While we debate the issues of cyberspace, back on terra firma, or rather terra soggy, there is still a flood going on down south. I was down there yesterday (only in JB) to take a look for myself and to see what it means to have mud in every nook and cranny of your home. It's true, it's hard to imagine until you see that watermark at least 8 feet up the walls, the permanent brown colour of your floors and the squelching of your feet as you walk along. And of course the smell...
It's not over yet though and the grey skies over Johor portend more rain and more floods. Let's just hope something's been done that would make them less devastating than the first two rounds.
I'll write more when I get a bit more time. Also hope to upload a short video of the kampung I visited.
Meantime, if you have time to help, here's an appeal for able and willing hands (although this talks about packing on Thurs, they still need people this weekend):
Hello everyone,
Our (JKM & NGOs) flood relief centre needs some manpower to help in the packing of things to be sent to Johor. I know most of you are working during the day but on Thursday, we are expecting to work late. So if you do have the time, please come and help out from 6pm to 9pm. If you are free any other time, do drop by anyday of the week or weekend anytime after 10am. The team has gone to several relief centres in Johor. On Thursday we will be packing to deliver a large load off to Mersing early Friday morning.We pack things in sets so that each family will receive a full set of basic food and hygiene items for them to return home with. They are distributed according to the name list so that each family will get a fair share. This also reduces fighting and quarrels. It is this sorting and packing that needs time and manpower.
We are doing OK on supplies but if you do still want to send things, these are the useful items:Family Packs- sugar in 1 kg packets- rice in 5 kg bags- large tinned sardines- coffee powder in 250gm packs- milo in 250gm packs- cooking oil in 1 litre bottles- salt* note the size of each item - this reduces the work of the volunteers - today we had to split 300 packs of 2kg sugar into 1kg packs - reduce fighting Hygiene Packs- toothpaste- tooth brush- bar soap- towels Baby Packs- feeding bottles - bottle teats- baby napkins- baby soap- milk powder for babies
PLEASE DO NOT SEND OLD CLOTHES - we have received too many clothes that are dirty, soiled, old, tattered, torn and useless. It is a waste of time to have to sort them out. If you must send clothes/shoes, please send new ones or wearable and presentable old clothes that have been cleaned.
The place is at the school hall of Sekolah Tunas Bakti. It is immediately next to Institut Sosial Malaysia on the Seremban Highway next to Dunia Perabot. You should be on the Seremban HW heading from Seremban to KL. After the turn off to Bukit Jalil, take the slip road on the left to the two petrol stations next to each other (I think Shell and Esso?). Immediately after that you should see the huge Dunia Perabot. Institut Sosial Malaysia is neatly sandwiched between the petrol stations and Dunia Perabot.Please let me know if you are coming so that we know the number of volunteers turning up.
If you know of trustworthy van/truck drivers who are willing to go down to Mersing, please also let us know. We had 40 packs of our things missing from one of the vans that went down to Yong Peng after claiming a breakdown and arriving 3 hours late.
Bring a pair of scissors or pen knife with you.
Thank you!!!
Fareea
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
FAREEA MA
ASIA TENGGARA AVIATION SERVICES SDN. BHD.
T: +60-(0)3-7725 0095
F: +60-(0)3-7726 0097
Friday, January 26, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
A Woman Misunderstood?
This is not a new article but is Karen Armstrong's response to British Foreign Minister Jack Straw's views about the niqab or full-face veil. Interestingly enough, Karen Armstrong's books are banned in this country (some retroactively).
My years in a habit taught me the paradox of veiling
By Karen Armstrong
Al-Jazeerah, October 31, 2006
Guardian, October 26, 2006
If ministers really want a proper debate, they must learn that where the veil is forbidden, women hasten to wear it.
I spent seven years of my girlhood heavily veiled - not in a Muslim niqab but in a nun's habit. We wore voluminous black robes, large rosaries and crucifixes, and an elaborate headdress: you could see a small slice of my face from the front, but from the side I was entirely shielded from view. We must have looked very odd indeed, walking dourly through the colourful carnival of London during the swinging 60s, but nobody ever asked us to exchange our habits for more conventional attire.
When my order was founded in the 1840s, not long after Catholic emancipation, people were so enraged to see nuns brazenly wearing their habits ! in the streets that they pelted them with rotten fruit and horse dung. Nuns had been banned from Britain since the Reformation; their return seemed to herald the resurgence of barbarism. Two hundred and fifty years after the gunpowder plot, Catholicism was still feared as unassimilable, irredeemably alien to the British ethos, fanatically opposed to democracy and freedom, and a fifth column allied to dangerous enemies abroad.
Today the veiled Muslim woman appears to symbolise the perceived Islamic threat, as nuns once epitomised the evils of popery. She seems a barbaric affront to hard-won values that are essential to our cultural identity: gender equality, freedom, transparency and openness. But in the Muslim world the veil has also acquired a new symbolism. If government ministers really want to debate the issue fruitfully, they must become familiar with the bitterly ironic history of veiling during the last hundred years.
Until the late 19th century, veiling was neither a central nor a universal practice in the Islamic world. The Qur'an does not command all women to cover their heads; the full hijab was traditionally worn only by aristocratic women, as a mark of status. In Egypt, under Muhammad Ali's leadership (1805-48), the lot of women improved dramatically, and many were abandoning the veil and moving more freely in society.
But after the British occupied Egypt in 1882, the consul general, Lord Cromer, ignored this development. He argued that veiling was the "fatal obstacle" that prevented Egyptians from participating fully in western civilisation. Until it was abolished, Egypt would need the benevolent supervision of the colonialists. But Cromer had cynically exploited feminist ideas to advance the colonial project. Egyptian women lost many of their new educational and professional opportunities under the British, and Cromer was co-founder in London of the Anti-Women's Suffrage League.
When Egyptian pundits sycophantically supported Cromer, veiling became a hot issue. In 1899 Qassim Amin published Tahrir al-Mara - The Liberation of Women - which obsequiously praised the nobility of European culture, arguing that the veil symbolised everything that was wrong with Islam and Egypt. It was no feminist tract: Egyptian women, according to Amin, were dirty, ignorant and hopelessly inadequate parents. The book created a furore, and the ensuing debate made the veil a symbol of resistance to colonialism.
The problem was compounded in other parts of the Muslim world by reformers who wanted their countries to look modern, even though most of the population had no real understanding of secular institutions. When Ataturk secularised Turkey, men and women were forced into European costumes that felt like fancy dress. In Iran, the shahs' soldiers used to march through the streets with their bayonets at the ready, tearing off the women's veils and ripping them to pieces. In 1935, Shah Reza Pahlavi ordered the army to shoot at unarmed demonstrators who were protesting against obligatory western dress. Hundreds of Iranians died that day.
Many women, whose mothers had happily discarded the veil, adopted the hijab in order to dissociate themselves from aggressively secular regimes. This happened in Egypt under President Anwar Sadat and it continues under Hosni Mubarak. When the shah banned the chador, during the Iranian revolution, women wore it as a matter of principle - even those who usually wore western clothes. Today in the US, more and more Muslim women are wearing the hijab to distance themselves from the foreign policy of the Bush administration; something similar may well be happening in Britain.
In the patriarchal society of Victorian Britain, nuns offended by tacitly proclaiming that they had no need of men. I found my habit liberating: for seven years I never had to give a thought to my clothes, makeup and hair - all the rubbish that clutters the minds of the most liberated women. In the same way, Muslim women feel that the veil frees them from the constraints of some uncongenial aspects of western modernity.
They argue that you do not have to look western to be modern. The veiled woman defies the sexual mores of the west, with its strange compulsion to "reveal all". Where western men and women display their expensive clothes and flaunt their finely honed bodies as a mark of privilege, the uniformity of traditional Muslim dress stresses the egalitarian and communal ethos of Islam.
Muslims feel embattled at present, and at such times the bodies of women often symbolise the beleaguered community. Because of its complex history, Jack Straw and his supporters must realise that many Muslims now suspect such western interventions about the veil as having a hidden agenda. Instead of improving relations, they usually make matters worse. Lord Cromer made the originally marginal practice of veiling problematic in the first place. When women are forbidden to wear the veil, they hasten in ever greater numbers to put it on.
In Victorian Britain, nuns believed that until they could appear in public fully veiled, Catholics would never be accepted in this country. But Britain got over its visceral dread of popery. In the late 1960s, shortly before I left my order, we decided to give up the full habit. This decision expressed, among other things, our new confidence, but had it been forced upon us, our deeply ingrained fears of persecution would have revived.
But Muslims today do not feel similarly empowered. The unfolding tragedy of the Middle East has convinced some that the west is bent on the destruction of Islam. The demand that they abandon the veil will exacerbate these fears, and make some women cling more fiercely to the garment that now symbolises their resistance to oppression.
· Karen Armstrong is the author of Muhammad: Prophet for Our Time comment@guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329610756-103677,00.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My years in a habit taught me the paradox of veiling
By Karen Armstrong
Al-Jazeerah, October 31, 2006
Guardian, October 26, 2006
If ministers really want a proper debate, they must learn that where the veil is forbidden, women hasten to wear it.
I spent seven years of my girlhood heavily veiled - not in a Muslim niqab but in a nun's habit. We wore voluminous black robes, large rosaries and crucifixes, and an elaborate headdress: you could see a small slice of my face from the front, but from the side I was entirely shielded from view. We must have looked very odd indeed, walking dourly through the colourful carnival of London during the swinging 60s, but nobody ever asked us to exchange our habits for more conventional attire.
When my order was founded in the 1840s, not long after Catholic emancipation, people were so enraged to see nuns brazenly wearing their habits ! in the streets that they pelted them with rotten fruit and horse dung. Nuns had been banned from Britain since the Reformation; their return seemed to herald the resurgence of barbarism. Two hundred and fifty years after the gunpowder plot, Catholicism was still feared as unassimilable, irredeemably alien to the British ethos, fanatically opposed to democracy and freedom, and a fifth column allied to dangerous enemies abroad.
