Malaysian lawmakers have condemned a group of Muslim protesters who trampled on a severed cow’s head in protest at the building of a Hindu temple, and remained defiant on Sunday over the act.  In the latest religious dispute to erupt in multi-cultural Malaysia, local media said 50 Muslims on Friday took the head of the cow — a sacred animal for Hindus — to the central Selangor state government office and stamped on it.

Source: AFP

State police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the protesters will be investigated for sedition, but the demonstration organiser told AFP they would not apologise and rejected responsibility for the incident.  “There is no point in us apologising as it was not our work. The cow head was brought in by an individual and we don’t know that person,” Mahyuddin Manaf, who led the group of local residents, said.  “Maybe that was just a way of expressing the anger. We just want the Hindu temple to be relocated to another area as this is a Muslim-majority area,” he told AFP.

And therein lies the dangers of protests.  A stray individual decides to do something perhaps not explicitly in the agenda and the organisers cannot control what happens next.  The easy way out is just to deny responsibility, which is what happened.  I do not abhor protests, mind you.  It is right of the peoples and residents should have the freedom to voice their dissension.  However, organisers have a civil responsibility.  The descecration of the cow was uncalled for and may worsen ethnic tensions.   It really wouldn’t hurt Mahyuddin Manaf to condemn the act whilst sticking to his disagreement on the temple relocation.  By his implied endorsement, he could inadvertently added fuel to the fire.  What if some hindu desecrates a Quran in return?

Established in April, Fisca is run by a 12-man committee of volunteers headed by former NTUC Income chief Tan Kin Lian. It operates independently of any financial institution to “maintain objectivity”, said its committee member, postgraduate Michael Zhan.

Source: My Paper

I paid $36 to support Tan Kin Lian’s Fisca, who is doing something for the small guys.

I no longer want to have anything to do with some other people who are more interested in lining their own pockets, instead of working for people.

Arthur

Mr Siew Kum Hong wrote to us recently inviting us to join an event.
Due to some communication lapse (the fault is ours), we were not able to publicise the event.
Please accept our apology, Mr Siew.
The email correspondence is published in full below for our readers.

============

no worries, i understand. maybe next time. cheers.

kum hong

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 12:07 AM, Civic Advocator wrote:

Dear Mr Siew
I just returned from overseas last night, so I was not even able to notify our team member about this meeting.
Please accept my sincere apology.

Siew Kum Hong wrote:

Hi there,
I hope this e-mail finds you well. I am writing to you on behalf of a group called MARUAH (www.maruah.org ), and specifically Braema Mathi who leads MARUAH.

As you may know, MARUAH is a human rights group that has been dialoguing at the regional and national level with governments and other stakeholders on the ASEAN Human Rights Body under the ASEAN Charter.
The ASEAN Human Rights Body, now termed the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights, is here to stay — you can see the Terms of Reference at http://www.asean.org/DOC-TOR-AHRB.pdf. We feel that a crucial precondition for the AIGCHR to be meaningful (even within the constraints of its TOR) is for all civil society members and other stakeholders to at least know what it is about and how it can impact our work.
Accordingly, MARUAH is organising a public consultation to be held on 22 Aug 2009. We would like to invite your team to attend this consultation. The attachments provide more details on this public consultation and also include the registration form. You may also register online at http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEZRMHRvQjhpNXROdDZFRmV4d2k5bHc6MA..
Human rights is only going to gain more significance in the Singapore political landscape. We strongly encourage your team to be part of this consultation. We intend to offer a one-stop shop for those who need more information, and we will also seek to gather views (without attribution to any particular group or person, to encourage a more open and frank discussion).
We would also greatly appreciate it if you could forward this email (including the attachments) to others who may be interested in this event, and also publicise this event on your site (e.g. by linking to http://maruah.org/2009/08/07/registration-for-consultation-workshop-on-asean-intergovernmental-commission-on-human-rights/).
We really hope to see your team there, to be part of the process of shaping the future for the next generation.
Thank you and we look forward to receiving your positive response.
Best regards,

Kum Hong

————————————————————————

Update #2

Mr N sent us another email:

8/13/09 7:27 AM

Dear Sir,

The post “‘Strange’ business going around at HDB flat” at civicadvocator.net/category/forem is a great help.

I wrote a report and will write a number of shorter posts at http://anaudienceof.blogspot.com and http://complainproper.wordpress.com.

Hope you could refer your readers to one of the sites.

Thanks,

NKH

Update#1:
We contacted Mr N and are waiting for him to allow us to publish a follow up report.

N wrote

Thanks for your support.

