梁自坚说，以新巴刹而言，两层新巴刹也与当初承诺的有些许不同，档口的大小也有异，因此，小贩不想搬进两层楼的巴刹，更没有人愿意在二楼摆档，因为大家都担心没有生意上门。
“此外就是租金问题，如今在旧巴刹，小贩每年只要付120令吉执照费就能营业；但是搬迁入新巴刹后，一个档口的每月租金将调升至300至400令吉，加重小贩的负担。”
他说，他将在两个星期后召集各造开会商讨解决方案，包括巴刹停车场问题，到时候希望发展商可以派出代表前来开会，解决问题。
他说，目前可以解决的问题，就是要求市议会及自然花乐清理旧巴刹周遭的垃圾及卫生问题，希望所有小贩可以跟市议会合作，照顾巴刹的整洁。What
On this August 31st, we shall celebrate the 52nd anniversary of the British leaving our country. I did not say we are celebrating the 52nd anniversary of our independence. This is because our people have not enjoyed real liberty, democracy or justice. Without liberty, democracy or justice there is no independence.
In these 52 years the oppressive rule of a foreign colonial master has been replaced by the oppressive rule of a local master. They rule with an iron fist. They use the same instruments of oppression as the British did. They use the ISA, the Sedition Act, the Printing Press & Publications Act and detention without trial. The freedom of assembly, the freedom of expression and the freedom to live a life of dignity free from fear and oppression are illusions.
In these 52 years the yoke of a foreign colonial master has been replaced by the yoke of a local master. They use the same policy of “divide and rule”. They survive by feeding off racialism. They survive by fostering divisiveness. They survive by preaching religious intolerance.
What Teoh Beng Hock died for
Malaysians will not know real independence, will not be free and will not enjoy democracy unless this oppressive regime is thrown out. They must be thrown out just like Teoh Beng Hock was thrown out from the 14th floor of the MACC office. We must not forget Teoh Beng Hock. We must not forget what he stood for. More importantly, we must not forget what he died for. He lived to help Malaysians in the struggle against corruption and oppression. He died so that our struggle can live. He died fighting for justice.
What Justice?
Without justice we cannot say we have liberty or democracy or equal rights. We cannot say we have liberty or freedom when Tamil schools have no tables and chairs. When in Sabah and
What One
Najib says he wants One Malaysia. Teoh Beng Hock’s death has shocked us back to reality. We cannot just listen to rhetoric. We must look at the deeds. When we look, we see what has been done, is a far cry from what has been said. The Perak government has been stolen from its people. Najib has now declared his intention to grab the Selangor government.
The MACC is a tool. It is used to de-stabilize the Pakatan Rakyat government. Teoh Beng Hock was interrogated throughout the night. He was grilled for buying RM2,400 worth of Malaysian flags. No one has been grilled when PKFZ loss RM12.6 billion. The MACC officers are raiding the Pakatan Exco members’ office so often they are becoming fixtures. Cars and cows and Malaysian flags have become a fixation of the MACC. MACC has not shown the same enthusiasm when it comes to BN assemblymen who used up their annual allocation of RM500,000 in 2 months before the general elections. The MACC has also not shown any interest in the trips by the former chief minister and his family to study the river system in
Barisan Nasional machinery is now on the move. Books attacking Anwar Ibrahim and Khalid Ibrahim are being distributed. The authors of these books are sowing the seeds of hatred and contempt. They desecrate the Hindu’s sacred cow in a protest filled with bigotry. They protest against a Hindu temple built 150 years ago when the area was a plantation that today, just like its devotees, the estate workers, had been left behind by development. They have forgotten Muslims were invited to practice their religion amongst the people of Yathrib. They are beating the drums of race and religion and the tone is becoming harsher with each beat.
The people must now decide. There cannot be any fence sitters. There is no middle ground.
When Teoh Beng Hock was thrown out, the people of
Dante said:
“ The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.”
Today in
If we want to know what is evil and what is right, we must use our moral compass. It is only when we know the direction where justice lies can we know where we must stand. Do we want to choose liberty and justice which are always right or do we want to choose corruption, hatred, arrogance and oppression which are always wrong? The choice is clear. Every Malaysian must make his stand.
When you stand for liberty we stand with you.
