consumated ... maybe consummated
Maybe consummated, used or even secondhand. Its not nice to be called used, its worse still to be called second hand. But consummated, that is something else - there is romance attached to it. From the past, records, essays, writeups, by me, by others, already publically published. Maybe from past blogs. Maybe someone reading this may say, "I have read that before", so be it - Lias.
Retired. Lives in in the Far East, in Malaysia to be precise. Vision & Mission in life left too far behind; but who can crystallise the future?; now take the seconds, minutes, hours and days as they come by.
today
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Dr M’s Half Truths & Hypocrisy on Human Rights
by Martin Jalleh
The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) marked its 6th
anniversary and Human Rights Day in Malaysia recently by holding a
hypocrisy party in the capital city, with former premier Dr Mahathir
Mohamad giving the opening address.
A group of 30 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had initially written
an open letter to Suhakam urging it to “close the door” on Dr M for a
simple reason that he had committed a host of “human wrongs” with regard to
human rights at home.
They had provided Suhakam a list of human rights abuses in Bolehland by Dr
M and pointed out that it would be wrong to invite “a leader who
perpetrated extensive human rights violations" during his 22-year political
reign.
Surely Suhakam was familiar with Dr M’s record. Its very own findings on
his abuse of human rights, especially through the ISA, made it very
telling. The revelations of the Royal Commission on the Police Force
provided further evidence most compelling.
But Suhakam was keen on reading everyone their rights. The NGOs had the
right to protest and pull out, Dr M had the right to present, the
Commission had the right to press on with whom they wanted. Strangely
though, no one had the right to walk out half way.
Suhakam commissioner Chiam Heng Keng questioned the late protest of the
NGOs, probably hoping that everyone would be naïve enough to believe that
Suhakam would actually change it’s mind if an early protest had been made.
Late or early protest, the point is that Mahathir should not have been
invited in the first place. But Chiam, who appeared rather charmed by
Mahathir chimed that he was “the best choice of a speaker to deliver a
knowledgeable discourse on the subject at hand”.
Is this a common phenomena?
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/
2005/09/19/2003272361
Singapore, Malaysia warn bloggers
INSULTS: Some defend jail terms for Internet users who post racist
commentary, but others say the punishments are simply an extension of state
controls over _expression
AP , KUALA LUMPUR AND SINGAPORE
Monday, Sep 19, 2005,Page 12
Bloggers beware. Big Brother is watching.
The recent arrest of three Singaporeans accused of making racial slurs on
Internet message boards has sparked concerns of a cyberspace crackdown by
authorities in Singapore and neighboring Malaysia, where strict laws
suppress outspokenness.
Web logs, or blogs, a global online phenomenon, are seen as the high-tech
equivalent of personal diaries, but they've also become a public forum for
free speech in Singapore and Malaysia, where the media are tightly
controlled and provocative views are rarely heard.
Now, bloggers in both countries fear they'll have to watch their words,
following the arrest of Benjamin Koh Song Huat, 27, and Nicholas Lim Yew,
25, in Singapore on Monday last week for allegedly posting comments
insulting the country's Muslim Malay minority. A third Singaporean, a
17-year-old, was charged separately last Friday, the Straits Times reported,
but it did not identify him.
Charged with sedition, all three face prison terms of up to three years if
convicted.
While some bloggers say they deserve little sympathy because their remarks
were repugnant, the case has triggered concern that Singapore's government
might be tightening social controls.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said his government will act
against anyone who threatens racial and religious harmony, whether on the
Internet or in any other forum, a newspaper reported yesterday.
"Whether you do it on the Internet, whether you do it in the newspapers,
whether you go and say it in public or even at the Speakers' Corner, it
doesn't matter where you say it. This is a message which is not acceptable,"
the Straits Times quoted Lee as saying.
Speakers' Corner is a state-approved site where people can express their
views, but opposition figures dismiss it as an attempt to show that the
government tolerates outspokenness.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/Columns/
20050918090521/Article/indexb_html
THE SUNDAY COLUMN: The allure of London and... 'Independence' talks
Kalimullah Hassan Sept 18
THERE are some places in the world where, no matter how many times you
visit, the magic and charm never diminishes.
There are different cities for different folks. For me, despite its
congestion and off-on clean-up campaign, Penang will never lose that special
allure.
Neither will Kota Kinabalu lose its rustic appeal, despite the development
and increasing traffic.
In the same way, cities like New Delhi, Cairo, Cape Town, San Francisco, New
York and London have a mystery and allure that never wanes.
