PAS tells Najib to go and fly kite.....

PAS has flatly rejected Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's call for the party to ditch Pakatan Rakyat and join the BN ruling coalition. Vice-president Salahuddin Ayub also called Najib's suggestion poison words and a very clear move to divide us.

It is clear that Najib is already desperate and disappointed when Muslims as well as Chinese don't support BN, as seen in the recent Sarawak election.

PAS will not take that kind of bait. It is a decoy and it is very dangerous for us to be with Umno, said Salahuddin, who is also the Kubang Kerian MP.

Najib had earlier invited PAS to join BN in efforts to champion the agenda on race, religion and the nation. National news agency Bernama today reported Najib saying that time had come for PAS to break with the DAP which the PM said had clearly not fought for the cause of Islam.

However, Salahuddin says that PAS remains firmly with Pakatan Rakyat, along with DAP and PKR. Stressing that both the party grassroots as well as the top leadership share his views, he said PAS was not entertaining any such invitation.

For sure (our members) share our struggles. We didn't fight for half a decade not knowing how Umno works.

The fact that PAS remains with Pakatan is accepted by all levels in PAS and we have always brought this up in our muktamar (annual general meeting) to strengthen our role in Pakatan, he told Malaysiakini.

Islam's position secure in cons! titution

Rubbishing Najib's statements that DAP would not champion the cause of Islam, Salahuddin said that the position of Islam as the official religion of the country is already guaranteed in the federal constitution.

Even if Pakatan takes over Putrajaya, we won't change a thing. We have already affirmed in our Pakatan convention that we will uphold the position of the Malay rulers who are the head of the Islamic religion in all states.

It has nothing to do with DAP and we won't change a thing when we are in power. It is naive of Najib to say that DAP will be an obstacle to Islam.
So we want to thank Najib for his offer, but we'll stick with Pakatan, said Salahuddin.

Meanwhile, former Perak MB Mohamad Nizar Jamaluddin tweeted, PAS has no business with BN except to oust them out of Putrajaya! Najib is now completely desperate after allowing 'XXX' VCDs to flood BN media.

PAS vice president Mahfuz Omar on the other hand went further, calling for BN to sack Umno instead.

"Umno is desperate. Invite PAS to join BN only when other component parties in BN are not supporting Umno. It is time for BN to sack Umno out from the coalition," the Pokok Sena MP said in a tweet.

The issue of PAS working with the ruling coalition has been around since the 2008 general elections when Umno floated the idea of a 'unity government' between them and PAS. PAS was deeply divided over the sentiment back in 2009 with many of its leaders in the conservative faction - notably president Abdul Hadi Awang and deputy president Nasharudin Mat Isa - flirting with the idea.

On the other hand, spiritual adviser Nik Aziz Nik Mat, backed by an army of a more moderate faction calling themselves the Erdogan faction after the moderate Turkish Prime Minister, had slammed the door shut on the idea.

source:malaysiakini

PAS tolak pelawaan Najib, dakwa Umno-BN terdesak

Nik Aziz: Gesaan Umno minta PAS keluar Pakatan isu lama

PAS nak join UMNO boleh,tapi syaratnya...jawatan PM dan TPM mestilah orang PAS.....

cheers.

If Allah Is A God in Islam, Can Christians Call Their God Allah?

30 April, 2011

By NH Chan

If Allah is the Islamic God then, since Christians are not Muslims, could or should Christians call their God Allah?

Source - http://bit.ly/k1RvDM

The nomenclature of God

IF YOU LOOK UP THE WORD "ALLAH" IN ANY ENGLISH DICTIONARY , you will find this definition:

Allah noun the name of God among Muslims; or Allah n. the principle Muslim name for God.

In fact all English dictionaries are definite about the meaning of the word Allah; it is the name of God in Islam. Surprisingly the dictionary does not say that it is an Arabic word. Actually it is not strange at all. As I have already explained before, this Arabic word has become an English word since the sixteenth century when it was spelt using the English alphabet to represent the speech sounds of the Arabic word. It is only an Arabic word if it is written in the original Arabic text as distinct from the phonetic spelling in English.

If Allah is the Islamic God then, since Christians are not Muslims, could or should Christians call their God Allah?

