Suffer the Children ... of Some

Brave New World (The Star)
12 June 2008

"Without exotic foreign holidays, life will no longer be the same."

____________________

The sun was setting as the Proton Perdana crunched up the gravel driveway of the bungalow on Jalan Kia Peng. The man sitting in the back seat was oblivious to the gentle glow of dusk that bathed the large well-manicured gardens.

His heart felt heavy and his stomach was knotted.

He was going to break their hearts and there was no way out.

“We are here, sir.”

The voice of the driver shook him out of his deep thoughts. With a barely audible grunt of thanks, he stepped out and with leaden feet walked towards the door.

Before he reached it, the huge oak edifices swung open. A small woman in a blue uniform retrieved his suitcase and collected his shoes as he slipped them off. He hardly noticed her, either.

From within the house, there were sounds of a loud X Box game in progress and young children shouting. The man walked into the living room. Expensive Italian furniture was arranged around a 40-inch plasma TV, its sleek modernity a stark contrast to the gaudiness of the sofas and armchairs.

A boy and a girl were transfixed by the screen, watching monsters get beheaded. A woman lounged in an armchair, her diamonds glittering.

“Listen, everybody, I must speak to you,” said the man.

“Not now, Papa, we are reaching level five,” said the boy.

“No, now,” said the man.

The sombre tone of his voice cut through the shrill screams from the video game. The children and the woman looked to the man, their normal indifference suddenly replaced by unfamiliar concern.

Seating himself, the man leaned on his elbows and stared at the floor.

In a voice quivering with barely suppressed emotion, he started to speak.

“Darling, children, I am afraid we can’t go to Orlando Disneyland this year.”

“Where are we going then?” asked the girl. “England? Europe?”

“We can only go to somewhere in Asean.”

The gasps from the family just about drowned out the crack in his voice as he finished his sentence. Then the barrage of questions started. Why? What happened? How can this be?

As the voices rose to a crescendo, the man snapped, tears running down his face as he screamed, “The oil price has gone up and we can’t go on holidays around the world any more!”

“But, darling,” said the woman, “I already told the girls I would bring back for them oranges from Florida. How can I face them in Carcosa at our high tea tomorrow?”

“Papa, you promised Disneyland. I hate you! I hate you!” shrieked the boy as he stormed out of the room.

“Wait, boy!” he called out. “You must try to understand. The whole nation is suffering. We must make sacrifices. It is for the good of the country and for the future.”

But it was too late; the boy had already disappeared into his bedroom. Soon, the sound of heavy rap played at full volume could be heard.

“Oh, darling. Think about the children. How are they going to face their friends at the international school? Where are we going to go on holiday?”

The man wiped away his tears of frustration and held his head as he thought of what to say.

Suddenly, he looked up and with a smile bordering on the maniacal, he said: “What about Singapore? Or we can even go local. Let’s go to A Famosa in Malacca. It’s fun, they have a theme park and an animal and cowboy show. Malaysia Truly Asia! Heh heh heh ...”

His laugh petered out as the girl and the woman stared at him icily, slicing through his forced jollity.

For the longest while, nothing was said. Then the rap music abruptly stopped. The three looked up as the boy walked back to them.

“I understand sacrifice, Papa. And I think I have the solution,” he said.

The family stared at him, hope shining in their eyes. “We can all go to Hong Kong Disneyland!” he exclaimed excitedly.

The man broke down again and buried his face in his hands. Between his gasping sobs, he cried,

“Oh, my son, my poor, poor boy. Don’t you know? Hong Kong is not in Asean.”

“Arrrgghhh!” the boy screamed and ran back to his room, wailing, “I hate you! I hate my life! I want to die!”

The girl, unable to bear the pain any longer, stood up. She loomed over the broken shell that was her father and said, “I know we all have to suffer because of the oil price, Papa. But why do WE have to suffer SO MUCH?” Then she too stalked away.

The man stared into the middle distance.

His pain was almost too much to endure. The only sound in the room was the clinking of his wife’s diamonds as her bosom heaved with racking sobs.

It barely smothered the sound of his shattering heart, for without their exotic foreign holidays, life would never be the same again.

