Saturday 26 January 2019

The faith of an entire group is not determined by one man

Islam Belum Tentu Menjamin Kebahagian, Kata Aktivis Pakatan Harapan

By Raja Petra Kamarudin Last updated Jan 21, 2019

Ikmal juga berkata kita perlu diberi kebebasan agama. “Religious freedom would allow followers with splinters of doubt to find God on their own paths.” Ini bermakna kita bebas untuk mencari tuhan dengan cara kita tersendiri. Mungkin kita ingin cari tuhan melalui agama yang selain dari Islam. Ini hak masing-masing, hujah Ikmal.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Tulisan Ikmal Rozlan — seorang aktivis Pakatan Harapan (dari C4 atau pun Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism) — di dalam Free Malaysia Today (baca di bawah) memberi gambaran yang terang lagi bersuluh tentang pemikiran Melayu ‘moden’.

Ikmal berkata satu orang tidak boleh mementukan iman (faith) kita. Beliau juga menentang RUU355, yang dianggap sebagai hukum Hudud, suatu undang-undang yang disebut di dalam Al-Quran, Surah An-Nur.

“If people truly had faith in their religion, they would not require any man-made laws to mandate their behaviour and devotion,” kata Ikmal. Ini bermaksud sekiranya kita ada iman maka kita tidak perlu undang-undang rekaan manusia untuk mangawal kelakuan dan kesetian kita.

Melayu ‘moden’ tidak mahu Qur’an menyekat kebebasan beragama atau menyekat mereka dari mencari kebahagian di luar Islam

Isu yang pertama ialah: adakah undang-undang Syariah atau Hudud ini rekaan manusia dan bukan dari Allah? Sekiranya undang-undang Syariah atau Hudud rekaan manusia semata-mata dan bukan dari Allah, adakah Abdul Hadi Awang atau pun Nabi Muhammad SAW yang mencipta undang-undang ini?

Isu yang kedua ialah: bagaimana pula dengan undang-undang yang lain atau pun undang-undang sekular? Bukankah semua undang-undang ini juga ciptaan manusia dan bukan dari Allah?

Misalan, mantan Perdana Menteri, Najib Tun Razak, telah didakwa dibawah AMLA (Anti-Money Laundering Act). Adakah AMLA ini dari Allah atau pun undang-undang rekaan manusia?

Aktivis Pakatan Harapan mahu kebebasan dari hukum Allah

Seperti Ikmal berkata, “If people truly had faith in their religion, they would not require any man-made laws to mandate their behaviour and devotion. They would voluntarily follow every tenet to the letter.”

Jadi, sebab apa kita perlukan undang-undang seperti AMLA dan undang-undang ciptaan manusia yang lain? Iman kita sudah cukup untuk menyekat kita dari melakukan kesalahan atau pun jenayah. Tidak perlu pun undang-undang ciptaan manusia untuk mengawal kelakuan kita.

Abdul Hadi Awang tidak mewakili Allah dan tidak berhak bersuara bagi pihak Allah

Ia, inilah pemikiran Melayu moden dari Pakatan Harapan. Kita tidak perlu undang-undang Allah. Kita bebas untuk mengikut mana-mana agama atau pun bebas untuk tidak percaya kepada tuhan. Al-Quran, Sunnah dan Hadith pula tidak perlu diambil kira sebagai panduan hidup kita.

Ini yang dipanggil Malaysia Baru.

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The faith of an entire group is not determined by one man

Ikmal Rozlan, Free Malaysia Today

According to comments by PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang at a recent seminar, any Muslim who wants religion to be an exclusively private affair is a “deviant”, someone who does not follow the tenets of Islam. He went as far as to claim that his party is divine and prophetic (which in itself could be considered sacrilegious, but hey, I’m no Islamic scholar).

We all remember RUU 355, the private member’s bill proposed by PAS which strove to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act – a hudud-esque amendment that sought to remove the restrictions regarding the nature and extent of the punishment that the state legislative assembly may assign to the Shariah Court.

The bill created one of the biggest divides in Malaysian politics, with PAS censuring any Malay politician who did not blindly support it. The matter left both sides of the chasm in a screaming match which has yet to conclude even today as the parliamentary debate on the bill seems perpetually delayed.

