Two sides of the same coin

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday July 8, 2009
Two sides of the same coin
MUSINGS
By MARINA MAHATHIR


When human rights is sacrificed supposedly on the altar of security, nobody feels safe anymore, not even the enforcers.

READING up on the subject of policing and human rights the other day, I came across some interesting documents.

The Commonwealth Human Rights Report on Police Accountability in 2005 describes a concept that is new to me, that of democratic policing.

This is defined as the idea that the police are protectors of the rights of the citizens and the rule of law, while ensuring the safety and security of all equally.

This definition is not new. In 1996, the UN International Police Task Force declared: “In a democratic society, the police serve to protect, rather than impede, freedoms.

“The very purpose of the police is to provide a safe orderly environment in which these freedoms can be exercised.

“A democratic police force is not concerned with people’s beliefs or associates, their movements or conformity to state ideology. It is not even primarily concerned with the enforcement of regulations of bureaucratic regimens.

“Instead, the police force of a democracy is concerned strictly with the preservation of safe communities and the application of criminal law equally to all people, without fear or favour.”

It follows therefore that if we are to call ourselves a democratic country, the functioning of the police is very central to our perception of ourselves.

We can no longer defend our democracy by simply saying that we have elections every five years, but must also look at how our public institutions behave.

To quote the Commonwealth report once again: “As the primary agency responsible for protecting human security, the police are particularly responsible for turning the promise of human rights into reality.

“The failure of the police to properly perform their duties has a significant effect on the ability of citizens to enjoy the full spectrum of all their human rights and can also impact negatively on the ability of governments to deliver on their mandates.”

In other words, in a democratic society, it is quite possible for the police to be the main human rights agency in the country.

People have a right to safety and security, so ensuring that they are able to go about their business safely is a human rights job.

Making sure that their complaints are seen to quickly is another, as well as seeing that investigations are done properly so that justice can be served.

But this only happens if law enforcers see citizens as essentially good people. However if the attitude is that citizens are just one seething mass of potential lawbreakers, then a problem arises.

How do you protect people when basically you think people are just waiting to be bad?

This seems to be the basic difference in perspective between law enforcers and citizens.

Law enforcers believe that people cannot be trusted to behave themselves and therefore must act before they break the law.

Citizens on the other hand believe in what is just and fair and cannot understand why they should face punitive action just for believing that.

Yet, I have seen citizens gather to discuss difficult and sensitive subjects with greater civility than I have seen law enforcers. That is perhaps the other insight.

Civilians learn that the right way to behave is always to be civil even when you heartily disagree with others. Uniformed personnel see things in more black and white; there is simply no room for disagreement.

This inevitably puts law enforcers and civilians on a collision course. Civilians don’t see why things cannot be in the open; law enforcers prefer things to be kept in the dark so that they will always have the upper hand.

Civilians think that they can be trusted to not create chaos and disorder; law enforcers don’t believe so.

This is why we see otherwise peaceful demonstrations become disorderly after the police have acted, not before.

Most people also have a sense of natural justice that forms the basis of their concept of human rights. Even children have a sense of what is fair and what is not.

Yet, there are some people who think that human rights are “ideals” that cannot be realised if we are also to think of security.

The funny thing is when human rights is sacrificed supposedly on the altar of “security”, nobody feels safe anymore, not even the enforcers.

As an example, Israel has never been able to feel safe since it took away the rights of the Palestinians to live in their own land. More tough measures to ensure Israeli security have done nothing to ease the situation. The same can be seen anywhere human rights is suppressed.

Perhaps it is time for major re-education of law enforcement on what human rights means. And that their disregard for it reflects badly on the political masters they serve.

Injustice through the tar brush

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL

The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.

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Wednesday June 24, 2009
Injustice through the tar brush
MUSING by MARINA MAHATHIR


To stereotype through one’s shared identity does not do justice to every individual; we all live with multiple identities.

SOME months ago, I had an interesting session with some young people belonging to an evangelical youth movement. Our conversation was on stereotypes.

At the heart of racism, I said, are stereotypes about people because they belong to one race or religion. And the thing to remember about stereotypes is, every time you stereotype someone, someone else somewhere is stereotyping you.

I’ve been talking about racism all last week. Prof Aneez Esmail gave a talk on how Britain has handled race relations at a public forum and a closed roundtable session.

