Problem-Solving

"Kerajaan haruslah mengambil langkah pro-aktif manakala ibu bapa serta masyarakat hendaklah berganding bahu demi menangani masalah ini" 

That's how all of my Malay essays ended in school. From global warming to social problems. I don't even know if the phrase 'berganding bahu' is correct, or what it means. Pahaha

Bizarre is the word

Bizarre is the word I'd use to describe Malaysian political culture.

Bizarre is the way we treat our Yang Berhormats. We queue on the side of the road before they even arrive, we bow before them, we kiss their hands. Why?

Aren't we technically their bosses? Shouldn't THEY be kissing our hands and begging for our votes?

Speaking of begging for votes, why is it that politicians across the board seem to have a profound love of using divisive language, as if they don't need votes from the 'other side'? Why?

Their lips are too heavy to use the phrase "taxpayers' money" instead of the conventional "duit kerajaan" and they don't seem to care much about transparency and accountability. As long as the job gets done, anything goes. Why?

Is it because the government of the day has been in power for so long they forget that they owe that to the electorate? As for the opposition, have they been in the shadows for so long that the opposition mentality has become and integral part of their identity and language?

Or maybe despite all the advancements that we achieved as a nation, we are still a feudal society. We simply accept the authority of the ruling class without question. We simply accept the harsh reality that is power is not equally shared among the different sections of our society.

I've been reading Azzam Tamimi's 'Rachid Ghannouchi - A Democrat Within Islamism', in which there's section that explains Malik Bennabi's definition of Democracy which I find very interesting. He doesn't define Democracy as it is commonly understood (a mere system of governance), rather he defines it as a process :-

"We must consider any project aimed at founding a democracy an educational enterprise for the whole community, a comprehensive program that encompasses psychological, ethical, social, and political aspects. 

For democracy is not - as is superficially understood in the common usage, that is within the limits of its etymology - a mere political process. Nor is it simply a process whereby powers are handed over to the masses, to a people whose sovereignty is recognised by a specific statement in the constitution. 

But it is the generation of attitude, and of objective and subjective responses and standards, that collectively lay the foundations upon which democracy, prior to being stated in any constitution, stands in the conscience of the people. The constitution is nothing but the formal outcome of the democratic enterprise once transformed into a political reality indicated by a text inspired by customs and traditions, and dictated by an attitude generated in a given circumstance. Such a text would have no meaning if not underpinned by the customs and the traditions that inspired it, or in other words, the historical justifications that necessitated it. 

Hence is the naivete of the constitutional imports borrowed today by some governments in developing African and Asian states that seek to establish a new order in their countries in emulation of the deep-rooted democracies. Such borrowing may be necessary at times, but it is definitely not enough on its own if not accompanied by appropriate measures to spread and establish what is being borrowed in the psyche of the borrowing country's population."

Exactly, Bennabi.

Shifting the blame

Lately there have been reports of foreign/subversive elements trying to destabilise our country. Firstly there's America..... the Jews... some Christians... and finally.... the Communists.

As someone who spends an average of only 2 hours a week outdoors, I probably shouldn't be commenting on matters happening outside my house. HOWEVER, since I do own an old 29" idiot box that can't seem to stop lying to me, I think I have the right to speak up.

It's not hard to notice that every single time our country is faced with a crisis, we immediately blame these 'foreign' elements.

Religious tension? blame the foreign Christian NGOs. Economic crisis? blame the Jews. Political turmoil? Blame the Communists. And George Soros. Again, maybe the Jews. While we're at that might as well blame the Christians.And it goes on and on and on.

Well, you might blame Utusan, or even the government for the crime of using the Jews, some foreign Christian NGOs, and sadly even our own Chinese Malaysian brethren as scapegoats. However, if we were to look into the recent APCO fiasco and the comments under MalaysiaKini articles on relevant issues, you will find that this is not confined to the people in power and their supporters. Even the opposition, especially opposition supporters seem to be guilty of this rather unfortunate naivety.

Let me tell you that our biggest enemy is neither the Jews nor the Communists.
Our biggest enemy is our own mentality, refusing to accept that we have flaws and we need to improve ourselves.
Our biggest enemy is our willingness to be enslaved and subjugated by this habit of persistently shifting blame to others whenever we fail to deal with our own problems.
Our biggest enemy is our refusal to believe that we are responsible for our own actions/inactions.

