Aarvidi’s Weblog

How inhuman can you get. High blood pressure, hands and neck injured, surely he is not going to make a dash for it. Being handcuffed is good enough to raise his pressure more. Are they dealing with a serial murderer, terrorist or what. Please Badawi, do something, the world is watching us.

ISA detainee in hospital after fall

By WANI MUTHIAH

KLANG: ISA detainee V. Ganabatirau, 34, is in the Taiping district hospital after falling and injuring his hands and neck.

His wife, teacher V. Buvaneswary, 32, said her husband fell after he became dizzy on Friday.

“They found his blood pressure was high after admission and the full medical report on his condition will be ready on Monday,” said Buvaneswary who visited Ganabatirau in the hospital with about 15 relatives Saturday.

According to Buvaneswary, her husband had been very stressed due to allegations that he and other Hindraf leaders were linked to terrorists.

“He never had a history of blood pressure and I believe that he became ill because he was not able to take those allegations any more,” said Buvaneswary.

She said that she and her relatives were also upset to see Ganabatirau handcuffed to his bed with six police personnel standing watch over him.

“It was a little too much for us, too,” said Buvaneswary.

ISA detainee in hospital after fall

I was concerned that Ramli will again be the speaker. But after reading this, that for the speaker’s post, candidates from Sabah and Sarawak may be appointed. I sighed a breath of relief. Let us thank Ramli for a job well done.

Ramli doesn’t mind staying on as Speaker

KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib, who is caretaker Dewan Rakyat Speaker, does not mind being re-nominated when Parliament convenes on April 28.

“I am willing to be the Speaker if required. But at the moment I don’t know whether I would still hold the post,” he said. “I’m a normal man. I will try to do whatever is best.”

Ramli has been the Speaker since Nov 22, 2004.

Q&A session: Ramli answering a question during an exclusive interview with Bernama at his office in Parliament House Thursday.

On the new Dewan Rakyat session, Ramli said it would be unique in several ways, including having the largest number of opposition members since 1959.

He said there would be the mother and daughter team of Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (PKR– Permatang Pauh) and Nurul Izzah Anwar (PKR – Lembah Pantai).

“Previously we had father and son teams: Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng, who will be around; (the late) Tun Ghafar Baba and Mohd Tamrin Ghafar,” he said, adding thatabout 45% of the MPs, or 99 of the 222 MPs, were new faces, the largest number of new MPs so far.

Ramli said MPs could nominate their own candidates, including non-MPs, to become the Speaker, adding that MPs would have to vote on the first day of the sitting.

The two deputy speakers, however, must be elected MPs.

Ramli doesn’t mind staying on as Speaker

What was I sent here for?

In Malaysia I can see many groups of Indians who face this horrid situation where your colour of the skin is more important than the ability that you have inherited, or acquired by hard work and study. For ease of convenience I have grouped them as students, the kindergarten stage, your primary school days, the secondary stage and your days spend in tertiary education. Your kindergarten days are the best, the children are too young to know the difference. When they step into primary one, the first inkling of difference is learned and the teachers are the perpetuators, if not all but some at least.

At the secondary school stage the difference is full blown. Your colour of the skin matters. In higher education courses hatred becomes the norm when discrimination is so obvious.

The second division belongs to your adult age after your education is completed and you are looking for employment. Here again there are two groups, one group is not bothered about racial segregation simply because their working environment has no such practices. Damn lucky blokes. The second group of disgruntled workers face this monster every day, but to earn a leaving they tag along.

The older group know what it was to live with all races amicably and with a sense of belonging to a country, tolerance towards religion, culture, and what have you. A true cosmopolitan country.

Natalie Shobana Ambrose, is right, are Indians fulfilling their purpose as citizens in this country and can they carry on with their cultural, economical and social responsibilities, untainted by race difference. I have no quarrel with the races they are humans as much as Indians; they want to treat everyone fairly, but in comes the dreaded government, the political masters, willing to gain political mileage showing and contributing to divide and rule. Religion is used without restrain, we and they becomes a norm and the country suffers.

The British are accused as the originators of the malady, but sorry to say during their time this country was a true melting pot of various races without anger and distrust among races. It is a long way to go, but the government must lead not just by singing patriotic and unity songs, but doing the singing with involvement and sincerity. You can drag the horse to the river, but the choice of the horse is more important.

What was I sent here for?

