valentines day

"Sometimes conservatism has a higher value rather liberalism, especially when it protects your values and ensures your reputation is unscathed"

- Juliana Phang, Kuala Lumpur

this is a statement quoted from and open letter from a Juliana Phang regarding the "Bright and Breezier" issue.

all i have to say now is, what is going on with my beloved country? what happened to all the teenagers? are there still even any decent one left? what were yous thinking????

and to see that a chinese think that way, not the malays/muslims.. this shows how the world is rotating at not the right axis anymore.

Race: Time for a New Beginning

this was taken from Tengku Razaleigh's official weblog

*learn as much as you can, and do as much as you would. we can still make a difference.

Thank you for inviting me to speak at this event.

Distance, home and reflection

1) The opportunity to study abroad is a gift. I remember my days as a student in Belfast so long ago. Now as then, overseas study gives us the chance to be educated at some of the finest, best established institutions of higher learning anywhere, and to be exposed to the best that has been thought and done, and to measure ourselves against the highest standards. It is an opportunity to see the world.

2) Travel and living abroad takes us far away from home, but in doing so it also brings us closer to ourselves, and closer to home. Have you experienced this? Have you felt time and distance making you more conscious of how unique and precious the places, relationships, colours, smells and yes, tastes, of home are? Distance can help us see things more clearly. Home is such an immediate, dense and total experience that we often need to go away to see its contours. Home is such an emotional experience that we often understand it better in the coolness of distance. We sometimes need the elevation of distance to see the map of our own country.

3) I want to use this privileged distance that we now share, here in Melbourne, to speak frankly with you today about a matter that is usually so tightly wound up, so emotional, that at a national level we have not been able to have a rational discussion about it.

4) I want to invite you to look across this distance at the map of the life in common that we call our country. I want to look across the distance of fifty two years of independence, across changes over my own lifetime, to understand where we have come from as a nation and where we are going. My topic is race and racial consciousness in Malaysian life, and especially in our politics.

Race in the political life of Malaysia

5) Our social and political life is racialised to a degree seen in few other countries in the world.  There are historical reasons for this. Malaysia was, at its birth, a country deeply divided along communal lines. We negotiated and attained independence with a power-sharing arrangement between the leaders of the three major racial communities as represented by the Alliance coalition. The agreement and cooperation of these leaders ensured peace and stability while we modernised our economy. The skill and integrity of these leaders, and their clear authority among their own communities was key to the success of this model, which is sometimes described by political scientists as consociational democracy.

6) This arrangement lasted only twelve years. After the traumatic riots of May 1969, we underwent a period of rule under the  National Operations Council before Parliament was restored. The New Economic Policy was drafted and put into action. A new coalition, the Barisan Nasional, was put together to ensure that every community had a place at the table. Once more, the idea was to resolve conflict within a consociational power-sharing arrangement. Each community was to have a place at the table. Conflicts were to be solved between the leaders of these communities, behind closed doors.  This arrangement was useful and effective for its time, but we have to wake up to the fact that it no longer works.

It is important to understand why:

7) It was never meant to be a permanent solution. Our method of racial power-sharing is primarily a system for resolving conflict in a deeply divided society. It was designed as an interim work-around, an early stage on the way to “a more perfect union” and not as the desired end-state. Over the years, however, we have put up barricades around our system as if it were a fore-ordained and permanent ideal. In doing so, we have turned a half-way house into our destination, as if we must forever remain a racially divided and racially governed society.

8.) Instead, our ideal must be to become a free and united society in which individuals can express their ethnic and religious identities without being imprisoned in them. We must aim for a society in which public reasoning and not backroom dealing determines our collective decisions.

9) The power-sharing model that we started life with is an elite style of government justified by the virtue and competence of natural leaders of their communities. It needs special conditions. It does not work when political parties are led by the ignorant and the corrupt who have no standing in the communities they claim to represent.

10) It needs genuine agreement and cooperation between leaders who command support in their own communities and are universally respected. It  will not work if the power-sharing coalition is overly dominated by one person and the others are there as token representatives. Our founding fathers negotiated, cooperated and  shared responsibility as equals and as friends within a power-sharing framework. The communal interests they represented were articulated within the overarching vision of a united Malaysia. In the intervening years, as power came to be concentrated in the Executive, we preserved only the outward appearance of power-sharing. In reality we have had top-down rule and power has become increasingly unaccountable. Each of our political parties has also become more top-down, ruled by eternal incumbents who protect their position with elaborate restrictions on contests. Umno itself has become beholden to the Executive.

11) Our decades under highly-centralised government undermined our power-sharing formula, just as it undermined key institutions such as the judiciary, the police and the rule of law. Our major institutions have survived in appearance while their substance has eroded. Seen in this light, the election results of March 8, which saw the Barisan Nasional handed its worst defeat since 1969, was just the beginning of the collapse of a structure which has long been hollowed out.