Today the veiled Muslim woman appears to symbolise the perceived Islamic threat, as nuns once epitomised the evils of popery. She seems a barbaric affront to hard-won values that are essential to our cultural identity: gender equality, freedom, transparency and openness. But in the Muslim world the veil has also acquired a new symbolism. If government ministers really want to debate the issue fruitfully, they must become familiar with the bitterly ironic history of veiling during the last hundred years.
Until the late 19th century, veiling was neither a central nor a universal practice in the Islamic world. The Qur'an does not command all women to cover their heads; the full hijab was traditionally worn only by aristocratic women, as a mark of status. In Egypt, under Muhammad Ali's leadership (1805-48), the lot of women improved dramatically, and many were abandoning the veil and moving more freely in society.
But after the British occupied Egypt in 1882, the consul general, Lord Cromer, ignored this development. He argued that veiling was the "fatal obstacle" that prevented Egyptians from participating fully in western civilisation. Until it was abolished, Egypt would need the benevolent supervision of the colonialists. But Cromer had cynically exploited feminist ideas to advance the colonial project. Egyptian women lost many of their new educational and professional opportunities under the British, and Cromer was co-founder in London of the Anti-Women's Suffrage League.
When Egyptian pundits sycophantically supported Cromer, veiling became a hot issue. In 1899 Qassim Amin published Tahrir al-Mara - The Liberation of Women - which obsequiously praised the nobility of European culture, arguing that the veil symbolised everything that was wrong with Islam and Egypt. It was no feminist tract: Egyptian women, according to Amin, were dirty, ignorant and hopelessly inadequate parents. The book created a furore, and the ensuing debate made the veil a symbol of resistance to colonialism.
The problem was compounded in other parts of the Muslim world by reformers who wanted their countries to look modern, even though most of the population had no real understanding of secular institutions. When Ataturk secularised Turkey, men and women were forced into European costumes that felt like fancy dress. In Iran, the shahs' soldiers used to march through the streets with their bayonets at the ready, tearing off the women's veils and ripping them to pieces. In 1935, Shah Reza Pahlavi ordered the army to shoot at unarmed demonstrators who were protesting against obligatory western dress. Hundreds of Iranians died that day.
Many women, whose mothers had happily discarded the veil, adopted the hijab in order to dissociate themselves from aggressively secular regimes. This happened in Egypt under President Anwar Sadat and it continues under Hosni Mubarak. When the shah banned the chador, during the Iranian revolution, women wore it as a matter of principle - even those who usually wore western clothes. Today in the US, more and more Muslim women are wearing the hijab to distance themselves from the foreign policy of the Bush administration; something similar may well be happening in Britain.
In the patriarchal society of Victorian Britain, nuns offended by tacitly proclaiming that they had no need of men. I found my habit liberating: for seven years I never had to give a thought to my clothes, makeup and hair - all the rubbish that clutters the minds of the most liberated women. In the same way, Muslim women feel that the veil frees them from the constraints of some uncongenial aspects of western modernity.
They argue that you do not have to look western to be modern. The veiled woman defies the sexual mores of the west, with its strange compulsion to "reveal all". Where western men and women display their expensive clothes and flaunt their finely honed bodies as a mark of privilege, the uniformity of traditional Muslim dress stresses the egalitarian and communal ethos of Islam.
Muslims feel embattled at present, and at such times the bodies of women often symbolise the beleaguered community. Because of its complex history, Jack Straw and his supporters must realise that many Muslims now suspect such western interventions about the veil as having a hidden agenda. Instead of improving relations, they usually make matters worse. Lord Cromer made the originally marginal practice of veiling problematic in the first place. When women are forbidden to wear the veil, they hasten in ever greater numbers to put it on.
In Victorian Britain, nuns believed that until they could appear in public fully veiled, Catholics would never be accepted in this country. But Britain got over its visceral dread of popery. In the late 1960s, shortly before I left my order, we decided to give up the full habit. This decision expressed, among other things, our new confidence, but had it been forced upon us, our deeply ingrained fears of persecution would have revived.
But Muslims today do not feel similarly empowered. The unfolding tragedy of the Middle East has convinced some that the west is bent on the destruction of Islam. The demand that they abandon the veil will exacerbate these fears, and make some women cling more fiercely to the garment that now symbolises their resistance to oppression.
· Karen Armstrong is the author of Muhammad: Prophet for Our Time comment@guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329610756-103677,00.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, January 19, 2007
Bloggers Fight Back!
UPDATE: Rocky goes to court tomorrow Thurs Jan 25 at 10am. Those of you who can support, do turn up. Those who can only be there in spirit (like me, unfortunately), spare a thought. Whatever the outcome, life will become very interesting!
Ok, let's put this conversation up front and centre, shall we? Our blogbros Jeff and Rocky are being sued, as you all know. We may not all agree with everything they say but that is not the point. The point is, this sort of heavyhanded intimidation is an impediment to democracy because it impedes freedom of speech and limits our people's access to alternative views about current events. It insults all of us because it assumes that we cannot come up with the 'right' opinion if we are allowed to see all the different perspectives on a particular subject. It is a blatant form of censorship.
So, this is what we need to do:
First, stay united on this issue, which is the right of bloggers to express their opinions in cyberspace. Responsible bloggers do not write mere gossip or lies, so must be free to write what they want.
Secondly, support all efforts to support Rocky and Jeff. The first is the proposal to set up a fund to defend them, as well as other bloggers which may face the same problems in the future. This is in the works, and I have been asked to be a Trustee. Am just waiting for proper terms of reference to be drafted because if we are handling people's money, we need to have safeguards to ensure transparency and accountability.
Thirdly, I think we should start a guerrilla campaign on this. I think we should turn Kickdefella's great logo into a whole series of merchandise - t-shirts, stickers, posters, whatever - to be sold to raise funds for the defence fund. If we have the logo EVERYWHERE, what are they going to do? They can't rip off the stickers from cars, or t-shirts off people's backs. The guys who do those great stencil graffitis should be asked to also help.
Fourthly, boycott the NST and related publications. Yes, stop subs. Nothing will create greater fear among those guys than if their income drops.
Any other creative suggestions to show support will be greatly welcomed.
Bloggers, and anyone else who believes in freedom of speech, unite!
Ok, let's put this conversation up front and centre, shall we? Our blogbros Jeff and Rocky are being sued, as you all know. We may not all agree with everything they say but that is not the point. The point is, this sort of heavyhanded intimidation is an impediment to democracy because it impedes freedom of speech and limits our people's access to alternative views about current events. It insults all of us because it assumes that we cannot come up with the 'right' opinion if we are allowed to see all the different perspectives on a particular subject. It is a blatant form of censorship.
So, this is what we need to do:
First, stay united on this issue, which is the right of bloggers to express their opinions in cyberspace. Responsible bloggers do not write mere gossip or lies, so must be free to write what they want.
Secondly, support all efforts to support Rocky and Jeff. The first is the proposal to set up a fund to defend them, as well as other bloggers which may face the same problems in the future. This is in the works, and I have been asked to be a Trustee. Am just waiting for proper terms of reference to be drafted because if we are handling people's money, we need to have safeguards to ensure transparency and accountability.
Thirdly, I think we should start a guerrilla campaign on this. I think we should turn Kickdefella's great logo into a whole series of merchandise - t-shirts, stickers, posters, whatever - to be sold to raise funds for the defence fund. If we have the logo EVERYWHERE, what are they going to do? They can't rip off the stickers from cars, or t-shirts off people's backs. The guys who do those great stencil graffitis should be asked to also help.
Fourthly, boycott the NST and related publications. Yes, stop subs. Nothing will create greater fear among those guys than if their income drops.
Any other creative suggestions to show support will be greatly welcomed.
Bloggers, and anyone else who believes in freedom of speech, unite!
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Visit to Serendib
This week I am in Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon and long ago called Serendib by the Arabs. It is my fourth time here, the first time a brief holiday to visit some friends and the last two, as well as this one, for work on the next Asia Pacific HIV/AIDS conference to be held here this August.
I like Colombo. It reminds me of Penang in the old days before mansions got torn down for tall buildings. There is a long seafront with a large padang in front of it where in the evenings families go out for walks and to catch a breeze. On one side is the Galle Face hotel where I stayed the first time I came. It's one of those old hotels, rather like the Majestic in KL, with large high-ceilinged rooms, sweeping staircases with wooden balustrades, wide verandahs and great Sri Lankan curries. Way the other side is where I am staying this time, an older modern hotel, right now being invaded by rather a lot of men in beards and white clothes (more on this later). There are lots of lovely residential streets with bougainvillea trees and homes turned into restaurants, including the former office of the great architect Geoffrey Bawa, which is now Paradise Road restaurant and gallery.
Colombo is unfortunately right now in a state of siege. The peace negotiations with the LTTE, commonly known as the Tamil Tigers, have pretty much broken down, not least because Mahinda Rajapakse, in trying to win the election to become President, made pacts with some extremely recalcitrant people.
As a result, security has once more, after many peaceful years, become an issue. This evening, coming back from my meetings, I was stuck in a jam for a boring long while because the President was going out. To ensure that nothing like the attack on the Defense Minister (his brother by the way) will happen to him, they close off the roads when he goes out. Which makes it hell for ordinary Colombo people. This evening he has gone somewhere near my hotel which meant that the road leading to my hotel is closed off to cars and I had to get off nearby and walk.( Apparently Rajapakse also believes in astrology. His astrologer told him he must never take a helicopter or plane within the country. As a result, he only travels by car, or stays at home.)
