Enough of ‘softie’ bashing

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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 October 12, 2011
Enough of ‘softie’ bashing
Musings
By MARINA MAHATHIR


If you are to believe certain TV commentaries, lots and lots of Malaysian women are losing their husbands to transsexuals who are prettier and sexier than them.

THERE can’t be very many things more amusing, at least for a short while, than people willing to go on TV to make fools of themselves. That’s why reality shows make good TV.

For many people, just being famous, no matter for what, is all they care about. They become celebrities for the infamous Warholian 15 minutes.

Which is the only explanation I can give for the women and men who went on TV last week to discuss the “threat” that transgendered people pose to women these days.

Apparently, if you believe these people, lots and lots of Malaysian women are losing their husbands to transsexuals who are more beautiful and sexier than them.

The alarm bells have to be sounded now before society deteriorates even further.

I think when we have shows like these passed off as intelligent TV, our society has already deteriorated beyond redemption.

With absolutely no evidence to support their thesis, these women and men mouthed off the most hateful prejudiced warnings about the scourge that apparently is threatening marriages these days.

Not for a moment did any of them pause to consider whether their argument was logical at all. Are they saying that all those second and third wives are transsexuals? If so, by what miracle are they producing all those babies?

And as always, women blame the other party for everything, quite forgetting that there is the man in between who is more than a willing partner to such shenanigans. How come nobody blames him?

The subtext (if you can call such unsubtlety sub anything) is that no man can resist a pretty and sexy woman who’s out to entice him. This is baffling. Are the complaining women thus saying that they themselves are therefore not pretty and not sexy?

And that the Lord of the Manor, who they serve hand and foot and swear to obey no matter what, becomes a total weakling when faced with an alluring look and the toss of some well-blown locks?

Shouldn’t they just throw such a spineless creature out of the house?

The blame should also go to the TV producers who put on a show like this. I am trying to imagine the preparatory meetings beforehand. “What shall we put on next week?” asks the head of programming.

“Oh I heard somewhere that women are losing their husbands to transsexuals,” pipes up the producer of the show.

“Oh! Hey, great topic. Go for it,” says the boss.

And there you have a programme, based on some rumour that the producer heard “somewhere”. Is it any wonder that TV is called the idiot box?

More seriously, however, is the unashamed attempt by the media to fan prejudice and discrimination against a part of our society – transgendered people – for no good reason other than to hide their own shortcomings.

This is only the latest in a long series of both TV programmes and articles in tabloids that have consistently been shrieking the most vile accusations against transgendered people, all in the belief that they have religion to protect them.

The result of this constant stream of disgusting news has been that transgendered people and lelaki lembut have been subjected to so much harassment and injustice that, for some, it has become unbearable.

Tragic incident

Not too long ago, a transsexual whose application to change her name on her identity card was refused by the courts died out of dejection and despair. And no doubt, the self-righteous patted themselves on the back for a job well done.

We are facing a world these days with so many challenges. There are people out there who are hungry or have no roof over their heads.

In our glittering capital city, there are people taking their showers in the Dataran Merdeka fountain because they have no bathrooms to call their own.

So many others are finding it harder and harder to get by on what they earn as prices rise.

And yet what does certain media care about? Whether our men are being enticed away, not by the sort of sexy young things that the same certain media like to showcase every day but by transsexuals!

Or whether we should do something about the “epidemic” of soft men who generally have done nothing to harm anyone. Soft men are not known, for instance, to become Mat Rempits or to snatch anyone’s bags.

Is it too much to ask that certain media not insult our intelligence? Can we demand a stop to the sort of prejudiced nonsense that they pass off as smart commentary?

When the annals of our history are read 50 years from now, would certain media like to be recorded as having contributed to the dumbing down of our people?

Apparently they do.

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A holistic look at laws needed

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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 September 28, 2011
A holistic look at laws needed
MUSINGS By MARINA MAHATHIR
newsdesk@thestar.com.my


Legislation can be interpreted in many ways, and the innocent may end up being wrongly accused just because they look different.

I’VE often heard it said, in discussions on our more repressive laws, that if you never do anything wrong, you would have no need to worry about them.

This reasoning always sounds appealing and if you are not one to think too hard, then there doesn’t seem to be a good counter-argument against it.

But what we often forget is that while laws often seem well-intentioned, the people carrying them out may not be.

A good example is the Patriot Act in the United States. Ostensibly, this is meant to catch any would-be terrorist bent on repeating what had transpired on Sept 11, 2001.

It is meant to keep Americans safe from those who mean harm.

But what has really happened is that the lives of one group of Americans, all Muslims, have been severely disrupted and disturbed by the Act.

Innocent people have been accused of collusion with terrorists, have lost their jobs and, in their daily lives, have to endure insults and humiliation from their fellow citizens.

