Sajakkini

Lee Ban Chen

Several months ago, when MCA launched its Lifelong Learning Campaign, it was criticised for evading politics, for such campaigns are regarded to be more appropriate for NGOs rather than a political party.

Though proudly claiming that the party is representing the Chinese community, MCA is in fact incapable of solving the problems faced by the community whether in the process of formulating Barisan Nasional’s policies, or in the stages of its implementation, monitoring, or correcting deviations without the blessings of Umno.

According to the logic of racial politics, MCA is held responsible as it claims, for defending the interests of the Chinese community and to resolve all problems faced by them. Such as Umno and MIC are held responsible for defending the interests of the Malays and Indians and to resolve all problems faced by the respective communities.

The protests against the appeal of MCA to build more SJKC (Chinese schools) with the allocation of the 9th Malaysia Plan was orchestrated by a Malay daily and echoed by Umno leaders. It starkly exposed that MCA and other BN component parties hardly carry any weight as to bring any dispute or contradiction with Umno to be settled through the vehicle of BN, especially when Umno leaders are indulging in promoting their images as heroes of the Malays and Muslims to gain cheap political support or divert internal crisis. (more…)

On Dec 26, 2004, Aceh, Phuket, Sri Lanka, Penang among other countries were visited by a biblical calamity. If Moses parted the Red Sea with his rod to escape his enemies, (Surah Asy Syu’araa, verses 52-66), then the tsunami that appeared on Boxing Day left communities devastated by a loss that’s incomprehensible.

Madness was the only solace to grief. And it was mentally, emotionally and physically tiring for everyone: rescue workers, relief organisations, community leaders, parents, children, even masterless pets. Singapore’s Straits Times reported on Jan 2, 2005 that in Sri Lanka, there were three cases of child rapes, which, though deplorable, were ‘not uncommon in times of conflict and trauma.’

For Muslims, the natural disaster was a divine sign of Godly wrath. When pictures of the Grand Mosque at Banda Aceh appeared around the world, still upright and strong, it was proof that God protected the true believers. When more reports appeared in the news, of mosques and holy shrines not destroyed by the tsunami, everyone started chattering.

My mother, the Breakfast Ustazah, had a story for every piece of evidence of God’s tsunami miracles. Call me a cynic, and trust me when I tell you that I truly believe in miracles and God’s will, but there were some harebrained theories being spouted over our depressing but most nutritional breakfast: toast, oatmeal and muesli. We went to work, doomed. (more…)

Lee Ban Chen

Beberapa bulan dahulu, MCA melancarkan secara besar-besaran Kempen Pelajaran Sepanjang Hayat. Parti tersebut telah dibidas sebagai cuba lari daripada politik dan berfungsi sebagai sebuah badan bukan kerajaan dalam bidang yang bukan merupakan fungsi utama sebuah parti politik.

Meskipun menepuk dada mendakwa dirinya mewakili kaum Cina, MCA sesungguhnya tidak berdaya untuk menyelesaikan masalah-masalah yang dihadapi kaum Cina, baik dalam peringkat penggubalan dasar, maupun dalam proses pelaksanaan dan pemantauan. Ia juga tidak berdaya untuk membuat pembetulan – melalui wadah Barisan Nasional (BN) – jika berlaku sebarang penyimpangan atau penyelewengan, tanpa persetujuan Umno .

MCA mendakwa dipertanggungjawabkan untuk mempertahankan kepentingan dan menyelesaikan masalah kaum Cina. Ini wajar mengikut logik politik perkauman. Justeru itu, Umno dan MIC juga masing-masing mendakwa dipertanggungjawabkan untuk mempertahankan kepentingan dan menyelesaikan masalah kaum Melayu dan India. (more…)

“Tepuklah dada, tanyalah selera.”

I really, truly, honestly have no idea what this thing means. Yet I come across people saying it all the time. It makes me seriously wonder about its etymology - what does the chest/breast have anything to do with sussing out what you desire?

Asking the people who like to utter it is no help. They don’t even realise how silly it sounds until you bring it up. (You know how, when you were young, you’d say a word againandagainandagain endlessly and suddenly it turns into something completely alien? Same stark effect here.)