Compared to my last trip here last November ( which coincided with a big attack on the Navy up north as well as another one at Galle just down the road), the army presence in Colombo has markedly increased. There are men with machine guns everywhere, including on top of buildings, and road checkpoints at every turn. As I walked towards my hotel, I saw a soldier with a gun and a sign that said 'VIP'. Thinking this was a sign to let through VIP cars, I asked my companion about it. He said that VIP stood for an insurance company Vehicle Insurance Policies and they had sponsored all the army checkpoints including the handheld 'STOP' sign! Talk about privatisation!
Coming back to the men with white beards and clothes. I always knew that Sri Lanka had a significant Muslim community which is quite noticeable in Colombo. But this time, the place seemed overrun with men in distinctly Muslim garb and women in tudungs. It turns out that this week some 20,000 members of the Bohra community, a Shiite sect mostly from Gujarat, India, are convening in Colombo. Everywhere you go, there are bearded men in white kurtas and white pants, and women in mini telekungs of various colours. There are Bohras in Sri Lanka as well and this week they are playing host to their Shaikh, as well as their brethren from elsewhere.
Work on the AIDS conference is going well but slowly. There is a problem of the perception of Sri Lanka as a dangerous place, and people may be hesitating from registering for the conference because of it. Despite the enhanced army presence that I've seen this time, I don't really feel as if there is a war going on. It is limited to the north, and even though there are occasional bombs and assasinations in Colombo, the target is always political rather than the general public, and never ever foreigners. The LTTE, it seems, has a very acute sense of public relations. People in Colombo go about their lives like people anywhere else. They bear the roadblocks and checkpoints with patience and calm. I guess after a while you get immune to these inconveniences.
Still, it is quite something for Sri Lanka to host this conference since it is a low-prevalence country. But besides understanding the need to address the issue early, Sri Lanka understands also what message it will give to the world if it hosts a conference like this. It shows a confident government that is in charge. It shows it cares, and it shows that it can take a leadership position in the region, even though it is a small country. That can reap many rewards, not least in making the global community take notice in a positive way, rather than focussing on other ways. So I reckon that the government here is being quite smart by supporting this.
I like Colombo. It reminds me of Penang in the old days before mansions got torn down for tall buildings. There is a long seafront with a large padang in front of it where in the evenings families go out for walks and to catch a breeze. On one side is the Galle Face hotel where I stayed the first time I came. It's one of those old hotels, rather like the Majestic in KL, with large high-ceilinged rooms, sweeping staircases with wooden balustrades, wide verandahs and great Sri Lankan curries. Way the other side is where I am staying this time, an older modern hotel, right now being invaded by rather a lot of men in beards and white clothes (more on this later). There are lots of lovely residential streets with bougainvillea trees and homes turned into restaurants, including the former office of the great architect Geoffrey Bawa, which is now Paradise Road restaurant and gallery.
Colombo is unfortunately right now in a state of siege. The peace negotiations with the LTTE, commonly known as the Tamil Tigers, have pretty much broken down, not least because Mahinda Rajapakse, in trying to win the election to become President, made pacts with some extremely recalcitrant people.
As a result, security has once more, after many peaceful years, become an issue. This evening, coming back from my meetings, I was stuck in a jam for a boring long while because the President was going out. To ensure that nothing like the attack on the Defense Minister (his brother by the way) will happen to him, they close off the roads when he goes out. Which makes it hell for ordinary Colombo people. This evening he has gone somewhere near my hotel which meant that the road leading to my hotel is closed off to cars and I had to get off nearby and walk.( Apparently Rajapakse also believes in astrology. His astrologer told him he must never take a helicopter or plane within the country. As a result, he only travels by car, or stays at home.)
Compared to my last trip here last November ( which coincided with a big attack on the Navy up north as well as another one at Galle just down the road), the army presence in Colombo has markedly increased. There are men with machine guns everywhere, including on top of buildings, and road checkpoints at every turn. As I walked towards my hotel, I saw a soldier with a gun and a sign that said 'VIP'. Thinking this was a sign to let through VIP cars, I asked my companion about it. He said that VIP stood for an insurance company Vehicle Insurance Policies and they had sponsored all the army checkpoints including the handheld 'STOP' sign! Talk about privatisation!
Coming back to the men with white beards and clothes. I always knew that Sri Lanka had a significant Muslim community which is quite noticeable in Colombo. But this time, the place seemed overrun with men in distinctly Muslim garb and women in tudungs. It turns out that this week some 20,000 members of the Bohra community, a Shiite sect mostly from Gujarat, India, are convening in Colombo. Everywhere you go, there are bearded men in white kurtas and white pants, and women in mini telekungs of various colours. There are Bohras in Sri Lanka as well and this week they are playing host to their Shaikh, as well as their brethren from elsewhere.
Work on the AIDS conference is going well but slowly. There is a problem of the perception of Sri Lanka as a dangerous place, and people may be hesitating from registering for the conference because of it. Despite the enhanced army presence that I've seen this time, I don't really feel as if there is a war going on. It is limited to the north, and even though there are occasional bombs and assasinations in Colombo, the target is always political rather than the general public, and never ever foreigners. The LTTE, it seems, has a very acute sense of public relations. People in Colombo go about their lives like people anywhere else. They bear the roadblocks and checkpoints with patience and calm. I guess after a while you get immune to these inconveniences.
Still, it is quite something for Sri Lanka to host this conference since it is a low-prevalence country. But besides understanding the need to address the issue early, Sri Lanka understands also what message it will give to the world if it hosts a conference like this. It shows a confident government that is in charge. It shows it cares, and it shows that it can take a leadership position in the region, even though it is a small country. That can reap many rewards, not least in making the global community take notice in a positive way, rather than focussing on other ways. So I reckon that the government here is being quite smart by supporting this.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
What Misery Looks Like
People,
These are the photos sent to me by Raja Zarith. Can't believe they can still smile for the camera.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Wet again!
UPDATE : Here's the latest report from Raja Zarith. She promises to send me photos tomorrow.
"Today is our 2nd day of visiting flood victims of the 2nd floods in Johor. After the 3rd centre (ie school), my car and those which are part of the Red Crescent convoy were shown the way by some villagers so that I could see for myself what their village looked like. I took as many photos as I could as 'proof' to myself and those at RC HQ. I broke down and cried. I wanted to go home but a RC friend said there were people at another centre waiting to see me. I cried because I couldn't bear the sight of so many homes ruined, the villagers having to clean their homes again and losing more belongings, again.
They smiled when I asked if I could take their photos. They had SO LITTLE but they could give me the GIFT of their smiles...Give them and the others the RM52m, the cost of the KL fireworks. How can we be without consciences or guilt? What is there for the poor to celebrate?"
Folks,
Just as they thought that they would finally get to dry off, the floods have returned! You must have seen the photos but as my friend Raja Zarith says, you need to experience the smell of mud and sweat to know what it really feels like. It is hell, having to live in a relief centre, away from your home which is sodden through and through and insecure on top of that.
So, here's another plea to those of us fortunate enough to be dry, clean and safe. The Red Crescent Johor branch needs your help once again. Please send essential goods, tinned food, foam mattresses, blankets, disposable diapers, sanitary napkins, women's underwear, to be sent to the Malaysian Red Crescent Society's Bilik Gerakan/Flood Relief Centre, Puteri-Pacific Hotel, JB, tel: 07-219-9995, 07-219-9996. Money donations are also welcomed. ( Sorry, they don't have this Ops Centre anymore, please see comments for updates on where to send stuff.)
And if you have time to go down and help, they wouldn't mind that either.
"Today is our 2nd day of visiting flood victims of the 2nd floods in Johor. After the 3rd centre (ie school), my car and those which are part of the Red Crescent convoy were shown the way by some villagers so that I could see for myself what their village looked like. I took as many photos as I could as 'proof' to myself and those at RC HQ. I broke down and cried. I wanted to go home but a RC friend said there were people at another centre waiting to see me. I cried because I couldn't bear the sight of so many homes ruined, the villagers having to clean their homes again and losing more belongings, again.
They smiled when I asked if I could take their photos. They had SO LITTLE but they could give me the GIFT of their smiles...Give them and the others the RM52m, the cost of the KL fireworks. How can we be without consciences or guilt? What is there for the poor to celebrate?"
Folks,
Just as they thought that they would finally get to dry off, the floods have returned! You must have seen the photos but as my friend Raja Zarith says, you need to experience the smell of mud and sweat to know what it really feels like. It is hell, having to live in a relief centre, away from your home which is sodden through and through and insecure on top of that.
So, here's another plea to those of us fortunate enough to be dry, clean and safe. The Red Crescent Johor branch needs your help once again. Please send essential goods, tinned food, foam mattresses, blankets, disposable diapers, sanitary napkins, women's underwear, to be sent to the Malaysian Red Crescent Society's Bilik Gerakan/Flood Relief Centre, Puteri-Pacific Hotel, JB, tel: 07-219-9995, 07-219-9996. Money donations are also welcomed. ( Sorry, they don't have this Ops Centre anymore, please see comments for updates on where to send stuff.)
And if you have time to go down and help, they wouldn't mind that either.
Friday, January 12, 2007
We are Malaysians, we are different!
Many a time, during my AIDS Council days, when I used to ask why can't we try out HIV prevention programmes which have been successful elsewhere, I was told by government officials that we are Malaysians so we are different and these programmes won't work here. I think I've already told the story of how an official made me spend a whole afternoon preparing a presentation on why some countries have successfully managed their epidemics and then shot the whole thing down by saying that we can't do any of that stuff here (before we've even tried). It reminds me of the Japanese who blocked the sales of foreign ski equipment because "Japanese snow was different".
Anyway, here's an example of how different we are. In 1976, Prof Yunus started the Grameen Bank by taking US$27 out of his own pocket to lend to a group of villagers who needed capital to expand the small business they had. In 1987, Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia was started following the example of Grameen with the aim of "mengurangkan kemiskinan di Malaysia melalui pengeluaran Pembiayaan Ikhtiar kepada isirumah miskin di luarbandar untuk membiayai kegiatan-kegiatan yang menambahkan pendapatan."
