Filed under: Misc
April 2, 2011 • 8:57 pm 4
Salah faham ahli Majlis Syura PAS Pusat
Entri kali ini ialah entri muqadimah kepada artikel lain yang insha-Allah akan saya cuba karangkan nanti. Saya hanya mahu merekodkan fakta sahaja kali ini, dan akan memberi hanya satu komentar pendek di penghujung. Untuk artikel yang penuh nanti saya telah berjanji dengan Ustaz Zaharudin bahawa saya akan emailkan kepada beliau dulu bahagian yang saya akan quote dari beliau.
Saya baru balik dari Konvensyen Profesional Muda Melayu Kebangsaan yang diadakan di Kolej Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Selangor. Saya menjadi panelis dalam forum yang diadakan sebelah petang tadi, bersama-sama Dr Hasan Mad (Majlis Permuafakatan Melayu), Dr Zuhdi Marzuki (Universiti Malaya) dan Ustaz Zaharudin Mohamad (Ahli Majlis Syura PAS Pusat).
Saya amat tertarik dengan pembentangan, dan seterusnya kesalahan, Ustaz Zaharudin yang merupakan ahli Majlis Syura PAS Pusat. Beliau menggunakan beberapa slaid Powerpoint untuk menunjukkan betapa pengaliran harta negara perlu diperbaiki. Satu slaid yang dihurai agak panjang oleh beliau menunjukkan pengaliran yang sebegini:
- rakyat mempunyai harta
- harta itu diambil oleh kerajaan melalui pelbagai cara (cth: cukai)
- harta disalurkan kepada Khazanah Nasional Berhad
- Khazanah menggunakan harta itu untuk menjadikan golongan peniaga kaya
- golongan peniaga itu dilabelkan sebagai golongan “capitalist”
Tajuk yang terpampang di atas slaid itu mendakwa bahawa itulah sistem kapitalis.
Saya tidak berpeluang untuk bersuara selepas beliau menunjukkan slaid itu tetapi saya berbual dengan beliau semasa minum teh. Saya bertanya, “Apa yang Ustaz gunakan sebagai definisi kapitalisme dan apa bezanya dengan sosialisme?”.
Ini jawapan beliau:
- kapitalisme dan sosialisme dua-dua mengambil dari rakyat dan kemudian mengagihkan harta itu.
- bezanya ialah cara pengagihan
- kapitalisme ialah satu sistem ekonomi bersifat “top-down”
- maksiat ekonomi dalam kapitalisme ialah ia menghasilkan monopoli
- kesalahan kapitalisme dalam kaca mata Islam ialah ia mengongkong rakyat
Sikap cuba menunjuk tahu sebeginilah yang menyebabkan sesetengah pemimpin PAS ditertawakan oleh masyarakat. Saya cuba memperbetulkan bahawa sistem yang beliau sebut itu sebenarnya bukan sistem kapitalisme yang berteraskan pasaran bebas, tetapi sebenarnya sosialisme berteraskan pengawalan pasaran. Tetapi nampaknya usaha saya untuk menyampaikan pembetulan beberapa ayat ditolak dengan pelbagai alasan. Saya cuma meminta satu perkara sahaja, iaitu, tukar semua perkataan “kapitalis” dalam slaid itu kepada perkatan “sosialis”. Kandungan slaid itu rasanya dah betul tetapi terma yang digunakan salah seratus peratus.
Sistem top-down ialah sosialis! Kapitalis mengamalkan sistem bottom up. Dan kapitalis mahukan agar kerajaan TIDAK mengambil dari rakyat. Hanya sosialis yang mahukan sedemikian.
Untuk huraian lebih terperinci, sila rujuk Econlib. Untuk huraian santai yang kurang terperinci, sila lawati http://capitalism.org/.
Dengan rendah hati saya mendoakan agar Ustaz Zaharudin terbuka hatinya untuk membetulkan pandangan beliau kerana beliau merupakan ahli Majlis Syura PAS Pusat. Jangan pula Majlis Syura PAS Pusat membuat keputusan yang salah kerana dipandu oleh pandangan yang amat jauh dari kebenaran.
