stop using the constitution as a ‘weapon’!

i say this to PERKASA – stop using the constitution (article 153)  as….

–  defense weapon – for the existence of perkasa!

–  attack weapon – attacking non malays for questioning malay rights/social contract!!

of course they will not listen to me as i’m only a ‘tiny ant’, smaller than ‘small fry nurul’.  the perkasa boss, katak ibrahim already dismissed nurul izzah anwar off as a small fry when she wanted to debate with him on article 153 of the constitution, remember (downright coward, he is!!)…. but this is the good thing about a blog – i can shout all i want here in my own blog. i can let go my feelings.

ya, i’m very fed-up of perkasa forever saying they exist to defend article 153 of the constitution. the latest article from malaysiakini where another stupid minister defend pekasa, towards the end, he ibrahim ali had this to say:

In Kota Bharu, Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali said his NGO was not involved in politics but was only voicing out the people rights as provided for by the constitution.

“I wish to reiterate here that we are not a political party and are also not supporting any party including Umno but are championing the people’s rights under the constitution,” he told reporters after holding a briefing session for the machinery organising a people’s gathering here on Sept 25.

see? “voicing out the people rights as provided for by the constitution.”  and  “championing the people’s rights under the constitution”.  so perkasa exists for that? then he is a constitutional illiterate!  gosh! can you believe that – that even our very own PM is constitutional illiterate when he said that perkasa is merely championing the people’s rights under the constitution!

what is article 153? in case you are not sure, read about it here. prof. azmi sharom put it so eloquently when he said that article 153 had been used (and still is) as the holy grail for those who hold the view that affirmative action is unquestionable.Article 153 of the Federal Constitution is seen as the holy grail for those who hold this view. However, if we examine the provision closely we will notice two things.

Firstly, affirmative action is not a Malay right. Article 153 does not endow a right. What it does is to merely give government the power to take affirmative action despite the overarching ideal of equality which is enshrined in Article 8 of the Constitution.

To support this contention, we see that Article 8 clearly states that all citizens in this country are equal except for situations specifically provided for in the Constitution. Those “specific provisions” are found in Article 153 and there are not many of them.

They include the power to establish quotas for the civil service, permits and licences, scholarships and education.

Therefore anything other than these areas should not be subjected to affirmative action.

Furthermore, any affirmative action has to be reasonable. The idea of what is reasonable must surely be open to research and debate otherwise there will always be the risk of abuse and wastage of resources.

This being the case, although questioning the existence of such a power to have affirmative action is moot, discussion on the efficacy of affirmative action policies and programmes surely is not.

The way the discourse is today, and not merely by the racialist fringe but by mainstream politicians in power, is that even the implementation of Article 153 is not to be questioned at all.

This is surely wrong based both on the meaning of the Constitution as well as the principle held by the founding fathers that Article 153 was an unfortunate but necessary aberration from the ideals of equality and that it was to be used not in perpetuity.

(read his excellent article in full at his own blog)

if you are not convinced of his article, then let art harun convinced you via video.

these two who spoke up regarding article 153 of the constitution are not non malays but malays like all those in perkasa. why then is perkasa forever holding on to article 153 as a weapon to defend and attack?

oh of course when we mentioned perkasa, umno comes in.  let’s face it… umno support perkasa for sure and umno too had been abusing article 153. just recently DAP had called on umno to stop abusing article 153. read the article here:

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Malaysiakiani

DAP:  Umno should stop abusing article 153

Humayun Kabir
Sep 19, 10
2:47pm

DAP claims that Umno is abusing Article 153 of the federal constitution to the advantage of its party cronies, and that this constitutes an infringement of Article 8 of the constitution.

State chief Ngeh Koo Ham (left) said Article 153 specifies that the Yang Di Pertuan Agong safeguards the allocations of the Malay and the natives of Sabah and Sarawak for reasonable proportions of places in educational institutes and the civil service, for scholarships, and licensing of permits.

“However, Umno has extended this scope of special position as enshrined in the constitution to other rights including houses and shops to be sold at given discounts, and establishing the bumiputera share of corporate equity, comprising at least 30 percent of the total system,” the DAP senior lawyer said.

“This is outside the scope and contrary to what has been specified under Article 153 and is an infringement of Article 8 of the federal constitution which states that all Malaysians are equal before the law,” the Beruas MP and Sitiawan assemblyperson argued.

“However sad to say the majority of Malays and natives of Sabah and Sarawak have not benefited from this extension of the social contract,” Ngeh said.

He also advises Perkasa not to go overboard on milking this issue for political mileage.

He said Umno should wake up to reality and help the poor Malays and natives of East Malaysia to better their economic status and well being.

Constitution confusion

Ngeh was speaking at the ceramah cum dinner at Soon Lee Seafood Restaurant that DAP Aulong branch organised in Taiping on Friday night, that was attended by about 2,000 supporters.

The four-hour function themed ‘Transforming Malaysia – the Road to Putrajaya’ was attended by several DAP leaders including party secretary-general cum Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, party state secretary cum Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming and Pokok Assam assemblyperson Yee Seu Kai and Perak Pakatan rakyat chief Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin.

Yee, who is also a lawyer, in his speech challenged the BN government to point to the constitutional provision that authorises the government to appoint coordinators with allowances.

He also questioned the legality of the appointment of state advisors with executive pay, that Menteri Besar Zambri Abd Kadir implemented when he took Perak over from Pakatan in 2009.

Yee did not spare former premier Mahathir Mohammad, taking a shot at his comment on Article 14 of the constitution that offers equality of education opportunities.

According to Yee, Mahathir has finally admitted after 22 years of premiership that if education is based on meritocracy, most of the Malays would be disqualified from higher education.

The Pokok Assam assemblyperson claimed that under Article 145(3) of the federal constitution, the attorney general (AG) has absolute power to institute, conduct and discontinue proceedings for any offence.

Yee also pointed out that the AG is not answerable to Parliament unlike the United Kingdom and USA.

‘Malaysia going backwards’

He also compared Australia giving importance to equality before the law by its Premier Julia Gillard, who appointed the Kota Kinabalu-born Penny Wong to be the finance minister of Australia.

Yee said Wong (left) is only a first generation citizen of Australia whereas in Malaysia the fourth and even fifth generations are still called as `pendatang’ and `penumpang’, and suggests that Malaysia is going backwards.

He again praised Australia for its democratic process of giving the people the power to vote for their own government when Gillard became premier in June after Kevin Rudd lost the support of the Australian Labour Party and made way for her.

She then called for a federal election which saw Labour elected to a second term, although reduced to a minority government.

Yee argued that Julia could have clung to power without calling for elections but chose to give the power back to the people to decide her political future.

“Can we see such democratic process in Perak after the ‘three frogs’ jumped ship to join the BN state government?” he asked.