I was reading the news recently and came across this article from The Star. It’s our Human Resource Minister Kulasegaran saying, “As I am speaking, currently there are more than 640,000 job openings available. Not just the 3D (Dirty, Dangerous, Difficult) jobs, for example at the management level there more than 6,000; for professionals more than 21,000; as well as technical and associate professionals for more than 22,000.” He added “The biggest challenge for us is there are a lot of employment opportunities, but the youth are not willing to take these jobs.” Bold font emphasis is mine.
He was answering a question by DS Ismail Yaakob (BN-Bera) on the ministry to state whether the Pakatan Harapan government will be able to implement its election manifesto of creating one million job opportunities by the end of its five-year term.
First of all, if we add the management level, technical and professional jobs, it’s not even 10% of the 640k jobs available. Does it means the rest are all 3D jobs? Why do you like give half-assed answers that opens up your backside Minister?
This is why I hate our half-assed politician and minister. They think they are so good and performed well enough when in actual fact it’s far from what it should be. Let’s take a closer look at your ministry.
Clearly, in the mission statements you wanted to “Increase employability and employment rate of the local workforce to meet the national labour market needs”. So it’s not just jobs creation, but also getting these unemployed youth to get jobs. Now, if what this prick said is true, that we have more than 640K jobs available and that 150K of those jobs were created within the year. We would’ve significantly reduced unemployment rate already by now because back in March, I remember our unemployed people in the country are in the range of 500k. So let’s take a look at the latest unemployment rate by the Department of Statistics Malaysia.
Unemployment rate has remained flat since the beginning of the year. – DOSM
So there you go you Minister Prick. You have done nothing so far. You can add even a million jobs and if the unemployment rate doesn’t change you can forget it. It’s just like increasing minimum wage, you can increase minimum wage to a hundred thousand a month. If the purchasing power doesn’t increase, you can forget it.
Now look, I’m a reasonable person, if he doesn’t stop at saying our youth are picky and continued to acknowledge that the ministry hasn’t done enough to either educate these picky youth or create more jobs that suit the youth and these are the things we are doing to fix that, then I’m okay. It means he understands that there are still more things that he needs to do. Then again, only a minister with a big cojones will acknowledge that he/she still have a lot to do. This particular minister, this particular prick? Not so much.
I have said before that youth nowadays have mismatched expectations when it comes to jobs. This is not something new, we all know this. You know this, Minister Prick knows this, I know this. So instead of saying the same thing over and over again, Minister Prick, you need to work on getting it resolved.
Another thing, you don’t get to say it out loud that youth are picky. You haven’t even done anything significant yet, so you haven’t earned the right to say it. Don’t for a second think you can be like Dr. Mahathir, he has earned the right. He can say Malays are lazy or whatever the heck he wants. He has earned it. You Minister Prick, haven’t. We the rakyat, get to say whatever we want because we put you in office. Remember why we put you in office? To solve the damn problem.
So start working on getting it resolved, stop telling us youth are picky because you are such a prick for saying it.
What have happened to the campaign? Why then the MARA Digital Mall that is built for Malay Muslims is closed?
Ever since the announcement was made, I have my reservation. Those close to me would’ve probably heard my grouses or my frustration why I think MARA Digital Mall will not work. Today, my frustration and grouses were proved true. In a written response to a question by the previous Rural and Regional Development Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, Rural Development Ministry said, that slow-moving sales coupled with disproportionate operating costs caused tenants to cease operating at the premises. It really is disheartening when you hear businesses failed. People put in the time, and money, some put in their life savings and all went down the drain.
There are many reasons why I believe that it won’t work. First, it was born out of spite. That is right, the MARA Digital Mall was born of spite after the infamous issue involving a guy who claimed to have been cheated after he purchased a phone from a seller in Low Yat Plaza. The issue later spiralled to a full blown riot in and around Low Yat Plaza. Why I say that it’s born out of spite? Low Yat Riot happened on 13 July 2015. Ismail Sabri was made as the Minister of Rural and Regional Development on 29 July 2015. and he proposed Low Yat 2 in early August 2015. No a month passed after the riot and he proposed Low Yat 2 for Malays. Just because there’s a fight between some Malay men and Chinese traders over a handphone. It’s time for Malay to fight against the Chinese. It may be a business fight, but it’s a fight nonetheless.
The information and communications technology (ICT) centre at MARA Digital Mall. (Photo by NST)
And just like that, Ismail Sabri got MARA working overtime to get a Mall set up for all the Malay traders. I’m sure hundreds of thousands or even millions were spent to set it up if we include the 6 months rent free period for all the Malay traders there. Mind you, these millions could’ve been spent on MRSM, or a real rural development project that would uplift the rural Malays who needed help the most. But nope, it’s better to pay the contractors to remodel the mall so that other urban Malays can open a handphone or IT shop. Sorry my dear kampung folks, the bandar folks is more important lah after the riot.
Second, the business environment was a bit off (by a bit I mean a lot) to begin with. MARA Digital Mall was planned to be opened early 2016 planning starts in August. 2015 was the year that Lazada saw the big explosion in their sales. They recorded US$1.3 billion of annualised Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in 2015 across its six markets in South-East Asia. At this point, millions of us have already got a Lazada account and other online shopping platform accounts, and the biggest dollars was spent on electronics. It’s already telling at this point but of course Ismail Sabri don’t know any of this. He only knows that we Malays must fight the Chinese. Just fight, no need strategy, no need to make sure we win, just fight lah, and it’s okay because it’s not our money to use to fight anyway.
Electronics has been the biggest category in e-commerce and it’s expected to continue to be the main drivers of e-commerce. But of course Ismail Sabri don’t know this.
Of course you want to see consumer trending in spending before you spend millions of ringgit for a 5-7 years project. By 2015, we can see brick and mortar retail spending in electronics have trended down while online sales for the same category have rocketed. We see retailers like Seng Heng, and Other electronic stores open up shops in Lazada. We also see manufacturer like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi and many others doing the same. But not Ismail Sabri, he wants to spend millions to open a brick and mortar digital mall instead. Not really a fully researched business venture indeed. And it’s all because his rather short sighted views of the whole thing, being clouded by Malay versus Chinese sentiment.
The above two reasons are good enough to see why the venture would fail. now that the venture failed, who lost the money? First and foremost my dear readers, it’s you and me. All the monies used to set up MARA digital mall are our hard earned money, the taxpayers money. Not Ismail Sabri’s but our money. He got the benefit or riding the UMNO branded Malay versus Chinese bandwagon while it’s the taxpayers money that is spent. And these money was taken away from other projects that may uplift the poor rural Malays life. It’s so disheartening.
Typical logo for BMF Campaign. Notice the present moon and green colour palette. More on this later.
