http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/12107/84/

Legend;
(=) –> Equal
(!=) –> Not Equal

Nalla = Good
Good != Bad

Karruppan = A person with dark/black complexion skin (Blackie)

BadBlackie

nk moideen, KL

http://suarasaktii.wordpress.com/

Your article have touched my emotions. Seriously.

It reminded me of how bad it went back then. I was at Anwar’s DPM house on the day he was sacked. I still remember how tensed Zahid Hamidi looked at that time, while puffing his cigar. It was really hard during the days of ‘98 to the time when Mahathir stepped down. It was full of upsets, distressing and disconcerted moments. We tried our best to do whatever that might help to bring Anwar’s release untill to a point we nearly felt drained out.

But we never stopped supporting the reformasi movement.

What we have achieved today is the product of the ‘98 reformasi movement. And I’m gratefull for that.

The supporters of the opposition today are not 100% the original supporters of Reformasi ‘98. But I can still see familiar faces of Reformasi ‘98 supporters in todays polical gatherings and campaigns. And when we saw each other, we smiled, knowing what we have been struggling for the last 10 solid years is now bearing fruit.

God has His mysterious ways of granting us victory.

Victory to the people of Malaysia!

Surat Wartawan-Wartawan Melayu Kepada Rakyat Malaysia: “MAAFKAN KAMI”

Assalamualaikum,

Surat ini mewakili wartawan Melayu seramai 265 orang di lima buah agensi media utama di negara ini. Tujuan kami menulis surat ini ialah untuk memberi gambaran sebenar tentang apa yang berlaku dalam kancah politik negara ketika ini. Kami juga ingin menyatakan sikap kami terhadap beberapa isu semasa terutamanya yang ada kaitan dengan pemecatan Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Surat ini kami tulis setelah kira-kira lima minggu kami mengadakan pertemuan tertutup dan sulit dalam kumpulan-kumpulan kecil di luar pejabat. Kami berharap surat ini dapat membantu rakyat Malaysia memahami kedudukan serta peranan yang dipaksakan ke atas kami sebagai wartawan dalam isu Anwar.

Sejak bulan Julai 1998, kami dapat merasa angin perubahan drastik dalam dunia kewartawanan di tempat kami berkerja. Ini dimulai dengan penyingkiran Datuk Johan Jaafar dari Utusan, Datuk Nazri Abdullah dari Berita Harian dan Yunus Said dari TV3. Selain perkembangan itu, Senator Zainuddin Maidin mula memainkan peranan penting semula di Utusan (seolah-olah sebagai Ketua Editor yang baru). Perlu kami jelaskan di sini bahawa sejak perubahan kepimpinan media itu berlaku maka setiap wartawan yang membuat liputan isu-isu semasa dan politik “dipaksa” supaya mengemukakan soalan tertentu kepada beberapa orang tokoh politik mengikut arahan bos-bos baru. Kami dipaksa untuk menulis mengikut framework yang telah disediakan yang tidak langsung memihak kepada Anwar. Kesahihan maklumat dan ketepatan fakta tidak menjadi penting lagi. Kami juga tidak lagi dibenarkan membuat interpretasi dan analisis sendiri.

Kemuncaknya ialah apabila Datuk Seri Anwar dipecat. Kami dikerah tak ubah seperti anak sekolah yang baru belajar menulis. Ada ketika kami dikerah seperti orang yang tidak boleh berfikir langsung semata-mata untuk membuat liputan politik yang berat sebelah. Pada mulanya kami yakin bahawa Datuk Seri Anwar memang bersalah dengan pelbagai pertuduhan apabila membaca afidavit kes Datuk Nalla yang difakskan oleh Pejabat Peguam Negara ke semua media tempatan pada 3 September. Tetapi kami menjadi semakin keliru dan skeptik kerana terdapat banyak prosidur dan insiden perundangan yang luar biasa yang didalangi oleh pihak tertentu.