I want to tell you that when you stand for liberty, we will stand with you. When you defend democracy, we will be your shield. When you fight for justice, we will be your sword. We will always be with you.
They assaulted Anwar Ibrahim. They threw him in jail for 6 long years. They call him a traitor and worse. But Anwar will always be here to fight for you.
They hounded and harassed Lim Kit Siang. They detained him in Kamunting. But Lim Kit Siang will always be here to stand by you.
They attacked Tok Guru Nik Aziz and try to humiliate him. But Tok Guru Nik Aziz will always be here to protect you.
We have been tested. They have thrown everything they have at us but we are still standing and we are still here.
We were here in November 2007 when a sea of yellow marched for a free and fair election. This was BERSIH. We were here in December when thousands in orange marched for equality. This was Makal Sakthi. This was the ripple that started the tsunami. Barisan Nasional was swept out of 5 states. Since then Barisan Nasional has become more extreme in their policies. They have become more brutal with the people.
When we Hope
So on 1st August, the lovers of justice and liberty marched again. Again Barisan Nasional responded with violence and brutality. 638 people including women and children were arrested. Despite the police shutting down the city, despite the many road blocks and barricades, despite the arrest of those wearing black, the number who succeeded in gathering far exceeded my expectations. But the size of the gathering cannot be bigger than my hope for
This is my hope and this is the hope of all Malaysians. Truth, love and justice will prevail over the forces of hate and oppression. This will only happen when the silent majority refuses to remain silent anymore. This will only happen when the voice of the majority is finally heard. We must be confident that oppression and corruption cannot endure. We must take comfort that truth and justice will always prevail. But this can only be achieved if we fight for it. We must fight today for a better tomorrow.
Looking Back in the Future
Do not let our children look back and say that these are dark days. Let them say that these are great days. These are the most glorious days that our country ever had. These days will be remembered as the days when we were called, we answered. We stood up. We stood together shoulder to shoulder irrespective of race or religion. We fought and we prevailed. Each of us played our part according to our strengths. Our children and their children will look back on these days and celebrate it as the days we became ONE NATION. These days will be etched in our Nation’s history as the days we won over injustice and oppression. These will be the days we celebrate THE TRUE MERDEKA.
Thank you, Xie xie , vanakam.
29th August 2009.
William Leong Jee Keen
Member of Parliament Selayang
Racism and religious intolerance have been fed into the blood stream of Malaysians for so long that all of us are so poisoned in our thinking that even those acting with the best of intentions find it difficult to see the woods from the trees; between law enforcement and law making, between legislative policies and social or religious concerns.
The recent comments by the Selangor State Executive Council member Hassan Ali of his fellow Pakatan Rakyat Executive Council member, Ronnie Liu on Shah Alam Municipal Council enforcement personnel seizing and confiscating beer sold by a convenience store is a case in point. Hassan Ali said that PAS Selangor supported banning the sale of alcoholic drinks in convenience stores in Muslim areas especially Shah Alam. He also said PAS would come out with its draft by-laws governing alcohol sales in the State.
The statements show the urgent need for us Malaysians to be aware of this sub-conscious racial discrimination and religious intolerance poison in Malaysians and the dire need for Malaysians to cleanse and detoxify ourselves so as to stop looking at every issue from the perspective of race and religion, imagined or otherwise. There is a need for a Malaysian renaissance of our views, our values and our mindset.
There are clear laws relating to the manufacture, distribution and selling of beer and liquor. There are also like smoking cigarettes valid social concerns. There are no doubt also religious concerns because all religions teach us to respect our own bodies and take care of our health. However, not all laws and not all concerns are due to race or religion.
The laws governing the powers of the Local Government Agencies are clear. There is no law prohibiting the sale of beer by convenience stores. There are laws governing the sale of alcohol and liquor but the sale of beer is not included as the alcoholic content of beer is lower than the prescribed limit of alcohol.
The enforcement unit of the Shah Alam Municipal Council is not empowered to make laws and regulations. They only have the power to enforce the existing laws and regulations. There is no law prohibiting the convenience stores from selling beer. There are however, Syariah law governing Muslims from consuming alcohol. However, the enforcement officers of Local Councils do not have jurisdiction to enforce Syariah law and certainly not against non-Muslims. Therefore, the Shah Alam Municipal Council was wrong to confiscate the beer from the convenience stores.
