Pray for Malaysia

Ten years ago this month, I quit my job with government-owned oil and gas company and joined an international company in the city. Many who quit their job around that time left Malaysia and went to oil rich countries in the Middle East. Back then, oil price was almost USD80 per barrel and rising. Many jobs were offered to experienced Malaysians who were prepared to pack up and go overseas. Ringgit was stable and jobs for the oil and gas industry were aplenty.

Now the tide has turned. Oil is still trading above USD40 but many oil and gas related companies are going through some sort of restructuring. A time for soul searching after a decade of industry euphoria that has abruptly stopped over the one last year when oil price took a plunge. The company I work for is not excluded. Its footprint in this country is shrinking and despite being one of the biggest energy companies in the world, many local employees feel like it is quitting this country. We have been told that our jobs now hang in the balance. We have to face a stark reality. A multinational energy giant has no loyalty to any particular country; it goes where its shareholder's values can be maximised regardless of how long it's been in a particular country.

The ringgit has breached the psychological level of RM4 for every US dollar. Economists can point to many factors for the ringgit's decline but what most people like me can relate to are the low oil price and the current political stalemate in the country. The government has been embroiled in a massive financial scandal and after decades of weakening democratic institutions, our check and balance system is now so damaged that it does not seem to be able correct the situation. I hear noises everywhere I go. In the mosque, the surau, the cafe, the office and even more so in Cyberspace. You almost hear nothing online these days but curse. How nice would it be if we could just leave this country, work for a stronger currency and not paying tax to a regime which waste our tax money on expensive lifestyle of our leaders.  Every day, I hear depressing talk of how bad we fare compared to our neighbouring countries. The noises remind me of the chaos of 1998 all over again.

I realise it is August, the Merdeka month. The Raya celebration has not even ended yet. I should be saying all things positive and patriotic. But instead all I am hearing and reading is the opposite. I wish I could turn a blind eye and pretend this is not happening. The only positive news I read is from Utusan and TV3, but I don’t read and trust them that much. May be I should be an ostrich, bury my head in the sand, watch TV3 more and read Utusan to lift my spirit. Yet, after all that happened in the last few weeks, it is hard to light up the Merdeka spirit this August.  Even less so when I could potentially lose my job after the company re-organisation. My wallet is hurting and my love for this country is really being tested.

When I think about it again, may be I should have followed my friends who left our shores to work overseas 10 years ago. I would have earned tons of money and have nothing to do with supporting extravagant lifestyle of people in power and the nonsense that is happening in this country. I don't feel like hearing patriotic songs anymore. It is so hypocritical of our delusional leaders to force the rakyat to sing it over and over again.  It feels like my patriotism is being robbed by them to keep themselves in power. Perhaps, we should follow our former future prime minister’s advice to those going to Mekah. Instead of singing Merdeka songs, we all should just go to our respective house of worship and pray to God that Malaysia will survive this difficult time. God save me. God save Malaysia!

Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah

Five years ago today, in 2010, I arrived in this town to take up my current position. Little did I know back then that I would be staying for 5 years. My purpose of coming here back then was to gain some field experience of doing my job. This is where oil and gas activities take place and I have to be here to learn the operational side of it. All this while, I had been doing desk job since I started working around 20 years ago in research and consultancy. I thought I wanted to gain some field experience for a few years and then back to my home again in the Peninsular. But as for other things in my life, I do not have a long term plan and I take things as they come.

When I first arrived here I was alone, going back to my home once in a fortnight. I was staying with a friend who was also a weekend husband. But long distance family is not good for the long term. I decided to bring my whole family to this town. I was joined by them 15 months later and my life was normal again. Over the five years I have seen changes to this town. Materially, I'd say towards the better. More shopping malls and more happening now than 5 years ago. More shopping malls were built than is necessary for such a small city, but they are mainly to cater for our neighbours from accross the border whose money has increased in value due to the ringgit's depreciation. Things here are more expensive than in many places in Malaysia, especially so for the locals who earn so little. With the depressed wages due to cheap foreign labour, I think the locals are struggling to make ends meet. For us professionals, things are not that bad. One thing, traffic is much better here. It only takes 10 minutes to go to work and same length of time to go home in the evening. No stress to look for parking space and no toll booth to pass through. I can spend more time with my family and overall the quality of life is better.

I think I am living in the best possible area for me and my family in this town. My kids just walk to school as my house share fence with their school. I live about 100 meters from a mosque and it's only a short walk to grocery shops and local supermarket. My kid's tuition centre is also just across the main road. This is indeed a very good place to live. Everything is just a few blocks away. But even after 5 years I have not been able to embrace this place as my new home. At the back of my mind, this is a necessary sojourn and it has to be brief. Whether 5 years is brief is a matter of opinion. I imagine loving a place is like loving a partner. I love my wife that I cannot think of another woman in my life. I cannot love two women at the same time. Same thing goes to loving a place. A few times a year, during business trip to KL, I make a point to visit my home there so that I still reconnect with my home and maintain the sense of belonging there. I have to decide whether to stay longer and risk falling in love with this place or going back to the town in Peninsular, where I still have a place which I call home. Indeed, there is no place like home.

Ulasan Buku: "Aku Kafir, Kau Siapa?" - Ooi Kok Hin

Aku malas membaca apalagi kalau buku itu tebal dan 'berat'. Bukan berat di tangan tapi berat di kepala. Tapi aku juga bukan penggemar novel picisan yang menghiasi senarai bestseller kedai-kedai buku popular.

Pagi tadi aku ronda-ronda di Bandar Ilmu. Hidup tanpa kereta macam patah kaki. Paksa diri menapak dua tiga bangunan dari tempat aku menginap. Pusing keliling bangunan, ingat nak masuk shopping, tapi pasaraya masih belum buka. Terlalu awal untuk berniaga walaupun memang peniaga rata-rata tamak laba. Nampak kedai buku aku cuba jenguk. Berlainan sekali dari yang lain. Semua buku dalam bahasa kebangsaan dengan genre dan gaya bahasa yang pelbagai. Ada yang dikarang dalam bahasa sastera tinggi dan ada juga guna bahasa separuh mencarut. Tapi tak mengapa. Misinya bukan memertabatkan bahasa. Menggunakan akronim yang sama dengan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), penerbit DuBook Press dengan nada sindiran berkata mereka menerbitkan buku kerana kecewa dengan DBP yang buku-bukunya hidup segan mati tak mahu. Sebaliknya, agenda mereka adalah agenda perut. Terus terang mereka jelaskan bahawa misi mereka nak buat duit, bukan agensi mengangkat bahasa kebangsaan. Tiada bantuan kerajaan, hanya initiatif anak muda untuk cari makan.
Menariknya, aku juga nampak kedai buku Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) di blok seberang jalan tapi masih belum buka.

Berdasarkan tinjauan ringkas aku di kedai kecil itu mereka cuba menghidangkan sesuatu untuk memenuhi selera anak muda dan budak-budak indie yang selalu mengomen di alam siber. Penulis-penulis mereka dari generasi anak aku. Tiada nama penulis besar. Mengikut penerbitnya semua orang dialu-alukan untuk menjadi penulisnya. Tukang sapu, cikgu sekolah rendah, drebar bas sekolah, dan mat rempit sekalipun boleh menghantar manuskrip mereka untuk dipertimbangkan.

Tertarik dengan judul buku yang catchy "Aku Kafir, kau siapa?" oleh Ooi Kok Hin, aku membaca beberapa helaian di bahagian depan, tengah dan kulit belakang. Aku terus beli. Ringan harga, ringan dibawa dan santai dibaca walaupun isu yang dibincangkan adalah serius dan relevant dengan masyarakat majmuk Malaysia hari ini. Penulis adalah neutral agama (agnostik) walaupun isu agama dibincang di merata tempat dalam esei-esei yang dibahagikan dalam 3 kategori - Pendidikan, Agama dan Kebebasan, Politik.

Di bahagian Pendidikan, umumnya penulis meluahkan perasaan tertindas kaum Cina di Malaysia dengan sistem pendidikan negara. Baginya tidak adil sekolah vernikular dimansuhkan jika sekolah agama masih wujud dan sekolah kebangsaan makin bertambah Islamik. Kaum bukan Muslim tidak gemar ke sekolah kebangsaan kerana kualitinya merosot dan terlalu Malay centric. Penulis mengalami zaman persekolahan yang berbeza dari kebanyakan rakan sekaumnya kerana belajar di sekolah kebangsaan, kemudian Penang Free School dan kemudian kolej matrikulasi. Penulis bergaul dengan rakan sekelas Melayu dan India semasa di sekolah. Penulis menyertai kumpulan anak-anak muda yang membentuk kumpulan Universiti Terbuka Anak Muda (UTAM). Kumpulan ini menegaskan bahawa sekolah tidak harus menjadi penjara kreativiti dan universiti bukan kilang. Produk yang dihasilkan bukan robot atau ayam daging yang digemukkan sementara menunggu hari untuk disembelih dan dinikmati dagingnya.