Of Dilbert and Bulldogs

Brave New World (The Star)
29 May 2008

"All the players in the legal profession must work together to come up with a well thought-out and reasoned solution to ensure our lawyers are of the best possible quality."

____________________

There is a Dilbert cartoon in which the pointy-haired boss accuses a worker of all sorts of shortcomings. Then he ends his tirade by saying that she is also unable to take criticism.

This naturally puts the poor employee in a difficult position. She wants to defend herself but if she did so, she would confirm her boss’ analysis.

I feel like that hapless employee after reading Justice Gopal Sri Ram’s tirade against local law graduates. I am a lecturer in a local university and if I were to support my school, I would look defensive.

Yet, I can’t just let this go by. So allow me to try to address the criticism as objectively as possible.

If the reporting was accurate, the judge was pretty vicious. But then, one does not expect anything less from the judiciary’s bulldog (I use the term “bulldog” as a metaphor for tenacious toughness; no canine contempt intended).

His Lordship’s main criticism, as I see it, is that our graduates are not prepared for the real world of practice. There is more than a grain of truth in that statement. However, before we start to gun down local universities, let us understand just what it is universities are supposed to and not supposed to do.

Universities are academic institutions and, as such, we provide academic training. We are not really vocational schools that provide the sort of practical training the judge is calling for.

Having said that, there is a slight case of schizophrenia on our part. The law courses in Malaysia last four years, and the final year is a sort of “professional” year in which you study the more practice-oriented subjects, like procedure and professional practice.

Yet, at the same time, the “academic” ethos is still part of the package so perhaps we are not as practice-oriented as we could be.

In Britain, this problem does not exist because the academic and the vocational training aspects are quite distinct. You do three years of undergraduate study and if you pass, you get your LLB. Then the vocational training is provided for when you take the course for either the bar exams or the solicitors’ exams.

The universities are thus left with ensuring academic quality and the Bar and solicitor schools deal with the practical aspects of the profession.

Now, if we are to improve matters and make our graduates more prepared for practice, there are three options that I can see.

The first is to make the entire course less academic and more practical. I can’t agree with this. The Bachelor of Laws degree (the LLB) is not merely to train practising lawyers. It is about the teaching of the law and the appreciation of the law.

It is about the training of the mind, to think and to analyse in a particular way. I believe there is value in that.

Another alternative is to make just the final year much more practical. This is a tempting possibility and one that could succeed with the necessary consultations and with the proper funding and staffing.

The final possibility is the one that is being put forward by the Government now, and that is to have a common Bar exam with its own syllabus. This proposal has yet to take solid form so we don’t know what it will entail.

In principle, I see no problem with a common Bar exam. My concern is one of trust. The closest equivalent we have had to a common Bar exam is the Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP) exam that foreign or external degree graduates without a Bar or solicitors’ qualification have to sit for.

The CLP is not without its problems. There are far too many scandals associated with it and far too many serious criticisms aimed at it.

There are many weaknesses in our law schools, let me be the first to admit to that. However, any problems that we have and any attempts at improving them are in our hands.

Despite our problems, at the very least, I know that a student passes on his or her merit. Exam scripts are sent to external assessors comprising both local and foreign academics and practitioners to ensure fairness and quality.

And in my 18 years of teaching, there has never been a whiff of any monkeying around with quotas and other such suspicions that are, perhaps unfairly, thrown at the CLP.

The CLP experience leaves me concerned. Therefore, until and unless I am convinced of the soundness of the common Bar exam, I am inclined towards improving matters by fixing the existing system in local universities.

It is easy for industry to place the blame for everything on universities.

“Your graduates can’t speak English,” they say. To which my answer is “Yes, that’s right, they came to us speaking like blinking Richard Attenborough and after four years under our tutelage, we destroyed all their language skills”.

And to come back to the main criticism levelled at us: “Your graduates don’t know anything about practice”.

OK, sure, like I said earlier, there is some truth in that. However, the responsibility does not lie with us alone. Surely, a lot of the aspects of practice are to be taught in the nine-month chambering period.

This is the time spent by a law graduate in a law firm learning the ropes before they can be called to the Bar. Why is there no barrage of attack on that aspect of a law graduate’s training?

