Tan Sri Khalid, DS Anwar, me and Husam(Pix by Nik Rahman)
Three current top leaders with three different backgrounds, aura, charisma, charms and styles were there in my living hall last night. The crowd of Malaysian expatriates filled up almost every inch of the a bit bigger than badminton court size room (I am hopeless with sq meter).
More were outside listening through the window.
Final count, at least 150 Malaysian expatriates (as well Egyptian, Australians, Bosnians) from diverse backgrounds and ages braved the Thursday nite and Dubai never-ending traffic jam to reach my villa. I was busy directing those who asking direction on the phone while trying to listen to these leaders.
The faces brought the beautiful rays of Malaysian hopes.
A day earlier, I conveyed a message to Anwar through his former lawyer who accompanied him for the trip, Saiful on the intention to invite him along with TS Khalid for a function at my house (originally slotted for Husam alone). The reply was positive.
Then when Anwar and Khalid arrived, I forced myself to be at the hotel lobby by 5 am in the morning to confirm their attendance.
Then again after meeting them (I brought two friends, a local billionaire who is interested to invest in Malaysia and a well-connected Bosnian who later linked Anwar to Dr Mustapha Ceric on his blackberry) later at the hotel room, both pledged that they would definitely be at my house.
Husam's attendance was earlier confirmed by Hasnol.
All of them arrived on time as per scheduled....that's something good to start with!
The mild-temperature summer night was a non-stop photography session....hey, these are superstars in our political world!
Photos are here
And another write-up from Bakpo.
Bersama Pemimpin ...
June 12th, 2008Dubai.
Malaysians in UAE have an opportunity to meet with three political leaders from Malaysia tonight. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Tan Sri Khalid and Dato' Husam are in Dubai and despite arriving in the wee hours of this morning after taking the night flight from KL, they arrived at the planned venue much to the delight of the waiting crowd.
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First to take the floor was Tan Sri Khalid who went straight into giving a summary report of his first 100 days as the 'CEO' of Selangor state. In his own words, he considers the rakyat as his stake-holders and he holds himself accountable as the man at the helm of leadership and as the one holding rakyat's trust (amanah!). He stressed the essence of Pakatan Rakyat's values - that is to place the rakyat at the center of all decisions. As an example, he mentioned the free povision of water up to a certain volume of usage. His speech resonates well with the audience who were able to relate to his past tenure as the enterprising CEO of PNB. Everyone applauded him at the end of his speech. His sincerity to transform Selangor for the benefits of the rakyat shone through. At times, his frustration with some of the old baggages he has inherited were apparent.
But what will linger on in the mind of many is his enthusiasm and optimism which I personally find very contagious.
Best wishes Tan Sri!
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Next stood Dato' Husam. He immediately reminded the audience that one of the secret recipes for Pakatan Rakyat's success was focusing on similarities between DAP, PKR and PAS. According to him, one of the similarities is a desire to improve transparency and governance so that Rakyat will be the beneficiaries of all decisions and actions. Rakyat, and not members of the cronies. His speech was temporarily drowned by welcoming greeting for Dato' Seri Anwar when the later walked in to standing audience. DSAI's aura and presence made everyone stood up and formed a pathway - which reminded me of scenes at hotels' grand ball rooms whenever he as the then Deputy Prime Minister walked in as guest of honour to dinner functions. In my book, DSAI is the most magnetic and charismatic Malaysian leader we haev seen. None comes close to his ability to attract and command an audience.
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Dato' Husam continued his speech touching on issues of national interests such as oil reserve and oil prices, foods supply and foods price, and a call for everyone present to continue supporting Pakatan Rakyat and its' shared idealogy of serving the rakyat!
