Sovereignty, quid pro quo, and other concepts that befuddles Malaysians

Dr Mahathir (who I suspect would be a Minister Mentor in Malaysia had Lee Kuan Yew not thought of it first) on the Causeway replacement:

2. There has never been any agreement or treaty to say that the causeway is jointly owned. If at all 2/3rd of the causeway belong to Johore. And the 2/3rd must be the part which ends in Johore Bahru because the border on the Tebrau Straits is the deep water line which runs midway between Singapore and Johore. This must also be the border on the causeway. The northern half of the causeway therefore belong to Malaysia, a sovereign independent nation.

On the first level, Malaysia’s sovereignty is not exclusive in this matter – the Law of the Sea gives Singapore rights – and these rights are less questionable when you consider the crooked bridge would change the flow of the Tebrau Straits. On the second level, the Separation Agreement, which Malaysia forced upon Singapore, guarantees Singapore no interruption with regards to water – and though matter how brilliant Malaysian engineering is, ensuring this while cutting off more than half of the Causeway is impossible.

Lastly, based on the plans, the railway lines will be, for some time, cut off from the Malaysian mainland – allowing Singapore to retake the lands (like they did with the Jurong railway branch.

4. Why should we build a bridge to replace the causeway? That part of Johore Bahru where the traffic to and from the causeway meets the traffic going east and west in JB is often jammed. In future as more vehicles go on the roads the jam would certainly get worse.

Firstly. there is no significant difference on JB downtown traffic with having the crooked bridge and having flyovers and viaducts from the present Causeway to the customs and immigration building (you, the present, disastrous status quo). And then when you consider the cause of the jams itself, it becomes clear even if the lane capacity increases by, say, 10 times, the impact would be minimal: the bottlenecks will still be there. They are known as the Woodlands Checkpoint and the Iskandar CIQ.

6. Besides the traffic problem, the water in the straits is stagnant. If the causeway is opened up there would be constant flow of water in both direction, thus flushing out the water in the strait.

And here enters Malaysia’s pet environmental project. If this was a huge priority, why isn’t a low-rise bridge (that allows the flow of water, but not ships) suggested? Ah, but yes:

7. Without the causeway boats and yachts can sail in either direction. Transport of goods and people between Pasir Gudang Port to Tanjung Pelepas Port would be facilitated. This would be good for the growth of both ports – something which perhaps Singapore would not like to see.

Transfers between those two ports are quite seamless with the expressways connecting both ports with each other. But those poor yachts. We must invest in a multi-million dollar project that undermines our diplomatic relations to one of our largest trading partners so that those poor, poor yachts can avoid sailing around Singapore. And this is a perfect segway to Kaytee:

The unsubstantiated accusation against Singapore was that the Island State preferred to see the Causeway continuing to limit access from the Malacca Straits to the shores of southern Johore … perhaps for economic/commercial advantage. But I believe the reason would have been a question of “What’s in it for us?”

And here’s the blindingly obvious question, what’s wrong with asking that question? Its call quid pro quo. Malaysia refuses to budge on anything. Why should Singapore?

Back to our bridge story – well, the Sings are like those Japanese, economic animals. They don’t give a sh*t about neighbourliness, muhhibah or kamcheng. The question about Dr Mahathir’s bridge that they would ask themselves would have been, as I’ve mentioned, “What’s in it for us?”

Malaysian sand? Malayan railway land? Malaysian airspace (for its air force to train in)? Malaysian cabotage (removal of same for the benefit of SIA, Silk Air or Tiger Airline)?

When’s the last time Malaysia done something neighbourly to Singapore. For the sake of it. Take railway land for example – Malaysia agreed to move the railway station to Woodlands (with an interim station in Bukit Timah), freeing up a lot of prime land in land-scarce Singapore. Malaysia reneged. Very kamcheng no? And back to Dr M:

12. All these issues are in Singapore’s favour and not negotiating better terms because Johore people refuse to sell sand is like cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face. We are the losers. I think it is a very stupid way of punishing Singapore. Or is it the intention to punish Johore people for not agreeing to sell sand (somebody is bound to make a huge amount of money) and rejecting the honour of having Singapore warplanes practicing aerial combat and bombing over Johore.