I’d like to take this opportunity to bring our attention back to Buy Non-Muslim Last Campaign that is going on right now. Let’s face it, it’s not a Buy Muslim First Campaign. It’s a Buy Non-Muslims Last Campaign. Say it like it is lah. Have some balls lah. Don’t be such a kitty cat. At least Dr. Mahathir back in the 1980’s is honest enough to call his Buy British Last Policy, “Buy British Last”. He didn’t name it “Buy American First, or ‘Buy Malaysian First’ or whatever name that is politically correct. So first of all my dear Muslims friends, please have some balls and call a spade a spade lah. I thought Berani Kerana Benar?
The Good ol’ Dr Mahathir doesn’t need to be side stepping much because he have balls. He called a spade a spade. Unlike the Buy Non-Muslim Last folks, them balls not so big..
The point I’d like to stress is Islam is very inclusive. Islam can’t be exclusive. We can’t treat Islam like this exclusive club where only the Muslims can join and enter or prioritise muslims first. If Islam is exclusive, then Prophet Muhammad would be the only Muslim because it’s exclusive to Muslim only, and since anybody else can’t join, he’d be alone. That is why anything Islam, shouldn’t not be exclusive.
That is why I despise mosque or offices that mandated all to wear hijab or cover their aurat to enter their premises. We need to be inclusive. There’s this situation where a person who’s not wearing hijab but just started praying 5 times a day. One day, She was on a long trip and stopped at a mosque to pray. She saw a sign that says she can’t enter a mosque without hijab, she entered anyway as it’s to conduct her prayers, she was scolded by a Pakcik there for not wearing hijab. How can we perform dakwah if non muslim and muslim who’s not fully practicing Islam can’t even enter the mosque? I’ve been to numerous mosque in other countries and very hardly I see this rules. they would welcome everyone no matter who and they would use the opportunity to perform dakwah during the visit. Islam must be inclusive. It’s for all, be it Arab, Malays, Chinese, white, blacks, brown, yellow or even purple. Islam is inclusive, no matter who you are, you can join the club. I’m sure I’ll get some backlash on this it’s oh-so-typical to get backlash on stuff like this.
You’d sometime see sign like this in mosques and some part of government offices.
Now back to this campaign, this Buy Non-Muslim Last Campaign. This is an exclusive campaign targeted for muslims only. They are telling people to make the club exclusive to muslim only. Brand it as Muslim first, Malay First and whatever first lah. This is not a sound business practice. You don’t learn from the very people that you despise. I saw many posts shared by the proponents of this campaign, they are trying to crate this list of non-muslims products that look like a muslim’s product. For example the name would be using a Malay word like Ikhlas, Murni, Bersih, Sufi and the likes. On top of that, the packaging would be in green and have a muslim-friendly logo. For example, using jawi font, cresent moon logo, batik pattern and the likes. These are the product that they despise as they are from non muslim’s but portrayed to look like a muslim’s, they felt cheated.
What you need to learn is to outbrand them, be inclusive. Include everyone and show to everyone that you are the most honest, the most value for money, the best, the fastest and whatever that is inclusive to all. Don’t just stop at being muslim and that is it. A muslims means nothing, a muslim still can end up in hell ya lest you forgot. We have Muslims thief, a muslim murderer and worst of all, a muslim child rapist. So, a muslims means nothing. If you have a shop selling phones, don’t just be a Muslim shop selling phones. Be something that is inclusive and have value to all, best value phone shop, best customer service phone shop, cheaper phone shop, most variety phone shop. Whatever tickles you fancy lah. Just don’t stop to be Muslim only. Must be good muslim ya, not just muslim.
So, I suggest to stop this nonsense of buy non-muslims last campaign and start a new campaign. I suggest a campaign of “to be the best in the the segment that you want to be”. The segment must be inclusive and universal. No such thing as Malay first, chinese first or gay first. An example would be best value grocery store. I want to go to that store because it gives me best value. If there are two stores, one belongs to a muslim and another is non muslim. Assuming the Muslim store is the one that give more value while the non muslim not so much. I can guarantee that both muslims and non muslims will go to the store that gives more value in the long run. Why? because that nobody wants to waste money down the drain. Heck, even the Chinese wouldn’t want to buy from another chinese who charges more than he should because Chinese are good with money. They don’t waste money for nothing. The Chinese are good at that.
Another example would be best quality and design tailor. No matter if you are muslim or not, people would go to a tailor that have the best quality tailoring and design. No point going to muslim shop and at the end of the day got a lousy design and tailoring quality. High quality and good design are universal, everybody wants high quality and good design, especially if they are affordable.
So remember, don’t do something out of spite, start a digital mall out of spite lah, start a “Buy non-Muslim last campaign” out of spite lah and whatever else out of spite. Just be a good muslim and practice all the universal values that Islam preach. Start a business that have a universal and inclusive purpose. Don’t have a business who’s purpose is to kill the other guy. The purpose of the business is to provide the best service or product for the customer. The byproduct of that successful business might be the closure of your competitor shop and another byproduct can be you making millions of ringgit in profits. That’s good right?
If we can do the above, and coupled it with a good business sense and great work ethics, perhaps we can have a successful Digital Mall or any other business for that matter. Inshallah, Muslim and Non-Muslim will buy your product.
Yesterday’s posting stirs quite the bee’s nest. Thank you for all the feedback and views shared.
In this second part, the issue I want to bring up is on Malaysian@Work initiative. Under the Malaysians@Work initiative, graduates who secured a job after having been unemployed for more than a year will receive RM500 per month from the government for a duration of two years.
Employers will also receive a hiring incentive of up to RM300 per month for each new hire over two years. The idea behind it is to create jobs for the unemployed graduates. With this, the Malaysians@Work initiative is expected to create an additional 350,000 jobs for Malaysians and reduce foreign worker dependency by more than 130,000 and will cost the government RM6.5 billion over five years. That is a lot of money.
Malaysias@Works initiative tabled in Parliament as part of Budget 2020.
It’s typical of politicians or bosses that don’t have connected brain cells. Before solving a problem, we need to to a little bit of RCA. Root Cause Analysis, find out what caused the issue, not just any cause, we must find the root cause and then fix it.
Let’s dig a little why do we have so many unemployment in the country. Here’s a quote from MEF Salary Survey 2016:
“In order to enhance the employability of graduates, he stated that 90.3% of the respondent companies were of the view that it was important to improve the proficiency of English to increase the employability of graduates followed by developing soft skills, such as communication, problem solving and management skills (87%),” said Tan Sri Azman.
You guessed it right, it’s a skill issue. In this case, companies aren’t hiring our graduates due to communication skills issue. Apparently our graduates can’t speak nor write in English for shit.
God forbid they learn English in school, but ohhhh, they must have Khat and they are willing to fight tooth and nail till Jannah, to have Khat in the syllabus, even if it’s for just 3 pages of Khat studies in the textbook. Fight till Jannah for Khat, but for english…that’s kafir! That’s is stupidity indeed. Alright, I digress, my apologies, back to the topic at hand.
