WIDE ANGLEBy HUZIR SULAIMAN
In the second segment of Ruling the Rulers, an analysis of the challenges faced by the Malay Rulers over the years, Wide Angle examines the post-Merdeka period.
THE 1960s, although a tumultuous decade for many other reasons, was relatively quiet in terms of intervention by the Malay Rulers in matters of administration and politics.
The relationship between the Sultans and the Alliance Government was still benefiting from the effort both parties had been obliged to make to find common ground in the run-up to their negotiations with the British in 1956.
(Eventually, the Rulers had been persuaded to drop their opposition to the granting of citizenship to non-Malays born in Malaya, a provision insisted on by the British, championed, naturally, by the MIC and MCA, and accepted by Umno only with a certain amount of trauma.)
But the honeymoon period of the new constitutional monarchy couldn’t last forever.
By 1981, when Dr Mahathir Mohamad succeeded Hussein Onn as Prime Minister of Malaysia, the country was in the giddy throes of a surge in royal activism.
The period from 1977 to 1983 saw several Sultans make their presence felt in the political arena to a far greater degree than had been previously seen.
The close of Hussein Onn’s premiership saw conflicts between several Sultans and Mentris Besar erupt into the open.
In 1977, the Sultan of Kelantan attempted to intervene in a crisis caused by the deteriorating relations between PAS and Umno (then in a short-lived alliance).
The Sultan attempted to postpone the dissolution of the State Assembly following a vote of no confidence in the Mentri Besar, in order that a replacement MB could be found from PAS without elections being called.
Unrest followed, which was ample pretext for the Federal Government to declare a State of Emergency in Kelantan. In the subsequent State elections, Umno came to power, a situation that the Sultan had been trying to avoid.
Things were heating up elsewhere, too. In 1977 the Sultan of Perak ostracised his Mentri Besar to the point that he was forced to resign. In 1978, the Sultan of Pahang rejected the Umno nominee for MB and, in 1981, the Sultan of Johor forced his MB to resign after 14 years in office.
We cannot know with any certainty what the new Prime Minister’s attitudes were towards the Malay Rulers when he assumed office in 1981 in the midst of this burgeoning atmosphere of royal assertiveness.
However, in Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad, Khoo Boo Teik argues that “Mahathir was not necessarily an out and out ‘anti-royalist’. He found heroes in strong modernising sovereigns such as Peter the Great and the Meiji Emperor but his attitude towards the Malay royalty was less admiring.”
Khoo notes that “Mahathir’s disdain for the Malay rulers had ? been expressed in oblique criticism before.
“C.H.E. Det (Mahathir’s pen name in the late 1940s) had cast the 1949 conflict between the Malay royalty and the nascent Umno leadership as a conflict between ‘rulers and rakyats’. Then, C.H.E. Det stood with those who thought that the rulers had either to yield to the wishes of Umno and its supporters or to forfeit the loyalty of the Malays.”
What is almost certain is that Dr Mahathir would have been aware that the independent-minded Sultans of Perak and Johor were the two most likely candidates to become the next Agong in 1984.
Indeed, their Highnesses were shortly to demonstrate their autonomy in ways that led to a measure of public distress.
In 1982, the Sultan of Perak, in his capacity as Head of Religion in his State, looked at the two permissible methods used to calculate the timing of Hari Raya Puasa, and chose the one different from that used in the rest of the country.
That year the fasting month ended a day earlier in Perak, disrupting travel plans and inadvertently making it a rather stressful holiday for the Malay community.
The following year, both the Sultans of Perak and Johor used the alternate method, and their two States celebrated Hari Raya a day earlier than the rest of Malaysia.
Some commentators have suggested that the distress of the “variant Hari Raya” prompted Dr Mahathir’s subsequent desire to concentrate administrative power in the Federal Government.
But R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, in Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir, citing interviews with Umno ministers, suggest that what became known as the 1983 constitutional crisis “was precipitated by reports, received by Mahathir, that the Sultan of Johor stated at a gathering that when he was elected Agong he would unilaterally declare a state of emergency, and with the aid of the army, throw out all the politicians.
“Compounding this were stories that the Sultan was close to certain key military men, and that the army chief, General Tan Sri Mohd Zain Hashim, had criticised Mahathir’s approach and had questioned where the army’s loyalty rested.”
Whatever the case may be, on Aug 1, the Government brought the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 before both houses of Parliament, and it was quickly passed.
The bill put forward 22 amendments to the Federal Constitution, including three very significant changes to the position of the Malay Rulers.
First, it removed the need for the Agong to give his Royal Assent to a piece of legislation before it could be gazetted as law. Instead, it stipulated that if the Agong did not give his Assent within 15 days, he was deemed to have done so, and the law could come into effect.
Second, it introduced parallel provisions removing the need for a Sultan to give his Assent to State laws.
Third, it transferred the power to declare an Emergency from the Agong (who was, in any case, supposed to act on the advice of Cabinet in this regard) directly to the Prime Minister, who was not obliged to act on anyone’s advice.
The Prime Minister’s Department had ordered a press blackout on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 and, so, while the fact of the bill’s passing was mentioned, its significance was downplayed, and the debate – including an impassioned speech in opposition to it by DAP’s Lim Kit Siang – did not appear in local media.
For the following two months, nothing appeared. But a right royal storm was brewing.
Immediately, the liberal intelligentsia opposed the provision that allowed the Prime Minister to unilaterally declare an Emergency.
On Aug 2, 1983, Aliran issued a statement condemning the Bill, claiming the proposed amendment “opens the way to political abuse. For the Prime Minister is, in the ultimate analysis, a political personality very much involved in the conflicts and compromises of party politics. There is no constitutional mechanism for ensuring that he will not use his emergency powers against his political foes from any quarter.
“It is simply not possible to prevent an ambitious Prime Minister in the future from emerging as a ‘supremo’ after the proclamation of an emergency.”
But, under the strict press blackout, it was not reported.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the public, the Agong, under pressure from his fellow Rulers, refused to give his Assent to the Bill.
The Rulers maintained that the Bill contravened Article 38(4) of the Constitution, which stated that “No law directly affecting the privileges, position, honours or dignities of the Rulers shall be passed without the consent of the Conference of Rulers.”
The Rulers had also come to understand the full legal implications of removing the need for Royal Assent to legislation. It meant that if Parliament voted to abolish the monarchy, the Rulers would be powerless to stop them.
Tensions continued to build behind the scenes. It was only in October, when Senu Abdul Rahman circulated a letter condemning the amendments, followed by Tunku Abdul Rahman defying the gag order by writing about them in the pages of this newspaper, that Malaysians woke up to the crisis.
There were also disagreements within Umno; as Gordon P. Means notes in Malaysian Politics: the Second Generation, “? many in the ruling coalition were distressed by the contents of the amendments and the confrontational style of Dr Mahathir towards the Malay Rulers.”
Some establishment figures believed the Prime Minister had far-reaching aims. In a 1988 interview transcribed in K. Das & The Tunku Tapes, Tunku Abdul Rahman and the veteran journalist discuss the constitutional crisis.
If one can look past the bitchy, surat layang (poison pen letter) tone of their stories about Dr Mahathir’s children, one can get a snapshot of the groundswell of suspicion.
Tunku: “You see, the Malays have a cause for adat, resam and so on ? tradition. I have a respect for it but he has none. He dislikes it. You see, his whole aim is to upset the constitution and turn this country into a republic. His son was in London talking quite openly amongst the students that his father is going to be the first President of Malaya.”
Das: “I head his daughter was also talking about it here ? Apparently she was caught talking about it at a party not knowing that behind her was one of the Tengkus from Negri Sembilan who overheard it. She said that as soon as the constitution amendment is signed, it is finished, we can become a republic.”
Against this background of suspicion, the 1983 constitutional crisis spilled out into the open, and the conflict grew even more intense.
In the next instalment of Ruling the Rulers, Wide Angle will look at the propaganda war and the resolution of the crisis. And, the other crises that lay in wait for Dr Mahathir and the Malay Rulers.
Huzir Sulaiman writes for theatre, film, television, and newspapers
Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Mahathir years
WIDE ANGLEBy HUZIR SULAIMAN
In the second segment of Ruling the Rulers, an analysis of the challenges faced by the Malay Rulers over the years, Wide Angle examines the post-Merdeka period.
THE 1960s, although a tumultuous decade for many other reasons, was relatively quiet in terms of intervention by the Malay Rulers in matters of administration and politics.
The relationship between the Sultans and the Alliance Government was still benefiting from the effort both parties had been obliged to make to find common ground in the run-up to their negotiations with the British in 1956.
(Eventually, the Rulers had been persuaded to drop their opposition to the granting of citizenship to non-Malays born in Malaya, a provision insisted on by the British, championed, naturally, by the MIC and MCA, and accepted by Umno only with a certain amount of trauma.)
But the honeymoon period of the new constitutional monarchy couldn’t last forever.
By 1981, when Dr Mahathir Mohamad succeeded Hussein Onn as Prime Minister of Malaysia, the country was in the giddy throes of a surge in royal activism.
The period from 1977 to 1983 saw several Sultans make their presence felt in the political arena to a far greater degree than had been previously seen.
The close of Hussein Onn’s premiership saw conflicts between several Sultans and Mentris Besar erupt into the open.
