Resolutions for one and all

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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 January 5, 2011
Resolutions for one and all
MUSINGS By MARINA MAHATHIR
newsdesk@thestar.com.my


Malaysians from the famous to the not so famous and the man in the street ought to resolve this year to making the country be a better place for all. Here are some suggestions.

IT’S the New Year and, as with convention, we should really make resolutions, even though the chances of keeping them are slim.

I get more half-hearted about making them each year although my list nowadays tends to be short and realistic, with a 50% chance of being kept.

I do however like to indulge in making lists for other people.

For my children, I wish they would resolve to work harder at school and be tidier. For my colleagues and friends, I wish that they (and I) could brush aside small problems and concentrate on the big ones.

Needless to say, I can’t help but wish for resolutions from our various public figures, particularly those in government. Here’s a list, in no particular order.

I wish that our Government would resolve to:

1. Slap down rather than merely slapping the wrists of those public figures and politicians who misbehave. Just say “that’s nonsense and we won’t stand for it!” rather than the wishy-washy “we must investigate” reaction. Or worse still, complete silence.

2. Stop twisting words in order to spin what’s wrong into what’s right.

3. Stop using simpering journalists to interview politicians because they do a great job of convincing the public that both they and their interviewees are nothing but idiots.

4. Stop demonising people who are critical and calling them traitors when they probably love their country more than most.

5. Stop being afraid of those who think that getting ahead means getting handouts for everything in the belief that this will let them stand tall.

6. Do the right thing even when it may make them unpopular for a while. Ban plastic bags. Push for safer sex. Outlaw child marriages.

7. Remind some people that they are paid by taxpayers to do their job and that does not entitle them to act as if they are God’s representatives on earth.

8. In fact, I truly wish we could just forget about having to use taxpayers’ money to pay anyone who is likely to believe they are God’s representatives on earth.

9. Allow more consultation with people on the ground who know what communities need for their own development. Maybe have a policy that ensures that absolutely nobody is marginalised for any reason.

10. Overhaul the entire education system to make it more open, democratic, and at par with the best in the world. And completely eradicate politics from it.

11. Make sports and the arts as important as economic development because we need to have a country with soul.

12. Ban the habit of giving titles to sports, arts and entertainment figures until they’re at least 50 or have had significant achievements in their field for a number of years. Roger Federer has been No 1 in the tennis world for a record-breaking 237 weeks and the Swiss government still hasn’t made him a Datuk.

I wish politicians would resolve to:

1. Stop politicking and concede that sometimes the other side can be right.

2. Work together more on issues that affect everyone. Australia’s successful HIV programme worked well because from the very beginning, the government and opposition decided it was a bipartisan issue.

3. Be more self-reflective. And breathe before they say anything.

4. Get rid of sexism everywhere it is found, especially in political parties, in Parliament and State Assemblies and in general commentary.

5. Come out and unequivocally condemn violence against women, no ifs, no buts.

6. Publicly shake the hand of an HIV-positive adult.

I wish the police would resolve to:

1. Ticket every single person who double and triple park on Fridays and not excuse them just because they are apparently communing with God. Or, watching football.

2. Stop finding parangs in the cars of every single person who accuses them of wrongdoing.

3. Stop shrugging their shoulders every time someone complains of their bags being snatched, laptops stolen etc. Police reports aren’t just for claiming insurance or getting new ICs done.

I wish Malaysians in general would:

1. Use their car signal lights for a change

2. Queue

3. Park in the right places, dead straight and not encroach onto empty spots.

4. Not double and triple park in front of mosques on Fridays and think that God is OK with it.

5. Stop waiting for someone else to do something

6. Stop putting down people who do something

7. Stop reading so much gossip and trash. It really doesn’t reflect well on us.

8. Stop believing everything they read. Just because it’s on the Internet really doesn’t make it truer.

9. Register to vote if they haven’t yet.

10. Remember that their votes are valuable and should not be given away on empty promises.

Happy 2011, folks!

