We are third class
RACIST MALAYSIAN VIEWERS are not ready for live
parliamentary proceedings, the Information Minister tells
us. Local viewers were not up to the mark of their British counterparts.
This is because most Malaysians still think from a racial point of
view. We have a third world mentality. We have not reached an intellectual
stage where Malaysians can carry the wisdom of being able to agree to
disagree.
Now, at last, we learn what is wrong with Bolehland. It is
a third class country. No wonder we continue to use the British colonial
war laws like the Internal Security Act, laws controlling meetings
and association and the press and so on. Thanks to the minister's
stunning revelation we now realise, if we had not known it before,
that we are far below the level of countries like Thailand, Nepal, and
Laos where the TV dishes are uncontrolled and are as large as sumptuous
dining tables; and what about Taiwan where thousands protest in
the streets and are not drenched by police water hoses. And we do not
forget that first class country called India, where not only do they
have uncensored TV but have a free press and occasionally even bash one
another on the heads when the argument gets heated.
So third class are we that even the Special Branch and
Film Censorship Board cannot be trusted with selecting what films
are safe for us to see, as the Amir Mohamed film ban has vividly demonstrated.
And it will not escape notice that the films shown us
in Penang during the annual French Film Festival are all U films
with parts blacked out, leaving the inventiveness of the imagination
with the darkness. Clearly, we are not up even to the U standard of
the French.
But how did this UMNO contempt for the ruled come about?
Could it be due to the "captive mind" that Syed Hussein Alatas has
described to us - the mind which remains enslaved by British
colonialism even though this country is merdeka-ed. The inheritors
of this British colony not only adopted their colonial laws wholesale
but even extended their reach and rule as if they were running a British
colony. |
They are filled with self loathing
and talk incessantly about struggling, becoming world class while at the
same time sporting Saudi beards and dreaming of riding in Buckingham Palace
horse drawn coaches and rattling over cobblestones.
In Britain too
George Monbiot writing in the Guardian newspaper about
the Loach film on Ireland:
" That they have not seen his film is no impediment. That
it has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes only quickens their desire for
reprisals. Ken Loach has been placed in preventive detention and is
having his fingernails pulled out.
"In the Times, Tim Luckhurst compares him - unfavourably
- to Leni Riefenstahl. His new film is a "poisonously anti-British
corruption of the history of the war of Irish independence ... The
Wind That Shakes the Barley is not just wrong. It infantilises its subject
matter and reawakens ancient feuds." I checked with the production company.
The film has not yet been released. They can find no record that Luckhurst
has attended a screening - and last night he refused to discuss the matter.
"At least Simon Heffer, writing in the Telegraph, admits
he doesn't know what he's talking about. Loach, he says, "hates this
country, yet leeches off it, using public funds to make his repulsive
films. And no, I haven't seen it, any more than I need to read Mein
Kampf to know what a louse Hitler was." The Sun says it's "a brutally
anti-British film ... designed to drag the reputation of our nation
through the mud". Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Daily Mail pronounced it
"old-fashioned propaganda" and "a melange of half-truths". She hasn't
seen the film either. Nor, it seems, has Michael Gove, who told his readers
in the Times that it helps to "legitimise the actions of gangsters".
Doesn't this news story remind us of the condemnation
of Amir Mohamed's "The Last Communist" by those in power who hadn't
even seen the film? Britain must be as third class as we are.
Corrupt judges
The chief justice* says that there is no proof that there
is corruption among the judges. That's telling us nothing. Consider
the following. Some years ago, that old fashioned upright man,
Tun Azmi, introduced the shorthand machine to our courts
but, after the operators had learnt to use the machines efficiently
and were producing competent notes of evidence, the judges at
a meeting opposed the use of the machines instead of thanking Tun Azmi
for saving them the tedious work of recording evidence and enabling them
to concentrate on listening to the evidence. Mechanical recording was
discontinued. The lawyers were not surprised. It was well known
that some judges were simply not writing down pieces of important evidence.
