We can claim that we did our part to help make Malaysia moderate, even if it is seen as just a small step.

THANK you to the majority of Malaysians who supported and encouraged us on the Voices of Moderation campaign in the run-up to National Day and Malaysia Day.

The campaign, which urged Malaysians to emphasise on commonalities and shared values instead of differences, certainly struck a chord among most of us.

It was clear from the many messages we received that Malaysians, regardless of their race or religion, were fed up of politicians, or any group or individuals, who used race and religion to win support. They were likewise fed up of those politicians who maintained a deafening silence as the voices of some racist personalities and groups grew louder.

Many also found it disturbing and sad that it was the private sector and concerned individuals who took the lead to push the message of moderation in this season.

As with all initiatives, it is not always possible to please everyone. One complainant who sounded educated alleged that the Voices of Moderation campaign was a subtle anti-Malay and anti-Islam move.

Another reader wrote a stinging message to me pointing out that the campaign was pro-Malay as the majority of writers and personalities featured were Malays! He pointed out that there were only two Chinese and one Indian writers while criticising me in the same breath that I am racist and unable to think as a Malaysian despite what he admitted was a noble campaign.

One well-intentioned gentleman tried to call me many times, insisting on speaking to me only and no one else, because he was upset that there was no Sikh writer. I wish to thank all of you for your feedback, if you are reading this.

A small number of right-wingers, known for their ultra-nationalistic views, posted angry statements on their blogs but offered no rational and balanced view apart from making sweeping personal remarks.

Again, I wish to express my appreciation for the oftentimes humorous remarks, which have made Malaysian politics more colourful.

On the plus side, there were a few people who wanted to sign up as members, thinking that the Voices of Moderation campaign was a movement. No, we are not, and we have no intention of going into politics.

A group of young talents comprising graduates from prestigious universities here and in the United Kingdom and the United States, offered to be writers and speakers for our campaign, saying we must not stop.

To these fresh faces, you guys are certainly the beacon of hope, and the people we want to pass the baton to in our efforts to make Malaysia a better home for all.

Meanwhile, some even called us up to purchase our posters, saying that they wanted to put them up on their office and home walls.

One tycoon offered to let us use his hotel for future meetings and public forums, saying he was committed to the cause, as he, too, believed in moderate Malaysia.

BritishIndia, an upmarket chain of fashion clothing, supported us by creating a unique visual display of the campaign’s personalities at its store windows as part of the National Day celebrations. Thank you for shouting for us and believing in us.

At Taylors University, a group of multi-racial students spent their lunch time listening to my views and that of Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, head of the Global Movement of Moderates Foundation (GMM).

They were clever, articulate and attentive and it was encouraging to meet these students who shared with us what they want to see for Malaysia.

How I wish our politicians would spend more time listening to these young moderates instead of just making speeches and doing all the talking most of the time.

The first phase of the campaign has ended. We need to take a breather and assess what we have accomplished.

Our next move would be to reach the young in our colleges and universities, and together with the GMM, we are now charting our plans on how we can reach the 60 tertiary institutions spread across the nation.

It is a long-haul campaign and we all need to sustain the momentum to make it effective and at the same time, interesting.

The message of moderation should never become a blind spot. At the same time, we do not want to be preachy, nor do we want to reach out only to those who are already converted.

What is important is that most of us should, in our lifetime, be proud to support and be associated with the Voices of Moderation campaign. We can claim that we did our part to help make Malaysia moderate. Even if it is seen as just a small step, at least we walked that journey.

We are Malaysians. To quote the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

As Malaysians, regardless of our race and religion, we share a common destiny. Let us keep fighting for a moderate Malaysia.

There are Malaysians, unfortunately, who cannot draw the difference between loyalty to the country and loyalty to the government.

THE Member of Parliament for Kuching, Chong Chieng Jen, may have apologised for his Facebook posting about the playing of Negaraku in the cinemas, but it would not be wrong to say many Malaysians are still furious with him for his utterly stupid remarks.

The tone of his remarks before he took down his post also reflected his arrogance on the issue. The impression he has given is that he only removed the posting and apologised after the barrage of criticisms, rather than a sincere acknowledgment of his own folly.

His remarks certainly border on pure contempt. The Sarawak DAP chief asked in his post, before it was taken down, “Is Malaysia heading towards the communist Mao era where everywhere you go you must shout out loud and show you are a patriot?”

And what made us disgusted were his further remarks that if the playing of the national anthem continued, it might even continue “before dinner, before bedtime and before S..” We are sure “sleeping time” and “supper” are not what he meant.

