The Truth About Us

The Kugan episode, has brought me to finally and disgustedly admit that there are many racist Malaysian around. When I posted about Kugan, I never think of him as an Indian. I blog about Kugan because he too is human like us.

Those politician I knew who visited Kugan’s family and walk with them during the procession also did it because of nothing else but wanted to lend their support to the family of the deceased during the worst time in their life and also too put pressure to the authority so the investigation will be carried out without fear or favour.

Kugan has never been properly or shall I say formally charged for any criminal charges except by some groups of Malays within the blogosphere and political cricle.

Like Mahathir Mohamed the great Man of Malaysia, I too have in me a spoon or two of Indian blood. My mum, had maybe a pint of Siamese blood. Beyond that, who knows what more runs through our vein. The same thing happens to many who proudly call themselves Malay.

While I am glad to be classified as Malay, my roots through my father can only be traced up to two generation above me. Where else I knew many of my Chinese and Indian buddies had their roots traced in Malaysia furthermore than mine.

If you look at some of the prominent trash within UMNO today, without doubt you can say, they were not Malay at all.

Why we keep going back along the racial line? Didn’t God teaches us that no one race is superior than the other. Why bother about all this race factor when we knew that only God is the greatest and while He possessed the ultimate superiority unimaginable to human, yet He chooses to be colour blind. Why can’t we, the less complicated ‘item’ in the universe choose to become one as well?

KUGAN’s Blood Is As Red As Ours

 

Ehsan Malaysiakini

I believe it is ok to have taken the law into our own hand when those who we entrusted to enforce the law have betrayed us. I also believe there is no reason for Senator T. Murugiah to seek an apology from the police. Murugiah is there for the people. As a politician he is the servant of the people. It is his duty to not just be with the people when they need him but also to stand and defend the people.

My word for Murugiah, it is okay to be sent to prison for defending the people. After all, if you manage to come out of the police lock-up alive, how worst can it be.

Contrary, the police has since recently, time and again failed to understand that they are the servants of the people and it is not their duty to protect themselves from their master. Yet, their behaviour is less than thankful to those whom actually paid their salary.

Kugan Ananthan is innocent until proven guilty and by the manner of the law in this country, Kugan has died as an innocent man.

To the Chief Police of Selangor who looks like the most stupid-est Malaysian ever alive, I have only one thing to say ‘Baso Anying!”. If we ever have the law that can charge Government Servant for being stupid while in office, he should the next to be charged after Rahim Noor.

“I am startled with the statistics revealed in Parliament last year: a total of 1,535 custodial deaths in this country between 2003…” – Read here.

Laksam with Peter Sanders

Peter Sanders by Sheih Kickdefella

Peter Sanders’s works titled “Islam in Britain’ currently being exhibited in Islamic Museum in KL by The British High Commision

“Peter Sanders was born in London in 1946. His professional career in photography began during the mid-sixties where he photographed most of the major stars in the music business including Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Who, the Rolling Stones etc. Towards the end of the 1970’s, Sanders’ attention turned inward which set him on a spiritual search to India and then eventually to the Muslim world where the spiritual beauty of Islam left an indelible impression upon him.

Laksam for Peter by Sheih Kickdefella

After his return to England, he embraced Islam and was given the name Abd al-Adheem. In 1971 he was granted the unique opportunity to photograph the rituals of Hajj or annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. These images appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine, The Observer, among many other major journals in recognition of their rareness.

For Peter Sanders, faith and photography have both been part of his spiritual development.

Eyes of an artist by Sheih Kickdefella

It was his search to capture the essence of reality that led him to Islam and, with camera in hand, to the door of the Kaaba. From photographing the most famous of idols in the music industry to the most sacred places in the Islamic world, Peter Sanders’ journey encompasses more than a change of focus for his camera lens.



“Having photographed almost every famous person in the music industry I got bored and started getting in to spritual things. I just wanted something else, and so I decided to go to India. I packed everything up and went, looking for a teacher. Eventually I found one, who was basically a Hindu but had a lot of what we consider ‘Muslim Qualities’. I studied with him for about six months and when I cam back to England, some of my friends had become Muslim. Then there were other friends who had gotten heavy into drugs and alchohol. It was as if God was saying to me, ‘which direction do you want to go?’.



