Bukit Bintang step aside... Beijing taking over !!!

No wonder they say China is taking over the world economy!

But that's okay..we are happy with our comfort zones and our self serving issues at home!

Peace!

Democracy in Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s Party Elections?

Undoubtedly, the move to allow 400,000 over PKR members to vote directly is indeed a very democratic move.  Does this translate to mean that the PKR members now will have the opportunity to make an informed choice of the most suitable candidate? What will the criteria be – loyalty to party or loyalty to party personalities? Capability or pure popularity? Once the results are out, the people will evaluate the quality of PKR.

One may ask: why even have democratic elections in a political party anyway? Arguably, political parties do not have to exercise democracy within the party if they so choose to.  They can just stage manage the whole process of electing leaders. Obviously, democracy is exercised in political parties for the following main reasons:

1)      1) To give an opportunity for ordinary members to determine the leadership of the party by exercising their vote. They get to choose who to lead.

2)      2) Secondly, the elected leaders can be held accountable by the party machinery. If you hold no official position, then you cannot be held accountable by the party.

3)      3) The President of the main leader of the political party can give a direction and set its policies which can then be debated by the party members.

The manner in which a party allocates political power to its leaders reflects their true attitude towards the principle of democracy and accountability.

PKR is a peculiar political party when it comes to the allocation of decision making of the party’s direction. Every other political party, be it UMNO, DAP, MCA, MIC or Pas, the main power vests in the President of the party. In PKR, the perception is: the power does not vest in its President, Datin Seri Wan Azizah. She is perceived as a puppet for her husband or a stakeholder until her husband clears his trial.  Someone please correct me if I am wrong on this.

Wan Azizah’s husband is perceived to be the main power behind the throne. Her husband has also been nominated to go for the President’s post but I understand he had declined. By default, Wan Azizah wins uncontested. In democratic language, he has refused to allow his acceptance within the party to be tested. In democratic language too, this means that he has missed the opportunity to get the mandate from PKR members to lead them. Hence, he is without mandate, in the democratic sense. Why choose this path when PKR appears to extol democracy?

Long, long time ago (despite my reservations), I used to see PKR as a potentially 1Malaysia kind of party that may bring reforms to the Nation. However, the manner in which the party elections are unfolding especially in the election of the top leaders becomes worrisome for a discerning Rakyat who is evaluating alternatives.

If a political party continues to innovate something called “defacto leader” with vast powers, imagine the same political party taking over the government. You may end up having a democratically elected Prime Ministress with powers held by a defacto leader!  This would be a logical conclusion the people are entitled to make based on current behavior of the political party.  Am I wrong here?

The other thing that people are watching keenly is the expected results of the race for the Deputy President’s post. I am made to understand the contestants are – the sure winner Azmin Ali the loyalist, the idealistic reformer but not so politically astute Zaid Ibrahim and lastly the Abim Mustapa Ayub. Many say this will be the end of Abim influence in the politics of this country.  Times have changed.

It will be a shocker for the Nation and I bet, many people will have a second look at PKR should zaid Ibrahim win.

Peace !

Cakap lah Bahasa Malaysia! Tak erti ke?

[Mereka yang tidak boleh bergurau diberi amaran untuk tidak terus membaca]

Kawan aku mengeluh. “Pelik betul lah dia ni..dah lah lahir di Malaysia, keturunan berabad-abad di Malaysia, masih tak tahu Bahasa Kebangsaan”.

“Marah je kamu?”

“Mesti lah bang….nama rakyat Malaysia, Bahasa Malaysia tidak dikuasai. Hormati sikit lah Bahasa Kebangsaan. Kan itu bahasa kita?

“Siapa yang kau maksudkan tu? Ah Chong dengan Manikam?”

“Bukan lah. Dia orang memang mahir dalam Bahasa Kebangsaan.Pelat pun tak ada.  Aku maksudkan Mydin dengan Nik tu. Tak erti cakap Bahasa Kebangsaan langung! Loghat tebal pulak tu”

“Mydin dengan Nik? Esh! Apa yang kau merepek tu? Ni kawan-kawan Melayu kita lah”.

“Ya lah..tu yang aku berasa malu ni. Tak tau menghormati Bahasa Kebangsaan. Tak usaha nak kuasai Bahasa kebangsaan”

“Tak percaya lah aku!”

