newspaper stories

There is two side to Malaysian newspaper articles. On the one hand, the stories are so repetitive that one can merely glaze over just from looking at them. Different players, similar mise-en-scene. Especially the political news. Even the speeches by the ministers are predictable. I wonder if they all have a pool of speechwriters that they share?

On the other hand, the story that lies behind every local Malaysians news has a possibility of the invisible narrative, that could be either more thrilling or less sensational that that which the newspaper had made up. But, when one does not know the real story behind the story, it is possible to let the imagination run wild with speculation, and when you do that, the little short story or novel is born. Like Capote's "In Cold Blood".

And sometimes, there are so many layers to a possible narrative, that a plain news story can be transformed into a gothic tale of human bestiality or hidden neurosis.

Here, we have all those tabloids, where stories can be rewritten to become bestsellers, and serious news that seem to try to beat the tabloids in their game.

V For Vendetta and Munich -tales of the two movies

I'd watched V for Vendetta on Friday, at a cinema, with a friend, and Munich yesterday, at home and alone. Different styles, different directions. Yet, a similar theme ran through both, which is violence used as means to an end. I have to give it that Spielberg's movie pays better attention to details compared to McTeigue's but both are similarly charged. It is an unfair comparison, seeing that Spielberg has had more experience but McTeigue is definitely at home in the science-fiction/fantasy genre, and knows how to tie in the loose ends, and made the action-packed movie a substantial one.

There is so much that can be reviewed, or critique about the two films (one made it to Malaysia, the other did not, maybe because of the subject matter) but I am merely making notes here of my observations, that might be usable in future articles, or writings.

Both were about fighting for a cause, and both involved the use of murder and violence. While the human element is played to the full in Munich, it is played out pretty well in V for Vendetta by Weaving and Portman, though sometimes, I feel that V was more like a very well-groomed automaton who always knew the right things to say. But His voice, I have to say that I was transfixed by the well-modulated voice, not something you hear everyday if you live where I do. The only time I saw any semblance of actual love for humanity, was the anguish he felt when Evey told him that she was leaving him. It was then that you realised that he actually had REAL feelings. In fact, the problem I would have with the movie, other than it being a rather unevolved political skit, is that we don't get to see more of the characters feelings, though I believe Weaving did a superb job, as did Portman. What is more, there seems to be too clear a demarcation between the good and the bad. And the bad seems almost mad and monstrous, all with the exception of Finch, the head of the police department, who despite being initially on the side of the "bad guys" (but one can see that he had a heart, as he wanted to save Evey from possible torture and death if she were to fall into the hands of the secret police, the "fingermen"), soon sided with the "good guys" towards the end of the movie, and helped toppe the government ala Guy Fawkes by bombing the Parliament. Maybe I'll read the graphic novel before I comment further, and that would require me to try fnding it in a bookshop. (:

As for Munich, I am sorry that it did not make Malaysia's cinema. Though a Hollywood movie, it does not have many of the irritating qualities of the current breed of movies from Tinseltown. I am so glad that Spielberg did not try to distinguish between the good and bad guys, and the beauty of the movie is how multi-faceted his characters are, even those who made but cameo appearances. It is a story about the aftermath of the 1972 Olympics in Munich, where 11 Israeli atheletes were massacred by a bunch of Palestinian freedom-fighters. There were as many violent scenes in the movie as there were tender moments.

I have to say that it is the dialogue that made the characters come alive for me, and I almost wished that the "terrorists" (Palestinians in this movie, according to the Israeli government) that were being hunted would escape unscath, because they were so kind, gentlemanly and courteous in person. They were loving to their families, they obviously love their people and shared in the sufferings of their predicament, despite living bourgeoisie lives in Europe.

One must remember that the events that took place in this movie was just slightly after the six day war in 1967, which heralded the drawing up of West Bank border. It was also not too long after the repatriation of the Jews to Israel. Violence was then escalating as the stateless Palestinians fought to regain their land. It is important to mention that when the word "terrorist" were used in the film, it was not to influence the perception of the audience towards the Palestinians, but rather to let us view them through the eyes of the Israelis who were then at war with them. But when we observe individual interactions, and there are so many such instances of such in the movie, we soon realised that, if not for all these political hatred, these people could had been very good neighbours and friends with one another. Just like how the Bosnians and Serbs were friends prior to the Balkan conflict.

There was a scene showing Avner (the hired assassin, formerly of MOSSAD, the Israeli secret police) having a pow-wow with Ali, a Jordanian, who freely told the former that he hated the Jews, after having mistaken the former for a German. The latter did not love the Palestinians any better, but they were considered preferable to the Jews because the Arabs felt that the Jews had be the cause of their destabilisation. A few scenes down, when Avner was shooting Ali in the former's attempt to get away after assasinating the man the latter was guarding, you could almost see in Ali's eyes, the look of sadness and betrayal. And one sees that anguish in Avner's eyes (or maybe I'd imagined it) as the cameras did a close-up. The Israeli assassins were ethical in their attempt to inflict minimal damage while ridding themselves of their targets. One of the assassins, the bomb-maker Robert, was trying to get details of the telephone of one of the targets to plant a bomb, the target's daughter saw him doing that as she came in to practice on the piano. But the girl was unsuspecting and even smiled at Robert. He must had felt terrible then, knowing that he was soon to make her fatherless, and the anguish was apparent later, when he lost his appetite after having successfully killed the target at last. There was a scene where they found out that she was still in the house, and had picked up the call that was meant for her father. They attempted to delay the assassination until she was safely out. But was indeed a very sad scene, for the viewer knew what will soon come to past.

There were many scenes of brutality, but also many scenes of tenderness. Avner's love for his family saved him from becoming a victim of another assassin masquerading as a prowling man-trapper. I saw him cried as he spoke to his little daughter on the phone, and I wondered how he felt then about the men he had been assigned to destroy, the men who were also husbands and fathers. Towards the end of the film, the audience is shown how much toll such a life had had on him, renderind him paranoid and giving him the equivalent of a post traumatic stress disorder. From the time he decided to undertake the mission, his life changed, and would never be the same. But he began then to open his eyes to the futility of brutality as it begets more brutality (something that we get to see through the news that came on a few times in the movie). His previous unquestioning loyalty towards his homeland took a turn when he realised how much of a pawn he was to his country's politics. The movie succeeded in portraying the weaknesses and cruelties of both sides, as well as the humanity that exists in each individual person. Unfortunately, since the focus of the movie was on the Israeli, we did not get to see really what goes on in the minds of individual Palestinians and Arabs, but from the short exchanges of dialogues, and from the various scenes, we get a notion that they too have a heart. We are reminded of the fates of the refugees after the Palestinians were rendered stateless, and it is clear that the movie aspires to tell both sides of the stories as well as it could. We also get to see the kind of impression PLO had on the world back then, and how easily they were confused with HAMAS (maybe because of the ties to both organisations by certain individuals).

Hence, I think it is shallow prejudice that kept Munich from being screened in Malaysia. Anti-semitism, unfortunately, is still pretty high in this country, and that had kept many worthy movies from being shown. We are in some ways worse than terorrists who had become such due to their despair, because we are blindly prejudiced in our complacency, only because it is easier to be prejudiced along with the majority rather than to question it. I suspect that V For Vendetta was allowed to be screened because it had been categorised as some movie version of comics, despite its obvious political content and unrelenting criticism of establishments. V, the man who is liberator of the masses, as had been said in other reviews, is also highly individual, in that he has tastes that could not be considered "popular", with the exception maybe of the jukebox. He does remind me of Eric in the novel Phantom of the Opera, though perhaps a more highminded version?

Both movies were about fighting for freedom. One involving only one country, whereas the other involved a country that had become the source of wars between two factions. I daresay that the two movies would be interesting to explore what is means to be a terrorist, and the "black September", September 1972 and September 2001.

And if you need a refresher course on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, do check out here

What I think of the Grouchy Grammarian

Regardless of how fluent and skilled you think you are when it comes to the English Language, one is always in need of a refresher course. You never know, that very verb or classic quote you've been so fond of using may actually be off the mark (you will learn how to use may/might properly in one of its chapters). You can learn from the blunders of others, and vow to yourself never to make the same mistakes. But then, old habits diehard. Second language users will definitely benefit from this book, and many of the hits-and-misses and boos-boos were commited by professionals, some of whom use language to earn a living, and many of whom are native users. And my, the mistakes made are quite funny. I had many a good laugh (and laughter is a good antidote for stress and depression, cliche I know) over them, even late into the night (I wonder what my neighbours had thought of all those peals of laughter).

English has always been a slippery one, what with its many past pefect tenses, past participles, progressive tenses, and having to differentiate between gerunds and infinitives, getting the subject-verb agreement right. The latter in itself can give you split ends, if not a splitting migraine. So, why not indulge yourself in some good laughs while learning a thing or two about grammar? And keep this book about you at all times.

My own little review of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostovo

I finished this book, at long last. And I feel myself much closer to the Balkan and Ottoman history than I've ever been before, and in fact, this book has created in me a hunger to explore the geography and histories of these countries with their glorious and terrible histories, which I've flown over but never set foot on.