Filed under: Malaysia, Personal, capitalism, kapitalisme, Majlis Syura PAS Pusat, PAS, socialism
March 19, 2011 • 12:36 pm 0
Japan – Disaster hacks should stick to the facts
By Bill Durodie, PhD, Singapore
As if the twin calamities of a huge earthquake followed by a devastating tsunami were not enough, much of the coverage and commentary relating to recent events in Japan has displayed a distasteful desire to project a third – nuclear – catastrophe onto the situation.
It is almost as if there is no disaster too big today that it cannot be made worse – or at least imagined so – by an army of self-styled disaster specialists in search of salacious copy. These variously seek to draw out an array of pre-determined conclusions – from the supposed moral lessons to be drawn from societies held to be developing too far or too fast, to assumptions about the presumed fallibility of technology.
And all this, despite the actual evidence emanating from Fukushima consistently pointing to the reality of its being a relatively localised problem; one being addressed by a small number of dedicated professionals whose courage in truly risking it all for the benefit of everyone else we should seriously respect.
The self-oriented projections of certain commentators – many, but not exclusively, halfway around the globe from the site of the incident – reflects the sad emergence of a confused culture today that always starts from the question: “What does it mean for me?”
This is the very opposite of the humane disposition best exemplified by the majority of Japanese people whose calm dignity, fortitude and cooperativeness at this time we could all do to learn from.
Some ill-informed invective has gone so far to suggest that this is what we should come to expect in an age when – driven by climate change or human development – natural disasters will become more frequent or intense.
Such hacks could do with learning a little more history before reaching for their keyboards. Worse or equivalent earthquakes, both in terms of severity and human impact, have been recorded going back over 500 years.
That these are more costly today is a measure of how far we have actually progressed. For the truth is, that in any other period and in most other countries, such an episode would have cost considerably more lives than they have here.
It is a testament to Japan’s remarkable development and resilience that this was not the case. This development relied at base on the provision of plentiful quantities of energy – much of it nuclear.
That anti-nuclear groups are using this event as a vehicle to promote their pre-existing agenda is hardly surprising.
In almost all crisis situations today, there is a small army of risk entrepreneurs who seek to benefit by using particular incidents to confirm conclusions they held in advance, even – as is the case here – when the real evidence flies in the face of their theories.
To give credence to these, as some Western governments appear to have done, by enacting a moratorium on nuclear power generation, is to pander to populist prejudice in a way that may yet prove far more costly than any future mishap.
It is equivalent to taking at face value the gratuitous text message rumours that have also been circulating recently, and saying that their existence somehow proves their validity and the need to pay credence to them.
In fact, the reverse is true. Now, more than ever, such views should be robustly rebutted.
People’s fears are not simply based in fact. Outlooks are shaped over protracted periods, determined by a vast number of social, cultural and political variables, such as the impact on people’s imaginations of books, television programmes and films that project dystopian visions of the present and the future, as well as their interpretation of the various forces shaping their lives, such as presumptions as to whether we live in a particularly dangerous world, or whether we should trust strangers and the authorities charged with ensuring our well-being.
That individuals succumb to the contemporary climate of cultural pessimism may be understandable. Thus the huge demand for Geiger counters in Germany, a country not renowned for major tremors. But that the authorities act accordingly and make the knee-jerk gesture to close down half its power plants is blinkered in the extreme, and points to their own inner crisis of resolve and direction.
It is indeed sad that, at such times, rather than supporting people in need, some focus more on projecting their puerile fantasies and latent prejudices onto the situation, and thereby ignore the real demands of the situation.
Bill Durodie is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and an Associate Fellow of the International Security Programme at Chatham House in London.
February 25, 2011 • 10:36 am 0
Lagi mengenai Harakah
Beberapa orang menghubungi saya untuk memberi pandangan mengenai tulisan saya yang lalu bertajuk “Di sebalik kena buang dari Harakah“. Nada komentar yang diberi berbeza berdasarkan siapa yang memberikan pandangan.
