03/12: You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave
Category: General Posted by: Raja Petra
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Use ISA on those who leave Islam, says lecturer
Anis Ibrahim
New Straits Times
30 Nov 2006
KUALA LUMPUR: Suggestions on how to deal with those who leave Islam came in many forms at a convention yesterday, ranging from the Internal Security Act, lengthy counselling to even elimination. International Islamic University law lecturer Dr Zulkifly Muda, who advocated the use of the ISA, however said this law should be refined for apostates. “Instead of a jail sentence, they should be put in rehabilitation by the state religious department for three months. IIU lecturers may also assist in counselling.”
He said the death penalty for apostasy subscribed under Islam was not suitable for the moment. “The apostates are not the only ones to blame for leaving the religion. There are other parties who have contributed to their confusion and disillusionment.”
“The apostate may be unable to appreciate Islam due to the acts of his parents, family or the authorities. Although apostasy is a serious crime in Islam, death would be an unfair penalty,” added Zulkifly. He was speaking to about 200 participants at a convention on ‘Religious Freedom and Apostasy: Towards a Practical Solution’ at IIU yesterday.
Zulkifly said the majority of apostates were non-Muslims who converted to marry Muslims, only to leave Islam upon dissolution of the marriage. “Converts! usually return to their original faiths because of loss of interest in continuing as a Muslim or lack of financial or emotional support upon divorce. This normally results in them giving up.’
Later in the afternoon, former High Court judge Datuk Faiza Thamby Chik chaired a discussion on Syariah jurisdiction. “I cannot go into detail, but Article 121 (1A) of the Federal Constitution is absolutely clear that the Syariah courts have jurisdiction in apos! tasy matters. What is important is that we seek a solution on how to d eal with those who wish to leave Islam.”
Among suggestions were that those who had applied to change their religion should receive counselling with a Muslim family for three months, after which they would be asked for their stand. Faiza, who delivered the High Court judgment in the Lina Joy apostasy case, said recommendations would be forwarded to religious experts in due course. The Federal Court decision on the Lina Joy case is still pending.
Another speaker, Negeri Sembilan Mufti Datuk Mohd Murtadza Ahmad said the concept of freedom of religion in Islam had been misinterpreted. “The Quranic verse ‘There is no compulsion in religion’ does not mean that a Muslim can leave Islam as he wishes, it means that non-Muslims cannot be forced to enter Islam. “This verse has been misquoted by so many. Once someone is a Muslim, he is bound by its rules, just as those professing other faiths are bound by th! eirs,” he said.
Perak Mufti Datuk Seri Harussani Zakaria said serious action should be taken against apostates. “The Muslim community is like a body. For example if a leg has become gangrenous, it should be cut off otherwise it would be dangerous for the rest of the body. Apostates can influence the rest of the community.”
The one-day event was officiated by Syariah Judicial Department director-general Datuk Sheikh Ghazali Abdul Rahman.
Well, there yo! u have it. The experts have spoken. So can all debates and disputes on the matter now be laid to rest? Those not well-read or learned in matters of Islam should not offer any unsolicited advice as this would only serve to confuse the matter further.
Okay, okay, I know what you are going to argue. Well, I have heard them all before. So, before you waste valuable bandwidth by posting your comments, allow me to pre-empt your arguments by saying what you are going to say before you say it.
Your argument is going to be about Dr Zulkifly Muda’s statement that the ISA should be used on those who leave Islam. You are going to argue that the ISA is detention without trial and this therefore goes against Islamic teachings. You are also going to argue that the ISA is preventive detention, and this means detention BEFORE a crime is committed, which again you are going to say goes against Islam because in Islam one cannot be punished for a crime one has not committed yet.
Though I would not dare disagree with you and say that you are wrong (because you are actually right), nevertheless, you must appreciate the concept of the ends justifying the means. This means: though what the good doctor has proposed may be un-Islamic, it is sometimes necessary to propagate un-Islamic teachings if it is for the good of Islam. In other words, there is nothing illegal in committing an illegal act if the ultimate objective is to do good. I mean, going against Islam for the good of Islam can be considered Islamic. (At least this is what ! I think Dr Zulkifly is trying to say).
Dr Zulkifly did explain that most of those who leave Islam originally became Muslims because of marriage to a Muslim. They then left Islam once their marriages broke up. Maybe you can allow me at this point to digress a bit. My wife became a Muslim in 1973 at the age of 18. She converted in front of the Grand Imam of the National Mosque. To be fair to him, he did explain to my wife that she need not become a Muslim if the! purpose is to marry me, as she was a Catholic and she could marry me without converting to Islam.
My wife, however, said that she still wanted to convert and that it had nothing to do with the fact she was going to marry me. Her Catholic name was Mable and she took a ‘Muslim’ name of Marina though I don’t believe it is really a Muslim name as such. The Imam said that she need not adopt the Abdullah surname so she retained her Lee surname and became Marina Lee. The National Registration Department clerk however insisted tha! t the ‘Abdullah’ appear in her new identity card so they changed her name to Marina Lee Binti Abdullah. Then the Road Transport Department insisted that her original name according to her birth certificate also be shown on her driving licence. So they changed it again to Mable d/o (daughter of) James Anthony Lee @ Marina Lee Binti Abdullah.
But the problem is: the driving licence was too small for this new long name so they issued her a driving licence in ! two pieces to accommodate the entire ‘Mable d/o James Anthony Lee @ Marina Lee Binti Abdullah’. So now my wife has two driving licences, the second being an attachment for the long name. Luckily they did not insist on inserting ‘Puan Hajjah’ in as well. If not she would be carrying three driving licences.
The clerk at the National Registration Department disagreed with the Grand Iman of the National Mosque and changed my wife’s name from Marina Lee to Marina Lee Binti Abdullah and the clerk at the Road Transport Departm! ent disagreed again by changing her name, yet again, to Mable d/o James Anthony Lee @ Marina Lee Binti Abdullah. And with that my wife finally became a ‘proper’ Muslim.
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is, the Imam did say my wife need not convert to Islam. She, however, wanted to. But the Imam did not caution her that once she converts to Islam then there is no turning back. If she later discovers that Islam is not really the religion she wants, she ! cannot go back to being a Catholic but must remain a Muslim till the d ay she dies. And the Imam also failed to caution her that she could be arrested or be put to death if she decides she wants to revert to being a Catholic.
This is something that converts should be told so that they do not find out later that they are stuck as Muslims -- and they find this out too late, after becoming a Muslim, and not before they convert. After all, we do not want non-Muslims having the impression that they had been tricked into becoming Muslim! s. They might think that since it is so easy changing from another religion to becoming a Muslim then it must be as easy to leave Islam.
Intending converts must be told to read the fine-print in the contract. Once they become Muslims then that is that. There is no turning back. If they are converting not because they have finally discovered the true religion but so that they can marry a Muslim, then they must be made aware that if the marriage breaks down they! must still remain a Muslim even though they are no longer married to a Muslim. So they must become Muslims because they want to, and because they believe in Islam, and not so that they can marry a Muslim. And they should also know that a Muslim husband can divorce his wife by just reciting the phrase “I divorce you” and that is the end of the marriage.
Once the non-Muslims know this but still insist on becoming a Muslim, then they would have only themselves to blame once their husband abandons them later and they are stuck a! s a Muslim without a husband for the rest of their life.
Dr Zulkifly said that the penalty for leaving Islam is death -- though he feels it is unfair to use the death penalty. The Perak Mufti agrees with this and equates such people as gangrene that needs to be destroyed. Now hold on a minute! If according to Islam the proper punishment for those who murtad (apostasy) is death, then how can it be unfair? If that is what Islam says then that is what Islam says. How can we declare that Islam’s laws are unfair and propose that we change the laws to something else? Is this permitted? He then proposes another form of punishment, detention without trial under the ISA. But is not Islam against the ISA? How can they propose that they not comply with what Islam stipulates because the Islamic form of punishment is unfair and instead propose another form of punishment which Islam is against and say that it is fairer? Are they implying that Islamic laws are too harsh while other laws that go against Islam are better?
Hmm, I am getting a bit confused here -- Islam, no good, anti-Islam, better. Well, maybe I am not as learned as all these people so this is probably why I cannot see the logic here. After all, I have only read the Quran and have not studied all the other Holy Books in Islam so my knowledge is quite limited. And that is the problem with people like me who only study the Quran. We end up thinking that only what the Quran says is correct while when we come across something that contradicts the Quran we think this must be wrong. This is what separates the learned from people like me. While we cannot see beyond the Quran, the learned peo! ple can also see what is not in the Quran and understand how to interp ret all those rules that appear to contradict the Quran. And this is the danger of reading only the Quran without additional input from learned people who read more than just the Quran.
I hope you now comprehend the issue (because I don’t). Those who leave Islam should be put to death. However, though this is what Islam says, and though it is not in the Quran, it is unfair to put them to death. Instead, we will detain them without trial under the ISA, though ! Islam does not allow anyone to be punished unless he or she is proven beyond any shadow of doubt in a properly conducted trial to have committed a crime.
Hey, something has just come to mind. The Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS), ABIM and JIM are all against the ISA. The Anti-ISA Movement (AIM, or GMI in Bahasa Malaysia) was started and headed by the PAS President and comprises of dozens of NGOs, in particular Islamic movements like ABIM and JIM. Now, I wonder ! whether they are going to disband AIM since the religious scholars wan t to now use the ISA to detain those who leave Islam. How can the Islamic movements continue opposing the ISA when they want to use that un-Islamic law for the good of Islam?
Wow, really confusing is it not? Never mind. After all, of late, the ISA is being used against Muslims anyway. Those being detained under the ISA since 2001 have all been Muslim ‘deviants’ and ‘extremists’. Yes, I agree with what Dr Zulkifly said about the ISA being ‘refined’. ! To start off we can retain the acronym but call it the Islamic Security Act instead and get the Mufti council to pass a fatwah (decree) that, in Islam, the ends justify the means as long as it is for the good of Islam and an illegal act can be perpetuated as long as it benefits Islam. And let us all go pray that after this the non-Muslims will not fear Islam and not refuse to become Muslims even if their lives depended on it. Hmm....come to think of it, their lives will depend on it.
Hotel California
By Eagles
On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair
The warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night.
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
This could be heaven or this could be hell
Then she lit up a candle
And she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say.
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place, such a lovely face
There’s plenty of room at the Hotel California!
Any time of year, you can find it here.
Her mind is definitely twisted
She’s got her Mercedes Benz
She’s got a lotta pretty, pretty boys
That she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget.
So I called up the captain
Please bring me my wine
He said, “We haven't had that spirit here since 1969”
And still those voices they’re calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to ! hear them say.
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place, such a lovely face
They’re livin’ it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis.
! Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink Champaign on ice< cleaned="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">And she said, “We are all just prisoners here of our own device”
In the masters chambers they’re gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knifes but they just can’t k! ill the beast.
Last thing I remember, I was runnin’ for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
“Good night”, said the night man, “We are programmed to receive
You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Amazing Human Beings
50,000 of the cells in your body will die and be replaced with :new cells, all while you have been reading this sentence! :
In one hour, your heart works hard enough to produce the equivalent energy to raise almost 1 ton of weight 1 yard off :the ground. :
2.Scientists have counted over 500 different liver functions. :
3.In 1 square inch of skin there lies 4 yards of nerve fibers, 1300 nerve cells, 100 sweat glands, 3 million cells, and 3 yards of blood vessels. :
4.The structural plan of a whale's, a dog's, a bird's and a man's 'arm' are exactly the same.
5.There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being.
6.In a year, a person`s heart beats 40,000,000 times.
7.Most people blink about 25 times a minute. :
8.Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of :blood vessels. : :Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 :miles per hour.
9.Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
10.Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for :your heart.
11.You use an average of 43 muscles for a frown. You use an average of 17 muscles for a smile.
12.Every two thousand frowns :creates one wrinkle.
13.The average human blinks his eyes 6,205,000 times each year. :
14.The average human produces a quart of saliva a day or 10,000 gallon! s in a lifetime.
15.Every person has a unique tongue print.
16.The average human's heart will beat 3,000 million times in their lifetime. The average human will pump 48 million gallons of blood in :their lifetime. : :You burn 26 calories in a one-minute kiss.
17.The average human body contains enough: Sulphur to kill all fleas on an average dog, Carbon to make 900 pencils, Potassium to fire :a toy cannon, Fat to make 7 bars of soap, Phosphorus to make :2,200 matchheads, and enough Water to fill a ten-gallon tank.
18.:Among the first known "dentists" of the world were the Etruscans. :In 700 BC they carved false teeth from the teeth of various :mammals :and produced partial bridgework good enough to eat with.
19.Ophthalmic surgery was one of the most advanced areas of medicine in the ancient world. Detailed descriptions of delicate cataract surgery with sophisticated needle syringes is contained in the medical writings of Celsus ( A.D.14-37)
20.A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
21.If you were freeze-dried, 10% of your body weight would! be from :the microorganisms on your body. According to the World Health Organization, there are :approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day.
22.Your ears and nose continue to grow throughout your entire life. :
23.When you eat meat and drink milk in the same meal, your body does not absorb any of the milk's calcium. It is best to have 2 hours between the milk and meat intake.
24.Only humans and horses have hymens.
25.The tooth is the only part of the human body that can't repair itself.
26.Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell. :
27.One human brain generates more electrical impulses in a single day than all of the world's telephones put together. THE TYANA TABLOID : 2 APRIL 2000
28.We have a a whole pharmacy within us. We can create any drug inside us.
29.Our bodies are recreating themselves constantly - we ,make a skeleton every 3 months, new skin every month. We are capable of reversing the Aging Process!!
In one hour, your heart works hard enough to produce the equivalent energy to raise almost 1 ton of weight 1 yard off :the ground. :
2.Scientists have counted over 500 different liver functions. :
3.In 1 square inch of skin there lies 4 yards of nerve fibers, 1300 nerve cells, 100 sweat glands, 3 million cells, and 3 yards of blood vessels. :
4.The structural plan of a whale's, a dog's, a bird's and a man's 'arm' are exactly the same.
5.There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being.
6.In a year, a person`s heart beats 40,000,000 times.
7.Most people blink about 25 times a minute. :
8.Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of :blood vessels. : :Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 :miles per hour.
9.Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
10.Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for :your heart.
11.You use an average of 43 muscles for a frown. You use an average of 17 muscles for a smile.
12.Every two thousand frowns :creates one wrinkle.
13.The average human blinks his eyes 6,205,000 times each year. :
14.The average human produces a quart of saliva a day or 10,000 gallon! s in a lifetime.
15.Every person has a unique tongue print.
16.The average human's heart will beat 3,000 million times in their lifetime. The average human will pump 48 million gallons of blood in :their lifetime. : :You burn 26 calories in a one-minute kiss.
17.The average human body contains enough: Sulphur to kill all fleas on an average dog, Carbon to make 900 pencils, Potassium to fire :a toy cannon, Fat to make 7 bars of soap, Phosphorus to make :2,200 matchheads, and enough Water to fill a ten-gallon tank.
18.:Among the first known "dentists" of the world were the Etruscans. :In 700 BC they carved false teeth from the teeth of various :mammals :and produced partial bridgework good enough to eat with.
19.Ophthalmic surgery was one of the most advanced areas of medicine in the ancient world. Detailed descriptions of delicate cataract surgery with sophisticated needle syringes is contained in the medical writings of Celsus ( A.D.14-37)
20.A sneeze zooms out of your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
21.If you were freeze-dried, 10% of your body weight would! be from :the microorganisms on your body. According to the World Health Organization, there are :approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day.
22.Your ears and nose continue to grow throughout your entire life. :
23.When you eat meat and drink milk in the same meal, your body does not absorb any of the milk's calcium. It is best to have 2 hours between the milk and meat intake.
24.Only humans and horses have hymens.
25.The tooth is the only part of the human body that can't repair itself.
26.Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell. :
27.One human brain generates more electrical impulses in a single day than all of the world's telephones put together. THE TYANA TABLOID : 2 APRIL 2000
28.We have a a whole pharmacy within us. We can create any drug inside us.
29.Our bodies are recreating themselves constantly - we ,make a skeleton every 3 months, new skin every month. We are capable of reversing the Aging Process!!