Now, if the line had said, “Squeeze your breast and ask what you desire”, then maybe there is a semblance of… I dunno… sixth sense reasoning or something. And if it was a man doing the squeezing to a woman’s breast, well, now we’re actually getting somewhere. (more…)

Sim Kwang Yang

As seasonal as the occasional outbreak of dengue fever that plagues our haze-infested land, the issue of Chinese education has once again stirred up heated debate on nation-building and ethnic relation.

It started innocently enough. Waking up from a political slumber, the MCA made a proposal for more Chinese primary schools to be built in cities and towns under the 9th Malaysian Plan. It is a practical and legitimate problem, one that has troubled Chinese parents and educators for decades. The population in our urban centres has increased many times, and yet the new Chinese primary schools built after independence have been too few and too far between.

All it takes is a nod from the Barisan Nasional government, of which the MCA is a senior partner. It would probably not involve any substantial allocation in public spending, since the generosity of the usually frugal Chinese people is legendary, when it comes to giving donation towards the construction of Chinese schools of all sorts. They regard their financial support for Chinese education as their second taxation in life. (more…)

Hishamuddin Rais

Kali ini saya tidak teringin untuk menjadi pengamal kewartawanan Gonzo. Saya akan cuba memasuki satu penulisan genre baru. Genre yang saya maksudkan ini dilahirkan oleh teknologi Internet. Untuk sesiapa yang bertanya – apa bendanya gonzo ni – sila google perkataan ini. Menggoogle adalah salah satu dari ciri penulisan genre baru yang saya maksudkan ini.

Bagi anak-anak sekolah, termasuk juga pelajar universiti, genre penulisan saya ini bukan sesuatu yang baru. Malah, pada hemat saya, anak-anak sekolahlah yang telah menjadi peneroka awal. Selalunya anak-anak muda ini lebih berani dan agak ‘avant garde’ dalam tingkah kerja mereka. Genre yang saya maksudkan ini ialah genre penulisan CPT – curi, potong dan tampal.

Saya melakukan CPT ini kerana saya didesak oleh kakak saya yang selalu bertanya tentang Iraq. Dia mendesak kerana dia tahu saya pernah tinggal di kota Baghdad satu ketika dahulu. Dalam masa yang sama, kakak saya sebagai orang kampung, amat ingin tahu kenapa perang berlaku di Iraq dan siapa kepala yang memulakan perang ini. (more…)

At kakiseni.com.my, a ribut (storm) had been blowing over Amir Muhammad’s wicked review of Gerak Khas 3. It’s a fine return to form for Amir, as I’ve mentioned to him the other day, and may we see such wit in his NST columns to come.

The film itself is not what I wish to comment on; I think Amir has done a good job on that, so if you’re a purveyor of the quintessentially British sense of humour a-la Douglas Adams, you should go find the article and read it. (It’s in Malay, though.) What I am interested in is the response to it, as judged from the comments that people had left under the review.

The thing about this style of self-deprecating humour is that it is usually but a thin veil for truth, and that truth is often painful to hear or read for certain types of people.* (more…)

Lee Ban Chen

Menurut penjelasan Setiausaha Politik kepada Perdana Menteri, Dr Vincent Lim Kian Tick, ulasan Perdana Menteri pada 14 Mac lalu mengenai cadangan MCA supaya jumlah Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SRJKC) ditambah menggunakan peruntukan di bawah Rancangan Malaysia Ke-9 (RM-9), telah disalahfahamkan.

Kata Dr Vincent, laporan bahawa “Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi menegaskan sebarang tindakan untuk menambah Sekolah Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan (SRJK) Cina atau Tamil hanya akan mewujudkan pelbagai sistem dalam pendidikan dan ia tidak baik kepada negara” adalah tidak tepat, kerana yang dirujukkan bukan SJKC, tetapi Sekolah Menengah Bukan-Kerajaan.

Saya tidak faham, jika kenyataan PM tersebut telah disalahfahamkan, mengapa bukan beliau sendiri yang membuat penjelasan kepada semua media. Sebaliknya penjelasan dibuat oleh Setiausaha Politiknya kepada media Cina saja, sedangkan kenyataan tersebut dilaporkan oleh semua media? (PM telah membuat penjelasan sendiri pada Mac 22 apabila ditanya oleh pemberita.) (more…)

Fathi Aris Omar : Tiada Noktah

“Myth consists in overturning culture into nature or, at least, the social, the cultural, the ideological, the historical into the ‘natural’” – Roland Barthes dalam Image, Music, Text (1978)

Kata bukan sekadar komunikasi seperti kita memandang langit biru. Kata sering seumpama sepasang mata lelaki merenung seraut wajah perempuan (atau sebaliknya) – boleh jadi tanpa niat tersirat tetapi sukar dinafikan, juga memendam hasrat.

