VOICES IN MY HEAD ii

We are political animals

2012-01-12T21:08:00.002+08:00

Malaysians love to mindlessly politicize everything under the sun: from the biggest of problems to the tiniest itches. Politics first used in 1520s to mean "science of government," taken from the name of one of Aristotle's books on governing and governments, ta politika "affairs of state". It is supposed to refer to the science of good sense, or common sense, applied to the ever changing domain of public affairs. In the Aristotlean perspective this “thing” is better described as a business strategy than a science, per se, in that he does not advocate fixed principles because of constant changes and the fluidity of human affairs.
By 1769, it came to mean, "a person's political allegiances or opinions". By 1550s, "pertaining to a polity, civil affairs, or government" and by 1749 it took on the pejorative meaning of "taking sides in party politics". History tells us that by 1860, we had our firsrt political prisoner and Hume wrote on political science in 1779. Our German friends then gave us the term realpolitik to refer to “practical politics” which entails a kind of political thinking that is more open and welcoming to ideological variation.
In 1954 Eisenhower spoke of “the Domino principle” which later became known as the “Domino theory” during the Cold War.
A very important word to Malaysian politics, “Anti” was born in 1788 when they talked about the anti-federalists in US politics, of course you know what happened after than. Then in the 1830s ‘anti’ was used in writing about the Anti-Masonic party.
The term “centrist” became popular in 1872 when it was borrowed the French centriste, which was much used when they discusses the French politics of the 1923s.
Another extremely important word in Malaysian politics, opportunist, came in 1881 from Italian opportunismo
Another favourite word in Malaysia is doctrine which came in the1820s from the French doctrinaire which referred to an "impractical person" who holds blindly to ‘doctrines’. This is from the Latin doctrina. They initially used the word to talk about overly idealistic people who were trying to fit everything to their interest and royal authority, was back in 1815.
Interestingly the term condominium (c.1714) is a political term which meant, "joint rule or sovereignty" from the Latin com - "together" and dominum - "right of ownership". the word became used to mean apartments in 1962 American when they needed a term for their legal contracts.
Malaysian politics is generally known to be partisan politics. It really means people who gather with other over zealous people and it same from the Tuscan Italian word partigiano meaning "member of a faction, partner," from parte "part, party" which in turn comes the Latin partem meaning ‘part of’.
In 1928, they introduced a term that you will never use in Malaysian politics, depoliticize. I won’t even bother describing it.
Reference: www.etymonline.com

Those annoying clichés again.

2011-12-25T00:21:00.001+08:00

Sit in planning meetings or look at advertisements and we will often find clichés. Often these clichés can seem innocent or even positive. They are also often spouted by those who are trying to push something through: their agenda, their image, their product and much more. Most of the time, these clichés would wash over you without doing anything much or at best, for them, the clichés would trigger the very responses that the speaker is trying to achieve. Very vary rarely will you find yourself sitting up and going, “Wait a minute!” I had one such moments recently.

When I was reading a magazine while waiting for my car to be fixed at the mechanic’s, I found myself reading a magazine devoted to cars, or more precisely, to the selling of cars. I suddenly realised that there were two phrases that I had just read had cropped up over and over again in the meetings that I had attended recently and in things I read in the media: “Think out of the box” and “See things in a totally different way”. I occurred to me that there was something wrong with these phrases.

“See things in a totally different way”

Implies that there is something wrong with the way I see things, this offends me.

What makes the way they are suggesting inherently better than the way I see the world.

I am also suspicious, the way I see the world inherently benefits me, as does theirs. Therefore, to see the world in their way will to substitute my beneficial perspective for one that is designed to benefit another at my expense. This is foolish, is it not?

One does not try to change the mind of others without an agenda; the agenda itself may be benevolent but it could equally be malevolent. Until I can prove the intentions of the persuader, I am more inclined to keep my perspective of the world.

“Think out of the box”

What is this box that they keep talking about? I don’t see any boxes, do you?

Assuming there is a metaphorical box, boxes are designed to do two things: to keep things in and to keep things out. Both objectives have their own merits depending on the things being kept in and out. There are consequences to allowing the two things to interact and before allowing such a venture, I presume that it is prudent to examine the possible consequences that may arise from said act. The thing that gets me every time is the apparently gung ho optimism that accompanies these statements; they always make it seem that thinking out of the metaphorical box has positive consequences. I am not a die-hard pessimist but a degree of pessimism may be a wise precaution, particularly when thinking out of the box will lead to decisions that may make or break your institution. Perhaps, it may be wise to explore the box further before stepping out if it.

Stepping out of the box may just be stepping into another box. Allow me to illustrate. I use a Nokia E72 which I find a solid and trustworthy machine. It has served me well for quite a while now. All around me, friends and colleagues have gone through several models of the Blackberry, i-phones and a whole slew of android driven machines. With the unveiling of each new model of these tiny machines, I get lectures from proud new owners telling me of the virtues of their new purchases. Wait a few months, you will get to hear their grievances over the shortcomings of their, previously miraculous, machines. Of course, the discovery of these shortcomings often coincides with the unveiling of newer models of their machines, or new models of a more desirable machine. Thus, they would step of one box and into another.

Then at the next meeting, I would notice that they will be doing on their machines the very same things they had been doing on the previous machines only with more attractive displays. More importantly, the same things I have been doing alongside them on my old Nokia. Something is wrong with this picture, I say.

Hazidi

Something evil this way comes

2011-12-17T18:14:00.005+08:00

I read a most distressing report today: it was news report on a designer drug called ‘Crocodile’ coming out of Russia. I had not heard of it in Malaysia but in Russia it, according to the report, has reached plague proportions and now it has made its way to the US. This may mean that it is only a matter of time before we see it here.

We have all probably seen the effects of drugs before; the living skeleton, severe cramps et cetera, this however is something else. This drug rots the user alive. We are talking about flesh rotting off the body and falling off the bones. Bodies dying and rotting piece by piece from the inside out while the person remains alive to feel the pain and watch as piece by piece of the body fall off. Its called crocodile because it turns the skin greenish and scaly as the skin slowly dies away.

Based on the patterns seen in Russia and the US, it is probable the drug will find its way here easily because it does not need to be produced in labs. It can be made at home by cooking codeine from over the counter medication and with several other easily available materials. Of course, you would need some knowledge to do it but then again, heavy drug users are doing it in Russia and the US, how hard can it be?

In addition to that, the materials you need to make this vile concoction are dead cheap compared to heroin, cocaine or the other street drugs, so in Russia the desperate drug users resort to it when they cannot buy the real stuff. Unfortunately, sometimes they cannot turn back. The effects of this potion are much more profound than that of any of the readily available drugs on the streets, even crack cocaine.

The wonders of my fellow Malaysian.

2011-11-09T11:49:00.001+08:00

I am often awed by the amazing abilities displayed by my fellow Malaysians. More often than not, they themselves are oblivious of these gifts that they possess. They happily go through life without knowing that they are using abilities that others cannot even imagine having, let alone having it themselves.

Don’t just take my word for it, I will cite you a few examples and then you can go out observe your friends and family members. You will probably soon encounter them yourself.

Some will say, “I don’t watch Malaysian television news, it’s all crap”, a few minutes later they will rattle on and on about something that was shown on the news just a few hours earlier.

A friend might say, “You will never catch me watching TV3. I don’t watch crony tv”. A few moments go by, the group talks about various topics. You turn away for a moment and when you come back to the group, you find the very same friend commenting on Nurul Syuhada’s suit in that morning’s Selamat Pagi Malaysia or how Wardina’s choice of hijab colour suited her suit very well. Imagine if she had actually watched TV3, what wonders would she bring to the conversation.

A few I know have never been into a school since they left it decades ago, have no children of school going age, are not involved in any school related bodies, do not know anyone in the ministry of education or in the education fraternity, have never read any books or research articles on education AND YET can confidently tell you that the Malaysian education system is in a sorry state. More importantly, they will even tell you how the system MUST be improved. Better still, if you compare their ideas on education and the literature on education, you may find that their ideas are actually several decades, even centuries, behind time. In their cases, confidence is clearly not a problem but you still see numerous motivational books in their collection.

Watching my fellow Malaysians is a wonderful hobby. If you haven’t tried it yet, I strongly recommend it.

Debating debates with debaters

2011-10-22T20:33:00.001+08:00

On Friday, I was invited by some old friends from Awani Television to appear on a forum. It seems that the Prime Minister’s cup debates are coming and they want to do something to promote debates in general. Other members of the forum were two representatives from the newly started Orator’s association (one a lawyer and the other a former television presenter), the politician’s right hand man and a student from UKM who was also a former debating champion. I wondered what I was doing there.

Still, since I had agreed to be there, I sought a position to defend and settled on the idea of taking it from the perspective of an academician in the education and languages faculty.

And so the forum went on and it was quite fun. At the end of it however I am still left wondering what exactly are we trying to promote. The bottomline is still communication: we are trying to promote the art and science of exchanging ideas intelligently and properly.

On second thoughts however, I wonder if we Malaysians really lack the ability to communicate properly because evidently, we can complain very well even when our complaints defy logic, reason and plain common-sense. I had a student complaining that her assignment was given zero by two graders. When the paper came to me and I googled a couple of the lines from it and found that it was 100% plagiarized. Well, I guess as we say, “kantoi” (gotcha!).

Another student debated with me that she should not have to re-take a paper she failed because someone had told her that she did not need to take the paper even though it was clearly stated that she got an “F”. A few questions later, I learnt that the person who told her that was NOT a faculty or university member, NOT a fellow student, NOT even the minstry of higher education. At that point, I began to question the sanity factor of this student. She, however, debated her point very well. The argument defied logic and reason but it was definitely well-presented. If this is the end result of promoting debates skills and knowledge among Malaysians, I think I can look forward to more of this in the future.

Kalau kita membenci

2011-09-24T01:07:00.001+08:00

Aku lihat ramai orang kita berjuang dengan kata kata di internet. Bagi mereka, menjatuhkan lawan perlu dengan menabur kebencian, dengan kata penuh kekesatan, dengan fitnah bertali arus.
Cuba kita fikirkan. Katakanlah anda menang. Tentunya musuh itu akan berundur. Apabila ini berlaku, kebencian itu akan tetap hadir didalam hati dan hidup anda. Langkah anda tidak akan kehadapan kerana kebencian akan merantai anda di hari semalam.
Untuk menghapuskan kebencian, mudah – hilangkan kebencian pada hati dan jiwa kita dahulu.

As Raya moves on and on

2011-09-18T18:24:00.001+08:00

I am beginning to wonder if we are not being frowned upon for our feasting.

Found this today

2011-09-16T00:25:00.002+08:00

A Saner Look at Bukit Kepong: Mat Indera.

2011-09-13T23:09:00.000+08:00

By: Hazidi Abdul Hamid

In my last blog, I wrote on the issue of the historical event at Bukit Kepong which has captured the ire and imagination of so many people in Malaysia of late. Resulting from a political speech by Mat Sabu, almost the entire nation has been dragged into the discourse: the kedai kopis are abuzz with discussion and even rage being vented over the attack on the Bulit Kepong Police Station. The most important outcome of the discussion is, in my opinion, a great historical confusion over our historical facts and narratives. I admit that I am ill equipped to discharge a definitive edict on the event but I am a voting citizen and as one I have a right to make up my own mind on the issue because it pertains to, ultimately, how I should vote in the coming General Election. While I can alnost hear the parants being sharpened, I can only say that you, my dear readers, need not agree with me. This is my examination. If you like the outcome, I invite you to adopt my conclusion. If not, then you too have a mind, so by all means come upo with your own justifications for your decision.

My research methodology lecturers once encouraged me to begin with the Cartesian method: at its simplest, it means to break down the issue or question into its components. The first component being the event itself.

What happened?

On a certain date around half a century ago, a police station in Bulit Kepong was attacked which resulted in the police station being burned to the ground and a number lives were lost. This is a fact accepted by all sides. Agreed?

Who were involve?

Those involved, centrally, were the policemen and their families and the attackers one of who was Mat Indera and the rest were members of the Communist party or guerillas (as some called them) – essentially they were armed individuals who were affiliated, in some way, to the Communnist party of Malaya. This is also a fact accepted by all sides. So, central to deciding on how to relate to the event therefore does not lie in the event itself, rather on the people involved.

On this matter, I have already elucidated on how I regard the policemen and their family members in the last blog. In short, I am compelled to honour them for being who they were and what they did. This leaves Mat Indera and the Communist affiliated group.

Who was Mat Indera?

According to the accounts that I have read in the media from both sides of the political divide and taking out their conflicting judgements on Mat Indera, I am left with the generally agreed notion that Mat Indera was,

A passionate young man.
Possibly a young man who wanted to see this land free of British influence / colonization – depending on the term you decide to use and which discourse you decide to follow.
A member of the communist band that attacked the Police Station.

As a young man, Mat Indera has been described affectionately by his relatives. This means that I have nothing to say about Mat Indera as a young man except that he was a member of a family that loved him. More importantly, because I did not know him, this line of inquiry is a dead end: I find no clue to help answer my question herre.

Secondly, he was a passionate young man who wanted to see his land free from British, to use the most politically neutral term possible, interference. More importantly, he took action on this desire. For this he needs to be applauded, metaphorically, because the objective that he was striving towards was to see an end to the imposition of a foreign will onto a land and people to which he belonged. This intent culminated in him, at the very least, contributing to the demise of a people whom, I have mentioned earlier, need to be honoured which is thus a complicated dilemma.

This however, is not a clean black and white situation: the enemy of my friend is not necessarily my enemy, a principle which we need to remember when we examine the evolution of our contact with Communism and Communists (individuals and nations) which I hope to write in my next piece.

Mat Indera's action evokes two questions: does the end justify his actions and does the end justify the way in which he took the actions. Put simpler, he chose to attack the Politce Station with an armed band of individuals who fought for the Communist cause and ideology. This forces me to examine, (a) the band of individuals and, (b) Communism in that specific temporal context.

From historical texts and records and from the stories / reports related to me by my relatives, friends of relatives and other acquaintances who were alive and conscious at the time, it is clear to me that the armed Communist bands were previously allies because they had their roots in the Malayan People Anti Japanese Army. After the surrender of the Japanese, those who supported the Communist cause persisted to fight because they wanted a Communist state and they were not willing to form a partnership. More importantly, for a period after the expulsion of the Japanese forces, these bands committed much atrocities which saw the killing and torture of many who either not cooperative or were accused of being in cohorts with the Japanese during the occupation. The, the reports say, “punished” without trial nor defence. They were reported to be responsible for the death and torture of Malayans of all ethnic groups but were particularly harsh on the Chinese. Thus, I find that their actions cannot be condoned and they cannot be regarded as freedom fighters, let alone heroes.

Thus there are two reasons why I cannot condone cooperating with these bands. On a human senses, they killed many of my fellow countrymen. They thus earn the justified label of being the enemy. Secondly, they fought for Communism in the current form at that time. This was the Communism that took its character from Maoism, the writings of Lenin (particularly The Communist Manifesto) and Marx's Das Kapital. In these writings, particularly Marx and Lenin, religion is rejected and villified. For this, I cannot condone any involvement with them.

I have heard some Pro-PR individuals say that the notion that the Communists were anti-religion is a myth and that people who follow religions are still numerous in former Communist states. These individuals have missed a few points. Visit these peoples, listen to them relating their histories, and their account of the events during and after the Communist rule. You will find that they and their religion were oppressed by the Communist state and the religion has survived because of the strength of the people's beliefs and their perseverence. They also relate how the religions of the land now strive without Communist rule or since the Communist states adopted a more open outlook. It seems that by bringing into the picture present contact we have with such countries like China, these supporters of the attackers are depending on the naivete of the audience by making them think that Communism is monolithic and has remained unchanged, thus if it is acceptable to be friends with them now, it must be acceptable to be friends with them back then: a false categorization serving a political agenda, nothing more. Simply read the Communist literature of the time and we will notice that the ideology changes from one writer to another, from time to time – this is however not the issue in question and is thus irrelevant to the issue in question. Surfices to say that the form of Communism at the time is unpalatable by my judgement.

What about Mat Indera then?

As a young man who wanted to see his country free from British control and influence, I applaud his passion. As a member of the band of Communist guerillas who attacked the Bukit Kepong station, I must reject regarding him as a freedom fighter. Therefore, I am compelled to reject taking him as a hero.

A saner look at Bukit Kepong.

2011-09-11T16:35:00.002+08:00

Since Mr Mat Sabu made his 'ill-informed' (Refer to Mr Karpal) comment, the Malaysian media, historical academia and media has been taking frequent refreshment breaks at the loony bin's drinking pool. Heroes became non-heroes then back to heroes: we were colonized then protected but not colonized but looking back the letters were from the Colonial office. I commented this morning while chatting with my fishmonger and another customer, to understand Malaysian politics today we need to have Panadol handy.

What is the basic question that I am looking at here?

What concerns me the most, how should we regard the people killled defending the Bukit Kepong Police station?

Who were the people killed at Bukit Kepong?

For the moment, bear with me and forget about Mat Indera, I'll discuss him at another time. The people I am concerned with this time are the people defending the Bukit Kepong Police Station. It has been agreed that they were police officer and their family members. Who paid their salaries may not be relevant, see below for the justifications. Established fact: they were police officers and their family members.,

What were their function at Bulit Kepong?

They were policemen stationed at the Bukit Kepong Station. Police officers are assigned as peace keepers and protectors of the people and property where they were stationed. They are also agents of the powers that be, or as Althusser calls it, they are also part of the Repressive State Apparatus. This role, they fulfill when they are carrying out policies of the government that they serve: usually the more unsavoury policies. So the point is, the policemen and their families are not monolothic in their role and function: on the one hand they were protectors of the people and property but on the other hand, they were agents of the government. You can argue which government that is, at this point, that is irrelevant. See below.

What role were they functioning in when they were killed?

When the attack at the station happened, they were manning the station. This is when they are the people we seek out when someone breaks into our houses and run away with our material posessions and sometimes the lives of our loved ones, this is when we seek them out when one of our neighbours loses his or her mind and starts attacking us and our other neighbours. In short, they were at the station so that when something goes wrong, the townsfolk had someone to turn to to get help.

Put simpler, those who attacked the Bulit Kepong Station killed people who were protecting the people and property.

In this light, Mat Sabu was wrong. The people who died defending Bukit Kepong deserved to be respected, at the very least. They died defending the place where they were supposed to be in case they were needed by the people. They died being there for the people, or as they are more fervently called, the Rakyat. In this light, they were heroes (and heroines).

By Hazidi Abdul Hamid

How to Attend Functions as a VIP.

2011-08-18T10:16:00.002+08:00

By Hazidi Abdul Hamid

I find myself attending an offial function again today. You know, one of those occasions where you arrive early to avoid having to walk in on the proceedings in progress. You arrive, you sign in, you collect the goodie bag of advertisings, you take you seat and wait ages for the VIP to arrive.

What is with our VIPs? In my years of experience attending functions where there were VIPs officiating, very few of them have been consistently punctual. The others, particularly politicians from all sides of the fence, seem to me to be psychopatically aversed to coming on time to a do. I can understand if they are women, some women have elevated the art of putting on their make-up to the status of meditative rituals. What about the men? I would not mention names for fear of being surrounded by irate followers when I am identified I public, or worse, surrounded by mercenary lawyers.

It seems to me that there is a definite procedure to arriving at a function. Allow me to elaborate, if you are VIP, especially if you are in a position of power, you follow these steps when you arrive at a function:

Pull into the designated drive way expecting there to be small crowd of people waiting anxiously for you.
1. This is the time to make some last minute checks: have you drawb up your fly? Have chosen the right dress? Is there anyone else wearing an exactly identical dress? Is there lint on your songkok?
They open your car door and you exit while surpressing a slightly puzzled look which shows that your mind is saying, “who the hell are these people?”
Find a familiar face, if you can and heartily shake his or her hands with a relieved look.
They will guide you into the building, often with kompang banging away.
There will be some form of ceremony: child with flowers, signing of the visitors' book, shake a few more strangers' hands and finally make it to the VIP room.
Give a brief interview while delicately stuffing your face in the VIP room. Maybe sign a thing or two and take a few photos whom you hope will not turn out to be Malaysia's answer to John Wayne Gacy.
Waaaaayyyy after the designated time, make it to the function and the proceedings can now begin.
As you take you place at the podium, you pray that you haven't mixed up your speech notes.