Putting the malaise into Malaysia
Putting the malaise into Malaysia
Nov 30th 2006 KUALA LUMPUR
From The Economist print edition
As the country approaches its 50th birthday, racial and religious tensions are jeopardising its economic and social success
Get article background
UPROAR is still raging in Malaysia over inflammatory speeches at the annual congress of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO ) in mid-November. One delegate talked of being ready to "bathe in blood" to defend the race and religion of the Malay Muslim majority against the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. The education minister, no less, brandished a keris (traditional dagger), only to be urged by another delegate to start using it. The affair has brought into focus Malaysians' worries that, as their country nears its 50th birthday next year, its remarkable economic and social success is at risk from the increasingly separate lives its three main races are living.
Last weekend these anxieties were voiced by the crown prince of Perak, one of the country's constituent states. He recalled that in his boyhood the races mixed far more freely; nowadays most children go to single-race schools. The prince regretted that some Malay-majority schools have made girls wear headscarves and even told pupils to avoid non-Malays' homes. Malaysians' spirit of give-and-take, he lamented, had been replaced by the idea that progress was a zero-sum game among the races.
Apart from some deadly riots in 1969, the country has so far done remarkably well in handling the awkward racial mix it inherited when the Malaysian peninsula gained independence from Britain in 1957 (Britain's colonies on Borneo joined the union later). The Chinese, now around a quarter of the population, arrived in colonial times to work the country's tin mines. The Indians, now around one-tenth, mainly came to work on plantations. Neither group intended to stay forever but many did. The Malays' fears of being marginalised in their own land grew as the Chinese came to dominate business and the Indians the professions.
At independence, a "social contract" was struck in which the Indians and Chinese got citizenship while the indigenous peoples received privileged access to state jobs and education. After the 1969 riots, a far-reaching positive-discrimination policy was introduced, with the aim of increasing the indigenous groups' share of business ownership from just 4% to 30%.
Supporters of this policy say it has kept the peace, enabling Malaysia to achieve impressive economic growth. Opponents say it has widened the divide between rich UMNO wheeler-dealers and their less fortunate Malay brethren. UMNO itself, having led the country's development for decades, has become perhaps its greatest handicap. The Malay chauvinism and economic nationalism in its ranks are hobbling progress towards reforming and privatising the big government-linked companies, thereby discouraging both domestic and foreign private investment. The fate of Proton, a carmaker (see article) is emblematic: the government has dithered for months over whether to risk UMNO's ire by selling it to a foreign buyer.
Once an emerging Asian champion, Malaysia is slipping down the league. Its stockmarket is falling behind its rivals (see chart). Last year, foreign direct investment was worth only $4 billion, down from $4.6 billion in 2004. Despite having a big base in Malaysia, Intel is putting its new chipmaking plant in Vietnam. A key test of whether the government can boost investment, says Vince Leusner of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce, will be agreement on a free-trade pact it is negotiating with America. Concessions will be needed on such tricky issues as letting foreign firms bid for government contracts. To win greater access to the American market—Malaysia's largest—the prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, must brave the wrath of his UMNO backbenchers.
Nor Mohamed Yakcop, the deputy finance minister, points out that the government has a good record on delivering economic reforms—such as last year's loosening of the ringgit's peg to the dollar—despite political noise. But with Vietnam, China and India competing harder for investment, Malaysia has to build on its strengths as a relatively advanced, liberal country and seek more high-technology and creative businesses. Such businesses need talented people—and the widening ethnic and religious gap is encouraging a brain drain, says Azmi Sharom, a law lecturer at the University of Malaya.
Although a national discussion is plainly needed on how to renew Malaysia's social contract and stop its races growing further apart, Mr Badawi has so far tried to close down this debate. He rejected proposals to create an "inter-faith council" and has told Article 11, a group named after the constitutional clause guaranteeing religious freedom, to stop organising public discussions. Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a Muslim lawyer and leader of Article 11, says that UMNO leaders feel compelled to emit fiery religious rhetoric to outflank PAS, an Islamist opposition party.
Mohamed Jawhar Hassan, the head of ISIS, a think-tank, says that Malays' desire for more overt expression of their Islamic faith, and Chinese and Indian parents' desire to educate their children separately, are "social forces, much more powerful than any government". Passing laws may not be enough to stem the drifting apart of the races. But there are few other ideas on how to preserve social harmony and prosperity, two huge achievements of which any country turning 50 could be proud.
Nov 30th 2006 KUALA LUMPUR
From The Economist print edition
As the country approaches its 50th birthday, racial and religious tensions are jeopardising its economic and social success
Get article background
UPROAR is still raging in Malaysia over inflammatory speeches at the annual congress of the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO ) in mid-November. One delegate talked of being ready to "bathe in blood" to defend the race and religion of the Malay Muslim majority against the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. The education minister, no less, brandished a keris (traditional dagger), only to be urged by another delegate to start using it. The affair has brought into focus Malaysians' worries that, as their country nears its 50th birthday next year, its remarkable economic and social success is at risk from the increasingly separate lives its three main races are living.
Last weekend these anxieties were voiced by the crown prince of Perak, one of the country's constituent states. He recalled that in his boyhood the races mixed far more freely; nowadays most children go to single-race schools. The prince regretted that some Malay-majority schools have made girls wear headscarves and even told pupils to avoid non-Malays' homes. Malaysians' spirit of give-and-take, he lamented, had been replaced by the idea that progress was a zero-sum game among the races.
Apart from some deadly riots in 1969, the country has so far done remarkably well in handling the awkward racial mix it inherited when the Malaysian peninsula gained independence from Britain in 1957 (Britain's colonies on Borneo joined the union later). The Chinese, now around a quarter of the population, arrived in colonial times to work the country's tin mines. The Indians, now around one-tenth, mainly came to work on plantations. Neither group intended to stay forever but many did. The Malays' fears of being marginalised in their own land grew as the Chinese came to dominate business and the Indians the professions.
At independence, a "social contract" was struck in which the Indians and Chinese got citizenship while the indigenous peoples received privileged access to state jobs and education. After the 1969 riots, a far-reaching positive-discrimination policy was introduced, with the aim of increasing the indigenous groups' share of business ownership from just 4% to 30%.
Supporters of this policy say it has kept the peace, enabling Malaysia to achieve impressive economic growth. Opponents say it has widened the divide between rich UMNO wheeler-dealers and their less fortunate Malay brethren. UMNO itself, having led the country's development for decades, has become perhaps its greatest handicap. The Malay chauvinism and economic nationalism in its ranks are hobbling progress towards reforming and privatising the big government-linked companies, thereby discouraging both domestic and foreign private investment. The fate of Proton, a carmaker (see article) is emblematic: the government has dithered for months over whether to risk UMNO's ire by selling it to a foreign buyer.
Once an emerging Asian champion, Malaysia is slipping down the league. Its stockmarket is falling behind its rivals (see chart). Last year, foreign direct investment was worth only $4 billion, down from $4.6 billion in 2004. Despite having a big base in Malaysia, Intel is putting its new chipmaking plant in Vietnam. A key test of whether the government can boost investment, says Vince Leusner of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce, will be agreement on a free-trade pact it is negotiating with America. Concessions will be needed on such tricky issues as letting foreign firms bid for government contracts. To win greater access to the American market—Malaysia's largest—the prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, must brave the wrath of his UMNO backbenchers.
Nor Mohamed Yakcop, the deputy finance minister, points out that the government has a good record on delivering economic reforms—such as last year's loosening of the ringgit's peg to the dollar—despite political noise. But with Vietnam, China and India competing harder for investment, Malaysia has to build on its strengths as a relatively advanced, liberal country and seek more high-technology and creative businesses. Such businesses need talented people—and the widening ethnic and religious gap is encouraging a brain drain, says Azmi Sharom, a law lecturer at the University of Malaya.
Although a national discussion is plainly needed on how to renew Malaysia's social contract and stop its races growing further apart, Mr Badawi has so far tried to close down this debate. He rejected proposals to create an "inter-faith council" and has told Article 11, a group named after the constitutional clause guaranteeing religious freedom, to stop organising public discussions. Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a Muslim lawyer and leader of Article 11, says that UMNO leaders feel compelled to emit fiery religious rhetoric to outflank PAS, an Islamist opposition party.
Mohamed Jawhar Hassan, the head of ISIS, a think-tank, says that Malays' desire for more overt expression of their Islamic faith, and Chinese and Indian parents' desire to educate their children separately, are "social forces, much more powerful than any government". Passing laws may not be enough to stem the drifting apart of the races. But there are few other ideas on how to preserve social harmony and prosperity, two huge achievements of which any country turning 50 could be proud.
Mujahidkah Aku Atau Pemimpi?
Mujahidkah Aku Atau Pemimpi?
Seorang Muslim sering dibayangi mimpi.
Setelah sedar dari tidurnya,
ingin buat itu dan ini.
Hasratnya ingin merubah dunia.
Punya semangat yang tinggi.
Tetapi miskin daya dan usaha.
Menganggap ringan tugas mujahid.
Padahal prasyaratnya sangat tinggi.
Ingin menegakkan hukum Tuhan.
Mendirikan sistem pemerintahan Islam.
Tapi jahil tentang bagaimana hukum berdaulat,
dan bagaimana sebuah pemerintahan adil tegak.
Ingin berjuang untuk agama.
Ingin juga menikmati dunia.
Menganggap remeh musuh.
Diri yang lemah dianggap hebat.
Mendabik dada sebagai pejuang Islam.
Tetapi selalu memilih langkah yang selamat.
Kalau takut risiko jangan fikir perjuangan.
Mana ada perjuangan tanpa pengorbanan.
Penghinaan, Penderitaan dan tetesan darah,
adalah lumrah setiap perjuangan.
Adakah engkau mengira akan masuk syurga?
Sedangkan yang kamu lakukan hanya bermimpi.
Merubah dunia tidak semudah bermimpi.
Tidak juga semudah meletupkan diri.
Jika nafsu dan amarah menguasai diri.
Jangan mengaku diri sebagai mujahid.
Khalif Muammar
Dar al-Hikmah
Oktober 2006
Sumber: www.khairaummah.com
Seorang Muslim sering dibayangi mimpi.
Setelah sedar dari tidurnya,
ingin buat itu dan ini.
Hasratnya ingin merubah dunia.
Punya semangat yang tinggi.
Tetapi miskin daya dan usaha.
Menganggap ringan tugas mujahid.
Padahal prasyaratnya sangat tinggi.
Ingin menegakkan hukum Tuhan.
Mendirikan sistem pemerintahan Islam.
Tapi jahil tentang bagaimana hukum berdaulat,
dan bagaimana sebuah pemerintahan adil tegak.
Ingin berjuang untuk agama.
Ingin juga menikmati dunia.
Menganggap remeh musuh.
Diri yang lemah dianggap hebat.
Mendabik dada sebagai pejuang Islam.
Tetapi selalu memilih langkah yang selamat.
Kalau takut risiko jangan fikir perjuangan.
Mana ada perjuangan tanpa pengorbanan.
Penghinaan, Penderitaan dan tetesan darah,
adalah lumrah setiap perjuangan.
Adakah engkau mengira akan masuk syurga?
Sedangkan yang kamu lakukan hanya bermimpi.
Merubah dunia tidak semudah bermimpi.
Tidak juga semudah meletupkan diri.
Jika nafsu dan amarah menguasai diri.
Jangan mengaku diri sebagai mujahid.
Khalif Muammar
Dar al-Hikmah
Oktober 2006
Sumber: www.khairaummah.com
Who will go amok?
Who will go amok?
Sim Kwang Yang , Malaysiakini
Nov 25, 06 11:51am
SIM KWANG YANG was DAP MP for Bandar Kuching in Sarawak 1982-1995.
Since retiring in 1995, he has become a freelance writer in the
Chinese-language press, and taught philosophy in a local college for
three years.
He is now working with an NGO in Kuala Lumpur, the Omnicron Learning
Circle, which is aimed at continuing learning for working adults and
college students. Suggestions and feedback can reach him at:
kenyalang578@hotmail.com.
'An Examined Life' appears in Malaysiakini every Saturday.
OF all our human emotions, rage is probably the basest, the most
destructive, and the least understood element of our psyche.
Psychotic rage is indeed fearsome, being a precursor to, and a
compulsive driving force for inexplicable unspeakable acts of
violence. Springing forth from the darkest nadir of his being,
somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach, nameless broiling rage can
drive a man to strike out blindly, without consideration to the
consequences to others and to himself. In that one instance, all the
teaching of family upbringing, law and ethics evaporates, and the
civilised person turns into savage beast.
Therefore, rage is a little like temporary insanity; the trouble is
to define ‘insanity’.
Rage is a demon that dwells in the darkest crevices of our heart.
Some individuals seem more prone to its seductive power, and we call
them ‘hot-tempered’. Frankly, I do not think any human being is
ever spared its spell completely.
Exactly what sows the seeds of seething festering rage is not fully
known, although numerous psychologists have done numerous studies on
this human emotion. Perhaps it has its roots in some sub-conscious
fear of being grievously hurt. When the physical survival of the
human organism is threatened, or worse still, when the integrity of
the ego-complex faces the possibility of disintegration and
annihilation, the energy of will to life explodes out of desperation,
frustration, or simply defiance.
In the face of death for instance, the first reaction of the dying
person is probably rage, and hence the immortal opening lines of
Dylon Thomas' poem:
‘Do not go gently into the good night
Rage rages against the dying of the light’
Thomas' noble sentiment aside, rage does manifest itself as a
psychological disorder on the social dimension. It does lead to
anomaly in behaviour that threatens law and order, and often insults
our sense of human decency.
Violence begets violence
Domestic violence is one salient instance of rage proceeding beyond
the limits of civilised tolerance. Behind closed door, greater
violence can be inflicted upon a spouse or the children by the
perpetrator than can be visited upon wild beasts or pet animals. The
wounds to the soul of the victims are bound to stay for life.
What triggers and releases the wild beast in the otherwise rational
man is a mystery. Psychiatrist can point to some distant hurtful
childhood experience as the source of the smoldering fury repressed
in the heart. Violence begets violence. Behind every culprit of
domestic violence, lies
the story of an abused childhood. The unloved becomes the unloving.
Then again, the story of the infamous Malaysian road rage is harder
to explain satisfactorily,
You know the usual story. You stick your middle finger at the driver
who has just rudely and dangerously overtaken your car. Perhaps the
corner of your car bumper has brushed against his so ever slightly,
requiring a repair bill of RM20. He forces you to stop. The he gets
down with a baseball bat, smashes your windscreen, and proceeds to
beat you into a pulp.
One Saturday evening, I was inching forward in the stifling traffic
along Jalan Sultan Ismail when I saw a biker weaving in and out of
the snarling traffic. In his haste to get ahead, his leg brushed
against the side rear view window of a car next to mine. His face
contorting with fury and hatred, he tried to kick the offending car
driven by a young lady. Fortunately for everyone, he sped off,
looking back with venom at his imagined enemy.
On another occasion, I was inching forward somewhere near China town
in KL. There was a commotion on the oncoming lane. Two drivers were
involved in a violent fisticuff on the road, spinning in circles at
great speed, just like some bad Hollywood movie. What would the
tourists think!
Gangsters are known for great acts of cruel violent acts when they
come under the spell of an overwhelming rage. Actually that is a
myth. I have known of gangsters going very high on alcohol and drugs
before they go on the warpath.
Beneath their aggressive bravado, gangsters are often fearful for
their lives. They know very well the dictum that ‘those who live by
the parang shall die by the parang’. But as any friendly samseng
would tell you, they are forced by circumstances to cari makan with
their parang. They would use force only as a last resort. So when two
gangs are about to go to war, there is always a way to talk things
over, and to settle their dispute according to their clandestine
rules. Rare are the ones who kill out of an explosion of rage.
Talk things over
By and large, violent acts committed out of rage are considered to be
anomalies, exceptions rather than the rules. That kind of rage that
leads to violence is frowned upon by all the religions and ethical
systems that I know. Good breeding consists precisely in keeping our
beastly rage under control. Any person who gives in to his rage for
whatever reason is considered weak, if not now downright barbaric.
Getting yours under control is the essence of maturity of character.
Whatever the problem, we can always talk things over.
The kind of rage that drives a person to become berserk is still
understandable to some extent. What is difficult to understand is the
kind of collective rage whipped by a mass hysteria. Donald Horowitz
has studied 150 race riots of the world, including the Malaysian May
13 incident. He has given very valuable insights into the numerous
factors that fermented racial conflicts all over the world. One thing
he has not resolved is how perfectly reasonable human beings can
suddenly go berserk and turn into mass murderers overnight.
By now, we know that racial conflicts are a social fact, just like
warfare or religion. But prostitution, incest, murder and theft are
also social facts. Being social facts does not make anything
ethically acceptable.