The answer will depend on whether, as a fact, Allah in Arabic was first coined by the founder of Islam or that this Arabic word Allah had predated Islam and had been in existence as a name for "The God" ? "The" meaning "the only one of its kind", as in "the only God" - long before Prophet Mohammeds Call, ! the lege ndary revelation of Allah in 611 AD. As a matter of fact, even before there was Jesus Christ, "Allah" meaning "the only God" was already a word in Arabic a Semitic language spoken by the ancient Arabs who belonged to the ethnic group of peoples known as the Semites.

Historically, therefore, the Arabic word Allah was not coined by Islams founder at all. According to the Bible, God made Abraham, his two sons Ishmael and Isaac and their descendants His people. Since then monotheism - a religious belief that there is only one God - was founded. The descendants of Abraham from the line of Ishmael (the Arabs) and Isaac (the Jews) worshipped the only God named Allah in Arabic and Eloah in Hebrew. In Arabic, Allah was derived from Al - Ilah meaning Al (The) + Ilah (God). In Hebrew God was Eloah with a capital E.

Muslims worship the same God that Abraham, his two sons and their descendants had first worshipped more than 2000 years before Islam was founded and more than 1500 years before Jesus Christ was born.

Before Abraham there was god and there were gods without a capital G. For example: "elohim" means "gods" in Hebrew and "ilah" means "god" in Arabic. Since Abraham, after God made him and his two sons and their descendants His people, God is called Allah in Arabic and Eloah in Hebrew and they mean "The only God".

So that the Arabs and the Jews, and after the founding of Christianity and Islam, Christians and Muslims throughout the world worship the same God that Abraham, his two sons and their descendants first worshipped in biblical times thousands of years before there were Christians and Muslims.

Allah was the Arabic name for the only God long before Islam was founded. Abraham worshipped the only God whose name even then was Allah in Arabic and Eloah in Hebrew. Before Abraham there were also those who worshipped the only God. In biblical times English was not then spoken yet, so the Deity was not called God in English. But Arabic was already a spoken langua! ge in an cient times and Allah in Arabic was worshipped by those who believed in the only God even then.

But even in ancient times there were those who worshipped other god or gods and the true God was displeased with them (see the Quran) and they were punished. The Quran acknowledged and confirmed the biblical story of Noah (Nur), Surah 71, Abraham (Ibrahim), Surah 14 where Moses was also referred to. The Quran has also confirmed that even in the days of Noah, Abraham and Moses, Allah meaning the only God had been worshipped thousands of years before Islam was founded. That being the case, it has been established beyond peradventure that there were believers who had been worshipping Allah the only God so many thousands of years before Islam was founded in 611 AD.

Therefore, it is dishonest for those narrow-minded politicians and clerics to claim that only Muslims can use the word Allah when before Islam was founded others had been worshipping Allah, meaning the only God, for thousands of years by the Arabs and the Jews. In biblical times Allah was not worshipped by Muslims because Islam had not been founded yet.

That being so, I have often wondered why some people in our government today are so obsessed with the view that only Muslims can use the word Allah. Why should human beings prevent others from worshipping God according to their faiths by decreeing that those who worship the God of Abraham, as Christians do, are not allowed to call their God Allah? God never said His name Allah is for Malay Muslims only! God is never a racist. Only the misinformed are the racists. However, Muslims elsewhere do not mind Christians calling their God by the name Allah because God can be addressed in any language. For example, why should anyone be upset if a Chinese Christian addressed the only God as their God or Allah without using any Chinese word? For that matter, should a sensible Arab Muslim or Christian be upset when an Indian Christian addressed his only God in English or in Arabic, by calling Him Go! d or All ah instead of using Hindi or Tamil?

The etymology of the Arabic and Hebrew languages for God

The Semites or Shemites are an ethnic group of peoples who speak a Semitic language, including the Jews and Arabs as well as the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians and Phoenicians. Of these peoples who came from the same national or cultural background only the Arabs and the Jews still exist today.

Of the Semitic or Shemitic languages that include Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, and such ancient languages as Arkadian and Phoenician, only Arabic and Hebrew are still spoken.