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Diversity is our great wealth

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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 December 22, 2010
Diversity is our great wealth
Musings by MARINA MAHATHIR


Malaysian Muslims need to travel more, even within the Muslim world just to see its diversity. Muslims all over the world have just as many different cultures and traditions as they do similarities.

I was really hoping to end the year on a happier note. But in a very fractious year, there is simply no let-up. The long list of intolerance and human rights abuse continues unabated.

We live in a country of a great diversity. Our people are of many different ethnicities and religions. That is our great wealth and strength and undoubtedly we have managed to live better with that diversity for more than 50 years.

Now, however, diversity is a fact that can’t even be acknowledged.

What does plurality mean? It just means that we are not homogenous, that we have many different streams among our people, whether it’s ethnic makeup, beliefs or opinions.

Being plural is just a statement of fact, not a judgement call on which of these streams are better than the other.

Yet, there are people warning us about the dangers of pluralism, because apparently pluralism makes equal what they believe is not. Where they got this is not stated.

All of us believe that our religion is the best one. But the fact that other religions exist is something we have to accept.

In parts of the world, our religion is not accepted and indeed discriminated against. If we complain about that, is it not hypocritical for us to do the same at home?

In the Quran, God talks about believers and defines them this way: “Believers are only they whose hearts tremble with awe whenever God is mentioned, and whose faith is strengthened whenever His messages are conveyed unto them, and who in their Sustainer place their trust.” (Surah Al-Anfal, Verse 2).

Can we seriously go around and decide who are believers and who are not? And even if we could, can we do anything about it? As God says, “Behold, God lets go. Astray him who will (to go astray), just as He guides unto Himself all who turn unto Him” (Surah Al-R’ad, Verse 27).

Nor does pluralism refer only to us and the other but also within our own communities. How is it we can be so intolerant even of those within our own fold, unless we don’t know our own religion?

“All believers are but brethren. Hence, (whenever they are at odds) make peace between your two brethren, and remain conscious of God, so that you might be graced with His mercy.” (Surah Al-Hujarat, Verse 10).

And yet, our leaders are calling us to hound people whose beliefs differ from ours, even when their roots go back to the same source as ours.

Sometimes, I think Malaysian Muslims need to travel more, even within the Muslim world, just to see its diversity.

Muslims all over the world have just as many different cultures and traditions as they do similarities.

Not everybody does things exactly the way we do it. Yet their core beliefs, what makes them Muslims, are all the same.

So who are we to decide whether they are wrong or not?

More practically speaking, if we insist that Shiites are deviants, then how do we explain the Islamic Republic of Iran and its membership in the OIC? Or is inconsistency simply part of politics?

Not only are we a plural society in terms of race, religion and within religion itself, we are also plural in other ways, including sexuality.

Here again we go against our own core beliefs in order to act out our own prejudices.

If we believe that God determines everything, then surely our sexuality is not a matter of choice either.

Therefore, if we did not choose to be heterosexual, it stands to reason that nobody chose to be homosexual either. In this way, we are equal before the Divine.

How then does this justify the type of savage discrimination that some of us insist must be inflicted against those of minority sexualities?

If we persecute every single gay man, woman and child in this country, would God guarantee that no disaster will ever befall us henceforth?

If I sound frustrated, it is because I am completely tired of the abhorrently arrogant way that those in authority have conducted themselves in the past year.

Somehow supremacist beliefs about just about everything is gaining ground, not just about race and religion but also about gender, sexuality, age, disability and everything else not considered the “norm”.

Those of us who complain about discrimination and abuse become the ones who are branded irreligious.

Did we forget this verse? “O men! Behold, We have created you all out of males and females, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another”. (Surah Al-Hujarat, Verse 13).

Could there be nothing clearer about a pluralistic world?

Try and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone!