There is a lot that local universities can do to improve things and we must accept criticisms in the right spirit. But this must be a collaborative effort. All the players in the legal profession must work together to come up with a well-thought-out and reasoned solution in ensuring that our lawyers are of the best possible quality.

And we must do this as rationally and as inclusively as possible, even with bulldogs nipping at our heels.

What Does Sedition Mean?

Brave New World (The Star)
15 May 2008

"The Sedition Act is very open-ended and perhaps it should be done away with. Just what sedition is appears to be in the eye of the beholder."

____________________

Sedition! What does it mean? The word has been floating around for the past couple of weeks.

Raja Petra the (in) famous blogger of Malaysia Today is being charged with sedition and Karpal Singh the (in)famous MP is being threatened with the charge of sedition.

Raja Petra’s charge is based on an article he wrote about the Altantuya murder and Karpal was supposedly being seditious when he questioned the limits of the Sultan of Perak’s constitutional powers.

But were they being seditious? According to the dictionary definition of sedition, it means words or actions that cause people to rebel against their leaders.

It’s awfully vague, isn’t it? What does “rebel” mean, for instance? Well, looking back into my trusty dictionary, I find that it means to stop giving allegiance to an established government.

Gasp! By that definition, voting against the Government makes you a rebel. Being an Opposition member makes you a rebel. Criticising the Government makes you a rebel.

But wait. Reading on, there is the implication that rebellion means armed struggle. Phew! For a moment there, I thought we were living in a country where close to 50% of the electorate are awful rebels.

However, let’s go back to Raja Petra and Karpal Singh. Their so-called sedition is not dependent on the definition of the Oxford Paperback Dictionary. Instead, we must look to the Sedition Act 1948 (revised in 1969).

Well, 1948. That’s a long time ago. We were not independent then. The Brits were in control. So what we have here is a Brit-made law used initially to control the teeming masses of Malaya from rebelling against the colonial masters.

Gosh. I would have thought such a horrid reminder of the nasty British and their bullying ways would have been done away with as soon as we gained independence.

I guess the Government feels that it still has its uses. Like defending the honour of royalty (as in the Karpal case) or putting them in jail (if Raja Petra, a member of the Selangor royal family, is convicted). Oh, the sweet irony.

Anyway, the Act gives a much more detailed definition than my dictionary. It’s not much clearer, mind you, just more detailed. Since I am lazy, I’ll just paraphrase the relevant parts of the act here.

Sedition means:

(a) To make people hate or feel contempt or disaffection against any ruler or government;

(b) To excite people into changing any legally established matter other than by lawful means;

(c) To make people hate, feel contempt for or feel disaffection against the administration of justice in the country;

(d) To raise discontent or disaffection among the people of the country;

(e) To promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia; or

(f) To question the provisions in the Constitution regarding citizenship, Bahasa Malaysia as the national language, the special position of Malays and the sovereignty of the rulers.

However, your words and actions are not seditious if they were:

(a) Intended to show that a ruler has made a mistake;

(b) To constructively show that the government has made mistakes or is in some way defective in law-making and the administration of justice (with the exception of the listed matters in paragraph (f) above);

(c) To make changes in the country through lawful means (with the exception of the listed matters in paragraph (f) above) and to identify, with the intention of removing, any matter that will raise feeling of ill will between the various ethnic groups.

This is the law as it stands. It is not a verbatim reproduction of the Act because, believe me, if you think what I wrote is boring, the actual Act will drive you to tears.

Arguments will be made on both sides to determine if sedition has occurred, and if the case goes to court, then it is up to the wisdom of the judge to decide.

Meanwhile, since we are all intelligent citizens of a democratic country, I see no harm in examining the so-called seditious acts of these two fellows, and seeing if they fit into the definition provided for by this old colonial law.

While you are at it, you may want to see if anyone else has been uttering seditious words. It could be fun. For example, the next time someone questions your citizenship, you can always scream: “Sedition! Sedition!”

The law is very open-ended and perhaps it should be done away with. Just what sedition is appears to be in the eye of the beholder, and this is not a particularly ideal situation.

After all, one person’s sedition is another person’s practice of the democratic right of free speech.

What’s the Party Got to Do With It?

