RPK: ‘May 13’ version 2: Malaysia is about to erupt

Article by Raja Petra Kamarudin - http://www.malaysia-today.net/may-13-version-2-malaysia-is-about-to-erupt/

I have been monitoring the comments and postings in Facebook and Twitter and I can see that the racial and religious divide has gone beyond the point of no return. Malaysia is now poised to explode into ‘May 13’ version 2.

Malaysians no longer care what they say and whether what they say offends others or hurts the feelings of others. Chinese and Indians, and some Malays as well, no longer want to show respect to their own country by calling it Malaysia. They would rather mockingly call it ‘Bolehland’.

I wonder how the French would feel if you call France ‘Frogland’ or how the Singaporeans would feel if you call their island-state ‘Kiasuland’? You would probably get punched in the face, as I feel like doing to those who show disrespect to their own country by calling Malaysia ‘Bolehland’.

Europeans (or even the other South East Asian nationals) may be angry with their government or with their politicians. But they are loyal citizens of their own country and are proud of their country and their flag. Malaysians, in particular the Chinese and Indians, do not appear to have this kind of decency.

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This is the most hypocritical article I've come across in recent times. Did the "Chinese, Indians, and some Malays" hold a brainstorm session to coin the word "Bolehland" specifically to mock Malaysia? And coincidently, there also happens to be many "loyal" Malaysians who are currently residing in those examplary western countries. It's true that there are Chinese and Indians who run down their own country. The question is, aside from bad manners, why do they do it? Why do they behave like that? Why are they so full of hate?

Decency is taking responsibility. Decency is not using others for your agendas. Decency is not making Statutory Declarations based on heresay. Decency is to uphold the truth. Yes, the ego is indeed a very difficult animal to tame.

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Malays will say ‘marah nyamuk, bakar kelambu’, or cut the nose to spite the face. You may hate Umno, or Barisan Nasional, but you lash out at Malaysia, the Malays, the Muslims, and Islam to vent your anger and frustration. Is it right for those who do not support DAP to lash out at the entire Chinese race? Then why is it right for those who are angry with Umno to lash out and mock their own country, the Malays, the Muslims, and Islam?

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Who taught and told the youths and also the not so young to hate? Your lot plus the politicians radicalised the Chinese, told them to hate UMNO (which is a Malay party), goaded them to overthrow the government (which is Malay-led), deceived them to vote for an Islamic party, and now you suddenly wonder why they behave like this? That they have themselves to blame? Well, what have your lot done to mend fences? Do you even have the ability to mend the things you broke? 

People like you who fight in the political ring come prepared to pay the price. The common people, on the other hand, have to pay a much higher price but don't even know what hit them!

It could almost be comical if only it was not so hypocritical.

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The way some of you talk is as if Malaysia is another country and not your country. You mock Malaysia and lash out at Malaysia just like China looks at Japan or North Korea looks at South Korea.

Are you saying that Malaysia is Malay-Islam and since you are not Malay-Islam then Malaysia is your enemy? Many of you despise the Malays, the Muslims and Islam. That, by now, is very clear from your comments and postings in the social media.

Most Malays are very aware that the non-Malays hate them and their religion. This message is very clear and there is no confusion about what that message means. However, as much as the non-Malays may hate the Malays, Muslims and Islam, we would at least expect the non-Malays to love their country and not show so much hatred for their own country.

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Coincidentally, these are exactly the same thoughts the Chinese have when they come across those numerous Malay blogs and comments filled with hate speech towards the Chinese.

Reality check. Most non-Malays and Malays are very aware that they are not particularly fond of each other. When has the races ever been particularly fond of each other? Was it during the time of the baby boomers generation which RPK happens to belong to? Was it then that the races were so loving towards each other that May 13 happened?

But still, we managed to live peacefully, minding our own business, until some "stirrers", like your kind, decided to have some fun. And as proven through history, things always goes too far. And when it does, then the same "stirrers" would conveniently turn around and tell those whom they've radicalised to take responsibility.

