TR EMERITUS

By Tunku Abdul Aziz for Sin Chew Daily A mere footnote at the bottom of a page of Malaysia's political history or a tome on political change that recreated and revitalised a sick and openly corrupt society into a vibrant and prosperous democracy for all? Pakatan Rakyat must decide quickly where it wants to be. On present showing, it has not a ghost of a chance to ever breach and occupy the still impregnable Putrajaya citadel, in spite of the credible 8 March 2008 electoral onslaught. It does not have to look far to find out why it is in such a sorry state. Lim Kit Siang's warning of a "one term miracle" could well become self-fulfilling and Putra Jaya would be just a gleam in the eye if his words are not taken to heart. Pakatan Rakyat leaders must come to terms with the reality that is Barisan Nasional. We may despise its politics of immorality, of corruption and injustice, but even the most rabid alternative political practitioners must readily concede that it is still a formidable organisation with an armoury of unsavoury tricks they have to contend with. Remember Perak, and the bad after taste that lingers on and on. Pakatan must wake up from its euphoric pie in the sky self-induced dream that the one off massive voter handouts would be there for the asking at the next general elections. There will be no repeat performance until and unless it gets its act together. The electorate owes PR nothing. The truth is that Pakatan Rakyat owes their supporters everything. PR leaders must lead by putting the larger interests of the nation above individual parochial party issues with their tendency to be unnecessarily divisive, emotive and controversial. Are these issues really so fundamental that they are incapable being discussed rationally without adding to the fragility of a coalition that is apparently about to be torn asunder? I wrote some time ago about the difficulty of reconciling the conflicting claims of the many different ideological and doctrinal sacred cows represented by the PR partners, but they must direct their intellectual energies to finding a solution to what the people of multi-racial Malaysia will and will not put up with. They must open their minds to the larger, and therefore, more relevant social, economic, political, religious and cultural concerns of our people than to insist on playing the same old race and religious cards with their declining appeal to right thinking people. These are barriers to overcome. If PR is, as it seems, incapable of even getting to the most important item on the new national agenda, then it is offering nothing better to the people of this nation than what BN has been doing for half a century and more. More of the same is an unworthy option for a long suffering people who deserve better. PR leaders must, in all good conscience, ask themselves whether they can lead this complex and difficult nation if they themselves are apparently incapable of agreeing on basic fundamental principles of cooperative engagement to deepen their commitment to values of justice in its widest sense for every Malaysian. If PK leaders feel that they have neither the will nor the stomach for the sacrifices they are expected to make in order to take the new national non-race based agenda forward on the long march to Putrajaya, they should come out with a straight answer that should leave the people of this country in no doubt where they stand. There is no place for personal agendas in the national scheme of things; certainly not where it is a matter of saving the people from a particularly rotten and unjust system of governance. Pakatan Rakyat has a great deal to offer by way of a commitment to a clean corruption-intolerant administration and it deserves to be given a chance to govern Malaysia. It cannot be worse than the Umno dominated administration. But then the political game is not about sentimental nonsense. It is determined solely by the dictum "Perform or Perish", and the PR state governments must prove to the satisfaction of the people in those states, and by extension the nation, that they can be trusted to govern good, and to govern well. This coalition, even if it were made in heaven, could still come a cropper. PR leaders have themselves to blame in the event. - Sin Chew Daily  Read More →

