6/01/2006
badawi fight a lone battle
Badawi is facing his most serious crisis ever since he became PM. The police has openly challenged his authority and is threatening to mutiny should he go ahead with the setting up of an independent board to investigate police abuses. For the police to take such a position there is more than meet the eyes. Looks like the police has a mountain to lean on and setting the agenda for them.
Badawi now must call on all his cabinet members and UMNO to be behind him if he is to fend off this challenge. But would he get the support he needed? Most of the senior UMNO politicians, including ministers, are too wise as politicians and their main concern is to save their own skin. Once they read that Badawi may fall, it is likely that they will adopt an ambiguous stand, ready to change side. This is perhaps the greatest mistake of Badawi for not removing the disloyal ministers and retaining them in his cabinet.
Would there be anyone who will stand up bravely to be on his side? Maybe not. Badawi must now count his men, who is with him and who is not. And maybe he will have to count on the dark horse to fight on his side. Someone who is able enough and strong enough to take on such a formidable force.
Badawi is too gentleman a politician to go down and fight claws and nails. The opponents will be fierce and dirty in this fight and Badawi will lose if he keeps on the front of a gentleman. He now needs fighters who will fight the battle for him.
No one except Anwar will be able to measure up in this crisis. No one except Anwar will have a strong enough reason to want to be on Badawi's side. Anwar may be presented with an opportunity to make or break.
The others, the fair weather politicians, will be on the sideline, watching. A few may stand behind Badawi, but not enough stature to land a strong voice. Rafidah may be a possible and strong ally. She is the type of politicians that will take sides and fight for her boss.
Will we see a return of Anwar as the shining knight to save Badawi?
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18 comments:
Hallo friend, you are Singaporean yet you don't understand how Malay names work is it ? The PM's name is Abdullah. Ahmad Badawi is his father's name.
ahhh, if i mention abdullah, there will be thousands of them around, like john or michael, or abdullah tarmugi. but if i mention badawi, people know who i am refering to.
the koreans and vietnameses have the same problem. you mention a kim and everyone will be asking who? you mention nguyen, all the vietnamese will be asking who is that?
Your comparison is not valid because Kim for Koreans and Nguyen for Vietnamese are surnames. Malays don't have the concept of surnames. So if you mention Badawi, Malays will think you;re referring to the PM's father. That's not very polite. There are also thousands of Anwars and Rafidahs but why do you not refer to them as Ibrahim or Aziz ?
What a lame excuse. If you mention an ABdullah in the context of Malaysian politics, tell me which idiot will think you're referring to abdullah tarmugi. Sheesh.
technically you are correct. but even in the malaysian media, he is often referred by the name, badawi. abdullah is used when they are using both together like abdullah badawi.
in a blog people tend to simplify, and i too. i use whichever that is convenient. lky instead of kuan yew, hsien loong instead of lee hsienloong.
and i also make my typing easy by not using upper case unless really necessary.
if you visit my forum. redbeanforum.com, which is of a more formal nature, i did use the uppercase as i was chastised by a few members for being lazy.
very often the media will use phrases like badawi tours east malaysia instead of abdullah tours east malaysia, or the badawi entourage and not abdullah entourage.
in a blog, a bit lose and easy in presentation should be acceptable...lah.
Show me a link from a local Malaysian media organisation that refers to the PM by his father's name. Even if some media organisation had done that, it doesn't make it right. You're just trying to whitewash your mistake. So difficult to admit you were wrong, meh ?
Show me a link from a local Malaysian media organisation that refers to the PM by his father's name. Even if some media organisation had done that, it doesn't make it right. You're just trying to whitewash your mistake. So difficult to admit you were wrong, meh ?
Badawi Rebuffs Critics of Islam Hadhari
Posted: Thursday May 05, 2005 4:52 PM EST
By IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
“I am not trying to eliminate Islam or change the religion. As a leader I want to be fair to everyone,” Badawi said.Jitra, Malaysia—Malaysian Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, hit out at critics of the concept of Islam Hadhari (Civilizational Islam), saying it is derived from the core principles and teachings of Islam.
Critics of the concept accused Badawi, champion and architect of Islam Hadari, of mocking the teachings of Islam and seeking to introduce a new sect of the faith.