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Dato' Seri Anwar started his speech by thanking the audience for their direct and indirect support towards the success in PRU-12. For a man who has been removed from the penultimate seat of power - then humilated, punched, and imprisoned - he was forgiving of the past and its ghosts. His focus was clearly on the future, and more specifically on how to gather sufficient force of unity to form a new Malaysian government. In responce to a question, he elaborated about the transformation he wish to see in the new Malaysia. He must have painted a glorious picture - judged by a thunderous applause he received at the end.
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The Q & A session was long and laborious. The audience used the opportunity to unleashed their bottled emotion about the current Federal Government's many shortcomings and the weaknesses of their policies. Even a few Malaysians from Riyadh joined in via IT technology. To their credit, all three leaders patiently addressed all questions which were asked.
For those who were not there, 150 people who were there tonight may sounds like a small number. However, for the 150 who were there it was a night of a new beginnings. It was a succesfull meeting despite having been organised within lots of limitation and restrictions. We all want to thank the hosts Mr. Fudzail and his family, the main man behind the network Mr Hasnol and volunteers who have given their time to work out the logistics. Bravo guys!!!
It was a beginning of new hopes....for a better Malaysia!
It was also a new beginning, where political leaders of significant statures came down to meet their 'Stake-holders' - the rakyat!
It was a new beginning - when we felt we matter!
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I have a story to tell my children when they wake up tomorrow morning. I will tell them....."Being a leader means serving your followers!" It is a story I learnt last night listening to my friends talking over dinner about what they see in Dato' Seri Anwar, Tan Sri Khalid and Dato' Husam.
Dan dari HASNOL
100 Hari Pertama: Lapuran Awal buat kami d Dubai!
Sessi bersama pimpinan kanan Pakatan Rakyat d Dubai malam tadi melihatkan sambutan hebat d kalangan rakyat Malaysia pelbagai kaum. Pertemuan kira-kira dua jam setengah juga menarik minat beberapa teman Bosnia dan Mesir. Dan mengasyikkan, sessi malam tadi turut d sertai rakyat Malaysia d Riyadh - melalui video call 3G!
Setakat yang teringat, ini merupakan pertemuaan rakyat dan pemimpin terbesar melibatkan rakyat d sini dan pimpinan Malaysia (selalunya pertemuan dengan pimpinan kerajaan BN bersifat agak formal d hotel). Malam tadi kami bertemu d rumah Fudzail - dan yang hadir terpaksa bayar pula! Kami pakat sedia jamuan rakyat untuk pimpinan Pakatan Rakyat! Walau tiada makanan Free, namun kehadiran amat memberansangkan!
Ketiga-tiga pimpinan, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, YB Dato' Husam Musa dan YAB Tan Sri Khalid walaupun tiba pada awal paginya, masih penuh stamina. Walaupun mereka tiba dalam pesawat yang sama, Dsai dan Husam hanya sedar mereka dalam pesawat yang sama sebelum mendarat - masing-masing lena bila tiba d pesawat!.
Ketika menjemput Dato' Husam dan rombongannya, Dsai dan TS Khalid juga bersama. Tak sempat bertemu Dsai, tetapi sempat juga dia menghantar pesanan melalui Blackberrynya setibanya d Dubai.
Dengan hanya notis beberapa hari, perancangan djalankan dengan teratur. Husam terlebih dahulu confirm untuk program bersama rakyat Malaysia d UAE. Setelah dberitahu kehadiran Dsai melalui salah seorang peguam Dsai, kami berusaha mendapatkan kepastian waktu Dsai dan TS Khalid untuk bersama Husam.
Promosi awal d gerakkan. SMS, email dan word of mouth menjadi communication channel pillihan.
Awal pagi semalam, kata pasti d terima. Fudzail sempat mendapat confirmation dari Dsai.
Dalam pada itu, mobileku tak putus menerima SMS dan panggilan. Ada yang confirm akan bersama, tak kurang yang bertanya petunjuk jalan. Yang gelinya ada yang bertanya berapa ramai akan hadir malam ni?
Aku tanya kenapa? Dia jawap "usually aah, when Anwar give his speech aaa, thousands will come".