In 1977, the Sultan of Kelantan attempted to intervene in a crisis caused by the deteriorating relations between PAS and Umno (then in a short-lived alliance).
The Sultan attempted to postpone the dissolution of the State Assembly following a vote of no confidence in the Mentri Besar, in order that a replacement MB could be found from PAS without elections being called.
Unrest followed, which was ample pretext for the Federal Government to declare a State of Emergency in Kelantan. In the subsequent State elections, Umno came to power, a situation that the Sultan had been trying to avoid.
Things were heating up elsewhere, too. In 1977 the Sultan of Perak ostracised his Mentri Besar to the point that he was forced to resign. In 1978, the Sultan of Pahang rejected the Umno nominee for MB and, in 1981, the Sultan of Johor forced his MB to resign after 14 years in office.
We cannot know with any certainty what the new Prime Minister’s attitudes were towards the Malay Rulers when he assumed office in 1981 in the midst of this burgeoning atmosphere of royal assertiveness.
However, in Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad, Khoo Boo Teik argues that “Mahathir was not necessarily an out and out ‘anti-royalist’. He found heroes in strong modernising sovereigns such as Peter the Great and the Meiji Emperor but his attitude towards the Malay royalty was less admiring.”
Khoo notes that “Mahathir’s disdain for the Malay rulers had ? been expressed in oblique criticism before.
“C.H.E. Det (Mahathir’s pen name in the late 1940s) had cast the 1949 conflict between the Malay royalty and the nascent Umno leadership as a conflict between ‘rulers and rakyats’. Then, C.H.E. Det stood with those who thought that the rulers had either to yield to the wishes of Umno and its supporters or to forfeit the loyalty of the Malays.”
What is almost certain is that Dr Mahathir would have been aware that the independent-minded Sultans of Perak and Johor were the two most likely candidates to become the next Agong in 1984.
Indeed, their Highnesses were shortly to demonstrate their autonomy in ways that led to a measure of public distress.
In 1982, the Sultan of Perak, in his capacity as Head of Religion in his State, looked at the two permissible methods used to calculate the timing of Hari Raya Puasa, and chose the one different from that used in the rest of the country.
That year the fasting month ended a day earlier in Perak, disrupting travel plans and inadvertently making it a rather stressful holiday for the Malay community.
The following year, both the Sultans of Perak and Johor used the alternate method, and their two States celebrated Hari Raya a day earlier than the rest of Malaysia.
Some commentators have suggested that the distress of the “variant Hari Raya” prompted Dr Mahathir’s subsequent desire to concentrate administrative power in the Federal Government.
But R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, in Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir, citing interviews with Umno ministers, suggest that what became known as the 1983 constitutional crisis “was precipitated by reports, received by Mahathir, that the Sultan of Johor stated at a gathering that when he was elected Agong he would unilaterally declare a state of emergency, and with the aid of the army, throw out all the politicians.
“Compounding this were stories that the Sultan was close to certain key military men, and that the army chief, General Tan Sri Mohd Zain Hashim, had criticised Mahathir’s approach and had questioned where the army’s loyalty rested.”
Whatever the case may be, on Aug 1, the Government brought the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 before both houses of Parliament, and it was quickly passed.
The bill put forward 22 amendments to the Federal Constitution, including three very significant changes to the position of the Malay Rulers.
First, it removed the need for the Agong to give his Royal Assent to a piece of legislation before it could be gazetted as law. Instead, it stipulated that if the Agong did not give his Assent within 15 days, he was deemed to have done so, and the law could come into effect.
Second, it introduced parallel provisions removing the need for a Sultan to give his Assent to State laws.
Third, it transferred the power to declare an Emergency from the Agong (who was, in any case, supposed to act on the advice of Cabinet in this regard) directly to the Prime Minister, who was not obliged to act on anyone’s advice.
The Prime Minister’s Department had ordered a press blackout on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 and, so, while the fact of the bill’s passing was mentioned, its significance was downplayed, and the debate – including an impassioned speech in opposition to it by DAP’s Lim Kit Siang – did not appear in local media.
For the following two months, nothing appeared. But a right royal storm was brewing.
Immediately, the liberal intelligentsia opposed the provision that allowed the Prime Minister to unilaterally declare an Emergency.
On Aug 2, 1983, Aliran issued a statement condemning the Bill, claiming the proposed amendment “opens the way to political abuse. For the Prime Minister is, in the ultimate analysis, a political personality very much involved in the conflicts and compromises of party politics. There is no constitutional mechanism for ensuring that he will not use his emergency powers against his political foes from any quarter.
“It is simply not possible to prevent an ambitious Prime Minister in the future from emerging as a ‘supremo’ after the proclamation of an emergency.”
But, under the strict press blackout, it was not reported.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the public, the Agong, under pressure from his fellow Rulers, refused to give his Assent to the Bill.
The Rulers maintained that the Bill contravened Article 38(4) of the Constitution, which stated that “No law directly affecting the privileges, position, honours or dignities of the Rulers shall be passed without the consent of the Conference of Rulers.”
The Rulers had also come to understand the full legal implications of removing the need for Royal Assent to legislation. It meant that if Parliament voted to abolish the monarchy, the Rulers would be powerless to stop them.
Tensions continued to build behind the scenes. It was only in October, when Senu Abdul Rahman circulated a letter condemning the amendments, followed by Tunku Abdul Rahman defying the gag order by writing about them in the pages of this newspaper, that Malaysians woke up to the crisis.
There were also disagreements within Umno; as Gordon P. Means notes in Malaysian Politics: the Second Generation, “? many in the ruling coalition were distressed by the contents of the amendments and the confrontational style of Dr Mahathir towards the Malay Rulers.”
Some establishment figures believed the Prime Minister had far-reaching aims. In a 1988 interview transcribed in K. Das & The Tunku Tapes, Tunku Abdul Rahman and the veteran journalist discuss the constitutional crisis.
If one can look past the bitchy, surat layang (poison pen letter) tone of their stories about Dr Mahathir’s children, one can get a snapshot of the groundswell of suspicion.
Tunku: “You see, the Malays have a cause for adat, resam and so on ? tradition. I have a respect for it but he has none. He dislikes it. You see, his whole aim is to upset the constitution and turn this country into a republic. His son was in London talking quite openly amongst the students that his father is going to be the first President of Malaya.”
Das: “I head his daughter was also talking about it here ? Apparently she was caught talking about it at a party not knowing that behind her was one of the Tengkus from Negri Sembilan who overheard it. She said that as soon as the constitution amendment is signed, it is finished, we can become a republic.”
Against this background of suspicion, the 1983 constitutional crisis spilled out into the open, and the conflict grew even more intense.
In the next instalment of Ruling the Rulers, Wide Angle will look at the propaganda war and the resolution of the crisis. And, the other crises that lay in wait for Dr Mahathir and the Malay Rulers.
Huzir Sulaiman writes for theatre, film, television, and newspapers
In the second segment of Ruling the Rulers, an analysis of the challenges faced by the Malay Rulers over the years, Wide Angle examines the post-Merdeka period.
THE 1960s, although a tumultuous decade for many other reasons, was relatively quiet in terms of intervention by the Malay Rulers in matters of administration and politics.
The relationship between the Sultans and the Alliance Government was still benefiting from the effort both parties had been obliged to make to find common ground in the run-up to their negotiations with the British in 1956.
(Eventually, the Rulers had been persuaded to drop their opposition to the granting of citizenship to non-Malays born in Malaya, a provision insisted on by the British, championed, naturally, by the MIC and MCA, and accepted by Umno only with a certain amount of trauma.)
But the honeymoon period of the new constitutional monarchy couldn’t last forever.
By 1981, when Dr Mahathir Mohamad succeeded Hussein Onn as Prime Minister of Malaysia, the country was in the giddy throes of a surge in royal activism.
The period from 1977 to 1983 saw several Sultans make their presence felt in the political arena to a far greater degree than had been previously seen.
The close of Hussein Onn’s premiership saw conflicts between several Sultans and Mentris Besar erupt into the open.
In 1977, the Sultan of Kelantan attempted to intervene in a crisis caused by the deteriorating relations between PAS and Umno (then in a short-lived alliance).
The Sultan attempted to postpone the dissolution of the State Assembly following a vote of no confidence in the Mentri Besar, in order that a replacement MB could be found from PAS without elections being called.
Unrest followed, which was ample pretext for the Federal Government to declare a State of Emergency in Kelantan. In the subsequent State elections, Umno came to power, a situation that the Sultan had been trying to avoid.
Things were heating up elsewhere, too. In 1977 the Sultan of Perak ostracised his Mentri Besar to the point that he was forced to resign. In 1978, the Sultan of Pahang rejected the Umno nominee for MB and, in 1981, the Sultan of Johor forced his MB to resign after 14 years in office.
We cannot know with any certainty what the new Prime Minister’s attitudes were towards the Malay Rulers when he assumed office in 1981 in the midst of this burgeoning atmosphere of royal assertiveness.
However, in Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad, Khoo Boo Teik argues that “Mahathir was not necessarily an out and out ‘anti-royalist’. He found heroes in strong modernising sovereigns such as Peter the Great and the Meiji Emperor but his attitude towards the Malay royalty was less admiring.”
Khoo notes that “Mahathir’s disdain for the Malay rulers had ? been expressed in oblique criticism before.