Di peringkat tinggi, penulis berpendapat bahawa kebebasan berkarya di universiti termasuk penglibatan dalam politik harus dibenarkan supaya mahasiswa dekat dengan isu masyarakat luar dan bertindak menyuarakan isu rakyat kepada pemerintah.Pelajar juga perlu ambil tahu tentang politik walaupun bukan semua bercita-cita jadi ahli politik. Politik adalah kehidupan dan ia boleh mempengaruhi banyak hal di sekeliling kita.

Di dalam bahagian Agama, penulis yang agnostik ini menyokong liberalisme dan kebebasan beragama. Isu hukum hudud dan campur tangan agama dalam politik turut disentuh termasuk beberapa sketsa satira dengan watak-watak fiksional ahli politik tanahair berbual dan berhujah dengan ahli falsafah purba Socrates dan Plato.

Mungkin inilah buku yang pertama dalam sejarah yang aku baca dari kulit depan ke kulit belakang dalam masa satu hari. Kalau anda berminat dengan isu-isu masyarakat majmuk Malaysia tempias politik tak dapat dielak sebab politik melibatkan kuasa membuat dasar. Jika kita tak pedulikan politik bermakna kita tak kisah orang politik tentukan nasib dan masa depan kita. Kalau ramai orang cerdik menghindari politik, kita akan dapat pemimpin yang bangang. Dan pemimpin yang cetek akal akan mengambil orang bodoh sebagai pak turut. Yang cerdik dan pandai berhujah dengan mereka akan dihumban dalam penjara atau mereka sendiri yang memilih untuk berhijrah ke luar negara. Jadi kalau anda rasa loya dengan novel-novel Melayu popular dengan cerita CEO Melayu berusia 20an yang banyak bergelumang dengan cinta, hasad dengki dan syok sendiri dari bercakap soal bisnes, ayuh baca buku terbitan syarikat ini. Pada saya buku ini berjaya membawa beberapa isu berat dengan gaya bahasa ringan, tidak terlalu akademik dan sesuai dibaca untuk relaks minda.

www.dubookpress.com

3 dimensional, 2 characters, 1 force – “Gravity”

Going to the movies is not really my weekend routine. I go to the movies only around once or twice per year. Most movies are catered for teenagers or couples in their 20s. When you are in your forties queuing for tickets at the cinemas is not really a happy experience. The thought of whether it was really the right place for me to be must have crossed my mind when I looked around and tried to find balding men of my age among the mingling crowd. Shouldn’t I be among the folks going to mosque? Am I really aware of what I am doing?

Despite all the negative thoughts, I reached the front of the line and got myself a ticket. They gave me a pair of special glasses and it was going to be shown in 3D. I didn’t get myself popcorns as I was not in the mood of being a kid. And I didn’t bring my kids along as I would have too many of them to fill the theatre. Besides, I was not sure if they would enjoy a movie without their favourite Upin & Ipin in it. The title of the movie itself could not be more scientific. As somebody who loves space and everything scientific, I thought the next 90 minutes would likely be worth the wait.

Of the four fundamental forces of nature, gravity is the one we feel the most and can easily relate to. Whoever happens to come in the wrong path of a dropping object would know how damaging gravitational force can be. It was discovered by Isaac Newton in the 17th century England and its unit is named after him. It is the force that keeps the Moon, space stations and satellites in orbit around the Earth and the Earth around the Sun.

With this one universal force in mind, I was firmly fixed to my seat at the edge of the sixth row from the back of the newly built theatre. And there I was for the next 90 minutes watching the breathtaking view of the Earth from a few hundred kilometers above. The 3 dimensional view of the Earth from space alone was worth it. The storyline and its drama did not really matter to me. After all, the story was very simple. Two American astronauts sent to fix the Hubble Space Telescope orbiting above the Earth had to find their way to another space station in order to return to Earth after debris from a Russian satellite, broken in a chain reaction of satellite debris hitting other satellites, hit the Hubble.

This is a movie where for the entire 90 minutes there are only 2 characters – the female astronaut played by Sandra Bullock and the male astronaut played by George Clooney. Except for the last 5 minutes when the female character swims to safety after dropping into a lake upon re-entry to Earth, almost the entire movie has a backdrop of space with the blue planet gently rotating in the background. The stunning 3D images of the Earth from space are so realistic that it felt as if it happened right in front of my eyes. I felt entirely immersed in the scenes and at one point spontaneously jerked my body on the seat to duck a piece of debris hurtling out of the screen directly towards me.

The longest I have seen a 3D movie before was around 10 minutes for a short documentary on space that was shown when I visited the planetarium in Melaka. Here I was treated to 90 minutes of outer space adventure. This is probably the closest I will ever be to being a real astronaut. This 15 ringgit that I spent on the ticket must be among the most value-for-money and entertaining investment that I made. Had the movie come 6 years earlier, the Malaysian government would do better to spend 15 ringgit on the movie than paying 100 million ringgit to send our first and only Malaysian to space on board the Russian spacecraft Soyuz. This is the kind of movie that can inspire school kids to be an astronaut to study the mystery of outer space. Considering that the movie only featured 2 characters and a very simple storyline, its strength is probably in the cinematography. Its success in bringing 3D outer space images in front of our eyes and let us be immersed in it is to me what makes this movie so memorable. With that, unless another exceptionally good blockbuster comes along, I guess I have finished my movie quota for this year.

Thoughts on Hari Raya Korban

This is the season for sacrifice. The last time I witnessed a bloody scene of korban ritual was around 7 or 8 years ago. Then again about 2 years ago I had to stand next to the goat being slaughtered for my daughter’s akikah. I had no choice. I was expected to see it being slaughtered and perform the niat to validate the ritual. Gradually over the years, I have sort of developed a feeling of apprehension towards doing it again. Unless I have to watch it I’d rather stay away from the whole episode and only join in later to skin off the dead animal. I guess the apprehension is not so much on the idea of killing another creature to put it on your dinner table but more because of the bloody scene that I have seen. A scene that for most of us, especially those who live in towns and cities are mostly kept hidden from. I was a bit traumatized. I don’t like seeing blood; even less when it involves killing. The sight of the red stuff makes me feel sick. How I wish meat could be grown on trees and we didn’t have to spill blood to enjoy our meal.

Yet when I was a child living in the kampong, witnessing such a scene was normal. It even had an air of a little celebration. We used to kill animals and little creatures on almost a daily basis. I had no qualms about piercing worms from head to tail onto my fishing hooks for use as bait to catch the keli, puyu or haruan. No guilt about disemboweling the poor fish alive and cutting them up into pieces for my barbeque dinner. But this was in a different time and setting. I was living in the kampong in a time when we would do most things by ourselves. Each household would rear chicken, cows or buffaloes for themselves. If not at our own kampong house backyard, surely our next door neighbour would keep some poultry. Every household had its own supply of almost everything they need. We led a self-sufficient life. Occasionally throughout the year, and almost certainly during festive seasons, either you catch your free range kampong chicken and help your father to slaughter them, or you would see your neighbour do theirs. It was perhaps more than mere curiosity to watch these animals being slaughtered after which you would help to pluck the feathers. The females in the family would then cook it for the family special dinner that evening. There was no place to buy chicken meat grown on protein-enhanced chicken feed. The term ayam daging or ayam proses was not yet in use.

These days the job of slaughtering animals so that we can enjoy our hamburgers or crispy fried chicken is mainly done behind closed doors in specialized buildings using automated machines on an industrial scale. The killing is done by people specifically employed to do this job. Most of us would not want to see the process anyway. What we see delivered to our table in an air-conditioned fast food restaurant, entertained with the liveliest piped music from America’s latest hits has been sanitized so much that we completely forget that life has to be sacrificed before it gets to our plate. The lively music, the exquisite décor and the clean premises are so that we are not reminded of the dirty and bloody scene that the chicken has to go through before it gets from the farm to our dinner plate.

I believe this sanitization happens every day in the wider world too. In politics, in order to shape popular support to a certain direction, some media outlets would only mention in passing things like “fifteen including children and women die in drone attack in Northern Afghanistan” omitting any graphic images that can draw sympathy towards the unfortunate souls. Even in circumstances like the dramatic felling of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, horrible images are screened out and instead a more acceptable version would be flashed on the screen and repeated over and over.