I never understood why selling sand or allowing the RSAF to train over Johore airspace means that Malaysia is no longer sovereign. To hell with that. Take the most thorny issue of them all: airforce training. That and more gets done in Thailand, Brunei, Taiwan, and to a lesser extend, other countries like Australia. Are all those countries under the tutelage of Singapore?

The airspace bit is most important to Singapore. Nearly a quarter of Singapore’s territory is devoted to airforce training. Just acceding to Singapore training over the sparsely-populated, forested hinterland of Malaysia will not hurt anyone but a few jingoistic Malaysian sensibilities. Personally, I’d rather Southeast Asia’s strongest airforce protecting Malaysia than against Malaysia.

And lastly, I’ll take claims of “the Johore people are against this” with a few barrels-full of salt. Where is this referendum or even public opinion poll mentioned? And why should all of Johore’s opinion matter – only South Johore will be directly affected by this, and I think they’d rather better connectivity with our southern, richer neighbour than a few useless symbols of sovereignty.

The road to dismal education is paved with stupidity and a dash of good intentions

The government wants to move STPM away from its terminus exam system to a modular, less exam-focused system. Which is stupid.

Firstly, pre-university education (where STPM falls under) is meant to give a strong foundation to university education. Subjects in STPM are broad in focus (overarching subjects like Physics, Economics and Mathematics are there, instead of more specialized subjects). By making into a modular system with three semesters, where subjects are read only throughout one semester, you would undermine the foundational aspect of pre-university education.

Secondly, a modular system would necessary limit the scope teachers could use to teach subjects – what should be taught first, what should taught next, etc. Teachers already have so little teaching autonomy, a modular system would hamper teachers from finding their individual teaching styles that serves them and their students better.

Thirdly, the new STPM would have significantly more coursework than presently (where for most subjects, the entire result comes from the exam). I don’t know how it would play out, but if it is anything like present-day coursework, it won’t end well. It invariably lead to standard problems/questions/projects students can do, and to make grading more objective, the outcomes of projects is also standardized.

There is little control on cheating, especially in urban schools. I remember my SPM coursework for Additional Mathematics was entirely copied, with words paraphrased, and the report pretty-fied. Those who do as little as copying and pasting, with just changing the names, didn’t get into much trouble. Coursework can undermine the key benefit of a closed examination: integrity.

It isn’t to say that I believe secondary education must be entirely based on examination. And that’s the bit I think needs reforming most.

For local universities, the idea is to have as much objective information as possible on the application (no things like personal statements, essays or the like), with everything quantifiable (even co-curricular activities – there is a point system standard to all schools in Malaysia). Not only would UPU’s (the central clearinghouse and admission office for most public universities) job be simplified, there would be little room for subjective evaluation.

This is clearly wrong-headed. For one, the Ministry of Higher Education, and not individual universities, that decide admissions of individual students – the diseconomy of scale is clearly present. Beyond the risk to applications (they can’t diversify if there is only one bureaucracy that handles their future), a single bureaucracy to deal with the variety of programs, universities and applications surely cannot be efficient.

This inefficiency as well as the lack of diversification of applicant risk prevents subjective, qualitative information from being used in the admissions process. However, when universities and individual faculties take over the admissions process, they can start taking into account more and more subjective information, like essays, portfolios, working experience, community involvement, talents, and the like.

Since the problem the Ministry is trying to solve is that of rote learning and heavy emphasis on memorization, broadening the sort of information used in admission applications will reduce the emphasis on standardized, central examinations. Getting a good grade in STPM will no longer be sufficient to get a good place in university, neither is doing badly in STPM will keep you from entering university.

