Here's an interesting article in the NYT magazine (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/magazine/25wwlnEssay.t.html?ex=1173070800&en=1877906cf2a9913d&ei=5070&emc=eta1)
Thanks to Dr Bakri Musa for the pointer.
Reconsideration
A Secret History
By CARLA POWER, New York Times Magazine
Published: February 25, 2007
For Muslims and non-Muslims alike, the stock image of an Islamic scholar is a gray-bearded man. Women tend to be seen as the subjects of Islamic law rather than its shapers. And while some opportunities for religious education do exist for women — the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo has a women’s college, for example, and there are girls’ madrasas and female study groups in mosques and private homes — cultural barriers prevent most women in the Islamic world from pursuing such studies. Recent findings by a scholar at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies in Britain, however, may help lower those barriers and challenge prevalent notions of women’s roles within Islamic society. Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a 43-year-old Sunni alim, or religious scholar, has rediscovered a long-lost tradition of Muslim women teaching the Koran, transmitting hadith (deeds and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) and even making Islamic law as jurists.
Akram embarked eight years ago on a single-volume biographical dictionary of female hadith scholars, a project that took him trawling through biographical dictionaries, classical texts, madrasa chronicles and letters for relevant citations. “I thought I’d find maybe 20 or 30 women,” he says. To date, he has found 8,000 of them, dating back 1,400 years, and his dictionary now fills 40 volumes. It’s so long that his usual publishers, in Damascus and Beirut, have balked at the project, though an English translation of his preface — itself almost 400 pages long — will come out in England this summer. (Akram has talked with Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador to the United States, about the possibility of publishing the entire work through his Riyadh-based foundation.)
The dictionary’s diverse entries include a 10th-century Baghdad-born jurist who traveled through Syria and Egypt, teaching other women; a female scholar — or muhaddithat — in 12th-century Egypt whose male students marveled at her mastery of a “camel load” of texts; and a 15th-century woman who taught hadith at the Prophet’s grave in Medina, one of the most important spots in Islam. One seventh-century Medina woman who reached the academic rank of jurist issued key fatwas on hajj rituals and commerce; another female jurist living in medieval Aleppo not only issued fatwas but also advised her far more famous husband on how to issue his.
Not all of these women scholars were previously unknown. Many Muslims acknowledge that Islam has its learned women, particularly in the field of hadith, starting with the Prophet’s wife Aisha. And several Western academics have written on women’s religious education. About a century ago, the Hungarian Orientalist Ignaz Goldziher estimated that about 15 percent of medieval hadith scholars were women. But Akram’s dictionary is groundbreaking in its scope.
Indeed, read today, when many Muslim women still don’t dare pray in mosques, let alone lecture leaders in them, Akram’s entry for someone like Umm al-Darda, a prominent jurist in seventh-century Damascus, is startling. As a young woman, al-Darda used to sit with male scholars in the mosque, talking shop. “I’ve tried to worship Allah in every way,” she wrote, “but I’ve never found a better one than sitting around, debating other scholars.” She went on to teach hadith and fiqh, or law, at the mosque, and even lectured in the men’s section; her students included the caliph of Damascus. She shocked her contemporaries by praying shoulder to shoulder with men — a nearly unknown practice, even now — and issuing a fatwa, still cited by modern scholars, that allowed women to pray in the same position as men.
It’s after the 16th century that citations of women scholars dwindle. Some historians venture that this is because Islamic education grew more formal, excluding women as it became increasingly oriented toward establishing careers in the courts and mosques. (Strangely enough, Akram found that this kind of exclusion also helped women become better scholars. Because they didn’t hold official posts, they had little reason to invent or embellish prophetic traditions.)
Akram’s work has led to accusations that he is championing free mixing between men and women, but he says that is not so. He maintains that women students should sit at a discreet distance from their male classmates or co-worshipers, or be separated by a curtain. (The practice has parallels in Orthodox Judaism.) The Muslim women who taught men “are part of our history,” he says. “It doesn’t mean you have to follow them. It’s up to people to decide.”
Neverthless, Akram says he hopes that uncovering past hadith scholars could help reform present-day Islamic culture. Many Muslims see historical precedents — particularly when they date back to the golden age of Muhammad — as blueprints for sound modern societies and look to scholars to evaluate and interpret those precedents. Muslim feminists like the Moroccan writer Fatima Mernissi and Kecia Ali, a professor at Boston University, have cast fresh light on women’s roles in Islamic law and history, but their worldview — and their audiences — are largely Western or Westernized. Akram is a working alim, lecturing in mosques and universities and dispensing fatwas on issues like inheritance and divorce. “Here you’ve got a guy who’s coming from the tradition, who knows the stuff and who’s able to give us that level of detail which is missing in the self-proclaimed progressive Muslim writers,” says James Piscatori, a professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford University.
The erosion of women’s religious education in recent times, Akram says, reflects “decline in every aspect of Islam.” Flabby leadership and a focus on politics rather than scholarship has left Muslims ignorant of their own history. Islam’s current cultural insecurity has been bad for both its scholarship and its women, Akram says. “Our traditions have grown weak, and when people are weak, they grow cautious. When they’re cautious, they don’t give their women freedoms.”
When Akram lectures, he dryly notes, women are more excited by this history than men. To persuade reluctant Muslims to educate their girls, Akram employs a potent debating strategy: he compares the status quo to the age of al jahiliya, the Arabic term for the barbaric state of pre-Islamic Arabia. (Osama Bin Laden and Sayyid Qutb, the godfather of modern Islamic extremism, have employed the comparison to very different effect.) Barring Muslim women from education and religious authority, Akram argues, is akin to the pre-Islamic custom of burying girls alive. “I tell people, ‘God has given girls qualities and potential,’ ” he says. “If they aren’t allowed to develop them, if they aren’t provided with opportunities to study and learn, it’s basically a live burial.”
When I spoke with him, Akram invoked a favorite poem, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” Thomas Gray’s 18th-century lament for dead English farmers. “Gray said that villagers could have been like Milton,” if only they’d had the chance, Akram observes. “Muslim women are in the same situation. There could have been so many Miltons.”
Carla Power is a London-based journalist who writes about Islamic issues.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Banning TV, and Banishing the Mind
This was in The Star today.
Nation
Saturday February 24, 2007
TV3’s ‘Sensasi’ banned
By SALHAN K. AHMAD
PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has banned entertainment programme Sensasi, which is aired live on TV3, with immediate effect following a controversial comment by a local artiste.
Rosnah Mat Aris was said to have uttered words that were deemed by some as an insult to Prophet Muhammad’s wife.
In its investigations, MCMC found that the programme's live show on Jan 30 had failed to abide by the approval conditions and that the television station had failed to control inappropriate content.
“With this, TV3 has been asked to stop the live broadcast of the show with immediate effect,” the commission said in a statement yesterday.
MCMC corporate communications head Adelina Iskandar said the entire Sensasi programme should have “contributed to the national aspiration and not offend the sensitivity or values of the community.”
She said that TV3 should abide with procedures and obtain the Film Censorship Board’s approval should it wish to produce the show as a recording.
The statement did not clearly state if Rosnah’s comments had insulted Prophet Muhammad’s wife.
However, public reaction as reported by the media suggested that what she said should not have been connected to the Prophet’s family.
Adelina stressed that the requirement to be sensitive to the community’s feelings was contained not only in the Content Code and the Special Licence Conditions but also in the Multimedia and Communications Act 1998.
The one-hour programme hosted by Awal Ashari and artiste Intan Azura is aired on Tuesdays at 11pm and panel members from the arts and entertainment industry are invited to share their views.
In a slot last month, Rosnah when answering a question, had linked a piece of gossip about her (Rosnah) with the age of Prophet Muhammad’s first wife, Siti Khadijah.
Her short statement had caused a huge controversy.
Viewers had also sent in letters expressing their regret over her statement.
********************************************************************************
and today too, Malaysiakini ran this:
‘Sensasi’ not banned, but told to change format
Wong Yeen Fern
Feb 24, 07 11:43am Adjust font size:
TV3 popular live talk-show Sensasi has not been banned, producer Jamil Hassan clarified yesterday.
“No, there was no directive from the authorities to stop airing the programme. They (Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission or MCMC) only requested that the programme be done on a ‘recorded’ basis,” he told malaysiakini in a telephone interview.
According to mstar.com yesterday, the permit for Sensasi was withdrawn by MCMC with immediate effect due to some controversial comments made by a well-known actress during a recent ‘live’ programme.
The actress, Rosnah Mat Aris, was said to have made some remarks about the wife of Prophet Muhammad which were deemed ‘unsuitable’.
The mstar report said the programme in dispute was aired on Jan 30. Upon investigations, MCMC found that it did not adhere to certain rules and regulations and that the station had failed to control the flow of content during the ‘live’ telecast.
Sensasi is a programme which allows local artists and celebrities to discuss current issues and topics of interest ‘live’ on TV. It is hosted by TV personalities Awal Ashari and Intan Suraya.
The programme, now in its sixth season, is said to have a following of 1.5 million viewers.
Vet first
Meanwhile, Bernama reported that the Malaysia Islamic Development Department (Jakim) had made a request to TV3 for a copy of the tape containing Rosnah’s controversial remarks.
Jakim director Mustafa Abdul Rahman said the department will only consider what action to take after a careful study of the tape.
He however reiterated the necessity for such a ‘live’ programme to be vetted first in order to avoid unsuitable comments from being telecast for public consumption.
Echoing his TV3 colleague Jamil, the station's entertainment director Azhar Borhan said the notice from MCMC was an ‘advice’ that Sensasi be changed to the 'recorded' format.
“We accept that advice. It is also a form of precaution to prevent future controversies,” he said.
According to the Star today, the Jan 30 Sensasi broadcast did not abide by licencing and content codes and that TV3 had failed to control inappropriate content.
"With this, TV3 has been asked to stop the live broadcast of the show with immediate effect," the commission was quoted as saying in a statement to the newspaper.
Relationship to a younger man
In the show, which features discussions with those in the arts and entertainment industry, Rosnah reportedly linked gossip about her relationship with a younger man to the Prophet's marriage to his first and older wife, Siti Khadijah.
Her comments sparked numerous complaints from viewers and attracted the attention of Islamic authorities.
The MCMC did not directly state whether Rosnah's comments had insulted Siti Khadijah, but MCMC spokeswoman Adelina Iskandar chided the Sensasi programme for being out of step with national values, the daily said.
Sensasi should have "contributed to the national aspiration and not offend the sensitivity or values of the community," she was quoted as saying.
Adelina said TV3 would need approval from the Film Censorship Board to air pre-recorded versions of the programme.
The commission could not be immediately reached for further comment.
TV3 and a number of other Malaysian media outlets have been pulled up in the past year for content deemed insulting to Islam.
In March last year, TV3 and another private station, ntv7, issued apologies for inadvertently airing pictures of the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed that sparked global protests.
Malaysia also closed down one newspaper in February 2006 for publishing the drawings, and then suspended another and forced a third to apologise after they published content related to the cartoons.
***********************************************************************************
I read these contrasting articles today with some dismay. To me, these raise some important questions for those of us involved in producing TV programmes in particularly, and interested in freedom of speech issues in general. Let me set aside for a minute the issue of what she said.
As Co-Executive Producer (with Lina Tan) of 3R-Respect, Relax and Respond, a TV programme for young women which has run for six years now, I have some experience with the intricacies of producing programmes in Malaysia. For a start, we have to deal with the Film Censorship Board (FCB).Every single programme produced by anybody in Malaysia has to go to the Censor Board before it can be broadcast. This generally works if you are a well-organised production company that can get your tape to the FCB in good enough time so that if there are any cuts required, you still have time to do so before broadcast date.
But the whole issue of the Censor Board itself is one that doesn't get enough airing except when certain movies are banned or cut so much they don't make sense. Amir Muhammad's latest documentary Apa Khabar Orang Kampung is the most recent victim but few realise what goes on with TV programmes, which have a larger audience than movies ( 1.5 million just for Sensasi alone, according to this report.).
For one thing, the process of getting your TV show through the Censor Board is tedious enough. Although there are some written guidelines as to what may not be shown, dealing with the censors can be a surreal experience. For instance, once they wanted 3R to cut out an interview with a young man who wore an earstud on the grounds that this constituted 'a man dressing as a woman'. Since he was rather crucial to the entire episode, we compromised by pixellising his earstud instead, rather like the way the private parts of actors are hidden in some shows. The effect of course was that everyone then wanted to know what was going on, and were incredulous that that was the reason.
On another occasion,for an episode that was clearly anti-smoking, we could not show any women with actual cigarettes in their hands or mouth. We could however show them pretending to smoke with pencils! Our audience, needless to say, was not fooled. Another episode where women drug users in Indonesia were interviewed got the red pencil because it was deemed unsuitable for good diplomatic relations between Malaysia and Indonesia. The point is, when such arbitrary decisions are made, it is difficult to know what to look out for when making the show in the first place.