In the Semitic languages, God is Allah in Arabic, Eloah in Hebrew and Elah in Aramaic - these words, signifying God, are being pronounced according to their phonetic spelling in English as most, if not all, of us do not speak or write any of the aforesaid Semitic languages. Why do the mentioned languages sound so much alike? They sound similar because the Arabs and the Jews belong to the same ethnic group of peoples called Semites who shared and speak the same genus of Semitic languages. By the same token the Chinese people even though they speak different dialects like Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, etc their language is written in Chinese characters which an educated Chinese can read irrespective of his spoken dialect. Similarly a scholar of any of the ancient Semitic language could decipher and read another language of the same Semitic genus.

To find out when Allah became the name of God to his people, we have to go back in time to ancient biblical history. We start with Shem who was the eldest of Noahs three sons: see Genesis 10:21 in the Old Testament. The descendants of Shem were the Shemites or Semites, hence the name of this ethnic group of peoples. The ancient Babylonians, Assyrians and Phoenicians, including the Jews and Arabs were regarded as descendants of Shem: see The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology.

The phases of God: from making! Abraham and his descendants His people to being worshipped throughout the world from the teachings of Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed

According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Abraham was the first of the patriarchs and the founder of the Hebrew people (Genesis 11 - 25). Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar who was Sarahs maidservant, was the ancestor of 12 Arabian tribes (Genesis 21: 8 - 21; 25: 12 - 18). Isaac was the younger son of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 17: 21 - 27).

In How to Judge the Judges I wrote, pages xxix, xxx:

Abraham was the founder of the Hebrew people. According to the Old Testament, Abram (later Abraham) at Gods call abandoned civilization, his fathers household and his people to wander in the desert as a nomad. His wife Sarai (later Sarah) had borne him no children. So Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. Hagar soon conceived with Abrams child. But Sarai mistreated Hagar and heavy with child she ran away. According to the Old Testament, the angel of God found Hagar and told her to return to Abram and added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." God also told Hagar that she shall name her son Ishmael for God has heard of her misery at the hands of Sarai. Ishmael means God hears. So Hagar bore Abram a son and he gave him the name of Ishmael. According to the Old Testament, Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. When Abram was 99 years old, God said to Abram that no longer will he be called Abram (it means exalted father); your name will be Abraham (it means father of many) for you will be the father of many nations - he will be fruitful and kings will come from him. In return, Abraham and his descendants will worship the God of Abraham who will be the God of his descendants for generations to come and the Covenant (agreement) they are to keep were; Every male among him shall be circumcised. For th! e genera tions to come every male who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in the household or bought with money from a foreigner - those who are not their offspring. Those who are not circumcised will be cut off from his people. As for Sarai, her name will be Sarah and she will be blessed and she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her. A son will be born of her. His name will be called Isaac. Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!"

As for Ishmael, God said he had heard Abraham: "I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation."

And so on that very day, so the story goes in the Old Testament, Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household, and circumcised them. Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised, and his son Ishmael was 13. And every male in Abrahams household, including those born in his household or bought from a foreigner, was circumcised with him. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born to him by Sarah, and he was circumcised.

And at page xxxi:

So now we know that the Arabs and the Jews were descended from Ishmael and Isaac whose father was Abraham (Ibrahim); and the God of them is the same God. And God has marked them as His people by circumcision.

Those events took place some two millennia before Jesus Christ was born, and before Prophet Mohammed founded Islam some 600 years after the birth of Jesus Christ.

After Abraham, with the advent of Christianity and Islam the worship of the only God extended to worshipping Him throughout the world. Monotheism, the religion of worshipping only One God, has become a world religion.

I ask, because I am unable to understand, why our government is trying so hard to separate the inseparable, that is, the people who believe! in wors hipping the same God to demean another of the same faith by decreeing that Christians are not allowed to call their God Allah and desecrating their Bible just because Christians call Allah their God. But the Quran had accepted Jesus Christ as being sent by God (Allah) to deliver the teachings of Allah (God).

NH Chan, a much respected former Court of Appeal Judge, is a gavel of justice that has no hesitation in pounding on Federal Court judges with wooden desks for heads. Retired from the Judiciary to become the Peoples Judge. Wrote the explosive "Judging The Judges", now in its 2nd edition as "How To Judge The Judges". Once famously hinted at a possible "case match" between lawyer and judge by remarking that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (see Ayer Molek Rubber Company Berhad & Ors v Insas Berhad & Anor [1995] 3 CLJ 359). We need more people like NH Chan. That is why you should buy PASOC and his book.

