Archive for August, 2008
It all started with that Mahsuri lady. So, the husband wrongfully accused her of being naughty with some other dude while he was away and got her skewered. She bled white blood (probably bad case of leukemia) and cursed Langkawi for seven generations … resulting in a cluster of islands that was untouched and pristine. With clear waters and fantastic weather.
Legend then has it, the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia lifted the curse on the islands after the seven generations were up, turning it into a tourist destination with no tax. Big hotels sprung up, cigarettes were cheap, that sort of thing. It resulted in an overpriced, crowded place which were no longer untouched and pristine. The waters stopped being so clear, but the weather didn’t change. Curse or no curse, God does not play dice.
Fast forward a few more years, and here we are.
These days, not really cursing la, more swearing … which is not that far from cursing, really. Then there’s also oathing with statutory declarations, with is not really swearing, but not that far also. A bit like cursing, actually.
If I were to summarise all the cursing swearing and oathing that’s been going on, it’d be like this:
“I swear, so help me God, under the Act from 1967, that I had a penis magicked by a bomoh so that I cannot see the face of the Mongolian model, shoved into my C4 strapped arsehole, witnessed by the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister, who prayed in a Hindu temple, which had no signs of penetration (t.r.o. the ACA with sexual favours) and does not involve any helicopters or submarines (except the butt diving kind), where my assistant was involved in the hotel room. I make this oathing and swearing under duress, with a few mistakes which were corrected by an Imam from Sabah who votes in Penang and works in Kuala Lumpur. This I declare, while being attacked by government funded islamist armed terrorist, in a Chinese temple.”
Yeah, that should about cover it. More than seven generations. At least twenty, I reckon.
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I’ve decided to put my thoughts here, instead of on the OtherMalaysia site, because it’s more a personal thing, rather than anything else. I put TOM on hiatus because Farish has decided to “shut down the Othermalaysia research group project.” It was a unilateral, dictatorial decision made on his own, by himself, whilst alone, without first checking with the research group. Of course, the research group was a group of two, i.e. him and me, but that’s by the by. No hard feelings, really. But if he ever decides to stand for any sort of election (like class monitor or captain of the softball team), there’s no way I’d vote for him, that’s for sure. Hah!
But seriously, at the end of the day, Farish was, and is the heart and soul of The Other Malaysia and I am, at best, a blood vessel. If we were a rock band, he’d be the vocalist and lead guitarist and I’d be the dude playing percussions or that little triangle thing that goes “ting-ting-ting” when you smack a little rod on it.
And Farish has crashed and burned.
What often sustains a left-leaning civil activist (is there any other kind?) is a passion for justice, fairness and equality. What drives the activist is anger and hope. And if you’re a political scientist and historian, you get to lean from much further back, and see much further forward than most others. Add to that the ability to write in such engaging style and you get Farish A. Noor.
But sometimes, anger gets spent and hopes dim. It happens, even to the best amongst us.
Farish has never been one for partisanship, never been one to take sides for the sake of being on a side. What this has meant is that he would get brickbats from every side, whenever an attempt is made to expose hipocrisy, inconsistencies and, far too often for our liking, sheer idiocy of politicians and leaders of this fair country.
For far too often, rational discourse and engagement have been suppressed for the sake of preserving the status quo, or to forward even more draconian and ridiculous measures to “protect” the fragile state of this artificially constructed nation. And yet, artificial or not, it remains our nation and one that is loved dearly by Farish.
So, there you go. He seems to have run out of gas for the moment.
When The Other Malaysia site was started, is was a labour of love for the both of us. We had not much of a budget. Not even a shoestring one. It was more like a lint budget, really. I asked Farish what he wanted the site to look like, and he drew some lines on a piece of paper. He sent me a bunch of pictures, and said that he wanted the Chelapa Minang sketch to be the logo. Except that it should be split in half, and arranged at either end. Oh, and he wanted it to be white on black. I just whacked.
He sent a bunch of old articles, wrote a couple of new ones, rehashed a few others and we were off. We grew slowly and eventually averaged about 1,000 readers a day which was not bad considering we weren’t exactly the sort to pander to any prevailing sentiments and basically did no promotion whatsoever. The spike we received during the election period was intriguing, but I thought it was just a case of people hitting whichever website they could to see if there was any information. I recall at the time Farish was busy getting himself molested in front of a mosque, deep in the north-east heartland.