The book comes to me in many layers. The first layer is the story itself. In documenting the history of Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler (who is the real Dracula to the Dracula of popular imagination), as well as following the lives of the various scholars who were obsessed with finding out more about him and in tracing the mystery that shrouds this cruel man. If you read the book and check out on his history, you will realise that there is as much speculation as fact, and the author has give free reign to her imagination where facts are hazy, and from that, we get an intriguing story (even if it falters slightly towards the end). It all began with the finding of a little folio of a book, with empty pages save for the woodcut of a dragon in the middle. The leaving behind of an unknown book, of ancient but unknown provenance, is a litmus test, is the Dracula's way of satisfying his hunch that he had picked the person with the qualities he was looking for. So that he may bring them into his underworld and have them serve him. Yes, historical Dracula is made the vampire here, though in a way more real and refreshing than all the tired pop-culture renderings. In fact, there was a part in his speech that is chillingly true. About how evil is more easily perfected than good, in this world of ours. And that was further emphasised through the description of the various manuals on cruelties that a human can inflcit on another in the Impaler's library. And there is a strong, yet subtle tying in, to the atrocities and politics of modern times, and the atrocious manueverings of the Impaler would not have been out of place today.

Another layer is that this is definitely a bibliophile's book. Anyone who is a self-professed archivist, historian or lover of books would find much descriptions to delight the senses. In fact, it took me back to the days when I used to explore antiquarian bookstores in my travels in England and the Netherlands. It is the marking of a formerly colonised country that Malaysia does not have much of such collections, save for that brought over by the former colonials, and perhaps bought by some wealthy and cultured collector. I was once told that there are collectors of rare manuscripts in Malaysia, by a source close to these buyers, and I hope to be able to acquaint myself with one of them. Rare manuscripts lie in abundance in this tale, and it is as much a novel as it is a story of scholarship and books as it is of vampires and obscure folk tales. Dracula himself is a biblophile, which explains his interest in anyone who handles books of any sort. The chapter describing his library was astounding, and even tempted me to join the him, had I been a character in the novel, for the sake of thumbing through the volumes, many in languages I would never had understood. Despite the professed anti-intellectualism of Medieval Europe, monasteries remained centres of learnings and keepers of knowledge.

The next layer is a sort of political commentary of the times, and of the countries traversed by the characters. Ancient political history interspersed with current affairs of the twentieth century, and as many former countries of the Eastern bloc are opening up, one wonders what it might have been back then. Today, it would be a lot easier to enter these countries than to travel to what used to be free, democratic countries, due to the change in political climate and the rise of a different sort of terrorism. The irony of it all.


The fourth layer is the religious history that lie heavy in the pages. I just hope that some of the words used by the author, whom I am sure only use them to inject realism into the story, would cause this book to be banned by certain fundamentalist and close-minded factions in this and other countries. Especially since Karen Armstrong's History of God has been banned in Malaysia. In fact, I could only read it at the library of the university I used to attend here, though sadly, I never got around to it. It is definitely interesting to explore the mystical aspect of Christianity that were very much of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and how Kostova has cleverly foregrounded Dracula into the struggle between the Christians and the Ottoman conquerors. I do not see anything biased or judgement of her account, for she is quick to give credit where it is due, for instance, by stating, not once but a few times, to her readers, via her characters, how the Ottoman conquerors could be as benevolent to their conquests, as they were violent during the act of conquering. There were particular mention of Sultan Mehmed II as he lived during the lifetime of Vlad Tepes, this prince of the Wallachian seat. A kind of inter-faith conference seem to take place in this book, via the roundabout route of history and politics, and through the medium of the central character, none other than Dracula himself. The word 'infidel' flows on both sides to refer to the other in ancient epistles. Kostova now and then will have her characters making statements, sometimes political in nature, and at other times an affirmation of a particular person or culture's religious faith. Or maybe of the person's agnosticism. But it is through the figure of the Dracula that has united people of different political, religious and even geographical inclination into a pursuit against evil.

Running through all these heavy layers are individual love stories, which are rather tragic, as the characters in love are star-crossed, and circumstances act to separate them. For the hopeless romantic, there is a story in which one of the main characters in the story, who having met the love of his life while on his trip to Romania to follow the trails of the undead Impaler, swallowed a drink in Greece that made him forget his research and the fact that he had ever set foot in that country, thus leaving the poor young girl (who as you will read further, is pivotal in this tale, because of her ties one of the two main protagonist of the tale)alone and pregnant. It is opened to speculation as to whether his being given this drink had been intentional, since the author never explored this option further. Or that the married life of the two protagonists, having fallen in love during their pursuit together after the trail of Dracula's tomb, because of the contamination of one of them, and Dracula's relentless pursuit of them through their lives, were separated, and even after being reunited, never lived long together in happiness. In fact, despite the rather bland ending, the reader is left guessing as to whether Dracula is well and truly gone. That despite the fact we see him disappearing into dust. However, the drama of the previos pages more or less make up for the anti-climax, as the reader will still find it throbbing in his or her head, and that more than anything make-up for the disappointment.

There are many more minor layers in this book, but I hope that the mention of these existing layers would have convinced a person with a love for history and books to begin reading. Perhaps I might have given some of the plot away, but that is no help to that since I am not really reviewing this book here, but talking about areas of it which intrigues me. The artificial divide of the oriental versus the occidental seems to dissolve under the narration, even if the description occasionally bring them back.

A short review of Tues, 14 Mar 2006, Of Descartes "Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and seeking Truth in the Sciences"

There is not much that I wish to say here, other than the fact that the discussion went on well, and even generated much heated debate from one or two of its members who decided to argue for or against Descartes's personal maxims to approaching philosophy, though of course, I think there is a certain degree of misunderstanding of what the poor man might had meant in this treatise, seeing that some of us are too set on our own preconception (something which Descartes did warn against) to try to work out what he might had been saying. However, as one of the discusssants point out, it is important that we can process what the person whose work we are studying has to say, so that we can utilise that in our own thinking, rather than blindly regurgitate the maxims and theorems of the said philosopher. Of course, there might be certain amount of misinterpretation and oversubjectivisation by the person reading Descartes, especially when he or she is ignorant of the tradition from which Descartes has risen from (though this has been severely argued and counter-argued by structuralists and post-structuralists in their deconstruction of the text and the author)

The natural scientist in me rebels over subjectivisation. Despite my personal subscription to the philosophy of quantum mechanics, where there are many uncertainties and errors in human measurements of its functions and variables due to our ability to be doing more than one thing properly at the same time, there are certain levels of precision and arbitrary laws to denote it. Or better yet, a particularly fixed model to which to base all the less easily measured models.

This particular work of Descartes is like a little manifesto that he wrote for himself as a reminder on the method that worked best for him in his dissertation the sciences (sciences here means body of knowledge). Descartes separated "pure philosophy", that which enumerates the truths of the world independent of subject-matter, from "applied philosophy ", that which is the philosophy derived from a particular science (my jargons) and we will see more of this as we study into his other works. We know that Descartes subscribed to the dual mind-body model, and
that he separates the corporeal from the material in his philosophy. Some might consider him an empiricist in his dissection of the material, but was less given to questioning when it comes to dealing with the unseen. Perhaps an area which escaped us that night, which I only realised as I write this, is that the text of Descartes allows us into the limits of the person's mind, and also a peek into the psychological conditioning he has had from his Jesuit education. I see now that his arguments over his religion, which he accepts unquestioningly as the ultimate truth, is reminiscent of the same acceptance of many scholars and philosophers of their religion today.

Quite a number of us who attended this discussion had a real interest in philosophy, and had read into the field, though most of us are not really knowledgeable on Descartes's philosophy. I think at least one of us mixed up epistemology with ontology when he decided to get into an involved discussion on existentialism and God (perhaps a precursor to future discussion on ontology?). I am guilty of encouraging this digression and for not trying to steer it back to the discussion of Descartes's four maxims (please refer to text, Part II, II and IV for more details). The unfortunate part is that not everyone read the text prior to the discussion, so there is no real space for more indepth discussion.

Our next discussion will still be on Cartesian philosophy, this time examining some other texts. I will put up a notice on that later. This time round, different people have volunteered to read different texts and to present their findings to the rest for further debate and discussion. I will put a list of the selected texts up later and say which have/have not been taken up, and you take your pick from texts that have not yet been taken-up.

And let us not get into the bad habit of going off tangent, however learned you might be in the topic you are digressing into, but stick to the agenda of the night, unless you can provide a substantive link between topic of discussion and your examples. And please read the text, or you will not get the fullness of the discussion. Since there might be more than one this time, you might not have time to read them all, but please read the ones you have volunteered to present, and scan through the rest as you have time.

My point of this review is not to report on what happened that night in detail, coz that is too much work and takes too much time (this is voluntary after all). So if you really want to know, come join us. It differs each time, depending on who turns up. There were seven of us that night, though two turned up late.