“C.H.E. Det (Mahathir’s pen name in the late 1940s) had cast the 1949 conflict between the Malay royalty and the nascent Umno leadership as a conflict between ‘rulers and rakyats’. Then, C.H.E. Det stood with those who thought that the rulers had either to yield to the wishes of Umno and its supporters or to forfeit the loyalty of the Malays.”
What is almost certain is that Dr Mahathir would have been aware that the independent-minded Sultans of Perak and Johor were the two most likely candidates to become the next Agong in 1984.
Indeed, their Highnesses were shortly to demonstrate their autonomy in ways that led to a measure of public distress.
In 1982, the Sultan of Perak, in his capacity as Head of Religion in his State, looked at the two permissible methods used to calculate the timing of Hari Raya Puasa, and chose the one different from that used in the rest of the country.
That year the fasting month ended a day earlier in Perak, disrupting travel plans and inadvertently making it a rather stressful holiday for the Malay community.
The following year, both the Sultans of Perak and Johor used the alternate method, and their two States celebrated Hari Raya a day earlier than the rest of Malaysia.
Some commentators have suggested that the distress of the “variant Hari Raya” prompted Dr Mahathir’s subsequent desire to concentrate administrative power in the Federal Government.
But R.S. Milne and Diane K. Mauzy, in Malaysian Politics Under Mahathir, citing interviews with Umno ministers, suggest that what became known as the 1983 constitutional crisis “was precipitated by reports, received by Mahathir, that the Sultan of Johor stated at a gathering that when he was elected Agong he would unilaterally declare a state of emergency, and with the aid of the army, throw out all the politicians.
“Compounding this were stories that the Sultan was close to certain key military men, and that the army chief, General Tan Sri Mohd Zain Hashim, had criticised Mahathir’s approach and had questioned where the army’s loyalty rested.”
Whatever the case may be, on Aug 1, the Government brought the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 before both houses of Parliament, and it was quickly passed.
The bill put forward 22 amendments to the Federal Constitution, including three very significant changes to the position of the Malay Rulers.
First, it removed the need for the Agong to give his Royal Assent to a piece of legislation before it could be gazetted as law. Instead, it stipulated that if the Agong did not give his Assent within 15 days, he was deemed to have done so, and the law could come into effect.
Second, it introduced parallel provisions removing the need for a Sultan to give his Assent to State laws.
Third, it transferred the power to declare an Emergency from the Agong (who was, in any case, supposed to act on the advice of Cabinet in this regard) directly to the Prime Minister, who was not obliged to act on anyone’s advice.
The Prime Minister’s Department had ordered a press blackout on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1983 and, so, while the fact of the bill’s passing was mentioned, its significance was downplayed, and the debate – including an impassioned speech in opposition to it by DAP’s Lim Kit Siang – did not appear in local media.
For the following two months, nothing appeared. But a right royal storm was brewing.
Immediately, the liberal intelligentsia opposed the provision that allowed the Prime Minister to unilaterally declare an Emergency.
On Aug 2, 1983, Aliran issued a statement condemning the Bill, claiming the proposed amendment “opens the way to political abuse. For the Prime Minister is, in the ultimate analysis, a political personality very much involved in the conflicts and compromises of party politics. There is no constitutional mechanism for ensuring that he will not use his emergency powers against his political foes from any quarter.
“It is simply not possible to prevent an ambitious Prime Minister in the future from emerging as a ‘supremo’ after the proclamation of an emergency.”
But, under the strict press blackout, it was not reported.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the public, the Agong, under pressure from his fellow Rulers, refused to give his Assent to the Bill.
The Rulers maintained that the Bill contravened Article 38(4) of the Constitution, which stated that “No law directly affecting the privileges, position, honours or dignities of the Rulers shall be passed without the consent of the Conference of Rulers.”
The Rulers had also come to understand the full legal implications of removing the need for Royal Assent to legislation. It meant that if Parliament voted to abolish the monarchy, the Rulers would be powerless to stop them.
Tensions continued to build behind the scenes. It was only in October, when Senu Abdul Rahman circulated a letter condemning the amendments, followed by Tunku Abdul Rahman defying the gag order by writing about them in the pages of this newspaper, that Malaysians woke up to the crisis.
There were also disagreements within Umno; as Gordon P. Means notes in Malaysian Politics: the Second Generation, “? many in the ruling coalition were distressed by the contents of the amendments and the confrontational style of Dr Mahathir towards the Malay Rulers.”
Some establishment figures believed the Prime Minister had far-reaching aims. In a 1988 interview transcribed in K. Das & The Tunku Tapes, Tunku Abdul Rahman and the veteran journalist discuss the constitutional crisis.
If one can look past the bitchy, surat layang (poison pen letter) tone of their stories about Dr Mahathir’s children, one can get a snapshot of the groundswell of suspicion.
Tunku: “You see, the Malays have a cause for adat, resam and so on ? tradition. I have a respect for it but he has none. He dislikes it. You see, his whole aim is to upset the constitution and turn this country into a republic. His son was in London talking quite openly amongst the students that his father is going to be the first President of Malaya.”
Das: “I head his daughter was also talking about it here ? Apparently she was caught talking about it at a party not knowing that behind her was one of the Tengkus from Negri Sembilan who overheard it. She said that as soon as the constitution amendment is signed, it is finished, we can become a republic.”
Against this background of suspicion, the 1983 constitutional crisis spilled out into the open, and the conflict grew even more intense.
In the next instalment of Ruling the Rulers, Wide Angle will look at the propaganda war and the resolution of the crisis. And, the other crises that lay in wait for Dr Mahathir and the Malay Rulers.
Huzir Sulaiman writes for theatre, film, television, and newspapers
Ruling the Rulers
In the first of a two-part series, Wide Angle columnist Huzir Sulaiman looks at the challenges faced by our Sultans throughout history.
IN 1779, the Dutch Governor of Malacca commissioned a study of Malay court ceremonies. The scribes took as their source a learned mosque official named Abdulmuhit who knew of the traditional ways of the Malacca Sultanate two centuries past. The resulting manuscript, the Adat Raja-Raja Melayu, mentions the ritualised insolence of the Prime Minister towards the Sultan.
According to the commentary of Prof Panuti Hudjiman of the University of Indonesia, when the Sultan summons the Bendahara, or royal Prime Minister, to attend a betrothal ceremony, “the Bendahara has a peculiar way of responding to this royal summons. When the messenger approaches him for the first time, he replies, ‘Datanglah kita mengadap’ (We will come).
“Instead of going straight away to the palace, the Bendahara takes a bath. Again a messenger is sent, only to be told by the Bendahara to return to the palace, as the Bendahara is coming. The Bendahara lets people wait for him: he gets dressed, and waits for a third summons before he obeys.?
“This is to show his position in relation to the king: the Bendahara is chief advisor to the king and is regarded as the power behind the throne. The use of the pluralis majestatis “kita” (the royal “we”) must be an assertion of superiority or arrogance.”
This is not just an isolated case being reported; the Bendahara repeats this ritualised show of arrogance when a new Sultan is crowned and the Bendahara is called back to serve, refusing to approach until the third summons.
We can see from the Adat Raja-Raja Melayu that the tensions between the Malay ruler and his powerful ministers were already encoded in the culture of Malay kingship at the time of its early flowering in the Malacca Sultanate – and I would argue that we are seeing echoes of it today in the recent standoff between Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong, who is also Sultan of Terengganu, and the Prime Minister.
It’s tempting to interpret the degree of interest shown by Their Highnesses the Sultans in the recent selection of Mentris Besar as a sudden flowering of royal activism, to be viewed with either glee or concern, depending on your attitude towards the Federal Government.
Seen from a historical perspective, however, this supposedly new royal intervention in the political arena is just the latest recurrence of the natural and understandable desire of the Malay ruler to actually do a bit of ruling once in a while – a desire that in the last 100 years has been continually constrained by the demands of British imperialists and Malay nationalists alike.
We should not be surprised that the Malay Rulers are making noise now; rather, we should be shocked that they have been quiet for so long. Much as they once had to deal with a ritually rude Bendahara, Their Highnesses have been obliged to accept as graciously as possible the interference of others.
In the colonial period, in the years before World War II, the Unfederated Malay States of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Johor had British Advisors who in the course of their “advising” attempted with varying degrees of success to govern indirectly.
From 1896, the Federated Malay States of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Pahang had British Residents imposed on them by treaty, and who governed quite directly, making proclamations and decrees that began with the famously offensive formula “The British Resident is pleased to?”.
The Japanese Occupation of Malaya saw some Sultans deposed by the new invaders, and others intimidated into cooperation. After the Japanese surrender, the British Military Administration presented itself to the Malay Rulers as the sole authority capable of recognising them as legitimate. If the Rulers were deemed to have collaborated with the Japanese or, more crucially, if they were not prepared to sign a new set of treaties turning over all their authority to Britain, they would be removed.
Brigadier H.C. Willan’s report on the Sultans on Oct 7, 1945, is a chilling example of the cynical exercise of power:
“In my view it would be wise to approach the Sultan of Johore first with regard to the negotiations for the new treaties. I think in his present state of mind he will sign. He is a realist and is fully aware that he is dependent on H.M.G.’s support ?
“(The Sultan of Selangor) is a pleasant person with not a very strong character and at present is so overjoyed at the return of the British and re-recognition of himself as Sultan, that in my view, he will sign the new treaty ?’’
