More than 28,000 youths from different ethnic groups reported yesterday in Malaysia's first national service call-up aimed at boosting patriotism and racial integration.
They are from among some 85,000 teenagers who have been chosen at random from more than 480,000 girls and boys born in 1986 for three-month stints in 41 camps around the country.
Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said there was no political agenda behind the program, but the main opposition Islamic Party has charged that it is aimed at indoctrinating Muslim youths to support the ruling coalition.
PHOTO: AP
The government says the objective of the 500-million-ringgit (US$132 million) program is to build a generation of self-confident, patriotic youths with noble values and develop multiracial harmony and unity.
Three decades of affirmative action for the majority Malay community and an Islamic resurgence have divided Malaysian society along religious and racial lines.
Malays account for some 60 percent of the country's 25 million people, while ethnic-Chinese make up some 26 percent and Indians 8 percent.
The program does not involve weapons handling but physical training includes unarmed military-style exercises such as basic self-defense and jungle survival skills. Recruits will wear paramilitary-style uniforms, perform community service and take classes on patriotism, nation-building and character-building.
The scene was chaotic at many pick-up points around the country, where angry and worried parents complained of crawling traffic and poor organization as they took their children to catch buses and planes to their campsites.
Some parents also dismissed the scheme as a quick-fix that cannot meet its objectives of nation-building because it only involves 18 percent of those born in the same year, while others criticized the huge budget allocation.
"This is just a motivation camp. I am not sure what the government really expects to achieve. It does seem a waste of money. With 500 million ringgit, they could have built hospitals for village folks," Mohamad Isa, 46, told reporters.
O.F. Chong, 55, also said he saw little benefit for his daughter. He complained he had to endure a two-hour traffic jam and waited another three hours before finally sorting out her transportation.
It was a teary departure for some teens and their parents, but most of the youths appeared to be looking forward to it.
Lalith K., who is going to a camp in the northeast, said she was excited to begin her adventure in a new place and meet new people.
"This is my first time away from home, no maids to wash my clothes, so it's a good chance for me to learn to be independent. I don't expect good food there, so it will also be good for me to lose some weight," she said.
The second batch of recruits will begin training on March 22 and the third on April 19. Those who evade training can be jailed for up to six months.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the