The 5-day-4-night course was called Kursus Kenegaraan. It was held at the Kem Bina Negara in Kundasang.
Before I elaborate any furthur, let me ask you, which resort in Kundasang has the BEST view of Mount Kinabalu and its surroundings? I hear you say Perkasa Hotel? NOOOooo... it's the Kem Bina Negara! Whatever said about the government, they got the best piece of hilltop land in Kundasang. It is a shame that our handphones/cameras were kept away during the camp. Otherwise I could've shown you the breathtaking sunrise which still have me in awe.
Here's the KBN from far. My first impression was: wow what a resort!
As you approach the front gate, you will say, dang why have I been staying in Perkasa, Pine Resort, Zen Garden etc all this while.
You will see the Malaysia and Sabah flags everywhere in it's compound, flapping away with the mountain breeze.
Parking space is very limited. So we had to park along half of the road. The building on the right, is the...
Mosque. And staff quarters furthur down the road.
The first afternoon we had camp registration. There were altogether 109 participants. We were divided into 11 groups. Mostly teachers, some senior ones but mainly fresh grads from teaching colleges; and a handful of nurses. In the night, we were given an overview of the programme, and the first lecture. 3 more lectures on the following day, and it's group activities each morning, afternoon and night. Latihan Dalam Kumpulan, or LDK in short.
"Yeh yeh I am done with BTN."
The KBN complex. On the left is the admin office, in the middle is the marching ground, and on the right is the main hall.
The admin office.
The marching ground, which overlooks Mount Kinabalu with all its magnificence. At sunrise, you get a clear view of the peaks, before the clouds move in and hide them away for the rest of the day.
Our typical time table is: Muslims wake up at 4am for sahur followed by some talks in the mosque, the rest wake up at about 5.30 am. 6.15 am, a brief session of singing the national anthem, marching and some morning exercise. Breakfast after that. 2 slots in the morning for lecture or LDK; then lunch for the non-Muslims and uzur Muslims; another 2 slots in the afternoon. More activities in the evening, e.g. 2 km run, fitness tests, rappeling, aerobics... Dinner at about 7 pm. The night slot at 8.30 pm. Oh i forgot to mention morning and evening tea breaks. Overall the spacing of programs is just right, lots of spare time in between.
On the final morning, we had an exam. Then we had Kembara, which is usually a 2 hour walk thru the jungle. But it was toned down due to the fasting month. So we had just some light activities, and my Adidas Kampung was not called for duty.
This big hall is where we had the lectures and exam.
Nice LDK meeting rooms.
Some groups had their LDKs in glass huts like this, which is really cool. It converts into a gas chamber when smokers congregate to have their puffs.
Here's the makan place.
Have to wash your own stuffs after each meal. But since they're using metal trays, the cleaning is easy. And what is there to complain when you have such a great view to feast your eyes with while doing the chore.
Makes you wonder why. But, as you can see, with all the photos splashing over this blog entry, rules are meant to be bent, with good reasons. Actually they allowed us to take photos on the last day, when our stuffs were returned. Must take some gambar kenangan ma.
They even built a tower for rappeling activity. Thank you folks for all your tax money.
OK now we move on to the accomodation.
Wonderful landscaping everywhere.
Even comes with a rock garden.
Bad thing is, rooms are very cramped. No choice, if you intend to house up to 200 hundred people in such a premier piece of land.
Sometimes they organise courses for people in high positions. In the likes of Badawi and Musa Aman. Even the TYT stayed here before. Can you imagine them sleeping on those double decker blues? Neither can I.
They get to stay in VIP apartments like these.
There are 4 of them. The better ones come with a garden...
... and a stunning view.
You still with me?
Officially, the BTN's role is to "explain the truth about our country, its history, government and policies to the people". "Many people are ignorant about the country's founding history and the Social Contract, that's why so many problems these days". The final aim is to promote national unity and maintain the country's peace and sovereignity.
They say, the Malacca Malay Sultanate was a great kingdom to the envy of the Western world. So, they came, they saw, and they conquered. And we fell into the hands of oppressors for 446 years, and suffered under the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Japanese, and the British again. During those times, the Malays lost their maruah and their land. Then we were reminded of Malay heroes who fought the British colonials. After the Japanese occupation, the country, under the leadership of Tunku Abdul Rahman, formed a pact with the MCA Chinese and MIC Indians to form Parti Perikatan and convinced the British to give us independance. The pact, so-called Social Contract, is that the Malays give the Chinese and Indians citizenship, getting in return 4 items: Islam as the official religion, Malay language as the official language, Malay special rights (the actual word in the Constitution is "position"), and power of the Rulers. The Social Contract is not a document but we can believe that it exists by deducing from what is written in the Constitution about the above 4 items.
And all will be well if we follow the Social Contract, then there will be peace and harmony. Equal rights is unconstitutional. Our country is doing fine, see how we are better than other SEA nations and Islamic countries.
The country is facing many threats from within and abroad. These include the Jemaah Islamiah, Kumpulan Militan Malaysia, deviant teachings (Malays), Suqiu (Chinese), and HINDRAF (Indians). Threats from outside are: the bad Americans who staged 9-11 by having a CIA agent appearing as Osama BinLaden, the bad Singaporeans who are in fact America's tools, the bad Zionists who controls the world economy and kill Muslims in Palestine, the bad Chinese with their Communism, and the bad terrorists from the Phillipines.
