Evolving from GERTAK to GELAK

Evolving From Gertak to Gelak
Azly Rahman

May 31, 10 2:12pm'

The Melayu Bangkit programme organised by the People's Awakening Movement (Gertak) which was postponed for security reasons will be held on June 14. ...Gertak chairman Razali Idris said the agenda remained the same, to discuss issues affecting the Malays like the New Economic Policy (NEP), Vision 2020 and unity efforts. ...' - (Malaysia-Today, 30 May 201).
'Doesn't anybody remember laughter ?' ("Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin).

The idea to use the name Gertak (Gerakan Kebangkitan Rakyat) is novel, for organisations to scare each other off. The idea of Perkasa was novel as a strategy of weakening the mind of the Malays. Hence I once wrote about the evolution of Perkasa to Pekasam.
Growing up in Johor, I often hear the word gertak to signify, connote, and denote "mild childish verbal threats" used by kampong kids when they are about to embark upon a low-intensity kampung-styled gang war. Gertak is a funny word, I still believe, till now.

Growing up further as a student of semiotics, philosophy, politics and the constellation of fields I am interested in to help me understand/teach about power/ideology and genealogy of ideas, I see gertak as more than just a childish and child-like concept.

Gertak is a word that is even funnier as an acronym for an organisation consisting of senior citizens who should be doing the opposite of what gertak requires.

World of threats

We live in a world of threats - from politicians threatening to jump like in Mark Twain's story of the celebrated jumping frogs of Calaveras County, to individuals threatening each other with huge lawsuits, to voters threatening candidates and parties with no-money-no vote for you, to threats of another May 13, 1969, right up till component parties threatening to leave political unions that have been financially lucrative but are now morally bankrupt.

We gertak each other. We are living in a threatening world.

Already the world in general is in crisis threatened by oil spills, a depleting ozone layer, melting ice caps, everlasting war to achieve everlasting peace, computer failures, countries playing with each others' currency, nuclear proliferation, and many other ongoing instances of 'global gertaks' that are threatening our survival as a better twin of the Neanderthals.

Let us stop this game of gertak. Gertak is a threatening word. It is no longer funny as I had used it growing up in Johor. As an organisation that is perhaps well-funded it is even less and less funny, politically speaking.

Gelak is better

I would like Gertak to change its name to Gelak - Gerakan anti-Lawan Antara Kaum., or The Movement Against All Form of Conflict Between Races. I think that'll be a good organisation that a threatening one. I think not only senior and ageing politicians would be happy becoming a member of but children and dispossessed youth of all races would be interested.

Gelak was not popular used in Johor when I was growing up. I am more familiar with ketawa meaning "laugh".

In the language of Instant Messaging it's call "LOL" or "laugh out loud". Gelak means laugh - that's what Malaysians need.

We need to have many more organisations that will laugh at the stupidity of race-based politics, the 13 May 1969 incident, or failing judiciary, our haywire parliamentary sessions, our addiction to materialism, our stupefication of academia, our passion for gambling, and a host of others we need to first laugh off at and next seriously make radical transformations to.

Gelak will be a good way to spend money to promote inter-racial understanding and to teach the next generation what is a whole new world beyond that of merely Umno, MCA, MIC, or any other forms of race-based, race-ailing parties that continue to spread the disease of racism.

Malays need not be awakened, They are already up since the dawn of the concept of 'Malay'. What has put them to sleep is the ideology of feudalism and neo-feudalism that continue to threaten the mind, body, and soul of the Malays.

From their mind being put to sleep by myths, legends, superstitious beliefs, and truncated history that glorify immoral rulers, villains and robber barons to the feeding the mind of the Malays with an educational system that celebrates obedience and pansies critical thinkers, to hunting down students of local universities who wish to exercise their rights to be politically active - all these are Prozacs and Valiums to the Malays.

Laughter therefore is the best medicine for Malaysians. Gelak, and not Gertak should be a better way to help all Malaysians fight the spread of racism.

I hope all Malays in Gertak and Perkasa will leave these organisations and form Gelak (Gerakan anti-Lawan Antara Kaum).

Heaven above will be laughing.

Wesak Day Message

The root of suffering is a corrupt government and the modern state as a necessary evil. The leaders of a corrupt state put citizens in a wrong karmic cycle, they are the duryodhanas of the postmodern era, they revised the notion of samsara, prevented citizens from becoming bodhisatvas, and finally gamble away nirvanas! Citizens must stop this cycle of suffering by following the middle path and the four noble truth and by not engaging in any form of gambling during by-elections nor being intoxicated by the sweet promises of a dying regime. Meditate we must on the fate of endangered nations. Detach ourselves from the fruits of our labour and our actions. Detach ourselves from the idiot box -- the television and the 100 channels.

If all the monarchs and multi-trillionaires of this world follow the path of Siddhartha, renounce wealth, and destroy capitalist systems, and lead humanity back to Nature, the world will all chant the mantra of peace, fashioned after the tribe in the movie Avatar.

We are delusioned by the very nature of the system we ourselves create. We no longer know what we need and what we want. The modern state has helped feed our desires with useless goods useless technology and when we are addicted to materials, we are offered ways to gamble our lives away. Wherein lie the enlightened self?.

