The meaning of social contract

All Malaysians have special rights

Azly Rahman May 26, 08 12:11pm

I believe we should look forward to institutionalising ‘special rights for all Malaysians’. The word ‘special’ is in itself special. Culturally it can either denote an enabling condition or a disabling one. In the study of religion, one is bestowed a special place for living life well or for doing good deeds. In educational studies, ‘special education’ caters for the needs of those with a disabling physical, emotional or cognitive condition. In all these, ‘special rights’ are accorded based on merit. One works hard to get special offers and into special places. In the doctrine of the ‘divine rights of kings’, one's special right is the birthright. Louis XVI of revolutionary France, Shah Jehan of Taj Mahal fame, Emperor Hirohito of Japan, Shah Reza Pahlavi of Revolutionary Iran, King Bumiphol Adulyadev, and the sultans of Melaka were ‘special people’ who designed institutions that installed individuals based on rights sanctioned through a ‘mandate of heaven’. Such people use specialised language to differentiate who is special and who is not. Court language is archaic, terse, meant to instill fear and to institutionalise special-ness. The language of the street or market is fluid, accommodating, meant to instill open-ness and institutionalise creativity at its best and further development of the ‘underclass’ at its worst. This continuum of language, power, and ideology is characteristic of histories of nations. In Malay history, istana language is enshrined in the hikayat and in Tun Seri Lanang's Sejarah Melayu. Street language used in Malay folklore and in bawdy poems, pantun and stories of Sang Kancil. Class consciousness, many a sociologist would say, dictates the special-ness of people across time and space. Historical-materialism necessitates the development of the specialised use and abuse of language. One can do a lot of things with words. Words can be deployed to create a sustainable and profitable master-slave relationship. A better argument Let us elevate the argument so that we will have a better view of what race, ethnicity, nationalism and cosmopolitanism means. I propose we review what “special rights of the Malays" mean in light of 50 years of Independence and post-March 8, 2008. I agree we must give credit to those working hard to "improve the psychological well-being of the Malays" and for that matter for any race to improve its mental wellness. This is important. This is a noble act. The question is: in doing so, do we want to plant the seeds of cooperation and trust - or racial discrimination and deep hatred? Herein lies the difference between indoctrination and education. These days, the idea of Ketuanan Melayu is going bankrupt, sinking with the bahtera merdeka. It works only for Malay robber barons who wish to plunder the nation by silencing the masses and using the ideological state apparatuses at their disposal. In the case of the BTN it is the work of controlling the minds of the youth. Its work should not be allowed any more in our educational institutions. It is time our universities especially are spared counter-educational activities, especially when they yearn to be free of the shackles of domination. Over decades, many millions of Malays and non-Malays have not been getting the right information on our nation's history, political-economy, and race relations. History that is being shoved into us or filter-funnelled down the labyrinth of our consciousness is one that is already packaged, biased, and propagandised by historians who became text-books writers. History need not be Malay-centric. Special rights for all Malaysians should be the goal of distributive and regulative justice of this nation, not the "special rights of a few Malays". History must be presented as the history of the marginalisd, the oppressed and the dispossessed of all races. We toil for this nation, as the humanist Paramoedya Ananta Toer would say, by virtue of our existence as anak semua bangsa ... di bumi manusia. Malaysia is a land of immigrants. In this regard we can learn from the former British colony called America. Whatever its shortcomings, it is a land of immigrants and is still evolving. A black man or a woman can become president. This is what America conceives itself to be and this is what Malaysian can learn from. Can a non-Malay become prime minster if he/she is the most ethical of all politicians in the country? No one particular race should stake a claim to Malaysia. That is an idea from the old school of thought, fast being abandoned. Each citizen is born, bred, and brought to school to become a good law-abiding and productive Malaysian citizen, is accorded the fullest rights and privileges and will carry his/her responsibility as a good citizen. That is what ‘surrendering one's natural rights to the state’ means. One must read Rousseau, Locke, Voltaire, and Jefferson to understand this philosophy. A bad government will not honour this - and will fall, or will sink like the bahtera merdeka. The history of civilisations provides enough examples of devastation and genocide as a consequence of violent claims to the right of this or that land based upon some idea of ‘imagined communities’. We must teach our children to make a history of peace among nations. This must be made into a new school of thought: of ‘new bumiputeraism’ that encompasses all and does not alienate any. Life is too short for each generation to fight over greed. The eleventh hour of human existence and our emergence in this world has brought about destruction as a consequence of our inability to mediate differences based on race, colour, creed, class and national origin. Each ethnic group thinks that it is more socially-dominant than the other. Each does not know the basis of its ‘self’. Each fails to realise its DNA-make up or gene map. Life is an existential state of beingness, so must history be conceived as such. Nationalism can evolve into a dangerous concept - that was what happened to Europe at the brink of the two World Wars. It happened in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and in Indonesia when Suharto fell. I argue that we must evolve in the historical presence of historical constructions. The past and the future is in the present. Let us no argue any more over this or those rights. Let us instead treat each other right.

Earthshaking historical facts!

Well ... that was a good diversion from those election news ...

A failed Malaysia?

Are we seeing a failed M'sia?
Azly Rahman | Mar 23, 09 12:55pm

I was born in a British military hospital in Singapore and grew up in a Malay kampong in Johor Bahru. I’ve moved from one realm of cultural experience to another, living in one enclave to the next in the process of being schooled and becoming an educator.


I’ve finally ended up in a truly multi-cultural town a half-an-hour’s drive from New York City where I have lived for several years.


Sometimes I wonder if all this make me a cultural construction of multi-ethnicity or a if I am still a Malay. Is the question of being Malay merely academic by now?

I think I am still that. I still speak Malay fluently and write in Jawi quite beautifully, although my almost half of my life has been ‘schooled’ by American education, constantly exploring the ideas of America the pastoral – the hard core Jeffersonian ideal drawn from Humanism and the Enlightenment Period.

At times too I would still plow through representative texts of ancient Malay philosophy and to situate the core ideas within newer perspectives I constantly acquire, so that as the poet WS Rendra would say, we will always “reconsider traditions”.

Here in the US, I teach a course called ‘Cross-Cultural Perspectives’, trying to engage my students in the works of Edward Said (right), Clifford Geertz, Renato Rosaldo, and the like.

I find myself again having to interrogate my subjectivity and objectivity as a culturally-constructed being in my attempt to play the role of Socrates in dialectical conversations with students in our exploration of the multiple meaning of culture. Each semester is a learning experience, teaching me newer ideas of what culture, race, and ethnicity mean.

Yearning to come home to the kampong where I grew up, I am still waiting for a time to share new ideas that will help Malaysian students transform realities by turning them into radical thinkers and social reconstructionists with deep interest in transcultural philosophies. We need such a revolution in thinking.

In August, we will engage in yet another ritual of a nation perpetually in narration: the Merdeka celebrations. Consider the proclamation from the Rukunegara:

Our Nation, Malaysia is dedicated to: Achieving a greater unity for all her people; maintaining a democratic way of life; creating a just society in which the wealth of the nation shall be equitably distributed; ensuring a liberal approach to her rich and diverse cultural tradition, and building a progressive society which shall be oriented to modern science and technology.