In case you are still wondering the connection between the ritual of sacrifice on Hari Raya Korban, the keli barbeque and the bombing of the twin towers, never mind. I don’t see a clear link either. The point I am trying to make is that we become more objectionable to violence scenes being shown to us as we only watch the much sanitized version of killing and human tragedies. For our own sanity, the gruesome realities of life and destruction that human beings are capable of are filtered out. We ignore the fact that even in our everyday life, we outsource to specialists to do all these unpleasant things on our behalf. For the killing of animals for our food we let the slaughter house workers do it, while for the killing of enemies, the soldiers and unmanned drones finish up the job for us. We can sleep well at night because we don’t see disturbing images of bodies being blown up to pieces. And we can still go on with our life as if nothing unpleasant has ever happened.

Between Two Malaysias

I can't remember the first time I heard the word Malaysia. It had come into existence many years before I was even born. When I was forced to learn geography or Ilmu Alam as it was then called and memorise country names, the name of this country had already been in use for almost two decades. Although the spelling was universally accepted, saying the word is still not settled. Now, even after half a century, I still hear people pronounce it in various ways. The kampung folks would say Me-lei-sia, while the hard-tongued Mat Salleh can be excused for choosing Me-lei-zia. The more urban Malaysians meanwhile, go with Me-lei-sye, presumably stressing the “sy” makes them sound closer to the Mat Salleh’s tongue. Whatever three syllables that they utter, it is understood as Malaysia, that federation of states formed at the South Eastern corner of the Asian continent and the northern part of Borneo Island separated by a shallow body of water that is South China Sea. I was born and bred on the side attached to the bigger landmass but work has taken me to the island part of the Federation.

I must admit that people from the part of Malaysia where I was born are largely ignorant of their fellow countrymen from the part of Malaysia I am living now. Perhaps because they are attached to the biggest landmass on the planet, or may be because the sight of the tallest twin buildings in the world is blocking their view, the West Malaysians have wrongly assumed that they are mainstream and that those living in the small towns at the edge of the jungle along the many rivers on the Island side somehow matter less in the making of Malaysia. One of my East Malaysian colleagues once told me how East Malaysians are deeply offended when visitors from West Malaysia keep saying they are from Malaysia when asked where they come from by Sarawakian or Sabahan as if these two states were not part of Malaysia.

Being Malay and Muslim which represent more than half of Malaysians, we are also guilty of insisting that everything has to be done our way. We assume people with such names as Idris bin Jala is a Malay Muslim and are embarrassed to find out later that he's neither Malay nor Muslim. While it is safe in Peninsula Malaysia to say Assalamualaikum and invite somebody who looks like a Malay to pray at one’s local mosque, one should be more sensitive and neutral here lest the invitee may be offended. He might just politely decline and tell you that he usually meets his God on Sunday. And while he may also call Him Allah, he meets Him not in the mosque but in the church. I once worked with somebody who kept a goatee and looked indistinguishable from a Malay. He had a smile and soft demeanor of a deeply religious man about to ask you to go to the mosque. But when he took off his work coverall, I was shocked to discover that he had tattoos on his arms and legs. Only then did I know that he was an Iban. For the Iban tattooing is part of their culture and tradition. Later I found out that a colleague who had Muslim name and appearance was actually a Christian Melanau and somebody else who had a Christian name was, to my surprise, a Muslim. While the Iban use anak in their name, some non-Muslim who are native tribes here use bin or binti to mean son or daughter of. Those are instances of the culture shock that I experienced when I first got here a few years ago.

I thought I knew Malaysia, my country of birth and my home for more than four decades, but arriving here I discovered how wrong I was. What I thought I knew was only the mainstream Malaysia, the narrative that’s presented in the mainstream media and even textbooks. Many people here would argue that while we say that this country is multi-racial, multi religious and multi cultural, our actions are not reflective of it. The mainstream narratives are still one sided. Our political parties from both sides of the political divide, our unions, associations and clubs are still largely Peninsular-centric. Development projects are still largely associated with the Peninsula. While it is understandable to bring more development in West Malaysia because of the denser population and the resultant economies of scale there, many East Malaysians feel that they are being neglected. Although the two states of Sabah and Sarawak contribute much to the federal state coffer through incomes from their natural resources, the infrastructure here is still second class to what is being enjoyed by West Malaysians. Even after 50 years they are still waiting for the long promised Trans-Borneo Highway linking the towns along the coast of Sarawak and Sabah. May be they are too polite to tell us West Malaysians directly but I can’t help but feel their resentment at West Malaysia who seem to suck out the riches from their land and pipe them all to the West.

The status quo for the last 50 years has to change. The people from West Malaysia should understand more about the ways of East Malaysia. The mainstream media should be truly inclusive in educating and making us all aware about East Malaysia. Our leaders from West Malaysia should care and look more towards the East. We cannot truly celebrate 50 years of our coming together knowing there is growing resentment among our East Malaysian brothers and sisters towards the West. West Malaysians would not want to be labeled as neo-colonial masters. The early leaders of Sabah and Sarawak did not kick out the White Rajah and the British only to be replaced by colonial master of their own kind. Let’s celebrate this Malaysia day as equals.

Happy 50th Malaysia Day!

Independent No More

In the old days Colonists would go to a country looking for its natural resources. They scrambled for the minerals, native plants or pre-historic artifacts from far corners of the Earth. Some made peace with the local people and came in as advisors to the local chiefs while some used force and carted away anything they could get from the conquered land. Under the pretext of bringing the word of God and civilizing the barbarians, they justified their exploitations. Over centuries, they extracted the minerals and use them to industrialise their country, develop sophisticated weapons and gadgets and sell them back to us. This is easy to see and sadly it is still happening in some parts of the world.

While this kind of crude physical colonization is on the way out, a new form of control is on the rise. We are all willing participants of this new colonization and we don’t even know it. The threat now is less obvious although the impact on less developed world and the majority of the people is still the same. What is being promoted as democracy and free access to information can also be seen from the dark side.

A wise man once said that “knowledge is power”. It is more relevant now than ever. All the data that we create and upload about ourselves is information. This information can be converted into knowledge and knowledge thus brings power. So it’s not hard to imagine that all the data – text, photos, videos - we’re giving away for free to Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google, WhatsApp or what not is like giving away our power to those who receive, collect, analyse and use it for their own good.

We are living in the age of Big Data where companies offer free services so that they could collect our data, analyse and use it to sell things to us. On a more ominous side, they collect our data so they could spy on us. They know our location every day, they know what we buy, what we say and they even know what we think. The unfortunate thing is these companies with terabytes of data collected from us are based in foreign countries. Their servers are physically located in their own country and they are subjected to their own law which empowers their intelligence agency to have access to these data and monitor anybody they wish. The current drama revealed by the Snowden leak case about the existence of government funded online spying program Prism shows that the countries with heaviest surveillance on their own people and foreigners are not the ex-Soviet so-called Iron Curtain countries but the self-proclaimed champions of democracy like the US and the UK.

We need to realize that the power of the future is not measured in barrels but in bits and bytes. And we’re giving our data to large corporations based in foreign countries without realizing that every byte of data they store is like drops of oil running their engine. These data may be used against us if they think that we’re not following their wishes. Remember, these corporations are based in the same countries which used to exploit our natural resources and our people to enrich and empower their own citizens in previous centuries. This is just colonization in a new cloak. It is an excuse to spy and control people under the pretext of freedom and democratization of information.

When Big Brother is watching it is not necessarily a good thing, especially when you know that the Brother has a stated objective of making everybody eat, sleep, talk, buy and think like them. So think about it when you press “Agree” button the next time you sign up for a free service online. It may look free now, but you are paying it with your own freedom. We are all sometimes too willing a participant in this wholly connected world. You may think you are free now, but with every byte of data about yourself that you give away you slowly inch forward into an online prison. This is the world we’re living now, a world where independence has no real meaning but surrendering yourself to watchful eyes from the opposite side of the world.



Selamat Hari Merdeka!

Retire in the Kampung?

During the recent trip back to my hometown for Hari Raya Haji, I met an old friend from the kampung who is a petty trader in the town. Almost without exception, whenever I go to town to get cheap fruits and vegetables for the family before returning to Kajang, I would stop by his stall to buy something or just to say hello. This time I noticed he was no longer accompanied by his second wife. He told me she had died of diabetes and that he was now back with his first wife. As usually we talked about our family and life at our respective places. He asked me whether I had any plan to come back and live in the kampung once I retire. This is one of the frequently asked questions I get whenever I meet old friends from the kampung. I think I’d ask the same question if I were in their position. It shows how much attachment we are expected to have to our kampung although we’ve been away for more than half of our life. The expectation is I’d agree with the idea and thus prove that I still remember my roots. It is a simple question but answering it is never easy.