From our Correspondent Are PRs more appreciative of the Singapore government than citizens? It appeared so judging from the deluge of letters written by PRs to the Straits Times Forum from various nationalities praising Singapore for its achievements and condemning citizens for not being "grateful". Shortly after the Temasek Review published a write-up on a letter written by a Sam Ahmed to the Straits  Times Forum lamenting that Singaporeans are not "proud" of their country, a PR using the moniker of "Melinda" launched another tirade against Singaporeans urging them to "wake up" and stop being ungrateful brats. Introducing herself as a PR who spent a large portion of her life in Singapore and am planning to take up Singapore citizenship, Melinda jumped immediately to the defence of the Singapore government. Describing the Singapore government as "extremely efficient", Melinda claimed that the taxi drivers are only complaining because they are disgruntled at being "left behind". "After speaking to many satisfied and grateful Singaporean friends, I suspect that those who complain alot are those who don’t realise that often the government has to place the country’s interest over that of an individual," she added. Melinda also blamed Singaporeans for "taking things for granted" as the root of their dissatisfaction with the Singapore government and challenged them to live elsewhere in another country. "If one grows up in a country where there are laws and rules, where there is no war but instead well maintained roads and toilets, one may think its normal. So my advice to unhappy Singaporeans is to go live in another country for a couple of years and then compare. Many Asians like myself have thought long and hard before settling here. We have travelled and realise that things here are generally very good, that is why we moved here!" she wrote. Melinda ended her post by exhorting ungrateful Singaporeans to wake up! The ruling party should be glad that it is receiving so much support from PRs and would-be citizens. It is little wonder that it feels more "loved" by them than local citizens. A PAP MP Charles Chong once commented that it is easier to please foreigners than Singaporeans. The ruling party has been actively recruiting new citizens and even PRs to join the grassroots organizations. It has spared no resources to organize events for them such as HDB block parties to make them feel "welcomed" in Singapore. A $10 million Community Integration Fund was unveilied lately to help the newcomers "integrate" into Singapore society. PAP leaders have frequently urged Singaporeans to embrace foreigners and fraternize with them. Unfortunately, it turns out that the foreigners prefer to mingle among themselves leading to the arising of ethnic "enclaves" of Chinese and Indians in the HDB heartland. With elections coming soon, the PAP can count on the new citizens to deliver them the crucial votes in closely fought contensts as they will usually vote for the government who give them the opportunity to settle in Singapore in the first place. Only 64 per cent of Singapore's population are citizens and the percentage is likely to decline in the next few years as the ruling party continues its liberal immigration policy to boost Singapore's declining birth rates via immigration. The exact ratio of local-born to new citizens is not revealed by the authorities, but it is likely to decrease at the current rates the ruling party is "encouraging" PRs to take up Singapore citizenship. Faced with a potential backlash from the native voters who are growing increasingly disillusioned and disgruntled with its governance, the ruling party has little choice but to rely more and more on votes from the new citizen to perpetuate their political hegemony in Singapore.  Read More →

Some readers defended SPH on the ground that its employee or bot might be simply "browsing" our site for "research" purposes and blamed us for hanging him/her out to dry. However, content "grabbing" is not equivalent to innocucous "browsing" which explained why we raised the alarm bells based on the advice given by our system administrator. Attached below are two snapshots of our log to explain the difference between the two: #1 Snapshot from the incident: As we can see from above, the same IP address 203.116.231.234 which was traced back to SPH was logged to be simultaneously connecting to the server at a VERY SHORT interval, hence the IP was repeatedly logged immediately one after the other. This is the characteristic of a web grabber kind of software (it may also be sort of a SYNC attack but a SYNC attack would be grabbing the same content instead of multiple), certainly not any browser’s characteristic. #2 Snapshot taken on 6 November 2009, 9pm during "normal" browsing: A normal browser reading the site would also show the same IP address as accessing the site but not as repeatative and as close in timing as shown in the snapshot above in #1. The IP address of the reader will still be logged but the interval between connects would be greater and not one after another. In the highlighted example, they would be 202.156.13.246 and 202.156.12.228 which are accessing the site ‘normally’. Since Mr Pereira had admitted that they were SPH employees found to be visiting TR during the time period when the "grabbing" incident as shown in snapshot #1 was alleged to take place, he would be able to answer the three most important questions we have been asking all along: 1. The identity of the employee who was "grabbing" content from TR during the stated time period. 2. Is he/she using a web grabber software to do so? 3. What are his/her motives for "grabbing" our site. All we asked for is an explanation of what really happened. We will close the case once we get the answers we are waiting for.  Read More →