(For the ultimate in surrealness, there is a TV programme made by French TV which covers media issues all over the world. The Malaysia episode features the head of the Censor Board explaining how they cut out words like f*** and a**hole from movies and TV programmes.His sheer delight at saying these words is something to behold.)
One of the other main difficulties with the Censor Board is its composition . Censor Board members are largely retired civil servants. Presumably they are deemed to have the wisdom to be able to deal with the many 'dangers' lurking in our media. But generally this also means they are aged 55 and above, way above the average age of the viewership of many TV programmes, especially those like 3R. As a result, an inevitable generation gap exists which is often reflected in the difference between the perspectives put up in the show, and the Censor Board's reaction to them. One season we did an episode featuring "The Making of 3R' and I was interviewed on what being Executive Producer was like. I mentioned that although I think the Censor Board has good intentions, the generation gap between them and our viewers is a problem. That statement alone was not passed by the FCB, which meant that if we did not cut it out, we could not show the episode at all.
We've also had an entire episode, on discrimination against some women because of their sexuality, banned because our interviewees talked about the continued love and support of their families. The FCB decided that we could not say this because to mention that people still loved their lesbian daughters would bring about the ruination of our society! They even insinuated that Lina and I were plotting to undermine society with this programme. Nobody who has ever watched this particular episode has been able to understand what the fuss is about.
But censorship is not limited to the FCB. If we think that the FCB is the ultimate arbiter of the good and proper on TV, we have another level to deal with, that of the TV station itself. On several occasions, the TV station has tried to stop episodes which have already been passed by the FCB, usually on completely different grounds. Sometimes these grounds are entirely based on individual biases - "I don't like this perspective so you may not show it." Most times they cannot give completely logical bases for their objections which makes it difficult for producers to know who is the final arbiter in these issues. There is also a sense that the TV station worries that their license may be taken away (rightly, as the story above suggests) because they let through a programme, even though the FCB itself has already okayed it. The same thing happened with Amir Muhammad's earlier movie Lelaki Komunis Terakhir which was passed by the FCB and then came up against objections by others.
So the issue is, who should do the censoring? And more, do we need censorship at all apart from issues that are clearly defined as indecent or sensitive? In Malaysia, an interesting phenomenon is that all it takes is just one person to object before something becomes an issue.You get the feeling that the authorities in charge of censorship then get on the defensive, thinking that any objection is actually a charge that they had not been doing their jobs. Mind you, the "you should have cut/banned this" brigade tends to get more traction than the "you should NOT have cut/banned this" lot. As always, it seems safer to appease the most conservative.
Which brings us to the issue of live shows. Live shows can be pretty uncontrollable events, dependent entirely on the quality of the hosts and guests. I have been on a number of live programmes on TV. The main thing that strikes me is how ill-prepared many hosts are before they interview you. Some even ask you to provide the questions that they should ask you.One Oprah-wannabe's producers even asked me to decide what topic they should interview me on. Which of course immediately hands control of the show to the guests.
Guests on talkshows generally like live shows because it allows for less censorship.For instance, if I am on a live talkshow and I mention condoms in a sentence, there is little they can do about it. Of course, the producers get hell afterwards from their bosses, especially if it's a government station, but at that particular moment, there isn't a lot they can do.But live shows also allow for spontaneous debates to occur, which then allows viewers to see more than one side of an issue.This in turn contributes to the popularity of the show, and of course increases ratings.Not to mention, a possible increase in audience's knowledge about any particular subject.
But there are talk shows and there are talk shows. Unfortunately, as in many countries, entertainment, sensation and gossip are the most popular shows on TV. In India, their Information Minister ( yup, there are Zams everywhere) wants to ban Fashion TV because they allegedly show raunchy stuff even during the hours when little children are awake. If you ask me, the real issue with Fashion TV is whether it hypnotises both adults and children into stupidity. Malaysia, on the other hand, allows any amount of drivel to be aired until the very people addicted to these shows complain about something someone said. Sometimes it is people who haven't even watched the show who complain. Then the easiest way again to appease the conservatives is to ban, or in this case, make them change it from an uncontrollable live show to a recorded one where you can edit anything you don't like out. Which is, anyway you want to look at it, censorship.
But without an overall policy of having quality programming and high standards in the first place, a programme like Sensasi will only crop up in a different form. And nobody wants dull boring guests who speak like politicians or civil servants.Everyone is just waiting for the next clown or clownette to trip up. That's what makes 'good TV' and good gossip in the markets and warongs until the next issue. But nobody actually complains about the worthiness of having gossip and sensation-based programmes. Indeed, a few years ago, when a few actors and actresses had the temerity to complain about how the gossip-based entertainment media has affected their lives (and sometimes livelihood), there were actually people, good Muslims all I'm sure, who defended gossip as justifiable. Obviously nobody in entertainment is much bothered with concepts like slander, libel and defamation. (Actually, in general, not many people in media are, which is something I'll come back to another time.)
So, my longwinded point is this, as long as our people are only interested in sensational stories and gossip, banning programmes or limiting them to recorded ones is not the answer. It may appease some people in the short-term, but in the long term it has no effect at all. The dumbing down of the Malaysian audience is pretty pervasive, thanks to our TV stations. How many truly intelligent programmes, locally produced, now remain? Sadly, given that TV producers depend on ratings, that is entirely a reflection of our audiences.
My one great puzzlement about this Sensasi issue is, why has the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) come into the picture? Are they now the new arbiters of what we can show and talk about? And what community and what national values is this woman talking about?
Nation
Saturday February 24, 2007
TV3’s ‘Sensasi’ banned
By SALHAN K. AHMAD
PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has banned entertainment programme Sensasi, which is aired live on TV3, with immediate effect following a controversial comment by a local artiste.
Rosnah Mat Aris was said to have uttered words that were deemed by some as an insult to Prophet Muhammad’s wife.
In its investigations, MCMC found that the programme's live show on Jan 30 had failed to abide by the approval conditions and that the television station had failed to control inappropriate content.
“With this, TV3 has been asked to stop the live broadcast of the show with immediate effect,” the commission said in a statement yesterday.
MCMC corporate communications head Adelina Iskandar said the entire Sensasi programme should have “contributed to the national aspiration and not offend the sensitivity or values of the community.”
She said that TV3 should abide with procedures and obtain the Film Censorship Board’s approval should it wish to produce the show as a recording.
The statement did not clearly state if Rosnah’s comments had insulted Prophet Muhammad’s wife.
However, public reaction as reported by the media suggested that what she said should not have been connected to the Prophet’s family.
Adelina stressed that the requirement to be sensitive to the community’s feelings was contained not only in the Content Code and the Special Licence Conditions but also in the Multimedia and Communications Act 1998.
The one-hour programme hosted by Awal Ashari and artiste Intan Azura is aired on Tuesdays at 11pm and panel members from the arts and entertainment industry are invited to share their views.
In a slot last month, Rosnah when answering a question, had linked a piece of gossip about her (Rosnah) with the age of Prophet Muhammad’s first wife, Siti Khadijah.
Her short statement had caused a huge controversy.
Viewers had also sent in letters expressing their regret over her statement.
********************************************************************************
and today too, Malaysiakini ran this:
‘Sensasi’ not banned, but told to change format
Wong Yeen Fern
Feb 24, 07 11:43am Adjust font size:
TV3 popular live talk-show Sensasi has not been banned, producer Jamil Hassan clarified yesterday.
“No, there was no directive from the authorities to stop airing the programme. They (Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission or MCMC) only requested that the programme be done on a ‘recorded’ basis,” he told malaysiakini in a telephone interview.
According to mstar.com yesterday, the permit for Sensasi was withdrawn by MCMC with immediate effect due to some controversial comments made by a well-known actress during a recent ‘live’ programme.
The actress, Rosnah Mat Aris, was said to have made some remarks about the wife of Prophet Muhammad which were deemed ‘unsuitable’.
The mstar report said the programme in dispute was aired on Jan 30. Upon investigations, MCMC found that it did not adhere to certain rules and regulations and that the station had failed to control the flow of content during the ‘live’ telecast.
Sensasi is a programme which allows local artists and celebrities to discuss current issues and topics of interest ‘live’ on TV. It is hosted by TV personalities Awal Ashari and Intan Suraya.
The programme, now in its sixth season, is said to have a following of 1.5 million viewers.
Vet first
Meanwhile, Bernama reported that the Malaysia Islamic Development Department (Jakim) had made a request to TV3 for a copy of the tape containing Rosnah’s controversial remarks.
Jakim director Mustafa Abdul Rahman said the department will only consider what action to take after a careful study of the tape.
He however reiterated the necessity for such a ‘live’ programme to be vetted first in order to avoid unsuitable comments from being telecast for public consumption.
Echoing his TV3 colleague Jamil, the station's entertainment director Azhar Borhan said the notice from MCMC was an ‘advice’ that Sensasi be changed to the 'recorded' format.
“We accept that advice. It is also a form of precaution to prevent future controversies,” he said.
According to the Star today, the Jan 30 Sensasi broadcast did not abide by licencing and content codes and that TV3 had failed to control inappropriate content.
"With this, TV3 has been asked to stop the live broadcast of the show with immediate effect," the commission was quoted as saying in a statement to the newspaper.
Relationship to a younger man
In the show, which features discussions with those in the arts and entertainment industry, Rosnah reportedly linked gossip about her relationship with a younger man to the Prophet's marriage to his first and older wife, Siti Khadijah.
Her comments sparked numerous complaints from viewers and attracted the attention of Islamic authorities.
The MCMC did not directly state whether Rosnah's comments had insulted Siti Khadijah, but MCMC spokeswoman Adelina Iskandar chided the Sensasi programme for being out of step with national values, the daily said.
Sensasi should have "contributed to the national aspiration and not offend the sensitivity or values of the community," she was quoted as saying.
Adelina said TV3 would need approval from the Film Censorship Board to air pre-recorded versions of the programme.
The commission could not be immediately reached for further comment.
TV3 and a number of other Malaysian media outlets have been pulled up in the past year for content deemed insulting to Islam.
In March last year, TV3 and another private station, ntv7, issued apologies for inadvertently airing pictures of the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed that sparked global protests.
Malaysia also closed down one newspaper in February 2006 for publishing the drawings, and then suspended another and forced a third to apologise after they published content related to the cartoons.
***********************************************************************************
I read these contrasting articles today with some dismay. To me, these raise some important questions for those of us involved in producing TV programmes in particularly, and interested in freedom of speech issues in general. Let me set aside for a minute the issue of what she said.
As Co-Executive Producer (with Lina Tan) of 3R-Respect, Relax and Respond, a TV programme for young women which has run for six years now, I have some experience with the intricacies of producing programmes in Malaysia. For a start, we have to deal with the Film Censorship Board (FCB).Every single programme produced by anybody in Malaysia has to go to the Censor Board before it can be broadcast. This generally works if you are a well-organised production company that can get your tape to the FCB in good enough time so that if there are any cuts required, you still have time to do so before broadcast date.
But the whole issue of the Censor Board itself is one that doesn't get enough airing except when certain movies are banned or cut so much they don't make sense. Amir Muhammad's latest documentary Apa Khabar Orang Kampung is the most recent victim but few realise what goes on with TV programmes, which have a larger audience than movies ( 1.5 million just for Sensasi alone, according to this report.).
For one thing, the process of getting your TV show through the Censor Board is tedious enough. Although there are some written guidelines as to what may not be shown, dealing with the censors can be a surreal experience. For instance, once they wanted 3R to cut out an interview with a young man who wore an earstud on the grounds that this constituted 'a man dressing as a woman'. Since he was rather crucial to the entire episode, we compromised by pixellising his earstud instead, rather like the way the private parts of actors are hidden in some shows. The effect of course was that everyone then wanted to know what was going on, and were incredulous that that was the reason.
On another occasion,for an episode that was clearly anti-smoking, we could not show any women with actual cigarettes in their hands or mouth. We could however show them pretending to smoke with pencils! Our audience, needless to say, was not fooled. Another episode where women drug users in Indonesia were interviewed got the red pencil because it was deemed unsuitable for good diplomatic relations between Malaysia and Indonesia. The point is, when such arbitrary decisions are made, it is difficult to know what to look out for when making the show in the first place.
(For the ultimate in surrealness, there is a TV programme made by French TV which covers media issues all over the world. The Malaysia episode features the head of the Censor Board explaining how they cut out words like f*** and a**hole from movies and TV programmes.His sheer delight at saying these words is something to behold.)