“In my view the Yam Tuan of Negri Sembilan should be approached next. In his present state of mind he is somewhat depressed and appears to me to be perplexed as to how his State can recover itself and would welcome directions rather than advice?.”
In the end, on pain of being deposed in favour of someone more accommodating, all nine Malay Rulers signed the MacMichael treaties, giving up virtually all their sovereign powers, except those relating to religion and Malay culture.
This first step towards Britain’s planned Malayan Union angered the burgeoning Malay nationalist movement, but scholars have pointed out that it was not so much the curtailment of the Malay Rulers’ powers that affronted Datuk Onn Jaafar and his comrades, as it was the British proposal that citizenship be granted to non-Malays born in Malaya.
It was the perceived threat to the powers of the Malay community, as opposed to the Malay Rulers, that truly galvanised the nationalists. (Indeed, Onn was arguably ambivalent about the Sultans, having in his younger days written newspaper articles critical of the Sultan of Johor.)
On March 30, 1946, the Malay Rulers were gathered in Kuala Lumpur to attend the installation of Sir Edward Gent, the new Governor. As Harry Miller tells it in his biography of Tunku Abdul Rahman, “That afternoon Onn personally conveyed to the Rulers a message from the United Malays National Organisation that it was the ‘desire of their people’ that they should not attend the Governor’s installation, and, indeed, they should ‘desist from taking part in any function connected with the Union.’
“The message went further: If the Rulers insisted on meeting the Governor they would be disowned by the people, who were determined to boycott the Malayan Union.”
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the hotel where the Sultans were staying, shouting “Daulat Tuanku!” and “Hidup Melayu!”
As Miller puts it, “The Rulers walked down to the great crowded porch to receive the obeisance of the demonstrators. This was also a touching scene, although the more unyielding of the leaders in the U.M.N.O. said later, ‘We brought them down those stairs to teach them a lesson. They were lucky we did not destroy them completely for having signed the MacMichael treaties. As it was, we told them we would support them.’”
Caught between the “rock” of the British colonial authorities and the “hard place” of the angry Malay nationalists, the Malay Rulers complained to London that they were coerced into signing the MacMichael treaties, boycotted the Governor’s installation, and maintained a distance from him in public (while maintaining warm and cordial relations in private) until the British realised that the groundswell of opposition to the Malayan Union was too strong, and backed down.
The Federation of Malaya, the compromise constitutional scheme reached in 1948, saw Britain appointing Advisors who were truly advisory, with the states’ executive powers passing to the Mentris Besar.
Nonetheless, it appears clear that the Malay Rulers still feared that they would be emasculated by Umno, and Onn could not entirely reassure them.
As Sir Malcolm MacDonald wrote to Sir Henry Gurney on Dec 15, 1949, “In my talk with him on December 12th, Dato’ Onn told me of his recent talk with the Mentris Besar ? They asked him whether he proposed that the Rulers should be ousted in the near future. He replied emphatically in the negative. He said that probably in due course at least many of the Rulers would be abolished, because the Malays themselves would wish this. But that would not happen for a long time and depended on Malay public opinion.” (Emphasis mine.)
For Malaysians of my generation, who have grown up conditioned by the Sedition Act to not entertain the slightest republican thought, it is shocking to hear the founder of Umno coolly tell the Sultans’ ministers that he supposed Malays would one day wish for the abolition of their Rulers.
Six decades later, that day is still unthinkable.
But from the pre-Merdeka negotiations of the Alliance through to the events of the 1981-2003 era – when the metaphorical Bendahara was not so much ignoring the Sultan’s summons as trying to do the summoning – the Malay Rulers have had to stoically endure many more attempts to curtail their powers. I will examine this in my next column.
> Huzir Sulaiman writes for theatre, film, television, and newspapers.
IN 1779, the Dutch Governor of Malacca commissioned a study of Malay court ceremonies. The scribes took as their source a learned mosque official named Abdulmuhit who knew of the traditional ways of the Malacca Sultanate two centuries past. The resulting manuscript, the Adat Raja-Raja Melayu, mentions the ritualised insolence of the Prime Minister towards the Sultan.
According to the commentary of Prof Panuti Hudjiman of the University of Indonesia, when the Sultan summons the Bendahara, or royal Prime Minister, to attend a betrothal ceremony, “the Bendahara has a peculiar way of responding to this royal summons. When the messenger approaches him for the first time, he replies, ‘Datanglah kita mengadap’ (We will come).
“Instead of going straight away to the palace, the Bendahara takes a bath. Again a messenger is sent, only to be told by the Bendahara to return to the palace, as the Bendahara is coming. The Bendahara lets people wait for him: he gets dressed, and waits for a third summons before he obeys.?
“This is to show his position in relation to the king: the Bendahara is chief advisor to the king and is regarded as the power behind the throne. The use of the pluralis majestatis “kita” (the royal “we”) must be an assertion of superiority or arrogance.”
This is not just an isolated case being reported; the Bendahara repeats this ritualised show of arrogance when a new Sultan is crowned and the Bendahara is called back to serve, refusing to approach until the third summons.
We can see from the Adat Raja-Raja Melayu that the tensions between the Malay ruler and his powerful ministers were already encoded in the culture of Malay kingship at the time of its early flowering in the Malacca Sultanate – and I would argue that we are seeing echoes of it today in the recent standoff between Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong, who is also Sultan of Terengganu, and the Prime Minister.
It’s tempting to interpret the degree of interest shown by Their Highnesses the Sultans in the recent selection of Mentris Besar as a sudden flowering of royal activism, to be viewed with either glee or concern, depending on your attitude towards the Federal Government.
Seen from a historical perspective, however, this supposedly new royal intervention in the political arena is just the latest recurrence of the natural and understandable desire of the Malay ruler to actually do a bit of ruling once in a while – a desire that in the last 100 years has been continually constrained by the demands of British imperialists and Malay nationalists alike.
We should not be surprised that the Malay Rulers are making noise now; rather, we should be shocked that they have been quiet for so long. Much as they once had to deal with a ritually rude Bendahara, Their Highnesses have been obliged to accept as graciously as possible the interference of others.
In the colonial period, in the years before World War II, the Unfederated Malay States of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Johor had British Advisors who in the course of their “advising” attempted with varying degrees of success to govern indirectly.
From 1896, the Federated Malay States of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Pahang had British Residents imposed on them by treaty, and who governed quite directly, making proclamations and decrees that began with the famously offensive formula “The British Resident is pleased to?”.
The Japanese Occupation of Malaya saw some Sultans deposed by the new invaders, and others intimidated into cooperation. After the Japanese surrender, the British Military Administration presented itself to the Malay Rulers as the sole authority capable of recognising them as legitimate. If the Rulers were deemed to have collaborated with the Japanese or, more crucially, if they were not prepared to sign a new set of treaties turning over all their authority to Britain, they would be removed.
Brigadier H.C. Willan’s report on the Sultans on Oct 7, 1945, is a chilling example of the cynical exercise of power:
“In my view it would be wise to approach the Sultan of Johore first with regard to the negotiations for the new treaties. I think in his present state of mind he will sign. He is a realist and is fully aware that he is dependent on H.M.G.’s support ?
“(The Sultan of Selangor) is a pleasant person with not a very strong character and at present is so overjoyed at the return of the British and re-recognition of himself as Sultan, that in my view, he will sign the new treaty ?’’
“In my view the Yam Tuan of Negri Sembilan should be approached next. In his present state of mind he is somewhat depressed and appears to me to be perplexed as to how his State can recover itself and would welcome directions rather than advice?.”
In the end, on pain of being deposed in favour of someone more accommodating, all nine Malay Rulers signed the MacMichael treaties, giving up virtually all their sovereign powers, except those relating to religion and Malay culture.
This first step towards Britain’s planned Malayan Union angered the burgeoning Malay nationalist movement, but scholars have pointed out that it was not so much the curtailment of the Malay Rulers’ powers that affronted Datuk Onn Jaafar and his comrades, as it was the British proposal that citizenship be granted to non-Malays born in Malaya.
It was the perceived threat to the powers of the Malay community, as opposed to the Malay Rulers, that truly galvanised the nationalists. (Indeed, Onn was arguably ambivalent about the Sultans, having in his younger days written newspaper articles critical of the Sultan of Johor.)
On March 30, 1946, the Malay Rulers were gathered in Kuala Lumpur to attend the installation of Sir Edward Gent, the new Governor. As Harry Miller tells it in his biography of Tunku Abdul Rahman, “That afternoon Onn personally conveyed to the Rulers a message from the United Malays National Organisation that it was the ‘desire of their people’ that they should not attend the Governor’s installation, and, indeed, they should ‘desist from taking part in any function connected with the Union.’
“The message went further: If the Rulers insisted on meeting the Governor they would be disowned by the people, who were determined to boycott the Malayan Union.”
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the hotel where the Sultans were staying, shouting “Daulat Tuanku!” and “Hidup Melayu!”
As Miller puts it, “The Rulers walked down to the great crowded porch to receive the obeisance of the demonstrators. This was also a touching scene, although the more unyielding of the leaders in the U.M.N.O. said later, ‘We brought them down those stairs to teach them a lesson. They were lucky we did not destroy them completely for having signed the MacMichael treaties. As it was, we told them we would support them.’”
