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for those who would like to read our post-mortem thoughts, here goes:

Venue

Food

Events

Logistics

Protocol

Technical and Equipment

Decorations

Publicity

Money Matters

Survey Results (last updated: 18/9/2008)

General

Final Thoughts

once again thanks for those who have responded. your feedback means a lot to us.

to those who said that Malam was just bad all the way and that you might/will never go to Malam again, thank you for your raw honesty :)

i do feel really bad and with deepest regrets, on behalf of the team, i apologise that we did not manage to make Malam an enjoyable one for you. however i do hope that you will give the team next year a chance to prove themselves.

to those who said that you had a great time - your encouragements do mean a lot to us - to know that our efforts have not gone entirely down the drain. thank you! :)

Malam means a lot to me personally. and that's why i do take each comment very seriously and think and reflect. your comments have shown us what we've done right, what we have not done right, and helped us to learn from our mistakes, and also to accept failure as a stepping stone to success.

in all, thank you for helping me grow up a little bit more ;)

have a great week ahead and hope to see you at the AGM on saturday! :)

Post-Mortem

We just had our post-mortem and final meeting. The following posts will be some responses to the survey and also some matters that we have discussed.

all in all, i hope that the following posts will be helpful to you if you are thinking of being in the Malam committee next year. Even if you are not going to be in any committee, perhaps the following posts might give you some insights on organizing events and running projects.

before i start rambling, grateful thanks to those who have seen me through and giving me a chance - especially Mark Hii and Seng Cheng and Prakash and Joshua (year 2006 Malam coordinators). Also once again, a thousand of thanks to the team! your dedication and commitment made things happen! :)

i won't be able to share everything here on the blog. But i do keep everything in a folder so feel free to grab the Malam folder fromme and you would have lots and lots of information there :)
Please do feel free to have a chat with any of us if you need more information etc. Especially to those who are going to do Malam next year - we will be more than happy to spend some time with you to share our thoughts and help in any way that we can :) Coz that's the spirit of pass it on :)

Post-Mortem: General

in general:

• Great MCs u had there!
• MCs!!

thanks! Navin and Chu May will be really encouraged to hear this! :D By the way, this is the first time that they are emcee-ing a function. am grateful to the friends who have suggested Navin and Chu May! and also super grateful that they agreed to do it! yay! :D

• Nice attempt... Also good job on reducing the ticket price, I know u guys put much effort in that, perhaps put as much effort in the actual event itself, that's the part the audience see and feel...

thanks for the acknowledgment on the ticket price :)

anyway, in all honesty, i think we did put in as much effort as we could for the actual event. well, perhaps, taking a step back and putting myself in the shoes of someone who has perhaps attended Malam quite a few times, well, i might perhaps say the same thing. or perhaps this is your first time attending Malam. well, i dunno who you are, but imagining myself as a guest and an audience, ya, perhaps i might say this too. coz thinking back - not everything was really up to par :p anyway, do refer to the post on performances :p and thanks for your honest feedback! :) it's great!

on another tone, for my team and my dear friends, kindlye bear with my honesty and perhaps even biasness as i say this: yes, we might have fallen short of your (and some other people) expectations, but for four full months - the team has sacrificed a lot to make Malam happen - that effort is already worth applauding. the sleepless nights, the stress, the sacrifice, the commitment, the meetings they have to attend, the plannings, the effort to bring people together for rehearsals etc etc... :)

however, i always have to remind myself that sometimes it's the result that matters.. it's like i could have poured hours into studying but still not do well in my exam.. :p so regardless of the effort, sometimes it's the result that matters. so perhaps, my efforts weren't still enough. the irony of life?

anyway, please bear with me and hope that you will be able to understand my sentiments for my team :)

constructive criticisms leads to growth. so ya, thank you again for your i do believe that we are capable to do better and with all well-wishes, may the team next year pull off a great show!!

• Very well done especially the team members' effort. Keep up the good work.
• Job well done.
• Great job. Well done.
• Bernard looks cool!
• generally well organised. :) Loved the level of commitment put in by the comittee
• It was a well-thought out event! You guys gave much thought to making it like "home"...and the jokes were funny as!
  

i have a feeling that the above comments are mainly from those who have been seeing the team working and preparing for Malam :p anyway, even if you aren't, thanks for the encouragements. and to those who have been seeing us through the whole Malam process, giving us the moral support and encouragements, especially my flatmates when i was so stressed with the financial part, THANK YOU very much!!!