One of the other main difficulties with the Censor Board is its composition . Censor Board members are largely retired civil servants. Presumably they are deemed to have the wisdom to be able to deal with the many 'dangers' lurking in our media. But generally this also means they are aged 55 and above, way above the average age of the viewership of many TV programmes, especially those like 3R. As a result, an inevitable generation gap exists which is often reflected in the difference between the perspectives put up in the show, and the Censor Board's reaction to them. One season we did an episode featuring "The Making of 3R' and I was interviewed on what being Executive Producer was like. I mentioned that although I think the Censor Board has good intentions, the generation gap between them and our viewers is a problem. That statement alone was not passed by the FCB, which meant that if we did not cut it out, we could not show the episode at all.
We've also had an entire episode, on discrimination against some women because of their sexuality, banned because our interviewees talked about the continued love and support of their families. The FCB decided that we could not say this because to mention that people still loved their lesbian daughters would bring about the ruination of our society! They even insinuated that Lina and I were plotting to undermine society with this programme. Nobody who has ever watched this particular episode has been able to understand what the fuss is about.
But censorship is not limited to the FCB. If we think that the FCB is the ultimate arbiter of the good and proper on TV, we have another level to deal with, that of the TV station itself. On several occasions, the TV station has tried to stop episodes which have already been passed by the FCB, usually on completely different grounds. Sometimes these grounds are entirely based on individual biases - "I don't like this perspective so you may not show it." Most times they cannot give completely logical bases for their objections which makes it difficult for producers to know who is the final arbiter in these issues. There is also a sense that the TV station worries that their license may be taken away (rightly, as the story above suggests) because they let through a programme, even though the FCB itself has already okayed it. The same thing happened with Amir Muhammad's earlier movie Lelaki Komunis Terakhir which was passed by the FCB and then came up against objections by others.
So the issue is, who should do the censoring? And more, do we need censorship at all apart from issues that are clearly defined as indecent or sensitive? In Malaysia, an interesting phenomenon is that all it takes is just one person to object before something becomes an issue.You get the feeling that the authorities in charge of censorship then get on the defensive, thinking that any objection is actually a charge that they had not been doing their jobs. Mind you, the "you should have cut/banned this" brigade tends to get more traction than the "you should NOT have cut/banned this" lot. As always, it seems safer to appease the most conservative.
Which brings us to the issue of live shows. Live shows can be pretty uncontrollable events, dependent entirely on the quality of the hosts and guests. I have been on a number of live programmes on TV. The main thing that strikes me is how ill-prepared many hosts are before they interview you. Some even ask you to provide the questions that they should ask you.One Oprah-wannabe's producers even asked me to decide what topic they should interview me on. Which of course immediately hands control of the show to the guests.
Guests on talkshows generally like live shows because it allows for less censorship.For instance, if I am on a live talkshow and I mention condoms in a sentence, there is little they can do about it. Of course, the producers get hell afterwards from their bosses, especially if it's a government station, but at that particular moment, there isn't a lot they can do.But live shows also allow for spontaneous debates to occur, which then allows viewers to see more than one side of an issue.This in turn contributes to the popularity of the show, and of course increases ratings.Not to mention, a possible increase in audience's knowledge about any particular subject.
But there are talk shows and there are talk shows. Unfortunately, as in many countries, entertainment, sensation and gossip are the most popular shows on TV. In India, their Information Minister ( yup, there are Zams everywhere) wants to ban Fashion TV because they allegedly show raunchy stuff even during the hours when little children are awake. If you ask me, the real issue with Fashion TV is whether it hypnotises both adults and children into stupidity. Malaysia, on the other hand, allows any amount of drivel to be aired until the very people addicted to these shows complain about something someone said. Sometimes it is people who haven't even watched the show who complain. Then the easiest way again to appease the conservatives is to ban, or in this case, make them change it from an uncontrollable live show to a recorded one where you can edit anything you don't like out. Which is, anyway you want to look at it, censorship.
But without an overall policy of having quality programming and high standards in the first place, a programme like Sensasi will only crop up in a different form. And nobody wants dull boring guests who speak like politicians or civil servants.Everyone is just waiting for the next clown or clownette to trip up. That's what makes 'good TV' and good gossip in the markets and warongs until the next issue. But nobody actually complains about the worthiness of having gossip and sensation-based programmes. Indeed, a few years ago, when a few actors and actresses had the temerity to complain about how the gossip-based entertainment media has affected their lives (and sometimes livelihood), there were actually people, good Muslims all I'm sure, who defended gossip as justifiable. Obviously nobody in entertainment is much bothered with concepts like slander, libel and defamation. (Actually, in general, not many people in media are, which is something I'll come back to another time.)
So, my longwinded point is this, as long as our people are only interested in sensational stories and gossip, banning programmes or limiting them to recorded ones is not the answer. It may appease some people in the short-term, but in the long term it has no effect at all. The dumbing down of the Malaysian audience is pretty pervasive, thanks to our TV stations. How many truly intelligent programmes, locally produced, now remain? Sadly, given that TV producers depend on ratings, that is entirely a reflection of our audiences.
My one great puzzlement about this Sensasi issue is, why has the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) come into the picture? Are they now the new arbiters of what we can show and talk about? And what community and what national values is this woman talking about?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
United for Rocky!
UPDATE: Read the outcome of the court date at Rocky's and Jeff's blogs.Rocky may not have had his day in court yesterday (now postponed to April 2) but I think we scored a win in terms of blogger solidarity. The blogger support group just gets bigger and bigger. So many more people turned up, ate cake and basically bonded with each other. Lots of photos taken. I met people who I only knew by nicknames before such as AlliedMarster and Clark Gable of Pulau Duyong. (Lulu, thanks for the cupcakes but you should have said hello!) It's a community that's coming together to speak out. And as Walski says, that's pretty empowering in itself.
*********************************************************************************
Rocky goes back to court tomorrow! If anyone is free, do join Bloggers United at Wisma Denmark, Jalan Ampang at 2.30pm.This case is not just about Rocky, it's about all of us. So, be there or be square!
*********************************************************************************
Rocky goes back to court tomorrow! If anyone is free, do join Bloggers United at Wisma Denmark, Jalan Ampang at 2.30pm.This case is not just about Rocky, it's about all of us. So, be there or be square!
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Parallel Universe that Nik Aziz Lives In
Tuesday February 20, 2007
Kelantan’s helping hand for women
KOTA BARU: Kelantan will provide complimentary self-defence classes for women from next year in an effort to promote a healthy lifestyle as well as to protect them from rape.
Announcing this, Mentri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat said that after several months of training, the state sports authorities will also hold competitions to select the best female exponents.
“Self-defence skills are important, in view of the growing rate of crimes against women like rape, molestation and snatch thefts.”
Nik Abdul Aziz also denied that he was against Muslim women being active in sports, saying women could participate, provided they wear Islamic attire such as the headscarf.
Aiming high: Nik Abdul Aziz shoots an arrow to open the Malaysian All-Women Games in Kelantan on Saturday.(Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to post this photo from The Star but at the All-Women Games, the photo shows mostly men, and singularly unathletic ones at that!)
“As long as navels are not exposed and they are clad in decent Islamic attire, there is no issue. During Prophet Muhammad’s era, he allowed his wives to fight on the battlefield.”
He said he personally does not like women taking part in robust sports, but added: “If Kelantanese women can qualify for the Olympics, why not? We should encourage it.”
“I want women here to become the torchbearers for Muslim women everywhere. Showcase the proper attire for Muslim women in sports,” he said after opening the inaugural Malaysian All-Women Games here on Saturday evening, jointly organised by Kelantan and Nisa, a Muslim women’s non-governmental organisation (NGO).
Nik Abdul Aziz said the Games was to show that Kelantan does not sideline women in sports, and to overcome adverse reporting by the mass media on the subject.
Around 500 female athletes participated in the two-day event, which included athletics, futsal and badminton.
Special guest at the event, Ruqaya Al-Ghasara, who wears a headscarf (hijab), said that she had never felt pressured to drop her Islamic attire.
“I think they respect me for wearing the Islamic attire,” the Bahraini athlete told reporters.
She said she felt honoured to be looked upon as an Islamic icon in the sporting world after winning the gold medal in the 200m event at the recent Asian Games in Qatar.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
What parallel universe does Nik Aziz live in? It's great that he wants to give Kelantan women free self-defense classes (although this again places responsibility on women to protect themselves from violence). But does he realise that the Olympic Games are attended and watched by men and women? So how are his oh-so-good women athletes going to compete there? Even Rugaya Al-Ghasara competed in the Asian Games which is NOT an all-women event, even though her sport was.For that matter, men and women compete in separate events in almost all sports.
I guess this All-Women Games cannot be covered by the media because you never know how many men might be watching TV or reading papers.So I'm not sure how Nik Aziz aims to counter 'adverse reporting in the mass media about Kelantan' then.
We should also not simplify Ruqaya Al-Ghasara's achievement to only her dress. She won because she trained properly with all the required discipline, not because of what she wore. If it is only a matter of dress, then we should also fete all the hijab-wearing athletes who lost.
Also are these All-Women Games confined to Muslim women only? It is called the Malaysian All-Women Games, not the Muslim All-Women Games. What if non-Muslim women compete and win? What would they attribute their wins to then?
Kelantan’s helping hand for women
KOTA BARU: Kelantan will provide complimentary self-defence classes for women from next year in an effort to promote a healthy lifestyle as well as to protect them from rape.
Announcing this, Mentri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat said that after several months of training, the state sports authorities will also hold competitions to select the best female exponents.
“Self-defence skills are important, in view of the growing rate of crimes against women like rape, molestation and snatch thefts.”
Nik Abdul Aziz also denied that he was against Muslim women being active in sports, saying women could participate, provided they wear Islamic attire such as the headscarf.
Aiming high: Nik Abdul Aziz shoots an arrow to open the Malaysian All-Women Games in Kelantan on Saturday.(Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to post this photo from The Star but at the All-Women Games, the photo shows mostly men, and singularly unathletic ones at that!)
“As long as navels are not exposed and they are clad in decent Islamic attire, there is no issue. During Prophet Muhammad’s era, he allowed his wives to fight on the battlefield.”
He said he personally does not like women taking part in robust sports, but added: “If Kelantanese women can qualify for the Olympics, why not? We should encourage it.”
“I want women here to become the torchbearers for Muslim women everywhere. Showcase the proper attire for Muslim women in sports,” he said after opening the inaugural Malaysian All-Women Games here on Saturday evening, jointly organised by Kelantan and Nisa, a Muslim women’s non-governmental organisation (NGO).
Nik Abdul Aziz said the Games was to show that Kelantan does not sideline women in sports, and to overcome adverse reporting by the mass media on the subject.
Around 500 female athletes participated in the two-day event, which included athletics, futsal and badminton.
Special guest at the event, Ruqaya Al-Ghasara, who wears a headscarf (hijab), said that she had never felt pressured to drop her Islamic attire.
“I think they respect me for wearing the Islamic attire,” the Bahraini athlete told reporters.
She said she felt honoured to be looked upon as an Islamic icon in the sporting world after winning the gold medal in the 200m event at the recent Asian Games in Qatar.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
What parallel universe does Nik Aziz live in? It's great that he wants to give Kelantan women free self-defense classes (although this again places responsibility on women to protect themselves from violence). But does he realise that the Olympic Games are attended and watched by men and women? So how are his oh-so-good women athletes going to compete there? Even Rugaya Al-Ghasara competed in the Asian Games which is NOT an all-women event, even though her sport was.For that matter, men and women compete in separate events in almost all sports.
I guess this All-Women Games cannot be covered by the media because you never know how many men might be watching TV or reading papers.So I'm not sure how Nik Aziz aims to counter 'adverse reporting in the mass media about Kelantan' then.
We should also not simplify Ruqaya Al-Ghasara's achievement to only her dress. She won because she trained properly with all the required discipline, not because of what she wore. If it is only a matter of dress, then we should also fete all the hijab-wearing athletes who lost.
Also are these All-Women Games confined to Muslim women only? It is called the Malaysian All-Women Games, not the Muslim All-Women Games. What if non-Muslim women compete and win? What would they attribute their wins to then?
Friday, February 16, 2007
Gong Xi Fa Cai
As most people will be travelling to their hometowns or elsewhere today for the long Chinese New Year weekend, may I wish everyone first of all a very safe journey. In the coming Year of the Khindzir, may I also wish you a year fat with good health, abundant with love, and wallets adequately compensated for inflation. Have a good one folks, eat and drink wisely!
My Name is Bondage, Hassan Bondage
What is there to do about reports like this, but sigh.In case any of you don't know what chastity belts are, read this Wikipedia entry. You might like to note that there are also chastity belts for men, and these days chastity belts are most popular among those who are into BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadomasochism). Now I'm beginning to wonder what the good ustaz was looking at when he came up with this idea...
The Star Online > Nation
Friday February 16, 2007
'Chastity belts can thwart rape and incest'
HULU TERENGGANU: Women should wear chastity belts to thwart rape and incest which are rampant nowadays, a well-respected religious figure here suggested.