“Tak percaya? Kau dengar sendiri”

PERBUALAN DENGAN MYDIN:

“Mydin! Mydin! Datang sini sekejap”

“Awat sughuh aku mai? Hang dok pikiak apa?”

“Kamu tak kerja kah hari ini?”

“hang dok meghapu tei minyak!  Tak keja soru miss lah sheh. Aku dah pi keje, la  baghu nak pi nishan sat”.

“Tak nak minum bersama kami dulu ke?”

“Piiirah pulau kendi! Aku dah pekena baguih punya cendoi tadi. Hariah mai sat pen hang”

[Mana-mana rakyat Malaysia yang tidak faham jangan betulkan screen komputer anda]

PERBUALAN DENGAN NIK:

“Nik…kamu nak ikut kami esok ke seminar?”

“Semina? Semina gapo ni?”

“Kamu dah lupa ke?”

“Esh mu kechek gapo ni?  Mu tak ghoya pon..bilo tu?

“Esok. Ada yuran untuk berdaftar”

“Naatang betul! Ambo nak keno cari piti pulok! Berapo riyal?”

[Mana-mana rakyat Malaysia yang tidak faham jangan goyangkan tetikus anda]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…………………………tak kan nak batalkan warga Negara kot?..

Jangan marah..nanti kena jual!

Salam.

Kenapa kau ni gatal sangat?

[Perbualan ini hanya lah rekaan semata-mata dan tidak kaitan dengan sesiapa yang hidup, yang akan meninggal atau pun yang sudah meninggal. Sebarang persamaan adalah kebetulan semata-mata. Artikel ini juga tidak bertujuan anti atau pro poligami.]

Samad: Aku minat sangat seorang budak la…

Aku:  Minat macam mana?

Samad: nak ..kenalan dengan dia la..kalau boleh..nak nikah dengan dial ah.

Aku: Kau kenal dia?

(diam)

Aku: Mad, kau kenal dia ke? Dia suka tak kamu?

Samad: Er….dia student dalam kelas aku. Kan aku mengajar part time?

Aku: Ya rabbi! Student kamu pun nak sapu??? Tak sedar kah kamu ni dah 40 lebih? 

Samad: Kamu ni…cakap macam aku nak buat benda maksiat je..ni aku jujur la..aku nak kahwin dengan dia la kalau boleh.

Aku renung muka Samad dengan perasaan penuh tidak percaya adanya kawan macam ini.

Samad: Kau renung apa tu? Aku belum pun cakap dengan dia hasrat aku. Cuma kongsi perasaan dengan kamu sebagai kawan.

Aku: Mad..kau lupa saje lah hasrat kau tu. Isteri kau kan baik. Kau kan dah ada tiga orang anak. Aku rasa anak sulung kau tu pun dah umur 15 tahun…budak ni umur berapa? 20?

Samad: Kau tak faham lah. Ni..bukan kehendak aku. Dah rasa sayang nak buat apa? Bini aku memang lah baik…tapi…alah..kita kan boleh kahwin empat? Kan sunnah rasul? Dirikan masjid lah katakan...

Aku: Mula lah…nak cari alasan agama untuk penuhi kehendak kau.  Tak pernah pun aku tengok kau perjuangkan anti rasuah ke,  membela orang yang tertindas ke…ni bukan sunnah rasul juga?

Samad:  Cinta bang, cinta....aku tunggu kursus dia habis, aku nak approach dia.

Aku: Mad, bukan cinta…kau ni tak erti nak guna kemewahan yang tiba-tiba kau ada. Kau ni betul-betul perangai Melayu baru..lebih kaya dan mewah daripada ibu-bapa nya, ada pangkat pula…jadi macam budak2 yang tak erti kawal kuasa dan kedudukan..mesti ada banyak mainan.  Dulu belum kaya, hidup dengan isteri, tiba-tiba ada keupayaan, nak cari girlfriend muda. Chei! 

Samad: Kau ni tak faham la..kan aku berhasrat nak nikah dengan dia? Tujuan aku mulia..
.

Aku: Kau tak pernah fikir dari segi kemampuan kewangan ke? Kau tak risau ke pembiayaan pendidikan 3 orang anak kau nanti?

Samad: Rezeki masing-masing kan Allah yang tentukan?

