When you pick a fight

Let me put it this way. When you poke the bear in the eye the bear would definitely whack you back. And when you poke the Malays regarding the issue of the 3Rs, the Malays would also whack you back. And if you are too dumb to understand this then you deserve to get whacked because you have intentionally poked the Malays in the eye knowing what is going to happen.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

What a brilliant and excellent idea, which really makes sense no matter whichever way RPK wants to put it. Housing & maintaining 9 royal and 4 governor households is the greatest burden on earth for Malaysian. That amount of money by billions can be wisely spent on new universities, hospitals, welfare homes, rural development, subsidising fishermen and farmers activities, eradicating poverty, etc., which would eventually benefit the rakyat.

Larry Jay M. : divaperkasa@gmail.com

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It costs more than RM160 million a year to maintain the British Monarchy and this amount is expected to rise to RM190 million over the next couple of years. But then I suppose we would argue that Britain could afford it while a third-world country like Malaysia can ill-afford that amount.

‘Larry Jay M.’, who posted a comment in Malaysia Today yesterday, said that the cost to maintain the Malaysian Monarchy runs into billions of Ringgit. I take it that ‘billions’ means more than one. So how many billions of Ringgit is it? Two? Three? More than three?

When you quote figures you need to be specific plus you need to quote the source of these figures. Are these figures based on what was revealed in the Malaysian Parliament (like in the UK report below) because the budget needs to be approved by Parliament and even the opposition Members of Parliament would have details of what was spent.

Today, I had to delete at least four anti-Islam comments by ‘Larry Jay M’. These comments were downright nasty and if I had allowed them then I would have been accused of intentionally trying to pit the Muslims against the non-Muslims. Hence, so as to not fan the Muslim versus non-Muslim animosity, I just had to delete those comments even though I face the risk of being accused of not respecting freedom of speech.

To be honest, I have had to delete more than half the comments since yesterday mainly because they would definitely trigger anger -- and with today’s announcement by the Malaysian government that more than 6,600 websites have been blocked since 2008, I would risk the same fate for Malaysia Today if I allow these anti-Islam comments to be posted.

I sometimes wonder whether ‘Larry Jay M.’ and those many others whose comments I have had to delete are actually agent provocateurs whose job is to create friction between the Muslims and those from the other religions. I suspect these people are paid cyber-troopers cum agent provocateurs.

I have written time and again, plus lectured the same thing in Cambridge, that Umno has a ‘secret weapon’. And that secret weapon is the Three-Rs -- race, religion and royalty. Bahasa Malaysia, of course, is also in that list of 3Rs and would come under race.

If you want to rub the Malays the wrong way all you need to do it to raise one of these three issues (or all the three issues). You would certainly be adding fuel to the fire that is already raging in Malaysia even as you read this.

Now, raising these issues in the context of discussing them to find some sort of resolution is one thing. But raising them against the backdrop of mocking the Malays and/or Islam is another thing altogether. And the Malays take mocking as a challenge (cabaran) and if you know the Malays and have lived amongst them then you will know they melenting (jump up like a scalded cat) when you cabar them.

The normal ‘defense’ that these people use is: why are the Malays so sensitive? Why are the Malays so intolerant of freedom of opinion? Why can’t the Malays take criticism?

I think rather than pose all these questions to the Malays maybe you should instead ask yourself what is the purpose of you raising something so sensitive when you know exactly how the Malays are going to respond to that?

It is not that you do not know. You do know. You know exactly how the Malays are going to react because you have yourself witnessed how they react. Yet you purposely raise these issues knowing what is going to happen.

That is what we would call provocation. You poke the bear in the eye knowing what the bear would do. Then you accuse the bear of being too sensitive, of not respecting freedom of opinion, of not being open to criticism, and whatnot.

Let me put it this way. When you poke the bear in the eye the bear would definitely whack you back. And when you poke the Malays regarding the issue of the 3Rs, the Malays would also whack you back. And if you are too dumb to understand this then you deserve to get whacked because you have intentionally poked the Malays in the eye knowing what is going to happen.

Have you read the history of Yap Ah Loy? Well, Yap Ah Loy went into partnership with Raja Abdullah, the brother of the then Sultan of Selangor, to mine tin in Ampang. The Sultan owned all the land in Selangor, which were rich in tin, but he did not have the labour to mine this tin.

Raja Abdullah then went into an ‘Ali Baba’ arrangement with Yap Ah Loy. Yap Ah Loy would bring the Chinese labourers from China to mine for tin in Ampang and he would share the profit with the Sultan.

The headquarters for this operation was around where the Masjid Jamek in Kuala Lumpur now sits. Yap Ah Loy then opened up that area and set up his businesses there -- which included money-lending (ah long), opium dens and brothels. 

You see, Yap Ah Loy only brought in the men to work the tin mines. So the men ‘hungered’ for women and they certainly could not date the Malay women. So Yap Ah Loy set up brothels and brought in Chinese women from China to work in these brothels.

Hence, when that stupid Malay man said that the Malaysian Chinese are descendants of prostitutes, was he lying? In the context of the history of Kuala Lumpur he would, of course, not be lying. This is reported in the history books. However, we must look at this not in the context of historical fact but in the context of the reason why this matter has been raised.

Something may be true, but truth can also be insult, mocking, provocation, mala fide, cabaran, biadap, etc., depending on the manner and the reason you have raised it. Hence to say that Malaysian Chinese are descendants of prostitutes is not about the truth but about looking for a fight.

So, what is the moral of this story? Yes, you are right, the moral of this story is that the first ‘Ali Baba’ arrangement in Malaysia was between Yap Ah Loy and the Sultan of Selangor.

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London: Queen Elizabeth II cost British taxpayer nearly 1 million pounds more during her Diamond Jubilee year in 2012.

According to Buckingham Palace accounts released in London on Thursday, the Queen's official expenditure increased by 900,000 pounds from 32.4 million pounds to 33.3 million pounds in 2012-13, compared to the previous 12 months.

The annual Royal Public Finances report also found that taxpayer funds used to pay for official air and rail travel at home and abroad for members of the royal family fell by 500,000 pounds from 5 million pounds in 2011-12 to 4.5 million pounds in 2012-13.

Royal staff costs rose from 17.5 pounds million to 18.3 pounds million in 2012-13, while the cost of maintaining royal buildings increased by 200,000 pounds to 9.1 million pounds.

"The royal household has continued to reduce its expenditure funded by the taxpayer in successive years since 2008-09, achieving a real-terms reduction of 24 per cent over the last five years," said Sir Alan Reid, Keeper of the Privy Purse.

"A significant part of the increase to the Sovereign Grant in 2013-14, supplemented by further income generation, will be used to tackle a backlog in essential property maintenance at the working royal palaces," he added.

The Queen's official expenditure excludes the costs of police and army security and armed services ceremonies.

The grant paid to the British monarchy is calculated as 15 per cent of money paid by the Crown Estate to the government.

The estate, which includes property across the UK, increased its profits by 5 per cent to 252.6 million pounds in 2012-13.

Public money used to fund the royal family, known as the Sovereign Grant, is expected to rise to 36.1 million pounds in the current financial year and 38 million pounds in 2014-15.