English is the language of business here in Malaysia. In 5-10 years time, it will probably be Mandarin because China as an economic super power is almost guaranteed now.We have no choice but to equip ourselves with English and our kids with both English and Mandarin. Get angry at DAP all you want but the future of SJK (C) and the Manadarin language is here to stay. We may end up having Mandaring language as one of the subject in Sekolah Kebangsaan. The ability to communicate with English and Mandarin speakers will be more important in the future. Here’s the 2018/2019 Critical Occupation List and Top Associated Skills from World Bank. Take a look at the skills needed for the positions. Notice the pattern? Good.
I highlighted Chinese for clarity. And noticed English is in almost every position. Where’s Khat? Jawi? Let’s fight till Jannah.
Secondly, in the 2018 paper “Graduate Work-Readiness in Malaysia: Challenges, Skills and Opportunities” by Dr. Noorziah Mohd Salleh et al., lecturer at the Faculty of Business and Management, UiTM (my alma mater). Dr Noorziah et al. wrote that while “low skill and low productivity work with tough working conditions and limited career development opportunities” are aplenty, these jobs do not appeal to graduates. “The low level of work-readiness among Malaysian graduates” is an issue that has yet to be resolved.
Ok the doctors in universities like to use hard to understand language. Let’s break it down. First, most work that is available are those with low skill, low productivity, tough working environment and with limited career growth. Basically it’s a tough job lah. Kerja susah, kerja kucing kurap dan susah nak naik pangkat, pastu gaji ciput. These types of jobs are not preferred by these graduates. And these jobs are filled with foreign workers.
This is what the government needs to tackle. Creation of high-skilled jobs. Not the creation of low level jobs that doesn’t give the satisfaction in the workers mind. I’m talking about job satisfaction, not monetary satisfaction. Take a look this statement by BNM in their report on the question of the workers paid fairly?
Evidence suggests that the lack of high-skilled job creation could have played an integral role in this. Between 2010 and 2017, the number of diploma and degree holders in the labour force increased by an average of 173,457 persons per annum, much higher than the net employment gains in high-skilled jobs of 98,514 persons per annum.
Apparently our economy are not generating enough high-skilled jobs to fulfil the demand of these graduates. Looks like the Good Doctor is right again. I still remember in the big hall of ITM back in 1999. I was among the people who are in the hall when Dr. Mahathir announced ITM will be given university status and the name changed to UiTM. In Dr. Mahathir’s speech, he mentioned that we have too many universities and we are producing way too many graduates who thinks they should be leaders. Dr. Mahathir said we may end up with too many ship captains without their ships and without their trusty sailors. It looks like this turned out to be true. We have way too many ship captains available and yet not enough ships in this economy now. And these captain wannabes want to be a captain and nothing else. Or, they can be sailors but with a captain’s salary, more on this soon.
These there are the problems causing the high unemployment among our youth. First, they can’t speak nor write in English. Second, we don’t have enough high-skilled jobs in the economy. I’ve been in the business of hiring youth the last 18 years, and I can confirm the above two facts are the truth. They are mostly Malays, we can’t deny that these are mostly Malays.
Don’t start telling me about many of our Malay brethren works delivering for foodpanda or Grabfood. These are high paying, low skills, low complexity jobs. Get that, kerja senang, gaji tinggi tapi takdak future. I have talked to numerous foodpanda and grab riders. They can get anywhere between RM750 to RM1250 weekly, yes weekly. They even told me, “I will do this for a few years to save enough money to (get married, buy a house, buy a car, etc) and then I quit. I don’t think this job has a future”. They know this is a dead end and low skilled job and yet they still do it because the pay is good. Low skills, no career growth and high pay. I have friends who quit their 9-5 job that have a decent pay but with tremendous career growth and yet quit and joined grab. They prefer big and quick money for a quick and easy job. Remember when I said our graduates don’t mind being sailors as long as they get paid like a captain? Yup, and did you recently hear someone, somewhere said the Malays are lazy? Kerja senang, nak duit banyak dan cepat. This also reminds me of the Marshmallow Experiment. Wants everything now and not later. Ah, I digress again. It’s not about the Rakyat, it’s about the 2020 budget and the government. We talk about the Rakyat in some other posts.
That’s is a nice looking jar of marshmallows. Go read up on Marshmallow Experiment. I’m failing this miserably with my kids. They seems to want everything now! Just like my bosses!
And since we are on the subject of grab and foodpanda, we have our Youth and Sports Minister, Syed Saddiq, working hard to bring in GoJek. It looks as if he’s giving Gojek preferential treatment with special meetings and some behind the scenes time. This is another short sighted views of the whole matter. We need to create high-skilled jobs, not more low skilled jobs. Our BNM reports said so Tuan Syed. Then he’s also meddling in this foodpanda vs the workers situation. If this is not paving gold plated red carpet for GoJek, I’m not sure what is. Here’s a new and young minister with a new face and no baggage of owing to corporations for money and whatnot, so don’t start going down the road of kowtow-ing to corporations lobbyist. Just be fair to all businesses, make it easier for businesses to thrive. Businesses thrives means more job creations. Ahhh, I digress again! The point is, high-skilled jobs, not low-skilled jobs. Got that Tuan Syed?
Syed Saddiq being perceived as paving a gold plated road for Gojek to come in. While it’s great for everyone that we break up Grab’s dominance in e-hailing, it must not be seen as the government is giving preferential treatment to GoJek.
Back to the main point, the root cause are skill mismatch issues and not enough high-skilled jobs issue. It’s not a situation of our youth not getting enough salary or the employers not having enough money to employ these youth. It’s so typical of politicians, they think they can solve problems by throwing monies everywhere. And Syed Saddiq smiles and looked so proud and can see his mouth saying jobs, jobs, jobs. Let me tell you mr Dear Syed, this won’t solve the problems. Giving free money to the Rakyat and companies wont’s solve the root cause of the problems. As much as you hated BN last time or giving out free money in the form of BR1M, you are doing the same thing here.
My beef is the budget didn’t touch enough on creating more high-skilled jobs, working with universities to have better courses and produce better graduates that have good english communication skills. Let’s hope the longer term 12th Malaysia Plan will touch more on this and makes it the central theme.
So there you have it folks, two issues I have serious beef with. PART 1 on minimum wage, Part 2 on Malaysian@Work initiative. See you in the next budget.
I’ve penned two things I have a beef about in the 2020 budget.
I just downloaded THIS app to start managing my monies better. It’s pretty unique and good actually. I have a few goals for next few years and I’d like to achieve them all. Let’s hope this app can help me achieve these goals.
Since we are on the subject of budget, I am a bit torn with a few items in the recently concluded 2020 budget tabling by LGE our Finance Minister.