Cynthia Gabriel: dari C4 atau pun Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism

For decades, Hadi and PAS have been trying to implement Islamic rules in Malaysia’s legal system. Their stronghold in Kelantan has seen the implementation of strict shariah laws that punish insignificant and harmless conduct such as “wearing tight clothing” and not donning the tudung. The most recent affront on the people is the state-wide ban on karaoke and shisha. Dovetail that with the lack of cinemas in the state due to its strict gender segregation policies, and the Kelantanese people are left with very little freedom. Those coveting basic privileges venture across to neighbouring Thailand.

Suffice to say, the party’s main goal is guerrilla warfare on freedom of religion, a phrase and concept that upsets the party as a whole.

Because “freedom of religion” causes such ire to certain quarters, I will be using the phrase extensively henceforth. The basic concept of freedom of religion is that a person is able to choose which faith to follow based on what he or she genuinely believes. The very idea of forcing a person to follow the rules of a religion is nonsensical not only from a logical point of view, but also a religious one.

If people truly had faith in their religion, they would not require any man-made laws to mandate their behaviour and devotion. They would voluntarily follow every tenet to the letter.

While freedom of religion could cause some to stray from “the right path” once in a while, those who have genuine faith in the teachings of their religion will always repent by and by without any extrinsic influence.

On the other hand, if a person is devoid of faith, forcing him or her to perform ostensibly arbitrary rituals is pointless as God would surely recognise the insincerity. You could force a person to pray five times a day until he dies, but would he still end up in damnation if there was no belief in his prayers to begin with?

Religious freedom would allow followers with splinters of doubt to find God on their own paths. It would also allow those without belief to find happiness in some other form. Forcing everyone to follow a blanket set of rules will only put off those seeking faith, and maybe even cause those who have faith to lose it.

PAS’ forlorn concept of an Islamic state can bring nothing but pain and sorrow to society, in both the short and long term.

Ikmal Rozlan is a journalism student and an intern at the Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism.

Every Time Pakatan Is In Trouble They Talk About 1MDB

By Raja Petra Kamarudin Last updated Jan 26, 2019

Yes, you need to distract the people. You need to control what they talk about. An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Make them talk about 1MDB or else they will talk about other things such as their unhappiness. And the people are very unhappy with what is happening in Malaysia. And it is going to get far worse before it starts getting better.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Pakatan Harapan is in trouble. Normally, the Prime Minister does not get involved in by-elections. That is the job of the Deputy Prime Minister. But they are not doing too well in Cameron Highlands so they had to drag Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to go ceramah there.

Another sign Pakatan Harapan is in trouble is when they drag out the 1MDB issue. Free Malaysia Today reported ‘Deloitte, KPMG under probe over 1MDB, says report’ while Sarawak Report said ‘Deafening silence out of Australia over 1MDB’s connection to top bank ANZ’.

Sarawak Report said:

So, unless the Bloomberg story is entirely false, despite providing the most likely explanation for the strange pattern of sales, AmBank was involved every step of the way and also involved in the profiteering. It makes its position every bit as awkward as that of Goldman Sachs, which performed a similar role during the later bond issues by 1MDB leading to investigations by the FBI leading to criminal charges from Malaysia as well.

Malays would call her ‘Mat Salleh say whale’

So what is Sarawak Report saying, that Najib Tun Razak stole RM42 billion of 1MDB’s money? Well, then just say it. Why putar sini putar sana?

And Free Malaysia Today said:

Quoting sources, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the SC is looking into whether the two firms “were aiding and abetting in this scandal, or merely negligent”.

Quoting sources? Which sources? Rafizi Ramli? Kalau Rafizi Ramli then tak payahlah. And they are looking into whether the two firms “were aiding and abetting in this scandal, or merely negligent”. So in essence they do not know yet. This is just a fishing expedition. In the end they might not catch any fish.

Why every day talk so much? If Najib stole RM42 billion of 1MDB’s money then tangkap sajalah!

Basically, they need something to say, NOW, regarding 1MDB. They want to remind people about 1MDB because people are no longer bothered about this issue. Kata Najib curi RM42 bilion duit 1MDB. Tapi takde pun Najib kena charge curi RM42 bilion duit 1MDB!