Final thoughts

start early!

i was late in setting up the committee and applying for grants. grr. i suffered the consequences.

so ya, if someone decided that i'm wise enough to give an advice, it would be:
start as early as you can!

especially for the grants! even if you dun have a committee yet - it's okay - as long as you have your top 4 and a sponsorship team - get the money and MAS ticket in A.S.A.P.!!!

a BIG team
one of the reasons of having such a big team (yes, about 30 of us) was so that we could involve more people in organizing Malam. that's 'home' by itself.

if you were with us during our Malam prep, you might have witnessed firsthand the unity and teamwork amongst the team was just so.. warm! that was home.

most of the team are 1st and 2nd year students, some of them have not attended Malam before - that's also why we brought them into the team - you always need to start somewhere. also we need to 'train up' new leaders. can't always be the old people doing the work kan? :p

dear team,

thank you for teaching me things along the way! it was great getting to know each of you better. how to relate to you; how to handle and solve issues; how to respect; how to care.. and even how to have fun amidst the stress :)

i hope that each of you have picked up a few skills along the way; gained some new experiences; made some new friends... and had fun! :D may Malam 2o08 be a sweet memory for you! :)


btw, i know the excuse of time and budget constraints might not be very acceptable... things such as.. aih. we are all students also ma. need to study for tests and do assignments leh! aiyo. no money, how to be grand ler? bili-bala-bili-bala... anyway, one thing that made me proud of the team is that despite their busy schedule, despite the budget constraints, they still managed to work within their limitations and they were still very committed to doing what they are supposed to do. despite the flaws and weaknesses, despite the challenges we have to overcome, i'm glad that we all managed to pull through!

also, not forgetting the CMSA 2008 committee who helped out in any way they could, thank you! :D

and also, to each of you who have been visiting this blog and bearing with my long posts, those who have seen us through and gave us advice, those who have done the pre-Malam and post-Malam surveys, and most importantly, you gave us a chance and attended Malam 2008,

THANK YOU!!!

come to think of it, aren't we all in ONE BIG TEAM? working together to achieve a single goal - bringing home closer! :D

go team! :D

anyway, this might or might not be the final post for the blog. depends. haha. perhaps the team next year will continue on with the blog; perhaps not - it's up to them. we'll see.

thanks for visiting this blog! good luck for your final few weeks of the last term in uni!

(^^)9

Post-Mortem: Venue

Most people thought that it was average.

We had comments saying that the hall was too wide with the reference point as the stage. Guests sitting at the sides of the ballroom were not able to see the performances clearly. A person suggested that it would be better to get a squarish hall rather than a long one.

Had a few comments saying that it was congested. We should also work on the seating plan. Someone mentioned a careful consideration of the location of charis, tables etc for easier viewing. And also allocate strategic space for performaers to dance and move in/out from performances.

the story:

once again, APOLOGIES!!!!!

man, i've been saying a lot of sorry's. but sigh, well, still, sorry.

anyway, these are some thoughts and explanations from us:

• we looked out at least 4-5 venues before deciding;
• btw, CHCH has a limited number of hotels that has a hall that can fit such a large number of people (i.e. more than 150 people);
• after taking into account as many factors we can think of (you can see me if you want to have a look at our analysis folder :p), we decided that though this might not be the best, but it would be the best amongst the rest - not only in terms of the package that they offer us, but also the overall ambience was really cosy;
• basically we have to work within our limitations.
  

some lessons to learn from:

• where would be a better venue?
• make sure that we get to use the venue during the day - and not only an hour before the event. it's a long story for that - but anyway, hope the next committee will be very insistent on this the next time :)
• anyway, having the venue during the day will definitely give us more time to solve unexpected problems
  

A friend suggested to use the UCSA ballroom instead of a hotel ballroom - which wil probably save money and even make things grander. Also, the location of the UCSA ballroom is quite good for most students.

the story:
i had a wee chat with the ballroom manager. however the cost was about the same as renting the hotel ballroom we had this year. and since most people in the survey said they would prefer the hotel ballroom - so ya.

anyway, i think this is definitely an option that the next committee should consider :)

Post-Mortem: Food

my response will be in blue...

• food refill process too slow. couldnt get any chicken or lamb until Ka Mun came to us.
• clarify on buffet table settings. allow for seconds. soup run out. hmm.
  
• Food delay
• Just the waiting for the food.
  
• Besides having to wait until 9pm for the food, there is nothing much to complain about. Just one thing, I didn't like the soup. Hehe. ya, i heard about the soup - it was okay initially but it went cold and lumpy eventually... sorry about that!
  