And we do not think that you deserve to be addressed as the Right Honourable or Yang Berhormat. You have just joined the ranks of some of those MPs in our Dewan Rakyat who love to grab the headlines with their outrageous remarks and circus antics.

Let us remind him that the playing of the national anthem at cinemas (during the current Merdeka and Malaysia Day season), like what is done at stadiums and concert halls before the game or show begins, is normal and not a “disgrace and ridiculous” – to use his exact quote.

In fact, if he were to go to the famous Chatuchak market in Bangkok, he would see how the Thais and foreign tourists would stand still in respect when the Thai national anthem is played before the weekend market closes.

In the United States, before any game begins, The Star Spangled Banner is sung. At the Super Bowl, which marks the final of the National Football League, a different celebrity is invited to sing the national anthem each year.

So there’s no need for Chong to feel this is something that he will find difficult to explain to his “friends overseas”. In fact, we believe they would be embarrassed with him over his ignorance as an MP.

To refresh his memory, the playing of the national anthem during the month of the National Day and Malaysia Day celebrations at the cinemas is not a recent phenomenon. Perhaps Chong has not been watching movies like many ordinary Malaysians do.

At the Istana Budaya in Kuala Lumpur, it is customary, and most Malaysians sing aloud when the Negaraku is played. I wonder if the MP has watched any of the local productions there.

In fact, I joined many parents and friends to attend a fantastic children’s kindergarten concert of the Peter and Jane school at the Petaling Jaya Municipal Council auditorium recently and the national anthem was played before the show began.

It was such a delight and certainly emotionally moving for me to see the multi-racial crowd, and some foreigners too, standing at attention to sing the Negaraku. And the kids, being kids, they weren’t singing but “shouting” to sing. What a delight! Chong needs to learn from these preschool children.

No doubt there is a debate among Malay­sians over whether the playing of the national anthem in cinemas would serve its purpose to unite the people or if this is nothing more than a symbolic gesture. The same arguments are in fact being discussed in India.

There is nothing wrong with discussing this issue and most of the Malaysian media have given space to such debates. But what irks most Malaysians is the tone, or more accurately the harshness, of Chong’s language. He has failed to articulate his views rationally, preferring to sound like he is speaking at a ceramah, or perhaps feeling that he needs to maintain his rebel opposition image.

His language and timing have certainly been bad, at a time when race relations are being put to the test. We do not know whether he is aware, but his comments have put many Malaysian Chinese in a spot because of the strong support from the community for the DAP in the last general election.

In fact, this is a good opportunity also for me to put on record that extremists, ­racists and bigots come from all communities and religions. They may not get the same amount of space in the mainstream media but their presence is very real in the social media. Our campaign to encourage ­moderate views is to drown out the extreme views from all sides.

Such views, even if Chong merely wanted to question the effectiveness of the playing of the national anthem in cinemas, can give rise to the perception that the Chinese community is not supportive of such display of patriotism at all.

There are Malaysians, unfortunately, who cannot draw the difference between loyalty to the country and loyalty to the government. Politicians come and go, political parties can win and lose, governments can change, but the country remains. We remain loyal to the country but we may not have the same sense of conviction towards the ­leader or political party that forms the government of the day. Therein lies the difference.

Standing at attention for the Negaraku is not the same as standing up for the Umno, MCA, PKR or DAP party anthems.

The UPSR leak fiasco seems to suggest we are in a real state of crisis and we are sending out a wrong message to our kids – it is okay to cheat. 

IT’S really incredible how so many of us have reacted over the leaked examination papers of the UPSR, which is merely an assessment examination for Year Six pupils. Yes, for 12-year-old pupils who are taking their first public examination.

The UPSR, to put it bluntly, has no serious bearing on how these kids will perform in future examinations nor will it have any impact on their careers.

But I guess not many would agree with my somewhat frivolous perception of the UPSR, judging from the kind of reaction that seems to suggest we are in a real state of crisis.

Education Ministry officials have been suspended, there are allegations of sabotage, possibly even political ones, and the police have been called in.

We hope the Inspector-General of Police won’t have to personally head a task force to nab the culprits.

I am not sure whether parents are upset that the papers were leaked, which in itself is incredulous, and a resit would mean the children having to go through another round of pressure, or is it because their holiday plans are now ruined?

The sad reality is that this is a country where parents and students are obsessed with the number of distinctions that one gets in public examinations.

