Jalan di Terengganu Diperbesar Untuk Mercedes Benz

Jalan-jalan kampung di Terengganu bakal diperbesar bagi memuatkan kereta-kereta Mercedes yang baru dibeli pentadbiran eksekutif negeri itu. Jalan dan lorong-lorong kampung di Terengganu, yang rata-ratanya sempit dan penuh lubang, tidak lagi sesuai untuk digunakan setelah Menteri Besar Ahmad Said menggantikan kereta Proton Perdana kepada Mercedes Benz E200 Kompressor. Peruntukan juga bakal dibuat bagi kerja-kerja memperbesar pagar dan halaman rumah yang selama ini hanya dapat memuatkan Perodua Kancil ataupun seekor lembu korban, supaya Menteri Besar dapatlah akhirnya melawat penduduk kampung. Ini bertepatan dengan hasrat kerajaan negeri untuk menampilkan imej prihatin kepada golongan paling miskin di negeri kaya minyak itu.

Seorang penduduk di Banggol Peradong, Nordin Atan, menyatakan rasa gembira ke atas khabar angin pembesaran jalan itu. “Kita di kampung sudah 10 tahun lamanya menunggu pembaikan jalan. Dengan pembelian kereta Mercedes berjumlah RM3.43 juta ini, kita berharaplah kerajaan negeri akan membelanjakan sedikit duit membaiki jalan di Banggol Peradong ni”. Setiausaha Persatuan Penjual Keropok Lekor Terengganu, Halimah Saad, menaruh harapan pembesaran jalan itu secara tidak langsung akan dapat melariskan jualan keropok lekor di tepi jalan. “Saya bersyukur Ahmad Said* telah dilantik sebagai Menteri Besar, kalau tidak ini semua mungkin tidak akan berlaku”, ujarnya sambil mencicah keropok lekornya dengan sos cili Maggi.

*Ahmad Said telah dilantik sebagai Menteri Besar oleh Sultan Terengganu menggantikan Idris Jusoh yang dipilih Perdana Menteri Abdullah Badawi dalam Pilihanraya Umum 2008.

Ihsan TakdaNama, agensi berita tidak rasmi Malaysia

Half-baked Ideas Only Fit For the Frontpage

One unscientific but fairly reliable way to gauge the newsworthiness of a region is to sample the frontpages of its newspapers. The frontpage of a credible newspaper in a global, influential city like New York would most likely carry news that impact even those living far away, while the frontpage of a small town in isolated New Zealand would consider itself lucky to report on the opening of a new grocery store across the road. We like to think of Malaysia as being a reasonably newsworthy entity, situated so centrally in the commercial cross-roads of Asia, a melting-pot of cultures, and all of that. But a sampling of two of its prominent daily sheets proves otherwise.

Electric is the way

Today’s frontpage of NST Online carries an article on the government’s latest fight against rising oil prices. Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, perhaps in an effort to stifle popular public perception that he is rather dull and sleepy, plans to introduce “unconventional ways and the latest technology” to tackle the skyrocketing price of petroleum.

This is all well and good. We always welcome unconventional methods. But when the so-called unconventional method involves the government’s ambition to introduce electric cars on the road, we can’t help but remain skeptical. Global carmakers like Ford and Toyota have been toying with the concept of electric-powered vehicles since the 90s, but the main obstacle with commercializing the concept is the prohibitive cost and limited life of the battery. Today, with the onslaught of climate change and rising fuel prices, the car giants are once again taking a serious hard look at electric cars, but even then, the earliest date for introduction to the American market, in a best-case scenario, is 2010. The reality is usually very far off the best case scenarios.

The NST article reports that national carmaker Proton Holdings has been given the green light to carry out in depth validation and testing of cars using electric batteries, and according to the Prime Minister, the “assessment can be done in less than one year. If it satisfies all Proton’s requirements, then it can be commercialized”. If the car makers of the world’s most advanced economy are unsure about the commercialization of electric cars, can we really be confident of being pioneers in electric-powered vehicles? Proton already has a hard time making sure its Perdanas don’t disassemble themselves. Would we really trust them to test electric cars? If this is the best “unconventional way” the government can come up with, then we’d prefer if they just stick to conventional methods like increasing public transport.

