Yesterday, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister was in Sulawesi, Indonesia while the Prime Minister was in Lesotho. The situation remains the same today. So, one question – who was in control yesterday? How about today? Is it the speaker of the Parliament, the secretary of state or simply nobody?
Haha, PAS missed a chance to form an Islamic Republic of Kelantan. Haha, Anwar Ibrahim missed a chance to stage a coup.
After corresponding with a person inside Malaysian students’ association at Michigan, apparently, the issue had arisen due to unfortunate misunderstanding.
The warning from Malaysian Student Department (MSD) was issued way back in January 2005. Somebody re-forwarded it later – what seems to be in conjunction of Anwar Ibrahim’s lecture – to the Malaysian students’ association at Michigan. Hence, neither MSD nor the Malaysian government had issued a warning directly related to the lecture.
Earlier, I had planned to write several letters of protest to some quarters. With the new development however, the need to write them has evaporated.
Still, the letter that was issued by MSD is an act of hypocrisy and it’s good to know that the person that I corresponded with feels that the letter is unjustified in any way. Moreover, the person assures me that the association hadn’t barred nor spied on any Malaysian at Michigan that attended the lecture.
I sent an email to Jeff Ooi about Anwar Ibrahim’s lecture (tag). Mr. Ooi has kindly and willingly highlighted the issue.
With that, at least two more mails need to fly. In my list are Michigan Student Assembly and the Office of the President. Maybe, a CC to the Michigan Daily and Michigan Independent will do the trick too.
If you disagree at how Malaysian Student Department (MSD) at Chicago is handling the matter, please send a short letter of protest to the Student Assembly and the University President.
For representatives in the Assembly, their emails can be found at this page. Alternatively, send your protest to msa[dot]reps[at]umich[dot]edu. For the President, her office email is presoff[at]umich[dot]edu. Replace [at] with “@” and [dot] with “.”.
Don’t forget to give MSD Chicago a visit and give them a piece of your mind.
Be a good citizen. Email these people and assert pressure against MSD Chicago. The time for indifference has come and gone.
For more information, read [672] Of Anwar Ibrahim at Michigan and [670] Of hypocrisy in Malaysian policy.
Suddenly, this letter from Malaysian student department (MSD) makes absolute sense. It’s not a “re-emphasization” of a policy. Instead, it’s simply done in the light that Anwar Ibrahim is coming to Michigan.
Anwar Ibrahim (tag), as I have found out, will be giving a lecture at the University of Michigan this week. It should be interesting to know what he has to say, notwithstanding that I don’t fully trust him.
Most interesting is, a few people inside the Malaysian students’ association at Michigan are advising Malaysians at Michigan of the possible difficulties that may arise if any of Malaysian student attend the lecture. Too bad to see people are being coerced by irresponsible few.
Personally, I don’t sympathize with Anwar’s political ambition but MSD’s coersion is an affront to civil rights. If I were still a student there, I would have reported this infringement of rights to relevant university authority and the Michigan Student Assembly. In fact, I think I’ll zap a few mails to several students’ rep in the assembly.
It will be hilarious to see how the Malaysian ruling party’s political inflexibility will measure up against American Michigander Berkeley of the Midwest People’s Republic of Ann Arborite civil consciousness.
And pity, I graduated a few months too early. But I trust Michigan ITD will record the lecture and post it few days later on the web.
One luxury of living on a hill facing Kuala Lumpur (tag) is the chance to witness the city skyline during sunset. This was taken yesterday, around sunset, if it isn’t apparent enough.
In the middle is a silhouette of Menara Celcom (I think), a building that stands near the intersection of Jalan Gurney and Jalan Tun Razak. The photo was taken from the northwestern side of the city, looking southeasterly.Menara Celcom, perhaps, marks the transformation of my area – Titiwangsa and Kampung Datuk Keramat – from a medium density residential area into high density. The composition has also changed – more Arabs now here than there was five or six years ago.
Talking about Jalan Gurney (aka less famous Gurney Road), overzealous nationalists renamed it to Jalan Semarak in the 1990s if my memory serves me.
Digressing, oi Penangnites, Kuala Lumpur had Gurney Road too. Stop thinking of Penang, Penang, Penang whenever you hear Gurney Road. The universe doesn’t evolve around the Earth, much less around Penang. Bah!
It does however, ahem, evoles around __earth. I know, that’s lame.
I have another version of the pix – well, several others in fact. Though some of them are sharper than this one, the colors somehow ran amok and inaccurate. The navish sky for instance was shown as grey while the reddish cloud was overly bright.
p/s – hey dreamstate, would love to see that ps’d shot. =)