For enlightenment, do read this http://www.ammanmessage.com/

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Marriage is not about legalising sex

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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 December 8, 2010
Marriage is not about legalising sex
MUSINGS
By MARINA MAHATHIR


Worldwide society is moving towards banning child marriages altogether. A child bride is utterly dependent on her husband, being less educated and unable to earn her own income.

WHEN a mainstream newspaper puts a front-page photo of a 14-year-old bride with no comment at all, then there is something seriously sick with our society.

Despite signing on to the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) we are still allowing child marriages to happen with the pretext that religion allows it.

What has child marriage got to do with discrimination against women? When child marriages occur, it is almost always girls who are the ones married off, rarely ever boys.

And in almost all cases, they are married to much older men, sometimes old enough to be their grandfathers. Child marriage is therefore never one of equality because how can a child ever be an equal partner to her adult husband?

One might argue about the presumption of equality in marriage; that wives should be, by default, inferior to their husbands. Even if this is a valid belief (and it is not), doesn’t a girl child have even more odds stacked against her than an adult wife?

A child bride is even more dependent on her husband than most adult wives, being less educated and unable to earn her own income. Her entire future is in his hands, to be decided as he wills.

I have to ask, what sort of parents match-make their underage daughter to an older man, albeit one who is a family friend? Do they have so little ambition for their child?

I know how parents, especially mothers, fall “in love” with young men they think would be ideal for their daughters, but is it so important to grab a man as a husband for such a young daughter instead of waiting for her to grow up and, who knows, find a better one herself later?

Or is the idea to control your child’s life to such a degree that you dictate her future before she can even acquire the means to decide on her own?

It is entirely sick that there are religious officials who view child marriage as the answer to “social problems”. What problems are they talking about? Is sex outside marriage the greatest evil there is? Is not child marriage with its virtual enslavement of girls, its proven physical damage to girls’ bodies and the utter lack of preparedness for a life of responsibility not a bigger social evil?

Every day in the papers we see endless horrifying results of irresponsibility in marriage; abandoned wives and children, domestic violence, child abuse. Aren’t those greater issues?

Has anyone even noticed that in cases of child abuse, the parent perpetrators are invariably young and saddled with several young children who they obviously view as a hindrance to their enjoyment of life?

Go visit an orphanage and see the many children there who are not orphans but have been either discarded by their parents or have been placed there by the courts because of abuse by their own parents.

Is marriage only about legalising sex? And therefore if anyone is in “danger” of having illegal sex they should be married off regardless of age?

Indeed, when we think of child marriages as a way of fending off “social evils”, who do we think is the would-be perpetrator of that evil? Is it not the groom? So, if he does legally what in all other cases would be called rape, he is all right?

In other countries, society is moving towards banning child marriages altogether. Even in super-conservative Saudi Arabia, a member of the Senior Council of Ulema said that the Prophet Mohammed’s marriage to a nine-year-old girl some 14 centuries ago cannot be used to justify child marriages today.

Sheikh Abdullah Al-Manie said that circumstances today are different from the days when the Prophet married Aisha. (Other scholars have also argued that Aisha was not nine but 19, which seems to indicate some defensiveness about this issue.)

In Indonesia, a Muslim cleric who married a 12-year-old girl was jailed four years for sexual abuse of a minor.

He said he was not going to sleep with her until she reached puberty, but few in the predominantly Muslim nation of 237 million were mollified, especially when he went on to say he also intended to marry two other girls, aged seven and nine.

Paedophilia is paedophilia no matter what the garb.

But of course we in Malaysia have to be different. Once upon a time we talked about how our grandmothers married very young but we also dismissed this as an old-fashioned practice.

In the 21st century when we’re trying to become a modern nation, why are we not ashamed that we find excuses to allow child marriages?

It is now time to just ban this outright and become civilised.

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Of orphans and orphanages

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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 November 24, 2010
Of orphans and orphanages
MUSINGS BY MARINA MAHATHIR


Children in orphanages, some of whom have parents, bring much emotional baggage to their new ‘homes’, baggage that is often not dealt with at all.

