Post PAN fever...
Yesterday the 9th Projek Amanat Negara (PAN) was held, and I was there with my friends. I went there with again, no expectations since I am just way too sleepy to think. I woke up at 7 in the morning on a Sunday morning, only to wear a suit, tie and black shoes, all of which I have never worn since I set foot here in UK. Heck, I only knew there was an ironing room in our hall the night before, so yeah, you should get the picture by now, how rarely do I attend formal events.
Anyway, the whole event started off a bit later than scheduled, as always, Malaysian timing. The first session was by Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz. She talked about career development. The difference in definition between a job and a career, the importance in adding your value once you enter the job market and so on. It was basically one of those talks you would expect to hear when you attend a career prospect seminar. But it really was interesting when she shared with us her experiences dealing with job applicants who could barely write a simple letter in English as one of their tasks. Direct translation problems is still an issue back in our country, some still translates 'menjolok mata' into 'eye-poking' and many more. Also, the issue of how job applicants being unable to have their own views on issue when asked during interview, one of the most commonly heard problem facing Malaysian youth.
After that, the event continued on to the topic of human rights. I couldn't remember all the speakers, but I can only recall Marina Mahathir and another guy from Seksualiti Merdeka. Basically this session started off about how Malaysia only signed the articles on child and women rights of all the articles from Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yeap, the infamous UDHR of which its first article is 'all humans are born equal', something of which reminded me a lot like the United States' Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson. One does not simply forget about all these big events which change history, you know. Then on end, the session discussed about women's right, regarding the government's policy that corporate decision-makers ought to at least comprises of 30% women. Marina proposed a very interesting idea of which by looking at the composition of our cabinet today, we only have two women in it, Shahrizat and Ng Yen Yen (I hope I got her name spelled right), something which is obviously not 30% of the whole Ministers in the cabinet. When that guy from Seksualiti Merdeka guy stood up, he spoke of human rights. How he struggled for 12 years trying to correct himself, having adopted the main stigma of the society that being gay is wrong, he was so devastated and alone. Then he finally realized that no individual should be deprived of their rights simple because of the choices they've made. The most memorable thing which stick onto my head was when he stated that,' yes there is a limit to human rights. That limit is only crossed when you cross my right, and your limit is crossed when you cross my right.' In short, what I got from all these arguments on laws and declarations was the fact that we should all have a right to voice out our opinions, no matter which side we are more inclined to. To decide what's right or wrong is another issue, but to at least let your voices be heard is what matters most, give people chance.
Soon after lunch, the third session started, this time around, the topic got a bit more on the offensive side,' Religion: Islam in Malaysia.' The speakers were Karim Raslan, Zainah Anwar from SIS as well as YB Dr. Hj Dzulkefly Ahmad from PAS. When one talks about the journey of Islam in Malaysia, surely the issue of the imposition of hudud law will be brought forth to the table of discussion. How would such an Islamic law be implemented in a country which comprises of diverse religions and belief? An interesting topic to be discussed, surely, but I was kind of more looking forward to hearing them talk about questions like the one posed to Nurul Izzah during a dialogue session a few days back, having taken Britain as an example, is it possible to separate the identity of Malay being a race from Islam as a religion?
Nevertheless, the whole discussion still went on pretty excitingly. There was this girl who had the guts to stand up and challenged Zainah Anwar for not having an Islamic background but dared to speak on all these religious issues. The whole audience was silent by that question, unfortunately this was not the first time Zainah was posed with such a question. She's been hit by it eversince SIS came into existence int he first place.
As the floor was heated up, it was finally time for the main event, the debate between Khairy Jamaluddin versus Rafizi Ramli from PKR. The debate started of with questions pertaining Vision 2020, is Malaysia on the right path to realising it? Overall, both speakers agreed that if we were to take a look at our economic prospects at present, we are nowhere near there yet. But as Khairy pointed out, Vision 2020 is more than just achieving a developed country's status in terms of economy.
As you would have probably guessed, I won't go through the whole debate bit by bit, since that would defeat the purpose of me blogging this down, I might as well prepare a report then. To sum the debate up, I must say, I was very impressed with Khairy. Frankly speaking, I had a bad impression of him as being sort of the loud voice signifying nothing in UMNO's cause, but having watched him speak in front of my own eyes, he was not bad after all. I liked his style of speech very much, so professional combined with just enough sprinkle of arrogance to give him the respected-speaker look. Few of the issues debated was the proposed amendments of AUKU, the freedom of media, public assembly act, the removal of ISA as well as phantom voters in Sabah & Sarawak.
In a nutshell (boy, I haven't used that phrase for a while now), the PAN event was simply amazing. Besides the fact I had to literally pull myself out of bed so darn early on a Sunday morning only to suit up, it was totally worth it. Besides, it's not everyday I get to suit up and prove a point to the world.