In both cases, we Malaysians proved that, aside from politicians, we are quite capable of discussing race with maturity and rationality.

Prof Aneez stressed that he was not here to tell us how to conduct race relations in Malay­sia. Rather, he was relating his own experience of racism as an immigrant to Britain, and how he went about challenging it.

His challenges led to recognition of much institutional racism in the medical profession and at universities. Empirical evidence about the racism was key to his success.

He proved that hospitals were 10 times more likely to offer jobs to applicants with white names than to those with non-white names.

A similar study in Australia published only recently showed the same thing among employers there.

The issue of racism is considered so sensitive in this country that the general prescription is that we should not talk about it. This has only led to mounting tensions when problems remain unresolved.

Ironically, politicians are not censored in the same way as others, even though they seem to be the ones least likely to be capable of rational discussion. As a result, they have led to a further heightening of tensions.

Having said that, I believe that many of us are sincere in wanting to grapple with the issue of racism all round. Everyone feels hard done by in one way or another, whether officially or unofficially.

Prof Aneez stressed that we all live with multiple identities. I am not just Malay or Muslim, I am also a woman, a wife, mother, daughter, activist and whatever else I do and am.

So to stereotype through one’s shared identity does not do justice to every individual. All Muslims in the world may share some common beliefs but not all common traits.

Not all men are chauvinists. Not all Chinese are hardworking. Not all Indians can sing like Shah Rukh Khan, and so on.

The point is when we group people under one single shared identity, we invariably label them with the worst traits of that identity. Worse still, we then refuse to recognise the good in the other identities that they carry.

Thus, when we have prejudices against one group of people, we ignore the individual good traits that they might have under their other identities.

We might dislike someone just because we have prejudices against his race, while ignoring what he may have done for charity, or his expertise in his job, for example.

The other point is that when we say we want to eradicate racism, we must mean that for everyone. We cannot accuse someone else of racism while not recognising it in ourselves.

What’s more, we cannot reject racism among our fellow citizens but allow it against foreigners. Why is it okay to hurl epithets at Indo­nesians, Africans and Bangladeshis when it is not at Malaysian Malays, Chinese or Indians?

Racism is racism, no matter whom it is directed at.

While we are reflecting on how we may solve our internal racial issues, we must also reflect on why it is that we stereotype all Indo­nesians as criminals, all Africans as thugs and all Bangladeshis as poor labourers.

And why it is that we are not ashamed of ourselves when we do this?

Perhaps we don’t realise that over in Indo­nesia, all Malaysians are stereotyped as cruel and inhumane.

Africans think we have something against black people.

And, in Bangladesh, as much as they admire Malaysia, they also wonder why we treat their people so badly.

Stereotypes don’t take into account that indi­viduals may think differently; they tar everyone with the same brush.

Prof Aneez pointed out that it is not

possible to totally eradicate racism but we can do a lot to make it socially disapproved of.

We can take pro-active measures to mitigate the impact of institutional racism with time-limited quotas and affirmative action.

For example, we could introduce affirmative action to bring in more non-Malays into the civil service and police force with special incentives as well as punitive measures for non-compliance by those institutions.

The lack of candidates cannot be an excuse but an unacceptable lack of effort.

All we need is political will. And therein lies the problem.

Veiled view of equal rights

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday June 10, 2009
Veiled view of equal rights
MUSING by MARINA MAHATHIR


US President Barack Obama showed that he was mindful of who he was talking to. If only people did the same back home in our neck of the woods.

THIS is one of those surreal moments. Over in Cairo, the first American President with Hussein for a middle name was reaching out to that large diverse community he collectively calls the Muslim world and saying pretty much all the right things.

President Barack Hussein Obama greeted everyone with Assalamualaikum and was met with applause. (Meanwhile, at home, people wondered if he would be arrested if he ever tried the same thing here.)

He quoted from the Quran (in English, without citing chapter and verse, so no complaints from the conservatives here) and acknowledged that women who choose to wear headscarves were not necessarily unequal to men.

Meanwhile, at home, a political party decided that women who do not wear headscarves are not only not equal to men – any man – but also unequal to women who do wear headscarves.

And that’s saying plenty since all women, covered heads or not, are irredeemably inferior to men. According to them, to be a woman is to be a bit disabled because it renders us unable to think for ourselves especially about religion.

And if interpretations of religion are making our lives miserable, then we should just shut up and bear it, because that’s what life is like for the disabled. Who are we to complain about that when, after all, it was God who made us disabled?

