Tepat pada jam 7,21 malam ini (10 Oktober, 2007) waktu Baikonur, KAZAKHSTAN dan 9.21 malam waktu Malaysia, angkasawan pertama negara ini akan dilancarkan ke angkasa bersama-sama dengan dua orang angkasawan lain iaitu Komander Peggy Whitson dari Amerika Syarikat dan jurutera penerbangan Yuri Malenchenko dari tapak pelancaran Baikaonur Cosmodrome. Angkasawan pertama negara yang amat bertuah itu ialah Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, 35 tahun seorang pakar Ortopedik di HUKM. Pelancaran angkasawan pertama negara pada malam ini merupakan “Giant Leap for all Malaysians” dan juga satu kebanggaan kepada negara dan rakyat Malaysia. Saya doakan kepada Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukur semoga selamat pergi ke angkasa dan selamat kembali ke bumi serta berjaya di dalam misi yang telah ditugaskan kepada beliau. Semoga ini akan menjadi satu inspirasi kepada anak-anak muda khususnya generasi muda Kedayan untuk mencapai kemajuan yang sama.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
ANGKASAWAN PERTAMA NEGARA
Tepat pada jam 7,21 malam ini (10 Oktober, 2007) waktu Baikonur, KAZAKHSTAN dan 9.21 malam waktu Malaysia, angkasawan pertama negara ini akan dilancarkan ke angkasa bersama-sama dengan dua orang angkasawan lain iaitu Komander Peggy Whitson dari Amerika Syarikat dan jurutera penerbangan Yuri Malenchenko dari tapak pelancaran Baikaonur Cosmodrome. Angkasawan pertama negara yang amat bertuah itu ialah Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, 35 tahun seorang pakar Ortopedik di HUKM. Pelancaran angkasawan pertama negara pada malam ini merupakan “Giant Leap for all Malaysians” dan juga satu kebanggaan kepada negara dan rakyat Malaysia. Saya doakan kepada Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukur semoga selamat pergi ke angkasa dan selamat kembali ke bumi serta berjaya di dalam misi yang telah ditugaskan kepada beliau. Semoga ini akan menjadi satu inspirasi kepada anak-anak muda khususnya generasi muda Kedayan untuk mencapai kemajuan yang sama.
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3 comments:
The other day I visited some of my female cousins in the kampung and the topic turned to our so-called cosmonaut.
I was quite taken aback at how much they have been following this event. One cousin told me she even had palpitations at the thought of something going wrong with our Sheikh Mudzaphar..!
I tried to explain to them how disgraceful this whole affair has been. This took a lot of doing.
First of all we spent billions buying a bunch of fighter jets we won't be using against anyone. I cannot imagine the Royal Malaysian Airforce bombing Orchard Road, Pekan Baru, Narathiwat, Temburong or even Siem Riep. The most that will happen is that one fine day with blue skies, some pilot will eject out of one of the jets off Kuantan and there goes several hundred milion ringgit. Mechanical failure, they would say..
No, our Minister of Defence is adamant that our military needs modernising (money no object). So we bought MIG 29s and Sukhois from the Russians, tanks from the Turks, submarines from the French for horrendously huge amounts of money as though the Singaporeans are going to invade Ayer Keroh and Mersing tomorrow.
Then the dirt started to surface.
For the Sukhoi purchase, the sum of RM410 million in commission was paid to several UMNO stalwarts. The rakyat got to know about this because the receivers of the commission fought amongst themselves and the case ended up in court.
For the submarine purchase, a Mongolian was blown to bits and Abdul Razak Baginda, a close associate of the Defence Minister is now fighting for his life in court. It has been revealed that over RM500 million in commissions were paid to companies control by Abdul Razak. No proper explanation has been forthcoming from any quarter over this issue.
How does this impact upon our cosmonaut you might ask.