We, the people of Malaysia, pledge our united efforts to attain these ends, guided by these principles:

* Belief in God
* Loyalty to King and country
* Upholding the constitution
* Sovereignty of the law, and
* Good behaviour and morality

These words, constructed and proclaimed in 1970, after the bloody riots of May 13, 1969, contain internal contradictions if we analyse it today.

Country in deep distress

If the proclamation is our benchmark of Merdeka, we must ask these questions:


* How have we fostered unity when our government promotes racism thorough racialised policies and by virtue of the fact that our politics survive on the institutionalisation of racism?


* How have we maintained a democratic way of life, when our educational, political, and economic institutions do not promote democracy in fear that democratic and multi-cultural voices of conscience are going to dismantle race-based ideologies?


* How are we to create a just society in which the wealth of the nation is equitably distributed, when the New Economic Policy itself was designed based on the premise that only one race need to be helped and forever helped, whereas at the onset of Independence poverty existed among Malaysians of all races?


* How are we to promote a liberal approach to diverse culture and tradition when our education system is run by politicians who are championing Ketuanan Melayu alone and ensure that Malay hegemony rules in all levels and all spheres of education, from pre-school to graduate levels?


* How are we to build a progressive society based on science and technology when our understanding of the role of science and society do not clearly reflect our fullest understanding of the issues of scientific knowledge, industrialisation and dependency?

Are we seeing a failed Malaysia?

Across the board, the country is in distress: education is in shambles, polarised, and politicised; the economy is in a constant dangerous flux; the judiciary is in deep crisis of confidence; public safety is a major concern due the declining confidence in the police; and politics remain ever divided along racial and religious lines.

The ‘transition to power’ that we are seeing is an unwelcome testament to a country inching towards a quagmire.

This is the Malaysian version of Dorian Gray, one that shows the image of a vibrant nation of progress and harmony, and racial tolerance and a robust economy, but is a deformed Malaysia that is merely a continuation of a feudal and colonial entity.

The colonised have become the coloniser. The state has become a totalitarian entity using the ideological state apparatuses to silence the voices of progressive change. The nationalists have nationalised the wealth of the nation for themselves and perhaps siphoned off the nation’s wealth internationally.

This is the picture of a broken promise made by those who fought for Independence; the voices of the early radical and truly nationalistic Malays, Chinese, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans, Sikhs, etc. of the Merdeka movement.

It is this promise that, 50 year hence, has been broken by those who capitalise on the extreme ends of the politics of identity.

How then must Malaysians celebrate the next Merdeka Day? By flying the Jalur Gemilang upside down? Or put justice in its place by engineering a multi-cultural jihad against all forms of excesses in the abuse of power? To de-toxify the nation and begin with Year Zero of our cultural revolution through the gentle enterprise called peace and multi-cultural education?

Herein lies education as a solution. I believe we need a radical overhaul of everything, philosophically speaking. We have the structures in place but need to replace the human beings running the system.

We have deeply racialised human beings running neutral machines. We have ethnocentric leaders running humane systems. We have allowed imperfection and evolving fascism to run our system. We have placed capitalists of culture behind our wheels of industrial progress; people who have the dinosaur brain of ketuanan this or that.

We have created these monsters and unleashed them to run our educational, political, economic, and cultural systems. We have Frankenstein-ised our Merdeka.

We need to re-educate ourselves by reinventing the human beings we will entrust to run our machines. We must abolish the system and create a new one.

We must be aware that class in the broadest and most comprehensive sense of the word is what we are dealing with and through class and cultural analyses we can arrive at a different path to a newer Merdeka.

In this coming Merdeka, 40 years after May 13 1969, the rakyat armed with wisdom of a new era must speak softly but carry a big stick.

Our struggle for a renewed Merdeka has only just begun. Malaysians have no choice. We are multi-culturalists now. We must abandon race-based politics.

POETRY: Shelley, Ode to the West Wind

POETS: Percy Shelley, Romantic Period

America and I : It'll be called One World Trade Center

Vote Asimo for next Malaysian president

In the age of the smart machines, I wonder if corruption can be partly eliminated if we create humanoids to run a data-driven political system in a country that will inevitably evolve into a republic of virtue run by techno-mystics.

Frankenstein was a nightmare, created out of Man's obsession with Electricity. Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley an accomplished writer of the Romantic Period and wife to the great pantheistic poet of the Romantic tradition Percy Byshe Shelley, is a novel about the break between the romantic and scientific world.

Asimo may not be a Frankenstein. It may be the next wave to replace human beings as politicians. Human beings, in their lowest form imbued with wealth and power and susceptible to greed and intoxicated by fame and fortune, are a messy invention. The lowly ones are the messiest. The "insanul-kamils" (the perfect human being who 'knows') are not. But they are very difficult to find these days, to help run republics of virtue. They are easy to to find in ancient times, when Technology still is not the dominant and colonizing reality Humanity lives in.

Asimo may be a good choice, perhaps a century from now. But the groundwork must begin. For the creation of humaniods that will not belong to any political party.

Agi Idup Agi Mengelabah, or A corrupting life is not worth living

To my Sarawak friends, I have always been fascinated by the phrase "Ai idup, agi ngelaban" but I have always though also an alter slogan "agi idup agi mengelabah" to signify how corrupt the world we are living in and how we will continue to live in a world of corruption.

Agi idup agi mengelabah ... as long as we are homo economicus (economic beings) living in a world constructed by those who have the means to shape our reality, we will not know our role as masters of our own destiny and makers of our own history. This is an existentialist moment in each one of us. Of alienation, despair, and oppresion. Of corruption that permeates into the everyday affairs of men.

Socrates's maxim. "An unexamine life is not worth living" is worth exploring here. Malaysians are entering a period of devastating exuberance, a depressing hope, a dystopic utopia, and a rhetorical realpolitik -- a world full of contradictions and widespread corrupt practices in which "might is right" and the law of the postmodern urban jungle rules.

Some ago I wrote about this. Here is an excerpt:

..........

Hai orang-orang yang beriman, makanlah di antara rezeki yang baik yang Kami berikan kepadamu dan bersyukurlah kepada Allah, jika benar hanya kepada-Nya kamu berserah (Al-Baqarah:172).

This comes from the website of the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA), whose slogan is Tingkatkan integriti, Hapuskan rasuah. I am tired of contradictions. And of slogans. The nation is tired of them too.

Who but the ACA can we turn to report corrupt people, corrupt practices? We have become a pathetic nation made helpless by the revelations we are reading daily. Things are falling apart.Yet we have a general election coming - one in which even the Election Commissions itself cannot claim to be independent. How many dozen ‘Royal Commissions’ of Inquiry have we asked to be set up since Independence to help us uncover truths - how many have materialised?

We no longer have any shame as a nation. Even worse, we still vote for vultures.

Corruption runs in the veins of the body politic - in business, politics, religion, education, culture, etc. Even in our mind. Even in our language. Consider the Approved Permit issue, the half-bridge to Singapore, and teh multitude of cases in the archive of the anti-corruption agency ... you name it...we do not know where these cases are going. History tells us that we will not see consequences, nor see anyone resigning voluntarily.

We do not have any shame.

Unlike the Japanese.Even our universities are seeing corrupt practices. We see students thrown out for speaking up, academicians axed for taking a stand, lecturers made to feel good about how moral and benevolent the government is, and how academic-cronyism is taking shape.Conferences in public universities are about discussing feel-good themes, presenting papers to make feel-good communalistic ideologies feel elevated, and going into academic detail of how to parrot government propaganda better.