But Badawi said the concept aims at managing the multi-racial country in a just and fair manner, The Star reported Wednesday, May 4.
i rest my case.
maybe you can enlighten me on this one. the chinese have a surname. so we called a person mr lee or pm lee. we don't call hsien loong mr hsien loong.
what is the proper way of addressing a malay gentleman? inche abdullah or inche badawi? this one still baffles me. as you have said, abdullah is his name. badawi is his father's name, which is not necessary a surname.
even in the west, we don't call tony blair mr tony, but mr blair.
IslamOnline is not a local Malaysian news organisation so my challenge still stands. A local media organisation would be either news agency like Bernama, or newspapers like Star, NST, berita Harian or Utusan.
Why don't you take a leaf from the Singapore media like CNA ? They simply refer to some line Environment Minister Yaacob Ibrahim as "Yaakob Ibrahim" or simply Mr Yaacob.
if you look at the article i quoted from islamonline, at the bottom you will see that it is reported in The Star paper.
But you will still insist that you are right. So I will just quote another article from The Star.
Badawi: Is he a kinder,
gentler Mahathir?
By Ralph A. Cossa
Kuala Lumpur >> Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi is proving to be a kinder, gentler, but no less candid, thoughtful and thought-provoking version of his mercurial predecessor....
Speaking before an international audience last Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur, Badawi observed that many Muslims were "in denial," refusing to acknowledge that "Islamic teachings have been corrupted by some groups to serve their militant cause. ... Nothing can make a virtue out of the massacre of innocent men, women and children."
you will see that the Star paper is quite comfortable using Badawi and not Abdullah.
thanks for enlightening me on the correct way of addressing a malay gentleman. for the chinese, it is very unusual to address someone like mr hsien loong or mr kuan yew. but not necessary that tjis is not done. in some context, people may use it without offending anyone.
under the same mindset, i would feel very uncomfortable to address badawi as mr abdullah, as abdullah is his personal name. i will likely address him as mr badawi, his family name.
i didn't know that this is a sensitive thing to the malay community that they should be known by their personal name rather than family name.
in a discussion, the main purpose is to use a term that can differentiate the person or a term that everyone understands. using term like pm lee, can now be confusing as there was one and there is another one now. so using lky and hsienloong, no one can be mistaken or need to guess.
this is the same as calling tony blair as blair instead of tony. or george bush as bush instead of george. can't even use george bush, as there are two george bushes.
Why bickering about whether to use Abdullah or Badawi the point here is we know who you are refering to. To me Abdullah act more like a foriegn minister than as a PM.
i can't see the significance of his dual role as pm and fm.
when mahathir was in power, he was everything.
after reading a few more articles on the crisis badawi is facing, he is in deep trouble if he cannot get a team to stand and fight with him.
it would be a pity as he is the most modernistic, objective and professional of all the pms so far.
To the ordinary malaysian citzen it does not matter who wins the fight, end of the day everybody suffers. The system is so cancerous that whatever measures are put in, it will only leads to more corruptions. You singaporeans are so lucky to have a pm like Kuan Yew
right and wrong. the politicians are too corrupt and only think about their selfish interests. a democracy allows them to deceive the people to think that the politicians are there to serve the country and the people.
and it is important that the more rational and objective one win. so far i think badawi is a decent man. what can do him in will be like what had done to suharto and mahathir, trying to protect the interest of their children's excesses. hopefully his son and son in law did not get too deluded to think that they are supertalents and wanted to grab more and more. then they will all become the same, and the father will be pulled down by them.
malaysia is so rich with natural resources but not fully exploited to the fullest. lesser politics and more hard nose approach in economics will generate more wealth to the country and improve the lives of the people.
singaporeans are so blessed to have lky. or is it lky is so blessed to have singaporeans?
Well of course Singapore must thank his lucky star to have such a person like lky to be his first preimer.Basically, I see not much difference between Singapore and Malaysia. In terms of culture,ethnically,and historically we are basically the same . The only difference is that in Malaysia we have the malay as a majority eventhough not by much and Singapore have a very large chinese population.I would the called Singapore the "Chinese Malaysia" and Malaysia the " Malay Malaysia".Like you say, Malaysia is so rich with natural resources where other country can only envy and Singapore has nothing. When Singapore left the federation even their police force belong to the royal malaysian police. Well,this is the case of the poor man works smart and hard and become rich and whereas the rich man enjoy himself and burn all his money.
If.... if only lky were to rule Malaysia, I am very sure the whole world will come have to a look at what a miracle country it is. A country with all the good people is no use if it does not have a able leader just like Malaysia.Lky is not only a good leader but a super human for that matter. So do you still think that lky is lucky to have the Singaporeans?
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