Rilek1Corner

Tag: Indian-Muslim

  • Commentary: I’m Indian Muslim And That Defines My Trail Of Thoughts

    Commentary: I’m Indian Muslim And That Defines My Trail Of Thoughts

    The upcoming PE has definitely once again throw the spotlight on Malays and Indian Muslims. In Singapore context, Indian Muslims have always been the sandwich race. We are sandwich between our Malay living lifestyle and our identity. Mendaki double standard is not helping in this matter.

    Malay and Muslim are used interchangeably in Singapore context as and when they feel the need for it (Senang cakap ikut suka hati mak bapak dorang lah).

    I give you a true point in case. Most of my Indian Muslims relatives contributed to both Mendaki and Sinda. When their children applied for the bursary or financial assistance, the favorite quote would be ‘sorry, Mendaki are for Malays. You can try applying to Sinda.”

    But lo and behold, when any of this INDIAN MUSLIMS did well, suddenly they will be invited to Mendaki for whatever not ceremony to pose for pictures with you know who and claim their success under MENDAKI MALAY / MUSLIM banner. And Sinda never does that before. It’s very confusing tau for us! it leads to our own IDENTITY CRISIS…..Sad right?…..

    This has always been our bone of contentions and I don’t think much has changed since.

    As a Mendaki spokesman had declared and confirmed this biases “Malay-Muslim self-help group Yayasan Mendaki has a set of criteria for its financial assistance schemes for students administered on behalf of the Government. Among other things, the recipients “must be of Malay descent” as stated in their identity cards. It spells out a list of what it considers to be “Malay descent”, and this includes 22 ethnicities including Acehnese, Javanese, Boyanese, Sumatran, Sundanese, and Bugis. Students with “double-barrelled” race are eligible if the first race is listed on the identity cards as Malay, said a Mendaki spokesman. For example, a student who is Malay-Arab would qualify for the schemes but an Arab-Malay student would not, he added.”

    CONFUSED HOR!

    P.S – My daughter did not get any financial help from Mendaki after finding out all the stringent rules attached to it. It works out to something like ‘I scratch your back and you have to scratch more of mine’. However, when she did well, she was invited to attend the Mendaki ceremony, giving the impression that she owes her success to Mendaki.

    WHATEVER!

     

    Source: Zarina Jaffar

  • Presidential Hopeful Inspired To Run For Office By Lee Hsien Loong’s Encouragements

    Presidential Hopeful Inspired To Run For Office By Lee Hsien Loong’s Encouragements

    Whether he qualifies as a candidate in the upcoming Presidential Election is based on the discretion of the Presidential Electoral Committee (PEC), but Mr Mohamed Salleh Marican has already gone about recruiting people for his campaign.

    The 62-year-old chief executive officer of Second Chance Properties told TODAY that he has assembled three out of 10 people for his campaign team, and he aims to complete the search by the end of the month.

    He now has a campaign manager, a communications in-charge, and an election agent, who will be his brother, Mr Mohamed Hasan Marican, who is deputy CEO at Second Chance, an investment holding firm that also retails garments.

    The September election is reserved for the Malay community, and has a tightened criteria for candidacy.

    For example, those contesting, who have private-sector experience, must have a company with at least S$500 million shareholder equity.

    Mr Salleh does not automatically qualify, because his company’s shareholder equity registered between S$254.3 million and S$263.25 million over the last three financial years.

    Collecting the application forms Monday morning (June 5), Mr Salleh said that he is “optimistic” that he can convince the PEC he is a deserving candidate, adding that he “can’t be worried if he will fail” before he starts.

    He also said that he was moved to run for presidency by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who, at an Association of Muslim Professionals event last November, expressed hope that candidates would step forward and contest.

    “I was moved by (Mr Lee’s) speech, and that triggered my intentions,” Mr Salleh said.

    “After that, my friends, business associates, suppliers and even some of my employees urged me to step forward and serve the nation (because) this is a noble cause. (With) 100-per-cent support from my family members, I made a decision to contest.”

    The entrepreneur, who set up the first company owned by a Malay to be listed on the Singapore Exchange, sees this as a way “to do good”, to give back to society, and as a challenge to see “how much better I can do compared with other presidents”.