Caught between the “rock” of the British colonial authorities and the “hard place” of the angry Malay nationalists, the Malay Rulers complained to London that they were coerced into signing the MacMichael treaties, boycotted the Governor’s installation, and maintained a distance from him in public (while maintaining warm and cordial relations in private) until the British realised that the groundswell of opposition to the Malayan Union was too strong, and backed down.
The Federation of Malaya, the compromise constitutional scheme reached in 1948, saw Britain appointing Advisors who were truly advisory, with the states’ executive powers passing to the Mentris Besar.
Nonetheless, it appears clear that the Malay Rulers still feared that they would be emasculated by Umno, and Onn could not entirely reassure them.
As Sir Malcolm MacDonald wrote to Sir Henry Gurney on Dec 15, 1949, “In my talk with him on December 12th, Dato’ Onn told me of his recent talk with the Mentris Besar ? They asked him whether he proposed that the Rulers should be ousted in the near future. He replied emphatically in the negative. He said that probably in due course at least many of the Rulers would be abolished, because the Malays themselves would wish this. But that would not happen for a long time and depended on Malay public opinion.” (Emphasis mine.)
For Malaysians of my generation, who have grown up conditioned by the Sedition Act to not entertain the slightest republican thought, it is shocking to hear the founder of Umno coolly tell the Sultans’ ministers that he supposed Malays would one day wish for the abolition of their Rulers.
Six decades later, that day is still unthinkable.
But from the pre-Merdeka negotiations of the Alliance through to the events of the 1981-2003 era – when the metaphorical Bendahara was not so much ignoring the Sultan’s summons as trying to do the summoning – the Malay Rulers have had to stoically endure many more attempts to curtail their powers. I will examine this in my next column.
> Huzir Sulaiman writes for theatre, film, television, and newspapers.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Watch those eyes
FACE FORTUNEBy MADAM ZORRA
Look at the eyes if you want to know what is in the heart, and not just the expression within them, but also how the eyes are positioned.
This comes in handy when you are dealing with a person you have just met or who is difficult.
Many people who have listened to Simon Cowell’s criticism of contestants on American Idol dislike him immensely and think him arrogant and cruel, but if you look at his eyes you will see how kind and soft he really is. It is not the shape of his eyes (as the shape speaks of a man who has a sharp mind and is very analytical), but the way they droop downwards.
This indicates a sensitive and gentle soul who feels deeply for people and wants to assist them. Perhaps you’ve noticed how he always apologises for his criticism, but as he is good at his job, he tells the truth unwaveringly for the sake of improving the contestants and not to humiliate them.
People with such eyes are easily despondent and can slip into melancholy. It takes little to get them in this mood – just remembering a past sorrow or disappointment can trigger it. They must not wallow in self-pity or sadness.
This negative trait gets worse with age.
David Archuleta, the young, soulful boy who likely will be the next American Idol, has such eyes too. He performs deep, meaningful songs best and has been accused of choosing songs that verge on the dark.
On the other end of the spectrum, people who have eyes that rise towards the temple are tough, selfish, calculating and even vicious.
They can make cold decisions and have very little care for the welfare of others. The higher the upward slant of the eyes, the worse is the trait. Such eyes resemble those of cats and really need no explanation.
Another thing to note about the eyes is how close or how far they are from each other.
The ideal distance is an eye’s breath from each other. When they are close together, it indicates that the person may have tunnel vision or is a bigot. They find it difficult to see the point of view of others. They are self-centred and also very nervous, impatient and highly-strung but they can also be very focused in their attention.
Easily provoked, such people have little thought for others and can be very self-conscious. To say they are mean would not be far from wrong as their first thought is always about themselves.
If you are a girl and have such eyes, it is best to wear make-up at the outer ends of your eyes, drawing the shading towards the temples so as to make them seem further apart. If you are a man, make sure your eyebrows don’t crowd close together above the bridge of your nose.
The opposite of this type of eyes are eyes that are wide-set – more than one eye’s breadth apart. People with such eyes have an open view of things. They are more laid-back and relaxed, with a “let it be” attitude.
They can be careless about many things, especially their safety, reputation and their belongings. They tend to get into trouble especially when they are young because for them nothing is urgent or dangerous.
The most worrying thing about people with such eyes is that their careless disregard for their safety can result in an untimely death. They can also be accused of being reckless about their future.
A person with such eyes is Rihanna. Not only has she got wide set eyes but they are also catlike. Such a combination suggests arrogance and a “could not care less” attitude, which is very provocative.
Another characteristic to note is when the eyes are set at very different levels. Be careful with such people as they can be explosive and very erratic. Many criminal have eyes like this but not everyone with such eyes are criminals!
The ideal eyes are those that are level, with a slight lift at the end. They should be an eye’s breadth apart and shaped either like an almond or a leaf, not too pointed at the point close to the nose. When the inner eye ends with a sharp point, then it is a sign that the person is a spendthrift who gives no thought of saving for a rainy day.
Our eyes, the central focal point of our face, are an important feature when analysing a face for signs of sincerity, compassion, and depth of emotions. Though the shape and position are important, perhaps the best judge of the integrity of a person is whether the person has a calm, direct gaze.
Trust not the shifty-eyed!
Look at the eyes if you want to know what is in the heart, and not just the expression within them, but also how the eyes are positioned.
This comes in handy when you are dealing with a person you have just met or who is difficult.
Many people who have listened to Simon Cowell’s criticism of contestants on American Idol dislike him immensely and think him arrogant and cruel, but if you look at his eyes you will see how kind and soft he really is. It is not the shape of his eyes (as the shape speaks of a man who has a sharp mind and is very analytical), but the way they droop downwards.
This indicates a sensitive and gentle soul who feels deeply for people and wants to assist them. Perhaps you’ve noticed how he always apologises for his criticism, but as he is good at his job, he tells the truth unwaveringly for the sake of improving the contestants and not to humiliate them.
People with such eyes are easily despondent and can slip into melancholy. It takes little to get them in this mood – just remembering a past sorrow or disappointment can trigger it. They must not wallow in self-pity or sadness.
This negative trait gets worse with age.
David Archuleta, the young, soulful boy who likely will be the next American Idol, has such eyes too. He performs deep, meaningful songs best and has been accused of choosing songs that verge on the dark.
On the other end of the spectrum, people who have eyes that rise towards the temple are tough, selfish, calculating and even vicious.
They can make cold decisions and have very little care for the welfare of others. The higher the upward slant of the eyes, the worse is the trait. Such eyes resemble those of cats and really need no explanation.
Another thing to note about the eyes is how close or how far they are from each other.
The ideal distance is an eye’s breath from each other. When they are close together, it indicates that the person may have tunnel vision or is a bigot. They find it difficult to see the point of view of others. They are self-centred and also very nervous, impatient and highly-strung but they can also be very focused in their attention.
Easily provoked, such people have little thought for others and can be very self-conscious. To say they are mean would not be far from wrong as their first thought is always about themselves.
If you are a girl and have such eyes, it is best to wear make-up at the outer ends of your eyes, drawing the shading towards the temples so as to make them seem further apart. If you are a man, make sure your eyebrows don’t crowd close together above the bridge of your nose.
The opposite of this type of eyes are eyes that are wide-set – more than one eye’s breadth apart. People with such eyes have an open view of things. They are more laid-back and relaxed, with a “let it be” attitude.
They can be careless about many things, especially their safety, reputation and their belongings. They tend to get into trouble especially when they are young because for them nothing is urgent or dangerous.
The most worrying thing about people with such eyes is that their careless disregard for their safety can result in an untimely death. They can also be accused of being reckless about their future.
A person with such eyes is Rihanna. Not only has she got wide set eyes but they are also catlike. Such a combination suggests arrogance and a “could not care less” attitude, which is very provocative.
Another characteristic to note is when the eyes are set at very different levels. Be careful with such people as they can be explosive and very erratic. Many criminal have eyes like this but not everyone with such eyes are criminals!
The ideal eyes are those that are level, with a slight lift at the end. They should be an eye’s breadth apart and shaped either like an almond or a leaf, not too pointed at the point close to the nose. When the inner eye ends with a sharp point, then it is a sign that the person is a spendthrift who gives no thought of saving for a rainy day.
Our eyes, the central focal point of our face, are an important feature when analysing a face for signs of sincerity, compassion, and depth of emotions. Though the shape and position are important, perhaps the best judge of the integrity of a person is whether the person has a calm, direct gaze.
Trust not the shifty-eyed!
Principal decision
Some HMs tend to repeatedly select the same teachers for courses.
TEACHER TALK
BY MALLIKA VASUGI
DILLA returned from her one-week kursus (course) in a rather sulky mood. It was totally out of character for her because if ever there was a teacher in school who actually looked forward to attending week-long in-service courses, Dilla was the one.
Another colleague, Ling, who had done more than her fair share of taking over Dilla’s classes when she was away, once remarked a little wryly that in her opinion, Dilla “embraced the thought of going for week-long professional development courses with the passion people usually reserved for affairs.”
Once Dilla had even volunteered to attend a course for physical and health education teachers, although it was of no interest to her.
The only association she ever had with the subject was doing one relief period for a teacher who was on sick leave.
She was positively glowing when she came back. Five glorious days away from school in a wonderfully luxurious beach resort. Six meals a day in the company of rugby-football coach type hunks.
It makes you feel that this teaching life isn’t half bad after all.”
“So what happened this time?” I asked as she listlessly stirred her coffee and took an unenthusiastic bite out of the limp leftover-from-the morning-recess curry puff.
