17 July 2008

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at
http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday July 16, 2008
In the name of their fathers
MUSINGS BY MARINA MAHATHIR
The recent announcement that Muslim adopted children must use the names of their biological male parent and not that of their adoptive fathers, as previously allowed, is causing anguish to many an adoptive parent as well as



I wonder what is it about us as a society these days when common sense has now become less commonplace?

Once upon a time we trusted ourselves, in our instincts and in our own values to do the right thing. We empathised with those in unfortunate circumstances and did our best to mitigate their situations.

These days people trust their natural instincts less, preferring to refer to others who tell us they are in authority.

We abdicate the responsibility to think and instead ask for guidance from others and follow that advice even when sometimes instinctively we know that the advice is unfair and incorrect.

A fine example is the recent announcement by the Home Minister that Muslim adopted children must use the names of their biological fathers and not the names of their adoptive fathers, as previously allowed.

Ostensibly, this was to fall in line with a fatwa made eight years ago but whether this solves problems or creates them seems to not be considered at all.

In the first place, the assumption seems to be that adoptive parents always know who the father of their adopted children are. But since babies are often adopted from unwed mothers, the fathers are not always known.

What if the babies are the result of liaisons with foreign fathers who gave false names? What if the babies are the result of rape?

Sometimes babies are adopted from a different race. If Baby A was originally Chinese or Indian and not born Muslim, do they then have to be known as Baby A Tan or Baby B Ramasamy?

Some have argued that the reason for keeping adopted children’s original names is so that they will not accidentally marry their own siblings.

Perhaps there was a risk of this in the days when people did not travel much outside their own communities or tribes.

This is possibly why the Chinese advise against marriage between two people with the same surnames. But with more than two billion Chinese sharing many common surnames, the chances that a Tan from one end of the country being related to a Tan from the other end of the country has become remote.

But if the logic is that you should take your father’s name so that you won’t marry any of your father’s other children, then what protection would you have against marrying one of your mother’s other children (by a man other than your father) that she might also have given away?

Furthermore, the converse logic is also problematic. If you don’t share the same surname as your adoptive siblings, then presumably you can marry them, even if you have grown up with them all your life.

Biologically this may be all right but socially and morally, would this still not be regarded as incestuous?

Woody Allen was neither biologically or even ethnically related to Soon-Yi Previn, yet people still found the liaison between them repugnant because she was his wife’s adopted daughter.

As the sister of several adopted siblings, I know at close hand the problems associated with both having the same as well as different surnames.

All my adopted siblings knew their status from childhood but the problem came from outside the family, not within. People did not treat them the same as us biological children even though they have the same surname.

In some cases, they simply disbelieved their relationship because of the different surnames. Perhaps it is because we are not an ordinary family but I imagine that even in ordinary families, you can still have this problem.

Besides, in Malay families, we do not have surnames. Not every “bin Ali” is related to every other “bin Ali”. You would have to trace back each person several generations on both sides of the family in order to be certain they are or are not related.

How is that possible with adopted children, especially orphans or abandoned children?

This new policy is one that is causing anguish to many an adoptive parent. Adoption has often meant a better life for many orphans. Couples adopt so that they can provide a loving home to children who would otherwise have never known a family.

I know some couples who've adopted children who turned out to be hearing-disabled and they have done everything they can to ensure that their children lead as normal a life as possible.

Already this policy is causing people to hesitate before they adopt. Many others are concerned about the emotional turmoil that public knowledge of their non-biological child’s status will cause, as opposed to private acceptance within the family.

One has to wonder who exactly is to benefit from this new law? It is certainly not the adopted child.

09 July 2008

==================================
IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday July 2, 2008
Toxic shock syndrome
MUSINGS BY MARINA MAHATHIR
Anyone who has an opinion finds a counter-opinion. Neither is necessarily founded on truth.



JUST when we thought the atmosphere in our beloved country was toxic enough, it just got even worse.

I don’t know if anyone finds politics and politicians in our country as tiresome as I do these days.

And I mean those of every stripe and shade. Somehow none of them seem capable of behaving like normal people with normal instincts.

Everything is seen and done through a political lens.

Which is fine except that that’s not the way most normal people think.

The worst thing is that after a while, they start infecting others and even ordinary people start thinking the same way.

So people start looking at things through a distorted lens without even realising it.

For instance, it seems an automatic reaction for politicians to regard everything their opponents do as wrong, regardless of what it is.

So even if it is something good for the people, their opponents will impute some sinister agenda to it.

I would be happy to receive anything that makes my life easier from anyone, and I really don’t care to be told that it really isn’t good for me without a convincing argument why.

But how silly has the situation become that even their supporters start thinking the same way, even when their own lives are affected by what their leaders do.

On the other hand, politicians also are quick to defend whatever their own colleagues do as good, regardless of what it is.

If what their colleagues do is totally unconscionable, at the most they will react slowly and gently.

A case in point would be the bocor case last year, when after a rather long time, a non-apology was offered after much persuasion by their own party mates.

This type of attitude seems to have seeped into other people, too.

Double standards seem to prevail.

For instance, the same people who call

for justice to be blind seem to not want to apply this same standard to those they don’t like.

One would think that to prove that justice is indeed non-discriminatory, one would bend over backwards to insist on justice for those one has no great love for.

Instead there is a scramble to take every little bit of gossip or opinion as true.

Yet, if the same were directed at those they like, the response would be that these were “scurrilous” and “politically motivated.”

What sort of example are we setting for the general public with this?

Nowadays everyone sees so many plots and counterplots in everything that the atmosphere has become truly toxic.

Anyone who has an opinion finds a counter-opinion. Neither is necessarily founded on truth.

So there is no advance towards any sort of resolution.

Everyone seems to find it shameful not to have an opinion, even if it is not founded on anything they actually know.

There is no pausing to reflect and consider. To try and learn more so that one can give a measured response to anything.

Even ministers give knee-jerk personal opinions in unbecoming ways.

Small wonder that everyone else feels that they can make foolish unconsidered statements as well.

Not that the media is of any help. News today is simply a string of sound bites.

You get the impression that reporters ask for only three words of reactions rather than a proper explanation of what anyone thinks of any issue.

Responses do depend on the questions being asked as well, and in my experience many of the questions do not go beyond “What do you say to what so-and-so said?”

Unfortunately, politicians lap up the opportunity to show how glib they are.

Perhaps it goes back again to our general attitude towards information.

We want it quickly and in small bits. We don’t want long studied explanations about anything and then have to think about them.

Rumours, gossip and hearsay are what we want to believe.

Unfortunately there are many purveyors of these.

Maybe we should just boycott politicians and politics for a while. Or demand that they behave like normal people and concentrate on real issues.

People are trying to figure out how to feed their families.

That is the most important issue of all. Hungry people are neither patient nor good-tempered.

Nothing except good policies to manage this issue is going to matter.