I am grateful that I was brought up in the kampung environment and able to appreciate the difficult life there. But to be honest, no matter how much nostalgia I have of the old days, I prefer the life I have now. I would not be able to feed myself if I was put back in the kampung again. I never learnt how to tap rubber trees although my parents made a living out of that. I used to help them collect latex from plastic cups, mix acid cocktail to solidify it and use the rollers to compress it into corrugated thin rubber sheets before drying. But my fingers were not delicate enough to cut grooves into the trees for the latex to flow. I would not know how to work the paddy fields on my own although as a boy I spent a lot of my time helping my folks to plant it. I used to cut grass for the family herd of cows but my fingers are now more comfortable punching alphabets on the computer. I have lost the limited skills I had of doing kampung work. It will be a struggle for me to have to relearn these skills again at 55 when I reach my retirement age.

I think kampung life is no longer the kind of quiet and peaceful life it was 20 years ago. Crime, which was almost unheard of back then, is now common because of the spread of drugs. It was OK to leave the door unlocked back then, but it would be foolish to do the same now. It is now not uncommon to hear of horrific news from a remote village of a drug addict son killing his parents because they could not give him the 5 ringgit to buy his next fix. And almost every village now has young men dying of HIV and AIDS. The drugs business, just like any other business facing little prospect of growth in the cities, has made great ‘progress’ in the last 20 years in penetrating the rural market where there are so many jobless young men able and willing to be potential recruits. With this menace, I wonder how much promise kampung life can bring to my young kids who will grow up to be teenagers and young adults when I retire.

Whenever I am back in the kampung I try to attend the congressional prayer at the village surau. It is so close to the house that I really cannot miss the azan. So there is really no excuse not to go whenever I hear the azan! Alas, there is no azan for every prayer time. From my brief observation, the only regulars are the imam and the bilal. It is the only surau in the village of hundreds of people but the rest of the villagers are nowhere in sight. The local surau is an excellent place to gauge where future generations will take Islam. I do not see any improvement in people on the ground living Islamic life although the leaders of the state have been preaching Islam for two decades. By contrast, based on the occasional visit to my local surau in Kajang, it is more lively with religious learning programmes and very well attended. Again I wonder what future would kampung life bring to my kids if I were to move back to the kampung after retirement. I guess the answer here is quite obvious.

This coming year, three of my four kids will be going to school here in Kajang. Except for the first one, all three were born here. All their life they have been here. Their schools, playground, favourite shopping complexes, fast food outlets, library and circle of friends are all here. Except for the occasional school holiday trips to spend a few days in the kampung, they lead a city life. I cannot think that one day they’d want to ‘go back’ to the kampung and spend their life there. For them, their home is here about 30 km from KL City Centre. And it would be odd if you leave your children in the city to go live in your kampung when you’re old and need their support the most. So the way I see it the option of retiring into quiet life in the kampung is probably not for me.

I think life in the city is more competitive and it pushes our children to be their best. During weekdays, most of their time is fully occupied with school, religious school and tuition. This leaves them with less time to indulge in negative activities. Although I am not really fond of rote learning, it is much better than loitering around, doing drugs or watching endless programmes on satellite TV.

It is said Kelantanese have strong feelings and attachment with their home state. They refer to non-Kelantanese as ‘orang luar’ and as far as I know no other state burn the stadium when they lose a football match! We speak unique budu dialect which other people make fun of. But I know many young men from other states would try hard to master Kelantan-speak because they would not want to miss the chance of wooing pretty Kelantanese girls! So as a Kelantanese, I would not want to be accused as a traitor. I love my home village but some of the people that I knew, the friends that I played with or my own family have either died, migrated to the city or moved and built their own family in other parts of the country. I will not forget my roots in the kampung whenever I go back and visit my parents’ graves. But I am not sure if I would want to live there after retirement, or be buried there myself when my time in this world is over.

6-dec-2009

Letter to 69ers

The writer turned 40 recently. This letter is specially dedicated to those born in 1969.


Reflections on what it means to turn 40…

Dear Sixty-niners,

Good morning! I hope this letter reaches you while you’re in good health. Sometime this year each of us should hopefully be able to celebrate the fortieth year of our birth. I reached that milestone sometime last week! It’s a significant milestone indeed. We have spent more than half of our life’s expectancy. It is time we took stock of our life so far and started charting how we would like to steer it into the future. For the optimist among us, life begins at 40. For the less so, life begins to go downhill.

Nineteen sixty-nine was a memorable year. Man was finally able to escape the Earth’s gravity and set foot on the Moon. I was still in my mother’s womb when Neil Armstrong made that giant leap for mankind. In the Malaysian context, it was the year which would be remembered as a single date, the 13th of May. The year in which racial differences exploded into bloody riot culminating in the New Economic Policy, the policy that gave so much for the average Malay like me, but also caused so much resentment among our fellow non-Bumi Malaysians.

From now on we will be expected to lead. Prophet Muhammad began to lead his people to Islam at this age. This is the age when you stop being called a youth and finally embraced into the mainstream. By now we should be prepared to be called “Pak Cik” by more and more people. If you still keep your hair, don’t fret too much if more of it turns grey. It’s the colour of wisdom, experience and durability.

They say most major discoveries in science and mathematics are made by men in their 20s and 30s. So for those of us who aspire to crack Einstein’s unfulfilled dream of Theory of Everything, well…perhaps we can just let the youngsters carry the torch. But on the other hand, being 40 doesn’t mean we should be pushed aside and labeled as those who have passed their sell-by dates. Perhaps we lack the speed and risk-taking spirit of youth but we can make it up with patience, wisdom and lessons from our own experiences.

Most of us have attained stability in our income and family life. For those men who feel bored with this stability and would like to handle more challenges, go ahead, rock the boat and get another wife! But before you take that big decision bear this in mind. Scientific study shows that man’s testosterone level drops by 1 to 2 per cent per year from the age of 40. So to those who say “Life begins at 40” and start thinking about taking another wife, I’d say they’re in a state of denial. They’re denying the fact that they’re having a severe MLC – mid-life crisis. They think that because their financial status is now more stable, therefore their sexual status must also be at the top of the world. But in actuality they’re just trying to hide their waning sexual prowess.

No doubt many would like to turn back the clock and be a twenty-something again. So much is placed on youthfulness these days. The media is entirely to blame for this. Look around you. Except for pension scheme for senior citizens and new diapers design for people with bladder control problems, all advertisements picture young, smiling faces full of energy and testosterones. Makes you wish you could be 25 forever. But time keeps its forward march and our body ages along with it.

Dear Friends,

Let’s thank God for taking us this far. And let me again remind you that we have used up more than half of our life! So friends, let’s say good bye to youth and welcome the age of wisdom. We have been taught well by our elders and now is the time to pass on the knowledge and experience to the youngsters. So, on this auspicious morning, let’s step out of the house on the right foot, take a deep breath, look straight ahead and enjoy the journey into the next 40 years of our life! May God bless all of us.

Ameen.

Outbreak of a new virus B1N1

There is widespread concern among health professionals that the dreaded Influenza A(H1N1) virus has evolved into a more virulent strain which has yet to be given official name. Health experts are still arguing what to call the virus but many believe it should be identified as B1N1, the B signalling a more widespread and vicious form of the swine flu virus A(H1N1) while the absence of brackets in the name indicating a more free and easily transmittable form of the virus. The virus is not particularly deadly as it rarely causes physical pain to both carriers and those infected. Instead, it can bring tremendous psychological suffering as it can drain out sufferer’s financial resources. According to Dr John Swine, a virologist who leads a team of researchers at Imperial College London, the virus has been in existence since the first human walked the Earth. Strangely though it has only infected the male of the human species.

A study published in the journal Nature by epidemiologists at the John Hopkins Medical School concludes that the virus starts to infect men in their 20s and more prevalent among men in the developing world. Muslim men are particularly vulnerable with possibility of infection reaching up to four different strains – B1N1-1, B1N1-2, B1N1-3 and B1N1-4. It is estimated that only a small percentage of Muslim men were infected with B1N1-2, B1N1-3 and B1N1-4 although as much as 95% of them will get B1N1-1 at some point in their lifetime. Studies are still on-going to find out why men of Islamic faith have not become immune to the infection. In a recent case in the state of Selangor in Malaysia, a popular Islamic religious preacher and TV presenter who had B1N1-1 for more than a decade is reported to have managed to free himself from the virus and just last weekend confirmed widely circulated rumours that he had now contracted B1N1-2. The 40 year old ex-rock singer is said to have contracted the virus from a 30-year old female singer who’s famous with her Arabic songs. He seems to show all the symptoms of the B1N1-2 infection – unexplained burst of energy and great psychological boost in the first six months but gradually become fatigue and longing for infection with the next strain B1N1-3 after a few years. So far, he seem to be at the top of the world and visibly happy carrying the 30-year old virus B1N1-2.

