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ASEAN Conflict & disaster Politics & government

[2220] Of Jose Ramos Horta and Indonesia

Some rights reserved. By Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams.

The University hosted President Jose Ramos Horta of East Timor recently and I was lucky enough to get a seat for his speech. After Joseph Stiglitz, the President is the second ever Nobel Prize winner that I have had the opportunity to listen to first hand.

The speech was interesting, but it was not a memorable one. I am unable to recall too many points of the speech.

What I do remember the most is East Timor’s ties with Indonesia.

He is concerned with attempts at punishing Indonesia for past violence in East Timor. He said Indonesia should be given the room to face its own history. The context that Indonesia finds itself in should be understood and taken into account: it at one point came close to repeating the history of the Balkans. That is a painful part of modern Indonesian history. Raising it up would cause old woulds to reopen and ignite an unproductive and divisive debate.

Furthermore, this is not the best time to demand for justice. Such demand at this juncture or in the near future may risk whatever progress, which is a lot, Indonesia is making. He said, such demand would sap energy away from development. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia should not be burdened with an international controversy. The fire of nationalism should not be lighted up.

He believes that as Indonesia matures as a democracy, its society will address it eventually. I definitely think that such approach is better at attaining sustainable peace and good diplomatic relations. Although an exaggerated example, the problem of post-World War I Germany comes to mind with respect to effort to punish Indonesia. Keynes was right about Germany and the current President of East Timor may be right about Indonesia.

In other words, it is in East Timor’s interest to have Indonesia focused on its developmental agenda.

He also made it clear that any attempt to set up a tribunal to punish Indonesia would not get the support of East Timor.

And I thought, those were wise words. And I am on board.

Categories
Photography Politics & government

[2219] Of the Spill

Some rights reserved. By Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams.

Categories
Politics & government

[2218] Of wanted: political capital and will

There is mutual frustration between those in government and those who identify themselves as ordinary citizens in Malaysia. The frustration originates from the incapability of both to understand the other side’s challenges. This makes the gears of a huge machine — the government — stuck. It needs to work again.

The period immediately after the March 8, 2008 was supposed to be an opportunity for major reforms. The machine was supposed to work again after years of abuse that exhausted its credibility. The filters were supposed to have been washed, even if partly. Rusted wheels replaced. The joints, oiled.

That was not enough, apparently. Skepticism against the government — or perhaps more generally, against the state — not only persists but also grows. It has grown so much that it is disconnecting the government from the people, and the people from the government. It is threatening the idea that the government is the people, and the people are the government.

Given the record of the Barisan Nasional federal government, however, that skepticism is justified. In fact, skepticism against the state is a good thing to have. It is the first line of defense against tyranny.

Yet, skepticism is healthy only up to a certain dose. If there is too much skepticism, the central functions of the state cannot be carried out. Too much skepticism erodes the reason for a state. And there are signs that skepticism has become a monster in Malaysia, devouring too many regardless of agenda.

In the current political and economic climate, that skepticism has grown to a point that no reform can take place. The size of government is big so that it needs to be cut down so that there is less opportunity to repeat abuses of the past. Unfortunately, efforts to reduce it and put public finance in order are widely seen by many as a deliberate attempt to short-change citizens.

The problem of a big government is very real. Its effects on individuals and society are observable. Its growth over the years in Malaysia is something that cannot be missed. The Abdullah administration committed gross gluttony while the supposed benefits of big government were unseen. Something has to be done now, but nothing moves. Loud popular opposition stands in the way.

Part of the reason is that the challenges associated with big government are far removed from the ground. Public finance, for instance, means little to men and women on the streets. Individuals do not directly face it and hence, they do not see it as problems to solve, at least not soon.

Incapability to see it does not mean all is fine and dandy. The tragedy is this: Efforts to solve it inflicts relatively immediate pain while its benefits will only come relatively later. Furthermore, benefactors of big government will obviously defend it. Coupled with those is the fact that most of us enjoy the idea of instant gratification, so the loud popular opposition is not a surprise.

In justifying their opposition to initiatives to cut the size of government, they do raise very pertinent questions. What about corruption, what about leakage and what about inefficiency in the public sector? These are among the questions many have asked. Why should we pay for their excesses?

Recent allegation by the civil servants’ union, Cuepacs, that nearly half of civil servants in the country were suspected to be involved in graft does not instill confidence. The size of the civil service suggests that the government is uninterested in cutting down its expenditure seriously. Purchases of overpriced defense equipments suggest unwise spending. The investigation of the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) is going unsatisfactorily, if there is any progress at all. Recent large losses of enterprises linked to the government exacerbate the image of the government of the day as incompetent.

Slammed with the idea of a goods and services tax along with the withdrawal of subsidies, rightly or wrongly, taxpayers get the perception that they are picking up the tab for somebody else’s mistake. As far as critics are concerned, the government is swimming in excesses, disconnected from the concerns of the masses.

The boilerplate answer to this two-way disconnect is commitment to democracy: Voters should till the land. Get a completely new captain and crew to staff the bridge.

It is an attractive solution as it removes one disconnect. As with any boilerplate argument however, it is insufficient. A libertarian fear revolves around this: Such a democratic solution solves only one part of the equation. It may build the trust that is required to run the machine smoothly again. What it may fail to do is to address the problem of big government.

The alternative in the form of Pakatan Rakyat has not demonstrated their grasp of the issue. They are happy with mere populism so far, such as promises of free water and bigger subsidies.

They really cannot be blamed for that. It is only expected. The truth is that Pakatan Rakyat needs to run a populist campaign to enter Putrajaya.

That does not negate the fact that economic populist policy tends to run a country down. That does not negate the fact that unpopular moves are required to solve the problems. Clearly, political capital is required to run unpopular policy.