How do we expect to produce critical thinkers among graduates when critical analyses about our society are seldom produced and presented. From our public universities to our think tanks, we see lethargy in the way we view society and politics.Our consciousness has been corrupted by the fear, fantasy and fetish we have structured into our mind though a funneling process of depthlessness of thought.

Only if we had the Malaysian version of the great Argentine medical-doctor turned social messiah, Che Guevara, as education minister, We would see true transformation of the education to fight corruption of the soul, mind, and flesh.

TAKE FIVE: The state is a necessary Evil

EXCERPT FROM AN ESSAY ON TOTALITARIANISM AND TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM

The rise of the technocratic state
by Azly Rahman


...

We talk about ‘technology’ and ‘technological progress’ as if technology is neutral and does not have a life-force breathed into it.

Technologies are artifacts that have politics and are governed by rules of political-economy. Technologies have inert human labour fossilised in them; buried by the historical-materialism of the way we evolve as human beings.

The computer is technology that was developed by the Pentagon. The Internet technology was developed by the Pentagon, the same manner other communication technologies were developed by funding from the Department of Defense.

Advanced technologies have historically been developed through special projects to perfect the technologies of Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligences (C3 I). The Star Wars Program of the current administration, to develop technologies of war in space, a continuation of Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars Program, is being developed by the Pentagon.

What human beings get on earth are technological spin-offs. Computers are spin-offs. The fastest ones are used to operate inter-continental ballistic missiles. They are used to drop cluster bombs and design better daisy cutter bombs.

Will new media (still) triumph over totalitarianism?

Any country undergoing cybernetic changes but at the same time secretly installing totalitarianism will have a difficult period managing change. It is like allowing Otto Von Bismark or Josef Stalin to walk the length of Bintang Walk, KL or Times Square, NY cross-dressed in high heels.

Difficult period.

Unless there is no longer Open Sky Policy. No longer surveillance satellites up above colonizing minds down below. No longer broadband to expand minds or limit our perception of reality. No longer high-speed means to disseminate revolutionary ideals.

The Internet will curb the enthusiasm for leaders to become totalitarian. It will tame regimes. It will bring them down.

Cyberspace is a strange world that brings together secretly the consciousness of men.

A keen observer of the primacy of Digital and Cybernetic Literacy in Malaysia will conclude that something interesting is happening -- as revolutions vacillate between the beautiful and idealistic cybernetic world and the ugly, mundane, and chaotic physical world. Especially in the world of Malaysian politics. An ethnographer of MUD (multiuser domains) will have a field day reading online postings and finding patterns of counter-hegemony.

Already Print technology is dying a slow death. Broadcast Technology is now the main suspect for poisoning the minds of the masses. Radio died a long time ago. Video killed the radio star, said a rock group. Earlier Gutenberg succeeded in printing a thousand copies of the King James Bible, replacing Oral Literacy and speeding up colonialism hence.

Who's afraid of the "Virginia Wolf' of Cyberspace?

I once wrote a 'poem' below on the fantasy called 'technology' -- Digital Technology.

An ode to bloggers

Azly Rahman Mar 19, 07 12:41pm

Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Denis Diderot, French Enlightenment thinker There was non among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery. 'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley-Wollstonecraft Sometime ago, after reading Plato's narration of a conversation between King Thamus and the inventor Theuth concerning the impact of new technologies on society, after reading media guru Neil Postman's work Technopoly, and after deep reflection on the idea of the Luddites (a movement that "raged against the machine" during the Industrial Revolution), I penned verses which I find suitable to honour Malaysian bloggers in their onward march towards creating a spectre that will haunt the state-owned print media. Here it goes: P H A E D R U S II The Last Judgement of Thamus Circa A.D. 2020 Lines composed near the banks of Hudson River, New York city Background notes: They say that there dwelt at Naucratis in Egypt one of the old gods of that country, to whom the bird they call Ibis was sacred, and the name of the god himself was Theuth. Among his inventions were number and calculation . . . and, above all, writing. . . . To [the king, Thamus] came Theuth and exhibited his inventions . . . when it came to writing, Theuth declared: "There is an accomplishment, my lord the kind, which will improve both the wisdom and the mentory of the Egyptians. I have discovered a sure receipt for memory and wisdom." "Theuth, my paragon of inventors," replied the king, "the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practise it. . . . Those who acquire [writing] will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful. . . . What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not for memory . . . ( Phaedrus, 95-96) And it was in the year 2020 In a not-too-distant cybercity As Socrates' narratives on cybertechnology Laments King Thamus's concern for the fate of academies And Theuth my inventor par excellence What say you concerning educational excellence? Of the methods and principles of teaching Brought about by new technologies of communicating? O' Thamus, Wise King of Cyberjaya Indeed our children will undergo Karma Of one imbued with Dharma Which will bring us all to Moksha Karma is Rebirth Dharma is Devotion and Duty And Moksha is art of being one with Creation Of which educational practice will assume a new reality This invention called blogging Of which for many ages we have waited so patiently Will transform the meaning of Reality and Democracy as it marries Virtuality More than what print media has guaranteed O' wise King Thamus We are witnessing the death of Papyrus the demise of Gutenberg legacy As we witness the birth of PERSONACRACY A deeply personalized form of postmodern democracy In the brilliance of anarchy To be cultivated with the media of blogging By way of this ideology called PERSONACRACY, O' King Our children, the true song of democracy they will sing Of which the teacher will die a slow death Like the first teacher Socrates whose fate was a choice he once had Our children will be Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu The Creator, Destroyer, and the One who Renews Our children will make history and create Knowledge Destroy paradigms and like Vishnu, preserve what is old and what is new They will be Renaissance men and women In their mind neural connections will be made, synapses will be woven And the boundaries of the Real and the Imagined we can no longer ascertain In this onward march towards Virtuality Classrooms will cease to exist nor too the concept of teaching The sage of Russia Illich will be singing In honor of this day when education means deschooling O' Thamus wise ruler of Cyberjaya The days wherein authorities rule capital cities Will be gone with the advent of my invention called blogging Pedagogy will be replaced with METAPHYSICAL TRANSITION THEORIES And Plato's academy will be history Buried underneath the magnificence of blogging Gone will be the idea of faculties In their place will emerge knowledge patterned like fractal geometries And Chaos will be the order of the day And Complexity will be king of pedagogies For the sage Mandelbrott did once spoke Of the patterns inherent in knowledge and wisdom O' Theuth my kingdom's most honored inventor, What say you of the blogger's impact on the teacher? One who holds the key to any civilization's treasure And who guards the principles of a moral character? Wise King Thamus, this is my conjecture: My invention is Frankensteinish in nature Aren't we already at the end of history? Wherein the Knower and the Known has no longer a boundary? This technology will destroy authorities Including values we guard with jealousy Slain like the dragon in Beowulf's story Buried with Socrates and Dante Alighieri A further elaboration concerning the death of authority: O' King, I call this an Age of Subalternity In which we will witness the dawn of PERSONACRACY Of which with the help of blogging, the child constructs his customized version of democracy O' Theuth Master Inventor Yours is a song of conjectures For, can you as a creator Be the judge of what good and bad blogging will bring into our future? My greatest apologies Wisest of all Kings Do you not remember that we are in the year 2020? In which kingdoms have been crushed under the weight of technologies of virtual realities? And you dear king - are you not already ancient history? You and your kingdom destroyed by technologies of Virtuality?