Aku: memang lah Ustad! Menyampah betul bila dalam hal2 ni kau nak alatkan hujah2 agama. Hakikat sebenarnya orang macam kau lah yang aku takrif sebagai Melayu baru yang bila dah kaya, bila berpangkat mula lah tongkat Ali kau tak terkawal.

Samad: Cakap tu elok2 sikit. Tepuk air dalam dulang, percik muka sendiri! Macam hina Melayu je…

Aku:  Aku tak hina Melayu la…aku cuma cerminkan Melayu baru macam kamu dihadapan kamu.  So, isteri kau tu..perasaan dia tak penting la…oh ya..hujah kamu akan berpaut pada ..isteri yang patuh pada suami suruhan agama. Menyampah aku dengan engkau orang. Kalau nak mengatal, mengaku saje lah..aku akan cakap suka hati kau. Ni nak guna alasan agama pula!

Salam.

"Are we ready for 1 Malaysia: Does Race Still Play a Part?"- Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad

1. I would like to apologise to the students and others for failing to turn up to give the talk I had agreed to.

2. I would also like to thank those who sent get well messages, fruits and flowers while I was in hospital in Melbourne.

3. Honestly I feel I have lost an opportunity to meet and talk to what may be the future leaders of Malaysia. For this reason I am writing down here what would have been the contents of my talk.

4. The suggested topic for my talk was, "Are we ready for 1 Malaysia: Does Race Still Play a Part?"

5. I will be frank but factual. My only interest is the country we all love. I am past self-interest.

You can continue reading the rest here. 


Peace!

Grand Mufti of Syria : There is Only A Culture of Humankind. Let's embrace it.

I was pleased that I attended the talk organized by the Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies headed by Prof Dr Hashim Kamali today. The talk was moderated by Dr Chandra Muzaffar. It was a rare occasion where I was very happy to hear a religious cleric give his talk. The Grand Mufti of Syria, Dr Ahmad Badr Al-Deen Hassoun was invited to talk on the topic of “Challenges facing the Muslim World”.  

The following is what I understood him to say:

On Malaysia

He said that Malaysia is a good model for other nations to follow. It has achieved many things. He was very impressed with the cosmopolitan nature of Malaysian society and the diversity of its religions and races.  This, he said, demonstrated God’s creativity very clearly. God did not just create the Muslims but all the non-Muslims and atheists as well. If we examine every human being, we will find the stamp “made by God” on them! He further says that if we understand and accept God’s creativity in creating diverse religions and races, we will understand the true value of human nature.  

On Religion, politics and religious people

He opines that religious leaders should stay away from political office. This is because religion is for all humanity and politics will limit the religious leader to a small segment of the population or make him partisan. This does not mean that religious leaders should shy away from political issues as politics is very much a part of life. The role of the religious leaders should be to advise and guide the political leaders and invite everyone to peace. 

He explains that Syria has diverse religions and sects – Muslims of various sects, Christians of various sects, Aramenians (the language that Jesus spoke), Jews, Atheists, Zorasters. He was entrusted to be the Grand Mufti for all of them, and not just one group. 

He says “When I read the Quran, it pointed to one faith but many religious path. Each prophet have different paths but faith is one - different legal paths”.

We are all creations of God
 

He explains that religion was created to serve humankind and not the other way round. That religion came after Adam. He rhetorically asked the question: is there a Hindu world, a Muslim world, a Christian world, etc? Why don’t we just say a “human world”? Does ‘musibah’ (calamity) just befall one group and not the others? The Palestinian and Iraqi issues are human issues not a particular group's issue.

He recalls in school that he was taught only the Muslims prayed properly. Later when he read the Quran, he realized that it spoke of believers and people of faith.  All prophets from the different cultures – Noah, Shuaib, Moses, Jesus – also prayed. These are Prophets from diverse cultures. Our children were never taught about other cultures.  It was as if we ourselves are just one universe to the exclusion of the rest. When our children live in narrow circles, they get confused when they meet diversity. However, the fact is God created all of us through His creativity. Isn’t a non-Muslim a living breath that God created? He says we need to cultivate the courage and fortitude to engage others who are born in different cultures and build bridges of peace. 

