Accurate observations

I hate rape jokes and jokes about violence to women. So imagine my love when I came across these gems.

Yeah, I get that it's #NotAllMen, but hey, how many straight men are afraid of being beaten to death by their spouse or partners?

Although Marlon Brando rocked it in A Streetcar Named Desire, the connotation of it always made me squirm.

Boggles the mind.

One in three women suffer physical and/sexual violence from their intimate partner.

A woman is 4 times more likely to die at the hands of a man she knows (i.e. father, brother, husband, boyfriend, stalker) than at the hands of a stranger.

Say no to violence against women.

"If I leave you alone you will leave England."

Awaiting the Fire by Donna Lea Simpson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

If this book was written as a "horrid novel that corrupt innocent young feminine minds" in the Victorian times, I think it would have been a bestseller. It has all the requisite: a feisty heroine, a dark, brooding hero, a tempting yet menacing villain, isolated grand mansion/castle, supernatural entities, perilous moments, misunderstandings and torrid resolution.

Sadly, I find the melodrama overwrought, the heroine AND hero annoying in their inconstancy and immaturity, the plot unnecessarily plodding and tiresome, the exposition clunky and the deux-ex-machina unsatisfactory. Not to mention that I've never enjoyed any books that feature Judeo-Christian angels anyway.

Seriously, I should stop being surprised at how much blurbs and recommendations by "notables" can disappoint.

Male protagonist: 2/5 stars
Female protagonist: 1/5 stars
Storyline: 1/5 stars
Pacing: 0/5 stars
Fun Factor: 1/5 stars
Repeat Reading Factor: 0/5 stars


View all my reviews

B ... is for Books

 This post is about RAAAAAGGGGGEEEE.

There is a lot of swearing.

You have been warned.

Water, water everywhere ...

... nor any drop to drink.

(The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

I got the opportunity to attend a Toastmasters competition on Tuesday at the Women's Institute of Management Toastmaster Chapter. It was a lovely evening, watching the competitors pitting their wits and skills to speak spontaneously on a variety of topics.

 Competitor 1, Mr T, who is generous with advice and smiles.

 Mr. S, the main man for the event.

 Mr G, who is a fount of amusing tales.

 My pal, Ms. M, who invited me and won the Table Topics competition.

The Table Topic of the competition was "A Day without Water". All the competitors came up with their own tales of dehydration that were hilarious and yet thought provoking. As I listened to them wax lyrical for seven minutes, it made me think a little deeper about our relationship with water; more specifically, running water.

We take water for granted. We turn on the tap and we expect the life giving liquid to gush forth. We expect the water to be clean, safe and harbour no nasty critters. Oh, it also gotta be clear and odourless and tasteless, unlike what the reporters for the Sochi Winter Olympics encountered. Woe betide SYABAS and its ilk should there be unscheduled (and even scheduled) water interruption.

We forget that in many parts of the world (including our own backyard!), clean water supply is an enviable luxury. There are still pockets within our own nation where there are no tap water available. My father's kampung and my paternal aunt's house in Jeram had no piped water before the 1990s. We had to draw water from the communal well for bathing, going to the toilet (if you are lucky there are outhouses which you flush by dumping a pail of water into the toilet, otherwise it's the bushes for you. Try to avoid prickly ones or plants that can cause rashes.), cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry. Having ice cold baths in broad daylight where anyone getting to the main road is sure to get an eyeful breeds a certain je ne sais quois that I have no problem bathing in public in nothing but a scanty sarong.

The communal well was surrounded by a concrete platform that was wet and covered in moss and was slippery as hell when you are wearing the de rigeur selipar Jepun. Unlike the pretty wells illustrated in fairy tale books, these have NO RETAINING WALL AROUND THE WELL. If you are unlucky, you could slip and fall into it with barely a splash. Many times when we return home, my Mum would have to make several visits to the masseuse; her back and shoulders were strained by carrying water. The communal well was replaced by the communal water pump in the late 80s and by the early 90s, there are piped water supply. However, if you ask me to pick between having electricity versus piped water supply, I think you know which one I will pick, regardless of my Internet addiction.

We forget that millions of women and girls trek for miles daily to get water for their household use and even for watering their crops from rivers, water holes and groundwater pumps. Some places like Cambodia and India have a severe arsenic groundwater contamination, rendering their water supply unsafe. Drought stricken places in the US and Australia (among others) have problem meeting the demand for water and have to impose water restriction. In Chile, they have to harvest water from mist and fog because water supply is so limited.


