Friday, August 12, 2005

Who to blame for haze?

Since many Malaysians are still (or trying to be) ignorant (I used to be, on this subject) to the fact that there are Malaysian companies involved in the slash and burning in Indonesia, here is a extract from the BBC:

While criticism has been heaped on Indonesia for failing to stop practices which can lead to forest fires, many of the large palm oil firms in the area are actually owned by businessmen from Malaysia.

In comments likely to spark fresh controversy, the Indonesian forestry minister said on Friday that at least 10 Malaysian plantation companies were operating in the affected area of Sumatra.

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi vowed that action would be taken against any Malaysian companies caught burning forests in Indonesia.

"I feel very wretched. By now, they should have realised that what they did would have an impact here in Malaysia, their own country," he told the Associated Press. (source)

So go blame them: poor law enforcement, corruption at every level of the government and greedy Malaysian businessmen. Yeah, fog them too.

14 comments:

Jon Choo said...

cindee you said it yourself, the companies operations revolve around weak Indonesian law.

Has it not occured to you that these companies (Malaysian and Indonesian owned) are taking advantage of Indonesian law loop-holes and corruption/lack of will to enforce, to make a quick buck? Now who is shallow minded here and trying to be the wise old man?

Justin, respect to your opinion. At least you try to keep your anger at the government and not generalised the people of that country.

Outrage like 'move Sumatra away' is pathetic (I know it is a joke). Without the island of Sumatra, the west coast of Malaysia would have taken the full force of last year's Tsunami.

Jon Choo said...

Last I heard the job of a boss is to assume responsibility of the whole company and be responsible when something happens.

When you own a company in the future, you will want to make sure your workers fall in line and do what you ask them to (within law of course). It is called responsibility. Look it up.

Plus did I say blame all Malaysians? And who is being immature here with all the name callings?

Anonymous said...

I am not sure why you so hung up about this cindee. While I do not agree with this guy's opinion he does have a right you know it is his blog after all. and the way you go cursing around isn't helping.

Anonymous said...

http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2005/08/peter_chin_vs_p.php

Jon Choo said...

Thanks for the link. I don't usually troll around Malaysian news agency but through the link I found this:

Bernama

Noodl3zz said...

~ cindee.. its clearly written there... "So go blame them: poor law enforcement, corruption at every level of the government and greedy Malaysian businessmen. Yeah, fog them too."

just think about it.. these are the main player.. so you just dont go starts cursing every living indons or whatsoever like i know most of malaysian bloggers did, Damn what happen to civilization?!?!?!

and if let's say supposely the whole story is in the opposite way; indonesia being the victim of haze from the burning happenings in Malaysia, and those companies responsible are owned by indonesians.., will u be siding Indonesia then? i guess not am i right? n thats because u are malaysian? so u must defence ur own country? but what happen when the LRT ticket price increases... when PAS proposing some stupid rules and laws..or when petrol price increases.. this n that.. aren't u the type of people who , in your own language, would fuck ur own government.. ?

so my main point here, just so as u know.. indons hate their government as much as how malaysian might hate their own government or system... so can u just leave this matter at that point of view? the corruption and the poor law enforcement it is..

Jiun Wuu said...

Actually,before I knew that it is Malaysian company who is responsible for the forest fire n haze,I did actually blame the Indonesians,both citizens who cause the fire and the lack of law enforce.But after knowing that Malaysian company who responsible for the burning and haze,as a Malaysian,I actually was ashamed.Cz we have this kind of disaster,is cause by our owm ppl,our own ppl kill our own ppl!!!

cindee,try to be rational.If this burning is cause by the indonesian worker which hired by the company,then think,u r wearing the nice clothes,siting in front of PC to online and perhaprs eating the expensive and high class chocolate while u r online.But those worker r poor,they poor because they dont have money to buy food for thier families,no money to buy food for thier families and they have no money for EDUCATION!!But what about those management of the companies?They r wealthy and education,so thats y they capable to have a company there.So,they r responsible to control those non-educated workers' action!!And like we can said,MALAYSIAN COMPANY,so most of the high level management of the company are MALAYSIAN!!!

I'm not stepping on our own people,I blame on the Indonesia's weak law enforcement too.But this is a fact that we known long time already,since we hardly can change it,y dont the company take action to prevent it?Instead of changing a country,y not u change company first?Those workers are just trying to earn money for food to feed themselves and thier families.They r ppl who take orders.So,blame the ppl who give the orders.

Jon Choo said...

Somehow some people thinks that I should bend over my beliefs to suit the majority thinking.