No date has been fixed for the next meeting. Coordinator, yours truly, might be too busy next month. Will let everyone know later.

A bientot

Ways of Understanding

Understanding, an act we participate in without much conscious thought. An ability that we have been schooled to utilise in our nascent years, and is perhaps the key to our learning of new skills and comprehension of new subject matter. Perhaps the differentiating factor between passing or failing our exams, or being competent at our work. This and its partner, the short term memory, so essential to learning, prior to its confirmation among the filing system of the long-term memory, create a fine line between a person with aphasia or other cerebral dysfunctions, and a person with normal brain function.

Yet, even those of us who believe that we are utilising our brains optimally, we often fail to realise how inefficient we really are, and how often it is that we fail to understand even the most basic of matters. While it would be catastrophic for a doctor, engineer, architect, or any professional dealing with precise sciences, to misunderstand the area of their provenance, more subjective areas (and despite the specificities of the legal system, many laws are more subjective in their interpretation than we think)are where we see the slip-ups and complete miscomprehension of its human actors. Below are some examples of what I meant

1. In the world of political debates, when an issue is at stake, we can find supposedly intelligent people completely misunderstanding an issue that is the topic of their debate, and instead spend their entire time during the debate, moving up the wrong alley. Some of these people are what Descartes would call, those who consider themselves to be cleverer than they are, and are precipitious in their judgements and avowals. Yet, they believe that they have impressed the audience with the pedantry of their arguments. Or that they have fight a good fight.

2. In the corporate world, even in the most highly regulated arena like banking, there is always much room for misunderstanding from different sides. Perhaps they are spurred by an inability to continue their emotions, or are overly easily agitated by perceived slights. It is not unknown for the superior to be inconsistent in their directives, nor for the quacking staff to fail to elicit clarity of a vague instruction given by their superior. Nor is it uncommon for the staff to communicate instructions to each other in such a way that the instructions function more to confuse the communicatee than to shed light on anything. Sometimes, the receiver of the message has to undergo much cognitive decryption to make sense of the message that is trying to be communicated, and when he/she actually make the effort to find out, find the effort to be an almost pointless exercise.

3. A university professor who misunderstands a particular theory or does not fully understand what he/she is trying to communicate to the students tend to confuse the latter, and hence lead to more disinformation. What is more dangerous would be disinformation of the most fundamental of axioms and concepts since these are the foundation to the building of analysis. To base an entire analysis and spurious/erroneous concept is not merely a time-wasting exercise, but could become dangerous when these analysis are used as building bricks to formulate policies that would have its effect on the lives of the masses. A student who fails to clarify or check on the received information, but to continue in his/her miscomprehension, and to accumulate knowledge with perceptions that are skewed, is but building a house on quaking sand.

4.Another common and probably dangerous method of understanding is to see truth as relative, and thus forsake instances when truth might be arbitrary. Whether they be religious precepts, or the laws of physics. Should we build our interpretation on matters over which no authority could certify, because the shifting paradigm necessitates that truth shifts at all times, if it is but an exercise on intellectual play, might be a harmless, and perhaps rejuvenating to the mind. But, it starts becoming dangerous when we use our own subjective understanding (or misunderstanding) to influence and teach minds weaker than ours. Where then is our accountability to them.

At the end of the day, perhaps it is best that we bring the act of understanding into a more conscious position, and to observe ourselves as we enter into the motion of comprehending something which is new, something which we are reading, or information that are entering by way of our senses. Perhaps then can we really understand how and how much do we understand.


The above are partial examples of how understanding courses through human life. The entry is inspired by Descartes's "Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting Reason".

The ways of a(n)(un)thinking person?

This abstract act has fascinated people through the centuries, so much so that scholars, philosophers, writers, scientists, artists, and such like-intellectuals have tried to define this process, or at least have attempted to do so, without ever cracking the concept.

However, I am not going to play the philosopher here, but instead would like to use tangible examples on what actually goes on in the mind of an average person, and does the person'a thought become manifested in his/her actions.

Howard Gardner proposed 7 types of human intelligence . Hence, just because that person performs poorly in one area of intelligence does not negate his intelligence completely. So, would it mean that a person who is a fool in his chosen profession means that he has chosen the wrong profession? Likely. Unless he/she was a fool to begin with. (:

While some might argue that intelligence is innate, there are certain psychological factors, as well as training that can influence the way a person react to situation.
Let's take learning martial arts, yoga or even an intricate dance-step. How does a person actually memorise all the right poses, footwork or even handwork? Firstly, there is a need to have visual-spatial intelligence, to be able to easily gauge and therefore memorise the coordinates of each position of the hand, feet and body. And there is a need to think through logically using one's bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. However, could a person who is able to think logically from one action to the next, have difficulties solving more abstract logical-mathematical problems? Highly likely, because some people with high logial-mathematical abilities are not physically coordinated (which would mean that the body does not wire so well with the brain). I myself very well understand how it is to watch a demonstration of an action and to think it either looks really easy only to realise that I am having spatial-directional problems when trying to replicate the process I have just seen. Or even find out that intricate steps, however confounding they look, actually are manageable and even easily emulated once broken down.

And then there is the matter of moving this new piece of information from short term to long term memory. How does one do that? Will do another post on this another time. (: But suffice to say for now that a quick memory does not always necessitate good comprehension. Some people who take longer to remember can remember well and long in the end, and with good comprehension as well. But having the ability to grasp information quickly and sort them out in your brain is a good skill to have, and which many people have been attending courses and reading books to master :)

I have experimented with different ways of thinking, have stumbled along the way, done really idiotic things I would not have done in my right mind e.g. doing something really silly when trying to imitate an action which I've just been shown. I sometimes have difficulties relating phonetic sounds to meaning (e.g. being unable to understand what a person is trying to tell me because of the accent or the modulation of the voice, or being unfamiliar with the sounds of a foreign language which I am trying to master), and have even tried to figure out a way to remember intricate poses for yoga and dances. (:

There are many examples in which people would sometimes do think without thinking (or at least without thinking it through). Hence, I will write about how to lose a guy in 10 days...oops I mean how to lose your brains in 10 ways. There are more, but these examples will do for now. ;)
1. Double-parking when they know they are not going to be within range of sight, or knowing that they won't be taking only a short while.
2. Trying to squeeze your vehicle into a tight spot and then cursing the stranger who knocks into it.
3. Driving in the middle of the road and then wondering why the car behind you is staring daggers.
4. Accelerating and refusing to give way when the car on your left is signalling to move right.
5. Throwing food into water dispenser, knowing full well that you will also have to suffer the consequences of blocked filters.
6. Cutting down trees without thinking how it might effect the ecosystem overall, and your comfortable, urban life in the end
7. Planning the town haphazardly (think of the recent flashfloods in KL)
8. Building roads anyway and anyhow you like, regardless of the effects on the community around you.
9. Students copying results of an experiment which they should be conducting on their own and thus obtain their own results. But they've been doing this all the while, from school to university. Hence, they never learnt to conduct an experiment, or even do anything properly. Which is why our industries and corporate world is so screwed up. Btw, this applies to the medical sector as well.
10. We follow the laws and rules that are given to us unthinkingly, because we have been brainwashed to do so since we were kids. We never thought of questioning the feasibility or even the rationality of such laws.

bonus point : Believing that reform is underway when all that is being done is to cover the subject over with tinsels and glitters. E.g. Does appointing women to a patriarchal system solve the problem of gender inequity? Well, only in terms of having female faces and bodies among the men, honey.

Go figure the rest.

A Statement To Clear Up The Air - Also a writer's manifesto to myself

Have been reviewing a few things, and thinking about the direction of my writing programme. I have started here and there doing some stuff in a small way, but decided that I should now focus more of my energy and shift the gear higher. The giving up of certain commitments will actually allow me more time to concentrate on more challenging writing tasks ahead rather than reverting to the comfort zone. It's a big and dangerous world out there, but I will arm myself as well as I can. Wish me luck!

A few announcements are in order to clear things up.
This article that was written at jalantelawi.com under a different name was actually written by me. Perhaps the choice of that particular pseudonym have been miscontrued as my way of undermining religions (and the hegemony of Islam in Malaysia). Firstly, I would like to say that a name has no religious affiliations. Just because it happens to be a name that came from a race where a majority of the people are muslims, it does not mean anything. I could very well use Mohamad, Ali, Yusuf, Mariam etc, and proclaim my sentiments about anything under the sun (though I have to be careful that I do not sound like I am talking through my arse), it should not be read out of context. The reason why I chose this name is because I want to use a name that is seldom used by non-Malay members of the race in Malaysia, especially since I am a Malaysian. I've been asked as to why I am "Clarissa Lee" since I am not white instead of some local name. Well darlings, firstly, I do not believe in limiting myself to anything and I am sick and tired of superficial nationalism. I damn well can call myself with some name in an unpronouncable tongue to most people in this region if I wish to. And I damn well am proud of my race and heritage (I never am "racist" but the conditions around has left me high and dry), and my name in no way detracts from the fact that I am C-H-I-N-E-S-E in every imaginable permutation even if I've been told that I don't always look THAT Chinese (and yes, my parents DID give me a Chinese name). How should a Chinese look since the nation is made up of a very mixed race and culture. Perhaps they mean I don't look very Han (the race of many southern Chinese originating from China). I can't say I like the way some Chinese have become, but we do have a strong heritage that we can be proud of in many ways. And I really dislike the ethno-centric, small-minded, and short-term thinking that do still permeate the Chinese culture of today (and of yesteryears). Anyway, I digress.