Even some non-Muslims, such as turbaned Sikhs, have to suffer various slurs just because they look different.

So it may be that you are totally innocent and doing nothing to break the law but once a law is in place, you can suffer from wrongful accusations, and worse if someone merely suspects that you might be up to something.

Donating to a particular charitable organisation, or even buying certain books, can be deemed as proof of guilt.

The good thing about the US is that there are people in the American Civil Liberties Union who are always vigilant about these abuses of the law and will take action to defend the rights of those wrongly accused.

Thus never intending to break a law is not safe enough protection from a repressive one.

There are other laws that some people want to introduce, which they insist will not affect anyone outside its purview, or anyone who isn’t intending to break the law.

The first issue is whether you even know there’s a law you might break.

Secondly, even when you don’t think you’re breaking the law, there is someone else who is sure you have and makes your life miserable for it.

For example, there have been several married couples who have been caught for khalwat, even one non-Muslim couple on holiday here.

Do they get any apology or compensation for the humiliation and embarrassment from the overzealous agencies responsible?

Such laws are not exempt from the test of justice. Just because a particular law is in place doesn’t make it just. That is the worry.

Even if you know you will never break that law, you still have to worry whether the enforcers have any sense of justice at all.

How sure can we be that all the safeguards that we need against being wrongly accused are also in place?

As many American Muslims can tell us, just being of the “wrong” faith is all it takes to make life take a distinctly miserable turn.

It’s also only a certain set of people who are most confident that these laws will not affect them.

Invariably they are elite and have the sort of money that can buy them the best defence.

Again, we need only look at the majority of people caught for khalwat, usually young and poor, to see that laws are not applied fairly across the board.

If you can afford a posh hotel or apartment, you can get away with it.

Similarly, some people have been musing about having laws that punish people for stealing by cutting their hands off.

Other laws purport to punish adultery by stoning those found guilty.

Again, will this mean that those who are poor and caught for stealing petty sums will have to face this, while those who steal millions can get away with it?

Celebrities who get caught for khalwat only need to have a grand wedding, complete with designer gowns, and all is forgiven and forgotten.

If such laws cannot be enforced in the fairest way, then why have them?

This is why we should not have any of these laws at all.

There may be some need for security laws but the intentions and safeguards must be clear and made known to all. They cannot be made redundant by provisions lurking in some other law.

It’s not enough to repeal selective laws. A more holistic look at all laws in the interest of justice and equality is what is needed.

I welcome the recent announcements of repeals of these laws. But like everything else affecting our lives, the proof is in the pudding. Right now it hasn’t even started cooking yet

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Fallout from Sept 11 still being felt

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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 September 14, 2011
Fallout from Sept 11 still being felt
MUSINGS
By MARINA MAHATHIR


There are efforts by ordinary citizens all over the world to heal the wounds left by the Sept 11 tragedy. Many people have been reaching out to one another with respect, humility and trust.

UNLESS you’ve been on Mars this past week, you would have realised that it was the 10th anniversary of Sept 11 a few days ago. There had been so much news and stories about it everywhere.

Nobody doubts that the events of Sept 11 10 years ago were a horrific tragedy, and all sympathy should go to the families who lost loved ones that day. But it should also be remembered that the aftermath of Sept 11 has been equally tragic, and is still ongoing.

According to the costs-of-war project at Brown University, a “very conservative” estimate is that about 137,000 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and that the wars have created more than 7.8 million refugees in these countries.

The Brown project puts the wars’ ultimate cost, including interest payments and veterans’ care, to the United States at up to US$4tril – equivalent to the country’s cumulative budget deficits for the six years from 2005 to 2010. Think of how many people that money could feed and school.


Still in tears: Family members of the Sept 11 tragedy victims attending the memorial service in New York in remembrance of their loved ones.
What have all these gained? Even Americans have been affected by it. Today, they live in an environment so fearful of another attack that they have to suffer the indignity of all manner of surveillance and security inconveniences. One recent op-ed in the New York Times suggested that on balance the infringements on civil liberties that Americans have had to suffer are relatively minor.

It failed to mention that for its American Muslim citizens, these have been major. The blame, the humiliation and the abuses that they have had to endure are not yet over.

But despite all these, and its global impacts, there are efforts by ordinary citizens to heal these wounds. In the United States and several other Western countries, the issues that arose from Sept 11 were not glossed over but discussed and debated as a way to rebuild the broken bridges. Civil society, rather than governments or politicians, have been at the forefront of these.

I was just in Western Australia where I was asked to speak at a conference on Rebuilding Harmony in the post-Sept 11 world. It was heartening to see so many people interested in the subject, and so disappointed by the ongoing violence that has accompanied the event by all sides.