Kebanyakan yang menghubungi saya mengatakan bahawa mereka sudah lama tahu mengenai masalah cantas mencantas dalam PAS. Dan nama Idris Ahmad timbul banyak kali dalam isu “cantas” ini.
Satu lagi kumpulan membantah keras tindakan saya menulis mengenai hal ini. Alasan mereka memang boleh di agak – wala’, intima’, sirr, isu dalaman tanzim, adab berjemaah, adab bermesyuarat, dan lain-lain yang biasa di dengar. Sudah pasti mereka yang terpalit akan mengungkapkan kalimah-kalimah berbahasa Arab seperti itu untuk menghujahkan bahawa nama mereka mesti dikekalkan bersih agar orang menganggap mereka suci murni dan wajib dipatuhi tanpa rasa was was.
Saya dah pun menulis mengenai masalah ini seawal tahun 2007 lagi di sini “The tukang urut amongst us“.
Oh, satu lagi, saya mahu tegaskan juga bahawa Harakah mempunyai kuasa penuh untuk menamatkan kolum saya atau sesiapa sahaja. Sebagai tuan punya, itu hak pentadbiran Harakah dan menghormati sepenuhnya hak itu. Yang saya ceritakan ialah sebab kenapa ia berlaku. Seperti mana Harakah berhak menyiarkan berita mengenai orang lain dan orang atasan PAS berhak menceritakan mengenai orang lain, maka orang lain pun ada hak bercerita mengenai Harakah dan mengenai orang atasan PAS. Dan sudah pasti untuk membolehkan pembaca faham latar belakang sebenar di sebalik isu ini, sejarahnya perlu dijelaskan dari awal.
Filed under: Personal
February 20, 2011 • 1:41 pm 16
Disebalik kena buang daripada Harakah
(Nota tambahan 2 jam selepas komen ini ditulis: Oleh kerana dalam masa tak sampai dua jam komen ini telah mendapat sekitar 600 hits, saya rasa wajar saya menambah sedikit komen kecil. Para pembaca perlu ingat bahawa komen saya di bawah mungkin berat sebelah dan memihak kepada saya sahaja, kerana saya yang menulisnya. Untuk berlaku adil, para pembaca perlu memeriksa dahulu pandangan daripada para penama yang saya sebutkan dalam komen ini. Bagaimanapun, perbualan saya dengan Lutfi yang saya nukilkan di bawah adalah berdasarkan catatan saya yang hampir secara verbatim)
Kolum pertama saya dalam Harakah diterbitkan pada 26 November 2010, selepas saya berbincang dengan Ahmad Lutfi Othman, Ketua Pengarang akhbar itu pada 11 November 2010 (Klik di sini untuk membaca artikel pertama saya dalam kolum “Cabaran Idea”)
Nampaknya penglibatan saya dengan Harakah merupakan antara perkhidmatan yang paling pendek yang pernah saya lakukan.
Pada jam 7pm 18 Februari 2011, saya menerima SMS daripada Lutfi berbunyi “kolum saudara di harakah – ada masalah timbul, elok jumpa utk jelaskan hal ini.”
Saya membalas mengatakan perbualan telefon pun sudah mencukupi. Dan, pada jam 10.15pm malam yang sama, saya secara rasminya dibuang daripada menjadi kolumnis akhbar tersebut. (Klik di sini untuk membaca artikel terakhir kolum “Cabaran Idea”)
Sebenarnya saya tidak menerima satu sen pun daripada akhbar tersebut. Jadi mungkin lebih tepat jika dikatakan saya dibuang daripada kerja sukarela untuk akhbar PAS itu. Niat asal mahu membantu setakat terdaya, tapi akhirnya kena tendang pula!
Lutfi menerima arahan daripada Idris Ahmad, Ketua Penerangan PAS Pusat untuk menamatkan kolum saya. Saya dimaklumkan ada beberapa orang tidak bersetuju saya diberikan kolum tetap.
