Category: Singapuraku

Malaysia High Commissioner To Singapore: Bilateral Relations Is Special And Substantive – Part II

CONTINUED

You mentioned that one of the measures to ease congestion at the two checkpoints is possibly a new bridge; can you elaborate on that? Can you also give us some updates on the High Speed Rail?

The congestion is particularly acute at the two checkpoints, especially during the weekends and holidays. The designs of the two checkpoints do not allow ease of congestion. So we need a new bridge. In fact, my Prime Minister proposed this idea during the previous retreat. He termed it as the Friendship Bridge, so we can have a modern design, beautiful structure, to represent the status of our bilateral relations, something that we could be proud of. So this is what Malaysia has in mind and I think more details will be raised by my Prime Minister.

On the High-Speed Rail, we expect Singapore to announce the terminus or the station in Singapore. We have announced our station in KL, Bandar Malaysia, last year during the retreat. So Singapore is expected to announce the location of this station at this retreat. And we could see the steady progress of the project. I think the project is on the right track; this project, though, is very complicated because it involves two countries, so a lot of issues have to be discussed and agreed upon.

There was a report this week that the High-Speed Rail is probably not going to meet its 2020 deadline and will be pushed back by two years. Can you give us the reasons behind this reported delay?

Well, that is only speculative. This project is very ambitious, you know, but as far as Malaysia is concerned, we still maintain the deadline and we hope to achieve, to implement fully, this project by 2020. So as it is, we don’t expect any delay. But as I said, this is a very ambitious project, so they may encounter some challenges, but I think it is still early for us to say that it will be delayed.

Do you think that race and religion are getting more politicised in Malaysia, in light of the recent church protest and the debate on marital rape. What do you think these portend for social order in Malaysia?

As you know, Malaysia is a multi-cultural, multi-religious country. Muslims are the majority, but other races are free to practise their religious compulsion in religion. But, of course, there is a small minority, and isolated incidents such as the church incident, which the majority of Malaysians condemned. So this does not show that we have religious intolerance in Malaysia. I think in any country, there are some people who have extreme views, and some groups may take advantage of these groups.

As ASEAN Chairman for this year, what are KL’s priorities?

I think this one is very timely because, as you know, we just concluded the 26th ASEAN Summit. We have eight priorities during our chairmanship, namely 1) to formally establish the ASEAN Community; 2) to develop the ASEAN Community’s post-2015 vision because we need to move forward; 3) to steer ASEAN closer to its people, we call it people-centred ASEAN; 4) to strengthen the development of small and medium enterprises in the region; 5) to expand intra-ASEAN trade and investments; 6) to strengthen ASEAN institutions, including the ASEAN Secretariat; 7) to promote regional peace and security through moderation. Moderation is one of our themes during our chairmanship, and finally 8) to enhance ASEAN’s role as a global player.

Can you comment on the threat posed by the Islamic State? What is the essence of Malaysia’s strategy to combat terrorism?

We view this threat very seriously. We strongly condemn the Islamic State. It does not represent the true teaching of Islam because Islam is a religion of peace and not violence. We are very concerned because they advocate violence … and they use social media to influence young people, people without enough knowledge about Islam.

Malaysians who were involved in the Islamic State, most of them do not have enough knowledge about Islam, so they are being manipulated, being brainwashed. That’s why we advocate the global movement of moderates because we are a proponent of peace, moderation and modernity. And it was agreed to by ASEAN.

With regard to the strategies, recently our Parliament passed four Bills to conquer terrorism. Our police are working very hard. Our authorities are also working closely with the authorities from Singapore, in terms of sharing of information and intelligence. The threat is not only in Malaysia; the whole region will be affected by the Islamic State.

How does Malaysia view China’s rise? Is Malaysia concerned about the developments in the South China Sea, especially with regard to the recent flurry of reclamation by China?