Aku jawap, "u datang saja, ramai tak ramai datang saja". Dia sempat menambah, "kalau i datang lambat aah, simpan makanan untuk i".
TS Khalid Memulakan Acara
Sekitar 8:05pm, acara kami bermula. Mukadimmah awal buat tetamu istimewa yang dah tiba - Husam dan TS Khalid. Ruang tamu rumah Fudzail masih lapang.
TS Khalid memulakan bicara dengan latarbelakang keterlibatannya dalam dunia politik. Transisi yang agak jauh menyimpang, dari dunia koperat yang fokus pada keuntungan syarikat kepada dunia politik yang memberi keutamaan kepada rakyat terbanyak.
Permulaannya agak perlahan, namun setelah masa beredar momentum TS Khalid bergerak pantas.
Sessi mula terasa seperti sessi lapuran ketua kerajaan Selangor selepas 100 hari memerintah. Apalagi bila TS Khalid menyebut, sebagai CEO kerajaan negeri, beliau bertanggung jawab atas amanah yang d pikul. Kepertanggungjawaban terhadap rakyat menjadi agenda, dan perbezaan antara PR dan BN.
Perbezaan ideologi antara komponen PR bukan masalah, malahan titik pertemuaan itulah menjadikan kami dekat.
Sesekali TS mencuit hati kami dengan beberapa insiden yang berlaku sepanjang menerajui negeri termaju d Malaysia.
Dato' Husam Strategis Mengemudi PAS dan PR
Sekitar 40 minit berlalu, giliran Husam berdepan "share holders" - rakyat dperantauan. Ketika ini, ruang tamu dah sesak.
Sessi Husam menampakkan kematangan dan pengalaman beliau. Penyampaian structured. Trademarknya juga tak ketinggalan - penuh fakta!
D selang seli dengan potongan ayat Quran sebagai dali dasar dan polisi yang menjunjung kepentingan awam.
Ketika itu, Dsai tiba. Ketibaan Dsai d sambut meriah, negarawan yang sudah lama dnanti rakyat dperantauan. Tak siapa yang hendak miss bersalaman dengan mantan TPM. Juga d sebut-sebut PM in waiting. Tiba d depanku, sempat kami berpelukan. Kali terakhir bertemu tahun lalu. Cuma sempat bercakap melalaui telefon dan tukaran email.
Husam meneruskan ucapan, mengakhiri sessi kedua malam tadi. Pendek, namun padat.
Dsai - dari Reformasi kepada Spekulasi September!
D awal ucapan TS Khalid, beliau ada menyebut beberapa perkara menarik yang menjadi spekulasi. Spekulasi hanya boleh d jawab dan d ulas Dsai. Tiba giliran Dsai, sebagai pengerusi majlis, aku sempat mengingatkan Dsai akan spekulasi yang harus d isi dalam ucapannya.
Ternyata itulah yang d nanti hadirin.
Dsai, menyentuh dan mengupas isu spekulasi kerajaan baru. Apa benar September 16? Kenapa pula September 16?
Dsai menggariskan perubahan kerajaan (jika ianya berlaku) akan berlaku selewatnya September 16 tahun ini. Kenapa September 16 - ianya tarikh keramat yang d kongsi sama rakyat Malaysia d Semenanjung (Hari Malaysia) dan yang lebih nostalgik buat rakyat Malaysia d Sabah dan Sarawak.
Dalam beberapa ketika, Dsai sempat melontarkan pujian kepada Husam sebagai strategis bagi PAS (terutama d Kelantan katanya) dan buat PR.
Ketelusan, amanah dan kepentingan rakyat akan terus menjadi agenda buat PR - menjadi mesej utama Dsai.
Sessi soal jawab menarik, bilamana teman-teman dari Riyadh turut serta. Walau tidak bersama secara zahirnya, mereka sempat berdialog dengan ketiga pimpinan dengan penggunaan teknologi (E90 ku jadi alat penghubung!).