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This entry was posted on 30 April, 2011 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Pray For Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

2 Responses to If Allah Is A God in Islam, C! an Chris tians Call Their God Allah?

Justin Wong on 30 April, 2011 at 2:37 pm

So Das Ne! I was blind but now I see. Thank you for this Sir!

Antares on 30 April, 2011 at 3:28 pm

Always invigorating to stumble upon a passionate scholar with robust communication skills! But, my dear NH, you know and I know the real reason why UMNO has been stirring up this red herring issue whether non-Muslims can use the name Allah in Malay translations of their scriptures. UMNOs power base is the rural Malay voter largely monolingual, monocultural, living for generations beneath a coconut shell of hand-me-down ethnic identity, inherited belief system, and yet some distance to journey before they attain self-confidence in the larger geopolitical context of digital cosmopolitanism.

Unless UMNO manages to keep its voter base in a state of ego insecurity, aggressive passivity and perpetual hostility towards all things labeled alien foreign un-Malay the new generation is more than likely to break free of the Malays long-entrenched feudal mindset and reject petty-minded parochialism for a far more pluralistic secularism. That would spell the end, not only of UMNO as a political party but also the morally degraded monarchy that saddled itself leech-like upon the Malay psyche from the early 15th century ! onwards.

Anwar - Umno men drunkards, philanderers and womanisers....

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim lashed out last night by calling Umno leaders alcoholics and philanderers, hours after Datuk Shazryl Eskay Abdullah took an oath against the opposition leader.

Shazryl performed the sumpah laknat oath yesterday by swearing in Gods name that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is the man featured in a sex video recently shown to journalists. The unedited sex video was also uploaded last Thursday to video sharing website YouTube.

When I came in, I could see that you were looking at my face and my stomach, Anwar joked when addressing to a huge crowd in Ampang here. There, he continued to attack Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, blaming the two as the masterminds behind Barisan Nasionals (BN) dirty politics of pornography.

Najib and Rosmah are practising filth politics and pornography. Where in the history of the countries, including the Malay and Muslim world, where leaders are willing go to an extent most despicable and obscene for the sole reason of retaining power, he said.

Anwar said Umno was willing to use dirty tactics to divert attention from real issues such as the economy and public welfare.

What they want to focus on is the sex video and [sodomy accuser Mohd] Saiful [Bukhari Azlans anus]. Why type of politics is this?

Why do they want to attack Pakatan Rakyat till the end? Because they cannot fight back the issues that we bring forth to the people, he said.

Anwar said he had been the acting prime minister and deputy president of Umno, and was well aware of the reputation of Umno leaders.

They want to talk about Islam but there are not certain yet of performing their prayers. A! sk them to stop drinking (alcohol) first.

They want people to take oath but tell them to not rape anymore, he said, insinuating at former Malacca chief minister Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Tamby Chiks previous run-in with the authorities.

In 1994, Abdul Rahim was charged with statutory rape involving a minor. Although the charge was later dropped by authorities, who cited insufficient evidence, the scandal had cost Abdul Rahim his political career. Rahim together with Shazryl and Perkasa treasurer-general Datuk Shuib Lazim form Datuk T, the nickname the trio behind the latest sex scandal have adopted.

Anwar also criticised Umno-owned newspaper Utusan Malaysia and television station TV3 for exploiting the sex video.

I am also a human being. I have emotions and dignity. I have my wife, children and grandchildren. If we want to talk about the past then please settle the murder case (Altantuya Shaariibuu). Settle the case of stealing another persons wife, he said. The marriage to Rosmah is Najibs second.

During a March 24 press conference, three days after revealing the video, Rahim said it was exposed to show a man who wants to be prime minister is not qualified.

On April 18, Shazryl said he would take sole responsibility for the sex video screening when responding to a statement made by

Federal CID deputy chief Datuk Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani that police had concluded their investigation into the sex video. The police are investigating the trio under section 292 of the Penal Code for screening pornographic material.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar said on Tuesday the probe was still ongoing but was confident the police would resub! mit inve stigation papers to the Attorney-General by this week. The A-G had earlier returned the papers to the police.

Anwar has accused Najib of using the ongoing sex video saga as his main weapon to keep BN in government.

source:malaysian insider

cheers.