Dilla gave me an ugly look, frowned at the ustaz who had just sat down at the table next to us and shouted a dire warning to the two students who were still hanging around the school canteen.
“I will never attend another course in my life,” she said, finally setting her teacup down noisily and startling the elderly ustaz who hastily gulped down the rest of his coffee and asked for the bill.
“Never! It was the most boring course I had ever attended in all my 20 teaching years. It was one boring ceramah after another. From dawn to sundown.
“People with straight serious faces intently taking notes – and revising them after tea.”
“Look,” she said with an earnest expression on her face, “can you honestly see me in that kind of crowd?”
“Well it was for your own professional development,” I said “and you did volunteer to go, and if I remember correctly, you volunteered quite heartily.”
Dilla frowned again. “Professional development? The only kind of development I remember getting is here.” She pointed to her waist and sighed. “Two whole kilos - the food was the most exciting thing I remembered.
“The next time,” she said, “you hear me volunteering to replace any teacher who has her leg in a plaster cast or is on maternity leave, give me a sharp thwack on the head with your record book or jab me with the edge of your ghastly wooden giant compasses,” she said.
Another friend, Annette, whom I met up with recently, sighed for exactly the opposite reason.
“I don’t know what it is with my principal,” she said. “Each time there is a letter for me from the district or state education department requiring me to attend meetings or training courses for my professional development, it never gets to me.
“When I ask where the letter went, the office staff tell me that it is with the principal, who has decided that my services are ‘needed’ more in the school than elsewhere, and therefore I am not allowed to leave school.
“Can she actually do that?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be a breach of some kind of official protocol? She could get into trouble, couldn’t she, by keeping the official letters from you? How would she explain that to the people higher up?”
“Well,” said Annette, “she has her ways. When she knows that there is no option but to allow me to go for these meetings, she shows her displeasure and never fails to make innuendos about what could happen to my laporan tahunan prestasi (annual appraisal) marks.
“Sometimes, some principals forget that the teaching staff under them is not their personal property,” remark-ed Mr Lim, a senior Maths teacher.
They also forget that just like them, teachers also have to be given opportunities for personal professional development, even if it means that they have to leave the school for certain periods of time.
A teacher, who is never given the chance to venture out once in a while to learn new things, interact professionally with those from different schools or even participate in co-curricular activities will eventually dry up, get stuck in a rut and lose interest in teaching.”
“I have this theory,” Lim continued. “Some school principals are reluctant to allow their teachers to leave school because they are afraid their teachers will eventually become ‘better’ than them. ‘Better’ as in more knowledgeable and well-informed.”
Principals probably feel that when their teachers mature professionally they could become a threat to their own positions as chief administrator in the school. It could be some form of insecurity. Or, on the other hand, it could be a genuine case of putting students’ interest first.
I guess only the principals themselves can answer that. And I suppose we cannot ignore the fact that there are teachers who use every conceivable excuse just to get away from school and avoid teaching duties.
Apart from having a short “in-service holiday”, they come back without having gained or contributed much to anyone else or the teaching service. What is worse, all the time they were away, some other teacher had to take on extra duties and fill in for them.
I knew the commitment Annette had towards her job, and I truly sympathised with her for having such a hard time with her principal.
I also reflected on how blessed I have been all my years as a teacher for having principals who had been really supportive each time I had to leave the school to attend or facilitate courses or participate in teachers’ events.
I was thinking about how difficult it would be to work under someone like Annette’s principal when Dilla rushed up to me waving a letter in her hand with the familiar Jabatan Pelajaran (Education Department) letterhead.
“Course-lah,” she said waving the letter under my nose. “Next week. Four days. Four-star hotel. Smack in the heart of the city. They say batik is really cheap there. Imagine, now I have to repack the clothes I unpacked. Or maybe I should just get new clothes. What do you think?”
TEACHER TALK
BY MALLIKA VASUGI
DILLA returned from her one-week kursus (course) in a rather sulky mood. It was totally out of character for her because if ever there was a teacher in school who actually looked forward to attending week-long in-service courses, Dilla was the one.
Another colleague, Ling, who had done more than her fair share of taking over Dilla’s classes when she was away, once remarked a little wryly that in her opinion, Dilla “embraced the thought of going for week-long professional development courses with the passion people usually reserved for affairs.”
Once Dilla had even volunteered to attend a course for physical and health education teachers, although it was of no interest to her.
The only association she ever had with the subject was doing one relief period for a teacher who was on sick leave.
She was positively glowing when she came back. Five glorious days away from school in a wonderfully luxurious beach resort. Six meals a day in the company of rugby-football coach type hunks.
It makes you feel that this teaching life isn’t half bad after all.”
“So what happened this time?” I asked as she listlessly stirred her coffee and took an unenthusiastic bite out of the limp leftover-from-the morning-recess curry puff.
Dilla gave me an ugly look, frowned at the ustaz who had just sat down at the table next to us and shouted a dire warning to the two students who were still hanging around the school canteen.
“I will never attend another course in my life,” she said, finally setting her teacup down noisily and startling the elderly ustaz who hastily gulped down the rest of his coffee and asked for the bill.
“Never! It was the most boring course I had ever attended in all my 20 teaching years. It was one boring ceramah after another. From dawn to sundown.
“People with straight serious faces intently taking notes – and revising them after tea.”
“Look,” she said with an earnest expression on her face, “can you honestly see me in that kind of crowd?”
“Well it was for your own professional development,” I said “and you did volunteer to go, and if I remember correctly, you volunteered quite heartily.”
Dilla frowned again. “Professional development? The only kind of development I remember getting is here.” She pointed to her waist and sighed. “Two whole kilos - the food was the most exciting thing I remembered.
“The next time,” she said, “you hear me volunteering to replace any teacher who has her leg in a plaster cast or is on maternity leave, give me a sharp thwack on the head with your record book or jab me with the edge of your ghastly wooden giant compasses,” she said.
Another friend, Annette, whom I met up with recently, sighed for exactly the opposite reason.
“I don’t know what it is with my principal,” she said. “Each time there is a letter for me from the district or state education department requiring me to attend meetings or training courses for my professional development, it never gets to me.
“When I ask where the letter went, the office staff tell me that it is with the principal, who has decided that my services are ‘needed’ more in the school than elsewhere, and therefore I am not allowed to leave school.
“Can she actually do that?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be a breach of some kind of official protocol? She could get into trouble, couldn’t she, by keeping the official letters from you? How would she explain that to the people higher up?”
“Well,” said Annette, “she has her ways. When she knows that there is no option but to allow me to go for these meetings, she shows her displeasure and never fails to make innuendos about what could happen to my laporan tahunan prestasi (annual appraisal) marks.
“Sometimes, some principals forget that the teaching staff under them is not their personal property,” remark-ed Mr Lim, a senior Maths teacher.
They also forget that just like them, teachers also have to be given opportunities for personal professional development, even if it means that they have to leave the school for certain periods of time.
A teacher, who is never given the chance to venture out once in a while to learn new things, interact professionally with those from different schools or even participate in co-curricular activities will eventually dry up, get stuck in a rut and lose interest in teaching.”
“I have this theory,” Lim continued. “Some school principals are reluctant to allow their teachers to leave school because they are afraid their teachers will eventually become ‘better’ than them. ‘Better’ as in more knowledgeable and well-informed.”
Principals probably feel that when their teachers mature professionally they could become a threat to their own positions as chief administrator in the school. It could be some form of insecurity. Or, on the other hand, it could be a genuine case of putting students’ interest first.
I guess only the principals themselves can answer that. And I suppose we cannot ignore the fact that there are teachers who use every conceivable excuse just to get away from school and avoid teaching duties.
Apart from having a short “in-service holiday”, they come back without having gained or contributed much to anyone else or the teaching service. What is worse, all the time they were away, some other teacher had to take on extra duties and fill in for them.
I knew the commitment Annette had towards her job, and I truly sympathised with her for having such a hard time with her principal.
I also reflected on how blessed I have been all my years as a teacher for having principals who had been really supportive each time I had to leave the school to attend or facilitate courses or participate in teachers’ events.
I was thinking about how difficult it would be to work under someone like Annette’s principal when Dilla rushed up to me waving a letter in her hand with the familiar Jabatan Pelajaran (Education Department) letterhead.
“Course-lah,” she said waving the letter under my nose. “Next week. Four days. Four-star hotel. Smack in the heart of the city. They say batik is really cheap there. Imagine, now I have to repack the clothes I unpacked. Or maybe I should just get new clothes. What do you think?”
Thursday, April 17, 2008
No legal action against mother of 'home alone' boy
By ANDREA FILMER
PENANG: The state will not push for negligence charges to be filed against the mother of Yeap Jia Hui, the 10-year-old boy who was left home alone for almost two years in an apartment in Batu Ferringhi here.
"Everyone deserves a second chance and Yeap Kim Hong (Jia Hui's mother) seems regretful of her actions.
"The state hopes to play the role of bringing people together rather than keeping them apart," said state Health, Welfare and Caring Society Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh.
Phee said that after persuasion from state Welfare Department officers and other family members, Kim Hong had agreed to allow Jia Hui stay with his grandaunt in Kuantan, Pahang.
Jia Hui will reside in his grandmother's apartment, located a few floors below the unkempt apartment in which he was left alone, for the next month until legal issues are ironed out.
