Umno supporters unfurl a banner supporting the Malays-only status quo of the UiTM college on Nomination Day (Photo credit: Abang Benet)
At around 9.45 last night, Anwar bravely addressed a crowd of close to a thousand people on a service road outside the UiTM Permatang Pauh campus. Nearby apartment dwellers and students from the hostel, mainly Malay, poured out to listen to him. Some of these students must have been among the reported crowd of 5,000 who had demonstrated here against Selangor MB Khalid Ibrahim’s suggestion that the university open its doors to non-bumiputeras (see below).
Anwar stressed to the crowd the importance of multiracialism. He would be a prime minister that would be fair to all Malaysians and it would be his responsibility to make sure he took care of all ethnic groups.
“Orang Melayu anak saya… (pause) … orang Cina anak saya … (pause) …. orang India … anak saya,” he said in poetic and dramatic fashion.
Applause broke out from the largely Malay crowd which included the Malay UiTM students.
“All it takes is for the right leader to tell them the right thing and they will support it,” marvelled a newspaper editor who witnessed the scene.
This excerpt from a Bernama news report:
August 15, 2008 15:01 PM
UiTM Students Hand Over Memoranda
BUKIT MERTAJAM, Aug 15 (Bernama) — About 5,000 students from the Permatang Pauh campus of Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) held a peaceful protest against the suggestion by Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim that the university open its doors to non-bumiputeras.
The students wore black and gathered at the campus’s field from 9am for an hour and sang the varsity’s official anthem and patriotic songs.
They dispersed after the head of the students’ representative council, Mohd Faizal Zainol, handed over a memorandum to the deputy director of the academic division, Dr Mohd Abdullah Hemdi.
Mohd Abdullah told reporters the memorandum will be handed over to the university’s vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Seri Ibrahim Abu Shah to be handed over to Abdul Khalid.
“If Abdul Khalid does not retract his statement all UiTM students will have a huge gathering in Shah Alam. We hope the issue of a non-bumiputera quota is not discussed again. We regret that Abdul Khalid has not upheld his race’s rights,” Mohd Faizol said
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“dunnoalso” says he’s had a prosperous career after his ITM education. Sincerely kudos and congratulations to you. I’m sure you worked hard to achieve what you have.
Imagine how many chinese and indians have had to forgo a tertiary education because of the lack of funds. In all honesty most Malaysian government education institutions are sub standard and almost a joke. Just look at where the Malaysian unis rank in Asia alone ? Most of them come to Australia to do PhD and can’t even write and communicate properly in English
The malays not only get a “free”education but also have affirmative action policies to support their employment growth through out their careers. When I read the Malaysian ‘business page, i ask myself “Why are all the corporate big guns mainly malays ? ”
I’m sure there are also capable chinese and indians. This evident from what i see overseas. Maha Sinnathamby is one prime example of a Malaysian who has made it big in Australia (Google his name)
How long will the Malays be spoon fed from the womb to the tomb ? And, are they proud of it ? Maybe “dunnoalso” can shed some light as he seems to have lived a full life
I don’t intend to put the bumis down, rather- I would like to engage them and learn what their thoughts are. You never know there could be some twisted method to this madness
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Folks,
Excellent campaign materials to be shared & printed out ASAP.
http://anwaribrahimblog.com/2008/08/19/muatturun-poster-kempen/
Please disseminate at once. Thanks
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How many of these students from Uitm, Mara, Upm, etc are unemployed?
U tell me…!
Is this how & what the lectures educate them..? That the Malay race is supreme??? Can’t even speak a word of English.
Well, only one miserable place that will take you..! Goverment…!
There are many other races here that has contributed to the building of Uitm. TAX PAYERS MONEY…!
Don’t forget that…!!!
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mr mugam
irregardless … this is the time to bring it up. perhaps you belong to the 70s or 80s generation when malays are eating in your rights, you respond by handing them the platter.
sorry, i am a 90s child and i look forward to my kid having equal standings in a fair and competitive world. i want my kid to say i am a Malaysian proudly, not like me. I can only say I am Indian and I won’t even bother to identify myself as a Malaysian.
