Johor Sultanah: Bersih 2.0 was hijacked

Almost 3 weeks after the Bersih 2.0 rally, the debate over the event still continues with a key member of royal family saying today that the electoral reform movement "had in someway been hijacked" by other groups and individuals.

Johor Sultanah Raja Zarith Sofia Sultan Idris Shah, said though the original cause of Bersih rally was genuine, it had been taken over by others.

"They had in someway been hijacked by other groups and individuals... the original idea about general elections and the transparency of general elections were lost," she said.

She was fielding a question from a student after officiating the 5th Annual Malaysian Student Leaders Summit at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton this morning.

Raja Zarith Sofia, who is also the Chancellor of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, advised the students against total belief in media reports on the Bersih rally.

Instead, she said they should on their own decide on what is right or wrong and try to grasp as much as they can on the current events of the country.

"Of cause you can see from the mainstream media that perhaps Bersih is founded by wrong people and bad guys and other groups are good guys.

"It maybe or may not, there is no right or wrong question, but it may indicate that the country is heading for some kind of maturity."

She also said the Bersih rally organizers may have been influenced by the Middle East revolution but claimed that the scenarios are different between the two.

"We must realise that in Middle East, what they were reacting - especially in Egypt - was against the rule of one person," she said, referring to the Egypt's former president, Hosni Mubarak.

"The fact that there was so much poverty and they don't really have a big middle class like we do."

'Get rid of vernacular schools'

To another question on the nation education system, the Johor Sultanah commented that Malaysia should abolish the vernacular school system.

This, she explained, is because Chinese and Tamil school students do not possess a good command of the English language to communicate with foreigners.

"Ideally ridding vernacular schools would be a very forward move," she said, adding that this was her personal view.

Earlier in her speech, she said she has noticed that mainstream media reports, as well as responses of readers of blogs and news portals, have become worryingly provocative.

"It is quite apparent that we need to communicate more with each other in order to avoid conflict, whoever and wherever we are, and perhaps one of the best ways is by dialogue."

She suggests that the Rakyat organize more interfaith and inter-racial dialogues because what is reported in the media or what the people read on the Internet, is only talking to each other rather than with one another. - Malaysiakini