When water supply is at a premium, basic sanitation is also compromised. The developed countries have measures to address this but for many places still lagging behind in infrastructure development. Poor sanitation is a major contributor of deaths in developing countries, particularly for infants and children. The governments' inability to provide for such basic infrastructure has led to some drastic measures being taken. For instance, in India, the groom who cannot provide proper latrine facilities will not get a bride.

Be grateful that you can flush.

Water is deemed as a basic right for all mankind. This idea sounds grand on paper but it gets screwed up when national boundaries and politicians get involved. How many people are aware that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more about water and land than about religion? Tension and skirmishes have occured in Africa, South America, and Asia over control of this precious resource. It is expected that the adverse effects of climate change on water supply could lead to greater conflicts among nations.

Managing water as a sustainable resource is imperative and should be the focus of all. Sadly, it is evident that care for water supply is often sacrificed in the face of greed. Our thirst for fossil fuel has damaged our water supply. Poorly constructed agriculture and fishing policies have choked one of the largest inland sea (okay, lake) in the world. Indiscriminate dumping of toxic wastes into the water supply, overconsumption of groundwater that drastically affects the water table, destruction of water catchment areas, and many more, continues on merrily despite so-called stringent regulations and laws. Enforcement appears to be lackadaisical and punishments for transgressions seem to be little more than a mild slap on the wrist and this appears to be the trend the world over.

Perhaps we should start saving water and drink beer instead.

*sigh*

God bless the child

Title from this song. Ah, a walk down memory lane.

My childhood was rife with epic adventures. Whooshing down mountains on cave rivers, battling the Nazis in a Sopwith Camel, fighting for what is rightfully mine with magic, plotting to regain royal thrones, performing in a circus, solving mysteries with my boyfriend Ned, and much, much more.

No, it's not just because I'm lucky enough that my parents were unsuccessful in curtailing my television viewing, but because of BOOKS.

Beautiful, marvelous, magnificent BOOKS.

Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene, Captain WE Johns, Rubaidin Siwar, Khadijah Hashim, Othman Puteh, Othman Wok, and many, many more has helped fuel my imagination and vocabulary. I became addicted to reading at a very young age, and the habit remains to this day. It got to a point that I was borrowing a book every day from the school library, and I made no bones about harassing the student librarians to open up the gates to paradise. I can still recall the crisp scent of my primary school library, the hushed hall and the rows upon rows of delicious books. Mmm.

School holidays were highly anticipated for the opportunity to haunt bookstores. Those stores were wonderlands for exploration, racks upon racks of fragrant, bound pages that harboured secrets and knowledge. I think my Mom sighed a breath of relief when we discovered the rental book store that carried books that I would read (I was an age appropriate reader up to a point); the money would go for much longer with rental and would save on storage space.  

However, I find that the section for children's books in Malay these days are terribly disappointing. I posit the evidence below:

Some desultory fairy tales, and ooh. Encyclopaedia stuff. Exciting.*yawn*

Hikayat Derma Taksiah modernised, most of these.

These pictures were taken at Borders in Bangsar Village 2. Notice that the children's books actually occupied only the top one and a half row of a SINGLE RACK. Those are mostly encyclopaedia types and a miserable collection fairy tale fictions. The rest is taken up by religious tracts and sappy, I-like-to-be-emotionally-abused romance novels. I mean, WTF?

How on Earth can we hope to inculcate the reading habit in our children with such a meager selection? How do we encourage them to explore worlds and dig for information and knowledge beyond what can be Googled? When most of the books are directed to the Malay Muslim audience, how do you hope to encourage non Malay children to love the national language when they have nothing engaging to read?

What happened to the writer of children and young adult fictions in Malay? What happened to the translated books? I remember seeing Harry Potter and Twilight in Malay on display in Popular Books but I don't see them any more.

I got to read Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Eyre, Jules Verne and many more English literary works, not in its original form, but beautifully translated and abridged (I did get on to read them in the original version). Most of my Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Biggleswort adventures were in Malay and what a wonderful discovery it was to read them as they were first published. Those books taught me about life in foreign lands, understanding motivations and reading between the lines, and made me pretty good at comprehension exercises.