But who has the political will? Who has the political capital?

Putrajaya, so far, lacks at least one of them.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on June 14 2010.

Categories
Politics & government

[2217] Of it says not less than RM2,000!

I am busy but this controversy relating to Tian Chua’s sentence and his status as the Member of Parliament for Batu enrages me so much that I feel compelled to write something about it.

The law clearly states that an MP will lose his or her chair in the Parliament if he or she is ”sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than one year or to a fine of not less than RM2,000 and has not received a free pardon.” Any respectable college graduate — even those whom have passed their high school — will see that the equivalence is an MP will lose his or her chair if sentenced to jail for one year or more, or fined RM2,000 or more.

Surely, one does not need a law degree to come to that conclusion. Apparently, some in the legal profession believe that, as a friend of mine said, they can rewrite the laws of mathematics. They insist that legal precedent overrules mathematics!

Somebody should point out to them that this group of legal experts may lack knowledge of mathematics to undertake such a bold project.

This is probably a damning sign of the deplorable state of Malaysian education and legal systems. They do not know their inequality. Yikes!

Tian Chua the Batu MP at first was sentenced with a fine of RM3,000. In the name of public interest, the judge reduced the sentence to RM2,000 to avoid the need for a by-election, which will increase the cost of his judgment. Good intention, maybe, but RM2,000 will simply not do it. It has to be less than RM2,000.

Tian Chua’s legal counsel Amer Hamzah argues that ”not less than RM2,000” means more than RM2,000 and cites a legal precedent to back it up. Lawyers are lawyers. They want to win and I cannot blame them for that. They are paid to win. What more can I say?

Regardless of that, the truth is that the precedent is wrong and it has to be corrected.

Unless the judge believes in that argument by the lawyer, the judge has mistaken in his action. His action is not in line with his intention. Unlike Amer Hamzah, the judge does not have the room to perform ridiculous maneuvre. The judge should live up to the mistake and allow the next piece in the domino set to fall.

If the judge actually believes in Amer Hamzah’s argument, then the judge has to be an illiterate of mathematics.

A legal expert Shaq Faruqi states that ”[i]f the judge said he wished to avoid an election and to substitute the first court’s sentence with a sentence that avoids a by-election, then we should try to give effect to that purpose.” Professor, good intention is not enough.

It is not good enough because all this could have been avoided. It was not and we are at this juncture. Maybe, the judge is incompetent to do the necessary. Maybe, it is a plain mistake. Whatever it is, the right thing to do is to live with the mistake and live with the law. The law in this matter is quite uncontroversial anyway.

Furthermore, it is not good enough because there is a way to address this problem without bending the law too much. The next course of action should be an appeal.

But if Tian Chua refuses not appeal as he has indicated, then by all means, let us have an election in Batu. That is the rule of law. No to arbitrariness, please.

And let us blame the judge for incompetence.

Categories
Politics & government Society

[2216] Of solution to Methodist Church’s fear of politicization

The Methodist Church in Malaysia is apparently under heavy criticism after it accepted money from the BN federal government during the recent Sibu parliamentary by-election. Quite clearly, the context in which the money was given strongly suggests that the money transfer was political of nature. The transfer could have been done outside of election time but I am confident that without the election in Sibu, the money would not have found its way to the Church’s hand.

Bishop Hwa Yung of the Church’s Council of Presidents in defending the Church, among others, states that it is the responsibility of the government to give grants to religious bodies.[1]

The Bishop insists that the Church cannot takes sides in politics. Yet, the Church suffers from politicization and it was presented with difficult fork: accept the money and be dammned as pro-government; reject the money and be deemed as pro-opposition.

A pragmatist would look at the options, understand the inevitability of politicization under the scenario and settle for the least hurtful outcome. Between suffer politicization, or suffer politicization and be several millions richer, the optimal solution is non-brainer. The Church is a pragmatist. It took a pragmatist action. It took the money. It is as simple as that. Save the moral argument.

The fear of politicization issue would have been comprehensible if it is not how the Bishop defended the action of the Church. The Bishop writes “the problem in our country is that most of the money for religious bodies is usually given to one particular religious community, with relatively much smaller proportions given to other communities“.

It is hard for me to sympathize with the Church when it uses that reasoning as its shield. First of all, the Church should realize that this is an arbitrary gift from the government. The grant in no way solves the problem of unfairness that the Bishop raises. Besides, no wrongdoing should be used to correct a wrong. The act of justifying the arbitrariness is thus problematic, making the Church’s fear sounds hollow.

As a secularist, his statement that it is the responsibility of the government to give grants to religious institutions makes it impossible for me to sympathize with the Church.

Perhaps such dilemma would not have existed if the state was secular. By secular, it is the idea that it is not the responsibility of the state to provide religious bodies with money.

If the Church does not want to find itself in such dilemma ever again, it should support such secularism. Under such secularism, the Church will never have to face the oh-so-painful problem of accepting or rejecting money from the government.

Secularism solves the dilemma cleanly. Why not try it?

But really, is it a dilemma to start with? Who are we kidding? A lot of us can do with a little bit of money. That includes religious institutions as well.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — Many of our church members are aware of the reports in the media that the government made grants to four Methodist churches in Sibu, on the eve of the recent parliamentary by-election. The Council of Presidents discussed this matter at its May 25 meeting.

Pending fuller deliberations on the matter by the General Conference Executive Council at its upcoming meeting, we wish to issue a pastoral letter stating the following:

1. First, the giving of grants to religious bodies for the advancement of religion, as well as to other bodies like schools, etc, is a government responsibility. To receive such is a citizen’s right. After all, the money given is actually taxpayers’ money. [Church is non-partisan, grants put us in dilemma. Hwa Yung. Malaysiakini. May 28 2010]