Natalie Shobana Ambrose | Apr 3, 08 1:53pm

Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi (fondly know as Rumi) wrote, “The human being therefore has come into the world for a specific purpose and aim. If one does not fulfil that purpose, one has done nothing.
When I was younger I remember wishing so hard that I wasn’t Indian. Many times I’d ask my mother if I looked like I was of mixed parentage - my mother’s straight to the point answer ‘Of course you look Indian. What else would you look like? Both your parents are Indian. ‘
Much to my disappointment, without a shadow of doubt – I was Indian. My attempts to not stand in the sun didn’t help me on the fairness graph either.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like the way I looked or my inherited ability to roll my ‘r’s’. I just didn’t want to be Indian because of the stigma of being Indian.
To me, being Indian meant that we were not the brightest lot, we were poor, didn’t have much of a future and enjoyed fraternizing around coconut trees singing songs to our heart’s content.
But that wasn’t me. I refused to be defined by society’s perception of Indians.
No matter how hard I tried not to be Indian, I was derogatorily called Tangachi (literally, little sister, but often denoting, cutie or ah-moi) and would be teased by students of other races attempting to speak Tamil (something only fellow Indians would understand).
I grew up not seeing Indians on TV unless on the news, - usually at a crime scene - and I grew up listening to radio adverts mocking the Indian accent. Surrounded by all these observations, who in their right mind would want to be Indian?
Anything but Indian I pleaded. Anything! It must have been quite an amusing sight but an even more common sight in today’s Malaysia.
I’ve grown up since then, and fully embrace my Indian heritage. But what about society?
Of course the likes of Aishwarya Rai and Shilpa Shetty, the glamorization of Bollywood moves and movies has helped in the acceptance of being Indian. But what does it mean to be a Malaysian Indian?

Always #3

Am I, Malaysian first and Indian second? Or am I, Indian first and Malaysian second?
The reality of living in Malaysia means that we are defined by race. Every application form we fill subjects us to define ourselves by race and the Indian box is always at its highest position at number 3.
It didn’t matter that my parents raised their children to believe that we could be anything we wanted to if we really wanted to, because society dictated otherwise and the law makes sure we remember our ’standing’ in the country. Always #3, nothing more.
I remember clearly being defined by race from a very young age. I remember while in primary school, my class teacher (who I thought was a very nice Malay lady) told the whole class that I looked like her maid.
Not a very clued-in child, I thought, well her maid must be very pretty. Little did I realise what had just happened. Of course, when I got home and spoke of my day to my mother this compliment turned into the bitter reality of class-fuelled racism. I had been indirectly told I was #3 in the scheme of things!
I never understood what I had done for someone whom I respected – and my teacher of all people - to treat me in such a manner.
In a perfect world, we would not see colour, but the reality is we do see colour and we interpret and place judgments - good or bad based on our biases, socialization and upbringing.
Maybe if we acknowledged that racism does exist in us, we might be better able to address it. It is a bit of a radical idea in harmonious unified Malaysia, but we all are biased to a certain extent. It’s just that some people are able to conceal it better than others - but it that doesn’t mean it doesn’t’ exist.
I’m not advocating racism, in fact the opposite. I’m looking for a solution. The first step to any recovery is acknowledging the problem, - if not what are we trying to fix?
We may have different likes and beliefs - but when does a preference become racism?
I believe it is when a sales person refuses to let you try on a dress because he thinks you can’t afford it. It is when a quota system limits you to the right of an education of your choice. Or when a job advertisement specifies what race, age and gender you should be before you can even apply.
It is when scholarships are limited by race and not test scores, it is when you have to pay more for the same house your neighbour has - on top of paying for your child’s education because there weren’t spaces left for your race in the public tertiary education system.
How then are we to love our neighbours?
When life is defined and limited to race, problems arise. When people are suppressed, repressed, bullied and forced to be voiceless a country suffers.
For today, we, as a nation may look well, but will Malaysia have a multicultural society to brag about in twenty years to come or would we have to scour foreign lands for sightings of Malaysians?

Tolerating one another
As a nation, our greatest asset is the fact that we are a multicultural people, and as the travel brochures would say ‘living in harmony with one another’. Or, as the Tourism Malaysia ad says, Malaysia – Truly Asia!
Somehow it has become a song we sing rather than a reality we practice. In many ways, it should read Tolerating One Another. After all that is what we do best - tolerate.
The very word advocates hatred. We should not have to put up with each other, rather we should embrace one another and strive to understand each other better …. not looking at race or religion.
The only way to do this is to spend time with each other instead of allowing our prejudice to distance us from one another.
It sounds very much like my moral classes back in the day. Maybe we should all hold hands and sing Kum-Ba-Yah or Rasa Sayang and sit around a bonfire and magically we will be transformed.
A huge part of me wishes I hadn’t spent all those years trying so hard not to be Indian. But an even bigger part of me hopes that young Indian children don’t feel like they have to apologize for being an Indian in Malaysia - for this is the only country they can call home.
Have migration enquiries to other countries increased in the last six months? I don’t think we need statistics to confirm it. As a young Indian living in Malaysia, why wouldn’t I embrace a country that allows me to be the best I can be without penalizing me for my race? As I ponder on RÅ«mÄ«’s words, I wonder to myself, will Malaysia allow me to fulfil my purpose or will I stay and achieve nothing

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NATALIE SHOBANA AMBROSE is a writer, dancer, sociologist, care-giver, pianist, memories curator and concerned Malaysian in the midst of finishing her thesis in Strategy and Defence Studies at the Universiti Malaya.

What was I sent here for?