Brave New World (The Star)
1 May 2008

"To separate the personal from the professional is a hard thing to do. But ethics and professionalism demand it."

____________________

The other day, a friend of mine asked me to write a blurb for his new book. It is an honour of course to be asked to do that. A demanding honour, because you have to read an entire book and then try to write about it in one paragraph, but it is an honour nonetheless.

But what if the book is really crap? What do you do? After all, this is your friend you are talking about, and he has asked you to help him by endorsing his work. How do you deal with having to do something unpleasant to someone you like?

Alternatively, sometimes you have to do something positive for someone you personally can’t stand. To separate the personal from the professional is a hard thing to do. But ethics and professionalism demand it.

In Malaysian politics, this does not seem to be the case. There is confusion on the difference between party political interests and the interests of society. And the best interest of society is what good governance is about.

Take Penang, for example. The Tourism Minister has decided to dissolve the Penang Tourism Action Council (PTAC) and reconstitute a new one. The difference between the two is that the new PTAC has no state government representative.

It appears that the Tourism Ministry will only work with the state government if the latter is in Barisan Nasional hands. This was illustrated during the minister’s visit to Penang a little while ago when there was no involvement with the state government at all.

It would seem, therefore, that the PTAC and the Tourism Ministry want to have nothing to do with the state authorities.

So now the state Cabinet has a tourism portfolio and the Federal Government has the PTAC. I am not sure how having two tourism bodies not working in tandem is going to help Penang.

Perhaps the minister has a cunning plan to somehow make it all work. Or perhaps this is just a way of putting Barisan Nasional interests above the country’s interests by making sure that the DAP state government faces as many obstacles as possible.

After all, when the tourism players get confused as to which body they have to turn to, it would be very convenient to lay the blame on the “incompetent” state exco.

I should not be surprised, really. The minister is the same person who defended the stopping of oil royalty payments to Terengganu when the state fell into PAS hands by saying that the situation was equivalent to not being nice to a lover who has rejected you. A very personal analogy for a very public issue.

Further down south, there is a big hoo-ha about the First Wives Club, or Balkis or whatever it is called. While the legality of the transfer of Balkis funds and the request to disband it are debated, it would be interesting to wonder why they did such a thing in the first place.

Balkis, a body consisting of the wives of the Selangor state exco members, has the primary objective of doing community work. All very noble, certainly.

However, I did not realise that you had to be the wife of a Barisan Nasional state exco member in order to do good work. If that was the case, then perhaps it should have been made clear that this organisation was limited only to Barisan wives.

But then when one’s husband has been boasting about expunging the Opposition from the state completely, it is easy to forget that in a democracy, political parties win and they also can lose.

It all looks very childish to me. Like the spoilt kid who takes away the ball when his team is trailing.

Balkis is a charitable organisation. It is supposed to be peopled by the wives of Selangor legislators. The institution is what is important, not the people who make it up.

If the new bunch of wives can’t do the job properly, expose them and shame them and maybe that will cause the downfall of their husbands. Then your own handsome men can come back and you can continue where you left off.

Institutions should not be confused with the personalities that people them. Those who by the rules of the institution could be there are the ones who should be there. Unless otherwise stated, their political affiliations should not matter.

Back up the North-South Expressway, we see this confusion affecting the appointment of Datuk Lee Kah Choon, ex-Gerakan strongman, as director of the Penang Development Corporation and the executive chairman of InvestPenang.

Both are bodies concerned with the economic development of Penang and both are under the control of the state government. A great hue and cry rose up from both sides of the political divide.

The ex-president of Gerakan foamed in the mouth as he normally does, and even the mighty Lion of Jelutong (or wherever he is now) raised his mighty head to roar disapproval.

Lee is working for the state government (albeit he is getting paid nothing), and that makes him a servant of the people.

Sure, the state government is now run by the DAP, but this does not detract from the fact that his new job is to serve the people of Penang.

Just because his political affiliation differs from that of the ruling party, it does not mean he should not be allowed to do the work he is entrusted with.

If that were the case, all the state government civil servants in the five Pakatan Rakyat states who are Umno, MIC or MCA members should resign because their political views differ from those of their new bosses.