Semasa perbualan saya dengan Lutfi, kelihatan seolah-olah artikel saya yang disiarkan pada 7 Februari merupakan salah satu masalah utama (klik di sini).
Artikel itu menceritakan mengenai satu seminar anjuran IDEAS di UKM pada 25 Januari 2011, yang dirasmikan oleh Dato’ Saifuddin Abdullah. Artikel itu juga menyentuh satu lagi majlis anjuran IDEAS pada 8 Februari untuk menyambut ulang tahun kelahiran Almarhum Tunku Abdul Rahman dan juga ulang tahun pertama penubuhan IDEAS. Ada beberapa orang yang tidak senang hati apabila ada penulisan dalam Harakah yang memberi promosi kepada “program UMNO”.
Saya tidak pasti pula program mana yang mereka maksudkan sebagai “program UMNO”. Semua yang saya tulis adalah mengenai program IDEAS.
Tetapi, yang paling ironis ialah komentar oleh panelis majlis IDEAS pada 8 Februari telah dijadikan bahan muka depan Harakah minggu itu. Nampaknya apabila kita mempromosi program itu, maka ianya salah. Tetapi bila program itu ada “mata” yang boleh mereka gunakan untuk politik murahan, terhegeh-hegeh pula letak di muka depan!
Saya perlu jelaskan di sini bahawa perbualan 15 minit saya dengan Lutfi sebenarnya tidak dapat mengenalpasti secara tepat artikel mana yang menjadi puncanya atau jika ada mana-mana satu kesilapan dalam penulisan saya yang menjadi sebab utama. Ini kerana sebelum artikel bertarikh 7 Februari itu disiarkan, telah dua kali Idris Ahmad memberi wahyu kepada Harakah mengenai kolum saya.
Oleh kerana itu, kedua-dua kami, iaitu saya dan Lutfi, beranggapan bahawa wahyu daripada Idris Ahmad itu sebenarnya bukanlah kerana mana-mana perenggan tertentu, tetapi lebih disebabkan isu personaliti dan sejarah.
Sejarah itu bermula dengan penyertaan saya dalam Parti Konservatif Britain pada tahun 2005, semasa masih memegang jawatan Mursyid Al-Hizbul Islami UK & Eire (HIZBI). Sebagai Mursyid, saya mempengerusikan Majlis Syura Pusat HIZBI.
Beberapa orang ahli Majlis Syura pada waktu itu membantah penyertaan saya dalam Parti Konservatif kerana bagi mereka ini menimbulkan persoalan mengenai ke mana wala’ saya. Bagi mereka yang biasa dengan sistem dalam PAS, isu wala’ merupakan senjata utama parti untuk memastikan semua ahlinya mengikut sepenuhnya arahan orang atasan. Jika berlaku sesuatu bantahan, maka yang bersalah ialah mereka yang tidak wala’, dan si pemimpin pula biasanya selamat.
Dua orang yang amat berkeras membantah ialah Aminulraasyid Yatiban dan Raja Ahmad Iskandar Raja Yaacob. Sejak awal lagi mereka berbincang bagaimana untuk menyegerakan rombakan Majlis Syura supaya saya tidak lagi menjadi Mursyid.
Hasrat itu tercapai dalam mesyuarat Majlis Syura Pusat pada 8 April 2006 di Bewley Hotel, Manchester. Mesyuarat itu berakhir dengan Aminulraasyid berjaya mengambil alih jawatan Mursyid dengan sokongan kuat daripada Raja Ahmad Iskandar.
Mesyuarat itu juga dimaklumkan bahawa rupanya kedua-dua mereka telah terlebih dahulu menghubungi beberapa orang pemimpin PAS di Malaysia untuk mendapatkan sokongan. Aminulraasyid telah menghubungi Haron Taib dan Raja Ahmad Iskandar telah menghubungi Ketua Dewan Pemuda Pas Pusat Salahudin Ayub. Pada waktu itu Idris Ahmad ialah Timbalan Ketua Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat.