Many Australians had been opposed to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, correctly seeing that this was no way to have peace.

They emphasised that people of different backgrounds, cultures and faiths need to know one another in order to avoid war, and that politicians should be held accountable for their part in the violence.

In the evening after the conference, we attended a special service at the main cathedral in Perth to commemorate the anniversary of Sept 11. It was attended by all the state dignitaries as well as people from all faiths. The entire service was beautiful and solemn as befitted the occasion.

But what moved me most was something I did not expect nor had ever experienced. An imam from a local mosque got up and recited the Al Fatihah and two other verses from the Quran dealing with compassion to humanity.

To hear the first surah of the Quran recited in Arabic in a cathedral while everyone listened so respectfully was a profoundly emotional experience for me. Never had its meaning been more beautiful.

It led me to think about how elsewhere in the world so many people have been reaching out to one another with respect, with humility and trust. When I heard the Al Fatihah in that church, it made me love my religion more.

The translation was in the programme, along with the words of all the other prayers and hymns that day, Christian and Jewish.

And what struck me most was how the sentiments expressed, while coming from different holy books, were in fact similar. My religion is as compassionate and generous as any other, not just to our own people but to all of humanity.

It made me wonder why this does not happen at home, why there is so much mistrust that nobody steps into a house of worship that is not their own.

Surely to be able to know one another is a good thing. After all, God says in surah Al-Hujarat, verse 13: O men! Behold, We have created you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another.

By constantly isolating ourselves from each other, are we not rejecting what our Creator intended?

As Malaysia Day approaches, perhaps we should think about how we can reconcile with one another. Or at the very least, refuse and reject the many deliberate attempts to divide us.

Selamat Hari Malaysia!

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A wish list of freedoms

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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 August 31, 2011
A wish list of freedoms
MUSINGS By MARINA MAHATHIR
newsdesk@thestar.com.my


We still need the fundamental freedoms that every human being desires, especially freedom of speech and expression. Our foreparents understood 54 years ago that we had a fundamental right to freedom and self-determination.

FIRST of all, let me wish everyone Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Also, as the days happen to almost coincide this year, Selamat Hari Merdeka. In many ways, this is very significant.

Raya is the day we free ourselves from a month of abstinence and restraint. Ramadan is a time for reflection on what good we have, or have not, done over the past year. It is a time to ask for forgiveness for our past sins and mistakes, and hurt we may have caused others.

Sadly, this Ramadan has hardly been an exemplary one. With insults galore, shouting and screaming, burning and threats, it has hardly been one of restraint and reflection, at least on the part of public figures. Nor was there any sense of shame at these violations of the good and holy month.

Since Raya coincides with Merdeka this year, I thought I would write a list of freedoms we should give ourselves in these coming months, besides the freedom to now eat.

First, let us have Freedom from Imagined Slights. I am sick and tired of the people who have nothing better to do than scour the media for all sorts of insults, while at the same time feeling entitled to slight others.

Some people’s skin is stretched so thinly over their rounded bulks it’s a wonder it hasn’t ripped. Every little imagined offence calls for protests and demos, almost always outside mosques after Friday prayers. One wonders if God feels slighted at this trespassing on His property, which should be oases of calm and tranquility.

As a corollary to that, let us also have Freedom from One-Sided Prosecutions. For example, some people seem to insist on having the monopoly on being sensitive. Everyone else is assumed to have thick skin, so much so that it is now apparently OK to insult people to their faces.

Thus, action is taken only when they have been offended, but never when they offend others. One has to wonder what is so great about displaying such thin skin? Won’t you wither under the sun?

Let us also demand Freedom from the Forgetful Politician, that is, those who forgot who voted them in. First off are those who insist that we should be grateful that they are there to lead us. Talk about a circular argument!

Then there are those who, although usually insisting that Malaysians are a unique species of people, totally different from everyone else in the world, are then quick to equate those same Malaysians with the worst of foreigners, those who riot, loot and destroy property.

Makes you wonder how that gels with our tourism campaigns. Are we supposed to be nice hospitable people or rioters?

One great freedom that I really wish we would give ourselves is Freedom from Snoopers, especially those intent on sticking their noses into our private lives. If one wants to create a moral society, then let’s widen that definition to include ethics instead of just keeping it totally focused on our sex lives.

A moral society is not just one where everyone behaves well sexually, if such a thing even exists, but also where people feel a strong civic duty to uphold the law, not be corrupt, treat the poorest and most vulnerable well, and protect and preserve the environment.

Instead, we have increasing official “busybodiness” coupled with the encouragement of society to be bu­sybodies. Thus our young feel that they are constantly under suspicion of doing something bad, even when they are not. Does this stop all sorts of social ills? Of course not.