Bahasa Melayu champions confused? Bahasa bahana bangsa?

I respect the views of the champions of the Malay language in their overzealousness to stop the teaching of Maths and Science in English. I do not think they need to be investigated by the authorities for being strong advocates of it. But I cannot agree with them.

Being a speaker of Johor Malay and even trained to write well in Jawi when I was a kid, and having gone through my studies both in English and in Bahasa Melayu, I must say that the language nationalists are getting confused on the issue.

I have not read in detail the research conducted by the group in collaboration with several universities. I would like to read its sampling, methodology, and most importantly ideology governing the intention to conduct the research.

At this juncture, But I have this to say:


The importance of the English Language as still, the lingua franca. The reality is that English is perceived a language of the colonial masters. The protest against it is giving our children the reason not to try harder in a language that is all around them. Teachers are given the license to give up without much trying.

We are going downhill neglecting this language. The standard of English in the our system nowadays is fast declining. We have too many adults in society giving the wrong message to children. These adults live in their nationalist past whereas the young ones are to be prepared for a cosmopolitan future.

For who/whom does nationalism serve then?

Could these protesters be hypocrites and betrayers of the rights of the child to be multilingual? Blind nationalists should start listening to English teachers.

Or consider my proposition below:

Bahasa Melayu these days have indeed lost its "spiritual core" and now playing the role of a language utilized to colonize each other. Just analyze the long-winded salutation and the over-glorification of human beings embedded in the language of formal speeches delivered in the Malay language. Just look at court language and think of how much dehumanization is embedded in the way human being relates to one another. Language, power, ideology at play.

The powerless kowtows to the powerful through language and "communicative competence" and lives in such a reality all their lives. Those who owns the material means owns the means of deploying language to their advantage, unconsciously.

Should the slogan Bahasa jiwa bangsa should be replaced by Bahasa boleh membahayakan bangsa?

Maybe ...

On the study of semiotics -- a review

On the study of semiotics
by Azly Rahman



[excerpt from a paper on hegemony and cybernetics, written at Columbia University, circa 2004]

Much of the writings on the origin, development, and refinement of semiotics lie in the field of linguistics and the study of the way language structures, restructures, or alters reality. Plato’s collection of dialogues on Socrates brings awareness to the idea of reality versus appearance in how we conceive and perceive existence. There is imperfection in existence since human beings are thought to live a mediated life. Plato in his work on this subject, especially in Phaedo (Plato, 1954/1961) and The Republic (Plato, 1993) believed that there is a perfect and an imperfect world known respectively as, Essence and Forms.

This theory of knowledge, known popularly as “The Doctrine of Reminiscence” derived from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave proposes that humanity is thought to be conditioned by a mediated world of signs and symbols that cloud true consciousness (Plato). The Christian notion of “word becomes flesh” (Rahner, 1985), the Islamic idea that the Koran is a book of signs (Armstrong, 1993; Cleary, 1993; Nasr, 1964; Schimmel, 1985), and that it is believed that the human struggle in this world is a “jihad” or a constant and theologically-demanded struggle against falsehood in accordance with what is decreed by the book of signs, and the Hindu belief that the whole world is a manifestation of the syllable “Om” (Radhakrishnan & Moore, 1957)—all these are the notions of the centrality of signs and symbols in analyzing the phenomena of existence itself, when looked at from the point of view of theology.

Hence, the Platonic and religious perspectives of the individual in his/her environment were meant to explain, in genres such as prose and poetry, the forces that define the subjective experience of existence (Abdulla, 2000; Buber, 1958; Kegan, 1982). Writings on the idea of humanity and signs and symbols continue to be produced in subsequent periods having their parallel development in the historical march of literature and philosophy.

Writers in the Romantic tradition, particularly Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth write about the superiority of the human intellect, sense awareness, and the Platonic God (Abrams, 1971) poetizing and narrating the predicament and fate of humanity at the advent of the Industrial Revolution. One might argue that the Romantic period in Western literature precursored the age of Western existential thought of which France and French Algeria for examples, became fertile grounds of powerful analyses concerning the subjectivity of humanity in the face of the structures it lives in (Camus, 1975; Fanon, 1967; Memmi, 1957/1965; Sartre, 1975).

In the twentieth century, Humanity as it exists in history and materiality, continues to be a theme of philosophical inquiry. The question of the influence of signs and symbols on consciousness and how they are situated within the material environment the individual is in, is further explored either directly or indirectly especially by existentialist philosophers and writers such as Camus, Kafka, Kiekergaard, and Sartre, (Kaufmann, 1975) and in plays written in the genre of Absurd Theatre by playwrights such as Beckett and Ionesco (Esslin, 2001; Matthews, 1974). The idea of existentialism and the human condition, particularly concerning the meaningfulness of existence in the face of human conditions such as hunger, poverty, discrimination, war, and oppression as written by French philosophers (e.g. Sartre, 1975) became a common theme of inquiry in the arts and humanities.

In much earlier writing on this subject, one can find inspiration from the radically existentialist philosophies that grew from a critique of Marxism (see for example, Bakunin, 1953). In Southeast Asia, works of literature especially in the decades characterized by the struggle against colonialism, reflect existentialist themes that attempt to put the human self as victims of systems of signs and symbols created by those who owns the means of intellectual, cultural, and material production (see for example Rendra,1979; Toer, 1993). Contemporary Marxist scholars continue to link the necessity for the existence of signs and symbols to formation, development, proliferation, and sustenance of ideology (Eagleton, 1991).

As the twentieth century comes to a close, the field of semiotics began to emerge as an analytical discipline in the study of how language liberates or oppresses. One can now be introduced to terms such as “social semiotics,” “discourse analysis,” “critical discourse analysis,” and others that attempt to suggest that researchers look at signs and symbols from a more sophisticated structuralist perspective in order to further understand the human condition particularly in the age of cybernetics wherein raging philosophical debates is taking place on how the self is a product of a mediated process; one that is not only conditioned by the media (Chomsky, 1989, 2001; Gitlin, 1983; Parenti, 1993) but also by the Internet (Turkle, 1997).

In the emerging field of Cultural Studies media theorists writing in the tradition of the Frankfurt School of Social Research (Geuss, 1981; Jay, 1973; Kellner, 1989), and those schooled in French Structuralism see the study of humanity in the ideological and built environment as imperative (see for examples Ang, 1985; de Certeau, 1984; Hall, 1993; Jameson, 1988, 1991; Lefebvre, 1996; Williams, 1977). And theorists trained in the Soviet school of “social semiotics” see the field as valuable and inseparable to the study of human beings and cybernetics (Ivanov, 1977).

Citing names such as Barzini, de Saussure, Durkheim, Godel, and Pierce as pioneering contributors, Lekomcev (1977) for example, writes about the multivariate fields the study of semiotics has evolved from. It is also believed that the field of semiotics has its origin in the work of the Russian philosopher Volosinov (Eagleton, 1991). Others have written about the study of “texts” as socially discursive formations (see for example Fairclough, 1992); drawing inspiration from literary themes that conceive the human experience as narrative pieces that tells stories with a major plot and countless subplots, or in terminologies popularly known as Grand and Subaltern narratives.