Datuk Abu Hassan Din Al-Hafiz said chastity belts would protect victims and also help reduce sex crime rate.
"We have even come across a number of unusual sex cases, where even senior citizens and children are not spared. The best way to avert sex perpetrators is to wear protection," he told his audience at the Maal Hijrah Forum in Kampung Pelandan here last night.
"My intention is not to offend women but to safeguard them from sex maniacs. Probably, this is the best way," he said.
"Besides, husbands could also feel more secure, if you know what I mean," he added.
Abu Hassan said the practice of wearing chastity belts could be traced to as recent as the mid-1960s.
The Star Online > Nation
Friday February 16, 2007
'Chastity belts can thwart rape and incest'
HULU TERENGGANU: Women should wear chastity belts to thwart rape and incest which are rampant nowadays, a well-respected religious figure here suggested.
Datuk Abu Hassan Din Al-Hafiz said chastity belts would protect victims and also help reduce sex crime rate.
"We have even come across a number of unusual sex cases, where even senior citizens and children are not spared. The best way to avert sex perpetrators is to wear protection," he told his audience at the Maal Hijrah Forum in Kampung Pelandan here last night.
"My intention is not to offend women but to safeguard them from sex maniacs. Probably, this is the best way," he said.
"Besides, husbands could also feel more secure, if you know what I mean," he added.
Abu Hassan said the practice of wearing chastity belts could be traced to as recent as the mid-1960s.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Another Red Mark for Us
Isn't this Visit Malaysia Year when we're supposed to be polite to visitors? So how come not one but two Ministers were so impolite to this visitor? Was it because he had questions which they could not answer? Or is it beneath them to answer? If you don't agree with him, fine but sit down with him and make your case.It's the honourable thing to do.
We have such a wierd reputation at the UN. We want to be recognised there as head of this or that, or make statements about this or that. But when it comes to meeting our obligations, we're really abysmal. We provide reports late ( our report on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women or CEDAW is about four years late) or we write fantasy ones, such as our country report on meeting the goals set in the Millenium Development Report and the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS.We have signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child but we are contravening it.Does our word mean anything or not?
Surprise, surprise, the mainstream media did not report this at all.
UN rapporteur snubbed by Hishammuddin, Mustapa
Bede Hong, Malaysiakini
Feb 13, 07 8:15pm
Malaysia has been given low marks for not providing equal education opportunities for its various ethnic groups. And the United Nations (UN) special rapporteur who assessed the situation is not pleased.
UN special rapporteur on the right of education Vernor Munoz Villalobos is disappointed for being snubbed by Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and Higher Education Minister Mustapa Mohamad.
Hishammuddin apparently told the UN official, who arrived in Malaysia on Feb 5, that he is on an official trip to Sabah and cannot meet him.
Villalobos, who visited numerous schools and met with government officials, teachers, parents and civil society groups during his nine-day tour, will be leaving tomorrow.
Villalobos, a professor of civil rights at Costa Rica's Latina University, was appointed UN special envoy on education three years ago.
Revealing his findings at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today, he said Malaysia failed to integrate human and civil rights as vital parts of its education system.
“It is striking to note the lack of human rights perspective which would permit the building of a citizenship model,” he said.
Villalobos will present his report to the UN Human Rights Council, in which Malaysia is a member, next year.
Unusual situation
On not being able to meet the ministers, the UN rapporteur said: “It is a shame that we missed this chance to discuss sensitive issues.”
“It is an unusual situation. I have visited four other countries. In each visit I am received by the highest level representative. I was received by the minister of education in my last visit to Germany,” he added.
Villalobos recommended that the government ratify the International Covenant on Civil Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
He said he was surprised to learn of the Universities, University and Colleges Act (UUCA) 1971 Act, which prohibits students from participating in politics, and call for it to be abolished.
“It curtails the freedom of association and expression and other civil and political rights of university students. It is imperative that the provisions in this law, which is contrary to human rights, be repealed as a matter of urgency,” he added.
He said educational policies must provide equal opportunity across the board, regardless of ethnic background.
Villalobos said he was informed by non-government organisations that there are disparities in the number of Chinese vernacular schools in comparison with the growing Chinese population.
“Communities have to decide what forms of education best suits their needs,” he stressed.
Noting that indigenous children suffer from high-drop out rates, Villalobos urged the Education Ministry to set up a special department to deal with the issue.
“I don’t believe that the government is actively discriminating against the indigenous groups. However, it appears to be a cultural problem, which makes it more complicated,” he said.
Stop caning
He said there was a need to re-examine the re-introduction of English to teach Mathematics and Science subjects since many rural students struggle with the language
The special rapporteur also expressed concern over the practice of caning students.
“We are surprised to find corporal punishment is in place. This disciplinary measure is expressly prohibited by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. But we have been told that this is a legitimate way of punishment, and we do not agree with this,” he said.
On the same note, Villalobos said Malaysia has the resources to respond creatively and comprehensively to all the challenges it faces.
As for the budget and resources allocated for education in this country, the special rapporteur said it was outstanding.
“Tertiary education is increasingly strong. The country is also exemplary in its fight against adult illiteracy,” he added.
We have such a wierd reputation at the UN. We want to be recognised there as head of this or that, or make statements about this or that. But when it comes to meeting our obligations, we're really abysmal. We provide reports late ( our report on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women or CEDAW is about four years late) or we write fantasy ones, such as our country report on meeting the goals set in the Millenium Development Report and the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS.We have signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child but we are contravening it.Does our word mean anything or not?
Surprise, surprise, the mainstream media did not report this at all.
UN rapporteur snubbed by Hishammuddin, Mustapa
Bede Hong, Malaysiakini
Feb 13, 07 8:15pm
Malaysia has been given low marks for not providing equal education opportunities for its various ethnic groups. And the United Nations (UN) special rapporteur who assessed the situation is not pleased.
UN special rapporteur on the right of education Vernor Munoz Villalobos is disappointed for being snubbed by Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and Higher Education Minister Mustapa Mohamad.
Hishammuddin apparently told the UN official, who arrived in Malaysia on Feb 5, that he is on an official trip to Sabah and cannot meet him.
Villalobos, who visited numerous schools and met with government officials, teachers, parents and civil society groups during his nine-day tour, will be leaving tomorrow.
Villalobos, a professor of civil rights at Costa Rica's Latina University, was appointed UN special envoy on education three years ago.
Revealing his findings at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today, he said Malaysia failed to integrate human and civil rights as vital parts of its education system.
“It is striking to note the lack of human rights perspective which would permit the building of a citizenship model,” he said.
Villalobos will present his report to the UN Human Rights Council, in which Malaysia is a member, next year.
Unusual situation
On not being able to meet the ministers, the UN rapporteur said: “It is a shame that we missed this chance to discuss sensitive issues.”
“It is an unusual situation. I have visited four other countries. In each visit I am received by the highest level representative. I was received by the minister of education in my last visit to Germany,” he added.
Villalobos recommended that the government ratify the International Covenant on Civil Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
He said he was surprised to learn of the Universities, University and Colleges Act (UUCA) 1971 Act, which prohibits students from participating in politics, and call for it to be abolished.
“It curtails the freedom of association and expression and other civil and political rights of university students. It is imperative that the provisions in this law, which is contrary to human rights, be repealed as a matter of urgency,” he added.
He said educational policies must provide equal opportunity across the board, regardless of ethnic background.
Villalobos said he was informed by non-government organisations that there are disparities in the number of Chinese vernacular schools in comparison with the growing Chinese population.
“Communities have to decide what forms of education best suits their needs,” he stressed.
Noting that indigenous children suffer from high-drop out rates, Villalobos urged the Education Ministry to set up a special department to deal with the issue.
“I don’t believe that the government is actively discriminating against the indigenous groups. However, it appears to be a cultural problem, which makes it more complicated,” he said.
Stop caning
He said there was a need to re-examine the re-introduction of English to teach Mathematics and Science subjects since many rural students struggle with the language
The special rapporteur also expressed concern over the practice of caning students.
“We are surprised to find corporal punishment is in place. This disciplinary measure is expressly prohibited by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. But we have been told that this is a legitimate way of punishment, and we do not agree with this,” he said.
On the same note, Villalobos said Malaysia has the resources to respond creatively and comprehensively to all the challenges it faces.
As for the budget and resources allocated for education in this country, the special rapporteur said it was outstanding.
“Tertiary education is increasingly strong. The country is also exemplary in its fight against adult illiteracy,” he added.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
So, what are we waiting for?
This report was in the papers recently. I'd like to emphasise this part of it:"The government has taken aggressive steps to fight HIV transmission under a five-year national strategic plan launched in 2006, he (Dr Ramlee Rahmat) said.
"This include drug substitution therapy and needle exchange programs
for drug addicts, and providing free antiretroviral drugs at
government clinics especially for women and children.
"We have put up intervention measures. We are taking this very
seriously. If we carry out our plans effectively and the public
cooperates with us, we will be successful in curbing the spread of
the disease," he added."
The issue is this: while it is very good ( even if rather late) that we are now having harm reduction programmes to curb HIV among drug users, they are still at pilot stage and do not have the scale needed to really be effective yet. Next, as Dr Ramlee himself has said, the virus is spreading among " women, fishermen, lorry drivers and factory workers". Some of these are drug users but some are not. Women, by and large, are not getting infected directly through drug use. They are becoming infected through sexual transmission from their drug-using husbands or partners. Therefore interventions meant for drug users are NOT going to work on them.
Unless we get real and address the more common mode of transmission via sex, we will never manage this epidemic. After all, not everybody does drugs but almost everyone ( of the right age), including drug users, has sex. Therefore just addressing one part of the problem is not good enough.
Since 1985, when the first HIV case was detected in Malaysia til now, we have kept our heads in the sand. We act as if nobody has sex while at the same time railing against zina and tut-tutting over abandoned babies. Some states promote polygamy as a way of curbing social ills while other states make marriage more difficult by insisting on premarital HIV tests. Are we schizo? Do we think that the virus avoids people once they show it their marriage certificate?
If nobody wants to talk about safe sex, then they should talk about unsafe sex. Sex which allows the virus to transfer from one person to another via semen or vaginal fluid. A transfer that can easily be stopped by either no sexual contact or with a condom. Basically, we need to educate people about this process and that the virus cannot move from one person to another without our help. Therefore, don't help the virus!
Or else, that's 300,000 people with HIV, plus their families, plus their friends, neighbours, employers who are also affected.
Imagine, in 1993, the MoH predicted 30,000 people with HIV by 2000. Now they're predicting ten times that number 15 years later? Does that tell you that we're doing things right?
HIV Spreading Rapidly in Malaysia
HIV infections in Malaysia could surge to 300,000 by 2015, senior
health official says
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb. 11, 2007
(AP) The number of HIV infections in Malaysia could surge by more
than fourfold to 300,000 by 2015 as the virus spreads rapidly from
high-risk groups to the general public, a senior health official
warned Sunday.
Other than drug addicts, official statistics indicate the HIV virus
that causes AIDS is spreading quickly to women, fishermen, lorry
drivers and factory workers, said Ramlee Rahmat, deputy director-
general of public health.
Some 73,000 Malaysians have been infected with HIV, of which 75
percent are intravenous drug users and 7 percent are women, he said.
"Based on the trend that we are seeing, HIV infections can escalate
to 300,000 cases by 2015 if we do not do anything," Ramlee said.
The government has taken aggressive steps to fight HIV transmission
under a five-year national strategic plan launched in 2006, he said.
This include drug substitution therapy and needle exchange programs
for drug addicts, and providing free antiretroviral drugs at
government clinics especially for women and children.
"We have put up intervention measures. We are taking this very
seriously. If we carry out our plans effectively and the public
cooperates with us, we will be successful in curbing the spread of
the disease," he added.
UNAIDS has last year said Malaysia was among several Asia-Pacific
countries that risked an HIV epidemic among drug users unless the
government took the problem more seriously.
Three people die from AIDS-related illness every day in Malaysia, the
Health Ministry has said. It warned last year that the spread of AIDS
could wipe out Malaysia's development made over the last 50 years and
devastate the economy.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/11/ap/health/mainD8N7BCEO3.shtm
l
"This include drug substitution therapy and needle exchange programs
for drug addicts, and providing free antiretroviral drugs at
government clinics especially for women and children.
"We have put up intervention measures. We are taking this very
seriously. If we carry out our plans effectively and the public
cooperates with us, we will be successful in curbing the spread of
the disease," he added."
The issue is this: while it is very good ( even if rather late) that we are now having harm reduction programmes to curb HIV among drug users, they are still at pilot stage and do not have the scale needed to really be effective yet. Next, as Dr Ramlee himself has said, the virus is spreading among " women, fishermen, lorry drivers and factory workers". Some of these are drug users but some are not. Women, by and large, are not getting infected directly through drug use. They are becoming infected through sexual transmission from their drug-using husbands or partners. Therefore interventions meant for drug users are NOT going to work on them.