• You know that food was so slow...we were really starving! Maybe provide abit more finger food on the table next time... so we can munch to alleviate our hunger...

i know it wouldn't help much, but sincerely, sorry, sorry, and sorry.
we have e-mailed the hotel and are waiting for a feedback from them. we are really regretful for what has happened about the food flow; but we have also learnt that from now on, whatever agreements that we have with our events manager or whoever's in-charge: always write in black-and-white! be as detailed as we can get! keep asking and clarifying!

anyway, overall i think the food was still quite yummy - especially the lamb curry! :p

• VIPs were too late! Had to wait for food. there's a story behind it. sigh. anyway, thanks to the person who suggested that we could perhaps pick up the VIPs so that everything can start on time. will bear that suggestion in mind :)
  
  
• I think Lam did a very good job by giving out vouchers and entertaining the people as they wait for their turns to get the food
• I also like the idea of having many vouchers and surprises on the day. It helped easing up the hunger while waiting for the food.

once again, thanks Ka-Mun!!! :D

• Heard the chocolate cake wasn't bad.
• Food was quite good and filling too!!

whew. thanks for some positive feedback :p

• Serve some Malaysian food.
• Should have Nasi Lemak! Haha...

i miss proper malaysian food too! but anyway, let me explain a few issues here and hope you will understand why we aren't able to serve Malaysian food :)

1. The Food & Beverages law here do not allow outside food to be brought into the hotel;
2. The hotel does not allow for outside caterer;
3. If you want to get an outside caterer, normally we can go to a community hall to do so - but there comes a whole lot of other issues - too much to be handled and i dun think we are ready to do so;
   
4. At the moment, we do not see a caterer who might be able to provide for such a capacity. Even if they can do the numbers, what about the financial costs? what about the quality of the food?
   
5. have a chat with Ka-Mun :p

anyway, if you want some good Malaysian food, can always check out the Malaysian halal food shop on Riccarton road!! it's called Malaysian Flavours and it's a few shops away from Cash Converters! :D

anyway, thanks for the feedback. perhaps the committees to come could consider working on this side, i.e. serving malaysian food - but ya, these are our considerations and we decided to stick to something that can help save manpower and time ;)

Post-Mortem: Events

Performances

Fashion Show

• Fashion Show:
  
• Fashion show was great! Should have more of those kind of performances in future rather than always singing and dancing.

i thought it was fun too ;) i remember when Bern mentioned about the fashion show, i was quite sceptical. i told him that it has to be different from the typical cat-walk thing - hehe - being quite bossy then :P but they managed to pull it off! huhu. someone told me about trusting and i'm glad that it was a risk well-taken ;)

some people asked: how about the ibans and kadazans and bidayuhs? urm. maybe next times? there might be quite some issues involved though.. talk to Bernard for more information :p

R.A.M.
for those who have been here long enough and have seen lots of R.A.M. performances which are really good in my humble opinion, i would say that this time round, it wasn't one of their best performances.

however, given that:

• most of the dancers were first-year students;
• most of the senior dancers have graduated and gone home; or either that they are final year students;
• the president of R.A.M. met with a serious car accident and has been on wheelchair;
  
• the main and perhaps sole choreographer had a 5-day field trip during the Malam week...
  

so ya, what happened to R.A.M.? that's what happened. but let's continue to hope and pray that they will be able to get over these tough times. i call it a 'gap issue'. Hopefully with more students coming in next year, R.A.M. would be able to come back again! Gambate!! :D

Boy Band
i am not sure about you but i had fun :p not that i am a boy band fan.. but ya.. these guys were cool! :D

Unplugged band

yes, we agreed that the singing was rather... long. actually, perhaps the next team can come out with something more entertaining that mere singing. hmm. wasn't special enough.

Rehearsals

• more involvement of the tech crew during rehearsals;
• should confirm and prepare earlier;
• punctuality very important;
• be more well-organized and planned during rehearsals.

