Meeting Barry Wain

Barry Wain, author of "Malaysian Maverick" was having a book signing session in Kinokuniya, Orchard Road and I had the pleasure and good fortune to be there.

Before the event started at 2pm, I managed to chat a few words with him. I found him to be scholarly, approachable, friendly and able to articulate his thought well. The only down side was the batteries in my digital camera went dead. :-(

A couple of very helpful organisers took some photograhs of him and I. I hope I have given my email address correctly to them. I just want to say a big thank you to the wonderful 2 ladies, regardless if I receive the photos or not. My fault entirely. (service level here seems to be better)

my prized possession!

Barry's talk was very engaging. He started off by saying why he chose Mahathir as his subject. He elaborated that he found Mahathir had a long and interesting political career, together with a generation of prominent leaders in South East Asia like Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong Ferdinand Marcos, Sukarno and Suharto.


Barry rated Mahathir's achievement as only coming behind after Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong.

Barry also explained that as journalist by training, he approached this piece of work like a longer than usual assignment.

This piece of work is certainly creditable. According to Barry, a professor in Australia noted that the book has about 1,290 footnotes! He is writing the book for Institute of South East Asia, Singapore and that provides some creditable standing. Yeah, pointless for the Dr to take him to court (but might be entertaining to us).

Barry mentioned that he researched for the book by reading through plenty of documents and even had face to face and email interviews with the Dr. himself! "At the time," Barry said, "Badawi was censoring him from the main stream press so he was a bit desperate to speak to anyone" ...these are Barry's words, or the best I can remember them. :-)

Barry said he wrote as a journalist and tried to be as objective as possible. He only wrote about facts that he could substantiate and support, and left out whatever that can only be classified as rumuor and hearsay.

Barry was impressed with the fact that Dr Mahathir can compartmentalise his life well. He never talk about work at home to his wife or children. When Che Det wrote that letter and got the sack from UMNO, he never mentioned about the letter to Dr Siti Hasmah. (that explains how he can say Chinese are the biggest tax payers in the morning and whack them as threatening this and that in the afternoon)

Barry mentioned also that Mahathir would never admit he made a mistake. "So I asked him." I remember Barry's words as follows, "you had 22 years to pick a successor and after you picked him, you started criticising him within a year, surely this qualifies as a mistake?."

I had the chance to pop a question to Barry. "What is the most significant legacy Mahathir left for Malaysia?" in my curt shabby English I asked.

Barry enhanced my respect by saying, "I leave it to the Malaysians to judge. On the credit side, he developed the economy and infrastructure, but on the other hand, he left a corruption culture and the devastation of the judiciary. So it is up to Malaysians to decide."


That's professional journalism for you. I cringed when I think of our own controlled media, Awang Selamat, the few editiors in the MCA paper, Utusan Malaysia's lopsided views, Berita Harian's inability to do simple math etc


Great book, Mr. Wain, an outsider who knows Malaysia better than Malayisans themselves.

UMNO AGM 2009 #1

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/14/nation/4902256&sec=nation

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Najib: Umno looks after the welfare of all Malaysians


PUTRAJAYA: The time has come for Umno to be the main political party looking after the interests of all Malaysians, and not only the Malays and bumiputra, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said.

This, he added, was in line with the 1Malaysia concept of “People First, Performance Now” that was gaining acceptance from all the races.

“I think we have come to a stage where Umno is seen as a party which looks after the welfare and well-being of all Malaysians,” he said.

______________________________________________________________

Nice words, Prime Minister. Let’s see if there is any proof in the pudding.

Let’s look at how the previous 2 prime minister did when compared to their slogans.

Dr. Mahathir – Bersih, Cekap dan Amanah


Prominant legacy of Mahathir's time is:


* 1988 Judicial Crises
* Lingam Gate
* Perwaja scandal
* Declining university ranking
* Proton car that is complacent, uncompetetive, inefficient, overcharging and passing on all that to debt-bearing and interest paying Malaysians (while the Thais cruise intheir Toyotas)
* Declining strength of the Malaysian Ringgit


Badawi – “Work with me and not work for me”

The most memorable results from his premiership is probably

*his wedding,
*Siti Nurhaliza’s wedding,
*an expensive space tourist
*even more money splashed on a certain port facility near Bak Kut Tech Country
*his rushed legacy that created MACC of Teoh Beng Hock fame.

I certainly did not work for the above!

I hope the new Prime Minister buck the trend and can live up to the nice words. Here is a gentle reminder of his priority:-



Malays to remain government’s priority, says DPM

http://www.malaysiainsider.com/index.php/malaysia/34771-malays-to-remain-governments-priority-says-dpm

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 — The government will give priority to Malays in whatever programme it carries out, assures Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.


Hope the big 2 decision makers can clear the air for us tax payers because I am fed up of all these contradictions

Dear Dr., you mean like this?

This is what the dear Dr. had to say,

Mahathir says Chinese papers should be in Malay

Posted by admin

Saturday, 22 August 2009 01:44

By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal, The Malaysian Insider

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad suggested today that Chinese and other vernacular newspapers be translated into the national language to avoid any misunderstanding and to promote better race relations.

In addressing the issue of the recent heightened race rhetoric in various print media, the former prime minister said racial issues occurred because there was a lack of understanding in the medium of languages, specifically in Chinese newspapers.

“While Chinese people understand Malay language newspapers, most Malays don’t understand the Chinese press. Sometimes when the Chinese press say something harmful, people will not get the idea because of the lack of understanding,” said Mahathir.

