We all followed 3 years ago how Jamie Oliver asked Tony Blair to reform school dinners in good old England. Both men had a constructive chat and it seems that there was a light at the end of the tunnel

3 years later, lots of English children are still eating industrial rubbish and Tony Blair is no longer in charge.

And that’s once of the main problems democracy is facing: unlike Mahathir in Malaysia who managed to stay in power for 22 years, most democracies don’t allow the same person in charge for an extended period.

Take again Mahathir: although 22 years in power, he actually had a vision until the year 2020. That would mean he would have to live until reaching 100 in order to see his vision come through. That’s quite unrealistic.

But few years after he left power, and after the crushing defeat in the last elections in March 2008, Malaysian politics are reduced to:

• the Prime Minister should go
   
• they set a date and agree that he should go
   
• they review the date he should go
   
• they already have a successor appointed
   
• they want to contest the place of the successor

And all this is done inside the ruling party. On top of that the opposition party also thinks that it should be the opposition who should be ruling the country.

But with all this bickering about, one really wonders if there is actually anybody ruling the country in the first place or is everybody waiting until the Prime Minister steps down?

Even without bickering: problems stay, politicians go

Back to Jamie Oliver and Tony Blair: even without power struggles, Tony Blair is no longer on top, so whatever deals were made in the past, are they going to be continued in the future or are they going to be revised, especially in times of economical recession as today?

And it gets even worse in the US: Clinton managed to get the US economics back on track, to see it utterly butchered by president Bush in the last 8 years. So incredibly butchered that the US deficit is in trillions of dollars and the whole world economy is in recession due to useless spending of the US.

Can you really imagine a CEO of a leading US car company begging for money? well, that’s exactly what happened a few days ago, just that those CEO’s beg in style, private jet included.

So there are the problems, there is the mess and the person who was on top of the country can just wave his hand, say goodbye and let his successor deal with the mess.

Maybe it is time that we revise the democratic system or even better: people who mess up should be personal accounted for.

Just combine the corporate world with the student loan world: whatever you use up now, you will have to pay back sooner or later and there is no room for bankruptcy.

Who would be ready to take that challenge? For sure not your power hungry politician who knows nuts about economics.

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Technorati Tags: barak obama, democracy, george bush, politicians, tony blair

…Israeli Arabs are the descendants of some 160,000 Palestinians who remained in Israel following the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, and have the right to vote with around 10 representatives in the 120-seat Israeli Knesset or parliament…

All Malaysians know how to continue the sentence -Not all Arabs are descendants of…- , as it is one of 3 reasons Raja Petra was jailed under the ISA without trial.

ISA is a great tool to quickly put away people that are a threat to the country (kind of what the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is for the US).

So how can a saying like "Not all Arabs are descendants of…" become a threat to a country like Malaysia?

Is "Not all Arabs are descendants of…" insulting any Malaysians to start with, let alone to feel threatened with?

Let’s call for a definition in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab:

An Arab is a member of an ethnic group which identifies as such on the basis of:
 

• either genealogical grounds - meaning "descendant of" or
   
• linguistic grounds

 

Apart from a few tourists, there are no Arab’s in Malaysia to reckon with. Which becomes even more clear when you go and ask for an identity card, you will be asked:

Are you a Malay, Chinese, Indian or ‘Others’? As you can see: no Arabs, unless ‘others’.

Who is a "threatened" Arab in Malaysia?

So which Arab is feeling threatened by "Not all Arabs are descendants of…" Let’s see…

Suppose your father is an Hadhrami Arab, that makes you by definition an Arab as well.

So when Hadhrami Arab Tan Sri Syed Jaafar Albar’s son gets born, being a descendant of an Hadhrami Arab he becomes an Arab as well. He goes now by the name of : Datuk Seri Syed Hamid bin Syed Jaafar Albar.

Did you see…

Syed Hamid

Yes, that’s the same Syed Hamid, Home Minister of Malaysia who signed the paper to jail Raja Petra under the ISA. Why? Because Raja Petra wrote something like "Not all Arabs are descendants of…".

Who is more a threat of a State?

• somebody who writes blogs or
   
• somebody who is on top of the police and sign papers to jail people without trial.

Do people really have to spend ages in jail like Nelson Mandela to suddenly crowned by the next generation as the biggest peacemaker of them all transcending
race and origin?

Do people really have to die first like Miriam Makeba who spend 31 years in exile because her songs were not "appropriate’ inside her country of South Africa?

Is a little bit of free speech with decent reasoning that bad for a country or is it only that bad for the people that want to stick to ruling that country.

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Technorati Tags: descendants, israel, israeli arabs, israeli knesset, jewish state, palestinians, parliament

Is the world coming to justice in the wee hours of global warming? Or are we still shooting but using blanks?

First Obama gets elected 40 years after Martin Luther King was silenced in good old American western style: shot with a bullet.

And today Malaysia follows justice as well: the Shah Alam High Court ruled that the detention of Raja Petra Kamarudin under the ISA was illegal and ordered his immediate release. According to the judge, the Malaysian Home Minister had not followed proper procedure under Section 8 of the ISA to issue the detention order against Raja Petra.

Strange, I thought the Home Minister explicitly had said he was not involved in whatever the police is doing…

The complete story

Pick up 3 people needlessly under the ISA: some journalist, some opposition MP and big shot Raja Petra. Then release 2 of the three so it seems there is at least some justice.

Now release the big shot and most likely go after the biggest shot Anwar: see, we release Raja, why can’t we put away Anwar: our jails our getting empty you know after we already released so many people.

No, don’t ask why they were detained in the first place…

Just wait and see who will be the next Martin Luther king of Malaysia or is Malaysia finally catching up and embracing themes Obama is elaborating in the US?

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Technorati Tags: Anwar, Anwar Ibrahim, Martin Luther King, obama, Raja, raja petra, RPK