Bos-bos kami juga sering bertemu dengan orang atasan di Pejabat Peguam Negara, Polis dan Mahkamah. Apa yang menyedihkan kami ialah tulisan serta laporan kami sejak akhir-akhir ini ditokok-tambah oleh bos-bos kami. Ada banyak berita yang dipalsukan walaupun pada asalnya kami melaporkan apa yang sebenarnya. Sebagai misalnya, apa yang kami tulis “boleh” tetapi yang terbit “tidak boleh”; “mengaku” menjadi “tidak mengaku”, “10,000″ menjadi “1,000″. Selain daripada itu, banyak juga penipuan dari segi berita. Sebagai misalnya, “pelacur diupah untuk sertai demonstrasi di Istana Negara”; “Senator Amerika menalipon Hakim Augistine Paul”, dan “pengaruh reformasi semakin kendur”. Tidak keterlaluan jika kami katakan bahwa lebih 50% berita mengenai isu Anwar dalam media adalah semata-mata penipuan, propaganda dan palsu yang dipaksa ke atas kami untuk menulis dan disiarkan.

Perlu juga kami nyatakan di sini bahawa sejak kebelakangan ini, kami tidak dibenarkan lagi berkumpul dan berbincang sesama wartawan tentang isu Anwar di pejabat. Tegahan itu dikeluarkan sendiri oleh Ketua Editor dengan alasan mematuhi perintah mahkamah. Tetapi sebenarnya tujuannya ialah untuk menghalang kami bertukar-tukar maklumat tentang apa yang sebenarnya berlaku dalam politik negara sejak kebelakangan ini. Apa nasib kami jika hak asasi untuk berdiskusi untuk mencari keadilan dan kebenaran pun dihalang?

Kami menyedari apa yang sedang berlaku adalah konspirasi politik jahat untuk membunuh Anwar dan mengekalkan kepimpinan PM sepanjang hayatnya demi untuk menjaga kepentingan diri, keluarga dan kroninya. Kami sendiri sudah tidak membaca akhbar yang syarikat atau agensi kami sendiri terbitkan kerana sebahagian besar adalah pembohongan dan propaganda.Kami tidak malu untuk mengatakan bahawa nilai akhbar atau berita yang syarikat kami hidangkan kepada rakyat Malaysia tidak lebih seperti surat layang. Sebagai alternatif kami membaca berita dari media asing yang lebih bersifat objektif menerusi Internet atau akhbar Harakah.

Dengan perkembangan ini, sebagai wartawan yang prihatin terhadap kebenaran dan keadilan serta perjuangan bangsa, kami amat tertekan ketika ini. Kami juga kecewa kerana dunia kewartawanan digadai oleh ketua-ketua kami semata-mata untuk menjaga kepentingan PM semata-mata. Kami tidak sanggup lagi berdiam diri dan hanya menulis untuk menjayakan political framework PM dan kroni-kroninya. Kami tidak tahan lagi dicemuh oleh kawan-kawan, saudara-mara dan masyarakat umum kerana tidak ada integriti dan menjadi pengampu PM.

Oleh yang demikian, kami ingin memohon maaf dengan setulus hati kepada seluruh rakyat Malaysia di atas laporan serta berita palsu yang setiap hari tersiar dalam media massa. Kami insaf bahawa menyebarkan fitnah dan berita angin adalah perbuatan terkutuk yang sangat dibenci Islam.

Kami insaf bahawa kami telah terlibat melakukan dosa besar dan bersengkongkol dengan PM yang ketika ini semakin zalim dan diktator.

Kami telah bertaubat. Sebagai menebus dosa, maka kami akan berusaha untuk menyebarkan berita sebenar menerusi saluran lain seperti Internet dan surat. Kami juga akan mendedahkan penipuan dan konspirasi politik oleh PM dan pemimpin UMNO yang lain.

Sekian, terima kasih.

Wartawan-Wartawan Melayu
Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, New Straits Times, TV3 & RTM

14 Oktober 1998

Democracy may be a word familiar to most, but it is a concept still misunderstood and misused in a time when totalitarian regimes and military dictatorships alike have attempted to claim popular support by pinning democratic labels upon themselves. Yet the power of the democratic idea has also evoked some of history’s most profound and moving expressions of human will and intellect: from Pericles in ancient Athens to Vaclav Havel in the modern Czech Republic, from Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence in 1776 to Andrei Sakharov’s last speeches in 1989.