Kata umumnya menyimpan muatan nilai dan di sini kepentingan politik tidak terhindar. Kata-kata ‘sesat’ dalam tradisi Kristian, ‘PKI’ (dalam sejarah Indonesia) atau ‘ahli sihir’ (sejarah Eropah) pernah bermakna ‘menghalalkan darah’ jutaan manusia.

Walau analisa wacana, discourse analysis, sejenis alat ilmiah dan intelektual menarik yang boleh digunakan untuk membedah kepentingan politik di sebalik kata-kata berbau agama, tetapi kita jarang mendengarnya. Entah kerana kita jahil, bersetuju atau takut, istilah-istilah agama sering kita terima seadanya, seolah-olah kata-kata itu berkecuali, jujur dan benar. (more…)

Josh Hong

‘I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.’ – Charles V.

So, he is no more Mr Nice Guy, although when he took over the helm from the once ‘much hated’ Dr Mahathir Mohamad, he was made out to be the one whiter than snow and everyone’s darling.

To win favour with the Chinese community, he sent a Lunar New Year’s greeting in Chinese calligraphy just two months before the 2004 general election. Unlike his predecessor of Indian lineage who was fanatical about being a true blue Malay, he allowed the Chinese press to reveal that his maternal grandfather was a Chinese Muslim hailing from Hainan island in China. (more…)

Once in a very rare while, yours truly attends smart dinners and parties hosted by very wealthy relatives and friends. When you put your mind to it, you can be that social butterfly.

The pre-requisites, if you don’t have money: you better be beautiful. If you’re dirt ugly, you better be witty. Clever too, but not too clever, yah, we don’t want to outshine anyone else in their Pradas and Marc Jacobs. It’s all part of the game, and really, social Malaysia is practically Additional Maths, what with its sub-sets and inner circles.

Let’s not even bother with the nouveaus. They’re so passé and gaudy. Oh you really don’t even want to go there. They hit it lucky with one tender and are chummy with a few A-list Ministers, and they think they’re It. No wonder they marry artistes and kampung girls made good for second wives.

We’re not going to even touch royalties. Been there, done that.

Besides, the true bluebloods are the tycoons and their offspring. They look good, aren’t overweight and are educated. These boys and girls aren’t stupid. You know these types: trust fund babies that get Swiss bank accounts at the age of 15. (more…)

Somewhere in my subconscious I know I have always been an anarchist. And now I know that I am an Islamic anarchist and that I am not alone. I cannot begin to tell you how much of a relief that is.

Maybe it is the way the course had been set for the river of my life. Perhaps as a result of not having strong father-figure types to latch on to during my formative years (the core of character, it seems, is forged by the age of seven), I’ve always had respect yet disdain for authority.

Contradictory? I don’t think so. On one level I recognise that some form of authority is necessary for human society to function, yet it is always healthy to be wary of anyone in a position of authority.

How can you not be? I have met honest leaders in my short life, but the number of dishonest ones far, far outnumber these. And in the midst of a society caught in the throes of blind materialism? The verdict becomes a foregone conclusion: vampirism rules. (more…)

Salbiah Ahmad

In 1991, Beatrice Fernandez was dismissed from her job as an air stewardess because she was pregnant. She inter alia claimed a pregnancy-based discrimination and filed a case in the High Court, citing Article 8 (equality before the law and equal protection of the law) of the Federal Constitution.

Last year the Court of Appeal did not find the dismissal wrong. On March 11, three days after International Women’s Day, Beatrice was refused leave to appeal to the Federal Court.

This case is the indelible smear to Malaysia’s proclaimed achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG), more specifically MDG 3: the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women. The Malaysian Millennium Development Goals Report was launched by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Jan 28 this year.

According to this report, which was in part developed by the Economic Planning Unit and the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, “Achieving gender equality and empowering women are necessary to achieve social, economic and political development.”
(more…)

Fathi Aris Omar : Tiada Noktah

Ilmu, wacana dan institusi sosial – selain kuasa dan modal – menjadi sebahagian unsur atau jaringan dominasi, atau setidak-tidaknya hegemoni. Dengan takrif paling sederhana, hegemoni itu boleh dilihat sebagai penundukan akal, jiwa dan jasad melalui kaedah memujuk atau meyakinkan. Hegemoni, berbeza dengan kuasa rasmi, tidak memerlukan kekerasan atau paksaan.

