BN nearing the End?

This post can also be titled "The making of a two-party system?".. As far as Malaysian history is concerned, never before a ruling party other than Barisan Nasional has ever ruled the government of Malaysia. The alliance of UMNO, MCA and MIC has been a successful working formula since the independence day. The failure of the opposition to form an alliance due to different ideologies has make it a non-threat to the ruling parties and therefore BN always have garnered a 2/3 majority. It is not until the recent election whereby the opposition have denied the BN a 2/3 majority. The oppositions consists of PAS, PKR and DAP have decided to work together and therefore creates a formidable force against BN. Their cooperations however is hinged upon one dominant person - Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim. This alliance is still intact until today due to this one person who is holding the pact together. Remove this person, and the opposition will crumble. BN knows this and therefore you can see their strategy from the very beginning is to attack Anwar Ibrahim.

Whether this strategy will work or not, we will see in the next election in the near future. However, one good thing that came out of this is the possibility of an alternative ruling party besides BN to the citizen of Malaysia, whereby, we as the rakyat of Malaysia can choose. If the ruling party does not perform or corrupted, we can change it through the election and therefore ends a monopoly of one single political party. This perspective have never been available before due to the weak opposition pact before this. With or without Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition must be a credible force and therefore will make BN on their toe and perform at best for the nation. They should not be sitting comfortable because come the next election, they will probably loose power. This will make any ruling party after this to perform and be accountable to their action. It is a good thing for Malaysia to have. It is democracy at its best.

MAS and Airasia - the solemnization

"In order to have an enemy, one must be somebody. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force. A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend." - Unknown

This quote says it all about the rivalry between MAS and Airasia. When you have a competitor in the form of Airasia, MAS is forced to be competitive and therefore the exercises done by Idris Jala, the previous managing director has resulted the company to be profitable again. However, sustaining the development has been hard for MAS. And in a weird twist, MAS has turn to its nemesis for help. Tony Fernandez will help definitely but with business intention agenda that is. Eliminating a competitor is one of the goals for every businesses. This is because with less competition, the more the business can control the price of its product.

So, by merging/share-swapping between MAS and Airasia, both entities benefit as they eliminated their competitors. But in the long run, the customers are the victims as prices will not be as cheap as before.

Essence of 1Malaysia

The interest thing about Malaysia right now is that our best thing is also our worst thing. The multicultural society that we have is a good thing. With diversity you can have the best of every culture. In a team of soccer for instance, not every player can become a striker. Some player needs to be the midfielder or goalkeeper. This is due to each distinctive strong point that makes a soccer team strong. However, with strong players dos not ensure success if there is no understanding between the players. Cohesiveness as a team is very important. Knowing other players strength and weaknesses is also vital. So, what this got to do with Malaysia. A lot actually.. Every ethnic in Malaysia have its strength and weaknesses. But, utilizing the strength of each races is not enough without strong teamwork and understanding between each races. This is what 1Malaysia is all about.. Is not the differences of each culture that we should highlight.. or the gaps of wealth between the races... but the most important is how we as a society can work together, filling each other weaknesses with our own unique strength. By doing this, Malaysia as a country can stand high. This is not a patriotic post that I am writing, but more of what I feel that needs to be highlighted by the mainstream media. Instead of highlighting what each races in Malaysia should deserved, we should highlight what is needed to strengthen our ties... and then probably we can scale even higher mountains.

Malaysia's EPL Mania

A treat for all EPL fans here in Malaysia. Three giants from the EPL will be coming here to Malaysia to fight our Harimau Malaya. Arsenal just beat Malaysia yesterday 4-0... Hope the scoreline will be lower this weekend against Liverpool and also Chelsea next week. Malaysia Boleh!

Najib vs BERSIH 2.0

One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it. -Unknown (quoted from Kung-Fu Panda)

This quote is taken from the movie Kung-fu Panda. In that movie, the grandmaster had a vision that his greatest enemy will escape from the prison. His disciple knowing from this immediately send someone to that prison to alert the guard and to tell them to double-up the security. However, by sending someone there, he inadvertently causes the prison break of that enemy. If he were not asked to come there, the enemy would never escape as envision by the grandmaster. Quite ironic, isn't it.

This is actually similar to where Najib is doing against the BERSIH rally. He tries everything in his power to stop this rally but inadvertently he has spurred the interest of people to participate in this rally. The crackdown on BERSIH supporter can only drew more sympathy to their cause. The media hype about this BERSIH rally is really dumbfounded. You can see it in TV, you can see it in the newspaper. Everyone knows it is going to be held in 9th July. The BERSIH organiser got free advertisement and promotion, courtesy from the government. Plus now, there is an added bonus, they got a stadium now, again courtesy from the prime minister and Yang Dipertuan Agong. The harder you try to block it, the more the real it become.

From the way I see it, BERSIH only represent the vocal minority.. But it seems that they like to think that they represent the majority voice of the rakyat. I for one, don't care at all about this rally thing, I personally think that we have a good election system compared to some of our neighbours and some parts of the world. They do have some faults, but at least there is an improvement. At least, democracy is practiced here. In the last election, the opposition managed to get five states, and still they say the election system is corrupted? Samy Vellu lost.. Shahrizat lost.. Anwar Ibrahim won... Nurul Izzah won.... this is big tycoons here.. and yet you say the election system is corrupted? If it truely is, I don't think Anwar can even win in Permatang Pauh.