The end of the old, but not quite the new

12) The racial power-sharing model now practiced by Barisan is broken. It takes more honesty than we are used to in public life to observe that this is not a temporary but a terminal crisis. An old order is ending. Our problem is that while this past winds down, smoothly or otherwise, the future is not yet here. We are caught in between. Despite our having become a more economically advanced society, with many opportunities for our citizens to express richly plural identities, our races have become increasingly polarised. Large numbers of our electorate still vote along ethnic and religious lines. Much of our political ground is still racially demarcated. Although we have made some progress towards truly multiracial politics, both the Government and the Opposition are largely mobilised along racial lines. It is not yet time to herald a new dawn. Instead, we are in a transition full of perils and possibilities.

13) You are this generation caught between. You are the generation of transition. You will play a key role in determining its outcome. However well a certain kind of politics of racial identity may have served to reduce conflict in the past, it has come to the end of its useful life. We need a new beginning to racial relations in Malaysia, and you must pioneer that beginning. We need to re-design race relations in Malaysia, and you must be the architects and builders of that design.

14) In coming to that new design I hope you take advantage of the perspective of distance that your overseas education has given you to not take as your starting point the tired answers that are passed on as conventional wisdom. You must reformulate the questions and come up with your own answers. When it is clear that one generation may have run out of steam, it is time to generate your own. Where do you begin? May I suggest some perspectives and principles. Whatever the answers we come up with, I think the following elements are important:

a) Begin with our common humanity. Respect our common humanity must override all lesser affiliations, including race. One of Islam’s most powerful contributions to human civilisation has been its insistence on the equality of all human beings. Islam tolerates no notions of racial superiority or inferiority. All human beings are equal before God. That same principle of equality is absolutely fundamental to democracy, and democracy is a foundational principle of our Constitution. Democracy is part of what makes us who we are as a nation. Even if we might still gravitate towards racial  groupings, our allegiance to these groups must never overshadow our allegiance to the Constitution, and to the claims of equal dignity that it establishes firmly and permanently. Political parties based on race or religion must never be allowed to do or say anything contrary to justice and equality.

b) We must anchor ourselves in the Constitution and restore its primacy. This founding document of our country establishes definitively the equality of citizenship that is the bedrock of democracy. It gives us the framework of law and order within which we become a nation. It establishes the primacy of the rule of law, the sovereignty of Parliament, the independence of the judiciary and civil service and of our law enforcement agencies. These are the institutions which guarantee the freedom and sovereignty of the people.

c) We should acknowledge that while race is a category that unites people in common feeling, it can also divide, and divide disastrously. While it unites people who possess a set of social markers it often divides the same people from other communities. We should appreciate not just the fact that we are diverse but diverse in different ways. What I mean by this is that we are not diverse in the sense of being merely Malay, a Chinese, an Indian, a Kadazan, Iban and so forth. Each of us inhabits these particular identities in different ways. Each of us is not just a member of a race. There are other classifications which matter to us, such as location, class, social status, occupation, language, politics and others. 

We would be terribly impoverished as persons if our identity was given ahead of time and once and for all merely by our membership of a fixed racial category. I would be a very dull person if you could tell who I was simply by looking up my race. We would never have unity if that is primarily how we regard one another. If you reflect on yourselves, you might find that all kinds of identity matter to you: that you are a graduate of such and such a university, that you speak these languages, support this football team, enjoy certain food or music, love to travel, can write computer code, have read such and such books, and have so-and-so as friends. Just reflect on how you identify yourselves in your facebook profiles. Is race the only thing you regard as important about yourselves? Is it the most important thing?



To expect our politics to be given by our race is to make cardboard images of ourselves, it is to retard our growth as individuals and hence as a society. Similarly to see no more of others than their race is to turn them into stereotypes and maintain a view of the world bordering on racist.  I want to urge you, as the makers of the new social landscape we need in Malaysia, to reject taking race to be a unique and fixed categorisation, to reject race as a central category of social and political life.

i) Race is a constructed category, in the sense that people shape what they count as a “race” according to time, place and purpose. There is no unique and rigid concept of it the way there is a rigid concept of buoyancy, double-entry book-keeping, equilateral triangles and photosynthesis. I would be offended if you tried to measure and determine my racial identity, and it would tell me that there was something deeply wrong with your worldview. I am not Malay in the sense in which water is H2O.

ii) Race is merely one among many identities we take up in life. We may not have much choice over how others categorise us, but we certainly have a choice about the relative importance to place on our own and therefore on the others’ racial identity. We have a choice in how much weight we put on it, and in how high in our scheme of values we put it. The contrast I want to draw is between the view that makes race out to be a unique and fundamental category, and a view that sees race as one out of many kinds of identification we could prioritise. If we see race as a watertight category, then you are either of race X or not, and everything else: your habits, thought-patterns, loyalties and politics must all follow from that. Then race becomes destiny. The politics of this kind of conception of race will always divide, and the ultimate solution to intra-racial problems it leads us to is, in the end, violence. It is easy to identify the practitioners of this kind of racial politics. They will rely on veiled threats of communal violence even as they take part  in democratic politics. 