Tetapi hegemoni ini, akibat sifatnya yang lembut, mengasyikkan dan tersembunyi, juga penghalang terbesar usaha kita menyeru ke arah demokratisasi, hak asasi, kebebasan dan persamaan hak. Walau memang agama (dalam kes ini, Islam) boleh dijadikan wacana dan luahan rasa perlawanan kelompok tertindas terhadap hegemoni-hegemoni lain seperti kuasa Barat atau tatasusun kapitalisme, sewaktu era penjajahan misalnya, tetapi ia turut menyedut kita dalam hegemoninya tersendiri.

Walau iklim tidak demokrasi yang dipelopori Umno sering dikritik, hegemoni agama belum sungguh-sungguh dipecahkan, termasuk versi parti ini atau lawannya PAS. Umno mencipta wacana, iklim politik dan ideologi paternalismenya sendiri – sama ada atas nama kepentingan bangsa dan agama, kestabilan negara, pembangunan ekonomi atau pemupukan moral. Soal ‘kritik ideologi’ terhadap Umno atau negara belum cukup mendalam, itu menjadi cabaran bagi kita semua. Memang jelas, kritik pada kuasa negara dan kerajaan sudah cukup leluasa; tetapi kritik atas agama belum. (more…)

Hishamuddin Rais

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain 1835 -1910

“Aku nak kongsi pengalaman. Satu hari aku dan bapakku pergi ke Pekan Nenas (bp) pusat tahanan pendatang asing coz kawan ayah aku orang Indon. Tapi dia dah tinggal kat Malaysia lebih 8 tahun. Adik dan abangnya semua dah dapat pasport Malaysia kecuali dia…masa aku sampai kat pagar pusat tahanan pendatang asing, pengawal itu tak kasi masuk. Tapi ayah aku berkeras dan kami dibiarkan masuk dengan alasan-alasan tertentu. Semasa berbual-bual, member ayah aku cerita masa dalam tahanan, semua tahan disuruh berbogel dan hanya memakai seluar kecik dan semua disuruh tidur mencangkung (ganaz siot-ed). (more…)

Uthaya Sankar SB

Bahagian 2

Tanpa banyak soal, saya memberanikan diri untuk menghampiri sasterawan itu. Gementar juga saya pada mulanya. Masih was-was. Saya masih ingat apa reaksi yang saya terima daripada seorang penulis karya Tamil tidak lama dahulu.

Cerpenis Tamil itu datang sewaktu diadakan ceramah umum bagi kaum India menjelang pilihan raya yang lalu. Dia datang bukan sebagai penceramah tetapi sekadar mengiringi seorang tokoh politik dari Kuala Lumpur.

Kedatangannya itu mahu saya gunakan untuk menimba ilmu tentang penulisan. Lalu saya mendekatinya. Saya memperkenalkan diri dan mula bercakap tentang beberapa karyanya yang pernah saya baca. Dia sekadar mengangguk-angguk. Malah dia tidak memberikan reaksi terhadap komen saya tentang karya-karyanya.

“Macam mana nak usahakan karya kita tersiar di akhbar?” tanya saya kepadanya. (more…)

Sometimes when I’m driving God speaks to me.

No, I’m not talking about hearing voices in my head. What do you think I am, crazy? Besides, God knows me better than that. So when He speaks to me, He writes it down, naturally.

Just the other day, for instance, I was on another one of those 1-ringgit highways (I love the way they price our roads like little budget shops, it’s so cute I almost want to get down everytime and hug the toll-booth. Or the troll in the booth, if you prefer that sort of thing). You know, driving, just minding my own business and entertaining the thought of tailgating the usual Kancil driving at 40 in the 90kph lane, when - bam - God tells me to be courteous. (more…)

The Muslim grapevines are still buzzing over the victory of 16-year old Shabina Begum over her British school’s authorities. The Islamists, predictably, are crowing, forgetting that just mere months ago they were busily lambasting Western governments for tyranny against the Muslims.

France was evil because it banned the wearing of headscarves in public schools, and now Britain is saintly because it allowed one girl to wear what she likes to school. It’s nice to live in such a black and white world where things are so neatly ordered.