Gambling Malaysia away

"No servant can serve two masters", Jesus said. "Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." - Luke 16:13, NIV.

"Who plays with dice and drinks intoxicants, goes to women who are dear unto others as their own lives, associates with the mean and not with elders - he declines just as the moon during the waning half." - Buddha.

In the name of progress and development, Malaysia hopes to create a nation of gamblers by approving soccer gambling licenses. Schoolchildren can now rationalise illegal betting on their favourite kampung team, housewives can do the same with the many leagues, and of course the filthy rich can continue to gamble on sports big time.

Bravo - we have progressed! A nation of Donald Trumps we shall become.

Tycoons, and trillionaires -- instead of using their temporal material gains to make society better, more ethical, and safer seem to continue to fuel the destruction of it. Because sports betting with the advent of The World Cup will bring in billions to the licensee, by all means necessary, will the government grant permission.

Instead of helping with the creation of safe schools, safe neighborhoods, and safe streets so that society can rejuvenate from fast deteriorating conditions this regime is responsible for, we are seeing greed take control and the filthy rich licensed to ensure the next generation left with catastrophe as legacy.

Gangster enclaves

Already illegal gambling is rampant and the culture of gambling, drawn from human nature itself, continues to turn urban centres into gangster enclaves of triads, gangs, and secrets societies whose major activities are gambling and hunting down those who owe money they lost through gambling.

Thus we have the "Ah Long" culture that the police, funded by the taxpayers, cannot control. Indeed by legalising sports betting, we will be sending a strong message to the next generation - it's fine to gamble since the adults do it. It's fine to use your lunch money to bet and if you lose in this highly addictive enterprise, there are things to steal and sell.

Why not legalise prostitution -- another billion ringgit industry? And next, let's sell guns so that we'll have the rights to bear arms to protect us against those little gamblers who will grow up to become tycoons and triad members and sleazy politicians patronised by a fine system of Constitutional Monarchy whose members gambled too?

Why have we become corrupt to the bones? Why has become of our sense of responsibility to the generation we are leaving behind?

Poker-faced politicians

The rakyat is being bluffed in this marathon 50-year poker game called developmentalism. We have poker-faced politicians who speak about religion and democracy in public, yet by all means necessary find ways immoral they may be, to fuel the desire of their political ill-wills.

We have one-armed-bandit politicians armed with the ideological apparatuses to disarm the rakyat yearning to break free from the shackles of domination. We have a multiracial coalition of robber barons working in sync to ensure that this casino-capitalist economy continues to sustain itself using the blood, sweat, tears and fears of a multiracial mass of people enslaved in this
oriental despotic game called the wheel of misfortune.

We have been seeing more and more display of money openly changing hands in by-elections in a game of political gambling in which the players get to bribe the winner of the game - the rakyat that is - now ever willing to participate in a political betting game called Malaysian-styled democracy.

We continue to see the growth of the most sophisticated and legalised gambling dens in history - -the stock market - in which the lives of millions of workers and farmers and modern-slaves nationwide and world-wide are gambled with by "stockholders" playing the game of trading whether openly or secretly.

Poker-faced politicians do not have any loyalty to the nation. Working in concert with poker-faced robber barons they scheme ways to kill the future of this nation. What is important is power to be consolidated, sustained and expanded and money is to be made ceaselessly.

Mental junk 

Through the control of the media, the feeding of the masses with a hundred-channel diet of mental junk daily, creating a fantasy Times-Square like Kuala Lumpur red-light district with a Disney-like entity, and all a long-term strategy to kill critical sensibility - robber barons and poker-faced politicians and powerful Mafia-like dynasties orchestrated this dominance of the rakyat fashioned after the Illuminati.

What then must we do?

Let us come back to our senses before this country descend into total chaos. Already Thailand is showing us what massive corruption can turn that rakyat's anger into. 

Let us begin analysing the oppressive institutions we have built over the last fifty years and the disabling aspects of culture we has become part of us and see where we are going as a nation. 

We must only support a government that will not gamble Malaysia away.

As for legalised sports betting - it will lead to a new social cancer. No gambling license please.

Gambling Malaysia away -- with video on gambling

Tycoons, trillionaires, instead of using their temporal material gains to make society better, more ethical, and safer seems to continue to fuel the destruction of it. Because sports betting with the advent of The World Cup will bring in billions to the licensee, by all means necessary will the government grant permission.

Instead of helping fund the creation of safe schools, safe neighbourhood, and safe streets so that society can rejuvenate from a fast deteriorating condition planned by this regime, we are seeing greed take control and the filthy rich licensed to ensure the next generation left with catastrophe as legacy.

Already illegal gambling is rampant and the culture of gambling, drawn from human nature itself, continues to turn urban centers into gangster enclaves of triads, gangs, and secrets societies whose major activities are gambling and hunting down those who owe money they lost through gambling. There we have the "AhLong" culture that the police force, funded by the taxpayers cannot control. Indeed by legalizing sports betting, we will be sending a strong message to the next generation -- it's fine to gamble since the adults do it. It's fine to use your lunch money to bet and if you lose in this highly addictive enterprise, there are things to steal and sell.