Indeed we should also demand Freedom from the Ostrich, the stick-their-heads-in-the-sand attitude that insists that some things just don’t exist in our country. On the one hand there are people who see a conspiracy under every pebble and on the other there are those who just refuse to connect the dots.

For example, young people don’t have to become pregnant outside marriage if we educate them and provide the services they need to make the best choices. Instead, we refuse to educate them and then blame them for having babies out of wedlock. Some even insist that the solution is to marry them off early.

That’s where we need Freedom from the Short-sighted, those who only think in terms of short-term solutions and not the harm that will come many years down the line.

At heart, however, we still need the fundamental freedoms that every human being desires, especially freedom of speech and expression. Without these, the Snoopers, Ostriches, Short-sighted and all these others will continue to thrive and make our lives miserable.

Our foreparents understood that we had a fundamental right to freedom and self-determination 54 years ago. Let’s not forget that the next time we vote.

Merdeka!

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We are always an ‘exception’

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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 August 17, 2011
We are always an ‘exception’
Musings
By Marina Mahathir


Malaysian policies often state that we are different and therefore cannot be compared with others. Yet those who join peaceful marches are likened to British rioters. Suddenly we are the same?

ARE we getting progressively schizophrenic? Judging by current responses to events around the world, it would be easy to conclude that we are.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that makes it difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, to think logically, to have normal emotional responses and to behave normally in social situations.

If you read up on Malaysian policies and statements on various issues, the one striking factor is our insistence on exceptionalism. That is, we are different and therefore cannot be compared with any other country.


Fiery aftermath: The violent riots in London left many properties in ruin. — AFP
In the early years of the AIDS pandemic, we thought we were protected because we were different. If non-Muslims in other Muslim countries use the word “Allah” for God with no fuss, ours can’t because we are different. We are apparently unique and incomparable to anyone else in the world.

Which is why it puzzles me that all of a sudden our citizens, or at least the ones who want to voice their opinions with peaceful assemblies and marches, are being compared to British rioters and looters.

If we are always different, how come suddenly we are the same?

Going by the statements of our leaders, basically we are nothing more than savages who would rob, rape, loot and pillage given half the chance. Therefore, we need all sorts of laws to keep us in check and not venture in groups of more than five outside our homes.

Now, this is why that schizophrenic inability to think logically comes into play. Despite evidence that none of the 30,000 or so peaceful marchers last July robbed, raped, looted or pillaged, our leaders insist that we would have. They must be looking at mirrors.

Just a few days ago the fellow who demonstrated how inconvenient a protest is by inconveniencing everyone in Penang declared that he would burn down two online news portals whose reports he disagreed with. Now if that’s not London rioter behaviour, I don’t know what is.

More disturbingly, after already having insulted all the good citizens who exercised their right to peaceful assembly, our leaders go on to insult them some more.

Instead of being proud that we did not have the type of violence that the UK experienced, instead of talking about how so much more civilised our people are, our leaders liken us to rioters who have vandalised, stolen and killed.

Talk about the inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

A certain amount of hypocrisy also rears its ugly head. What if Mark Duggan, the man who was shot by police in London and whose family’s peaceful protest became the original rallying cry for the rioters, was Mohamad Duggan?

Between 1987 and 1993 and 2000 and 2005, the Palestinian people went through two uprisings against the Israeli government, known as the First and Second Intifadas, respectively. Both Intifadas involved demonstrations, protests and, yes, a certain amount of violent rioting.

They were met with an even more violent response from the Israelis that resulted in many deaths and the eventual blockade of Gaza, still in force today.

Our government supported the Intifadas then. Does that mean that our government supports the right of Palestinians to demonstrate, protest and riot, but refuses its own people’s right to do much less, that is to just march peacefully?

Or is the logic that when governments are democratically elected, its people then lose the right to protest against them?

Conveniently ignored, too, is the fact that in the UK, protests and demonstrations are held all the time without the type of violence we saw recently.

One of the biggest was in 2003 when hundreds of thousands of people marched against the Iraq war. At the time we looked benignly at this because we had the same stand. Did we tell the Brits and others round the world that they should not demonstrate against the war?

So what is the message here? We may be trusted to peacefully protest as long as the subject of our protest is in sync with the Government’s. Otherwise, if we should protest for free and fair elections, against corruption or anything else that the Constitution gives us the right to, we are labelled as unpatriotic thugs out to disturb the peace and destroy the economy and image of our country.

Looking at the UK riots, are we even talking about the same thing? What cause was the UK rioters espousing?

Some wide reading instead of political posturing might be more beneficial here. The UK rioters did not loot bookshops, and some have suggested it’s because they don’t like to read.

Perhaps they are not unlike some of our politicians.

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