”I didn’t know very much about Islam but I had dreams and various other things happened to me. So I made a decision to become Muslim without knowing too much about it. I was 24 years old at the time and within three months of becoming Muslim, I decided to go on Hajj. I didn’t have the money but I just made the intention.

Tok Guru by Peter Sanders taken using Sheih’s Camera

My elderly Muslim teacher at that time had also made the intention and I knew that I wanted to go too. Someone gave me a ticket and I went. It was at the Kaaba that I learnt that my teacher had died on the way.”

At the time, back in 1971, photographs of the Hajj were quite rare. Peter Sanders was granted special permission to photograph the sacred places; a decision that still amazes him.

Master at work

“It was pretty unique for a Westerner to have taken pictures of the Hajj. I had to slog from offices to offices in Jeddaj and Makkah and eventually I found a man that had the authority to grant me permission. A lot of people didn’t want to take responsibility at the time, and they were generally not too keen on photography anyway, especially by a convert. But this man was in a position to authorise me and he did so purely on trust.”



For Peter Sanders, photography is essentially a means to capture the spirit of Islam. As he describes his efforts to do this, the words of an Urdu poet come to mind: ‘To see the reality of Madinah you need more than just sight; you need vision’. As if seeking to possess this vision is not a great enough missions in itself, Peter Sanders attempts to then convey it to others. He has spent the last thirty years documenting the remains of traditional Islamic societies that are fast disappearing from the earth.

One of his ongoing projects in trying to capture dying traditions has been the compilation of a photographic album of the great scholars and saints of our time. The two volumes, that he hopes to raise funds to publish, include pictures of people who were photographed for the first time and some of whom have passed away in recent months and years.” (taken from http://www.squidoo.com/PeterSanders)

Tok Guru and Sheih, taken by Peter Sanders using Sheih’s camera

More on Peter Sanders’s work click here.

‘Bola Catuk’ For Najib

Many pro UMNO political analysts tried to shift the blame of losing the Kuala Terengganu Parliamentary by election towards the outgoing Abdullah and it’s chosen candidate Wan Ahmad Farid but the truth, if you choose to hear it from people, the problem lies on the Prime Minister in Waiting, Najib Razak.

UMNO is still suffering from the denial syndrome and it members has becoming more and more ‘nyanyuk’. Nothing of a surprise as this is a normal ‘sakit tua’ which is cannot be cured anymore. 

Perception of the masses has deceived Najib. He may not be charged as a murderer but majority perceived him as worst than a murderer. By having Najib as the next president of UMNO, the majority knew than that they cannot rely on UMNO any longer for change and fair governance. 

UMNO is known to be corrupt to the core and by having someone, which worst than UMNO reputation to lead UMNO, can only be mean the end. 

The end is near for UMNO and no matter how much effort and money being spend to tarnished the image of Pakatan Rakyat, PKR – DAP- PAS has proven the can withstand the aggressor. Not once, not twice but countless. 

The truth is, there are two types of Malaysians, either they are UMNO (members, supporters and sympathisers) or they are the true Malaysians. The truth is, the true Malaysians has outnumbered the UMNOs. UMNO may soon find themselves running out of money to buy the true Malaysians. 

Shalom Aleinu

Gaza: Marlboro, Coke and The World of Rhetoric

Photo by The Star

The Malaysian Parliament has met on special sitting to debate  the motion on the situation in Gaza. According to The Star  ”Israel has to be brought before a United Nations-sanctioned international war crimes tribunal for its atrocities and violence on the Palestinian people, the special Parliament session decided yesterday.”

I almost puked when I hear how the motion being debated by our elected representatives in Dewan Rakyat. I have written in this blog before and I repeated again here today, that Malaysia has fast becoming a Masturbation Nation. Fantasise as much as you can, but it remain illusion till the end.

When in came to the problem in Palestine, the world is separated into at least two side. The first is the one that look at the problem after the formation of a country called Israel. The one that sees how certain faction within the Palestine itself had taken the manner of terrorism to fight the legitimate government of Israel. For those who recognised the sovereignty of Israel will looked at the manner some faction in the Palestinian group who fired more than 80 rounds of small and inaccurate rocket towards the populated area in the Israel Nation. Not to mention that once in a while, some men and women from the same faction would enter the country and blast their fully loaded body and cause a lot of bloodshed in public are. As a sovereign country, Israel has the right to defend themselves and retaliate when necessary. Of cause, the hi-end Israeli weapons are much damaging and much accurate compared to the black market infested weapon bought by those faction amongst the Palestinian. And when highly trained professional uses the more sophisticated weapon, the damage is unbecoming. But then, isn’t this a domestic matter?  Wasn’t Malaysia international policy is not to interfere with other countries domestic matter?