Your ilk and politicians have done more damage to the country than all people from all the races combined. Honestly, which race hates UMNO more? The Chinese, Indians or Malays? Has anyone listened to the speeches made by PAS and PKR leaders through the years?

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I think it is time that the non-Malays and non-Muslims ponder as to who the real enemy is. Christians scream about how Jesus taught us to hate the sin but love the sinner. Christianity is about love, so say the Christians. But we can see through this Christian bullshit when they not only despise the sinner but they also despise those who never did anything to them.

Did 18 million Malays sin against you? Even if three million Malays did sin against you (taking the Umno membership into consideration) why do you despise the other 15 million Malays who did you no wrong? And you tell me this is what Christ taught you, to love?

Where is the love? You only show hatred. And you show hatred for the country you were born in just because you hate a certain political party.

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Well, who exactly is the "real enemy" of the non-Malays and non-Muslims that RPK speaks of? Why on earth would you want the nons to have enemies? You want them to share common enemies as yours? And that would make it ok in your books?

Only when you decide to have a fight or conflict, you will naturally, require an enemy and sometimes in the absence of a real one, you will create one. Unlike the easy task of starting fires, RPK and his ilk have no power to put out fires. All we have to do, especially the non-Malays and non-Muslims, is to identify those who are lighting and fanning those fires, and we will find crawling in both the political divide.

The truth is the non-Malays & non-Muslims were driven to hysterical proportions, to change the current government led by Malays, to a new one led by another group of Malays! And when it failed they were the ones getting the heat. Is it any surprise that some of them might just feel a little bit fed-up after getting it non-stop, even after more than a year after the last election? The Chinese are practically being told to pack their bags and you want to lecture them about loyalty? Come on.

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Serious damage has been done to race relations in Malaysia. And the problem with this is the damage is so severe and so far gone that reconciliation is almost impossible. So where do we go from here? Are we going to settle our differences on the streets? The way we are going it looks like there is no other way to settle our differences.

We can no longer detect who is the victim and who is the aggressor. Both sides are equally aggressive and are spoiling for a fight. At the end of the day the winner will be the one with the most number of guns. And in such a situation there will be victims from both sides.

Be careful with what you wish for because you might not like what you receive. And don’t pretend you are the victim when you are equally guilty of provoking race and religious tension.

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Let's dispense with the pretensions.

It is a certainty that the Chinese and non-Muslims will be the victims. The Chinese seem to get dragged into issues they have no business in. The kalimah Allah issue, and lately, the hudud issue.

Speaking of going to the streets, who are the ones most fond of taking to the streets? How did the Chinese and Indians end up as participants in those huge street demonstrations in great numbers? Again, who are those responsible for the damage done? The common people? or the leaders and organisers?

That's the problem. Those who start the fires are nowhere to be found when things go wrong. It's usually the people who will be blamed and suffer the consequences. Always.

In short, minus the hypocritical accusations, RPK is saying that he only told you to hate UMNO and  didn't specifically tell you to hate Malays & Muslims. So it's not his fault. On top of that, we will never know exactly who started it, but ultimately, if the Chinese and Christians don't shut up and back down, they are asking for it. And then, he will pen one of his "I told you so" article, just to gloat.

Actually, the Chinese really do need to calm down and return to the middle path. The Christians, especially the evangelical leaders, also need to mindful of the well-being of their flock and the country. Sometimes, winning is actually losing. 

RPK: Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink

I think it is timely that RPK has decided to write about the water mismanagement in Selangor & Kuala Lumpur. He has done a great service to the people of Malaysia.

The main point which I would like to highlight is that everybody, Federal Government, State Government, BN, Pakatan Rakyat, and the relevant Governement Department & Ministries, are all aware of this problem. They've know about this 30 years ago.