Unless we get real and address the more common mode of transmission via sex, we will never manage this epidemic. After all, not everybody does drugs but almost everyone ( of the right age), including drug users, has sex. Therefore just addressing one part of the problem is not good enough.
Since 1985, when the first HIV case was detected in Malaysia til now, we have kept our heads in the sand. We act as if nobody has sex while at the same time railing against zina and tut-tutting over abandoned babies. Some states promote polygamy as a way of curbing social ills while other states make marriage more difficult by insisting on premarital HIV tests. Are we schizo? Do we think that the virus avoids people once they show it their marriage certificate?
If nobody wants to talk about safe sex, then they should talk about unsafe sex. Sex which allows the virus to transfer from one person to another via semen or vaginal fluid. A transfer that can easily be stopped by either no sexual contact or with a condom. Basically, we need to educate people about this process and that the virus cannot move from one person to another without our help. Therefore, don't help the virus!
Or else, that's 300,000 people with HIV, plus their families, plus their friends, neighbours, employers who are also affected.
Imagine, in 1993, the MoH predicted 30,000 people with HIV by 2000. Now they're predicting ten times that number 15 years later? Does that tell you that we're doing things right?
HIV Spreading Rapidly in Malaysia
HIV infections in Malaysia could surge to 300,000 by 2015, senior
health official says
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb. 11, 2007
(AP) The number of HIV infections in Malaysia could surge by more
than fourfold to 300,000 by 2015 as the virus spreads rapidly from
high-risk groups to the general public, a senior health official
warned Sunday.
Other than drug addicts, official statistics indicate the HIV virus
that causes AIDS is spreading quickly to women, fishermen, lorry
drivers and factory workers, said Ramlee Rahmat, deputy director-
general of public health.
Some 73,000 Malaysians have been infected with HIV, of which 75
percent are intravenous drug users and 7 percent are women, he said.
"Based on the trend that we are seeing, HIV infections can escalate
to 300,000 cases by 2015 if we do not do anything," Ramlee said.
The government has taken aggressive steps to fight HIV transmission
under a five-year national strategic plan launched in 2006, he said.
This include drug substitution therapy and needle exchange programs
for drug addicts, and providing free antiretroviral drugs at
government clinics especially for women and children.
"We have put up intervention measures. We are taking this very
seriously. If we carry out our plans effectively and the public
cooperates with us, we will be successful in curbing the spread of
the disease," he added.
UNAIDS has last year said Malaysia was among several Asia-Pacific
countries that risked an HIV epidemic among drug users unless the
government took the problem more seriously.
Three people die from AIDS-related illness every day in Malaysia, the
Health Ministry has said. It warned last year that the spread of AIDS
could wipe out Malaysia's development made over the last 50 years and
devastate the economy.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/11/ap/health/mainD8N7BCEO3.shtm
l
Friday, February 9, 2007
Fearing to Go Where Others Have to Tread
Having just been at the peace forum and listened to people who know what is going on in Iraq, this piece of news from the New York Times piqued my interest. In the first place, I find it ironic that US foreign service people are being sent to Iraq "to try to establish democratic institutions and help in reconstruction" when the occupation is itself undemocratic and is leading to the very destruction that they are trying to reconstruct.
The second thing is about diplomats refusing to serve anywhere outside the Green Zone. In fact, the US occupiers and their puppet Iraqis only ever stay within the Green Zone and don't ever venture outside it. That's a great way to rule a country, when you're too scared to face the people you are ruling.
Few Veteran Diplomats Accept Mission to Iraq
By HELENE COOPER
Published: February 8, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — While the diplomats and Foreign Service employees of the State Department have always been expected to staff “hardship” postings, those jobs have not usually required that they wear flak jackets with their pinstriped suits.
But in the last five years, the Foreign Service landscape has shifted.
Now, thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House is calling for more American civilians to head not only to those countries, but also to some of their most hostile regions — including Iraq’s volatile Anbar Province — to try to establish democratic institutions and help in reconstruction. That plan is provoking unease and apprehension at the State Department and at other federal agencies.
Many federal employees have outright refused repeated requests that they go to Iraq, while others have demanded that they be assigned only to Baghdad and not be sent outside the more secure Green Zone, which includes the American Embassy and Iraqi government ministries. And while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice maintained Wednesday that State Department employees were “volunteering in large numbers” for difficult posts, including Iraq, several department employees said that those who had signed up tended to be younger, more entry-level types, and not experienced, seasoned diplomats.
The reluctance highlights a problem with the administration’s new strategy for Iraq, which calls on American diplomats to take challenges on a scale unmatched anywhere else in the world, when the lack of security on the ground outside the Green Zone makes it one of the last places people, particularly those with families, want to go.
Steve Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, the professional organization that represents State Department employees, said that “our people continue to show great courage in volunteering for duty in Iraq.” But Mr. Kashkett added, “there remain legitimate questions about the ability of unarmed civilian diplomats to carry out a reconstruction and democracy-building mission in the middle of an active war zone.”
The issue flared this week when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates testified at a Senate hearing that he shared the concerns of officers who complained about a request from Ms. Rice’s office that military personnel temporarily fill more than one-third of 350 new jobs in Iraq that the State Department is supposed to be responsible for. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that senior military officials were upset at the request and told President Bush and Mr. Gates that the new Iraq strategy could fail unless more civilian agencies stepped forward quickly to carry out plans for reconstruction and political development.
David Satterfield, the State Department’s senior adviser for Iraq, told reporters during a teleconference that the State Department’s request was only for temporary help and for non-State Department positions that would probably be filled by contractors anyway.
“The skill sets needed for the additional staff are not skill sets in which any foreign service in the world, including our own,” are proficient, Mr. Satterfield said. While State Department employees would provide leadership, he said, most of the staffing required would involve specialists like agricultural technicians.
But many military officials remained angry at the request, saying that the military did not necessarily have people with those skill sets, either, and that it would have to go to the already strained National Guard to plug holes that would take advantage of their civilian, and not their military, strengths.
Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military was used to working with State Department officials in Iraq, including Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. But, in a telephone interview, Admiral Giambastiani went on to describe a kind of cultural clash.
“The problem, not surprising, is we’re used to deploying over there,” Admiral Giambastiani said. “We send out orders, we execute orders, we deploy our military, and guess what happens? They turn up and do their job.”
He said that while it was acceptable for the State Department to ask for the National Guard, with its experts in civilian military affairs, to fill the positions temporarily, “you have to understand why people on the Defense side would come up with this frustration.” He added, “We’ve got to get the mission done, but in the long term, we’d rather use our military personnel to fill the military functions.”
Answering lawmakers’ questions on Monday, Ms. Rice said the department had managed to fill 87 percent of the positions it needed in Iraq.
But that percentage does not readily show the people who are volunteering, a number of State Department officials and employees said.
“A number of lower-level people are willing to go, seeing this as a combination money-maker, adventure and career-builder,” said one State Department employee who said he had been asked twice to go to Iraq in the past year and had said no both times, vehemently. “It’s the midlevel people who don’t want to go.”
Department officials have offered incentives, including combat and danger pay, and have conveyed to employees that a stint in Iraq could lead to a more rapid career rise. They have also refused to fill openings in some plusher postings in Europe until Iraqi positions are filled, State Department employees said.
The complaints from the Pentagon are part of long-simmering tensions between the Pentagon and the State Department over who is responsible for what in Iraq, The differences go back to the months before the invasion, when State employees complained that they were being cut out of the postwar planning by a Pentagon bent on doing everything itself.
“There’s some outrage that the collective capacity of American reconstruction capability was ignored prior to the war,” said one State Department employee who is learning Arabic before deploying to the Middle East. “And now we are expected to clean up the mess.”
Thom Shanker contributed reporting.
The second thing is about diplomats refusing to serve anywhere outside the Green Zone. In fact, the US occupiers and their puppet Iraqis only ever stay within the Green Zone and don't ever venture outside it. That's a great way to rule a country, when you're too scared to face the people you are ruling.
Few Veteran Diplomats Accept Mission to Iraq
By HELENE COOPER
Published: February 8, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — While the diplomats and Foreign Service employees of the State Department have always been expected to staff “hardship” postings, those jobs have not usually required that they wear flak jackets with their pinstriped suits.
But in the last five years, the Foreign Service landscape has shifted.
Now, thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House is calling for more American civilians to head not only to those countries, but also to some of their most hostile regions — including Iraq’s volatile Anbar Province — to try to establish democratic institutions and help in reconstruction. That plan is provoking unease and apprehension at the State Department and at other federal agencies.
Many federal employees have outright refused repeated requests that they go to Iraq, while others have demanded that they be assigned only to Baghdad and not be sent outside the more secure Green Zone, which includes the American Embassy and Iraqi government ministries. And while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice maintained Wednesday that State Department employees were “volunteering in large numbers” for difficult posts, including Iraq, several department employees said that those who had signed up tended to be younger, more entry-level types, and not experienced, seasoned diplomats.
The reluctance highlights a problem with the administration’s new strategy for Iraq, which calls on American diplomats to take challenges on a scale unmatched anywhere else in the world, when the lack of security on the ground outside the Green Zone makes it one of the last places people, particularly those with families, want to go.
Steve Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, the professional organization that represents State Department employees, said that “our people continue to show great courage in volunteering for duty in Iraq.” But Mr. Kashkett added, “there remain legitimate questions about the ability of unarmed civilian diplomats to carry out a reconstruction and democracy-building mission in the middle of an active war zone.”
The issue flared this week when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates testified at a Senate hearing that he shared the concerns of officers who complained about a request from Ms. Rice’s office that military personnel temporarily fill more than one-third of 350 new jobs in Iraq that the State Department is supposed to be responsible for. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that senior military officials were upset at the request and told President Bush and Mr. Gates that the new Iraq strategy could fail unless more civilian agencies stepped forward quickly to carry out plans for reconstruction and political development.
David Satterfield, the State Department’s senior adviser for Iraq, told reporters during a teleconference that the State Department’s request was only for temporary help and for non-State Department positions that would probably be filled by contractors anyway.
“The skill sets needed for the additional staff are not skill sets in which any foreign service in the world, including our own,” are proficient, Mr. Satterfield said. While State Department employees would provide leadership, he said, most of the staffing required would involve specialists like agricultural technicians.
But many military officials remained angry at the request, saying that the military did not necessarily have people with those skill sets, either, and that it would have to go to the already strained National Guard to plug holes that would take advantage of their civilian, and not their military, strengths.
Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military was used to working with State Department officials in Iraq, including Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. But, in a telephone interview, Admiral Giambastiani went on to describe a kind of cultural clash.
“The problem, not surprising, is we’re used to deploying over there,” Admiral Giambastiani said. “We send out orders, we execute orders, we deploy our military, and guess what happens? They turn up and do their job.”
He said that while it was acceptable for the State Department to ask for the National Guard, with its experts in civilian military affairs, to fill the positions temporarily, “you have to understand why people on the Defense side would come up with this frustration.” He added, “We’ve got to get the mission done, but in the long term, we’d rather use our military personnel to fill the military functions.”
Answering lawmakers’ questions on Monday, Ms. Rice said the department had managed to fill 87 percent of the positions it needed in Iraq.
But that percentage does not readily show the people who are volunteering, a number of State Department officials and employees said.
“A number of lower-level people are willing to go, seeing this as a combination money-maker, adventure and career-builder,” said one State Department employee who said he had been asked twice to go to Iraq in the past year and had said no both times, vehemently. “It’s the midlevel people who don’t want to go.”
Department officials have offered incentives, including combat and danger pay, and have conveyed to employees that a stint in Iraq could lead to a more rapid career rise. They have also refused to fill openings in some plusher postings in Europe until Iraqi positions are filled, State Department employees said.
The complaints from the Pentagon are part of long-simmering tensions between the Pentagon and the State Department over who is responsible for what in Iraq, The differences go back to the months before the invasion, when State employees complained that they were being cut out of the postwar planning by a Pentagon bent on doing everything itself.
“There’s some outrage that the collective capacity of American reconstruction capability was ignored prior to the war,” said one State Department employee who is learning Arabic before deploying to the Middle East. “And now we are expected to clean up the mess.”
Thom Shanker contributed reporting.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
War, and Peace
The Perdana Global Peace Forum, despite taking place right next to the headquarters of UMNO, has the air of a revolution. All sorts of people come to it, from local luminaries such as Tengku Razaleigh and Tun Haniff Omar, a Government Minister Tan Sri Aziz Shamsuddin, various NGO types such as Dr Ronald McCoy from International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Mother Mangalam from the Pure Life Society, to lots and lots of students ( five buses from UIA alone), to various interested individuals. On the second day, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, wife of the DPM, and various BAKTI members, rather incongruously turned up.