Politically, I can see why there is little incentive to reform the system this drastically – the heavy centralization evident in Malaysia is due to the persistent fear of autonomy and the ease in manipulating the education systems for political gain.

As for STPM, I’m not saying it shouldn’t be reformed. But I think it still should remain an examination to remain relevant in any admissions system. Things like reducing the rigidity of the grading rubrics, introducing open book papers, reducing Form 6 to one year – all these would help. Introducing non-examable elements to STPM will undermine the effectiveness of STPM without solving the problem reforms was set out to solve.

Uhm, he does

Kadir Jasin on Lee Kuan Yew multi-state visit to Malaysia:

Terlintas di fikiran saya adakah seorang negarawan Malaysia seperti Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad akan mendapat penghormatan dan keistimewaan yang serupa kalau beliau melawat Singapura?

I wonder if a Malaysian statesman like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad would be received with respect and given special treatment should he visit Singapore?

Well, for one, Tun M doesn’t have any public office; Lee Kuan Yew is Singapore’s Minister Mentor. Secondly, Mahathir does get pretty well in Singapore considering how much he is hated by the political establishment there (see: how well he’s treated when he attends any NUS alumni event).

Jadi lawatan LKY ini bukanlah lawatan nostalgia. Ia adalah lawatan mencari maklumat dan risikan. Lawatan untuk mengenali dan mengukur kepintaran para pembesar Malaysia. Lawatan untuk mengajar anak buahnya untuk mengenali barisan baru kepemimpinan Malaysia.

Therefore LKY’s visit is not a nostalgic trip. It’s a fact-finding and reconnaissance visit. A visit to get to know and measure the intelligence of Malaysia’s leaders. A visit to teach those under him about the new leadership front of Malaysia

Well, duh. If there is anyone in our ruling class that doesn’t know this, they should resign immediately out of sheer stupidity. If LKY wanted a nostalgic trip, he didn’t need to take a state visit to Malaysia.

And then he drives to the point:

Inilah keistimewaan Singapura. Ia sangat mengutamakan maklumat dan risikan. Dan tidak seperti negara kita yang meminggir dan mencemuh Dr Mahathir, Singapura memaksimumkan penggunaan LKY sebagai guru dan diplomat luar biasa untuk menarik pelaburan asing dan menebarkan pengaruh Singapura sebagai kuasa ekonomi serantau.

It’s Dr Mahathir’s fault isn’t it? He picked someone compliant and agreeable and was shocked that 1) he himself didn’t have as much sway on him as his family members and 2) his successor would like to think for himself. Say, how many deputies have Lee Kuan Yew unceremoniously fired, or worse, have jailed for trumped up charges?

In as much as I hate the PAP and the system they have created in Singapore, Mahathir is no where near the class and intelligence of Lee Kuan Yew, and definitely no where near Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy.

AWARE parallels *anything* if you’re going to be that stupid

Worst Forum letter in a long time.

The Aware incidents have glaringly highlighted the fragility of our multiracial and multireligious society. It has given us a useful peek into the potential troubles that may crop up when there is a polarisation of a particular view championed on grounds of a faith – real or perceived.

The Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) was an interest group with merely 300 members until recently. Yet, the racial and religious mix of its ‘new’ executive committee made some Singaporeans uncomfortable.

Yeah. It was just the religious mix of the old new exco of AWARE that cheesed people off. Nothing about the hostile takeover. If they were all committed atheists, no one would care. Rigghhtttt. (If minority representation in Parliament, by the way, is the goal, there are other ways to achieve that – reserve seats, using proportional representation, etc. – that doesn’t have this queer side effect of giving the PAP an insurmountable advantage).

Fashion Police

Don’t wear black when the Royal Malaysian Fashion Police is on the prowl:

Did not respect the court ruling?

Zambry: “You are asking about the microphone being switched off when you should go back to the basic issue, the speaker didn’t respect the court ruling,”

Pray tell, which court ruling declared the 3 March assembly sitting illegal, and which court ruling gave a binding (very constitutional) order for the suspension of the Barisan seven to be revoked.