In a similar vein, Said (1978) though not necessarily a semiotician wrote on the idea that perceptions can be shaped by one’s cultural and ideological backgrounds that consequently shape the production of knowledge, as in the case of the Western perception and conception of the “Orient.” Semiotics, nonetheless might arguably begin with the work of Saussure (1916/1983) and is developed further by, amongst major semioticians, Eco (1976) and Kristeva (1980).

My methodology in looking at social phenomena is informed by such development of semiotics described in the preceding paragraphs. In studying the origin of new cities and technopoles such as Cyberjaya, I take the perspective of methodological design from such a notion of “texts” and its inter-textuality as Kristeva (1980) would analyze, and how concepts such as power, language, and action inter-relates. Hence, the methodology employed includes the analyses of the political actor, corporate brochures, policy speech texts, and photographs of the physical landscape and inscriptions in the area of the MSC. These are the sources of triangulation I used in reading of the multi-textual signs and symbols and how they in turn, can and ought to be analyzed for example, as many a Critical Theorist might propose, through the methodological lens of ideologikritik (see Habermas, 1971).




REFERENCES APPEAR IN A LONGER VERSION OF THIS PAPER

Umno needs a "Gandhiji Restoration"

I disagree with the idea of a Meiji Restoration for any political party. I think it should be a 'gandhiji' revolution the least. Gandhi taught us so much about meeting the needs of the poor and abolishing the caste and class system.

Gandhi taught the world to meet basic needs first rather than our greed. The nationalism of a Gandhiji Restoration will be about the reconstruction of capitalism, militarism, and racism as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would propose. Dr. King was greatly inspired by American transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau and Henry Wodsworth Longfellow. Dr. King was inspired by Gandhi as well.

So, a Gandhiji Restoration must all Malaysian political parties undergo, not a Meiji Restoration. Anything less than this will be a cliche of the postindustrial tribalistic world.

Travel notes: Oxford University, Museum of the History of Science, Part 1

A few years ago I was at a two-week conference on Cultural Theory presenting a paper on hegemony and cybernetics at Oxford University. In-between those idea-sharing sessions I visited several place around the 1000-year old campus. Below is one -- The Museum of the History of Science, where I saw amongst others, one of Albert Einstein's blackboard. Indeed such blackboards fascinate me.

Great Dialogue from the Bhagavad Gita.

I have taught the Bhagavad Gita in translation, in a course called Cross Cultural Perspectives. I find it a fascinating philosophical text that speaks to our predicament in this age of illusion, alienation, despair, complexity, and chaos. Here is the English-translated Gita in detail:

http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/index-english.html

Stimulus package website: lesson from America

Stimulus packages demand transparency -- to the max. The public/taxpayer needs to know where the money is going to. The US government has set up such a website:

http://www.recovery.gov/

In Malaysia, beware the ides of March...

Study Malay Magic to understand Malay politics

Study Malay magic?

Alright, that hopefully caught you attention to read W.W. Skeat's 1900 publication of Malay Magic. At a time when Malay politicians are in a heightened mood for higher form of superstition and hires more expensive shamans, pawangs, dukuns, bomohs, etc. to win elections, perhaps it's necessary to read Skeat.

But seriously, Malays should leave superstition behind and read Plato's Republic as a start -- to grasp a better understanding of the practice of that noble undertaking called politics.

And, please make those bomohs jobless...jampi menteras are the most potent opiate of the masses. For Muslims, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) warned against the soothsayers and those who forge smart partnerships with Evil through black magic.

Ah... time to listen to Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman" and "Superstitious"




Skeat - Malay Magic - Complete MUST DOWNLOAD FOR ILLUSTRATIONS!

THREE TRANSLATIONS OF THE QURANIC (MEKKAN) SURAH ON WARDING OFF EVIL...

2. AL-FALAQ (THE DAYBREAK, DAWN)

Total Verses: 5
Revealed At: MAKKA

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

113.001
YUSUFALI: Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of the Dawn
PICKTHAL: Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the Daybreak
SHAKIR: Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn,

113.002
YUSUFALI: From the mischief of created things;
PICKTHAL: From the evil of that which He created;
SHAKIR: From the evil of what He has created,

113.003
YUSUFALI: From the mischief of Darkness as it overspreads;
PICKTHAL: From the evil of the darkness when it is intense,
SHAKIR: And from the evil of the utterly dark night when it comes,

113.004
YUSUFALI: From the mischief of those who practise secret arts;
PICKTHAL: And from the evil of malignant witchcraft,
SHAKIR: And from the evil of those who blow on knots,

113.005
YUSUFALI: And from the mischief of the envious one as he practises envy.
PICKTHAL: And from the evil of the envier when he envieth.
SHAKIR: And from the evil of the envious when he envies

Our rights -- from the UN Charter

Article 25.

• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
• (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

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Article 26.

• (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
• (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
• (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

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Article 27.

• (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
• (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

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Article 28.

• Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

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Article 29.

• (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
• (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
• (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

^ Top

Article 30.

• Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

URGENT MESSAGE: Malaysians must master the English language

Although Bahasa Melayu is enshrined in the Constitution as the official language and there is a protest going on against the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English, we must not send the wrong message that the lingua franca is to be shunned.

Malaysians must master the English language and being competent in it should not be a problem -- the language is everywhere. Too much emotions is being stirred to rally the masses against this language of egalitarianism.

Sending the wrong message to the kampong kids will mean that they and their teachers will never see the importance of English.

Come back to our senses. Why not improve the teaching of English in all schools instead. Even in our local universities, college students are not yet proficient in the language enough to get them through interviews.

Privatized water -- whose idea?

One of the mysteries of modern life is this question: why is water the very basic necessity of life privatized?

Another is privatized health care. Those who cannot pay will be left to suffer.

Where did we get these ideas?

We must revolt against all these.

De-evolving into "little brown brothers"

De-evolving into “Little brown brothers”
by Azly Rahman

"... An Umno lawyer is understood to have been instructed by the Barisan Nasional (BN) party to seek advice from a Queen’s Counsel in London in an effort to break the constitutional impasse in Perak. …The lawyer is said to have left for London yesterday to meet with an unnamed QC even as the question over the legitimacy of the current MB Datuk Zambry Abdul Kadir is already before the courts here…. British lawyers are occasionally instructed in courts here but only when the expertise is not available locally. … It is not clear if Umno will want to have a QC represent them in court in the lawsuit filed by Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin, who maintains he remains the Perak mentri besar…. Since the 1980s QCs have rarely been granted approval to appear before Malaysian courts although clients are free to seek their advice. … In 2006, Cherie Blair, the wife of Tony Blair and a prominent QC, was denied her day in Malaysian court when the Federal Court dismissed her application to appear on behalf of Fawziah Holdings in a dispute with Metramac over a tolled highway contract. ..."
-- From Leslie Lau, The Malaysian Insider, March 1 2009

We have sent a Malaysian astro-tourist into space. We have crossed the English Channel. We have sailed solo around the world. We have seen a woman climb Mount Everest. We have designated all our institutions world-class. We declared “British Last” as a policy many decades ago. We took over Sime Darby in that famous dawn raid. We declared “Buying British Last”. We cursed Tony Blair for his role in bombing of Iraq off its sovereign political map.

And now we are becoming “Little Brown Brothers” again?

Colonialism is pervasive and cancerous. It is an ideology that legitimizes colonization, slavery, dependency, and imperialism. Different epochs of colonialism style themselves differently.

