The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

Posted: 17 Jun 2011 04:25 PM PDT

JUNE 18 — The story dominating English football's off-season this week has been Alex McLeish's unexpected managerial move from Birmingham City to cross-city rivals Aston Villa, and it's a saga that none of the protagonists come out of particularly well.

Despite being the victims, Birmingham have managed to portray themselves in a less than flattering light by reacting in a rather petulant manner.

Openly disclosing the terms of McLeish's contract and directly accusing Villa of "tapping up" the Scotsman was unnecessary, and probably served to diminish the weight of public sympathy that initially went in their direction.

Even so, there has to be a likelihood that Villa have acted improperly. Clubs are not allowed to make contact with players or managers under contract elsewhere, and there's something more than suspicious about the fact that McLeish was correctly linked with the Villa vacancy immediately after his sudden and unexpected resignation from Birmingham.

Villa are widely regarded as one of the most professional, scrupulous clubs in the country — they earned lavish praise from Wigan chairman Dave Whelan for their conduct during their unsuccessful courting of Latics manager Roberto Martinez — but on this occasion it's difficult to escape the conclusion that Villa discretely approached McLeish (i.e. "tapped him up") while he was still under employment at St Andrews.

So neither club has covered themselves in glory, and McLeish's decision to defect from Birmingham for their most bitter local rivals, less than a month after he was given a vote of confidence despite leading his team to relegation, is symptomatic of the lack of loyalty that currently characterises professional sport.

That doesn't mean we should judge him too harshly — virtually every manager or player would have done exactly the same thing in the same situation — but the haste with which McLeish jumped ship illustrates the self-serving, greedy, unsentimental nature of contemporary sport.

Not just sport, in fact — the same can be said of contemporary society in general. Any employee in any profession would have little hesitation in accepting a better paid job with a more prestigious and successful rival organisation; such career promiscuity is in fact expected, to the extent that clauses prohibiting key staff from joining rivals are now commonplace.

It would be nice to think that, having taken Birmingham down, McLeish's desire to return immediately to the English Premier League would be outweighed by a moral obligation to put things right at Birmingham.

But that would be an unrealistic expectation in an age where self-promotion, avarice and naked ambition are constantly promoted as healthy personal virtues. (At least, that's the dominant mentality in the western world; perhaps things are different in Asia?).

In the current ethical environment, McLeish's decision to accept Villa's advances is a straightforward one: he has been given an opportunity to further his career by returning to the Premier League, taking charge of a prestigious club, and no doubt enjoying the additional benefit of a sizeable pay rise, and all without any upheaval to his personal life (joining another club in the same city obviously means he won't have to move house, for example).

Never mind the fact that, as manager, he has to bear a large amount of responsibility for Birmingham's relegation at the end of last season, and that he was perhaps fortunate to avoid the sack at the culmination of that unsuccessful campaign. He has been offered a good job, so he was always going to take it without looking back — that's just the modern way.

From Villa's perspective, it is a strange appointment. Owner Randy Lerner and his trusted CEO Paul Faulkner must have been impressed with what they saw when they observed McLeish at close quarters during his three-and-a-half year stint across the city, but going to such lengths to recruit a manager who has just been relegated is an unusual move.

It's not as though there were no other suitable candidates: Mark Hughes, Steve McClaren, Dave Jones, Alan Curbishley, Chris Hughton and Sam Allardyce are among the managers who were unattached at the end of the season and fitted Villa's criteria of managerial experience in the Premier League. They would also have been far easier to hire, in logistical terms, than poaching McLeish from their neighbours.

But these are hard times at Villa Park. Lerner is reluctant to pump more money into an organisation that is already costing him a fortune every year, and the new manager will probably be forced to sell players and show an increasing reliance on the club's impressive youth development system.