Nowhere in the world, except perhaps in some other East Asian countries, do examination results hit the front page of the newspapers, or lead off the prime time news on national television.

And each year, we compare results like the way public companies compare their profit margins. The pressure is always to trend upwards. So, the focus will invariably be about how many more students have the perfect string of As as compared to the year before, giving the impression that we are in the business of producing super achievers.

Although the majority of students do not belong in this category, the perception is created that super-duper results are the passport for our children to become doctors, lawyers and engineers, and nothing less.

And every year, we have the same problem where the demand for places in universities for these courses far outstrips supply simply because there are so many students with the “right grades”.

Yet, many employers and top-notch foreign universities do question whether their grades actually match their abilities, and have their own ways to sieve out the real talents.

There are suspicions that we have lowered the passing marks and compromised our standards and in the process allowed more students to get these distinctions.

Of course, there are many who truly deserve the As, but it is most unfortunate that there are also those whose As can be questioned.

Forgive me if I sound dismissive and cynical because I come from the old school where we took our first public examination at Standard Five. That was the assessment examination and most parents would not get excited over the outcome of our performance.

It was kid’s stuff and they knew there was little bearing on our future, except perhaps to be enrolled into better classes or schools at the secondary level.

But when we took the Form Three Lower Certificate of Education, which is today’s equivalent of the PMR, it was real serious. You got kicked out from school if you failed.

That’s how it worked at that time with no free ride to the Fifth Form. The LCE required compulsory passes in Bahasa Malaysia, English and Mathematics.

The maximum number of As one could get was eight. If you got 5As, your name would probably show up in the newspapers.

But the standards were such that the grades truly reflected your real ability. An A in English for the LCE meant that you were speaking and writing the Queen’s English at that age already.

Today, most of our Form 3 students cannot even string a sentence together in English correctly. The fact that we are now considering including a compulsory pass in English at university level indicates that an A in that subject, whether at the UPSR, PMR or SPM level, is no longer an accurate reflection of one’s English proficiency.

After the LCE, we sat for the Malaysian Certificate of Education (MCE) where the maximum number of As was nine. It was a time when many Malaysians found places, on scholarships, to Ivy League universities in the United States and to Oxford or Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Yes, our MCE grades were deemed equal to the internationally-acknowledged O-Levels.

Now, despite the proliferation of the super achievers, we are told that fewer Malaysians are being admitted into these top universities.

And our students now have to prove their English proficiency to handle tertiary education overseas by taking the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) paper.

Let’s get our priorities right. The fact that the English paper was leaked even at Year Six level suggests that students are looking for help to pass a subject which they know is important.

What a contrast from those days when we had English-medium schools and getting a pass in English was not all that difficult.

And it is not just about the students. Two years ago, it was revealed that two-thirds of the 70,000 teachers who teach English in the country failed to meet the proficiency level in English for the Cambridge Placement Test.

The findings were revealed by the then Education Ministry deputy director-general Datuk Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof.

“When we did the initial profiling of the English teachers in Malaysia, we found that two-thirds of the teachers did not meet the proficiency level,” Dr Khair, who is now the director-general, was quoted as saying.

We really should be worried about how we can improve the standard of our education. There are many who love to score political points out of issues that affect our children’s education, including the UPSR leak fiasco.

We should start by doing a survey on how many of these politicians actually send their children to the government schools. Or are their own children not part of the system, but are instead in private or international schools, or even boarding schools overseas?

Let’s not play around with our children’s future. Year Six students shouldn’t be subjected to pressure cooker conditions in preparing for the examinations. And with this leak, we are now sending out a message that it is okay to cheat, even at this tender age.

If we pride ourselves as a democracy and believe that civil society is an essential part of it, then surely a dissenting view should be tolerated, even encouraged. 

I WOULD not regard law lecturer Azmi Shahrom as my buddy, but he is someone I have engaged with regularly on a professional level.

The Universiti Malaya don isn’t your conventional academic. He keeps a long ponytail and is usually dressed casually in T-shirt and jeans. That’s a pretty cool image for a lecturer in a campus.

He is articulate, clever, open-minded and certainly opinionated. And now he is in trouble with the law.

Last week, Azmi, a long-time columnist of The Star (his column, “A Brave New World”, is published fortnightly on Wednesday), was charged with sedition.

All he said was that the way the Perak crisis back in 2009 was resolved was legally wrong. That was enough to be deemed seditious by the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

Azmi was charged under Section 4(1)(b) and Section 4(1)(c) of the Act for the comments which had appeared in a report in an online portal titled, “Take Perak crisis route for speedy end to Selangor impasse, Pakatan told” on Aug 14.