Then there is the steps to follow when you exit the function but that is a different story.

An overdose of power, computing power that is.

2011-08-17T09:06:00.000+08:00

By: Hazidi Abdul Hamid

The university announced a financial assistance for the management and academic staff to buy tablet computers yesterday. I, of course, am sure my colleagues are happy about this, as am I but then I thought it may not apply to me because I already have one. I, however, think that tablet technology had a bit more to go before it can become a really viable tool for me because as it is, it still cannot hold a candle to my laptop. The announcement however made me reminisce on my experience with computers and made me realise how much things have changed.

I suppose I came into contact with computers rather late. My fingers first found a computer when I was in matriculation. There was a programming class that taught us how to use the BBC Micro machines and the language we used was BASIC. It was fun but at the time it did not seem too useful for our immediate purposes. I later learnt of a game called Moria which we played on what would best be called the rudimentary beginnings of the internet. Around that time , there were other computers vying for our attention.

A friend of mine bought a Japanese machine that had its memory stored on cassettes. You started the machine and loaded the operating system by putting a cassette into the player. You then go to make yourself something to eat while it loaded. That done, you need to load the program that you wanted to use and so on. It took quite a while for the machine to load: long enough for me to take a walk to the fish and chip shop, queue up, put my order in, waited for it to be prepared, walk back, stop to buy a newspaper and make it back just in time to see it ready to go.

Another friend bought himself a Sinclair ZX Spectrum and what a machine it was... at the time. The nifty thing about it was that you loaded it using cassettes too but tiny ones. Better still, you could link a few of these cassette players so that you could load several cassettes at once. The sound that the cassette players made was very distinctive.

Then came the floppy disks. I missed the 8 inch ones but when the 5 ¼ inch ones was a real hit. Everybody began carrying disk boxes around. The computers in the lab had either one drive slot or two. You began by inserting the operating system disk and loading it. Then you took it out and loaded the program via another disk. When that it done, you could either leave the disk in the drive and load your data disk into the other drive or, if you have only one drive, you inserted your data into the other drive. Our computing world began to take off but it was still a hassle because you needed to remember all sorts of commands, or else you were at the mercy of those who knew them.

Then computer interconnectivity became popular. After lectures, I could walk into the computer lad which could put the books I needed on hold for me. It saved me running to the library to get them. It worked fine until the library people realised that there was a backdoor into their system and closed it.

When I came home and started to work, I bought myself a computer of my own. It was huge thing but it had a hard disk. The thing worked at 12 Megahertz when you pressed a button labelled ‘turbo’. If you did not press the button, the speed went down to 10 mega hertz. Today, even my handphone is operating at more than 500 megahertz and it is an outdated model.

Then came the laptops and what a relief it was. Well, a relief in as for as you could carry it from place to place with relative ease. Mine was a black and white model but I forgot the make. Around that time, a friend introduced me to Power Macs what could run both windows and Mac OS. What wonderful machines they were but I stuck to my windows laptop. The years went by and the machines grew faster and easier to use, to most people.

I sat back and looked at the machines before me and wondered if we actually have too many machines that do the same things now. My Nokia E72 can run “work” programs, including a complete office suite, it even surfs the internet easily. The Android tablet does the same thing, except it has Angry Bird, that damnable addictive bird tossing game. Of course, there is the laptop which is not my main machine for both work and play. This machine runs on windows and paid software but today, you can run your machines on completely free software which you can download from the internet; from the Operating System to the antivirus to the office suite and more. I cannot help but wonder where all this will lead us. At least now we can see where the anxiety reflected in the Terminator movies came from.

And so I reach back across time and space to drag a quote that seems most pertinent now, “Quo Vadis?”

MDAS12 : Kedaulatan Islam Bukan Kedaulatan Bangsa

2011-03-08T13:50:00.000+08:00

Everything is indeed connected.

2011-01-04T01:19:00.001+08:00

Being human means that we will ultimately all share some very basic things regardless of how we differ from each other. Culture may divide us but break culture down and you will find that it too comprises the same basic ingredients. And at this point you will be wondering what on earth I am blabbering away about.

I work with a number of people in a certain organization as I have been doing for decades now, and beyond the basic professional relationship, we often develop friendships and ‘hate’ships with these very same people. it is inevitable. for a long time, friend in my current organization has been complaining to me about a certain colleague. If you go by their reports and personal encounters too if you are unlucky enough, it is likely that you will find this person is indeed in possession of the despicable qualities that are often ascribed to him. I have to admit that I too share said sentiments at least until not too long ago. My attitude changed when I remembered some things that I was taught by my teachers: academic, religious (both the regular and the mystic kind) and unplanned ones too. Allow me to take you through my epiphany.

An Imam once taught me that for everything Allah has created , there is a purpose. He was quoting fro the Quran when he taught this. The problem, he added, is that often the purpose is beyond our grasp. People, for example, are sent to us each with a purpose: some are there to teach you something and learning can come in many ways and forms; from a fleeting glance right up to the people we love. They are sometimes sent to test you, like in this case, and some are sent to tempt you in all so many ways. reciprocally, we are also sent for a purpose to others: we may accidentally step on someone’s foot but, the Imam said, it is really a test for him to see if he could control his anger and refrain from tying you up and sending you to sleep at the bottom of lake with your legs encased in cement. what is important is for us to realise that we are all part of a grand design, a grand purpose. A despicably annoying colleague for example is still part of the organisation or system. A system is a thing that is the sum of all its parts and more if the whole takes up a different meaning once whole.

Who we are is the result of all of our experiences good or bad. A system will change once any part of it is changed or removed. Change is a fickle thing, it takes on whatever direction it likes regardless of all the precautions that we take to direct it. It is the same with my organization, if I feel closer to some colleagues it may be because we find the same person irksome, thus said person has already contributed to the whole.

One common complaint is that many feel annoyed one of our leaders who is often blinded by this person’s bull shit. It is here that I remembered a few places where I have worked before. Some of the leaders there too listened to the wrong people and consequently a couple of these places no longer exist. Other leaders, were smart enough to evaluate the lies and this these organizations survived and even grew. My Iman quoted a hadith that said that a Muslim leader has one foot in heaven and one in hell, such is the precariousness of the role of a leader. I thought, when it comes to our relation with our Maker and with fellow humankind, we are ultimately alone: the responsibility for our deeds is ultimately on our own heads. If you think about it, there is nothing much we can do, really. Our is to remind, teach and learn from the mistakes of others as well as our own. Beyond that, we can only watch as people dig their own graves or climb to the top, whichever way they choose to go.

So how does it tie up? Everything is connected. I too was tempted to hate but then i realised that I am watching creation unfold in all its glory.

More to come.

At the end of 1.1.11

2011-01-02T01:36:00.001+08:00

It is the last hours of 1.1.11 and it has not been such an eventful day, nationally speaking that it. On a personal level, we had a rather nice brunch at the Chicken Rice Shop at Berjaya Time Square.

My calculations of cost for broadband & wimax services

2010-12-13T15:03:00.001+08:00

I am thinking of upgrading my internet at home. So, I did some calculation.

Service	Package	Speed	Use threshold MB	In sen per month	MB (Column D)/ sen (Column E). Sen per Megabyte
P1	Lite	400 Kbps	5000	4900	0.980
P1	Plus	1200 kbps	20000	9900	0.495
P1	Pro	2400 kbps	30000	13900	0.463
Unifi	VIP 5		60000	14900	0.248
Unifi	VIP 10		90000	19900	0.221
YES	Advertised at 3 sen per 9 MB	3.000

This is how much my internet would cost if I were to reach the maximum allowed by the threshold every month.

Calculations are based on advertisements given by the respective companies in their websites.

Images from the respective advertisements are given below.

P1 Wimax

Unifi

Yes

Ampang

......

Accomix IT Sdn Bhd
Address: OL13 Tesco Ampang, Dataran Pandan Prima, 55100, Ampang
Contact no.: 03-9284 0788
RamPC System (M) Sdn Bhd
Address: 27G Jalan Wawasan, Ampang 2/1, Bandar Baru Ampang, 68000, Ampang
Contact no.: 03-4297 1412
Takecomp IT House
Address: 2A Jalan Pandan Indah 4/4, Pandan Indah, 55100, Ampang
Contact no.: 03-4295 5878

My favourite music video (sort of) of all time

2010-12-04T18:06:00.001+08:00

Diva's Entire Performance - Fifth Element @ Yahoo! Video

Wow

2010-12-01T09:05:00.001+08:00

http://www.liquidpiston.com/

OUM convocation Nov 2010

2010-11-21T21:51:00.001+08:00

Each time I attend the OUM convocation something happens that makes the occasion memorable to me. I look for the good things, unlike some other people I can name, because these are the things that show the difference we have made in peoples’ lives.

On the first one I attended, I observed the look or pride and wonder on the face of a child as she watched her father don the graduation gown.

This was the second day and after the first session of the day, I witnessed the incident that I have been looking for. I was making my way down to the second floor from having lunch on the fifth floor of the PWTC. As i approached the escalator, I saw a man walking in front of me while talking on his handphone. The crowd was moving slowly and he was talking quite loud so it was easy to hear what he was saying. He appeared to be talking to his mother (or mother-in-law, or stepmother or some other mother-figure) and I think he was there to witness someone’s graduation, possibly his wife or a sibling. I heard him say, (my translation), “Mother, listen, they announced “lulus dengan cemerlang” (pass with distinction)…” It was his tone that caught my “eye”. There was pride in it, there was satisfaction and a lot more. When we got to the bottom of the escalator, he went one way and I went another – I was headed to the surau. The way he walked was also noteworthy: there was a slight jaunt in his stride, this was a happy man.

As I walked slowly to the surau, I was early, I watched the people around me. I noticed that the man was not the only one behaving that way. There were other behaving the same way, the same body language, the same tone in their speech. One thing was blatantly clear, these people were happy, they were proud of someone’s achievement, and they were relieved. I believe, I hope, that we had a part in that.

I realized that when I got to the surau, I too was smiling.

So from where hath thou graduated?

2010-11-10T20:54:00.002+08:00

If you saw me in my car this morning, you would probably have thought that there was something wrong with that chap in the blue car. I was at a traffic light in the Chow Kit area waiting for the green light when I could not help but laugh. Let me tell you why.
It all began last night. I received an message online from a friend telling me that a university in Wales had stopped their dealings with a local college because the college's head or figure head was found to have lied to everybody: it seems that his masters and doctorate were both fakes. Yes, I'm talking about Fadzley.
I remembered a few years ago when I first saw this guy in a newspaper saying that he had a doctorate, I remember thinking, "hmmm that was quick. When did he do the degree?" but it was only for brief moment because I was reading the paper as I was sitting on the throne and it was finishing.
His story came up again in the news this morning which i heard as I was tucking into a bowl of cereal this morning, at which point I remembered that a friend had once told me of a motivation program that this chap was running. Again this was a fleeting matter because I was again on the way to that little room when my friend and colleague stopped me to tell me of the program.
IN my car, as I drove to the office, I turned on the radio and i was flipping through the channels when i came upon a voice talking about how to become a winner. It was nothing new really, he was rehashing one of the principles used in neurolinguistic programming, but i suppose not many know about NLP. As i got to the traffic light, he finished and mentioned his name, that was when I cracked up laughing.
You see, if you put all that together, you'll find that this man really does know what it means to be a winner. You carry on regardless of what obstacle stands in your way. For example, if you want a degree or two from a certain institution, you cannot let minor set back like the university being non-existent or the course being non-existent or not going to an educational institution stand in your way.
Now here was dedication.
You don't get it? That's okay, just thought you might like to know. Especially if you were in that red Proton that had stopped to my right this morning. I'm not certain but I could almost swear I saw the woman in the passenger seat lock her door when she saw me laughing for no apparent reason in my car.

Kids these days

2010-11-07T15:49:00.001+08:00

Kids these days are too rude: they do not have the sense to believe the truth of what we tell them. They think they can tell the difference between truth and falsehood, even when what they call truth is really nothing more than the fanciful thoughts that they want to believe. Today’s children do not believe me when I tell them that back in the 70s the roads were paved with broken glass and they tossed salt over these roads daily. They say I’m lying when I tell them that we had to walk barefooted for at least twenty miles on these broken glass roads everyday to go to school.

They roll their eyes upwards when I tell them that back then, the teachers used strands of barbed wire tied in a bunch to whip students who failed to do their homework. I told them that after the flailing, we would rub lime on our backs, hands, legs to avoid getting infection from the rusted barbed wires. And, if anyone was caught screaming in pain, he or she would be taken to the ant hill behind the building, tied on it and had honey or sugar water poured on them.

They start to lose interest when I tell them that we used to have weekly stake burnings where students who committed offences like failing to beg for mercy on their knees were tied to the stake and burned alive in front of a school assembly. When I tell them that students who failed in any subject would be taken to a special room behind the teachers’ room and never be seen or heard from again, they just shake their heads. They don’t take me seriously when I tell them that there is a hole behind the staff room where they dump the dead or dying bodies of tortured students. I tell them that we used to hear the screams and dying cries of these students but they simply switch off.

They show me pictures supposedly taken in the 70s of teachers walking around with files and bags when I tell them that teachers back then carried whips and flamethrowers wherever they went in school.

We had to make sacrifices to get knowledge in those days. Perhaps that is why many say that the quality education these days has declined. The weekly assembly whippings, the classroom racks and the iron maidens and the garrotes are no longer there but I hear there might be hope. I was recently told that in a nearby school, the students were made to sit in hall and listen to a teacher read the text of a speech from a minister. On second thought, perhaps this was stepping beyond the limit, certain kinds of tortures are simply too inhuman to inflict on anyone, even your worst enemy, let alone students. Even I sweat at this prospect.

Among the Believers

2010-10-09T20:52:00.002+08:00

Among the believers there is no malice,

no symbols of status, pride and avarice,

no hatred of colour, skin or creed

Among the believers there is only love,

love of knowledge, thought and learning.

Love of speech in truth and patience.

Love of the light that erases ignorance.

Among the believers there is no fear.

No violence in the name of honor

No rage in blind fervor

Walk among the believers and you will be greeted with warmth for there is only acceptance.

We are all equal in nature but made different by sins, knowledge and repentance.

I long to be among the believers.

Hazidi Abdul Hamid

7 October 2010.

Tell your lies

2010-10-07T12:42:00.000+08:00

Tell me your lies so that I may believe.

Tell me that my eyes deceive.

Tell me that my ears obscure.

Tell me that my friend plot against me.

Tell me that my kin folk inveigle.

Tell me that my thoughts are irrelevant.

Tell me that my disbelief is irreverent.

Tell me all that you need me to believe.

Leave me not in enlightenment,

In possession of all my faculties,

In performance of my duties.

Hazidi Abdul hamid

7/10/2010

I believe

2010-10-06T12:04:00.000+08:00

“I believe” is harder to do than to say,
To find the strength to stay the path
To find the humility to prostrate and pray
In a world of pain, anguish and wrath.

“I believe” is finding joy in gifts obscure
Hidden in the blinding plainness of sight
Behind our overwhelming pride
Smothered by our thoughts no longer pure.

“I believe” is a brave testimony
To stand on the mound and exclaim your faith
To turn friends into adversaries
To reveal friends in former enemies
To turn certainties into elusive wraiths
To unmask lies in maxims held.

Beneficent One.
I have no strength save coming from Thee.
Guide me. Show the way,
To proclaim on this day
And all the days that remain
I BELIEVE.

Hazidi Abdul Hamid.

6/10/20210.

The other side of conflict resolution.

2010-05-31T14:11:00.002+08:00

A few years ago, I somehow got involved in local politics: the supposedly joint management body for my apartment building. Somehow, again, i found myself getting elected as the president last year. Admittedly, the running has not been so bad. Of course there are those among us who are, evidently, of the more mentally challenged persuasion but somehow are in possession of particularly pronounced complaining abilities, but for the most part they are just people who want to live peacefully with a minimum effort on their part.
Things however took an amusing turn last week. Let me tell you from the beginning. There is this chap who has real problems paying his bills. For example, being an electrician, he would rather steal the electricity than pay for it. Last year, we reported him to the TNB for damaging the fuse box and consequently TNB has a case pending against him which carries an RM3000 fine. We did not believe that he had no money to pay because he bought a brand new car a short while later.
This time he’s back at it. Apparently the electricity company has contractors doing their meter-reading for them and he, he later claims, has been paying off these contractors to look the other way and allow his electricity theft. Last week the company sent on of their own to do the meter reading. Of course, the technician found the chap’s illegal connection and disconnected it.
He came home and an argument erupted with our caretaker and vice-president. The chap vandalized the door to the electricity room to get at the connections to reconnect the power. When I got home, I went to check the room and found that not only the main door was vandalized, he had also vandalized the backboard on which the meters were placed, probably to get at the wires behind the meters. I had no choice but to call in the electricity guys.
Anyway, the next day, we summoned him to the office to discuss the matter. My thoughts were that this guy may be in desperation, so it may be more prudent for us to ask what was wrong with him and try to help him out. After all, he is still a neighbour even if he was a pain in the nether regions. The meeting was called. People gathered. I had quite a time trying to keep the angers in check. That was when I realised that this chap was actually rather interesting. Apparently, in my view, he is the most ignorant person I have ever met and also the most mis / un- informed person also. In brief:
What he did:
1. He was illegally re-connecting the electricity after the TNB.
2. He used a metal cutter to cut open the lock to the fuse room for the whole floor to reconnect the electricity after the TNB man came and cut the electricity for the umpteenth time
3. He has not paid his maintenance fees worth more than a thousand ringgit.
4. He placed an air-conditioning unit in the parking lot then a few days later two chaps who said they were his workers came and took it. He claims that it was stolen and that the management was to re-compensate him for the “loss”. We of course ask for police report to confirm the matter but he refused to make it claiming it was not needed. A more transparent ploy, I have never seen.
His logic:
1. The management must not allow the TNB to open the meter room, so it is our fault that the TNB has cut off his power supply; the one that was illegally done.
2. The management was wrong for reporting his previous theft which resulted in him being fined about RM3000 on top of a similar amount which he already owed the TNB.
3. The security was deliberately trying to get him into trouble by allowing the TNB man to enter the premises to check them meter (incidentally, the TNB man was there to check the meters for all 124 unit) and consequently discover his theft.
4. The management must ignore his stealing of the electricity because, as he said, “The politicians and those rich people are stealing a lot more”.
5. He was not at fault for placing his air conditioning unit in the parking lot where there is a sign that says (park at own risk). The people who came to pick it up were wearing the same clothes that his workers wore and claim to be his workers, yet he claims that they were not. It should be added that it is great mystery how anyone who was not his worker would know that the thing was there.
6. The management must re-compensate him on his word alone. A police report is not needed. (of course, everyone in the committee realised that he had no case but still the procedures need to be followed).
7. He does not need to pay the maintenance fees because his air-conditioning unit was stolen.
There were some interesting points in the discussion. At one point, I tried to tell him that what I was saying is in accordance to the law. “Lu punya undang undang la”, he said. He then boasted that he was close to some big shot lawyer. So I said, “Good. Don’t take our word for it. Go see your lawyer and tell the situation. Then see what he says. I guarantee you he will concur with me”. To this he said, “He didn’t want to waste the lawyer’s time with such a small matter”.
Anyway, I was relatively happy at the end of the discussion because the committee managed to go through it without anyone losing their tempers whereas before they would have. Apparently, my suggestion that we should always maintain a professional distance when conducting these kinds of negotiations, worked.

Why Muslims Don't Eat pork?(Experiment)

2010-03-30T08:23:00.001+08:00

Why Muslims are not allowed to eat Pork?

2010-03-30T08:21:00.001+08:00

Down a crooked path

2010-03-26T12:08:00.001+08:00

We, Malaysians, are living in interesting times. Someone had cursed us long time ago – the Chinese would understand what I am talking about. Anyway, I find it interesting that if nothing else, the last decade has increased our collective political consciousness a great deal. Unfortunately, for most of the people I see, increase of political consciousness means simply knowing what you are told better. We are still very bad at making up our own minds and being objective. Most of our opposition supporters cannot tell the difference between being anti-establishment and being a seeker of truth. Most of our pro-establishment supporters, on the other hand, cannot tell the difference between being patriotic and being brain-washed.