Inter cultural experiences

He gave the example of how Prophet Jesus left the environment of his Armenian culture to mix with others and how Prophet Muhammad left his Arabian cultural environment to mix with others. It is through such cultural mingling that we learn because different cultures have different things to offer.  There is no harm but benefit in learning from one another. We are all of one faith but may be of different legal religious paths.

He said that the Prophet Muhammad was an example of transcending cultural barriers where he married a Coptic Christian and a Jewish woman.  However, today we are building walls and barriers between different cultures and hence in this regard, we have become more primitive.

He regards it unfortunate if human beings want to be trapped into narrow circles while the true value of humankind is its diversity. 

Muslim Unity

He said that there is too much emphasis on division between the Muslims. He rhetorically asked: ‘Was the Prophet Muhammad a Sunni or Syiah or Wahabi or anything else? He was a man of faith” . He says Muslims should learn to embrace each other and discard the divisions. He citied Europe as an example where people of differing cultures have discarded their differences and embraced unity. We should learn from their ability to do so. He prays and hopes that Asia will cooperate and unite as one.

What came across clearly was the Grand Mufti’s message that we are all the “living breath” created by God and we should embrace God’s creativity in making us diverse. The nature of humankind is simply diversity and that is God’s ‘handiwork’ which any person of faith will rejoice and celebrate. 

I wish him all the strength, peace of mind and heart to continue conveying this message of humanity to all.

Peace!

[NOTE: This is my understanding of the Grand Mufti’s talk.]

Nothing personal..it's just a job

We all live a life.

Many of us give excuses for the life we live especially when we know that the way we live our lives causes untold miseries for other people's lives. The fact is quite a number of us take care of ourselves and our families at the expense of other people's happiness and welfare.

Obvious examples will be the tobacco industry and the gaming industry. Shamelessly, these two industries thrive on the weakness of human nature. Tobacco industry's main objective is to make smokers systematically addicted to smoking. This is the target of all the millions they spend in marketing - to convince smokers that systematic suicide is cool. Governments support this industry in the name of revenue while at the same time, the Government proclaims that it wants a healthy citizenry.

Nothing personal, they will say. It is just a job.

Likewise, it does not matter to the relevant government agencies and the "businessmen" in the industry of gambling that they are milking away someone's wealth by thriving on the addiction to gambling. They are merely concerned that they can make all the money they can at the expense of other families being wrecked and destroyed. In this country, we have no shame in declaring that we are an "Islamic State" and yet licence many family wrecking gaming outlets. At the same time, we have slogans saying that we are a moralistic society and that all religions prohibit money-making schemes that take advantage of human weaknesses - yet we never walk the talk. We create excuses because the smell of money is over-riding than the smell of death of families. Once again, it is nothing personal. It is just a job. No one forced you to gamble. We conveniently forget that we never use this excuse for drug trafficking!

Political corruption is yet another example of where thousands of families welfare and standard of living is sacrificed at the altar of vested interests. We have witnessed mega projects and mind-boggling projects that bring forth "millionaire businessmen" that "society" proudly proclaims as the "successful businessmen" - never minding the fact that millions more Malaysians are left to struggle for an average income every month. Amazingly and shockingly we witness politicians and their families living lives beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen.

It never crosses anyone's mind that the amassing of such wealth denies these resources from being utilised for the general good of all citizens. To keep up the extraordinary lifestyles and wealth of these politicians, the general citizen's standard of living has to be sacrificed.

Even the more fortunate citizen like a professional who works 16 hours a day is unable to reach the wealth level of these politicians and their families. It is mind boggling as to how they are able to amass such wealth while they are supposedly busy serving the people! Nothing personal...just a job.

Lastly, but not the least, of course are the civil servants who wreck havoc on the citizen's lives by abuse and, sometimes, refusal to use their proper discretion in the interest of the citizen. They get their monthly salaries to bring back to their respective families and their strongest excuse for incompetency and irresponsibility is :" saya yang menurut perintah". It is nothing personal. It is just a job.

I have been seeing this same attitude pervade even into the other sectors, including the enforcement agencies, private sector, judiciary and so on...nothing personal. Just a job.

They all forget. To the victim, it is very personal.

It is the way these people in power CHOOSE  to make other peoples' lives and thier families lives miserable and poor so that they can be wealthy and powerful.

In life, almost every thing is personal. Raperas, Let's not forget that.  How you choose to live your life says alot about you - if you are the angel or the devil on earth.

Peace !