Also, Zambry claims that Barisan Nasional is merely resisting a “tyranny of the minority”. If indeed, Pakatan Rakyat is in the minority, why is Zambry and his godfather Najib so viciously afraid of an election? You may be the de facto mentri besar Zambry, but you aren’t the de jure mentri besar – and you have absolutely no legitimacy. Eventually, you would have to call for elections. I hope you have career plans beyond 2013.

For your petty little desire to be a the leader of Perak against the wishes of your people, you have destroyed federal and state institutions. There is a special place in hell for your kind.

The end of Malaysian constitutionalism

Hello Insta-readers. If it gets too confusing, it is – try Wikipedia. The matter isn’t who was originally right, but rather who wrought the most damage.

For lighter stuff, check out this video!

And a last bit before you begin, Barisan Nasional (National Front, a fitting name) controls the federal government, and have since independence. Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance) controls five states… or four, depending on where you stand. They are the federal opposition in authoritarian Malaysia.

The last blow to the constitution took place just minutes ago in Perak – the Perak State Assembly Speaker was ejected out of the State Assembly, allowing Barisan Nasional to place their new Speaker in his ill-gotten seat. For those not in the know (i.e. my non-Malaysian readers), essentially what happen was that in late January and early February, three assemblymen from the ruling Pakatan Rakyat became independents “friendly to Barisan Nasional”, after spending sometime missing. Two of them were charged on 26 January with corruption, a charge that mysteriously got dropped after the switch.

The Speaker declared those seats vacant, using undated, signed resignation letters from the assemblymen (or ADUN). The Election Commission disagreed and decided the seats weren’t vacant. The Sultan called the 28 Barisan Nasional assemblymen plus the three defectors to meet with him, and then decided that the Mentri Besar (Chief Minister) has lost the confidence of the Assembly, compelling the Mentri Besar to resign. He refused and the constitutional crisis blew out of proportion.

The question here isn’t whether or not the Sultan acted unconstitutionally (I’m not sure – but he did violated the spirit of Westminster convention by not dissolving the State Assembly at the request of the Mentri Besar). What happen next was the Barisan Nasional, the unpopular usurpers (why else would they want to avoid state elections by all means?) escalating the constitutional crisis by eroding and permanently damaging the institutions of democracy in Malaysia. (A better summary here).

Lets look at the casualties:

- End of separation of powers: the Courts decided to hear and make an ruling on the State Assembly proceedings despite the fact that the Federal Constitution specifically prohibits this. Interestingly enough, the Courts still have not recognised the 3 March 2009 sitting as illegal, therefore Zambry and his six “executive councillors” are still legally suspended from the State Assembly.
- Death of the courts’ legitimacy: A junior Judiciary Commissioner, who would be elevated to be a High Court Judge based on an “evaluation” of his work (thus you see his incentives) was given such a important constitutional case. He made a huge mockery of the constitution by denying Sivakumar (the Speaker) his legal representatives – instead forcing him to be legally represented by the opposing side (the Perak “state government”).
- Abuse of police powers: The police have gone out of their way to act in Barisan Nasional’s favour – such as ejecting the Speaker out of the House. This includes the rash of arrests in Ipoh of people eating in restaurants wearing black shirts (fashion police, heh). This includes kidnapping a certain Monash University lecturer and extending his remand without charges.
- Perversion of the civil service: The civil service in Perak showed their loyalty to Barisan Nasional by specifically ignoring orders by then-indisputable constitutional and elected office holders – including closing the State Assembly on 3 March 2009.
- Erosion of democratic institutions: when the Speaker declared the State Assembly seats of the crossovers vacant, due to signed, undated letters, it wasn’t the Elections Commission competency or responsibility to ascertain the validity of the resignation letters. If the resignation letters have no legal weight, the aggrieved assemblymen could have gotten a stay at the Courts and keep their seats while the courts (who actually have the authority and competency to do this) deliberate. Instead, Barisan Nasional ended all pretenses of the Elections Commission’s neutrality.

