Comedy Court

Just for laughs.

That’s Allan and Indi for you. They’re not bad Check out their website www.comedycourt.com.my, and enjoy the other two videos below!

The Colchester Mile

Hi, I’m running for charity again. This time with some friends from university. Visit www.mysportrelief.com/markusng to support me!

I’ll be running to raise funds for Comic Relief. The funds they get will be distributed to the following charities.

The run will take place on Sunday, 16 March. It’s 3 miles long.

Click here to sponsor me!

Thanks!  :)

On the Orang Asli

Written 2 February 2008, as submitted to www.ceku.org.uk

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As a Malaysian and as a Chinese, I’m really looking forward to two upcoming events. Chinese New Year is just around the corner, and it’ll be my first time performing (think karaoke) in front of a mob of Chinese nationals in university. The other is the upcoming General Elections, where we get to participate in the democratic process of electing our leaders.

Like most Chinese, I pray for blessings and prosperity for myself, my family, and my friends. Recently though, I find myself praying more for the country and for the marginalised. This may sound rather silly, but if God exists, and answers prayers based on the number of requests he gets, we really should be praying more for those in greatest need of his help.

The Orang Asli, the natives of Peninsular Malaysia, certainly fall into that category. Although making up a mere 0.6% of the Malaysian population, as of 2003, more than 75% of them live below the poverty line[1], a shocking statistic, when compared to our national rate of 5.7% (2004)[2].

Less than half the Orang Asli population is literate, this compared to about 90% nationally. Functional literacy is estimated to be even lower. About 62 percent of Orang Asli schoolchildren drop out of school each year, and more than 90% of them do not go beyond secondary school. This has not changed much for the past 20 years.[3]

They are also affected disproportionately by easily preventable and curable diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, cholera, typhoid, and measles. Their infant mortality rate (median=51.7 deaths per 1000 infants) is more than three times that of the general population (median=16.3), and their life expectancy is significantly lower too (52 years for females and 54 for males, compared to 68 years for females and 72 for males nationally). In 1994, 25 of the 42 mothers in Malaysia who died in childbirth were Orang Asli women – meaning that an Orang Asli mother was 119 times more likely to die during delivery than the average Malaysian mother.[4]

Given their plight, one would imagine the government to be highly sensitive and concerned with their welfare, but as I like to point out, in Malaysia, you’d have to have a pretty damn good imagination.

State of affairs

At present, there is the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (JHEOA), a statutory body charged by the Federal government to oversee the affairs of the Orang Asli. They are the only government department in Malaysia dedicated solely to a particular ethnic group. Among their duties are appointing village heads, acting as the de-facto owner of Orang Asli land, and in general, making decisions concerning Orang Asli development, education, and welfare – effectively chucking Orang Asli autonomy out of the window. This paternalistic approach to government should be unacceptable![5]

The Federal government disagrees strongly. They really like the JHEOA. In fact, they think its doing such a great job at helping the Orang Asli, they gave the JHEOA a whopping RM144 million ang pow in the 2008 budget[6], which was welcomed by all quarters including the Orang Asli themselves. However, the question remains whether the money filters down. Is this a case of harapkan pagar, pagar makan padi?

At a discussion I attended between Orang Asli leaders and the JHEOA last September, it was very apparent that the Orang Asli were not receiving the millions of ringgit allocated to them. There were various procedures on how to apply for the funds (and there were several available – education, general welfare, etc), and many of the Orang Asli leaders were not even aware of how much they were entitled to, and how to apply for the funds.

I posed a question to the representative from the JHEOA then – what happens to all the unclaimed money allocated to the Orang Asli every year? After all, money is coming in, but the Orang Asli are not getting it. The reply I got was highly unsatisfactory. He fumbled on how the fund was divided into two – one for development purposes, and the other for welfare. From what I understood the bulk of it was channelled into development. I was quite nervous speaking in front of the crowd back then, so I didn’t push for a better answer, but I’d encourage those back in Malaysia to pursue this money trail.

Homeless @ home

Having brought all this up, the biggest challenge facing the Orang Asli today is the dispossession from their homelands. Unlike most of us who have titles to the property/land we own, the Orang Asli have been living there for generations long before any legal framework on land ownership was introduced. Their culture, identity, and spirituality is also closely intertwined with the local ecosystem/environment.

The Aboriginal Peoples Act 1954 provides for the gazetting of Orang Asli reserves, which offers some form of protection. However, the law is still very inadequate, as it contains provisions like Section 7 (3) which states, “The State Authority may in like manner revoke wholly or in part or vary any declaration of an aboriginal reserve made under subsection (1)”, effectively placing the fate of all Orang Asli land into the hands of the government.[7]

This isn’t the best of arrangements, as the government, often in pursuit of development, can degazette any land belonging to the Orang Asli as it sees fit. Hence, Orang Asli settlements have been known to make way for hydroelectric dams, oil palm plantations, highways and even golf courses.