But anyway, for what it’s worth, for an undetermined period of time, the Other Malaysia website will be on a hiatus. All the stuff that’s on there can still be accessed and maybe one of these days I’ll actually have everyting categorised properly. It’s not the only resource for Farish’s writings anyway, since he’s always taken the attitude that it’s more important to spread the articles to as many sources as possible, as opposed to getting eyeballs to the site. An arrangement which suited me just fine.
Will Farish write again? I hope so, and maybe I can piss him off enough to get him to do so. But don’t hold your breath.
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So, those crazy lawyers, eh? What can you do. So many people had objected to them holding the open forum, which was held in their own private property with the doors closed. But they went ahead and did it.
That’s why there were 100 300 500 1000 ? protesters outside the building, shouting slogans warning the crazy lawyers against challenging Islam. Somewhere along there was also a warning against challenging “Ketuanan Melayu” and “Hak-hak Istimewa Melayu”. That the forum wasn’t titled “Conversion to Islam and Melayu[1]” was something that must have escaped the protesters completely.
The multi-party gathering was quite unique, apparently, with a report on the online comic saying that the UMNO-backed guys had colour banners and the PAS/PKR guys had photostated text only. Dunno if the UMNO-backed flers had their banners supplied by Elegant Advisory. Hah hah! Cheap shot, sorry.
Anyway, the protesters managed to get the forum stopped, in the end. Though it must be said that the UMNO-backed guy, Jais his name was apparently, managed to insult the Chinese, the Indians … and – this is unverified, may well be hearsay – the Jews … which was certainly odd since there weren’t any Jews at the forum.
In the aftermath, there were calls for the application of the ultimate solution to shutting people’s mouth in Malaysia … the Internal Security Act. The UMNO flers were asking for the head of the crazy lawyers to be sent to Kamunting. Which UMNO flers? Well, according to this report, there’s Ali Rustam, CM of Malacca; Datuk Shahaniza Shamsuddin, Information Chief for Puteri UMNO and Datuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim who is described as the “Pengerusi Sekretariat Pembelaan Rakyat” though don’t let that fool you. Azeez is that Putera UMNO dude who used to hang around the Mat Rempits, trying to reform them from “nutjobs racing around the streets in the middle of the night” to “nutjobs racing around the streets in the middle of the night who support UMNO“. Yes, that’s the one. Yes, yes, the one who went to that “health centre” in Subang to help out a mate who got caught with his pants down and arms around some Chinese tourist who overstayed.
The PKR fler, Zulkifli Nordin didn’t call for the ISA to be applied. Actually, after the forum, he didn’t call for anything at all, since he seems to have disappeared. Never mind having Zulkifli calling for anything, he himself doesn’t seem to be callable. Even the police say they’ve no idea where he is, and that he’s not ISA-ed himself.
The PAS fler, Salahuddin Ayub has also clarified that he doesn’t support the use of ISA on the head of the crazy lawyers. He also said that he was at the protest simply to “monitor” the PAS flers who were there. Sure dude, I believe you. I mean, that’s why you were talking on the microphone to the assembled crowd, eh? And standing next to that dude with the loud hailer, screaming his head orf? Yeah … sure.
So, who’s the other guy who called for the ISA to be used, then? Well, it’s a DAP guy, believe it or not. Senawang asemblyman P. Gunasekaren said that the protesters should all be sent to Kamunting. I can only assume he did it in jest, though.
The Internal Security Act … the weapon of a bully, that’s what it is.
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[1] Some wit once told me that converting to Melayu is actually quite possible and fairly easy. The Constitution says nothing about looking like a Malay, after all.