Sehingga hari ini saya berpegang dengan pendapat bahawa mereka yang berada di luar negara bebas menyertai mana-mana pertubuhan yang mereka mahu. PAS tidak relevan dalam membuat keputusan mengenai hal sebegitu.
Tetapi jelas sekali golongan yang berpegang dengan fikrah kolektivisme amat kuat dalam PAS sehingga sebarang tindakan yang berbentuk individu boleh dihalang terus atas alasan “tidak wala’ ”. Mereka memang tidak berpuas hati apabila saya membantah keputusan mereka.
Inilah punca asal masalah yang menyumbang kepada penamatan kolum saya dalam Harakah. Nampaknya dendam itu berterusan sehingga sekarang!
Saya memang telah memaklumkan kepada Lutfi mengenai kemungkinan dendam itu akan timbul kembali jika saya diberikan kolum tetap. Tetapi Lutfi sebagai seorang gentleman berkata bahawa kita patut cuba dahulu.
Sehingga saat ini saya terus menghormati Lutfi sebagai seorang editor yang berprinsip. Masalahnya ialah dia bekerja di bawah indvidu-individu yang mempunyai kepentingan politik, sehingga kebebasan beliau terkongkong. Saya juga tidak mahu menyusahkan beliau kerana kesihatan beliau yang sedang terganggu, maka sebab itulah apabila beliau memaklumkan wahyu Idris Ahmad itu, saya tidak membantah langsung.
Pada peringkat awalnya, beliau ada menasihatkan agar saya tidak menulis perkara yang sensitif bagi PAS. Tetapi saya bertegas bahawa mereka tersalah jika menyangka bahawa saya akan menulis mengenai kebaikan Pas dan keburukan UMNO setiap masa. PAS bukan malaikat dan UMNO bukan iblis. Kedua-duanya ada kebaikan dan keburukan. Maka setiap kebaikan perlu dipuji dan keburukan perlu diperbaiki.
Pemberhentian ini menunjukkan masih ada yang tidak senang apabila ada orang yang mengatakan bahawa PAS tidak maksum.
Serba sedikit saya gusar juga apa yang akan berlaku terhadap kebebasan akhbar dan kebebasan bersuara di Malaysia jika individu-individu seperti beberapa kerat pemimpin PAS ini mengambil alih tampuk pemerintahan negara. Adakah mereka akan memberi kebebasan hanya bagi kaki ampu sahaja tetapi membunuh sesiapa yang tidak bersetuju dengan mereka?
Saya sebelum ini pernah mempunyai kolum dalam Utusan Malaysia yang bernama “Wau Bebas”. Tetapi saya berhenti menulis untuk Utusan kerana saya tidak gembira dengan nada editorial yang mereka gunakan. Bezanya, di Utusan, mereka hanya mengedit perenggan-perenggan yang mereka tidak suka. Jika ada artikel saya yang terlalu sensitif, maka mereka tidak menerbitkannya. Tetapi mereka tidak pula menamatkan kolum saya. Saya yang berhenti sendiri.
Sebaliknya, dalam akhbar Harakah milik parti “Islam” pula, apabila mereka tidak bersetuju, maka mereka terus bunuh! Nampaknya perbezaan antara PAS dan UMNO kini menjadi semakin ketara.
Filed under: Freedom & Liberty, Malaysia, Personal, harakah
February 15, 2011 • 3:58 pm 0
Who is John Galt?
The long awaited movie is coming soon!
Check out the movie’s website and read more about the book.
Filed under: Freedom & Liberty
February 3, 2011 • 2:54 pm 0
Islam and capitalism
Mustafa Akyol delivers another brilliant lecture
PFS 2010 – Mustafa Akyol, Are Islam and Capitalism Compatible? from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.
Filed under: Freedom & Liberty
January 14, 2011 • 8:15 pm 0
PM Najib, I am amazed
Last week Prime Minister Najib invited people to ask him questions via Twitter, using #tanyanajib. Well, Malaysian responded overwhelmingly to that invitation, and some of the questions are very very funny.