As of 2003, only 15.1% of a total 127,698 hectares of Orang Asli land had been gazetted as Orang Asli reserves. 22.5% had been approved for gazetting, but not gazetted as of yet. The status of the remaining 62.4% is “applied for gazetting, but not approved yet”.[8] Looking at these figures, I cannot help but question the competence of the JHEOA. What has it been doing all these years if they can’t even gazette a piece of land; and why the huge disparity between approval and implementation? On top of that, what about the thousands of hectares originally approved for gazetting which have been withdrawn?[9]

In Principle

The plight of the Orang Asli is a serious one, and there are a many layers of issues to examine and address, which would take a long time. I’d like however to end this article by bringing your attention to the principle of justice within two concepts.

Firstly, in self-determination. Is it fair that the Orang Asli do not have control on their land, and by extension, over their culture, identity, and livelihood? On top of that, how is the JHEOA kept accountable? Why are non-Orang Asli individuals making all the decisions which will affect the lives of the Orang Asli? Would it be acceptable for a Buddhist monk to run a Catholic church? Visit the JHEOA website[10], and a slideshow with portraits of all 11 directors of the department since its establishment in 1953 will greet you. Not a single one is Orang Asli.

Secondly, in democracy. In a democracy, everyone has an equal say, and the loudest voice (or one with the highest number of votes) gets heard. Is this fair? On the surface, probably yes. Democracy pleases the highest number of people. We need however, to be wary of the tyranny of the majority – in following the interest of the majority vote/voice, there is the danger of doing away entirely with minority interests.

This is a crucial point to observe in a country like Malaysia, where politics is still played out along ethnic and religious lines. The interest of Malays will never be discarded as long as UMNO is in power. The proportion of Chinese and Indians are significant too, so they always get some attention, although this is certainly a contested point. But how about other minorities, for whom there is no political representation? Who will speak and fight for them?

Justice needs to be our guiding principle. Come general elections in March, we will have a vote. My hope is that we Malaysians will not choose a government that will cater only to our individual self-interests, but a government and leadership that will fight any injustice, uphold the law, and serve the people, irregardless of our ethnic and economic background.

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[1]http://www.coac.org.my/codenavia/portals/coacv2/code/main/main_art.php?parentID=11497609537883&artID=11509699100857

[2] http://www.un.org.my/index.php?navi_id=130

[3]http://www.coac.org.my/codenavia/portals/coacv2/code/main/main_art.php?parentID=11400226426398&artID=11397894520274

[4]http://www.coac.org.my/codenavia/portals/coacv2/code/main/main_art.php?parentID=11400226426398&artID=11397894520274

[5]http://www.coac.org.my/codenavia/portals/coacv2/code/main/main_art.php?parentID=11400226426398&artID=11397894520274

[6]http://www.treasury.gov.my/index.php?ch=12&pg=149&ac=2047〈=eng

[7] http://faolex.fao.org/docs/texts/mal33568.doc

[8]http://www.coac.org.my/codenavia/portals/coacv2/code/main/main_art.php?parentID=11374494101180&artID=11432645038345

[9]http://www.coac.org.my/codenavia/portals/coacv2/code/main/main_art.php?parentID=11400226426398&artID=11397894520274

[10] www.jheoa.gov.my

Guide to voting abroad

As submitted to www.ceku.org.uk and www.thecicak.com.

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As many of you are aware, Malaysia will be holding a general election on 8 March (the Saturday after next). For those of us eligible to vote, it is a crucial opportunity for us to exercise our democratic right to choose our leaders.

The big question, really, for those of us living abroad is – how?

Ignorant as hell, I simply assumed that having registered with the Elections Commission in Malaysia when I turned 21, all I had to do was visit the local Embassy and tick a box… until I rang the High Commission in London up. To my horror, I discovered that I needed to register as a postal voter, and that I had missed the deadline for that! So I’m not sure if this is going to be of any help at all, but here’s a made-easy guide to voting from abroad:

Step One:
Visit http://daftarj.spr.gov.my/daftarbi.asp and check if you are registered with the Elections Commission (SPR). It is definitely too late for you to register as a voter now.

Step Two:
Visit your local Malaysian Embassy/High Commission and fill in Form A (Borang A) to register as a postal voter. Make sure you bring your IC with you. (Some say bring 3 passport photos too!)

Step Three:
You will probably need to go down to your local Embassy/High Commission again on polling day (8 March) to mark your ballot papers and fill in Form 2 as you will need to do this in the presence of a returning officer (staff authorised by the SPR).

Please note however, that if you have yet to do the second step, that there is a 90% chance that your vote will not be accepted by SPR, according to the staff at the Malaysian High Commission in London. This is because we have already passed the formal deadline (5 February 2008, if I remember correctly) to register as a postal voter. This totally sucks, but I’m giving it a shot anyway.

It bothers me though, how hard it was to find out the procedures to voting abroad. SPR’s website needs a serious make over. Information found elsewhere (on the net) was either incomplete or unhelpful. Everyone has so much to say about the need to vote, but so little on how to.