You may publish the letter as required since I needed an audience.

However I think a third person’s report would be of interest. There is content and issue it may involved. I had written about fifteen letters over more than a year and about half that number were replys from the authorities.

The report could also serve as a reference as the problem may remains.

Dear Mr N

We could publish your letter on our site.
Besides that, how else could we help you?

Dear Sir,

I hope my complaint is appropriate to your site. I will point out what happened between HDB, a neighbour and myself.

2. After I lodged a letter at the Meet-the-People Session, since no MP was in at the time, I noticed people shifting into the flat across the neighbour. Then followed a force-entry into the neighbour’s flat in one to two weeks time. A few days later the neighbour approached me for a compromise, which on reflection was his concession to me.

3. The noise kept continuing and I wrote to the MPs who wrote to HDB, Town Council and Police. One curious fact was Head,Pasir Ris HDB Branch Office(HBO), replied to all the letters sent to HDB and Town Council. In his letters to me he wrote there was no excessive noise and asked me to obtain a court injunction and other suggestions. There were five such letters each without much variations with a copy to an MP who wrote on my behalf.

4. I know all along the neighbour is carrying on a trade of some kinds by the types of noise they make through each day. I know the officers and some members at the Meet-the-People Session, whom I came in contact with, cannot be relied on. And I had some helps from people and MPs at the Meet-the-People Session. An example, someone sent me a blind copy for the RC Chairman only, attached to a letter from HBO to me. He wrote no noise was detected during their joint visit to the house and asked the Chairman to give me a talk on good neighbourliness.

5. The blind copy tells me the house(or the flat) across the neighbour was used to monitor them. The date of the joint visit mentioned was the same day the Chairman and a member(who was arranged to meet him after) visited me that morning. Although he wrote no noise was detected there was definite noise before the Chairman and the member came into my flat. In conjunction with another instance I think there was probably an instrument which could detect or record noise in the flat across the neighbour.

6. I think after the force-entry a deal was struck with the neighbour because they could be evicted. There is a history such as an eviction of an occupier who was with the first owner, transferred of the flat to the present owner just after the eviction, a warning given to the present owner and other details, all of which I had written to the HBO and MPs.

7. Since the noise has not stop I could be forced to leave. The solution is for the issue to be make known.

With Regards,

nkh

Well, after slogging out the bad times and enjoying some of the good times for over 15 years, my time has finally come. Yes that’s right, on August 28^th at 3:15, or there abouts. I will become a full fledged oath taken Singapore Citizen and Botak Jones will be a Singaporean company to its very core. It’s a huge step for me, maybe not such a big deal for you.

Source: BotakJones

Congratulations to Bernie Utchenik for taking up citizenship in Singapore.  In an earlier ST report, he said, ‘I’ve told my friends this is one of the few times they’ll see me in a suit, so they should come support me… My wife is a Singaporean, my business is here, so rather than feel like an outsider who just happens to live here, I should lend my support and allegiance to the country.’   Bravo Bernie. 

I do recall coming across some comments on Bernie earlier this year in Sammyboy.  In Feb 2009, he wrote to a local forum to request that MOM review its policies for S-Pass holder.  In essense, his local managers were being paid less than his S-Pass workers after the company’s pay review, thanks to MOM’s minimum pay requirement for the foreign workers.  In typical fashion, netters in Sammyboy and 3in1 Kopitiam called for a boycott of Botak Jones.

Bernie’s defence was that “Singaporeans do not want these jobs, which was why we resorted to S-Pass employees in the first place.”   This is a very real problem for local business and I hope Bernie has managed to solve his problems.  And with him now being a citizen, I think there will be less insinuations that he is siding with the foreigners.  But then again, Sammyboy will always be Sammyboy, just as how they’d probably view ex-American Bernie.

The life of free Korea’s ex-president, Kim Dae Jung, which came to an end this week, gives new meaning to the phrase “sunshine soldier.” In some respects he was like Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, who died last month, a hero of the struggle for democracy in Asia.  Kim didn’t deny the extraordinary economic gains that Korea was starting to show under Park Chung Hee. He argued that the recent economic growth in non-Communist countries in Asia demonstrated “the advantage of the Free World compared to the communist countries.” He also said it was no coincidence that the success was coming in Confucian countries. Yes, under Park there had been what Kim called “brilliant” economic growth. But he predicted that the more economic growth there was, the more social unrest there would be absent a democratic system.