I want my kid to grow up in a country govern my smart visionary people and not racist. I want him to be able to compete in any field of his interest including government contracts on the merit basis than on racist policies that currently prevent him.
mr. mugam for most 90s and beyond malaysian’s we think that to have a peaceful country where your rights and opportunity is repressed and stolen is equivalent as having no peace at all.
you reserve the right to retire and please shut up.
To: Today on Fire
Yes, malay pay tax. For every dollar of tax govt receives 90cents comes from non malays and 10 cents from malays. The govt use the money to spend 90cents on malay and 10 cents on non malay. With the same money it is used to build your UiTM which also means 90% of assets in UiTM is owned by non-malay tax money
Yes, UiTM grads are employed. They are employed by Govt Depts and Melayu companies because they cannot get jobs elsewhere. Have you read blogs around malaysia where people comment on UiTM grads. For most non-malay our opinion of it is it is a ….site for underqualified malays so that they somehow can get a degree… It is not that they actually qualified to into any competitive local or foreign universities.
So with this kind of reputation, which bloody company want to hire UiTM grad is not for their ‘Datuk’ the current BN govt or symphatetic malay companies and glcs
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malaysian niah,
care to elaborate more on the tax side because i did not find any statement or Act under the law concerning that 90% tax comes from non-malays and 10% comes from malays.All that i could found was there’s tax based on the status of citizenship in Malaysia either resident or not which stated under Income Tax Act 1967.
what your said about the UITM grads aren’t entirely correct.there’s still lotsa grads that succeeded in getting employed by big and private sectors.do check some big companies and ask them if there are any employee of UITM grads.
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When there’s the push for quantity
There’s sacrifice for real quality
So whether it’s in the small village or big city
They still have to face the world without pity
(C) Samuel Goh Kim Eng – 190808
http://MotivationInMotion.blogspot.com
Tue. 19th Aug. 2008.
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It is just evil when the MSM did not report that Uitm does reserve 5% for foreign students and give impression that it is 100% Malay/ bumi. It is also ironic that the propoganda here is “Ketuanan Melayu” but when they try to get Uitm Sarawak students to protest, they changed it to bumiputra rights. So, which is which?
Anyway, i feel that if these ******* want 100% Malay, just go ahead. We actually don’t care because we are looking at other better universities.
And, I have interviewed Uitm students who can’t speak proper english. There are good ones too, but they tend to want to work for some familiar companies or government.
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UiTM have been producing graduate for such a long time that we forget that UiTM student also had to student very hard to get their Dips, Degree, Masters and PhD. UiTM dont just print the diplomas and give it out for free, student had to EARN it. Just like students in the Monash U in Sunway, or Taylors in Subang. If there was any question about quality why is it not asked before this. When Anwar Ibrahim was the Education Minister (there was no higher education ministry at that time)? Why did he not in his capacity as education minister do anything to multi culturalise ITM at the time. Why does the students protest? Well because if the student dont then it would be like saying “yup UiTM students has no quality” so to prove this wrong then they wear the black T-shirts. Come on HR managers dont take people just because there are from one institutions or another but on the individuals ability to do work and perform, right? Those who does not then pity the organization la.
The answer simple = he wants the non Malay votes. As for me I think that he is playing a dangerous political strategy here because he is alienating people who may have choose the Selangor state government because they beleived in him. Too bad he is much more selfish than first thought.
But we must remember that education will bring tolerence, and in my stint in UiTM we are always questioned on how we as Malays can contribute to society, how will we bring the next generation of Malays up (Never was there any question on how can we destroy the Chinese for example?). And educators should not politicise things. There exist a movement in Universities that say University students should be let to be active in politics, the student who are active in politics will not be able to cope with studies (there was ample of evidance in the 70′s and early 80′s), that is why it is easier to seperate Education and Politics because after we finish studying then with the knowledge and understanding we have, we can decide using knowledge and wisdom instead of emotions. Some one said to me that Universities should be the platform used to question the current political senario, with out information, education and wisdom how can we do that? Are we going to take second hand information as true just because some one else says its true? We should always analyse situations and question in a logical way.