By now, the world has seen enough innocent lives perish in numerous
conflicts and genocidal massacres. I dare say they are the worst
crimes against humanity and the biggest killers of the world's
population.
Strangely enough, in Malaysia, the sort of rage that drives mobs to
go on a killing spree has been elevated to the status of an
ideological tool. In a book written by a former prime minister
entitled The Malay Dilemma, going amok has been described as the
racial characteristic of the Malay people. According to this theory,
when the otherwise mild mannered Malays feel threatened, they give
vent to their rage and go berserk. That, according to the former PM,
is what caused the disturbance in 1969.
Great unease
That theory cannot be correct of course. It lacks scientific
credibility. I have many Malay friends, and they are no more likely
to go berserk as described by that infamous book than your average
Chinese, Indian, or Iban. Unfortunately, that faulty theory has since
become an integral part of the Malay nationalist myth as embodied by
Umno.
As far as I can remember, during every Umno general assembly, some
fools are bound to stand up and insinuate the myth of the Malay going
amok if they do not get what they want. The recent most Umno general
assembly is no exception. A sufficient number of seditious statements
have been made by Umno delegates for their arrest under the ISA
justifiably for the first time!
Of course this sort of open threat causes great unease among members
of the other ethnic communities. Even non-Malay journalists covering
the event were aghast at the audacity of Umno delegates in uttering
the unutterable in multi-racial Malaysia. One Chinese reporter
confessed that she could not sleep at night.
But the greatest victims of these extremist sentiments are the Malays
themselves. Those wayward Umno delegates have painted a picture of
the good Malay people as falling easy prey to irrational rage, at the
mere mention of insult to their race and religion, when in fact,
patience, courtesy and respect for others have always been the most
important virtues in Malay customs.
In recent days, Umno leading lights have been busy trying to put out
the fire set ablaze during the recent party assembly. Unfortunately
for them, the damage may have been done. Fortunately for the nation,
Malaysians of all races are very reasonable people. They may not want
to turn the other cheek, but they would not adhere strictly to the
dictum of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ either.
Unlike those Umno individuals who believe that going berserk is the
most effective means of achieving their political goals, most
Malaysians still know very well in their heart that giving way to
their basest emotion is shameful, cowardly and barbaric.
Sim Kwang Yang , Malaysiakini
Nov 25, 06 11:51am
SIM KWANG YANG was DAP MP for Bandar Kuching in Sarawak 1982-1995.
Since retiring in 1995, he has become a freelance writer in the
Chinese-language press, and taught philosophy in a local college for
three years.
He is now working with an NGO in Kuala Lumpur, the Omnicron Learning
Circle, which is aimed at continuing learning for working adults and
college students. Suggestions and feedback can reach him at:
kenyalang578@hotmail.com.
'An Examined Life' appears in Malaysiakini every Saturday.
OF all our human emotions, rage is probably the basest, the most
destructive, and the least understood element of our psyche.
Psychotic rage is indeed fearsome, being a precursor to, and a
compulsive driving force for inexplicable unspeakable acts of
violence. Springing forth from the darkest nadir of his being,
somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach, nameless broiling rage can
drive a man to strike out blindly, without consideration to the
consequences to others and to himself. In that one instance, all the
teaching of family upbringing, law and ethics evaporates, and the
civilised person turns into savage beast.
Therefore, rage is a little like temporary insanity; the trouble is
to define ‘insanity’.
Rage is a demon that dwells in the darkest crevices of our heart.
Some individuals seem more prone to its seductive power, and we call
them ‘hot-tempered’. Frankly, I do not think any human being is
ever spared its spell completely.
Exactly what sows the seeds of seething festering rage is not fully
known, although numerous psychologists have done numerous studies on
this human emotion. Perhaps it has its roots in some sub-conscious
fear of being grievously hurt. When the physical survival of the
human organism is threatened, or worse still, when the integrity of
the ego-complex faces the possibility of disintegration and
annihilation, the energy of will to life explodes out of desperation,
frustration, or simply defiance.
In the face of death for instance, the first reaction of the dying
person is probably rage, and hence the immortal opening lines of
Dylon Thomas' poem:
‘Do not go gently into the good night
Rage rages against the dying of the light’
Thomas' noble sentiment aside, rage does manifest itself as a
psychological disorder on the social dimension. It does lead to
anomaly in behaviour that threatens law and order, and often insults
our sense of human decency.
Violence begets violence
Domestic violence is one salient instance of rage proceeding beyond
the limits of civilised tolerance. Behind closed door, greater
violence can be inflicted upon a spouse or the children by the
perpetrator than can be visited upon wild beasts or pet animals. The
wounds to the soul of the victims are bound to stay for life.
What triggers and releases the wild beast in the otherwise rational
man is a mystery. Psychiatrist can point to some distant hurtful
childhood experience as the source of the smoldering fury repressed
in the heart. Violence begets violence. Behind every culprit of
domestic violence, lies
the story of an abused childhood. The unloved becomes the unloving.
Then again, the story of the infamous Malaysian road rage is harder
to explain satisfactorily,
You know the usual story. You stick your middle finger at the driver
who has just rudely and dangerously overtaken your car. Perhaps the
corner of your car bumper has brushed against his so ever slightly,
requiring a repair bill of RM20. He forces you to stop. The he gets
down with a baseball bat, smashes your windscreen, and proceeds to
beat you into a pulp.
One Saturday evening, I was inching forward in the stifling traffic
along Jalan Sultan Ismail when I saw a biker weaving in and out of
the snarling traffic. In his haste to get ahead, his leg brushed
against the side rear view window of a car next to mine. His face
contorting with fury and hatred, he tried to kick the offending car
driven by a young lady. Fortunately for everyone, he sped off,
looking back with venom at his imagined enemy.
On another occasion, I was inching forward somewhere near China town
in KL. There was a commotion on the oncoming lane. Two drivers were
involved in a violent fisticuff on the road, spinning in circles at
great speed, just like some bad Hollywood movie. What would the
tourists think!
Gangsters are known for great acts of cruel violent acts when they
come under the spell of an overwhelming rage. Actually that is a
myth. I have known of gangsters going very high on alcohol and drugs
before they go on the warpath.
Beneath their aggressive bravado, gangsters are often fearful for
their lives. They know very well the dictum that ‘those who live by
the parang shall die by the parang’. But as any friendly samseng
would tell you, they are forced by circumstances to cari makan with
their parang. They would use force only as a last resort. So when two
gangs are about to go to war, there is always a way to talk things
over, and to settle their dispute according to their clandestine
rules. Rare are the ones who kill out of an explosion of rage.
Talk things over
By and large, violent acts committed out of rage are considered to be
anomalies, exceptions rather than the rules. That kind of rage that
leads to violence is frowned upon by all the religions and ethical
systems that I know. Good breeding consists precisely in keeping our
beastly rage under control. Any person who gives in to his rage for
whatever reason is considered weak, if not now downright barbaric.
Getting yours under control is the essence of maturity of character.
Whatever the problem, we can always talk things over.
The kind of rage that drives a person to become berserk is still
understandable to some extent. What is difficult to understand is the
kind of collective rage whipped by a mass hysteria. Donald Horowitz
has studied 150 race riots of the world, including the Malaysian May
13 incident. He has given very valuable insights into the numerous
factors that fermented racial conflicts all over the world. One thing
he has not resolved is how perfectly reasonable human beings can
suddenly go berserk and turn into mass murderers overnight.
By now, we know that racial conflicts are a social fact, just like
warfare or religion. But prostitution, incest, murder and theft are
also social facts. Being social facts does not make anything
ethically acceptable.
By now, the world has seen enough innocent lives perish in numerous
conflicts and genocidal massacres. I dare say they are the worst
crimes against humanity and the biggest killers of the world's
population.
Strangely enough, in Malaysia, the sort of rage that drives mobs to
go on a killing spree has been elevated to the status of an
ideological tool. In a book written by a former prime minister
entitled The Malay Dilemma, going amok has been described as the
racial characteristic of the Malay people. According to this theory,
when the otherwise mild mannered Malays feel threatened, they give
vent to their rage and go berserk. That, according to the former PM,
is what caused the disturbance in 1969.
Great unease
That theory cannot be correct of course. It lacks scientific
credibility. I have many Malay friends, and they are no more likely
to go berserk as described by that infamous book than your average
Chinese, Indian, or Iban. Unfortunately, that faulty theory has since
become an integral part of the Malay nationalist myth as embodied by
Umno.
As far as I can remember, during every Umno general assembly, some
fools are bound to stand up and insinuate the myth of the Malay going
amok if they do not get what they want. The recent most Umno general
assembly is no exception. A sufficient number of seditious statements
have been made by Umno delegates for their arrest under the ISA
justifiably for the first time!
Of course this sort of open threat causes great unease among members
of the other ethnic communities. Even non-Malay journalists covering
the event were aghast at the audacity of Umno delegates in uttering
the unutterable in multi-racial Malaysia. One Chinese reporter
confessed that she could not sleep at night.
But the greatest victims of these extremist sentiments are the Malays
themselves. Those wayward Umno delegates have painted a picture of
the good Malay people as falling easy prey to irrational rage, at the
mere mention of insult to their race and religion, when in fact,
patience, courtesy and respect for others have always been the most
important virtues in Malay customs.
In recent days, Umno leading lights have been busy trying to put out
the fire set ablaze during the recent party assembly. Unfortunately
for them, the damage may have been done. Fortunately for the nation,
Malaysians of all races are very reasonable people. They may not want
to turn the other cheek, but they would not adhere strictly to the
dictum of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ either.
Unlike those Umno individuals who believe that going berserk is the
most effective means of achieving their political goals, most
Malaysians still know very well in their heart that giving way to
their basest emotion is shameful, cowardly and barbaric.
Flight chartered to evacuate Chinese in Tonga
Flight chartered to evacuate Chinese in Tonga
Plans are being made to evacuate hundreds of expatriate Chinese from the Pacific island kingdom of Tonga after last week's riots.
Many of them had sought refuge at the Embassy when their homes and businesses came under attack.
There are about 4,000 Chinese nationals living in Tonga. Many of them took up the offer of residency back in 2000, when the country sold passports in a controversial scheme to generate income for the cash-strapped kingdom.
Now many of them want to go home, and preparations are being made to charter an aircraft to fly them back to China as soon as it can be arranged.
Around 150 people took refuge at the Chinese Embassy following the riots last Thursday.
Many others fled homes and businesses in the capital until law and order was restored over the weekend with the arrival of a joint Australian-New Zealand assistance mission.
Another 27 Australian Federal Police are are on their way to assist Tongan authorities speed up crime scene examinations and forensic work
Plans are being made to evacuate hundreds of expatriate Chinese from the Pacific island kingdom of Tonga after last week's riots.
Many of them had sought refuge at the Embassy when their homes and businesses came under attack.
There are about 4,000 Chinese nationals living in Tonga. Many of them took up the offer of residency back in 2000, when the country sold passports in a controversial scheme to generate income for the cash-strapped kingdom.
Now many of them want to go home, and preparations are being made to charter an aircraft to fly them back to China as soon as it can be arranged.
Around 150 people took refuge at the Chinese Embassy following the riots last Thursday.
Many others fled homes and businesses in the capital until law and order was restored over the weekend with the arrival of a joint Australian-New Zealand assistance mission.
Another 27 Australian Federal Police are are on their way to assist Tongan authorities speed up crime scene examinations and forensic work
Going Bananas
Never, put your banana in the refrigerator!!!
This is interesting.
After reading this, you'll never look at a banana in the sam way again.
Bananas contain three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.
Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy
for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes.
But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit.
It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of
illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.
Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND
amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better
after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into
serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and
generally make you feel happier.
PMS: Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it
contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.
Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of
hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.
Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in
potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke
Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school
were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at
breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain
power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can
assist learning by making pupils more alert.
Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can
help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the
problem without resorting to laxatives.
Hangovers: One of the quickest
ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake,
sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with
the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels,
while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.
Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body,
so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for
soothing relief.
Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to
keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.
Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try
rubbing the affecte area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it
amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.
Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the
nervous system.
Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology
in Austria found pressure at wor k leads to gorging on comfort
food like chocolate and crisps. Looking at 5,000 hospital
patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to
be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid
panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar
levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours
to keep levels steady.
Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against
intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and
smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without
distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes
over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of
the stomach.
Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a
"cooling" fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional
temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example,
pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a
cool temperature.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD
sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer
tryptophan.
Smoking &Tobacco Use: Bananas can also help people trying to
give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the
potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover
from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.
Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the
heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's
water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises,
thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced
with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.
Strokes: According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine, eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the
risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!
Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you
want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place
it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the
skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!
So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you
compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice
the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the
vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals.
It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods
around So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so
that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!"
p.s:
Bananas must be the reason monkeys are so happy all the
time! I will add one here; want a quick shine on our shoes??
Take the INSIDE of the banana skin, and rub directly on the
shoe...polish with dry cloth.
Amazing fruit ! Isn't it?
.
This is interesting.
After reading this, you'll never look at a banana in the sam way again.
Bananas contain three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.
Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy
for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes.
But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit.
It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of
illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.
Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND
amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better
after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into
serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and
generally make you feel happier.
PMS: Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it
contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.
Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of
hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.
Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in
potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke
Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school
were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at
breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain
power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can
assist learning by making pupils more alert.
Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can
help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the
problem without resorting to laxatives.
Hangovers: One of the quickest
ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake,
sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with
the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels,
while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.
Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body,
so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for
soothing relief.
Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to
keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.
Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try
rubbing the affecte area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it
amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.
Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the
nervous system.
Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology
in Austria found pressure at wor k leads to gorging on comfort
food like chocolate and crisps. Looking at 5,000 hospital
patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to
be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid
panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar
levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours
to keep levels steady.
Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against
intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and
smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without
distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes
over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of
the stomach.
Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a
"cooling" fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional
temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example,
pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a
cool temperature.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD
sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer
tryptophan.
Smoking &Tobacco Use: Bananas can also help people trying to
give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the
potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover
from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.
Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the
heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's
water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises,
thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced
with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.
Strokes: According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine, eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the
risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!
Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you
want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place
it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the
skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!
So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you
compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice
the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the
vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals.
It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods
around So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so
that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!"
p.s:
Bananas must be the reason monkeys are so happy all the
time! I will add one here; want a quick shine on our shoes??
Take the INSIDE of the banana skin, and rub directly on the
shoe...polish with dry cloth.
Amazing fruit ! Isn't it?
.
Your Little Hut
Your Little Hut
The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited
island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he
scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.
Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood
to protect himself from the elements, and to store his few possessions.
But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find
his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky.
The worst had happened ~ everything was lost. He was stunned with grief
and anger. "God, how could you do this to me?" he cried. Early the next
day, however, he was wakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching
the island.
It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?"
asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they
replied.
It's easy to get discouraged sometimes when things appear to be going
badly. But we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our
lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering. Remember, next time your
little hut is burning to the ground, it just may be a smoke signal that
summons the grace of God.
For all the negative things we have to say to ourselves, God has a
positive answer for it.
The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited
island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he
scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.
Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood
to protect himself from the elements, and to store his few possessions.
But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find
his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky.
The worst had happened ~ everything was lost. He was stunned with grief
and anger. "God, how could you do this to me?" he cried. Early the next
day, however, he was wakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching
the island.
It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?"
asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they
replied.
It's easy to get discouraged sometimes when things appear to be going
badly. But we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our
lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering. Remember, next time your
little hut is burning to the ground, it just may be a smoke signal that
summons the grace of God.
For all the negative things we have to say to ourselves, God has a
positive answer for it.
Why the Future May Not Belong to Islam
Why the Future May Not Belong to Islam
From the desk of Fjordman on Tue, 2006-11-21 22:21
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1674
Canadian writer Mark Steyn thinks “The future belongs to Islam.” The main reason for this, according to him, is demography, with massive population growth in Islamic countries and low birth rates in infidel nations. He makes some assertions I agree with, such as that big government is a national security threat since “it increases your vulnerability to threats like Islamism, and makes it less likely you’ll be able to summon the will to rebuff it.”
According to Steyn, “Four years into the ‘war on terror,’ the Bush administration began promoting a new formulation: ‘the long war.’ Not a good sign. In a short war, put your money on tanks and bombs. In a long war, the better bet is will and manpower.”