The revolutionary air comes from the speakers. You get academics such as Prof Michel Chossudovsky from Ottawa University and Dr Christopher Busby, Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, politicians like Cynthia Mackinney, former US Congresswoman from Georgia, former UN officials such Hans Von Sponeck and various activists. They get up there and they lay their facts out, some in calm voices, some more passionately. You cannot be unmoved by what they say.
To attend the PGPF, you need to be ready to have everything you ever thought about challenged. If you've always lived blissfully unaware of the death and destruction that nuclear weapons can wreak, then some of the stuff you hear will want to make you run and hide. Last year Helen Caldicott, the anti-nuclear activist, made me so scared about what would happen if the US dropped a nuclear bomb on Iran, that I wanted to get into bed, pull the covers over my head and just stay there until it's all over. This is the only problem with some of the presentations at PGPF, that they scare you so much they can disempower and paralyse you.
But this year is a bit more hopeful. I listened to an extraordinary young woman, Hana AlBayaty, a half-French, half-Iraqi filmaker who works with the Brussels Tribunal that is documenting war crimes in Iraq. When people here sometimes complain that we shouldn't be too 'emotional', it is perhaps because we are often so lacking in passion about anything. Hana's passion for her work comes out in spades, but she also laces it with wry asides and humour. She talked about how the US is manipulating the situation in Iraq all the time, dividing people who were never divided, but these people were fighting back daily in every way they can, becoming effectively the Iraqi Resistance. (I have done a video interview with Hana which I will talk about in a separate posting)
The second day's sessions had some prize lessons for us all. In the media session question and answer, it was evident that some of our people, while indeed sincere in their wanting to campaign against war, are unclear and unsophisticated in their thinking because they are so unexposed to different concepts. One person asked how we can control the mainstream international media which often demonises Muslims as terrorists and is biased in their reporting about the war. Dr Gwynne Dyer,a Canadian journalist, would have none of the control business. What we need, he said, is not any control of the media but to allow more people access to the media in all forms so that they can get a broader picture of what is happening. In the youth session afterwards, Raed Jaggar of the United Coalition for Peace and Justice in the US said that we should bypass the mainstream media entirely, and go to blogs to get the stories of Iraq directly from the people who live there. He mentioned Baghdad Burning, written by a woman engineer going by the name of Riverbend, and A Family in Baghdad as two exemplary ones. (Someone in the audience then said that the Internet and blogging is American culture. Oh dear....)
It's easy to stereotype people even when you don't want to. When Muhammad Umar of the Ramadhan Foundation in the UK took the microphone, I thought I recognised him as a wild-eyed ranter who was interviewed on the BBC's Hard Talk soon after the July 7 underground bombings in London. I couldn't have been more wrong.Despite his red hat and his beard ( and an accent that is unplacable but must have traces of Manchester where he lives), he spoke about the need to truly understand what was happening in Iraq.
Among the things he said was that to understand each other, we must talk to each other. It is when we refuse to, that extremism happens. Asked by someone what extremism meant ("Is it a beard? Is it the hijab? Is it polygamy?), he answered very simply, "It is the intolerance of other people's opinion." With this definition,we can bypass race, religion and colour and go to heart of the matter, people's respect for other human beings.
Muhammad Umar also said that we must admit that we do have a right wing in Muslim communities and we need to deal with them. He cited an ayat from the Quran in which God forbids us to oppress others, and therefore Muslims who oppress are not any better than others who oppress either. He said that we should act in a positive way towards anything that happens, instead of rioting and screaming. "We spend so much time screaming at each other than we don't hear one another." I like the fact that he means this for all communities, not just Muslim. He kept repeating that all humankind must be united to oppose oppression from anywhere, and not discriminate by race or religion. So important for us to hear this.
In fact, this was the startling thing about the Muslims from abroad who spoke. They refused to make any differentation between Muslims and non-Muslims, only human beings and people not behaving humanely. Ali Shalah, the 'man in the hood', began his video presentation about his organisation, The Association of Former Prisoners of American Occupation, by saying that God honours all sons of Adam, with no mention of Muslims or Christians or whoever.He gave some very strong messages about sectarianism, that 'science and work make no difference between race or sects.' All the Iraqis insisted that the sectarian violence we see now in Iraq is a new thing for them, that before there were no such conflicts based on religion.
Of course the highlight of the forum were the testimonies of the former prisoners, Ali Shalah ( see Jeff Ooi's report ) and Abbas Abid, who survived the Fallujah massacre. The first thing I have to say is that their experience has made them old. Ali Shalah, a tall man in a long black robe and a songkok, is only 45 but he looks 60. Abbas Abid is only 43 but he looks like he's in his 50s.
The second thing that strikes you is how dignified they are, that what they have been through has done nothing to kill their soul and dignity. And what they've been through is so horrific, you have to wonder how they survived. Ali Shalah was asked this and he replied simply, "Faith in God". And that must indeed be some faith, because even just reading about their experiences makes you cringe in pain.
The third thing is that neither man was bitter or angry. They are directing their energies towards doing good by both telling the world about their experience and exposing these crimes, and by supporting others who have suffered the same.I think this is something that people who have never suffered so horribly don't understand. Some of the most humble and dignified people I have met have been the ones who have been through some extremely bad experiences. It is because they survived that they are humbled,because they know Who saved them. I find it always interesting that they never insist on revenge on their oppressors, only justice.
Justice is what these people are pleading for. A just world is one where everyone is free to live, to work, to have families, to laugh. Where nobody oppresses others for whatever reason. The Iraqis are saying that their tragedy is a tragedy of all humankind, that we all have to care what happens to them, to the Palestinians, to the Kashmiris, to the people in southern Thailand and southern Philippines,to the people in northern Sri Lanka, to the people of Darfur. Because we never know when it will happen to us.
The revolutionary air comes from the speakers. You get academics such as Prof Michel Chossudovsky from Ottawa University and Dr Christopher Busby, Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, politicians like Cynthia Mackinney, former US Congresswoman from Georgia, former UN officials such Hans Von Sponeck and various activists. They get up there and they lay their facts out, some in calm voices, some more passionately. You cannot be unmoved by what they say.
To attend the PGPF, you need to be ready to have everything you ever thought about challenged. If you've always lived blissfully unaware of the death and destruction that nuclear weapons can wreak, then some of the stuff you hear will want to make you run and hide. Last year Helen Caldicott, the anti-nuclear activist, made me so scared about what would happen if the US dropped a nuclear bomb on Iran, that I wanted to get into bed, pull the covers over my head and just stay there until it's all over. This is the only problem with some of the presentations at PGPF, that they scare you so much they can disempower and paralyse you.
But this year is a bit more hopeful. I listened to an extraordinary young woman, Hana AlBayaty, a half-French, half-Iraqi filmaker who works with the Brussels Tribunal that is documenting war crimes in Iraq. When people here sometimes complain that we shouldn't be too 'emotional', it is perhaps because we are often so lacking in passion about anything. Hana's passion for her work comes out in spades, but she also laces it with wry asides and humour. She talked about how the US is manipulating the situation in Iraq all the time, dividing people who were never divided, but these people were fighting back daily in every way they can, becoming effectively the Iraqi Resistance. (I have done a video interview with Hana which I will talk about in a separate posting)
The second day's sessions had some prize lessons for us all. In the media session question and answer, it was evident that some of our people, while indeed sincere in their wanting to campaign against war, are unclear and unsophisticated in their thinking because they are so unexposed to different concepts. One person asked how we can control the mainstream international media which often demonises Muslims as terrorists and is biased in their reporting about the war. Dr Gwynne Dyer,a Canadian journalist, would have none of the control business. What we need, he said, is not any control of the media but to allow more people access to the media in all forms so that they can get a broader picture of what is happening. In the youth session afterwards, Raed Jaggar of the United Coalition for Peace and Justice in the US said that we should bypass the mainstream media entirely, and go to blogs to get the stories of Iraq directly from the people who live there. He mentioned Baghdad Burning, written by a woman engineer going by the name of Riverbend, and A Family in Baghdad as two exemplary ones. (Someone in the audience then said that the Internet and blogging is American culture. Oh dear....)
It's easy to stereotype people even when you don't want to. When Muhammad Umar of the Ramadhan Foundation in the UK took the microphone, I thought I recognised him as a wild-eyed ranter who was interviewed on the BBC's Hard Talk soon after the July 7 underground bombings in London. I couldn't have been more wrong.Despite his red hat and his beard ( and an accent that is unplacable but must have traces of Manchester where he lives), he spoke about the need to truly understand what was happening in Iraq.
Among the things he said was that to understand each other, we must talk to each other. It is when we refuse to, that extremism happens. Asked by someone what extremism meant ("Is it a beard? Is it the hijab? Is it polygamy?), he answered very simply, "It is the intolerance of other people's opinion." With this definition,we can bypass race, religion and colour and go to heart of the matter, people's respect for other human beings.
Muhammad Umar also said that we must admit that we do have a right wing in Muslim communities and we need to deal with them. He cited an ayat from the Quran in which God forbids us to oppress others, and therefore Muslims who oppress are not any better than others who oppress either. He said that we should act in a positive way towards anything that happens, instead of rioting and screaming. "We spend so much time screaming at each other than we don't hear one another." I like the fact that he means this for all communities, not just Muslim. He kept repeating that all humankind must be united to oppose oppression from anywhere, and not discriminate by race or religion. So important for us to hear this.
In fact, this was the startling thing about the Muslims from abroad who spoke. They refused to make any differentation between Muslims and non-Muslims, only human beings and people not behaving humanely. Ali Shalah, the 'man in the hood', began his video presentation about his organisation, The Association of Former Prisoners of American Occupation, by saying that God honours all sons of Adam, with no mention of Muslims or Christians or whoever.He gave some very strong messages about sectarianism, that 'science and work make no difference between race or sects.' All the Iraqis insisted that the sectarian violence we see now in Iraq is a new thing for them, that before there were no such conflicts based on religion.
Of course the highlight of the forum were the testimonies of the former prisoners, Ali Shalah ( see Jeff Ooi's report ) and Abbas Abid, who survived the Fallujah massacre. The first thing I have to say is that their experience has made them old. Ali Shalah, a tall man in a long black robe and a songkok, is only 45 but he looks 60. Abbas Abid is only 43 but he looks like he's in his 50s.
The second thing that strikes you is how dignified they are, that what they have been through has done nothing to kill their soul and dignity. And what they've been through is so horrific, you have to wonder how they survived. Ali Shalah was asked this and he replied simply, "Faith in God". And that must indeed be some faith, because even just reading about their experiences makes you cringe in pain.
The third thing is that neither man was bitter or angry. They are directing their energies towards doing good by both telling the world about their experience and exposing these crimes, and by supporting others who have suffered the same.I think this is something that people who have never suffered so horribly don't understand. Some of the most humble and dignified people I have met have been the ones who have been through some extremely bad experiences. It is because they survived that they are humbled,because they know Who saved them. I find it always interesting that they never insist on revenge on their oppressors, only justice.
Justice is what these people are pleading for. A just world is one where everyone is free to live, to work, to have families, to laugh. Where nobody oppresses others for whatever reason. The Iraqis are saying that their tragedy is a tragedy of all humankind, that we all have to care what happens to them, to the Palestinians, to the Kashmiris, to the people in southern Thailand and southern Philippines,to the people in northern Sri Lanka, to the people of Darfur. Because we never know when it will happen to us.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Kampung Kangkar Tebrau:The Aftermath, and beyond...
My daughter has done a short video of our visit to Kampung Kangkar Tebrau in Johor Baru last week.You can take a look here:
Floods seem to be everywhere. I've just returned from a short trip to Jakarta. It rained like there was no tomorrow and before you know it, 100,000 people had to be evacuated.The area our house is in was effectively cut off for more than a day, some places had no electricity and phone services. People coming in from the airport spent more than four hours in the jam, and today when I left, parts of the airport highway was still flooded.
One of the most amazing things I saw was a TV reporter doing her job on prime time TV, waistdeep in water and totally soaked from the rain. Talk about dedication to one's job.And one of the most macabre problems caused by the flood was that hearsts could not get to places to pick up dead people to bury them, and some cemeteries themselves were under water.
Floods seem to be everywhere. I've just returned from a short trip to Jakarta. It rained like there was no tomorrow and before you know it, 100,000 people had to be evacuated.The area our house is in was effectively cut off for more than a day, some places had no electricity and phone services. People coming in from the airport spent more than four hours in the jam, and today when I left, parts of the airport highway was still flooded.