They need to keep talking about 1MDB because they have nothing else to talk about. And if they do not talk about 1MDB then people will talk about Pakatan Harapan’s failures and the false promises and the election manifesto they have reneged on.

Tengok muka dah tahu hati busuk

So, every day we are going to hear about 1MDB. But only cerita saja. Cakap-cakap only. No action, because they have nothing on Najib. Najib did not steal RM42 billion of 1MDB’s money like they say. So they cannot send Naib to jail, not like someone else who might go to jail for sodomy if he pushes his luck too far.

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Deloitte, KPMG under probe over 1MDB, says report

(FMT) – Two of the world’s largest audit firms, Deloitte and KPMG, are being investigated by the Securities Commission of Malaysia (SC) over their involvement in the 1MDB scandal.

Quoting sources, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the SC is looking into whether the two firms “were aiding and abetting in this scandal, or merely negligent”.

“The accountants must be held accountable,” the newspaper reported its source as saying.

The SC, however, remained tight-lipped when asked to confirm the investigation and only told SCMP that its review of the “conduct of auditors in relation to 1MDB audits is still ongoing”.

Deloitte and KPMG, according to the report, did not respond to requests for comment.

Deloitte was 1MDB’s third auditor, after Ernst & Young LLP and KPMG.

In 2016, Deloitte resigned as the financial scandal surrounding the debt-ridden state firm made headlines around the globe.

KPMG was responsible for the fund’s accounts for 2010, 2011 and 2012, while Deloitte managed the 2013 and 2014 financial statements.

In June last year, KPMG said the financial statements for the financial years ended March 2010, 2011 and 2012 did not provide a true and fair assessment of 1MDB.

In August of last year, it was reported that the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) was investigating the two firms. In November, it completed its probe on Deloitte and referred the case to its disciplinary committee.

SCMP went on to quote anti-graft activist Cynthia Gabriel as saying that the audit firms involved were “a party to the fraud”.

“The personnel involved should be duly punished. Evidence of wrongdoing has been produced – the auditor general’s report, the public accounts committee’s report.

“In fact, KPMG is working at nullifying the audit report 2011-2012,” Cynthia, who is the executive director of the Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism, was reported as saying.

Sources also told SCMP that they believe that KPMG may be negotiating a deal with the Malaysian authorities

Accused Najib of destroying the country’s good name

Tun M, Lim Kit Siang and Liew Chin Tong will not like this article

January 23, 2019 10:38 pm Raggie Jessy

Raggie Jessy Rithaudeen

Following is an article I wrote that The Third Force published on the 15th of September 2017. Tun Dr Mahathir, Lim Kit Siang and Liew Chin Tong are not going to like it:

It was Tun Razak, not Mahathir, who put Malaysia on the world map

“Trump promised his supporters to bring Hillary Clinton and Loretta Lynch to justice. The US president knows the duo conspired with fired FBI director James Comey and the US DoJ to protect Mrs. Clinton by concealing evidence from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now, considering that the same players were involved with the 2016 DoJ announcement, do you actually think Trump believes Najib is guilty of anything?”

THE THIRD FORCE

For the past two years, the DAP has been going around town telling everyone that the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak, was a wanted felon in the United States (US). According to the party’s de facto chief, Lim Kit Siang, Najib was a kleptocrat who defrauded Malaysians by siphoning money from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund.

But not only did the Prime Minister’s recent visit to Washington quash that perception, it proved that the President of the US, Donald J Trump, valued Najib’s friendship and aspired to seek greater cooperation with his administration. And that only made Kit Siang look like a total fool.

Embarrassed, the senior Lim got Liew Chin Tong to shift the conversation by penning an article for Free Malaysia Today (FMT). The Kluang Member of Parliament (MP) got to work immediately and accused Najib of destroying the country’s good name, a name he insisted was “put on the world map” by none other than Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

And that is what prompted this article.

Today, we will attempt to answer key questions that will reveal either one of two things – that Najib is indeed a wanted felon who destroyed the country’s good name, or that Chin Tong is just as big a liar as Kit Siang is and wrote the article in a desperate attempt to redeem the senior Lim’s dignity.