Cindee, I used to be like you. Defending everything Malaysian because we have been brought up through the Malaysian education to always be patriotic and never criticise everything that Malaysia or Malaysians does. Hell I even defended the administration during the Mahathir years.

My whole life I dreamed of making it big, 'hire' 1000 Indonesian maids for free and print money and live a hedonistic life without a care of the suffering of others.

It took a couple of people, some turbulent years in my life with a change of ideology to finally change and look at the whole picture.

I researched, found out that there were Malaysian companies involved. And blog about it. The media and most blogs I read are biased in their reporting so I try to counter it with a couple of bias blogs myself. What is wrong with that?

Unimated, Jiun Wuu: Unimated is in Australia so no worries about haze there right? Jiun Wuu, good luck with the sorting of the haze. I know Malaysians AND Indonesians would be glad when all these are over.

Anonymous said...

unimated, you are missing the point. indons can go hate their government for all i care. other bloggers can say whatever they want for all i care.

but what i really do care is this, do jon has the right to call other malaysians for being ignorant just because there is a malaysian company involved? malaysians have the right to be angry cause we are breathing in the pollutants right here, right now! hating and disliking indonesians does not mean i hate every single one of them. generally, i hate indonesia for causing the haze.

so, just because there are malaysian companies involved, i am considered an ignorant malaysian? oh yeah, here's my cue to say, "fuck you, jon!" do you, even for a second, think that the haze would have not had happened if there isn't a single malaysian company there?

unimated, you said it yourself, "the corruption and the poor law enforcement". there is nothing wrong with that, i agree. the bottomline is indonesia failed to prevent the haze for the past ten years. it really doesn't matter if there is any malaysian company involved or not (even if it did, it is the fault of the lower-end management on the indonesian side).

so jon, don't you try to be a smart-ass by calling malaysians ignorant when you're the biggest one yet. and don't call your petty little links as a research, it's pathetic. i understand where you're coming from, boy. you wanna be different from other malaysians, saying the malaysian ideology is wrong, third-world, etc. fine. but when your knowledge and grasp on the facts for the past few years are hugely lacking, you should just shut up.

i am not practicing blind patriotism. but you are merely countering for the sake of countering because in your own little world, you think malaysians with local education are generally inadequate. look boy, i've seen malaysians like you. in singapore, in australia, in buffalo, in york, even in dubai. not everything has got something to do with malaysian local education. ppl like you sickens me, you think you are better than the average malaysian, well, you can save your bollocks ideology for yourself, ok?

jiun wuu, if you work in a MNC, like i do, you will know that every company branching abroad will localize their management. so in this case, an indonesian manager would tell the indonesian workers to clear the land. the indonesian government has no legislation over open-burning and so indonesian workers went ahead and cause the haze. your suggestion that the malaysian management should take jurisdiction over their company in indonesia, is something that is not practical for listed companies. for example, proton owns lotus, but lotus has its own management and proton doesn't tell lotus how to do things (although, clearly the named companies is probably not the best example but that is another story). unless it is some sendirian berhad who goes over to indonesia and do some agricultural farming, than yes, perhaps there is a greedy malaysian business man involved. nonetheless, like i said earlier, the malaysian company would have to face the music for the wrongs of its lower-end management in indonesia.

Jon Choo said...

Keep it cool guys. You cursing won't help. You have to demonstrate that the one thing that differentiates us from people like cindee is out ability to keep cool under pressure and also our civilised nature.

I won't wish death to someone not even cindee especially after what has happened in the past 24 hours (see latest blog post). She made many attempts to spin my words - I will just let her go on.

It is true I really tried to debate with her but her unwillingness to come up front in a manner that befits a Malaysian is puzzling.

Anonymous said...

MNC status doesn't make a slight difference, management and ultimatedly the CEO and Chairman of the company has to take responsibility for the wrong doings of lower management and its workers. This is a fact. Just because there are a couple of companies that do not does not mean they should not.

Your company might be one - that is stupid because if management does something wrong in the name of the company the CEO has the responsibility to take charge and sacks the management team, bring in a new one and take control of the stupid things that happened. If your company does not do that then there is something very wrong with your multinational.

HardiJ said...

Cindee: I am not too sure whether you are actually reading the whole post blog properly. Jon stated in his blog that 'many Malaysians' which refer to "many" not "all" which therefore means (as you refer to earlier about "I hate Indonesian for causing the haze but doesn't mean I hate ALL Indonesian") that Jon is not blaming ALL Malaysian and instead blaming those bits that are still ignorant.