And let's do some supposing . Suppose there are 4 or 5
judges in a certain state but, on the orders of a chief judge, a judge
from another state is flown in to try a certain case. The resident
judges are furious. What is the litigant to think? And suppose
that
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judge flying in is not of the high
court but from a higher court and has no business to be sitting in a lower
court? Suppose again that a court decides an important case in just
one paragraph and ignores more than 30 decisions of the high and appeal courts
on the point? Suppose that a court ignores a clause in an agreement
which says that nothing may alter the pact unless in writing and instead
decides the case in favour of the side alleging there was a secret agreement
which altered the agreement between the parties? Suppose that a judge writes
a long judgement giving reasons for his decision but that on appeal the
court reverses him with one sentence and does not refer to his argument
at all? Suppose that the judge in court praises the plaintiff for being
an honest witness and scorns the evidence of the defendants but six months
later writes a judgement in which he describes the defendants as honest gentlemen
and condemns the plaintiff as a greedy and ungrateful person? Suppose that
a powerfully connected company asks a court to punish a stubborn critic for
contempt of court and the prison van is already waiting outside the court
even before judgment is delivered.
Will it make any difference whether it is one or three
judges trying a case, as some have suggested? It is doubtful
that there would be an improvement especially after 1988 when the "headmaster"
system expected judges not to dissent from the view of the chief
justice sitting with them. Nor, in present conditions, would
it help if a court clerk was asked to spin a wheel as was done when
the US government sued the NY Times over the publication of the Pentagon
Papers.
Last issue, we warned that judges should watch their mouths.
This time a higher court judge has ticked off a lower court judge
for saying that two federal court decisions were wrong, even though
he agreed with him. He is reported to have said that lower courts must
abide by the judgements of the Federal Court, even if they had been decided
wrongly. I hope that he has been misreported because criticising and
obeying are two different things. A judge can criticise though this
makes him very unpopular with those high up like that great judge,
Lord Justice, Scrutton who was never made an appeal lord because of his
critical remarks.
* For those who are confused by the terms: A few years
ago a minster decided that the head of the appeals court should be
called "chief justice" and that the heads of the two high courts of
Malaya and Borneo should be called "chief judge;" hence the mix-up.
Cherie Booth QC
When local lawyers applied for English Queens Counsel
to argue their cases, the QC involved would discreetly stay home while
the application was made to admit him. But not so Booth, the QC wife
of the British prime minister. Her arrival in court was grand opera:
She alighted from a prime ministerial car and, surrounded by a swarm
of security guards and sailed into court. Was it to "shock and awe" - Tony
Blair style? She stupidly seated herself at the Bar table. Her imperial
arrogance blinded her to the fact that the court was the high court of
Malaya and not a court of the FMS where sat, at the British Crown's pleasure,
the King's judge. In that colonial
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court, King's (or Queen's Counsel) being
counsel of the English sovereign, appeared as of right. Did
it not occur to Booth QC that the fact that she was applying to be admitted
was an admission that she was not a member of the local Bar? Common sense
would have prevented that stupid blunder that led to her being
ignominiously asked to leave the Bar table.
And was she not warned of a precedent? It happened many
years ago before
Mr Justice H T On who, on noticing a white foreigner at the Bar table
when he entered the court, signalled
his displeasure; the registrar whispered that the man was an
English QC. "I don't remember admitting him to the Bar,"
was the retort, and the man was ordered to leave the Bar table.
The LLN's business
This story of Mr S F Ng's son's electricity supply is
a lesson on how this third class country works. Mr Ng's son
had found an ideal place far from the madding crowd to build
a kampong bungalow. He applied for an electric supply but the LLN failed
to spring into action. After some prodding, a few holes were dug.
Then a long pause. He saw LLN again and this time there was progress:
a few poles were put up. Another visit to the LLN. This time he
overheard a conversation. Someone was telling his friend on the hand
phone that he was at the LLN and that they told him his file was missing
so he had to make an application all over again and pay another deposit.
Mr Ng's son understood the conversation which was
in Cantonese. Armed with this knowledge, when his turn came to be
told his file was missing, he simply wrote a letter telling them
about what he had overheard and hinting action if they did not find
his file. After this letter, the son visited LLN again and
saw someone higher in rank. A month later the wires appeared on the
poles and he has discarded his oil lamps.
Makes you wonder how LLN makes money, doesn't it?