However, if we understand that racial identity is just one of many identities we have to balance, then it becomes our duty as thinking persons to set relative priorities on all these identifications. We need to ask ourselves whether we want to draw our moral values and perspective from our common humanity or from our racial identity. As educated, reasoning people, we cannot but find our common humanity the more fundamental value. We cannot but find rationally chosen universal values more important than inherited tribal affiliations.

iii) The ability to root ourselves in our common humanity first and foremost is the prerequisite for the development of a democratic society in which policies are decided by public reasoning rather than determined by violence and manipulation. This is because open public reasoning can only be carried out where there is equal respect for the dignity and rights of all citizens,  and such respect must be firmly rooted in an understanding that despite sometimes clashing interests and identities, we are united by a more fundamental common identity: that of a shared humanity created by God. Our common humanity gives us moral obligations to one another, regardless of our lesser affiliations in a way that racial identity does not.

d) We need to arrive at new ways of mediating conflicting claims between the races, new ways of bringing people to the table, of including everyone in the decisionmaking process.

e) These new ways must be based on more open conceptions of who we are. Malaysia’s major races have lived together not just for decades but for centuries. Their cultures have interacted for millenia. In that time there has been mutual influence, admixture and cross-pollination at a depth and on a scale that our politics, popular culture and educational curriculum has largely pretended does not exist. 

In my own parliamentary constituency, jungle covered, far inland and one of the most remote in the peninsula (it used to be known as Ulu Kelantan and covered half the state, and when I started there I had to travel to it by boat), is a six hundred year old Chinese community, perhaps the oldest in the peninsula, living in peace with their Malay and Orang Asli neighbours. Why pretend that we do not owe so much to each other that we would not be ourselves without each other? At the level at which people actually live we are already inextricably linked to each other. 

It is time to embrace this real diversity in our political and personal lives. Our racial identities are not silos in a cornfield, forever separate, encased in steel, but trees in our rainforest: standing distinct but inexplicable without each other and constantly co-evolving.

16) While giving room to whoever wants to organise and advocate political interests according to our ethnic and religious affinities, we must now, very firmly, assert that such affinities must always recognise the priority and primacy of our common citizenship, our equal dignity, and above all, our common humanity before each other and before God. First we are human beings who are open to one another.

17) My young friends, I am not recommending anything novel. These are cardinal principle of our Constitution and the faiths we profess, most especially of Islam, and of reason itself. Let us have the sense of perspective to see our ethnic identities against these cornerstone principles of religion and ethics, and let us now educate our young, apprentice our youth, and conduct ourselves according to these principles. And then let us have a new beginning for Malaysia.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah

Sunday, 9 August 2009 – Prince Phillip Lecture Theatre, Melbourne University

Seminar Pembangunan Insan
Kelab Umno Melbourne

paklah is now HAPPY. good for him.

in conjunction with pak lah's wedding with Jean Danker @ Jean Abdullah, Berita Harian had made an interview with the man himself, and here's the interview:

Wartawan: Pejabat Perdana Menteri hari ini mengeluarkan kenyataan mengenai Datuk Seri akan melangsungkan perkahwinan dengan Jeanne Abdullah, Sabtu ini. Boleh cerita lanjut mengenai berita gembira ini.

Abdullah: Alhamdulillah, saya rasa gembira, syukur kepada Allah SWT kerana orang pilihan saya itu telah mendapat restu daripada anak-anak saya dan juga adik-adik saya. Mudah-mudahan hari yang telah ditetapkan itu, akan diadakan nanti, insya-Allah, majlis akad nikah.

Wartawan: Kenapa pilih Sabtu?

Abdullah: Sabtu cuti, senanglah orang nak datang.

Wartawan: Datuk Seri, berbulan madu di mana nanti?

Abdullah: (Ketawa)... tak rancang pun lagi, belum, belum. Nak kena bincang dengan orang yang berkenaan.

Wartawan: Bila kali pertama Datuk Seri jumpa dengan bakal isteri ini?

Abdullah: (senyum)... dah lama dah sebab Jeanne adalah adik ipar Allahyarham Kak Endon.

Wartawan: Bila Datuk Seri melamar?

Abdullah: Saya ingin mengingati bila, saya cuba ingat bila.... saya pun tak ingat lagi dah

Wartawan: Apa yang membuatkan Datuk Seri tertarik kepada Jeanne?