The English books selection, on the other hand, is fantastic. You can get up to 6 racks for the young readers and the same number dedicated to young adults. But how do we instill a love in the national language when there's nothing to read in them? Children rarely read newspapers, and most of the Malay magazines for children (except for Dewan Pelajar and Dewan Siswa) appear to be geared only for the Muslim readers. Not to mention that it is darn hard to find Dewan Pelajar and Dewan Siswa in regular bookstores anyway.

Truly, we cannot blame the children for pooh-poohing the national language. Not with this appalling situation.

*shakes fist*

Cut it out!

TL;DR.

(accidentally deleted post cos I can be lame that way) *head desk*

My dearest friends are well aware of my radical liberalism tendencies when it comes to matters of faith and religion. If you are not in the know, you can read it here.

Oh, and plus a tiny edit.

Losing My Religion - And Finding My Faith

Based on the writing prompt: What I Learned from Someone*

Sparked by ear candy

The year was 1991. The American rock band REM released a single that shot them to superstardom, Michael Stipe’s crooning of being left in the spotlight andlosing his religion has emphatically propelled the band out of obscurity. Personally, I preferred the Nina Persson’s version; her sweet, slightly raspy voice lent a different piquancy to the lyrics and melody. Tori Amos, mad musical genius that she is, deconstructed the song and reinterpreted it into something very different.

(more after the break)

What is truer than truth?

Title stolen from Isabel Allende in this video.

The following two videos underscore how story telling goes beyond mere entertainment. In the ancient days of my motherland, we have the penglipur lara, the storyteller, who travel from village to village, sharing stories, news and relating historical myths of the ancient kings. Their stories gave wings to the imagination of the ordinary folks and their arrival was much anticipated.

Technology and globalisation have changed the way stories are narrated. The penglipur lara may be dead for hundreds of years, but his stories continue to be told in different media. This is the power of stories: it evolves, are adapted and become incorporated into another narrative. In a way, stories are immortalised beyond the lives of the tellers.

But have we ever examined the origins of the stories we consume? Who delivered them? What was their intention? Were their sources right? What inspired them?

Herein lies the danger of the single story narrative.



I will admit to being guilty of the same thing. You tend to swallow what was told to you, especially as children. I am sure that many of us grew up with all kinds of stories about the "other" people. People who don't look like us, don't behave or pray (if they pray!) like we do, don't think like we do. Some of it is relatively harmless (or not); like mothers of the old admonishing wayward children to behave or "The benggali* will come and catch you!"

The more malevolent were like, "If you have to choose between killing a snake and a (insert ethnic/religious group of suspicion), it is better to kill the ethnic/religious person." This is about dehumanising the other person, making them alien and difficult to identify with. It would also make it easier to denigrate them, and to look down on them.

I am struck by her words about how the people in power made the definitive story and this could be used to dispossess the people, hijacking their history and culture. When a story is repeated over and over again, somehow it gained the veneer of truth and became accepted as a fact. This is some particularly profound for me, as my ethnic group is often painted as lazy, lacking initiative and always looking for a shortcut to solve problems. This perspective of our former colonial masters was countered by the eminent humanities scholar Syed Hussein Alatas in his book The Myth of the Lazy Native (which I will admit to having yet to read). But this idea of Malays being lackadaisical, etc has been so tightly woven in the nation's narrative, that it is difficult to disentangle. And like a self-fulfilling prophecy, we make it come true.

Like Ms. Adichie, the stories I write in my head (and occasionally pen down) often feature people from other countries because I have been steeped in American and Western culture, thanks to a steady diet of books, music, television and films.

*shame-faced*

While Ms. Adichie felt that Asian and African and South American and other non-white writers should be working towards developing narratives that is a contrast from the Western world view, Ms. Shafak felt that the manifestation of identity need not be utterly personal, so one could write from the viewpoint of people who is not oneself. 



To her, the most important thing is that the story need to be informative and well researched, written to evoke emotions and perhaps, create connections and empathy. One must not be limited to one's nationality, gender and sexuality. It is a very liberating thought, but I do believe that one should be free to tell the stories that speaks to one. However, it does seem that white authors get more leeway than non-white authors, who are expected to write only about their own culture and experiences.


Ninot Aziz, a celebrated Malaysian author, is reviving the hikayat, the folk tales and legends of  the Nusantara. Although the stories are sourced from Malay folk tales, she believes that the cosmopolitan nature of the stories transcends any cultural dichotomy and will speak to us regardless of our background.