Since then Prof Yunus has gone on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, while we, being different, have this to show:
Friday, January 12, 2007
Curiously, AIM calls itself an NGO but its web address is a gov.my. And almost all its officials are former civil servants. Sounds very much like Pemadam, which by the way also has a history of doing things the 'different' Malaysian way.
Anyway, here's an example of how different we are. In 1976, Prof Yunus started the Grameen Bank by taking US$27 out of his own pocket to lend to a group of villagers who needed capital to expand the small business they had. In 1987, Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia was started following the example of Grameen with the aim of "mengurangkan kemiskinan di Malaysia melalui pengeluaran Pembiayaan Ikhtiar kepada isirumah miskin di luarbandar untuk membiayai kegiatan-kegiatan yang menambahkan pendapatan."
Since then Prof Yunus has gone on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, while we, being different, have this to show:
Friday, January 12, 2007
Former AIM MD found guilty of CBT
KUALA LUMPUR: Former Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) managing director Mukhtar Ramli was found guilty of criminal breach of trust involving RM3.8mil belonging to the poverty eradication agency.
A Sessions Court here immediately passed a five-year jail sentence on the former National Archives director-general yesterday.
He will have to spend, at least, the next few days in prison.
This is because judge Akhtar Tahir refused to grant a stay of execution until Mukhtar's lawyers formally filed a notice of appeal.
He shot down counsel Mohd Yaakob Bakanali's request for a stay, saying there was no such thing as an automatic stay of execution.
When the lawyer pressed for an interim stay of execution, the judge again shot back: “There's no such thing as an interim stay.”
When Mohd Yaakob pointed out that allowing an interim stay was a practice, Akhtar replied that he was not following that practice.
Mukhtar, 54, was convicted of five counts of criminal breach of trust involving a total of RM3,874,000 at the AIM office at Jalan Ledang, off Jalan Duta, here.
Earlier, in mitigation, Mohd Yaakob urged the court to release his client on a good behaviour bond, saying he had served the Government for 18 years before joining AIM as managing director in 1995.
He said Mukhtar, who was now without a steady job, received a monthly government pension of RM1,411 and, for additional income, he conducted religious classes after AIM sacked him.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curiously, AIM calls itself an NGO but its web address is a gov.my. And almost all its officials are former civil servants. Sounds very much like Pemadam, which by the way also has a history of doing things the 'different' Malaysian way.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Michael Moore, the other MM
This is so funny, I had to share it...
Dear Mr. President: Send Even MORE Troops (and you go, too!) ...from Michael Moore
1/10/07
Dear Mr. President,
Thanks for your address to the nation. It's good to know you still want to talk to us after how we behaved in November.
Listen, can I be frank? Sending in 20,000 more troops just ain't gonna do the job. That will only bring the troop level back up to what it was last year. And we were losing the war last year! We've already had over a million troops serve some time in Iraq since 2003. Another few thousand is simply not enough to find those weapons of mass destruction! Er, I mean... bringing those responsible for 9/11 to justice! Um, scratch that. Try this -- BRING DEMOCRACY TO THE MIDDLE EAST! YES!!!
You've got to show some courage, dude! You've got to win this one! C'mon, you got Saddam! You hung 'im high! I loved watching the video of that -- just like the old wild west! The bad guy wore black! The hangmen were as crazy as the hangee! Lynch mobs rule!!!
Look, I have to admit I feel very sorry for the predicament you're in. As Ricky Bobby said, "If you're not first, you're last." And you being humiliated in front of the whole world does NONE of us Americans any good.
Sir, listen to me. You have to send in MILLIONS of troops to Iraq, not thousands! The only way to lick this thing now is to flood Iraq with millions of us! I know that you're out of combat-ready soldiers -- so you have to look elsewhere! The only way you are going to beat a nation of 27 million -- Iraq -- is to send in at least 28 million! Here's how it would work:
The first 27 million Americans go in and kill one Iraqi each. That will quickly take care of any insurgency. The other one million of us will stay and rebuild the country. Simple.
Now, I know you're saying, where will I find 28 million Americans to go to Iraq? Here are some suggestions:
1. More than 62,000,000 Americans voted for you in the last election (the one that took place a year and half into a war we already knew we were losing). I am confident that at least a third of them would want to put their body where there vote was and sign up to volunteer. I know many of these people and, while we may disagree politically, I know that they don't believe someone else should have to go and fight their fight for them -- while they hide here in America.
2. Start a "Kill an Iraqi" Meet-Up group in cities across the country. I know this idea is so early-21st century, but I once went to a Lou Dobbs Meet-Up and, I swear, some of the best ideas happen after the third mojito. I'm sure you'll get another five million or so enlistees from this effort.
3. Send over all members of the mainstream media. After all, they were your collaborators in bringing us this war -- and many of them are already trained from having been "embedded!" If that doesn't bring the total to 28 million, then draft all viewers of the FOX News channel.
Mr. Bush, do not give up! Now is not the time to pull your punch! Don't be a weenie by sending in a few over-tired troops. Get your people behind you and YOU lead them in like a true commander in chief! Leave no conservative behind! Full speed ahead!
We promise to write. Go get 'em W!
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com
Dear Mr. President: Send Even MORE Troops (and you go, too!) ...from Michael Moore
1/10/07
Dear Mr. President,
Thanks for your address to the nation. It's good to know you still want to talk to us after how we behaved in November.
Listen, can I be frank? Sending in 20,000 more troops just ain't gonna do the job. That will only bring the troop level back up to what it was last year. And we were losing the war last year! We've already had over a million troops serve some time in Iraq since 2003. Another few thousand is simply not enough to find those weapons of mass destruction! Er, I mean... bringing those responsible for 9/11 to justice! Um, scratch that. Try this -- BRING DEMOCRACY TO THE MIDDLE EAST! YES!!!
You've got to show some courage, dude! You've got to win this one! C'mon, you got Saddam! You hung 'im high! I loved watching the video of that -- just like the old wild west! The bad guy wore black! The hangmen were as crazy as the hangee! Lynch mobs rule!!!
Look, I have to admit I feel very sorry for the predicament you're in. As Ricky Bobby said, "If you're not first, you're last." And you being humiliated in front of the whole world does NONE of us Americans any good.
Sir, listen to me. You have to send in MILLIONS of troops to Iraq, not thousands! The only way to lick this thing now is to flood Iraq with millions of us! I know that you're out of combat-ready soldiers -- so you have to look elsewhere! The only way you are going to beat a nation of 27 million -- Iraq -- is to send in at least 28 million! Here's how it would work:
The first 27 million Americans go in and kill one Iraqi each. That will quickly take care of any insurgency. The other one million of us will stay and rebuild the country. Simple.
Now, I know you're saying, where will I find 28 million Americans to go to Iraq? Here are some suggestions:
1. More than 62,000,000 Americans voted for you in the last election (the one that took place a year and half into a war we already knew we were losing). I am confident that at least a third of them would want to put their body where there vote was and sign up to volunteer. I know many of these people and, while we may disagree politically, I know that they don't believe someone else should have to go and fight their fight for them -- while they hide here in America.
2. Start a "Kill an Iraqi" Meet-Up group in cities across the country. I know this idea is so early-21st century, but I once went to a Lou Dobbs Meet-Up and, I swear, some of the best ideas happen after the third mojito. I'm sure you'll get another five million or so enlistees from this effort.
3. Send over all members of the mainstream media. After all, they were your collaborators in bringing us this war -- and many of them are already trained from having been "embedded!" If that doesn't bring the total to 28 million, then draft all viewers of the FOX News channel.
Mr. Bush, do not give up! Now is not the time to pull your punch! Don't be a weenie by sending in a few over-tired troops. Get your people behind you and YOU lead them in like a true commander in chief! Leave no conservative behind! Full speed ahead!
We promise to write. Go get 'em W!
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com
It's OUR Birthday, damn it!
UPDATE: Walski69 has just posted his Merdeka blog. He's also created a logo which I think is perfect for our birthday year this year. Here it is, what do you think?
(Nizam Bashir had the great idea of having 50 bloggers do a tag-team of a posting a week for the 50 weeks leading up to Merdeka. Rockybru tagged me to do Post no 34 (counting downwards) which is this one here. I have next tagged Walski69 of MyAsylum to do Post No 33.)
Flying back from Jakarta the other day, I was reading in the in-flight magazine all about the events for Visit Malaysia Year 2007. A day or two later in the newspapers there was a whole supplement on VMY 07. Lots and lots of events to attract tourists to visit us and savour all that we have to offer.
I am a bit puzzled by all this emphasis on VMY. We have had VMYs before. So now we're having another one. Fine. But isn't 2007 our 50th anniversary? In any other country, when people celebrate their 50th anniversary, it's called a Golden Jubilee. So this year, we, the people of Malaysia, are celebrating our 50th birthday, our Golden Jubilee. We are NOT celebrating Visit Malaysia Year.
I'm sorry to be pedantic but to me, a birthday is a birthday. I'm the sort of person, as my friends and family will tell you, who always remembers birthdays, and always celebrates it, because it is really the only day which is our own special day. I don't know too many people who get upset about being wished Happy Birthday (unless of course you add 'old man/woman' or some other rude comment about age).
What I want to know is, how are WE celebrating our 50th birthday? I see tons of money - RM100m, was it? - spent on a lot of events for tourists. Come and see us, the brochures cry out, our green forests, our sandy beaches, our tall buildings, our many shops. But I don't see a single thing that actually commemorates our birthday apart from, I'm assuming, Merdeka Day itself. Everything else happens anyway, especially Thaipusam/Chinese New Year/Wesak/Raya/Deepavalli/Christmas, King's birthday, F1 race, Rainforest Music Festival, Megasales. Even if it wasn't VMY, they would still take place. What is so special about that?