Whatever I choose has long-term implications for me and I am now too old to make choices and change directions on whim. So, one day, I decided to write using a Javanese pen-name and hence I am interpreted as an anarchic atheist. Hello, God belongs to everyone. And I never intend to be a plain jane when I write, regardless of how I might look physically. And to return to that article above, I truly believe in everything I wrote in there, even if you feel that I have mistaken notions about things. Write back and scold me with your own views and take. At worse, we can agree to disagree.

Anyway, I will be discontinuing my writing in a few places and will be concentrating on some new stuff that I have been working at developing. Firstly, I won't be writing for jalantelawi.com for now since I need all that free time I can muster. So to those who have followed my writing there (even if there were just 10 of you or less, don't miss me too much, ya? ;P). And I am also changing direction in the kind of publications I write for, as I intend to develop new platforms and maybe experiment in other places. I'll keep my faithful readers abreast of what I am up to. I welcome all forms of constructive criticism, you can even tell me you hate my style, and why (I am learning to develop a thicker skin over time and also to be even more self-critical). You can even say that you do not like the way I overuse parentheses, asides and appositives. :D
That's what I left the comment boxes for. You can even drop me emails should you not wish for others to see them. (:

The physique :It is all in the appearances

We might wish to appear fair and equitable to others, but subconsciously, our reactions and favours are directed by an innate sense of aesthetic. It is true that people do judge a book by its cover, at least where first impressions go. Yet, in that flitting second, first impressions can actually open or close the doors to getting beyond the first acquaintance, to friendship, love and maybe marriages for some. Not everyone has the chance to get reacquainted with a person again and again under different circumstances that might allow them to see beyond the polished/raw veneer.

It might be true that a good-looking man or woman has more admirers, some even from early in life. It is especially true for a woman, for it gets people to notice her. Perhaps it has to do with how civilisation has for centuries celebrated the beauty of the female form and appearance (they did do that with the male form, though it was more on the beauty of a prepubscent or teenaged boy). All the better if she has both beauty and brains, and knows how to work these to her advantage. If she has strong personal values and/or is well brought up, she will not allow all the attention to go into her head. She has to not allow her beauty to stop her from achieving her dreams of success based on pure ability, rather than take the easy way out by merely capitalising on her looks. While many people feel that a beauty with brains has it going for her in the world (and there is no denying she does), it takes a strong character, a character with depth, to remain focus on her ambitions, especially if the ambition has nothing to do with how she looks.

How does it fare then for the less attractive counterpart, and I mean physical attractiveness. She might have strong inner beauty, intelligence and talents, and a great personality, but might not attract as many admirers at first glance. However, unlike the admirers of a natural beauty, the admirers of the less naturally physically beautiful woman are more likely to be admirable creatures, one who can appreciate the person of substance, one who is likely to be more interesting and more worthy of the strong bonds of friendship. I do not include here admirers who have reached the penultimate of desperation and hence would go for any woman that comes his way. These are not true admirers, but one who fashions his admiration based on personal calculations.

The world is one of superficialities, and a person less attractively made are bound to be faced with frustrations, and perhaps insults by less sensitive creature. She might be made to feel that she is too fat, too spotty, too flat, too ugly, too everything. Yet, to be able to rise above that shows a person of pure strength. I admit to that I have my own biases, that I too, like everyone else, gets drawn to beauty. Many people have what I would call the "ugly thermometer", where they would assign a threshold to how much physical unattractiveness they will accept in a potential partner. It does take a special person to look beyond physical deformities to appreciate the person within. And this is hard to do, and I am embarass to say that I too have such prejudices many a times, unthinkingly. But let no one despair, for such a thermometer is subjective from person to person. However, it is unfortunate that there lies no instrument to measure inner beauty.


Therefore, great is the man who can appreciate the woman for all that she is worth, and to know when he has landed himself a treasure far above rubies, and to show her his appreciation in ways that would move her. And the same goes for the woman who can appreciate the man beyond his stature, his brains, his financial successes and looks. While looks might be less important to a woman up to a certain degree, they too are guilty of making judgemental measurements of their partners.

The same goes for men and women who are attracted to the members of their sex, though there might be slight differences in terms of preference and attraction. Bear in mind that I am talking about two ends of the spectrum, one who is acknowledged (almost universally) to be beautiful and one who is known to be not so. I have yet to talk about the average looking person, and those whose looks might be more subjectively defined.

Is Malaysia becoming its own caricature?

I find it hard to understand why should NST be issued a show cause letter just because it published this little comic satire of Wiley Miller. It seems that we never learn from history, but just go on and on repeating the same mistakes of our forefathers (unfortunately for us, the leaders of today are spawns of those very same forefathers). Read the rest of the explanation on NST here. I do not believe that NST need to apologise and I think it is mendacious for the Informations Minister to arm-twist it into doing so.

In many ways, NST has become more interesting and newsworthy in the last few months, and it is sad if it has to regress back to a former shadow of its recent past.

I tried looking for the cartoon in the Feb 20th issue of NST's Life&Times but failed to locate it. Can someone tell me whether it might had been in the 13th Feb issue?

Strictly speaking, I think Malaysians in general lack the ability to understand satire, and it kinda shows how we have not moved much, intellectually, from our mud-racking days.

Fathi Omar Aris does an interesting dissection of this issue in his latest blog entry.

What maketh an intellectual - santai salon

This time around, we were at Prof SHA's house, enjoying the delights of a salon atmosphere with dimmed lights and black coffee (for the record, I am not really a coffee person but it was good enough coffee nevertheless).

The night started off slowly, with discussions about the current issues of the day, which took a detour into the sociology of cults, back into the time of the Second World War and the building and detonation of the A-Bomb (though I should call it H-Bomb since it is made with hydrogen) and back to the current conditions of the day. However, when I asked him why some of the most intelligent and highly educated people would propagate atrocities on behalf of a cult they've joined (and why did they join in the first place), he answered that it has to do with these so called "intellectuals" being merely technicians. Too bad we didn't get to go deeper into the sociology of it. Perhaps another time. Our talk remained pretty light, until Fathi posed to him a question on how he sees Malaysia as having developed, intellectually in the 30 years since the writing of his book "Intellectuals in Developing Societies" and that began the second half of the evening.

SHA lamented the fact that there are no structure or system that nurtures and encourages the growth of intellectual interest in Malaysia. Intellectual leadership from most academics/lecturers to their students are limited to helping them pass exams (in most instances). Many academics are not too concerned with intellectual pursuits, preferring to centre their attention on the technicalities of their specialisation. Bureaucracy is emphasised and flexibility of thought not encouraged. An important fact that he pointed out is that the lack of intellectual integrity and conviction is what led to many academics to being easily cowed through the blatant use of power (read my post about the Atilla)

He did talk quite a bit about his experience as an administrative leader at UM but I will not go into that.Maybe I'll bring it out in another post. However, what he said about the need for academics and scientist to engage with society, and to relate their work to society, is something that is being practised more and more today, though unfortunately in Malaysia, only by social scientists and humanities scholars. What happened to the natural scientists? And what about those in professional fields like business, finance, engineering, medicine, etc? Many of them do not seem to engage with communities beyond that of their own specialisation. The good prof believes that while nature might have a role to play in creating an intellectual, nurture is just as important, and thus the importance of education and the encouragement towards critical inquiry and creative thinking. What do these latter two phrases mean? Well, we might examine them in subsequent book discussions.

As many people had pointed out, and so did the prof now, Indonesia as a much more intellectual discourse. It might have to do with history, has to do with their revolutionary spirit in the fight for independence. The same goes for the Philippines. Perhaps the fact that Malaysia has always get things easy (compared to its neighbours) has made its people more complacent and mentally lazy. Perhaps they think that being in a country that gives them ready access to English books (though in no way am I comparing us to first world English-speaking countries), they are therefore cultured and cultivated, without understanding what these two words mean.
In the third half of the discussion, he was asked about his opinion on what constitutes Islamic Literature (with capital L). The answer was interesting. Most of us (myself included) are often quick to give narrow categorisation on particular types of Literature, and this is no different with Islamic Literature. Many great literatures of the world that talks about the universal values of humanity, of love, kindness, goodness, generosity and all that is considered positive traits of a human being, can be classed as Islamic Literature. Even literature that discusses human depravity and evil can be constitute as such, as long as such literature do not promote these values. If you want to know what values I mean, just go back to the respective religions of the Book. Other religions do not have such wholescale control over the lives of their adherents as do Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Though I stand corrected. (: One person pointed out how the hegemonic imposition of certain formulas into what is Islamic Literature had narrowed down the area of its reach drastically. And this could be true for other religions. Perhaps what can be called Islamic Literature can also be called Christian Literature. Unless one wishes to argue from the point of doctrines.