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So, those crazy lawyers over at the Bar Council will be holding an event called “Conversion to Islam: Art 121(1A) of the Federal Constitution, Subashini & Shamala Revisited”, on Saturday, 09 August 2008. According to the blurb, the event is to discuss “How should conflicts in matrimonial and family matters i.e. divorce, custody, maintenance and distribution be resolved, upon conversion to Islam of one party in a non-Muslim marriage: Ought the Civil Courts to have exclusive jurisdiction? ”
It’s a very interesting subject, I think, even though I won’t be attending due to other, more pressing, matters. Anyway, as to be expected, there’s a whole bunch of people protesting the event. On last count, there’s:
The Deputy Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib Abdul Razak, where he said, “We are not stopping public debates. It is something healthy, but it should be organised in a closed manner.” … A closed public debate … how does that work?
UMNO Youth, where Exco member Datuk Pirdaus Ismail said, “It is pointless to organise forums based on intellectualism, professionalism or controversial issues when the safety, peace, harmony and stability of the country were being compromised.” … Yea, verily, keep your head under a shell, don’t be intellectual or professional … Where do they find these people?
Minister in Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Dr. Zahid Hamidi, where he said, “Walaupun sudah buat pada siri pertama forum Memeluk Islam dan hujung minggu ini siri kedua, saya bagi amaran, majoriti senyap masyarakat Islam di Malaysia belum lagi bangun untuk menyanggah mereka, tetapi jangan suruh kita bangun.” … Don’t challenge the silent majority indeed … The problem with the silent majority is because they’re so silent, sometimes you don’t even know if they actually care, or if they’re even a majority. I, for one, would love to have this majority voice out, for good or ill. At least we can have a chance at a dialogue. Openly. Not in a closed session. Not even a “closed” open session. Open, as in O.P.E.N. In public. With other people …
The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, who said, “Kalau ada perkara yang kita tidak puas hati, ada forum (cara) untuk kita menyelesaikan masalah tersebut, bukan melalui perbincangan terbuka yang boleh membangkitkan salah faham atau ketegangan.” … This is a “forum” wot the Bar Council is holding, albeit an O.P.E.N. one, where anyone can come in.
Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM), whose Secretary General, Khairul Ariffin Mohd Munir feels that the issues should be discussed only by those in the know, i.e. “dalam kalangan mereka yang mempunyai latar belakang dalam bidang berkaitan.” … In other words, constitutional lawyers know diddly squat, and Muslim lawyers who are not approved by the likes of you know even less …
Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim), where the Director General, Datuk Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz was reported to have released a statement which stated, among other things, that the Bar Council should instead “mendidik rakyat mematuhi setiap keputusan mahkamah, termasuk membabitkan hak orang Islam dan hak keistimewaan orang Melayu.” … Exactly, you crazies at the Bar Council! Why debate these things la? Just tell the people to just abide by the decisions of the court, including those involving the rights of Muslims and the special “right” of the Malays. The rights of other races … haiyaa, don’t invite trouble, ok. They got rights too, but that’s a different story, ok.
And finally (even though there are others, but I’m bored already), PAS have joined the chorus. In an emailed statement, the President, Ustaz Dato’ Haji Abdul Hadi Awang said,”PAS is of the opinion that the Bar Council’s initiative, which is secular in nature, will only confuse the real understanding of Islam and cause undue tension. To guarantee stability between different religions and races, PAS calls for the forum to be cancelled.” … Secular in nature … Confuse the “real” understanding of Islam … My head spins …
Look, these guys are MISSING THE POINT, in my humble opinion. In all these statements made by these people, not a single one of them chose to actually touch on the subject of the forum, which is about the rights of the non-Muslim partner in a marriage when the other partner embraces Islam. This is not a conversion issue, not an apostasy issue, not the rights of existing Muslims issue, not a Malay rights issue nor any other issues relating to the status of Islam in the country or the special “rights” of the Malays as entombed in the Constitution. And, no, it does not say “special rights”. It says “special position”. Not rights, my fellow Malays, but a position which essentially recognises that Malays are not equipped to compete with the “migrant” races — at the point of Independence, 51 years ago. And that’s not the Article in the constitution that’s being discussed here anyway.
And why can’t it be an open discussion? Because it might raise racial tensions? For whom? The Malays? Why? Can’t the people at least listen to the other side of the story first before immediately assuming that it’s a threat to the Malays and Islam?
Doesn’t Islam preach tolerance and understanding? I have written about Subashini before, and even then, I questioned whether the treatment given to her is fair or not. I wondered if it is not, in fact, zalim.
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