AMID our outcry about babies being dumped, there is one thing we forget. Those children who live need our attention, too.

Recently I went to visit what I thought was an orphanage. An orphanage, to me, is where orphans – children with no parents – live. As it turned out, I was to learn a lot about orphans and orphanages.

According to my host, orphans make up only a small percentage of the inhabitants of orphanages. The rest of the children who live there do have parents but are forced to live apart from them for various reasons.

Many have only one parent, usually the mother, who simply cannot afford to care for them. Some parents have moved on in their lives and just didn’t have space for their kids.

Still others actually have two parents but have been ordered by the court to live away from them because of abuse.

It’s hard to decide which are the saddest cases. One girl had lost both parents in a car accident, after which the courts gave custody of her and her siblings to their mother’s relatives.

Sadly, this did not make their lives better because their relatives apparently only wanted their inheritance. Once the inheritance was gone, they were shunted off to the orphanage.

Perhaps the relatives had never heard of the Quranic verse 4:2: “Hence, render unto the orphans their possessions, and do not substitute bad things [of your own] for the good things [that belong to them], and do not consume their possessions together with your own: this, verily, is a great crime.”

Another girl had been there for five years, even though in fact she had parents who were divorced. Each holiday she went “home” but because her father ignored her, it was always an unhappy visit.

By all accounts, this is a good orphanage because it is not over-crowded and the children are well fed, cared for and go to school. It is also open to motivational programmes, which was why I visited and talked to the girls.

Other orphanages are filled to the brim with kids from so many different backgrounds.

Some are true orphans, some are not; many have been abused.

What is certain is that they all bring much emotional baggage to their new “homes”, baggage which is often not dealt with at all.

We often see in the newspapers cute kids being taken on outings to the zoo, movies and other treats. But rarely do we enquire into the backgrounds of these kids to find out their stories.

It is probably that enquiry that they need most, for someone to ask them why they are there. If their stories are not dealt with, their emotional scars will not be revealed and they cannot heal.

Many years ago, a family friend from the United States adopted a little girl from an orphanage here.

When she returned to the States, she made it known that her new daughter had siblings who were also up for adoption.

A friend of hers adopted the brother and sister and everyone thought it would be a happy ending because all the siblings were living close to each other.

Sadly, both families went through years of difficulties with these children who for some reason did not feel secure enough to think of their new homes as permanent.

Who knows what caused them to think of running away from a safe comfortable home?

The last I heard, my friend’s daughter, now in her 20s, had finally stabilised and settled down, but I don’t know what happened to her siblings.

Having met the girls recently at the orphanage, I now realise that there is a wide range of child abuse. While the more visible forms of physical abuse are easy to spot, we don’t see the invisible forms, such as the emotional abuse that they may have undergone, sometimes by their own parents.

The question is, what do we do for these children? Are we really looking after all these children and helping them so that they may have an equal footing with kids who are luckier?

Children who have suffered violence and abuse, including sexual abuse, tend to go on to become violent and abusive adults. What do we do to prevent that?

What do we do to protect their rights? According to UN statistics, there are 410,000 orphans, presumably only those with no parents, in Malaysia. Curiously, we have no figures for how many are in school.

These days, with so many reports of fatal motor accidents, I wonder how many children they orphan and what really happens to them afterwards? How do we ensure justice for kids like these?

Nov 20 was Universal Children’s Day and the 21st anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child.

Sign up at www.uniteagainstabuse.my if you think no child should be abused.

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Are we disaster’d out?

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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 November 10, 2010
Are we disaster’d out?
MUSINGS
By MARINA MAHATHIR


Most people feel overwhelmed by the numbers and scale of disasters and then feel paralysed. But every little bit helps, even if it is only RM10 or two T-shirts.