LGE presenting the 2020 Budget in Parliament
Overall, I feel it’s a populist budget. Most people get something from the 2020 budget. It’s for the masses. Middle income get some, B40 gets the most, and everybody is happy now that the rich are taxed more. Be it only 2000+ of the filthy rich folks impacted, it will still make a good headline for the masses to feel good about it. A populist budget means the government wanted the Rakyat to feel good about the administration. The Rakyat has been feeling anxious and unhappy with the performance of the administration the last year or so. This populist budget will probably get the administration a few points up, in the approval rating.
I’m feeling pretty good about many of the stuff that was announced. Some of the opposition politicians said the budget had nothing significantly new. Many of the initiatives are carried over from BN era apparently. Well to that I say, why fix it if there’s nothing wrong. PH main beef was with Najib, many other policies have proved to be successful, so continue lah. It’ll be stupid to change something that’s working well. Just change what’s not working well and that’s Datuk Seri Najib and his cohorts.
So to keep up with the spirit of typical Malaysians, whom does not comments on good things, and just comments super hard on the not so good things, let’s get the ball rolling.
First up, the Minimum Wage. Government will increase the minimum wage to RM1200 for select major city. I’m going to assume major cities will be Klang Valley, Penang and JB.
Let me get this out first, I believe we should have less government intervention and more market forces decided on things. I agree that there should be government intervention, but it needs to be kept at a minimum.
So, when the government announced higher minimum wage, I’m not a happy camper. We are just buying time to satiate the rakyat with easy money without increased productivity. Market forces dictate that one should only pay when one gets the value that one wants. In the case of minimum wage, the employers get the same output/productivity but it costs more now. That is not economically viable and against the law of economics. Market will eventually correct itself.
LGE tabling the budget, statingmMinimum wage has been increased to RM1200 starting next year in major cities.
Imagining running a business and you get this increased costs out of nowhere but productivity remained the same. How will the business compensate to the increased costs? Increase the price! That’s the easiest. It’ll be easier since the market now have surplus of money due to the increase in minimum wage.
Very quickly, the market will adjust to the increase in costs with an increase in price. Give it 3-6 months to adjust, probably by April or June of 2020. The Rakyat’s buying power will then be back to where it was before. The rakyat will not get intended increased buying power and the business will then get back their normal profit levels. But prices of goods and services have since increased.
Another unintended impact of higher minimum wage is automation. Look at some of the places in the world where minimum wages has become so high that businesses can no longer afford to hire minimum wage worker. The businesses resorted to automation. Robots instead of chefs/cooks to cook the food, drones to send the pizzas instead of riders. Conveyor belts and robot arms to pack stuff at the warehouse instead of packing worker. Robots vacuum cleaner to clean up the floors at offices instead of your typical auntie cleaner. These are minimum wage jobs with minimum wage tasks.
Here are some examples we have in KL, look at many McDonald’s outlets we have around the city. They now have ordering kiosks, some outlets have three of them installed and some have up to 5 kiosks. Who are these kiosk replacing? Yup, minimum wage cashier. Now we only see one cashier manning the counter.
Another example, Pump attendant, back in the 90’s we have pump attendant. Nowadays with cashless payments and automated pump, we no longer need the minimum wage pump attendant workers.
In the more developed countries, we have ROBOTS FLIPPING BURGERS! Take a read in that article and see for your self a robot flipping burger patties.
That is Flippy, a robot flipping burgers in California.
Let’s take a look at San Francisco, California. Here, the minimum wage is a whopping USD12 per hour. How much money is USD12 per hour? Let’s do the Big Mac meal set comparison. A Big Mac meal set in Bay Area, SF, is USD5.99. Working for an hour there can get you 2 Big Macs meals. So, working for an hour will get you 2 meals for the day.
Let’s do the same calculation in KL. RM1200 a month is about RM5.77 per hour. A Big Mac meal set in KL costs RM14.95. You need to work for 2.6 hours before you can get a single meal.
Comparing San Francisco Bay Area and Kuala Lumpur, the minimum wage if California is super duper high lah, we can say that kan. That is why my friends, they have robots flipping burgers. These robots cost less than a human being, at USD60K per robot, the cost is the same as 20 months of minimum wage salary + some benefits of probably valued at about 20% of the salary. Benefits like annual leave, hospitalisation and medical, EPF and etc.
This means after 20 months, the robots now works for free. Robot don’t do mistakes, they cook perfectly, they don’t complaint, they don’t take breaks, they don’t ask for 15 minutes solat break twice a day on top of the 1 hour break. Best of all, robots don’t get sick as often and don’t go on annual or maternity leave.
Have you ever had Costa Coffee brewed by the robots in those Shell Select Petrol Stations? They taste the same almost every time you get them right? Compared to Starbucks sometime too sweet, sometime too bland and sometimes the Frappuccino ice is too chunky and sometimes not. Some of you argued that you need human to interact and whatever lah, when was the last time you spoke to the baristas brewing your coffee? While using the McDonald’s kiosk and did not even miss the human cashier you had interacted back in the days. In fact, you are glad that you had the kiosk because it’s way faster than having a newbie cashier taking you orders oh-so-slowly and sometimes with errors.
I might be talking too much into the future but sometimes we forget that the future is not that far off. Look at that family picture you have in your purse or wallet or on your office table, yeah, it’s been more than 10 years since you got married. Time flies.
Alright, let’s take a look at the second not so good things about the 2020 budget. Let’s take a look at it in a separate article I’ll post tomorrow. I feel this is getting too long already. I need to write shorter articles and get to the point faster. Lots of my readers only skimmed through the articles and they feel it’s too long. If you managed to read up till this paragraph, give yourselves a pat on the back and give a comment on what you think below or on my FB/Twitter/LinkedIn page and I’ll send you Domino’s Pizza discount codes as a token of my appreciation. I got a few extra and these have expiry dates and limited quantities. Be fast yah.
I’ve written down my thoughts of the recent closure of Utusan Malaysia operations and the papers.
Spent a while thinking of the title of this posting. It’s rather harsh and it kinda not what I really want to say. But alas, that will do for now.
Back in the day, probably in the 90’s, my favourite newspaper was Mingguan Malaysia. The Sunday edition of Utusan Malaysia (literally translated to Malaysian Courier/Messenger). There was a time when I look forward to Sundays, where I’d have a chance to read the ‘Wawancara’ or interview of the week. It’s usually two sometimes three pages long. I’d read every sentence written and re-read them. That’s where I developed my love for Q&A or interview sessions. Till today, the part I love the most in any magazine I picked up would be interviews with a particular person of interest to me. I’d buy a full blown magazine to just read a 2-3 pages of interview that interests me. I just love reading about how one thought process works in their head, in doing or coming out with something.
I love to understand the thought process behind some of the policies introduced by the government and the current situations faced by the person of interest feature in Mingguan Malaysia. Many a time, you can see how much one’s filter or views of certain situations, shaped their thought process and action towards it. It kinda opens you mind and let you experience this paradigm shift of your own views or opinions. Suddenly you realised that you weren’t so RIGHT or, there are more than one ways to see or do things other that YOUR ways.