Various investigations conducted in US and Europe point to the conclusion that Western men have acquired resistance to B1N1 with less than 50% of them infected by the virus and even when they do, they become free of it after one to two years of suffering various psychological stress brought by B1N1. As is normally the case for virus of this nature, experts are looking at certain groups which have shown strong resistance to the bug. The Imperial College team is still investigating why a small group of highly religious men –priests, monks and the like – have zero infection rate to the virus. It is believed that their strong religious conviction and discipline is key to understanding this strange medical phenomenon.

Authorities at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, USA have been struggling to get reliable data to develop a vaccine for the virus as those infected are susceptible to lying and unstable mental conditions. Men in their 50s and 60s have been known to resort to the sex-enhancing drug Viagra to boost their performance to fight the virus B1N1-1. They have been known to need more dose of Viagra once infected with more complex strains of the virus -B1N1-2, B1N1-3 and B1N1-4. Pfizer, the drug company which holds the patent to produce Viagra, has been reaping up huge profits with the spread of the highly infectious bug. When asked to comment on the sudden increase in the sale of Viagra, Pfizer spokewoman declines to comment citing possible interference with on-going lawsuit against the company.

Thoughts about Work: Freedom and Innovation

By this time next week, I will be left on my own in the office. My senior colleague who has been acting as Team Lead for the past 8 months will be moving on to a new assignment. I will be reporting to my American boss, who is based in India and he in turn reports to his boss in the Netherlands. When I joined this company two and a half years ago, I worked under a British boss. He left late last year and his post was filled by my current boss, an Indian expatriate whose 4-year assignment here in Malaysia is up and is now moving on to Europe. Such is the dynamics of working in a multinational company. If you wish, you can travel the world, go to different places for an assignment, see different cultures, meet various people and have a healthy bank account along the way too.

Before I joined this company, I worked for a GLC and a consultancy. In my previous jobs, I have always worked with a Malaysian boss. What I find interesting about working with expatriate bosses is that not only do they allow you to express your ideas, but they also expect you to challenge their ideas or decisions. During discussions, when he comes up with an idea he’d urge me to challenge him. Being Malaysian, we tend to respect and not argue too much with our boss. Bosses are expected to be right and subordinates are to take their words as gospel truth. These expatriates must have been quite surprised to find how little we Malaysians argue with our boss even when we’re encouraged to do so. In fact, having been brought up in a culture which puts so much respect to our elders and people with authority, it’s very difficult to disagree with your own boss. There is hesitation to say directly to them that they could be wrong even when it is perfectly all right to say it without fear of retribution. This is one cultural clash that I find interesting and perhaps something that we can learn from.

I remember in my previous company, when the VP spoke nobody dared to interrupt even though he’d been babbling for 3 hours non-stop. In fact nobody seemed to be able to lift their full bladder from the chair and visit the toilet in those 3 hours! And nobody touched the food or drinks before the old man did it. How can you expect the subordinates to argue with the boss when they would not even dare to touch the curry puffs which are yearning to be eaten in front of them! In contrast, in this European-based multinational, I was shocked to find that an expatriate, who was just a mere senior engineer could raise his voice and express his disagreement on the policy taken by the company’s president in a meeting seating just beside the VP. I know I sound a bit exaggerating but I just picked two extreme examples from my own work experience.

I think the freedom to express their opinion is one of the reasons why Western companies are successful in innovation. It encourages cross-fertilisation of innovative ideas and creative solutions. This is what our education system should inculcate in our young generation’s mind. We should start from the time when our children are still at pre-school. They should be encouraged to express themselves and build up confidence in presenting their ideas and arguing their case. Based on my own experience and casual observation, I find this confidence lacking in our students, employees and people in general. We are victims of our own authoritarian culture. The emphasis on respect for authority might have worked well for agrarian society in which common people relied heavily on their rich and powerful landlords to provide for basic needs. But we have gone past that stage. In today’s modern world, the success of a country depends very much on how innovative and resilient it can be in the competition for foreign investment and the best talents. Our country’s leaders always espouse “Asian Values” where respect for people with authority is held as the glue that keeps our country’s stability. Critics say that this is just an excuse for authoritarian leaders to keep their restless people under control. Perhaps there is truth in both arguments. But as far as innovation in a company is concerned, I’m of the opinion that freedom is a necessary ingredient for innovation to prosper.

Remembering my mother

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. I never knew there was such a day when my mother was still alive. And even if I knew, I would not have cared much anyway. It’s just another modern day invention to allocate one day to remember the person who gave birth to us while for the other 364 days of the year she is treated like she never existed. Then again once in a while, thoughts of mother do come to our mind as we deal with trials and tribulations of bringing up our own children.

My mother’s time in this world ended on the same day as for the last Agong who died on the throne. While the whole Malaysia was mourning the loss of a people’s King, I was grieving the passing of my own mother. While all radio and television stations stopped entertainment programmes and played Quranic recital instead, our family also had tahlil to pray for her soul to be placed with those who are blessed. That sad day 8 years ago, is long gone. And my own family has grown so much since then.

With all the comfort and convenience that we live in today, it’s difficult to imagine how hard it was for a single mother to bring up 4 young children but that’s what my mother did. I was too young to remember, but I was told she separated from my father when I was only five and my younger sister was two. We were brought up by her own mother (my maternal grandmother) as she had to go away from the village to tap rubber trees on the hills of interior Kelantan, and later work in sawmills in the interior of Pahang. I can’t remember exactly how often she came back to visit us and grandmother, but I remember we were more attached to grandmother because of the separation.

While living in Pahang around the late 70s, she married a man who later became the father of my younger brothers. By the time I was sent to sekolah asrama in 1982 she gave birth to my youngest brother. Her husband, my stepfather, ran off months after my brother was born and never came to visit us again. Life had always been difficult for her, and it took a turn for the worse. That was the time my mother, a divorced 33 year old woman, penniless and jobless with four young kids, without a man in her life had to go through a difficult journey into the future on her own. From then on she never left home to work in foreign places. I guess she felt she had left me and my sister for too long and that from then on she wanted to bring up her children by herself. She never remarried again until her death 19 years later.

When I was learning to be an adult at the sekolah asrama, I understood early on why mother could not visit me that often. The journey from home to the asrama must have been difficult for her, perhaps even more so when she thought about not being able to leave as much money as she wanted to if she visited. Instead, I was the one making my trip home once in a while to see mother and my younger siblings.

I remember to this day, one weekend I went back to the kampung. Moments before I left home to take my bus trip back to the asrama, my mother went into the bedroom and closed the door. Later, not knowing what she was doing in there, I opened the bedroom door and found her counting coins on the house wooden floor careful not to let the coins slip through the gap between the planks. I saw the bamboo piggy-bank which she had been saving the coins in was broken in halves. She said to me she had to break it to get her only savings as she did not have any money left. All she had was the coins. She asked if I would not mind carrying the heavy coins around and told me to be careful not to drop them. I looked at her and held back my tears. I did not want to show her my sadness and I suspect she was concealing hers too. I can’t remember what I spent the money on but that small incident is still etched on my memory to this day. It was one of the defining moments in my growing up teenage life. One among many which helped to teach me early on the importance of being prudent with money. To be honest even now while writing this, I have to take a breather, hold back my tears and pretend to be strong just in case my kids come barging into my study room without knocking.

I did not have the courage to tell my mother all this when she was still alive. I wish I had told her how thankful I was about all the sacrifices that she had made to bring up the four of us. If your mother is still alive please do tell her how much she has done in your life. If you didn’t have time to do it in the last 364 days, tomorrow is a good day to say it.

Happy Mother’s Day!

9 May 2009

As a law-abiding Malaysian citizen, I, together with 2 million others filed my tax return within days before the deadline. The e-filing was overall convenient although I had to wake up at 4.30am in the morning to avoid slow server problem as many other taxpayers were also rushing to file in their tax returns. This is a tremendous improvement from the pre-e-filing days when I either had to submit it a few days before the deadline or go to the LHDN office myself to meet the deadline.

As the amount of tax that I pay grows by the year, I become more incensed by the gross wastage of money by some of our decision makers. They treat our hard earned money as their entitlement spending millions on expensive overseas “lawatan sambil belajar” trips. Some even brought his family and maid to Disneyland under the pretext of learning how to run a theme park, while some others charged half a billion “consultancy” fee for procuring some expensive foreign made weaponry. And yet, we the rakyat, are asked to tighten our belt to weather the current economic downturn.

One way to avoid our money from being squandered by these scoundrels is to pay all of our tax in the form of zakat. Although I’m not sure how transparent the zakat institution operate, and how much of the money actually goes to the right people, at least we can be sure our money will not go into financing somebody’s shopping trip to Harrods or to some middlemen trying to sell expensive toys to the government. And you can give it to any zakat institution that you feel comfortable with. I myself have been contributing my zakat to the Kelantan Islamic Religious Council since 6 or 7 years ago. No narrow Kelantan-centric chauvinism here. I believe people from rural Kelantan need more help than people from urban Selangor or KL. Since I’m not contributing directly to the economic development of the state in which I spent the first 20 years of my life, this is my way of “repaying” it.