Hassan Ali in saying that PAS supported the banning of alcoholic drinks in convenience stores in Muslim majority areas ought to have also mentioned that he has been elected not only to represent Muslims but also all Malaysians irrespective of race and religions. There are many other quarters, Christians, Buddhist, Hindus and social organizations that are concern about the ill effects of beer drinking and he should have sought their views and give voice to their concerns. It would be surprising if they are not concerned about alcohol abuse. Hassan Ali ought to have articulated their concerns also.
However, there is a difference between concerns and laws. For concerns to be turned into law, the laws should be amended before enforcement agencies act to prohibit convenience stores from selling beer. Whether alcohol should be banned should be debated by all Malaysians, by those who drink and those who do not and those who do not drink but will defend the right of those who wish to drink. In doing so, we should not reinvent the wheel because Selangor is not the first and certainly not going to be the last society in having to deal with alcohol. We can look and learn from history of other societies and countries.
The first half of the 20th century saw periods of prohibition of alcoholic beverages in several countries:
* 1900 to 1948 in Prince Edward Island and for shorter periods in Canada
* 1914 to 1925 in Russia and Soviet Union
* 1915 to 1922 in Iceland (though beer was still prohibited until 1989)
* 1916 to 1927 in Norway (fortified wine and beer also prohibited from 1917 to 1923)
* 1919 in Hungary
* 1919 to 1932 in Finland
* 1920 to 1933 in United States of America
In the United States the manufacture, sale and transportation of liquor was made illegal on 16 January 1920 pursuant to the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution and clarified by the Volstead Act that stated beer, wine or other intoxicating malt or vinous liquor meant any beverage that was more than 0.5% alcohol. The Act stated that owning any item designed to manufacture alcohol was illegal and it set specific fines and jail sentences for violating Prohibition. Prohibition was meant to reduce the consumption of alcohol to curb crime and corruption, solve social problems, poverty and improve the economy.
The Prohibition was ineffective. It caused an explosive growth in crime and increased the amount of alcohol consumption. Drinking went underground and illegal “speak-easies” mushroomed all over the country. Bootleggers smuggled liquor from overseas, stole it from government warehouses and produced their own. The illegal liquor business fell into the control of organized crime. Al Capone is perhaps the most infamous Bootlegger during the period known as the Roaring 1920s.
Instead of reducing crime, Prohibition saw the crime rate skyrocketing with a nearly 78% increase. It saw serious crimes such as homicides, assault and battery increased by 13 %. There were gruesome shoot-outs as gangs fought for control over the profitable illegal business. The number of Federal convicts increased 561%. Consumption of liquor instead of reducing increased. Seldom had a law been more flagrantly violated. Not only did Americans continue to manufacture, barter and possess alcohol, they drank more of it.
Prohibition was a dismal failure and it was repealed on 5 December 1933 by the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution repealing the 18th Amendment. It was the first and only time in US history that an Amendment has been repealed.
These countries that have experimented with Prohibition have now come to realize that not all social concerns and society’s ills can be solved by making them illegal. With alcohol abuse, it is through education and voluntary temperance that these societies learnt to be more effective measures to counter alcohol abuse than by making the consumption of alcohol illegal.
It is unfortunate that Hassan Ali looked at the problem solely through a pair of Muslim’s spectacles. The problem is wider than that and the evils of alcohol abuse affect all races, followers of all the various faiths, and even the atheists and agnostics. His statement has caused a perception that has turned the problem from a social concern to a struggle between Muslims and non-Muslims. It has raised the mistaken belief by non-Muslims that Islam does not tolerate the existence of other religions. Based on what I know of Islam, this is not true. Allah decreed in the Quran, Surah 2 verse 256:
“Let there be no compulsion in religion;
Truth stands out clear from Error;
Whoever rejects Evil and believes in Allah;
Hath grasped the most trustworthy handhold, that never breaks.
And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.”
According to the notes to this verse, compulsion is incompatible with religion because (1) religion depends upon faith and will, and this would be meaningless if induced by force, (2) Truth and Error have been so clearly shown by the mercy of Allah that there should be no doubts in the minds of any person of goodwill as to the fundamentals of faith, (3) Allah’s protection is continuous and His Plan is always to lead us from the depths of darkness into the clearest light.