My second favourite section was of course “bisik-bisik by Awang Selamat. I just love the writing style. A bit of sarcasm, with a dash of criticism on various topics of interest. They are just short snippets of what Awang thinks on current issues. Some are sarcastic in nature, some are straight up finger pointings, some are just mild criticisms and some are just opinions on matters of interest. It’s a great place to catch up on some topics, that the editors fancy. Sort of like twitter posting nowadays, a short and sweet take on issues. Sometimes it’s a thread that takes up several tweets, sometimes it’s just a single paragraph. Love it.
A look at the Bisik-Bisik by Awang Selamat.
After a while, probably around 2006 or so, I started to find Utusan a little unbearable. Too many politicians doing and saying stupid things at the time and Utusan no longer make it a point to write about them. Back in the days they would write about it in the Awang Selamat column or in some of the guests writer column. I always look forward to it because I know we can depend on the paper to fight for us the Rakyat and tell these politicians off. But alas, it seldom happened around that period onwards.
I may be too young to remember or perhaps its the nostalgia that is clouding my mind, but, I still remember moments where I read Awang Selamat calling out some of the politicians doing or saying something stupid. At least, in a sarcastic manner so as not to cause them any trouble. But that was no longer the case, if I remember correctly, it was probably around Pak Lah’s time.
The other thing about Utusan, they was so behind the curve in their adoption of the News-on-the-Internet stuff. I still remember their website was slow to load, still using frames, and whatever janky web tools that were probably 5-10 years behind the curve. What made it worse was, probably only a few years ago, before they got their ‘new’ website, they would load a full desktop page on a mobile device. Be it a phone or a tablet, the same full desktop website would load and it took literally 5-10 seconds for the whole thing to load. A big turn off if we want to read an article that probably will only take 5-10 seconds to read or skimmed through. Coupled that with a clickbait-ty headlines, you’d be cursing the moment you realised the article was a shitty one. It was that bad.
On social media front, I still follow Utusan on Facebook, and here’s the other part they failed to take advantage of. There are almost nothing else other then posts showing snippets of the news and a link to the article on their website. That’s it. Occasionally you’d see Senyum Kambing posting. They had zero social media personality and strategy. Almost zero interaction with the readers or followers of the page.
Yes, this is how Utusan posts on Facebook. Don’t get me started what they do with Twitter.
I love Utusan. Wait, maybe I should say, I used to love Utusan. I felt Utusan was really a newspaper I’m really proud to be a reader of. But, after they no longer have these opinion pieces, interviews, Awang Selamat takes on stuff that matters and news stories that matters, to folks like me, I no longer felt proud…for many many years. And since Utusan never really cared about their younger or more technology savvy readers, where most of these readers only spent their time online and on social media, I kinda stopped caring about them as well.
To me, Utusan no longer represent the modern Malays, the Rakyat that wanted to be informed, that wanted to stay ahead what’s happening and serves the interest of the readers.
A few months ago, there was a campaign to buy start buying Utusan again so that it can be saved. I did not do anything at all. It needs to be save by it’s masters, not us the readers that it betrays. Unless the masters of Utusan cares and let Utusan be Utusan, it is more suited to be left for dead instead. Utusan in it’s current state is not worth saving. Even with all the history behind it, it’s better if all of it dies. Let it be a reminder to never stray from the mission that it sets to be. Utusan needs to apologise for straying too far away, it needs to start serving its readers again rather than its masters.
Corporations that failed their customers need to apologise sincerely and starts to work towards being better and win the trust of their customers. They can’t take it for granted. Look at Domino’s Pizza Turnaround, this has been a textbook case study around the world on how a corporation can really turned-around a failing business. Listen to what customers have to say, internalise and understand it, acknowledge it, then pledge to be better. It’s very simple.
I sure hope Syed Mokhtar and his team can make it NSTP group the papers that we the Rakyat can be proud of, not just papers to be given free to schools and government offices. Syed Mokhtar have also been buying shares of Utusan via his proxies, I hope he’ll make Utusan a better newspaper as well. One that serves the readers. As for Utusan, you can stay dead if you don’t change because, nobody wants to save you, even your masters didn’t save you. Yup, your masters left you to die, really, they left you for dead. Don’t get angry at me, I’m just the messenger, sending you this message. Don’t kill the messenger.
Peace be unto all.
p/s: I knew the title will deliver at the end.
p/p/s: Edited the part relating to Syed Mokhtar to clarify the shares he’s buying or have been holding for a few years.
As you have probably known by now, I find the UnprincelyPrince so fascinating the I’ve written about him a few times. Not so much of his cars, or football team or his other worldly possession, but rather his princely demeanour or lack thereof.
Recently my brother sent over a screenshot of the Unprincely Prince Instagram story. Here’s a screenshot of it courtesy of the Internet.
This is the Instagram Story that started it all. Kinda legendary.
It tells us of the history behind the palace’s garb. It also tells us just how exclusive they are and not to be worn by anyone else. It also tells us that they are the eagles and the rest of the worlds are just sparrows. It also tells us that many people don’t like Johor Palace and that many folks are saying lots of nasty stuff about them. Then it also tells us that he believes that many people are copying their styles and that many people wants to be be like the King. And lastly, it also tells us that the lowlife be just that, lowlife. Know your place lowlife, you should shouldn’t dream any taller than the lowly grass.
There’s a lot to unpack there. Like A LOT. The beauty of it though, the collective wisdom of Malaysian people as a whole have somehow came together to tell the Johor Palace that the Pipits can really flock together and agree on a common ground that would make the eagles scared shitless and disappear. So in today’s post, I’ll be sharing some of the stuff that I came across on the Internet and together with it I’ll review these rather exquisite postings.
First up is another tweet from the the Unprincely Prince.
Yup, there it is. Blamed the late Sultan instead of owning it.
As what is typical of a princes in many bedtime stories, they are usually so very full of themselves and doesn’t seem to understand the concept of accountability or ownership. As in this case, after he was called on it, he blamed it on the late Sultan Iskandar. How very predictable this Unprincely Prince is, really living up to his name. A leader would gladly own up his shit, but not him, he “passed the buck” to his late grandfather. And then, in the classic shoot-you-back-move he also blamed others for being ‘too triggered with his post’. What’s not to like isn’t it? Well, perhaps you’ll like the next one better.
Tweet captured by my brother as well. He’s a big fan of his shenanigans.
So at the height of the hullabaloo that he has created, he tweeted the above. In this tweet he elaborated and proved (rather unsuccessfully, do read on to know why) that Johor is the trend setter and that people are copying or at least following Johor in many aspect.