Abdullah: (senyum) Oh yang tu ke... sebab ada hatikan. Saya ingat dia boleh jaga sayalah, boleh jadi teman sayalah.

Wartawan: Kenapa ambil masa yang lama untuk mengumumkannya kerana sebelum ini Datuk Seri kata ia hanya khabar angin?

Abdullah: Yalah... itu khabar angin. Bagaimanapun, perkara ini mengambil masa. Saya terpaksa berunding dengan anak-anak, adik-adik tanya. Lepas itu nak cari masa pula, saya terlalu sibuk sana sini. Itulah sebabnya.

Wartawan: Datuk Seri nanti akan bersanding?

Abdullah: Tak ada, orang tua kahwin.. (gelak)

Wartawan: Ada majlis resepsi untuk orang ramai?

Abdullah: Itu belum lagi, nantilah. Banyak kawan-kawan nak jumpa.

Wartawan: Boleh Datuk Seri cerita sedikit mengenai karekter Jeanne, kerana kami tidak tahu. Lagi pun beliau bakal menjadi ‘first lady’?

Abdullah: Pertamanya, dia adalah orang yang cukup sederhana dan peramah juga kalau orang nak bercakap dengan dia. Dari segi... kalau nak ambil kira hubungan dia dengan orang yang datang ke rumah saya, dulu masa Kak Endon ada, dialah yang sentiasa menyambut kawan-kawan dan tetamu yang datang kerana ada mesyuarat dengan saya atau ada juga kadang-kadang pelawat dari luar negara, kawan dari luar negara, pegawai kerajaan. Jadi apabila semua orang ini datang, yang menjemput mereka di mana nak duduk, tanya apa nak minum, itulah peranan dilakukannya... macam Kak Endon juga. Rumah itu besar dan orang datang pun ramai. Di samping itu juga, ada masa perlu diadakan jamuan sama ada kecil atau besar, itu pun dia juga yang menguruskannya seperti mencari katerer, menentukan menu dan akan susun meja, kerusi semua. Jadi saya tengok dia dapat membawa diri dengan baik dan elok. Tidak ada apa-apa yang berlaku (menyebabkan) saya rasa nak marah ke apa. Jadi, sifat begitu pada saya adalah baik.

Wartawan: Berapa tahun dah kenal dengan Jeanne?

Abdullah: Kenal dah lama dah. Boleh jadi 20 tahun.

Wartawan: Merisik pula bila?

Abdullah: (gelak)... baru-barulah

Wartawan: Sudah setahun?

Abdullah: (senyum)... kurang sikit

Wartawan: Hantaran pula Datuk Seri, berapa banyak?

Abdullah: Tak ada, tak ada.... simple saja. Ini bukan nak kahwin kali pertama. Tak payah hantaran banyak-banyak.

Wartawan: Bagaimana penerimaan anak-anak Datuk Seri terutama Nori, apabila mengetahui mengenai perkara ini?

Abdullah: Terima dah, kalau tak terima hari ini tak jadilah.

Wartawan: Tetapi keluarga Datuk Seri pun kenal sangat dengan Jeanne?

Abdullah: Memang pun... dia sebenarnya keluarga sebab seperti yang saya katakan tadi, dia adik ipar Kak Endon, kahwin dengan adik lelaki Kak Endon, tetapi dah pun berpisah, dah lebih 15 tahun lamanya, bukan baru.

Wartawan: Allahyarham Datin Seri Endon dulu amat sayang dengan Jeanne?

Abdullah: Memang pun, kalau tidak Kak Endon tak suruh datang ke rumah untuk bekerja dengan dia dan diberi beberapa tanggungjawab dan dia perlulah laksanakan di rumah itu.

Wartawan: Ada yang kata, ini (berkahwin dengan Jeanne) wasiat daripada Allahyarham Kak Endon, betul ke?

Abdullah: Kak Endon tak adalah kata wasiat.

Wartawan: Pesanan atau cadangan Kak Endon, mungkin?

Abdullah: (Gelak)... Itu pun dia tak kata.

Wartawan: Jadi perkahwinan ini diadakan dengan cara sederhana saja?

Abdullah: Ya, lebih sederhana. Yang pertama (perkahwinan) tu, besarlah. Lepas itu kali kedua, kecil.... kali ketiga lain sikit, empat lain sikit (gelak).... ketiga, keempat tak ada dah. Kita henti setakat dua (gelak).

Wartawan: Ada rancangan nak bercuti selepas kahwin?

Abdullah: Belum ada rancangan cuti sebab lepas itu ada kerja. Saya nak pergi lawatan rasmi ke luar negara.

Wartawan: Jeanne bawa sekali?

Abdullah: Bawa sekalilah... dah ada teman (gelak).... ehh itu pun nak tanya (gelak lagi).