He was referring to a recent public outcry concerning racial remarks in Utusan Malaysia and Chinese newspapers Nanyang Siang Pau and Sin Chew Daily.

However, the tone has become sharply provocative in the case of the Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia who have embarked on a campaign to reclaim the Muslim-Malay ground by branding segments of the community aligned with the opposition as traitors to the race and Islam.

Analysts note that this is a strategy to lure back Malays who abandoned Umno in the last election and force sections within PAS to question their allegiance to Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

The upcoming by-election is also a catalyst to Utusan’s growing racial slants.

Dear Dr., for your information, Oriental Daily has a fabulous daily column that translates editorials from Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian.

I once read Utusan Malaysia back in the 1980s so that I could prepare for my SPM but stopped reading Utusan Malaysia after 3 days as I vomited after reading those lop-sided opinion. I switched to Bacaria and those lovely articles like "...aku meronta-ronta namun tenaga kegadisanku tak dapat menahan kemaraannya...: Mind you, I scored very well in my BM paper.

As a read of Chinese newspapers for decades, I can vouch that any articles in Chinese daily that carries view points from a racial perspective, which is not that many but inevitable since we racialise everything in Malaysia, are considerably more rational and objective.

It is suicidal for any Chinese newspaper in Malaysia to be aggressively, emotionally and illogically voicing out in a racist and irresponsible manner. Don't worry, the Chinese readers themselves would give negative feedback to the Chinese pres if this sort of stupidity ever happens. Given the Chinamen's main concern is peace, harmony and make money, this is entirely comprehensible.

Dear Dr., in order to promote "better racial relations" it is more important to stress on what is written, rather than what language it is written in. I am sure good old Awang Selamat thinks a lot about us non-Malay when he pens his article that is widely read in Malaysia.

However, it will be nice also for Malays to be able to read correctly translated Chinese newspapers as Utusan sometimes can miss out on noteworthy incidents:
http://wangsamajuformalaysia.blogspot.com/2009/07/pemuda-umno-melarang-aktiviti.html
http://wangsamajuformalaysia.blogspot.com/2009/08/fate-of-3-helpful-witnesses.html

All the thorns in the meat

That is literally translated from 'Duri dalam daging'.



It seems Tun Musa Hitam commented that Dr M's resignation from UMNO is a thorn removed from their midst. The lashback from Dr M is that TMH himself used to be a thorn that needed to be removed during the 80's. Well to me, there seems to be more thorns in UMNO and their BN components that are still acting like thorns do; being a stick in the ass pain to citizens!



Let's first talk about the age-old thorn that will not be removed, Sammy. Not only is he thick-faced enough to stay on as MIC president, but he is also now doing a 180 degrees turn, and trying oh! so hard to help the Indian community since he's no longer road works minister and doesn't have to deal with trying to con the cheapest price out of sub-contractors while pocketing a good fortune from the excess left. Yeah Sammy, I still remember your shoddy work on the MRR2 highway!



Next would be the Chinaman stalwart Ong, the chief Ong that is. I know its confusing, so many Ongs in the MCA party a bit hard to know which one I'm referring to-lah! Ong also seems to have a lot of free time nowadays, no longer building low-cost houses that never seem to materialize and also collecting lots of "Ong"(hokkien translation) into his pockets at the same time. Now he spends his free time trying to get in the main stream media by making stupid remarks, also doing a 180 degree turn, complaining that the Chinese people are duped into voting for DAP and PAS will form a religious state. Now he talks about fighting for Chinese people.



I hate calling them dogs, as everyone else does. Hello! Dogs are loyal and faithful. Also a dog doesn't bite the hand that's been feeding you for the past 50 years. I call them 'janus-faced'.

Two faces, one looking on the inside and one more looking on the outside. The face looking inside the BN component is ever-faithful as long as benefits are thrown their way. The face looking outside is one that claims to protect their own 'race'.



None of these thorns are removed. In fact, compared to thorns such as his Deputy and SIL, Badawi is really just like a blade of grass, it tickles you but it doesn't hurt you much.



And what is the worse thing about removing thorns? Especially so many of them? It will definitely hurt, but think of the relief after the healing process. I hope Pakatan Rakyat will be able to be the balm that soothes when the thorns are removed.

Dr M quits UMNO

Dr. Mahathir announces at 12:35pm today that he is quitting UMNO, followed suit by Sanusi Junid. Main reason cited for leaving UMNO is the lack of confidence in Badawi, the current PM's leadership of UMNO.

Is it for good or just to pressure Badawi to step down? If quit now, can rejoin later? Somehow quit or not, there is not enough time for UMNO to repair its damage.

Overwhelming hits on Tun M's blog

The blog just started 2 days back and has hit nearly 141,ooo hits at this point in time!

Ex-Malaysian PM Says Adversaries Trying to Silence Him

By VOA News

28 March 2008

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad says there is an attempt to keep him from criticizing his successor, who has been blamed for the ruling party's recent electoral losses.

In a letter published Friday in Malaysia's Sun newspaper, Mr. Mahathir says his detractors are trying to prove he "did worse things" during his 22 years in power in order to threaten him and make him stop talking about Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Mr. Mahathir, who left office in 2003, is calling on Mr. Abdullah to resign after the ruling National Front coalition party suffered its worst election defeat in nearly 40 years. The coalition lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority - the level needed to amend the constitution - as well as control of five state legislatures.

The former premier says his successor has destroyed the National Front.

Dr. M's press conference

Rocky's Bru keeping tab on Dr. M's conference this 11am. Checkout his site to find out what's being said so far.

Mahathir- sacrificing himself