One of the conditions set down by the purchaser (Ministry of Defence) of the Sukhois, to the vendor (the Russian Government) was that other than the hefty commissions to be paid, a Malaysian was to be sent into the International Space Centre (ISS) which is hovering over 300 kms above our heads. This was supposed to be in the spirit of Malaysia Boleh (we like to prove our worth by doing strange things like dropping a Proton onto the North Pole).
So just to pull wool over the peoples' eyes, they invited applicants for this venture and some 11,000 Malaysians applied they said. If I were an ethnic Indian or Chinese or Iban or Rungus, I need not bother applying because there was no way they were going to send up anyone other than a Malay into space.
In other words, to really qualify, one has to fulfill three conditions (1) Malay/Muslim (2) educated/qualified (3) reasonably good-looking (they would not want an ugly Malay because that would be bad for image). In they end they decided on a part-time model (therefore good-looking) but of Arab descent and with an Arabic name (I wonder if they would have chosen someone called Pungut bin Abu).
So what is so wrong with all this so far?
Well, like I said earlier, it is truly disgraceful. We are so corrupted in our thinking that it is alright to send our good-looking part time model into space when in fact we did so in such an immoral manner. Poor Sheikh Mudzaphar will one day be judged by all and sundry as a victim of a very corrupt system and they expected Malaysians to be proud of this.
Why on earth would some people earn hefty commissions for no good reasons whatsoever and the they tried to fool the people that they are doing something to make Malaysians proud?
Had we wanted to send a Malay into space, maybe we can utilise the fitrah money for the purpose. That way most Malays in the country can say he/she contributed to this venture. But to buy fighter jets which will probably never be used for any good purpose and then allow some people to pocket hundreds of millions is appalling enough but to ask Malaysians to feel proud of sending an Arab- Malay into space as a by-product of a corrupt deal is shameful.
This is a negative comment that I don't share at all. It has also contributed to our lack of advancement in any field.
In any advancement, we need to spend money. We must also fast because that money is spent not only on food.
Civilisation is built on not just food and luxuries but on intangible assets such as knowledge.
Sabah is now among the poorest region in the whole world, but it should not stop Sabahan s from supporting the spending of these billions in the state of the art aerospace technology.
In fact, I'd like it to be spent in Sabah. I feel it is unfair that so much money is spent on aerospace, using Sabah's money, and yet none benefits Sabahans. To be fair, some of these Su30 must be based in Sabah inclusive of technicians and pilots.
These jets must be maintained and supported in Sabah so that Sabahan children can appreciate technologies and learn the most advanced technologies of the world, despite living in abject poverty themselves.
Thank you for your response to my comments which you decided was negative.
You contradicted yourself badly by saying we should support billions spent on aerospace and at the same time admit that Sabah badly needs the money.
Let me re-hash it for you..we are not spending billions on aerospace. We have been spending billions on arms purchase which we do not really need and then paying close to RM1 billion in commissions to a small group of Malays with connections to the Ministry of Defence. This comissions paid (including sending a Malay into space) had been factored into the costs of the purchases. This money belonged to all Malaysians (your aunts sitting under some durian trees included and mine as well). You are saying it is negative to say that we have been robbed and feel proud to know of some Malay going up into space over some shady deal.
Then you proceeded to say that we are very poor but it is alright to waste billions on arms purchase and pay commissions to a few people.
Your solution to this problem is to station some of the Sukhois in Sabah so that we can pay some locals to polish it once in a while.
My friend, we are not at war nor are we going to, with any of the littoral states. If say, the Indonesians want to war with us, they do not need any fancy weapons to defeat us. They can just cross over, spit at us, give us a few kicks in the groins and that would be the end.
Our enemies, in case you did not know, are the millions of illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries, the drug peddlers destroying our youth (Kadayans included), the smugglers, fish bombers..
They have already won the war against us. Their numbers have far exceeded locals (Kadayans will become extinct shortly) and their political clout have dictated and will continue to dictate the course of our politics.
Stationing a squadron of Sokhois near Sandakan will not deter them one bit because if anything needs to be built to support these jets, the illegals will be the ones to build them..!
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