1. Non-revenue water is high, averaging at 47% nationwide.
2. Privatised water management companies such as Syabas only process the water to be sold to consumers.
3. The State or Federal Government is responsible for the pipes. So, non-revenue water is the government's problem.
4. The water we are supplied with is actually toxic.
5. Building more dams & treatment plants will not solve the problem because the main problem is the toxic & leaking pipes. It will only benefit the water consessionaires, aka water corporations.

So, all of these people mentioned above should stop playing games and feigning ignorance.

As Malaysians, will these people who are given the power and responsibility to manage the country's resources do what is right?

Collectively, they have failed in their duties. They have put their own interests above the nation's.

If this is not treason, I don't know what is.

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Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink

Do you really need to be a water engineer to know that you have no water when you open your tap and nothing comes out of it? Do you really need to be a water engineer to know that your water is dirty when the water that comes out of your tap is brown in colour?

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

About 30 years ago, I attended a meeting at the Bankers Club Kuala Lumpur as a guest of the then Deputy Director General of the Public Works Department to listen to a talk on water. What I learned was quiet interesting.

More than 70% of the earth is covered with water but about 97% is seawater. Out of about 3% fresh water only about 1% is potable. Hence we actually have very little water to drink unless we want to melt the glaziers, condense the water vapour in the air, drain the lakes and rivers, and whatnot.
In Malaysia, all our rivers are polluted and we need to treat the water with a high dosage of chemicals to make it safe to drink. The chemicals we use in our water far exceed the recommended (or safe) dosage of the United Nations World Health Organisation by more than ten times.

In other words, we are poisoning our drinking water. Even then we are advised to boil this water before drinking it to kill the bacteria in the water. And because we are drinking chemical-laced water the incidence of cancer is very high.

This is what the Finnish Study Links Chlorinated Water to Cancer reported. “Statistically significant exposure-response association was observed between exposure to chlorinated water and incidence of bladder, kidney and stomach cancers. In an ordinary municipality using chlorinated surface water, this exposure would indicate a relative risk of 1.2 for bladder cancer and 1.2 to 1.4 for kidney cancer compared with municipalities where non-mutagenic drinking water was consumed.”
About a year or two after that talk at the Bankers Club Kuala Lumpur, I presented a paper to the Public Works Department at the request of the Works Minister, Samy Vellu. This paper was actually the same one that I presented to the Finance Minister, Daim Zainuddin, who referred this matter to the Works Minister. Daim was kind enough to give me an appointment to explain what my paper was about and after he heard what I had to say he arranged for me to meet Samy Vellu, the man in charge of this matter.

This paper was very thick, obviously, but the summary of what I was telling the government is that Malaysia’s NRW (Non-Revenue Water) averages 45% (and as high as 70% in some areas) while the UN recommended NRW is less than 20%. Hence we are more than double the international standards. And the result of this would be: in roughly 20-30 years time (in the new Millennium) Malaysia will run short of water, especially in places like the Kelang Valley.

Hence the government must do something about it.

I do not know whether this was why the government decided to privatise the water industry soon after that. But I spoke out against the Malaysian government’s privatisation plan because they only privatised the production of water and not the distribution of water, which was where the real problem of the 45% NRW lies. Hence the government is not going to solve the problem of the NRW and the possible water shortage by 2000-2010 or so if the source of the problem, the 45% NRW, is not addressed.

Unfortunately, I am not a water engineer (in fact, I am not an engineer, period). I am also not an Umno politician (in fact, I am not a politician, period). Hence no one would want to take what I say seriously (even though a number of Pengarah JKR whispered that they agreed with me but this has to be a political and not a technical decision — as is always the case in Malaysia).

Why I decided to embark on this ‘crusade’ is simple. I am a product of the 1960s. And those who were teenagers or were growing up in the 1960s would remember the three-day 1969 Woodstock Music Festival that, as far as I am concerned, changed the world.

Later, Woodstock came into the news yet again. And this time it was because Woodstock was reported to have the highest incidence of stomach cancer in the United States. And the cause of this cancer was traced to the town’s water supply and the use of AC pipes.