Critics would claim that Mr. Steyn isn’t contributing to maintaining Western willpower by suggesting that we’ve already lost. Still, I shouldn’t be too hard on him. The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced his article as “Islamophobic, inflammatory and offensive.” If CAIR dislikes you, you know you must be doing something right.
But he makes other assertions I strongly disagree with, such as indicating that the United States should remain in Iraq to spread democracy: “What does it mean when the world’s hyperpower, responsible for 40 percent of the planet’s military spending, decides that it cannot withstand a guerrilla war with historically low casualties against a ragbag of local insurgents and imported terrorists?”
Here, Mark Steyn is wrong, which indicates that he doesn’t fully understand Islam. The entire project of “spreading democracy” was a mistake from the very beginning, because democracy cannot be exported to an Islamic country such as Iraq. It is stupidity to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on Muslims while Islamization continues apace in the West.
Steyn also does not fully understand the issue of demography. Islamic countries are parasitical. Even the massive population growth is only an advantage as long as Muslims are allowed to export it to infidel lands. Deprived of this opportunity, and of Western aid, the Islamic world would quickly sink into a quagmire of overpopulation. This is a long-term solution, to demonstrate to Muslims the failure of Islam.
According to Srdja Trifkovic, the author of Defeating Jihad, “The tangible cost of the presence of a Muslim man, woman and child to the American taxpayer is at least $100,000 each year. The cost of the general unpleasantness associated with the terrorist threat and its impact on the quality of our lives is, of course, incalculable. (…) There is a direct, empirically verifiable correlation between the percentage of Muslims in a country and the increase of terrorist violence in that country (not to mention the general decline in the quality of life and civilized discourse).”
Sooner or later, we have to deal with the implications of this fact. The best way to deal with the Islamic world is to have as little to do with it as possible. We should completely stop Muslim immigration. This could be done in indirect ways, such as banning immigration from nations known to be engaged in terrorism. All Muslim non-citizens in the West should be removed. We should also change our laws to ensure that Muslim citizens who advocate sharia, preach Jihad, the inequality of “infidels” etc should have their citizenship revoked and be deported back to their country of origin.
We need to create an environment where the practice of Islam is made difficult. Muslim citizens should be forced to accept our secular ways or leave if they desire sharia. Much of this can be done in a non-discriminatory way, by simply refusing to allow special pleading to Muslims. Do not allow Islamic public calls to prayer as this is offensive to other faiths. Both boys and girls should take part in all sporting and social activities of the school and the community. The veil should be banned in public institutions, thus contributing to breaking the traditional subjugation of women. Companies and public buildings should not be forced to build prayer rooms for Muslims. Enact laws to eliminate the abuse of family reunification laws. Do not permit major investments by Muslims in Western media or universities.
It is conceivable that some infidel nations will copy the Benes Decrees from Czechoslovakia in 1946, when most of the so-called Sudeten Germans had shown themselves to be a dangerous fifth column. The Czech government thus expelled them from its land. As Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch has demonstrated, there is a much better case for a Benes Decree for parts of Europe’s Muslim population now than there ever was for the Sudeten Germans.
Is that racism and Fascism you say? Muslims themselves in poll after poll state that their loyalty lies with the Islamic Umma, not with the country they live in. “I’m a Muslim living in Britain, I’m not British” is the sentiment. Well, if Muslims themselves state that their citizenship is not worth the paper it is printed upon, why not take their word for it?
David Selbourne, author of The Losing Battle with Islam thinks that “Islam’s swift progress is easily explained. For the West — but not China or India — is as politically and ideologically weak as the world of Islam is strong. The West is handicapped by many factors: its over-benign liberalism, the lost moral status of the Christian faith, the vacillations of its judiciaries and the incoherence of their judgments, political and military hesitations over strategy and tactics, poor intelligence (in both senses), and the complicities of the ‘Left’.”
Can the West defeat the Islamic threat? Selbourne states ten reasons why not, including the extent of political division in the non-Muslim world about what is afoot, the confusion of Leftist “progressives” about the Islamic advance, anti-Americanism and the vicarious satisfaction felt by many non-Muslims at America’s reverses, as well as the West’s dependency on the oil and material resources of Arab and Muslim countries.
According to him, Islam will not be defeated because “the strengths of the world community of Muslims are being underestimated.” Yet another indication that Islam’s advance will continue lies in “the skilful use being made of the media and of the world wide web in the service both of the ‘electronic jihad’”
I agree with him that the cultural weakness of the West is a major disadvantage, and has been one important reason behind the recent resurgence of Jihad. It was never inevitable that we allowed millions of Muslims to settle in our lands. This was the result of Multiculturalism and the weakening of our cultural identity, and in Europe with the deliberate help of Eurabians.
The impact of globalization and modern mass media is more complicated and has contradictory results. As one pundit at ex-Muslim Ali Sina’s website put it: “Rituals are important as brainwashing tools to instill discipline and loyalty. Islam’s focus on rituals remind me of the rituals in the military. (...) But what worked well for a medieval war machine is disastrous for Muslims in the modern world. The Arab war machine was supported by the blind obedience, brotherhood, courage, hatred and high birth rates inspired by Islam. (...) But these same qualities are handicaps for Muslims in the age of the microchip. Today they lead to poverty, belligerency, war and defeat.”
Islam was perfect for medieval warfare, but gradually lost out to the West, especially after the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, which could never have taken place in Islamic lands because of their lack of freedom and their cult of authority. Ironically, history has now gone full circle. Muslims are still useless in developing anything new, but as a result of migration, modern communications, the presence of Muslims in infidel lands and Arab oil revenues, they can more readily buy or expropriate technology from others. The Iranian Revolution was aided by audio cassettes of speeches by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
In the book The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat, Roger Scruton argues that globalization “offers militant Islam the opportunity that it has lacked since the Ottoman retreat from central Europe.” It has created “a true Islamic umma, which identifies itself across borders in terms of a global form of legitimacy, and which attaches itself like a parasite to global institutions and techniques that are the by-products of Western democracy.”
The “techniques and infrastructure on which al Qaeda depends are the gifts of the new global institutions. It is Wall Street and Zurich that produced the network of international finance that enables Osama bin Laden to conceal his wealth and to deploy it anywhere in the world. It is Western enterprise with its multinational outreach that produced the technology that bin Laden has exploited so effectively against us. And it is Western science that developed the weapons of mass destruction he would dearly like to obtain. His wealth, too, would be inconceivable without the vast oil revenues brought to Saudi Arabia from the West, there to precipitate the building boom from which his father profited.”
While Scruton gives some support to the idea that the Internet and modern communications technology have strengthened Islam, there are some contradictory views worth listening to.
Theodore Dalrymple thinks that “Islam has nothing whatever to say to the modern world,” and states that “Personally, I believe that all forms of Islam are very vulnerable in the modern world to rational criticism, which is why the Islamists are so ferocious in trying to suppress such criticism. They have instinctively understood that Islam itself, while strong, is exceedingly brittle, as communism once was. They understand that, at the present time in human history, it is all or nothing. (…) Islamism is a last gasp, not a renaissance, of the religion; but, as anyone who has watched a person die will attest, last gasps can last a surprisingly long time.”
Although some of the tensions we are seeing now are caused by Western cultural weakness, part of it is also related to the impersonal forces of technological globalization. Previously, Muslims and non-Muslims could for the most part ignore each other on a daily basis. This is no longer possible, because Muslims see the Western world on TV every day. And if somebody in, say, Denmark says something “insulting” about Muhammad — which in the 19th century would have gone unnoticed in Pakistan or Egypt — thanks to email, mobile phones and satellite TV, millions of Muslims will know about it within hours. However, this can potentially be good for non-Muslims.
Contrary to what Selbourne claims, the Internet has in fact emerged as an important, perhaps crucial factor in the Western resistance, as author Bruce Bawer has noticed: “Thank God for the [Inter]Net. I tremble at the thought of all the things that have happened during the past years that I would never have known about without it. The bloggers have in some cases reported about things that the mainstream media has left out, and in other cases pointed out omissions and distortions in the media coverage. Frequently, the mass media has felt compelled by the bloggers to pay attention to stories they would otherwise have ignored. The blogosphere is a fantastic way to spread news. If an important event has been reported in just a single, insignificant local paper, one blogger somewhere will have written about it, other bloggers will have linked to him etc. so that the news story is passed on to blog readers around the world. If Europe is saved, it will be because of the Internet.”
Columnist Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post praises the blogosphere and states that: “The responsibility of protecting our nations and societies from internal disintegration has passed to the hands of individuals, often working alone, who refuse to accept the degradation of their societies and so fight with the innovative tools of liberty to protect our way of life.”
J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic tale the Lord of the Rings is a story about the little people, the Hobbits, saving the day in the end. The most powerful enemy within in Tolkien’s story is the wizard Saruman. In the West now, Saruman corresponds to a whole class of people in politics, the media and academia. The Sarumans of the West are met with resistance from thousands of little hobbits in cyberspace, and they don’t like it. Pessimists claim that this era is merely the Wild West period of the Internet, which will gradually become tamed and censored. That is possible, but even if events should turn out that way, the Internet will still have given an important contribution to the Western resistance of our time.
Selborne believes that many people are underestimating the strength of Islam. Perhaps, but some observers, including Mark Steyn and Mr. Selborne himself, may be overestimating it. They overlook the fact that Islam has many weaknesses, too. Don’t underestimate your enemy. Muslims should be credited for making clever use of our weaknesses, but this “we’re all doomed and have already lost” theme is overblown.
We should implement a policy of containment of the Islamic world. I’m not saying that containment is all that we will ever need to do, but it is the very minimum that is acceptable. Perhaps the spread of nuclear weapons technology, the darkest side of globalization, will trigger a large-scale war with the Islamic world at some point. The only way to avoid this is to take steps, including military ones, to deprive Muslims of such technology.
We should restrain their ability to hurt us physically. We can’t prevent it completely, but we should limit it as much as possible. Muslims try to wear us down through terrorism. They should be worn down through mockery and criticism. We should also make clear that for every Islamic terror attack we will increase these efforts, which Muslims fear more than our weapons. It’s the new balance of terror.
Dr Koenraad Elst, one of Belgium’s best orientalists, thinks “Islam is in decline, despite its impressive demographic and military surge” – which according to Dr Elst is merely a “last upheaval.” He acknowledges, however, that this decline can take some time (at least in terms of the individual human life span) and that it is possible that Islam will succeed in becoming the majority religion in Europe before collapsing.
Dalrymple is probably correct when he says that Islam is an “all or nothing” religion which cannot be secularized. The future may not belong to Islam, as Mark Steyn suggests. It is conceivable that Islam in some generations will cease to be a global force of any significance, but in the meantime it will be a constant source of danger to its neighbors, from Europe through India to Southeast Asia. The good news is that Islam may not be able to achieve the world dominance it desires. The bad news is that it may be able to achieve a world war. We can only cage it as much as possible and try to prevent this from happening.
From the desk of Fjordman on Tue, 2006-11-21 22:21
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1674
Canadian writer Mark Steyn thinks “The future belongs to Islam.” The main reason for this, according to him, is demography, with massive population growth in Islamic countries and low birth rates in infidel nations. He makes some assertions I agree with, such as that big government is a national security threat since “it increases your vulnerability to threats like Islamism, and makes it less likely you’ll be able to summon the will to rebuff it.”
According to Steyn, “Four years into the ‘war on terror,’ the Bush administration began promoting a new formulation: ‘the long war.’ Not a good sign. In a short war, put your money on tanks and bombs. In a long war, the better bet is will and manpower.”
Critics would claim that Mr. Steyn isn’t contributing to maintaining Western willpower by suggesting that we’ve already lost. Still, I shouldn’t be too hard on him. The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced his article as “Islamophobic, inflammatory and offensive.” If CAIR dislikes you, you know you must be doing something right.
But he makes other assertions I strongly disagree with, such as indicating that the United States should remain in Iraq to spread democracy: “What does it mean when the world’s hyperpower, responsible for 40 percent of the planet’s military spending, decides that it cannot withstand a guerrilla war with historically low casualties against a ragbag of local insurgents and imported terrorists?”
Here, Mark Steyn is wrong, which indicates that he doesn’t fully understand Islam. The entire project of “spreading democracy” was a mistake from the very beginning, because democracy cannot be exported to an Islamic country such as Iraq. It is stupidity to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on Muslims while Islamization continues apace in the West.
Steyn also does not fully understand the issue of demography. Islamic countries are parasitical. Even the massive population growth is only an advantage as long as Muslims are allowed to export it to infidel lands. Deprived of this opportunity, and of Western aid, the Islamic world would quickly sink into a quagmire of overpopulation. This is a long-term solution, to demonstrate to Muslims the failure of Islam.
According to Srdja Trifkovic, the author of Defeating Jihad, “The tangible cost of the presence of a Muslim man, woman and child to the American taxpayer is at least $100,000 each year. The cost of the general unpleasantness associated with the terrorist threat and its impact on the quality of our lives is, of course, incalculable. (…) There is a direct, empirically verifiable correlation between the percentage of Muslims in a country and the increase of terrorist violence in that country (not to mention the general decline in the quality of life and civilized discourse).”
Sooner or later, we have to deal with the implications of this fact. The best way to deal with the Islamic world is to have as little to do with it as possible. We should completely stop Muslim immigration. This could be done in indirect ways, such as banning immigration from nations known to be engaged in terrorism. All Muslim non-citizens in the West should be removed. We should also change our laws to ensure that Muslim citizens who advocate sharia, preach Jihad, the inequality of “infidels” etc should have their citizenship revoked and be deported back to their country of origin.
We need to create an environment where the practice of Islam is made difficult. Muslim citizens should be forced to accept our secular ways or leave if they desire sharia. Much of this can be done in a non-discriminatory way, by simply refusing to allow special pleading to Muslims. Do not allow Islamic public calls to prayer as this is offensive to other faiths. Both boys and girls should take part in all sporting and social activities of the school and the community. The veil should be banned in public institutions, thus contributing to breaking the traditional subjugation of women. Companies and public buildings should not be forced to build prayer rooms for Muslims. Enact laws to eliminate the abuse of family reunification laws. Do not permit major investments by Muslims in Western media or universities.
It is conceivable that some infidel nations will copy the Benes Decrees from Czechoslovakia in 1946, when most of the so-called Sudeten Germans had shown themselves to be a dangerous fifth column. The Czech government thus expelled them from its land. As Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch has demonstrated, there is a much better case for a Benes Decree for parts of Europe’s Muslim population now than there ever was for the Sudeten Germans.
Is that racism and Fascism you say? Muslims themselves in poll after poll state that their loyalty lies with the Islamic Umma, not with the country they live in. “I’m a Muslim living in Britain, I’m not British” is the sentiment. Well, if Muslims themselves state that their citizenship is not worth the paper it is printed upon, why not take their word for it?
David Selbourne, author of The Losing Battle with Islam thinks that “Islam’s swift progress is easily explained. For the West — but not China or India — is as politically and ideologically weak as the world of Islam is strong. The West is handicapped by many factors: its over-benign liberalism, the lost moral status of the Christian faith, the vacillations of its judiciaries and the incoherence of their judgments, political and military hesitations over strategy and tactics, poor intelligence (in both senses), and the complicities of the ‘Left’.”
Can the West defeat the Islamic threat? Selbourne states ten reasons why not, including the extent of political division in the non-Muslim world about what is afoot, the confusion of Leftist “progressives” about the Islamic advance, anti-Americanism and the vicarious satisfaction felt by many non-Muslims at America’s reverses, as well as the West’s dependency on the oil and material resources of Arab and Muslim countries.
According to him, Islam will not be defeated because “the strengths of the world community of Muslims are being underestimated.” Yet another indication that Islam’s advance will continue lies in “the skilful use being made of the media and of the world wide web in the service both of the ‘electronic jihad’”
I agree with him that the cultural weakness of the West is a major disadvantage, and has been one important reason behind the recent resurgence of Jihad. It was never inevitable that we allowed millions of Muslims to settle in our lands. This was the result of Multiculturalism and the weakening of our cultural identity, and in Europe with the deliberate help of Eurabians.
The impact of globalization and modern mass media is more complicated and has contradictory results. As one pundit at ex-Muslim Ali Sina’s website put it: “Rituals are important as brainwashing tools to instill discipline and loyalty. Islam’s focus on rituals remind me of the rituals in the military. (...) But what worked well for a medieval war machine is disastrous for Muslims in the modern world. The Arab war machine was supported by the blind obedience, brotherhood, courage, hatred and high birth rates inspired by Islam. (...) But these same qualities are handicaps for Muslims in the age of the microchip. Today they lead to poverty, belligerency, war and defeat.”