What tickled me was he started the tweet with ‘1 thing you can’t you can’t deny’ and ended it with, ‘well, I know I’m good all over and the best and the number one and everything else super, BUUUUUT you guys also special lah, semua special gitew kaaaannn’. We all know that the last bit was as condescending as condescending can be. But what’s more funny and really tickled my funny bone was his opening statement. That “one thing you can deny” bit. It turned out, that one thing was denied “en masse”. Here it is in all its glory.
Takat IC nombor 01 sebab nama negeri mula dengan huruf J dan tak ada negeri lain mula huruf A sampai I, aku rasa tak perlu nak bangga sangat.
Lainlah Perak, ada banyak benda yang kami buat jadi trendsetter dan ikutan negeri lain.
I can’t fathom just how clueless the Unprincely Prince can be. Did he not know that our IC number state designation is in alphabetical order? We all know this when it was first introduced. I am from Kedah, I remember asking this question to my teacher back then how come Kedah is number two, we should be number one! (Yeah kids always like that, we always want to be number one, I wonder which other grown up nagoi like that, can’t really put a pin on it 🙂 ). Just like that, his tweet got denied so hard. Sorry my dear Unprincely Prince.
Okay lah, maybe this is blown out of proportion by the Internet. As we all know, the Internet have this habit of blowing up stuff out of proportion. Also, maybe it’s true that it’s not him that is imposing these crazy belief, maybe it’s true that it was his late grandfather. However, the next tweet by a fellow Johorian kinda sealed the deal that his grandfather wasn’t to be blamed entirely as well.
I was going to Rumah terbuka at Istana Johor and guess what kena buka sampin sbb pakai dgn seluar hitam pic.twitter.com/FyzEumPNc2
So this guy was asked to not wear his raya outfit should he wants to attend the open house. To be specific he was asked to take off his sampin because he was wearing it together with a pair of black pants and a Teluk Belanga. I asked him who told him to take it off, he said it was the JMF (Johor Military Force). This can’t get any crazier than this. And here I thought that it’s just his grandfather doing as he said, apparently it’s still going on today lah. On to the next one.
Since we are talking about being first an all, I’d like to remind everyone that Johor was also well known to be among the first to agree in supporting the British through Malayan Union. Johor Palace have agreed on the basis of friendship in establishing the Malayan Union. Unlike other Sultanate who were coerced to agree lest they lose their position. You guys can read all our history books on this but let me hook you with with a refresher HERE. Here’s an excerpt.
Sungguhpun tugas MacMichael dilihat berjalan lancar, namun pada hakikatnya ia bukanlah suatu tugas yang mudah. Hanya Johor dan Selangor sahaja bersetuju menandatangani perjanjian tersebut tanpa banyak bantahan atas dasar setia kawan. Manakala di Negeri-Negeri Melayu lain seperti Perak, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan dan Perlis, MacMichael terpaksa menggunakan kaedah ugutan sama ada tidak mengiktiraf baginda sebagai Sultan ataupun menggantikan baginda dengan calon Sultan yang baru. Sementara di Pahang, Kelantan, dan Terengganu MacMichael turut menerima tentangan daripada para baginda tetapi tentangan tersebut tidaklah begitu kuat. Oleh itu, laporan Willan ternyata tidak menepati harapan MacMichael
Well, yes, Johor Palace was in love with the Brits back then. So in love that they are willing to sell our motherland to outsiders. In the end, the rest of the Rakyat banded together and opposed Malayan Union, the very thing that the Sultans have signed. Go figure guys, the rakyat do know better than the Sultans. It has been proven then, it on this matter, it’s being proven again.
Now, obviously I’m not the only person who knows his history, many others did to. Just do a quick search for “Malayan union” on Twitter and you’ll get a bunch of tweets mentioning the same. Here’s a screenshot of the search.
A simple search on twitter will show you just how many remembers what Johor Palace did during the signing of Malayan Union.
I’m from Kedah and we have our own Sultan and Palace too. So I’d like to share something that I stumbled upon while all these is happening.
Kedah yang paling awal memperkenalkan pemakaian baju Melayu dgn seluar hitam. Kedah kerajaan paling tua.
Namun, pemakaian ini adalah untuk level biduanda istana sahaja. Sultan tak pakai.
A rather good find on this. Writing on this topic made me learn about things I would never learned by myself.
It turned out that Kedah Palace’s uniform for its biduanda is kinda like that infamous Johor Palace Royal garb. It’s rather surprising, the same black pants, sampin and Baju Melayu combination. Although its Baju Melayu is with Cekak Musang instead of Teluk Belanga. To Kedah Palace, that garb is only suitable for the biduanda, not the Royals, just the biduanda. Good find Mr Khalid Ismath, it shows no matter how high an eagle may fly, there will always be something else that can fly higher. This teaches us to always be humble as we don’t always know what lurks above us. And since we are on the subject of the black pants, sampin and Baju Melayu, here’s another gem I found on the Internet.
I can’t credit this to anyone as I don’t know where it came from. Do tell me should you know so I can credit it properly.
The above tweet shows that all these talking about palace garb, helang and pipit, and whatever else it entails, are just jokes to him. What I hope is he didn’t find the Johor Palace a joke to him as well. If indeed he finds that the Johor Palace is a joke, there’s only one person to be blamed and that’s our very own bedtime stories Unprincely Prince.
It’s telling that after all the endless pipit tweets, and postings on social media ridiculing the whole thing, the Unprincely Prince finally realised that he has opened a can of worms that he found from his own backyard. Since then, he has deleted almost all of the above tweets. I wanted to link to his tweets instead of screenshots of his tweets, however they are not there anymore. The tweets by the Unprincely Prince have totally disappeared. I guess the collective wisdom of the Pipit can really make the Helang disappeared with its tail between its leg. The Pipit do have this immense power that no one can challenge, not even the Eagle, should the pipit all band together that is. So let’s continue to band together and show to the eagles, parrots, vultures or even the pterodactyl that they can never be above us. Let’s show them that the best place to be, is among us, living together in harmony.
Selamat Hari Raya to everyone. It’s a day to be with family and friends. If you are working today, we are forever in your debt.
Those enjoying the Hari Raya, enjoy the company and the food. Be careful and watch what we eat. We have all heard how Hari Raya have brought together with it gout, high blood pressure, diabetes and the likes. We are what we eat people say.
To those travelling, always be safe and make sure we all have enough rest before starting our travel. Remember to rest if you get tired and don’t force yourself to drive while tired or sleepy.
I’d like to wish everyone a safe and joyous Hari Raya and Maaf Zahir dan Batin.
The day was going along well. I had a few glasses of plain water from our trusty labu sayong. It kept the water cool and clean. I much prefer that rather than Coway or Cukoo. It has that signature taste you can’t get anywhere else. So to get he best of both world, I have the Coway feeding the water to the labu sayong and I’d drink it off of that. Although nowadays I’ve been having a bit of a problem, ants. I’d find ants in and around the cap edges. I guess they love that signature taste as well. If this keeps up, I’ll probably skip the labu sayong and drink from Coway filters directly.