Colonialism shapes the mind and consciousness and turns the body into mini-temples of colonialism - turning what the Algerian thinker and psychiatrist Albert Memmi called "the colonized into becoming like the colonizer”, in taste, language and disposition.

The process of turning the colonized into colonizers is a complex yet discernible one. This is how is goes.

First, the Empire must study the resource-rich area to be colonized. Second, use power and knowledge to catalogue all aspects of the lives of the natives. Next, study the local chieftains, sultans, kapitan, rajah or any leader of the natives. Study their strengths and weaknesses by going into their psyche and the system of social dominance they have created to sustain their power. Next, know what these local leaders want and how to create more ‘wants’.

Patrol their waters in a display of military might. If possible, as in the historical account of Kuala Batu (Quala Batoo) in the mid 1700s, use the word "terrorists" to describe the pirates of the Malacca Sultanate, and crush them in order to create more inroads into the area to be colonised.

Use "economic terms" to describe the areas to be colonised. For example, ‘Spice Islands’ (The Nusantara) ‘Cape Horn’ (Africa), Gold Coast (Africa) Ivory Coast (Africa), Silicon Valley (California), Multimedia Super Corridor (Malaysia) and the latest ‘Iskandar Development Region’ (Johor) and perhaps the Johor Disneyland, should it come into being to complement Singapore's casinos.

When these areas are earmarked for conquest, make early contact with warring factions in order to make alliances. Divide and conquer is the strategy - then, now, and forever. Create maps that will define who will own what. In politics it is called gerrymandering. Refine the map as colonies are created. The natives, including the sultan, rajah, kapitan and village chiefs will not understand maps as these artifacts of power are of a different literacy genre. The natives are used to literacy of the Oral tradition. Maps are of Print Literacy.

Even the concept of space and time between the coloniser and the colonised are different. It depends on the concept of ‘the clock’, alien to the natives. Technology of ‘time-telling’ and ‘time-keeping’ varies among nations. ‘Chronos’ is a subjective concept. Whoever controls the more modern concept of ‘chronos’ controls the means of defining which native is the laziest. It all boils down to the mode of production and reproduction. All this must be done with one's mastery of the political philosophy of Machiavelli.

Finally, when the natives are colonised, turn them into images of the coloniser through indoctrination, education and the ideology of consumerism. Write history for them or, in the case of Africa, get Hollywood to create Tarzan movies to be shown to Africans and to tell them why they cannot govern themselves. Let them learn that only the diamond dealer Cecil Rhodes can perform miracles for Africa such as calling a nation ‘Rhodesia’.

In each and every independent nation, we will see the colonized transforming into colonizers.

Good advice: Learning English is like jazz

Wynton Marsalis brings his jazz mastery to North Jersey
Monday, March 16, 2009
BY ALFA GARCIA
NorthJersey.com
Staff Writer



For Wynton Marsalis, improvising jazz is just as good as speaking English. At New York University’s commencement ceremony in 2007, the trumpet virtuoso’s keynote address was a 10-minute impromptu number that brought the crowd to a raucous standing ovation. After the final note, he simply bowed and returned to his seat.


During the last 10 minutes of an interview, he bent over a piano in a hotel room in Minneapolis, wedged a cellphone between his jaw and shoulder and started playing a pared-down version of Robert Johnson’s blues tune “Come on in My Kitchen” while imparting some choice lessons on improvisation.


“It’s exactly like learning how to speak English,” said the New Orleans native. “You hear somebody else talk, and at first, you’ll hesitate. Then [you speak] broken words, then phrases, then sentences. But first you have to listen to people doing it on instinct.” Now his playing began to differ from the melody, complex chords and a bright rhythm taking over.


To press his point, he set the phone down, picked up his trumpet and played “Little Liza Jane,” a two-chord American traditional with a simple melody. Before long, he had layered harmonies on a swing version of the tune and breezed through a “fiddle” version with elongated notes before closing with a staccato bebop rendition of the same progression. Oh yes – we bet improvisation is just that easy.


“You can’t get frustrated with yourself,” he said between excerpts. “Don’t think that it’s something you’re going to learn overnight.”These words from a man who started his career at 14 playing solo with the New Orleans Philharmonic Orchestra, and who, at 18, ditched two years of classical study at Juilliard to play jazz with Art Blakey.


Now 47, Marsalis is the artistic director for Jazz at Lincoln Center and the musical director for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the 15-piece resident big band whose members vary in age and experience.


Some are veterans of the jazz scene, like sax/clarinet player Joe Temperley, who played in the bands of Woody Herman and Humphrey Lyttelton, while most of the younger members Marsalis has known since they were in high school.


“We challenge each other with our arrangements so we write really difficult, kind of virtuosic arrangements for these gigs,” Marsalis said. “We kind of mess with each other.”


JLCO is on tour with a repertoire as diverse as its nationwide audience. Thrown in are Thelonious Monk’s compositions, nursery rhymes, classic tunes from Blue Note Records and some of Marsalis’ originals and arrangements. On occasion, excerpts from Marsalis’ upcoming album, “He & She” (to be released March 24), make their way into the set.


“We do a wide range that encompasses all the history of jazz, from really, really modern to classics that everybody might know,” Marsalis said.


More important, the tour, which makes two North Jersey stops, brings “all different types of people” into the jazz fold, even some who are just getting into the sound. “Musicians will come and have been longtime fans of the music, some people are just getting into the music. Some people are interested in bringing people that have never been to a concert,” he said.
In this sense the tour has so far been successful. Marsalis believes that jazz should be as accessible in American “cultural consciousness” as the English language and just as relevant in matters of self-identity.


“If you come to this country and you want to participate in its culture, you should come from jazz,” he said. “It allows you to understand the country and the history of the country.
“It’s a blueprint for coming together.” E-mail: garciaa@northjersey.com

For Wynton Marsalis, improvising jazz is just as good as speaking English. At New York University’s commencement ceremony in 2007, the trumpet virtuoso’s keynote address was a 10-minute impromptu number that brought the crowd to a raucous standing ovation. After the final note, he simply bowed and returned to his seat.


Wynton Marsalis: “If you come to this country and you want to participate in its culture, you should come from jazz."


During the last 10 minutes of an interview, he bent over a piano in a hotel room in Minneapolis, wedged a cellphone between his jaw and shoulder and started playing a pared-down version of Robert Johnson’s blues tune “Come on in My Kitchen” while imparting some choice lessons on improvisation.


“It’s exactly like learning how to speak English,” said the New Orleans native. “You hear somebody else talk, and at first, you’ll hesitate. Then [you speak] broken words, then phrases, then sentences. But first you have to listen to people doing it on instinct.” Now his playing began to differ from the melody, complex chords and a bright rhythm taking over.


To press his point, he set the phone down, picked up his trumpet and played “Little Liza Jane,” a two-chord American traditional with a simple melody. Before long, he had layered harmonies on a swing version of the tune and breezed through a “fiddle” version with elongated notes before closing with a staccato bebop rendition of the same progression. Oh yes – we bet improvisation is just that easy.


“You can’t get frustrated with yourself,” he said between excerpts. “Don’t think that it’s something you’re going to learn overnight.”These words from a man who started his career at 14 playing solo with the New Orleans Philharmonic Orchestra, and who, at 18, ditched two years of classical study at Juilliard to play jazz with Art Blakey.


IF YOU GO


WHO: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis.