ALhamduliLlaah, sessi malam tadi memberi senario baru buat kami d Dubai. Pertemuaan rakyat Malaysia berbilang kaum dperantauan, bersama pimpinan rakyat mengingatkan kembali pengalaman malam Pemilu ke-12 yang lalu (anak muda Melayu bersama Cina dan India menggembling tenaga menjana kemenangan PR d 5+1 buah negeri).
Husam dan Dsai sendiri amat berpuas hati. Ketika menghantar Husam ke hotel, dalam keletihan beliau sempat merakamkan kegembiraan bertemu rakyat dperantauan.
Dsai pula sempat mengirim pesanan pagi tadi. Mesej dari Blackberrynya mengutus rasa puas hati. Jazakallah, tergesa malam tadi. Ada program lain (selepas program kami).
Apa pun, setelah amanat Tok Guru (semasa sessi teleconference sebelum Pemilu lalu) kami pikul bersama; kini harapan pimpinan peneraju perubahan ke arah Malaysia Baru kami dokongi. Ayuh, rakyat Malaysia dperantauan - kita juga punya tanggungjawab bersama ke arah Malaysia Baru!
Paling minima, rapatkan kerjasama kita bersama. Permuafakatan d tingkat, rakyat d martabat!
Terima kasih pada tuan rumah, sukarelawan yang berpakat membantu melicinkan perjalanan program serta hadirin yang tiba bersama (ada juga yang tiba dari Oman dan Abu Dhabi!).
More photos HERE
You Don't Read this in MALAYSIAKINI
But you can read it HERE.
Gambar lain SINI
Europe falls in love with America again and can’t wait for Bush to go
An opinion poll taken in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia found, perhaps not surprisingly, that 52 per cent were rooting for Barack Obama, with 15 per cent for John McCain, and the rest undecided. The only country where McCain made a reasonable score – 24 per cent — was Russia, where elderly white men still provide reassurance.
There is now a popular view in Europe that the Great Satan will be reborn next year as America the beautiful and Europeans will march in lock step with Uncle Sam to set the world to rights. This is causing some concern among European leaders, who realise that such rosy expectations will have to be “managed down”. The transatlantic relationship has always been testy; American presidents serve their own electorates, not those of Europe.
There is, however, some basis in the feeling that the transatlantic relationship will get better. Through no efforts of his own, Bush will leave the stage with Europe far more pro-American than for many years. Thanks to the European electoral calendar, all the big four – Britain, France, Germany and Italy – now have pro-American leaders. The era when President Chirac of France and Chancellor Shroeder of Germany were in league with Syria to thwart Bush’s plans to invade Iraq has passed.
Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, encapsulated the change when he wore an NYPD T-shirt on holiday in the US – the clearest way to show solidarity with New York against the 9/11 terrorists.
This political alignment has already translated into a broad measure of US-European agreement on key issues. Britain, France, Germany and Russia are all working with the US to convince Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. The Bush administration has belatedly accepted the need for a Palestinian state, and is working with the Europeans, who have even agreed – unwisely – to boycott Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement. On climate change, one of the biggest transatlantic irritants, Bush is now talking of the possibility of a global agreement. He has even said he is sorry for the aggressive language he used about the war in Iraq.
All this ought to merit at least half a cheer for the president, but he is unlikely to get it. His image is fixed as the cowboy who can’t shoot straight and went to war against Iraq when, as the US now claims, the real threat is Iran. Of course not everything is cosy. Americans and Europeans will never agree on Iraq, or the wider “wars of the 21st century”, to use the phrase of the US historian Philip Bobbitt. The Americans believe they are at war – and are willing to sacrifice blood and treasure to defeat enemies wherever they see them. The Europeans are half-hearted at best.