Islam was perfect for medieval warfare, but gradually lost out to the West, especially after the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, which could never have taken place in Islamic lands because of their lack of freedom and their cult of authority. Ironically, history has now gone full circle. Muslims are still useless in developing anything new, but as a result of migration, modern communications, the presence of Muslims in infidel lands and Arab oil revenues, they can more readily buy or expropriate technology from others. The Iranian Revolution was aided by audio cassettes of speeches by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
In the book The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat, Roger Scruton argues that globalization “offers militant Islam the opportunity that it has lacked since the Ottoman retreat from central Europe.” It has created “a true Islamic umma, which identifies itself across borders in terms of a global form of legitimacy, and which attaches itself like a parasite to global institutions and techniques that are the by-products of Western democracy.”
The “techniques and infrastructure on which al Qaeda depends are the gifts of the new global institutions. It is Wall Street and Zurich that produced the network of international finance that enables Osama bin Laden to conceal his wealth and to deploy it anywhere in the world. It is Western enterprise with its multinational outreach that produced the technology that bin Laden has exploited so effectively against us. And it is Western science that developed the weapons of mass destruction he would dearly like to obtain. His wealth, too, would be inconceivable without the vast oil revenues brought to Saudi Arabia from the West, there to precipitate the building boom from which his father profited.”
While Scruton gives some support to the idea that the Internet and modern communications technology have strengthened Islam, there are some contradictory views worth listening to.
Theodore Dalrymple thinks that “Islam has nothing whatever to say to the modern world,” and states that “Personally, I believe that all forms of Islam are very vulnerable in the modern world to rational criticism, which is why the Islamists are so ferocious in trying to suppress such criticism. They have instinctively understood that Islam itself, while strong, is exceedingly brittle, as communism once was. They understand that, at the present time in human history, it is all or nothing. (…) Islamism is a last gasp, not a renaissance, of the religion; but, as anyone who has watched a person die will attest, last gasps can last a surprisingly long time.”
Although some of the tensions we are seeing now are caused by Western cultural weakness, part of it is also related to the impersonal forces of technological globalization. Previously, Muslims and non-Muslims could for the most part ignore each other on a daily basis. This is no longer possible, because Muslims see the Western world on TV every day. And if somebody in, say, Denmark says something “insulting” about Muhammad — which in the 19th century would have gone unnoticed in Pakistan or Egypt — thanks to email, mobile phones and satellite TV, millions of Muslims will know about it within hours. However, this can potentially be good for non-Muslims.
Contrary to what Selbourne claims, the Internet has in fact emerged as an important, perhaps crucial factor in the Western resistance, as author Bruce Bawer has noticed: “Thank God for the [Inter]Net. I tremble at the thought of all the things that have happened during the past years that I would never have known about without it. The bloggers have in some cases reported about things that the mainstream media has left out, and in other cases pointed out omissions and distortions in the media coverage. Frequently, the mass media has felt compelled by the bloggers to pay attention to stories they would otherwise have ignored. The blogosphere is a fantastic way to spread news. If an important event has been reported in just a single, insignificant local paper, one blogger somewhere will have written about it, other bloggers will have linked to him etc. so that the news story is passed on to blog readers around the world. If Europe is saved, it will be because of the Internet.”
Columnist Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post praises the blogosphere and states that: “The responsibility of protecting our nations and societies from internal disintegration has passed to the hands of individuals, often working alone, who refuse to accept the degradation of their societies and so fight with the innovative tools of liberty to protect our way of life.”
J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic tale the Lord of the Rings is a story about the little people, the Hobbits, saving the day in the end. The most powerful enemy within in Tolkien’s story is the wizard Saruman. In the West now, Saruman corresponds to a whole class of people in politics, the media and academia. The Sarumans of the West are met with resistance from thousands of little hobbits in cyberspace, and they don’t like it. Pessimists claim that this era is merely the Wild West period of the Internet, which will gradually become tamed and censored. That is possible, but even if events should turn out that way, the Internet will still have given an important contribution to the Western resistance of our time.
Selborne believes that many people are underestimating the strength of Islam. Perhaps, but some observers, including Mark Steyn and Mr. Selborne himself, may be overestimating it. They overlook the fact that Islam has many weaknesses, too. Don’t underestimate your enemy. Muslims should be credited for making clever use of our weaknesses, but this “we’re all doomed and have already lost” theme is overblown.
We should implement a policy of containment of the Islamic world. I’m not saying that containment is all that we will ever need to do, but it is the very minimum that is acceptable. Perhaps the spread of nuclear weapons technology, the darkest side of globalization, will trigger a large-scale war with the Islamic world at some point. The only way to avoid this is to take steps, including military ones, to deprive Muslims of such technology.
We should restrain their ability to hurt us physically. We can’t prevent it completely, but we should limit it as much as possible. Muslims try to wear us down through terrorism. They should be worn down through mockery and criticism. We should also make clear that for every Islamic terror attack we will increase these efforts, which Muslims fear more than our weapons. It’s the new balance of terror.
Dr Koenraad Elst, one of Belgium’s best orientalists, thinks “Islam is in decline, despite its impressive demographic and military surge” – which according to Dr Elst is merely a “last upheaval.” He acknowledges, however, that this decline can take some time (at least in terms of the individual human life span) and that it is possible that Islam will succeed in becoming the majority religion in Europe before collapsing.
Dalrymple is probably correct when he says that Islam is an “all or nothing” religion which cannot be secularized. The future may not belong to Islam, as Mark Steyn suggests. It is conceivable that Islam in some generations will cease to be a global force of any significance, but in the meantime it will be a constant source of danger to its neighbors, from Europe through India to Southeast Asia. The good news is that Islam may not be able to achieve the world dominance it desires. The bad news is that it may be able to achieve a world war. We can only cage it as much as possible and try to prevent this from happening.
Oil industry cause of heavy rain
Oil industry cause of heavy rain
Opinion Hunter (Letter to Editor)
Source: Malaysiakini, Nov 17, 06
With regards to the heavy rainfall currently being experienced over the
west coast of our country, I would like to invite the Meteorological
Department to do a little research and explore on why this unexpected
change to the atmospherics has gained ground.
Way back in the late 70s the east coast had nothing to be proud of. Ever
year-end, it becomes a sad contemplation on the west coast that everybody
here is sleeping on roof tops due to floods.
Then, in the early 80s the petroleum (exploration) industry began to sprout
in earnest in the east coast. Overnight, quake-proof drilling platforms
were raised and crude oil and natural gas siphoned out. These platforms
have burly flares attached to each one of them. Each flare emits or shoots
up thousands of BTUs (thermal or heat energy) into the upper atmosphere and
this has been going now for umpteen years.
This includes those installed at the downstream of plants at Kerteh Cukai
and Kuantan. Simply put, these high concentration of flares all over the
South China Sea and on land has actually heated up the atmosphere above
them over the years. This has probably forced the rain clouds - that
usually lingered at kite-flying level during the monsoon season of the 80s
- to rise higher than usual.
Now, the peninsula's Main Range, with Gunung Tahan being the highest peak,
has been the sole defender against any swarming of monsoon winds and clouds
to the west coast. But with the flares on the east coast ongoing for so
many years, the lower atmosphere is now filled with warm temperatures.
This may have caused the assemblage ground for rain clouds to be lifted to
a much higher level than normal. With cold winds gushing in, this causes
the clouds to accelerate faster than usual. At a higher altitude now due to
the rising warm air below, these rain clouds stride over the Main Range and
subsequently drenches the west coast with its wet load.
Today, whilst the west coast avariciously enjoys the benefits and profits
from the petroleum industry, it should also get pleasure from the loads of
rainfall compliments of the east coast's heavens. Meanwhile, or until the
depletion of oil and gas in this region, the people of Terengganu, in
particular, will continue to enjoy their Monsoon Cup and 'kropok lekor' at
unusual places where once snakes and crocodiles romped during this time of
the year.
Opinion Hunter (Letter to Editor)
Source: Malaysiakini, Nov 17, 06
With regards to the heavy rainfall currently being experienced over the
west coast of our country, I would like to invite the Meteorological
Department to do a little research and explore on why this unexpected
change to the atmospherics has gained ground.
Way back in the late 70s the east coast had nothing to be proud of. Ever
year-end, it becomes a sad contemplation on the west coast that everybody
here is sleeping on roof tops due to floods.
Then, in the early 80s the petroleum (exploration) industry began to sprout
in earnest in the east coast. Overnight, quake-proof drilling platforms
were raised and crude oil and natural gas siphoned out. These platforms
have burly flares attached to each one of them. Each flare emits or shoots
up thousands of BTUs (thermal or heat energy) into the upper atmosphere and
this has been going now for umpteen years.
This includes those installed at the downstream of plants at Kerteh Cukai
and Kuantan. Simply put, these high concentration of flares all over the
South China Sea and on land has actually heated up the atmosphere above
them over the years. This has probably forced the rain clouds - that
usually lingered at kite-flying level during the monsoon season of the 80s
- to rise higher than usual.
Now, the peninsula's Main Range, with Gunung Tahan being the highest peak,
has been the sole defender against any swarming of monsoon winds and clouds
to the west coast. But with the flares on the east coast ongoing for so
many years, the lower atmosphere is now filled with warm temperatures.
This may have caused the assemblage ground for rain clouds to be lifted to
a much higher level than normal. With cold winds gushing in, this causes
the clouds to accelerate faster than usual. At a higher altitude now due to
the rising warm air below, these rain clouds stride over the Main Range and
subsequently drenches the west coast with its wet load.
Today, whilst the west coast avariciously enjoys the benefits and profits
from the petroleum industry, it should also get pleasure from the loads of
rainfall compliments of the east coast's heavens. Meanwhile, or until the
depletion of oil and gas in this region, the people of Terengganu, in
particular, will continue to enjoy their Monsoon Cup and 'kropok lekor' at
unusual places where once snakes and crocodiles romped during this time of
the year.
Chinese Story
CHINESE STORY
A long time ago in China, a girl named Li-Li got married &
Went to live with her husband and mother-in-law. In a very short time,
! Li-Li found that she couldn't get along with her mother-in-law at all.
Their personalities were very different, and Li-Li was angered by
Many of her mother-in-law's habits. In addition, she criticized Li-Li
Constantly .
Days passed and weeks passed. Li-Li and her mother-in-law
Never stopped arguing and fighting. But what made the situation even
Worse was that,
According to ancient Chinese tradition, Li-Li had to bow
To her mother-in-law and obey her every wish. All the anger and
Unhappiness in the house was causing Li-Li's poor husband great distress.
Finally, Li-Li could not stand her mother-in-law's bad temper
And dictatorship any longer, and she decided to do something about !
It.
Li-Li went to see her father's good friend, Mr. Huang, who sold herbs.
She told him the situation and asked if he would give her some poison
So that she could solve the problem once and for all. Mr. Huang thought
For a while,and finally said, " Li-Li, I will help you solve your problem,
But you must listen to me and obey what I tell you ."
Li-Li said, " Yes, Mr. Huang, I will do whatever you tell me to
Do."
Mr. Huang went into the back room, and returned in a few
Minutes with a package of herbs. He told Li-Li, " You can't use a quick-acting
Poison to get rid of your mother-in-law, because that would cause people
To become suspicious .
Therefore, I have given you a number of herbs that will slowly
Build up poison in her body. Every other day prepare some delicious meal and
Put a little of these herbs in her serving. Now, in order to make sure
That nobody suspect you when she dies.
You must be very careful to act very friendly towards her.
Don't argue with her, obey her every wish, and treat her like
A queen ."
Li-Li was so happy. She thanked Mr. Huang and hurried home to
Start her plot of murdering her mother-in-law. Weeks went by and months
Went by, and every other day, Li-Li served the specially treated food to her
Mother-in-law. She remembered what Mr. Huang had said about
Avoiding suspicion, so she controlled her temper, obeyed her
Mother-in-law, and treated her like her own mother.
After six months had passed, the whole household had changed. Li-Li had practiced controlling her temper so much that she found that she almost never got mad or upset.
She hadn't had an argument with her mother-in-law in six
Months because she now seemed much kinder and easier to get along with. The
Mother-in-law's attitude toward Li-Li changed, and she began to love Li-Li
Like her own daughter. She kept telling friends and relatives that Li-Li was the
Best daughter-in-law one could ever find. Li-Li and her mother-in-law
Were now treating each other like a real mother and daughter.
Li-Li's husband was very happy to see what was happening.
One day, Li-Li came to see Mr. Huang and asked for his help
Again.
She said, " Dear Mr. Huang, please help me to keep the poison from
Killing my mother-in-law! She's changed into such a nice woman, and I
Love her like my own mother. I do not want her to die because of the poison
I gave her."
Mr. Huang smiled and nodded his head. "
A long time ago in China, a girl named Li-Li got married &
Went to live with her husband and mother-in-law. In a very short time,
! Li-Li found that she couldn't get along with her mother-in-law at all.
Their personalities were very different, and Li-Li was angered by
Many of her mother-in-law's habits. In addition, she criticized Li-Li
Constantly .
Days passed and weeks passed. Li-Li and her mother-in-law
Never stopped arguing and fighting. But what made the situation even
Worse was that,
According to ancient Chinese tradition, Li-Li had to bow
To her mother-in-law and obey her every wish. All the anger and
Unhappiness in the house was causing Li-Li's poor husband great distress.
Finally, Li-Li could not stand her mother-in-law's bad temper
And dictatorship any longer, and she decided to do something about !
It.
Li-Li went to see her father's good friend, Mr. Huang, who sold herbs.
She told him the situation and asked if he would give her some poison
So that she could solve the problem once and for all. Mr. Huang thought
For a while,and finally said, " Li-Li, I will help you solve your problem,
But you must listen to me and obey what I tell you ."
Li-Li said, " Yes, Mr. Huang, I will do whatever you tell me to
Do."
Mr. Huang went into the back room, and returned in a few
Minutes with a package of herbs. He told Li-Li, " You can't use a quick-acting
Poison to get rid of your mother-in-law, because that would cause people
To become suspicious .
Therefore, I have given you a number of herbs that will slowly
Build up poison in her body. Every other day prepare some delicious meal and
Put a little of these herbs in her serving. Now, in order to make sure
That nobody suspect you when she dies.
You must be very careful to act very friendly towards her.
Don't argue with her, obey her every wish, and treat her like
A queen ."
Li-Li was so happy. She thanked Mr. Huang and hurried home to
Start her plot of murdering her mother-in-law. Weeks went by and months
Went by, and every other day, Li-Li served the specially treated food to her
Mother-in-law. She remembered what Mr. Huang had said about
Avoiding suspicion, so she controlled her temper, obeyed her
Mother-in-law, and treated her like her own mother.
After six months had passed, the whole household had changed. Li-Li had practiced controlling her temper so much that she found that she almost never got mad or upset.
She hadn't had an argument with her mother-in-law in six
Months because she now seemed much kinder and easier to get along with. The
Mother-in-law's attitude toward Li-Li changed, and she began to love Li-Li
Like her own daughter. She kept telling friends and relatives that Li-Li was the
Best daughter-in-law one could ever find. Li-Li and her mother-in-law
Were now treating each other like a real mother and daughter.
Li-Li's husband was very happy to see what was happening.
One day, Li-Li came to see Mr. Huang and asked for his help
Again.
She said, " Dear Mr. Huang, please help me to keep the poison from
Killing my mother-in-law! She's changed into such a nice woman, and I
Love her like my own mother. I do not want her to die because of the poison
I gave her."
Mr. Huang smiled and nodded his head. "
Wrong Email
A lesson to be learned from typing the wrong e-mail address!!!
A couple from Minneapolis decided to go to Florida to thaw out during one particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the very same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier.
Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules. So, the husband left Minnesota and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down the following day.
The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without realizing his error, he sent the e-mail.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a minister of many years who was called home to glory following a sudden heart attack. The widow decided to check her e-mail expecting messages of condolence from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she fainted. The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:
To: My Loving Wife
Subject: I've Arrived
Date: 16 January 2004
I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
P.S. Sure is hot down here.
A couple from Minneapolis decided to go to Florida to thaw out during one particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the very same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier.
Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules. So, the husband left Minnesota and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down the following day.