Isn’t that odd, when God gave us the strength to bear children and put up with infinite patience the foibles of men?

When men admit to weakness in order to justify supremacy – as in women should cover themselves so that men cannot be tempted – you have to wonder who are the disabled beings here.

Obama is a very smart guy. He knew exactly how to word his speech because he has a vast new audience he needs to win over, Muslims.

He neglected to use the word “terrorist” even once, causing much foaming at the mouth in Tel Aviv.

He admitted that America did some meddling they shouldn’t have in Iran, and he acknowledged that Hamas actually has “some” support.

Perhaps he could have gone further; for instance, by acknowledging that bombing women and children in Pakistan is helping

to recruit new Taliban members. But for a new beginning, his words were mostly the right ones.

Translating words into action is another matter of course.

But words matter and when spoken so publicly; people can always hold you to them. Choosing the right words showed that he was mindful of who he’s talking to.

If only people did the same back home in our neck of the woods.

Instead we get a party that is supposedly trying to be open to all Malaysians calling for the investigation of a women’s group to check whether or not they are really Islamic. If not, their group should be banned and the members rehabilitated.

Oh my! A group that has always fought for equality and justice for women has to be put on trial as unIslamic. The group that has made people aware of the difficulties of women in getting fair hearings in our religious courts is deemed wrong.

So what sort of rehabilitation is needed? Are we to be punished until we agree that women are inferior beings and do not deserve fair treatment? Do we have to be waterboarded until we plead to put on headscarves?

Obama cited Kuala Lumpur as one of the capitals where economic development is possible without compromising culture and traditions.

I’m not sure he knows what he’s talking about.

He obviously does not know that in our country we can use Internet technology to spread alternative news, and at the same time, to the theme of Star Wars, deride women as lesser beings.

Of course we agree with him that women should be educated, but never about religion, unless it’s the prescribed patriarchal version of it. Everything else would be just not kosher. Women who demand (shock, horror!) justice should just be lobotomised.

I’m still waiting for a good explanation as to why Muslim women should not be treated justly.

Especially when we believe in a God who is the epitome of justice and fairness. Al’Adl, the Utterly Just, is one of the 99 names of God.

The worst part of all this is that attitudes such as these are not limited to political parties who want to impose a mono-religious form of government.

These attitudes also exist among those who otherwise put themselves in opposition to such a party.

You hear the same things at their general assemblies as well.

The danger is that these entities want to engage one another.

To engage, one seeks to find common ground. Is discrimination against women one of them?

Sports and studies do mix

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday May 27, 2009
Sports and studies do mix
MUSINGS
By MARINA MAHATHIR


Our children need to be assured that three A’s and a good sports record are more than fine; they are just what the country needs.

THE Education Minister announced recently that there will be a limit to the number of subjects students can take for their SPM. Well, it’s about time!

I have never understood how students can take 16 subjects and more. In my day, you didn’t actually need more than five subjects because your overall grade would be based on the aggregate of your top five subject grades.

Typically, we would take about eight subjects at most in order to have some leeway in our potential total. There was no reason to take more than that.

If someone got seven A’s, they were pretty much regarded geniuses. Today, there are people who get more than double what the geniuses of my time did. But are they doubly smart?

I spoke to officials at some private tertiary institutions and they confirmed what I have always feared: that students entering university, particularly those doing very technical subjects, had to do a lot of remedial work in their first year before they could really be considered up to par.

Their 15 A’s were simply not “real” A’s.

In my time, the students who got seven A’s were immediately offered scholarships to do matriculation in Australia, after which they went on to university there, mostly in the sciences or medicine.

I don’t hear of those types of offers to current students with multiple A’s. Perhaps, it is because often their English is just not up to the mark.

Or, perhaps, their A’s are not quite of the same standard as the fewer ones of old.

I often wonder why our media don’t do follow-up stories on our multiple-A students a few years later.

Would it be because there is really nothing to follow up, that they all fizzled out when it came to real studies?

I’m not saying that they did not work hard to get their A’s.

But perhaps, when getting as many A’s as possible became their sole goal in life, they could not thrive in higher education which demands less rote work and more actual thought.

So limiting the number of subjects a student can take would be the first step.

The next step would be to raise the standards of our education all round so that to even get one A would mean something much more than the current five or six A’s.