On the other hand, BN did the opposition PR a huge favour. PR is made up of three parties – Parti Keadilan Rakyat or PKR (People’s Justice Party), secular, social democratic, Chinese-dominant Democratic Action Party or DAP, and Islamist Parti Islam Se-Malaysia or PAS (Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party).

Despite the fact DAP won the higher number of seats in Perak last year, PAS was given the post of chief minister (the Sultan favoured him, and constitutionally, only a Malay-Muslim could be chief minister). Nizar proved to be a very competent administrator and leader, and his popularity rose – particularly among non-Muslims. And with the coup in Perak, non-Muslims rallied around Nizar, sending him to Parliament in Kuala Lumpur at the Bukit Gantang by-election.

PAS has moderated itself significantly since 2008, and in June, would probably see a rise of the “Erdogun” wing in PAS – liberal Islamists who prefer to cooperate with other opposition parties instead of the ruling Malay-Muslim UMNO (the kingpin of the BN coalition). A year and a half ago, nobody, not even Anwar Ibrahim himself, would have predicted such rapport between DAP and PAS, and the liberalization of PAS.

On swine flu, the Causeway, and Penang

Love, love, love Penang. If I ever move back to Malaysia, Penang would be a top consideration. There is a certain vibe, a feel, a certain je ne sais quoi.

I had a lot of fun at MTT’s Akademi Merdeka; will write about it later.

But I didn’t buy a return Penang-Singapore ticket, which is pretty stupid on my part considering Sunday’s the end of a long weekend. However, a big shoutout and eternal gratefulness for Wan Fadzrul Wan Jan, Adam Ismail, and Noor Amin bin Ahmad for sending me to Pudu, KL from Penang.

My hatred for the new Johore CIQ building on the Malaysian end of the Causeway has been superceded by new found hatred of the Woodlands side. Honestly. Swine flu checks? Is that necessary? Is it worth delaying everyone by an hour?

Speaking of swine flu, this was found in my mailbox:

SMU’s Crisis Management Group (CMG) has activated SMU Visitor Screening with effect from Monday, 4 May 2009.

All visitors are required to fill up visitor travel declaration forms and have their temperature taken before allowing entry into the Schools and Administration Building. The visitors are required to display the coloured sticker upon clearing the temperature screening. Each building will have a single Visitor Screening entry point for the visitors.

Worse, worse:

As such, SMU requires strigent temperature screening process to be implemented immediately, hostel is no exception.

Therefore, for the sake of your own health as well as that of your friends’,

From tommorrow, i.e. May 3rd Sunday onwards (inclusive), each and every of the resident has to take temperature at the security office and record it, once a day.

All you have to do is to go to the security office when you go out or come back, take your temperature (theorometer is in place) and record it (record forms have been printed out for everyone, with a template attached to this mail). Worry not, the entire process will take no more than 1 minute to complete.

Why? Because of two confirm case, one each in South Korea and Hong Kong. Sigh.

Stupid, pithy move

The “new” Perak mentri besar (chief minister) is buying new Proton Perdanas and auctioning off the Toyota Camry the “previous”/ousted Perak government bought.

The state’s 16 Toyota Camrys, used by the previous Pakatan Rakyat (PR) government as their official vehicles, will be auctioned off at the State Secretariat’s car park from 9.30am to 4pm from May 4 to 18.

The reserve price for each vehicle is at RM148,000.

Zambry said former mentri besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin will be given firts preference in the auction for his official car.

Truly disgraceful.

I do hope Zambry knows his time is coming up soon. The very latest, 8 March 2013 – because short of Nizar prancing around Kampong Simee naked, Zambry does not have a chance. When the Chinese rally around a PAS man, surely something is truly wrong with BN.

Thanks Thailand!

Singapore says new law will prevent meeting disruption.

Useful excuse there – the probability of this happening in Singapore is between 0 and when it snows in Singapore.