Her book, Hikayat - From the Ancient Malay Kingdoms is up for the Anugerah Buku Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia - RTM. Please vote for her here. The author name is Ninot Aziz and the ISBN number of the book is 978-967-61-2540-80.

Here's to more excellent stories coming out of Malaysia!

* corruption of the word Bengali (someone from the state of Bengal in India). Usually the Sikh or other Bengal ethnic man who wore a turban and was an itinerant merchant of cloth and other household items during the pre and post Independent Malaya.

Flogging ...

... a Dead Horse? Revisiting the Question of Intellectual Decline in Muslim Societies.

I bet some who saw the headline thought that this would be a post about some kinky activities or primitive punishment exerted on criminals in days of yore. Sorry to disappoint you but that was the title of the talk I attended today at the IAIS, given by Prof. Syed Nomanul Haq, a Senior Visiting Professor at ISTAC.

Prof. Haq was a wonderfully engaging speaker who did not perpetrate the dreaded Death by Power Point by avoiding the use of multimedia altogether.

Speaking sans PowerPoint is an idiosyncrasy common among social scientists; those of the hard sciences persuasion would be appalled at the idea of crippling their delivery with a lack of figures, graphs and pictures of disemboweled laboratory animals. Nonetheless, Prof. Haq did a good job of engaging the audience with his ideas by sheer force of personality.

He exhorted the idea that intellectualism died with Al-Ghazali's pronouncement that the scientific approach is inadequate is a gross fallacy. According to Prof. Haq, Al Ghazali was actually an exponent of rationality, going so far as to say that scientific discovery trumps a hadith or scripture; that the hadith or scripture that contravenes science or maths to be interpreted allegorically. He also moaned about the lack of Muslim physicians in 11th century Persia. 

These are not the actions or thoughts of a thinker who denigrates science. Therefore he is unlikely to be responsible for Muslim intellectuals to stop sourcing new knowledge. However, Al-Ghazali may have been misinterpreted as his original writings may be inaccessible to modern readers who have to rely upon translations and interpretations of other scholars on his work.

Yes, those scholars have no ulterior motives to misinterpret him in such a way.

And yes, I'm being facetious.

Prof. Haq felt that the problems with the Muslim world could be laid at the feet of the systematic disenfranchisement due to lack of educational reform. When the society is hobbled with the inability to process, much less generate information to solve day-to-day problems, there is no wonder why many Muslim apologists are forever looking back at the so-called Islamic "Golden Age" with nostalgia. They reiterate that a civilisation that taught Galileo and Copernicus all that they know and debunking Galen's humors is a civilisation to be reckoned with.

Yup. About 800 years ago, mate. And we now have medical imaging and use quantum physics to compute dizzying array of numbers and take pictures of galaxies that died millions of years ago in space.

When you embrace theological perversion that shuts out half of the society from participating in nation building and socioeconomic progress (the burqa, the harem, the Taliban's campaign against Malala Yousefzai to name a few), then you should not wonder why the rest of the world is outpacing you. Blaming the Jews and the Illuminati can only go so far. But then again, if you reject the use of logic and rational thinking when evaluating situations and evidence, perhaps believing in an omnipresent organisation that is out to get you is not a big stretch of the imagination. 

 And you would believe this too.

The question and answer session was nice; Prof. Haq did not shy away from hard questions that challenged the views that he presented today. He countered the idea of Islamisation of knowledge: there are no secular and religious knowledge. ALL KNOWLEDGE is Islamic, so calculus, theoretical physics, biochemistry, political science etc are all 'ilm usul ad deen (normatively called usuluddin or knowledge of the way of life). 

Prof. Haq also expressed that there is no profit in discussing whether the Shiite are outpacing the Sunnis in terms of knowledge acquisition; we should accept that as Muslims, regardless of the school of thought you embrace, we should accept each other at face value. Yay to pluralism WITHIN Islam!

Sadly, I didn't quite get his response to the query regarding how the conditional denial of decline of the Islamic civilisation is a denial of the problems faced by the Muslim world. 

Basically, my take home message from the talk and discussion was that we must encourage OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN. We should revolutionise the education system to give children an opportunity to learn everything that they could learn: from languages (beyond the national language and English) to maths, the various branches of science, as well as logic and articulation skills. We should also enrich our culture to encourage life long learning, not limiting ourselves because of age and how the new knowledge is not relevant to our work.