Messing with Pulau Jerejak
There is a lot said about Pulau Jerejak these days. Why
can't the politicians leave things alone and concentrate on
what the tourists really want? Experts in the trade have,
on these pages, pointed out that the tourists today have splintered
into many categories: some like museums and old buildings, some are
"occupational": they like meeting their counterparts and watching butchers,
basket makers, fish mongers, fruit sellers and so on at work; the
young want to climb the hills and explore jungle paths; and there
are those Singaporeans whose kids are thrilled to see real chickens and
goats and to whom a kampong is the height of their visit; and then there
is the China tourist who, whether he is here for one day or three,
must have his fill of hawkers food because he just doesn't get the kind
of mee or koay tiau we make here. But politicians are
politicians; they will have to pave and repave Pitt Street; they
will build hawker complexes right on the beach as they have done at Miami
Beach;
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even
shop houses as they propose to do in Dungun, and above all they
will dream of Disneyland, the apex of their culture. They forget the fundamentals
- that Penang attracts simply because of its sun, sea and beaches But
they will spoil it all with galloping horses along the beach, motorised
fun vehicles, and dangerous water scooters.
Ipoh 's bleeding hills
It is one of the great pleasures of motoring in Malaya
that when you approach Ipoh you drift gondola like through those haunting
sugar loaf hills that float into view one by one in a dreamy welcome.
But this fairy land is shattered when you come to hills that greed
has cut and dug for stones. Even the morning mist which casts a
magic light over the valley cannot hide the red gashes that seem to bleed
real blood. And the rare birds that made their homes in soft texture
of the dwarf trees, what's happened to them? There is not one
whimper of protest. Perak has gone dumb in a conspiracy of silence.
The good doctor again
Dr Mahathir's attacks on the present PM reminds me of
the rebuke that Thomas Paine rendered to Burke: "a conduct
that cannot be pardoned on the score of manners..." I should have
thought that the former PM should have maintained a quiet dignity after
retirement but, instead, his attacks on the present administration
suggest a startling proposition: that a succeeding government must continue
the policies and projects of the previous government. Our constitutional
books will have to be rewritten. Perhaps he should pioneer with
one.
Road manners
I am glad they are going to teach us how to behave on
the roads. We will have to see if the killing and maiming
will decrease. A Hongkie, who had emigrated with some friends
to Canada to avoid the colony's return to China, told me that all his
friends failed their driving tests. He was the only who passed so he
asked the tester why. "They all failed the courtesy test," was the
reply. "You were the exception and I often wondered why".
"I'm from Penang," proudly replied that successful Honkie.
A
German treat
The German Embassy gave Penang a treat when it organised
a concert of lieder based on the poems of Herman Hesse (1877-1962).
The Nobel prize winner visited Penang in 1911 and stayed at the E &
O, "with a charming garden by the sea," where the concert was held.
Of George Town he wrote that it was "... quaintly elegant, a pseudo classical
style in public and commercial buildings, the Chinese houses simple,
light, nice." His visit to a "Chinese Theatre in European style" does
not mystify if we |
remember that "Europeans" did not care a fig how the "natives" lived
and entertained themselves.
The concert of poems by Hesse introduced us to little
known composers like Joseph Haas, Walter Niemann, and Othmar
Schoeck.. The pianist was the well known and distinguished pianist
Cord Garben who brought the E & O piano to life and the singer was a young soprano, Silja Schindler,
who sang the Queen of the Night aria superbly as an encore.
Victorian gentlemen
"Ladies shall be allowed to use only such portions
of the Club and Club grounds as are from time to time made available
for their use by Committee. Members introducing ladies to the Club
shall be responsible for the infraction of the Rules and Bye-Laws which
such ladies shall commit"
Rule from a London Victorian Club? Wrong! It is Rule 41
of the Ipoh Club which proudly announces its 111th year of (British)
existence.
Penang Watch
Have you any complaints about the state or the city and
the way they run things?
Try penangwatch.net and complain to them
TM Net
Congratulations to TMNet. Your services are excellent
and should be a model to other government or government supported
organisations.
Try the Penang State Government's cultural information
centre at artspen.com and what do you get? - The activities for July
2005
*****
THE STATE OF GEORGE TOWN
From a poster in a pharmacist's window
tone up your vagina
K L Chai
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