“People should not be barred from wearing what their religions demand,” they say, nodding to one another sagely (never mind, for now, the question of who
interprets those religious demands for us Muslims, and whether their interpretations are actually true to the spirit of the Quran).

They forget the sword swings both ways. God only knows what these Islamists would say should a Hindu suddenly demand that she be given the right to wear a saree to school in their strict Muslim countries, in line with her religious beliefs. (more…)

Fathi Aris Omar : Tiada Noktah

“When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find … that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.” – George Orwell dalam esei Politics and the English language (1946)

Dalam sejarah kesusasteraan Indonesia, hampir tidak ada seorang pun penyair yang pernah bertugas sebagai tentera. Tetapi beberapa seniman atau sasterawan seperti Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Marah Rusli dan Usmar Ismail (sekadar menyebut tiga nama besar), pernah terbabit dalam dunia ketenteraan. Di republik ini, tentera mempunyai makna lebih besar, mendalam dan menakutkan daripada kuasa biasa politik dan pemerintahan.

Penyair sanggup sendirian dan sentiasa menjarakkan diri daripada kekuasaan, analisa sasterawan Afrizal Malna. “Puisi banyak bermain dengan politik pemaknaan, sementara politik banyak bermain dengan pengagihan kekuasaan. Maka manakala pengagihan kekuasaan yang dijalankan politik dianggap kian kehilangan akal sihatnya, puisi akan cenderung dilihat sebagai ‘suara hati’ masyarakat ketika ia berani melancarkan kritik pada kekuasaan,” tulisnya dalam Sesuatu Indonesia (hal. 413). (more…)

I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately; I think I’m a better Muslim overseas than at home.

Perhaps it is the distance that makes it so, and because I am a minority when I am away, that I am able to practise my faith better. Laugh if you wish, but this has been echoed by friends who have studied or worked overseas.

Maybe the reason why we feel this way is because of the isolation we feel, being away from home and the familiar. While we grab the many chances to explore and travel, we still hold on to our roots because they give us security and that we are something – Muslims – hence the strength to face a very different world that can be bleak and harsh.

I don’t have the answers. (more…)

Uthaya Sankar SB

Bahagian 1

Di sini saya mahu menceritakan apa yang benar-benar berlaku enam tahun lalu. Tahun 1995.

Waktu itu saya belum bergelar sasterawan. Saya masih seorang pelajar. Seorang pelajar yang bercita-cita menjadi penulis. Maka kedatangan Datuk ke kampung kami seharusnya merupakan suatu anugerah besar. Sesungguhnyalah masing-masing penduduk berasa bangga kerana Datuk telah sudi menerima undangan bagi merasmikan ceramah yang diadakan.

Saya sebagai seorang peminat sastera tidak sabar-sabar menantikan ceramah yang dijadualkan selama tiga jam itu. Apabila salah seorang rakan memberitahu saya hampir sebulan lalu bahawa Pertubuhan Politik India (PPI) di kampung kami bakal menganjurkan sebuah sesi ceramah sastera di Dewan Besar Siru Kambam, saya sudah dapat membayangkan bahawa jalan bakal terbuka bagi saya mendekati seorang sasterawan. Sudah terbayang dalam imaginasi saya bahawa saya akan mendapat bimbingan dan motivasi untuk berusaha menerbitkan karya-karya saya. (more…)

Salbiah Ahmad

Being away for most of last month, I was spared the predictable commotion to the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department (Jawi) raid on Zouk in Kuala Lumpur. I read the reports and responses online last week and then hopped on to the Inter Faith Commission (IFC) conference last week. This is a civil society initiative facilitated by the Bar Council.

On the morning of Feb 27, a SMS alerted me to a New Sunday Times front-page report that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is opposed to the setting up of the IFC. I am most surprised at this reaction. But Pak Lah was not there to appreciate the professionalism of the facilitators and experience the fellowship that the conference generated.

The Star Online offered another angle. It reported that the premier at a launch of a Proton plant spoke to reporters that IFC idea be placed on hold to study the “objections against the formation of the commission”. That report was more redeeming of the premier.

It would be most unfortunate for the premier to be perceived as pre-empting the civil society initiative. I doubt that the steering committee of the IFC, chaired by lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, had the chance to meet the premier to convey the aspirations of the IFC participants, the conference having ended last Friday. (more…)