A whole river of swear words..
Posted: November 19, 2009 Filed under: Society 5 Comments ».. And this coming from someone who doesn’t swear. (Other than the occasional ‘bloody’, I swear I don’t swear!)
From Malaysiakini:
Deputy Education Minister Mohd Puad Zarkashi has said that speaking English in the workplace is “weird” and harmful to the nation’s culture and identity.
[...]
“We are polluting our own culture and identity as a nation,” he said.
This is the Deputy Education Minister speaking here. The freakin’ Deputy Education Minister. This is the person currently second-in-charge of our entire future. The future of our nation. Why do I say so? Because it is through education that we get our future leaders. For better of for worse, it is through the education system that we mold and shape the leaders we get in the next generation.
And here we have the Deputy telling us that speaking English in the workplace is ‘weird’?! Harmful to the nation’s culture and identity?
What exactly is our culture and identity?
If I may say, from a Malaysian who has been overseas for 3 years now, foreigners think of Malaysians as people who can speak at least 2 different languages. At least. English being one of them. To them, speaking English as part of daily life IS our culture.
Sure, we might not speak enough of Malay, which is actually kind of sad. I am all for speaking Malay. In fact, I endorse the idea that every single Malaysian should be able to speak Malay like it is our native tongue. But to go so far as to claim that speaking English is ‘polluting our own culture and identity as a nation’?
Don’t kid yourself. English is very much part of urban culture in Malaysia.
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Then there’s also this, from the Malaysian Insider:
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan today said those who questioned police action in shooting suspects should consider whether they wanted to support those who upheld the law or the criminals.
The value of life has suddenly been decreased to something insignificant.
I distinctly remember learning this nilai back when I studied Pendidikan Moral. Sayang kepada nyawa. The IGP might want to look that up.
Do I support criminals? Hell no. But can I not question the way the police dealt with this? As an individual, am I not allowed to think that the police have acted excessively? Am I not allowed to feel that a life is a life is a life, and that life should not be shrugged away so easily? Am I not allowed to sayang kepada nyawa?
Just because I sayang kepada nyawa, I support criminals?
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This is why there’s a whole river of swear words running through my head. A torrential downpour of swear words.
Penan girls’ rape probe – What exactly is happening?
Posted: November 15, 2009 Filed under: Society | Tags: Penan 2 Comments »I am rather disturbed by this article in The StarOnline:
And now, the Sarawak police have confirmed that they will no longer investigate the alleged rapes any further after Deputy Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar issued a statement saying the police considered the matter closed.
On Thursday, Ismail said in Kuching that the police had done all they could, but the probe had gone nowhere due to lack of evidence and lack of cooperation from the alleged victims and from the non-governmental organisation that had exposed the alleged rapes.
“We did not push the issue away nor did we try to hide anything. We were very open about the investigations and have cooperated with the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as well as Datuk Seri Shahrizat’s (Abdul Jalil) ministry to uncover the truth,” he said.
When asked Saturday if the Sarawak police would reopen the case if there was new evidence, Sarawak Police Commissioner Datuk Mohmad Salleh said: “I will not talk about this Penan issue anymore’’.
[...]
The 22-year old Penan woman from the Long Item settlement lodged two police reports, in Long Lama and in Marudi, claiming an NGO had forced her to say that she was raped by the loggers.
She claimed they had duped her into going to Kuala Lumpur, confined her for three months and then forced to lodge a police report at Bukit Aman crying rape.
She further claimed the NGO and reporters had told her they could help her get medical treatment for her sick child in Kuala Lumpur if she followed them.
On Saturday, The Star called Marudi police chief Deputy Supt Jonathan Jalin for an update on her report but he declined to comment, saying he was outstation.
It is learnt however that the probe on the woman’s report has also reached a dead-end as police have failed to trace the people from the NGO concerned.
*My thanks to Choo for posting the link on Facebook.
What is going on?
It has been more than a year since this issue first surfaced. More than one year. And now, this is what happens?
Something fishy is going on. That this issue has carried on for so long without seeing any light at the end of the tunnel is already a very disturbing fact. Why does it take the authorities such a long time to clear the issue up? More than one year since the issue was made known, and even more years since the alleged incidents started happening. This is the kind of issue that does not permit any dilly-dallying. But evidently that’s what has been happening.
The Penan girls have been put under so much public attention and pressure over something that is so private and personal. Can anyone start to imagine what kind of stress they would have been put under? Does anyone actually care?
I don’t know about the ‘about-turn’ that one of the women made. I don’t know what it is, whether what she’s saying now is real, or what she was saying then is real.
But from reading the article, one can clearly see that this case is going nowhere. And the police have also announced in no uncertain terms that they are closing this case, and they “don’t want to talk about it anymore”.
Isn’t that a little too convenient? Are all cases supposed to be easily solved?
They may not want to “talk about it anymore”, but I surely do. I want to see this case closed, but closed with a definite conclusion. Not with “lack of evidence and cooperation”.