Lerner and Faulkner may well have concluded that the job needs a tough, thick-skinned personality with low budgetary expectations, who is happy to work with young players and is already battle hardened in the lower reaches of the Premier League. If that's the case, McLeish could well be the right man for the job, but he'll have to start well to win over Villa's disenchanted supporters.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

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The special position of Sabah and Sarawak

Posted: 17 Jun 2011 04:21 PM PDT

JUNE 18 — I must admit I used to be a typical "orang Semenanjung." I questioned why the people of Sabah and Sarawak insisted on doing things differently, and for having far more extensive powers than the states in Peninsular Malaysia.

This was before I ever set foot in those two states. Like many Peninsular Malaysians who have travelled across the world, those parts of my country remained a mystery to me. I first visited Sarawak for a party programme in October 2009 and Sabah in June 2010. Since then I have had the privilege of revisiting both states quite a number of times.

The "special powers" of Sabah and Sarawak are derived from the Malaysia Agreement that was signed in July 1963 by the British, Malayan, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore governments that paved the way for the birth of the Federation of Malaysia. The Federal Parliament then duly made amendments to the Malayan Constitution to incorporate provisions from this treaty.

There were many clauses to the Agreement, but they included:

– The control of entry and residence for non-Sabahans and non-Sarawakians

– The protection of the legal profession in the state, whereby only lawyers who were residents of Sabah and Sarawak or fulfilled the residential requirements of the two states could practise law in Sabah and Sarawak

– The continuance of the native courts system alongside the syariah courts in Sabah and Sarawak

– Sabah and Sarawak would have other sources of revenue from the federal government, and they could charge their own sales tax

– The chief ministers of Sabah and Sarawak were to be consulted on the appointment of the chief judge of the High Court of Sabah and Sarawak

Shad Saleem Faruqi describes the position of Sabah and Sarawak as similar to that of Quebec in Canada, Kashmir in India and Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom, in that they are accorded certain privileges not available to other states or regions in those country.

Thus, when Peninsular Malaysians wonder about why Sabah and Sarawak are different, we need to remember that these powers are just as important as the special position given to the Bumiputeras, Islam, Bahasa Malaysia and the Rulers. These "idiosyncrasies" are enshrined in the Constitution because of the historical consensus that gave birth to it.

Thus, as I pointed out in the Kaamatan events I attended in Penampang and Tuaran recently, as a Malaysian I have a duty to defend the special position of Sabah and Sarawak. It should not be the responsibility of East Malaysians alone, but that of all citizens who want to uphold the spirit of our Constitution.

It is the lack of respect (or even utter ignorance) for this principle that is a source of dissatisfaction for many Sabahans and Sarawakians. This is combined with the sad fact that the two states are far behind in developmental terms with enormous pockets of poverty despite their wealth of natural resources. Basic amenities that the rakyat in the peninsula take for granted such as water or electricity, are luxuries for many East Malaysians.

People in the Klang Valley complain about jammed highways and slow Internet connections. Some in Sabah and Sarawak, however, – even in the suburbs of the main cities and towns – have to make do with rainwater and generators, and their areas often lack decent roads and sanitation.

One feels that it would be wise for Peninsular Malaysians to discard the attitude that Putrajaya or peninsula knows best. There are many things that we can learn from our fellow citizens across the South China Sea — the fact that they are a far more diverse, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society living largely at peace with themselves is surely something that we can emulate back in the peninsula.

The biggest tragedy is that Sabah and Sarawak, which Barisan Nasional deems its "fixed deposits", continues to languish under its control. Indeed, if it was not because of the stranglehold that the ruling oligarchy exercises over the two Borneo states, BN would have lost the 2008 general election.

But things are changing in East Malaysia. The presence established by Pakatan Rakyat since the 2006 Sarawak state elections has grown into the further inroads at the 2008 and 2011 editions. Sabahans and Sarawakians have in those elections shown a desire for change.

Peninsular Malaysians who are eager for reform need to make Sabah and Sarawak our partners, not merely to get to Putrajaya but most importantly to make sure that this country lives up to the promises and ideals of its founding.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

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Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Sabtu, 18 Jun 2011

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

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