One of the most amazing things I saw was a TV reporter doing her job on prime time TV, waistdeep in water and totally soaked from the rain. Talk about dedication to one's job.And one of the most macabre problems caused by the flood was that hearsts could not get to places to pick up dead people to bury them, and some cemeteries themselves were under water.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Hear Ye, Hear Ye...Two Announcements
Those women out there who feel you ( or your mothers/grandmothers) have not been heard or appreciated, here's your chance. Farish Noor is putting together a Women's History of Malaysia and inviting women to write articles on Malaysian history from a women's point of view. (Guys, please don't complain, you've had your viewpoint all this time.) The deadline is May 31 2007, for the book to come out end of 2007 ( what a great way to celebrate our Golden Jubilee!). So hurry, get your typing fingers out!
The other announcement is for all those jazz lovers out there. The Java Jazz Festival will be on in Jakarta March 2-4. Amazing lineup starting with Jamie Cullum, Chaka Khan, Sergio Mendes, Sadao Watanabe, Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, Diane Schuur,Level 42, Jeffrey Osborne and Deneice Williams,Gino Vanelli, Marcus Miller...the list goes on and on. I know it's not very loyal of me to recommend you all go visit our neighbouring country for this, this being VMY and all, but this is too delicious lah! If only they had organised a KL Jazz Fest (like, just bring these guys over since they're in the area anyway)! Anyway, check out the ticket website. I'm not really sure if you can buy tickets online if you live outside Indonesia ( although they do give a bank a/c number you can transfer money to)but try anyway.
The other announcement is for all those jazz lovers out there. The Java Jazz Festival will be on in Jakarta March 2-4. Amazing lineup starting with Jamie Cullum, Chaka Khan, Sergio Mendes, Sadao Watanabe, Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, Diane Schuur,Level 42, Jeffrey Osborne and Deneice Williams,Gino Vanelli, Marcus Miller...the list goes on and on. I know it's not very loyal of me to recommend you all go visit our neighbouring country for this, this being VMY and all, but this is too delicious lah! If only they had organised a KL Jazz Fest (like, just bring these guys over since they're in the area anyway)! Anyway, check out the ticket website. I'm not really sure if you can buy tickets online if you live outside Indonesia ( although they do give a bank a/c number you can transfer money to)but try anyway.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Fuelling Passion into Real Action
In the past few years, I have been coming across this term 'social entrepreneurs'. It is an interesting and exciting phenomenon, and gives you hope in this increasingly greedy world where the poor are often left behind. It also gives you an idea of how much governments and companies are NOT doing for the poor, that it is left to individuals and private organisations.
I don't really know of anyone who could be described as a social entrepreneur in Malaysia. If you know of someone, please do let me know.
Do-Gooders With Spreadsheets
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: January 30, 2007
DAVOS, Switzerland
The World Economic Forum here in Davos is the kind of place where if you let yourself get distracted while walking by a European prime minister on your left, you could end up tripping over a famous gazillionaire — and then spilling your coffee onto the king on your right. But perhaps the most remarkable people to attend aren’t the world leaders or other bigwigs.
Rather, they are the social entrepreneurs. Davos, which has always been uncanny in peeking just ahead of the curve to reflect the zeitgeist of the moment, swarmed with them.
So what’s a social entrepreneur? Let me give a few examples among those at the forum in Davos.
• In Africa, where children die of diarrhea from bad sanitation, Isaac Durojaiye runs a franchise system for public toilets. He supplies mobile toilets to slum areas, where unemployed young people charge a small fee for their use. The operators keep 60 percent of the income and pass the rest back to Mr. Durojaiye’s company, Dignified Mobile Toilets, which uses the money to buy new toilets.
• Nic Frances runs a group that aims to cut carbon emissions in 70 percent of Australian households over 10 years. His group, Easy Being Green, gives out low-energy light bulbs and low-flow shower heads — after the household signs over the rights to the carbon emissions the equipment will save. The group then sells those carbon credits to industry to finance its activities, and it is now aiming to expand globally.
• In the U.S., Gillian Caldwell and her group, Witness, train people around the world to use video cameras to document human rights abuses. The resulting videos have drawn public attention to issues like child soldiers and the treatment of the mentally ill. Now Ms. Caldwell aims to create a sort of YouTube for human rights video clips.
Social entrepreneurs like Ms. Caldwell resemble traditional do-gooders in their yearning to make the world a better place, but sound like chief executives when they talk about metrics to assess cost-effectiveness. Many also generate income to finance expansion.
“We’re totally self-sustaining,” said Mirai Chatterjee, a dynamo who is coordinator of the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India. “From Day 1 our idea was to run a strong economic organization.” Ms. Chatterjee’s organization now has nearly 1 million members, owns a bank, runs 100 day care centers, trains midwives and provides health insurance for 200,000 women. It is empowering women and fighting poverty across a growing swath of rural India, and its down-to-earth approach is characteristic of social entrepreneurs.
“Politics is failing to solve all the big issues,” said Jim Wallis, who wrote “God’s Politics” and runs Sojourners, which pushes social justice issues. “So when that happens, social movements rise up.”
Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, demonstrated with Grameen Bank the power of microfinancing. His bank has helped raise incomes, secure property rights for women, lower population growth and raise education standards across Bangladesh — and now the success is rippling around the globe.
One of those inspired by Mr. Yunus, for example, was Roshaneh Zafar, a young Pakistani economist. She quit her job and started Kashf, a microfinance institution that now gives hundreds of thousands of Pakistani women a route out of poverty.
Ms. Zafar also received help from Ashoka, a hugely influential organization for social entrepreneurs started by an American, Bill Drayton (who describes social entrepreneurs as “the most important historical force at work today”). Ashoka is one of a growing number of donor groups that offer the equivalent of venture capital for social entrepreneurs.
“The key with social entrepreneurs is their pragmatic approach,” said Pamela Hartigan of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which is affiliated with the World Economic Forum. “They’re not out there with protest banners; they’re actually developing concrete solutions.”
When I travel around the world, I’m blown away by how these people are transforming lives. A growing number of the best and brightest university graduates in the U.S. and abroad are moving into this area (many clutching the book “How to Change the World,” a bible in the field).
It’s one of the most hopeful and helpful trends around. These folks aren’t famous, and they didn’t fly to Davos in first-class cabins or private jets, but they are showing that what it really takes to change the world isn’t so much wealth or power as creativity, determination and passion.
I don't really know of anyone who could be described as a social entrepreneur in Malaysia. If you know of someone, please do let me know.
Do-Gooders With Spreadsheets
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: January 30, 2007
DAVOS, Switzerland
The World Economic Forum here in Davos is the kind of place where if you let yourself get distracted while walking by a European prime minister on your left, you could end up tripping over a famous gazillionaire — and then spilling your coffee onto the king on your right. But perhaps the most remarkable people to attend aren’t the world leaders or other bigwigs.
Rather, they are the social entrepreneurs. Davos, which has always been uncanny in peeking just ahead of the curve to reflect the zeitgeist of the moment, swarmed with them.
So what’s a social entrepreneur? Let me give a few examples among those at the forum in Davos.
• In Africa, where children die of diarrhea from bad sanitation, Isaac Durojaiye runs a franchise system for public toilets. He supplies mobile toilets to slum areas, where unemployed young people charge a small fee for their use. The operators keep 60 percent of the income and pass the rest back to Mr. Durojaiye’s company, Dignified Mobile Toilets, which uses the money to buy new toilets.
• Nic Frances runs a group that aims to cut carbon emissions in 70 percent of Australian households over 10 years. His group, Easy Being Green, gives out low-energy light bulbs and low-flow shower heads — after the household signs over the rights to the carbon emissions the equipment will save. The group then sells those carbon credits to industry to finance its activities, and it is now aiming to expand globally.
• In the U.S., Gillian Caldwell and her group, Witness, train people around the world to use video cameras to document human rights abuses. The resulting videos have drawn public attention to issues like child soldiers and the treatment of the mentally ill. Now Ms. Caldwell aims to create a sort of YouTube for human rights video clips.
Social entrepreneurs like Ms. Caldwell resemble traditional do-gooders in their yearning to make the world a better place, but sound like chief executives when they talk about metrics to assess cost-effectiveness. Many also generate income to finance expansion.
“We’re totally self-sustaining,” said Mirai Chatterjee, a dynamo who is coordinator of the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India. “From Day 1 our idea was to run a strong economic organization.” Ms. Chatterjee’s organization now has nearly 1 million members, owns a bank, runs 100 day care centers, trains midwives and provides health insurance for 200,000 women. It is empowering women and fighting poverty across a growing swath of rural India, and its down-to-earth approach is characteristic of social entrepreneurs.
“Politics is failing to solve all the big issues,” said Jim Wallis, who wrote “God’s Politics” and runs Sojourners, which pushes social justice issues. “So when that happens, social movements rise up.”
Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, demonstrated with Grameen Bank the power of microfinancing. His bank has helped raise incomes, secure property rights for women, lower population growth and raise education standards across Bangladesh — and now the success is rippling around the globe.
One of those inspired by Mr. Yunus, for example, was Roshaneh Zafar, a young Pakistani economist. She quit her job and started Kashf, a microfinance institution that now gives hundreds of thousands of Pakistani women a route out of poverty.
Ms. Zafar also received help from Ashoka, a hugely influential organization for social entrepreneurs started by an American, Bill Drayton (who describes social entrepreneurs as “the most important historical force at work today”). Ashoka is one of a growing number of donor groups that offer the equivalent of venture capital for social entrepreneurs.
“The key with social entrepreneurs is their pragmatic approach,” said Pamela Hartigan of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which is affiliated with the World Economic Forum. “They’re not out there with protest banners; they’re actually developing concrete solutions.”
When I travel around the world, I’m blown away by how these people are transforming lives. A growing number of the best and brightest university graduates in the U.S. and abroad are moving into this area (many clutching the book “How to Change the World,” a bible in the field).
It’s one of the most hopeful and helpful trends around. These folks aren’t famous, and they didn’t fly to Davos in first-class cabins or private jets, but they are showing that what it really takes to change the world isn’t so much wealth or power as creativity, determination and passion.
The Burden of Responsibility
(Folks, as you know, the other day, Rocky and Jeff's lawyers came to an agreement with the other side that neither side will talk about the cases before the court because of the potential for subjudice. So, please do take note that if any of your comments refer to those cases, I CANNOT post them.)
Reading all the news both in the blogosphere and in the mainstream papers, I can't help but notice the number of times the words 'responsible' and 'responsibility' come up. As bloggers work in a medium that is pretty much unregulated (or unregulatable?) and where people say pretty much anything they want, the impression is given that bloggers are by nature irresponsible. Thus all these remarks that they can't be 'above the law' or 'hide under the cover of the internet' etc. Anyone would think that nobody else except bloggers behave that way.
As a new blogger, with many blogger friends,I started to think about what these words 'responsible' and 'responsibility' mean. No doubt the blogosphere has a very Wild Wild West flavour about it, with many comments being undoubtedly spurious, unsubstantiated,even racist. Most such comments do hide behind anonymity. I guess they could all be dubbed 'irresponsible'. The question is, to whom?
Perhaps nobody knows more about irresponsible and libellous comments and stories than me. At any one time, I can find untrue stories about me and my family anywhere in the Net. I don't even know exactly what is out there, and quite frankly I don't care to find out.I also don't see the point in going after every single lie published about me or mine because that would take up all my time and I do have a life to lead.I have kids to clothe, feed and educate, bills to pay, just like most people.Besides, why would I want to stress myself out worrying about all these stories when I know they are untrue anyway? If people get a kick out of writing these stories, not least because they know nobody will really come after them, then what can I do? If anything, I think these types of comments reflect on their writers, a bunch of pretty sad people generally. And maybe it also reflects on our education system and society where people feel unable to express their innermost thoughts except when they feel certain nobody will be able to identify them.
The thing is apart from those who trade in spurious stories anonymously, who else could be deemed 'irresponsible'? If people write an article and put their name to it, they are already taking responsibility for their story. If their story doesn't hold up, then whoever feels aggrieved should then take the responsibility to put it right, through the same medium especially. If you don't complain, then nobody is going to take the responsibility, if need be, to make that correction for you.
The question for me is again, who are you responsible to? If a story has an impact on our society, then the writer is held responsible to society at large. If you write a story about some corrupt politician, you should be doing it out of responsibility to society to expose that corruption because generally society at large agrees that corruption is bad. (If this has changed, I am not aware of it). If the story is untrue, then by all means,those who know that should do a correction. That is again a responsibility to society. If in fact the story IS true, then the responsible thing to do is to take action to correct the wrong itself, not the story and not the writer of the story. Without that writer, how would these cases have come to light?
I think about so many stories these days which have originated on blogs which were then followed up by the mainstream papers, and I am curious about something. With their much larger resources, could it be possible that the mainstream papers would NOT have heard of the same thing? So if they did hear, then why not publish it? It's news that is important for society to hear so they have a responsibility to publish it,don't they? What does it mean when newspapers choose not to publish something? Does it or doesn't it serve society well?