Wartawan: Bagaimana hubungan bakal isteri Datuk Seri dengan Nori?

Abdullah: Baik, baik, baik. Tak ada masalah.

Wartawan: Apa pesanan Datuk Seri kepada rakyat?

Abdullah: Selepas ini seperti biasa, saya akan pergi membuat lawatan, pergi ke merata tempat seluruh Semenanjung, Sabah dan juga Sarawak. Ada program yang saya pergi kerana dijemput untuk rasmi itu dan rasmi ini. Jadi masa pergi itu, bolehlah bawa (Jeanne). Bukanlah saya suruh mereka buat kenduri besar, nak terimalah... saya tak ada macam itu. Bila pergi boleh jumpa dan memang pun lawatan saya ke merata tempat ini memang kerap dan di mana sesuai, bolehlah bawa dia.

Wartawan: Datuk Seri dah tempah cincin?

Abdullah: Dah tempah, takkan tak tempah lagi, dah lewat.

Wartawan: Tetapi hubungan dan cinta Datuk Seri dengan Allahyarham Kak Endon begitu kuat, macam mana Datuk Seri boleh jatuh cinta dengan wanita lain?

Abdullah: Secara jujur saya katakan, sayang saya terhadap Endon tetap kuat. Tetapi saya percaya Tuhan mencipta banyak ruang dalam sanubari kita bagi berlainan orang untuk disayangi. Kita boleh sayangi ibu, anak, isteri, cucu, adik tetapi kita tidak dapat bandingkan kasih kita kepada ibu dengan kasih kepada isteri. Jeanne adalah satu daripadanya... itu adalah kelebihan Allah. Dia mencipta keupayaan untuk kita menyayangi dan menjalin hubungan. Jadi biarlah di rumah tu, gambar-gambar Endon yang ada itu terus berada di situ, saya tak akan ubah sebab itu adalah ingatan memori yang abadi... nak tambah satu lagi (gambar), tak apa tambahlah (senyum).

Wartawan: Bakal isteri Datuk Seri ini, orang mana?

Abdullah: Orang Kuala Lumpur. Nama dia, kalau dieja j e a n n e, orang panggil ‘jean’. Ia adalah perkataan Perancis yang disebut sebagai ‘yeang’.

Wartawan: Dia ada anak?

Abdullah: Ya, ada dua anak perempuan, usia lewat 20an dah.

Wartawan: Datuk Seri panggil Jeanne dengan panggilan apa, sayang atau ‘darling’?

Abdullah: (Gelak).... nanti anda dengar i sebut macam mana. Tadi dalam mesyuarat Kabinet, macam-macam (tanya). Saya dah maklumkan kepada Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong hari ini dan lepas itu, dah maklumkan kepada Jemaah Menteri. Eloklah mereka tahu, lepas itulah kenyataan (mengenai perkahwinan) itu dikeluarkan, biarlah rakyat tahu, tiada apa nak sembunyikan, apa nak sorok-sorok.

Wartawan: Kepada rakyat, apa Datuk Seri harapkan?

Abdullah: Insya-Allah, mudah-mudahan mereka doakan kesejahteraan kami berdua. The Happy Prime Minister can do a lot of good work (Perdana Menteri yang gembira boleh melakukan banyak kerja yang baik). Yalah.... gembira dah ada teman.

Wartawan: Bagaimana majlis acara akad nikah Sabtu ini, apakah terbuka?

Abdullah: Ini terhad kepada keluarga yang terdekat, anak-anak saya, adik-adik saya dan suami isteri mereka. Lepas itu, sebelah Kak Endon, orang dia ramai... ada 11 orang semuanya tetapi kembar yang lain dah meninggal, Kak Endon dan kembarnya, ada sembilan lagi untuk bersama balu atau isteri, sebelah ibu mertua saya, besan saya dan anak-anaknya. Jadi itulah... cukuplah untuk menyaksikan apa yang berlaku dalam keluarga.

Wartawan: Selama ini Datuk Seri memang minat dengan madu lebah, apakah Datuk Seri masih mengambil madu lebah?

Abdullah: (Gelak)... Itu daripada dulu, sejak sekolah lagi saya makan sampai sekarang.


p/s: good for paklah. he seems happy. lets all pray for his happiness, and happiness to our country~ cheers to paklah~ many, many happy returns.