Well, the rise of China has brought prosperity, not only to Malaysia, but also Singapore. The whole region has benefited from its rise. China is our biggest trading partner and I think the same goes for Singapore, and we have also a big Chinese community in Malaysia. In fact, Malaysia was the first country in ASEAN to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1974. So our relations with China have been long-standing, strong and substantive.

We always maintain that any issues must be discussed amicably and peacefully, based on international laws, based on friendly relations. So, we are working together in ASEAN, and as reflected in the Chairman’s statement on the South China Sea. (The statement expresses serious concerns on the land reclamation being undertaken in the South China Sea.) The statement also touched on the Code of Conduct (COC), which is very important. The leaders “urged that consultations be intensified, to ensure the expeditious establishment of an effective COC”. So we would like to see the COC expedited, so it can give the guidelines for countries on how to deal with issues in the South China Sea.

How do Malaysians view the open calls for Prime Minister Najib’s resignation by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad? Is there a general sense that Malaysian politics is becoming increasingly fractious?

In any democratic system like Malaysia’s, the government of the day must be allowed to run the country, to govern the country as it sees fit. But (as) in any democracy, Malaysians are free to criticise the government. And the government has to defend its actions. So PM Najib has come out publicly to answer the criticisms by Dr Mahathir, showing his regard to Dr Mahathir, who was our PM for more than 20 years. I think social media has amplified the situation. But I think the government is addressing the issues raised by Dr Mahathir, and we will wait for the outcome. For instance on (strategic development firm) 1MDB, our Auditor-General is addressing the issue, and we will wait for the report by the Auditor-General.

What do you think are the issues that Malaysians are most concerned about right now?

I think the issues are quite similar to other countries’, you know, Singapore’s also. There are issues such as the cost of living. We just introduced the Goods and Services Tax last month. GST in Malaysia is rather unique. Unlike in Singapore, our GST is applied only on certain items. Some items such as foodstuff, medicine, education, are exempted from GST.

So there is some confusion, and some traders are exploiting it, so there are some complaints with regards to the implementation. But in any new system, there are bound to be complaints. We hope that this could be rectified in due course, and people, I think, will realise that we need the GST. Because 160 countries have GST and we are one of the last that have implemented this GST. That is, I think, one issue.

The other issue is, of course, terrorism, threats such as the Islamic State. And the government, as I mentioned, has taken actions to kill this issue. So I think these are the two main issues that Malaysians are concerned with.

Source: www.todayonline.com

May 5, 2015
Lee Wei Ling: Timeout After Papa’s Passing

My life changed on March 23 when Papa died at the age of 91. As he aged and his health failed in the five years prior to that, I took his welfare into account in every decision I made. His death was hardly unexpected; yet, Papa’s passing affected me more than I had anticipated.

I had not travelled alone since 2009 after he asked me to accompany him on his working trips. After Mama died in October 2010, Papa’s health deteriorated. So I restricted my travels abroad to the ones where I could accompany him as I was concerned about his fragile health.

Following Papa’s funeral, I was not feeling up to a distant trip so soon. But friends encouraged me to attend a week-long meeting organised by the American Academy of Neurology in Washington DC, which began on April 18. After that, I would visit a close friend living in Ithaca, New York.

I was hesitant about the trip as I was spent. My muscles were stiff and my body ached. In fact, I remained this way until the day I left Singapore some two weeks later. I travelled in spite of my misgivings because I decided that I needed to prove to myself I was capable of being as daring and reckless as in the past when I travelled alone.

The journey lasted more than 24 hours. But amazingly, when I landed in Washington DC, I no longer felt stiff or sore and was not hobbled by jet lag either. So I checked into the hotel, washed up and changed into a pair of running shorts and T-shirt – and jogged to the meeting’s venue at a convention centre to register and attend the lectures.

As lectures started at 6.30am from the second day, I decided to run instead of walk to the venue in order to save a few more minutes for sleep. I would also run back and forth from my hotel to the venue to attend the lectures.

By embarking on such shuttle runs three to four times daily, I clocked an average distance of at least 10km a day. What made these runs more challenging was that I had to cross busy streets and step up and down the sidewalks, often in the dark.