Surviving in a Flat World

The other day I had a problem with my laptop. It was after office hours. I dialed the company’s IT helpdesk number and a man with a foreign accent answered the call at the other end. He asked me a few basic computer questions, requested me to do a few simple steps and within seconds he took control of my computer screen. He copied files onto my laptop, deleted old ones and replaced them with new ones. About 15 minutes later, the problem was fixed and I was back at work again. Well, nothing so unusual about that except that I was sitting comfortably in my office in Kuala Lumpur and he was controlling my cursor from Bangalore, India!

It turns out that, as a global company constantly looking for the cheapest way of doing things, the company I work for has outsourced some of the operations which used to be done here in Kuala Lumpur to India. For IT support, during normal office hours calls are directed to Cyberjaya but after hours calls are transferred to other call centres around the globe. When I want to invoice customers for completed work I just need to send an e-mail to instruct the accounts team in Chennai, India to prepare an invoice. They will process the invoice, print out a hardcopy in Chennai, courier it out via DHL to the customer, even though the customer office happens to be only 3 floors below my office here in Kuala Lumpur. Now you may think it does not make sense to have the invoice issued out from another continent when the recipient sits in the same building as you. And perhaps you are wondering why I’m telling you this story and what lessons can we learn from all this? The answer is in the word “globalisation”.

In an interconnected world where business is conducted at the speed of light there is no guarantee that we will keep our job. Millions of qualified people in India, China and other emerging economies are eager and willing to take our job if we do not equip ourselves with specialized skills that differentiate us from them. Already they can do the same job much cheaper. Any job that can be digitized and discretised into packets of data can be sent over a broadband cable to find the cheapest place where it can be done. Transfer of data is virtually free. As an economy which has been growing steadily since the early 80s, we are no longer a country with cheap labour. We must realize this and we have to prepare our people to move up quickly on the technological ladder. Otherwise, we’ll lose out to them just like we lost to China, Vietnam or Laos in manufacturing.

Thomas Friedman in his book “The World is Flat” wrote about the emergence of countries like India and China and the forces that enabled them to compete with industrialised countries like the US and Europe. These forces, which he calls flatteners, feed the next stage of globalisation or Globalisation 3.0. He observes that while Globalisation 1.0 turns big into medium, and Globalisation 2.0 turns the medium into small, the third stage of globalization is turning the small into tiny. And unlike the first and second stages where the forces rested with countries and companies, it is now driven by individuals. What this means is that, with the IT and Internet revolution, millions of people are now able to work and collaborate with other people sitting half a world away and produce results which are far better than the sum of each of them working alone. Work is no longer confined by distance or geographical boundaries. A Malaysian company cheque for a customer here in Malaysia, may be prepared in the Philippines. An American secondary school kid’s homework may be checked by his tutor in India; or perhaps in future your house sales and purchase agreement will be prepared by a lawyer in Eastern Europe whom you never meet. The bottom line is if you have the necessary skills and can offer the cheapest service, you can be in any corner of the world, yet will still be able to perform jobs for customers from half a world away.

Friedman’s book is aimed at his fellow Americans whom he thinks have been sleeping while the rest of the world is stealing their jobs. He was referring to the waves of outsourcing and offshoring jobs that went to India and China because of much cheaper labour costs in the two countries. What he says in his book sometimes can be a bit of an exaggeration but he has made a loud wake-up call for Americans to realise that the rest of the world is catching up while they are losing their competitiveness. There are lessons for us too. Malaysians, especially the Bumiputras and Umnoputras, should wake up as well and realise that the big wave called globalisation is affecting us all. We cannot live in a protected environment forever. The rest of the world is preparing themselves with boats and ships to ride out the storm. We have not even started learning how to swim because we are scared of water. In a flat world, the faster we hit the water, the better are our chances of survival.

Balik Kampung

It was the time for the exodus again! Not because the Sun would not rise from the East, nor because of an impending hurricane. But because the new Syawal moon was coming out in a day or two.

I made my northward journey together with my family on Sunday before Raya starting from Kajang around midday. I had not visited the kampung for almost 8 months. The last time I was back in Pasir Mas was in February for my aunt’s funeral. That visit was unplanned and was a very brief one.

The journey from KL to Pahang was surprisingly smooth despite the fact that thousands of vehicles were using the trunk road going through Bentong, Raub, Kuala Lipis and Gua Musang. The new road from Raub to Kuala Lipis cuts the distance by more than 30 km and straightens what used to be winding tracks and dangerous curves along the way. More needs to be done to improve its notorious safety record but for now we just need to take more care.

Along the way, perhaps because of fasting, everyone else fell asleep. I kept to the speed limit rolling up and down the hills of interior Pahang while listening to the radio and some podcasts I had downloaded from the Internet. This year Raya falls in the middle of the week giving people more time to make their journey home. There were no accidents or long queues along the road unlike in previous years when everyone had to rush home only one or two days before Raya. I saw Raya greetings from politicians from both sides at strategic junctions in towns along the way. This is the time to show to the people that they care. In Pasir Mas, our own independent MP, the maverick Datuk Ibrahim Ali, back in the lime light after winning the March 8 elections on a Pas ticket, had put up banners at the entrances of mosques in the town affirming his rise and fall with his people (“Jatuh Bangun Bersama Rakyat”). I am quite sure I can get one or two pieces of 50 ringgit notes if I go to his open house. I was told he is a very rich man.

The early break I took gave me some time to spend the last days of Ramadhan in the kampung. I have always enjoyed Kelantanese kuih for its sweet taste but this time I was shocked to find that the price of my favourite Kuih Akok had gone up to KL level just because of the influx of cash-rich city folks coming back for the big day. I did communicate with her in Kelantan-speak but it did not help. May be she knew that I was not one of her regular customers and that it would be fine if I did not buy her kuih next time. Makes me think that when it comes to money, folks in this Ulamak-ruled state are anything but generous! Pak Lah’s gesture in reducing fuel price just before Raya and his plea for traders to bring down goods prices did not seem to work. The often repeated phrase - what goes up must come down – simply does not apply here.

I spent the first day of Raya visiting relatives in the kampung. I only get a chance like this every other year as my nurse wife has to work on alternate Raya. Hospitals always seem to be busier during festive seasons! I took the opportunity to see cousins, uncles and aunties. The eve of Raya was the time to pay my dues in the form of zakat. Four of my young cousins have just lost their mother, four years after losing their father. They are now orphans and in need of monetary support from the extended family. I thought growing up with divorced parents was tough for me. Difficult to imagine that the four of them have lost both parents at such a young age. I remember how happy I was as a child wearing new clothes during Raya, going round from house to house playing firecrackers. I wanted to make sure that they too enjoy the same experience in their childhood.

On the second day of Raya I paid a visit to the graves of my mother, grandmother and father, the three most important people in my life. Their graves lay silent waiting for visits from their children and grandchildren. It was late afternoon and nobody else was around. The quietness seemed to understand the sadness of their loss many years ago. I cleared some weeds that had grown wild since I visited the place last Raya Haji. I read some verses from the Quran and spread out my hands while utterring some doa. After so many years, the sadness of their loss is now bearable. It was almost maghrib time and I had to leave. I looked back at the graves as I took my steps out of the graveyard area. I could not help but feel very sad again as I was leaving them behind. It will probably be another year when I come and visit them again. But this I’ll always remember. I may be working in the tallest buildings in the world, but I'll never forget my roots are here. You people were the ones that made it all possible.

Ulasan Buku: Tuhan Manusia – Faisal Tehrani (2007)

Novel ini adalah novel yang bukan novel. Kenapa saya berkata begitu? Sebenarnya novel ini adalah sebuah perbincangan tentang agama dan kelahiran golongan liberal di kalangan penganut Islam. Ia hanya diolah menjadi novel dengan menyelitkan sedikit kisah dan watak-watak supaya menjadi sebuah cerita. Namun lebih 90 peratus isinya adalah fakta-fakta agama, sejarah, falsafah dan ayat-ayat suci al-Quran dan Hadis. Jika tiada diselang-selikan dengan cerita, watak dan dialog, ia akan menjadi hambar dan mungkin tidak ramai yang akan membacanya.