Road Signs in George Town

Meanwhile, the frontpage of the Star Online carries a report on Gerakan members’ tit-for-tat move against the DAP state administration by putting up Chinese road signs in the city. An accompanying photo shows a Gerakan member explaining the move to a tourist couple who pretend to be interested in Chinese characters.

In June last year, DAP Youth illegally put up Chinese road signs to pressure the previous government to install signs in Chinese, which it claims could boost tourism by attracting tourists from China. And all this while we thought tourists come to George Town for the history. We’ve seen a similar move in Kuala Lumpur with road signs in Arabic, to assist Arab tourists. Do they really assist foreign tourists, especially in our current globalised world where many more people are now familiar with the Roman alphabet, if not the English language? What happens if we experience an influx of tourists from Russia, with its Cyrillic-literate citizens, or Korea, India or any other country with its own alphabet script?

These petty news items might have been funny if not for the desperately static state that our country is in at this moment. Chinese road signs and electric cars might give glossy photos for the frontpage, but at the end of the day it is serious news that makes a newspaper worth reading.

Opposition Supporters Rally Behind Pak Lah

Amid growing calls for Abdullah Badawi to resign as Prime Minister following the shock losses suffered by Barisan Nasional in the just-concluded general elections, a grouping of opposition supporters today rallied at an undisclosed location in support of Pak Lah. The supporters were seen carrying banners with the slogan “Stay another 5 years” and “Keep doing what you’re doing, it’s clearly working” as the factors resulting in Saturday’s big win for the Opposition became clear. “Our victory in the recent General Election is 99.99% due to Abdullah”, said one jubilant PKR supporter, borrowing from the infamous and mathematically inaccurate analysis of Umno secretary-general Khalil Yaakob during the landslide 2004 elections.

There have been persistent rumours that Abdullah Badawi might be suffering from deafness when he was quoted as saying “I don’t know who is pressuring me to quit”, despite a call to resign from the very noisy ex-Premier Mahathir Mohamad. “People are saying the PM is out of touch, but I think it’s a simple case of deafness,” claimed Dr Noor Hayati Abu Samah, a senior ENT (ear-nose-throat) specialist at the Subang Jaya Medical Centre. Some opposition supporters, however, are indifferent to the PM’s future. “Even if he resigns, he will most likely be succeeded by Najib Razak, and we know many Malaysians are uncomfortable with him and his equally unlikable partner,” said concerned citizen turned armchair political analyst Chee Soon Chuan. “I may not be a professional political analyst like Abdul Razak Baginda, but even I can tell that UMNO is in a bit of a mess”.

-Ihsan TakdaNama, berita tidak rasmi Malaysia.

Just Average Malaysia

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has designated Thaipusam as a public holiday in the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, a move we suspect has less to do with goodwill than a politically-motivated panacea to the recent headache caused by disgruntled Indian protesters. Although we welcome the move, we are somewhat frustrated by the Prime Minister’s preference for feel-good initiatives over more serious matters such as the increasing crime rate, a sluggish economy and Malaysia’s diminishing role and influence in the world stage (which was never that great to begin with).

Our initially enthusiastic reception to Abdullah Badawi’s rise to the premiership has turned into a desperate longing for the good old days of the Mahathir era. For us to reconsider what would otherwise be an autocratic administration plagued by institutionalized cronyism and contemptuous disregard for free speech speaks volumes of our desperation. Yes, things may not be that bad in our country, but we’re not exactly a shining beacon to the world, either. We are instead, stuck in a disinterested state of mediocrity, where being pretty average is considered totally acceptable. It is not.

Our public education system is disorganized and languishing, thanks to a Minister who prefers to come up with cheap shots rather than concrete solutions. Malaysian universities continue their strident march towards global oblivion. After 50 years of Independence, our controlled media is still spewing out propaganda instead of sharpening its journalistic integrity, to the point where Malaysians are left to depend on each other’s blogs for their fix of intelligent opinion and critical debate on the state of the nation. A Thaipusam holiday for Hindus may be a welcome relief for some, but what we as a nation really need is a break from this putrefying state of mediocrity.