At the meeting, I tried to absorb and remember new information and concepts. The regimen I constructed kept my mind away from dwelling on the loss of Papa, except at night when I was trying to sleep. I was moderately cheerful during the day. Learning combined with exercise has always had an anti-depressant effect for me. So I felt as if I was 40 years old once more during the meeting.

After the conference, I travelled to Ithaca to stay with a close friend. She, too, had lost a loved one recently. I thought we could console each other.

My friend is four years older and I call her jie jie (“elder sister” in Mandarin); in fact, being motherly is a more accurate description of her behaviour towards me. And when she greeted me, I had an immediate and overwhelming sense of belonging.

My stay with jie jie was the downtime I needed. I occupied my time with routine – grocery shopping, gardening, twilight walks and drives to scenic sanctuaries. It was early spring in Ithaca, and life was returning after an apparently harsh winter. Daffodils and hyacinths were in full bloom, and the trees were starting to leaf out.

My friend remarked that the changing of the seasons seemed to reflect the cyclical nature of life and death. For me, it was reassuring just to have the sense of continuity, the familiarity of

a beautiful Ithaca, and the comfort of an enduring friendship. While this was a welcome change of scene, it was hard not to turn my thoughts to Papa. But unlike the period of two weeks prior and two weeks after his death, thinking of him now evoked a dull ache that was replacing the sharp pain I felt previously.

I suspect this ache will always remain, but perhaps to a lesser degree as time passes.

In my article published a week after Papa’s funeral, I wrote that I must now move on to face life without him. That was a declaration of hope rather than a statement of fact.

I will move on, I have to. But as a friend who had experienced the passing of his parents long ago recalled, that sense of loss and the ache will never completely disappear.

But today, the sun was out, and as I ran up my friend’s driveway, the budding trees and flowers greeted me. We went for a walk at my favourite waterfall, Taughannock Falls, where I have asked my friend to scatter my ashes after I die. But for now, life is sweet.

My way of coping with my father’s death is to be grateful that my parents lived happy lives. Old photographs of Mr and Mrs Lee Kuan Yew together, young and obviously in love, and more recent ones taken in their eighties and evincing mutual affection, remind me of what my father said when he saw me sorting through pictures of himself and my mother. “How lucky I have been,” he remarked.

Yes, my parents were lucky until Mama’s devastating stroke in 2008. Subsequently they suffered, as anyone who has lived for so long usually did in the last few years of their lives.

Still, 60 years of happiness surely outweigh a brief period of suffering. As I see it, my parents were fortunate to have been able to spend their final years in their marital home, a privilege rare among couples.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

May 5, 2015
55 Year Old Arrested In Geylang For Murder

Police have arrested a 55-year-old man in connection with the murder of a man in Geylang on Sunday night.

Investigations are ongoing.

The police said that they received a call for assistance at Lorong 8 Geylang at about 9.10pm. The police found the 48-year-old victim lying motionless at the scene.

He was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, where he was subsequently pronounced dead just after 10pm.

Shin Min Daily News reported that witnesses interviewed at the coffeeshop said they knew the victim to be an argumentative person.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

May 5, 2015
Ismail Kassim: Tribute To Lee Kuan Yew – Part III

Part III: The guru that slip

If LKY had faded away three decades ago, I would have regarded him almost like a god, such was my reverence for him. Even 10 years ago I still retain much respect and admiration for him.

But in the last one decade his much admired mind seems to have decayed a little and he frittered away a little of the goodwill that he had deservedly accumulated over the years.

The Malays in particular felt that he was picking on them. In an interview with the National Geographic he expressed his doubts whether Malays were prepared to share their last loaf of bread with other races.

The same question could be posed to the non-Malays:For instance, would a Chinese Singaporean prefer to share his loaf with a Malay neighbour or with a new PRC immigrant?

Then there was of course other statements culminating in his claim that the National Pledge was only an ‘’aspiration’’ and not an‘’ideology’’.

