1 Malaysia on its way

MCA and Chinese groups plan to fete Najib

KUALA LUMPUR: The MCA and 15 major Chinese guilds will host a welcome dinner for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. The event will be held at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre tomorrow.

Among the organisers are the Malaysian Seven Major Clans Association, the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia, the Malaysia Lion and Dragon Dance Association, the Eight Malaysian Chinese Organisations and the SMI Association of Malaysia.

Organising chairman and MCA vice-president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said some 2,200 people have been invited to the dinner.

They are mainly leaders from the Chinese guilds, Chinese chambers of commerce and Barisan Nasional component parties.

“The dinner is to show our support for Najib,” Liow said.

Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia president Tan Sri Lim Gait Tong said the event will be a platform to forge closer ties between the Chinese community and Najib.

They forgot about the signboard

This picture of a signboard in Kelana Jaya was taken on the 15th of June, 2009. Either Majlis Bandaran Petaling Jaya or Celcom must be unaware of this. What is the PKR Government doing? They don't seem to be aware as well. Signboards are for awareness. Nobody seems to be aware of this.

Dominant but not dominating

Datuk Dr Agoes Salim is an an economist and first secretary-general of the National Unity Ministry. He is also former chairman of Bank Pertanian. He was on the public service secretariat of the National Operations Council following the riots and helped draw up both the Rukun Negara and the NEP
anizad@nst.com.my

A Very Wise View

Dominating role not healthy for nation,

I THINK we are farther apart now than we were in 1969.

But you have to remember that I grew up going to an English school, to a university where there were people of all races. At that time, although we did think in terms of race, it wasn’t in the way people do now. We felt that we were Malayans. We socialised much better than we do now.

Bahasa Malaysia can be a unifying factor. But it can be a factor separating people, too.

As Sukarno would say, “The important thing is the jiwa.”
You don’t have to have a common language, if you have the same jiwa (heart, spirit, passion, devotion). This is what we don’t have right now.

In 1956, the historical society of Universiti Malaya went to India.

There were lots of Indians in the group, but they didn’t think of themselves as Indians, they thought of themselves as Malayans.

That’s the jiwa.

But later on, because of certain reactions, suddenly people stayed away from this jiwa — they don’t feel as though they are fully Malaysian. They are made to feel that way.

When I was in the service, there were lots of non-Malays in the civil service, holding good positions. But do you see them now? If you go to the universities, where are the non-Malay professors?

After 1969, suddenly there was this drive to make sure that all university vice-chancellors and faculty deans were Malay. So, in the end, we chased away all the best brains among the non-Malays.

When schools say you must start school with a doa (Muslim prayer recitation), you push away all the non-Muslims. When I was at school, we never had any prayers. Whatever we learnt in religious class was a separate thing.

I think it’s more important that we bring people together, rather than pushing religion so hard that it alienates other people. This is what’s happening. I can’t blame the Chinese and Indians; why should they go to a sekolah kebangsaan (national school), when they have to do all these things?

All the things are breaking down. Our school system is not as it used to be. We are producing supposedly so many students with so many As, but what do they know? Are we happy about it? The leaders seem to be happy about it.

We came up with the Rukun Negara because, after 1969, there was the feeling that the nation was breaking down. People had forgotten what it was all about. So, we thought we could bring people back together — unite them. That’s what the first part of the Rukun Negara is about: the objectives of the nation.

Unfortunately, we did practically nothing to promote an understanding of the Rukun Negara. And when schools make mistakes, nobody corrects them. That should have been the role of the Department of Information.

In the beginning, Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie did try to apply the test of whether something was in consonance with the Rukun Negara or not. But then, the government just forgot about this.

We are supposed to be a united nation, not only in terms of state, but also in terms of people: that they would all consider themselves as Malaysians, and that this was their country and their nation. We wanted all these people to share the wealth of the nation.

One of the things we thought contributed to ’69 was the economic disparities, joblessness.

The New Economic Policy was a policy for all Malaysians; not just for the Malays. But we wanted to restructure the economy so that the Malays would come out of the rural agriculture sector into the commercial sector.

We wanted Malay participation at all levels of economic activity. We wanted to uplift the Malays without reducing the position of the others.. — “eradicating poverty regardless of less”.

And this was supposed to be in a situation of growth. Not just sharing the existing cake, but the cake must grow, so that these people also have the opportunity to grow.

At the same time, we also hoped that the Malays would grow a little faster. So, they set this target of 30 per cent equity in 20 years. I was not much in favour of that because I didn’t think it was achievable. I felt that participation was more important than wealth.

We never thought that we would produce multi-billionaires. That was never the intention of the NEP. If some people can come up as everyone comes up, it’s okay. But it wasn’t supposed to be about some people getting contracts.

We did say that we should have Malay millionaires just as we should have Chinese and Indian millionaires, but not so much so that you don’t have to do anything.

You must differentiate between dominance and domination. As Tun Dr Ismail said, “We want to be dominant, but we don’t want to dominate.”
Dominant in the sense that we wanted the Malays to be everywhere; but not to dominate all the others.