The good prof did give a number of very old reference to out-of-print magazines which contain some of his locally published writings. I will write more about them later once I have the time to dig them up.

Many are other things were talked about but those are not the main ideas discussed so I will not post them here. What you are getting here is just a summary of what went on last night. (:


P.S. This concludes our discussion of the issues surrounding the book "Intellectuals in Developing Societies" (though some of the ideas might come up again in future discussions of other works). Watch the news and updates blog for announcement on the next book discussion in March. We might and would include some thinkers and authors from our region, though it would be a great challenge to get copies of their books, due to the nature of the publishing industry in this region.

What maketh an intellectual? - according to SHA and the rest of us

My friends and I had an interesting discussion yesterday. Lots of things were said and thrown about. There were talks of lack of intellectual engagement in this country, barring repressive laws. The idea that we are dry of ideas, and intellectual traditions. That our medium of intellectual exchange is non-existent, whether in the mass media or in books. Or even in Malaysian blogs. That most NGOs and political parties work on the dearth of real ideas. And the idea that we are mostly secondhanders, struggling to make sense of of principles that we may never grasp in this lifetime, or which we may grasp and let go many times over. And that S.H. Alatas is a socialist at heart :P

Oh yeah, I brought up the idea of selective intellectualism in some regimes (using the example of the former USSR where materialism is allowed to propagate but opposing forms of philosophy are repressed) and another friend asked "Are intellectuals a chance of nature or a product of nurture"?

And, to create an inquiring society, what call for action fo we need?
1. Space?
2. Conflict?
3. Engagement with conflict?
4. Critical mind?

And how does one define all those four without going into the chicken and egg conundrum?


I think another vital aspect that one has forgotten to include is that different peoples have different ways of working within groups/structures even when it comes to intellectual work, and what works for one group may not work for the other. And the most vital part, that maybe only came in fleetingly in the end, is how class wars now begin to come into play in this struggle for different opinions.

All this in the name of "Intellectuals in Developing Societies" .

And, should an intellectual be a person who has higher moral standards/ higher level of morality than the rest of us? And whose and what morality (this is subjective to whether you believe in God and absolute morality or not) :D


A bientot

P.S. Comments welcomed.

Should it be this? Why not that?

Here is what I feel is a well-written, balanced report on the cartoons and the furore it sparked.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/10/news/cartoons.php

Here is from today
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/15/news/union.php

I suppose when one talks about emotional issues, it is hard to maintain a clear mind.
How far can satire go, and should there be an arbitrary decision on what is sacred and profane?

I don't think this question will ever be answered. But many recent riots, sparked off unfortunately in the densely populated immigrant section of Western Europe, have made current administrations pay attention to the conditions of today's polity. And recent events have made me requestion the concept of religion, and why this religion and not the other. I see a new crisis coming up :D

On a lighter note, it is so 'on' to be an applied scientist today :D
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1709337,00.html

Damn, why did I switch to the fickle world of advertising and branding, where qualifications and formal education are less important (though knowledge IS a big asset, acquired which way) than your ability to maneuvre the world of hard-knocks, put up with corporate jinks (fickle-minded and dense authorities) and to negotiate deals. Even a PhD without the necessary survival skills and EQ (+ creative talent) will drown in this vast ocean.


Academia seems so much more of an ideal in comparison (barring the campus political back-biting and power-play), but should I ever enter it, I hope that I can also share "real-life" with them, from the horse's mouth.

Both words require smarts, and in today's highly commertical world, I doubt that a lack of industrial experience will do a book-centred academic much good, even if you majored in Egyptology or Celtic Studies, or the linguistic cognition of Trobiander Indians. (:


Time to rethink my "higher-education".

Valentine's Day 2006: Some Vignettes

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.
~ James A. Baldwin

1.
It has gone past midnight, the curfew relegated to the unconscious area of our minds. We sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the yet to be-opened-flyover, the car behind us. For the first time, I was acquainted with the inner-life of this boy, this teenager on the verge of adulthood. He spoke more than I did. He told me his dreams, his ideals, what he had done in the past. I asked if he had ever confided in his best pals the way he had to me. He said he never did. We boys do not engage in such conversations, said he. I looked at him, this young man considered to be the ideal of manhood. Smart and brawny. Popular. We were both staring down at the motorway, at the zooming cars below us. He brought food and drinks, which he shared with me. We, two, small-town teenagers, exchanging intimacies in the darkness of a yet-to-be-opened public area. Daring of us, and illegal in the eyes of the law. There were more things I wished he had told me that night, but it did not happen, as the spell was broken by the police. I shuddered at the thought, as mother would not be too pleased to be woken, after I had deliberately broken the curfew. However, the magic of that night was gone. A year later, we were almost strangers.

2.
We stood under the dusky sky, looking at the breaking waves, barely perceptible in the dimly lit area. We set up the camera and tripod to catch the full moon, and maybe a few constellations. We had to leave the camera for maximum exposure, and while waiting, we surveyed the darkness around us. We spoke, I do not remember of what. Did we touch? It escaped me. The next morning, we were up early to see the orange globe as it rose from the horizon. We took pictures once again, and the pictures came out beautifully. We also took pictures of the junks and fishing boats that were coming in with the catch of the day. We stood under the wooden pavilion, waiting for breakfast to come in. This time I remembered that we could had held on to each other, and to the camera. And the others arrived to join us for breakfast. The magic was soon lost. Few months after, we were almost strangers, a broken version of the pictures we took together.

3.
Our acquaintance was hardly usual, and under the usual circumstances, might had never arisen. We had many-shared loves, and shared-disgusts. We were alike yet so different from the other. We seldom met, yet our hearts were knitted together, sometimes sundered by unknown forces. We shared many a lonely time apart, and spent some of the most mundane hours together. Our passions were strong yet unnoticeable by others, our love mostly unspoken, then, now and thereafter, even as we engaged in long conversations. In my most conventional moments, I've dreamt of a a life together with love, a beautiful wedding to enshrine it all. Perhaps it might never come, not ever in this lifetime. The magic had begun early, and had had many fleeting moments. The first touch, the first kiss, the first of it all. Maybe the first instance wasn't all that important. The memories were what made it as it was.

Epilogue
Perhaps, the essence that defines love is made all the stronger by the lost of possibilities, of former hopes and the realisation of irrational passions.

Dans nom â l'amour, mon ami
Happy Valentine's to each and every one of my readers.

Note from a postcard 2 (first published in June 2005, two days after the first postcard)

Maria sat behind, oblivious to the battling couple trying to navigate the traffic. A cherubic child sat next to her, intermittently looking out of the window, and at her. Maria caught her glance when looking up from her mobile. Maria smiled back at her.

The four of them got to the cafe safely, after tension, as the driver had difficulties in finding his bearings, whilst his partner tried to impart his wisdom on the city's maze.

The waiter took their order. The atmosphere had relaxed. They were now all chatting amiably. Maria exchanged banter with the couple, and the child. She tried to be bright and witty, but her mind is floating elsewhere. Why did he refuse to come?

They discussed their plans, their lives and their ideals. One of the couple worked for an NGO, the other was in publishing. Maria asked one of the couple, the one who was driving. How was he? He looked at her evenly. The same.

Did he ever mention me?
Maria sat behind, oblivious to the arguing couple in front trying to navigate the traffic. A cherubic child sat next to her, intermittently looking out of the window, and at her. Maria caught her glance when looking up from her mobile. They smiled at each other.

The four of them got to the cafe safely, after much tension, as the driver had difficulties with his bearings whilst his partner tried to impart his wisdom on the city's maze.

The waiter took their order. The atmosphere had relaxed. They were now all chatting amiably. Maria exchanged banter with the couple, and the child. She tried to be bright and witty, but her mind is floating elsewhere. Why did he refuse to come?

They discussed their plans, their lives and their ideals. One of the couple worked for an NGO, the other was in publishing. Maria asked one of the couple, the one who was driving. How was he? He looked at her evenly. The same.

Did he ever mention me?

No.

Dinner came to an end after an hour. Maria went with the couple and child back into the car. She looked again at her mobile. The call never came. She sat back as they drove to their next destination.

From the corner of her eye, Maria noticed that the child was eyeing her, with a look that she imagined must meant empathy.

Note from a postcard 1 (first published in June 2005)

He sat next to me, holding my hand and bag. I looked at his face. It held an imperceptible pensiveness. He looked at me and smiled in a way that only those who understood would see it as a smile. He held his lips closed to my temple as he pulled me towards him.

I looked out of the dew covered pane as we whizzed past flat landscapes, highways and scatterings of narrow houses. I touched the cold glass, feeling the frosty tingle through my fingers. The world looked sober. I felt the warmness of his palm as he squeezes my hand nearest to him. I savoured an amniotic coziness that must soon be abruptly ended.