Sekian.
I leave the rest to you.......
Anyway, the whole event started off a bit later than scheduled, as always, Malaysian timing. The first session was by Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz. She talked about career development. The difference in definition between a job and a career, the importance in adding your value once you enter the job market and so on. It was basically one of those talks you would expect to hear when you attend a career prospect seminar. But it really was interesting when she shared with us her experiences dealing with job applicants who could barely write a simple letter in English as one of their tasks. Direct translation problems is still an issue back in our country, some still translates 'menjolok mata' into 'eye-poking' and many more. Also, the issue of how job applicants being unable to have their own views on issue when asked during interview, one of the most commonly heard problem facing Malaysian youth.
After that, the event continued on to the topic of human rights. I couldn't remember all the speakers, but I can only recall Marina Mahathir and another guy from Seksualiti Merdeka. Basically this session started off about how Malaysia only signed the articles on child and women rights of all the articles from Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yeap, the infamous UDHR of which its first article is 'all humans are born equal', something of which reminded me a lot like the United States' Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson. One does not simply forget about all these big events which change history, you know. Then on end, the session discussed about women's right, regarding the government's policy that corporate decision-makers ought to at least comprises of 30% women. Marina proposed a very interesting idea of which by looking at the composition of our cabinet today, we only have two women in it, Shahrizat and Ng Yen Yen (I hope I got her name spelled right), something which is obviously not 30% of the whole Ministers in the cabinet. When that guy from Seksualiti Merdeka guy stood up, he spoke of human rights. How he struggled for 12 years trying to correct himself, having adopted the main stigma of the society that being gay is wrong, he was so devastated and alone. Then he finally realized that no individual should be deprived of their rights simple because of the choices they've made. The most memorable thing which stick onto my head was when he stated that,' yes there is a limit to human rights. That limit is only crossed when you cross my right, and your limit is crossed when you cross my right.' In short, what I got from all these arguments on laws and declarations was the fact that we should all have a right to voice out our opinions, no matter which side we are more inclined to. To decide what's right or wrong is another issue, but to at least let your voices be heard is what matters most, give people chance.
Soon after lunch, the third session started, this time around, the topic got a bit more on the offensive side,' Religion: Islam in Malaysia.' The speakers were Karim Raslan, Zainah Anwar from SIS as well as YB Dr. Hj Dzulkefly Ahmad from PAS. When one talks about the journey of Islam in Malaysia, surely the issue of the imposition of hudud law will be brought forth to the table of discussion. How would such an Islamic law be implemented in a country which comprises of diverse religions and belief? An interesting topic to be discussed, surely, but I was kind of more looking forward to hearing them talk about questions like the one posed to Nurul Izzah during a dialogue session a few days back, having taken Britain as an example, is it possible to separate the identity of Malay being a race from Islam as a religion?
Nevertheless, the whole discussion still went on pretty excitingly. There was this girl who had the guts to stand up and challenged Zainah Anwar for not having an Islamic background but dared to speak on all these religious issues. The whole audience was silent by that question, unfortunately this was not the first time Zainah was posed with such a question. She's been hit by it eversince SIS came into existence int he first place.
As the floor was heated up, it was finally time for the main event, the debate between Khairy Jamaluddin versus Rafizi Ramli from PKR. The debate started of with questions pertaining Vision 2020, is Malaysia on the right path to realising it? Overall, both speakers agreed that if we were to take a look at our economic prospects at present, we are nowhere near there yet. But as Khairy pointed out, Vision 2020 is more than just achieving a developed country's status in terms of economy.
As you would have probably guessed, I won't go through the whole debate bit by bit, since that would defeat the purpose of me blogging this down, I might as well prepare a report then. To sum the debate up, I must say, I was very impressed with Khairy. Frankly speaking, I had a bad impression of him as being sort of the loud voice signifying nothing in UMNO's cause, but having watched him speak in front of my own eyes, he was not bad after all. I liked his style of speech very much, so professional combined with just enough sprinkle of arrogance to give him the respected-speaker look. Few of the issues debated was the proposed amendments of AUKU, the freedom of media, public assembly act, the removal of ISA as well as phantom voters in Sabah & Sarawak.
In a nutshell (boy, I haven't used that phrase for a while now), the PAN event was simply amazing. Besides the fact I had to literally pull myself out of bed so darn early on a Sunday morning only to suit up, it was totally worth it. Besides, it's not everyday I get to suit up and prove a point to the world.
Sekian.
I leave the rest to you.......
Handsome la dowh~ Apsal x pnjm vest aku? haha xD
ReplyDelete