A Welfare Department officer said that this was a temporary measure as the mother still had rights over the child.
"In this sort of case, the grandaunt will be appointed temporary guardian as the mother is currently unfit to take care of the child," the officer said. The Welfare Department is in the process of accessing whether the grandaunt, 59-year-old housewife Yeap Choon Lean, and her retired husband would be able to provide a suitable environment for Jia Hui. Phee also said that the department would sort out a visitation schedule with Kim Hock to enable her to see her son.
"Parents and children should be together and we want to keep the bond of love between the mother and child," he said.
Until last weekend, Jia Hui was fending for himself with the RM30 a month that his mother deposited into a bank account for which she had given him an ATM card.
It was reported that his mother, who was working in Kuala Lumpur, visited him once every two to three weeks.
PENANG: The state will not push for negligence charges to be filed against the mother of Yeap Jia Hui, the 10-year-old boy who was left home alone for almost two years in an apartment in Batu Ferringhi here.
"Everyone deserves a second chance and Yeap Kim Hong (Jia Hui's mother) seems regretful of her actions.
"The state hopes to play the role of bringing people together rather than keeping them apart," said state Health, Welfare and Caring Society Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh.
Phee said that after persuasion from state Welfare Department officers and other family members, Kim Hong had agreed to allow Jia Hui stay with his grandaunt in Kuantan, Pahang.
Jia Hui will reside in his grandmother's apartment, located a few floors below the unkempt apartment in which he was left alone, for the next month until legal issues are ironed out.
A Welfare Department officer said that this was a temporary measure as the mother still had rights over the child.
"In this sort of case, the grandaunt will be appointed temporary guardian as the mother is currently unfit to take care of the child," the officer said. The Welfare Department is in the process of accessing whether the grandaunt, 59-year-old housewife Yeap Choon Lean, and her retired husband would be able to provide a suitable environment for Jia Hui. Phee also said that the department would sort out a visitation schedule with Kim Hock to enable her to see her son.
"Parents and children should be together and we want to keep the bond of love between the mother and child," he said.
Until last weekend, Jia Hui was fending for himself with the RM30 a month that his mother deposited into a bank account for which she had given him an ATM card.
It was reported that his mother, who was working in Kuala Lumpur, visited him once every two to three weeks.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
No longer a shoo-in for Khairy
By JOCELINE TAN
The political tsunami has levelled the playing field and it is going to be a wide-open race for the Umno Youth leadership.
JUST three weeks ago, they were waging a fierce election campaign and raining accusations on each other.
But on Thursday, all that seemed far behind them when the newly-elected and re-elected MPs turned up in Parliament for a briefing.
And this was perhaps best illustrated in a photograph of PKR’s Member of Parliament for Batu
The political tsunami has levelled the playing field and it is going to be a wide-open race for the Umno Youth leadership.
JUST three weeks ago, they were waging a fierce election campaign and raining accusations on each other.
But on Thursday, all that seemed far behind them when the newly-elected and re-elected MPs turned up in Parliament for a briefing.
And this was perhaps best illustrated in a photograph of PKR’s Member of Parliament for Batu
Tian Chua and Barisan Nasional’s MP for Rembau Khairy Jamaluddin walking together in the Parliament lobby, wearing their best smiles.
Khairy has been keeping a rather a low profile since the elections. He is aware of the mood out there about him and the pressure is not about to end just yet.
As such, the man who many assumed would inherit the Umno Youth chief’s chair is now watching the action from the sidelines.
It is still a good eight months before the Umno elections but the race for the Umno Youth leadership has effectively begun.
Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein flagged off the race when he announced that he would not be defending his leadership of the wing.
Civil exchange: Tian Chua and Khairy sharing a light moment as they arrive at Parliament House for briefing.
It was hardly breaking news because Hishammuddin was known to be eyeing one of the three vice-president’s posts since last year. Some even thought the announcement was Hishammuddin’s way of diverting the attention of Umno Youth members from the party’s post-election woes.
Whatever his reason, the contest for Umno Youth chief is going to be a wide open race.
To date, Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir and Datuk Seri Dr Khir Toyo have confirmed they will be vying for the post.
“The political tsunami of March 8 has levelled the playing field. The fear factor is not there anymore and people are not afraid to challenge the status quo,” said an Umno Youth politician.
To put it bluntly, few had been prepared to take on Khairy who was then the leading contender.
But Khairy has suffered considerable political damage from the elections and few see him going for the post for a number of reasons.
First, his candidacy will cause resentment that may spill over to the Prime Minister and he would not want that. Second, public opinion is against him and Umno may have a harder time winning back the non-Malay middle ground with him as the next Youth leader.
Besides, at only 33, he can afford to hold on to his No 2 post in the wing.
But, as an Umno strategist pointed out, three people had a part in the perfect storm during the elections.
One was, no doubt, Khairy and his controversial statements. The other was Hishammuddin who wielded the keris. Then there was Dr Khir whose state officers demolished the Hindu temple.
“Together, they created the perfect storm,” said the Umno strategist.
Even Mukhriz will have to prove that he can do more for the Youth wing than defend his father’s causes.
But these are early days yet. The nominations for posts, including those for the Youth wing, will take place when division meetings start in October and that’s when the games really begin.
More candidates are likely to emerge in the meantime. The possibilities are lawyer Razali Ibrahim and chartered accountant Datuk Norza Zakaria, the Youth heads for Johor and Federal Territory respectively.
They have probably not jumped in yet because they do not have the sort of war chests that Mukhriz and Khir are reputed to have.
Razali may be the dark horse because he is closely allied to Hishammuddin who has reportedly asked him to consider going for the post.
It is not necessarily all over for Khairy because the Umno Youth heads of Perlis, Penang, Perak, Pahang and Terengganu have pledged their support if he goes for the No 1 post.
“He still has our support,” said Perlis Umno Youth head Datuk Rozabil Abdul Rahman.
The catch is that state Youth heads are appointed by the Umno Youth chief and they do not always command the ground.
In fact, their actions have often been criticised as reflecting the interests of the leadership rather than the sentiments on the ground.
Meanwhile, Khairy is playing it cool.
He has neither confirmed nor dismissed his options but said he needs to listen to the grassroots’ views before making a decision.
Suicide pact pupils apologise
BAHAU: The four Year Six pupils from a school near here are out of danger following a suicide bid on Wednesday morning.
When met at the Jempol Hospital yesterday, the 12-year-old girls said they were sorry for their rash behaviour.
“We are sorry to have caused so much anguish to our parents and teachers and promise never to do this again,” said one of them. The girls are expected to be discharged soon.
On Wednesday, they took a combination of the hypertension drug Perindopril, and Paracetamol during recess after being scolded for doing badly in their Bahasa Malaysia monthly test.
The drugs were brought to school by one of the girls in an apparent suicide pact.
State education director Abdullah Mohammad expressed his regret over the incident. “I am waiting for a report on the case,” he said.
When met at the Jempol Hospital yesterday, the 12-year-old girls said they were sorry for their rash behaviour.
“We are sorry to have caused so much anguish to our parents and teachers and promise never to do this again,” said one of them. The girls are expected to be discharged soon.
On Wednesday, they took a combination of the hypertension drug Perindopril, and Paracetamol during recess after being scolded for doing badly in their Bahasa Malaysia monthly test.
The drugs were brought to school by one of the girls in an apparent suicide pact.
State education director Abdullah Mohammad expressed his regret over the incident. “I am waiting for a report on the case,” he said.
Year Six girls attempt suicide after scolding
It was reported on Thursday April 3, 2008 in Bahau, Negeri Sembilan that Four Year Six pupils of a school here attempted suicide yesterday, purportedly after their teacher had threatened them with disciplinary action for doing badly in their Bahasa Malaysia examination.
The four, all girls, were found semi-conscious in their classroom by their classmates just before school was dismissed.
The shocked classmates then informed another teacher who rushed to the girls’ aid.
When the girls were asked why they were feeling sick, one admitted that they had taken the medicine. The teacher then rushed the four to the Jempol hospital. The pupils’ families were immediately notified.
According to a hospital source, the teacher had scolded the four for their poor results on Tuesday and allegedly told them that they would be punished.
“One of the girls brought her parents’ diabetes and hypertension medicine to school the following day and the four decided to consume the tablets,” he said.
“They also wrote a note saying that they were committing suicide as they had disappointed their teacher.”
Two of the girls were reported to be in serious but stable condition.
The state education department has been notified about the incident.
Several weeks ago a young lady doctor also attempted suicided at the hospital she's working after a misunderstanding with a colleague. It is becoming too common to hear these kind of cases happening with such a mere excuses. This is not good for the future of our country.
The four, all girls, were found semi-conscious in their classroom by their classmates just before school was dismissed.
The shocked classmates then informed another teacher who rushed to the girls’ aid.
When the girls were asked why they were feeling sick, one admitted that they had taken the medicine. The teacher then rushed the four to the Jempol hospital. The pupils’ families were immediately notified.
According to a hospital source, the teacher had scolded the four for their poor results on Tuesday and allegedly told them that they would be punished.
“One of the girls brought her parents’ diabetes and hypertension medicine to school the following day and the four decided to consume the tablets,” he said.
“They also wrote a note saying that they were committing suicide as they had disappointed their teacher.”
Two of the girls were reported to be in serious but stable condition.
The state education department has been notified about the incident.