The other thing to do would be to provide space for our children to shine in ways other than the academic.

I am glad that the Education Minister has also said that we should improve the standard of sports in our schools. The low standards that we have today are, of course, related to our obsession with examination results.

How do we force our kids to get at least seven or eight A’s without stopping them from doing anything but study?

We have now created a culture where if you shone at sports, you’re not considered as smart as if you were a pale child tied to your desk and books.

Yet it is possible to combine both; indeed one complements the other, Nicol David being the best example.

If one does sports, one is simply fresher and healthier, and therefore more alert in class. We have to go back to the days when sports were compulsory.

At the same time we should stop the nonsense where we are more concerned about what our children wear to play sports than actually ensuring that they play well.

When we make our girls dress in uncomfortable clothes for sports, they are unlikely to find playing games very attractive.

Nor should we keep presenting sports to our girls as something unladylike.

If we are serious about training world-class athletes and sportspersons, we should equip them with the best training and equipment. Otherwise, let us just forget it.

Sports, as has been pointed out by others, have other benefits besides health and fitness.

One of them is the fact that they are able to create team spirit and unity in ways no amount of Rakan Muda activities can.

We root for an athlete because they are Malaysian, not because they are of any ethnic or religious subgroup. We are all collectively proud when one of our sportspeople does well overseas.

Sports are, and have always been, “one Malaysia”. I would venture that one of the reasons we have so much disunity is precisely because getting many A’s in exams is a solitary sport, not a team one.

It’s not too late to reverse the damage.

Just put our money where our mouth is and change our children’s mindset by telling them that three A’s and a good sports record are more than fine; they are just what the country needs.

Hot heads don’t solve anything

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL

The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.

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Wednesday May 13, 2009
Hot heads don’t solve anything
Musings by Marina Mahathir


After the events in Perak last week, where everybody seemed to lose all sense of proportion, the appropriate thing to do now is to chill.

GERTRUDE Stein the writer once said: “Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” Stein lived from 1874-1946, so this was way before what we now call the Information Age. So you can imagine how much common sense we lose these days.

Nothing seemed to exemplify this loss more than the events of last week.

Everybody seemed to lose all sense of proportion and was reacting in ways that were totally unwarranted.

The chief culprit would be the police.

Why was there a need to arrest someone who was asking people to wear black clothes? Since when has wearing black been classified as dangerous?

Then we should arrest all those women in top-to-toe black burqas walking around, both local and tourist.

So wearing black was meant to be a political statement, and that was deemed offensive.

But people wear political statements on their bodies every day, whether in the form of slogans on T-shirts or even the very clothes they wear, especially on the head.

Are we going to go around and arrest everyone?

And what was the need to arrest people who bring a cake?

So you don’t like the joke. But, by any measure, cakes are not dangerous weapons, except perhaps to those with high cholesterol.

If I were a policeman with common sense, I would have taken the cake, said thank you, sent the cake-deliverers on their way, and then dumped the cake in the rubbish bin. End of story.

Instead, the police gave the cake deliverers exactly the publicity they wanted.

Even worse was the reaction towards students protesting against the arrest of their lecturer.

Was there a need for armed policemen?

Private university students are generally a docile lot, bent on getting the degrees their parents paid so much towards.

But surely loyalty to, and support for, their lecturers is something to be encouraged?

Instead they were made out to be troublemakers.

What is likely to have happened now is that those 20 students, having now observed an injustice first hand, have become politicised.

No guesses on how they will vote in the next general election.

It only got worse. People holding vigils got arrested. People sitting in coffee shops got booked. Lawyers trying to provide legal advice got taken in. Does any of this make sense?

The minister concerned may praise the police for “keeping the peace” but the cost of it is deep anger at the police and the Government, none of which will be soon forgotten.

There may be outward peace but absolutely none deep inside the psyche of the people affected, nor among the observers.

Yet how much would it cost the minister to instruct the police to exercise restraint? Nothing at all, yet it reaps greater rewards.

In fact, if anyone needed arresting, it was probably every single person inside the Perak State Assembly, regardless of political affiliation. The crime? Bringing down the dignity of the entire institution of the State Assembly.

How can screaming, shouting, trying to strangle people and tearing up money serve as a good example to the public?

Increasingly, I think the common sense thing to do is to dissolve the entire assembly, have new elections and hope that none of these people get voted in again.