Overall

• I expected better performances, but I guess it would be too much to ask from fellow students...
• Better performance, more variety... I don't think the theme actually came out during the event...well, maybe the advertisement videos...

yes indeed, i believe that we could have done better and there is indeed much room for improvement. thanks for bearing with us :)

a few of us attended a charity culutral night hosted by the Canterbury Medical Students' Association. it was an awesome night and we had so much fun too! will definitely learn some stuff from them ;)

with regards to the theme. well. urm. apologies that we might not have done enough to bring out the theme. some said that we did live up to the theme. but ya, it's good to know that some people think otherwise.

i think it's much more than just the performances that will bring out the theme - perhaps it's the overall and general atmosphere of the night. personally i feel that the team has worked hard to do what they can to bring out the theme - and i applaud them. but well, perhaps it just wasn't enough or perhaps not what you expected. but ya, we can always do better and will always have room for improvement. so to the next committee: good luck in choosing your theme and hope you can bring it out well! :D

Audience participation
we really wanted to get more audience participation and we had a game ready. but due to time constraints, we cancelled it.

with regards to having best-dressed or beauty queen etc, i personally wasn't keen with that idea.

firstly, time constraint. from what happened during the night, dun think we will have enough time to do one.

secondly, the organization of it. what would be a 'fair' way to decide who is the winner? who chooses the winner? if the crowd, how should we do the voting system? etc etc. might not be too much effort - but it's too much effort for me :p

thirdly, from previous experiences, i found it rather... meaningless. coz i can't see anything constructive or purposeful out of it. ok, maybe it could be fun - but we need to have good crowd participation for it to be fun. i wasn't ready to gamble on that so we didn't do it. but ya, next time round, this is for the next committee to decide.

Lucky draws
many people said that Ka-Mun really did a good job! especially the suspense for the MAS ticket grand prize! three cheers for Ka-Mun!!!

Dance floor

• lack of time... so ya.. oh well..

Post-Mortem: Logistics

Equipment

• we were unclear about certain equipments - say we didn't know that we have to have a certain type of cable to connect to that kind of equipment. this one really require experience or even an expert.
  
• our logistic team was not informed early enough at times to get the necessary equipments - but i think sometimes some last-minute stuff is really unavoidable - no matter how well-planned. so that's why we have a contingency fund :p but ya, definitely should avoid last-minute as much as we can :)
  

Transportation

• yes we took your suggestions from the survey and provided transport. this is our first time doing it so we are learning. hope to come out with a better mechanism. Have a chat with Hafiz or Ing Chia :)
• btw, much thanks to Hafiz for settling the transportation part. i heard that you weren't able to enjoy the night properly because you had to settle various transportation issues. am sorry to hear. but really, thanks so much for all the effort!!!
  

Post-Mortem: Protocol

Tables Allocation

• i wasn't clear and decisive about reserving tables and the table allocation and hence caused quite a confusion. i apologize for that part;
• we should work out a more systematic table naming/numbering system;
• should work out a better system in terms of table allocation and have a name list;
  
• some mentioned that it was congested; some mentioned that it was cosy. it's again another long story which i will share in the post on 'venue'.

Ushering

• there should be proper coordination between the ushers and the reception table;
• should have at least 2 ushers stationed at each wing of the hall.

Reception table

• congested;
• the person(s) in charge of ticket sales should be there.

Overall
the night flowed quite well besides the food delay. i hope that we have served you well that night too! :)

Post-Mortem: Technical and Equipment

Basically there weren't many problems overall.Though we only get to set-up our sound etc only around 5ish pm, i think our tech crew pulled everything real well. Great job guys!

some thoughts:

• could have put subtitles on video.
• the microphones a bit cacat - but that is pretty much beyond our control.
• The tech crew had a hard time communicating with each other as the tech unit was all over the place - the lights, sound and laptops were all in different places. we had trouble looking for walkie-talkies - so a thought is to start looking for walkie-talkies earlier or brain storm a better of communication - actually, it would be great if we could have more time to set up the sound etc, say early in the morning :p
  
• live video for performances perhaps? however we would need the necessary equipments.

Have a chat with Mamat or Jacky :)

Post-Mortem: Decorations

from the survey:

backdrop

• backdrop could be more elaborate - but then again, money and time constraints apply.
• Except for the tables, there isnt much difference before and after the hall was set up. Could have had a better backdrop. It didn't really match the decorations of the tables.
• include some drawings like "wau" or "layang-layang" or something that shows malaysian culture. i mean the "malam malaysia 2008" at the stage..its too simple..
• More effort on the backdrop please... I wonder which part of the theme "home" was shown in the decorations...

the story...

we admit that it was rather plain. even not comparing to the past few years, it's still pretty... plain.

anyway, we actually had 2 ideas.

firstly we wanted to paint on wooden planks. but the stage was too low and so our support for the planks might be falling all over the place. so, nopez.

the stage was pretty... empty. urm. wanted to save money that's why. hehe :p

we did think about using the projector and having slideshows etc as our background. but due to some misunderstanding about the projectors etc - we didn't do it.

anyway, ya, we should have definitely put in a lil more effort on the backdrop! thanks for the feedback!

twin towers

• Twin towers were awesome!
  