Remembering the Land of the Hornbill (Stories from the East)

30 April, 2011 By Charissa Kam

Source - http://bit.ly/k1jx00

I HAVE LIVED AWAY FROM SARAWAK FOR CLOSE TO TWENTY ONE YEARS, with too few visits after I left. I often struggle to answer, when asked, where home is. I usually cover that by a simple wherever I am at a point in time.

Delving into my memories of growing up in Sibu and holiday visits to Kuching (where I was born) is akin to retrieving the last bits of Nutella from the bottom of a nigh empty jar. No mean feat but you still get the beautiful whiff of Nutella-ness which meets you as you keep dredging.

I used to be able to understand the fuzhou dialect adequately and speak it to get by. My piano teacher was the lone champion in helping me to remember it, resolutely conversing with me in fuzhou over the years. A difficult Chinese dialect. How many intonations does it have again?

Kampua noodles | source - http://bit.ly/lulh1j

Kampua mee. Indigenous to Sibu. Noodles in its simplest form, relies on its unseen flavours rather than garnish or presentation. I liked it with soy-sauce and chillies.

Kolo noodles | source - http://bit.ly/iQIYVqKolo mee. A version different from Kampua mee and I believe originates from Kuching. Fragrant, tasty and similar to Kampua mee, it has minimal garnish (usually very light on the serves of cha shao (or char siew)).

Kompia | credit - Happy Wong

Kompia. Years later, as my palate saw more of the world, I likened it to mini bagels.! Some li ke it with pork and sauce. I used to like it simply toasted, drizzled with some meat sauce. Crunchy on the surface and soft on the inside, with the lovely flavours of toasted sesame. Story has it that the kompia was introduced as an easy and effective way for soldiers to carry their ration by stringing the kompia together, through the pin-hole in the middle, and slinging them over their shoulder.

Sarawak laksa | source - http://bit.ly/j7Pye8

Sarawak laksa. Fragrant broth made out of spices, eaten with vermicelli or noodles, topped with prawns and eggs and of course, delicious sambal. It is lighter than its cousins in the Peninsular such as the kari mee or nyonya laksa. I am accustomed to eating Sarawak laksa garnished with a special type of local coriander. As children, we termed the coriander as "vegetables for the old" as we reckoned that it was an acquired taste, acquired only after one has attained certain maturity.

Freshly picked Sarawak pepper | source - http://bit.ly/lBbgM6

Sarawak pepper. Whenever I see bottled black pepper with sophisticated grinders attached in supermarkets, I would quickly assume the pepper would not match in flavours nor aroma with that from Sarawak. It is after all the land of pepper. Premium grade pepper.

Hornbills. Show me a bird more exotic than the hornbill. Dont they look almost unreal as though some artists have stealthily left their creative mark on the unsuspecting bird? Even the eyes look like those plastic ones with a black moving button found in some stuffed toys. But its real. It flies, it moves, it cocks its head. Such is beauty.

S kulls in a longhouse | source - http://bit.ly/lCrjmO

I remember human skulls gathered in nets hung from the beams of the rumah panjang in rural Sarawak. As the new girl in school after my family moved to Kuala Lumpur, I was asked if we lived in trees. I said yes and that we swung from tree to tree to get around. And that headhunters abound, shrinking heads collected as war trophies, into the size of apples!

Ah, the days of playing on the streets with my friends from neighbouring houses. Putting grasshoppers with some grass, in empty Kjeldsens butter cookie tins.

Neighbours who ran what was almost a poultry farm in their backyard. I suppose health inspectors and council regulations were different back then. If you were lucky, the neighbours may give you a chicken or a duck.

We did not really need the weatherman then. A particular neighbour used to holler that "rain is a-coming!" A timely communal warning for laundry to be collected before the downpour did too much damage.

It is not easy to recall vividly that connection with a place. There are however certain things about a place that remains with you.

Missing home | Source - http://bit.ly/kao9p0

You knowyou can take the girl out of Sarawak routinebut you cant take Sarawak out of her.

The sights, sounds, scents and tastes of my childhood seem a very distant memory. I have strived to fit in wherever I moved to over the years and seldom had much opportunity to savour these memories. When I do, they are like the happy cacaphony of firecrackers and lion dances during Chinese New Year, the surprising strength and warmth of tuak sipped during Gawai, the beautiful aroma of masak merah which meets you during Raya visits and the delectable crunch of muruku at Deepavali.