What Lim Guan Eng is doing is risky. Not because Lee is an ex-Gerakan man, but because he is unproven in the field of economic development. That should be the people’s concern.

The right thing to do in this country is to see everyone working for the interests of the nation in tandem.

Politics is one thing and it is an important thing. It is a creature borne of necessity in large modern societies, and it is through politics that we choose our leaders.

But cheap politicking should have nothing to do with the way we run the country.

Under Threat? What Threat?

Brave New World (The Star)
17 April 2008

"Since the recent general election, voices have risen up in a shrill warning cry that the Malays are now ‘under threat’. But perhaps the real threat is the threat to Umno hegemony."

____________________

And so it begins. Race-based rhetoric has raised its ugly little head in response to a democratic process. Over 49% of the people of Malaysia have voted for parties that have rejected race-based affirmative action in favour of a needs-based platform.

It did not take very long for voices, both common and royal, to rise up in a shrill warning cry that the Malays are now “under threat”.

“Under threat” from what, may I ask? Let’s take a bit of time to look at this so-called “threat”. Firstly, Malays are given special protection under Article 153 of the Constitution.

Article 153 is titled “Reservation of quotas in respect of services, permits, etc, for Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak”. Article 152 states that Malay is the National Language. The Supreme Head of the Federation, according to Article 32, is the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, a Malay ruler.

This is the foundation of Malay “special privileges”.

None of the Pakatan Rakyat component parties, including the DAP, have said anything about removing Articles 153, 152 and 32. They remain safe and secure with no sign whatsoever of any sort of threat.

Besides, in order to change it, you would need a two-thirds majority in the lower and upper houses of Parliament plus the support of the Conference of Rulers. The last time I checked, no one has a two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat.

Secondly, due to simple demographics, it is unlikely that a totally non-Malay party is ever going to win absolute control of the government. Of the five state governments in the hands of the Pakatan, four are led by a Malay Mentri Besar.

Penang is an exception, but Penang has been led by non-Malays since the 60s. Why was there was no outcry before this?

Thirdly, the proposed doing-away with the NEP (or whatever it is called nowadays), I suppose, can be seen as a threat to the Malays.

But how it can be a threat is beyond me, because the replacement suggested by the Pakatan is not some sort of laissez-faire capitalist economy. Instead, it is an economic system with affirmative action promised to those in need.

If the Malays are the largest group of people in Malaysia who are in the most need, then they will get the most help. If they are not in the most need, then why on earth do they need help then?

This is the point where I will get angry letters about how the NEP is needed; because in the business world – the real world which I know nothing about because I am just a lowly-academic trapped in my ivory tower – Malays are discriminated against by the Chinese. So we need a policy like the NEP to provide some balance.

I disagree.

If there are racist business policies being conducted against the Malays, then you face it head on with anti-discrimination laws.

If some person feels he is being discriminated against, no matter what his race, then let there be a law to help him, and let us punish the racists with a hefty fine or jail term.

You do not meet racism with racism; you challenge it by destroying all traces of it.

The problem with the NEP, as I see it, is that it breeds a mentality of entitlement based on race and not merit. This mentality seeps into governance, and it creates an atmosphere of mediocrity. One example of this is how the Constitution has been disregarded in relation to employment issues.

The Federal Constitution states that you can set quotas at the entry points of government services, for example, the civil service and public universities. However, this is counter-balanced by Article 136 that says all federal employees must be treated fairly regardless of race.

This means that once inside a service, everyone is to be treated equally based on merit. In such a situation, only the cream will rise to the top.

However, since the introduction of the NEP, the practice in government services has been to promote Malays mainly. This has in turn led to a drop in the number of non-Malay actors in the service of the public.

Taking my profession for example, the closeted unrealistic world of academia, I look down south and I see that 30% of the staff in the National University of Singapore Law School are Malaysians.

How come these clever fellows who are good enough to teach in a university that is among the top 20 in the world are not here in the land of their birth? Why are the blinking Singaporeans enjoying our talent? Is it because that talent is all non-Malay and they feel they have better opportunities there than here?

This is a complete waste, and in the end this loss of talent means a loss for the university, the country and the people of this country, including the Malay students who miss out on the best possible teachers.