So Najib.. just give this BERSIH their damn stadium to shout all they want.. In the general election, the silent majority will also have a say.. and we will say it silently through our votes....Not by shouting in a stadium.. PEACE !!

Malaysia - A unique melting pot

The unique thing about Malaysia is that this a country long time ago have decided on the integration approach. The approach is that the immigrants who have been granted the citizenship can still retain their identity from their home country. Therefore their kids can go to their special schools learning their home country's language, and even use syllabus from their home country and also retain their name based on their original country's name. As for Indonesia, the country longtime ago adapted the assimilation approach. The immigrants who have been granted citizenship must use Indonesian name, go to Indonesian school and learn Indonesian language.

Therefore, today you can see that if you go to Indonesia, you can only see one single Indonesian culture that is only unique to that country. The same thing if you go other asean country such as Thailand and Korea. If you go to these countries cultural performance night, you can only see one cultural performance. But, this is not the case in Malaysia. If you go to a Malaysia cultural performance, you are shown a chinese culture performance that is similar to China, the Indian culture that is similar to India and also even portugese culture! The only unique thing and not similar to any other country is the Malay cultural performance. So, it is indeed a unique country since assimilation did not take place and therefore you have a bit of China, a bit of India and with the background of Malay and also Sabah & Sarawak culture in our society. It is best to say that we have a Rojak society.. And it is the best Rojak society in the world

What do Wars, NEM and ETP have in common

As we all know, the Government have announced the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and the New Economic Model (NEM) as the way forward for Malaysia to transform itself from a middle income economy to high income economy within a short time period of 10 years. All in all, I think the ETP is like a quickwin project where the endgame is to get investments in from the private and foreign and finally to stimulate the economy to a degree that can increase the income of the nation. In the same time, Malaysia must maintain at least a 6% growth until 2020 to reach a capita income of USD15,000. Ok.. Enough of the facts...

Let's now look at Korea and Singapore. They do not have their ETPs and NEMs or vision 2020 but how can they escape their middle income status long time ago? I think that the nation can have the very best plan or policy in place but if they do not have the people with them, it will be a failure. Singapore as you all know is a very small nation. Their progress into a developed nation is simply because they MUST progress or else they will be bullied by their neighbouring countries. That simple DRIVE that they have probably have the people there united and support the government in anything that would drive the country forward. They MUST obey and implement everything fast. The fear of being bullied is greater since the nation is small.

Now let's look at Korea. The main drive of them progressing is not just because they wanted to become a developed nation but also the main drive is the FEAR of their neighboring country North Korea. They MUST develop and capable in defending themselves from the attack of North Korea without the aid of the US and therefore they develop themselves with the necessary industries such as automotive, iron and steel, shipbuildings, chemical, electronics. These industries are necessary for WARS. Therefore they created the platform for a developed nation out of FEAR from being attacked. The people of Korea rallied upon their leader to make things happen since they also do not want to be invaded by another country.

So, what's the moral story here? Probably the best motivation of a country to progress is simply FEAR. Fear of something that would happen if they do not developed and therefore the people would work with the government in making things happen. Only with unity, a ship can move forward. But to make people unite, there must be a common ground. A common ground where the people will accept and will do whatever it takes to make it happen.

The Rise of Malaysian Local Movies

The Malaysian movies are on the rise... Prior to 2010, the highest grossing movie is Sembilu 2 directed by Yusof Haslam.. That movie have grossed to about RM6 million and earned Dato Yusof Haslam the nickname six million dollar man. However, the year 2010 is the year for David Teoh. The films under the Metrowealth production have bulldozed the Malaysian box office not just once but twice. The film Ngangkung is now the highest grossing local movie in Malaysia ever with sales collection of RM8.0 million beating previous record holder, Adnan Sempit that collected RM7.8 million previously. These signs shows that the Malaysian audience supports the local film industry with conditions that the movies are of good quality. In addition to this also, the film by Mamat Khalid, Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah also garnered the local moviegoers attentions and have become the talk about from the public. So far, the film have collected around RM6 million. Do Malaysian local audience prefers comedy rather than serious stuff? From the statistics, it does shows that. To do well in the cinemas, producers must avoid stupid comedy as Malaysian cinemagoers are now much more educated. They want quality comedy and this what they get from the films such as Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah and Ngangkung.

However, there are still potential for Malaysian movies to increase their sales collection. From the record, it shows that Iron Man 2 collected RM14 million from the Malaysian market and Karate Kid collected RM13 million. The local producers must benchmark this sales record and realise the full potential of Malaysian film market locally. From the trends showing, it is not possible one day that a Malaysian local movie can finally break the RM10 million threshold. Only time will tell.

The Rise of Malaysian Football

It has been too long that the Malaysian football team has been in the doldrum. Time and time again we have been mentioned about the great past of Malaysian football where we are once feared in Asia. Aaahh... the legendary Supermokh era... But, then again I was not even born yet so how can I even remember what was the era is all about.

But, now the glimpse of an awaken giant have emerged. The giant have wake up and become champion of the ASEAN region. This was shown in the result of the SEA games and AFF Suzuki Cup. Both tournament was held in 2009 and 2010 respectively and both times Malaysia emerged as champions. Have the giant have completely awaken or it will go back to sleep again? Hope not. Let's hope that this time around Malaysia will keep the momentum and become again a force to be reckon with in the Asia region.

And I hope also that the national team jersey to be permanently change to blue instead of yellow... based on statistic the team suck when playing in the yellow shirt... Hidup Harimau Malaya..