Sculpting a world, without fear or favour

So my grandfather Tan Sri Dr Tan Chee Khoon used to write a column for some of the local newspapers of Malaysia under the slogan “Without Fear of Favour”, I intend to keep the column going online.

I truly believe from the perspective of life that I have been living I can be unbiased about the two major alliances in Malaysia. My father, Dato’ Dr Tan Kee Kwong used to be a BN Member of Parliament as he joined Gerakan in his early years of politics. He was advised if he were to make a real change in those days it would be better to make it from within the government as the chances of making a change from the opposition side were slim. I was told that Dato’ Sri Anwar Ibrahim also took this route after consulting my grandfather.

The thing is after so many years of being in power, the BN government has been given free reign to the resources of our country. While implementing many good economic policies that benefit most of the upper middle class, they too have been allowed to take much of the benefits in their own pockets.

I was told that in most developmental projects, some prominent people in power have the cheek to ask for 60% of the commission. Having studied architecture and worked with some developers, you know that corruption can never be avoided especially if you want to by pass bureaucracy during planning status. However 60%? That is enough for sub-contractors to have to cut so many corners to make a building fall down, as it did in the stadium in Terengganu.

The worse thing that we are still struggling is the printing and publishing act. WE DO NOT HAVE A FREE PRESS in Malaysia. Many of my friends, from Philippines, Ghana, Kenya, Columbia, El Salvador …… their jaws dropped when I told them this! This is why I am starting to write for Malaysia Chronicle and soon hope to join Radio Free Sarawak/Malaysia. We need freedom of speech. Without it our country cannot grow democratically and the rakyat will never have the final say.

Put a people in chains, strip them,
plug up their mouths,
they are still free.
Take away their job
their passport
the table they eat on
the bed they sleep in,
they are still rich.
A people become poor and enslaved
when they are robbed of the tongue
left them by their ancestors:
they are lost forever.]
- Ignazio Buttitta, “Lingua e Dialetu”
Sicilian poet, born 1899