• I love that u guys put so much effort in creating the Twin Towers.
• The Twin Tower was a superb success.

the story...

glad you guys loved the towers! Calvin Lim! you're the man! :D thanks to all those who helped out too! Eric Ong especially! overall, it took them about 1 1/2 months to build the towers :) lots of cutting and drawing and uhu-ing :p

overall

• not have the same every year...
  
• something more elegant
• was really nice. loved it a lot.

something more elegant - would be nice if you could elaborate :) thanks!

i wonder if you guys noticed the little details here and there. ok. maybe not.

firstly, if you realised, we had the hall separated in bandar (city) and kampung (village). the ones with the white table cloth was the city side; and the black table cloths were the village side. so the deco for each side of the hall was different.

we initially wanted to have more models (i.e. a rumah papan, kl tower etc) - but ya, time and energy constraints.

kudos to Jacky Tay who drew those beautiful pictures on the walls. Hope some of you noticed them! :D

oh, and we have an advice - candles!! make sure we communicate properly with the hotel about lighting the candles.

it is a long story to tell - but Merlin did a great back-up plan! i called him around 1-ish pm telling him that the hotel said that we couldn't light the candles (they did mention to us earlier that we could light the tealight ones). Anyway, thanks to the gardens at both our flats, Merlin managed to gather some supplies to beautify the tables. great job on that! :D

so ya, overall, great job deco team! :D

Post-Mortem: Publicity

from the survey, perhaps due to the insufficient sample size, i couldn't make out any publicity method that was more efficient than the other. but i guess overall we managed to make our event quite well-known in uni :p

we thought that we could improve on poster and ticket designs. So yup. we will.

we had problems with collecting ticket money. got ourselves pretty confused on who paid etc etc. Do have chat with Wan Yin or Natasha. Firdaus came out with a superb idea too. So ya, do talk to him too :)

Like what Kam suggested in one of his comments on this blog, he mentioned not to get people from only within a demographic group. we did work at that but turned out that.. majority of the team was still within a particular demographic group - so ya, something to work harder on next time. one of the reasons is that when selling tickets, we are only selling to the same target group, i.e. common friends.

Firdaus suggested that we can have a few target groups and have a leader/rep. for each group - in that way, we can reacher a wider population, and also it will help in collecting ticket money. good one Firdaus! :D

ok. think that's about it :)

Post-Mortem: Money Matters

For grants and sponsorships, the people whom you might wanna have a chat with would be Ka-Mun, Ing Chia, Firdaus or me. We will be able to give you some tips on letter-writing, how to approach the shops etc. Not that we are very hebat - but we have learnt from experiences ;)

Some thoughts:

Start Early!

Seng Cheong told me this when i met him:

"Start applying for grants early!"

actually he told me that a lot a lot of times.

Ing Chia reitarated that too.

So ya, start EARLY!!! this is wisdom!

if i have something to tell you about grants and money matters too, it would also be "START EARLY!"

coz i totally felt the pain during 2-3 weeks prior to Malam when we received more rejections than offers.


Vouchers
Aim for lots and lots of vouchers and lucky draw prizes :p i think one of the reasons why we managed to ease the crowd a bit was that we had heaps of vouchers to spare. WHEW! we actually wanted to use those vouchers in case of technical glitches and stuff. Turned out we could use it for the food delay. Whew. Hope you guys made use of the vouchers and lucky draw prizes.


Sponsorship Team
our team was actually doing double-time. i played the cards wrongly. each committee had their own job to do, yet they also have to look for sponsors. in a way, yes, it's good to learn some new stuff. But overworking them amidst the busy study schedule etc? eee. i felt real bad.

anyway, chat with us and we can share our ideas on how we can improve on this. i think there's no perfect method, but there are definitely efficient methods.

Survey results: General

sorry ya. this is the best i can do. coz i'm not subscribed to esurveypro.com so i am not allowed to use the 'export to pdf' function they have there. and it's too much effort to retype everything. copy-and-paste didn't work. so.. i decided to print screen :p

this is an overview of the results. will delve into the details in the next few posts. just click on the image for a clearer and larger view.