We must stop encouraging one field of knowledge at the expense of another. This is seen at the university level where many humanities departments are getting less funding in order to expand the technical and engineering laboratories. Soft and hard sciences have their place in this world and must be encouraged to grow and prosper.

It is only with educational opportunities that we can open minds to ideas that bring hearts to righteousness in order to fulfill our roles as the vicegerent of this Earth. However, this does not mean that you should stuff your kids' extra classes to the gills, but rather inculcate a love of learning so that they will create opportunities to learn beyond merely what is taught in school.

At least, you should hope to do so.

Connect ... Disconnect ... Hang Up ...

Those who remember having used this type of telephone

Stolen from http://mylusciouslife.com/retro-vintage-antique-phone-pictures/

would understand the importance of patience when calling someone. After all, it is often located in a stationary position (unlike mobile phones that you can take with you all over creation including the bathroom, ew ...) and if the person we call did not pick up, we don't go all paranoid android that the person we are contacting is trying to avoid us.

We understand that the person we call is probably:

1) Not at home
2) In the shower
3) Running out of the loo but was too late to pick up the phone.

We work at trying to call people because dialing itself is an effort (no speed dials or automatic calling from phone book function), not to mention requiring little grey cells that store a string of numbers of the person(s) with whom we wish to connect.

Human connection is beyond one individual calling another individual for conversation, be it amiable or a screaming match. Human connection extends to the pesky neighbours whom you think are whispering about you behind their lace curtains, the colleague who always share stories about his colicky baby and sleepless nights, your best friend in school who still go out to get drunk with you and many other people who make up the social fabric into which you are knitted.

This connection reinforces our personal identity and helps to orient us to our position in this world and our community. Unless you are a survivalist nutter who thinks that the aliens/government/whatever is out to get you, you are likely to live in a community (be it urban, suburban or rural) where you are required to interact with people at some point in your day.

But what happens when your sense of personal identity somehow does not mash with the community in which you live? What if you feel disconnected, disjointed, the jarring note in the harmony, the nail that sticks out and keeps getting hammered? What if you feel like all your life and actions are totally meaningless in the grand scheme of things? What if you feel like you never knew what acceptance feel like; even something as mundane as an automatic smile from the bus driver never comes your way because you feel that your personal identity is not acceptable to others?

All this came to my mind as I was listening to Prof. James Piscatori at the Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies yesterday. Prof. Piscatori has been studying Muslim politics throughout his academic life and had shared his views on "Muslims in Europe: Towards a New Civic Pluralism".

He kinda reminds me of the dad in Numb3rs.

Muslims in Western Europe are largely recent migrants who moved en masse in the middle of the twentieth century, thanks to liberal immigration laws of the time. Like all immigrants, they had to adapt to life in the decadent West and try to reconcile it with their faith and culture. Some have been successful, as evidenced by the rising number of the Muslim middle class. Others are stuck and unable to achieve social mobility due to lack of education, discrimination in the job market and other factors.

Prof. Piscatori explained that Europeans shouldn't fear that they'll become Islamised by 2030 (or whenever); the numbers of Muslims in Europe are often exaggerated and are actually just about 15% at the greatest estimate (he quoted numbers polled by the Pew Forum). He also mentioned something very surprising: terrorist acts by Muslims in Europe from 2006 to date are actually LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.

This is definitely not the sort of thing that we see or read on the BBC, CNN, Deutsche Welle or Paris Match. Prof. Piscatori was quoting figures collected by the Europol in their annual report on terrorism. Apparently, most acts of terrorism were actually perpetrated by leftists, separatists and eco-anarchists.

The strangeness of Muslims and Islam make them a convenient target to fresh and old fears about the changing landscape of European society, thanks to globalisation. They look and sound foreign; their women are wrapped up like birthday gifts! You can't bond with them over a glass of bitters at the pub after work, and they have this strange habit of washing their face and hands and feet and falling on their face several times a day in the same direction.

There is this concept in Islam about strangeness and being strangers in the land. It is not regarded as a bad thing to not conform with those who are corrupt. It is, in fact, an ideal. However, there is a fraction of a fraction of a percent who, in their failure to participate in the society on their terms, respond with misanthropic reactions such as bombings in public places and killing people one perceives as the enemy combatant.

It makes non-Muslims think of Muslims this way:

Stolen from http://harvardhumanist.org/2012/12/19/the-misanthropic-humanist/

when they are actually:

Out to support the slain soldier by the ravening mad fellow in Woolwich.