In the swirl of diembodied voices, omniscient clocks, people and bags, we came to a halt at our destination. We took a trolley and started looking for the counter. I noticed a dog in a leash trotting obediently behind a lady in a coat, perhaps on their way to greet someone who had just arrived. Everything was a whirl but festivity was in the air. Bags were taken away. In return, I held a pass.

We went for breakfast, our last meal together, knowing that oceans will soon separate us. I took in his liquid eyes, long lashes and gorgeous lips. We chatted amiably, wanting in vain to ignore that which was then impatient in the performance of its duty.

A long queue met us at the entrance that stood as a hatchet between loved ones, those who were leaving and those who were staying back. Some for a few days, some for a few weeks, some indefinitely.

He bade me adieu, not wanting to linger longer, having an appointment to keep, and wanting to be spared the painful parting. Before leaving, he whispered, "I love you" and kissed me on the lips, the first for that day. I looked at his back as he hurried away.

A night with a grand old man - Discussion and reading circle

In some ways, he reminds me of my late grandfather (I only ever knew one, as the other died before I was born). His smile was gentle, his voice soft (and sometimes hardly audible). Maybe age has taught him that the one that speaks the loudest is not always the most heard, whereas a person whose thoughts are sought after will have others straining to hear every enunciation.

Yesterday, my friends and I sat around the august Prof Dr Syed Hussein Alatas (thereafter known as SHA) in order to hear him speak on what brought about the inspiration for his book "Intellectuals in Developing Societies" (though apparently out of print, copies of it have been spotted at Borders Berjaya Times Square) and also to discuss some contents of the book (it being the first part of the a series of discussion on this book and others like it). The book has itself been translated into the two languages of the region, Indonesian Malay and Malaysian Malay. It was originally written in English and published in England, but it took Malaysia more than 30 years to finally recognise the importance of this work and to therefore translate it into the national language, and even then, it has sadly allowed it to go out of print (unless one can dig it out from some obscure warehouse/garage sale).

In this book, SHA writes about the appearance and existence of intellectuals within any society that prides itself in its progressiveness, as well as their function in such societies. Remember that this book was written in the 70s, which was a time of 'flower-power' and nascent period of cultural studies, when many institutions of higher learnings (and their byproducts) are underdoing changes in the curriculum and emphasis. When Malaysia was still a very young country and the PM was Tun Hussein Onn.

The gist of his argument is to differentiate the intellectuals from the intelligentsia. Just because you are well-educated (as in being well-read or well-qualified), have refined and cultured ways, speak many languages, is widely travel, and have an 'open' mind (and the latter case optional and subjected to debate), you do not automatically fall into the category of an intellectual. The one SHA terms an intellectual would be someone with profound and deep understanding of the philosophical conditions of humanity that surround his/her science and arts. Someone who can look at the bigger picture (while still paying attention to the details) and see what ails it. Perhaps an easier way of saying this is that an intellectual is someone who does not just work with existing data, but extrapolates from the data (and to collate all these extrapolations from various data) into a framework that helps him/her understand the greater issues and paradox of humanity, perhaps grappling with problems that seem to have no solution, or finding a solution that eludes even some of the most intelligent. The intelligentsia would be the sort of person I have just described above: one who might be a top-notch professional in his/her field, and possessing all the traits as suggested, but might not qualify for an intellectual. There is always some confusion in this two terms and I could do no better than to advocate that you read this book of the professor.

The book also talks about the bebals (where he gave a rather long list of, and from which he devoted an entire chapter to), which talks about a person incapable of contemplation or thoughtfulness, one who only follows the path of least resistance (even if the path is known to be inefficient and foolish)and someone who allows majority sentiments to dictate him/her, one who allows superstition and irrationality to dictate him/her as opposed to clear thinking.A bebal can be someone who is very good in his/her field of work/specialty, by could not apply holistic/intelligent thinking to every other aspect of his/her life. It could also be someone who does not understand the underpinning philosophy (reason/justification/functions) of his/her work and thus is only a blind follower of instructions, regulations and ideas without understanding why it is such as it is. He/she is afflicted with mental lassitude. When such conditions occur, he/she merely becomes an assembly worker within a conveyor belt of his/her career.

He also talks about the fool, one with difficulties to think through anything logically, one who is seemingly incapable of learning the art of learning (or maybe learning from mistakes), one who makes decisions that impact others but is unheedful of it and who does not recognise that he/she is a fool. He/she is reactive to situations and criticism but incapable of considered action. Or whose only form of considered action is to be reactive without heed to consequence.

Throughout the discussion we had with him, SHA gave many examples of what he considered to be foolish decisions made by authorities, as well as the lack holistic thinking when dealing with problems ranging from building highways and roads to combatting problems of traffic congestion, something of course that is not alien to us. He also mentions the problems of cultural lag in issues as wide as the planning and construction of society to the direction in which education has taken in this country. This was what he told me when I asked him why, inspite of the noble aim of the education philosophy of this country in its aim to create holistic individuals, have only succeeded in creating lopsided intelligentsia who while could be very good in their field, lack creative hindsigh and the ability to look at matters more philosophically. SHA did not say this, but if I were to expand from his arguments, I would say that it has to do with the strong emphasis on the material over the abstract. As SHA reiterated on what he had mentioned in his book more than 30 years ago, the inability of the country's planners to adjust to the intellectual framework that surrounds the development they have been so eager to wish on the country is that which has led to an unbalanced society, and hence unbalanced individuals. He explained that this is not only the case in developing societies, but has become more prominent even in developed societies like the America, where information overflow has led to over-saturation of the mind, and thus the inability to get back to the basics. This hints strongly on his disapproval on the direction which scholarship, monopolised by babyboomers academics, have taken, whom he felt were more interested in indoctrinating their students with their ideologies and ideas as opposed to leading them to basic questions. While I would disagree that this is the overall sense, since there are academics and students who are still interested in reading the origins of such ideas (though arguably a lot less than before, seeing the popularity of certain pseudo-intellectual polemic published and snapped out in this day and age) I agree that there is a cultural lag in still trying to make sense of the bombardment of information, and the fact that many are still trying to sieve knowledge from mere information.

When questioned as to whether there might be a need to adjust the Enlightenment traditions of the West to suit the peculiarities of our nation, I was a little disappointed that he did not address this question as thoroughly as he should, since most of the time were taken up in giving examples of what is considered as the insitutionalisation of moral depravity in the West. However he did give a rather good example of how the grandness of an intellectual idea can be contradicted by the living of his/her personal life. However, I will caution that this does not always detract from the nobility of the ideas. After all, cognitive dissonance to occur. And sometimes, simply, the person's philosophy might actually be a testimony of his personal beliefs, even if one might not see it as such from the way the ideas were put forth sophisticatedly. Case in point is Wittgenstein. Read him and read his biography and you will know what I mean. I suggest trying "Wittgenstein's Popper" as an introduction. While to a certain extend, it might be useful to keep in mind philosopher/intellectual's personal beliefs, there is such a time when we can gain and learn even when merely elucidating the person's philosophical arguments/ideas, realising then that the ideas are flawless and require continuous critique and refinement.

We also discussed the possibility of bebalisma as the reason for much superstition and supernatural beliefs in our society. While the discussion group is divided between over-rationalising and using rational/logic to explain supposedly 'supernatural' occurences, no real conclusion has been reached on this issue. SHA gave examples of some practises within the Malay culture one being the "minyak dagu" (oil retrieved from a fresh corpse) as an aphrodisiac charm and the use of dead babies to help in robberies or to ensure that one's husband does not stray. He cited examples of supposedly educated/rational individuals falling prey to such beliefs and superstition. He expounded on how the use of superstitious beliefs as a way of obtaining a child's obedience could end up producing bebalist adults. In responding to a question and comment on how one might deal with someone one perceives as one's intellectual inferior, SHA said that the way of doing so is not to act as if one is superior, but to build on that other's person's premise of reasoning, and perhaps to lead him/her to see his/her own thoughts more clearly.

While I could go on about the discussion we had, it is not my aim to report the thing as it happened, but to inject my editorial voice into this review to give my readers some idea as to what went on. There are of course too many stories and examples to give here (SHA is quite a story-teller, and some of the tales he related were pretty interesting). There are definitely some usefulness in getting the author of a book you are discussing to be present in the discussion, though there is probability of the person's present overshadowing the discussion. It of course depends a lot on the personality of the person present. Sometimes the discussion does not take off as well as you would want it to, because perhaps the discussants feel that they would rather hear the words from the horse's mouth rather than to debate on the ideas and its relevance, or its relation to an overall structure. However, I think it would be good to have sessions without the author so that we can distil our own perceptions and ideas of what the author says, because no author is infallible, and his/her intentions with regard to the book (and even the reasonings with regard to the book) can change in time.