Thank you for doing the survey!

so far we have 24 respondents. if you haven't done the survey, it'd be great if you could take few minutes out to do it! would be very very helpful for us! we dun really have enough numbers to have a proper sample size. so ya, wud really appreciate if you could help us so that we can have more accurate results to represent the population, or the total number of guests who turned up. hehe. sorry abt the stats jargon but i'm majoring in Stats :p

Thanks for the constructive suggestions. We truly appreciate them. After all, no feedback, no growth. At least we can know what went wrong and how we can improve. Thanks also for the encouragements and affirmations :)

We had some really honest feedback. Whew. Raw honesty. i think it's good. In fact, a very good humbling process for myself personally. At times, it was very tempting to want to defend the team and myself. But then it won't help us grow. So instead of jumping into defensive mode, sit down, breathe, and reflect on each suggestion and input. Otherwise, why even bother to set up a survey if we can't take any criticism? :p

The guests each paid NZD 45.00 - it's not a cheap price - and mind you, there could be some high expectations from the guests. being quite a perfectionist, i put a lot of pressure on myself during the whole Malam prep. had to also keep reminding myself that i can't please everyone. i am encouraged that most of you had a good night.. and to those who found it 'so-so', my apologies for perhaps not meeting up to your expectations or standards. i hope the next Malam committee will be able to put on an even greater one! :)

i'm still very proud of the team. they have put in their best effort despite the financial and time constraints, especially the week leading up to Malam. the teamwork shown by the team was super encouraging.

Malam 2008 will officially come to an end after tonight's post-mortem meeting and settling the accounts and sending out the thank-you's to the respective sponsors. Will post up the survey results later on with our response to each of your suggestions. Still hoping for more people to do the survey :D Your feedback really does mean a lot to us! :D thank you once again for doing the survey!

Malaysia

September 16 1963
Sabah and Sarawak joined the Federation of Malaya to form - Malaysia.

let us remember the good things of the day

=)

Remembering Malaysia Day?
BY SHAD SALEEM FARUDI

The spirit of moderation and accommodation that animated the birth of our country in 1963 must be continued as we gear for the challenges ahead.

YESTERDAY was the 45th anniversary of Malaysia Day. On Sept 16, 1963 the British colonies of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore merged with the Federation of Malaya to form the new nation of Malaysia.

However, there was opposition externally as well as internally. Indonesia launched an undeclared war. The Philippines laid an international law claim over Sabah.

Within Malaya, the State of Kelantan vehemently opposed the transformation.

It went to court to challenge the impending Malaysia Day Agreement on the ground that under constitutional conventions its consent was needed for any significant amendment to the Merdeka Constitution.

In a historic judgment, Government of Kelantan v Government of the Federation of Malaya (1963), the High Court ruled that Article 159 (the amendment clause of the Constitution) nowhere requires the consent of the states prior to the admission of a new province into the federation.

As to the alleged convention, the court observed correctly that conventions are informal political practices not enforceable in a court of law.

And so, from 11 regions, Malaya expanded to 14. A new name was emblazoned on the political firmament. Significant new rules were established to regulate the special relationship of the new entrants with the federal government.

In many respects the new federation embodied a pact among five unequal entities – the powerful federal government, the 11 peninsular states with limited autonomy and the specially privileged regions of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore with considerable freedom from federal control in designated areas.

The reasons for this special treatment need to be examined.

First of all, there were a number of historical and legal events, among them the Resolution of the Malaysia Solidarity Consultative Committee (1961), Resolution of the Legislative Council of North Borneo (1962), the Report of the Cobbold Commission (1962) and the Twenty Point Manifesto of the Sabah Alliance (1962).

In addition there was the Report of the Inter-Governmental Committee/Landsdowne Committee (1963), the Malaysia Agreement (1963) and the Malaysia Act 1963. All of them recognised the special needs of and acceded to the demands of the Borneo states.

Second, the cultural, religious and linguistic distinctiveness of the people of Borneo is an undeniable fact that justifies some special safeguards for indigenous traditions.

Third, the Borneo states contribute huge territories and massive resources to the federation. Their combined area is 198,069 sq km exceeding peninsular Malaysia’s 131,681 sq km. The coastline of the two states is 2,607 km compared to the peninsula’s 2,068km.

Fourth, despite their huge resources, there were, and still are, continuing problems of poverty and underdevelopment in Sabah and Sarawak.

Fifth, the 1963 pact between the Federation of Malaya, the United Kingdom, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore was not merely a domestic agreement. It was an international treaty.

For the above reasons, the Constitution of the Federation of Malaya was rewritten significantly to incorporate the special position of the new states.