Perhaps the real threat is the threat to Umno hegemony, in which case my answer to that is this: clean up your act, live up to your promises and listen to what the people are saying.

Make yourself electable by proving that you can create good government.

That is called democracy.

Say Sorry So We Can Move On

Brave New World (The Star)
3 April 2008

"There is nothing wrong in admitting one’s mistake. It is in fact a type of strength."

____________________

Saying sorry is really hard, apparently. At least according to Elton John; but then I can’t see that camp old fellow apologising to anyone.

Speaking of old fellows, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad too doesn’t seem to be keen on saying sorry.

His reaction to calls from DAP chairman Karpal Singh for him to apologise for the dismissal of Tun Salleh Abbas in 1988 was to brush it aside.

Instead, he said that the tribunal which decided against Salleh Abbas, then Lord President, should apologise. That’s akin to John Wilkes Booth saying that his pistol should apologise to Abraham Lincoln.

However, this is neither here nor there. Karpal was just being Karpal, and it will be a chilly day in hell before Mahathir apologises for his administration.

The actual proposal by Senator Zaid Ibrahim is that the present government should apologise to Salleh Abbas and the other judges sacked during that black spot in our judicial history.

This proposal has met with some objections – primarily that an apology is not enough. The culprits are still around so they should be brought to task.

The situation in Malaysia is different from, say, in Australia. There, the recent apology by the government to the Aboriginal people made sense because the perpetrators of the worst offences against Australia’s indigenes are dead.

Actually, I liken an apology to Salleh and the two judges who were suspended, then sacked, more to the South African truth and reconciliation efforts at the fall of apartheid.

The purpose is not so much to punish the offenders, but more to seek closure to an awful part of the nation’s history, and then to move on.

And the legal system needs to move on. We live in the shadow of 1988 and all the problems that have resulted from it.

The perceived loss of confidence in the judiciary’s impartiality stems from that time, as well as the sense that the judiciary is beholden to outside powers, be they political or business.

A sense that was proven apparently correct, correct, correct to many people’s eyes when the infamous Lingam tape floated to the surface.

I can understand the need for justice. I truly sympathise with the idea of putting those responsible for the 1988 debacle through the wringer of the justice system, but, realistically, can this happen any time soon?

Perhaps it is better to have an apology, which will be akin to an official admission that the Government had done something terrible to the judiciary.

With such an admission, we can then start to rebuild, because then it will be absolutely clear that a terrible injustice has occurred and there is a need for a fresh start.

However, at the time of writing, even this symbolic (albeit important) step of saying sorry has been rejected by the Cabinet.

I imagine such an admission would be considered too embarrassing and a loss of face. Or perhaps the Cabinet truly believes that the tribunal was not wrongly constituted and unfair.

Whatever the reason, it is unwise to reject the idea of an apology. We have a desperate need to rebuild our judiciary and – it follows – the entire legal system to something we can not only be proud of, but also more importantly feel secure with.

This is one of the issues that powered the wave of discontent against the Barisan Nasional in the last election. It is odd then that the Cabinet chooses not to deal with it head-on and to dismiss Zaid’s idea (some would say, rather arrogantly).

There is nothing wrong in admitting one’s mistake. It is in fact a type of strength. A person can make all sorts of mistakes, the important thing is to realise that mistake and try to fix it.

Take Zaid, for example. When I first saw him I was a young tutor and he was climbing the Umno ladder.

It was at a panel discussion at a public university and he was defending the amendments to the Land Acquisition Act, which basically allowed the Government to compulsorily acquire land not just for public purposes but also for commercial purposes. It also shut the door on any judicial review over the reasons for such acquisitions.

In my young and idealistic mind, such an amendment was an affront to the principles of justice and social equity I was trained in, and I told Zaid in no uncertain terms that as a lawyer, he could not be defending such a law.

He, being the president of the mighty Muslim Lawyers Association, quite scathingly put me down.

He seems like a different chap nowadays. Maybe I should ask him to apologise?

Time to Act as Statesmen

Brave New World (The Star)
20 March 2008

"It's a whole new type of politics out there and the new state governments and the country too need time to adjust to this change."