There are many reading and literary circles around KL, but the aim of our circle here is to look more at the issues brought up by the work, regardless of whether it is a work of fiction or non-fiction, in order to contextualise the philosophy of our time and age. Where possible, we would invite the author to be present, though it is not that simple seeing that we are living in a backwater (it IS a backwater despite its facade of rapid modernisation and spanking new buildings and state-of-the-art toilets). But you have the words in the text, so use them, and the grey thing between your ears. (:

We will be doing a second discussion, to continue in areas of the book which had not been touched upon (though we have had the discussion from 8:40pm to close to midnight). For those of you living in Kuala Lumpur/will be around the area and are interested to participate, just drop me an email or drop me a note in the comment box. The discussions will be conducted in the mix of Malay and English, and you can participate and express yourself in any language you feel comfortable with, provided there is someone to translate for you should the majority around not understand. (:

In light of this review, you might want to read this article by Douglas Kellner entitled "Intellectuals, the New Public Spheres, and Techno-Politics"

A bientot!

Wearing the jilbab to be different from non-believers?

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1429171,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/faithschools/story/0,,1705144,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4679058.stm (the BBC story did not mention her story, but has an equally damaging statement on how this girl equate the resistance towards her wearing the jilbab WITH western attitude. Hello, you ARE a westerner yourself. You LIVE in the west...or is this another example of mental ghettoisation? I think the authorities need no look far as to why they are breeding terrorists. It all started from young. And I think it is time to examine this trend properly?)

Check out the news above and other related news stories. While I believe that it is the right of the girl to practice aspects of her religion, what I find extremely laughable is the reason she gave to her lawyers for practising her dresscode, so that she is not dressed like other non-believers! This is so irrational I nearly died laughing. So if all non-Muslims start wearing what she does, is she gonna her dresscode again?

I believe Islam to be a reasonable religion with many profound teachings, but actions like this girl is making the religion ridiculous. She might have won her right, but professing the reasons as she did more is just another way of justifying the sceptic's criticism of the religion through the idiocy of its believers. Since the girl is young, I will excuse her a little. Somehow, I feel really sorry for the British authorities who have to start bending backwards to accomodate every whims and fancies of every "pious" persons. In context, I disagree completely with the reason for her victory. She might feel she has won a step forward for the women (in terms of dressing, but this is miniscule compared to the other problems faced by Muslim women) but she has definitely help in creating the pejorative perception of Islam. It is sad that so many Muslims understand so little of their faith. She goes as far as to quote the Quran verse, and I am looking at it right now. But it is different from what it says. My 3:59 says "The similitude of Jesus before God is as that of Adam; He created him from dust then said to him:"Be": and he was". I believe she is referring to the Hadith, not the Quran. Can someone tell me the name of the Hadith? And can someone tell me where in which Hadith is it said about dressing differently from the "kaffirs"


Anyhow, I am surprise that no religious leaders have come out and give any explanation to her "reinterpretation" of Islam, unless of course they are behind this?

Before I get fired at by indignant Muslim men/women, let me state clearly here that I am NOT criticising the professions of the faith. What I am criticising is her misuse of her religion get her end. It is easy to say anything and everything to a bunch of "kaffirs" in the judiciary since most lack the training on the religion, no? And I think nothing is worse that knowingly speak the untruth yet using your religion as the basis. However, if someone can tell me im which Hadith or school or thought that "differances" should be professed THROUGH dressing (as opposed to one's actions and faith), I'll retract my words with regard to this girl. I would even do so if someone can let me know that Guardian has been erroneous in its report.

I am a feminist hence I do believe in every woman's right. But what I cannot buy into is the probable stupidity of my sex and the lack of will from its collective to do anything about it. But I'll be first to happily eat my words to have it proven otherwise...due to that damn media and its misreportage :D


I do understand the concept of ijtimak, by the way.

P.S. And I hope people will begin to learn the consequences of the irresponsible use of words and flippant, thoughtless remarks.

Pressing the hot buttons (the issue of the Danish Cartoons)

Fathi Aris Omar has collated an interesting list of opinions in his latest post and also in a post on kartun. For those who have not seen the cartoons that have spark suck uproar and violent reactions, click here. If you are not on broadband or on limited connectivity, be warned that the page has really huge graphics so it will take forever to load.

In my opinion, the reason for such violent reactions from both sides, whether those who were highly offended by the depictions of the Muslim prophet or who defend the right to do so, is based on two very different planes altogether. For a vast majority of religious adherents (and I would say that this applies across the board to ALL religions), the icons of their faith are sacred (though of course, there are individual sects who pay little or no heed to such need for icons, whether in the Muslim or Christian faith, though that does not make them less offended). For the agnostic/atheist/non-believer/nihilist, everything is profane and available for critique. Seeing that each have a different level of intellect and comprehension of the world, hence the diverse and different quality of critique. Many criticism are reactionary and emotional, even by the so-called rationalists, because when all logic fails, the easy way out is always to descend into emotionalism. And in the case of these cartoons, there are merely an example of excessive emotionalism. Hence, for so many Muslims to pour so much energy into such reaction becomes a symbol of their helplessness and subaltern position in the world.

I disagree with some scholars that the Muslims are new to western influence and outlook. They are not. It is just that a period of isolation that their civilisation underwent during their version of the dark ages (as the Dark Age of Islamic civilisation) and the continuous propaganda that they have been subjected to that the Western Civilisation is evil has been the cause of their suspicion and subliminal hatred. However, Western civilisation too has its share in its propagation of stereotypes based on ignorance and hatred. In this gratuitous power struggle between the artificial divide of the East and West, one always forget that religious adherents populate all civilisations, and Muslims are not precluded. Hence, when a supposed spokesperson for the western civilisation speak of defending their right to critique the Muslims in the same way that they have accussed the Muslims of lampooning them (and I daresay that the latter are guilty of that as well), whom are they speaking for? The atheists, the agnositcs, the Jews, Christians, and Muslims in their societies. OR are they speaking for the rights of a few person who decided to make a field day out of religious lampoons? And Muslim nations who insult the religion of their minority populace are just as guilty. But using such arguments to justify their personal vendetta is childish in its extreme. But then, mental sloth is one reason why such stupidity exists in the first place. (:

Religious adherents, and in this case the Muslims, who have bitten into the bait of their detractors by their excessive show of violence, hence lending further credence to the stereotype which they should instead have been trying to dismantle. I am sure I need not say this more because others have said this before me and many will continue to use this as a way of criticising Muslims. I am not merely saying that the Muslims are the only ones with this problem, because many Christians too are just as capable of blind judgement when they respond to perceived insults. The failure of religious groups to rise to the same level of power and control as many agnostics and atheists, hence making the transmissions of their intellectual heritage and intelligent thought powerful and indelible, is the lopsided preoccupation with life after death. They lost sight of the capacity to live life to the fullest (and that does not equate to hedonism, unlike what most fanatics seem to think) and achieving the best with the abilities that God has given them. Instead of glorifying God, their reactive preoccupation is equivalent to flinging mud at God's face.

In the case of point of Muslims here, if they are really serious about Jihad, they will strive towards regaining the reigns of control through legitimate means of equitable treatment for their fellow men, respect for the rights of women, strong emphasis on liberal arts education (and this has always been equated with a secular, atheistic focus without understanding the spirit of inquiry that is the mainstay of its philosophy) that allows them to open their minds and to build strong foundations for their societies. If you feel that your enemies and rivals are despicable, why stoop even lower than their level when all they are doing is just to push at your buttons?

Or do we with to go back to the Biblical Old Testament Age (a tradition that the Quran shares) of wiping out your enemies just because we can't figure out a different way of dealing with them? Assuming that we consider the records a true depiction of the actual events, we might also be interested to know that the climate and condition of that particular age is different. Or perhas we are fast approaching the age of that past?

Any discussion to alleviate this problem will not go far as long as the two different planes of arguments of both parties are not reconciled. Or perhaps the only way out of the issue (a pessimistic way out that is) is to let them kill each other off. Or kill them fast enough so that they have no chance to breed. There is such an argument in the history of Western intellectuals that I will discuss the next time around. (:

Going back to the argument that atheists and agnostics would see everything as profane, hence they would feel that lampooning neo-Nazies is equal to lampooning Muhammad. So do the neo-Nazis have the same moral ground to react in the way that the Muslims do? And if we work under the assumption that all is equal under the principle of equitability, in that Hitler and Muhammad are mere humans (and they both are in principle just normal men), why should it be less likely for one to be lampoon than for the other? This is because for the believers of Islam, they see Muhammad as God's divine Messenger (and in calling him a divine Messenger, I am in no way saying that he is a divine figure), just as Christians would react strongly to the depiction of Christ (as they did in Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ) because they see Jesus as the reincarnation of God's Son in a human form. Perhaps it is high-time that religious adherents should also be trained to understand the mind of others who might not share their beliefs and faiths, and to realise that gentle rebuke/peaceful protestations will go towards, in the long run, in winning the admiration of others. Just as many from the faith might reneged on their professions, a number of hardcore, crusading non-believers and critics of the faith have also been converted.


There are many questions as to why people behave the way they do, or why history is the way it is, that I am still trying to figure out. Even the concept of what God would really want and require of us is still something I am grappling with. As a person who believes in God, I wonder too that all these hoohaa that has happened is not perhaps a way in which God is trying to tell us that we have miss the woods for the trees, and that instead of worshipping him and doing His Will, we are preoccupied with the worship of iconoclasts.