Now, the last time I checked, having an opinion, even if it runs contrary to the official view, is not a crime.

If we pride ourselves as a democracy and believe that civil society is an essential part of it, then surely a dissenting view should be tolerated, even encouraged.

Or have we come to a point where we have to succumb to the intimidation of the right-wingers, who cannot carry out a discourse intelligently and intellectually without rudely breaking into name-calling, with their favourite “anti this and that” labels?

For the record, I disagree with Azmi’s interpretation of that particular case in relation to what is going on in Selangor.

I am not a law graduate, nor am I a journalist specialising in legal matters, but I am still entitled to my opinion.

As a matter of fact, even lawyers cannot agree on the interpretation of any set of laws. That’s why they are in business. Furthermore, our judicial process is such that what is decided by one court can be overruled by another, so differing opinions will continue to flourish.

In my opinion, the law is pretty clear in the ongoing controversy over the position of the Mentri Besar in Selangor.

Under Articles LI (1), LIII (2)(a), (4) and LV (2)(a) of the Selangor State Constitution 1959, the Sultan of Selangor is given absolute discretionary power to appoint a Mentri Besar for the Selangor state government who, in the Ruler’s opinion, has the majority support of the State Legislative Assembly.

The keywords here are “absolute discretionary power” and “in the Ruler’s ­opinion”.

But Azmi is a law professor. He would probably disagree with me and ask that I read these provisions alongside other laws and precedents.

He is entitled to give his views in the lecture halls, forums and even at the campus canteen, but the moment he speaks to the press, he opens himself up to being slapped with these sedition charges.

Many of us are probably unaware of the Sedition Act, a law that was promulgated back in 1948 during the Emergency.

It has undergone revisions but broadly speaking, any act, speech, words or publication are seditious if they have a tendency towards any of the following:

> To bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against any Ruler or government.

> To excite subjects to seek alteration other than by lawful means of any matter by law established.

> To bring into hatred or contempt the administration of justice in the country.

> To raise discontent or disaffection among the subjects.

> To promote ill will and hostility between races or classes.

> To question the provisions dealing with language, citizenship, the special position of the Malays and natives of Sabah and Sarawak and the sovereignty of the Rulers.

Seriously, most of us would find it difficult to accept that Azmi’s two sen’s worth of comments would cause Malaysians to tear one another apart, plunging the country into chaos. Most of what Azmi has written, in many publications and portals, may irritate some quarters, but it is Mickey Mouse stuff compared to the poison being spewed by some individuals who seem to have lost their sense of self-restraint.

In the Selangor saga, for example, some of the remarks made in the heat of the politicking may well fall within the ambit of “To bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against any Ruler or government”.

For sure, those individuals who criticise the Rulers and call for the setting up of a republic are open to being charged with sedition.

Let me put on record here also that this writer believes the use of the Sedition Act is necessary to stop the avalanche of hate comments that have flooded our social media by people of all races and religions, who do not seem to care that their careless comments can hurt the feelings of others.

We are not talking about glory-seeking politicians who know the consequences of their actions, but even ordinary Malaysians who think they can say anything they like in cyberspace. And now we even have those in Sabah and Sarawak who have called for secession, with little inkling that their remarks are seditious. In fact, the law regards it as treason.

Those are clear-cut cases, but certainly in the case of Azmi, the authorities should seriously reconsider their position to charge him with sedition.

He was making a comment in an area where he has the expertise, whether we agree with him or not. We know that in the most vibrant law classes, students are encouraged to argue against each other, and also against the professor. Open discussion in the media about legal issues is also one way to educate the public about the laws we live under.

Some of the best columnists in the world are professors of world-renowned law schools. In the United States, every decision of the Supreme Court is openly discussed in the media.

In The Star, we are proud that apart from Azmi, we also have Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi whose “Reflecting on The Law” column on Thursdays sheds light on many of the legal issues of the day.

I am an optimist. I like to believe that Malaysia still embraces divergent views, more so in our universities. The world has changed and, yes, Malaysia has changed.

In the course of my work, I have been praised as well as heavily criticised.

I appreciate the views of those who have made me better informed. But some of the views laced with outrageous and personal remarks had me in stitches. I guess it is better to laugh it off than to get angry with these individuals.

Yes, we understand realistically that in a complex country like Malaysia, there can never be uncontrolled open expression, like in the West. But we pray that those empowered to investigate and prosecute cases of sedition will be rational and allow common sense to prevail.