Don't we Malaysians count at all? Can't we have something just for us to celebrate? Can't we have a big party just for us, the citizens of this country, whose birthday it is this year? I feel like it's my birthday but all the parties are organised for someone else.
Maybe it is a tacit acknowledgement that we have nothing to celebrate. How to party when everything is going to cost more? What's to celebrate when your home is still all muddy and wet? How to feel festive when each sodden family in Johor gets an insulting RM100 (per family, not even per person!) as 'wang ihsan', whatever that means? What's to cheer when people feel less secure in every way?
My friend Adeeba started off VMY with a horrible ordeal. At 3 am a week ago, four men with parangs entered her home, tied up her, her husband, two sons and maid and spent 45 minutes ransacking her home and taking whatever valuables they could get. The experience understandably left her traumatised. But she had this to say:
"Having experienced an ordeal such as this, one goes through a whole range of emotions. After the initial fear had settled down, the first emotion to set in was guilt – why did we not make our house more secure? However, in talking to various people who have had similar experiences, it became clear that even the best systems in the world were not going to prevent this from happening. Am I angry with the robbers? Of course I am angry. But I am less angry with them than I am with the whole system that has allowed this lawlessness and disorder to take place time after time after time. A system that has led to the pursuit of economic wealth at all cost. A system that glorifies greed and material wealth. A system that has watched moral and societal decay and increased economic inequalities go by with no discernible actions to put it right. A system that puts more emphasis and priorities on billboards touting this and that rather than spending those dollars on paying our policeman better and making their work environment more pleasant for instance. To be honest I do not even care if these robbers are caught and sent to prison or not. For if these four are caught there are thousands more like them already planning and waiting to strike on the next neighbourhood, the next family."
Adeeba and her husband had returned home after many years overseas to raise their family here, and contribute what they can to our development. Now they wonder whether this was the right decision for their children. "Will they have to grow up in this increasingly violent country where they will not be able to go to sleep at night without worrying if they are going to wake up to a knife pointed at their throats?
"As we celebrate the 50th year of Merdeka and spend lavishly on attracting tourists to the country, is it too much for this citizen (and every other citizen for that matter) who chose to return and make Malaysia home and partake in another 15-25 years of nation building to ask that we may go about our lives knowing that we will be safe and protected?"
Indeed!
So, why isn't the Golden Jubilee about us? How different it would have been if this year was centred on us, the people, instead of them, the tourists. I don't have anything against tourists but we didn't gain our independence 50 years ago for them. We gained it for us, for our right to self-determination, to make our country what we want it to be, to decide for ourselves our own futures. Merdeka doesn't mean 'welcome' after all. Why can't we have a year that is all about us, celebrating us, which the rest of the world is welcome to come and join in if they want? Not a year for tourists, which we Malaysians have to smile and keep toilets clean for.
Even the Australians and Japanese have got it the right way round, by having a series of cultural events to commemorate 50 years of diplomatic ties with us. Not, please note, diplomatic ties with tourists.
I know there are some events that are about us -The Star is organising the Malaysia@50 photo event, The Sun is asking people for essays and there is this blogathon, of which this is entry no 34. But how are ordinary people going to commemorate this year?
I have a small idea for August 31 which I am hoping to make happen. For 12 years I have lived in a small cul-de-sac of eight homes. While my neighbours and I are on polite nodding and waving terms, we do not really know one another. I travel a lot and every time there is a festival or long weekend, I take my kids off somewhere. So I think it is time to rectify this.
For this year's special Merdeka, I am planning a street party. I am going to invite my neighbours to help me organise a party by us and for us. We could put tables on the road with lots of food, and games for the kids. Maybe they have some other fun ideas.
The point of the whole exercise is this: it is time we got to know one another better, to have fun together, to be neighbourly. It should not cost much, especially if we plan early and pool our resources. It could be a day or a whole weekend, we could decorate the entire street, we can invite our friends along for the fun and games. It will be a day for the folks on our street, about the folks on our street, by the folks on our street.
I am hoping that the very process of organising this street party will make us get to know one another, become closer, and will allow us to help one another if anything happens. It is a multiracial street so to me, this process is where Malaysians can be Malaysians, the way we always envisioned it half a century ago. And to me, if we do that, then we really have something to celebrate our Golden Jubilee for.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Getting Real about Saudi Arabia
Many years ago at a forum on HIV/AIDS for parliamentarians, someone castigated me for always talking about countries with HIV. He said we should learn from countries that don't have an AIDS epidemic so that we can learn how they do it. The example he gave was Saudi Arabia. I told him that I would love to talk about countries without AIDS but unfortunately there weren't any. Countries like Saudi Arabia only seem to be HIV-free but that is because they don't talk about it, or underplay their numbers. I wish I had this report below to quote at the time.
Saturday, 6, January, 2007 (17, Dhul Hijjah, 1427)
Survey Provides Insight Into AIDS Awareness Among Youth
Maha Akeel, Arab News
JEDDAH, 6 January 2007 - A pilot study released in December reveals
interesting views and habits by a sample of Saudi young men on a taboo topic that is somewhat counter to the perceived reality.
In conservative Saudi society, speaking about sex publicly is uncomfortable let alone speaking about sexually transmitted infections, especially the ones caused by the HIV virus that leads to AIDS.
An economics professor at King Abdul Aziz University conducted a survey of male university students aged between 19 and 23 on their knowledge and attitude toward AIDS and their evaluation of its social and economic effects Although the sample is small, 147, their honest answers might indicate more sexual activity among youths than society recognizes and which require honest attention.
"The Jeddah male student community, with colleagues and acquaintances, is a sexually active group," said Omar Al-Murshedi regarding the results of his study that he plans to expand including a larger number of subjects. "We should not neglect this group despite its high awareness of the issue (of AIDS) whether in terms of education, prevention, treatment and care, financially and psychologically."
The majority of the students (61 percent) said they believe the social
perception of the disease negatively affects feeling of sympathy for AIDS patients. The same number attributed this negative perception to the view that AIDS is God's wrath for immoral behavior. Views that AIDS patients are perverts, gays or cheating spouses were the reason cited by 39 percent of those surveyed for the stigma associated with AIDS.
Almost all of the surveyed (90 percent) believe that the number of those afflicted with AIDS in Saudi Arabia is much higher than the officially announced numbers, perhaps hinting at their awareness of prevalence of sexually risky behaviors in their community.
Health Ministry officials say there are 10,120 reported HIV/AIDS cases in Saudi Arabia, of which 7,804 are non-Saudi.
Thirty-four percent of the survey respondents said they believed that Saudi officials deliberately reduce this number, while 32 percent said they think the number is simply inaccurate. A third of the respondents said they think the number is accurate for reported cases, but that they believed that considering unreported cases the number is much higher.
Based on studies in Africa, the World Health Organization estimates that for every reported case of AIDS, nine cases go unreported in countries where the statistical information is incomplete or questionable, or when health care workers aren't trained or encouraged to keep records of confirmed or suspected HIV cases in their clinics. If this theory were applied to Saudi Arabia, the number of HIV cases could be over 100,000.
Exacerbating the problem in the Kingdom is the high number of undocumented migrants and visa overstayers from countries with high incidences of AIDS.
Simply put the health of many of the Kingdom's illegal migrants is unchecked (Legal residents must be cleared of HIV to obtain a work/residency permit.)
Asked which group is more at risk of acquiring or might already be carrying the HIV virus, 39 percent said single men with regular sexual relations, 31 percent said married men having affairs, 18 percent said drug addicts and only 12 percent said homosexuals. It is worth noting that 22 percent of those surveyed are married.
A bolder question asked how many do they estimate of their friends and
acquaintances have practiced or are practicing pre-marital sex. Forty-nine percent of the respondents estimated that at least half of their respective social circles were engaged in sex before marriage. Thirty-four percent estimated that a fourth of their friends and acquaintances were engaged in pre-marital sex.
These answers actually correlate with official findings that 80 percent of the reported HIV virus cases were transmitted through sexual intercourse.
The same estimates state that for each HIV positive woman in the Kingdom there are three men with the virus. Worldwide the ratio of men to women is 1:1. In Saudi Arabia, men are three times more likely to have the HIV virus than women, mostly due to the fact that foreigners are more likely to have HIV and to be men. Eighty percent of reported AIDS cases in the Kingdom are people between the ages of 15 and 49.
Almost half of those surveyed (48 percent) said that it is easier to acquire the services of a prostitute abroad while 35 percent admitted that it is possible to pay for sex inside the Kingdom as well. Sixty-one percent of the respondents say they spend their vacations abroad.
On the other hand, 58 percent of those surveyed said they believed the
growth in Saudi AIDS cases was due to sexual contact with illegal
expatriates in the Kingdom.
In answers to questions on awareness, education and prevention campaigns, the young men surveyed showed a high level of honesty and understanding of the seriousness of the problem. Eighy-eight percent of them find that intensifying religious awareness could limit the spread of the virus.
A majority of the respondents (72 percent) approve of introducing the topic of sexually transmitted infections and diseases in high school and at the university level. Three fourths of those surveyed said they would support awareness campaigns on safe sex. Eighty-two percent said they would support measures to encourage engaged couples to have pre-nuptial HIV tests.
The young men also showed a high sense of awareness of the possible effect on society if measures are not taken to curtail the spread of the virus.
They predicted an increase in the number of cases thus an increase in the number of spinsterhood, homosexuality, marriage to non-Saudis, widows and orphans.
All these results they said would have an impact on the social structure and on government plans and government spending. They made some recommendations for officials and society.
They asked religious leaders to encourage moral behavior, parents to ease early marriage and society to treat AIDS' patients with care. They called for awareness campaigns in schools, free voluntary AIDS tests, repatriation-fee on sponsors if the employee is diagnosed with HIV and implementing a fingerprint system for preventing those already listed as diagnosed from entry. They also asked for making the treatment available for free to those financially incapable.
http://www.arabnews
com/?page=1§ion=0&article=90668&d=6&m=1&y=2007&pix=kingdom
jpg&category=Kingdom
Saturday, 6, January, 2007 (17, Dhul Hijjah, 1427)
Survey Provides Insight Into AIDS Awareness Among Youth
Maha Akeel, Arab News
JEDDAH, 6 January 2007 - A pilot study released in December reveals
interesting views and habits by a sample of Saudi young men on a taboo topic that is somewhat counter to the perceived reality.