I plead guilty to not registering in time to vote this election but I keep my fin! gers cro ssed that justice will prevail for the people of Sarawak. Timely reminder for me to start giving back to the birthplace, which is part of who I am today.

I am Sarawakian. And proud of it.

Charissa Kam may struggle with where home really is but knows that Sarawak is in her no matter where she goes. Some of her thoughts are shared at www.traveldragonfly.wordpress.com

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Tags: childhood, Chinese New Year, Foochow, fuzhou, Gawai, Home, Hornbill, kampua, kolo, kompia, Kuala Lumpur, laksa, masak merah, memories, muruku, Raya, Sarawak, Sarawakian, Sibu, Stories from the East, tuak

This entry was posted on 30 April, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Thank God It's Friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Singapores rulers fighting like never before

By Maxwell Coopers

It was something that one could hardly have imagined.

For the first time, Singapores ruling Peoples Action Party (PAP) is seeing the fight of its life in the ongoing general election. At least that is what the general ground consensus appears to be or if the size of the people attending rallies held by political opposition parties, is a gauge by any means.

According to Yahoo news, some 15,000 people attended the rally held on April 28 by the opposition Workers Party (WP), the party bequeathed by its former secretary-general JB Jeyaretnam to the current sitting secretary-general, Low Thiang Kiang.

Another 5,000 attended a similar rally held by Kenneth Andrew Jeyaretnam, who is now helming the Reform Party, the political party the elder Jeyaretnam founded shortly before he died in 2008.

There is hardly any doubt in the minds of the Singapore electorate as to why the number of people, once dubbed as famously apolitical, should suddenly be expressing an interest in politics, much less opposition-inspired political activities.

Statecraft has never been a topical issue in the grapevine of a nation known more for its economic prowess and impressive living standards.

But then material wealth is fragile. The nations former chief minister and one-time ebullient criminal lawyer David Marshall once famously spoke of giving a human face to his country when giving an interview in 1984 to Asia magazine.

How prescient are the words of a popular and flamboyant leader some 27 years later!

Yet after a generation the real issue or the real challenge a nation as wealthy as Singapore now faces is mostly that giving Singapore a human face. The other is the astronomical costs of public housing.

The government agonised about r! aising t he wages of our daily rated workers by a single dollar, said former political detainee Teo Soh Lung two days ago when giving a vivid sketch of the ever widening income gap and a growing class of haves and have-nots.

Cosmopolitan society

For all of its outward appearances, Singapore is indeed a modern, cosmopolitan society replete with untold physical and material riches. The rising cost of living much a bugaboo and sometimes a deeply, personal and emotive consideration has been singled out as the main issue.

So deeply incensed is the electorate over the rising costs that even one of former prime minister Gohs Chok Tong most senior aide, Tan Jee Say, was compelled to ditch his former boss and trade his political jersey. Tan is now with the opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), the party the PAP continually hounded and persecuted with defamation suits.

SDPs website is filled with vignettes of Singapores struggling poor wallowing in pain, misery, and desperation. They have little or no hope against the dictates of an impassive government nursing little or no sympathy for their sorry plight.

The nations Gross Domestic Product (GDP) crosses the US$300-billion mark and the city-state is also reputed to have something like another US$300 in reserves, be it in monetary, foreign exchange or accrued savings from the Central Provident Fund (CPF), a mandatory nest egg savings scheme the government engineers.

Yet the issues cannot be any more trenchant than they are now.

Though not a single one of the political parties has called for an Idi Amin-style (Idi Amin was the former Ugandan dictator known for his diabolic and sadistic forms of governance) expulsion of foreigners, the ground they are treading is indeed one that is very delicate.

The large foreign community numbering 1.5 million out of five million in the republic has widely been blamed for snatching jobs away from Singaporeans, raising the price of public housing transport and giving what can be called! undesir able competition in schools.

There is a growing feeling that Singaporeans may wind up becoming second-class citizens in their very own country!

Come May 7, when the nation heads to the most keenly contested polls since independence from Malaysia in 1965, the pulse of the nation will be known.

Maxwell Coopers is a free-lance writer based in Singapore.

What offence has Anwar committed? Why is he being hounded...