So, without further ado, let us begin.

Does Najib’s US visit have anything to do with 1MDB?

Let’s get one thing straight;

Not only is 1MDB the least of Najib’s concerns, it isn’t even a concern at all. The Prime Minister stopped worrying about the wealth fund the minute he discovered Mahathir’s and Clare Rewcastle Brown’s roles in sabotaging it. Once the conspiracy was uncovered, Najib knew exactly what needed to be done to prevent the fund from collapsing.

As a matter of fact, it may be Mahathir who has some worrying to do.

Members of the US administration are currently in pursuit of evidence pointing to instances of corruption involving the Clinton Foundation. It is only a matter of time before they discover the USD5 million that I accused team Mahathir of funnelling to facilitate an announcement by the US Department of Justice (DoJ). Now, has the former premier ever triggered action pursuant to law against me for making that claim?

No.

And neither has lawyer Matthias Chang, the man I accused of helping Mahathir insert the term Malaysian Official One (MO1) into the DoJ’s 2016 report. Come to think of it, I even accused Matthias of meeting up with Andrew McCabe to hand over top secret government information to the FBI and to solicit the DoJ announcement.

Now, did Matthias or Zeti sue me?

No.

And what about Clare Rewcastle Brown? The Sarawak Report Chief Editor claimed to possess the “smoking gun evidence” to prove Najib’s complicity in siphoning 1MDB funds. Yet, she failed to furnish a London Court even a shred of that evidence to support claims by Sarawak Report that Najib solicited political favours from Dato’ Seri Abdul Hadi Awang by offering the latter a RM90 million bribe.

So how can anyone trust what she says anymore?

And if we can’t trust her, how can we trust Mahathir? The former premier went on record to say that his allegations were based largely upon the “smoking gun evidences” Ms. Rewcastle published via Sarawak Report. But if her publications can’t even hold in the court of law, how can we expect them to hold in the court of public opinion?

Then why did Chin Tong play down Najib’s US visit?

For a number of reasons.

First up is the fact that Trump himself extended the invitation to Najib. Not only did that quash Kit Siang’s claim that the Prime Minister was wanted by US authorities, it made the senior Lim look like a total clown. To redeem his dignity, the senior Lim got Chin Tong to shift the discussion by accusing the Prime Minister of destroying the country’s name.

Had the senior Lim penned the article himself, Malaysians would probably have brushed it off as another attempt to hoodwink the rakyat. With Chin Tong, however, Kit Siang reckoned that Malaysians would be more receptive, as the Kluang MP was seen by many to be “progressive and intelligent.”

But that is not all.

Kit Siang knows better than anyone that Trump would be the last man on earth to want to meet Najib if indeed the Prime Minister was guilty of spiriting dirty money through the US financial system. Not many are aware that the Trump administration was founded on the principle of “draining the swamp,” meaning, the US President is determined to weed out corruption that seeped through the US administration during the Obama-Clinton era.

And to drain the swamp, Trump promised his supporters to bring Hillary Clinton and Loretta Lynch to justice. The US president knows the duo conspired with fired FBI director James Comey and the US DoJ to conceal evidence that was incriminating against Mrs. Clinton from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now, considering that the same players were involved with the 2016 DoJ announcement, do you actually think Trump believes Najib is guilty of anything?

Now do you see why Kit Siang asked Chin Tong to play down the Prime Minister’s visit?

So Chin Tong was up to no good. Well and fair. Still, was Mahathir the first Malaysian to put the country on the world map?

No.

But that is the idea the former premier indoctrinated throughout his leadership. Back in the eighties and throughout the better part of the nineties, there was no internet or alternate “news portals” for people to get their scoops from. The only source of information available was that published by the mainstream media and the occasional publications by Harakah, The Rocket and Aliran Monthly.

Suffice to say, information that made its way to newsrooms was heavily scrutinized and somewhat tailored to suit Mahathir’s bigoted slants. His manipulative ways caused Malaysians to lose their faith in local dailies, such that the Najib administration is having a tough time convincing Malaysians that the government no longer advocates stylized reporting or shoddy journalism.