I was outraged. My friends and I felt that somehow he seemed to be still carrying the baggage from the acrimonious days when Singapore was part of Malaysia.

The result was my article – For love of country, exercise your right to dissent – posted to NoHardFeelings memoirs at WordPress in Sept 2009. Here is an excerpt:

History is replete with examples of great leaders who overstayed and caused harm to their cause in the latter years of their rule.

One prime example is Mao Zedong, who held on to power until his death at the age of 83 in 1976. If he had faded into the background a decade or two earlier and spared China from the convulsions of the Cultural Revolution, China might today well be a superpower.

Great men make great mistakes. We must learn from history.

Back to our little island at the tip of the Malayan peninsula, Singaporeans found out in dramatic fashion on August 20 who is still in charge, the real commander-in-chief.

On that day, Lee took charge to change the course of a parliamentary debate that the government should practice what it preached in the Singapore Pledge.

He dismissed the call by NMP Viswa Sadasivan to the PAP government to live up to the ideals of the Pledge on such matters as racial equality and fair play as ‘’high faluting ideas’’ that needed to be ‘’demolished’’.

Lee must have felt that Viswa’s inspiring address that had caught the imagination of many Singaporeans represented a direct challenge to PAP rule in general and to his vision of Singapore in particular.

You do not need to have a great mind to appreciate that Lee’s idea of Singapore has since independence been premised on two contradictory principles: an outward commitment towards multiracialism and meritocracy to attract talent worldwide and an inward obsession with reinforcing Chinese dominance as a way to ensure Singapore’s survival and prosperity.

Lee has always made it known that it would be disastrous to allow the Chinese proportion of the population to fall below the current level of 76%. I am sure he would not shrink from taking any step,including importing wholesale from the Motherland, to make up for any shortfall.

Under the PAP, the non-Malay minorities pose no problem. As for the Malays, they are to be treated differently, not too harshly but not as equals also, because of their kinship ties with our close neighbours.   Just give them enough so as not to make them too unhappy.

Now that the dust is settling down from the Viswa controversy, it is perhaps timely to consider whether Lee did a service or disservice to Singapore and particularly to the government led by his son, Lee jr.

Just as many Chinese continue to revere Mao for his contributions, we too must always respect and revere Lee for all the good that he had done in building Singapore to what it is today.

If we love Singapore, however, we must not abdicate our right to dissent, even at the risk of being ‘’rubbished’’ or worse still,getting knuckle-dustered. We must not forget the lesson from history.

Six days earlier in his National Day address to his Tanjong Pagar constituents, Lee had also aroused resentment among Malays when he made a pitch to Chinese Singaporeans to be more conciliatory towards newcomers from China.

It was something I never expected from a man whom I once regarded as the Bapak of multiracialism in pre-independent Singapore.

I sent a letter to the ST Editor, saying that ‘’many Singaporeans see it as a deliberate and – unnecessary – attempt to play the racial card on a peripheral issue.’’ It never saw daylight.

I was agitated to write another letter after Lee’s interpretation in Parliament that Article 152 of the Constitution on the special position of the Malays meant that the government had the constitutional right ‘’not to treat everybody as equal.’’ It too never saw daylight.

By reviving memories of Malaysia days when he felt his life threatened on a few occasions, Lee seemed to be using it to justify his policy of marginalizing the community in the military and security sectors.

Do you have to punish an entire community for the sins of Albar and a few Malay ultras? Is not 44 years of collective punishment long enough?

Lee obviously prefers not to remember how impatient and demanding he was when advocating for a Malaysian Malaysia and equality for all races when Singapore was in the Federation. He was certainly not prepared to wait.

Now he tells the Singapore Malays not to expect‘’equal treatment’’ instantly as the Singapore Pledge on equality for all regardless of race and religion was only an ‘’aspiration’’ and not an‘’ideology’’ and therefore would take a long time to realize.

As an example, he cited the United States experience on Black-White relations. He does not seem to appreciate that unlike the Blacks, the Malays did not come to Singapore as slaves.