The question is therefore, when one makes comparisons between bloggers' responsibilities and newspaper responsibilities, are we talking about the same thing? Is the main responsibility of newspapers and TV to their readers who represent society at large, or to their owners and shareholders?
In many countries, including the US and the UK, we know that newspapers are far from objective, despite the often very high standards of journalism. The stances they take on any particular subject does depend on their owners' beliefs and their own political affiliations as well, as much as we talk about independence in journalism. In the UK, if you want to know what the Conservatives think about anything, read The Times. If you want the Labour viewpoint, read The Guardian. For something in the middle, read The Independent. In the US, as much as the mainstream papers and major TV channels are conformist, you still have channels like PBS and many independent radio channels that will give an alternative view.
The point however is that, you do have access to these different points of view just by going to your local newsstand or switching on your TV or radio.For every government that is in power, you can read criticism of that same government in a mainstream newspaper.
If by 'irresponsible', we mean people who are supposedly trying to bring down the government, then what do we make of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who, in writing their Pulitzer-Prize winning articles on Watergate in the Washington Post, brought down a President? Were they responsible reporters or irresponsible reporters? Did they serve American society well, or not?
These are the questions we should ponder when we talk about 'no freedom without responsibility'. I fully agree, but if the responsibility is just to the powers-that-be, then I wonder about that so-called freedom. Responsibility IS a huge burden but that burden is to society, not special interest groups.
Furthermore, if we mean to say that with more freedom, there should be more responsibility on the part of writers/bloggers/journalists, then is the converse also true? If there is less freedom, is there therefore less need for responsibility? At the moment, the situation seems to be 'not much freedom, lots of responsibility', as if to say, by giving up freedom of speech, we are being much more responsible. It's a curious logic supported only by the belief that people are by nature untrustworthy and irresponsible.Nobody ever thinks of themselves as irresponsible, but they are often quick to accuse others, especially if they disagree with them.
An example of this is when about a year ago, I wrote a column which caused a bit of a furore, primarily because the paper it appears in balked at publishing it.Although they did publish it a few days later, with some bits cut out, by that time, the column had gone all over the Net, attracting a lot more attention that it normally would have. There were of course people who disagreed with me, and they rightfully complained that their case was not being heard in the same medium, and their right to their opinion was being trampled on. But their argument faltered somewhat when they asserted that my editors should NOT have published my column at all in the first place! So they felt they had the right to use the free speech argument but I didn't.
Some people have pointed out that everybody has a right to seek redress through the courts if they feel they have been defamed. That's fine in theory.But have you ever seen any case brought against any media, print or broadcast, by people who do not already have money? I see newspapers defaming the poor and marginalised all the time, yet none of them have the means to sue the papers. (I will do another posting another time about specific cases.) So, that right is really tempered by resources to pursue such cases. Yet at the same time, these sorts of defamation of the poor can have far more devastating effects on them, than on the rich. It can cause people to be ostracised from their own communities, for instance, with no avenue for redress at all.
If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is that there is no such thing as 100% freedom of speech anywhere in the world. So no need to argue about that. The real point is, how far away from 100% are we? Are we 90%, 75%, 50%, 30%? We are 92nd out of 168 on the worldwide press freedom index.Does that say something about where we are? More importantly, what efforts do we make towards moving nearer the 100% mark? Never mind that it is unachievable, and even undesirable, but surely we can do better?
Lastly, when we have so many laws that restrict what we can say, does this impede or encourage responsibility in writing, whether in blogs or the mainstream papers? As Salman Rushdie says in his book set in Kashmir, Shalimar the Clown, "wherever information is tightly controlled, rumour becomes a valued alternative source of news." It is precisely because of the fear that these laws generate that people resort to surat layang, smses, emails and of course comments on blogs. If these laws are meant to ensure that people are responsible, how come only small fry are pursued for libellious smses, and not bigger fry who repeat smses as if they were true and actually caused people to take actions that may have caused harm? If we had an environment where people felt free to say what they think, within generally agreed limits ( eg no tolerance for any kind of racism), then perhaps we would not need to resort to blogs at all.
Reading all the news both in the blogosphere and in the mainstream papers, I can't help but notice the number of times the words 'responsible' and 'responsibility' come up. As bloggers work in a medium that is pretty much unregulated (or unregulatable?) and where people say pretty much anything they want, the impression is given that bloggers are by nature irresponsible. Thus all these remarks that they can't be 'above the law' or 'hide under the cover of the internet' etc. Anyone would think that nobody else except bloggers behave that way.
As a new blogger, with many blogger friends,I started to think about what these words 'responsible' and 'responsibility' mean. No doubt the blogosphere has a very Wild Wild West flavour about it, with many comments being undoubtedly spurious, unsubstantiated,even racist. Most such comments do hide behind anonymity. I guess they could all be dubbed 'irresponsible'. The question is, to whom?
Perhaps nobody knows more about irresponsible and libellous comments and stories than me. At any one time, I can find untrue stories about me and my family anywhere in the Net. I don't even know exactly what is out there, and quite frankly I don't care to find out.I also don't see the point in going after every single lie published about me or mine because that would take up all my time and I do have a life to lead.I have kids to clothe, feed and educate, bills to pay, just like most people.Besides, why would I want to stress myself out worrying about all these stories when I know they are untrue anyway? If people get a kick out of writing these stories, not least because they know nobody will really come after them, then what can I do? If anything, I think these types of comments reflect on their writers, a bunch of pretty sad people generally. And maybe it also reflects on our education system and society where people feel unable to express their innermost thoughts except when they feel certain nobody will be able to identify them.
The thing is apart from those who trade in spurious stories anonymously, who else could be deemed 'irresponsible'? If people write an article and put their name to it, they are already taking responsibility for their story. If their story doesn't hold up, then whoever feels aggrieved should then take the responsibility to put it right, through the same medium especially. If you don't complain, then nobody is going to take the responsibility, if need be, to make that correction for you.
The question for me is again, who are you responsible to? If a story has an impact on our society, then the writer is held responsible to society at large. If you write a story about some corrupt politician, you should be doing it out of responsibility to society to expose that corruption because generally society at large agrees that corruption is bad. (If this has changed, I am not aware of it). If the story is untrue, then by all means,those who know that should do a correction. That is again a responsibility to society. If in fact the story IS true, then the responsible thing to do is to take action to correct the wrong itself, not the story and not the writer of the story. Without that writer, how would these cases have come to light?
I think about so many stories these days which have originated on blogs which were then followed up by the mainstream papers, and I am curious about something. With their much larger resources, could it be possible that the mainstream papers would NOT have heard of the same thing? So if they did hear, then why not publish it? It's news that is important for society to hear so they have a responsibility to publish it,don't they? What does it mean when newspapers choose not to publish something? Does it or doesn't it serve society well?
The question is therefore, when one makes comparisons between bloggers' responsibilities and newspaper responsibilities, are we talking about the same thing? Is the main responsibility of newspapers and TV to their readers who represent society at large, or to their owners and shareholders?
In many countries, including the US and the UK, we know that newspapers are far from objective, despite the often very high standards of journalism. The stances they take on any particular subject does depend on their owners' beliefs and their own political affiliations as well, as much as we talk about independence in journalism. In the UK, if you want to know what the Conservatives think about anything, read The Times. If you want the Labour viewpoint, read The Guardian. For something in the middle, read The Independent. In the US, as much as the mainstream papers and major TV channels are conformist, you still have channels like PBS and many independent radio channels that will give an alternative view.
The point however is that, you do have access to these different points of view just by going to your local newsstand or switching on your TV or radio.For every government that is in power, you can read criticism of that same government in a mainstream newspaper.
If by 'irresponsible', we mean people who are supposedly trying to bring down the government, then what do we make of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who, in writing their Pulitzer-Prize winning articles on Watergate in the Washington Post, brought down a President? Were they responsible reporters or irresponsible reporters? Did they serve American society well, or not?
These are the questions we should ponder when we talk about 'no freedom without responsibility'. I fully agree, but if the responsibility is just to the powers-that-be, then I wonder about that so-called freedom. Responsibility IS a huge burden but that burden is to society, not special interest groups.
Furthermore, if we mean to say that with more freedom, there should be more responsibility on the part of writers/bloggers/journalists, then is the converse also true? If there is less freedom, is there therefore less need for responsibility? At the moment, the situation seems to be 'not much freedom, lots of responsibility', as if to say, by giving up freedom of speech, we are being much more responsible. It's a curious logic supported only by the belief that people are by nature untrustworthy and irresponsible.Nobody ever thinks of themselves as irresponsible, but they are often quick to accuse others, especially if they disagree with them.
An example of this is when about a year ago, I wrote a column which caused a bit of a furore, primarily because the paper it appears in balked at publishing it.Although they did publish it a few days later, with some bits cut out, by that time, the column had gone all over the Net, attracting a lot more attention that it normally would have. There were of course people who disagreed with me, and they rightfully complained that their case was not being heard in the same medium, and their right to their opinion was being trampled on. But their argument faltered somewhat when they asserted that my editors should NOT have published my column at all in the first place! So they felt they had the right to use the free speech argument but I didn't.
Some people have pointed out that everybody has a right to seek redress through the courts if they feel they have been defamed. That's fine in theory.But have you ever seen any case brought against any media, print or broadcast, by people who do not already have money? I see newspapers defaming the poor and marginalised all the time, yet none of them have the means to sue the papers. (I will do another posting another time about specific cases.) So, that right is really tempered by resources to pursue such cases. Yet at the same time, these sorts of defamation of the poor can have far more devastating effects on them, than on the rich. It can cause people to be ostracised from their own communities, for instance, with no avenue for redress at all.
If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is that there is no such thing as 100% freedom of speech anywhere in the world. So no need to argue about that. The real point is, how far away from 100% are we? Are we 90%, 75%, 50%, 30%? We are 92nd out of 168 on the worldwide press freedom index.Does that say something about where we are? More importantly, what efforts do we make towards moving nearer the 100% mark? Never mind that it is unachievable, and even undesirable, but surely we can do better?
Lastly, when we have so many laws that restrict what we can say, does this impede or encourage responsibility in writing, whether in blogs or the mainstream papers? As Salman Rushdie says in his book set in Kashmir, Shalimar the Clown, "wherever information is tightly controlled, rumour becomes a valued alternative source of news." It is precisely because of the fear that these laws generate that people resort to surat layang, smses, emails and of course comments on blogs. If these laws are meant to ensure that people are responsible, how come only small fry are pursued for libellious smses, and not bigger fry who repeat smses as if they were true and actually caused people to take actions that may have caused harm? If we had an environment where people felt free to say what they think, within generally agreed limits ( eg no tolerance for any kind of racism), then perhaps we would not need to resort to blogs at all.
Update on Terra Soggy
Here's a report from a volunteer, who also sent these photos:
I was down in Johore last few days, teaming up with ANSARA people (Kuantan Chapter) as one of the volunteers to help out with the flood victims. We helped out in the Parit Sulong area (house cleaning, food stuff) and Kampong Kangkak Merlimau (food stuff, cooking stoves and clothings). Will appreciate it very much if you guys could write on this and the need for more volunteers in your next posting (especially you Marina, since your past postings and today's Musings column covered on this flood. You were right, when you wrote, "Seeing other people come and help has made some of them feel they are remembered and cared about, but the help must be sustainable and long term." ):
1. More volunteers needed
Many houses are still affected, with water level up to knee high due to houses sitting on a low level land with no outlet for the water to flow out. Until the water dries up (depending on the weather), no way can any cleaning up be conducted. Our team of over 50 volunteers were able to clean up 25 houses and many more still waiting! If people can't donate stuff, please be generous with their time and energy. Those victims are really in dire need of help, especially if the household consist of only the father with small children, single mom or old folks without any able-bodied adult staying with them. Since everybody there were practically affected and have their own trauma to deal with, getting help from their own neighbours for now would be impossible.
2. Tools for cleaning up
Cleaning up the houses can be an ardous and labourous, hampered even more without proper tools to work with. While all the teams were supplied by the organizer with; 1 mop, 2 'penyapu lidi', 3 plastic brooms with handles, 2 small floor brushes, 1 pail and cleaning detergent, they were not sufficient. I was lucky coz the team I was assigned to, brought their own PowerJet pump (1 unit) and 2 wiper-type cleaner with long handles which really helped us a lot with the cleaning up! Without that, it would have certainly going to take us longer to clean the mud. Having identified the problem, only later that night the organizer managed to buy 3 units of PowerJet pumps and some wiper-type cleaners. I don't know if they have a specific name for it, but I have enclosed a photo of it so you can include it in your blog.
Perhaps, by putting the 'Before & After' photos, your readers will get the idea on the real situation of the houses and why they really need us to go over and help out.
I thank you for not only being sensitive on their sufferings but also doing your bits to help.
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