In conservative Saudi society, speaking about sex publicly is uncomfortable let alone speaking about sexually transmitted infections, especially the ones caused by the HIV virus that leads to AIDS.
An economics professor at King Abdul Aziz University conducted a survey of male university students aged between 19 and 23 on their knowledge and attitude toward AIDS and their evaluation of its social and economic effects Although the sample is small, 147, their honest answers might indicate more sexual activity among youths than society recognizes and which require honest attention.
"The Jeddah male student community, with colleagues and acquaintances, is a sexually active group," said Omar Al-Murshedi regarding the results of his study that he plans to expand including a larger number of subjects. "We should not neglect this group despite its high awareness of the issue (of AIDS) whether in terms of education, prevention, treatment and care, financially and psychologically."
The majority of the students (61 percent) said they believe the social
perception of the disease negatively affects feeling of sympathy for AIDS patients. The same number attributed this negative perception to the view that AIDS is God's wrath for immoral behavior. Views that AIDS patients are perverts, gays or cheating spouses were the reason cited by 39 percent of those surveyed for the stigma associated with AIDS.
Almost all of the surveyed (90 percent) believe that the number of those afflicted with AIDS in Saudi Arabia is much higher than the officially announced numbers, perhaps hinting at their awareness of prevalence of sexually risky behaviors in their community.
Health Ministry officials say there are 10,120 reported HIV/AIDS cases in Saudi Arabia, of which 7,804 are non-Saudi.
Thirty-four percent of the survey respondents said they believed that Saudi officials deliberately reduce this number, while 32 percent said they think the number is simply inaccurate. A third of the respondents said they think the number is accurate for reported cases, but that they believed that considering unreported cases the number is much higher.
Based on studies in Africa, the World Health Organization estimates that for every reported case of AIDS, nine cases go unreported in countries where the statistical information is incomplete or questionable, or when health care workers aren't trained or encouraged to keep records of confirmed or suspected HIV cases in their clinics. If this theory were applied to Saudi Arabia, the number of HIV cases could be over 100,000.
Exacerbating the problem in the Kingdom is the high number of undocumented migrants and visa overstayers from countries with high incidences of AIDS.
Simply put the health of many of the Kingdom's illegal migrants is unchecked (Legal residents must be cleared of HIV to obtain a work/residency permit.)
Asked which group is more at risk of acquiring or might already be carrying the HIV virus, 39 percent said single men with regular sexual relations, 31 percent said married men having affairs, 18 percent said drug addicts and only 12 percent said homosexuals. It is worth noting that 22 percent of those surveyed are married.
A bolder question asked how many do they estimate of their friends and
acquaintances have practiced or are practicing pre-marital sex. Forty-nine percent of the respondents estimated that at least half of their respective social circles were engaged in sex before marriage. Thirty-four percent estimated that a fourth of their friends and acquaintances were engaged in pre-marital sex.
These answers actually correlate with official findings that 80 percent of the reported HIV virus cases were transmitted through sexual intercourse.
The same estimates state that for each HIV positive woman in the Kingdom there are three men with the virus. Worldwide the ratio of men to women is 1:1. In Saudi Arabia, men are three times more likely to have the HIV virus than women, mostly due to the fact that foreigners are more likely to have HIV and to be men. Eighty percent of reported AIDS cases in the Kingdom are people between the ages of 15 and 49.
Almost half of those surveyed (48 percent) said that it is easier to acquire the services of a prostitute abroad while 35 percent admitted that it is possible to pay for sex inside the Kingdom as well. Sixty-one percent of the respondents say they spend their vacations abroad.
On the other hand, 58 percent of those surveyed said they believed the
growth in Saudi AIDS cases was due to sexual contact with illegal
expatriates in the Kingdom.
In answers to questions on awareness, education and prevention campaigns, the young men surveyed showed a high level of honesty and understanding of the seriousness of the problem. Eighy-eight percent of them find that intensifying religious awareness could limit the spread of the virus.
A majority of the respondents (72 percent) approve of introducing the topic of sexually transmitted infections and diseases in high school and at the university level. Three fourths of those surveyed said they would support awareness campaigns on safe sex. Eighty-two percent said they would support measures to encourage engaged couples to have pre-nuptial HIV tests.
The young men also showed a high sense of awareness of the possible effect on society if measures are not taken to curtail the spread of the virus.
They predicted an increase in the number of cases thus an increase in the number of spinsterhood, homosexuality, marriage to non-Saudis, widows and orphans.
All these results they said would have an impact on the social structure and on government plans and government spending. They made some recommendations for officials and society.
They asked religious leaders to encourage moral behavior, parents to ease early marriage and society to treat AIDS' patients with care. They called for awareness campaigns in schools, free voluntary AIDS tests, repatriation-fee on sponsors if the employee is diagnosed with HIV and implementing a fingerprint system for preventing those already listed as diagnosed from entry. They also asked for making the treatment available for free to those financially incapable.
http://www.arabnews
com/?page=1§ion=0&article=90668&d=6&m=1&y=2007&pix=kingdom
jpg&category=Kingdom
Monday, January 8, 2007
High on 'treatment'
I am just settling down to the new year so have not been able to post anything original just yet. But thought I'd post this article below since we get mentioned.
To be fair and complete, Malaysia is now embarking on harm reduction programmes which seek to reduce the public health harm of drug use, principally HIV transmission but also includes Hepatitis. These includes methadone substitution therapy and needle exchange programmes. They've been in place for about a year now but no real evaluation has been done yet, despite some enthusiastic (and statistically inaccurate) burblings from the Ministry of Health. I do know anecdotally however that in one of the needle exchange locations, they are seeing a 90% return rate. This means that for every 100 clean needles given out, 90 of them are returned to be disposed of properly. Which means that the risk of becoming infected from a contaminated needle is down to only 10% in that location.
Needless to say, we would significantly reduce our HIV problem if we could also reduce our drug problem ( am so glad to see that so many of our muftis see the drug problem as one of the main issues that we have here). Having failed substantially all these years, it might be time to think out of the box and find completely different approaches since the current punitive one doesn't work.
Perspective: Harsh treatment
By Daniel Wolfe, International Herald Tribune
27 December 2006
****************
[Mods note: The inhumane treatments of drug users such as incarceration (prisons or locked-up treatment facilities), sub-standard care and questionable rehabilitation approaches in some Asian countries are depicted in this perspective posting. The drug users population remains one of the marginalized and most at-risk to HIV infection not only in Asia but also other parts of the developing world.]
****************
NEW YORK - On Dec. 8, 43 HIV-positive women were killed by a fire in a locked Moscow hospital ward, where they were supposedly being treated for drug addiction. Two nurses also perished. Until governments in Asia and the former Soviet Union stop punishing drug users in the name of treatment, such tragedies are bound to be repeated, and efforts to control both addiction and AIDS will continue to fall tragically short.
In Russia, the locked ward is a legacy of the Soviet era, where medical specialists (or "narcologists") subjected alcoholics and drug addicts to hypnosis, aversion therapy and, when deemed necessary, forced labor.
State power to enact compulsory treatment largely collapsed with the Soviet Union, but in many former Soviet republics the bars on the windows and fire escapes of drug treatment facilities remain in place.
So does the attitude that drug users are best treated like drugs - as something to be controlled and contained for the good of society.
Many Russian narcologists offer drug users little more than extreme sedation to mitigate withdrawal from heroin. Drug users' names are added to government registries. Psychological support is minimal or nonexistent. Prescription of the oral medications most effective in reducing heroin injection and HIV risk, such as methadone or buprenorphine, is illegal.
China, spurred by the spread of HIV among injecting drug users, has won well-deserved praise for new programs prescribing methadone to heroin addicts. Less attention, however, has been given to the fact that most Chinese methadone patients receive medication only after spending two terms in compulsory detoxification centers run by the Public Security Bureau, where they are offered such measures as 12 hours of daily, unpaid labor, therapy with electric shocks, and sessions where they chant such slogans as "drugs are bad, I am bad."
In Southeast Asia, drug users are also forced into overcrowded facilities where conditions more closely resemble prisons than treatment centers. Some 35,000 Vietnamese are now detained in rehabilitation centers in Ho Chi Minh City alone.
In Malaysia, an estimated 5,000 drug users are in compulsory rehabilitation centers where they are subjected to boot-camp style drills, and locked at night into barred cells where as many as 40 patients sleep on the floor.
Experts estimate that from 90 percent to 100 percent of drug users subjected to coercive internment in the former Soviet Union and Southeast Asia return to illicit drug use. Bizarrely, this finding has sparked some governments to increase the length of internment rather than to re-examine their approach. In Ho Chi Minh City, detention reportedly can last four years or more.
The cost of these failed approaches can be measured not only in terms of unchecked drug dependence, but also in new HIV infections. In China, Russia, Malaysia and Vietnam, the largest share of all HIV cases are due to injecting drug use.
Outside Africa, the UN now estimates, nearly one in three infections is the result of contaminated needles. For the hundreds of thousands of drug users who are HIV-positive and unlucky enough to find themselves in punitive clinical settings, the problem of ineffective drug treatment is usually compounded by the absence of any HIV treatment at all. Sterile syringes and condoms are also unavailable, even though reports of drug use and sex in compulsory treatment settings are common.
The tragedy in Russia should move national governments and the United Nations to increase monitoring of what for too long has passed for drug treatment, and to speak out against abuses committed in the name of health. Otherwise, we leave millions of drug users in Asia and the former Soviet Union like those young, HIV-positive women: trapped, screaming and with no one to help.