What the Malays want they already enjoyed before Singapore was handed over to Lee and the PAP on a silver platter by a Malay-dominated government in Kuala Lumpur.

The starting point for the Malays is British rule,when all communities enjoyed equal rights and equal access to all sectors of public life. Malays only enjoy special arrangements with respect to their religion and customs.

For the record, I can say that many Malay Singaporeans want nothing more than equal rights – not special rights – just like what other Singaporeans, including newcomers and their children from China and elsewhere,enjoy.

To sum up, Lee is undoubtedly a great leader and all Singaporeans will have much to thank him for. I think his success is due to the interplay of four factors:

1.      Strength of character – he knows what he wants and he is willing to use any means within his reach to achieve it

2.      He runs a cadre party in which it is almost impossible for him to be overthrown

3.      He introduces a restrictive type of democracy which makes it impossible for the PAP to be overthrown through the ballot box

4.      A conducive external environment, both within and outside the region

Source: Ismail Kassim

May 5, 2015
Singapore Team Abandoned Plan To Scale Mount Everest, Returns Home

Aluminaid Team Singapore, which gave up its mission to scale Mount Everest following the Nepal earthquake, landed safely at Changi Airport on Monday night (May 4).

The climbers, Ismail Latiff, Zulkifli Latiff, and Nur Yusrina Yaakob, came back to Singapore after spending two months at Mount Everest. They were evacuated from Everest base camp (EBC) on Friday to Kathmandu Airport, after they abandoned their climb on Apr 29.

The trio’s return was met with applause and tearful embraces.

Ms Yusrina, 28, recounted the moment when she witnessed the first earthquake in her life.

“When the earthquake happened, we definitely felt it – the shaking and everything – but thankfully we were in one of the safest spots of the base camp, we were spared. We just tried to react to the situation, and we got into our tents.”

Her 50-year-old mother, Ms Rosnani Ismail said tearfully: “I was so worried when I heard of the news. I didn’t know what to think. I just talked to my husband. He didn’t say a word, he was just so quiet. We were thinking about our daughter’s safety.”

The team had embarked on the mission to mark Singapore’s Golden Jubilee, and had been planning the feat since 2010.

Aluminaid’s team captain Muhammad Hilwan Mohamed Idrus, who was unable to join them on the trip, told reporters: “The team left Singapore on Mar 25, and their expedition began in rotation – one team would climb and come back to rest for a few days while another team goes up. The teams finished their first rotation and was supposed to go for the second one on Apr 25. But the guide just decided shift it back by one day – a lucky thing to do. If not, they would have met the avalanche.”

That was not the only close shave for the team. “The earthquake hit the front part of EBC. The EBC is pretty huge, and the team’s base camp site is located at the back of the EBC. Their camp site was unscathed – they were not injured in any way. Just about 100m from the camp site, other tents were flattened. You can imagine how close we are,” Mr Hilwan said.

As they were unable to proceed up Everest, the team members looked to contributing to the search and rescue efforts.

“After the avalanche, they were doing a lot of monitoring. They also wanted to help with the search and rescue, but the Nepali operators there did not allow them due to safety issues,” the captain added. “The team was quite shaken and even one of their mountain guide’s uncle was caught in the avalanche and passed away. Their guides were very worried about their families back in Kamanthu, and thank goodness we had out satellite phones, which were passed around to the guides to contact their families.”

Another team member, Seumas Yeo, returned to Singapore last Wednesday as he suffered from an abscess a week before the earthquake. He was recovering in the hotel post-operation when the quake struck Nepal.

Describing the experience as “scary”, Mr Yeo said: “The whole building shook and I felt like the roof was going to fall on me. I walked down the street and it was chaotic, people were closing and running out of shops. I saw a collapsed building and people were pulling out bodies from it.”

He added that many people were huddling under trees for cover, shouting: “Shiva, Shiva!” or chanting Buddhist prayers.

Mr Hilwan said that the team will be holding a press conference next Monday (May 11).

Source: www.todayonline.com

May 5, 2015