For some of us, things are even more confusing because we just happen to know certain people and we happen to have had certain experiences. I recently saw a video that that has in fact been online for a while It is the video of an old friend from my university days overseas, he was telling an imam how he, the friend, had gotten involved in having homosexual relations with a certain politician. I have no doubt of the authenticity the video. the moment he spoke, I know it was him – his voice is rather distinctive. Herein lies the seeds of confusion.

On the one hand, we have a politician who has repeatedly lied and doubled back on his words and deeds. Its a waste of time for me to tell you what experiences have led me to totally rejecting this politician’s claim to being a champion of truth and righteousness and equality, if you are one of his supporters, you would already be too blinded by his lies to even entertain the notion that he is wrong.

On the other hand, we have this friend of mine who had demonstrated very strong homosexual tendencies in our university days. In addition, most of my other university friends will also agree that he has a problem with telling the truth. A certain friend described him as pathological liar but perhaps I would not choose such strong words.

In yet the other corner, we have the imam in the video. He later had his own altercation with the authorities and consequently left the establishment to join one of the opposition parties. I wonder how he reconciles supporting the said politician now.

Confusing indeed. I think it is time for us to develop our own version of the General Semantic movement. We need to recreate for ourselves the tools like that popularized by Korzybsky, Hayakawa and Rappaport near half a century ago in the US. We first need to distance ourselves from the idea that some of our politicians are telling the whole truth. I don’t believe any of them are. Not the whole truth. Part truths, half truth, yes certainly but not the whole unadulterated truth.

What Jesus(pbuh) said about Muhammed(pbuh)? - Khalid Yasin

2010-03-12T11:38:00.001+08:00

In obscurity

2010-03-06T22:28:00.001+08:00

I recently learnt that one of my neighbours had committed suicide. According to the report that I received, he drove to a nearby shopping area, stuck a tube to the car exhaust and fed the other end of the tube to the car cabin. He then sat in the car and waited for the inevitable. I think someone must have found him and took him to the hospital but they could not save him.

He left behind a wife and a daughter who is the same age as my elder daughter. Last night, I spoke to my other neighbours and piecing together what i learnt from their experience with the deceased I now have a clearer picture of what led to the suicide.

Apparently, this neighbour of ours was an ardent gambler. He once had a shop in an up market area of Kuala Lumpur but lost it. I am not sure if losing the shop was caused by his gambling habit or if the gambling habit was sparked off by the lost of the shop. His gambling habit led him to having to borrow a lot of money from the people he knew and, I was told, from loan sharks (Ah Loongs). Apparently, the MCA debt counselling service had mediated between him and the loan sharks not too long ago and got him out of trouble but he went back to gambling.

Recently, he, they said, had gambled a little heavier because the football fever is on the rise. I am not sure if he what he gambled on usually but he was an ardent fan of a certain British football club. Someone said he only gambled on football and this team was his favourite. This is the thing that I find most upsetting. Gambling is one thing but gambling everything you own and then borrowing more money from highly questionable people then losing that also all on a football team from a foreign land, competing in a foreign league in front of local crowds just doesn’t make sense to me. None of those involved probably do not even know that the place you live in exist, let alone you.

Some of my neighbours are also gambler but to a lesser extent: they buy the 4digit numbers. Thankfully, they told me that they know that they will not get rich from gambling and that they do it for fun but there are those who do believe that it is possible to get rich from gambling.

Can one get rich from gambling? I do not deny that there are people who have gotten rich from gambling but on closer scrutiny, you will find that they did not actually get rich from gambling; they got rich from using the money they won gambling to start businesses and they stopped gambling. It is impossible for a gambler who wins it big to remain rich for long because their gambling habit will cause them to lose the money they won.

I guess what happened was a worst case scenario, or at least close to it.

I hope there are no more such cases in the neighbourhood.

My lecture on basics of oral communication.

2010-02-17T14:52:00.002+08:00

This link is for my OUMH1303 Oral Communication class. To get the powerpoint X file, please click on the title or below
CLICK HERE

TOday

2010-02-08T13:46:00.000+08:00

see more deMotivational Posters

Shaykh Khalid Yasin - Dont Let Any KAAFIR 2 Control Our Lives - Unite Upon Truth

2010-02-03T10:03:00.001+08:00

Something Malaysia Muslims have forgotten

An old bible found in Palestine confirms the Quran story True- Islam is right about Essa (PBUH)

2010-01-27T17:09:00.001+08:00

Important - listen especially to the very end

Top 10 reasons why Jesus Christ Isn't God-TheDeenShow

2010-01-25T10:46:00.001+08:00

Important to all Malaysians

A teacher behind bars

2010-01-23T21:51:00.001+08:00

I teach. Admittedly, it is not a profession that most people will wonder too much about. In the years that i have taught, I have rarely been asked about my job and my experiences teaching. Not too long ago, I got involved in teaching on my institution’s degree program in a local prison. Curiously, people asked questions about it from day one. Recently, even the Chancellor asked about it. That got me thinking. What exactly about the prison that fascinates people ad peaked their interest? Apparently, my colleagues who also taught there were asked about their experiences teaching in prison.

I thought long and hard about it. I took a closer look at the prison the next time i went there on university business. This is what I came up with.

The prison is a curiosity in this context because we were not prisoners. We went in and we came out in the same day not after years. The prison is hidden away, out of sight, almost. If you drive past it near Kajang, you will probably not even notice that it is there. It is a place of rumours: we hear of happenings in prison from people who went in, from politicians who went in, from guards usually passed on to us through media. we rarely get the chance to get first hand accounts of the place. Beyond rumours, we have myths and fractured accounts. In short, just enough information to make us wonder, even fear but not enough to satisfy our curiosity, only enough to fuel our apprehensions and misgivings.

The prison is where the state takes people away, hide them away for years. It is where the state exacts society’s right to justice on perpetrators of misdeeds: to punish on our behalf. For many, if not most, of us, the souls behind those bars are bearers of generic identities, prisoners, convicts, pesalah. Some of these people, we saw for a brief moment when the television focussed on them leaving the court. We read about them, what they did, and the punishment the court bestowed on them but we rarely know them as persons. Deep inside, however, we know that they are persons with names, identities, histories, loved ones and emotions. So, somewhere deep inside us, we wonder what happens to these people once those metal doors close. We want to know beyond the abhorrent deeds, beyond the labels and beyond the myths.

So what was it like teaching behind bars. Firstly, the Kajang prison is a complex comprising four different prison buildings and several other buildings. To enter, you first have to register at the main entrance complex. You then take your visitor’s pass and drive to the relevant prison. That is through the main doors, turn right then drive past the drug prison and women’s prison. You will come to the main administration building which looks very much like a school building. Park you car somewhere and then make your way to the cafe in front of the building. Just sit there for a while to wait for the shift change. There will be a siren and soon after that, a crowd of prison guards will exit a fort-like door complex. Observe close their behaviour when they first exit. They will come to the cafe, order a coffee or tea and possible some food. Many will light a cigarette or two. IN a few minutes, it is as if a knot is unwound. Their behaviour when they leave the cafe is starkly different from the time they first exit the building.

The prison school is actually also the juvenile and remand prison. One half the the prison building has been converted to become a school – of sorts. TO get to it, you need to enter the fort-like doors which had two massive metal doors on opposite ends of the building: the doors will only open one at a time. In the fort, you have to leave your things in a locker, this includes you phone, wallet and anything sharp. Your bags will be checked and you will be patted down. A guard will then escort you and your group if you are not alone, out the rear door into the first courtyard. You walk through it and come to a gate that lets you into a second courtyard where a hall is located. Then you walk uphill across the courtyard and come to concrete wall. The door has inch thick steel bars. Get through that and you finally come to the prison school.

Inside, the classes are library were once cells. The beds and the latrine have been removed and replaced with tables, chairs and white boards. The library even has a projector and air-conditioning. There are other classes there. The Ministry of Education provides reading classes for the illiterate, UPSR, PMR, SPM and STPM classes. Then there are a few of the prisoners doing distance learning courses.

Teaching in the prison school is certainly different. Firstly, there is a constant sense of impending claustrophobia which I had to get over. Then, there is the presence of the guard outside the door at all times. They also have a head count every hour which they could ‘muster’.

The student themselves do not really look any different from any other classes of their peers, except for their colour coded uniforms. Their uniforms reflect the length of their stay inside. I found them a lively and fun-loving bunch. I would even call them a good bunch of kids. Perhaps the best way to describe them would to call them a group of bright young individuals who had committed something stupid either intentionally or unintentionally and that resulted in their incarceration. But, I was not there to judge them on their crime nor to comment of their incarceration, I was there to teach them what I could. That was exactly what I tried to do.

In class they were, as I said before, fun-loving and lively but again a little observation is needed. Sometimes, when I assign them some work and they got on with doing it, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. The classroom is almost a haven where the students are able to be ‘normal’ students for a brief moment. Outside the classroom doors, every single one of them become a different person. The different is very subtle: the way they move, talk, the words they say, even the way they stand and sit, one needs to observe closely. I think the biggest problem in teaching them is the lack of material and the lack of access. I imagined that I was teaching pre-internet age class. They do have access to computers and the net but very limited. All the possessions they have had to fit into a footlocker which ruled out too many books.

IN short, we had to make due with what we had and made the most of them. Drain every possible use of the material we had. To teach there, a teacher, particularly at tertiary level, had to know what he or she was doing because there was no falling back on instant access to off-site reference.

In the end, teaching there involves leaving behind all one’s preconceptions of what a prison is. You would need to embrace the place and the people for who and what they are and move beyond it. The students are young individuals who need to be educated and you are sent there to do just that. It helps if you can turn the classroom into something fun, and I think I managed to do that. Their grades were not great but they got by. In the end, its all about remembering why you became a teacher in the first place. The best part of it is that their sense of humour is still very much intact, which was a great blessing but to me and to them.

Someone asked me, “what’s the point? They are prisoners.” I thought, that is exactly the point. They are paying their dues to society and the state, society on the other hand had its own obligations to them: they need education and to learn, and I have been given the responsibility to do just that. What happens to them in the future, what they can or will do with what they learn, all that only Allah knows. Its about carrying out one’s own responsibilities not about judging others. Its about being a human being and a teacher.

Who do you Worship? Sheik Yusuf Estes

2010-01-18T11:07:00.001+08:00

Something I don't think we think about often

NO freedom In Islam?

2010-01-14T10:23:00.001+08:00

interesting

Ghurabaa - Khalid Yasin - The Strangers

2010-01-11T17:02:00.001+08:00

I don't remember if I have posted this before but I think it is well worth revisiting. One of the most moving speeches I have ever heard.

Ghurabaa - Khalid Yasin - The Strangers

2010-01-11T17:00:00.001+08:00

I don't remember if I have posted this before but I think it is well worth revisiting. One of the most moving speeches I have ever heard.

To my fellow Malaysian of Islamic and Christian faiths

2010-01-10T01:40:00.000+08:00

It seems that some of us have resorted to throwing fire bombs at churches now. The government and the more rational of us are calling for everyone to calm down and handle this rationally. The first thought that crossed my mind was that considering we don’t often wear jackets in broad daylight in Malaysia, it may be a little harder for suicide bombers to wear C4 coats.
I also believe that there is a side to this issue that most people are overlooking. It seems that both sides are operating on this basic assumption, “we are good, they are bad”. This of course will lead to bad things. This also means that in the eyes of those on the other side, you are the bad guy. More importantly, both sides are operating on the unwavering assumption that they are doing the right thing.
A few basic things to get out of the way.
1. Do I believe that the Christians in Malaysia should be allowed to use “Allah” to refer to God?
a. I do not. The actual ruling actually states that they are allowed to use the name in their publications to be disseminated to Christians only but this will only be thinly veiled excuse. The real reason; they will then be able to use Christian material written in Malay and even written in Arabic to promote the religion to Malays. The technique is the same one Carnegie uses to teach us to make friends and influence people. Lets face it, most of us Malaysian are really quite easily influenced.
b. The Bible does not actually use the name Allah at all. I’m sure you don’t need me to explain this – google it.
c. The name Allah in Islam is a proper noun, without gender, without prurality. See Al Ikhlas.
2. Do I know that Arab Christians have been using Allah to refer to God for a long time?
a. Yes, I do know but just because they allow it over there, it does not mean that it should be allowed here.
Not the things that I really want to say.
Take away all the complex arguments, the theological trappings, the political rhetoric, the emotional tirades, and all the other nonsense, what are we left with?
Consider a few questions.
1. What exactly are we objecting to?
We are actually objecting to them trying to disseminate information that may influence us and entice us to convert to their religion. We object because we know some of us may be easily influenced by such information. Certainly there are a multitude of other reasons but these lay very close to the foundation of our objections.
2. Don’t they know that we object to them trying to convert us to their religion?
Of course they do. Do we know that they also object to us trying to convert them? I am certain we do. We may not want to entertain it or even air it but certainly we do.
3. Most people would object to people trying to convert them to another religion. Why do we persist? Why do they persist?
This is where Muslims and Christians are exactly the same. They are trying to convert us because they believe that we are on the wrong path. They believe that is we continue on our path, we will probably not make it to heaven. They are trying to convert us because they do not want us to go to hell.
4. If this is so, why would they be so concerned about where, they believe, we are headed?
Are we so dumb that we cannot see that they don’t want us to go to hell for the very same reason we don’t want them to go to hell? They are our friends, our neighbours, our fellow human beings: we care about them / they care about us. So, we are really getting on each other’s nerves because we love each other.
Its ironic, really. We try to convert each other because we care about each other. Consequently we annoy each other, we offend each other, we violate each others’ sensitivities, we may end up hating each other and now, we begin violate each others’ house of worship. So all this is really a labour of love.
Y’know, what amazes me the most? Look at the way we are. We have always been like this. In fact, at times we have been far worse. Can you imagine the patience our Prophets must have had to have been able to move entire nations in the right direction? So, can we try to invoke in ourselves a fraction of that patience?
Then again, forget about it. I am certain we will continue to be our usual pathetic, emotional, unreasonable, and unscrupulous selves.

ISLAM is the best product on Earth and We are its worst Salesmen : Sheik Yusuf Estes

2009-12-30T14:07:00.001+08:00

Like I once said, when have we ever heard of people converting because someone insulted his or her religion. Insults and having someone put down your religion only makes you hold on to it stronger. The only way to make people see the truth of what you say is by making sense to those you talk to.

Jewish Rabbi agrees with Islam

2009-12-29T10:02:00.001+08:00

Here's something eye opening.

Echoes of another day.

2009-12-14T15:39:00.000+08:00

When very disparate things come together, you can get interesting things happening. I woke up on right side of the bed this morning and everything else fell into place very nicely, which was a little strange for a Monday.

At the office, as I turned my computer on, I received a few messages from some very old friend, most of whom, this is where things started to go a little strange, have something to do with Thailand. One lives in Bangkok, another has Siamese blood, and another learnt comes from our days when we explored Muay Thai – well, one for of it anyway.

Then a certain colleague came rushing into my office incredibly rudely and equally rudely refused to do some work I had assigned to him. This was not particularly strange particularly with this particular person but he is not significant in this event. You see, I guess it was because I had a those Thai, Muay Thai and Silat linked memories floating around in my head, I suddenly began hearing my late Master’s voice. There were words like siku balik (reverse elbow), tumbok (punch), tending (kick), kilas (twist), and patah (break – break it off). I was momentary transported back to a drizzly night when I was in a gelanggang (training / fighting ring) beside the river, stripped to the waist, covered in sweat, rain and a little blood, hands in fists in front of my face and weaving out of the way of a round house kick aimed at my head. It took all my strength to keep my hands where they were. Flashes of sequences of movement played in my head, elbow to the temple, hands clasping the head bringing it down and meeting it half way with a knee, a drop kick to the knees, and a few other moves that tend to lead to less pleasant consequences.

Anyway, he wasn’t worth the effort. What is the point of getting physical with someone who was helpless? It would not have been fun. So, even as he left, I saw in my mind my fellow students, my brother and my late Master in that gelanggang. I suppose I should thank that arse with the over inflated ego because he made me remember my late Master and made me realise that I miss him and my brothers in the perguruan.

Ah well, a strange morning indeed. The mind really is a mystery, how it works and where it leads us. I was also left wondering, twenty years ago would I have been able to hold it all back or would those moves that played in my head come automatically into the real world.

Most importantly, I am still in a good mood even in the afternoon.

Why BN will find it really hard to regain Kelantan.

2009-11-26T13:08:00.001+08:00

Kelantan has been ruled by PAS for a long time now and UMNOists (couldn’t find a better word) may say that in that time the PAS and the PR has had a lot of time to spread their “lies” so much so that it has become harder for the people of Kelantan to see the “truth”. This is really a misguided perspective because one could just as easily that BN is doing the same thing in its areas and both side will be right because both sides are made up of politicians. When it comes to power and influence, concepts like “truth” are expendable to politicians. For further explanation of this I would recommend you have a read of the Institute of General Semantics website. Anyway, that is not why I am writing this.

When I was in Kelantan, I hear the PAS people say that they have been able to hold to power because they have been able to provide a better government and the people can see this. And true enough, if you spend some time living among the people, watching how things flow in KB especially, you will find that things have a somewhat “kinder” feel to it there. Of course, when you start dealing with the bureaucrats and business people over there, you will find that just scratch the surface and you will reveal a significantly different beast under the calm facade.

So the BN, want to win back Kelantan. They say that they want to bring progress to Kelantan. They say that they want Kelantan to enjoy the same benefits from economic and infrastructural development as enjoyed by states under their rule. This is the basic rhetoric repeated again and again each time there are elections. What strikes me is that they have consistently lost with this rhetoric, has it not occurred to them to change it for another that works? Then question then, what would work? This is up to the politicians to figure out.

What I would like to share here is a particular perspective on why BN keeps losing in Kelantan that I distilled from listening to my younger friends and relatives in Kelantan when I was there recently.

Imagine you are a young man or women growing up in Kelantan, in one of the small towns or villages perhaps. You will find that life is slower, more sedate and friendlier than KL or JB or Ipoh but when you are young you want excitement. You want challenges. You want things to enjoy, music to dance to, to be able to sing away your stress at the local karaoke centre till the wee hours of the morning. In Kelantan, generally cannot do that because those places are very hard to come by, if they even exist at all. You may want to show off your figure in a mini dress. You may want to put on makeup and paint the town red. All this is very hard to do in Kelantan. You may be able to do some of them but not too openly. You may be able to go across the border but that has problems of its own.

SO there you are waiting for your SPM or STPM results to come itching to leave the place for a few years to try your luck in the west coast where all that is possible. Then along comes these BN people saying that you will not have to leave for KL because they will bring ‘progress’ to your hometown. This means that you will be moving from school to work and still not be able to do all those things I mentioned above because the community that frowned on them then will still be there to frown (or worse) upon you now. Thus it is not in your interest for them to win. So when you can vote you will try to make sure that your younger brothers and sisters will have the opportunity to leave Kelantan to find jobs elsewhere, and enjoy the fringe benefits too.

Then there are those who have been to KL, who has had innumerable pre-marital relationships with members of the opposite (or even the same) sex, who have imbibed unremembered gallons of intoxicating beverages and much more. You feel your age creeping up on you and you feel that your own mortality is beginning to feel real. You want to leave these accursed places and retire somewhere peaceful where you can enjoy the company of God-fearing people while you repent your ways and ask God for forgiveness for all your trespasses. You go home to somewhere in Kelantan – the “Serambi Mekah” – where, if you live in KB, you will be able to listen to Tok Guru’s wisdom every so often. So, you settle to find peace with your Maker and atone for all the evil that you have done. Then along comes the BN politicians saying that they want to bring progress to your town or villages. You have seen what this progress means, you have been there. Images of outsiders moving in, karaoke bars, nightclubs (supposedly for the foreigners but who are we kidding? ), scantily clad women walking around all over the place distracting your from your wirid, exclusive condominiums with guards where you are tempted to buy a unit and have your mistress, who will be one of these scantily clad young women (or handsomely dressed young man), stay there. Would this not infuriate you? You are aiming for the after-life and they are threatening to bring so many temptations right to your doorstep. You would do the only logical thing: vote against them so that they do not win and thus keep the temptations away for a few years longer.