And today Prime Minister Najib actually responded to some of the less serious questions. Amazing!
January 8, 2011 • 6:07 pm 0
School improvement: should we go Dutch?
(A version of this was published in The Edge, 8 January 2011)
Several parents contacted me to share their stories after reading my article last month. There is one common thread to all the stories. Parents want the best for their children and they feel that private schools are better. But they don’t have the money to pay private school fees. I can fully understand how frustrating it is, because that is also my personal experience.
Let’s make one thing clear. I am in no way suggesting that all private schools are good by default. But there are at least two forces that push private schools to continuously improve – the forces of competition and decentralisation.
Private schools must compete for paying clients. The only way they can “defeat” their rivals – other private schools and taxpayer-funded state schools – is by ensuring their students perform better. State schools will survive no matter how they perform. In contrast, private schools that perform badly will head towards certain death because parents will exercise their choice and opt for a better one.
On the other hand, the management of private schools is certainly more decentralised. They have more freedom to innovate and improvise. This liberty empowers teachers and school managers to do what is best for their students, not simply following directives from politicians and Putrajaya overlords. A recent report by McKinsey published in November 2010 argues that decentralisation, including in pedagogical issues, is an important feature of a school that is moving towards excellence.
But there remains the problem of affordability. The key therefore is to introduce competition (and the parental choice that comes with it) and decentralisation while keeping schools free. To me this is still a compromise because total privatisation would be the best way. But it is a very good and most acceptable compromise for now.
The central principle is that taxpayers’ money should follow students. The voucher system is among the best options. We must develop one that is suited for our country.
School vouchers is not a new system. Andrew Coulson, Director of Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, suggested that the earliest explicit description of the idea can be found in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nation, first published in 1776. More recently, in 2005 Reason Magazine called Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman as the Father of Modern School Reform. Until his death in 2006, Friedman tirelessly campaigned for the voucher system, believing that education subsidies, if it were to continue, must be targeted at consumers and not suppliers.
Thanks to funding from the Dutch government, I was able to visit Holland in November 2010, partly to look at the Dutch school system. Dutch parents have enjoyed the benefits of school voucher and choice since 1917. Educational freedom is in fact enshrined in the Dutch constitution.
Dutch schools are government-funded, yet approximately 70 per cent of schools are private. All schools, including private schools, receive full government funding based on student numbers and manpower needs. Schools do not charge top-up fees, thus ensuring that all schools remain essentially free. But parents can donate for additional activities.
When I met Dr Frans van Noort, the principal of St Gregorius College, a religious secondary school in Utrecht, he explained that teachers and administrative staff (including himself) are employed by the school itself. They are not government employees the way our Malaysian teachers are employed. This gives the school management full ability to reward and sanction teachers and staff based on their performance in nurturing students.
I also met Ton Duif, head of AVS, the trade union for school leaders. He fiercely defended the independence of schools, arguing that he would never allow government to interfere unnecessarily in the terms and conditions of service of school leaders that are his members. It must have been the first time I had a face-to-face meeting with a trade union head arguing against government intervention, out of conviction that employers are partners, not the enemy.
Having spoken to a few groups of Dutch schoolchildren, at a cursory glance, I must say that if we compare them with Malaysian students at the same age group, they are more mature in their thinking. Nevertheless my personal observation is limited and cannot be taken as the benchmark. For that, we need to refer to TIMSS and PISA, the two global education assessments schemes usually used for international benchmarking. Holland consistently performs very well in both.
The Dutch system is an example of how choice, competition and decentralisation created by the voucher system benefit students. Commenting on the Dutch system, a World Bank report entitled The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education published in 2009 says “the system is not only successful academically but is also cost effective, yielding good results at relatively low cost”. In other words, it works.
It is time for those who believe education is a public good and cannot be run by the private sector or be privatised to ask themselves how much longer they want to allow their false belief to trump our children’s education attainment. It is wrong to place this mistaken ideology over and above the rights of our children to receive excellent quality education.