Online at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/27/opinion/edwolfe.php
To be fair and complete, Malaysia is now embarking on harm reduction programmes which seek to reduce the public health harm of drug use, principally HIV transmission but also includes Hepatitis. These includes methadone substitution therapy and needle exchange programmes. They've been in place for about a year now but no real evaluation has been done yet, despite some enthusiastic (and statistically inaccurate) burblings from the Ministry of Health. I do know anecdotally however that in one of the needle exchange locations, they are seeing a 90% return rate. This means that for every 100 clean needles given out, 90 of them are returned to be disposed of properly. Which means that the risk of becoming infected from a contaminated needle is down to only 10% in that location.
Needless to say, we would significantly reduce our HIV problem if we could also reduce our drug problem ( am so glad to see that so many of our muftis see the drug problem as one of the main issues that we have here). Having failed substantially all these years, it might be time to think out of the box and find completely different approaches since the current punitive one doesn't work.
Perspective: Harsh treatment
By Daniel Wolfe, International Herald Tribune
27 December 2006
****************
[Mods note: The inhumane treatments of drug users such as incarceration (prisons or locked-up treatment facilities), sub-standard care and questionable rehabilitation approaches in some Asian countries are depicted in this perspective posting. The drug users population remains one of the marginalized and most at-risk to HIV infection not only in Asia but also other parts of the developing world.]
****************
NEW YORK - On Dec. 8, 43 HIV-positive women were killed by a fire in a locked Moscow hospital ward, where they were supposedly being treated for drug addiction. Two nurses also perished. Until governments in Asia and the former Soviet Union stop punishing drug users in the name of treatment, such tragedies are bound to be repeated, and efforts to control both addiction and AIDS will continue to fall tragically short.
In Russia, the locked ward is a legacy of the Soviet era, where medical specialists (or "narcologists") subjected alcoholics and drug addicts to hypnosis, aversion therapy and, when deemed necessary, forced labor.
State power to enact compulsory treatment largely collapsed with the Soviet Union, but in many former Soviet republics the bars on the windows and fire escapes of drug treatment facilities remain in place.
So does the attitude that drug users are best treated like drugs - as something to be controlled and contained for the good of society.
Many Russian narcologists offer drug users little more than extreme sedation to mitigate withdrawal from heroin. Drug users' names are added to government registries. Psychological support is minimal or nonexistent. Prescription of the oral medications most effective in reducing heroin injection and HIV risk, such as methadone or buprenorphine, is illegal.
China, spurred by the spread of HIV among injecting drug users, has won well-deserved praise for new programs prescribing methadone to heroin addicts. Less attention, however, has been given to the fact that most Chinese methadone patients receive medication only after spending two terms in compulsory detoxification centers run by the Public Security Bureau, where they are offered such measures as 12 hours of daily, unpaid labor, therapy with electric shocks, and sessions where they chant such slogans as "drugs are bad, I am bad."
In Southeast Asia, drug users are also forced into overcrowded facilities where conditions more closely resemble prisons than treatment centers. Some 35,000 Vietnamese are now detained in rehabilitation centers in Ho Chi Minh City alone.
In Malaysia, an estimated 5,000 drug users are in compulsory rehabilitation centers where they are subjected to boot-camp style drills, and locked at night into barred cells where as many as 40 patients sleep on the floor.
Experts estimate that from 90 percent to 100 percent of drug users subjected to coercive internment in the former Soviet Union and Southeast Asia return to illicit drug use. Bizarrely, this finding has sparked some governments to increase the length of internment rather than to re-examine their approach. In Ho Chi Minh City, detention reportedly can last four years or more.
The cost of these failed approaches can be measured not only in terms of unchecked drug dependence, but also in new HIV infections. In China, Russia, Malaysia and Vietnam, the largest share of all HIV cases are due to injecting drug use.
Outside Africa, the UN now estimates, nearly one in three infections is the result of contaminated needles. For the hundreds of thousands of drug users who are HIV-positive and unlucky enough to find themselves in punitive clinical settings, the problem of ineffective drug treatment is usually compounded by the absence of any HIV treatment at all. Sterile syringes and condoms are also unavailable, even though reports of drug use and sex in compulsory treatment settings are common.
The tragedy in Russia should move national governments and the United Nations to increase monitoring of what for too long has passed for drug treatment, and to speak out against abuses committed in the name of health. Otherwise, we leave millions of drug users in Asia and the former Soviet Union like those young, HIV-positive women: trapped, screaming and with no one to help.
Online at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/27/opinion/edwolfe.php
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Exporting Creativity, Not Just Labour
I'm writing this from Jakarta where I am visiting my in-laws for the holidays. It hasn't been a good week in Indonesia what with a ship that sank in high seas and 400 people still missing, then the AdamAir crash on New Year's Day.Plus ongoing floods in Aceh, which hasn't fully recovered from the tsunami, and the horrible horrible mud flood engulfing villages in Sidoardjo, East Java. If you haven't heard about this, this is truly corporate greed gone very wrong. A company Lapindo Brantas Inc was drilling in the area for gas and somehow caused hot mud and gas to spew out and it's been spewing out unceasingly since June. By December it had left 10,000 people homeless and no end in sight. The government is demanding US$420million in compensation but there are concerns that this might not be enough. Check out http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JAK172519.htm.
I truly don't spend enough time here, as my hubby will attest, but every time I do, it strikes me how similar and different our two countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, are. For one thing, we definitely don't speak the same language. After 8 years I am finally beginning to get the hang of 'Jakartan', in that I'm beginning to understand the slang and am getting some of the inflections. It's a bit strange to listen to myself sometimes.Still people tend to think I'm really quiet here because I'm too shy to speak Malay for fear of being misunderstood ( or worse, being laughed at) and feel silly speaking English when we're supposed to be 'serumpun'.
Language apart, we also have very different mindsets about many things. As much as we like to think of Indonesia as not being as developed as us, and only a nation of maids and labourers, many Indonesians are certainly much more culturally sophisticated than any of us. You just have to read Geonawan Mohamad's writings, beautiful in English, breathtaking in Indonesian. He's just done an opera libretto called The King's Witch with a musical score by Tony Prabowo, performed by musicians from the US here in Jakarta. Indonesian musicians, dancers, costumers and crew travelled all over the world with the renowned impresario Robert Wilson to perform the epic I La Galligo, based on an ancient Javanese legend. Last night at a friend's house I saw a book on Indonesian exports. The interesting thing is that they did not limit it to just furniture, batik and handicrafts, they included architects, musicians, film-makers, artists and cartoonists, because " these days creativity is exportable". I've never heard a single government official in Malaysia say that!!! Is that because they don't think so, they've never thought of it or we don't have any exportable creativity here?
Today I read in the papers that as many as 158 (and counting) film industry people are returning their Citras (the Indon equivalent of Oscars) in protest against the last Indonesian Film Festival in 2006 because they awarded the Best Film Award to a movie that stole the copyright of some songs. They are also demanding some changes in the way the film industry is run by their equivalent of FINAS to better promote the industry. This includes changing the Film Censor Board into a Film Classification Board (although I must say that their Censor Board is nothing like the paranoid lot at ours, the final kiss in Ada Apa dengan Cinta being a case in point). Can you imagine this happening in our country?
Ostensibly Indonesians are mostly Muslims. But even while they are getting ever more conservative, many Indonesians have a much more open attitude than we do about many things. They don't obssess about eating halal food like we do when they are abroad. They are used to having friends of all religions, sometimes even relatives of all religions. They are not afraid to debate religious issues at all. Recently there was a demo led by Ibu Sinta Nuriyah, wife of former President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), against polygamy!!! Gus Dur is of course head of the 40-million strong Nadhatul Ulama so both he and his wife are very influential . And they've both been consistently progressive on many issues affecting Indonesian Muslims. (So, ok, he was a lousy President. Which may mean that religious leaders don't necessarily make good administrators. But Indonesia has been dealt pretty bad deals, leaderwise.)
Not to say that everything is OK here. The club down the street from where I stay got raided by vigilantes and have since shut down. We are surrounded by three mosques with extremely tone-deaf bilals who insist on high-decibel azan competitions with one another, even at 4.30am. How this converts anyone, I don't know.
State schools here suck. They're overcrowded, underfunded and provide low quality teaching. Violence between students of different schools is rife. Yet they have some good private schools. My stepson went to an Islamic private school where he received an excellent education, including a very progressive brand of Islam. One year he wrote, produced and acted in a play which featured Jesus Christ and the parents, all Muslims, came and loyally supported their kids. I can't imagine that happening in Malaysia, where schools would never even dream of giving students that leeway.
While we think of ourselves as diverse, we don't have nearly as much diversity as Indonesia. They may all look the same to us, but to them, Indonesians throughout the 17000 islands are all different with different languages, cultures, histories, religions, even looks. They can tell just by the name where a person comes from, whereas we can't tell a Kelantanese from a Johorian on paper, unless they start talking. My son's name, Haga Tara, actually comes from two different languages, both meaning light or star. So as similar as we may think ourselves with Indonesians, we really are not.
Until I started coming here regularly about a decade ago, I really knew nothing about Indonesia. Most of us probably know very little or almost nothing about our neighbouring countries at all. Likewise, it's amazing what stereotypes Indonesians have about us Malaysians - that we are very conservative and snobby towards them. I wonder sometimes how much miscommunication we have between us, just because we assume our cultures and mindsets are the same.
I truly don't spend enough time here, as my hubby will attest, but every time I do, it strikes me how similar and different our two countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, are. For one thing, we definitely don't speak the same language. After 8 years I am finally beginning to get the hang of 'Jakartan', in that I'm beginning to understand the slang and am getting some of the inflections. It's a bit strange to listen to myself sometimes.Still people tend to think I'm really quiet here because I'm too shy to speak Malay for fear of being misunderstood ( or worse, being laughed at) and feel silly speaking English when we're supposed to be 'serumpun'.
