KUDOS SELANGOR!

Am I not proud to be a rakyat of the state of Selangor? I can boastfully say that I am extremely proud to be one. I am from Kampung Sg. Serai, Ulu Langat, Selangor, born 67 years ago during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. I was too little then to know the atrocities carried out by the Japanese soldiers upon my kampong folks; only to hear some horrific stories of the Japanese occupation related to me by my parents. One story has it that in order to solicit information from a person, the Japanese would bloat a person’s tummy with soap water and when the tummy is filled; a wooden plank is placed on the person’s tummy to be stepped upon vigorously until the person vomits. This was then repeated several times until the Japanese gets what they wanted from the person.

Then came the First Malayan Emergency and I was a bit older. As a child, seeing soldiers roaming the jungle behind my grandmother’s house excites me. The soldiers were of mixed nationalities i.e. British, Africans, Gurkhas and some others from the Commonwealth countries. There were also some Malay soldiers though, and I can still remember the soldiers were from 6th Battalion Royal Malay Regiment that was camped at Batu 9, Cheras-Ulu Langat road junction. This was the battalion that I first served upon being commissioned as a military officer in 1966.

I have seen dead communist terrorist (CT) being carried out ‘unceremoniously’ from the jungle areas. Lining up the road and showing a ‘thumbs up’ at passing British soldiers will get us a few imported English manufactured chocolates and biscuits. I also know of a number of my village elders that had gone missing; and their bodies never to be found till this day. They were believed to have been kidnapped by CTs and killed, supposedly for being an agent of the British government. I do not know if the British have ever rewarded these missing persons or claimed that they were their agents. I don’t think so, and I am yet to hear anything being said about them and the truth about their disappearance. If indeed, they died because they were deemed a British informant/sympathizer, are their families not granted a similar privilege accorded to former soldiers, policemen and auxiliary police that served the British during the First Malayan Emergency for a one-off RM3000 handout as ‘decreed’ by PM Najib recently?

I read the writings of Noaz Nair in an article titled ‘ Khalid: Better than all past UMNO MB’s combined, but can he retain Selangor’, posted in the Malaysia Chronicle dated Saturday, 15 October 2011. I am even more proud now having read the article when it says that Selangor is the most prosperous and developed state in the country, with the highest GDP. Not only has Selangor done well economically, but the four opposition-held states i.e. Selangor, Penang, Kedah and Kelantan collectively accounts for 53% of the country’s FDI at RM25 billion of the total RM47.2 billion. If the four opposition-held states can come with such startling achievement, why can’t the other states perform well too? And don’t tell me they (BN controlled states) require another 54 years to come to level the achievement of the four opposition-held states.

And this reminds me of a statement made by a friend recently when he said, “Just look at Singapore; a state void of any natural resources can achieve tremendous economic achievement; but Malaysia endowed with numerous natural resource is way off its mark – why is this so?” The only answer that I can think of is what I have been saying all along – CORRUPTION, INCOMPETENT LEADERS AND ADMINISTRATORS and my crusade against corruption will continue for as long as I can think and write.


CRUSADE AGAINST CORRUPTION