No Tax Payers Money from Federal Govt to Kelantan State Govt for the "Visit Malaysia 2007" Campaign

From ROSLAN SMS CORNER Blog (27th Feb): Read Here

Quote: (translated) :

".... According to PAS Exco Member, Datuk Anuar Tan, the Federal Government did NOT allocate even one cent to the Kelantan State Government for the Visit Malaysia 2007 campaign.

The State Government had to allocate RM 1.5 million from its own budget to improve the various tourist centers and destinations in and around the state.

Although the Federal Government had allocated RM 32 million for tourism in Kelantan,this amount is allocated directly to the Kelantan State Tourism Action Council,established by the Federal Govt. The use of the allocation will be through the UMNO Kelantan State Assemblymen, according to Datuk Anuar Tan.

...This has been the experience of Kelantan eversince PAS was given the mandate by the people to govern the state from 1990.

Although Kelantan is a member state of the Federation of Malaysia, the Kelantanese people were treated like step-children and being punished for choosing a party that is not a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN).

...Perhaps this experience of the Kelantan people can be compared with the experience of the Palestinian people when they chose HAMAS and rejected FATAH...."

EXCERPTS: Read here for more

"... Dewan Undangan Negeri Kelantan sedang bersidang di Kota Bharu bagi tempoh penggal ke empat Dewan Undangan Negeri ke 11.

....Dalam sessi soal jawab, anggota EXCO Pelancongan Negeri, Datuk Annuar Tan menjelaskan bahawa kerajaan Pusat tidak memperuntukkan satu sen pun kepada kerajaan negeri Kelantan sempena Tahun Melawat Malaysia 2007 ini.

Sebaliknya kerajaan negeri terpaksa mengambil inisiatif sendiri memperuntukkan RM1.5 juta untuk kerja-kerja membaik-pulih pusat-pusat dan destinasi pelancongan seluruh negeri tersebut.

Inilah pengalaman di Kelantan sejak PAS diberikan mandat secara sah oleh rakyat untuk memerintah negeri tersebut sejak tahun 1990.

Kelantan walaupun menganggotai Persekutuan Malaysia namun sistem Federalisma itu seolah menganak-tirikan rakyat Kelantan dan menghukum mereka semata-mata kerana memilih parti yang bukan merupakan komponan BN.

Bolehlah barangkali disamakan dengan pengalaman rakyat Kelantan ini dengan pengalaman rakyat Palestin apabila memilih HAMAS dan menolak Fatah lalu satu dunia termasuk AS dan Israel mengkambing-hitam mereka.

Dewan dimaklumakn bahawa kerajaan Pusat memang ada meluluskan sejumlah RM32 juta untuk membangunkan pelancongan di Kelantan akan tetapi ianya tidak disalurkan kepada kerajaan negeri sebaliknya ke Majlis Tindakan Pelancongan Negeri Kelantan yang ditubuhkan oleh kerajaan Pusat.

Menurut Annuar Tan peruntukkan itu kelak difahami akan disalurkan melalui pimpinan, ahli-ahli YB UMNO Kelantan!

Cuma yang menghairankan menurut Annuar lagi bagaimana pimpinan Umno Kelenatan mahu memajukan pusat-pusat dan destinasi pelancongan ini sedangkan kesemua tempat ini terletak di atas tanah milik kerajaan negeri.

Kemanalah mereka mahu junjung dan heret wang sebanyak RM32 juta itu yang dimaksudkan untuk tujuan pelancongan melainkan kata Annuar lagi untuk mereka menganjurkan konsert hiburan di sekolah-sekolah yang di bawah pentadbiran kerajaan Pusat.

Tindakan kerajaan Pusat ini jelas mencerminkan ketidak-ikhlasan mereka dalam membela dan memajukan rakyat dan negeri Kelantan.

Sampai bilakah Umno mahu mengamalkan dasar diskriminasi seumpamam ini sesama anak bangsa?

Kita duka dan merintih melihat kesengsaraan anak bumi Palestin kerana disekat dan dikekang oleh pelbagai pihak, rupanya di negara kita pun perangai dan sikap Yahudi ini menular dari kalangan sesama anak bangsa!


Kelantan Politics and the Kelantanese Chinese.

COMMENTARY: Read here article Malaysiakini-Helen Ang or Read HERE

Excerpts: Read here for more

(left) Datuk Anuar Tan bin Abdullah, State Tourism, Culture and Community Affairs Committee chairman. Datuk Anuar Tan is a Chinese Muslim convert.

"... Making up 2% of the state’s projected 1.4 million population, the estimated 28,000 Chinese in Kelantan are an even more negligible fraction of the whole.

Common sense dictates that such a small community lacks political clout. Insiders would admit that they generally accept their subordinate position in the Malay-dominated power structure.

A more interesting speculation is how the Kelantan Chinese view their place in the political scheme of things vis-à-vis Umno and PAS.

Insofar as concerns race, the Islamist party has somewhat shown its egalitarian credentials by accepting Chinese converts into its fold.

PAS state executive councillor Anuar Tan Abdullah, a Chinese, was in fact tasked with weaning away a third of the Pengkalan Pasir Chinese voters in the recent by-election.