There are many examples during the lifetime of the Prophet that shows the tolerance of Islam for other religions. Islam recognizes that there is a plurality of religions on this earth and give the right to individuals to choose the path which they believe to be true. Religion is not to be and was never forced upon any individual against his own will and there are many examples of this in the life of the Prophet and in the verses of the Quran.
Under the present oppressive and repressive rule of UMNO, it is important to understand that Malaysians have to resist oppression and repression. It has always been the central approach of Islam to resist all forms of oppression. It is this approach that is the foundation of Islamic religious tolerance. To succeed in this struggle against oppression, mere tolerance by Muslims of other religions is not enough; Muslims must unite with people of all religions and work towards the common goal of justice, mutual respect, equal treatment and robust pluralism.
After 52 years of the myth of racial inferiority of the Malays as leverage for special privileges which in actual fact are enjoyed by a selected few, the Malays, instead of enjoying God’s gift of a life to be lived with dignity, are trapped in the bondage of a dependency on UMNO chained by subsidies, loans, scholarships and handouts. Those brave enough to dissent and dare to be independent of UMNO are punished by having these forcibly taken away. We, Malaysians of all races must standup to liberate our fellow brothers from this bondage. To do so we need to maximize the common features of our different racial descent and to use the strengths of our diversity to forge a stronger bond.
In doing so, it is imperative that we Malaysians accept that the Islamic concept of Man and the concept of Man founded on the religions and traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and the major religions practiced in this country share the basic fundamental ideas of the virtues and morality of mankind. It is time to have a Malaysian renaissance where the growth, development and flowering of our Malaysian society is to be based on the common vision of the perfection for Mankind, imbued with truth and the love of learning, justice and compensation, mutual respect and forbearance and freedom with responsibility. There is a need for the renewal of our faith and the assertion of our multiculturality as a Malaysian phenomenon not to be hidden away in shame but to be shown off to the rest of the world in pride.
It is prayed that all Malaysians and in particular our Pakatan Rakyat state executive members will heed the call for a renewal of our values and to steel ourselves with the conviction that only a Malaysian renaissance will set us free.
6 August 2009
William Leong Jee Keen
Ahli Parlimen Selayang
士拉央区国会议员梁自坚律师针对拿督斯里仄卡立所说的因成本费用高的理由拒绝雪州政府的提议，表示不满。
“首相和能源部部长不要只光喊口号，应该以实际行动来达成2009年财政预算案的主题，“关怀的政府”（Caring Government）。”
也是人民公正党总财政的他表示，国能总执行长拿督斯里仄卡立拒绝雪州政府的2项建议，并坚持在人口密度高的万绕新村兴建高压电缆，是边缘化人民利益的一种不合理的行动，这也不符合国阵政府所推行的“关怀的政府”。
“在西班牙、瑞典和其他欧美国家的政府已经禁止兴建高压电缆工程在临近的住宅区、学校、医院、托儿所和公共花园。”
他指出，欧美国家政府推行“谨慎避免”（prudent avoidance）的政策，是避免人民长期暴露在高压电缆所发出的电磁场辐射而导致患上癌症、儿童白血病、老人痴呆症和不育症。
“这些国家政府充分表现他们爱惜和关心人民的行动”
他促国能公司能够尽快行使其企业的社会责任，不要把公众的健康当着儿戏。
“我再次呼吁首相和能源、水务及通讯部部长表现国阵政府关怀人民利益的行动，把人民的健康放在首位。” （完）
The Chief Executive Officer of TNB, Datuk Seri Che Khalib Mohamad Noh is reported in the Star today that TNB rejects the options provided by the Pakatan State Government of Selangor to use the alternative route or to use underground cables and insists on going through the densely populated Kampung Sungai Terentang New Village in Rawang for the CAR Project because of the costs.
It is clear that the Pakatan State Government is not the party that is delaying the CAR Project nor the villagers. It is TNB that has rejected the options and have put profits before people. We call on the Prime Minister and the Minister of Energy Water and Communications to put into practice their slogan that the Barisan Nasional Government is a “caring government”.
In countries such as
TNB is urged to exercise their corporate social responsibility not to expose the public to the health hazard and the Prime Minister and the Minister of Energy, Water and Communications are urged to show that the Barisan Nasional Government puts the people before profits.
5 December 2008
William Leong Jee Keen
Member of Parliament Selayang