The question is why did Khalid bring up the question now? Why NOW? Think.
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Anil, you might want to read this
http://thedandelions.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/reconciling-being-a-uitm-student/
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I see no color
I see no skin
I see no culture
I see no language
I see no chinese
I see no malay
i see no Indian
i see no chap chungs
i see no buddhist
i see no christian
i see no muslim
i see no hindu
i see no atheist
i see no free thinker
i ses no datuks
i see no YBs
i see no tan sris
i see no tuns
i see no under table money
i see no commision for licence
i see no 30% for opening new business
i see no malay partner to open account in Maybank
i see no chinese only employ chinese
i see no malay only employ malay
i see no indian only employ indian.
i only see ..a human walking thie earth like me..
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All I know is Anwar wants a Moslem state.. why Kit Siang say he is a change man? I ask my neighbor (Malay).. he said Anwar will be a Moslem PM.. so why Kit Siang cannot see?
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Amid the chatter, we often miss the point that our graduates need to be competitive against those in other countries. Many graduates in India are truly world-class. Hence the backroom operations and IT/research/design work going their way. Similarly, China,Korea & Japan have produced not only their on high quality graduates but have many trained in the West esp the US. I have worked for an MNC all my professional life. I will personally attest from my personal experience that the performance level of graduates with whom I worked in Indonesia,Thailand and Philippines are often pretty high esp the Philippines. If Malaysia continues to focus on it’s politically-influenced approach to education, I cannot imagine how we will compete against all these “Others”. When I returned to Malaysia, after many years as an expat, I was often appalled that job applicants (who were graduates of local public institutions of higher learning) did not measure up to the requirements of my MNC. We ended up having to hire mostly overseas-trained graduates and graduates from the “private” universities, even when most of these hirees were Bumiputras. By the way, these Bumiputras are EXCELLENT performers. So, my point is, notwithstanding the race-based politics, Malaysians of ALL racial origin need to be world-class. Jaguh kampungs cannot make it as barriers in the world continue to come down. If local graduates don’t measure up, don’t be surprised if someone in say, Vietnam will end up eating their lunch. Nobody owes any Malaysian a living. Anyone interested can go read “The World is Flat” and/or “The Lexux and the Olive Tree” by Thomas L Friedman.
BTW, I am a graduate from a local public university… however my tertiary education wasfortunately based on the “old-syllabus” before our able-leaders had the chance to make “improvements”
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ALL BULLS***
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Malaysian political leaders BN/UMNO have been playing a racist tune all the while. Its that they have been going further and further until to a point of no return.The press has been restricted from giving the true picture of the situation. Unfortunately due to the cyber information the younger generations has access to the truth of the situations.Why are we still keeping these bunch of “leaders”? Is 51 years not long enough for us to wake up? DSAI has come up with an entirely new version ie. Bangsa Malaysia. We just have to try out 1 term.Why cant we take this little risk for the bigger benefits of ours and our future generations? After all UMNO dont belong to all malays (its a fact everybody knows)If it belongs to all Malays, why are the children of a few elite UMNO leaders are given big scholarship to go overseas even they fail terribly in their lover educations.Alot of you all are more eligibly to be awarded these scholarships. Due to their greed and manipulations you Malays are deprived of a chance to go overseas for better U. In return you are given a low grade U in Malaysia. I believe you Malays can do as well as non Malays or even better if given a change to compete in any situation.How can we progress with these type of leaders? We are going backward instead my Muslim brothers. Please dont let this happen. God Bless
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“melayu mudah lupa……”..renung2kan & slamat beramal =)
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