Not only is such information hard to find, the information you find is sometimes inconsistent. For example, according to our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among the eligible voters are “Individuals studying full time abroad (only if they are sponsored by the Government)” (emphasis mine).This clearly contradicts the Election (Registration of Electors) Regulations 2002, which includes in its definition of an “absent voter” those “engaged in full-time studies at any university, training college or any higher educational institution outside the boundaries of Peninsular Malaysia or Sabah or Sarawak”.

And on top of it all, an issue affecting many Malaysians abroad is the question of eligibility. Some of you may have read about it in The Star -EC: Postal vote only for certain groups.

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysians living overseas cannot vote through the post unless they are military personnel, students, staff of embassies and high commissions and their spouses.

Election Commission (EC) secretary Datuk Kamaruzaman Mohd Noor advised them to
return home if they wanted to vote on March 8.

“The law does not provide for ordinary citizens living abroad to cast postal votes.”

Under the Election Regulations (Electoral Roll) 2002 and Election Regulations (Postal Votes) 2003, only three categories of citizens living overseas are allowed to cast postal votes.

This law certainly begs some looking into. How is it fair that ordinary Malaysians living abroad are denied the right to vote? Decisions made in parliament certainly affect them too, and more so like the ordinary citizen if they are returning to Malaysia soon. In principle, every stakeholder in a country should have a say in the laws and decisions made which ultimately affects us. And where our say is limited like it is in Malaysia, votes speak louder than words.

There’s nothing much we can do about this for this elections, but I think that it is only proper for the Elections Regulations to be amended in the near future to include any citizen of the country living abroad for a period of not longer than let’s say 10 or 20 years. This way, those who want to stay abroad for good can forfeit their right to vote, but not at the expense of others working abroad temporarily for purposes like gaining industrial training/experience.

Given the lack of information and the misinformation about voting from abroad, and the debatable conditions for postal voter eligibility, I cannot help but wonder if there is an invisible hand at work behind this to discourage those abroad from casting their vote.

The UK has the largest Malaysian population in Europe numbering around 11,000 students and more than 5,000 professionals. And yet, during the 2004 elections, only 23 postal ballots were cast, or a tiny 0.14% of the Malaysian population in the UK (excluding non-students and non-professionals). Voter turnout at home was a whopping 188 times more (6.9/25.5 million).

To those abroad who have actually completed steps one and two and are eligible to vote, I wish you the best! Please vote wisely. To those ineligible to vote, don’t make my mistake come the next General Elections – register as soon as you can! To everyone, please help spread the awareness about voting among your friends and family, especially if they are abroad.

On Islamic banking

Ok, it may be acceptable to argue for socially ethical financing (i.e. no investments/clients in the alcohol, tobacco, or gambling industry), and dealings only in productive economic activity (as opposed to economic activity that involves only money – eg speculation on stocks/forex).

But how on earth to justify lending/borrowing at no interest? How about inflation? You need to have an interest rate to adjust for inflation/changes in the real value of money. Why keep money in an Islamic bank if £100 quid I put in there is only worth £90 ten years down the road? If I understand correctly, at present, it is considered haram for banks to charge an interest, even if it were fixed at the current inflation levels.

Ok, maybe it is possible to argue that we do get returns from Islamic banking in the form of dividends (when saving), and our profits get “taxed” when we borrow. So in effect it often works out to be roughly about the same as normal banks with interest rates. This complies with the various Islamic principles like prohibition of riba (interest), and promotion of zakah (alms giving) and hisba (business accountability), thus making it halal in principle.

But this however, does not make it halal in practice. If it effectively makes no difference, then why support Islamic banking? Shouldn’t we call a spade a spade, instead of inventing different terminology to get around it? Some even say they just look at what the market interest rate is and calculate backwards how much of a cut to take off the profits from loans.

On top of that, monitoring in Islamic banks is still quite weak as I understand it. For example, I take a loan to invest in some machinery for the company factory, or education for my kid. I can always bluff my way through and quote figures higher than the actual amount needed and then use that money for other perhaps more questionable purposes (e.g. playing with shares/futures for personal gain).

And there are a couple of other issues too, like who monitors the practices of Islamic banks? Are there international standards? Is Islamic banking compliant with the current capital adequacy framework i.e. Basel II? Will there be problems with the current International Financial Reporting Standards over concepts and terminology? Perhaps someone out there can enlighten me.

There are some good things about Islamic banking though. I’ve heard that your “interest” is charged monthly as opposed to yearly, so if you withdraw money from your savings account midway through the year, you still get whatever “interest” you have earned in the months leading up to the withdrawal. Interest-ing eh? (pun so intended! :p)

So what really is causing the buzz with Islamic banking and financing? Malaysia is going all out with this, and even London is aiming to the international hub for Islamic financing. Perhaps it simply boils down to the need to ease the human conscience by doing what is perceived as right. Kinda like the whole fairtrade industry..