Typcal Labu Sayong on the table. The water inside is cool and have this distinct taste I like.
After the drink, I got ready for office and head off. The traffic to the office was super smooth. The day was A-OK and thinking that Raya is just a day away, it’s looking like an oh-so-happy day ahead.
It went south pretty quickly after that, the few WhatsApp groups I am a member of suddenly starts giving out multiple notifications. I was thinking something bad must have happened, probably on the same level as the recent shooting in Christchurch.
Scrolling through the endless chat, I realised it’s something far worse than that. It’s what I’ve been fearing all this while, our Defence Minister, Mohamad Sabu or his rather his street name, Mat Sabu, speaking at an international forum. I’ve always thought he’s more suitable to be taking care of a more local issues than international ones. Probably because he’s so close to the ground and can really feel what the public is feeling. But alas, what I’ve feared have happened, so let me put it here so we can unpack it.
Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first. It’s his English. Now we all know English is our second language. We can’t write or speak it as fluent as our mother tongue. Going through my articles, you can see thousands of grammatical errors, wrong choice of words and whatnot. Having said that, his advisers or his aides, if they really are his advisers that is, should’ve advised him to just speak in plain Bahasa Malayu and use a translator instead. There’s no shame in that. We see countless great world leaders do it. The gender mistakes, the helter skelter English, and the humiliation can be altogether avoided. In fact, he can be seen as a proud Malaysian who insisted to use Bahasa Malaysia as it’s our national language.
I find it odd that his aides and advisers didn’t insist that he speaks in Bahasa. His forte isn’t speaking to such crowds at the IISS Asia Security Summit Shangri-La dialog. He’s a local man who commands a very good oratory skill speaking to the common folks, not to foreigners. The foreigners can’t understand his rather peculiar choice of words that the local folks finds captivating. The fader and mader, soft way and hard way, saluting him/her, these are words and phrases only locals can connect. If any of the dearest Mat Sabu advisers or aides are reading this. You guys failed miserably on this. You guys better take a good look at these turn of events, realise your mistakes and learn from it. And if you are reading this Bro Rafizal, it’s because I love you as a friend, him as a person and wants PH to succeed that I write this up.
Mohamad Sabu and his aides. looks like a lovely group of people.
Now that the elephant in the room is out of the way, let’s unpack some of the things he said. First off he sent his utmost regards to the Prime Minister of New Zealand. The choice of words again was rather peculiar but we’ve gone through that already. What really ticks me off was his comment that we share our border with China. That’s a factual error. He’s either jet lagged or just plain confused with his facts.
40th Prime Minister of New Zealand. She the world’s youngest female head of government having taken office at the age of 37.
Prior to that, he mentioned the kidnappings in and around Sabah waters. Paraphrasing, “We reduced the kidnappings as we works closely with Indonesia and Thailand”. Again, it could be the jet lag or it could be that he just couldn’t wrap his head around it. Why Thailand when the topic is Abu Sayyaf and the Mindanao province? Probably the topic he’s covering that day is too hard for his to study by himself. He did say that he’s not a university graduate and in fact, he’s a dropout. I’m not one who dis folks without a university degree. Some of the greatest minds are university drop out. In my line of work, we thrive with folks who never set foot in a university. But they are all expert in their field, and my dear Mat Sabu, you just doesn’t look and act like one.
You can’t take it too easy. You can’t just pretend to do it. You really have to do it proper. We had dozens of pretenders back in the day under BN. We also had Ali Baba who only knows how to swindle money back in the day. We had celebrities who only want to be famous back in the day. You have to do your homework, you have to burn the midnight oil and get it up to snuff, you have to get your people to read up and tell you how it’s going that day. People that can do the job, not just some guy who don’t even know where Thailand’s border is. You just have to buck the hell up and own this shit.
On the China bigger ships, it doesn’t matter if China, US, Russia or the damn aliens from Planet Zargon69 have bigger ships, bigger planes or bigger cojones. What matters is that we have the biggest, baddest, meanest muthatrucking soldiers, navy, paskal and etc. Just say that lah at least, make our lads land ladies in the force feels proud la sikit. If Mat Sabu can’t even realise that, he surely isn’t assisted by his aides and advisers.
Clearly his aides and advisers are not up to the standard that he requires. We have seen so many leaders fell because he surrounds himself with people who only serve to make him feels good rather than to make him proper good.
Finally, if he can’t wrap his head around the topics, if he can’t pick and choose aides and advisers that really works for him, if he can’t detect that his aides are just plain useless, it’s his damn fault. The buck stops with him. It’s what leaders are made of, buck that stops on their table. He needs to own the damn decision and be ultimately responsible for the screw up his aides and advisers did as his own screw ups.
33rd US President harry S. Truman kept a sign with that phrase on his desk in the Oval Office.
If he and the advisers are still on their high horses and ignore what the public think of them, then face the downfall very very soon. He might face the same fate as my labu sayong, just because of the ants feeding off the signature taste of the water, I’d throw the whole thing out. So please Mat Sabu, don’t go ayoyo again on us.
I’m been busy the last few weeks, only managed to catch up on news the last few days.
This one catches my interest. I have long since wanted to write on this topic. The news was on our Education Minister, Maszlee Malik. There are several articles on this (See HERE, HERE, for video see HERE) and he said the following:
“Matriculation is just a road to university, just like a diploma, STPM and so on. But the matriculation programme gives the chance for the poor to advance their studies at the pre-university level.
“If we want to change, if we say in ‘Malaysia Baru’ there is no need for a quota system and so on, then we must also make sure job opportunities are not denied to bumiputera just because they don’t know Mandarin,” he said to a round of applause.
“We should not look at such issues in isolation – we harp on (the quota system in) matriculation without considering that people are being denied jobs because they don’t know Mandarin, for instance.
“If we can make do without all that, if we can give equal and business opportunities, then we can talk about being fair to all.”
Education Minister Maszlee Malik with students of SJK (T) Sungai Ara in Penang. (Photo: Bernama)
These two have nothing in common. First of all, matriculation program is a government program. Together with it comes the quota policy.
How can a quota policy by the government be linked to what the ignorance private sector (the ignorant and possibly racist employer) do? Is this particular government policy a result of what the ignorant private sector is doing? It’s like, the government decided to raise the interest rate due the the increased number of blue-coloured car on the road. These two have nothing in common.
Maszlee needs to be more objectives. Don’t mix being objective and being emotional about the situation. He was right in the beginning to state the reason why matriculation program was setup. It’s due to the imbalance in university enrolment of bumi and non-bumi students in science scream courses. He should just stop there and it’s enough to both get the non-bumi to understand and the bumi to give him a round of applause.