The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without realizing his error, he sent the e-mail.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a minister of many years who was called home to glory following a sudden heart attack. The widow decided to check her e-mail expecting messages of condolence from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she fainted. The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:
To: My Loving Wife
Subject: I've Arrived
Date: 16 January 2004
I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
P.S. Sure is hot down here.
Interesting Maid
This happens to me just a few weeks ago (nov 2006). I had taken a maid from one tekong in sg buloh few months back. She was screened. Her name was uyun. She is from madura. Age late 30.
I was very satisfied with her services. Everytime I come home, the house is spick and span. Floors mopped, windows wiped, dishes cleaned, laundry folded. No complaints. But I noticed that she never had any sprinkle of water over her, she was never wet or look tired after a day of hard work. And we live in a huge penthouse.
One night we were having a family dinner. The phone rang and she picked up. But the moment she said hello the line went dead. This happens a few times.
So I suggested that next time it rings, i will pick it up. So the phone rang. It was a guy on the other line. He said that if the maid is next to me just answered everyting as "yes". So I did. The guy pictured the maid to us and identified our house correctly. He told me that my family and I is in great DANGER and asked me to take the family out immediately and meet him somehwere. I put down the phone and told the maid that my mother-in-law has fallen ill and that we have to go back to Kelantan right that minute. She insisted to come along but I instructed her to stay.
We dumped our children and my parents at the mall. My husband and I went to see the guy that night. The guy said that the maid used to work for her. I asked him how he got our number. He said that the
maid has been calling their teenage son everyday as she had fallen in love with him. But that is just part of the problem. Later they discovered that the finger tips of their 5 year old son were damaged. They got smaller and thinner. The doctor said that something or someone has been sucking blood out of the fingers. So they immediately sacked the maid.
I didn't believe the guy, but later told my father who is paralysed and lived with us on the ground floor. He said that he noticed something was wrong with the maid. Everytime he wakes up to go to the toilet at 2 or 3 in the morning, the maid was not in her room and the door was wide open. She could not have been outside the house as she doesn't have the key to the front door.
I sensed something wrong. I told my husband to send her back. When we got home, we told her that we have to be in Kelantan for a few months and that she has to go back to the tekong. She refused to go and refused to pack. But I insisted to send her that very same night and said that I will send her things later. By then my husband managed to get help from a pak haji neighbour to follow us to the tekong. She was very angry of course but did not say a word.
We went back to pack her things. I found a menu in her bag that says she has to eat 10 eggs on monday night, some blood on tuesday night, chicken blood on wednesday and so forth. My husband and I together with the pak haji went back to send her stuff the next night. As soon as the tekong opens the door, pak haji felt that someone has lifted him up and threw him over to the wall. I saw with my own eyes. He literally flew from one end to the other end of the room. He got up and we quickly ran to our car. By then the tekong had came out and shouted something to us. Since we had already left he called us on the phone. He was shouting at us "Apa benda kamu hantar ini?? Benda berhantu? Dia sudah marah sekarang sedang terbang keliling rumah!!!". My husband just shut the phone off and we went home.
Guys, please be careful. I live in Ampang and the tekong house is in Sg Buloh. This incident happened just a few weeks ago. This "maid" or whatever creature she may be is still flying around somewhere. This is not a ghost story. I don't get a single cent out of this. Please be careful.
.
30/11/06
I was very satisfied with her services. Everytime I come home, the house is spick and span. Floors mopped, windows wiped, dishes cleaned, laundry folded. No complaints. But I noticed that she never had any sprinkle of water over her, she was never wet or look tired after a day of hard work. And we live in a huge penthouse.
One night we were having a family dinner. The phone rang and she picked up. But the moment she said hello the line went dead. This happens a few times.
So I suggested that next time it rings, i will pick it up. So the phone rang. It was a guy on the other line. He said that if the maid is next to me just answered everyting as "yes". So I did. The guy pictured the maid to us and identified our house correctly. He told me that my family and I is in great DANGER and asked me to take the family out immediately and meet him somehwere. I put down the phone and told the maid that my mother-in-law has fallen ill and that we have to go back to Kelantan right that minute. She insisted to come along but I instructed her to stay.
We dumped our children and my parents at the mall. My husband and I went to see the guy that night. The guy said that the maid used to work for her. I asked him how he got our number. He said that the
maid has been calling their teenage son everyday as she had fallen in love with him. But that is just part of the problem. Later they discovered that the finger tips of their 5 year old son were damaged. They got smaller and thinner. The doctor said that something or someone has been sucking blood out of the fingers. So they immediately sacked the maid.
I didn't believe the guy, but later told my father who is paralysed and lived with us on the ground floor. He said that he noticed something was wrong with the maid. Everytime he wakes up to go to the toilet at 2 or 3 in the morning, the maid was not in her room and the door was wide open. She could not have been outside the house as she doesn't have the key to the front door.
I sensed something wrong. I told my husband to send her back. When we got home, we told her that we have to be in Kelantan for a few months and that she has to go back to the tekong. She refused to go and refused to pack. But I insisted to send her that very same night and said that I will send her things later. By then my husband managed to get help from a pak haji neighbour to follow us to the tekong. She was very angry of course but did not say a word.
We went back to pack her things. I found a menu in her bag that says she has to eat 10 eggs on monday night, some blood on tuesday night, chicken blood on wednesday and so forth. My husband and I together with the pak haji went back to send her stuff the next night. As soon as the tekong opens the door, pak haji felt that someone has lifted him up and threw him over to the wall. I saw with my own eyes. He literally flew from one end to the other end of the room. He got up and we quickly ran to our car. By then the tekong had came out and shouted something to us. Since we had already left he called us on the phone. He was shouting at us "Apa benda kamu hantar ini?? Benda berhantu? Dia sudah marah sekarang sedang terbang keliling rumah!!!". My husband just shut the phone off and we went home.
Guys, please be careful. I live in Ampang and the tekong house is in Sg Buloh. This incident happened just a few weeks ago. This "maid" or whatever creature she may be is still flying around somewhere. This is not a ghost story. I don't get a single cent out of this. Please be careful.
.
30/11/06
Israel's Domestic Enemy
Israel's Domestic Enemy
by Daniel PipesNew York SunDecember 19, 2006http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4220
After nearly sixty years on the sidelines, Israel's third and final enemy may be joining the battle.
Foreign states are Israel's enemy no. 1. With the declaration of Israeli independence in May 1948, five foreign armed forces invaded Israel. All the major wars that followed – 1956, 1967, 1970, 1973 – involved Israelis at war with neighboring armies, air forces, and navies. Today, the greatest threat comes from weapons of mass destruction in Iran and Syria. Egypt increasingly presents a conventional arms danger.
External Palestinians are enemy no. 2. Eclipsed for two decades after 1948, they moved to center-stage with Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The 1982 Lebanon war and the 1993 Oslo accords confirmed their centrality. External Palestinians remain active and menacing today, what with terrorism, missiles landing on Sderot, and a global public relations campaign of rejectionism.
The Muslim citizens of Israel, usually known in English as Israeli Arabs, constitute enemy no. 3. (But I focus on Muslims, not Arabs, because Arabic-speaking Christians and Druze are generally less hostile.)
Israeli Muslims began inconsequentially; in 1949, they constituted a population of 111,000 and 9 percent of Israel's population. They then multiplied ten-fold, to 1,141,000 in 2005, 16 percent of the population. Beyond numbers, they took full advantage of Israel's open, modern society to evolve from a small, docile, and leaderless population into a robust, assertive community whose leaders include a Supreme Court justice, Salim Joubran; an ambassador, Ali Yahya; members of parliament; academics; and entrepreneurs.
This ascent, along with other factors – enemies no. 1 and 2 at war with Israel, increased ties to the West Bank, the surge of radical Islam, the Lebanon war in mid-2006 – emboldened Muslims to reject the Israeli identity and turn against the state. Their blatantly celebrating Israel's worst enemies evidences this, as does growing Muslim-on-Jewish violence within Israel. This month alone, Muslims pillaged a Jewish religious school in Acre and nearly murdered a Jezreel Valley farmer. A teenage boy was arrested for planning a suicide attack on a Nazareth hotel.
This hostility has been codified in an impressively crafted document that was published in early December, The Future Vision of Palestinian Arabs in Israel. Issued by the Mossawa Center in Haifa – which is partially funded by American Jews – and endorsed by many establishment figures, its extremism may well mark a turning point for Israeli Muslims. The paper rejects the Jewish nature of Israel, insisting that the country become a bi-national state in which Palestinian culture and power enjoy complete equality.
The document's notion of a "joint homeland" means Jewish and Arab sectors that run their own affairs and have the right of veto over certain of the other's decisions. Future Vision demands adjustments to the flag and anthem, canceling the 1950 Law of Return that automatically grants Israeli citizenship to any Jew, and elevating Arabic to be the equal of Hebrew. It seeks separate Arab representation in international fora. Most profoundly, the study would terminate the Zionist achievement of a sovereign Jewish state.
Unsurprisingly, Jewish Israelis reacted negatively. In Ma‘ariv, Dan Margalit dismissed Israeli Arabs as "impossible." In Ha'aretz, Avraham Tal interpreted the outrageous demands as intentionally continuing the conflict, even should Israel's external conflicts be settled. Israel's deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, implicitly rejects the document's very premises. "What is the logic," he is quoted in The New York Sun, of creating 1½ countries for Palestinians (an allusion to the Palestinian Authority becoming a full-fledged state) and "a half country for the Jewish people?"
Mr. Lieberman wants to restrict Israeli citizenship to those willing to sign a statement of loyalty to the Israeli flag and anthem, and prepared to do military service or its equivalent. Those who refuse to sign – whether Muslim, far-leftist, Haredi, or other – may remain in place as permanent residents, with all the benefits of Israeli residence, even voting and running for local office (a privilege non-citizen Arab residents of Jerusalem currently enjoy). But they would be excluded from voting in national elections or being elected to national office.
The diametrically opposed proposals of Future Vision and Mr. Lieberman are opening bids in a long negotiating process that usefully focus attention on a topic too long sidelined. Three brutally simple choices face Israelis: either Jewish Israelis give up Zionism; or Muslim Israelis accept Zionism; or Muslim Israelis don't remain Israeli for long. The sooner Israelis resolve this matter, the better.
by Daniel PipesNew York SunDecember 19, 2006http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4220
After nearly sixty years on the sidelines, Israel's third and final enemy may be joining the battle.
Foreign states are Israel's enemy no. 1. With the declaration of Israeli independence in May 1948, five foreign armed forces invaded Israel. All the major wars that followed – 1956, 1967, 1970, 1973 – involved Israelis at war with neighboring armies, air forces, and navies. Today, the greatest threat comes from weapons of mass destruction in Iran and Syria. Egypt increasingly presents a conventional arms danger.
External Palestinians are enemy no. 2. Eclipsed for two decades after 1948, they moved to center-stage with Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The 1982 Lebanon war and the 1993 Oslo accords confirmed their centrality. External Palestinians remain active and menacing today, what with terrorism, missiles landing on Sderot, and a global public relations campaign of rejectionism.
The Muslim citizens of Israel, usually known in English as Israeli Arabs, constitute enemy no. 3. (But I focus on Muslims, not Arabs, because Arabic-speaking Christians and Druze are generally less hostile.)
Israeli Muslims began inconsequentially; in 1949, they constituted a population of 111,000 and 9 percent of Israel's population. They then multiplied ten-fold, to 1,141,000 in 2005, 16 percent of the population. Beyond numbers, they took full advantage of Israel's open, modern society to evolve from a small, docile, and leaderless population into a robust, assertive community whose leaders include a Supreme Court justice, Salim Joubran; an ambassador, Ali Yahya; members of parliament; academics; and entrepreneurs.
This ascent, along with other factors – enemies no. 1 and 2 at war with Israel, increased ties to the West Bank, the surge of radical Islam, the Lebanon war in mid-2006 – emboldened Muslims to reject the Israeli identity and turn against the state. Their blatantly celebrating Israel's worst enemies evidences this, as does growing Muslim-on-Jewish violence within Israel. This month alone, Muslims pillaged a Jewish religious school in Acre and nearly murdered a Jezreel Valley farmer. A teenage boy was arrested for planning a suicide attack on a Nazareth hotel.
This hostility has been codified in an impressively crafted document that was published in early December, The Future Vision of Palestinian Arabs in Israel. Issued by the Mossawa Center in Haifa – which is partially funded by American Jews – and endorsed by many establishment figures, its extremism may well mark a turning point for Israeli Muslims. The paper rejects the Jewish nature of Israel, insisting that the country become a bi-national state in which Palestinian culture and power enjoy complete equality.
The document's notion of a "joint homeland" means Jewish and Arab sectors that run their own affairs and have the right of veto over certain of the other's decisions. Future Vision demands adjustments to the flag and anthem, canceling the 1950 Law of Return that automatically grants Israeli citizenship to any Jew, and elevating Arabic to be the equal of Hebrew. It seeks separate Arab representation in international fora. Most profoundly, the study would terminate the Zionist achievement of a sovereign Jewish state.
Unsurprisingly, Jewish Israelis reacted negatively. In Ma‘ariv, Dan Margalit dismissed Israeli Arabs as "impossible." In Ha'aretz, Avraham Tal interpreted the outrageous demands as intentionally continuing the conflict, even should Israel's external conflicts be settled. Israel's deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, implicitly rejects the document's very premises. "What is the logic," he is quoted in The New York Sun, of creating 1½ countries for Palestinians (an allusion to the Palestinian Authority becoming a full-fledged state) and "a half country for the Jewish people?"
Mr. Lieberman wants to restrict Israeli citizenship to those willing to sign a statement of loyalty to the Israeli flag and anthem, and prepared to do military service or its equivalent. Those who refuse to sign – whether Muslim, far-leftist, Haredi, or other – may remain in place as permanent residents, with all the benefits of Israeli residence, even voting and running for local office (a privilege non-citizen Arab residents of Jerusalem currently enjoy). But they would be excluded from voting in national elections or being elected to national office.
The diametrically opposed proposals of Future Vision and Mr. Lieberman are opening bids in a long negotiating process that usefully focus attention on a topic too long sidelined. Three brutally simple choices face Israelis: either Jewish Israelis give up Zionism; or Muslim Israelis accept Zionism; or Muslim Israelis don't remain Israeli for long. The sooner Israelis resolve this matter, the better.
Consequences of conversion
Consequences of conversion
Helen Ang Malaysiakini
Dec 14, 06 11:21am
"WHY should it become a matter of state as to this person’s religion and burial?" asks Tunku A’amash Tunku Adnan, a founding member of the Article 11 coalition movement. He is referring to the controversy surrounding the late Rayappan Anthony.
Answering my question as to possible reasons for t! he Selangor religious authority officials – who are strangers to the family – to lay claim to Rayappan’s body, Tunku A’amash suggests: "Amongst the Malays, the Muslim must be buried in the Islamic way. If not, the living will be [held] responsible. I think that’s the reason here."
Nonetheless, in Tunku A’amash’s own opinion, the last rites attendant upon apostate van driver Rayappan should on the contrary have been ‘a very personal matter for the immediate family’ to settle. Yet the state and even the prime minister had gotten involved. Why so?
Tunku A’amash comments, "It’s political" and cites the conventional wisdom "because PAS has put Umno into a corner and Umno is trying to be more holy than PAS." There are many who will agree with him that administration of processes governing Muslims in Malaysia has become increasingly politicised.
Tunku A’amash traces the push for this development to Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s amendment to the Federal Constitution in 1988 on Article 121 (1A) pertaining to ! Syariah courts. He locates its subsequent acceleration within the national framework to the influence of the Anwar years.
Has the general public got its finger on this politicising of God which has led to widening and encroaching Islamisation? And how more worryingly, this trend exhibits an orthodox and uncompromising nature?
It is certainly disingenuous if not downright foolhardy to buy into the argument that this is solely the Muslim’s province. And that non-Muslims should shut up, butt out, put up or get out of the country if they don’t like living in this so-called ‘Islamic state’. What will it take to make the non-Muslim community shake off their apathy, I wonder?
Non-Muslims affected
As ! the Rayappan affair illustrates, conversion to Islam or out of the religion does impact on other than the person alone. Lourdes Mary Maria Soosay and S Kaliammal, widows respectively of Rayappan and Everest hero M Moorthy, are not Muslim but this had not prevented the Syariah Court from impinging on their rights.