Is this ethnic cleansing? In a war like this, how do you separate the military from the civilian? What happen when the fighters go around wearing civilian clothing and go hiding amongst the civilian? There is a very thin line separating the action of Israeli military compare with the ‘civilian’ of Palestine.

For the rest of the world, Muslim people mostly, we did not recognise the sovereignty of Israel thus, to us the Palestinian deserves to fight for their country. Does this mean we condoned the firing of rockets towards the populated area within the Israel border? Do we condoned the suicide bomber actions?

Perhaps the government of Malaysia recognised this long ago. That is why the Government run by the Barisan Nasional itself condoned the usage of terrorism against their own people.

How far is the difference between the action ordered by Musa Hitam towards the civilian clothing and poorly armed Ibrahim Libya and his gang in Memali? How far is this differed from the action in Batu Buruk in 2007 when highly trained police personnel fired at my brother Suandi and latter charged him in court after he managed to escape death?

What about the action of the municipal councils and the police against those squatters when they force into those civilians an orgy of terrorist actions. Mahathir Mohamed was quoted by the Prime Time news last night as saying, “when you make people terrified, you are a terrorist!”

And last but not least, what about when the government robbed the people from their hard earn income through policy like The Self Service System which brought me to turn the Nation flag upside down?

Is this Jihad or just pure nationalism? If Jihad why not the Muslim World join in hand fighting with those faction within the Palestine? Why are we only cry and angry when the opposite happens and left them alone and enjoying our huge trade with the United State of America most of the times?

It is easy to play with emotion but when the emotion subsides, do ask ourselves what have we achieve from the sudden surge? Let us stop this rhetoric and stop living in our fantasy. Let us face the truth.

As the peace loving Malaysia and to my fellow peace loving Muslim Brothers, let us get to the roots of this problem if we really sincere. We all hate war and its effects but do we actually hate all wars or only selected ones?

Till then, I will continue to light my Marlboro and sip my Coke.

Gaza

Dangling To The Truth

I still remember when I had a brief fight with UMNOPutras in front of Masjid Wilayah almost three years ago. They laid on the stairs the Israel flag and force every Muslim who went there to perform their Friday prayer to step on it.

When it came to my turn, I refused to step on it and asked them to remove the flag to make way for me to walk pass them. They were very upset and accused me for not having any sympathy towards my Muslim brothers and sisters.

I snapped and point my finger towards one of them and shouted, “My God does not teach me to hate his creations. What you are doing is politically incorrect and not what Muhammad wanted from his ummah!”

For me, the mother of all the problems in West Bank ( and Gaza) is not lies with the Israeli’s people or the American leadership. It lies deep beneath the heart of our Muslim Leaders. The problem in West Bank (and Gaza) is the reflection of how the Muslim Countries had failed to perform their part in this World. With God’s given blessing and flourished with Petrol Dollar, yet what had they achieved?

I am not amused with The United States of America failure to solve the problem in Palestine, neither am I amused with the Government of Israel’s orchestrated attacks on the Palestinian men, women and children. Indeed I understood their actions.

What amused me is how weak the Muslim World is despite controlling the world’s most valuable commodity. What ashamed me is how we go begging to the US to solve our problem.

I wish to see before this episode end, that we the Malaysian people would march to the embassy of Saudi Arabia, the Embassy of Egypt, Jordan and the Headquarters of OIC and slam them with tonnes of protest notes. They are the one who are responsible to protect their Muslim brothers and that duty does not lie on the hand of the Americans.

Shatila

Gadis kecil itu telah bertahun

Dicengkam derita

Di khemah pelarian

Yang menjanjikan duka cita


Munir tak mengenal erti cinta

Telah kering airmata

Menangisi kematian

Ayahbonda dan saudara


Pada suatu senja

Langit Syatila

Menyaksikan pembunuhan

Anak kecil dan wanita


Munir ditembak

Penuh luka

Tapi ajalnya belum tiba

Kerna Tuhan mengasihi dia


Peristiwa hitam 17 September

Telah menjadi bukti

Sempurnalah kekejaman

Suatu bangsa yang sombong dan hina


Karya Zubir Ali.