In the dictionary definition, democracy “is government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.” In the phrase of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long, often tortuous history. In short, democracy is the institutionalization of freedom. For this reason, it is possible to identify the time-tested fundamentals of constitutional government, human rights, and equality before the law that any society must possess to be properly called democratic.

Democracies fall into two basic categories, direct and representative. In a direct democracy, all citizens, without the intermediary of elected or appointed officials, can participate in making public decisions. Such a system is clearly only practical with relatively small numbers of people–in a community organization or tribal council, for example, or the local unit of a labor union, where members can meet in a single room to discuss issues and arrive at decisions by consensus or majority vote. Ancient Athens, the world’s first democracy, managed to practice direct democracy with an assembly that may have numbered as many as 5,000 to 6,000 persons–perhaps the maximum number that can physically gather in one place and practice direct democracy.

Modern society, with its size and complexity, offers few opportunities for direct democracy. Even in the northeastern United States, where the New England town meeting is a hallowed tradition, most communities have grown too large for all the residents to gather in a single location and vote directly on issues that affect their lives.

Today, the most common form of democracy, whether for a town of 50,000 or nations of 50 million, is representative democracy, in which citizens elect officials to make political decisions, formulate laws, and administer programs for the public good. In the name of the people, such officials can deliberate on complex public issues in a thoughtful and systematic manner that requires an investment of time and energy that is often impractical for the vast majority of private citizens.

How such officials are elected can vary enormously. On the national level, for example, legislators can be chosen from districts that each elect a single representative. Alternatively, under a system of proportional representation, each political party is represented in the legislature according to its percentage of the total vote nationwide. Provincial and local elections can mirror these national models, or choose their representatives more informally through group consensus instead of elections. Whatever the method used, public officials in a representative democracy hold office in the name of the people and remain accountable to the people for their actions.

Majority Rule and Minority Rights
All democracies are systems in which citizens freely make political decisions by majority rule. But rule by the majority is not necessarily democratic: No one, for example, would call a system fair or just that permitted 51 percent of the population to oppress the remaining 49 percent in the name of the majority. In a democratic society, majority rule must be coupled with guarantees of individual human rights that, in turn, serve to protect the rights of minorities–whether ethnic, religious, or political, or simply the losers in the debate over a piece of controversial legislation. The rights of minorities do not depend upon the goodwill of the majority and cannot be eliminated by majority vote. The rights of minorities are protected because democratic laws and institutions protect the rights of all citizens.

Diane Ravitch, scholar, author, and a former assistant U.S. secretary of education, wrote in a paper for an educational seminar in Poland: “When a representative democracy operates in accordance with a constitution that limits the powers of the government and guarantees fundamental rights to all citizens, this form of government is a constitutional democracy. In such a society, the majority rules, and the rights of minorities are protected by law and through the institutionalization of law.”

These elements define the fundamental elements of all modern democracies, no matter how varied in history, culture, and economy. Despite their enormous differences as nations and societies, the essential elements of constitutional government–majority rule coupled with individual and minority rights, and the rule of law–can be found in Canada and Costa Rica, France and Botswana, Japan and India.D

Democratic Society - Democracy is more than a set of constitutional rules and procedures that determine how a government functions. In a democracy, government is only one element coexisting in a social fabric of many and varied institutions, political parties, organizations, and associations. This diversity is called pluralism, and it assumes that the many organized groups and institutions in a democratic society do not depend upon government for their existence, legitimacy, or authority.Thousands of private organizations operate in a democratic society, some local, some national. Many of them serve a mediating role between individuals and the complex social and governmental institutions of which they are a part, filling roles not given to the government and offering individuals opportunities to exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens of a democracy.

THE PILLARS OF DEMOCRACY
Sovereignty of the people.

Government based upon consent of the governed.

Majority rule.

Minority rights.

Guarantee of basic human rights.

Free and fair elections.

Equality before the law.

Due process of law.

Constitutional limits on government.

Social, economic, and political pluralism.

Values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation, and compromise.