Language apart, we also have very different mindsets about many things. As much as we like to think of Indonesia as not being as developed as us, and only a nation of maids and labourers, many Indonesians are certainly much more culturally sophisticated than any of us. You just have to read Geonawan Mohamad's writings, beautiful in English, breathtaking in Indonesian. He's just done an opera libretto called The King's Witch with a musical score by Tony Prabowo, performed by musicians from the US here in Jakarta. Indonesian musicians, dancers, costumers and crew travelled all over the world with the renowned impresario Robert Wilson to perform the epic I La Galligo, based on an ancient Javanese legend. Last night at a friend's house I saw a book on Indonesian exports. The interesting thing is that they did not limit it to just furniture, batik and handicrafts, they included architects, musicians, film-makers, artists and cartoonists, because " these days creativity is exportable". I've never heard a single government official in Malaysia say that!!! Is that because they don't think so, they've never thought of it or we don't have any exportable creativity here?
Today I read in the papers that as many as 158 (and counting) film industry people are returning their Citras (the Indon equivalent of Oscars) in protest against the last Indonesian Film Festival in 2006 because they awarded the Best Film Award to a movie that stole the copyright of some songs. They are also demanding some changes in the way the film industry is run by their equivalent of FINAS to better promote the industry. This includes changing the Film Censor Board into a Film Classification Board (although I must say that their Censor Board is nothing like the paranoid lot at ours, the final kiss in Ada Apa dengan Cinta being a case in point). Can you imagine this happening in our country?
Ostensibly Indonesians are mostly Muslims. But even while they are getting ever more conservative, many Indonesians have a much more open attitude than we do about many things. They don't obssess about eating halal food like we do when they are abroad. They are used to having friends of all religions, sometimes even relatives of all religions. They are not afraid to debate religious issues at all. Recently there was a demo led by Ibu Sinta Nuriyah, wife of former President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), against polygamy!!! Gus Dur is of course head of the 40-million strong Nadhatul Ulama so both he and his wife are very influential . And they've both been consistently progressive on many issues affecting Indonesian Muslims. (So, ok, he was a lousy President. Which may mean that religious leaders don't necessarily make good administrators. But Indonesia has been dealt pretty bad deals, leaderwise.)
Not to say that everything is OK here. The club down the street from where I stay got raided by vigilantes and have since shut down. We are surrounded by three mosques with extremely tone-deaf bilals who insist on high-decibel azan competitions with one another, even at 4.30am. How this converts anyone, I don't know.
State schools here suck. They're overcrowded, underfunded and provide low quality teaching. Violence between students of different schools is rife. Yet they have some good private schools. My stepson went to an Islamic private school where he received an excellent education, including a very progressive brand of Islam. One year he wrote, produced and acted in a play which featured Jesus Christ and the parents, all Muslims, came and loyally supported their kids. I can't imagine that happening in Malaysia, where schools would never even dream of giving students that leeway.
While we think of ourselves as diverse, we don't have nearly as much diversity as Indonesia. They may all look the same to us, but to them, Indonesians throughout the 17000 islands are all different with different languages, cultures, histories, religions, even looks. They can tell just by the name where a person comes from, whereas we can't tell a Kelantanese from a Johorian on paper, unless they start talking. My son's name, Haga Tara, actually comes from two different languages, both meaning light or star. So as similar as we may think ourselves with Indonesians, we really are not.
Until I started coming here regularly about a decade ago, I really knew nothing about Indonesia. Most of us probably know very little or almost nothing about our neighbouring countries at all. Likewise, it's amazing what stereotypes Indonesians have about us Malaysians - that we are very conservative and snobby towards them. I wonder sometimes how much miscommunication we have between us, just because we assume our cultures and mindsets are the same.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
More on Capo di Tutti Capi
Hi all,
Thanks for your great comments and apologies again for late posting of your comments but I decided to take two days off ( if only to prove to everyone that I am NOT addicted to the Net) and also the connections here are still frustratingly slow. Thanks again for your patience.
Seems like most people agree that having a GM is a pretty dangerous proposition. Anonymous from Australia, thank you for your long and thoughtful comments. I stand corrected on Mustafa Ceric. Really can't say I know him that well, and have really only seen him outside Bosnia. I guess that rather points to the fact that once someone gets into a position like GM, they can't help but get political. And religion and politics, as we know, is a volatile mixture to say the least.
We need to continue to keep our beady eyes on these developments however. I haven't been able to read the Malaysian papers from here much and all I've seen is the DPM saying that our Constitution doesn't provide for a GM. However, they do have 2/3 majority in Parliament which means they can amend the Constitution to have a GM if they want to. I haven't seen a peep from any of the muftis themselves though. Have any of them said anything, for or against?
The problem with Islam in our country is that it is the one thing controlled by the individual states. Therefore with 14 different jabatan agamas ( 13 states plus wilayah), you can come up with 14 slightly different fatwas and laws. As a result, sometimes, especially in the case of marriage and divorce, people shop around for the best deal so to speak. There has been recent moves to standardise them all but it's been slow-going with some states starting procedures and some not at all, because it is the last vestige of power for the rulers and they are hanging on to it as much as possible.
However the more important point is, in what direction are we standardising these fatwas and laws? If they are standardised for justice and equality, that's fine. This is why we must have open debate and discussion about them, to ensure that they are just and fair to people, in the spirit of the Quran. This won't happen if we continue to allow only a few people to interpret the Quran for us. What if we feel that the rulings they put out are unfair? How do we ask if these are really what the Quran says or some human interpretation of them? Do we really believe that these ulamas are infallible?
We should therefore arm ourselves with knowledge about the Quran. It's not as difficult as the ulama make it out to be. There is a wonderful website called Altafsir.com where not only can you find translations of the Quran in some 12 languages (including several different English versions) but also both Sunni and Shiite tafsir (interpretation). You can even do a search although it is currently limited to searching for particular chapters and verses, and not by subject. All this is done by an Islamic institute in Jordan and approved by Al-Azhar University so all perfectly 'kosher' so to speak. So there is no reason to think that we have no direct access to the Quran and its meaning anymore.
Back to keeping a beady eye on religious/political developments, some states eg Negri Sembilan, have decided to grant their muftis the same privileges, protocols and status as Exco members, including getting to sit in on Exco meetings. I find this worrying. For one thing, muftis are not elected like Exco, who do have to answer to the electorate every five years or so. If they sit in on Exco meetings, how long before they start tut-tutting about certain decisions as being unIslamic in their view? And when they do that, would Exco members ignore them or feel obliged to consider their views? Will we therefore get a theocracy by default? If religion is so important, then should we not have representatives of every religion on Excos and not just Muslims?
I have noticed these little bits of news in the papers over the past two years but nobody seems to have understood the implications. We might just become a theocracy just because we were closing one eye, or both.
Thanks for your great comments and apologies again for late posting of your comments but I decided to take two days off ( if only to prove to everyone that I am NOT addicted to the Net) and also the connections here are still frustratingly slow. Thanks again for your patience.
Seems like most people agree that having a GM is a pretty dangerous proposition. Anonymous from Australia, thank you for your long and thoughtful comments. I stand corrected on Mustafa Ceric. Really can't say I know him that well, and have really only seen him outside Bosnia. I guess that rather points to the fact that once someone gets into a position like GM, they can't help but get political. And religion and politics, as we know, is a volatile mixture to say the least.
We need to continue to keep our beady eyes on these developments however. I haven't been able to read the Malaysian papers from here much and all I've seen is the DPM saying that our Constitution doesn't provide for a GM. However, they do have 2/3 majority in Parliament which means they can amend the Constitution to have a GM if they want to. I haven't seen a peep from any of the muftis themselves though. Have any of them said anything, for or against?
The problem with Islam in our country is that it is the one thing controlled by the individual states. Therefore with 14 different jabatan agamas ( 13 states plus wilayah), you can come up with 14 slightly different fatwas and laws. As a result, sometimes, especially in the case of marriage and divorce, people shop around for the best deal so to speak. There has been recent moves to standardise them all but it's been slow-going with some states starting procedures and some not at all, because it is the last vestige of power for the rulers and they are hanging on to it as much as possible.
However the more important point is, in what direction are we standardising these fatwas and laws? If they are standardised for justice and equality, that's fine. This is why we must have open debate and discussion about them, to ensure that they are just and fair to people, in the spirit of the Quran. This won't happen if we continue to allow only a few people to interpret the Quran for us. What if we feel that the rulings they put out are unfair? How do we ask if these are really what the Quran says or some human interpretation of them? Do we really believe that these ulamas are infallible?
We should therefore arm ourselves with knowledge about the Quran. It's not as difficult as the ulama make it out to be. There is a wonderful website called Altafsir.com where not only can you find translations of the Quran in some 12 languages (including several different English versions) but also both Sunni and Shiite tafsir (interpretation). You can even do a search although it is currently limited to searching for particular chapters and verses, and not by subject. All this is done by an Islamic institute in Jordan and approved by Al-Azhar University so all perfectly 'kosher' so to speak. So there is no reason to think that we have no direct access to the Quran and its meaning anymore.
Back to keeping a beady eye on religious/political developments, some states eg Negri Sembilan, have decided to grant their muftis the same privileges, protocols and status as Exco members, including getting to sit in on Exco meetings. I find this worrying. For one thing, muftis are not elected like Exco, who do have to answer to the electorate every five years or so. If they sit in on Exco meetings, how long before they start tut-tutting about certain decisions as being unIslamic in their view? And when they do that, would Exco members ignore them or feel obliged to consider their views? Will we therefore get a theocracy by default? If religion is so important, then should we not have representatives of every religion on Excos and not just Muslims?
I have noticed these little bits of news in the papers over the past two years but nobody seems to have understood the implications. We might just become a theocracy just because we were closing one eye, or both.
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