> The three states were given some special and additional sources of revenue which the West Malaysian states do not possess.

> Schedule 9 which demarcates the legislative powers of the federation and the states contains three legislative lists – a Federal list with 27 topics; a State List with 13 topics; and a Concurrent List with 14 topics. For enlarging the legislative powers of the Borneo states a Supplementary State List with 6 topics and a Supplementary Concurrent List with 9 topics was added to the Federal Constitution.

> The Borneo States were given powers over immigration into the States.

> Sabah and Sarawak have their own High Court, their own Chief Judge and their own native courts. Appointment of judges to the Borneo High Court requires consultation with the Chief Ministers of the states.

> Due to the prevalence of non-Muslim religions in Sabah and Sarawak, the Constitution of the two States in 1963 did not contain provisions for Islam. Many federal rules relating to Islam as the religion of the federation did not apply in Sabah and Sarawak.

> Sabah and Sarawak have exclusive rights over land and local government.

> Despite Bahasa Melayu as the national language, the use of English and native languages is permitted in the Borneo States.

> Similar to the special position of the Malays under Article 153, the natives are also given special protection under Article 153.

> Any amendment to the Federal Constitution that affects the rights of Sabah and Sarawak requires the consent of the Governor of these states.

> The 1963 pact gave to Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore special representation in the Dewan Rakyat totalling more than one-third of the elected seats. Perhaps this was to enable these states to veto constitutional amendments.

> Article 150(6A) of the emergency chapter protects native law and custom in the Borneo states even against emergency legislation.

> West Malaysian lawyers have no right to practise before the courts in Borneo without a work permit.

Despite these special provisions, Kuala Lumpur’s relationship with the three special regions has not always worked well.

The union with Singapore lasted only two years. Tensions with the Borneo states have been plenty. In 1966 an emergency had to be declared in Sarawak to rein in the Chief Minister, Stephen Kalong Ningkan.

In Sabah the reign of Tun Mustapha witnessed a period of great state assertiveness. The PBS rode to power a few times by invoking the spirit of Sabah nationalism.

Most Sabahans have the perception – and perceptions are important – that their special rights as embodied in the 20-point agreement are not being fully respected.

What rankles them most is the federal government’s failure to control the massive influx of illegal immigrants into Sabah.

There is even an allegation that thousands of “illegals” have been granted permanent residence or citizenship thereby rendering useless Sabah’s control over immigration. Certainly Sabah’s population has shown exponential growth.

The federal government rebuts all these charges by pointing to international pressures to treat illegal immigrants humanely.

Another sore point is the amendment of the Constitution to appropriate Labuan as a federal territory.

A third explosive issue is that through constitutional amendments to Articles 3(3) and 38(7), Islamisation policies have been gradually extended to Sabah and Sarawak despite the 1963 exemption to these states from religious acts.

The Borneo states also lament that their representation in the Dewan Rakyat has fallen below the proportion in 1963 despite Article 161E(2)(e).

The federal leadership defends these changes by pointing out that most of these amendments were accomplished with the consent of the leaders of the Borneo states and in accordance with constitutional procedures in Article 161E.

In every federal system some tension between the central and regional authorities is unavoidable and even healthy.

In every functioning democracy, disagreements are bound to exist. If federal-state relationships exhibit no discord, that itself is a symptom of other ills. Sometimes the absence of the problem is the problem!

Malaysia has done well to keep federal-state tensions from exploding into open conflict.

The spirit of moderation and accommodation that animated the birth of Malaysia in 1963 must be continued as we gear for the challenges ahead. Our fellow citizens from Sabah and Sarawak have many grievances that need to be heard.

Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi is Professor of Law at UiTM, Shah Alam.

Flatmates!

i've been receiving texts from people asking if i know anyone who needs to a temporal place to stay over summer. These students are going back to Malaysia for summer. But if their flat contract includes the summer, they will still have to pay rent and that also will mean that they will be 'burning' money. So that's why they are looking for people who are looking for a place over summer and then can help with the rent and expenses etc.

So i thought that CMSA can help a bit in this part. What we did is set-up a forum whereby you will have to register to post in the forum. So for example, i am needing to look for someone to stay over the summer. i go to the forum and check out if there are people looking for flatmates. or i can put up my contact details.

same goes with selling and buying of furniture etc.

