Monday, April 21, 2008

Constitution

Since its independence, in its 231-year history, the United States has amended its constitution 27 times.

Maybe the United States isn't such a good example. Let's take a country with similar historical and political background to Malaysia’s.

In Singapore, the constitution has been amended only 4 times, the last being in 1991.

In contrast Malaysia's constitution has been amended 42 times, consisting of not less than 650 individual amendments (as of 2005). [1]

Which really makes you wonder, how much respect do we have for our constitution?


1 ^ DR SHAD SALEEM FARUQI. Ahmad, Zainon & Phang, Llew-Ann (Oct. 1, 2005). The all-powerful executive. The Sun

Friday, April 18, 2008

Hope

Hope (noun) 1. is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life

Was watching the live coverage of Zaid Ibrahim's and Badawi's Speech at Malaysian Bar Council dinner on Bernama, and I swear there were almost tears in my eyes :)

UMNO ultras from Dr Mahathir's era might regard it as a sign of weak leadership but I believe history will vindicate Badawi as a leader who had the courage and strength to make amends for the wrongs set in motion by his predecessor some twenty years ago. As silly as this sounds, as someone who was born in 1988, the same year of the judiciary crisis which so badly tarnished the good name of our judiciary and made us the laughing stock among legal circles worldwide, I have always felt a heavy burden to help restore the judiciary to its former glory. Yesterday, I was able to see the light at the end of the very dark, very long tunnel. Of course, we should not kid ourselves, their still remains so much work to be done. Twenty years of injustice cannot be corrected with a twenty minute speech. However, Badawi's speech gave hope to this young, idealistic, aspiring law student.

This year has gotten off to a pretty bright start. It is with these recent developments, that I believe Malaysia may finally be ready to take its rightful place amongst the developed and functioning democracies of this world.

Friday, April 4, 2008

On this day...

On this day, 4th of April

  • 1968 - Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal"

-Martin Luther King, Jr. in his enduring I Have a Dream speech

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Media Coverage during elections


Source: Centre for Independent Journalism, Malaysia (http://www.cijmalaysia.org)

If you have time and are interested please read the full report at http://www.cijmalaysia.org/images/documents/report%20on%20the%20media%20monitoring%200308.pdf It is a very enlightening and interesting report.

[This cannot be verified 100% but a reliable internal source told me that the slant in the Sun's coverage was due to the unspoken threat of the ministry failing to renew The Sun's publishing license. Democracy in Malaysia?]