But to go back to the figures, LESS THAN ONE PERCENT of the terrorist acts are committed by Muslims. We don't quite see the sensationalisation of Basque separatists (have you even heard of who they are?) or Italian anarchists (aren't they busy doing fashion-related stuff and/or eating pasta?). Because to the European, these people are not the weird OTHER as Muslims are in their society. So they don't make as good as a boogeyman as these Quran-quoting, hijab/bearded people who speak with a funny accent.

As rightly pointed out by Kenan Malik,

"The real issues we need to confront are issues such as the contemporary sense of social disengagement, and not just among Muslims, the corrosion of the institutions of civil society, the lack of a progressive counter-narrative, the collapse of the organizations of the left, and the continual attacks on liberties in the name of security."

*read the rest here.

Towards the end of his talk, Prof. Piscatori touched on the crisis of multiculturalism in Europe: is it a choice between imposition of liberal values on a conservative society or tolerance of difference? Would tolerance of difference actually promote segregation? What is real integration? Is it better to choose assimilation and conformity or empowerment for social participation?

I am sure I was not the only who think that this is a mirror to the social situation in Malaysia. We pride ourselves on being Truly Asia; we are a hodge podge of culture, language and appearance. But as we could see after the 13th general election, we still have a great deal of suspicion towards one another, we poke and whisper behind each other's back, we still clutch our nasty thoughts about the "Others" close to our breasts.

Hence, this song is sincerely apropos to our situation.



Communication is not a threat. We should start talking to one another and not just lambast and share inflammatory stuff on Facebook and Twitter. We should actually connect in the real world, find out what the other fella eat, drink, watch and which football association he/she backs. We should learn about their faith and customs, and share with them our own practices so that we will no longer be strangers to one another.

So we will stop being "Others" to each other.

Written while listening to this.

X marks the spot

Malaysians who are registered voters will be making X's and ticks on the sweet spot on the ballots to choose which joker gets to represent them at the state assembly as well as the national Parliament tomorrow.

 I don't know photoshop or I'd change the flag.

Things have gotten a bit tense with both sides going all out badmouthing the other party and praising their own (non existent) virtues, or as the Malays put it, masuk bakul angkat sendiri, (literal translation: getting into a basket and lifting it yourself. No, not in an elevator).

One side is promising transformation of the country into higher income nation and has put in place a number of policies to make this happen.  The other side accuses the incumbent of corruption, cronyism yada yada yada and is urging for CHANGE at any cost for whatsoever reason. Just give them a try. You know, like that outfit you liked at Debenhams. Except that you're gonna keep buying (and paying for it) for the next five years. According to them, if we don't like them, we can return them after the five years are over.

Right.

It is quite common to have a lot of mudslinging and accusations of money politic (face it; you'd do the same if you have the moola). There's really nothing new to that. Those who are intensely political (whether a member of a political party or no) are prone to grand pronouncement of the evil being/has been/will be perpetrated by the other side.

Whoever voted a pauper into office? 

However, the vitriol appears to be magnified with social media. Facebook, Twitter, tumblr, blogs etc has made lobbing accusations, speculations, half truths and downright lies to muddle things up beyond all recognition downright effortless. What with the pictures and videos and innuendos and blatant statements, there is no peace in scrolling down my FB wall. I am not going to put up examples of the idiocy they keep spewing every ten minutes; I don't think keeping my blood on boil is good for my health.

I actually longed to see anything but those toxic sewage and would gratefully accept my married friends posting sweet nothings to their significant others or the mommies crowing that their precious child had scored all As/had bowel movement/won the Nobel prize. Mind you, these are things that often made me grit my teeth and want to do massive de-friending.

It's enough to make me want to run screaming into the night.

 I wish I could escape too.

Politicians have behaved as they always did since people discovered that they can screw up society beyond belief (and profiting from it!) by holding elections. After all, a dictator only needs to make sure the gulags in the most inhospitable of countryside are well supplied to house any and all dissidents; no popularity contests needed. Since Malaysia boasts a democratic process to populate the Parliament under the Constitutional Monarch (our beloved Yang Dipertuan Agong), we see the shenanigans amping up since the nomination day some three weeks ago.

Just change the flag in the background and this is applicable worldwide.