In this case, as you can see it in BBC news, for example, is not only about who did it, but more about why it happens and how to prevent this from happening again. A good company should take care of their management right to the very bottom. Something we all know not really happening in developing countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

The problem with having a company like MNC (as you mentioned in your reply) where they have their own separate management, will cause chaos as they have no standard quality for their product and management. Ashame, really. Standardisation is something that developing countries (such as Malaysia and Indonesia) need to take into account to. No standardisation and proper management starting from the above will then cause havoc when one particular branch (if you would like to say it that way)decided to do something their way and by the end of the day, all will just go horrible wrong and tits up!By having a proper standard quality and management, this chaos can therefore be prevented. On the other hand, if those Indonesian worker wasn't being provoked or asked by the 'above' management to burn the forest/plantation (having been lured for better money making)the won't happen. Again, if the law enforcement can be revised to protect the land and preventing burning, all of us (no matter where we are from) can live happily ever after. However, not to burn means to at least hire a machinery and when those 'from the above' wouldn't help in financial term, how can the poor and low side able to do this? This is why 'the above' need to interact and justify what is happening at the 'bottom side'.

What Jon said and what others agree is that we are not blaming just one particular individual. In fact, all we are saying is: to blame those that are still ignorant, those corrupted people (that happens in most countries), law enforcement that should be made better (which also educate residents on the importance of sustainability) and those greedy businessmen (which only knows how to make money but doesn't care about the environment and what's happening at the 'bottom' end of the pyramid).

This whole thing is not a competition about who can say something better than the other. So, hope you understand the whole debate. Happy reading!

Jon Choo said...

You are right.

I today, apologise to every Malaysian especially to Cindee Wong here because of my attempt to be different. It is a crime to be different if you are a Malaysian.

I am a Malaysian, born one and still holds a Malaysian passport. It is my duty to fight those "white people" and Jews as Mahathir once commanded us to. I promise to buy British last. I will also strive to spend more money at Starbucks (this ironically is a white people company, but if you follow Cindee's logic - and I believe her - the management is 100% local, therefore no profit will return to big boss in Seattle and therefore cutting any links to the owner and local operations) like other KLites.

I solemly swear to Cindee here when given the chance to vote the party that the majority of Malaysians want in or The Star supports. This is because as Cindee decreed only dumb asses think differently from the institutionalised.

I am sorry, I am afraid that I cannot be an individual anymore.

I did not know that to be a Malaysian means we are not allowed to critise ourselves. Sorry for complete ignorance. I will be more careful to fall in live with the govt and media's expectation on how to behave.

I will supress any desire to be different from others. Likewise I will also aim to follow Malaysian trends more often. Because R&B and Hip Hop is 'in', I will with immediate effect stop listening to uncool evil punk music and purchase Eminem and Tupac Shaker CDs. I will also kow tow to MTV Malaysia.

Rather than looking down on British created Malaysian Idol - I will watch the episodes of local talent show the moment I am given the chance and will SMS vote whoever The Star asks us to. It is only right to go with the public flow.

I hate driving but because 90% of adult Malaysians drive I will be purchasing a car soon. The car I promise to buy will be a Proton Savvy. Seriously it will be my first Lotus. I rather have a German VW Polo but this will be so unpatriotic. And my first Lotus is damn a sight better than my first VW. Damn der white Germans. We got AP! Malaysia boleh.

I will also ignore simple world economics of supply and demand plus pure logic and aim to complain everytime the Malaysian govt increase fuel prices and LRT ticket prices. I will blame all crimes to illegal immigrants from Indonesia, Bangladesh and maybe Chinese (but they are Chinese mah...can't blame one...). I also promise to hate our neighbours (Thailand, Philiphines, Singapore and Indonesia). I will urge the Malaysian govt to kick out those bloody stupid immigrants from Indonesia even though they do the dirty jobs that intelligent Malaysians to not want.

I heard Catholism is on the rise as the cool religion. So I swear I will find out more information on how to convert and cleanse my soul of the years of evil and drity sins because if not I will go to hell. I do not want to go to hell. *whimper*

I will stop looking at haram pictures too.

Finally I announce my complete ideological change from democratic socialist (left wing liberal bastards as I call them now) to right wing pro war McDonald eating golf swinging conservative religious capitalist. It is good to be back. No to minimum wage, introduce slavery and "we want nuclear bombs so we can bomb our neighbours" will be my blog topic of choice.

Thank you Cindee Wong for enlightening me.

Remember kids, Dadah is bad.

I will also be changing my rating of Sepet from 2/10 to 12/10. Oscar for Sepet I demand!!!!

There you go, I am a changed person. I hope we can be friends and move on.

Anonymous said...

Good anonymous comment back on.

Muahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! You two would make a lovely couple.