S Shamala is a non-Muslim whose young children were converted to Islam without her consent by her estranged husband, and she reportedly fled Malaysia with her kids in tow after being caught in court limbo. Lina Joy’s other half has been forced to go into hi! ding together with her. The parents of Susie Teoh, who converted when she was a minor, were denied access to their daughter. There are more Malaysians who have suffered harrowing ordeals but whose stories have not hogged national headlines.
A generic example of the impact of syariah on the non-Muslim is the woman who suddenly faces a forced dissolution of her civil marriage should her husband take a new Muslim wife. In such an event, her rights to their marital property and her children’s inheritance may be nullified.
Another example is the non-Muslim elderly parents of a deceased convert who may find his entire estate unwittingly devolved upon the Baitulmal (state charity agency) following the distribution of property under Islamic law. Or the non-Muslim partner may lose custody of their children when his or her spouse converts to Islam.
Therefore, it is at ou r own peril for non-Muslim communities to remain cowed in a cocoon of indifference. The Islamisation we see galloping a-pace has yielded just the type of religious enforcement that tells you to take your Mykad, tear it up and throw it away. Well, so much for illusions of secular citizenship.
Serving justice
Leading civil rights lawyer Haris Mohamed Ibrahim clarified some points of law on the rights and remedies that former Muslims and non-Muslims might avail themselves when trapped in what he tells me are the ‘human tragedies’ that these types of cases represent.
In the Lina Joy case, Haris appeared as co-counsel with Malik Imtiaz Sarwar holding watching brief for the Bar Council, both in the Court of Appeal and in the Federal Court. He is pro bono counsel to Daud Mamat, Mad Yaacob Ismail, Kamariah Ali and her (late) husband Mohamad Ya in their apostasy case. He also held a watching brief for the Bar Council in the Moorthy case and for women NGOs in the Shamala case.
Haris is in agreement with Tunku A’amash that PM Abdullah Badawi should not have interfered in the Rayappan issue. Says Haris: "Fundamentally, it was wrong for the government, the exec! utive, to direct the AG (Attorney-General) to intervene when the matter was already before another arm of government, the judiciary."
He furthermore finds it quite understandable why Rayappan’s wife and daughters declined to comply with the subpoenas issued and feels in fact that it would have been ‘very dangerous’ had they actually agreed to present themselves in the Shah Alam Syariah Court.
Haris explains that the Syariah Court has no jurisdiction to have non-Muslims as party to the proceedings although there are provisions in the syariah evidence procedure that allows them to give evidence. He stresses that we must appreciate the distinction between being a witness to assist the court and being a party to pursue your interest.
"Now, Rayappan’s family had a plain and ample interest in ! these proceedings. They claim that he was a Catholic at the time of his death. Now to tell them that they should be satisfied and that they should appear before court proceedings merely to give evidence and not to represent their interest, in any jurisdiction in any place on the face of this Earth, is completely unsatisfactory and it’s completely abhorrent and inconsistent with the notion of representation of one’s own interest.
"This matter was properly to have been before the civil courts, not before the Syariah Court."
Haris believes, "Justice in Islam would have been served if parties were allowed to appear before the civil court where there was no impediment or limitation in representation for all parties to have their interests ventilated before the court, for the court to hear all evidence without limitation and for the court to decide on the merits of the case premised on evidence without any other considerations."
Restrictions and repercussions
Nonetheless, as with the tussle over Rayappan’s dead body, there was similarly a clash over court jurisdiction. Haris holds the view that it is legally untenable for non-Muslims to seek relief or redress through the syariah courts because List II of the 9th Schedule of the Federal Constitution confines the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court to Muslims only. Moreover, the extent of the Syariah Court’s authority – over what is termed Muslim affairs – is also clearly defined and limited.
Haris avers that prior to the enactment of Article 121 (1A) and its subsequently contentious interpretation the civil high courts time and again exercised a jurisdiction of review over the decisions and pronouncements of subordinate courts and tribunals, including the Syariah Court.
"If anyone suggests that the power of judicial review of the civi! l courts over any decision by any tribunal which is acting beyond its jurisdiction has been taken away by the 1988 amendment, they must produce the evidence. We haven’t seen any."
Beginning in 1999, the IC holder’s religious affiliation was documented in the Malaysian identity card. It’s noteworthy to observe that while other Mykad applicants are allowed to declare their religion, a person deemed Muslim will automatically have ‘Islam’ printed on his. This move appears to allow federal bureaucracy to place a fetter or obstacle in the exercise of the citizen’! s right to freedom of belief, worship and conscience.
An ‘ordinary’ (ordinary being the operative word) person whose IC identifies him as Muslim could be liable to punishment if caught by the moral police in khalwat, imbibing alcohol or eating during fasting month. Therefore having your religion officially categorised does carry repercussions. One restriction, for instance, is that a person with ‘Islam’ on his IC will not be able to register his marriage with a non-Muslim.
Lina Joy was told by the National Registration Department (NRD) that she must first obtain a declaration by the Syariah Court or state Islamic department before she could have the particular ‘Islam’ deleted. The requirement for a Syariah Court order is not expressly provided for in the National Registration Regulations 1990 and the Federal Court will now have to decide whether the NRD has correctly construed its powers to impose this requirement.
! Haris' stand is thus: "We say that it is unconstitutional. If she has a right under Article 11 to decide her choice of faith, no organisation, no body, no court, can be the final arbiter of that exercise of choice."
The denial of Joy’s rights has caused her much grief over the past eight years ever since she changed her name from Azlina Jailani. "Well, it has reached its pinnacle. In July this year, the Federal Court had heard the submission of all parties … We all await the decision of the Federal Co! urt," he says.
Malay-Muslim Siamese twin
Haris adds the case raised a very important question of law ‘whether Article 11 in its totality, allows an individual born to the Muslim faith, who of his own free will having attained the age of majority, is entitled to renounce Islam. That is the situation that Lina Joy finds herself in.’ He emphasises a precedent in ! Joshua Jamaluddin, a Malay who converted to Christianity – and detai ned under ISA and abused while in custody – where ‘no question arose whether he could or he couldn’t’. Strictly speaking from a legal standpoint, that is.
Joy’s predicament was compounded by a court ruling that as Malay she exists under the tenets of Islam until death.
Haris challenges this reasoning. "Malay doesn’t appear in Article 11. Malay appears in Article 153 [on the Malay’s special position]. The Malay in Article 153 should bear the meaning in Article 160 (2). No more, no less. [Note: Malay in Article 160 (2) of the Federal Constitution is defined as a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language and conforms to Malay custom].
"You cannot now extrapolate the meaning of! Malay provided for in Article 160 (2) and impose it on Article 11 whe n Article 11 in itself does not bear the word Malay. The meaning of Article 160 (2) was never intended to apply in the extrapolation and interpretation of Article 11," he reiterates.
Be that as it may, Joy is the rare visible exception to the norm. In the Malaysian context, the twin aspects of the Malay-Muslim construct has been rendered mutually inclusive and inseparable through political and legal mechanisms, family and peer pressure as well as state and social conditioning.
For those born Malay and living here, to contemplate leaving the faith bears an insufferable stigma, not to mention the act is almost an insurmountable hurdle in practice. Summing up this Malay dilemma, Haris says: "So let’s accept that socially it’s difficult but legally it’s not impossible."
Given her plight, one h as to salute Lina Joy for her resilience and courage in following the dictates of her heart and conscience. I, for one, would wish that the Islamic authorities and powers-that-be, and the hostile public issuing her death threats just allow Joy to get on with life, undisturbed. As Haris once famously said in a debate on prime time TV, "Islam also means submission to God, not fear of court prosecution".
And might I also add, ISA.
Helen Ang Malaysiakini
Dec 14, 06 11:21am
"WHY should it become a matter of state as to this person’s religion and burial?" asks Tunku A’amash Tunku Adnan, a founding member of the Article 11 coalition movement. He is referring to the controversy surrounding the late Rayappan Anthony.
Answering my question as to possible reasons for t! he Selangor religious authority officials – who are strangers to the family – to lay claim to Rayappan’s body, Tunku A’amash suggests: "Amongst the Malays, the Muslim must be buried in the Islamic way. If not, the living will be [held] responsible. I think that’s the reason here."
Nonetheless, in Tunku A’amash’s own opinion, the last rites attendant upon apostate van driver Rayappan should on the contrary have been ‘a very personal matter for the immediate family’ to settle. Yet the state and even the prime minister had gotten involved. Why so?
Tunku A’amash comments, "It’s political" and cites the conventional wisdom "because PAS has put Umno into a corner and Umno is trying to be more holy than PAS." There are many who will agree with him that administration of processes governing Muslims in Malaysia has become increasingly politicised.
Tunku A’amash traces the push for this development to Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s amendment to the Federal Constitution in 1988 on Article 121 (1A) pertaining to ! Syariah courts. He locates its subsequent acceleration within the national framework to the influence of the Anwar years.
Has the general public got its finger on this politicising of God which has led to widening and encroaching Islamisation? And how more worryingly, this trend exhibits an orthodox and uncompromising nature?
It is certainly disingenuous if not downright foolhardy to buy into the argument that this is solely the Muslim’s province. And that non-Muslims should shut up, butt out, put up or get out of the country if they don’t like living in this so-called ‘Islamic state’. What will it take to make the non-Muslim community shake off their apathy, I wonder?
Non-Muslims affected
As ! the Rayappan affair illustrates, conversion to Islam or out of the religion does impact on other than the person alone. Lourdes Mary Maria Soosay and S Kaliammal, widows respectively of Rayappan and Everest hero M Moorthy, are not Muslim but this had not prevented the Syariah Court from impinging on their rights.
S Shamala is a non-Muslim whose young children were converted to Islam without her consent by her estranged husband, and she reportedly fled Malaysia with her kids in tow after being caught in court limbo. Lina Joy’s other half has been forced to go into hi! ding together with her. The parents of Susie Teoh, who converted when she was a minor, were denied access to their daughter. There are more Malaysians who have suffered harrowing ordeals but whose stories have not hogged national headlines.
A generic example of the impact of syariah on the non-Muslim is the woman who suddenly faces a forced dissolution of her civil marriage should her husband take a new Muslim wife. In such an event, her rights to their marital property and her children’s inheritance may be nullified.
Another example is the non-Muslim elderly parents of a deceased convert who may find his entire estate unwittingly devolved upon the Baitulmal (state charity agency) following the distribution of property under Islamic law. Or the non-Muslim partner may lose custody of their children when his or her spouse converts to Islam.
Therefore, it is at ou r own peril for non-Muslim communities to remain cowed in a cocoon of indifference. The Islamisation we see galloping a-pace has yielded just the type of religious enforcement that tells you to take your Mykad, tear it up and throw it away. Well, so much for illusions of secular citizenship.
Serving justice
Leading civil rights lawyer Haris Mohamed Ibrahim clarified some points of law on the rights and remedies that former Muslims and non-Muslims might avail themselves when trapped in what he tells me are the ‘human tragedies’ that these types of cases represent.
In the Lina Joy case, Haris appeared as co-counsel with Malik Imtiaz Sarwar holding watching brief for the Bar Council, both in the Court of Appeal and in the Federal Court. He is pro bono counsel to Daud Mamat, Mad Yaacob Ismail, Kamariah Ali and her (late) husband Mohamad Ya in their apostasy case. He also held a watching brief for the Bar Council in the Moorthy case and for women NGOs in the Shamala case.
Haris is in agreement with Tunku A’amash that PM Abdullah Badawi should not have interfered in the Rayappan issue. Says Haris: "Fundamentally, it was wrong for the government, the exec! utive, to direct the AG (Attorney-General) to intervene when the matter was already before another arm of government, the judiciary."
He furthermore finds it quite understandable why Rayappan’s wife and daughters declined to comply with the subpoenas issued and feels in fact that it would have been ‘very dangerous’ had they actually agreed to present themselves in the Shah Alam Syariah Court.
Haris explains that the Syariah Court has no jurisdiction to have non-Muslims as party to the proceedings although there are provisions in the syariah evidence procedure that allows them to give evidence. He stresses that we must appreciate the distinction between being a witness to assist the court and being a party to pursue your interest.
"Now, Rayappan’s family had a plain and ample interest in ! these proceedings. They claim that he was a Catholic at the time of his death. Now to tell them that they should be satisfied and that they should appear before court proceedings merely to give evidence and not to represent their interest, in any jurisdiction in any place on the face of this Earth, is completely unsatisfactory and it’s completely abhorrent and inconsistent with the notion of representation of one’s own interest.
"This matter was properly to have been before the civil courts, not before the Syariah Court."
Haris believes, "Justice in Islam would have been served if parties were allowed to appear before the civil court where there was no impediment or limitation in representation for all parties to have their interests ventilated before the court, for the court to hear all evidence without limitation and for the court to decide on the merits of the case premised on evidence without any other considerations."
Restrictions and repercussions
Nonetheless, as with the tussle over Rayappan’s dead body, there was similarly a clash over court jurisdiction. Haris holds the view that it is legally untenable for non-Muslims to seek relief or redress through the syariah courts because List II of the 9th Schedule of the Federal Constitution confines the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court to Muslims only. Moreover, the extent of the Syariah Court’s authority – over what is termed Muslim affairs – is also clearly defined and limited.
Haris avers that prior to the enactment of Article 121 (1A) and its subsequently contentious interpretation the civil high courts time and again exercised a jurisdiction of review over the decisions and pronouncements of subordinate courts and tribunals, including the Syariah Court.
"If anyone suggests that the power of judicial review of the civi! l courts over any decision by any tribunal which is acting beyond its jurisdiction has been taken away by the 1988 amendment, they must produce the evidence. We haven’t seen any."
Beginning in 1999, the IC holder’s religious affiliation was documented in the Malaysian identity card. It’s noteworthy to observe that while other Mykad applicants are allowed to declare their religion, a person deemed Muslim will automatically have ‘Islam’ printed on his. This move appears to allow federal bureaucracy to place a fetter or obstacle in the exercise of the citizen’! s right to freedom of belief, worship and conscience.
An ‘ordinary’ (ordinary being the operative word) person whose IC identifies him as Muslim could be liable to punishment if caught by the moral police in khalwat, imbibing alcohol or eating during fasting month. Therefore having your religion officially categorised does carry repercussions. One restriction, for instance, is that a person with ‘Islam’ on his IC will not be able to register his marriage with a non-Muslim.
Lina Joy was told by the National Registration Department (NRD) that she must first obtain a declaration by the Syariah Court or state Islamic department before she could have the particular ‘Islam’ deleted. The requirement for a Syariah Court order is not expressly provided for in the National Registration Regulations 1990 and the Federal Court will now have to decide whether the NRD has correctly construed its powers to impose this requirement.
! Haris' stand is thus: "We say that it is unconstitutional. If she has a right under Article 11 to decide her choice of faith, no organisation, no body, no court, can be the final arbiter of that exercise of choice."
The denial of Joy’s rights has caused her much grief over the past eight years ever since she changed her name from Azlina Jailani. "Well, it has reached its pinnacle. In July this year, the Federal Court had heard the submission of all parties … We all await the decision of the Federal Co! urt," he says.
Malay-Muslim Siamese twin
Haris adds the case raised a very important question of law ‘whether Article 11 in its totality, allows an individual born to the Muslim faith, who of his own free will having attained the age of majority, is entitled to renounce Islam. That is the situation that Lina Joy finds herself in.’ He emphasises a precedent in ! Joshua Jamaluddin, a Malay who converted to Christianity – and detai ned under ISA and abused while in custody – where ‘no question arose whether he could or he couldn’t’. Strictly speaking from a legal standpoint, that is.
Joy’s predicament was compounded by a court ruling that as Malay she exists under the tenets of Islam until death.
Haris challenges this reasoning. "Malay doesn’t appear in Article 11. Malay appears in Article 153 [on the Malay’s special position]. The Malay in Article 153 should bear the meaning in Article 160 (2). No more, no less. [Note: Malay in Article 160 (2) of the Federal Constitution is defined as a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language and conforms to Malay custom].
"You cannot now extrapolate the meaning of! Malay provided for in Article 160 (2) and impose it on Article 11 whe n Article 11 in itself does not bear the word Malay. The meaning of Article 160 (2) was never intended to apply in the extrapolation and interpretation of Article 11," he reiterates.
Be that as it may, Joy is the rare visible exception to the norm. In the Malaysian context, the twin aspects of the Malay-Muslim construct has been rendered mutually inclusive and inseparable through political and legal mechanisms, family and peer pressure as well as state and social conditioning.