Malay Mail

From time to time, the general public is advised to co-operate with the Police to bring criminals to book. Reading a case like the one below, would any sane man or woman would want to do it. It is a known fact that car repossess have connections with the Police and that is the reason why they act indifferently to their work and are ready to be tough and bully the car owners.

The DGP appears innocent of what is happening. By right he says, every police station must have one-way mirrors, but they may be some stations without one. The DGP saying this, is shocking, has he not got a record of such logistics problems on all Police stations in the country. Normally such information is ready available from records, but in this case the DGP may have to travel throughout the breadth and width of the country, personally to gather the information. Good he may be then gainfully employed.

He is in the dark of what Police stations have and don’t. A sorry state of affairs, which the IGP must take not of.

By right he says one-way mirrors are the norm, and due to the ignorance of the DGP, no instruction were given to the Police at Sungei Buloh to carry out identification parade at a different location. Can the DGP accept responsibuility for this.

I suggest the IGP conducts a personal inquiry, the DGP is part of the bungling and put right the DGP and the Police officers in Sungei Buloh. Maybe discipline them against a recurrence. Will he do that? Incidently does the IGP knows Police stations which do not have one-way mirrors - just out of curiosity.

Deputy IGP takes up issue
MEERA MURUGESAN and MUZLIZA MUSTAFA

KUALA LUMPUR: “I am not happy about it and I will bring it up.”

Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Datuk Ismail Omar, said this after Weekend Mail told him about a woman and her children’s experience in an open identifi cation parade at the Sungai Buloh police station.

“By right, most police stations should have one-way mirrors, but due to time and logistic problems, there may be some stations without one.” Ismail, however, could not provide details on how many stations have yet to be equipped with such a facility.

He said even though the Sungai Buloh police station does not have a one-way mirror, the offi cers could have arranged for the identifi cation parade to be done at another station equipped with it.

“We understand how the victims feel and they must be protected.” In the incident, legal adviser Devi (not her real name) was made to identify — face-to-face — three car repossessors who allegedly threatened her and her family after their attempts to take her car failed.

It took place in an open room at the Sungai Buloh police station on March 4.

“I felt like I had been thrown into the lion’s den.” She said there were 17 people lined up for the identifi cation parade — and they were talking as if they knew each other.

Among them were the three men who had earlier threatened and hurled abuses at her and her children.

“The only thing that kept us apart was the big long table in between. What if they come after us?” Devi, 44, said the ID parade was held after they lodged a police report on March 3.

“We felt threatened by their behaviour and they threatened to kill my son.” Devi said it started when she sent her husband to a bank in Bandar Baru Sungai Buloh at 2.40pm to cash a cheque and pay for her car payment, which was two months overdue. She was accompanied by her daughter, son and a friend, an Indian national.

While driving around to wait for her husband, a car overtook them and blocked her car. Devi said the men came out and told her to alight as they were going to repossess the car.

When she refused, the men hurled abuses at her.

“The men were big and aggressive. Frightened, I drove home as it was not far from town.” She said the men followed her, even driving past the security guard stationed at her residential area.

Meanwhile, another car joined the ‘convoy’.

Devi called her husband who then contacted the police for help. Both cars left after being chased by the guard.

“My son went to the security booth and told me the two cars were still there.

When they saw him, they threatened to beat and kill him. He was so frightened he didn’t walk home but jumped over the fence to get in.” She said a patrol car came and the policemen advised her to lodge a report.

“That’s what we did after I picked up my husband from the bank.” While her daughter and 16-year-old son fi led a report on the incident at the Sungai Buloh police station, her husband lodged one against the bank for leaking their personal information to the other party as they suspect the three men were not authorised repossessors.

“If the repossession order was out, the account would be blocked, but it was still active when my husband banked in the car loan payment.” Devi said when she took a breather outside the police station, she bumped into the same men who entered the premises. She claimed that one of them indirectly threatened her by telling someone over the cell phone to “carry” in Tamil after giving her car registration number.

She informed the investigating offi cer of the men’s presence. The inspector took their identifi cation cards and other documents from them.

“It seemed that they also lodged a police report.” Devi said they were told to come for the ID parade the next day. The family waited in a hallway and Devi was called in fi rst.

“When I entered the room, I was shocked to see about 17 men, including the suspects, lined up in front of me. I was asked to point my fi nger at the suspects.

“When I was done, one of the men made a call and told the other person on the line that I’ve identifi ed them.” She said she was asked to leave the room through a door close to the suspects.

“One of them said to me, ‘You are going home after this, right?’” Devi claimed that her daughter and son got similar remarks from the suspects.

When she complained to the IO, she said the offi cer told her that it was the procedure, and raised his voice.

She said they encountered the three suspects again outside the station.

“They hurled abuses at us.

No one at the station came out to check the commotion although they could see it clearly through the glass entrance.” Devi said she and her family now live in fear.

“I went to the right channel and thought that I would be protected, but I didn’t feel that at all.”

Malay Mail