____________________

After the excitement of the election results (yes, I’m still writing about the election, apologies to those of you with insatiable appetites for the new and the “now”), certain unease seems to be creeping into the collective consciousness.

Headlines scream about cracks in the loose coalition of the Opposition, constitutional crises hang over the horizon of at least two states. Are things going to go tumbling down?

Well, a week is a long time in politics as they say, and by the time this article comes out five days would have passed since I wrote it, so I could end up with egg on my face.

However, I just want to say; cool it, chill out, relax, it's early days and the poor little politicians have no idea what hit them.

Some of them have never been out of power and some of them have never tasted it.

They are still stuck in their old mindsets. We, the people seem to have leaped forward but they are still trying to wrap their heads around this new world; poor dears.

For example, the Opposition leader in Selangor; after days of petulant silence he comes out with this grand plan to watch the new state government with beady eagle eyes.

They are going to register the old folks and the young ones and make sure they all get what the ex-Opposition promised them (healthcare and child care respectively). Well, good on you Khir!

I always said a strong opposition is what we need.

But, a word of advice to the handsome ex-Mentri Besar.

Accusing the new state government of being likely to be racially insensitive is rather rich coming from you.

If I am not mistaken, and I am not, some of the most publicised temple destruction that caused such anger and uproar in the Hindu community, and which was one of the impetuses to the heavy setback suffered by the Barisan, happened in Selangor; when you were in charge.

Besides, Khalid and co have not even managed to settle in their new offices. It’s going to take some time to clean up all those shredded documents.

Give them a while to settle in before you threaten to “take action.”

Meanwhile in Penang, Lim Guan Eng had barely sat down when he had to jump up again and put out a fire that is the NEP.

I watched the interview he gave on the NEP and he said that he wanted to weed out the corrupt, inefficient and wasteful aspects of the policy.

Nothing was said about marginalising the poor, of whatever race. Surely this is a good thing. Surely the NEP was meant to help the poor and not meant to be corrupt, inefficient and wasteful.

The NEP’s time is over. For the Malay professional classes, they should be able to stand on their own feet, and if they can’t, then they should not be in that position in the first place.

For the Malay poor, and there are many of them, making up as they do the vast majority of low income families, it would appear that a new approach is needed.

If a policy has been implemented for nearly 40 years and the main group it is aiming to help is still in the same position, it is high time to look at new policies.

The trouble with the NEP and the way it has been enforced is that it promotes Malay interest over national interest. Let’s take a look at public institutions for example; Malay people staff them overwhelmingly.

This is because non-Malays feel they don’t have a fair shot at promotions in the civil service. A worry that is quite valid.

We are too small a nation to shut out talent based on race. The country has to be run by the best people or we will all suffer and the Malay supremacists will then be the supreme masters of rubble.

Obviously not all Malays feel like me. Some were so angry at Guan Eng’s misquoted statement that they have taken to the streets of Penang and Shah Alam. I think this is super.

A democracy needs dissent as long as it is peaceful. The sight of Umno members thronging around Komtar warmed the cockles of my heart.

Umno members have shown the Barisan government that protesting really is part of our culture.

They made a mistake condemning the Bersih and Hindraf rallies. Malaysians do take to the streets when they want to express their feelings.

The country is on the cusp of a new type of politics. It is perhaps no accident that amongst the Opposition in Parliament, the one with the largest number of seats is a multi-racial party that calls for a non-racial method of affirmative action.

And the other two Opposition parties, although more mono racial in their make up are also making similar overtures.

It is odd therefore that the response to the election results by the Barisan component parties has been to reinforce the racial based policies and politics that a very large proportion of the citizens appear to have rejected.

It is also odd to see the old warhorses of the Opposition act like they are still in the Opposition. People, you are in charge of five states now. This is the time to act like statesmen and not like rabble-rousers.

Yes, there is a degree of uncertainty in our country after the elections, but at the end of the day we are going to need to give it some time before we press the panic button; time to see how the new state governments work; time to see how the Barisan reacts; and time most of all to let the old dinosaurs rant and rave using the language of race until they come to the realisation that for the future to be bright, outdated and outmoded politics must be discarded.

The country needs time to settle, let’s just hope the politicians do not take too long in doing so.