Nonetheless, it was through these manipulations that Mahathir got Malaysians to forget the contributions of the late Tun Abdul Razak, the first Malaysian leader to moot “the Neutralisation of Southeast Asia,” a proposal that ended with the ZOPFAN (Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality) declaration signed by Foreign Ministers of ASEAN member states in 1971 Kuala Lumpur.

But that is not all.

Razak was also the first ASEAN leader to have the guts to normalize relations between Malaysia and China. He had the foresight and wisdom to realise that China would one day emerge a world economic superpower and a force to be reckoned with. But the move served only to raise eyebrows in the West.

The World Bank, in particular, was concerned that a Sino-Malaysian accord would involve the question of maritime security within waterways surrounding Malaysia. Its leaders were aware that these waterways – the South China Sea and the Malacca Straits – would one day hold the key to China’s trade proliferation in oil and energy with Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

It was with this awareness that the global elites marked Malaysia on the world map for very sinister reasons. Razak inadvertently triggered an alarm that brought about discussions pertaining “a Chinese threat.” The elites began to formulate ways to impose jurisdiction over Southeast Asian economies just to prevent Chinese wealth from seeping through the Southeast Asian region and to prevent China from discussing energy with Malaysia.

It is for this reason, above all, that Soros and his team are dead against the leadership of Najib Razak. With 1MDB, Najib was seen treading the path of his late father, who opened the door for bilateral trade agreements with the Chinese government. The elites knew then as they do now that these agreements would slowly graduate into maritime security arrangements and nuclear energy ventures that would hinder their quest for dominance over the South China Sea and the Malacca Straits.

Was that the reason Mahathir looked east?

No.

Mahathir feared that a Sino-Malaysian accord would work in favour of the MCA and the DAP. By looking east, the former premier was able to get the Mahathirists to front for business empires belonging to local Chinese and kept each faction contented through the delusion of unity. Had he furthered on his predecessor’s policies, it would have been difficult to advocate the “Ali Baba business formula” as the Chinese government would probably have opposed it.

But wasn’t Mahathir revered by the West?

Not at all.

On the contrary, he was accused by the West of stifling press freedom in Malaysia. One of Mahathir’s loudest critics was John Berthelsen, a onetime a correspondent with the Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ). In 1986, the former premier censured AWSJ for posting a series of articles authored by Berthelsen and a Raphael Pura that accused his administration of fraud.

The publications cost Berthelsen and Raphael their work permits and prompted the New York Times (NYT) to censure Mahathir for attempting to conceal his crimes. In a 30th of September 1986 release, the paper quoted a Leonard R. Sussman as saying that the climate for press freedom in the whole region had deteriorated because of Mahathir’s dictatorial and oppressive ways.

But that’s not all.

Even after leaving office, Mahathir deliberately held up copies of an authoritative biography that was critical of his 22 years in office. The biography, the Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times, was conceived through a book that was written by the late Barry Wain, a former correspondent with the AWSJ who was himself based in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur.

Yes, the Western civilization recognized Mahathir as a dictator and an oppressor in all but name. The US, in particular, considered his administration to be fundamentalist and accused him of fanning anti-Sematic fears. But instead of quashing that perception, the former premier fuelled it further by telling reporters in 2001 that Malaysia was not just an Islamic state, but a “fundamentalist one.”

When the elites could no longer tolerate his antics, they rang the alarm and signalled George W Bush to confront him. On the 16^th of October 2003, the former US president pulled Mahathir aside during an Apec summit in Bangkok and told him that the “consequences would be grave” if he pulled another stunt and decided to stay on as Prime Minister.

Yes, that was how badly the West thought of Mahathir and his administration. And we haven’t even begun to talk about the years of oppression that saw the former premier encumbering his critics using the now defunct Internal Security Act (ISA). In 1998, Amnesty International even declared Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim “a prisoner of conscience” and censured Mahathir for detaining him without trial.

Yet, Chin Tong wants you to believe that it was Mahathir who “put Malaysia on the world map,” that it is Najib who destroyed the country’s good name. But what the Kluang MP forgot to tell you was Mahathir’s role in smearing Najib’s good name by paying Sarawak Report a hell of a lot of money to demonize the Prime Minister and to sabotage 1MDB.

And today, Mahathir is Pakatan Harapan’s Top Dog