It is a small village in the kecamatan of Tambusai, Kabupaten Rokan Hulu in the Province of Riau, Sumatra. During the Padri Wars of 1830's , Tuanku Tambusai (aka known as Fakeh Hj Muhammad Salleh ) fought the Dutch forces together with Imam Bonjol and Tuanku Rao in West Sumatra and in Northern Sumatra .The last defence was in Benteng 7 Lapis,Daludalu which fell in 1838. He escaped capture and came to Malaya. He was buried in Rasah in 1882.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Whither our MSC on the PM's US Visit.
It is interesting to note that PM's visit to the USA includes a session organised by a think thank where he is going to speak on the Malayan Emergency as how we defeated the communists who fought against the British after the Second World War and then against the Federation of Malaya on the attainment of Merdeka in 1957. I recalled reading somewhere when our Finance Minister who went to the US on a mission trying to convince a group of Congressman for their support to provide us a much needed inflow of their capital during the difficult years of stagflation, also used the same method of " selling our success in defeating the Communists " to attract their attention when they seemed to be disinterested in the session perhaps due to his inability to give an impressive public lecture on the state of our Nation. So this time not only the PM will speak, but also the former IGP, Tun Haniff Omar and the former Chief of the Armed Forces, Gen. Hashim Mohamad Ali . I am not sure who would form the audience, but if our past performances in trying to woo investors to our country, this approach is already outmoded. We are no more in the Cold War mode and the past experiences of our success fighting against the communists is probably not getting us anywhere. I do not know who are the people who advised the PM on this score, because we should not be glorifying about the past but what would be our strengths that would be attractive for their investors especially in the age of the digital economy. I would have thought the PM should bring along people who are knowledgeable about our strengths in the provision of infrastructure for the promotion of cyberworld industry and not some have beens who should be sitting at home and enjoy the company of their grandchildren. Perhaps this is a reflection of our foreign service people in Washington whose quality is wanting in terms of providing the appropriate advice as what should have the focus of our PM's visit. What we see is nothing but the spin doctor's usual drum beating of the pending meeting between the US President and the PM. In actual fact the real influence in dealing with foreign policy is the Congress and Senate who calls the shot and not the President. Meeting the President is only a public relations exercise and we could have been poorer by tens of millions in taxpayers money for such frills. That is why the other leaders of Asean are not interested to waste such precious money just to be on the White House lawn for a brief appearance with the US President.
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3 comments:
Dear Hal,
Kerala state (in India) was the only occasion sometime ago, where communists won the right to rule through the ballot box ( all other communist states had to fight for it)
Malaysia on the other hand is reputed to be the only country that managed to defeat the communists.
What better way than to be told direct from the horses' mouth how this was achieved.
The idea of talking about how we defeat the communist terrorists is perhaps triggered by the need to ensure the US that we don't connive terrorism. But you're right Bro that the war against the communist is
history. The jihad fighters and suicide bombers are not commies. We need a different strategy to invite investors ie. the assurance of a good return to investment, a high capital-output ratio and rates of return. I 'd love to hear TS Hanif and Gen (rtd) TS Hashim talk about that.
Dear Hank and Sdr Norzah,
I am not disputing the historical fact that we were the only country in Asia who defeated the Communists albeit with timely help from our friends who sent the Commonwealth forces and most importantly the majority population were behind the government's winning the hearts and minds of the people. Otherwise we could have become one of the dominoes in the American theory. And just look at the disintegration of the Russian Communism which ended the Cold War.
War stories are good stuff for the movies just like the HBO miniseries " The Pacific" directed by those people who were responsible in producing "The Band of Brothers".
Our strategy should be more refined in ensuring returns for the future. We should be reassuring the Americans that with our preventive laws, we managed to keep our country relatively safe from suicide bombers plaguing this region and thus their long term interests protected. I agree with the concluding remarks of Akhi Norzah.
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