For those born Malay and living here, to contemplate leaving the faith bears an insufferable stigma, not to mention the act is almost an insurmountable hurdle in practice. Summing up this Malay dilemma, Haris says: "So let’s accept that socially it’s difficult but legally it’s not impossible."
Given her plight, one h as to salute Lina Joy for her resilience and courage in following the dictates of her heart and conscience. I, for one, would wish that the Islamic authorities and powers-that-be, and the hostile public issuing her death threats just allow Joy to get on with life, undisturbed. As Haris once famously said in a debate on prime time TV, "Islam also means submission to God, not fear of court prosecution".
And might I also add, ISA.
RM600 mil bonus: Discrimination against Sarawak
RM600 mil bonus: Discrimination against Sarawak
Dec 18, 06 1:56pm
Omitting Sarawak from the additional RM600 million allocated for rural development under the Ninth Malaysia Plan is a ‘blatant discrimination’, said Parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang.
Lim said the extra funds were also in contempt of both the cabinet and the Parliament, which should have been the first and final body respectively to approve the disbursement of the funds, but were left oblivious of the matter.
“The instant allocation of RM3 million for minor contract works at the disposal of each Umno division in the country... in order to ‘buy’ Umno delegate support at the Umno general assembly is nothing less than political corruption of the worst kind,” said Lim at a DAP function in Bintulu on Saturday.
Lim said it was ‘sad and tragic’ that Abdullah, who had won a landslide victory in the 2004 general election on a pled! ge to root out corruption, would himself involved in such an act.
“[This demonstrates] that he has lost the ability to differentiate between public funds and political party purposes and between right and wrong,” said Lim.
Contract for ‘Umno people’
On Nov 13, the eve of the Umno general assembly, Abdullah announced that an additional RM600 million has been approved to spearhead development in the rural areas! .
The premier had said the additional allocation was meant to top up the RM1.5 billion disbursed under the 9MP, announced in May, for rural development, which he claimed had already ran dry.
Government leaders later said the funds would rejuvenate the Class-F contractors while an official letter revealed the money would only be spent in the Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah.
The letter by from Deputy Works Minister Mohd Zin Mohammad also stated the money was to be allocated for 191 Parliamentary divisions, excluding Sarawak, at RM3 million each and must be spent by year end.
There are only 191 Umno divisions throughout Malaysia.
When contacted, several Umno division chief confirmed that they had compiled a list of Class-F contractors to be forwarded to the district officer! , who will ultimately choose those suitable for small projects costing between RM20,000 to RM200,000.
Umno Labis division chief Sulaiman Taha meanwhile told malaysiakini that the contracts being awarded in his division would only be for ‘Umno people’.
On Dec 11, the Finance Ministry had in Parliament denied Lim’s claim that the RM600 million would be channeled in to the pockets of Umno leaders.
Dec 18, 06 1:56pm
Omitting Sarawak from the additional RM600 million allocated for rural development under the Ninth Malaysia Plan is a ‘blatant discrimination’, said Parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang.
Lim said the extra funds were also in contempt of both the cabinet and the Parliament, which should have been the first and final body respectively to approve the disbursement of the funds, but were left oblivious of the matter.
“The instant allocation of RM3 million for minor contract works at the disposal of each Umno division in the country... in order to ‘buy’ Umno delegate support at the Umno general assembly is nothing less than political corruption of the worst kind,” said Lim at a DAP function in Bintulu on Saturday.
Lim said it was ‘sad and tragic’ that Abdullah, who had won a landslide victory in the 2004 general election on a pled! ge to root out corruption, would himself involved in such an act.
“[This demonstrates] that he has lost the ability to differentiate between public funds and political party purposes and between right and wrong,” said Lim.
Contract for ‘Umno people’
On Nov 13, the eve of the Umno general assembly, Abdullah announced that an additional RM600 million has been approved to spearhead development in the rural areas! .
The premier had said the additional allocation was meant to top up the RM1.5 billion disbursed under the 9MP, announced in May, for rural development, which he claimed had already ran dry.
Government leaders later said the funds would rejuvenate the Class-F contractors while an official letter revealed the money would only be spent in the Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah.
The letter by from Deputy Works Minister Mohd Zin Mohammad also stated the money was to be allocated for 191 Parliamentary divisions, excluding Sarawak, at RM3 million each and must be spent by year end.
There are only 191 Umno divisions throughout Malaysia.
When contacted, several Umno division chief confirmed that they had compiled a list of Class-F contractors to be forwarded to the district officer! , who will ultimately choose those suitable for small projects costing between RM20,000 to RM200,000.
Umno Labis division chief Sulaiman Taha meanwhile told malaysiakini that the contracts being awarded in his division would only be for ‘Umno people’.
On Dec 11, the Finance Ministry had in Parliament denied Lim’s claim that the RM600 million would be channeled in to the pockets of Umno leaders.
Righteous Muslims
Righteous Muslims
A briefing by Robert Satloff
December 11, 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1073
Robert Satloff is the executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Reach into Arab Lands. Mr. Satloff, a specialist in Middle Eastern politics and U.S. Middle East policy, is the author or editor of nine books and monographs. His views on Middle East issues have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. As creator and host of Dakhil Washington ("Inside Washington"), a weekly program on al-Hurra, the Arabic satellite television channel, he is the only non-Arab to host a program on an Arab satellite channel. Mr. Satloff addressed the Middle East Forum on December 11, 2006. The following is an account of his briefing, as reported in the Jewish Exponent.
Scholar Delves Into Arab Heroes of the Holocaust
by Rachel Silverman
Jewish Exponent
December 14, 2006
Just this week, about 60 "scholars" from around the world gathered for a conference on Arab soil to debate the veracity of the Holocaust, and to call for more "proof" on the subject.
Had Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, been invited, he might have told them to simply look outside.
According to Satloff's new book, Among the Righteous, not only did the Holocaust play out in Arab countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, but Arabs themselves were involved -- both as rescuers and perpetrators.
Speaking Monday night at the Jewish Community Services Building in Philadelphia, Satloff framed his 11-country, four-year search into this story as a potential antidote to the trend of Holocaust denial and trivialization in the Arab world.
What's more, Satloff's lecture -- jointly sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia's Center for Israel and Overseas, the Middle East Forum, the Gershman Y and the National Museum of American Jewish History -- even attempted to put a positive spin on Arab involvement in the Holocaust.
As the scholar writes: "If I could tell the story of a single Arab who saved a single Jew during the Holocaust, then perhaps I could make Arabs see the Holocaust as a source of pride, worthy of remembering, not just something to avoid or deny."
To begin this undertaking, Satloff said that he had to dispel the notion that the Holocaust was strictly a European phenomenon.
Seeking firsthand evidence to support his thesis, Satloff -- who lived in Rabat, Morocco, with his wife and children for 21/2 years during the research process -- interviewed Jewish and Arab witnesses, combed through archives and drove along the route of the Trans-Sahara railway.
During that time, Satloff determined that the 500,000 Jews in French North Africa during World War II experienced "all the precursors of the final solution" that Jews on the European continent did -- anti-Jewish laws, deportations, forced labor camps -- except that they were spared the gas chambers.
He also found that the relationship between Arabs and Nazis ranged from Arabs "in complete cahoots with the Nazis and with Vichy France" to "breathtaking stories of Arabs who, in some cases, risked everything to save Jews."
In fact, his search for an Arab Oskar Schindler yielded Si Ali Sakkat, a former mayor of Tunis, Tunisia, who sheltered 60 Jewish workers when they showed up at his farm, and Si Kaddour Benghabrit, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, who gave 100 Jews counterfeit Muslim identity papers.
Finding the Stories
Satloff's book also asks a significant question: Why haven't these stories been told?
He offered two answers: "Jews didn't look too hard," and "Arabs didn't want to be found."
Satloff blamed Jews for overemphasizing the Holocaust as an Ashkenazi narrative. But Arabs, too, should be faulted for this omission, he said.
Because many Arabs remain wary of any narrative that paints Jews as victims -- and that could potentially legitimize the founding of Israel -- Satloff said the Arab world has generally regarded Arab Holocaust stories as downright "toxic." But according to the scholar, relaying such information is potentially beneficial for both parties.
Though Satloff admitted that he's "not a romantic on the possibility of making peace between Arabs and Jews anytime soon," he's "encouraged" by e-mail from Arabs assuming responsibility for their actions during the Nazi period.
"Given what is going on in the Middle East today, I'll take whatever progress we can get."
A briefing by Robert Satloff
December 11, 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1073
Robert Satloff is the executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Reach into Arab Lands. Mr. Satloff, a specialist in Middle Eastern politics and U.S. Middle East policy, is the author or editor of nine books and monographs. His views on Middle East issues have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. As creator and host of Dakhil Washington ("Inside Washington"), a weekly program on al-Hurra, the Arabic satellite television channel, he is the only non-Arab to host a program on an Arab satellite channel. Mr. Satloff addressed the Middle East Forum on December 11, 2006. The following is an account of his briefing, as reported in the Jewish Exponent.
Scholar Delves Into Arab Heroes of the Holocaust
by Rachel Silverman
Jewish Exponent
December 14, 2006
Just this week, about 60 "scholars" from around the world gathered for a conference on Arab soil to debate the veracity of the Holocaust, and to call for more "proof" on the subject.
Had Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, been invited, he might have told them to simply look outside.
According to Satloff's new book, Among the Righteous, not only did the Holocaust play out in Arab countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, but Arabs themselves were involved -- both as rescuers and perpetrators.
Speaking Monday night at the Jewish Community Services Building in Philadelphia, Satloff framed his 11-country, four-year search into this story as a potential antidote to the trend of Holocaust denial and trivialization in the Arab world.
What's more, Satloff's lecture -- jointly sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia's Center for Israel and Overseas, the Middle East Forum, the Gershman Y and the National Museum of American Jewish History -- even attempted to put a positive spin on Arab involvement in the Holocaust.
As the scholar writes: "If I could tell the story of a single Arab who saved a single Jew during the Holocaust, then perhaps I could make Arabs see the Holocaust as a source of pride, worthy of remembering, not just something to avoid or deny."
To begin this undertaking, Satloff said that he had to dispel the notion that the Holocaust was strictly a European phenomenon.
Seeking firsthand evidence to support his thesis, Satloff -- who lived in Rabat, Morocco, with his wife and children for 21/2 years during the research process -- interviewed Jewish and Arab witnesses, combed through archives and drove along the route of the Trans-Sahara railway.
During that time, Satloff determined that the 500,000 Jews in French North Africa during World War II experienced "all the precursors of the final solution" that Jews on the European continent did -- anti-Jewish laws, deportations, forced labor camps -- except that they were spared the gas chambers.
He also found that the relationship between Arabs and Nazis ranged from Arabs "in complete cahoots with the Nazis and with Vichy France" to "breathtaking stories of Arabs who, in some cases, risked everything to save Jews."
In fact, his search for an Arab Oskar Schindler yielded Si Ali Sakkat, a former mayor of Tunis, Tunisia, who sheltered 60 Jewish workers when they showed up at his farm, and Si Kaddour Benghabrit, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, who gave 100 Jews counterfeit Muslim identity papers.
Finding the Stories
Satloff's book also asks a significant question: Why haven't these stories been told?
He offered two answers: "Jews didn't look too hard," and "Arabs didn't want to be found."
Satloff blamed Jews for overemphasizing the Holocaust as an Ashkenazi narrative. But Arabs, too, should be faulted for this omission, he said.
Because many Arabs remain wary of any narrative that paints Jews as victims -- and that could potentially legitimize the founding of Israel -- Satloff said the Arab world has generally regarded Arab Holocaust stories as downright "toxic." But according to the scholar, relaying such information is potentially beneficial for both parties.
Though Satloff admitted that he's "not a romantic on the possibility of making peace between Arabs and Jews anytime soon," he's "encouraged" by e-mail from Arabs assuming responsibility for their actions during the Nazi period.
"Given what is going on in the Middle East today, I'll take whatever progress we can get."
Forgotten, unkept war memorial of Sg Lui
Forgotten, unkept war memorial of Sg Lui
K Kabilan Malaysiakini
Dec 16, 06 11:26am
About 35 kilometres from Bahau town in Negri Sembilan, on the way to Temerloh, Pahang, lies a World War II memorial dedicated to a massacre of some 400 local Chinese villagers by the Japanese occupiers.
The memorial, located about 20 metres off the main road, offers a snapshot from the past on the cruelty of the Japanese army, especially to the Chinese Malaysians.
According to a signboard at the memorial, about 400 Chinese men, women and children from Kampung Sungai Lui were killed brutally by the Japanese forces in the early hours of Oct 8, 1942.
However, looking at the sad state of the memorial, one would not be wrong in assuming that the tragic loss of life of these innocent civilians were in vain.
Malaysiakini visited this memorial on T hursday and found it be totally unkept and not maintained.
Broken signboards
Lallang bushes were rampant while o! vergrown grasses covered the mass grave and its surrounding. The entire memorial premises were littered with used plastic bags, cigarette butts and packs and old newspapers.
While there is a signboard indicating that the historical site is a short distance away, we found a notice board at the site itself with two different versions of events.
Two other signboards were vandalised and not replaced. The memorial stands seven feet high, with a narrative of the tragedy written on it in red paint.
It was evident that there are still some visitors offering prayers to the departed but their offerings were left to rot there.
In short, this memorial looks like a forgotten thing from the past, just like the 400 people buried there.
There are no indications at all as to who is responsible to maintain this site.
Caught at roadblocks
The local story goes that the Japanese military commandants, based in Bahau, were angry with the local population for killing their informers.
These local villagers were also accused of giving assistance and provisions to the Communist guerrillas.
The Japanese high ranks ordered roadblocks along the main route and all those who were stopped by the army that day never made it home.
The bodies of the victims were buried in one large hole, which is now the site of the memorial, which actually looks like a large tombstone.
An Internet entry on the memorial states that a group of Japanese visitors visit this memorial annually on Dec 23.
Typical attitude
Renown historian Professor Emeritus Dr Khoo Kay Kim expressed disappointment over the lackadaisical attitude shown by the authorities in maintaining such historical sites.
“What is the National Museum and the Malaysian Historical Society doing,” he asked when contacted.
“This is a typical Malaysian attitude. Unless there is a big fuss over it to draw their attention, nothing will be done,” Khoo added.
K Kabilan Malaysiakini
Dec 16, 06 11:26am
About 35 kilometres from Bahau town in Negri Sembilan, on the way to Temerloh, Pahang, lies a World War II memorial dedicated to a massacre of some 400 local Chinese villagers by the Japanese occupiers.
The memorial, located about 20 metres off the main road, offers a snapshot from the past on the cruelty of the Japanese army, especially to the Chinese Malaysians.
According to a signboard at the memorial, about 400 Chinese men, women and children from Kampung Sungai Lui were killed brutally by the Japanese forces in the early hours of Oct 8, 1942.
However, looking at the sad state of the memorial, one would not be wrong in assuming that the tragic loss of life of these innocent civilians were in vain.
Malaysiakini visited this memorial on T hursday and found it be totally unkept and not maintained.
Broken signboards
Lallang bushes were rampant while o! vergrown grasses covered the mass grave and its surrounding. The entire memorial premises were littered with used plastic bags, cigarette butts and packs and old newspapers.
While there is a signboard indicating that the historical site is a short distance away, we found a notice board at the site itself with two different versions of events.
Two other signboards were vandalised and not replaced. The memorial stands seven feet high, with a narrative of the tragedy written on it in red paint.
It was evident that there are still some visitors offering prayers to the departed but their offerings were left to rot there.
In short, this memorial looks like a forgotten thing from the past, just like the 400 people buried there.
There are no indications at all as to who is responsible to maintain this site.
Caught at roadblocks
The local story goes that the Japanese military commandants, based in Bahau, were angry with the local population for killing their informers.
These local villagers were also accused of giving assistance and provisions to the Communist guerrillas.
The Japanese high ranks ordered roadblocks along the main route and all those who were stopped by the army that day never made it home.
The bodies of the victims were buried in one large hole, which is now the site of the memorial, which actually looks like a large tombstone.
An Internet entry on the memorial states that a group of Japanese visitors visit this memorial annually on Dec 23.
Typical attitude
Renown historian Professor Emeritus Dr Khoo Kay Kim expressed disappointment over the lackadaisical attitude shown by the authorities in maintaining such historical sites.
“What is the National Museum and the Malaysian Historical Society doing,” he asked when contacted.
“This is a typical Malaysian attitude. Unless there is a big fuss over it to draw their attention, nothing will be done,” Khoo added.
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