IN A short space of time there’s been a tsunami and an ongoing volcanic eruption in Indonesia as well as floods in Kedah and Perlis.

Further afield, there have also been floods in Pakistan and typhoons and hurricanes elsewhere, including the already suffering Haitians yet to recover from their earthquake early this year.

Despite this litany of natural disasters, so many of us have been barely able to lift a finger to do anything about them.

Blame it perhaps on the economic crisis that has made everyone’s wallet a lot leaner.

Or just that it’s been too much all at once. Whatever it is, people are not being as generous as they once were.

A couple of years ago when floods hit Johor, I organised a collection of clothes, food and other sundries to be sent to the victims there.

My office was quickly filled with donations and we even got help from a packing company and an airline to send the things down.

This time I’m hard put to know which disaster area to organise collections for.

There are some people whose natural reaction is to put our own citizens first.

Recently, my young friend Yeoh Ee Ping put up a video appeal for any volunteers to go up north with her and her brother to help with relief and clean-up work.

Nobody has responded, except to say they cannot go.

Perhaps it’s because few know Ee Ping. I do.

She is an enthusiastic young woman who is active at college in many activities while waiting to go for further studies abroad on a JPA scholarship.

Her family is a warm and supportive one, always encouraging her to do community service.

I met her online and then face-to-face and found her and her family genuine people.

So, when Ee Ping decided to go up north to help, she was serious about it.

She had organised contacts and accommodation for herself and her brother and left by bus on Monday for Kangar.

I am amazed her parents are allowing them both to go up on their own but then they know of her determination and trust her.

Such a story should inspire everyone.

But few people seem to be.

Perhaps other people have work and school to attend to.

But at the very least there should be donations being handed over for Ee Ping to take up.

Or maybe because of the long weekend, nobody had seen the appeal.

These days when we read of so many different disasters, it’s hard to know which to support.

Our fellow citizens need help and floods are indeed awful, but when you read of hot gas rushing down mountains burning entire villages in its wake, you also feel for the poor villagers around Mount Merapi.

You also feel for those in the remote regions of Pakistan displaced by floods, so much more numerous than ours and with so much less help reaching them, obstructed by geography, government inefficiency and politics.

How does one choose and what help is appropriate?

Most people feel overwhelmed by the numbers and scale of disasters and then feel paralysed.

But the trouble is, if everyone feels immobilised, then nobody will help.

What we need to understand is that every little bit helps, that even if we can only donate RM10 or two T-shirts, it’s still good.

Perhaps what relief agencies need to do is, instead of saying that they need large amounts of money or goods, to reduce the appeal to bite-sized contributions.

For example, to say what a certain amount of money would get one child.

I find people respond much better to this, when we can put a face to a disaster or make the relief needs human-sized.

A few years ago, I launched an online appeal to help a Timor Leste girl who needed a heart operation.

When I compared the small donation per person needed to one roti canai or pizza meal, people responded well and we raised the required money in no time.

A few years later, when I made a Christmas appeal for funds to help with the education of the same girl and 16 of her fellow orphans, the response was much more reluctant.

Perhaps the media should also broadcast more free appeals along with phone numbers of the relief agencies helping out.

This would raise awareness of the different disasters and what help was needed.

It’s not that people are not generous but that the sheer scale of the many disasters has paralysed them into inaction.

All they need is a little motivation.

Please contact your nearest Red Crescent or Mercy Malaysia office to see how you can help.

> Surf http://redcrescent.org.my/drupal/node/36 for contact details of Red Crescent state offices or call its national headquarters at 03-4257 8122, Disaster Management Centre at 03-4260 3242, or e-mail secgen@redcrescent.org.my.

The Red Crescent Society also has a Malaysia Relief Flood Fund. Donations, which are tax-exempted, can be banked into its Maybank Account No: 5144-2210-7228.

Mercy Malaysia can be contacted at 03-2273 3999 or e-mail info@mercy.org.my.

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