But we seem to be dominating; and I don’t think that’s healthy for the nation. It’s not about taking your share and not caring about the rest.

Husam wants to be always on top

Pas deputy president aspirant Datuk Husam Musa said it is too late for his rival Nasharuddin Mat Isa to deny that the party has no plans to join Umno. "It's too late to deny it... I am part of the party top leadership so I know what really happened behind the scenes. The truth will come out sooner or later," he told reporters after the opening of the 55th Pas Muktamar at the Melawati Stadium in Shah Alam.

Husam, who is going for broke, stressed that Pas must be an alternate party to arch-rival Umno.

In referring to the Pakatan Rakyat's plan to form the federal government, the Kelantan senior exco pointed out that a prime minister could come from Pas.

"The PM should be from Pas but if you team up with Umno, you'll be a Minister in PM’s Department. I won't be satisfied because my boss will be under Umno," he said.

He stressed there will not be any co-operation with Umno to jointly govern the country.
"If Pas works with Umno, we will become a lackney. Umno will remain the dominant party, and that's the end for Pas. If Umno lost the elections later and they want to work with us, its okay, provided Pas on top and Umno below. If Umno on top and Pas below, finished," he said.

Good news from CHINA

China offers Sime Darby multi-billion development project

By WONG SAI WAN and CELESTE FONG

BEIJING: Sime Darby has been offered a multi-billion dollar development project in the Weifang prefecture city covering almost 700 sq km – making it one of the biggest venture ever undertaken by a foreign company in China.

Calling it an “iconic milestone project”, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the development would be undertaken by Sime Darby as the lead agency with many Malaysian companies involved.

“This is definitely more than a township project. This is massive and has great potential for many Malaysian companies. This is very exciting,” said Najib to Malaysian reporters at the end of his first official visit to China as Prime Minister.

He said he had met the Communist Party secretary of the Shandung province over the offer to Sime Darby.

“He has given it in writing confirming the offer and Sime Darby has confirmed its interest. We will follow up on this,” Najib added.

Weifang is known as the kite capital of the world because it is a popular past time for the locals and international kite-flying festivals are held there annually.

The present city has a population of 8.5 million and covers some 15,000 sq km. It is located 500km South of Beijing.

Najib disclosed that the Malaysian and Chinese Governments had also come to an understanding on several other huge projects in China and Malaysia.

In his discussions with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao, Najib said he told the Chinese leader that Malaysia was considering offering the rail double-tracking project from Gemas to Johor Baru to a Chinese company.

Asked if this was the same project that was to have been undertaken by a Chinese company before it was shelved in 2003, Najib said it was a different one as the double tracking had already reached Gemas.

The China Government in return, was willing to offer soft loans for this project from a US$10bil fund they had set aside for infrastructure projects meant for Asean countries.

They were also willing to extend a US$15bil trade credit facility.

Najib said he also offered China a commercial banking licence in Malaysia provided the same was offered to a Malaysian bank and the two central banks had been instructed to follow up on this matter.

In their discussions, the Chinese side also expressed the need for the Mengkuang Dam project in Penang to be given to a Chinese company as was agreed upon previously and Najib said this project would be given to the Chinese firm to build the dam on a joint-venture basis with a Malaysian company.

China had also expressed interest in the energy sector especially in the Bakun project as well as the transmission of the power to the peninsular.

Najib said two multi-billion projects in Sarawak – the pulp paper mill and the aluminium smelting plant – was likely to go ahead as “both sides seems to have sorted out most of the problem.”

On Thursday, Acacia Cellulose International Sdn Bhd (a joint-venture company based in Sarawak) signed a memorandum off understanding with China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation for the Chinese firm to build the mill.

The project is estimated to be worth over RM4bil.

Najib said he had also given Malaysia’s undertaking to honour the deal on the construction of the Second Penang Bridge that it is to be jointly constructed by a China construction company.

“The first progress payment of RM300mil has already been paid and we are now studying the details of the soft loan being offered by the Chinese Government for this project,” he added.

Fifteen other MoUs and agreements were also signed and it is estimated that the projects, if they went ahead would be worth some RM6.4bil.

In his discussions with Chinese leaders, Najib said he identified five sectors that big companies from China could invest in Malaysia.

These are infrastructure, energy, certain manufacturing industries, services and finance.

On the 16 MoUs, Najib said the Malaysian government had scrutinised all of them and found them to be viable and likely to take off.

“We rejected many other MoUs because of some doubts. This is despite intensive lobbying by those in the private sector,” he added.

A big YES for Najib but ........

45% happy, 16% not happy and maybe 39% undecided. The Malays and Indians looks like they have understood what one Malaysia is. The chinese are always very suspicious? Lets have another poll after the China trip. If the China Chinese can appreciate Najib, why not the Malaysian Chinese?

The Sudan Connection

Mr. Khalil Ibrahim Ahmed, Datuk Naim Mohamad, Datuk Mustapha Yaakub, HE Nadir Yousif Eltayeb, Mr Ahmed Abdelbagi Hammad and Mr Syed Othman Al Kherid.

Tuan Syed Othman and Puan Hasnah Ali