Wednesday December 28, 2005Ignominious endBy MARINA MAHATHIR What an ignominious way to end the year! The Government admits that it got Parliament to pass a law that was unjust and discriminatory to half the population. As a member of that particular half, I am gobsmacked. How could this have happened? The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry claims to have found even more flaws in the...
28 December 2005
22 December 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 22 December 2005
Wednesday December 14, 2005Closing the gap By MARINA MAHATHIR A young boy gets slashed in the stomach and dies. Another young man gets beaten unconscious and needs a blood clot removed from his brain. All of a sudden, parents have even more to worry about than usual. Life in Kuala Lumpur is violent as it is. Every day we read about bag snatchings, robberies, assaults, rapes and murders, all within...
06 December 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 06 December 2005
Wednesday November 30, 2005Lip service is uselessBy MARINA MAHATHIR It's another World AIDS Day tomorrow and there is some good news to announce. According to the latest UN AIDS report, sustained efforts “have yielded decreases in HIV incidence among men who have sex with men in many Western countries, among young people in Uganda, among sex workers and their clients in Thailand and Cambodia, and...
21 November 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 21 November 2005
Wednesday November 16, 2005Will this register?By MARINA MAHATHIR It's really amazing this Malaysian propensity for finding more ways to make life difficult for its own people than necessary. The latest is this ruling that Malaysian kids with foreign parents intending to go into public local schools must register that fact. Let me first of all register my particular interest in this. I have a Malaysian...
15 November 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 15 November 2005
Wednesday October 19, 2005Nature’s wrathBy MARINA MAHATHIR Well, this has been a banner year for disasters, hasn’t it? It’s taken in almost all the natural elements: water (tsunami), wind (hurricanes), earth (earthquake). God forbid, there will be a fire disaster next. Added to that are the health epidemics. Bird flu, dengue, TB, malaria, polio and let’s not forget that HIV is still there, quietly...
22 September 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 22 September 2005
Wednesday September 21, 2005Asking the right questionsMusings by MARINA MAHATHIRI TRY to be fair to people as much as I can and the other day I had a major epiphany. I realised that I really had not been very fair to our religious officials by constantly criticising them for their obsession with topics that are either trivial or beyond their field of expertise. Then it occurred to me that the reason...
12 September 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 12 September 2005
Wednesday September 7, 2005Independence and freedomBy MARINA MAHATHIRSince we have been celebrating our 48th birthday this past week, I thought it was an opportune moment to reflect on some of the words we like to toss about these days. It seems to me that abuse of words is a major Malaysian disease these days and perhaps it’s high time we formed an association for the protection of the true meaning...
29 August 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 29 August 2005
Wednesday August 24, 2005Another take on reality showsBy MARINA MAHATHIRThe other day, while reading the newspaper, a light bulb went off in my head (not a common occurrence). It dawned on me that there must be no stupid people in Malaysia. How did something so profound occur to me so suddenly? I figured that everyone who merits a quotation in our papers must be very smart, no matter what they said,...
12 August 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 12 August 2005
Wednesday August 10, 2005Let them speakBy MARINA MAHATHIRI’ve always thought that Malaysians are disinclined towards self-reflection and analysis. Why this should be so could probably be blamed on an education system that does not encourage independent thinking and questioning, as well as a dislike for confronting anything unpleasant. This is all very well if you never have to face it for yourself....
28 July 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 28 July 2005
Wednesday July 27, 2005Globalisation of fearBy MARINA MAHATHIRWhen we hear the word “globalisation”, we think immediately of McDonald’s and Starbucks, and moan the fact that it seems to go only one way. True globalisation will probably only exist when people can buy nasi lemak at corner stalls in New York. But one aspect of globalisation hardly ever merits a mention. And that is the globalisation...
04 July 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 04 July 2005
Words of warWednesday June 29, 2005By MARINA MAHATHIR Maybe we should just blame George Bush. The man who started the very abstract war on terrorism that then morphed into a very real war on people can surely be held responsible for the prevailing obsession with being war-like about everything. Or maybe, he should at least be blamed for a general pervasive macho-ness all over the world, all swagger...
20 June 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 20 June 2005
Wednesday June 15, 2005The real MalaysiaBy MARINA MAHATHIR Sometimes life is like a movie script. Let me tell a little story about Malaysia that should really make it onto celluloid. The other day a young Indian fellow called Mike, who happens to work for me, finally got married to his girlfriend Zai, a Malay girl. The wedding reception took place in a suburb of KL at Zai’s parents’ home. Or rather,...
07 June 2005
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 07 June 2005
Wednesday June 1, 2005 More things not to doMUSINGS by MARINA MAHATHIR Some people may recall a column of mine which gained some infamy because I talked about how while Malaysians are misinterpreting what Malaysia Boleh means, they are also not paying attention to what they tak boleh. I gave examples of Malaysians running around trying to make the biggest this or the longest that, none of which enhances...
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 07 June 2005
Wednesday May 18, 2005 Be boldMusings by MARINA MAHATHIR LAST Sunday (May 15) was International AIDS Memorial Day (IAMD), the day we take time off to remember the millions of people who have died of AIDS. These people were not strangers to us; they were fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children and friends, people who left us because of a disease that they did not wish to have. On IAMD, as usual...
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 07 June 2005
Wednesday May 4, 2005 Laws that promote goodMusings by MARINA MAHATHIR The other day I watched in fascinated horror as a man crossed a busy road while sms-ing. Completely oblivious to the cars passing by him, his confidence that they would avoid him was something to behold. If any of them had hit him, and God forbid, killed him, there would have been much anger thrown at the “careless” driver and...
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 07 June 2005
Wednesday April 6, 2005 The late Puan Sri Naimah, a pillar of strengthMUSINGS by MARINA MAHATHIR Sometimes people come into your life and you can’t foresee what impact they are going to make. Last week many of my colleagues and I mourned the death of Puan Sri Naimah Hasbi after a long illness. In the newspapers, she was recognised only as the wife of the former Minister Tan Sri Sulaiman Daud. In fact...
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 07 June 2005
Wednesday April 20, 2005 Moral terrorismMusings by MARINA MAHATHIR Sometimes we think we are so unique in the world. But just a little reading makes us realize that there are so many parallels with other people, despite what looks like inherent differences. This coming week, the leader of the majority Republicans in the United States, Senator Bill Frist, is participating in a telecast geared towards...
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 07 June 2005
Wednesday March 23, 2005 First World appearance, Third World mentalityMUSINGS by MARINA MAHATHIR We pride ourselves on many things, we Malaysians. And well we should, because we just have to travel to some other developing countries to realize how advanced and easy life is in ours. We have just about everything here. We have good roads, most people have been educated (even as the education system...
by Marina Mahathir | re-published by SambalBelacan on 07 June 2005
Wednesday March 9, 2005
Unequal learning in our education system
MUSINGS with MARINA MAHATHIR
As the cliché goes, kids say the darndest things. My older one, who admittedly will soon not be a kid anymore, had a particularly insightful thought the other day. “You know, Mum,” she said. “If I had stayed at school at home (in Malaysia), I would never have read half of the books I’ve read today.”
To...
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