I would agree that this may apply to a limited number of individuals. The majority (or so says the speakers) want progress, but an election can be won even by only one vote and ignoring any side is a perilous endeavour. So, as I listened to them talk while we stuffed our faces with ketupat, rendang and numerous other delicacies (this conversation happened last Raya), it dawned to me that they may have a point there. More importantly, after losing again and again with them bringing the “progress” theme in their campaign, the BN politicians are still sticking to the same there in Kelantan. Has it not dawned on them that this theme is not working in Kelantan? Perhaps, there really is something very wrong with these people.

Utusan Malaysia Online - Berita Utama

2009-11-09T08:46:00.000+08:00

Utusan Malaysia Online - Berita Utama

Prophet Muhammad's (s) Marriage to Aisha (ra) - Yusuf Estes

2009-11-05T17:32:00.001+08:00

Something the Kafrs keep obsessing on when they talk about Islam.

Wahhabi who?

2009-11-03T13:33:00.002+08:00

Pah Nor asked me what exactly is this Wahhabi movement and I found it hard to explain mainl because my knowledge of the movement is probably more than two decades old and it has not been updated since then.

So I thought I'd do a little revision on what it is before I have to watch Malaysian news in the near future.

Just to share it with you. Here are some interesting links.

Wahhabi in Western eyes - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/wahhabi.htm

Wahhabi according to Dr Maza - http://drmaza.com/home/?p=664

Wahhabi in the conspiracy theory - http://www.serendipity.li/wot/livingstone.htm

Wahhabi according to one Journalist of Jewish descent - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODgwMGNkNzM0MTNiMWMyZGM3ZWJlYTYxYzczNGNhMmU=

Wahhabi in Iranian eyes - http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=206307

Wahhabi in a Sufism movement’s eyes - http://www.sufimuslimcouncil.org/hr/Extremists/pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20ISLAMIC%20RADICALISM%20-%20Is%20Wahai%20Roots%20and%20Current%20Representation.pdf

Why a man can have four wives in islam

2009-10-26T09:51:00.001+08:00

Another common question.

Listen, PLease

2009-10-16T15:22:00.001+08:00

I found this talk very moving. Please listen to the man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyNp-AcrT7Q

Opposite of Islam

2009-10-15T09:55:00.001+08:00

I would recommend everyone of my hot-headed friends to listen to this. Particularly my brother and sister Muslims.

When Plans fail to come together

2009-10-13T08:29:00.001+08:00

So a bunch of people left the country for the UK in hopes of obtaining British Overseas Citizenship. The Brits decided to tighten up their laws and they got stuck because they had voluntarily given up, the paper said “torn up”, their passports. Now that they are stuck, we are hearing reports of how they are “suffering”.
Based on the behaviour of our political parties of late here is what I predict will happen. Some politicians will be harping on the issue soon, if they have not already. I think they will playing the race card again by saying that these people are not welcomed back because they are of a certain ethnic group. The fact that they had voluntarily gone there and equally voluntarily given up their citizenship will be conveniently forgotten.
I believe that making it easy for these people to be re-accepted as Malaysian would be a travesty and an insult to all Malaysians who have stayed here and contributed our efforts and made sacrifices for the good of this country and her people, regardless of race, creed and religion. Going overseas for monetary gains and seeking a better life is a right of everyone but this not the issue. I too have close relatives who have chosen to live and work abroad and some have even become citizens of other countries but they became citizens of these other nations after they have stayed there for years and built a life for themselves there. They did not go there with the overt intent to give their citizenship, that came later. They became permanent residents and citizens because their lives are there now. This is starkly different from the case of these people who went away with the intent to give up their citizenship, possibly before they even set foot on the other nation’s land:
So they may want to return. I work and mix with my fellow Malaysians of many ethnic backgrounds daily. I know I can trust these people because they are like me, their roots are here and their families are here; more importantly, they are my fellow Malaysians. They are in no rush to abandon their nation for uncertain promises.
I find myself agreeing with the minister in the news this evening. Certainly they can return but they need to prove their loyalty now.

To my brothers (and sisters) with the cow head.

2009-09-07T15:56:00.002+08:00

My brothers recently marched with a cow head to protest the building of a temple near their houses. In this protest, they exhibited much hate and anger. Today, I hear and read others respond with much disguised hate and anger. All this is rather nostalgic to me, really. Years ago, my neighbours and I had a similar experience but the outcome was rather different mainly because we were led by religious people, not politicians.
Many many years ago, we were told that they were going to build a church on a piece of land across the road from our housing are; an area not more than five meters away from the fences of the houses nearest to the property. Certainly, a number of my neighbours reacted much the same way as you are doing today. Admittedly, there was no talk of cow heads, it would not have been relevant because cow heads are quite insignificant in Christianity. There was much talk going to and fro between the neighbours. A few of the more hot-headed ones threatened much the same things you are doing today. Some approached the politicians but to no avail.
Then a few of the other neighbours who had not said much began to talk and today, their words echo in my mind when I read about your cow head football escapade. I will summarize what they said here without the references to Quran and Hadiths and other texts they used back then. This is because, quite simply, I am not a religious scholar and I may get them wrong. These people I am talking about were, and still are, scholars of Islam, mostly. A number of them taught at UKM and a few other institutions. As you read this, please bear in mind that I am condensing the words of about 20 people over the period of about six months more than twenty years ago.
Here’s what they said, in summary.
What are you afraid of?
The government has given these people permission to build a church across the road and more importantly, we do not own that piece of road, so that church will probably get built. After all, our Christian neighbours need somewhere to pray too. What concerns me is our reaction to this. Why are we, some of us, behaving as if we are afraid? Are we afraid that because there is a church across the road we will be converted to Christianity? How weak is our faith anyway?
If you read the Quran, you will find a section that asks if we think that we will be allowed to call ourselves Muslims and pave our way into paradise without our faith being tested? Now here we are acting like we are afraid for our faith just because there is will be a church across the road. Is our faith so thin that we have already given up before the tests even come?
A person become a Muslim and remains a Muslim because of Allah’s hidayah not because there are no churches nearby. There are people who have been in one religion all their lives, they may even become leaders and religious scholars in that religion but later converts to another religion. It is hidayah, perhaps the closest translation would be guidance.
What should we do then? How should we behave? The answer is simple: go back to Islam. Go back to the guidance that Allah has given us in the Quran and the Hadiths. Live as Muslims, with your heart, your soul and your actions. If the Non-Muslims tell us of their religion. Listen politely and then tell them of Islam. If they still refuse to believe then so be it. After all, the surah Al Kafiruun does end with, “you go with your religion and I shall go with mine”.
So today, they are saying that they will build a temple near your houses. That may be a golden opportunity. It will be a place of worship for our Hindu neighbours. What this means is that many Hindus will come there to worship. Why not then turn your houses into centres for daqwah Islamiyah. Teach those who visit that temple about Islam. Through your actions and your deeds show them what being a true Muslim really means. Perhaps they did plan to build the temple there because they had hopes of spreading their religion to you, perhaps not. What they are doing, also means that they will be providing you with an audience. Let them listen to the words of Al Quran. Let them hear the wisdom of our beloved Prophet. Teach them the simplicity and profoundness of ibadah.
The temple is not a threat. It is a reminder for us to be better Muslims. It is a reminder for us to be more active in our Daqwah. If you do not know what to do, this Ramadan approach our brothers and sisters active in our daqwah movements. Let them teach your what to do.
Just remember one simple lesson: the best way to enter into daqwah, is to first become true Muslims ourselves. All else will follow in time and with hidayah from Allah.

By they way, I wrote this because I received the following email.
--- In artisproactiv@ yahoogroups. com, Suzan Manen wrote:
>
> I feel the same way, Anne, & can but pray for God's mercy & forgiveness for these misguided people who are making a mockery of their religion!
>
> Was also disappointed to read in the latest issue of CAN (Catholic Asian News), that the Catholic Lawyers Association had postponed the handing over of a memorandum concerning the sacrilegous actions of the 2 reporters, because of the huge response & they did not want to make it a big thing! Don't you think we SHOULD have a protest or vigil of some sort (in the church premises if a permit is not issued) as many people who only read the MSM are totally unaware that such an incident took place. As more time passes, the powers that be will conclude that it is no big deal as only a couple of police reports were made!
>
> As it is, on Saturday, My Indian gardener did not even know about the cow's head incident which had taken place on Friday afternoon!
>
> This cancer has to treated immediately . . . but HOW?!!!
>
> We cannot rely on anyone in power for any justice. Their blatant disregard & double standards were clearly shown in Hisham's statement yesterday.
>
> We are a nation in distress & we badly need HELP . . . S.O.S.!!!
>
>
Followed by:
From: andre_goodbuddy
To: artisproactiv@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Friday, 4 September, 2009 12:24:25
Subject: Re: [APA] Meditation for the Malaysian hate mongerers

Furthermore, so long as the authorities do nothing other
than throw verbal rhetoric condemning such action or, as
in the case of our Home Minister, seeming to show support
for it, our Malay Muslims will continue to think they are
untouchable and have no reason to stop their activities.

I wonder what would happen if we spread ourselves out at
nearest Police Stations to make reports on these incidents
that are related to racial and / or religious issues.

Another example is the dozens of youth / working adults
who ride around major roads without motorcycle helmets
to and from Friday prayer. They do so, for example, on
Jalan Gasing / Templer / Sultan and Yong Shook Lin, even
right past / in front of the PJ Police HQ without concern.

And I added:
An excellent idea but it must be a fair deal. We must report ALL "incidents that are related to racial and / or religious issues" not only those committed by our Malay / Muslim friends while those that challenge rights of the Malaysa and try to soil the sanctity of the Islamic faith go either unnoticed or worse still supported and propagated in the name of free speech.

Burnt coconuts

2009-07-24T10:02:00.001+08:00

Wherever I go, I make it a point to try the local delicacy because one way to understand the people better is to see and experience how and what they eat. Of course, there are some limitations to what I, as a Muslim, can eat and drink but this has not been a problem. Only rarely does it become a hindrance for example when I encountered almost no halal food at the breakfast buffet table.

I am in Kota Kinabalu again and I have been in Sabah since Sunday. The first couple of days were spent in Tawau. So there I was, on my way back to Kota Kinabalu from Tuaran after a day of work when Mr Lamjin, the head of our Sabah office, suggested we go for a drink of roasted young coconut and barbequed lokan: a large local shellfish. The lokan did not sound too appetizing because I have already had more seafood than I was confortable with since I have been in Sabah but the juice from roasted young coconut sounded interesting. It proved to be a milestone too: I have never had a local delicacy that I so utterly dislike that I could not finish one helping of it until I had that coconut yesterday.

Preparing the coconut was simple. Start a fire, which you will to barbeque the lokan, and dump a few green young coconuts into it. Wait for them to become burnt, fish them out with a metal hook and then remove the husk. Using a sharp parang, open one end and serve. You wil be given a drinking straw and a spoon for the coconut meat. However, because the coconut will still be steaming, you will either have to wait for it to cool before you using the straw or use the spoon to drink it slowly, which was what I chose to do. So I started with some of the coconut meat fro the section that was cut out to form a hole in the coconut. It was pleasant enough, tasted a little weird but it was quite palatable and not much different from what a young coconut meat would taste like. The water however was an entirely different thing. It was, to me, very unpleasant tasting and it left a rather discomforting after taste. The taste lingered all the way back to KK and remained with my for quite a long time yesterday evening. Needless to say that I will probably not be trying this delicacy again, although I may well try the lokan today just out of curiosity.

A burnt coconut ready for the drinking

A fresh young one

The Lokan shellfish. Note the pen for size.

If you are making your way to Tuaran from KK, I would however recommend that stop for a drink of roasted young coconut juice. The locals say that it helps to lower your cholesterol and possibly you blood sugar too but neither has been clinically proven. Maybe it is worth a try. Don’t let my idiosyncratic taste buds keep you from trying.

Not so far from the Staples center

2009-07-18T18:16:00.001+08:00

When I came home from work the other day, Ain related a curious tale to me. It is about what happened when her aunt, Chu. Chu went for some kueh a few mornings ago. By the way, people often translate kueh as cakes but lets face it, they don’t actually mean the same thing , do they. Cake simply does not carry the same semantic load as kueh. Anyway, back to Chu’s trip to Batu Gajah town in Perak for some kueh.

Chu thought that the lady selling the kueh looked rather haggard and tired. concerned, Chu asked if the lady was alright, expecting the lady to tell her about family problems, possibly children misbehaving or husband issues. Instead, the lady said she has not been able to sleep and she has been worrying about Michael Jackson. She heard that he ay have converted to Islam. If he had, she was worried if he did not get a proper Muslim burial. This lady in Batu Gajah, Perak was losing sleep over the King of Pop’s immortal soul and earthly remains.

She was not able to go to the Staples Center but she was probably as distressed about it as anyone there. Such is the power of the media: the might of Globalization. Regardless of the negative side of this phenomena; here was a person losing sleep over what was happening to another human being half a world away. This can only be good.

Happy Birthday, Chu.

Is it all a lie?

2009-06-27T23:58:00.001+08:00

I was at the Bandar Tasek Kesuma Primary School today. I was representing my daughter Ira's school's Parent & Teacher Association. Finding the place was quite hard. The letter they sent said that there would be several lectures by various parties and a launching of the Program Pemuafakatan Pendidikan – some sort of program to include the parents in the teaching- learning effort. I guess the intent was honourable but it was a very badly planned from the beginning and it left me thinking that for a bunch of people who are supposed to be educating people, the organisers of this event knew very little about passing information to people effectively.

Consider this, when it comes to public events like this, there is no such thing as spontaneity: it is all planned and if it fails to reach its intended audience and deliver its message then the planning of the occasion has failed its objective. The basic principle of such occasions are simple, if you want to reach an objective let that objective drive your entire program / plan. This is particularly true if you consider the objective to be important as this occasion was supposed to be. Certainly you can include other "sub-events" into your main plan but the objectives of these sub-plans cannot be more important than or as important as the main one. This is particularly true when the different sub-events comprising the whole occasion may have elements that contradict one another. This was what happened this morning.

Firstly, the event was held on a day when most of the high schools in the district, if not state, held their progress report day. Many parents had to go to the children's school to pick up their progress report. Consequently, may PTA representatives had to be late including yours truly. From the number of cars arriving around the same time I did, I think many other parents were the same. This also meant that there was a definite shortage of parking spaces.

Secondly, the launching was held at the place where a Hari Usahawan Muda was held (young entrepreneur day), which was good in the sense that the parents could divide their effort: one parent takes the children to the games etc and the other goes to the lectures. However, this arrangement also ensured that there was loud music blasting away in the central compound of the school and effectively drowning out the voices of the speakers on the first floor (American second floor). Hence I left after a few minutes.

I would strongly recommend these organisers to read up on their project management.

Finally, someone makes sense.

2009-05-29T08:40:00.002+08:00

Petikan dari MStarDr Mohd Asri: ‘Mogok lapar' ditolak oleh Islam Oleh ZIEMAN

MOGOK LAPAR...Anggota polis dan Unit Simpanan Persekutuan (FRU) berkawal di hadapan Wisma DAP Perak di Ipoh, semalam. Ahli-ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri (ADUN) Pakatan Rakyat Perak mengadakan mogok lapar di hadapan bangunan itu sebagai tindakan yang didakwa mereka untuk menggesa pembubaran Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN). (sepatutnya ada foto di sini)

MOGOK lapar adalah sesuatu yang salah di sisi Islam, kata bekas Mufti Perlis, Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin.Beliau yang kini berada di Lampeter, United Kingdom melalui kiriman emelnya kepada mStar Online berkata, walaupun tindakan mogok lapar itu dikatakan untuk tujuan yang baik, ia tetap ditolak kerana dalam Islam, matlamat tidak menghalalkan cara.Beliau berkata demikian bagi mengulas tindakan 'mogok lapar' yang diadakan oleh ahli-ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri (ADUN) Perak selama 72 jam bermula semalam yang didakwa mereka bertujuan untuk menggesa Dewan Undangan Negeri dibubarkan dan hak mengundi dikembalikan kepada rakyat.Mengulas lanjut mengenai hukum bagi seorang Muslim yang menyertai mogok lapar, Dr Mohd Asri berkata:"Dalam Islam matlamat tidak menghalalkan cara (the ends do not justify the means). Apa sekalipun hasrat baik tidak boleh dihalalkan dengan cara yang tidak diterima oleh syariat. Mogok lapar adalah satu penyeksaan diri sendiri yang mempunyai ‘nilai ketidakcerdikan’ yang amat sangat."Memang, pada zaman Nabi ia pernah dibuat oleh ibubapa kuffar Quraish bagi membantah anak-anak mereka menganut Islam. Namun itu adalah kebodohan kaum Quraish."Para Nabi a.s. dan pengikut mereka telah menentang berbagai sistem dan kezaliman, tiada seorang pun di kalangan mereka yang melancarkan mogok lapar. Allah tidak pernah mensyariatkan hal itu sama sekali."Mungkin Gandhi pernah menjadi contoh dalam hal itu. Tetapi tidak para pejuang Islam. Jika ada pun seseorang berpuasa dengan cara yang diajar oleh Allah dan RasulNya. Bukan untuk membantah sesiapa, tetapi mendekatkan diri kepada Allah."Itupun dilarang ‘wisal’ dalam puasa, maksudnya berterusan tanpa buka setelah masuk waktu berbuka. Malanglah, jika umat Islam terpengaruh dengan pendekatan yang bukan Islamic, bukan memperkenalkan kematangan pemikiran Islam."Jika seseorang mati dalam mogok lapar, ia termasuk dalam hukum membunuh diri. Ini seperti dalam hadis al-Bukhari, dalam sebuah peperangan, ada seorang pejuang telah berjuang dengan hebat sehingga dia dipuji oleh para sahabat."Nabi memberitahu mereka dia ahli nereka. Mereka hairan. Namun apabila diperiksa didapati dia membunuh diri kerana tidak sabar atas kecederaan yang dialaminya. Dengan itu, bagi saya jika ‘pejuang mogok lapar’ mati dia termasuk dalam hadis ini."Orang politik mungkin menghalalkan apa sahaja untuk politik mereka, tetapi para pejuang prinsip hendaklah berpegang kepada prinsip tanpa mengira siapa pun,” katanya.

The only solution left

2009-05-20T23:54:00.001+08:00

Are you like me? Tired of the political fracas going on in Perak. I think a whole lot of people are.

So far, what has become painfully clear is that both sides have problems obeying the law: the law, apparently, is to be question and re-questioned until it yields an interpretation that suits the purpose of the side doing the questioning.

The question still remains, what do we do to solve the problem in Perak? I think there is only one solution left. WE DO IT EXPLORACE STYLE.

Have the leaders of both side form teams. Start the race somewhere down south.

Their first destination should be Tanjung Malim where they have to knead flour to make pau. Then they cycle to Tapah where they have to collect durian….. several basket loads of it.

during the course of the race they will have to weave large bamboo baskets, make labu sayong, make some tempoyak, row boats across Sungai Perak, make walking sticks out of rattan, dulang for tin and perhaps sell some limau bali.

The finale should be held at Kuala Kangsar where they run to the Royal Palace. Perhaps the King can be waiting there to declare the winner. to make things easier, we could have the leader of the winning team appointed as Menteri Besar there.

See? its a simple and straight forward soluton. More importantly, we could even make money by televising the whole event.

To make even more money, we could have viewers vote for the top three contestants via SMS voting. The winner can be given the more juicy position in the new cabinet.

Penang very briefly revisited

2009-05-10T22:19:00.001+08:00

I am off to Pulau Pinang again. This time the office booked me a flight on Fireflyz, a subsidiary of the Malaysian Airline System, I am told. The service shorter distance local flights using smaller aircrafts: in this case an ART 72-500 212 – I think I got the plane model right.

First, the departure was from Subang Airport. That caused some degree of confusion. I have been labouring with an image of Subang airport from 15 years ago when there was a Terminal 1, 2 and 3. How surprised I was to see that terminal 1 has been replaced by a blue building belonging to some company. Terminal 2 is still there but it is now serving as the office for a law enforcement organization of some kind.

Subang Airport today apparently refers to what was once known as Terminal 3: not as historic and nostalgic as the old Terminal 1 but certainly more modern especially after all that renovation… at least it will be when the renovations are done.

