There is an old wooden Buddhist monastery in Inwa. And inside it is a library-school.
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[2730] The Kajang farce
I am not particularly warm to the Kajang move but it had its significance. I write in the past tense because Anwar Ibrahim is not in the equation anymore after the court overturned his 2012 acquittal. I disagree with the court’s decision but that is arguably a matter of opinion. What is a fact is that the many commentaries dedicated to Kajang in the past weeks were rendered irrelevant by it. The so-called Kajang move itself has been turned into pretty much nothing but a chance at practicing soaring rhetoric.
The political maneuvering was dubbed by pro-Kajang members of Pakatan Rakyat as the road to Putrajaya. It is now a road to nowhere. Kajang now solves none of the problem the Anwar Ibrahim candidacy was supposed to solve. The balance of power remains substantively unchanged, except maybe the Selangor water deal, which pro-Kajang PKR members have received quite uncomfortably. As an outsider, it appears to me that it is all status quo all over again after all the huff and puff.
Wan Azizah, the president of PKR and the wife of Anwar Ibrahim, is now the candidate for Kajang, versus MCA’s candidate Chew Mei Fun. For Chew, it is an exercise in futility. Chew, like her party, is a spent force, sent out to be slaughtered, except perhaps to assess how unpopular MCA is.
Maybe there will be some good to someone after all. Maybe Umno can look back at Kajang sometime in the future and then demand more seats for themselves at the expense of MCA. Poor MCA but they deserve it through and through.
Wan Azizah, PKR and Pakatan Rakyat as a whole will likely win. It is hard to imagine how they would lose the by-election. PKR won the state seat with a huge majority in 2013. I think the only credible third option was Zaid Ibrahim. Not that I think he would win but he is more tolerable than almost anybody from MCA.
I have a hard time imagining Pakatan Rakyat supporters — not necessarily members — who angered by the Kajang move would vote for Barisan Nasional. Just because they— and I— are angry at Anwar Ibrahim and possibly Rafizi Ramli as the identified mastermind of the whole maneuvering, does not make Barisan Nasional more attractive as a choice. I am angry at PKR specifically, but I have not forgotten the excesses, the corruption and the arrogance of Barisan Nasional. Should I add stupidity as well?
People like me are trapped between Pakatan Rakyat”¦ and Pakatan Rakyat. So I do feel a serious sense of disenfranchisement. The world is not about me, I know, but that does not mean I like being used and taken for granted. I think that is how PKR specifically has done while making its Kajang move.
At a dinner not too long ago, a Pakatan Rakyat Member of Parliament asked me how I would vote if I was a voter in Kajang. I said I would not go out and vote. I could say that without much regret because it was a hypothetical situation. I do not get to vote in Kajang.
With the appellate court’s curiously rushed decision, Pakatan Rakyat will turn the Kajang move into a referendum against the Barisan Nasional. Wan Azizah being the wife will also mean the sympathy card is in play.
When the court decision was made that Friday, it was impossible to claim the tears she shed were for dramatic purpose. What Anwar Ibrahim is facing is nothing short of injustice. When I learned the judgment, something inside me boiled into anger.
Let us not think those who sneer at the Kajang move would like injustice done to the former deputy prime minister. An injustice remains an injustice but it does not make one wrong any better. If two wrongs make a right, then I would question our moral standards.
So, it will be a successful referendum.
But then again, every by-election is a referendum. One too many — let us not forget that other by-election in Sarawak — and it trivializes the very word, degrading the democratic practice to the level of Akademi Fantasi-American Idol. We go to great lengths to vote for nothing substantive.
That indeed is how I see the whole episode. Look it up in an English dictionary. Under the F section, there is an entry for the word ”farce.”
I am sure all of us are hoping for the best for Flight MH370. I have a friend on that flight who attended the Malay College with me long ago. I cannot say I was very close to him, neither can I say having him on that plane makes me more invested in the whole mystery, but I do hope he is alright nevertheless.