—
More articles can be found on www.IDEAS.org.my and www.AkademiMerdeka.org
Filed under: Articles, Freedom & Liberty, Malaysia
December 22, 2010 • 12:00 pm 0
MCLM: We need a principled political force
Published in “Kite of Freedom” column in The Star (iPad edition) Wednesday 22 December 2010
I was tempted to comment on the establishment of the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) as soon as its establishment was announced. But I decided to wait until the closed-door briefing for invited NGOs on Sunday 19 December at the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall before penning down my thoughts.
Luckily the wait was worth it because the many comments made earlier were based more on assumptions, and not on what MCLM actually intends to do.
The most common allegation levelled against MCLM is that they are a bunch of idealists who have lost faith in Anwar. The picture being painted is as if they are out there to hurt Pakatan Rakyat.
As an example, Baradan Kuppusamy, a fellow columnist in this newspaper, and one that I highly admire, concluded his column on 15 December 2010, by saying “in MCLM, we are witnessing the birth of a new and unique political venture by committed and passionate individuals who have lost faith in Anwar as the great reformer and want to stride out on their own, whatever the censure.”
Unfortunately there is one very big point that is being missed. MCLM is even more united, more focused and more committed to defeat Barisan Nasional than anything else.
In the closed-door briefing session last Sunday, MCLM made it very clear that their only interest is in helping make sure the reform agenda – currently symbolised by Pakatan Rakyat’s struggle – remains alive.
They even went to the extent of saying outright that they will only work with non-Barisan Nasional parties. Under their “Independent Candidates Initiative” they plan to identify, screen, and support candidates to run against Barisan Nasional in the next general elections. Their intention is to offer these candidates to Pakatan Rakyat component parties.
Thus, when commenting about MCLM, I think we must appreciate that they are first and foremost an anti-Barisan Nasional political force, at least for now. They are not out there to hurt Pakatan Rakyat, but to help them.
The thing that interests me the most about MCLM is their insistence on formulating a set of policy ideas which their candidates will then campaign for. This is quite new in the Malaysian political arena – we have been served with an ethnic-based politics for more than half a century. I am excited by the possibility of being offered a politics based on ideas.
MCLM should indeed work on the policy ideas they want to offer to the public. We desperately need a political force that talks about how to free the poor from poverty, improve our schools and hospitals, free the judiciary and parliament from executive interference, and liberate Malaysians from the shackles of ethnic and religious prejudices.
Once these policy ideas have been formulated, MCLM must stick to their principles and not waver. And it is here that I think MCLM still needs to think how they want to approach the political parties.
If MCLM were to be a principles-based political force, it would be wrong for them to declare outright from this stage that they only want to work with Pakatan Rakyat. For that would be making an assumption that no Barisan Nasional parties are interested in reform.
MCLM must realise that Barisan Nasional is made up of many component parties. And, within the component parties, take UMNO for example, there are factions too. And some of these parties or factions could be open to their reform agenda. I may be wrong, but the only way to find out is by talking to everyone first and deciding only after talking to them.
Some of the Barisan Nasional leaders that I have dealt with are just as keen on reform as the Pakatan ones. MCLM must not discount them.
In fact, I would venture as far as suggesting that if MCLM were to truly stick to their principles, it is their duty to assist any and all parties who want to bring reform to the country, while appreciating the political environment those parties operate in.
More importantly, if MCLM were really to be steadfast to their principles, then they must not fear three-corner fights.
I am both surprised and upset when I read statements by the so-called civil society leaders who say there must never be a three-corner fight because that will damage Pakatan Rakyat. Since when has civil society become subservient to Pakatan Rakyat’s agenda? Why are they allowing Pakatan Rakyat’s priorities to be placed over and above the principles guiding civil society in this country?
Civil society organisations, MCLM included, should instead focus on the principles guiding them and work with anyone and everyone who would support their agenda. If they were to enter the political arena, then it is those principles that should guide them rather than blind partisanship.
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Wan Saiful Wan Jan is chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (www.ideas.org.my)
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