The flight was uneventful; which is excellent. I took in some sight seeing and decided to take some photos using my pda-camera which was when I got some interesting patterns from the propeller. The rotation rate cause the interesting patterns. Let me share them with you.

Early morning Kuala Lumpur: changing world

2009-04-10T09:26:00.001+08:00

Its around 8.10 AM and I was in the elevator heading up to the Legend Hotel lobby. I made my way to the ballroom where the Colloquium was supposed to be held but there was no one there. Puzzled, i looked around and sure enough there were signs of the event everywhere, almost, but still no familiar faces. so, i found a place to sit and dug up the itinerary from my somewhat oversized bag and read it again. true enough I misread it the first time. The registration is at 11AM, which means that I’m waaaayyyy too early.

To make a long story short, I found myself art McDonald’s (Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh!!!!!!!) with a cup of coffee and my laptop. As i looked around, I noticed that there are a few laptops, maybe two or three, and a few PDA-phones. Most noticeable, I only find two newspapers, open and read while the other is folded and tucked safely in the armpit of a chap carrying a computer bag and waiting for his turn at the counter. I seem to remember a similar scene from more than two decades ago, I was waaaayyyy too early for a meeting with my friends in Kajang town. We were supposed to go for some event somewhere representing the Kajang High School Prefectorial Board. I found myself in the Champion restaurant with my blazer draped over the back of a chair (like it was this later morning) but with a teh tarik and a roti canai (or was it a lontong, I’m not sure on this count). Anyway, it was such a beautiful morning with the light shining at just the right angle flooding the restaurant with a brilliant shade of a colour I dare not attempt to describe for fear of not doing justice to this picture i have in my head. In this photo i have in my mind, there were twelve open news papers.

Perhaps the newspaper really is dying, as they say.

Scraping the bottom of the political barrel

2009-04-04T07:33:00.001+08:00

Politics is crazy business. i do not agree with those who say that it is a dirty business because it unfairly puts politics in a bad light when it is no dirtier nor any cleaner than other industries: yes, it is an industry. observe the “thing” for what it really is:

It has income: the government (all of its branches) gets its revenues from taxes and from management of the country’s assets.
It has overheads: this is obvious; the staff need to be paid, the assets need to be bought and maintained; the CEO (PM) and executive committee (the politicians) all need to be paid (presumably for managing the company/country for the people), the committee answers (technically) to a board of directors (the Council of Rulers), it has clients (Us) for whom the service is provided and it has profit and loss (deficit).
it provides a service for clients. some may not agree to this saying that they do not serve the people but only themselves but this is usually said by groups who want to take over the government so that they can serve themselves in the name of serving the people.

And, politics, as mentioned above, is no cleaner nor dirtier than any other industry. in my years of being alive, i have seen instances of “dirty” practices that have convinced me is that politics is only seen as dirty because it performs its acts in public and much of its attempts to hid its darker side leaves a large black area in the imagination of the its observers. As to dirtiness, i advice you to enter any industry anywhere (locally and overseas) and keep an open ear and a relatively skeptical mind. you will then hear things that may even make your stomach crawl. the industry needs not be a big enterprise even. Just consider this; how many times have you been lied to and, minorly, cheated by your “friendly” neighborhood traders and sales people? at times, i wonder if the honest ones are in the minority although logic tells me that that cannot be the case. I, for one, fervently hope that logic is right.

anyway, coming back to politics. Yesterday, i read something in the papers that epitomizes a new level of hypocrisy in Malaysian politics: a person who does not vote and is not even a registered voter is running for office and wants people to vote for him. it is bad enough we have people who have never spent even a day teaching a classroom telling teachers how to do their job, or people have no idea what a kitchen even looks like telling experienced chefs that they are doing it wrong, now we have a chap who tries to justify his non-voter status by saying he considered politics a dirty business now want to get elected. its like a football spectator suddenly walking onto the field and telling the players and referees in the game to declare him the winner. Outside the political industry such people will soon find themselves in a padded room and wearing one of those nice white jackets that forces you to hug yourself all day long.

i think this misguided individual’s actions are an insult to my fellow countryman's’ (and woman’s) intelligence and status as a registered and active participant in the democratic system.

It is true that the democratic system allows anyone who is a citizen of a place to run for office in the country to which he belongs including a citizen who is not registered to vote. being a registered voter is not a prerequisite requirement for eligibility to become a member of parliament but ethically, it is, in my humble opinion, hypocrisy in its truest form.

one cannot refuse to participate in the democratic process and then desire it to accept oneself as a participant, at a position of some power and influence even. Imagine, an total stranger coming into your family gathering and demanding that everyone admits that he is your third uncle when apart from being a member of the same ethnic group he has no relationship with the family neither by marriage nor by genetics.

the man made proposals for a new model of government which is fine and dandy with me, after all in the democratic system every member of the system, regardless of voter status, has a right to have and express his or her opinion unless, of course, if that opinion is proven to be detrimental to the well-being of the community: note I did not say ‘system’ ( i can almost hear my opposition friends’ brains grinding up a spirited response to that). His ideas, his policies and his visions are however irrelevant to this issue – personally, as a registered voter who has done my job in the democratic process a number of times, I am not interested to hear his political views if it is told to me with the intent of persuading me to vote for him should he run for office in the area in which i am a voting. It would, for example, be hypocritical for and of me to run for office if i am is not even registered to vote. it is as simple as this.

However, the fact that the chap is legitimately running for office is a huge credit to our electoral system in its constitutionalism and integrity as executors of the democratic process. If he wins however would be an indicator of the lack of democratic ethics and plain gullibility among the voters.

Herein lies one final similarity between politics and industry: accepting such an individual into the board of directors of a company under similar ethical circumstances, I believe, would be tantamount to putting the future of the establishment under grave danger, economically, ethically and in terms of reputation.

Upon reflection, i think it would be ethically wrong for me to vote for such a person should i be in the position to for for an election in which he stands for office. consider this, he considers or considered politics a dirty thing and something that should be shunned, so if i were to vote for him, i am therefore consciously committing an act that may lead to his involvement in this “dirty” arena. the consequence of my action, should he win, would be the same as if i were to purposefully lead him into vice and possibly even self-destructive behavior; i would not want that on my conscience therefore it would be my ethical and humane duty not to vote for such a person.

As human beings, we are compelled to do the right thing.

Intercommunicating culturalation

2009-03-08T01:01:00.001+08:00

Or was it Intercultural communication. Actually it was the latter. I attended a The Intercultural Awareness Colloquium at OUM today. And I have to say that it was interesting in more ways than one. The talks and workshops were nice but it was nicer to meet some old friend whom i have not seen or spoken to in years.

I suppose the most important thing that we did today was build up our awareness and consciousness of the ins and outs of intercultural communication. However, I have to say that for all the effort and all the talk, i felt there was something missing. We talked about intercultural communication which actually happens when people of different cultures meet. Of course, it becomes important when the cultures cause tension between the communicators. I believe that there is another side that is more important, the cross-cultural communication side.

Cross-cultural communication is not about contact between people or cultures but about systematically knowing the differences and the similarities between cultures. It is embodied in the act of building information about the other cultures that you meet: it is about eradicating our ignorance of each other’s cultures, lives and the rest. This is the part that is sorely lacking in Malaysia in spite of the fact that we have been living together for centuries. on the surface there is knowledge of other cultures: you mention Chinese and every other Malay, Indian or “Other” will spout the common keywords and terms of “kong hee fatt choy”, “cheong sam”, “chee cheong fun” and lion dance, but dig deeper and you will find misinformation more of than knowledge.

Take the case of halal food, I have yet to meet a non-Muslim who really understands the full implication of the term in Islam and the reason why it is an intimate subject to the Muslim Malays. Equally, on the other side, I have yet to talk to a Malay layman who is able to tell me the full semantic load of the term “hell” as used by the Chinese in relation to the afterlife. I had it explained to me long long ago on a walk through the Haw Par garden in Singapore by a friend of my family aided by the terms and “illustration” of the place. Okay, admittedly a Chinese may say that my knowledge would then be very simplified. I agree but it has a hell of a lot more depth than what I have heard from the Malays and Indians and Others I have spoken to.

I truly believe that while we are at an important point in our multicultural life as a nation: we are currently re-negotiating the terms under which we live together in this land. If done well, we will see Malaysia rise to greater heights. To do this well we must eradicate our ignorance of each other, only then can we live together instead of within the confines of our ‘worlds’ and stare at each other from behind the invisible wall of the prison that we carry around with us every moment of our lives.

Fear is perhaps one important factor that hinders this. Some of us fear losing ourselves, our identities, when we learn about others. I believe that if we can lose ourselves so easily then perhaps we should question the strength our devotion to our heritage: perhaps we were not who we thought we were in the first place.

Perak Oh Perak!

2009-02-07T18:26:00.000+08:00

The Perak Fiasco from the comfort of my armchair.

Hazidi Abdul Hamid

The Perak political fiasco fills the air around me: the radio, television, the conversations I overhear, the conversations I enter and even on the short (and not so short) messages on my handphone. I had refused to take sides or to even get involved in this idiocy but when even my children are asking questions about the issue and talking about it; I believe I have an obligation to say something, even if it is only for my children to read.

The question I am forced to ask because my children asked me about them. When my children asked me questions about this, I thought perhaps our schools are not as bad as some say they are. Here we have two children, one fourteen and the other twelve, who actually know about political events in their country.

Is it an ethical thing to do? in the simpler words that I used with my kids, “is it a good thing to form a government in this manner?”

My answer: Of course it is not a good thing. However, in politics, good and bad are often regarded as irrelevant issues; it is the results that are more important for those who are in the field. The point of politics is to gain power so as to enable you and your group or party or faction to dictate how the government is run. Thus anything that allows them to achieve this end is, in contexts like these, “good”. So a bad thing is now a good thing for politicians because it allows them to gain power and power allows them to dictate the government, and this in turn allows them to do “good”: here defined as things running the way they want things to run.

So, which side are the “good” guys? I don’t think we can say that either side is good because both sides have condoned the same thing: hijacking a government through defection of members within the previous government. Please recall that after the previous election, the Opposition announced that they will take over the government when they claim that thirty or so members of the Ruling government will be defecting to their side. This means that they approve of the act of hijacking a government. This means that they believe that a member of parliament (or any similar body) need not vacate his or her seat if he or she leaves the political party that he or she had represented and gained him or her the seat. Now, when the tables have turned, the Opposition is clamouring to the public and the courts saying that it is illegal and unconstitutional and whatever else, but how can that be when they were the ones who approved of the method in the first place.

My conclusion:

1. It is an irksome thing to do and to take advantage of, but both sides seem to approve of it is only those of us who have some political moral but are not in politics that are left to disapprove of the act.

2. It appears that those who are involved in politics, as I have always believed, on both sides seem to adhere to the principle “the end justifies the means”

3. I wonder if the Opposition representatives in the parliament now have a different view of the anti-hopping law recently tabled?

Is it a wise for the BN to rejoice in the takeover?

I think it was our former Prime Minister who recently commented that the individuals at the centre of this fiasco are “tainted” individuals: I believe he was referring to the reports that two of them are facing court cases, one introduced the sport of speed-hopping and one seems disgruntled with the other party which means that the defection is on personal grounds and not grounds of personal beliefs or conviction to the ideology of the other group. I believe a government is like a building and you want to build your building on firm ground: these do not seem like “firm ground” to me. What if, believing that our courts are unaffected by political wills, these two are found guilty and consequently lose their seats? More importantly, what if the votes go to the PR when the re-election is done? Will the third person then hop again? Will the fourth have a change of heart? Will we see crowds of people in front of the Perak Palace yet again?

What about the King?

I am a Malay (okay it can be a little more complicated than that but that’s a different issue) and consequently I subscribe to the institution of the Malay Rulers. Naturally I am pissed when people challenge the power a Malay King, particularly if that person is a non-Malay. What makes me more irate is when there are Malays supporting the move.

I believe these Malays who are supporting this Kafr should take a look at Australia’s history to see what happens to a people who have lost political power in the land of their forefathers.

I think I will stop writing about this point here because my sentiments towards institution of the Malay Kings will lead me to blabber far longer than I would want to.

On top of that there are the laws and the constitution both of which I need to read up on because I am not too sure what these texts say. So I reserve my comments till then. At the moment all I have are reports of what these individuals with vested interests say: not sound basis on which to make any judgement.

What about the people?

I think it is only natural for the people of Perak to be unhappy, at the very least. Put yourself in their place, you go out to vote and you came up with a government. Okay, to many, it was not the government that they wanted but, hey, it’s a democracy. What you want now is for that government to get on with the job of governing the state to the best of their ability. After all, life goes on for you too, you have families to feed, bills to pay and pets to... well, pet. And what do you get? A situation that is playing itself out like a badly scripted political drama and acted by talent-challenged thespians. Give these people another ballot paper and they will probably use it to vent their anger. The problem is, who will the target of their anger be? Will it be the people you tell them are the source of their predicament or will it be the people for whom they had initially voted: it could go both ways, still.

Is there corruption involved?

Is there corruption? Come on! We are talking about politics here. How many of us believe there is no corruption of any kind involved? The problem is not what we believe; the problem is what we can prove. More importantly, what we can prove and make tenable beyond the ability of highly paid lawyers to twist, obscure, inveigle and obfuscate.

ON our way home yesterday

2009-02-05T17:04:00.003+08:00

World Peace: an essay for my daughter and her class.

On our way home yesterday, my eldest daughter Ira told me that she was asked to write an essay on the topic ‘World Peace” by her English teacher. Ira complained that she had nothing much to say and all that she could think of was the genocidal grand holocaust (my terms) carried out by the Israelis in Gaza and Palestine in general. Even there, she said that he did not know much about the war.

She was rather taken aback when I said that world peace is not possible. I think her teachers may have talked about world peace as something that is attainable.

Human nature stands in the way of world peace. Deep within us all is the seed of conflict: some call it the original sin, some call it nafs, some call it the demon within it comes in many names but it is not a source of despair or anxiety because it is necessary. Without this “thing” how can we know what is evil. If we do not have a drive to do something wrong, how will we know that we have won in our battles against evil and temptation? After the war of Badr, The Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be unto Him) was once asked by his companions if there will be a bigger battle. To this he replied, the war against one’s own nafs. Moreover, the simple fact that we all want different things can also lead to massive wars, even genocide and weapons of mass destruction both real and imagined. One person want something but it already belongs to someone else and he does not want to part with it, consequently we have the motive for so many things ranging from a simple theft to inhuman murder of children and the innocent to a myriad of things that we humans have committed in the past and the present.

Conflict has its roots in both the present and the past but it can only be lived in the present. More importantly, if we fail to live in peace at the present, chances are peace will not be part of the legacy we leave behind for our future generations.

The question is not how we can reach world peace but how we can contribute to world peace because while we will never have world peace it remains a noble goal and one that is worth dying for. Even if we do not reach world peace, achieving peace for ourselves and our children is good enough

So how do we begin? If you read the scriptures of religion and the treatises of great minds, you will find a simple idea that appears again and again bearing many names and taking many slightly different forms. It appears in the scriptures of Abraham A.S., Jesus / Isa A. S., Muhammad S.A.W., Lao Tzu, Mahatma Ghandi and in the writings of other great minds and leaders of human civilization since its very beginning. I shall call it, “Make yourself the center”.

You are the beginning of world peace process. Let yourself be the end of the circle of hate. To do this you need to rid yourself of all your hate and begin to be at peace with yourself. Once you have the peace within you, you will then be able to make peace wit the world around you and with the people around you.

Then teach another to do the same. Make sure that he or she does the same. It is like dropping a drop of ink into a bowl of crystal clear water. It will spread and eventually the whole bowl will have a slight tint of blue. Unlike the bowl of water, our world may never take attain world peace because we have an innate tendency for conflict and war but we may be able to achieve a balance that we can all live with in relative peace.

And so, how about ‘World Peace”? Attainable or not, this is irrelevant. In the end, we will be judged not by the peace that we live in but by our deeds in keeping that peace and making it a legacy to our young. We are the beginnings of world peace but we cannot move towards any kind of peace at all if we do not find peace in our hearts, if we cannot find peace with ourselves, how can we find peace with those around us?

How do we begin? I believe we begin by praying for peace. Then after your prayers are done, try sitting in silence and see how long you can stand being with yourself all alone. Tell me, if you cannot stand being with yourself, what hope have you got of being in peace with anything or anyone else. Where did this idea come from you may ask? It is not mine; I learnt it long long from someone who introduced me to something called Sufism.

For the youths

2009-01-13T17:16:00.000+08:00

He talks about some mistakes that we often do in Malaysia.

Yusuf Estes - Muslim Youth in Today's Society from MR on Vimeo.

How to do dakwah

2009-01-13T12:39:00.000+08:00

Love this talk

2009-01-13T11:40:00.000+08:00

Farewell to my teacher

2008-12-18T23:53:00.001+08:00

Earlier this year, i received news that Prof Vin D'Cruz was terminally ill. Shortly after, I spoke to him on the phone. His voice sounded tired but we still spoke with an infectious optimism. We spoke about his plans for this year. He was going to travel to China on invitation from a university there. They want him to teach there for a while: to teach whatever he wanted. I thought it was a wonderful idea and an incredible honour. That was the last time we spoke. I prayed that it would not be the last but my prayers was not answered.

I first met Vin more than a decade ago when I was doing my masters in UKM. There were only three students in his class that first semester when he was a visiting professor at UKM: Faezah, Marlini and me. That semester he introduced us to the Concrete / Abstract Continuum, an extension of the Dialogic Principle that formed the framework of his researches and writings. I worked most of the way through my masters.

Over the years that he was there, several of my friends and colleagues learnt from him. I think the most important thing that we learnt from him was the art of writing. He called the framework that guided his work "the continuum": it is a useful tool that guides analyses and gives meaning to insight. More importantly, to me, it is a tool to help us understand ourselves: as people, as individuals.

Yesterday, I spoke to Raihanah, (Dr Raihanah M. Mydin - Department of English Literature, PPBL UKM) about Vin's passing. I think we will do something in his honour but that will take time.

Honestly, I am still trying to figure out how I should feel about Vin's passing. There is a void in our lives.

Good night, Vin.

Politics and the regular Malaysian

2008-12-05T22:32:00.001+08:00

Recently, I received a call from my very old friend, Rozainor. He said he was putting together a group of people to get this idea he had on its feet. He wanted to do something practical and pragmatic to help the people in his community, and so I found myself walking into the Rasa Sayang Nasi Kandar place on Jalan Yap Kwan Seng on Monday evening. the first thing that surprised me was his hair which has grown a decidedly paler shade of grey than the last time we met. i nearly did not recognize the guy. There were five other people at the meeting which transpired over roti canai, mee rebus, teh tarik and a few other dishes that i have forgotten.

Half way through meeting we found ourselves knee-deep in interesting ideas and suggestions. By the end of the night, we had laid the foundations for our very own NGO. I felt a little strange when I left the restaurant that night; this was a situation I had never dreamt being in. My arguments during my days on the student union echoed in my mind as I drove home. It was like revisiting an old friend whom you thought was dead.

I think I can sink my teeth into this idea: it politics and yet it is not. It is a wing of politics that many Malaysian politicians actively avoid: the part where there is work to be done and real things to achieve. In most cases, Malaysian politics involves small deeds but hordes of aspiring politicians fighting to bask in its brief lime light. things look promising but it remains to be seen. it remains to be seen.

People are strange

2008-10-25T23:42:00.001+08:00

An old friend of mine called me this morning. I’m not really sure what he wanted to talk about. I think he mentioned that he had extra airtime on his phone and automatically a part of my mind went, “Hmmmmmmm?”

Anyway, he asked me about writing, wanting to know how I write ‘so much’. Frankly speaking the question puzzled me because I write nowhere nearly as much as some people I know in the media and even in academia. For this friend of mine, the problem stems from his profession and training: he’s a lawyer. So inevitably, he has to be careful with what he writes. However, writing is a form of self-expression and it is quite therapeutic too.

Coincidentally, I have a student who is also facing a load of problems with his writing. This student’s problem however stems from a different source and unfortunately I cannot reveal his circumstances. Suffice to say that he has limited access to computers and material.

Computers have been a boon to writers and also a bane: certainly it has made writing a much simpler process and it has also made it possible for us to write much better than we would ordinarily be able to thanks to spell-checkers and a multitude other writing tools and aids. Computers have also stripped the glamour from writing to a large extend.