Last week though, four months after my last visit, I did wonder whether I
would find a different London after the wave of train and bus bombings that
kept me off the tube.
Some friends had jokingly advised me not to bring my regular travelling
companion, a beat-up backpack, because I looked like a Pakistani and could
be mistaken for a terrorist.
That advice I took seriously because I did not want to end up like the
innocent Brazilian who was shot dead by jumpy British security men.
But it was unnecessary. London has not changed; no one gave me suspicious
looks and I did not get a sense of suffocating security.
For a lot of people, especially the well-known who come from smaller
countries, the bigger cities of the world provide a respite in anonymity.
Somehow, I always felt that London was too small for Malaysians because they
keep running into each other at the usual haunts, such as Oxford Street,
Bayswater and even Old Trafford.
On Sunday, in the lobby of the posh Dorchester Hotel, we saw the Sultan of
Brunei, with just two aides in tow, and his new wife, former TV3 newsreader
Azrinaz Mazhar Hakim, garbed in smart riding gear.
She looked absolutely radiant and the trim Sultan was a picture of glowing
health.
It would have been quite unlikely that I would see the Sultan in such
relaxed mode and without a large posse of security and fussing aides in
places like Kuala Lumpur or the streets of Bandar Seri Begawan.
Similarly, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, well known for
his informality, caused a flap among his security boys that day when, after
lunch at the award-winning Malaysian-owned Khai Restaurant in affluent Park
Lane, decided to dismiss his driver and walk back to the Dorchester half a
kilometre away.
It was amusing to watch how the bodyguards scanned each passing car and
person while Abdullah, dressed in leather jacket and slacks, walked
unperturbed.
At Khai, I ran into an old friend, Datuk David Yeoh, whom I had not seen for
a few years. Yeoh, whose son owns Khai, spends a lot of time in London now.
He is 69, almost retired, but is always hungry for news of home and comes
back every so often.
It had been two weeks since the Democratic Action Party's Ronnie Liu posted
a statement on the party's website, denying the role played by leaders of
Umno and its partners in the Alliance - the Malaysian Chinese Association
and the Malaysian Indian Congress - in fighting for independence.
Liu had instead ascribed to the outlawed Communist Party of Malaya and its
leader Chin Peng a role in the fight for independence from the British.
http://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/40535
Giving no face to politics
Sim Kwang Yang Sep 17, 05 12:06pm
Was it Abraham Lincoln who left us with the maxim that everybody should be
responsible for his own face after 30?
Well, with due respect to the great man, I cannot think of a Westerner who
can really understand the intricate Asian game of giving, taking and saving
face. Neither can they appreciate fully the value of manipulating that part
of the human anatomy in all sorts of social and political interactions, from
intimate relationships to affairs of state. Orientalist commentators on
Asian politics are more than likely to sneer at this uniquely eastern
cultural practice as mere hypocrisy.
The phenomenon of face is everywhere in Malaysia for all to see, except that
for the players themselves, they may not be conscious always of actually
playing this nebulous delicate game of life and death.
It is tempting to equate face with the Western concept of honour, in the
sense of the British gentlemanly or military connotations for instance.
There, to "give one's word" is to stake one's entire reputation and
integrity on keeping a promise or being truthful.
The ethical demand for keeping promises and not telling lies are pretty
universal of course, because they form the unwritten rules of social conduct
without which all social relations are impossible. Asians are very big on
this as well. In the old days, Chinese businessmen relied on mere verbal
agreement for the fulfilment of a business contract, rather than a piece of
legal instrument.
For Asians however, giving one's word is slightly more difficult, since
words seem to have a legion of malleable shifty hidden meanings in most
social contexts, and they can bounce around and reverberate through the
deepest recesses of the convoluted bowels of both speaker and the listener.
Foreign visitors, as well as those Malaysians who have been educated and
worked abroad for too long, can be exasperated to no end by the way many
Malaysians never say what they mean, directly and to the point, in the
shortest time possible. Socialising or doing business in Malaysia, they get
impatient about having to go through the lengthy prologue of niceties,
followed by the meandering discourse which can be understood, only if you
have mastered the art of reading (or listening) between the lines.
As the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein proposed, any language is a
form of life, and the meaning of any word lies in its context. The Malaysian
game of speaking around the corners, negotiating through oblique twists and
turns of hints, tales, and references, aided by picturesque gesturing and
vivid body language, reflects a form of life that places supreme value on
interpersonal and social harmony above all else.