:: summer_breeze ::

belangsungkawa ABDULLAH SALLEH

From mSTAR Online (mstar.com.my)

Belasungkawa ABDULLAH SALLEH (1926-2006)

23-06-2006 11:09:24 AM

KUALA LUMPUR: Bekas Ketua Setiausaha Negara (KSN) Tun Abdullah Salleh yang meninggal dunia hari ini merupakan pegawai kerajaan yang paling terkemuka yang telah berkhidmat bawah empat Perdana Menteri dan pernah menjadi ketua kepada Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, bekas kakitangan kerajaan yang kini ialah Perdana Menteri. Setelah dimasukkan ke hospital sejak tiga bulan lepas, Abdullah meninggal dunia akibat limpoma, sejenis kanser pada sel darah di Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) di sini pada kira- kira pukul 3.30 petang semalam. Abdullah yang datang dari keluarga bukan senang menjawat jawatan awam kerajaan yang paling tinggi pada 1976 dan dua tahun kemudian sebagai Pengerusi dan Ketua Eksekutif perbadanan minyak nasional Petronas yang baru ditubuhkan. Dilahirkan pada 24 Jun, 1936 di Kampung Padang Sebang, Alor Gajah, Melaka, semasa negara dalam pemerintahan penjajahan dan apabila kemiskinan masih lagi berlaku, Abdullah dapat mengharungi segala cabaran itu dalam hidupnya. Tujuh daripada adik-beradiknya meninggal dunia akibat difteria, ibu beliau meninggal dunia semasa wabak demam kepialu yang pada ketika itu beliau berada di darjah lima, tetapi tidak ada apa yang boleh menghalang beliau daripada mencapai cita- citanya untuk melanjutkan pelajaran bagi mendapatkan ijazah universiti, perang dunia meletus pada 1941-1945. Beliau dimasukkan di sebuah sekolah yang dikendalikan oleh rakyat Britain di bandar Melaka -- beliau satu-satunya pelajar Melayu di sekolah itu dengan berulang-alik menaiki keretapi dari Gadek dan kemudian berjalan kaki. Abdullah membayar yuran sekolah $2.50 sebulan dengan bapanya hanya bergaji $26 sebulan tetapi oleh kerana beliau cemerlang dalam pelajarannya pada tahun pertama, beliau diberikan persekolahan percuma. Dalam tahun kedua, beliau menjadi pelajar paling cemerlang dan diberikan biasiswa sebanyak $9 sebulan. Beliau meneruskan persekolahannya di Melaka High School, yang beliau sifatkan sebagai "salah sebuah sekolah terbaik di negara ini" dan berada dalam Darjah Tujuh sementara menungu ke Darjah Lapan apabila Perang Dunia Kedua apabila tercetus. Abdullah dapat melihat kedatangan tentera Jepun dan kejatuhan Singapura. Pada Ogos 1945 apabila tamatnya perang itu dengan Jepun menyerah diri, beliau menyambung semula persekolahanya yang tergendala. Setelah mencapai umur lebih 18 tahun, beliau melangkahi darjah lapan untuk terus ke darjah Sembilan bagi menduduki peperiksaan Sijil Persekolahan pada 1946. Tetapi pada tahun itu, bencana alam berlaku. "Saya dapati saya menghidapi batuk kering," beliau pernah memberitahu majalah perkhidmatan awam Malaysia yang dikeluarkan setiap tiga bulan. Beliau dimasukkan ke hospital selama tiga bulan dan sungguhpun ujian sputum membuktikan negatif, kesan sampingan wujud beberapa bulan kemudian apabila air mula meliputi paru-parunya. "Saya ingatkan saya akan mati, ia sangat teruk. Air terpaksa dipam keluar dua kali seminggu," beliau mengingatinya. Abdullah dimasukkan ke hospital selama dua tahun setengah dan setelah keluar hospital, beliau kembali ke sekolah setelah tidak mengambil peperiksaan pada 1946. Tetapi beliau memberitahu majalah itu bahawa pengetua sekolah tersebut enggan menerimanya kerana beliau melebihi usia dan hanya berlembut setelah dipujuk oleh seorang guru yang pernah mengajar beliau. Beliau menyertai Darjah Sembilan pada umur 22 tahun dalam kelas di kalangan pelajar berusia 17 dan 18 tahun. Sekali lagi, beliau cemerlang dengan memperoleh enam kepujian dalam Peperiksaan Sijil Persekolahan. Beliau memasuki Kolej Melayu Kuala Kangsar (MCKK), kolej yang terulung di negara ini untuk Tingkatan 6 dan kemudian Universiti Malaya ketika masih lagi dalam keadaan kesihatan yang belum pulih sepenuhnya, dan sebenarnya penyakit itu berulang lagi semasa di universiti.

Sungguhpun Abdullah dimasukkan ke hospital selama dua setengah bulan dan kemudian diletakkan di tempat pelajar sakit dan terpaksa meninggalkan pengajian untuk lima bulan, beliau masih mampu menerima ijazah daripada universiti
itu dengan Sarjana Muda (Kepujian) dalam Geografi.