There was a time when those who could read and write were important people who were sough after for their help in deciphering the mysteries of the written word. Not so long ago, and to a certain extent today still, there were people whose livelihood come from writing names and information in official forms. They sit at tiny tables outside government offices and wait for people to come to them to fill in the numerous forms that the bureaucracy force people to fill. These people are beginning to disappear, where their numbers were many, they are now few. As literacy grows among our people, the magic associated with writing disappears as it becomes a more mundane act. This is a good thing, excellent in fact, but it also means the passing of one world and the rise of a different one.

Today, there seems to be two kinds of writing: writing with electronics and writing on paper. The former seems to be so mundane that it goes almost unnoticed except when it is not on the flashy latest computer or gadget. Even then it is not the writing that people see but the gadget. For example, I used to have a pda. It was a fun gadget and it was useful too, in many ways. Writing on the pda was fun and you could do it practically everywhere. I soon realised that I could enter a cafe, a restaurant, an office, even a masjid, sit in a corner and write away on my machine without any one even so much as glance. I once entered a roadside restaurant and decided to make some notes of some things I had to do that day. The moment, I put my to the paper of my notebook, I saw the proprietor and his staff look in my direction suspiciously. He then came up to me to ask me what I was doing. I was making a ‘to do’ list at the cafeteria on campus when I was asked by several people, “tulis apa tu?”. Strangely, there were people sitting at the other tables typing away on their PDAs intently. It seems that typing on a machine is mundane and not worth noting but writing in a notebook that cost a fraction of the cost of the PDA.

So, I guess I need to ask my friend which kind of writing he was interested in.

From a message I received on facebook

2008-10-22T09:27:00.001+08:00

Extracted from Singapore Straits Times on 10 Aug 2008.

By Nur Dianah Suhaimi (ndianah@sph.com.sg)

As a Malay, I've always been told that I have to work twice as hard to prove my worth. When I was younger, I always thought of myself as the quintessential Singaporean. Of my four late grandparents, two were Malay, one was Chinese and one was Indian. This, I concluded, makes me a mix of all the main races in the country. But I later realised that it was not what goes into my blood that matters, but what my identity card says under 'Race'.

Because my paternal grandfather was of Bugis origin, my IC says I'm Malay. I speak the language at home, learnt it in school, eat the food and a lesser Singaporean than those from other racial groups.

I grew up clueless about the concept of national service because my father was never enlisted. He is Singaporean all right, born and bred here like the rest of the boys born in 1955.
He is not handicapped in any way. He did well in school and participated in sports.

Unlike the rest, however, he entered university immediately after his A levels. He often told me that his schoolmates said he was 'lucky' because
he was not called up for national service.

'What lucky?' he would tell them. 'Would you feel lucky if your country doesn't trust you?' So I learnt about the rigours of national service from my male cousins. They would describe in vivid detail their training regimes, the terrible food they! were served and the torture inflicted upon them - most of which, I would later realise, were exaggerations.

But one thing these stories had in common was that they all revolved around the Police Academy in Thomson. As I got older, it puzzled me why my Chinese friends constantly referred to NS as 'army'. In my family and among my Malay friends, being enlisted in the army was like hitting the jackpot. The majority served in the police force because, as is known, the Government was not comfortable with Malay Muslims serving in the army. But there are more of them now.

Throughout my life, my father has always told me that as a Malay, I need to work twice as hard to prove my worth. He said people have the misconception that all Malays are inherently lazy.

I was later to get the exact same advice from a Malay minister in office who is a family friend. When I started work, I realised that the advice rang true, especially because I wear my religion on my head. My professionalism suddenly became an issue. One question I was asked at a job interview was whether I would be willing to enter a nightclub to chase a story. I answered: 'If it's part of the job, why not? And you can rest assured I won't be tempted to have fun.'

When I attend media events, before I can introduce myself, people assume I write for the Malay daily Berita Harian. A male Malay colleague in The Straits Times has the same problem, too.

This makes me wonder if people also assume that all Chinese reporters are from Lianhe Zaobao and Indian reporters from Tamil Murasu.

People also question if I can do stories which require stake-outs in the sleazy lanes of Geylang. They say because of my tudung I will stick out like a sore thumb. So I changed into a baseball cap and a men's sports
jacket - all borrowed from my husband - when I covered Geylang.

I do not want to be seen as different from the rest just because I dress
differently. I want the same opportunities and the same job challenges.
Beneath the tudung, I, too, have hair and a functioning brain. And if anything, I feel that my tudung has actually helped me secure some difficult interviews.

Newsmakers - of all races - tend to trust me more because I look guai (Hokkien for well-behaved) and thus, they feel, less likely to write critical stuff about them.

Recently, I had a conversation with several colleagues about this essay. I told them I never thought of myself as being particularly patriotic.
One Chinese colleague thought this was unfair. 'But you got to enjoy free eduation,' she said.

Sure, for the entire 365 days I spent in Primary 1 in 1989. But my parents paid for my school and university fees for the next 15 years I was studying.

It seems that many Singaporeans do not know that Malays have stopped getting free education since 1990. If I remember clearly, the news made front-page news at that time.

We went on to talk about the Singapore Government's belief that Malays here would never point a missile at their fellow Muslim neighbours in a war.

I said if not for family ties, I would have no qualms about leaving the country. Someone then remarked that this is why Malays like myself are not trusted. But I answered that this lack of patriotism on my part comes from not being trusted, and for being treated like a potential traitor.

It is not just the NS issue. It is the frustration of explaining t non-Malays that I don't get special privileges from the Government. It is having to deal with those who question my professionalism because of my religion. It is having people assume, day after day, that you are lowly educated, lazy and poor. It is like being the least favourite child in a family. This child will try to win his parents' love only for so long.

After a while, he will just be engulfed by disappointment and bitterness.
I also believe that it is this 'least favourite child' mentality which makes most Malays defensive and protective of their own kind.

Why do you think Malay families spent hundreds of dollars voting for two Malay boys in the Singapore Idol singing contest? And do you know that Malays who voted for other competitors were frowned upon by the community?

The same happens to me at work. When I write stories which put Malays in a bad light, I am labeled a traitor. A Malay reader once wrote to me to say: 'I thought a Malay journalist would have more empathy for these unfortunate people than a non-Malay journalist.'

But such is the case when you are a Malay Singaporean. Your life is not just about you, as much as you want it to be. You are made to feel
responsible for the rest of the pack and your actions affect them as well.
If you trip, the entire community falls with you. But if you triumph, it is considered everyone's success.

When 12-year-old Natasha Nabila hit the headlines last year for her record PSLE aggregate of 294, I was among the thousands of Malays here who celebrated the news. I sent instant messages to my friends on Gmail and chatted excitedly with my Malay colleagues at work.

Suddenly a 12-year-old has become the symbol of hope for the community and a message to the rest that Malays can do it too - and not just in singing competitions.

And just like that, the 'least favourite child' in me feels a lot happier.
Each year, come Aug 9, my father, who never had the opportunity to do national service, dutifully hangs two flags at home - one on the front gate and the other by the side gate.

I wonder if putting up two flags is his way of making himself feels like a better-loved child of Singapore.

Lesson for the day

2008-10-21T10:30:00.000+08:00

Muay Thai Chaiya Sawaddee Fight - The funniest videos clips are here

Monsters???

2008-10-13T15:02:00.002+08:00

I was thinking of going for a swim in the ocean this weekend. Then I saw this video
http://www.thevideospace.com/videos/27950/Monster_Of_The_Deep.htm
And I promptly reconsidered my plans.

Just another body of water

2008-09-18T09:34:00.002+08:00

When I arrived home yesterday, the road leading to my apartment was crowded with cars and motorcycles. there were two police cars too. In the complex compound, there was a fire engine and there was a Civil Defence vehicle and an ambulance. a crowd had gathered by the lake behind my apartment building. The police had stretched their 'crime scene' tape from several trees and fixtures on the edge of the lake. There were several police officers there including the OCPD and the Sergeant in charge of the area.

In the water, several members of the Civil Defence Search and Rescue team were looking for something underwater. Two of them were throwing and dragging in a hook in the lake. I met Mr Siva, Mr Tham and Mr Din, members of my apartment's residents committee and they told me that three boys had drowned in the lake and that those people were trying to recover their bodies.

There was a group pf people with the police, I guessed they were parents of the children and their neighbours. Some of them seems very distraught. There were many in tears among them, some seemed inconsolable.

The crowd steadily grew for a while as we watched them search. Once or twice, it seemed like they found something but when the dove in, they came up empty.

As the dusk descended and night was approaching, the crowd thinned. I too made my way home to break fast. When I came out that night, the guard told me that they had found the bodies. It seems that a few moments after I left, the frogmen arrived. It only took them a few moments to find the boys. So they loaded the bodies onto the waiting ambulance and took them to the hospital for post-mortem examinations.

It was certainly a reminder that death is often unexpected and that our lives are never as secure as we imagine it to be. However, it was something that one of my neighbours said that really showed me the character of us Malaysians. First he reminded me of the suicide case at the same lake some time back. A man had parked his car beside the lake and simply walked into the lake to drown himself. There were a few people fishing there but they had initially thought that the man was being foolish. When they realised what was really happening, they tried to save him but it was too late. Then, my neighbour shook his head sadly and said, "Haiyaaa, this place sure haunted one now".

I guess he was not the only one who felt the same way because last night, the apartment building was unusually quiet. I think I did not even hear any motorcycles come and go from the building after night fall.

The report below is the report on the deaths in the New Strait Times newspaper today.

NST Online » Local News http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Thursday/National/2353154/Article/index_html

2008/09/18

3 schoolboys drown during fishing outing

KUALA LUMPUR: A fishing trip turned into a tragedy for six primary school students when three of them drowned in a lake in Pandan Perdana here yesterday.

The three were Muhammad Faris Ahmad Azazi, 9, Al Mujib Muneir and Shah Nazim Amir Riduan, both 12.
A member of the group, Hazlan Alham, 12, said they had gone to the lake, about 500 metres from their flats, at noon.
"It's a school holiday in Selangor and we had planned to spend the day fishing at the lake," he said at the Ampang Hospital last night.
Hazlan said most of the boys, all students of Sekolah Kebangsaan Cheras Indah, only informed their parents that they were just hanging out with friends.

The boys decided to jump into the lake about 1.30pm to cool themselves. But tragedy struck when Faris started struggling in the water.
"We all tried to save him, but Al Mujib and Shah Nazim Amir also encountered difficulty," Hazlan said, adding that the rest of the group called for help from a man fishing nearby and passers-by.
"Some of them called the Fire and Rescue Department but by that time, it was too late because my three friends had disappeared into the water."
Faris' mother, Rohani Mohd Noor, 51, said she last saw the younger of her two children around noon.
"He told me he was hanging out with friends. At 4pm, while I was cooking for buka puasa, two of his friends came and told me that he had drowned."
A Fire and Rescue Department spokesman said they received an emergency call at 4.29pm and their divers recovered the first body at 6.36pm.
"The second body was found at 7.16pm, followed by the last body at 7.21pm."

Explaining ourselves

2008-09-03T11:36:00.002+08:00

We Muslims in Malaysia are a little weird at times; we often complain that our non-Muslim neighbours do not understand us and what we do but when it comes to explaining ourselves, we are quite atrocious.

My old friend Yong called, he has been organizing a buka puasa get together with his Muslim friends and clients but in the past it has not really worked out too well. Among other things, people tend to disappear after the iftar (iftar is the proper word for buka puasa, by the way). I don't understand why no one has explained it to him before.

The reason is simple. Iftar happens at Maghrib which is around 7.30pm and after the iftar they need to perform the Maghrib prayers, hence we need to a nearby musollah or masjid. By the way, masjid is the proper word because mosque is taken from mosquito because the colonials thought that the sound of people praying was like the drone of mosquitoes. I think they weren't very religious people themselves too because they would know what other religion's prayers sound like when done en masse too.

Anyway, in Ramadhan we perform the tarawikh prayers after the Isyak prayers. The tarawikh prayers is special because it can only be performed in Ramadhan. At around 8.30pm we gather for Isyak. first we perform the Isyak prayers with or without the sunat (extra) prayers before and after isya prayers. We then move into the Tarawikh prayers. some perform it twice and then they break for a sermon. After the sermon they do it twice more and then close with a Witr prayer. the whole thing lasts about two hours and then we break for moreh (some food and refreshment) before heading home. Usually it finishes around 10 to 10.30 PM. Some masjids and musollahs perform the Tarawikh prayers ten times and do not break for sermons in between. It still takes about two hours.

In addition, people tend to be reluctant to go "buka puasas" in the second half of Ramadhan because in the second half of Ramadhan there is one night called the Lailatul Qadr: a special night when Allah sends his blessings down to earth. Any good deeds, prayers or acts of faith and goodness done on that night will be rewarded equal to a thousand regular night: Imagine praying for a night and being rewarded as if you have stood in prayers for a thousand nights. The truly blessed, it is said, will be able to "meet" Lailatul Qadr and when this happens, your life changes permanently. For the better.

So, what happens then is people disappear at around 8pm at buka puasas. So if you are organizing one, try starting earlier, say 6.30pm. This way you have 1 hour to mingle before diving into the food. it is also good public relation is you are a non-Muslim because you will seem to be sharing the fast as well as the breaking of it.

My next explanation: more Ramadhan related items.

Fasting for my Non-Muslims friends

2008-09-02T12:54:00.001+08:00

Its Ramadhan again and the afternoon food markets are back. For the fasting Muslims, by this I mean those who are really fasting, not those who are taking cigarette, drinks and snack breaks in the storeroom during the day or those who hide in their cars to have their KFC snack plate and coke, or those who are simply not fasting, this is a month of great rewards. My Ustadz told me long ago that three are three rewards for the fasting Muslims: a calmness during the fast, a calmness in the grave and a virtuous presence when we face Allah.

All that aside, fasting is even a great thing for anyone even if he or she is not a Muslim. At the very least, you get a month long diet. In fact not fasting in Ramadhan can be perilous for the non-Muslim because they too often patronize the food markets and this means more food for a whole month. This of course translates into a few notches more on the belt. So, here's my recommendation for my non-Muslim friends, specifically in Malaysia but those elsewhere also.

First, remember that fasting isn't strictly Islamic: every major religion, even minor ones, have their own versions of the fast.

The simplest fast is simply to change the way you eat and drink. Try this.

Have an early breakfast. I won't recommend the Syahur for non-Muslims because we do Syahur (wake up at around 4 or 5 to have a meal) for its religious significance not for the meal itself. So just get up early and have a good hearty breakfast.
Avoid any food, fluid, sex, carnal behavior ( smiley face here), and anything of the sort during the day.
Break your fast when you hear the Maghreb adzan which indicates the transition of day to night. At this time eat, drink and be merry for a short while but don't eat too much because you'll need to move after the meal.
At around 9, retire for prayers. The Muslims go for Tarawikh prayers, you can try praying for an hour or so, you could even try meditating by focusing on emptying your mind and controlling your breathing: simply breathe in deeply, hold for 3 counts, exhale slowly for ten counts, hold for 3 counts and then repeat.
Do this everyday for a whole month.

Have fun. Ramadhan is a month of blessing, I don't see why you couldn't take part in it, after all Allah blesses anyone he wants and we are all his creation. Whether you believe in him or not, that is between you and him. After all, hidayah (light of faith - closest translation, I think) belongs to Allah and he alone chooses who to shine it on.

On the subject of 'Permatang Pauh'

2008-08-31T23:48:00.001+08:00

I entered a taxi in Miri recently. The driver asked as we began our journey to the Institut Pendidikan Guru Miri, "So, how are things in Permatang Pauh?"

I replied, "I don't know anything about Permatang Pauh but I do have a pauh tree in front of my house"

The driver gave a confused reply. After a few moments of confusion, I explained to the taxi man that pauh means mango in northern speech and that a permatang is a large place: a plantation of sorts. I added that I don't have a whole permatang of pauhs but I do have a pauh tree in front of my house and that the tree was doing well.

It took the driver a few minutes to decide whether to talk about politics or botany. He chose politics but kept it local thereby giving me a brief insight into the political situation in Miri.

Sibu & Miri 1

2008-08-30T19:12:00.001+08:00

27/8/08 & 28/8/08.

I left my home yesterday and took the LRT to KL where I took the Putra Line to Sentral and then the ERL to KLIA. I boarded the MAS flight and reached Sibu at 10.30 in the morning.

On the LRT I met a politically interested school boy. He was in the sixth form, I think. I don't remember how I we got talking, I think he started by asking where I was going and then the conversation promptly went to politics. It was a short conversation because I think he was unprepared for my answers. I think he was expecting the usual 'how bad the government is' or 'those bloody oppositionists' sort of talk but what he got instead was my brief 'politics is not just about power, its is also about responsibility and our people have only learnt one half of the equation' position. I admit it was a little amusing to see the "errrr, what was that again?' look on his face when he found himself unprepared for the answers to his questions.

At the airport, there was a young man, an executive, from the looks of it, begging the counter staff to let him onto a plane because he had to attend to meeting somewhere and his boss, he says, would not understand the concept of him missing the plane. He said he was only a few minutes late due to traffic jams. Personally, I am not sympathetic: I have been in that situation before, when you know you are going for I've been there before and if he's a Malaysian he should know that the just-in-time approach doesn't work in Malaysia… then again it doesn't work anywhere in Asia for that matter. Oh what the heck, it doesn't even work in Europe and the US if you are post-colonial enough to admit the truth. The folks I know there are constantly complaining of missing things just because they hang on to this myth with surprising tenacity.

I am writing this in the Sibu airport cafeteria while I wait for my 4.45 flight to Miri on the 28th of August. Its 3.40, I have already checked in and ordered my ice-lemon tea with no sugar.

So what have I learnt in Sibu this time?

First and foremost, if you are dining at the Tanahmas Hotel, avoid the minestrone soup… it is not a minestrone soup like you would have anywhere else. Here it’s a clear vegetable soup with broccoli and cauliflower. However, I strongly recommend the Laksa Sarawak at the hotel. It is by far the best Laksa Sarawak I have ever had at a restaurant in Sarawak and, by far also, the most generous helping. Okay, admittedly it is also relatively expensive but it was worth it. So squeeze the lemon into the grave and have the accompanying sambal belacan. Perhaps, it is not something about which one would wax lyrically but it was definitely notable. In short, I returned to my room last night with a smile on my face after the laksa.

On the plane, I noticed that the head-steward spoke Malay with a Mat Salleh sengau (nasally accent normally associated with Westerners and taken by locals as a sign that the speaker supposedly spoke English more than Malay but that is not usually the case) and he spoke English with a distinctly Malaysian accent. He even mispronounced a few words and used distinctly Malay based phonetics). So, in effect the man butchered both languages in a brief moment of microphone fondling. I wonder if it means that they need better language training at MAS.

28/8/08

My first Fokker flight. I left Sibu on a Fokker 50. All flights I have taken before have been on Boeings. The twin turboprop jet propelled plane sits 50. The stuff inside looked somewhat aged, I have the impression that they have been pulled off the Boeings. The plane still felt solid though. What was interesting was that it flew much lower than the Boeings. I could see the landscape all the way from Sibu to Miri: green, green and more green. I guess if the weather was bad the plane would be really shaking because when we flew into some clouds, it shook quite a bit. The landing was smooth enough. All in all I enjoyed my first trip on a Fokker and I was so thankful that we didn't have to go through the bad weather that I saw from a distance.

29/8/08

Work at the Miri teacher training institute. the rest of the day was spent in a room at the Grand Palace Hotel. I sampled the Laksa Sarawak at this hotel too but I would have to say that the Tanamas one was better.

When I arrived at the Miri airport that night at seven, the weather was clear but it began to rain later. when it was time to take off, it was raining cats and dogs and various other animals.

We arrived at 11.15 a little shaken but none the worse for wear.

And so it passes out of human hands.

2008-08-17T23:29:00.001+08:00

Not so long ago when Shaiful accused Anwar of anal sex, the country went up in outrage. An Ulama suggested that Shaiful make an oath or more precisely a mubahalah. A few days ago, the boy did it. In the other camp, as predicted, Anwar is claiming it is a political conspiracy because it coincided with the beginning of the Permatang Pauh by election process and he refuses to take the oath because his lawyers told him not to. Then there are those who also question various aspects of the oath Shaiful took.