WHAT: “We Are the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra” tour.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday, Englewood. 8 p.m. Saturday, Morristown. WHERE: bergenPAC, 30 N. Van Brunt St., Englewood, 201-227-1030 or bergenpac.org; Community Theatre at Mayo Center, 100 South St., Morristown, 973-539-8008 or mayoarts.org.

HOW MUCH: Englewood: $29 to $99. Morristown: $70, $80, $90.

LISTEN: myspace.com/jazzatlincolncenterorchestra or jalc.org. Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is on tour with a repertoire as diverse as its audience.
Now 47, Marsalis is the artistic director for Jazz at Lincoln Center and the musical director for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the 15-piece resident big band whose members vary in age and experience.


Some are veterans of the jazz scene, like sax/clarinet player Joe Temperley, who played in the bands of Woody Herman and Humphrey Lyttelton, while most of the younger members Marsalis has known since they were in high school.


“We challenge each other with our arrangements so we write really difficult, kind of virtuosic arrangements for these gigs,” Marsalis said. “We kind of mess with each other.”
JLCO is on tour with a repertoire as diverse as its nationwide audience. Thrown in are Thelonious Monk’s compositions, nursery rhymes, classic tunes from Blue Note Records and some of Marsalis’ originals and arrangements. On occasion, excerpts from Marsalis’ upcoming album, “He & She” (to be released March 24), make their way into the set.


“We do a wide range that encompasses all the history of jazz, from really, really modern to classics that everybody might know,” Marsalis said.


More important, the tour, which makes two North Jersey stops, brings “all different types of people” into the jazz fold, even some who are just getting into the sound. “Musicians will come and have been longtime fans of the music, some people are just getting into the music. Some people are interested in bringing people that have never been to a concert,” he said.
In this sense the tour has so far been successful. Marsalis believes that jazz should be as accessible in American “cultural consciousness” as the English language and just as relevant in matters of self-identity.


“If you come to this country and you want to participate in its culture, you should come from jazz,” he said. “It allows you to understand the country and the history of the country.
“It’s a blueprint for coming together.”