Both sides claim that they can do the best for the country. I am pretty partisan, don't get me wrong. But this post is not about preaching to the choir or trying to convert the infidels. I am just as cynical as many about what politicians can actually deliver. The crushing blow experienced during the 2008 election has made the incumbent work harder to satisfy the grassroots, sometimes doing ridiculous things that make even their hardcore supporters wince or even explode in outrage. Nonetheless, this isn't necessarily a bad thing; gone are the days they can put up a flag pole as a candidate and they'll get the votes. They have to amp up the game and do whatever possible to make sure that this time around they'll coax the voters to give them a comfortable majority.

Glad-handing once every four to five years. In between election, the elected official often vanishes into the aether.

I do believe that for our government to work well, we need a strong and decent Opposition. Sadly, that is not what we have. We have a loose "coalition" of three parties (actually five, but one got absorbed into the Big Brother's party and the remaining adik is being mercilessly bullied by the rest) which doesn't even share common goals or ideals. But hey, politics make for stranger bedfellows and all the best to those who believe in their earnest exhortations on how they are actually BFFs (who stab each other in the back on a regular basis) who are the best people to run Malaysia. They will give us free education! Lower the price of petrol (or gasoline to those who speak American)! Abolish toll roads! Vote us and you'll go to heaven!

Standard campaign promises. For some, the manifesto is not a promise.

And the BS goes on.

(Yeah, you can probably see which side I'm leaning on, hehehe).

What really got my goat is their rallying cry of "Ini kalilah!"; an abuse of the national language which does not endear them to me AT ALL. Kalau aku tanya "Baru turun tongkang ke?", marah pulak nanti...

It's definitely a chicken vs egg situation.

Anyhoo ... if you are a registered Malaysian voter, please understand that you are incredibly precious to the country. Not just your contribution to the country's economy, but also for ensuring that we elect the right person to lead the nation.

Remember, your vote counts. Unless you spoil it. 

You are spoilt for choice! You can choose from the incumbent coalition, the Opposition (in a few places, they actually fielded more than one candidate from different parties. I told you it's a loose coalition *rolls eyes*) and a whole slew of Independent candidates (most of whom are actually sulkers from either the incumbent or the Oppo; a few are genuine believers that they have a chance at winning).

Choose which ever your heart desires ...

Whichever party that wins, we must come back together as a nation. It is sad that politics have driven a wedge that separates us, but I have faith that Malaysians can see the bigger picture and put aside our differences to continue to make our country the best that it can be.

For that purpose, Anas Zubedy of the famed "Let us add value" advertisements (that rival Yasmin Ahmad's films on triggering tearful reactions) that appear in the newspapers during the National Day and Malaysia Day has initiated a campaign to heal this rift.

So please participate in this, and help us put the silliness of the elections behind us as quickly as possible. Let us make a conscious effort to not hold grudges, to stop reading and spreading poisonous materials that are put up on our FB walls, and to just keep on living our lives the way we always have (or at least aspire towards): with dignity, grace and kindness.

You can't be what you can't see

As much as we would love to blame everything wrong with the younger generation on lousy teachers and the horrible education system, we should also own up to our role and responsibility in shaping and being the example for the younger generation to emulate. It is very hard to be something that someone TOLD you to be but not having SEEN what the example is really like.

(The rest is under cut due to lengthy rant)

'tis the season to blow things up

Being a multicultural community, Malaysians of all ethnicities adopted the Chinese customs of playing with fireworks during the festive seasons. The Chinese believed that fireworks would be an awesome way to chase away demons and usher in good luck for the new year. As a child, I had delightful uncles who supplied my sister and I with all manners of bunga api and mercun to play with during Eid ul Fitr. I have even got the opportunity to see my cousin launch his meriam buluh (bamboo cannon) in a competition with the other kampung.

*Naz, you are evil for tempting me to get them pretteh explosives*

Hari raya is around the corner (another eleven days, not that I'm counting) and I am delighted to note that there aren't as many reports of children (and adults) losing eyesight/hearing/relevant body parts due to firework mishaps. Yes, boys and girls. Salts and metal oxides ignited at high temperature can be pretty to watch, but are also detrimental to your fragile flesh. Look up the gory pictures if you like.

Sixty seven years ago, Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced a different sort of fireworks. It was not celebratory in nature and in fact, killed and maimed over 30% to 50% of the population of both cities. Little Boy and Fat Man left a nuclear calling card that reverberated until this day, as seen below.

Pretty gristly animation based on the story related by a Hiroshima survivor. Click at your own risk.