The non-Muslims particularly do not seem to understand the whole affair here. You can see this when they asked those questions after the mubahalah.

In effect, the matter is over. Shaiful has placed it in God’s hands. The court case, the political significance of the case, the advices from Anwar’s lawyers are all moot.

To my understanding, what Shaiful has done can be broken done into these;

1. He has claimed that on a certain date, Anwar had placed his member into Shaiful’s anus.

2. He has evoked the wrath of Allah if what he said was a lie.

3. He said he was willing to face any consequences Allah sees fit to befall upon him and his family should he be lying.

This act emulates what was done in the time of the Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) but that was a case of accusing a man and a woman of zina. I believe the actual act is irrelevant here: both acts are sexual and they are not allowed in Islam. The Mubahalah is the ultimate statement: the absolute last claim of truth and evokes retribution well beyond this life. Here, we are talking about being an accursed on earth and eternal damnation in hell. All sanctions that human courts and human laws can dish out have been rendered meaningless. His act compels a fellow Muslim to believe him: it is a matter of faith: he has evoked the authority of God. The only question left now is whether you are willing to set aside all else.

There are those who still question the validity of the oath, the circumstances of the act, the credibility of Shaiful, the motives behind the accusation, whether the act of consensual or not, and a multitude of other things that the human mind can think up. The situation remains the same: one man has said that another man had anal sex with him. That act is illegal in the eyes of the religion. He states that he is willing to suffer on earth and in the Hereafter if he lied. In this act, he is not asking for human justice, this has already been done in the courts. Whether he gets satisfaction in the courts is also irrelevant: he and the accused will stand in God’s court in the day of judgement.

Did he consent to the act? That too is not important, he claims that it happened. If he consented, then God will punish him for it: more precisely, God will punish them both for it. If he lied, God will punish him for it. For us the question is simple: do you want to believe?

For me, the answers are simpler now:

1. Do I believe it happened? Yes.

2. Do I believe that it Shaiful consented? I think we need to revisit the term “under duress” in this case or at least, wait until we hear the evidence.

3. Do I believe that the other party should be punished for the act? If it can be proven in the court of law, yes. If it cannot, that too is fine because God will take care of the matter.

4. Do I believe that we should vote the other party as our leader? This is a political question, it does not belong here.

Personally, It think the case is closed: we have to decide whether we want to believe Shaiful or not. Everything else, we leave to Allah: the ultimate judge.

The final question: how far is our faith in Allah.

1. Allah: "Allah" is the personal name of God. Who is one, the owner of the entire universes without any partnership. Neither He has born someone nor He is born by anyone. He is unique in His personality and characteristics and no-one other than His is able to worship.

2. Al-Rahman: The One who gives blessings and prosperity to all beings without showing disparity.

3. Al-Rahim: The One who gives blessings and prosperity, particularly to those who use these gifts as Allah has said, and is merciful to the believers in the hereafter.

4. Al-Malik: He, The Exalted, His Existence is obvious by proofs and He is clear from the delusions of attributes of bodies. The One with the complete Dominion, the One Whose Dominion is clear from imperfection.

5. Al-Quddus: The One who is pure from any imperfection and clear from children and adversaries.

6. Al-Salam: He who free his servants from all danger and obstructions. He who gives His greeting to those fortunate people in heaven.

7. Al-Mu'min: The One who witnessed for Himself that no one is God but Him. And He witnessed for His believers that they are truthful in their belief that no one is God but Him.

8. Al-Muhaymin: The One who witnesses the saying and deeds of His creatures.

9. Al-Aziz: The Defeater who is not defeated.

10. Al-Jabbar: The One that nothing happens in His Dominion except that which He willed.

11. Al-Mutakabbir: The One who is clear from the attributes of the creatures and from resembling them.

12. Al-Khaliq: The One who brings everything from non-existence to existence.

13. Al-Bari': The Creator who has the Power to turn the entities.

14. Al-Musawwir: The One who forms His creatures in different pictures.

15. Al-Ghaffar: The One who forgives the sins of His slaves time and time again.

16. Al-Qahhar: The Subduer who has the perfect Power and is not unable over anything.

17. Al-Wahhab: The One who is Generous in giving plenty without any return. He is everything that benefits whether Halal or Haram.

18. Al-Razaq: The one who provides all things beneficial to His creatures.

19. Al-Fattah: The One who opens for His slaves the closed worldy and religious matters.

20. Al-'Alim: The Knowledgeable; The One nothing is absent from His knowledge.

21. Al-Qabid The Constrictor He who constricts.

22. Al-Basit: The Expander He who is the expander. (21 and 22) The One who constricts the sustenance by His wisdom and expands and widens it with His Generosity and Mercy.

23. Al-Khafid The Abaser He who diminishes or decreases.

24. Ar-Rafi': The Exalter He who uplifts. (23 and 24) The One who lowers whoever He willed by His Destruction and raises whoever He willed by His Endowment.

25. Al-Mu'iz The Honorer He who makes one glorious, gives dign\ity, and treats one with respect.

26. Al-Mudhil: The Dishonorer He who lowers and puts one in the abasement and disgradation. (25 and 26) He gives esteem to whoever He willed, hence there is no one to degrade Him; And He degrades whoever He willed, hence there is no one to give Him esteem.

27. Al-Sami': The One who Hears all things that are heard by His Eternal Hearing without an ear, instrument or organ.

28. Al-Basir: The One who Sees all things that are seen by His Eternal Seeing without a pupil or any other instrument.

29. Al-Hakam: He is the Ruler and His judgment is His Word.

30. Al-'Adl: The One who is entitled to do what He does.

31. Al-Latif: The One who is kind to His slaves and endows upon them.

32. Al-Khabir: The One who knows the truth of things.

33. Al-Halim: The One who delays the punishment for those who deserve it and then He might forgive them.

34. Al-'Azim: The One deserving the attributes of Exaltment, Glory, Extolement,and Purity from all imperfection.

35. Al-Ghafur: The All-Forgiving The One who forgives all and a lot.

36. Al-Shakur: The One who gives a lot of reward for a little obedience.

37. Al-'Aliyy: The One who is clear from the attributes of the creatures.

38. Al-Kabir: The One who is greater than everything in status.

39. Al-Hafiz: The One who protects whatever and whoever He willed to protect.

40. Al-Muqit: The One who has the Power.

41. Al-Hasib: The One who gives the satisfaction.

42. Al-Jalil: The One who is attributed with greatness of Power and Glory of status.

43. Al-Karim: The One who is clear from abjectness.

44. Al-Raqib: The One that nothing is absent from Him. Hence it's meaning is related to the attribute of Knowledge.

45. Al-Mujib: The One who answers the one in need if he asks Him and rescues the yearner if he calls upon Him.

46. Al-Wasi': The All-Embracing The One who is limitless and abundance.

47. Al-Hakim: The One who is correct in His doings.

48. Al-Wadud: The One who who loves those who do good and bestows on them His compassion. He who is the only one who should be loved and whose friendship is to be earned.

49. Al-Majid: The One who is with perfect Power, High Status, Compassion, Generosity and Kindness.

50. Al-Ba'ith: The One who resurrects His slaves after death for reward and/or punishment.

51. Al-Shahid: The One who nothing is absent from Him.

52. Al-Haqq: The One who truly exists and whose existence has no change.

53. Al-Wakil: The One who gives the satisfaction and is relied upon.

54. Al-Qawi: The one who is the most Strong.

55. Al-Matin: The One with extreme Power which is un-interrupted and He does not get tired.

56. Al-Waliyy: The Supporter.

57. Al-Hamid: The praised One who deserves to be praised.

58. Al-Muhsi: The One who the count of things are known to him.

59. Al-Mubdi': The One who started the human being. That is, He created him.

60. Al-Mu'id: The One who brings back the creatures after death.

61. Al-Muhyi: The One who took out a living human from semen that does not have a soul. He gives life by giving the souls back to the worn out bodies on the resurrection day and He makes the hearts alive by the light of knowledge.

62. Al-Mumit: The One who renders the living dead.

63. Al-Hayy: The One attributed with a life that is unlike our life and is not that of a combination of soul, flesh or blood.

64. Al-Qayyum: The One who remains and does not end.

65. Al-Wajid: The Rich who is never poor. Al-Wajd is Richness.

66. Al-Majid: The Noble He whose highness is great, Who is beneficent and His munificence is rich.

67. Al-Wahid: The One without a partner.

68. Al-Ahad: The One who is the only one in universe.

69. Al-Samad: The Master who is relied upon in matters and reverted to in ones needs.

70. Al-Qadir: The One attributed with Power.

71. Al-Muqtadir: The One with the perfect Power that nothing is withheld rom Him.

72. Al-Muqaddim The Expediter He who gives Priority to someone others.

73. Al-Mu'akhkhir: The Delayer He who delays whatever he wants. (72 and 73) The One who puts things in their right places. He makes ahead what He wills and delays what He wills.

74. Al-Awwal: The One whose Existence is without a beginning.

75. Al-Akhir: The One whose Existence is without an end.

76. Al-Zahir: The One that nothing is above Him and nothing is underneath Him, hence He exists without a place.

77. Al-Batin: He, The Exalted, His Existence is obvious by proofs and He is clear from the delusions of attributes of bodies.

78. Al-Wali: The One who owns things and manages them.

79. Al-Muta'ali: The One who is clear from the attributes of the creation.

80. Al-Barr: The One who is kind to His creatures, who covered them with His sustenance and specified whoever He willed among them by His support, protection, and special mercy.

81. Al-Tawwab: The One who grants repentance to whoever He willed among His creatures and accepts his repentance.

82. Al-Muntaqim: The One who victoriously prevails over His enemies and punishes them for their sins. It may mean the One who destroys them.

83. Al-'Afuww: The One with wide forgiveness.

84. Al-Ra'uf: The One with extreme Mercy. The Mercy of Allah is His will to endow upon whoever He willed among His creatures.

85. Malik Al-Mulk: The One who controls the Dominion and gives dominion to whoever He willed.

86. Thu al-Jalal wa al-Ikram: The One who deserves to be Exalted and not denied.

87. Al-Muqsit: The One who is Just in His judgment.

88. Al-Jami': The One who gathers the creatures on a day that there is no doubt about, that is the Day of Judgment.

89. Al-Ghaniyy: The One who does not need the creation.

90. Al-Mughni: The One who satisfies the necessities of the creatures.

91. Al-Mani': The Supporter who protects and gives victory to His pious believers. Al-Mu'tiy The Withholder

92. Al-Darr: The Distresser He who creates that which makes one dispondent.

93. An-Nafi': The Propitious He who creates all thing which provides goodness and benefit. (92 and 93) The One who makes harm reach to whoever He willed and benefit to whoever He willed.

94. Al-Noor: The One who provides divine light to the entire universe; to the faces, minds and hearts of His servants.

95. Al-Hadi: The One whom with His Guidance His belivers were guided, and with His Guidance the living beings have been guided to what is beneficial for them and protected from what is harmful to them.

96. Al-Badi: The One who created the creation and formed it without any preceding example.

97. Al-Baqi: The One that the state of non-existence is impossible for Him.

98. Al-Warith: The One who has everlasting ownership of all things and whose Existence remains.

99. Al-Rashid: The One who guides to the right path.

100. Al-Sabur: The One who is patient, and revengeful to creatures and does not quickly punish the sinners.

The 99 names of Allah translated is borrowed from http://www.geocities.com/ahlulbayt14/99.html

Anal interlude

2008-08-13T16:15:00.001+08:00

I have recently received a number of emails telling me all sorts of things about that famous anus related case. So, to offer a little interlude but still keeping with the anus related theme, I wish to relate a story. a short one, promise.
An elder person from my kampung was once taken to the hospital in excruciating pain in the stomach and anus. Upon questioning, they found out that he had not been to toilet for days, which was the cause of the stomach pain, according to the doctor. The doctor used a proctoscope (is that what it is called?), and found a rambutan seed lodged in such a way that it caused a blockage in the anal canal. The doctor then used a forcep to remove it.
Unfortunately, immediately upon removal of the obstruction, a flood of faeces, of different textures and consistencies came rushing out. Needless to say, the other patients had to be directed to a different clinic for the rest of the day whille the doctor, the nurse and the doctor's office were being cleaned.
Ah yes, the anus is such an amazing thing.

And so the next generation marries

2008-07-13T10:26:00.001+08:00

My uncles and cousin (in red) recovering from the food under some shade.

Mum and brother pondering that ever present question, "Ok, the food is done. Now what do we do?"

My niece and her husband. I'm feeling oooooollllddddd.

Mubahalah: the ultimate solution.

2008-07-06T17:10:00.002+08:00

The issue of willing or unwilling invasion of the human anus has again appeared in the Malaysian political scene. Someone claiming to be the aide a politician has made a police report claiming that said politician sodomized him. The politician, in retaliation, has conjured up all sorts of accusations to so many other parties, some of whom have nothing to do with the sodomy case. One could easily argue that it is an attempt to distract people’s attention away from the sodomy case but of course, supporters of said politicians would rather die than accept this interpretation of the events.

This highly publicized political drama unfolds yet again and it has sucked in contributions from many parties including the American foreign office, retired prime ministers and past college mates of the accusing party. The said politician is yet again trying to discuss the matter on the political stage instead of the legal one.

As the situation spirals into deeper chaos, the Mufti of Perlis, Dr Mohd Asri Zainal Abidin (Dr MAZA) offers the main players the ultimate way out: the solution that would render all else obsolete and moot but one that has staggering implications.

Dr MAZA’s suggests that both the accuser and the accused perform the Mubahalah which requires that both parties swear in the name of God with the words (translated) “I Swear Wallahi, Wabillahi, Watallahi – I did not do the deed.” Both parties then should add “If I did indeed perform the deed, then let your wrath be upon me”. Once that is done, said Dr MAZA, we should leave the matter in God’s hands for it has passed beyond the hands of man.

Once this deed is done, the issue is now between the person and God, all else has become irrelevant. Should the person be found guilty and imprisoned, he deserves the support of the ummah because he has sworn that he is in the right. Should the person’s accusation fall flat in a human court, it matters not because he has sworn that it is true and it is for the ummah to treat it as such. In the eyes of the ummah he must be a victim and thus deserve all support offered to a victim. However, the price is a terrible one indeed. Performing the mubahalah, if you are in the wrong, invites the wrath of God upon you. If you are lucky, God may take some of the weight of your sin away by punishing you on earth, for part of your sin. Regardless however, performing the mubahalah, if you are guilty, some say, tantamount to condemning your soul to hell for eternity.

I believe this is the ultimate solution. Dr Harussani adds his support saying that Anwar should perform the mubahalah. The good doctor said that every explanation should be given but when there is nothing left to be said, he (Anwar) needs to take this oath.

Even the Chief Minister of Kelantan, the honourable Dato’ Nik Aziz Nik Mat agreed to this, although he proposes the more Malay version of the act, which includes holding the Quran above one’s head.

For me, I am waiting to see which of the two is honourable enough, confident enough in the truth, has enough faith in Allah to take the oath. This is the most honourable and Islamic way out. It shows our ultimate faith in Allah.

It is time to leave all these manmade laws and trappings aside and leave this matter in the hands of the ultimate judge.

The time is now. Shed all this manmade temporary trappings. Put this damnable to rest. Put your faith in Allah, perform the Mubahalah.

God has charged us with so much to do in this world; we do not have the time to waste on this idiocy (the sodomy charge and the drama arising from it).

References

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-KwClwxc18

http://drmaza.com/?p=349 i

Bangkok, Oh, Bangkok

2008-06-29T00:47:00.001+08:00

I was in Bangkok again recently. I was part of a delegation from my university sent there to talk to one of the Thai universities about collaboration in various areas. We were there for about four days. Honestly, although I liked Bangkok, it somehow makes me feel a little claustrophobic after about a day or so. Perhaps it is because it was mostly crowded everywhere.

OK, you may have noticed that these photos have almost nothing to do with this piece I am writing. Well, these are snapshots: pictures taken without any real thought of what they are supposed to tell. The picture above was taken outside Mah Boon Krong (I hope I got that right) a large shopping center in Bangkok. I was told that its has everything. I can tell you it has one of the best durian and sticky rice dessert around. The picture immediately below was taken outside the Bahn nam Klang restaurant just outside Bangkok, beside the Menam Chao Phraya. The seafood was nice. not the best I've ever had but it was palatable none the less.

This picture below was taken outside MBK. I thought it was a little bizarre: a woman in modern clothing standing outside a modern building and praying to a couple of replicas of wooden houses.

This one was taken from the top floor of the main building of the Sukothai Tammathirat Open University. Please not the row of apartment buildings. I found them amazing: almost like a row of pillars for a gigantic fence.

Yummmmmyyyy

2008-05-23T23:27:00.000+08:00

What to do

2008-05-19T01:14:00.000+08:00

Lately, I have also been seeing a lot of anger expressed by my brothers and sisters particularly over the Fitna video. I think the video was designed specifically to get the kind of reaction that it did. It is rather obvious that it was an exercise in manipulating behaviour through media. I think it would be important for Muslims to adopt the kind of detachment introduced into Western media study by general semantics. A friend of mine criticised my idea saying that it was not proper to not feel angered by such provocations. I would have to differ. I think we Muslims would be better off if we would only turn back to the Quran and the Hadith when facing such issues. So what does the Quran say?
Here are three quotes:
1. “Those who repress anger, and who pardon men: verily, Allah loves good-doers” Quran 3:134
2. “But whoever forgives and makes reconciliation, his reward is due from Allah.” Quran 42:40
3. “Let them pardon and forgive” Quran 24:22.
The next question then is the question of limitations. I think its is not the question of merely forgiving and never fighting back but to fight effectively when it is the last resort.

Tired of this scam

2008-05-08T01:18:00.001+08:00

Are you like me, tired of these Nigerian scam based scams that you receive via the email?

They look like this,

FROM THE DESK OF MR GEORGE GORDON,

AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING
MANEGER,

BANK OF AFRICA (B.O.A)

OUAGADOUGOU-BURKINA FASO.

DEAR
FRIEND,

I HOPED THAT YOU WILL NOT EXPOSE OR BETRAY THIS TRUST AND CONFIDENT THAT I AM ABOUT TO IMPOSE ON YOU FOR THE MATUAL BENEFIT OF OUR FAMILIES.I NEED YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN TRANSFERRING THE SUM OF (USD$15.5 M) MILLION TO YOUR ACCOUNT WITHIN 10 TO 17 BANKING DAYS. THIS MONEY HAS BEENDORMANT FOR YEARS IN OUR BANK WITHOUT ANY BODY CLAIMING THE FUND.I WANT THE BANK TO RELEASE THE MONEY TO YOU AS THE NEAREST PERSON TO OUR DECEASED CUSTOMER (THE OWNER OF THE ACCOUNT) BELONGS TO
ONE OF OUR FOREIGN CUSTOMER (MR. RICHARD BURSON) WHO DIED ALONGWITH HIS ENTIRE FAMILY ON NOVEMBER 1999 IN A PLANE CRASH.

So, I have created a standard answer for them. Here is it. Feel free to use it and spread it. Do send a copy back to me if you improve on it. Thanks

The standard answer

Dear Sir

I would firstly like to thank you for your interest in doing business with me; I am deeply flattered by your willingness to trust me with the amount of money mentioned especially when you have no reason to trust me at all.

I am indeed interested in the business you suggested, however I am sure you would agree that I have to take several precautions. These precautions are made necessary by the recent barrage of scams based on the Nigerian scam.

Therefore, what I will do is open an account: it only takes RM 10 to do this. I will not put any more money into that account nor will I disclose details of that account to you over any form of telecommunication because there is always a danger that others might gain access to that information. Moreover, in the Nigerian scam the perpetrators used the same information to empty the victim’s account from abroad; this will not be possible without the account details. In addition, even if someone were to know the details of this account, the act emptying the account from abroad will cost much more than the RM10 that I place in the account. Please believe me that these are merely precautions that I have to take, they in no way indicate any form of mistrust of your good self.

If you are willing to agree to these conditions, please return this email and we can proceed with the necessary steps.

Thank you

Things we should know about the world around us

2008-05-06T15:05:00.001+08:00

Okay, so when I get bored. I start getting a little political.

Videos that i find interesting.

