Sunday, May 8, 2011

Why Mothers Should Rule the World


In times of great trauma and pain, it is often mothers who reach out and build peace. I salute Phyliss Rodriguez and Aicha Al-Wafi and all mothers like them all over the world who overcome differences in culture, class, lifestyle, religion and everything else in order to bring healing and peace to the world.


Happy Mother's Day!

29 comments:

  1. Dear Datin Paduka, Happy Mother's Day To You & Your Mother. May God Bless You Both Always With Good Health, Peace & Happiness.

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  2. Happy Mother's Day!
    Zamre Bin Ab. Wahab

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  3. Happy Mothers' Day Datin Paduka.
    May the Lord Bless You and Your Family. May you truly know Jesus
    in your life.

    Peace Be With You In Jesus Name

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  4. Datin, perhaps no one has commented on the video bcos the version needed is not available for many of us. I only see a blank space followed by the paragraph below.

    And D, Jesus & His Mother Is Pretty Much Alive In The Holy Al-Quran. The Bible is one of the five Holy Books Of Islam. One doesn't have to be Christian to know Jesus.

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  5. Oh really? That's strange because others have seen it. I'll check it.

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  6. I can't see why you can't see the video. But try this link: http://www.ted.com/talks/9_11_healing_the_mothers_who_found_forgiveness_friendship.html

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  7. D, I accidentally deleted your latest comment. Can you repost please?

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  8. It's almost May 13th and I've been seeing a lot of articles from Utusan fanning hatred towards Christian and ethnic Chinese. I hope you can write something about it especially tomorrow is May 13th.

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  9. Marina,

    If I may reply to Joshua Lopez


    I beg to differ Mr. Joshua.

    The Quran reduces Jesus to a Caricature
    not the Son of God. You may disagree on
    who Jesus is but don't confuse the efficacy
    of one book over the other.

    The Bible was canonized from 66 books (over
    25,000 manuscripts) and sieved through via
    textual criticism by theological scholars.
    The biblical narrative can be traced throughout
    these books. It is like a chain interlinking
    together.

    The Quran was originally written in the
    Quraiysh dialect and fragmented into 200
    variations. Hastily, put together by
    Caliph Uthman Infact, Uthman burnt the 199
    other variations so there isn't any critical
    textual comparisons that can be made today.
    Note there is also a Fatima (Shiite)
    version floating around along with a Syriac
    version that was discovered.

    Christians don't burn scriptures we disagree with.
    They are discarded as heresy by scholars and open
    to debate even decades later.

    That is the difference between the Bible and
    Quran

    Peace Be With You In Jesus Name

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  10. Greetings from Atlanta: City of Peace. Hello Ms. Mahathir. This is a beautiful Mother's Day video! 10,000 blessings to you for posting it:

    http://youtu.be/bKQA6I4BA7o

    Please visit Atlanta...

    Peace in all,

    John R. Naugle
    Founder, President & CEO
    Atlanta: City of Peace, Inc. (ACP)
    JRNaugle@ATLcityofpeace.org
    www.ATLcityofpeace.org

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  11. If the mothers , brothers and sisters of 9/11 victims can reach out to understand, to connect and to forgive ...why people who do not really know the victims can be so unforgiving ? so vengeful and so full of hatred ? This is indeed puzzling , no ? Let us learn from them ...shall we ?

    Happy Mother's Day

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  12. Kak

    You preach about religious tolerance; however, this recent onslaught against Christian and you've not wrote anything about it. Your silence only seem to agree with certain leaders that the Christian is threatening the Muslim and Malay power. Why have you not wrote against such negative statement against the Malaysian Christian? I fear recent negative statements will only result another infamous May 13th racial riots. Thus, I hope you'll write an article about it.

    Salam

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  13. Malaysian, it's because my life isn't on this blog anymore. It's on Facebook, Twitter, my columns and the many many talks I give everywhere. I don't have much time for this blog BECAUSE I am busy doing all these other stuff. Sorry, I have thought about writing something but I am busy writing so many speeches and columns that I don't have time. But if you think my 'silence' on this blog means what you think, then you must be a new reader.

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  14. Kak

    Actually, I'm not a new reader and I do know what you stand for. I just follow this blog and was not aware you've a column in the paper. Lastly, I'm just frustrated with things happening recently especially Ibrahim Ali threatening the Christian with the crussade. I'm sorry about it.

    Salam

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  15. Malaysian, I've had a column in The Star for more than 20 years.