Very noble rules
Face, or the art of giving, demanding and saving face, is the cultural ethos
that lubricates the mechanism of getting along with one another within a
closely knit communal context and avoiding unnecessary interpersonal
friction and aggravation. It is a uniquely Asian virtue that ensures social
harmony better than any legal constrain. Above all, it gives their daily
social intercourse a rich tapestry of civilised urbane heart-warming bond of
brotherhood - or sisterhood.
Orientalists might want to think that this social game of caring for face
has no rules at all. Actually there are some very noble rules. For instance,
whenever you interact with another human being, the cardinal rule of
face-consciousness demands that you respect his person, his dignity, and his
feelings. The greatest crime against social grace is being abrasive. This
applies especially to people of some status, the aged, the distinguished,
the rich, and the learned. Face is about etiquette, politeness, and good
breeding.
Like all good social virtues of course, this fuss about face has often been
abused, especially in a rapidly changing society like ours, where what has
been good in traditions runs the risks of being distorted and corrupted.
For instance, the half century of our nation's independence has produced a
whole new class of new money and new power, all craving for the face that
they did not previously possess, and which they may not always deserve.
Money and power are carnivorous; they tend to consume the soul of those who
acquire them in large measures. The more the rich and powerful have them,
the more they need a bigger fix of face.
A titled big face
I am talking about this mad scramble among some Malaysians for those
innumerable titles bestowed by the state. Unlike in England, we have only
life peers, those people who achieve instant social status by being awarded
the titles of Tun, Tan Sri, and Datuks of various classes. With very rare
exceptions, the titled people are wealthy, and therefore powerful to various
degrees.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/
singaporelocalnews
/view/167812/1/.html
Two bloggers charged under Sedition Act over racist remarks
By Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia
12 September 2005 1255 hrs
SINGAPORE : Two bloggers have been charged with sedition for posting racist
comments online.
This is the first time bloggers are being charged in Singapore and it is
sending shockwaves through the local blogging community.
Lawyers say the last time the sedition act was invoked in Singapore was at
least 10 years ago.
Twenty-five-year-old Nicholas Lim Yew and 27-year-old Benjamin Koh Song Huat
are being accused of posting racist comments on an online forum and on their
blog site.
They are both being charged with committing a seditious act, by promoting
feelings of ill-will and hostility between races in Singapore.
They were not represented by defence lawyers and were granted bail of
S$10,000 each.
This charge came as a shock to many in the blogging community.
Said Singaporean blogger Benjamin Lee (Mr Miyagi):" A lot of them will be
looking at their blogs and wondering if they made any legally seditious
remarks. I think because of the way this will be played up, it's negative
publicity for the Singapore blogging community."
"Currently if you surf the net you will come across a lot of bloggers making
such comments. You will probably see a drop in such cases henceforth. At the
moment I am not aware of any cases except of a case in Iran where bloggers
are charged. But Iran has a different legal system from Singapore," said
Leonard Loo, managing partner of Leonard Loo & Co Advocates & Solicitors.
Channel NewsAsia understands that the Media Development Authority had asked
host servers to remove a racist blog from the web.
Police are now investigating this matter.
While many racist blogs by Singaporeans can be found online, the blogging
community is also quick to criticize any racist comments.
From The Asian Wall Street Journal
Mahathir Calls U.S., Britain Terrorist Nations
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
September 9, 2005 1:43 a.m.
KUALA LUMPUR (AP)--American and British pilots whose bombs killed
Iraqi civilians were murderers, and actions taken by those two
countries during the invasion and occupation of Iraq amounted to
terrorism, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said
Friday.
Several British and U.S. diplomats walked out in protest of Mahathir's
broadside against their countries in a speech at a national conference
on human rights.
Mahathir, who ruled majority Muslim Malaysia for 22 years before
retiring in 2003, also defended his human rights record in government.
He was often criticized for detaining suspects without trial under a
security law and for the imprisonment of former deputy prime minister
Anwar Ibrahim.
Mahathir decried the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians as a
result of the U.S.-led military invasion and occupation. He compared
American and British actions in Iraq to rocket attacks by Israel on
Palestinians, and referred to those countries as "these terrorist
nations."
"The British and American bomber pilots came, unopposed, safe and cozy
in their state of the art aircraft, pressing buttons to drop bombs, to
kill and maim," Mahathir said of the Iraq invasion. "And these
murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to celebrate
'Mission Accomplished."'
"Who are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the
bombers? Whose rights have been snatched away?" he added.
He also questioned why there was no tally of Iraqi deaths while every
U.S. soldier's killing is documented.
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