And Malaysia, too, used AC pipes, which the United States banned but we were still using. Hence my proposal to the government was not to produce more water by building more treatment plants but to improve the efficiency of the distribution of water by reducing the NRW by more than half and at the same time get rid of all those pipes that are a health hazard and will expose Malaysians to the risk of cancer.

Is it not ironical that we ban smoking in public places because of the risk of cancer and then we supply Malaysians with water that will give us cancer? And what will happen after 2000 when highly urbanised areas like the Kelang Valley run short of water? Will we then impose water rationing and ban the washing of cars and the watering of lawns?

That must have sounded very dramatic back in the late 1980s to early 1990s, a sort of doomsday scenario. But those living in the Kelang Valley today, 25 years or so later, might not think so.
Today, we blame the Federal Government or Umno or Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim for the dilemma that Selangor is facing. We turn this into a political issue. The fact remains that the Federal Government was warned and Anwar Ibrahim who took over from Daim Zainuddin as Finance Minister soon after that was also warned.

So, yes, the Federal Government, the Selangor Government, Umno, and so on, should be blamed. But I feel Anwar should also apologise to the nation or to the Selangor State and admit that when he was the number two in the government he failed to address this issue, which now has become a crisis for Selangor.

And is not Anwar the Economic Adviser for Selangor?

Four and a half years ago, or two and a half years after the 2008 general election, I raised this issue amongst many other issues with Anwar when he visited the UK and we met in London. Anwar’s response was that ‘we cannot listen to everything that Raja Petra Kamarudin says. He is living in the UK and he cannot tell us what to do’.

That is true. That is also the same response I received back in the 1990s. ‘Who is Raja Petra Kamarudin? He is not a water engineer.’ But do you really need to be a water engineer to know that you have no water when you open your tap and nothing comes out of it? Do you really need to be a water engineer to know that your water is dirty when the water that comes out of your tap is brown in colour?

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What a woeful waste of water

PETALING JAYA: Leaky, ageing pipes are taking a huge toll on the country, with close to two trillion litres of treated water lost to seepage, poor water quality and frequent disruptions at the consumer end.

And it’s going to get worse. Much of the problem lies in the 43,890km of ageing pipes around the country.

Made of asbestos-cement (AC), these pipes were installed in vast numbers decades ago.

They have a lifespan of 30 years and many have outlived their usefulness or are getting there.

Last year alone, nearly two trillion litres of treated water were lost.

The non-revenue water (NRW) was more than a third of all treated water pumped out of plants in 2012 – enough to supply every family in the country with water for 189 days, or fill 797,600 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The leakage forced water operators to pump more through the pipes to meet demand.

“An interruption of water supply for frequent pipe burst and repairs can cause low water pressure for consumers as well as affect water quality,” said Malaysian Water Association council member Hai­ri Basri.

In 2012, the National Water Services Commission (SPAN) found that of the 1.994 trillion litres of water was lost, and 3.479 trillion litres reached people’s taps – an NRW level of 36.4%.

Hairi said: “We can’t be proud of an industry that lost 36.4% of its final product before it could reach consumers.”

SPAN executive director (Water Regulatory Department) Marzuki Mohammad said the installing of AC pipes was stopped in the early 90s and the country’s pipes need to be changed.

Modern day water distributors use copper, stainless steel or ductile iron pipes.

“If replacement does not keep pace with the deterioration of the pipes, leakages and NRW will keep rising with water suppliers suffering more losses,” he said.

It shows in SPAN’s numbers. In 2011, a total of 1.939 trillion litres were lost. Last year, it was 1.994 trillion – a staggering 55 billion litres more.

There was a burst pipe, breakage or leak reported every 84 seconds in Malaysia last year, amounting to 376,159 complaints in total.

The number of unscheduled water disruption also rose from 214,270 in 2011 to 238,542 in 2012.

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2013/11/13/What-a-woeful-waste-of-water-Two-trillion-litres-lost-each-year-and-its-going-to-get-worse.aspx/