This is where the enthralling drama of the US primaries bumps up against real life. No American president can afford to look “soft on terror”, nor can he allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb – though Iran does not claim any ambitions in that field. I do not believe that the faith placed in Obama in Europe is justified. He has enjoyed a magical political career, but is untested and has much to prove. It is painful to say it, but a US president whose second name is Hussein will have even more to prove to the American heartland when he ventures into the Israel-Palestine conflict. I cannot see him securing a just settlement there – particularly as Bill Clinton, with a far more propitious set of circumstances – failed spectacularly.
An untested president invites a challenge. This happened with John F Kennedy, who was seen by his enemies as all smile and no substance. Khrushchev, the bully-boy Soviet leader, met him in 1961 and decided he was a pushover. This prompted Russia to move nuclear missiles to Cuba and brought the world to the brink of war in the missile crisis of 1962. It is not far-fetched to see Iran being tempted to test Obama, particularly as he rashly offered to meet the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, without preconditions, a position he is now backtracking from.
What sort of president achieves great things in foreign affairs without going to war? Richard Nixon, not an attractive figure by any standard, achieved détente with the Soviet Union, negotiated a ceasefire in Vietnam and opened up relations with China. For an old Cold Warrior, this was a hat-trick of betrayals, but it was the right thing to do.In two words, what is needed is a pragmatic hawk. John McCain has nothing to prove to the hawks. His pragmatism is demonstrated by his clear rejection of all forms of torture, even in the pursuit of the war on terror.
If hawks are so successful, why then has Bush not pulled off a series of diplomatic coups? The secret, in the words of Bush’s former press secretary, Scott McClellan, is that he has no intellectual curiosity. For him, the words “enhanced interrogation techniques” did not suggest torture and a slippery slope that would taint America’s moral leadership in Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
It is understandable that the Europeans should yearn for the ultimate anti-Bush candidate. But they should be careful not to get what they wish for. America is not going to be reborn as a result of the election in November. Its goals will be not dissimilar to those of today. What is needed is someone competent to repair the mistakes of the Bush era.
Where tax may actually be welcome
As a result, bag habits took a dramatic turn. Shoppers shifted to reusable cloth bags. Eventually, plastic bag consumption fell 90 per cent to only 230 million per year. So, roughly one billion plastic bags have been dislodged from the litter annually.
And since the production of bags has been reduced, about 18 million litres of oil have been saved. That's worthwhile in itself, but the good news doesn't end there. The government raised $9.6 million from the plastic tax during the first year of implementation alone, according to reusablebags.com.
Likewise, Irish retailers are reaping the benefits. They're not only earning from the sale of reusable bags, they're saving money as well. Before the tax was imposed, retailers spent $50 million a year on providing plastic shopping bags.
So, in the case of one small European country, the numbers already stack up. How do they look worldwide? What's the global commotion actually worth?
Consumers around the world use approximately 500 billion to one trillion plastic bags each year. That translates into a fairly vigorous rate of consumption, of more than one million every minute. And since a lot of them are not reused, and can take up to 1,000 years to decompose, billions of them end up in landfills, or litter the parks and beaches, or block the drains and spoil the oceans - eventually harming marine life.
Considering the danger plastics pose to the environment, a lot of countries have adopted a flurry of laws to discourage their use. Here in the UAE, groceries and supermarkets have introduced reusable bags.
Amid the hullabaloo about plastics, however, a lot of people are still using plastic bags. If banning and introducing alternative bags won't work, should taxing plastic bags be a better solution then?
Supplying plastic bags is a business expense to shops. If they start charging for them, people will think about alternatives. Eventually, shops will save money. When consumption drops, production does too. If there is less production, less oil and energy will be consumed. The fewer people use plastics, the lesser the ugly litter will be, the better for the environment. And, don't forget, tax also spells revenue.
Old habits die hard. And since plastic bags make shopping convenient and retailers are giving them away for free, consumers have more reason not to change. Maybe it takes a little push, like Ireland's plastic tax, to eventually kick that habit of mindless consumption.
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