Novel ini menyelam dalam ke lubuk masalah yang menimpa sebahagian umat Islam terpelajar di Malaysia di mana mereka lebih cenderung kepada ajaran yang dilabelkan sebagai Islam liberal. Golongan ini adalah golongan yang terdidik dengan asuhan dan pandangan yang mengatakan bahawa semua agama adalah benar dan Islam hanyalah salah satu daripadanya. Watak utama novel ini dijelmakan dalam diri Ali Taqi, seorang remaja Islam yang pintar dan amat sedar dengan masalah Islam liberal kerana abangnya sendiri, Talha menjadi murtad selepas dipengaruhi Encik Aris, seorang intelek yang memperjuangkan Islam liberal. Bapa Ali, Mohamad menjadi seorang pendiam akibat teramat sedih setelah anaknya sendiri murtad. Watak Talha tidak banyak diceritakan, malah disentuh sedikit sahaja. Talha hanya wujud dalam dialog Ali Taqi dan watak-watak lain di dalam novel ini.

Kisah berkisar sekitar perbincangan intelektual Ali Taqi dan kawan-kawan sekolahnya tentang Islam, sejarahnya, falsafah dan hubungannya dengan agama lain. Keseluruhan dialog mereka adalah selang-seli antara ayat al-Quran dan kupasannya serta fakta-fakta sejarah Islam yang diolah lancar dalam perbualan dan perdebatan yang dipaparkan di dalam cerita ini. Cerita ini juga mengemukakan watak Andrew Tse, kawan karib sekampung Ali Taqi yang akhirnya memeluk Islam kerana terpesona dengan keindahannya.

Walaupun watak utama ialah seorang remaja namun soal cinta remaja disentuh sedikit sahaja. Zehra, anak intelektual Islam liberal Encik Aris, jatuh hati dengan Ali Taqi. Mereka selalu berbahas dan berbincang tentang Islam liberal di dalam pertemuan mereka. Zehra banyak mengajukan soalan seakan menguji pengetahuan dan hujah-hujah Ali Taqi yang mengganggap Islam liberal adalah suatu barah yang merosakkan umat Islam. Hubungan mereka tidak mekar kerana Ali Taqi tidak boleh menerima orang yang menganut Islam liberal. Kesudahannya berakhir dengan mereka menuju laluan hidup yang berbeza; Ali Taqi kemudiannya menjadi professor ilmu Islam dan falsafah dan watak Zehra tidak diceritakan dengan jelas laluan hidupnya.

Buku ini sarat dengan kupasan ayat al-Quran, hadis, sejarah Islam dan pertentangan dengan dunia Barat. Ia ditulis pada tahun 2007 di mana isu murtad dan penghakiman Lina Joy diperkatakan dengan hebat di laman-laman perbincangan Internet. Saya berpendapat, watak Encik Aris dan Talha mewakili golongan cendikiawan Muslim yang membela Lina Joy, IFC dan isu-isu sepertinya manakala watak Ali Taqi adalah mewakili sebahagian besar Muslim yang berada di pihak yang menentang. Novel ini mengambil persamaan dari apa yang berlaku di dalam hubungan Muslim dan non-Muslim di Malaysia. Ia berhujah membela pihak yang menganggap Islam liberal adalah ancaman kepada keharmonian umat Islam di Malaysia. Sebagai seorang yang berpendidikan bidang syariah Islam, Faisal Tehrani sememangnya dididik dengan pandangan sedemikian.

1 Jun 2008.

Ulasan Buku: Kekasih Sam Po Bo – Faisal Tehrani (2007)

Buku ini adalah salah satu kumpulan cerpen yang dihasilkan oleh Penerima Anugerah Seni Negara, Faisal Tehrani. Di dalamnya termuat 30 cerpen yang membawa berbagai tema dan latar. Memang boleh dikatakan semua 30 ceritera yang dihidangkan oleh Faisal adalah unik dan berisi. Semuanya membawa mesej yang tersendiri, mengupas isu penting Masyarakat Islam-Melayu di Malaysia dan cuba menawarkan suatu penawar kepada masalah muslim sejagat. Antara yang paling saya minati ialah Bulan Mengambang Di Langit KL, Setelah Diciptakan Adam…, Sultan Alauddin Belajar Tasawuf dan Nenek Negro di Kota Mekah.

Suatu tema yang amat kerap dibawa oleh Faisal ialah Islam dan sejarah. Saya amat mengkagumi pengetahuan beliau terhadap Islam dan sejarah. Penulisannya menggambarkan lautan pengetahuan beliau yang dalam mencakupi bidang ilmu Islam, falsafah, sejarah dan politik semasa. Beliau merupakan seorang penulis sepenuh masa yang saya anggap berjaya dan telah menghasilkan lebih 10 buah novel dalam usia baru 34 tahun. Anak muda lulusan bidang pengajian syariah dan sastera ini juga menjadi penceramah sastera dan penyelidik dan sekarang sedang berjuang di bidang akademik untuk menghabiskan PhD. Beliau pernah mendapat bimbingan SN A Samad Said dan SN Shahnon Ahmad. Pandangan politiknya mungkin tidak sehaluan dengan sesetengah orang tetapi beliau berjaya mengemukakan bukti terhadap setiap apa yang dipegangnya. Mungkin kita tidak bersetuju dengan hujahnya tetapi kaedah dan rujukannya kukuh dan jitu.

Novel-novelnya bukan novel picisan cinta remaja yang berlambakan di kedai buku, tetapi sarat mengandungi persoalan yang dianggap berat. Kisah kembaranya padat dengan pencerahan diri serta penghayatan nilai-nilai sejarah dan pengajaran daripadanya. Daya imaginasinya yang cukup luas dan pelbagai itu lincah menerobos dunia di sekelilingnya.

Buku koleksi cerpen dan novelnya agak susah didapati di kedai buku tetapi senang dipesan di kedai maya Internet. Tinjauan saya di beberapa kedai buku hanya membawa saya kepada buku-buku cinta remaja yang saya rasa sudah melepasi waktu untuk orang seperti saya. Di perpustakaan juga saya tidak menemui buku-bukunya. Namun di dunia siber beliau cukup popular dengan laman sesawangnya iaitu tehranifaisal.blogspot.com.

26-5-2008

Meeting Pipeline Guru

Recently I met with a very prominent pipeline engineer when he was here in Malaysia for discussions with an oil company. I was also invited to the meeting. I had always wanted to meet him having read one of his three books and some of his more than 180 papers. Professor Andrew Palmer is well known world wide as one of the most famous pipeline engineers in the world. To my knowledge he is the only pipeliner with the title FRS – Fellow of the Royal Society, the oldest and foremost learned society in the UK. It’s equivalent to National Academy of Sciences in other parts of the world but because of history it held to its current name. It was first established in 1660 and among its most famous fellows were Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Kelvin, Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin and more recently Stephen Hawking. Its current president is Sir Martin Rees, Britain’s Astronomer Royal. The fellowship is a recognition given every year to about 40 of the best scientists and engineers from the UK and a number of foreigners who are regarded as world authority in their own field. If they ever gave a Nobel Prize to a pipeline engineer, Professor Palmer would be one of the favourites to win.

Professor Palmer was a professor of petroleum engineering at Cambridge University from 1996 to 2005. He was also a visiting professor at Harvard in 2002-2003 and a number of other universities in the UK and US. Almost fifty years ago, he was an engineering student at Cambridge graduating in 1961. After compulsory retirement at Cambridge, he decided to move to the Far East and has taken a chair of visiting professorship at National University of Singapore. One might ask why would NUS take a retired old foreign professor to occupy the chair of one of its professorships. Here I think is where Singapore is again going far ahead of Malaysia in lifting the standard and reputation of its universities to become a world class academic institution. They invest a substantial amount of money attracting eminent academics and researchers to their country, providing the right infrastructure and world class facilities. Singapore’s investment is starting to bear fruit. So far their biotechnology enclave, Biopolis has attracted some big names in biotechnology research and push Singapore into biotech world map. NUS is one of the top 50 universities in the world in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) list (no. 33 in 2007). So if our Higher Education Minister is looking for a model to follow, he does not have to go on lawatan sambil belajar (or is it belanja?) to Europe or America for ideas and inspirations. Just look down south across the causeway. Come to think about it again, NUS used to be University of Malaya in Singapore. The big gap in ranking between our Universiti Malaya and NUS now tells us something about how Singapore and Malaysia manage their most valuable asset (i.e. brain, bright people) and develop it to achieve its best potential.

After the meeting in the morning, I took the opportunity to have further discussions with Professor Palmer over lunch in a halal Chinese restaurant. I told him how I wished I had met him when I was in Cambridge from 1993 to 1995. But during those years, he took his time off from academic world and spent his time in the oil and gas industry. He set up his own consultancy company, built it up and eventually sold it off before joining the academia again. It’s one good thing all our academics should do – spend some time on the field and learn to appreciate how equations and computer simulations actually work in the real world. It’s easy to pressurize a pipeline or smash it to pieces in the lab or on a computer simulation. But it does not necessary mean that it can be done when you are out at sea hundreds of kilometers from shore.