2008-05-06T14:37:00.001+08:00

On 9/11

A little hidden place

2008-04-20T23:25:00.001+08:00

I was here yesterday. It was a nice place and it was secluded.

One look at the picture, I'll bet you think its a seaside resort. Well, it is a few minutes away from Ipoh town. Nowhere near the seaside.

Bukit Lang, I think it was called.

Do go these if you get the chance. However, do pick a good day to go there. I made the mistake of going there on a blazing hot day. I was sooooo glad I bought that expensive pair of sunglasses a few years ago.

Kuala Lumpur Storm

2008-04-04T15:47:00.001+08:00

If there is one thing that is constant in Malaysia, its the storms that we get. They usually come in the rainy season but not exclusively. Well, its the rain season now. Yesterday we had a rather bad storm. Today I received a few photos taken from the KLCC Petronas twin towers. I thought I'd share them with you.

Dark clouds gathering

Almost looks like night time

better lighting

Here comes the rain.

Just a thought

2008-04-03T09:10:00.001+08:00

I was at a kedai mamak yesterday for breakfast. They has a couple of aquariums there and there were fished swimming to and fro. So i took this picture with my new handphone.

As I watched this fish swim surrounded by glass and some pictures of flora on two sides of its prison, I wondered how far this fish's life is different from out own. Not as far as we would like to believe, I think.

Kuala Lipis revisited 2

2008-03-15T21:55:00.000+08:00

Kuala Lipis holds some very vague memories for me. Nearly four decades ago, my parents and I were stuck in this town for a week, more specifically, stuck in the train at the station in this town. We were enroute to Kelantan but the train had to stop here because the flood had submerged the tracks to Tumpat.

The station tracks.

My memories are vague but i remember these tracks and this building, if they are indeed the same ones from back then. I remember boys selling nasi lemak outside the train windows.

I remember playing on this platform.

When we needed to wash up and to perform prayers, we went to the masjid which is just across the road from the tracks.

I found it a little annoying standing in this town with flashes of a toddler's memories in my head. However for some reason, images of the tracks and the masjid stands out.

If you get the chance, do visit this little town in the middle of so much greenery.

Kuala Lipis revisited

2008-03-14T21:46:00.000+08:00

The day after the recent dramatic Malaysian elections, I found myself in Kuala Lipis, Pahang. A tiny town in the middle of the Titiwangsa range. I was to teach a group of teachers who are doing their degrees. Its a special program for teachers teaching in the deepest reaches of the Malaysian peninsular. A lively group of guys.

The Kuala Lipis teacher training institute is nestled in the hills just out of town. Its quite a nice campus. If you find yourself driving past its entrance on the road to Kelantan, I recommend you take a drive around the campus but I think you may have to talk the guard into letting you in.

The main building

A bridge in the middle of the campus between the main building and the hostels.

In a matter of degrees

2008-03-07T01:07:00.001+08:00

In the last few days, both the Opposition (tonight) and BN (a few night ago) have held talks nearby. I guess its because there a few convenient places in this area. Listening to them, I came to the conclusion that there really wasn't much difference between the speakers. the core ideas behind their words are the same,

"Vote for me and not for them!"
"Voting for me will be good for us and for you". They never mentioned that if they win they will be able to use their position to make themselves, their family members and their friends rich beyond their wildest dreams.
"I am not corrupt, they are!" What saddens me is that there are those who believe this. Then again people have the right to believe what they want to believe. Party membership is irrelevant in this matter. Having family members on both side of the political fence, I have had the opportunity to observe and hear some of the things that go on among these curious beings we call politicians and one thing became very clear to me: it is only a matter of degrees.
"If I win I plan to do all these things for your good". Of course, planning to do something and actually doing it are two different things.

HOWEVER, one simple fact made itself painfully clear on both of these occasions. The party supporters and talk listeners from both sides are made up of inconsiderate and irresponsible drivers. In their enthusiasm to listen to their favourite spit artists, they made it annoyingly difficult for my neighbours and I to go about our routine business. I believe this points to one simple fact: It does not really matter who wins, they will both screw you and I when they are in power. It will only differ in a matter of degrees.

By the way, can someone tell me what Chandra Muzaffar is up to?

Its that time again

2008-03-02T21:39:00.001+08:00

I spoke an old friend yesterday. In the brief conversation, he mentioned that I should vote for PAS and as usual with many PAS supporters that I know, his suggestion carries undertones that should I not vote for PAS, there is something wrong with me. The conversation added to my amusement of the behaviour of my fellow countrymen in this election times. I have also been hearing amusing stories about my friends and relatives in the campaigning mayhem in Kelantan. It seems that every few years, when the election time comes, my fellow countrymen, and women, lose their minds.

If you listen to one side, you will conclude that the supporters of the other side are nuts but if you listen closely (and read closely too) you will find that both sides are really not doing too well.

In my younger days, I was anti-establishment too but that path held only disappointments and frustration. The people whom I supported turned out to me just as hypocritical and untrustworthy as anybody else, if not more so.

My oppositionist friends, in my view, seem to have missed something about the BN coalition: they seems to have failed to realise how pervasive presence of the the BN coalition is in the minds of Malaysians, from both sides of the political fence.

We have seen two splinter parties who have failed to push the older party off their seat of power. From where I sat, it seems that the moment they separated from UMNO, they tried be another UMNO but with different basic ideas. That instantly made them copycats. In one case, the basis of their struggle was that their leader who was an UMNO politician was accused, and proven in the court of law, to have misused his power, consequently he was incarcerated. I thought, isn't that what the oppositionists want? Today, My oppositionist friends are still telling me that BN – UMNO politicians misuse their power when in office. I wonder what they will do if or when another high-ranking and well-known UMNO politician, or politicians from the BN coalition, gets accused of abusing his position for his own benefit? Are we going to build another political party and then take to the streets trying to get the man or woman free? As for the politician's conduct, I think the one thing that showed that the some of the BN politicians can be formidable is that man from down south. He didn't deny that he was the guy in the video, instead he retired from politics, if I may add, like a gentleman. I respect that.

When the oppositionists are said to not have any idea how to manage the economy of the nation, they replied in a huff, that they had commissioned a well-known thinker to draw up a serious alternative economic plan. They also claim that the BN later borrowed ideas from this plan in their own economic plans. When I talk to many of their own supporters, I see not inkling that they know of this plan. Why did they fail to make it better known to the public. If they had made the plan more accessible, they would have given their own supporters better ground on which to stand and defend them, instead of having to fall back on anger and hate. In addition, they may have swayed political-agnostics in their favour. My oppositionist friends tell me that the Coalition politicians talk to the masses as if they were kindergarten children, from where I stand, I see and hear the Opposition politicians talk to us as if we are retarded. I think I would rather be regarded as a child than retarded.

My acquaintances tell me that we should vote the opposition so that it would force the BN to grow up. If the BN, are like children, I think the opposition politicians are equally childish in their behaviour and speeches. What's the point in voting one child to take the place of another child? At least the latter child already knows hot to play with the toys. The former child might break the toy in learning to play with it.

My friend told me yesterday that they want to deny the BN a two third majority. I say, “great! Fine!” but please I beg you, give me a good and strong reason to have some confidence in your side. As it is, I only see spiteful children.

I have a few more days to decide who to vote for on Saturday 8^th. A few more days to listen to both sides of the story. The blatant one-sidedness of the mass media is making me shake my head, the ubiquitousness of the BN propaganda is making me yawn. Yet when I look to the other side, I see nothing to build my confidence in them. A few more days to think.

How to face the election with your sanity intact.

2008-02-23T22:08:00.001+08:00

Its election time again. They have set the polling date on March 8^th which is a Saturday. On Friday 22^nd the ministry of education announced that the school holidays will start one day early to make preparations easier. Already I see my fellow Malaysians going nuts from all the ubiquitous political talk which fills every media and every opportunity for talk. Emotions, as usual, is running high particularly in areas where there is a straight fight between the ruling coalition and the particular opposition parties (Pas in Kelantan, DAP in Penang and KL et cetera). It is almost impossible to say or do anything without having your intentions interpreted within the framework of political intentions.

Malaysians get tend to get intensely emotional when they talk about politics. The question is why? I think it has to do with our beliefs and our expectations. We believe that to be able to communicate properly, we need to be able to talk in the same language; in these times however, we may use the same vocabulary, phonetics and syntax, we do not speak the same language. Our metaphors, our semantics, our discourses are different.

Then there is the question of our expectations.

We say, “I believe in the truth”, what we really mean, “What I believe is true”. We tend to think in absolutes but we forget that we have free will. We want to believe that we are good and based on this belief, which may sometimes be misguided when seen from another's point of view, we want to define what is good for others too: when they do not agree, we get upset. Also based on this belief, we believe that, “no one good would lie”, but we also tend to believe that whatever opposes our “truth” is false and a lie; consequently we believe that those who say them are not good people. Which is why we get upset when others support them or their political parties.

To convince others of the truth of our words we evoke some form of authority which we borrow from religion, statistics, science, logic, academia or where ever else we can get it. We say this is to give credence to our words but we deny consciously or subconsciously applying our interpretation of these authorities to suit our messages: we deny that we enslave that authority to our own purposes and not the other way around.

We believe what we say is relevant to the issue, the people and the times. What we really mean, sometime, is, “What you say is irrelevant”. Here again, we see the authority to define what can and cannot be brought into discussion or debate. We then get upset when the other party fail to see the relevance of our words or acknowledge our right to include or exclude contributions to the discussion.

We also believe that we act in ways that are proper and respectable but what we really mean is, “What I say / do is proper” and by extension “What you do / say is improper”. Consequently, we get upset when others label our acts as improper, “politik kedai kopi”, and other less than flattering labels.

So, what do we do to keep our heads level? The key is in how you react to what others say or do.

The first principle is non-identity: They want you to believe, “What they say is what really is”: what they don't want you to believe what they tell you is simply what they want you to hear and believe. Their only tool are words they use and the relationship between the words they use and the ideas in your head. Like logicians, we believe that we are primarily concerned with the truth but this is politics and the main concern of political campaigning is not truth but what you can be made to believe is true. So, how do they go about using words to get their ideas across?

First, there is hyponymy: situations when the meaning of one word is included in another. For example, when you say “human” concepts like man, woman, boy, girl, adult and so on are taken to be included in the meaning of the word. When we mention “cat” we often mean the domestic cat but in the meaning of the word we can also find other members of the cat family, tiger, lion, cheetah, jaguar, lynx and others. The trick is to manipulate the meanings that are associated with the particular words or terms that we use and in doing so equate people (usually your opponents) with concepts with which they do not want to be associated.

Next we have manipulation of incompatibility of concepts and words. One common kind is antonymy: cases where the meaning of one word / concept if not compatible with another. The incompatibility can be,

Complementary – either / or situations where one necessarily excludes the other: hot / cold, up / down, good / evil, telling the truth / telling lies.
Gradable – concepts that exclude one another but are related by definition or domain; hot / warm / cold, novice / learning / experienced / seasoned.
Relational – concepts that exclude the other because they belong to different domains: words that are not related. This is mostly used to indicate the other person does not know what they are talking about.

There are other relationships used but they are usually harder to notice. Among them are,

Homonymy – same name / word different meanings.
Polysemy – one word many meanings
Generality -one word, many unrelated meanings: different meaning in different domains.

The second principle is the principle of Non-allness: situations where they want you to believe, “what I say is all there is to be said about the subject” and they do not want you to remember that there are always at least two sides to the story. This tool is often used with a great deal of emotive language because emotion tends to force the mind to work with that it has been given and not look for more items to work with. Common linguistic tools used here are as follows,

entailment – truth of one sentence implies the truth of other sentences they use. To achieve this, politicians tend to first try to get you hooked. The bait is authority. They evoke some form of authority which is easily acceptable. Once you find the initial argument palatable, they begin to steer the argument in any direction they want with you stringing along on the hook on their line.
Contradiction – the truth of one sentence implies falseness of the second and then the others. To do this our politicians begin the same way as the above: they get you hooked first. Once you are hooked, they will then manipulate the argument of their opponent to show how they contradict the “truth” that you have agreed to and hence are necessarily false.

These two tools sound incredibly simple but they are exceedingly effective. From personal experience, remember observing how some politicians can work the crowd to a frenzy using only these two simple devices. Don't just take my word for it, watch videos of speeches by Hitler, Sukarno, Martin Luther King and Castro, and you'll find them using these devices to achieve impressive results, in some cases they drove nations to war.

The final principle is the principle of self-reflexivity: the things they say tell you more about who they are and what they stand for rather than the people or things they are talking about. Here again you would need to observe the politicians using the tools I mentioned above, once you realize that they meaning and the message they are constructing are results of the choices they make you will begin to see the thinking that drive them to make those choices.

The final question is, who do I believe? What party do I vote for? I cannot answer these questions for you. The burden of choice is yours to bear. All I can show you here is how they try to manipulate you, the things you hear, the things you believe and ultimately the things you do: the box in which you mark your X.

DIscoveries

2008-02-21T00:53:00.001+08:00

I think the key phrase in that old science program was, "What will they think of next?"

I discovered the Windows live writer today. All I can say is, "Wow!"

The rate of technological developmentis rapidly making me feel old.

The Late Mr Deedat

2008-02-20T14:55:00.001+08:00

How I miss listening to him talk.

CALING THE OLD KHS GANG

2008-01-18T09:02:00.001+08:00

As we get older, we tend to reminisce about the good old days of our youth. Last week i had lunch with my old classmate from Kajang High School days, Mr Yong Wooi Hon, now a successful lawyer. Honestly, we didn’t really talk much about what we do because we had other things to talk about. Yong said that lately he’s been thinking of getting together with our old friends from our school days. I think, being of the same age i can sympathize. So we thought, what the heck let’s get some of old guys together.
Yong initially suggested that we have a gathering on the third weekend of January but that did work out because we are all very busy particular in January: that being the first month of the year and all. Then Tang suggested that we have it after the Chinese New year, more specifically around the time Chap Goh Mei (about 15 days after CNY) which i think makes better sense.
So, CALLING ALL KAJANG HIGH SCHOOL OLD BOYS particularly those who took their SPM around 1983. Let’s get together for old times’ sake. I suggest we make it two weeks after the CNY. As for venue, please make some suggestions.
You can contact me at
hazidi@yahoo.co.uk or 012-9201178 or Yong at whyong@yeapyong.com.my

Bangkok 2007

2007-10-02T16:45:00.001+08:00

Thailand trip log
Day 1: arrival Radison hotel
Huge airport (Suvarnabumi) with familiar architecture, Mr Kisho’s handiwork. I think.
Far busier than KLIA but that can be deceptive because I have seen KLIA as busy although only at speciic times.
Gorgeous hotel hostesses greeted our arrival at Radison hotel. Walking tourist information offices. I think its because they spoke English, other staff did not.
Large mosque by the expressway.

Signs of their reverance for their kind was everywhere. I wondered if this had anything to do with there being only one kind for the whole country. In Malaysia, we have several kings taking turns being the Agong.
Day 2: Assumption University, Bangkok.
The conference hall was held in what was basically a church although it was called a conference center.
It became obvious that the Thais were preocupied by the philosophy of self-sustainability.
I was astounded by the reverence and devotion the Thais have for their monarch. The last time I visited Bangkok I saw this too but this time it seems almost overpowering. Later this day I learnt that there are celebrating the King’s 80th birthday and his 50th year on the throne thus making him the longest reinging monarch in the world. the Thais were very proud of this. A uidebook told me that the Thais regard their King like a god but that description does not do justice to the practice we see here. It does not feel like religious devotion, more like nationalism but more extreme.
I also learnt that Bangkok or Krung thep as it is known by the local has the longest place namein the world – acknowledge by the Guinness book of world records. The full name of Bangkok is “Krungthepmahanakhon Amornrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharat Ratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphiman Awatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit”. And if we translate this into English, we get, “The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated God, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn”. They have a song that they use to teach the name. Very grand, I think, especially when you consider Kuala Lumpur simply means ‘muddy estuary’.
At the conference, I learnt that the sustainability idea that kept cropping up in the Thai participants’ papers is actually the philosophy of sufficiency economy which was introduce by the monarch 30 years ago and has been used as a central idea for development since.
8 August 2007: Holiday Inn, Bangkok.
Moved to Holiday Inn, Bangkok today to get nearer to the city.
Tonight, I was ast the Patpong night market. It’s a night market much like any makeshift market you’ll find all over Asia but this one is lined by girlie bars where young ladies, and ladies made-up to look younger, dance around poles on stages and bar tops in skimpy bikinis. Their bored sway and blank faces are such a turn off. I wondered what these Mat Sallehs (Westerners) are so turned on about. A legacy of the Vietnam war’s GI rest and recreation break, this place still thrives.
I saw some of the se Mat Sallehs and non-Mat Sallehs with their rented ladies making their way back to their hotel rooms and wondered why anyone would pay to have sex with some of these women they were bringing back. More importantly, I am certain that alcohol had something to do with their ability to get an erection. Perhaps alcohol would also be necessary when morning comes and they wake up to find these women next to them in bed. Perhaps, I am being too pessimistic.
Then again, there were also some very comely ones, but not that many. I saw one gorgeous young lady in neon green bikini and high heels, I think she came out of the bar to buy a pack of cigarettes.
The whole bar and whore scene was really most beneficial to the alcohol industry, I guess. The real victims being the women who get fucked for a miniscular amount of money, but that too is relative perhaps.
At the Patpong market I bought some souvenirs for various people. At one stall I took a liking for a copy of a Montblanc ballpoint pen. The lady wanted 800 bath for it. I didn’t like the price so I offered 500 bath. After a few minutes of haggling, I decided to walk away. She stopped me and said, “ok, ok 300 bath”. I was surprised because it was 200 bath cheaper than I was offering, so I bought the pen without any arguments.
9 August 2007.
Took a boat ride on the Chao Phraya and visited Wat Arun – a temple. When I woke up this morning I thought of last night’s trip to Pat Pong and I remembered an 80s song by Alphaville, it goes “One night in Bangkok makes the hard man humble, notmuch between despair and ecstasy, I can feel the devil walking next to me”. The devils in this case were the touts harassing me with plastic files with pictures and posters trying to entice me to shows where they had tiger shows and god knows what else.
My group went to Jatucak: place with a market, a couple of malls and a bazaar area cramped closely together. Our tour guide told us that hisplace was huge and cautioned us to careful not to get lost. When I saw the place, I guessed that he had never been to Midvalley KL. Mr Ahmad, the tour guide, however, did accurately descibe the palce as selling cheap goods or unpredictable quality.
I noticed that here too they had an elaborate shrine outside the shopping complex. These are not devoted to Buddha however, instead this the one in Jatucak, as were many others I saw, was devoted to different dieties including a many limbed one. I was reminded of a Sufi story about King Solomon meeting a scorpion. The Prophet – King asked the scorpion what God was like and the scorpion said, “We have one sting; God has two”.
I bought some souvenirs. I noticed that there were Muslim traders almost everywhere in Bangkok as long as you looked for them. As I walked among the food hawkers in front of the Jatucak Mall, I saw a Muslim trader’s stall selling noodles in soup. For a moment, I was tempted to try but across the path, a few feew away from the Muslim trader was a stall selling pork sausages. I thought, I’d wait for a while longer because I was told that we were going to for Arabic food later.
We had dinner at the Nana district in the Sukhimvit area. It’s a place where Arabic, Indian and Muslim from all over live, trade and congregate. Admittedly the food was nice but not so nice. I would certainly look fo this place again if I come to Bangkok again.
11 August 2007.
My Montblanc pen ran out of ink, expectedly, today. After a few attempts at looking for a montblanc refill, I discovered that it takes a standard parker pen refill.
The last day was relaxing. I walked around central Bangkok taking pictures of shrines and people. Ronald MacDonald was ‘wai’ing (traditional Thai greeting pose) instead of waving.
Our flight was at around 8 pm. As we were walking around the sprawling Suvarnabumi airport, I thought I saw Tengku Nazrin of Perak with a few official looking people but I could not be certain because when I got to where he was, he was gone. I think he had just exited the prayer room.
It rained quite heavily but the rain died nown a little when we took off. God, how I hate flying in the rain.
Thankfully, I got back in one piece.
I took some photos when I was there. If you are interested in seeing the photos, please visit my photobucket page at ... http://s151.photobucket.com/albums/s124/hazidi/