What is most interesting about this episode is how information is now gathered and passed around. I followed the proceedings in Perak on Twitter, the microblogging application.

Various people were twittering up what was happening, and these were relayed to a large audience.

All this information was not only first hand but being sent out much faster than any mainstream media could ever hope to do.

The news alerts from newspapers that I received on my mobile seemed already stale when I got them.

This is the new challenge to the Government.

You can get the mainstream media to report what you want, you can try and go after blogs and online news portals, but with the advent of Twitter and social networking sites like Facebook, and individuals posting up news as soon as it happens, it is almost impossible to counter any of it at the same speed.

Even photos and videos can be uploaded right after they have been taken and passed around.

The appropriate thing to do right now is really to chill.

Everyone needs to go to a yoga class to calm down.

Hot heads never solved anything so every politician should go for compulsory head clearing sessions.

Common sense should prevail. And perhaps it will tell us that asking Perakians who they actually want to govern them is the only sensible thing to do.

Justice for the deserving

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL

The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.

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Wednesday April 29, 2009
Justice for the deserving
Musings
By MARINA MAHATHIR


Being religious means having honesty, integrity, sincerity and many other virtues that come with it. The Quran underscores that to be just is what being a faithful adherent is all about. And justice is not limited to only those of the same faith.

SYMBOLS , as we know, can be potent. One of those that many set great store by is the tudung, meant to signify religious identity and piety.

Presumably that identity comes also with religious quality, that is, you expect that anyone who wears it to display a certain level of behaviour and integrity.

The other day I had an experience that taught me never to expect too much from symbols. As I was about to pay for some coffee, I noticed the young female cashier had rung up a more expensive price than that quoted on the menu on the wall.

Fully expecting there to be a legitimate reason, I asked her why. To my shock, the look on her face spelt guilt and she hastily changed the price of my coffee.

It may well be that she was told by her management to add a little something to each bill because I don’t see how she could have personally benefited from it. But the point is that if one takes on religious symbols such as the tudung, one therefore needs to ensure that it means something.

Dishonesty is not one of them.

Which goes back to that old argument about form and substance in religion in this country.

It is perhaps unfortunate that Islam is the religion that most lends itself to public symbolism, mostly through dress. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the focus has entirely rested on women’s dress and not anything else.

So while we may take on the tudung as one step towards heaven, we don’t insist that it carries more weight than that, that is we expect honesty, integrity, sincerity and many other virtues to come with it.

The question will always be, does a dishonest person who wears a tudung or a kepiah have a better chance of going to heaven than one who doesn’t?

And if the answer is yes, then we have something seriously wrong with our value system that prizes the outward rather than the internal, the form over the substance.

One of the major themes of Islam is justice.

Over and over again, the Quran underscores that to be just is always what to be a faithful adherent is all about.

In Surah An-Nisa, Verse 35, God says: “O ye who believe! Be ye staunch in justice, witnesses for Allah, even though it be against yourselves or (your) parents or (your) kindred, whether (the case be of) a rich man or a poor man, for Allah is nearer unto both (than ye are). So follow not passion lest ye lapse (from truth) and if ye lapse or fall away, then lo! Allah is ever Informed of what ye do.”

It says nothing about whom one has to be just to, except that they be those who deserve it. Certainly justice is not limited to only those of the same faith.

Thus, I welcome the announcement that minor-aged children of people who convert will be brought up in the original religion that their parents were when they got married.

This is to stop the sort of vindictive men who try to inflict as much as misery as they can on women they no longer love by trying to take away their children in any way they can.

Unfortunately, the state has only helped to support this vindictiveness by mostly refusing to decide on what is just.

But as they say, the proof of good intentions will always be in the pudding. These announcements must translate into fact.

Already the negative noises are out, alleging doom if certain processes are supposedly not followed. Forgotten is the fact that those processes may not be necessarily just.

Almost all these voices are, interestingly enough, male.

These are the same people who insist that a woman’s primary role is to be a mother. Of course, if her husband converts to Islam and takes away her children, her mothering role becomes nullified.

He suddenly becomes the martyred single father, even though he created the situation in the first place and can easily find another woman to tend to his brood.

Meanwhile, the mother remains married to the father of the children she is forcibly separated from and cannot move on.

And this is what people call the Islamic thing to do?

I hope the Cabinet cracks the whip on these issues once and for all. No doubt this will require Parliamentary approval and that will take time.