Why not legalize prostitution -- another billion Ringgit industry? And next, let's sell guns so that we'll have the rights to bear arms to protect us against those little gamblers who will grow up to become tycoons and triad members and sleazy politicians patroned by a fine system of Constitutional Monarchy whose members gambled too?

Malaysia -- a nation of gamblers we shall become?

In the name of progress and development, Malaysia hopes to create a nation of gamblers by contemplating approving soccer gambling licenses. Schoolchildren can now rationalize illegal betting on their favourite kampong team, housewives can do the same with the many leagues, and of course the filthy rich can continue to gamble on sports big time. Bravo - we have progressed! A nation of Donald Trumps we shall become ...

SAY NO TO GAMBLING LICENSES!

A brief note on the Malaysian university

The Malaysian university (especially) must not become yet another extension of the high school nor an embodiment of a glorified and enculturalized totalitarian institution imbued merely with Officially Sanctioned Knowledge crafted by instrumental reason alone... it must become a breeding ground of radical social and scientific thinkers to ensure the renewal and reconstructionsim of society.

Rights of the citizen

The short, happy life of Aminulrasyid

...The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he or she has the right to remain silent, and that anything the person says will be used against that person in court; the person must be clearly informed that he or she has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during questioning, and that, if he or she is indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to represent her or him.
- Miranda Rights, USA

I write with sadness of the young man Aminulrasyid (left) shot to death in perhaps a complex situation he was caught in. His life was cut short, may his soul be blessed, but there is a larger issue of rights and responsibilities we adults are plagued with, needing reflection and resolution.


"Any mans' death diminishes me, for I am involved in Mankind" as the poet John Donne said; what more that the death of a child barely 15 and yet to explore the ways of the world?


Indeed accounts of the rude and untimely passing of Aminurasyid indicated that he was caught in a series of unfortunate circumstances, most of them beyond his control and the ability for a child his age to handle.


Sneaking out late at night, on his way to a watch a football game, and a good Samaritan he is in helping a friend with a flat tire, and the incident with another car and the fallen biker, and ultimately the round of ammunition that riddled him in the back of his head like a hard-core criminal - all these are poignantly narrated in a growing number of blogs and on facebook. His friend who supposedly pulled out of the car to surrender, I watched his mother in anguish flanked by a politician on youtube , clearing the air of any misconception of what kind of child Aminulrasyid was.


What is ailing our nation? Where can we seek protection henceforth? As taxpayers and citizens who have surrendered our Natural rights to the state, where do we seek help when those entrusted with the tools and machinery to protect have betrayed us?


In the case of Aminulrasyid, this is not just a question of human rights education lacking in the police, but also perhaps failure to adhere to standard procedures in dealing with a possible suspect.

Lack of proper patrolling
 

A larger issue is the lack of proper patrolling of the neighbourhood; as a consequence of a weak or non-existent local government such that Mat Rempits run rampant. Had our local governments been strong and a deep sense of community action culture evolved, and that the police together with the citizens of the local government been more efficient in ensuring vigilance, we may never see Mat Rempits harassing the innocent and under-age children riding motorbikes and automobiles illegally. Ironically we see the highest level of efficiency and deployment of the police force displayed when there are political rallies; even when they are conducted peacefully.


Why do we not see consistency in neighbourhood watch?


Kids are kids -- they try everything for thrills but it is the system that ought to have been built that would deal with juvenile differently than how we deal with adults. Aren't the law enforcers supposed to be well-trained to look at the situation and to exercise the best form of restrain based on sound and wise rather than trigger-happy judgment? Have we not given our police officers proper training in criminal law?


I supposed we have deteriorated a long time ago in this area of enforcement. Police brutality is a trained behaviour, profiling as well. Miranda rights (rights to remain silent when arrested, etc.) such as in the United States may not be available in the case of Malaysians? Must we continue to see suspects being shot at first and asked questions later? Have we not forgotten Kugan, Teoh Beng Hock, and others who have been brutalized before their tragic death?

Solace in hope
 

In a country like Malaysia in which her citizens are getting weary about personal safety, in a land where crime rates are rising and one hears cases of police brutality and deaths in police custody all too often now, we often seek solace in hope - that things are going to get better perhaps with a better government that truly cares about the rakyat and upholds the rule of law.


I believe schools should start teaching kids about rights and about street law - and also about not giving or taking bribes. This might be a long haul; longer than it took the apartheid regime of South Africa to imprison Nelson Mandela (left).


Aminulrashid is no longer with us. Some may argue that he should not have sneaked out to do whatever it was he wanted to do. But kids are kids. We all were there once. We wanted the freedom and to do certain things we wanted to do so much - like joining friends to watch our favourite football team, or to test run the new X-Box or Playstation, to check out facebook pages, or to just chill, harmlessly. We all have tried that and up with through the experiences when we were fifteen or sixteen.


But for Aminulrasyid, that was it. A short and happy life of a child turning fifteen. May his soul be blessed. Let us all pray for him - and for our nation.