    Mr Salleh singled out Speaker of Parliament Halimah Yacob as a formidable contender should she contest, as she is “very popular” and someone who “takes her responsibilities very seriously”.

    Applications for Singapore’s first reserved Presidential Election opened on June 1, and at least two presidential hopefuls had been seen collecting forms from the Elections Department.

    The writ of election is expected to be issued in late August, ahead of the September polls.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • How Can Indian-Muslim Halimah Yacob Run For EP Reserved For Malay Community?

    How Can Indian-Muslim Halimah Yacob Run For EP Reserved For Malay Community?

    Yesterday (1 Jun), ST published a news report stating that PAP MP and Speaker of Parliament, Halimah Yacob, is widely considered a front runner for the forthcoming Presidential Election.

    It will be the first election reserved for candidates from the Malay community, following a recent review of the constitution.

    According to the amended Singapore Constituion Section 19B, the Presidential Election will be reserved for a community if none of its members has held office of President for 5 or more consecutive terms.

    “19B (1) An election for the office of President is reserved for a community if no person belonging to that community has held the office of President for any of the 5 most recent terms of office of the President.”

    Sub-Section (6) defines a community:

    “(6) In this Article, “community” means —
    (a) the Chinese community;
    (b) the Malay community; or
    (c) the Indian or other minority communities;

    ‘person belonging to the Chinese community’ means any person who considers himself to be a member of the Chinese community and who is generally accepted as a member of the Chinese community by that community;
    ‘person belonging to the Malay community’ means any person, whether of the Malay race or otherwise, who considers himself to be a member of the Malay community and who is generally accepted as a member of the Malay community by that community;
    ‘person belonging to the Indian or other minority communities’ means any person of Indian origin who considers himself to be a member of the Indian community and who is generally accepted as a member of the Indian community by that community, or any person who belongs to any minority community other than the Malay or Indian community;”

    Now, notice that in the case of Malay community, there is an addition clause added – “whether of the Malay race or otherwise”.

    In other words, you don’t have to be a person of Malay race to be considered part of the Malay community. Persons of other race can also be considered part of the Malay community, presumably as long as he or she is a Muslim.

    Halimah is an Indian Muslim

    Take Mdm Halimah for example, she is actually not a Malay as her father is of Indian origin.

    This was disclosed in an ST article in 2013 when Halimah was selected to be the new Speaker of Parliament after the former one, Michael Palmer, resigned from politics due to his marital affair with a PA woman.
    ST did a write-up to feature Halimah (‘A strong advocate for workers, women and minorities‘, Jan 2013):

    In the article, it mentioned: “Her (Halimah’s) Indian-Muslim father was a watchman who died when she was eight years old.”

    In fact, news of Halimah becoming Singapore’s first woman speaker also made its way to India. The Hindu described her as an “Indian-origin politician” (‘Indian-origin politician to be Singapore’s first woman speaker‘):

    So, what all this means is that in the coming Presidential Election which is reserved for the Malay community, a non-Malay person who is a Muslim can also contest.

    If Halimah, an Indian Muslim qualifies as part of the Malay community, then a Chinese Muslim, for example, can qualify too.

    —
    Source: Facebook

     

    Source: www.theindependent.sg

  • Is She Out Of The Race? Singaporeans Knows She’s Indian?

    Is She Out Of The Race? Singaporeans Knows She’s Indian?

    I saw a post on facebook and wanted to share it because it might have a significant effect to Singapore and our malay community here.

    As you know the presidential election is coming, and Halimah Yacob might probably not be a ‘Malay’. It turns out that she actually had an Indian-Muslim father and her IC would have stated ‘Indian’ had her father not pass away before the registration. So now it really depends on the new committee to declare her either ‘Malay’ or ‘Indian’.

    But the lady had been a close friend to the Muslim society throughout the years, definitely a better people’s choice as compared to other potential Malay presidential candidate.

    Sumbanganya terhadap rakyat Singapura memang disanjung tidak seperti ahli-ahli politik yang lain. Tak tahulah apa yang akan terjadi nanti beberapa bulan kemudian. Adakah negara kita dilanda jenis politik perkauman?

    Maaf kalau tersilap, saya mahu kongsi maklumat sahaja.

     

     

    Ros

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