The world is changing, national borders are fast becoming irrelevant. If we fail to step up our game, we won't have to look beyond the straits to see failure, we won't have to look at Indonesia as a definition of misery, we won't have to look at the Philippines as a model of mismanagement;

We just need to look in the mirror.

p/s: It was no coincidence that when I crashed my mum's car into a grocery shop, my first response was to blame the Koreans for making such a lousy car. Look at where Hyundai is now.

Back from the dead

Hello world,


It's been a while. Apparently I have 5 times more page views from the US than Malaysia. I knew it. They're after me! They're after meeeeeeeee!

The story of breasts and bombs

Chapter 1: BreastsSome people take the Health Ministry's advice too far, I think. Check this out.

Haha. I know, I know, isn't it crazy? Anyway, before you read on, yes, this is my THIRD successive post on something to do with religion. I do notice that. But it really isn't my purpose to make fun of religion, or even religious people. That'd be inappropriate. Right? It's just that most of the people I want to make fun of happen to be religious. Big difference there.

Back to what I was saying, apparently some 'scholars' suggest that women should breastfeed their colleagues/close male companions to 'legitimize' their mingling. WOW. I thought that these so-called 'scholars' are just hungry for BEWBS, and not seriously saying that women should um... y'know, boob-feed their pals. But this time, I think I'm wrong, as always.

But what surprises most is that they are from Saudi Arabia, where the state ideology is the now-infamous Wahabism. Which is quite famous for its literal interpretation of the scripture. Well, throughout my experience of skim-reading the Quran a few times (I know, that's sad), I'm pretty sure none of verses read 'breastfeed thy horny companions' or anything like that.

You see, this is what happens when you don't rationalize religion. Yeah, yeah, religion is superior to reason, bladibladiblahhh... But God also gave you reason and free will. Don't you think He'd appreciate it if you use it sometimes? Nonetheless, I simply can't fathom what was going through their minds when they decided to issue such a strange view. It's probably not blind faith, because as learned scholars I imagine they must have done some research. Sigh. Perhaps they're being paid by tera! hmmm another conspiracy theory... interesting...

Chapter 2: Bombs

And now speaking of Wahabism, you know what's been going on lately. The government is reportedly taking action against the Jemaah Islamiyyah, which is believed to be the Southeast Asian offshoot of Al-Qaeda, whose leader is Osama Bin Laden, who happens to be a Wahabi. So they come up with the conclusion that Wahabi is evil. By the same logic, I can also say that I hate the smell of KFC's coleslaw, and because the recipe came from KFC Corporation, whose president is Roger Eaton, who happens to be South African, therefore I must hate South Africa too. And perhaps Africa in general! Or even the world! Yeah! I must hate the world! Does that make any sense to you?

Anyway, yeah, those people who are accused of being Wahabi 'agents' in Malaysia did undoubtedly create some stir with their 'unconventional' fatwas. Personally, as long as they don't make my female friends breastfeed me, or tell me to fly a plane into some random building, I can live with that. What I can't live with is Malaysian Ulamas calling each other names. I still remember having to spend two hours of my precious life back in KMB listening to an anti-Wahabi Ustaz defaming the so-called Wahabi 'agents', from Abdullah Yasin to Dr Asri. I say stop it. If you're trying to argue from a higher moral ground, perhaps you shouldn't act like a total douchebag in the first place. Hey, just saying.

One more thing is that whenever there's any news in the mainstream media about the Muftis in the mainstream media, it's always albout the Muftis calling this and that haram. Yoga is haram. Smoking is haram. Botox is haram. Sure Heboh is haram. Celcom's lucky draw is haram. As if their only job is to say no to every single aspect of modern life. Their fatwas on things like the permissibility of inter-species organ donation or stem-cell research are either reported on the pages you won't be bothered to read, or NOT reported at all.

Anyway, of course there are lots of things in Wahabism that I don't agree with. But to simply call someone that you don't agree with a security threat, to me, is plain nasty. That'd mean if ever be Prime Minister, 99.9999963% of the Malaysian population would rot in jail, the remaining 0.0000037 being me. But wait. I often contradict myself as well, should I put myself in jail too? Gosh.

And wait. Before you say that I'm a Wahabi, or sympathetic to the Wahabi cause, kindly consider these things first: I read books by Ali Shariati too, perhaps that makes me a Shiite. I've finished reading Anne Frank's diary like, three times, oh! That'd mean I'm Jewish. Watched motorcycle diaries a few times and actually enjoyed reading Stalin's biography, so that definitely means that I'm a Communist. My point is, I don't label myself (neither should you). Which is why 88% of the time I'm wearing a plain T. Call it an identity crisis, but I'd still think that only losers label themselves.

Till next time. Outttt!