy?

By Pak Bui

 

Logging has brought many changes to the lives of the rural communities in Sarawak. The Sarawak government says these changes constitute development.

The logging companies have introduced dirt tracks, mighty machines and many thousands of Iban, Orang Ulu and Chinese workers into our forests.

They have carried oil slicks and cascades of mud into our rivers. Alcohol and sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, gonorrhoea and HIV have also followed the influx of these loggers.

The logging companies have ferried in gangsters, and sometimes a police presence, when the natives are restless and blockade the logging roads to protest the loss of their land.

It’s getting hotter

By Sim Kwang Yang

By and large, Malaysians seem to be pretty inward looking when it comes to their political worldview, due perhaps to their immersion within the sea of their domestic issues of race and religion. Comments and debates on foreign affairs and international relations are few and far between, at least on Malaysiakini.

Finally, Malaysiakini has also opened up a World Section that carries foreign news, but I wonder how many hits those stories will get from readers, compared to stories on BTN or news about political parties.

his particular domain of our national life. We are a small country without the kind of clout to influence major international events, unlike the United States or China. People may feel that whatever happens on the other side of the world, there is very little Malaysia can do about it. 

Smart Alecs and NCR

By Empire State of Mind

Education is one subject we keep talking about, and keep getting confused about.

It is common to see brochures and advertisements of universities and colleges in the media, telling you of how you might have a brighter future if you choose to take a particular course in their institution. Then you will see young and vibrant people, presumably models posing as students, adorning the advertisements, with a hip slogan of the institution placed in the background.

This effort is made in the hope that young people will be attracted to study in their college or university. I suppose many would register for the courses offered, because they like the advertisement. Thus, we can conclude that one reason some young people go for tertiary education is they are persuaded by their perception of education.

Sarawak PKR aspiring candidates: hands up, socialists or NGO people?

By Apang

Former PKR secretary-general Salehuddin Hashim has predicted more resignations from PKR elected reps, after the latest PKR loss of former Penang Gerakan youth chief, Nibong Tebal MP Tan Tee Beng. Salehuddin has also just resigned from PKR.

I am sure many rakyat who have longed for much-needed change in federal and state governments will be taken aback, to put it mildly. They must be surprised, not by the latest resignations, but the prediction of more to come by Salehuddin, once the kingpin of Anwar Ibrahim’s inner circle.

I am not taken aback. Instead, I would prefer to urge the public to swallow the bitter pill that history has taught us. That is, change is a process that requires a critical time factor. Furthermore, as I had written earlier in HU, I see these latest developments as part of a ‘cleansing phase’.

Sarawak dams chief under media scrutiny

By MalaysiaKini

The chief executive officer of the company overseeing a massive dam project on Penan tribal land in Sarawak has come under scrutiny in his native Norway over alleged violations of indigenous rights.

Citing a Norwegian newspaper report, tribal peoples’ advocacy group Survival International (Survival) said Sarawak Energy Bhd’s new CEO Torstein Sjotveit has been questioned about the impact the project would have on the Penan.

Sjotveit, who became SEB’s CEO on Nov 1 last year, claimed the Penan had been consulted, the Dagbladet reported on Feb 22, and that his company was complying with UN rules.

The UN countenances developments on indigenous peoples’ land only after their free, prior and informed consent has been obtained.

Rosmah, PM’s wife, faces questions on Penan rapes

By Pak Bui

PM Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor was handed a letter by three Sarawakian women during her recent visit to Kuching. The three women called on her to take action to address Sarawak women’s rights, following the government report of Penan schoolgirls and women raped in Baram.

The three women had been following the heart-breaking stories of Penan girls and women sexually abused by employees of logging companies, after the companies had invaded the Penans’ forests.

The three individuals, Malay, Iban and Chinese, went up to Rosmah Mansor while she was having a meal with “high-ranking” Sarawak women, including Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department Fatimah Abdullah and Senator Empiang Jabu.

The letter from the Sarawakian women included attachments of press articles, in a folder with a white ribbon on its cover, symbolising the campaign to end violence against women in Malaysia.