Abdullah memulakan kariernya dalam perkhidmatan awam Johor kerana beliau terpaksa Berkhidmat di negeri itu disebabkan terikat dengan biasiswa Johor, jawatan pertama beliau ialah setiausaha jawatankuasa penganjur ulang tahun ke-
50 tahun pemerintahan Sultan Johor, Sultan Ibrahim.

Ini diikuti dengan beberapa pelantikan perkhidmatan awam dan kemudian dari 1959 hingga 1961, beliau ialah setiausaha sulit kepada Perdana Menteri, Tunku Abdul Rahman.

"Sesalan saya yang paling besar ialah apabila Tunku meninggal dunia (1989), saya tidak ada untuk melihat wajahnya buat kali terakhir. Pada masa itu saya berada London. Saya menyesal sangat," beliau memberitahu majalah itu.

Kemudian beliau menjawat jawatan di Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Awam (SPA) dengan arahan memastikan pelantikan biasiswa dan divisyen satu adil kepada calon Melayu.

Ini diikuti oleh pelantikan beliau sebagai Penolong Setiusaha kepada Kabinet. Abdullah, bersama dengan hakim Hashim Yeop Sani merangka Akta Bahasa Kebangsaan 1967, yang memperuntukkan Bahasa Malaysia ialah bahasa perantaraan di sekolah.

Beliau kemudian ditugaskan menubuhkan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) yang menggunakan Bahasa Malaysia sebagai bahasa perantaraan dan dilantik sebagai pendaftar pertamanya oleh Perdana Menteri Tun Abdul Razak, satu pelantikan jawatan rendah walaupun memegang jawatan tinggi tetapi beliau tidak
menolaknya. Ini kerana beliau telah menolak tawaran Razak dalam dua perkara sebelum ini, pertama dalam 1963 ke Sabah sebagai Penasihat Ekonomi kepada ketika itu Ketua Menteri Tun Datu Mustapha dan kedua, untuk memujuk beliau
bertanding sebagai calon pada pilihan raya umum 1969 dan akan dilantik sebagai Ketua Menterinya.

"Sudah tentu, Tun Razak tidak akan menerima 'tidak' untuk jawapan buat kali ketiga ini," katanya memberitahu Khidmat. 

Penubuhan UKM menggunakan bahasa Melayu sebagai bahasa perantaraan membuktikan satu tanggungjawab yang berat pada ketika hanya segelintir sahaja bangsa Melayu memiliki ijazah doktor falsafah dan sarjana untuk berkhidmat sebagai pensyarah tetapi masalah itu dapat diatasi dengan pengambilan pensyarah dari Indonesia.

Selepas pilihan raya umum 1974, Abdullah dijadikan ketua pengarah Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) dan pada Mei 1976 setelah Tun Razak meninggal dunia, beliau menggantikan Tan Sri Kadir Shamsuddin sebagai Ketua Setiusaha Negara. Kadir ke Petronas sebagai pengerusinya yang pertama.

Pada akhir 1978 setelah bersara daripada perkhidmatan awam, Perdana Menteri ketika itu Tun Hussein Onn melantik beliau sebagai pengerusi dan ketua eksekutif Petronas berikutan kematian Kadir.

Abdullah sebelum itu mengemukakan beberapa nama kepada Perdana Menteri sebagai pengganti Kadir. Tetapi Hussein mahukan beliau untuk jawatan itu yang dipegangnya semasa berumur 53 tahun.

Banyak perkembangan di Petronas, dengan kakitangan antara 600 dan 700 orang, masih lagi dalam peringkat perancangan dan tugas pertama Abdullah ialah menubuhkan kilang Gas Cecair Asli (LNG) di Bintulu dan mendapatkan syarikat tenaga dan utiliti untuk mengeluarkan LNG. Abdullah juga menubuhkan kilang penapisan Petronas di Kertih, Terengganu dan berikutan itu satu lagi kilang penapisan di Melaka yang memberikan keutamaan untuk melatih rakyat Malaysia yang kemudian akan mengambil alih pengurusan kilang itu daripada pasukan pengurusan asing.

Hari ini, Petronas mempunyai kepentingan di lebih 30 negara dan salah satu syarikat minyak yang paling menguntungkan di dunia dan satu-satunya syarikat Malaysia yang disenaraikan dalam the Fortune 500.

Usia dan kesihatan menyebabkan Abdullah jauh daripada perhatian umum tetapi dari 1989 sehingga tahun lepas, beliau ialah pengerusi Yayasan Tun Razak, sempena nama Perdana Menteri kedua.

Pada 2003, Abdullah dianugerahkan dengan Seri Setia Mahkota (SSM) yang membawa gelaran Tun, anugerah tertinggi persekutuan, dan menjadi bekas
Ketua Setiausaha Negara yang pertama dan satu-satunya yang pernah menerima gelaran itu.

tribute to TUN ABDULLAH SALLEH..