SOURCE: http://www.northjersey.com/entertainment/marsalis031609.html

Republic of virtue, 9/08

Hadhari, human rights, hypocrisy

Posted by admin

Tuesday, 30 September 2008 16:30

We speak up for the rights of the Bosnians, the Chechens, the Palestinians, and Pattani Malays. I do not know whether the former Yugoslavs, the Russians, the Israelis, and the Thais have warned Malaysians not to meddle into the politics of the respective countries. Azly Rahman http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/ The General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member-States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.- Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 Free Raja Petra Kamarudin and all the ISA detainees. Abolish the ISA. This is my appeal to the current regime. How do we continue to live with the contradiction of being a ratifier of the UDHR and still hold on to the Internal Security Act (ISA) as an instrument of oppression? At home, how must we live with this hypocrisy of jailing without trial our noble citizens such as Raja Petra Kamaruddin and yet abroad speak out against Guantanamo Bay in the platform of world affairs? When Malaysian leaders go abroad and give speeches at the United Nations or the Malaysian embassies for example, they often argue that Malaysians have their own way of dealing with human rights issues. They say that culturally Malaysians are different than, say the American or the Britons. Human rights is a subjective issue that needs subjective interpretation, as the argument goes. The way the government deals with freedom of speech for example includes the stubborn political will to keep the ISA intact as an instrument of the country's 'right' to maintain peace and security. When Malaysian leaders are abroad and speak to Malaysians at dinner gatherings, for example, they often argue that other countries do not have the right to meddle into the affairs of another nation. The US therefore is warned not to comment on Malaysian politics. Al Gore and Condoleezza Rice are to be scorned for making statements about the reformasi demonstrations on Malaysian streets and on the trial of Anwar Ibrahim, respectively. At home, however, Malaysian leaders ironically love to rally for the cause of others - from the abolition of apartheid in South Africa or for the plight of the Palestinians. Well and good. These are universal issues of human rights of which we ought to be aware. We speak up for the rights of the Bosnians, the Chechens, the Palestinians, and Pattani Malays. I do not know whether the former Yugoslavs, the Russians, the Israelis, and the Thais have warned Malaysians not to meddle into the politics of the respective countries. Isn't upholding and protecting of human rights the job of all citizens of the world? Did we not speak out against Guantanamo Bay, as millions of Americans have been doing; Americans who themselves are fed up with the war-mongering Bush-Cheney regime? Refusal to understand Herein lies our hypocrisy within the context of our proclaimed ideology of Islam Hadhari and the right to talk about human rights. We are living with an outdated version of the Mahathir-Lee Kuan Yew interpretation of human rights vis-a-vis political and economic stability. The ISA is used on citizens these days as part of a way to ensure that power, ideology, and hegemony is maintained for the rights of the few and to sustain the right to dehumanise others. The question for educators like me is: how will the continuing existence of the British colonial legacy of the ISA create a progressive, liberal, intelligent, wise, and just Malaysia? How do we mediate the false dichotomy between the 'Eastern' and 'Western' interpretations of human rights? Malaysia is a signatory to the UDHR including: - Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. - Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. I believe the much trumpeted brand of Islam the current regime is promoting, Islam Hadhari, is anti-civilisation in the way human right is vis-a-vis the ISA detentions. It is anti-Islam when those who are detained are fighting for social, economic justice and as Islam requires, to speak truth to power in combating corruption. To jail those who expose wrongdoings bring Islam Hadhari back to the age of pre-Islamic Jahiliyyah (Age of Ignorance). Indeed, we are being hypocrites when we continue to keep and use the instrument of oppression left behind by the oppressors. We continue to let the current regime refine the instrument. Setting aside the truncated mindset of the Malaysian leaders, the people must recognise the critical importance of the awareness and maintenance of human rights throughout the world. We must believe that the definition, creation, and dissemination of human rights norms can bridge the gaps between countries, ensure that individual's human rights are respected, and pave the way for a more peaceful world. And, as the countries of our world become increasingly more interconnected, the call for universal human rights standards could not be more important. We are hypocrites living in an ideology of Hadhari. We seem to refuse to understand what the idea of the universality of human rights means. We cannot progress in this area unless we live by such principles of human rights - the one that we too ratified. _______________________________________________ I APPEAL TO THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT TO RELEASE RAJA PETRA KAMARUDIN IMMEDIATELY AND UNCONDITIONALLY AND RELEASE ALL THE ISA DETAINEES AS WELL AND CONSEQUENTLY REPEAL THE ISA AND ALL OTHER INTOLERABLE ACTS REPLACE THE ISA with the INTELLECTUAL SUSTAINABILITY ACT INSTEAD ______________________________________________ PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION ---> HERE <--- Comments (18) ... written by sufc, September 30, 2008 16:33:33 Hadhari??? a long forgotten relegion!!! report abuse disagree 0 agree 25 ... written by avj, September 30, 2008 16:37:47 Change does not come by chance, but by deliberate action. I challenge all those who want change,and have not signed this petition to do it now,don't even think do it now. report abuse disagree 0 agree 13 ... written by rockli, September 30, 2008 17:00:41 Well said, Come to think of it - didnt Khairy burn n protested violently in front of the US embassy, for US aggression to some Islam country. And the police were there to protect them. report abuse disagree 0 agree 28 ... written by Liberace, September 30, 2008 17:52:11 Azly, have you forgotten what Mahathir used to say? All these people criticizing us are only jealous of our achievements. report abuse disagree 0 agree 13 ... written by cheekhiaw, September 30, 2008 18:10:04 Hypocrisy is a special right of idiots, that's why... xxx report abuse disagree 0 agree 16 ... written by RFernandez, September 30, 2008 20:03:44 Why did Malaysia sign the UDHR but never practice it on it's own citizens? report abuse disagree 0 agree 10 ... written by educationist, September 30, 2008 22:05:51 Very potent arguments against the ISA !! But sadly, the UMNOputras will not give a damn, pardon the language. And Anwar's promise of change has not materialised as yet, so all seem lost as Najib looks set to take over the PM's post. And, so we can, but dream and hope on. Selamat Hari Raya, Dr Azly report abuse disagree 0 agree 14 ... written by RumahPanjai, September 30, 2008 23:37:35 Why aren't the Muftis and Ulamas speaking out on this issue? Who's side are they on? The islamic Allah or the Hadhari Allah? In this case, Hadhari is a deviationist ideology. The highest syriah court should therefore look seriouly into taking some actions against it after all its deviating from the holy book. So why are the Muftis/ Ulamas or religious teachers holding their tongues. Is it because their rice bowl comes from BN and not Allah? report abuse disagree 0 agree 16 ... written by Fart Fart Wah, October 01, 2008 01:23:32 Dar Azly, One of the most shameful acts in MALAYSIAN ISLAMIC HISTORY today is to use the ISA to suffocate dissent and cover-up wrong doings. The reason I say this is because the very forces that claim to uphold the sanctity of ISLAM IS THE VERY FORCE that abuses it. Islam in its essence is freedom of man to worship, freedom of man speak out against injustices and to protect the weak and those who cannot defend themselves. One of the tenets of Islam as taught by the prophet is to fight injustice and protect the weak. Here we have the elite in a very powerful position who have changed its basic tenets and moved away from the original teachings and instead of protecting the weak and seeking justice for the wronged is now protecting the perpetrator, alleged murderer, liar and manipulator. This is sad because the common people are held ransom by a few who who can use the police, the military or the ISA to crush opposition and dissent..completely forgetting that ISLAM never sanctions this . In its true practice the guilty party was always given a chance to defend himself or herself..In ISLAMIC MALAYSIA ( so called by Mahathir) this does not exist and has never existed. Might as well be secular..and stop being hypocritical. so, the most serious question MUSLIMS MUST ASK THEMSELVES TODAY IS..WHY don't the authorities put this MAN RPK on trial??? as it is the most fair thing to do. He is not a terrorist, nor a racist( like some who have brazenly shown to be) nor a security threat..and he did not insult Islam..he spoke caustically against the wrong practices of Islam by the elite...( anyway if he did so he should still be put on trial be it the civil court or the syariah. As most Malays can see now that ISLAM has been desecrated and abused for the benefit of a few to hold on to power. ONLY THE MALAYS CAN CHANGE THIS ..THAT IS IF THEY ARE STILL HOLDING ON TO THE TRUE MEANING OF ISLAM...otherwise this shameful example is something that all MUSLIMS must hang their heads and beat their breasts because they are sanctioning a wrong that is shameful in the eyes of the prophet...they now take on a common guilt. as for ISLAM HADARI ...MALAYS NEED TO RETHINK...IS IT???? MAY ALLAH PROTECT AND BLESS RPK.. report abusevote downvote up Votes: 2 report abuse disagree 0 agree 27 ... written by shatis, October 01, 2008 10:11:18 "We speak up for the rights of the Bosnians, the Chechens, the Palestinians, and Pattani Malays. I do not know whether the former Yugoslavs, the Russians, the Israelis, and the Thais have warned Malaysians not to meddle into the politics of the respective countries." If you realise Muslims only want justice for Muslims and they dont care about non muslims. They dont care about the genocide in Sri Lanka where thousands of Tamilians are killed everyday !! they dont care about Hindus killed by Muslim terrorist in india !! they dont care about civilians killed by Indonesian army in East Timor !! they dont care about the Russian school children and civilian kiiled by the Chechen Separatiss !! they dont care about the muslims in Iraq who are being killed by Muslim terrorist !! (its ok as long Muslim kill muslim) BUT they want the whole world to care about palestine, Kashmir, south Thailand, Bosnia and American attack on Iraq. What a bias,immature and imbecile thinking they have!! Is Islam is about justice for muslims only or Islam is justice for all. Remember whatever can be your true religious teaching but its the action of followers that reflects the religions teachings..What went wrong Muslims?? Since small muslim children are being taught that non-muslims are Kafirs, sinners and so on, and this mind poisoning makes them grow up into Muslims who have no regards or whatsoever for the non-muslims. Their mind is cocooned into thinking that they are living in muslim world. Talk to any 10 year old Malay and he/she will tell you elaborately about how bad are Kafirs but knows nothing about Human rights. report abuse disagree 4 agree 20 ... written by kinistau, October 01, 2008 19:07:31 You know, I know, We know.. They have never any intention of protecting the Nation, the Party, nor the Malay. What ever they are doing, they do it to protect benefit of their own kunju-kunju. ISA is their weapon. Ask a robber to give up their weapon?? Unless you have guns pointing at their head, they will shoot you if you ask again. report abuse disagree 0 agree 6 ... written by kinistau, October 01, 2008 19:17:05 no not even Islam. Don't talk to them about The world, the nation, the religion, the race..., they don't care...; don't talk to them about dignity, moral, honesty, mercy.. , they have non...; The are robber of the worst kind.,Lower then the pirate of Somalia.. They will not shed tears until the day they see their own coffin. To hell they will go. To hell! report abuse disagree 0 agree 8 ... written by kinistau, October 01, 2008 19:19:03 Say what ever you like, do anything you may, the most they would do is just laugh... if you make them annoy, you will be ISAed. report abuse disagree 0 agree 5 ... written by inoi, October 01, 2008 23:16:46 SOMETHING LIKE MALAY PROVERB "KUMAN DISEBERANG LAUT NAMPAK,GAJAH DEKAT MATA KITA TAK NAMPAK" report abuse disagree 0 agree 3 ... written by dassky2000, October 02, 2008 20:59:27 The most shamefull is getting rid of an innocent on sodomy charges. The whole world is laughing at us. As if we can't fabricate any other case except main belakang. Bodoh punya politician report abuse disagree 0 agree 4 ... written by Jit Dharma, October 03, 2008 22:07:38 Palestinians at least have the right to assemble and march through the West Bank by the thousands,that makes them certainly more liberated than we are. Yes, Malaysians are a bunch of slaves!! Too bad!! report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by Jit Dharma, October 03, 2008 22:13:05 We live in a neo-fuedalist country, the politicians have replaced the aristocracy, and the people are treated like serfs. The people have awoken and the country will never be the same. The damage control won't work, so to the idiots at Bernama TV please stop....you are an embarassment to yourselves!! report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by cheemengwong, October 05, 2008 15:27:54 I doubt the Ministers in question reads Pete's articles or the Koran for that matter. No wonder he is in the dark! Islam Hadhari? What is this? Islam Harihari! I know what is this. Practice Islam hari hari or daily. Don't simply put any Muslim into ISA without grounds. Park Lah report abuse disagree 0 agree 3 Write comment This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment. You must be logged in to a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.