The country is in chaos now due to the above, in addition to Anwar being an American agent influenced by the Zionist, politicians like Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh who want to abolish Malay rights, bloggers, racial extremists like the Chinese Education Movement and some MCA leaders, who may be Communist agents; and street trouble-makers HINDRAF, BERSIH who allow themselves to be tools of the American and Zionist agenda.
And the solution to the above problems is: do not question the Social Contract, do not touch the Malay rights. The Malays have sacrificed a lot, and the non-Malays are forever indebted to the Malays. The Malays are tuan of this land, they have allowed the Chinese and Indians to tumpang here and do bisnes, and who eventually became more greedy and powerful, and wanting to sideline the tuan. Believe that the government is doing the right thing, support whatever government policies, and reject the trouble makers. Otherwise we will ruled again by oppressors, like in Iraq and Palestine. Or the May 13 bloodshed will repeat itself.
There you got it. 5 days of course content in 5 paragraphs.
What have I learned? The most important lesson is, I am actually a PBS member. Persatuan Bini Sabah.
Hehehe...
The most important lesson is, I see the mentality of our UMNO government today. Seriously, you believe we have a Barisan Nasional government? (Our facilitator said: "the Malays as tuans have allocated electorate seats to the non-Malays, when in fact they don't need the non-Malay MPs to win the election. See how kind are the Malays"). BTN is under the Prime Minister's Department (of which Bernard Dompok is a minister), therefore its content and publications are endorsed by the Big Boss.
Secondly, I learned that to do good propaganda, you need to be trained in mind-manipulating skills. These include: conquering the mind by eloquent rhetorics, telling only one side of the story and overwhelming your audience with lots of appropriate "facts", "statistics", and photos, and whatever supporting arguments. Then reinforce it by keep repeating it, as if it is the only thing that matters. Then capture their emotion by having a touching video clip, and songs to go along. And while doing all these, impress your audience that you are a nice and harmless fella, a learned guy just wanting to tell the truth and save the lost. Hey, have you watched Wag the Dog?
Thirdly, what you see and believe to be truth may not be truth actually. We may all be victims of expert mind-manipulators who work so subtly that we do not even realise it. So "believe the government is great and doing all the right things for the country's benefit."
Each group was assigned a facilitator, a.k.a. "fasi", who conducts the 2-hour LDK slots. The fasi will start the session with a game, which will then lead to him summarising the lessons learned from the game, and then reinforcing the Social Contract theme, and how-much-the-Malays-have-sacrificed, the-non-Malays-invading-Malay-rights, be-grateful, nation-under-threat, you get the flow.
Some group had lively sessions with their fasi. Our group had a fasi who spoke very softly and slowly. He had his opinions, but we were given time to ask question, since his role is "to explain the truth". I find that his opinions are often biased and lop-sided, sometimes downright stereotyping and making sweeping statements. And I told him so. My group members are mostly bored; being peace-loving Sabahans, not participating much in political talks. Heard that other groups had more fiery exchanges.
"Orang Melayu dan Bumiputera adalah tuan tanah. Orang Cina dan India yang dibenarkan tinggal dan bisnes, telah menjadi kuat dan mahu meminta macam-macam hak tuan tanah." My take: That irresponsible statement will only result in the races being suspicious of one another. The society today does not fit into his Malay vs Chinese/Indian mould. We have mix parentage children, and many more imported races. The scenario today is more like the elite Malay/Chinese/Indians robbing from the poor folks of all races.
"Orang Melayu dan Bumiputera sama saja." Malaysian Malay is defined by Articla 160 of the Malaysian Constitution as someone born to a Malaysian citizen who professes to be a Muslim, habitually speaks the Malay language, adheres to Malay custom, and is domiciled in Malaysia or Singapore. So you have wrongly lumped the non-Muslim Bumis into the Malay group.
"Melayu adalah orang yang keturunan dari Malay Archipelago." Going by that reasoning, it is easy to rationalise that offsprings to immigrants of Phillipine and Indonesia deserve more rights than the Chinese and Indians who toiled here all these years. Patut lah.
"Perkara-perkara dalam Perlembagaan tidak boleh dibincangkan. Ini termasuk hak orang Melayu." The Constitution states Malay "position", not rights. The Constitution only gives an outline, and there is need for more discussion to determine the specifics of what constitutes Malay rights. Don't forget that Mahathir initiated amendments to the Malay Ruler's rights through Parliament.
"UNITAR membawa masuk ramai pensyarah dari China, yang membawa dengan mereka fahaman Komunis. Apa tujuannya? Apa gunanya belajar sejarah China?"
"Malaysia adalah sebuah negara Islam."
"DAP mahu menghapuskan hak istimewa orang Melayu. Suqiu adalah tuntutan orang Cina untuk merampas hak orang Melayu."
"Kerajaan tidak dapat menggubal dasar kerana tiada 2/3 majoriti. Rakyat yang susah juga." So we should blame the rakyat for supporting the Opposition?
You intepret yourself la. There is no mention of the contributions of the other races. Things like integrity, corruption, leaders' wrongdoings, transparency... are not given much attention. No mention of Malaysia Day even on 16th Sep.
To be fair, the BTN facilitators are OK la. They have their opinions which they try to convince you. But they don't force it upon you in a rude manner. The encourage you to do you own research and evaluate things objectively. The staffs at the camp are a great bunch of folks who are very respectful and jovial. They make the camp shine. People like Pak Ramli, Pak Sabar. The unfortunate thing is, the whole team of fasi and staff are from one religion only, which doesn't seem quite in line with their "national unity" agenda.
Food is fine. The place is well-maintained and the ambience is just great.
And all the above is my personal bias opinion only. So don't tangkap me under ISA.