Despite being optimistic and enjoying his life in this part of the world, I noticed he had some reservation about academic institution in Singapore, and in this region generally. Because of its rigid, rule-based society and limited academic freedom, it does not encourage new ideas and creativity, two important elements in innovation and advancement of knowledge. And despite its energetic push to be at the forefront of research and technology in the world, Singapore is still lagging behind in freedom and democracy. The effects have already been felt in certain areas where some academics and scientists who accepted good monetary rewards and had been working in Singapore for some time decided to leave because of lack of freedom. Singapore probably thinks that it is necessary at the current stage of its development to impose controls on everything. But sooner or later, people are going to demand more individual freedom. Make no mistake. No amount of grain can persuade a bird to live in a cage.

In the middle of our discussion, I noticed that it was Friday prayer time. I excused myself and left the learned professor to continue his lunch with my Chinese friend. It was an honour for me to meet such a great man in my own field of work. He is not just a prolific researcher and successful entrepreneur, but also a dedicated educator who loves his work. Now when I read his book again, I feel as if I could hear his voice talking to me over lunch.

Life Certainties

They say two things in life are certain: death and taxes. I’m not sure if I am prepared for the first one but with a definite deadline on April 30th, I had to spend almost whole of last weekend going through my purchase receipts and financial papers before submitting my tax return form (Borang BE) on-line. It’s good that it’s now possible to fill our tax return form via the Internet, have our taxes calculated using on-line applications and even get confirmation receipt from the Inland Revenue Board (LHDN). This year LHDN expects more people to use the on-line applications and reduce congestion at its offices close to the deadline.

After 15 years of working life and slowly crawling up the salary ladder I finally find myself paying quite a substantial amount of tax. Like all sensible people, as much as legally possible, I tried to reduce my taxable income. I tried to claim reduction on every item in which I was entitled to. Yet after all the deductions, I still think that my tax amount was too much. With the kind of service I get, I feel I should pay much less.

To be quite honest, I will not have any qualms about paying taxes to the government if I know exactly where my money goes. If I know that my tax money is going to help the poor rakyat, I’m quite happy to contribute. But that is not the case for now. As long as there is no transparency in our government, we never know whether our money is being sucked into a black hole and enrich a few cronies. We see a lot of mega projects which don’t really benefit the people but put a lot of money into someone’s pocket. We see them build roads and highways but they collect tolls. They build five star airports and facilities but goods and service there are also 5-star. They distribute free goodies to kampong folks but only to people with certain political inclination. They use people’s money to pay for TV and radio but throw slanders on their political enemies. When will they ever learn that fairness and goodwill bring more support for them than hurling dirt on their enemies?

I’m not sure whether in the present circumstances taxpayers are getting their fair share. One way to make sure our hard-earned money go to the poor is by paying zakat. Zakat paid to a state religious authority is entitled to full rebate i.e. deduction from tax amount and not just from taxable income. We know zakat will be distributed to certain categories of Muslims who are entitled to part of our wealth and it does not include rich cronies. So it’s a way of fulfilling our religious obligation and at the same time also a really good way of preventing our money from going into the pocket of the rich. And with zakat you can pay it to any state government of your choice, not to the federal government, if that’s your wish. My zakat always go to the state which I think is poor and least corrupt. I would advise my friends to do the same. It does not matter which state you pay your zakat to, but make sure it will not go into enriching rent-seeking cronies.

There are ways not to pay tax. You can either migrate to a tax-free country like the Middle East or Brunei, or earn below the threshold, or put your money in a bag and carry it with you to Australia. Don’t worry too much about being caught. Even if you were, in Malaysia, you could still become a cabinet minister! Looks like for many of us there is not much choice not to pay income tax. So, despite all this anger, I still have my salary deducted every month by the LHDN and come April still have to file my tax return. It’s one of two certainties in life. No escape. Period.

Sedetik Bersama Sasterawan Negara

Pesta Buku Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur pada tahun ini berakhir petang tadi di PWTC Kuala Lumpur. Sungguh ramai manusia yang rata-ratanya umat Melayu bersesak-sesak mengunjungi pondok demi pondok di dewan pameran. Mungkin anggapan aku sebelum ini yang orang kita tidak suka membaca buku meleset. Mereka datang bersama anak-anak dan isteri dengan semangat ingin menambah ilmu. Semacam ada pesta hiburan di sana. Dan memangpun ada seorang dua selebriti yang dijemput khas samada untuk mempromosi buku mereka sendiri ataupun sekadar tayang muka di depan kaunter untuk melariskan jualan. Diskaun ditawarkan untuk banyak judul buku. Hampir setiap kaunter menawarkan pelbagai hadiah dan pakej istimewa untuk menarik pelanggan.

Aku datang sendirian dengan komuter. Lokasi stesen Putra amat mudah sekali untuk aku menapak ke PWTC di Bangunan UMNO. Dan aku rasa tindakanku tepat kerana dengan kesesakan yang sebegitu teruk, kalau anak-anak aku bersama, aku mungkin terpaksa menghabiskan masa melayan kerenah mereka sahaja daripada menumpukan perhatian kepada buku dan jurujualnya.

Di kaunter Bernama aku nampak orang ramai berkerumun. Lalu perasaan ingin tahu aku membawa aku ke sana. Rupanya dengan membeli sebuah buku yang berharga RM5 sahaja pembeli diberi peluang mendapat autograf dari angkasawan kedua negara Dr Faiz. Ramai juga yang mengambil peluang bergambar dengannya. Di situ juga bahan cenderamata Radio 24 “Radio Berita Pertama Negara” dan siaran Berita Bernama di Astro dijual. Nasib baik angkasawan pertama negara Dr Sheikh Muszaphar tiada bersama. Kalau tidak lagi sensasi dan sesak jadinya.

Setelah hampir 3 jam membelek-belek buku, aku melewati depan kaunter Wira Bukit Sdn Bhd. Di kerusi sofa di tengah-tengah pondok pameran, aku nampak pemiliknya sedang menyain buku-buku yang baru dibeli orang. Wajahnya memang dikenali ramai. Masakan tidak dialah Sasterawan Negara Datuk A. Samad Said yang mengekalkan penampilannya sejak dari dulu. Rambut putihnya panjang ke paras bahu, janggut dan misainya dibiarkan berjuntaian. Beliau selesa berbaju-T, berseluar slack dan berselipar jepun. Kali pertama aku melihatnya ialah lebih kurang 15 tahun yang lalu sewaktu beliau menunggu bas mini wilayah di stesen Bangkok Bank di tengah-tengah bandar Kuala Lumpur. Lima belas tahun lepas juga beliau berpakaian begitu. Statusnya sebagai seorang sasterawan negara dan gelaran Datuk tidak langsung mengubah zahirnya. Beliau tetap dengan penampilannya yang santai. Bagiku itulah uniknya A. Samad Said selain kata-kata puitis yang lunak menghiasi karya-karya sasteranya. Sebelum aku meminta beliau mengautograf buku yang baru aku beli, sempat aku berbisik dengan jurujualnya apa panggilan yang sesuai sebelum aku mula bercakap dengan orang besar sastera negara itu. Panggil saja Pak Samad jawab jurujual tersebut. Lalu aku terus mengambil tempat di hujung sofa di sebelah Pak Samad dan memintanya menyain buku nipis berjudul “Ilham Di Tepi Tasik”, sebuah koleksi esei sastera Pak Samad yang diterbitkan pada tahun 2006 dan kini dalam cetakan kedua.

Mungkin generasi muda kini lebih menggilai novel cinta remaja. Pak Samad sendiri pernah melahirkan rasa kesalnya dengan tindakan Kementerian Pendidikan yang memilih novel ringan untuk dijadikan bahan rujukan sastera di sekolah dan menyisihkan karya-karya agung sasterawan negara. Kekecewaannya itu diluahkan dengan tidak mahu lagi menggunakan gelaran Sasterawan Negara yang diterimanya itu. Walaupun beliau tidak mahu lagi dipanggil Sasterawan Negara, namun di hati peminat sastera beliau adalah sasterawan negara yang tulen.

Pada usia 73 tahun pena sasteranya tidak pernah tumpul dan karyanya yang merentasi beberapa dekad masih segar untuk dinikmati generasi muda. Beliau telah menghambakan seluruh hidupnya untuk menyuburkan sastera Melayu di rantau ini. Aku merasakan di kaunter jualan petang tadi aku bukan sahaja membeli sebuah buku, malah memetik salah satu dari bunga sastera Pak Samad. Semuga ilham Pak Samad akan terus menjelmakan karya-karya tinggi untuk dinikmati pencinta sastera.

13-4-2008