The Southern states of Thailand ..

I am becoming interested in the southern states of Thailand. I understand that most of the people there are of Malay ethnicity and that they are all Muslims. They were Islamicised in the 13th century, much earlier than the Malays in Melaka were. The states in question are Satun, Songkla, Patani, Yala and Narathiwat. At one time, these 5 states or provinces were under one sultanate called the Kingdom of Pattani ruled by a Sultan who was a Malay as well as a Muslim. These states were annexed by Siam (as Thailand was once called) in agreement with the British in 1904. Siam is mostly Buddhist and the people there are liberal in many matters.

After the annexation, the Sultan of Pattani, tried hard to be independent of Siam. During World War II, the Malays in Pattani fought alongside the British against the Japanese on the promise that when the British won the war, Pattani be given independence. As usual, the cunning British, having a bigger agenda, double-crossed the people of Pattani, and made the treaty with Thailand by allowing the southern provinces to be part of greater Thailand. The Sultan and his his descendants subsequently failed to gain independence from Thailand. As a result, the southern provinces are still ruled by Thailand to this day. It's about time that Thailand de-annex and return the southern states to the people who are ethnically and culturally different from the Buddist Thais. But who's going to tell the Thais this ?

I heard that Tengku Rithaudeen, an UMNO veteran, is a descendent of the Sultan of Pattani while my friend, Tengku Ismail Yahya (Tengku Sulong) who's now deceased, was a member of the Pattani royal. How close he was, I have no idea. The remnants of the Royal house of Pattani, who, I believe, are now residing in Malaysia, if not being Malaysian citizens, should now start persuading, if not conducting outright insurrection to reclaim Pattani from the Thai government.

It's hard to be a politician of integrity ...

In my blog, I seldom write anything about politics or on politicians. But this development in PKR especially on Zaid Ibrahim's statement that Anwar Ibrahim and Azmin Ali should retire from PKR, indeed from Party Keadilan, I fully endorse.

From my reading of some articles in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media, I believe Zaid Ibrahim is an honest politician who wants to see that the party he represents does things with full integrity. Working under the 5th PM, he wanted to introduce certain reforms that could put the party on a better footing that it had been before but was met with objections from UMNO veterans. Then he left UMNO and the ministership just because he opposes certain things that UMNO or the BN party did which were in opposition to his honest and honourable principles.

Now, that's what I call a politician of high moral fibre. He doesn't want to win a party post if he finds that the people who vote for him are being coerced, or being paid to do so or being influenced by other people. If he wins with honour, so much the better for him. He doesn't want to win with dishonour. But not so Azmin Ali. Apparently, Anwar Ibrahim is trying to influence party members to vote for Azmin.

Anwar Ibrahim is a man of despicable character who behaves like a chameleon. To a group of listeners, he may say one thing while to another, he may say another thing about the same subject. The public should never take him seriously in what he says. As for his moral character, rather immoral character, everyone knows about it. I personally do not want a leader of this country to be laughed at by foreigners as someone who is a sodomite, though I don't really don't condone him if he's like Berlusconi. A leader of loose morals is vulnerable to blackmail by anyone. In order to hide his secret, he may be forced to accept things at the expense of the country e.g. to allow a foreign government making use of the country as a military base.

You know, when Billy Clinton's affair with an intern in the White House became public, it brought down his presidentship. So was MacMillan's conservative government in the '60s when his War Minister became involved with one Christine Keeler, a high class London prostitute. The Conservative Party lost to Labour in an election.

So, if we Malaysians do not want to be the butt of jokes regarding our leader, we should never, never have someone like Anwar Ibrahim to head the country.

Update 11/11/2010: The latest is that Zaid Ibrahim is considering setting up another political party called "Keadilan Baru" along the style of "UMNO Baru" sometime ago. Well, good luck to him. I hope the new party lives up to his dream of a political party that is beyond reproach. The latest I read today was about Tengku Adnan, the UMNO secretary-general who announced that UMNO won't accept Zaid Ibrahim back into UMNO. What a big head this guy is. Zaid is far too honourable to rejoin the party that was rife with corruption, selfishness, and narrow mindedness. Zaid is not hard-up; and he has already told everyone that he intended to set up a new party.

On another note, a private secretary of the Prime Minister, one Zakiah Ibrahim has been accused by a PKR leader, Badrul Hisham Shaharin, of accumulating a sum of RM 200 million during the three years that she's been working as a secretary to the PM. The accuser somehow managed to get an "insider" information.

Accusations from people in the opposition party are hard to believe. Sometimes, they simply say things just to create doubts or oppose for the sake of opposing. Lim Kit Siang is famous for this. But this man says that Zakiah, through 2 intermediaries, has accumulated the wealth quietly. How she does is to chisel away from companies that have been awarded government contracts by the PM's department. Her 2 intermediaries would influence the potential contractors to part a certain amount from the contract sum. If the contractors disagree, then the files on the contract mysteriously disappeared and the contracts risk being awarded to someone else.

That's the trouble with the system when awards of contracts are negotiated or "restricted" and when the chiefs themselves are dishonest or corrupt. Their underlings would also take the advantage of making money on the sides. She reasons that if the boss takes 10 %, why can't I take 1 %. Surely, he doesn't mind that.

Drugs, drugs, and drugs ...

