QUOTABLES QUOTES - MALAYSIAN STYLE

HANTU LAUT

Many great speeches have been made by many great leaders.Not all are the best from literary point of view but they have had profound effect on society and some have become famous quotations and some had become part of the language.

Malaysian politicians and leaders have also produced some amazing speeches. Below are some, aren't exactly great quotations:

1."if people are allowed to make fun of Malaysia's leaders they would used the same freedoms to insult the Prophet Mohammed as is done in the West" - from the keris weilding Malay warrior, Hishammuddin Onn, Minister of Education of Malaysia.

Wow! Malaysian politicians' status have now been elevated to the same level as Prophet Muhammad. Where is the Mufti of Perak, is he also sleeping on the job ?

2. " To me, press freedom cannot go beyond the time-tested social contract" - from Zainuddin Maidin,Minister of Information of Malaysia.

I need some help here, can anyone decipher what is he trying to convey.

3."The political bloggers just write for each other to read, they are not a threat" -
by Zainuddin Maidin, Minister of Information of Malaysia

Adoi! He either has serious lapse of memory or the 'I dunno' syndrome, even my Rhodesian Ridgeback knew blogging covers the whole wide world (www). Bloggers should rejoice, they have been given a clean bill of health, not as contagious as it seems.

4."The phrase "Birth of a Nation" is misleading and gives the impression that Malaysia was only born 50 years ago.This was an insult to the country as it portrayed the Malays as a race without a nation of their own" - from Nasir Ismail, Tambun UMNO division chief, a wannabe rising star.

Is he misinformed, ignorant, insecured or lack of intelligentsia ?. There is something terribly wrong with this guy, Malaysia isn't 50 yet, it's the Federation of Malaya that is 50 years old on 31st August 2007.Malaysia was formed on 31st August 1963, to be more precise it was actually on 16th Sept 1963.This is what happened when politicians get involved in writing history book. Was it necessary to lie to the future generation?

Which history book they guy read? Didn't he know there were many Malay kingdoms before. Malacca, founded by Pramaswara in 1400, Pattani, founded by Langkasuka was the oldest Malay Kingdom on the Malay Peninsula and there were other much older kingdoms, Majapahit and Srivijaya in the Indonesian Archipelago.

Please allow me to quote a few great quotations from some past great leaders:

1."You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time" - Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United State.

2."The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" - Franklin D.Roosevelt, 32nd President of United States.