(this is actually an email wrote by abang ayaz, as a tribute to the late TUN ABDULLAH SALLEH, our ex-chairman of YTR trustees.)

Subject: The Late Tun Abdullah
From: "Mohamed Ayaz Ismail"
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 14:39:33 +0800


Dear all,

On Thursday 22 June 2006, the nation mourned the
loss of Tun Abdullah Salleh. Tun Abdullah was well
known to AYTR members by virtue of him being the
former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of
Yayasan Tun Razak, and also Advisor to AYTR.
Many of you may already be aware of his passing
on, whilst others may be hearing this for the first
time.

Tun Abdullah was the former Chief Secretary to the
Government and founder of Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia (UKM). He died two days shy of his 80th
birthday. Tun Abdullah was appointed Chief
Secretary to the Government in October 1976 and
retired from the civil service three years later. After
his retirement from government service, Tun
Abdullah was appointed chairman and chief
executive of Petronas in 1979 and later served as
president and chief executive of the national oil
corporation between February 1984 and Feb 9,
1988.

Tun Abdullah was Yayasan Tun Razak chairman
for 16 years from May 1989 until he relinquished
the post in May last year.

We in AYTR were privileged to have been able to
have him in our space. I was not in Malaysia when
Tun Abdullah passed away, and did not have the
opportunity to read the tributes to this gentleman.

I would like to pen a few words on Tun Abdullah.
Many of us first met Tun during our PKTR, and I
had the privilege of having met him on numerous
other occasions through my office as the Chairman
of AYTR. In fact, the founding of the AYTR was his
brainchild. Tun looked at us as young people who
had much to offer to society, and he was our
number one supporter, if you like. He had a soft
spot for us, and had this believe that we in the
AYTR will one day be leaders of the type Malaysia
needs.

I've been told how Tun would not hesitate to agree
to support AYTR programmes in the few times it
has come up for discussion at the YTR trustees'
meeting. In the PKTR's he attended, he always
took some time to share his experience and
thoughts - and I'm sure many of you still
remember the setting - Tun on a sofa or chair and
the rest of us seated in front of him, all ears, and
sometimes he would share what he felt AYTR
could and should do. Tun also attended a number
of events we organised, like the majlis berbuka
puasa and the gathering we had in Bukit Tinggi a
few years back. This again was testimony to the
high regard to which he held us, and the respect
that he had for us. His humbleness is amazing,
and a trait that more of our leaders could
demonstrate.

After he passed away, I talked to some people who
had known him since his days as the Chief
Secretary to the Government and the president of
Petronas - and I can conclude that he leaves a
legacy that has left an indelible impression on the
lifes of many.

The article that follows tells us a little about his
childhood and his contribution to the country.

We at AYTR have the opportunity to continue his
legacy, and so we shall.

Tun Abdullah - sorely missed, fondly remembered.
May Allah bless his soul always.


Regards,
Mohamed Ayaz,
Chairman,
AYTR

MISC Berhad

owkay.. now i'm still tired from a very tiring day yesterday.. well, yesterday, juz came back from the ORIENTATION PROGRAMME WITH MISC.. well, this programme had actually been going on for 2 days.. which was on the 9th and on the 10th of June at The Legend Hotel, KL.. but, all of us checked in on the 8th..

the programme was ok.. it was not so entirely boring.. especially there's this one session wif Miss Anita.. well, she really does inspire us.. hehe.. apart from that, we met all other MISC scholars and create such a bond with them.. and perhaps, will still make us frens forever.. hehe.. right guys? huhu... btw, there's this one briefing with the MISC Education Sponsorship.. they said minimum requirement to work with them is 2nd Upper Degree.. and the magic number is 3.0... hope i can reach the target~

well, and yesterday, all of us went to PORT KLANG, to visit the North Port, and see all the logistics processes on handling all the cargos.. we got to meet all the officers in charge.. and even thedrivers of the trailers that we always see on the road.. some of my frens, eg: Maisara, Khairul and Khasyafiq.. (hahahhaa... lupe nak tekan minyak?????) got a chance to DRIVE the trailer.. cOoL huh? well, i didnt drive becoz i've lost my confidence in driving.. blame who? don wanna mention here.. hahahah..

owkay.. so last nyte, went out wif the boys again to.... i wonder why we went out last nyte.. but yup, england wins~! huHu..

and owh.. REALLY forgot to mention.. my housemates are now OFFICIALLY : ADDICT TO OC~!! hahahaha.... marahkan nadya dulu sebab minat sgt kat oc.. nah~ ambik korang~! hahahahhahaha.... well, hopefully we can finish the marathon by 13th.. huhu..

owkay y'all.. gotta get back to my laundry... gosh~!! there's juz so many things to be washed~!!! *sigh*

owkay...owkay.. laytaaa~!!


:: summer_breeze ::