Today there was this news of an Indian who escaped the gallows for being accused of trafficking in about 9 kilos of methamphetamine. Now the judge had to dismiss the prosecution case and had therefore to let the accused go scot free because what was brought as evidence during the trial was ketamine. Either the prosecution was so incompetent that it failed to distinguish the 2 types of drug or that there was hanky-panky going on. The judge was also stupid to let the accused go free as if ketamine was not a drug. Even allowing for the prosecution incompetency, the judge should not have dismissed the case because , after all, ketamine was still a drug and the accused should have been prosecuted albeit on an amended charge.

On another note, a woman was caught for having cocaine, amounting to several kilos also, which she smuggled in her person. She arrived from Argentina. Apparently, this was about the 3rd or 4th time that she had been shuttling to and fro between Argentina and Malaysia.

Update 11/11/2010: Today, an Iranian died after complaining of a stomach ache. Post-mortem examination showed that he had swallowed some syabu which burst out from wrappings that he swallowed when he came to Malaysia. Serve the bastard right ! There was also another news of an Iranian found with drug in his stomach.

Update 25/11/2010: Yesterday, 2 more Iranians were caught at the KLIA for attempting to smuggle 8.15 kgs of syabu into Malaysia. Customs discovered that their suitcases had hidden compartments where the syabu was hidden.

The authorities must drive hard on those drug smugglers.

The straights (uncrooked straits) settlements ...

Dr Ng Yen Yen, Malaysia's Tourism Minister and Lim Guan Eng, the CM of Penang are having a go at each other as to which state gets the most tourists, Melaka or Penang. The good doctor claims that now Melaka is having more tourists than the traditional tourist state like Penang, citing some numbers of tourist arrivals to prove her point. An official in charge of tourists information in Penang refuted the good doctor's numbers saying she must have pulled them out of a hat.

Now, I have been to Melaka sometime in the '70s and again in the late '90s to find that the state was far more developed - in terms of infrastructures, number of high rise buildings, number of people and vehicles on the the road, the traffic and transport system, general cleanliness - to state that Melaka has progressed a great deal during the span of about 3 decades. I am assuming that in '00s, Melaka is much better now than in the '90s.

My last sojourn in Penang was in the '70s. As a whole, I never did like Penang because the town and beaches were filthy - rubbish being dumped all over the place - and, as I perceived it, was a place for pimps and prostitutes. I don't know who the idiots that glamorously described Penang as "Pearl of the Orient" but I subscribe to what Mahathir once said about Penang being "the Rubbish Bin of the Orient". Many a time when staying in the hotel I was accosted by pimps. Another reason for my dislike of Penang was the activities of the locals to peep at amorous couples, usually foreign tourists, from bushes near the beaches.

Since then I never did like Penang. My last visit was for breakfast at one restaurant, and a few hours stay at a beaten-up hotel for a nap and a shower, while waiting for the train from Butterworth to Haadyai. That was sometime in 2006. My family, now and then, asked me to drive to Penang for a holiday but I always declined, preferring to say that Langkawi was a better place.

As for the tourist arrivals compared by Ng Yen Yen between Melaka and Penang, I wonder what she meant by tourist arrivals. How the hell could she obtain with accuracy the number of local tourists coming to Penang nor to Melaka for that matter. For instance, I don't announce myself to the tourist department or anybody when I went to Penang or Melaka. Do you have to stay for at least one night in a hotel to be counted as a tourist ? Most probably, she must have got the figures from all the hotel's guest registrations, which meant that day tourists were not counted.

Ahh.. ! the things that they do here ...

A few days ago, I was amused when reading the news of a raid conducted by the authorities (viz. those officials from the syariah departments) in connection with gay activities. Apparently, the raid was on a spa somewhere in Malaysia where the authorities found naked or near naked men having a communal bath, a shower or even a sauna. Semi-nude men gathering in a spa was considered as gays.

Now, since when do people go to sauna or take a shower or wallow in a pool of water fully clothed. It looked as though the authorities frown such activities and lump them as gay activities. Do they expect that these men conduct such activities with members of the opposite sex in order for them to be seen as not being gays ?

I have been to such a spa in my lifetime. It was a spa somewhere in KL - in Nikko Hotel if I remember right. I personally didn't like to go to such places but because I was entertaining some clients who were great on spas and massages, willy nilly I was compelled to be with them at the spa.

So, at the reception we were given a key each to a locker for us to keep our belongings and clothes. The key was tied to a string that would be looped around one's neck for security. Each of us was then given a pair of boxer shorts. We were, so to speak, naked from the waist up and from the knees down. 2 to 3 of us went into a large jacuzzi pool to enjoy the warm, bubbly water before I got up and went to the sauna. In the sauna, there were a few other men who were sweating and talking on the sauna benches. I sat on the lower bench since it was not as steamy hot as on the upper benches. We were all dressed in the boxer shorts. Never did I see anyone buck naked. I presume, they were all too shy to fully expose themselves.

After for about 15 minutes in the sauna, I thought I had enough of sweating and plunged back into the jacuzzi pool only to find that my friends had disappeared. Later, I found them in the massage room, being massaged by women. They were all wearing towels around their waists instead of the soggy boxer shorts. As I had enough of the place, and on the pretext that I had to do an important errand, I profusely excused myself and proceeded to the reception area, then to the lockers to get dressed. I then left the premises and went home.

In light of the recent raid by the moral officers from the syariah department, not for a second did I see any activity in the spa that can be considered as immoral. What we all did was nothing but like being in a public swimming pool where we were all naked dressed in our swimming trunks.