Check out the forum at:
http://cmsa-flat.coolboards.org

hope we will make good use of the forum and that it will be able to serve those who are needing to look for flats/flatmates/furniture etc. Thanks! :)

I had a great time working with you guys/girls. If I have been a lil sarcastic or out of my mind at times (especially to Zaipong, Q, Nat, Gloria and Wan Yin), hehehe.. sorry =) Hope to work with you people again in the future =)

Post-Malam

if you would like to give us some feedback on Malam 08, please do fill in our post-malam survey.

official photos are out and available for sale. check out the website at http://www.flickr.com/photos/29971990@N05/

apparently there's something weird with the e-mails. we haven't been able to send out any info on CMSA to the members. hopefully we will be able to disseminate the information soon.

just a lil update about CMSA:
AGM will be end of this month - so look out for the e-mails if you are interested to run for any positions next year!

ok. back to the post-Malam to-do list:

1. post-mortem
2. clear accounts
3. sell off some of the deco stuff
4. post-malam survey
5. update sponsor list on the blog and send out thank-you letters etc to sponsors. also to some organisations whom we would like to stay connected with
   
6. give subsidies back to team member and performers
7. sort out photos - wud love to put some interesting ones up here. am especially happy to see stronger bonds and new friendships being developed. bringing home closer ;)
   
8. thank-you notes
9. affirmation
10. find a place to put the twin towers :p
11. study!

have a great week ahead! uni's starting tomorrow! gambate!

Students' Say

one of the videos shown during Malam. thanks to Mamat for the hard work! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP9JXYoxKV0

Malam Merdeka? Malam Malaysia? Malam Kebangsaan?

i was reading The Star and came across this.

It's Hari Kebangsaan, not Hari Merdeka.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/8/30/focus/22197525&sec=focus

"Our first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, in his wisdom and sincerity, decided on the term Hari Kebangsaan (National Day), which, inter alia, is meant to be a common multi-racial/religious/ regional celebration to re-emphasise the importance of developing and promoting a common national sentiment and patriotism, via the organisation of the main events as we now are familiar with at the national level and other celebrations which should be organised at sub-national levels by the people themselves."

if this can help make some people happy and minimize controversies, perhaps CMSA could consider naming our annual dinner Malam Kebangsaan instead of Malam Malaysia next time. That's just a thought from my side anyway. What do you guys think? Anyway, maybe some expert in Malay or linguistics could help me with this - is 'Kebangsaan' equivalent to 'Malaysia' in any sense? Urm, actually, does it really matter?

Anyway, moving away from that issue - let's have a look at the following articles that moved my heart more.

A true case of Merdeka spirit
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/8/28/focus/22184127&sec=focus

Unsung heroes of Merdeka
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/8/27/focus/22174725&sec=focus
(Ka-Mun, you showed me a video done by Petronas that is related to this topic. do you mind sharing it on the blog? thanks!)

Guys, let me tell you this - i had a great time working with my Malay and Indian friends on the team. i believe that we have managed to look past the colour, the race, the religion.. we are after all, part of a melody, that transcends differences. And this melody, is the melody of unity.

Selamat menyambut Hari Kebangsaan ke-51, Malaysia!

Thank You!

Thank you for attending Malam 08! Without you, there will not be Malam!

Some apologies to be made here:

• food flow - some tables only managed to have their food around 9pm. Our sincerest apologies. We wanted to have 2 tables to go out, i.e. there will be 2 different queues at the buffet table. However, due to some unexpected twists of events, we only managed to get one table out every time - that caused a tremendous delay. And the soup ran out! Grr! Once again, many apologies! We will learn from this!
  
  
• Dance floor - due to the delay in the food flow, we had to cancel the dance floor. Apologies to those who had look forward to the dance floor and even went for the modern jive dance class!
  
  
• Table sitting - we only had less than half an hour to change the table layout so that each of you could see the screen at a comfortable position. We apologise for the inconvenience and hoped that you were able to make yourself comfortable.
  
  All in all, once again, thanks for bearing with us and hope that you had a great night! We would love to hear your feedback. You can either e-mail us, leave a comment on the blog, or fill in the survey that we will be sending out in a week's time (i'm currently at Hamilton attending an academic conference.. :p).
  

In the next week or so, the team will be meeting up for a post-mortem and also to clear the accounts. Hmm.. Fingers crossed that we will break even :) Oh ya, remember to send out thank-you letters etc to the sponsors. (man, i think i'm quite a workaholic.. :p)

Till then, team members, if you have any photos or videos to put up on the blog, please do so! :D and thank you lovely people for everything! Very grateful and honoured to be able to work with you! :D and thank God for being in control regardless! :)