The relatives of the victims deserve our sympathy whatever the fate of the airplane. But as I scan the news on the television, in the papers and online, I wonder if some of us are overdoing it.
Politicians and their spouses are visiting the victims’ relatives. I am skeptical of the purpose of their visits.
Some are directly participating in the rescue effort and they are ministers directly involved in the effort to find the missing plane. Having the Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein meeting and consoling the relatives is appropriate. He is communicating the government’s effort to the families, however confusing the messages can be now. The Prime Minister visiting is okay too because, after all, he is head of the government.
As for the others, I think it is all about showing faces and making sure everyone else knows that you care, regardless of sincerity. It is about reaping some political brownie points more than anything else.
I do not fully blame the politicians for doing it. Societal expectations can also be at play here. Whether you care or not, you just have to go, as if it is a public duty to show up. If you do not go, you risk being labeled as uncaring and callous.
I have seen on the internet of such accusation being thrown at politicians who are busy with other businesses. That is an unfair accusation, as if life stops with MH370, as if nothing else matters in comparison to MH370. I thought Praba Ganesan made the point well earlier this week about how we do not live in a mutually exclusive world where we need to choose only one matter to focus on (although, I have to add, the timing of Pakatan Rakyat’s convention was truly unfortunate).[1]
BN politicians have been visiting the relatives of the victims. This creates pressure for Pakatan Rakyat politicians to make the same visits. BN members and supporters have accused their political rivals of trying to take advantage of the tragedy, citing the attempt for the visit. I think if those BN supporters are honest, especially given what happened on Friday and later on Monday, BN is really no different.
[1] — Hundreds of families worldwide are hopeful even if not expectant, as Flight MH370 continues to stay missing. My thoughts are with the families, and I extend my support to the thousands who make up the multinational search and rescue teams. Today, the column looks at the other major developments in the country and intends to comment on them. They matter, even if they are wholly separate from the tragedy which leaves serious question marks over the fate of 239 passengers and crew members. [If you have a moment, the other things. Praba Ganesan The Malay Mail Online. March 13 2014]
The sun was setting and I was late. I was the only foreigner on the boat crossing the river from Inwa to the other side. As I was making myself comfortable on the boat, a local came on with his bicycle.
I thought, the man and his bicycle would make a nice photo. This turned out to be one of my favorite photographs from my trip to Burma.
Inwa or Ava used to be the capital of various competing Burma kingdoms but in 1839, an earthquake struck the region. Inwa was abandoned for Amarapura soon after and now, it is a sleepy village. Judging by the surrounding, the main economic activities are agriculture and tourism. There is not much else there.
I just felt a need to update my old post on household income distribution I put up back in 2012.
Here are the distributions (the categories are based on households’ monthly income. A household is roughly defined as a family of four, with two working adults):
You could see some improvement from 2009 to 2012, but it is really hard to see from here whether that improvement was due to secular factors, or just that the base was bad (due to cyclical factors). I suspect it was largely cyclical. The year 2009 after all was a recession year. I detest measuring almost anything starting from 2009 for almost every purpose.
I could compare both years to an older dataset to determine if there had been substantial improvement. I think I will do it later. And probably, control for inflation too.
I obtained all data from the Department of Statistics’ Household Income Survey, 2009 and 2012.
I had to do some data manipulation here because the 2012 data has fewer income categories than the last one. This affected income categories from RM5,000 to RM10,000 the most. I had to average out the older categories and fit it into the new ones as used in the 2012 survey so that I could make an easy comparison.
I have to add, I am quite disappointed that the Statistics Department abolished the old categories and even lumped some categories together, like the categories for those making above RM10,000 per month. It makes the distribution a bit unnatural.
More importantly, there is a loss of information, although I am sure the Department of Statistics has it. It is just that they are just not sharing it publicly. You can see the relative richness of the 2009 survey below compared to the 2012 edition (the red bar below is the 2009 median):