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  16. A belated happy mother's day to you. For those of your readers who don't buy The Star, don't use facebook (I block it from my home network) and are not adept twitterati, would you consider adding your twitter feed to your blog? They have some nice widgets here:
    http://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets
    - I also thought you were just having quiet episodes. Some of us live in media villages and don't get out much.

    I'd be interested in your opinion (I see Kapil Sethi name-checking you in TMI today) on why FGM should be a distinct 'Female' issue rather than child genital mutilation a child issue. Is it a matter of parochial interest, or have I failed to understand something?

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  17. Sean, I can't add my twitter feed because my tweets are protected. I just like seeing who wants to follow me so I can keep politicians n cybertroopers out.

    Not sure I understand your question. I don't know of any male children undergoing genital mutilation. FGM is very much a women's rights issue because it affects females all their lives, not just when they are children.

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  18. Thanks for the twitter explanation!

    You don't consider male circumcision to be genital mutilation? I understand the trauma relating to FGM extending through women's lives, but I wondered (and added a comment to Kapil Sethi's article to this effect) if child genital mutilation isn't a more distinct issue because of the range of elective genital surgeries that adult women may undergo, plus the issue of consent on the part of the child being subjected to mutilation. The lifelong-suffering aspect of issues such as Child Abuse is not usually diminished by the 'Child' in the description.

    I'm sorry - this is very off-topic and not in the most pleasant of ways. I could wait for a more relevant article or follow a link to a more appropriate place to discuss the topic.

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  19. Datin, Heard that your mum has been hospitalized with an old knee injury pain. How is she doing now? Keeping her in my prayers.

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  20. I should have done some reading first. The 'circumcision' label confused me. I read the Wikipedia article on "Female genital cutting" and I now see there's an appalling difference in severity that really isn't accurately described by 'circumcision' at all. I think the issue is not just an urgent duty of care towards the victims and trying to prevent more of the same, but the task of overcoming some horrendous taboos in order to make people understand the true nature of the problem.

    Sorry to take up space in the comments area, I think perhaps the useful message is "I had no idea" - and I would usually consider myself comparatively well-informed. I wonder how common the misapprehension is?

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  21. Joshua,thanks. Mum was in hospital for treatment and physiotherapy for her knee but she's out now.

    Sean, no worries. It's a common misunderstanding and often FGM (or FGC) is referred to as female circumcision as if it was the equivalent of male circumcision. Male circumcision has some proven health benefits eg for HIV prevention, but FGM has none and in fact causes very severe health problems.

    In Malaysia there is a recent trend to promote 'female circumcision' among Muslim girls supposedly as a religious obligation, despite the fact that it is not mentioned in the Quran at all. Although it is nowhere near as severe as that done in Africa and the Middle East, the thinking is the same: to control female sexuality. There is however no evidence that it does that especially since it is done on infants and therefore most women grow up being completely unaware that they have been circumcised.

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  22. Datin, how could a female infant be subjected to female circumcision when it's not even mentioned in the Al-Quran? Yes, of late i often here about this ritual. Isn't it a gross violation of human rights? It's an infant we are talking about, it's very wrong.

    Why are social and human rights activist keeping mum about it? Awareness & Education is the answer.

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  23. Joshua, people do many things which are not in the Quran. That's the problem.

    SIS is doing some work on this. We are concerned that the National Fatwa Council has decreed that female circumcision is a must for Muslim women, even though they themselves (from papers presented at their meeting) found no evidence that this is required at all. There have even been cases of adult female converts being told they had to go for circumcision.

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  24. Hope all mothers stay healthy. You ask for a house, they give you a house. =)

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  25. Michelle, thanks for the invite. I am a member of WAO so you can invite me via their office. They will pass the invite to me.

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  26. Datin, Out of curiosity, its been a question on my mind for long, does WAO accept Male Membership?

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  27. D,
    Your words “Christians don't burn scriptures we disagree with. They are discarded as heresy by scholars and open to debate even decades later.
    That is the difference between the Bible and Quran”, smacks of sheer arrogance on your part.

    I have so much to say about this, yet it is not right to argue over this on Marina’s blog. So, let me just say that this is a gross misunderstanding by you. Please READ MORE. Perhaps you’ll come across history of heretics being burnt instead… now, that’s a real difference!

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  28. And mothers like the Pakistan and India PMs {whose names slipped my old mind now}.... where both were assassinated ....are the greatest mothers of all.

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