The above is my two-cents take on the issue.

Chinese New Year family reunion, reunion with friends, TV addiction and philosophy :D

You know it is the time of the year when certain towns in Malaysia are experiencing heavier inflows of traffic and there is the perennial jostling for space as more and more cars fight for the right to park along the narrow public roads surrounding housing estates. And since small towns lack the attractions of big cities, you see bored and listless faces streaming into the pack-to-bursting shopping centres. Restaurants are taking advantange of the yearly influx by upping prices and forcing set meals on their patrons (and in Chinese-centric towns, this is particularly severe for the lack of shops that are opened to service the appetites of the annual visitors).

I have had the usual family dinners (for some reason, my family decided to have THREE big family dinners in the space of 4 days, though I missed the third one owing to my school reunion). I also managed to visit some old friends, and especially the little pride and joy of my life. Most of all, I got to indulge in hours of tv, something which I do not get to do back in KL for the lack of a tv set. I was curious to know what's new on tv, what are the latest ads, what are the latest fads, the latest movies (well as latest as they can get in Malaysia) and the latest interactive design MTV/V Channel has (not to mention who the new VJs are).

While watching TV, I was also simultaneously reading some works on philosophy and history (YES, while watching tv, though of course, when the interesting scenes came on, you can guess what took most of my attention :P), as well as fashion and design (: It has to do with trying to squeeze in as many things as I could in the short space of time (though it also has to do with my short attention span during the holiday seasons). Yet, reading the discussion on life through the books and watching the portrayal of life via tv shows and movies, one notice a strong parallel between them. Here am I, reading works that have nothing to do with the shows I was watching (which ranged from 70s sitcoms to travellogues to Hollywood blockbusters to Hong Kong movies) yet I could feel the words of the authors resonating strongly through the visual effects created by the movies. I was reading the philosophy of Ayn Rand while watching Armageddon (believe it or not, I only just watched it for the first time on the first day of Chinese New Year), so many discussions of Ayn Rand with regards to Atilla, the crude Barbarians (the reactionaries), the Witch Doctor (I suppose you can say Rand intended these to be the communists, whom she had an aversion towards- I guess what Mr Syed Alattas would call the soft-hearted "Bebalians") and the Producers (who is her perfect exemplification of fair play, ego-centrism, original creation and capitalism, I see such different personas reenacted through the different personalities of the men who were the characters in this movie (with the exception of Liv Tyler as Grace the daughter of the hero, and the lady engineer on the space shuttle (whose name escapes me for now), there aren't too many heroic ladies portrayed in this show, which is after all about American patriachalism defending the world against end-times caused by an asteroid relentless hurtling towards Earth. I kind of feel that the Bruce Willis character epitomised the ideal of the Producer, though he has the prepondency towards being an Atilla when it concerns his daughter, with his Paternal protectiveness and dominance.

However, the two professional thieves in a Chinese comedic romance starring Andy Lau and Sammy Cheng, who gained riches through their thieving activities would not sit so easily within Rand's three categories. They did gain their riches through the use of their canny and cunning. They were not reactionaries nor were they barbaric looters. Yet looters they were nonetheless, running off with bootie that were not earned through legitimate means. Perhaps if they have decided to channel their obvious abilities into let's say, derivatives trading and fund hedging, they might to a hell of a job. In which case, they would fall into Rand's concept of the rational and ethical producer (though should one read the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, you will notice that Rand has a long discussion on the idea of ethics through her protagonists). But their thievery places them under the same category as Atilla, even if they do not use any violence, but rather their brains, to commit such acts. In fact, in the movie, it seems obvious that they intersperse legitimate activities with their highly-polished kleptomaniac tendencies. And they were both diehard gamblers. Capitalism does work on the precept of a certain amount of risk and gamble. However, these two characters epitomise more of the tendency of a rather refined Atilla rather than the Producer. (:

I also began to reread history but that is a post for a different day. As for what I've learned from meeting back old school friends? That is also another post for a different time. And I hope to find that time to write about metaphysics real soon. (:

Happy Doggy Year!

The importance of

the constitution has always been underrated in Malaysia, where laws, by-laws and rules were passed without even a glance as to whether they violate the constitution in any way, except of course when it serves the legislators to look at it. If there is such a thing as selective amnesia, there is such a thing as selective understanding of constitutional provisions.

Maybe the lawmakers in Malaysia need to undergo Constitution of Malaysia 101.

Not Metaphysics

I apologise to those who are awaiting my post on metaphysics. I will definitely write it. (:

I've finally read the more than 500 pages of the Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. She, Carter and Le Guin are the contemporary female authors that I presently enjoy, though I honestly say I have not read too much of Le Guin (though have read enough to like her).

Characters in this particular book are so real that I felt myself living through them. The annoyances, irritation, anger, hatred, betrayal, every single one. And Canada doesn't seem like an alien country at all, in fact, it is so very Malaysian, in its universal rendering. The era in which 2/3 of the book was set in has a very modern feel to it, though one is reminded of the woman's condition back then, as well as the encumbrance of seedy aristocracy. So very antebellum and even a little bit Tennysian. Frigidity, sex, love, non-love? Where can they all fall into? Can the blind love the one whom he cant' hear, but merely feel? Or can one feel trusting enough in love? And why exactly is it the gilded cage?

Atwood is not everyone's cup of tea, but her prose flows like a bridge that is bracketed at various spots, unbroken, broken and mended, interrupted by many tales that have to be told. They are poetic and poignant, and memorable. How I wish I could write like her, without being bogged down overinflated adjectives and adverbs that seem to be the bane of most mediocre writers of descriptive prose. Would help in my copywriting, which is not only selling an idea, but also peddling of words. A form of high-class whoring.

Anyway, have a good weekend to the rest of you. And I'll be back later next week.

Moving beyond the Rydberg Constant

That is what I intend to do this year, which is why I am going to brush up my knowledge of two languages, one of which I already have a slight working knowledge, and who which I could never pronounce before.

I wish I could say the same for Malaysia. In a way, some things are better than they used to be. That is a slight consolation. However, our appreciation of all things cultural and intellectual are still stuck at a very low level. Maybe we forgot to acculturate ourselves in our striving for the greenback (or whatever colour paper money) and platinum card. Despite our so-called economic ascendancy, as a nation, we are still very vulnerable to scammers, schemers and con-arists, especially if they are from the First World.

Thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, at least we no longer have to feel like a frog under the coconut shell. Information gap stil exist, and the literacy rate in this country is not as high (when I say literacy rate, I mean the ability for someone to digest information beyond high-school level). Potboilers and trashy magazines (uh-oh, I just revealed myself as a cultural snob, when in actual fact, I do read trashy stuff as well :P) are the mainstay of one's diet. People would not mind spending lots on other luxuries but most find it painful to spend too much on books. Despite the govt's tax allowance. I have friends asking me for book receipts just so that they can claim tax relief, even if they seldom buy a book themselves. And these are not high-school dropouts, but my peers from university! It is interesting that what Orwell wrote about in relation to the working-class English society is as applicable to the middle to upper-middle class members of Malaysia. Books or cigarettes, mon cherie?

Lets talk about religion. Everyone is minding their ps and qs. Hard-nosed pious religious types are now stabbing, shooting and clubbing the so-called "liberals" who are are leading the flock astray. Interesting how the same kind of thing is happening in both the Christian and Islamic world. I refuse to call it internal conflicts within the East and West, since the religions of the BIG BOOK (or BOOKS now?) did come from the confluence between east and west. Forget Huntingdon's theory on the clash of the civilization. From my vantage point (not very high since I am rather short), just let these people hack each other to death. figuratively speaking. It seems that these people are more interested in appearing holier than thou than and may God give them the best place in Heaven. Poor God must be experiencing continuous de-ja-vu with His (Her? Why do we think God is male?) recalcitrant attitudes of His (Her?) human creations. I marvel at His (Her?) patience, coz if it had been me, I would take back their ability for free will. You give them free will, they try to take it away from their fellow men. Bugger. Also, I refuse to see Goddess as the female counterpart of God. For me, it's just a cop-out. And a Goddess doesn't have the same Authority as God.

As a parting thought, I sugest that those who have not read Orwell's essays to do so online. Now! http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/ShootingElephant/.

P.S.I wonder what Nostradamus would have thought if he were alive today. Next entry wold be about the semantics of the word "Metaphysics".

Shalom

Embracing 2006

I've decided not to have a special post about the previous year as most of them are personal crossroads and struggles that I am sure would bore you, gentle readers, to tears. (:

Instead, what I would like to do in this post is to officially recognise that I should now strive for greater milestones and achievements this year, and make lessons learnt from the past year, however painful, my guiding principles. All I can say is, I've matured and grown up a lot in 2005, done a number of interesting as well as foolish things, met people and read books that have influenced my life in more than one way. Nevertheless,I still have a lot more growing up to do.

This year is going to be pretty exciting, I daresay. I am slowly moving out of the bloom of youth into mature adulthood. Which means, I've better have something to show for it.