 

SAY NO TO ATOMIC BOMBS!

Of course some people would say that the Japanese army were pretty mean to other people as well. I have heard oral accounting of the horrible stuff they perpetrated in my country, not to mention stuff like the rape of Nanking, inhumane scientific experimentation, sexual slavery and so on. It is true that the Japanese army and government of the day were no innocent schoolboys.

But perpetrating atrocities on civilians are NEVER OKAY and this goes to all armed aggressors in any conflict. Once you start targeting civilians you have lost all your moral certitude and cost you the legitimacy of your struggle. Sadly, we never learn from history and continue to make this mistake over and over and over again. We abuse the free will granted to us by the Almighty and thought that we can impose our will on others on this Earth because of our military, political or economic supremacy.

The powers that be who stockpile nuclear weapons all say that they do so as a deterrent. To me it's like you have a loaded and primed gun that you point at each others' head, with your trembling finger on the trigger. Someone might sneeze and then where would we be?

Conventional weapons are horrible enough, okay?

Eco or echo living?

On Saturday night, everyone was eager to participate in the Earth Hour and plunged themselves into darkness for sixty minutes. Which cannot be too dark what with streetlights and billboards etc. Yes, I am assuming you live in a city or at least the suburbs. It is doubtful anyone who lives in the middle of the jungle bothers very much about Earth Hour.

 See? Not very dark at all.

(Under cut for lengthy rants and a scary video)

Sisterhood, yo

It's the International Women's Day today!

 

We made grands strides in less than a century. Women can now vote, get an education (though many places still frown on educating the females), get a job, smash through the glass ceiling and CHOOSE to stay at home and raise their babies (it used to be terpaksa-rela or it-really-ain't-a-choice-sugar). It's good to be a woman in this age because we live longer and are less likely to die in childbirth (unless you live in Afghanistan, Chad or something). And we have more opportunities than our grandmothers and great grandmothers, and all this changes over a mere two generations (barely three weeks if you are a fruit fly), at least for the women in Malaysia.

But we are still crippled by body image issues; trading corsets (yes, in Asia, we wore bengkung) for anorexia, the white ones burn themselves in the sun or in salons, the darker ones peel their skin with harmful chemicals to become fairer. We still earn less than men while working twice as hard, still get stuck with more household chores than our partner (maybe not an issue for lesbian couples, *LOL*), and we are expected to remain a virgin on our wedding nights when the men get approving thumps on their back for being a lothario. Our days off are not necessarily days off like a man would describe it and in fair weather or foul, the expectations on us don't change.

We are still not in control of the decisions to be made on our body. In the US, the Congressional hearing on contraception was a panel of men; so yeah, they know so well about a woman's reality about birth control and abortion *rolls eyes*. Did they not think that supporting the former means reducing the need for the latter? What with global warming and the stress of accommodating the needs of a burgeoning world population, having children in a more judicious manner is only logical.

Our clothes remain a hot topic for everyone, whether one wears too much or too little. Frankly, I believe that a woman has a right to choose whether she wants to wear a bikini or a burqa. Women's clothing has been an issue of contention at political and social level, as though the what we wear is the fabric of the society. Face it: the real major causes of social ills are poverty, lack of access to education and opportunity, lack of respect and empathy to fellow humans (and non-humans) as well as greed.
NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WE WEAR OR DON'T WEAR.

A few historians and sociologists remarked that civilisations begin to decline when the society begin to segregate women from the rest of society (reference here and Fatima Mernissi's wonderful books Women and Islam: an Historical and Theological Inquiry as well as Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World).  In an attempt to attain purity, maintain "honour" and satisfy false masculine pride, women are isolated from the rest of society, denied rights of basic citizenship (e.g. their children not given citizenship status if their partner are foreigners) and denigrated as a human being (i.e. when violence against women is condoned by the society).

Women still don't get much respect: we get blamed when we get raped, we are the first to be economically marginalised when the country's financial system experience a meltdown, women's worthiness are still judged  by their youth and looks and in any social crisis, women are among the first and most consistent victims.



Hence, inasmuch as we made leaps and progress towards improving the lot of women in this world, there are still plenty that needs to be fixed. For some society, the progression is remarkable and heartening, for some, social conditioning and culture made change a lot harder. We must never lose faith, ladies, but rather continue to work towards evolving our world to a more just and harmonious place. Not just for women, but for everyone.