On the other hand, Umno with its raison d’etre of Ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) will NEVER open its doors to Chinese, as Umno’s sidelined founder Onn Jaafar learned..... (and) Onn was consigned to political wilderness for his visionary attempt at inclusiveness.

....PAS is okay in theory with the Chief Minister being Chinese as long as he is Muslim.

For Umno, any paramount leader must be Malay (or at least convince the party and public that he is Malay)

… Umno’s rallying cry of “Untuk Bangsa, Agama dan Negara” puts race first and country last.

Some Kelantan Chinese say they experience LESS racism under a PAS administration which granted them legal titles to Malay reserved land and permitted them trading and other licenses WITHOUT undue discrimination.

.....in Kelantan , the Chinese are instead distinguished by their place of residence: town Chinese and village Chinese.

Malays generally see urban Chinese as “Cina luar” or “Cina benua” (from outside or the mainland) as these relatively more recent immigrants have stronger ties to their motherland culture.

Peranakan Chinese, some having settled in the countryside in earlier waves long before the 19th century, are seen as “Cina sini” and “orang Cina kita” (local Chinese, our very own Chinese) and are more socialised to their Malay neighbours. The (Peranakan Chinese) elders are accepted as “orang Kelantan betul” (true Kelantanese).

The town Chinese speak good Kelantanese; the village Chinese – like the Baba Nyonya of Malacca – speak the dialect like natives.

Being fluent in the language and well-versed in “budi bahasa” (code of courtesy) and “adat” (customs) are among the main factors why Kelantan Chinese enjoy better race relations with Malays compared with Chinese of other states.

Kelantan presents a unique case not only because it is the sole state to be ruled by the opposition.

The Kelantanese are arguably different from other folks. Well-known for loyalty to their home state, it is this clannishness that fosters the affinity among Kelantanese of different races.

The camaraderie that Kelantan Chinese share with Malays is more than skin deep, not something superficial arising from puerile National Service coercion.

Assimilation of the minority – in language, manners and dress – came about from a natural process of the rural Chinese successfully accommodating themselves to the Malay environment.

Sociologist and academic Teo Kok Seong in his book "The Peranakan Chinese of Kelantan" makes a telling observation of Kelantan’s parochial attitude:

“The fact that Kelantan Malays place great emphasis on village membership is evident in instances where Malay members of a village show a greater solidarity toward their co-resident Peranakan Chinese than Malay outsiders from another village.

Often, when open conflicts occur between Peranakan Chinese of the village with Malays of another village, Malay members of the village will take the side of their Peranakan co-villagers .

There are instances when Peranakan Chinese candidates are proposed, seconded, and supported by a majority of the Malay members of the village in the event of district level elections, such as positions in organisations at municipal level."

This facet of mutual trust is, needless to say, unrepresentative of the more prevalent bigoted behaviour that exists elsewhere in the peninsula.

Some would even venture to say that featured here is the template for the nebulous concept of Bangsa Malaysia.

Yet while the better interethnic solidarity in Kelantan is indisputable, Islam still is a polarising factor. One religious taboo not to be underestimated is the consumption of pork.

From my own numerous stays in Kota Baru with a Malay family of PAS supporters, the Kelantanese I’ve met appear more tolerant of non-halal Chinese food outlets, not displaying the overt aversion that other Malays show.

I believe that this tolerance is reciprocated by the Chinese who keep “un-Islamic” (for want of a better word) social behaviour in the background so as not to offend. "

The conjoining of Malay identity with Muslim is so institutionalised, in Kelantan as in Malaysian officialdom, that the phrase “masuk Melayu” has come to mean “convert to Islam” when its literal translation actually reads “become a Malay”.

It is this issue of faith that is the barrier impeding further assimilation of Kelantan Peranakan Chinese who have remained Buddhist in conjunction with Toaist-Confucianist traditional practices.

Aside from religion – and this factor has come increasingly to the fore in recent years as both Umno and PAS up the ante in Islamisation – the other man-made barrier is the New Economic Policy (and its perpetual incarnations under other names).

Teo, himself a Kelantan Peranakan Chinese, postulates: “In some sense, Peranakan Chinese are victims of the irony of their own historical development. There is constant widespread resentment amongst Peranakan Chinese for not being recognised as bumiputera.”

The Siamese of Malaysia’s northern states, the Portuguese of Malacca, recent arrivals among Indonesians, and various Muslims of Arab, Indian, Pakistani or other origin can avail themselves of bumiputra special privileges.

But the village Chinese, despite their far longer residence in Kelantan than some of the examples above, will always be viewed by BN bureaucracy as “non” (the non-Malay, non-Muslim negative classification) although for centuries having regarded Tanah Melayu as their homeland.

To further complicate matters, their Malay orientation makes them a minority within a minority of ever shrinking mainstream Chinese overall.

When you think about it, how much more Malaysian can one get than the Peranakan Chinese of Kelantan?

The Kelantan Chinese could have been the vanguard pioneering a Bangsa Malaysia that arises not through artificial political pressure but genuine goodwill.

For them to decide on back-tracking their natural historical development will be a painful opportunity lost for the rest of us in this country.