Several weeks ago a young lady doctor also attempted suicided at the hospital she's working after a misunderstanding with a colleague. It is becoming too common to hear these kind of cases happening with such a mere excuses. This is not good for the future of our country.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Plenty of drama at forum to assess polls performance
Plenty of drama at forum to assess polls performance
PETALING JAYA: There were hot speeches and plenty of drama at a forum held to assess Umno’s poor performance in the recently concluded general election.
From calling on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to take full responsibility and resign, there were accusations at the “Umno Post 12th General Election: An Assessment” forum that the party's top brass comprised of “yes men”.
Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad provided the keynote address while his son Datuk Mukhriz, who is the newly-elected Jerlun MP, and Batu Pahat MP Dr Puad Zarkashi were among the speakers.
Mukhriz came out and made his stand known, saying there was “something really wrong” with Abdullah’s leadership for his inability to check the rising cost of living, increasing crime, corruption and nepotism.
Dr Puad, who is also the Johor Umno information chief, wanted Abdullah to step down as Prime Minister.
He said people had lost faith in the present leadership.
“Umno has lost its soul,” he said, adding that the party needed huge reform to win back support of the people.
“If we do not act fast, how is Umno going to survive?” he told the packed forum comprising mostly of Umno members.
Dr Puad said Barisan Nasional had lost its two-thirds majority in the parliament and with the Opposition having 82 seats what was needed now was for Umno members to be bold and speak out.
The worst was reserved for another panellist, former Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo, who was booed each time he spoke.
Dr Khir, who is an Umno supreme council, was advised against attending the forum but said he wanted to come to voice his opinions.
Later during a question-and-answer session, a chair was thrown and expletives hurled at someone who suggested that PKR adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim take over the Barisan leadership.
He was then dragged out of the room.
Upset by this, the organiser said people should not get emotional as everyone had the right to speak and raise questions.
PETALING JAYA: There were hot speeches and plenty of drama at a forum held to assess Umno’s poor performance in the recently concluded general election.
From calling on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to take full responsibility and resign, there were accusations at the “Umno Post 12th General Election: An Assessment” forum that the party's top brass comprised of “yes men”.
Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad provided the keynote address while his son Datuk Mukhriz, who is the newly-elected Jerlun MP, and Batu Pahat MP Dr Puad Zarkashi were among the speakers.
Mukhriz came out and made his stand known, saying there was “something really wrong” with Abdullah’s leadership for his inability to check the rising cost of living, increasing crime, corruption and nepotism.
Dr Puad, who is also the Johor Umno information chief, wanted Abdullah to step down as Prime Minister.
He said people had lost faith in the present leadership.
“Umno has lost its soul,” he said, adding that the party needed huge reform to win back support of the people.
“If we do not act fast, how is Umno going to survive?” he told the packed forum comprising mostly of Umno members.
Dr Puad said Barisan Nasional had lost its two-thirds majority in the parliament and with the Opposition having 82 seats what was needed now was for Umno members to be bold and speak out.
The worst was reserved for another panellist, former Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo, who was booed each time he spoke.
Dr Khir, who is an Umno supreme council, was advised against attending the forum but said he wanted to come to voice his opinions.
Later during a question-and-answer session, a chair was thrown and expletives hurled at someone who suggested that PKR adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim take over the Barisan leadership.
He was then dragged out of the room.
Upset by this, the organiser said people should not get emotional as everyone had the right to speak and raise questions.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
DAP man causes scare for Perak govt with resignation letter
By HAH FOONG LIAN and CHRISTINA KOH
IPOH: It was a day of drama for the Perak coalition government when a DAP assemblyman quit from his party, – sending party leaders scrambling – only to retract his resignation six hours later.
The resignation of Buntong assemblyman A. Sivasubramaniam shocked his state chief Ngeh Koo Ham and the rest of the Indian DAP representatives.
Various meetings were convened, including one between Ngeh and Sivasubramaniam and at 6pm, party leaders held a press conference at Wisma DAP and the latter declared he had retracted his resignation.
Sivasubramaniam: Changed his mind after six hours.
His resignation would have put the DAP-PAS-PKR coalition government in a precarious position as it would only have 30 of the state assembly’s 59 members, giving it a razor-thin one seat majority in the house. Barisan Nasional has 28 members.
Sivasubramaniam, who is Perak DAP assistant secretary, had faxed a letter to DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng stating he was dissatisfied with the Perak DAP leadership.
He said he had lost confidence in the state leaders and claimed that Ngeh had not fulfilled his promise of appointing two Indian assemblymen as a state executive council (exco) member.
He added the Perak DAP leadership
had failed to respect “the voice of makkal sakti (People’s Power).”
“The decision was a huge slap for the Indian community and designed to hoodwink the Indian community in Perak,” he said in his letter which was made available to the press.
So it does really matter to him... maybe he wanted to become an exco, or maybe the Menteri Besar whenever the MB is not around....... still power crazy....
He also said even if an Indian Perak DAP member were to get an assembly Speaker or Deputy Speaker, it could not “do much for the Indian community.”
An emergency meeting was held with Ngeh and the other Indian elected representatives.
Up until 3pm, efforts by state DAP leaders to contact Sivasubramaniam failed.
At about 5pm, Ngeh managed to have a five-minute discussion with Sivasubramaniam and the matter was put to rest.
An hour later, a press conference was called where Sivasubramaniam, who is also DAP Socialist Youth committee member, retracted his resignation letter.
He said the whole episode was a “mistake and misunderstanding” on his part.
“The matter has been solved. I am satisfied with Ngeh’s explanation that the post of assembly Speaker would be filled by an Indian leader,” he said.
Sivasubramaniam said his ailing mother was the one who convinced him to discuss his resignation with the party leadership, adding that even if he had resigned, he would have stayed independent.
Ngeh said Perak DAP was not sidelining the interest of the Indian community.
Acknowledging that the party had originally planned to have two Indian assemblymen as exco members, he said the party had then, in principle, agreed to have an Indian assemblyman as state assembly Speaker.
He promised that there would be more Indian representation in the state government compared with the previous administration.
“There is a misunderstanding. We have to first wait for the full list of state appointments. Only then will the people know that we did not neglect the Indian community or the fairer sex,” he said.
On whether the resignation had jeopardised the image of a stable state government or had created a bad impression, Ngeh said: “I hope not. This is just a misunderstanding.”
Asked whether a post was offered to Sivasubramaniam for him to retract his resignation, Ngeh said: “No.”
IPOH: It was a day of drama for the Perak coalition government when a DAP assemblyman quit from his party, – sending party leaders scrambling – only to retract his resignation six hours later.
The resignation of Buntong assemblyman A. Sivasubramaniam shocked his state chief Ngeh Koo Ham and the rest of the Indian DAP representatives.
Various meetings were convened, including one between Ngeh and Sivasubramaniam and at 6pm, party leaders held a press conference at Wisma DAP and the latter declared he had retracted his resignation.
Sivasubramaniam: Changed his mind after six hours.
His resignation would have put the DAP-PAS-PKR coalition government in a precarious position as it would only have 30 of the state assembly’s 59 members, giving it a razor-thin one seat majority in the house. Barisan Nasional has 28 members.
Sivasubramaniam, who is Perak DAP assistant secretary, had faxed a letter to DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng stating he was dissatisfied with the Perak DAP leadership.
He said he had lost confidence in the state leaders and claimed that Ngeh had not fulfilled his promise of appointing two Indian assemblymen as a state executive council (exco) member.
He added the Perak DAP leadership
had failed to respect “the voice of makkal sakti (People’s Power).”
“The decision was a huge slap for the Indian community and designed to hoodwink the Indian community in Perak,” he said in his letter which was made available to the press.
So it does really matter to him... maybe he wanted to become an exco, or maybe the Menteri Besar whenever the MB is not around....... still power crazy....
He also said even if an Indian Perak DAP member were to get an assembly Speaker or Deputy Speaker, it could not “do much for the Indian community.”
An emergency meeting was held with Ngeh and the other Indian elected representatives.
Up until 3pm, efforts by state DAP leaders to contact Sivasubramaniam failed.
At about 5pm, Ngeh managed to have a five-minute discussion with Sivasubramaniam and the matter was put to rest.
An hour later, a press conference was called where Sivasubramaniam, who is also DAP Socialist Youth committee member, retracted his resignation letter.
He said the whole episode was a “mistake and misunderstanding” on his part.
“The matter has been solved. I am satisfied with Ngeh’s explanation that the post of assembly Speaker would be filled by an Indian leader,” he said.
Sivasubramaniam said his ailing mother was the one who convinced him to discuss his resignation with the party leadership, adding that even if he had resigned, he would have stayed independent.
Ngeh said Perak DAP was not sidelining the interest of the Indian community.
Acknowledging that the party had originally planned to have two Indian assemblymen as exco members, he said the party had then, in principle, agreed to have an Indian assemblyman as state assembly Speaker.
He promised that there would be more Indian representation in the state government compared with the previous administration.
“There is a misunderstanding. We have to first wait for the full list of state appointments. Only then will the people know that we did not neglect the Indian community or the fairer sex,” he said.
On whether the resignation had jeopardised the image of a stable state government or had created a bad impression, Ngeh said: “I hope not. This is just a misunderstanding.”
Asked whether a post was offered to Sivasubramaniam for him to retract his resignation, Ngeh said: “No.”
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