The scandalous porno tape, used in desperation to implicate Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim allegedly engaging in sex with a prostitute in order to turn the tide in favour of the Barisan Nasional during the Sarawak election, refuses to fade away even after the Sarawak election.

It was a widely publicised news item and according to some reports the tape was even distributed in the longhouses in Sarawak to disparage and demean Anwar and present the opposition in poor light to gain political mileage for BN.

The police declared that the tape was genuine. The people were made to feel that very soon the sordid episode would be unravelled and the person in the tape exposed. The various statements in the public domain created the perception that it was Anwar in the porno tape. The police conveyed the impression that it was a matter of time before Anwar was exposed as the owner of the Omega watch stolen by the prostitute. The Omega watch seemed to be the most important missing link to establish Anwars identity.

But to their utter disappointment there was no record of the purchaser in Taiwan, where the watch was apparently bought. The missing link went missing and they were no nearer the truth. Now they say they will not hesitate to expose to the public if necessary the performer in the sex video who allegedly resembled opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. In other words, what they are saying is tantamount to the fact that they have identified the performer but they are not inclined to expose the performer unless it was necessary to do so.

The Malaysian public is rightly confused. What is meant by unless it was necessary? Why then did they go to suc! h great length to find out the owner of the Omega watch? You took the trouble to trace the watch all the way to Taiwan. What was the purpose? Wasnt it to link the performer to the watch so that you can definitely identify the performer and expose him?

If it wasnt necessary to identify the performer why is Anwar being harassed? He was called to give his statement a second time yesterday (28 April 2011). Unless you have irrefutable evidence that the character in the video is indeed Anwar, there was no necessity to ask him to report to Dang Wangi district police headquarters. Is it because they want to keep this shameful episode alive?

It is as though there is no other worthwhile issue in this country for the media to comment on and for our political leaders to discuss. Have we become so depraved that sex scandals have to hog the limelight and take up so much of the nations time and attention?

Malaysians have a right to be sceptical about the whole sordid affair. It is evident that there is a concerted effort to finish off Anwar in the interest of the Barisan Nasional. He is the only person standing in their way who can prevent the BNs continued reign in Putrajaya. That being the case, would it not be logical to expose Anwar right now?

But why arent they doing it? Is it because the performer in the video is a pretender?! If it was Anwar, they would have gone to town with this information during the Sarawak election to disparage and destroy the opposition with one stroke. The print and electronic media and the blogs and websites would be gleefully swarmed with this news for days on end. But that is not happening!

But they a re dragging their feet in this affair for far too long even though there doesnt seem to be much hope of unearthing the truth. Why are they spending so much time with regard to Anwar when there is a simple, straightforward issue at their doorstep crying for a remedy?

The terrible Datuk Trio who were in possession of a pornography video should have been charged by now. The terrible Datuk Trio should be facing the music for screening a pornographic show to the public. With so much irrefutable evidence against the trio staring at and challenging the police, why is there so much foot-dragging? Why is there a reluctance to take action to punish those who screened a pornographic video? What is holding up the police and the Attorney-General?

Karpal Singh had rightly pointed out that prostitution is not an offence but using the premises for prostitution or living off the earnings of a prostitute is an offence. According to Karpal, Whomsoever solicits or importunes for the purpose of prostitution or any immoral purpose in any place shall be punished with imprisonment If that is the law, where does Anwar fit into this? What offence is he guilty of?

A report has it that the police have located the place where the sex act took place and identified the prostitute. Why havent they taken action against the owner of the premises for allowing his place to be used for immoral purpose? Why havent they taken action against the person who procured the services of the prostitute? The villains plotting to crucify Anwar have been identified; their involvement in this sordid affair has been established. Why are we not moving in on them? - P Ramakrishnan is president of Aliran

Here'! s what d ingy got to say....

The white strip in Thai with Bangkok address is to show that Eskay had lied. Somebody in Thailand had uploaded in the YouTube to tell the Malaysian public that the sex act was done in Thailand with Eskay, who looks like Anwar, as the actor.

It was done to frame Anwar. The director, the 2nd man, directed the act. The tape given to the police is not the only copy. Somebody had already made copies before Eskay gave the tape to the police.

The first and yesterday's upload was done in Thailand while the 2nd was done by somebody who had the copy in Malaysia. The police, in the eye of the public and the world, made themselves look stupid.

cheers.