 

In 1997, Kim Dae Jung became the first opposition leader to be elected president, one of the most astounding comebacks in political history, entering office as a liberal after decades of conservative rule. Kim’s “sunshine policy,” as it was called—détente and economic engagement with the North—gained him a meeting with the North Korean communist dictator, Kim Jong Il. It took place in 2000, and Kim himself was promptly awarded the Nobel Prize for peace. A period of détente, replete with various economic projects, followed.

Yet eventually scandal erupted, when it turned out that Kim had apparently steered hundreds of millions of dollars to the North Korean dictator to facilitate the summit.  Kim had theorized before that the democratization of the South would have to precede any reunification, and that any reunification would have to be done democratically. It seems he’d attempted his “democratic reunification” with democracy in only one of the two halves of Korea. South Koreans grew sick of it, abandoning the policy as a failure and bringing in a conservative in 2007.

Perhaps 2 lessons for Singapore.  Over-emphasis on economic growth at the expense of democracy is likely to bring social unrest.  Yes, racial and religious harmony is important but having the best ‘common spaces’ for interaction isn’t going to prevent social unrest if the income divide isn’t solved.  Worse, citizens have no way to exercise their democratic rights to voice their dissatisfaction of public policies in public.  And opposition politicians get bankrupted.  Another lesson is in transparency and accountability.  Did Kim seek the public’s opinion before transferring the huge sum of money to the North?  Did Temasek explain to the public how it lost their money or did it try to confuse everyone instead?

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono gave on Sunday his 13th salary to 99 teachers from across the country who were selected to attend a ceremony to mark the 64th anniversary of Indonesian independence at the State Palace tomorrow.  Each teacher received Rp 1 million in bank deposit from First Lady Ani Yudhoyono on the president’s behalf during a get-together at the State Palace.  Ani said the gift represented the president’s appreciation of the teachers’ dedication for education in remote areas and for children with disabilities.

Source: The Jakarta Post

Hmmm, so SBY earns Rp 99 million a month.  That is around USD 10,000.  His annual salary is therefore USD 130,000.  What about PM Lee?  Well he gets USD 2,000,000.  Wow.  No wonder in 2007  he announced that he would donate the increase of his salary to charity over the next five years.  Our PM dearest has a conscious after all.  Watch for his National Day Rally speech tonight, maybe he will announce more donations?

THE temptation to spend on new clothes and household and electronic items hits a peak in the run-up to next month’s Hari Raya Puasa celebrations.  But concerned Malay MPs and community leaders are taking unusual steps this year to get a simple message across: Spend within your means, save for your children’s education.  A series of radio advertisements encouraging families to ‘Bijak Belanja’ (spend wisely) will air during the Ramadan fasting month, which starts on Aug 22, at the time of the morning call to prayer and the evening prayer ahead of breaking the fast.

Source: ST

‘I’m not telling them not to spend,’ said Parliamentary Secretary for National Development Maliki Osman, who co-chairs the Family Development Network, which was set up in 2004 to help develop strong and healthy family ties in the community.  Speaking at a press conference to announce the new initiatives, he added: ‘I’m telling them to spend within their means, on what is necessary, on what they need instead of what they want.’

Two things come to mind.  Firstly, having such a campaign (with banners and radio ads no less) is an insult to the Malay community.  Are our Malay friends so immature in their spending habits that the government needs to poke its nose in?  Secondly, can the government just stop focussing on this community?  All the talk about their teen birth rates, education levels, religion (radicalisation) etc only makes them more conscious of how they aren’t living up to (PAP’s) standards.  So really, the government should not be surprised if one day the community turns back and bites.

What’s malay for “mind your own business”?

We help ourselves. Don’t expect others to help

Tom Wright painted a bleak picture of Singapore’s property sector going forward at The Wall Street Journal. His article ended with the following:
“I’m yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel [for Singapore],” says Mr. Tan, the high-end broker.
We would expect people to continue to dig the dirt and tell it to [...]



Our skin isn’t as thick as it should be

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a seminar on March 4 to discuss Singapore’s political blogosphere.  Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow and Research Assistant Tan Simin presented their paper on trends observed in the blogosphere.  As reported in the TOC, the researchers identified the following limitations:

The online-offline firewall, while somewhat alleviated by offline [...]



Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew – The answer to the African problem?

Recently, I followed a thread “Democracy and Economic Growth” which started in PoliticsForum.org.   Apparently, members there often question the role of democracy in a developing nation. “During the wave of democratization in Africa during the 90s, many people had renewed hope for the continent, immediately equating newly established democracies to economic growth. Are these democracies [...]



Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.
 

Petitions

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I don’t know

Our Singapore

As seen by people

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• Purpose

To observe, analyse, present our position, and call for action. Read our articles, give your views, and learn together with us.