But so much misery has been caused by these injustices and what suffers most is the image of Islam as a religion that upholds justice and equality. It is not possible to be unjust and call oneself a Muslim. Unless all we care about is the form and never the substance.

Cabinet needs more estrogen

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday April 15, 2009
Cabinet needs more estrogen
Musings
By MARINA MAHATHIR


Chile, and to a lesser extent, Bangladesh have led the way for more women to be given greater say in national affairs.

OPPORTUNITIES, as they say, don’t come very often. And when they do, one should always grab them with both hands.

Thus it was with our new Prime Minister and his Cabinet. It was an opportunity for a real makeover. But it was lost.

In 2006, for the first time in its history, Chile elected its first ever woman president, Michelle Bachelet.

That was the opportunity that the Chileans grabbed to do something different. It was indeed a landmark event because Chile is seen as the most conservative country in Latin America.

But as one news report put it, her election “reflected a profound socio-cultural change”. Indeed, on election night, hundreds of thousands of Chileans packed the streets of Santiago to celebrate her historic presidential victory.

Grandmothers could be seen throwing confetti from their balconies. Housewives with their entire families in tow could be heard screaming, “We’re going to clean up house.”

Ah… wouldn’t that have been nice here? Then Bachelet grabbed her own opportunity. She selected a 20-member Cabinet comprising 10 male Ministers and 10 female Ministers. It’s the first of its kind in the entire Western hemisphere.

“This Cabinet reflects the new style of government I’ve proposed,” Bachelet said, as she announced her choices. They included women in the key portfolios of economy and mining, as well as in her own two former ministries, health and defence.

Not that Chile is the only country to make such brave choices when it comes to selecting a Cabinet. Nearer home, Bangladesh has done pretty much the same, though not quite to the same extent.

Last December, Bangladesh held elections after almost two years of an interim government. The people voted in Sheikh Hasina Wazed as their prime minister, not for the first time in their history.

In turn, she appointed a 32-member Cabinet that included four women. Not many women, but still it is interesting what portfolios they were given: Foreign Affairs, Agricul- ture, Home Affairs and State Minister for Labour and Employment.

Sheikh Hasina herself will look after the Defence Ministry, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, Establishment Ministry, Housing and Public Works Ministry, Religious Affairs Ministry and Women and Children Affairs Ministry.

So, without being wholly original, we could have been much more innovative. We could have improved on the last Cabinet’s three women Ministers by having more this time, not less.

Furthermore, although there are several women Deputy Ministers sprinkled among different Ministries, it would have been good and indeed courageous to have given women Ministers greater responsibilities in portfolios beyond the normal ones that women are given.

After all, if other developing countries can trust women with, say, Home Affairs and Defence, why can’t we? (And we could have done with a Gender Empowerment Ministry, to reflect better what needs to be done.)

Part of the problem is of course our women politicians themselves, who seem disinclined to demand greater participation, even saying they won’t lobby for any positions.

It seems odd when the Minister in charge of ensuring that Malaysia complies with its responsibilities under the Convention for the Eli- mination of Discrimination Against Women, which calls for a minimum of 30% female participation in decision-making, is herself coy about demanding enough and better positions for women.

That’s called not grabbing opportunities; definitely not a Michelle Bachelet in the making.

Overall, the new Cabinet is simply not interesting enough. When you have the facility to appoint people from outside by making them Senators, then actually the world is open for you to pick and choose from a much larger field.

There is as much abundance of talented women outside politics as there is a dearth of them within it, whether in the private sector, academia or NGOs.

But it depends on what the approach is for forming the Cabinet; to fulfil political requirements or to use the best talents. Whatever it is, there is no sizzle in it. (Having said that, Obama chose a Cabinet that has many old hands in it, too.)

Perhaps we should look at other advisory bodies for some spark. There is an Economic Advisory Com- mittee that is supposed to be formed. Perhaps there should be others on different issues where talent could be brought in.

There is the National Women’s Advisory Council that should be seriously revamped and made more independent.

There should be an Advisory Council on Young People, which should have nobody over the age of 30.

How about a total revamp in the way we approach the drug use issue, by taking it away from Home Affairs and putting it under Health, as Iran does?

Overall, this is a Cabinet that is over-testosteroned. We need more estrogen. I hear the Opposition is setting up a Shadow Cabinet. Let’s see if they trust women any better.