After a break, I'm now 'burdened' with selecting the issues to start with as what have bothered my mind are all issues of great public attention and how some of them have affected people's everyday life.
Before I write on various issues, I wish to mention here on two 'missing' incidents/tragedies that remained a mystery. Firstly, the disappearance of MH 370.
It's been 60 over days and still, no clues of it's whereabout or it's end being physically sighted. Secondly, the “missing Prime Minister” tragedy. Thus, rised questions such as how much these two tragedies have affected Malaysia and it's government? Were there real weaknesses and faults?
As far as MH370 is concerned, I can't really form any opinion as to how - despite international participation in search and rescue operation; air, land, sea and under-sea - the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 with 239 crew and passengers is nowhere to be found. The long and expensive search has so far failed to detect wreckage or debries of this aircrat leaving us clueless as to what truely happened or where exactly the airliner ended.
It's becoming a great concern when people are questioning whether the search in the southern Indian Ocean with Perth, Australia as it's operation base is the right area of search. It was reported in a poll that more than 70 per cent of Australians do not believe the search area was right, following reports that the aircraft is claimed to be in Bay of Bengal, South China Sea, Gulf of Thailand and Diego Garcia naval base. It was also reported that majority of respondents thought Australia should stop footing the bill.
A poll in the United States also showed that majority of the people do not believe that the Malaysian Government had done a great job in managing the search as well as in providing information to the general public.
Forget about the polls in Australia, the United States or other countries on MH370. I wish to highlight a Malaysian poll conducted most recently which showed that more than half of the people surveyed believed the government is hiding/holding information on the disappearance of MH370.
As far as I remember, never in 50 over years since independence has the Malaysian government recieved intense internal and international scrutiny pertaining to accountability, transparency and good governance.
The second missing was the 'missing Prime Minister' at the height of controvercial issues involving race and religion.
NGOs such as Perkasa and ISMA became outspoken and provocative in their statements and actions which were seen threatening racial unity and religious harmony. Insults of various forms were conviniently uttered against non-Malays and non-Muslims.
In most recent development, the Malaysian Insider reported Dr Mahathir had told ISMA's leaders to pipe down their comments labelling Malaysian Chinese as 'trespassers', as well as a call to impose Islamic laws on all Malaysians.
"He should keep his comments to himself," said the former prime minister, referring to Abdullah Zaik. "They are not doing any good to this country. We don't need people to instigate racial riots and things like that.
ISMA president Abdullah Zaik Abdul Rahman unpurtubed by Dr Mahathir's criticisms said it's up to people to judge and insisted that he was entitled to voice his opinion just as
Dr Mahathir had the right to air his.
"That is his opinion. And I have my own. We (Isma) can accept that others have a different opinion from us and we appreciate that," Zaik told The Malaysian Insider today.
Abdullah dismissed Dr Mahathir's comments, saying that the people were able to make their own decisions about the group.
"I think the people can judge for themselves whether or not we are constructive, whether we are instigating race problems or not," he said.
Earlier this week, Abdullah said Chinese migrants brought in by the British to Tanah Melayu were “trespassers” and questioned their citizenship.
While cost for the next phase of MH370 search may hit another more than RM100 million, cost for uncheck extremism may cost racial unity and religious harmony of this country.
The Prime Minister and the authority must not be seen as providing "immunity" to NGO leaders such as Perkasa and ISMA as it would conviniently be interpretated as being in agreement with not only their views but their actions as well.
Prime Minister Najib must be bold enough to indicate his stand to extremist views, at the same time declare his opposition to the same be it on race or religion and uphold his 1Malaysia policy.
No comments:
Post a Comment