Secondly, he shouldn’t be doing the immature tit-for-tat move. Those are kids stuff. Is he the type of person who can’t think and only know how to react impulsively. You racist? Ok lah, I pun racist lah. You pukul eh? Ok, I pun pukul la. You kick me? Ok then I kick you la. You stab me? Ok then I stab you back lah.
These are kids stuff. People who can’t think objectively will react emotionally. We can’t have people who can’t use their head properly be our ministers. We had enough of that back in the days.
If we really want to have a New Malaysia or Malaysia Baru, we should abolish the policy favouring bumi versus non-bumi and have a new policy that favours the less able or the B40 instead.
If we really think about it, who are the B40? What is the racial distribution of B40? The answer will be the same, the majority will be the Bumis. Huge majority will be the Bumis. Don’t believe me? Check the statistics for yourselves. Let me share some, HERE and HERE. You can get more, just google and read them up.
We all know which race is the poorest, we all know who are the farmers, fishermen, low level government servants, low level policemen/women, low level army/navy/airforce officers. In case you don’t know, a good 80-90 percent of them are Bumi. So it goes without saying that the policy based on income level benefits the Malays and Bumi the most. If together with the Bumis we have 10-20 percent non-Bumis, it’s all good for unity right? All of our less able Malaysian get taken care off. ALL of them, ALL of the less able be it Malay or otherwise, ALL of them Malaysian . That’s good. That’s the ideal situation. It can’t get any better than this.
Here’s another reason why we shouldn’t have a race-based education policy, take the example of MARA scholarship, or MRSM or Sekolah Berasrama Penuh (SBP) enrolment. Since the BN days, these are places reserved for majority of the Bumi. The problem is, not many of the enrolments are from B40 families. It became the places reserved for the Malay elites. These people are probably already in the higher M40 and T20 and yet still get a place in the above places. It’s been abused to no end.
The famous MCKK. One of the many Sekolah Berasrama Penuh.
Nobody stopped them because it’s not against the policy. The policy is for the Malays and Bumi right? They are Malays and Bumis, so nothing is wrong right? Wrong!
We have heard so many stories of the rich Malay elites getting MARA scholarship and getting into SBP/MRSM. It’s disheartening that nowadays we still see only 70% of MRSM enrolments and 50% of SBP enrolments are from B40 group (See HERE). We should either have more from B40 or use the surplus budget to spend on other things for B40. Not spend for non B40 or those Malay elites who can afford all manner of things already.
Now if we do it based on income levels, the Malay elites can no longer enrol in the above program. So we will end up with more budget per students or we can include more from the less able or less stellar result to be enrolled. Give them special care to better educate them and we will end up with more bright people in the country. So, let’s do away with race based education policy. Let’s do it based on income level. Let’s start to do the good things and good things will come to us. It’s what Allah have said in the Quran.
If we spend our wealth in the way of Allah, we will get more and more. Spending for the wrong Malays, who isn’t supposed to be there in the first place isn’t called spending in the Way of Allah.
We need to spend the money wisely, if it’s for the poor or B40 groups then let’s do it as such and Allah will give us more to spend.
We need to always be objective, even more so as leaders. So Maszlee as the Minister of Education has to be objective in this part. As much as I’m a supporter of PH, I need and I want to be critical. When you love something, you always want the best for it. So you tend to be critical of it. I believe Maszlee should be more objective and not make that stupid comparison. He’s wrong to make that comparison and unbecoming of a Minister. So, I am calling a spade, a spade. Nothing more, nothing less.
As prescribed by my doctor, to live longer with my rather delicate heart, I need to read less national and world news; read more books and watch less movies to take my mind off things that would made me feel restless. Also to meditate, that helps a lot too.
So, about the movies, when Sonic the Hedgehog movie was announced I was super excited. Being a kid who grew up with a Sega Mega drive. Sonic is THE mascot not only for the console but for Sega itself.
Sega Mega Drive Box for Japan Market
I remember buying this Mega Drive console with my ‘hard earned’ duit raya at the age of 12. It was probably 300 or 400 hundred bucks at the time. I’m sure I didn’t have enough but somehow my mom chipped in I guess. Things our mom would do for us is unbelievable.
So, back to the Sonic Movie. Being a Sonic and Sega fan, I am so happy about it of course. Who wouldn’t right? People are never logical, we are psychological so we tend to be nostalgicaboutw things we love when are are kids.
But, the whole of the internet isn’t happy at all. Sonic has always been compared to Mario. Partly because of the consoles rivalry between Nintendo and Sega back in the days. Nintendo fans would shit on Sega and vice versa. Nintendo continued their success in the console and games industry, while Sega stopped their console business and focused solely on games. It broke my heart, a large part of it.
Since the movie trailer been released, the internet has showered it with…yup, you guessed it right…HATE. You can see hate after hate after hate after hate after hate being thrown at Sonic movie trailer.
I have questions about #SonicMovie. Who is the gangsta to justify Gangsta's Paradise? Is Sonic an alien? It looks like he owns pants from his hole in the ground, so maybe he could put some on?…And I do admit it's fun to see Ace Ventura-era Jim Carrey.
Then I saw this photo uploaded by one of IGN editors.
There is so much hate across the internet for a simple movie about Sonic. The movie is not for them in the first place. The movie is probably aimed for kids!
Yup..Slow down games and movie critics.
We love to spread hate more than spreading love. Even a good movie like the recent Avengers: End Game. Article after articles came out talking about just how many plot holes are there in the movie. I won’t spoil them here though.
It’s always fun to hate stuff. It’s always easier to hate stuff. People can easily relate to hatred so it gets shared and spread faster.
The point is, we love to spread hate and we love to spread it fast. Look at your Facebook timelines, out of 10 posts, there will be 4 that are about how much we should hate the Chinese, the christians, hindus, non-muslims and so many other groups.
We see the death of Adib being used to stokes the fire or racial hatred against the Indians and religious hatred against the Hindus. Blood has to be paid by blood being posted and shared and reshared.
We see the issue of an independent muslim preacher being arrested being used to stokes the fires of religious hatred. We see the ICERD ratification being branded as against the Monarch and thus against Islam and the Malays as whole. There are points to ponder and details to listen to, but it should be about stoking the fires of hatred agains one another.
What we actually seeing is people being used on both sides of the divide, be it Malay, Chinese, Indians, Muslims, Christians, Hindus or any other group. We forgot that we are never logical, we are psychological. We forgot that we are easily manipulated by either side of the divide if we became too emotionally invested. Politicians prey on the people who are easily influenced.
We must all realised that politicians are always, always working doubly hard for MONEY and POWER or POWER and MONEY only. They are always chasing these two things and these two things only.
RELIGION and RACE are the platform that these politicians use to achieve money and power. Until the Rakyat understands this, the power will never be in Rakyat’s hand. It will stay in their hands and forever the rakyat will be fooled.
So let’s not be macai on both sides of the divide. Let’s think more and read more and spread love. Not hate.
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